Joseph F. Radosevich

Yesterday, our local orchard opened for the first time this season. We go every Friday during apple season. We eat them fresh, my wife makes applesauce to preserve, and we enjoy them many ways. I'm going to review apples as we try them this season. I find that apple varieties can taste differently from season to season. One year, we loved Snowsweet, and then we couldn't stand them last year. So reviews will be fun. Paula Red: Slightly crisp and fresh. There is no distinct flavor, they just taste like basic apple. There is nothing wrong with that. But there is nothing amazing about it either. If you cut them and let them sit, they turn brown quickly and become mealy. This is best for fresh eating. Early Mac: Slightly tart. This one is softer than the Paula Red but has a nice tartness-- on the spectrum with Granny Smith. This pairs so well with caramel. This one is already soft and becomes mealy fast. I expect that they, like all early season apples, will not store well. ...

I prepare 10 hours for most sermons. It is normal for pastors prepare 20-30 hours. The recommended number to preach a good sermon is 20-30. The reason that I don't right now is that I don't have time as a small church pastor and planter. I believe I can prepare a good enough sermon in 10 hours. If there ever were more flexibility, then maybe I would increase that. I believe this is a good use of time. A sermon should be the word of God through a man. It is powerful and communicates with many people at one time. I once read that 70% of people say that the sermons are the reasons that they pick a church. So 10-30 hours is well-worth investing in the sermon. If the sermon is worth 10-30 hours of preparation, then it is also worth 1-2 hours to turn the sermon into a podcast, video form, and clips. If the sermon reaches 50-800 people at the time it is preached, then it can have even more effect in recorded audio and video and even more effect in clips. I believe pastors should ...

I listen to the Table of (Mal)Contents podcast most weeks. Honestly, I don't love it, but they are readers and authors with some similar reading interests, and they give good recommendations. Recently they talked about what book they would start a book club with. The book has to be something that they read in the last year. I would start a book club with The Case of the Man Who Died Laughing by Tarquin Hall--A mystery book club would be fun. And this is just a great series with a great main character. Boom Town by Sam Anderson--This book combines the history of Oklahoma City with stories about one season in OKC Thunder basketball. Laugh out loud funny at times and beautiful and thought-provoking at others. Would be great for a creative non-fiction or random non-fiction book club. Bad Blood by John Carreyrou--The story of the fall of Theranos. I remember reading about the company when it was doing "ground-breaking" deals. This is amazing and riviting. Maybe for th...

I'm fascinated by North Korea. I have been for several years. Right now, I'm reading a new biography of Kim Jong Un.  I think Korea is an important story. Our culture is awash in news and information. But some things matter a lot more than others. The story of North Korea is an important story, and here are 3 books on North Korea that I think are really important: Nothing to Envy by Barbara Demick Without You, There is No Us by Suki Kim The Great Successor by Anna Fifield (this is the one I'm reading now) Let's all look forward to the day when the people of that country are free again.

When I lost weight the first time (there have been three major times I've lost 30 lbs or more), all I focused on was doing more of each exercise and going faster. I regularly threw up at the end of my workouts. I've learned to slow down, both in my reps and my progress. Here's why: When I lost weight and became a trainer, I believed that doing work (weight x distance x speed) was the key. And as long as my form was good, I didn't pay attention to the muscles worked or how much control that I had. I regret that was the pattern when I was a trainer as well. It easily led to injuries for me and set backs. Now, I've realized that using the right muscles, being under control, and making steady progress is more critical. So I slow down. I work on making progress at the most difficult points rather than just pushing through to do more of the full exercise. Here are ways that I slow down right now: I practice the bottom part of pull-ups and don't worry about t...

I'm reading two great tomato books right now. The first is called "Tomatoland." It's on how tomatoes have been developed and how they are now grown in Florida for winter tomatoes in the USA. I told Emma just a couple of things about how they are grown, we both swore there has to be something else we can buy in the winter. The second is called "Epic Tomatoes." It's an amazing book on growing tomatoes, specifically open-pollinated and heirloom tomatoes. But he does rave about the taste of Sungold, a kind we grow every year, that is a hybrid. The design of the book is amazing. This publisher has published other gardening books that have great design. Honestly, it's hard to read a gardening book with no pictures and bad design. This book is beautiful. I immediately put it on my wishlist to buy. Lots of great info and tips to go along with the photography and stories. He even talks about developing your own varieties of tomatoes. I probably won't...

Today, our house was filled with music. My wife and I are leading music for our church tomorrow, so we practiced, one daughter played and practiced piano, one son practiced drums during rest time, and another son played his new Loog guitar  all day. It's pretty fun to hear so much music. This is a brief review of why we got the Loog and what I think. I didn't want to get a cheap kids guitar that wouldn't stay in tune. The Loog is well-made especially the neck and tuning pegs. The neck feels amazing. I didn't want something super complicated that would take a while until he could do anything with it. Learning to form chords to play melodies on a 6-string is hard. Even a melody is hard because he wasn't sure he was hitting the right string. The Loog has only 3 strings and is tuned to GBE like the top 3 strings of a six string guitar. So it is dead simple. He wanted to learn to play guitar, so I didn't want to get him a ukulele. Whatever he learns on th...

Our family is learning Italian this year. And today I decided I want to pick and follow an Italian soccer team. I've followed soccer for 20ish years now. I've followed Manchester United in England since I was 13 or 14, but honestly that has been disappointing and uninteresting the last 7 years or so. I follow FC Dallas, Forward Madison (a little), and the USMNT (a lot). So I'm not hurting for teams, but when The Total Soccer Show podcast had a season preview for the Italian Serie A, I thought it would be fun to pick a team to follow in Italy to go along with learning Italian. I'm deciding between Atalanta, Sussuolo, and Napoli. Atalanta--David Amoyal from The Calcioland Podcast said this is a really well-run club that people should pay attention to. I'm leaning this way because I don't want to pick one of the famous teams like Juventus, Inter, or AC Milan. But I still want to follow a good team. Sussuolo--Amoyal calls them the hipster pick that's fu...

