January 2009 – Page 2 – My Thought Spot

Book Review: Keeping the Mission in the Missionary

This book was written by my friend Jeff Amsbaugh. It is not an old book, but I was a bit surprised that I did not know about it. It really is a great book on a Biblical philosophy of missions. Dr. Amsbaugh uses the book of Philippians to build this philosophy. In fact the book could be read as a commentary on Philippians.

The book is written for pastors and churches so that they can know how to choose which missionaries and ministries they will support with their missions money. It is also an excellent book for missionaries to read about what churches expect of them.

Dr. Amsbaugh used a questionaire to petition information from mission board directors. These questions revolved around how missionaries should do their work and present their ministries. While there was good consensus on all the questions there was one area in which I found myself in disagreement with his conclusions. And I was not the only one. The book was published in 2002. I am curious to talk with him and see if his position has changed since then.

He discussed topics such as the missionary’s prayer life, his relationship with pastors and others on the field as well as the missionary’s vision, separation and commitment. The one issue in which I disagreed had to do with contentment. In a nutshell he wrote that missionaries should be content with a low socio-economic standard to be able to reach the nationals. While I agree the missionary should be content if that is what it takes to do the work, but it has been my experience that the missionary is expected to live at least a little better than the national. That does not mean that he should live in a mansion with 10 servants while the people around him starve and die from poverty. The consensus of those answering the questions agreed that the missionary did not have to live in poverty to reach the nationals.

That one issue aside, I think this is one of the best books I have read on the subject. I would like to have a copy of this book handy to pass out to missionaries along the way. There is so much a missionary can learn about what a pastor expects from those they support.

Dr. Amsbaugh is a gracious preacher. He has a way of making people feel comfortable in his presence even though he is a busy man in a large ministry. If you live in, or visit, the Columbus, Georgia area, I invite you to visit his church.

I was not able to find any on-line sources for the book. He probably just sells them directly from the church office. You can contact them through their website (WARNING: it works almost exclusively in IE).

Keeping the Mission in the Missionary, Jeff Amsbaugh, 2002, self-published, 230 pages.

Spinning Class

Bike crossing Have you ever done a spinning class? Intense!

I have been to 4 classes so far. Unfortunately I have not been able to string all 4 together. The first one I went to was just before I left town for a week. Same thing with the next class. Then the next two classes were on a Tuesday with the corresponding class for the week on Thursday: Christmas and New Year. I think these classes will be tougher if I actually do 2 in a week.

I have really enjoyed being pushed by someone else. I am working harder than I would if I were to just do it on my own. I know that spinning is great cross training for running, but is not a substitute for actually putting in the miles on the road. However, I am learning more about what my body is capable of handling by pushing my lungs and muscles past my perceived limits.

I am running a 5K this weekend and expect that I will do well because of these classes. Though I have not been able to run, my fitness has not suffered any because of the spinning and other exercises I have been doing. I think a PR may be in the cards this weekend.

Last week I was able to take my little brother to class with me. He struggled. It was very hard for him. I don’t say this to make fun of him, but I was pleased to see how hard it was for him to even try to keep up. It encouraged me to know that 4 years ago I was in the same place. When I started seriously exercising I was going to a class and dying in the back row wondering who sucked the oxygen out of the room. I could not believe how hard it was. I have come a long way since then. Seeing my brother struggle helped me see just how far I have come. It makes me thankful that I stuck it out and am much healthier today because of it.

2009 Goals

Running
I am going to stick with the goal of running 1000 miles for the year. I will try to pad the mileage early in the year to help with any unforeseen injuries. That will be 83.3 miles a month, or 19.2 miles a week. I am still running lower mileage right now because of injury, but I am getting much better and itching to get back up to some longer runs.

I would like to run at least 2 half marathons this year and 1 marathon.

I also want to set a 5K PR. I have a race coming up next week that I might actually be able to make a shot for the PR. Though I have not been running as many miles, I have been working on my endurance and lactate threshold. I believe I am much more capable of pushing my body further than I have before. The only thing that may hold me back is the fact that I just have not been able to put the miles in the last several weeks.

Reading
This is also going to be the same as last year. While I am pleased that I averaged almost 800 pages a month last year, the goal was not to average that. Rather, it was to read consistently. With some months going well over 1000 pages and one month under 300, I did not really achieve the spirit of the goal. I don’t mind reading more than the 800 pages a month, but I am making the goal to not go under 800 pages in a month.

Blogging
I don’t really have a blogging goal that I want to define for the whole year. I will work with that on a month to month basis. I want to be consistent. I may do a few months where I blog every day like I did in November.

Personal
I have some personal goals for the year that I am still defining, but probably won’t share here.

I also have some mini-goals that I want to work on. I have gained about 10 pounds since coming home to the US. Part of that is definitely muscle mass. I have been visiting the gym consistently over the last 6 weeks. But, all in all, I am up about 15 pounds from where I would like to be. It should not take me all year to get 15 pounds off. If I work hard I can do it within 3 months. I just have to stop snacking so much.

There’s my goals for 2009. Now time to sit down and make them happen. They won’t happen over night since they are long term goals. Just like a marathon, I have to plug away at it one step at a time.

December Goals Report

Before I announce my goals for 2009, which will seem quite familiar, I want to wrap up 2008.

Running
I ended the month with very little mileage. This was due to an injury to my foot in November. I only logged 19.6 miles for the month. That brought me to a yearly total of 883 miles. The goal was to reach 1000 miles. I missed it by 117 miles. I ran the whole year as if I would not have an injury. The plan was to run consistently to the end.

While I did not make my goal of 1000 miles, I did run 262 miles further than I did in 2007.

My best running month for 2008 was September in which I ran 104 miles.

Reading
I finished my reading for the year very strong. I read 1005 pages for a total of 9533 pages for the year. Though my goal was to read 800 pages a month and not necessarily average 800 pages, I still averaged 794. That is pretty close.

My best reading month for 2008 was January in which I read 1345 pages.

New Year’s Day run

I started a tradition last year of a long run on January 1st. that I hope to be able to continue. Last year I ran 8.6 miles on New Year’s day. It was the longest I had run in a while. This year was not much different. I have been out of commission for several weeks. While I have started running some again, yesterday’s run of 6.something miles was longer than I had run in a while.

This year I rode my bike to a state park that was just under 10 miles from home. When I got to the park I locked up my bike and headed off on a 6.something mile run through the woods and along the beach of Perdido Bay. This is a great place to run with a cleared trail all the way through the park. There are a few places to cut from trail to trail and extend the run. I stayed on the main path and just did an out and back. The path is very soft. Most of the way it is sandy with pine needles covering the sand. You get the softness of the sand, but because you are stepping on the pine needles the sand does not shift under your feet. It seems like a perfect running surface if you are looking for something soft to run on. Probably not very good for speed work.

When I got back to the parking lot I had a text message from a friend saying that he and his family were on their way to the park for a hike. I stuck around and did about 2 miles on the trail with them before jumping on the bike and heading back home. I was not dressed warm enough for a casual walk through the woods.

There were 2 geocaches at this state park that we had grabbed on 2 separate occasions. My friend and I also had taken a guided nature walk and did a 7 mile hike at the park. This was our 4th visit to the park in the last 10 days. Previous to that I had never been to the park before. The state owns 4,000 acres across the street that is also full of trails. I have not ventured over there yet, but it will probably become a favorite place to run.

Happy New Year everyone!