Joseph F. Radosevich

I started my first Bible rebind (grey cloth over board), grilled Oklahoma Onion Smash Burgers for the first time, geocached twice with the kids while running errands, planted lettuce seedlings for the fall garden, cleaned out some of our tomato and okra plants, celebrated our first cool week with a fire in the fire pit after the kids went to bed, made caramel for orchard-picked apples, and hosted the Sandy Creek Missions Mini-Conference.  

This weekend I took my kids to a festival all about The Beatles' music. I've written before about my 2020 New Year's Resolution to listen to all of The Beatles' music (I realized today that their name was The Beatles and not Beatles. I don't know what I was thinking.). It started as more of a music history and cultural interest that has grown over the years. My kids have been raised on their music. I heard about the When I'm 64 Fest in Prairetown, IL and knew I wanted to go. It was a free, all day music fest where all the bands played The Beatles' music. It was mostly people that were young when The Beatles were together. Most of the bands were not tribute bands, and that was part of the appeal to me. My wife stayed home with the baby, and I took our six oldest. We took a picnic lunch, set up a shade tent, and stayed for 3 bands. One was a young rock band, one was a blues bar band, and one played very polished covers. I think The Beatles are important becaus...

Here are four reasons pastors should not manuscript their whole sermon. Notice that I said "their whole sermon." I think there is place for being careful with words. It is appropriate to write out something that needs to be said in a certain way. I don't think the whole sermon should be written out though. First, preaching from outlines or notes instead of a manuscript allows you to look at the people you are preaching to. Most preachers who preach from a manuscript look down too much. Ronald Reagan read his speeches in such a way that you didn't know he was reading them. John Piper can get away with reading his sermons. Those who preach to thousands can get away with it. It is not as effective, though, as a preacher who makes eye contact. I believe that preaching is proclaiming God's word to the people in the room. A preacher who looks down too much breaks the connection that the preacher should have with the congregation that he is supposed to be preaching to. S...

I grilled chicken for Labor Day, smoked pulled pork on my new Weber on Friday, revisited Sprechers cherry cola, enjoyed the book version of Jurassic Park, played cajon for the first time while my kids led worship on Sunday evening, and found three new geocaches with my kids. 

I finished Robert Caro's 4 volume The Years of Lyndon Johnson series. I wanted to finish the series before he published the fifth and final one in the series. As of today, no release date has been set for that book. The Passage of Power was the last of Caro's books that I hadn't read. I started with Working , then read The Power Broker before tackling the Johnson books. That means I've read a few thousand pages by Caro. Here are few of my initial thoughts on Robert Caro and his work. Caro's books reward the investment. Why waste time reading a book that is uninteresting and unimportant? Robert Caro's books are as much about the craft of research and writing as they are about the subject. Each book had details that made me marvel at the interviews and research he had to do to find that information. He loves detail and is so good at finding the right detail to make his point. Caro's writing is so great. I read thousands of pages over the last 2 years, and I ...