Thirty percent of our community is under the age of 18. A pastor from a nearby town told me that his town's only growing population is over 55 and that he would kill for the demographics of our town. The reason he would kill for this demographic is that the normal church growth and church planting strategy involves reaching young families. But that won't work anymore. Why? Because the birthrate in the United States has been falling for the last 30 years. The CDC says that the current birthrate in the US is 1.72. Thirty years ago, the birthrate was 3.25. Falling birthrates affect a lot of things. Public schools will have fewer and fewer students and their funding will fall along with enrollment. Colleges are competing for fewer students every year. And there are fewer young families for churches to reach.  VBS and kids programs cannot be the draw when there are fewer people in the community that is relevant for. So church planting and church revitalization needs to be...

"What's happening to the churches?" People ask me this question all the time. I get asked that question a lot because it's becoming obvious. In the past, it wasn't obvious what was happening in the other churches in a given area, so struggling churches felt like it was just them. Now it is obvious what is happening everywhere. According to Thom Rainer here , between 6,000 and 10,000 churches are dying every year. I've seen similar numbers in other reputable sources. Churches are dying all over the place. The church I pastor is a restart. It was one of those 6,000-10,000 churches except they closed intentionally as a path to reopen 1.5 years later. I've had a window into this because we're living it. And I want others to see what is happening before it is too late. If you want to see and understand the state of churches and the culture, I've got two tips for you: Go and look at the statistics profile of any random Southern Bapti...

*Right now, I'm trying to finish up a bunch of work for my ordination and writing 6 papers this week. So forgive me since I don't have much energy for writing at night. My favorite piece of workout gear right now is a sandbag that I made. It is a canvas duffle bag filled with 60 lbs of wood pellets. Wood pellets are bulkier which makes it harder to hold. When the weather is nice like in August in Wisconsin, it is more fun to go outside with the sandbag and workout. Here's my monday workout right now: 5 Sandbag Cleans 100 yard carry (any position) 5 Sandbag Overhead presses 100 yard carry (any position) 3x Then 300 yard carry without putting it down Then 200 yard sprint race against my kids. That works every part of my body without it feeling like I worked every part of of my body. And it's pretty low risk for injury--well, except for the sprints.

All the farms around here are 2-3 weeks behind because of cool weather in May and June. Our garden is finally in full swing, and we picked 4 kinds of tomatoes tonight. We're going to do a video taste-test of all our tomatoes soon. We're growing Cherry tomatoes (Sungold and Jelly Beans), Defiant Slicing Tomatoes, and Easy Sauce Romas. But the best tomato we've ever grown is the Cherokee Purple. We're not growing it this year, and I regret it. It is the sweetest tomato ever. It's almost dessert. And it is a blackish-purple color. But the plant last year was pretty diseased and the Cherokee Purple tomatoes did not store well. They bruised and burst easily. So when you pick them, you have to eat them soon.  Next year, we probably will grow more varieties including heirloom varieties like Cherokee Purple. *I'm thinking a lot about tomatoes because I'm reading Tomatoland by Barry Estabrook. Among other things, he explains why the tomatoes sol...

When I heard that David Epstein had written a new book, I ordered it immediately. I loved his previous book The Sports Gene  and expected good things. Gene  actually helped me think better about sports performance, the human body, personal training, and my own health. It is truly one of the most helpful books I've read for health and training, and it isn't a book for personal trainers or health professionals. It's not intended as a practical book at all. Range  is awesome. I cannot believe Epstein has written two books so helpful and practical. And neither one is self-help focused. His basic idea is that breadth of interest and exposure is better for performance, creativity, and excellence. He debunks the myth that devoted practice from the age of 3 is required for world-class performance. And he dismisses the idea that you are ever too late to begin. If I ever lead an internship, this will be required reading. If I ever teach a class, I will think hard about requir...

As of this week, I've read 789 books since I started keeping track. I noticed a while back that I now give favorable ratings to most of the books that I read. And I wondered if I had gotten soft and just approved every book. But I realized that after 789 books, something had changed in how I selected books, not how I rated them. Now I know what I like and what makes for a good book. And if I'm not going to enjoy it, then I skip it. When I started my list, I was 15. I went to the library and looked for books in the sections I liked and then I read them. There wasn't a lot of discernment in my choices. I picked what was there and sometimes it was not good. Now, I know the authors that I definitely love. I can get recommendations on topics that I am interested (try googling "best books on ______" to get a list of reading ideas). And I can evaluate a book pretty quickly. Sometimes, I "cheat" and put a book down before finishing it. I did that recen...

I heard an podcast years ago where someone argued that touch screen is the simplest way to use a device possible. There is no thinking, learning, or skill involved in pointing and touching. They suggested that since we all use tech devices everyday for years, we should learn to use them better. I recently decided to up my game on the computer and did a good amount of research on how to use computers better. Here is the tip that made the most difference: Download a Desktop Organization Background.  One like this: Then, go into Chrome and change the settings to download to desktop. Now, you can easily find any files instead of having to hunt. You can put the programs and files you use all the time in some areas and hide any others in the menus. And at the end of every day, it is easy to select all the files that you don't need anymore and drag them to the recycle bin. You can easily keep everything clean and tidy. That's my first and best tip.