Whats up bloggin peeps! I hope yall had an awesome weekend. I know I did. It was one of the more busy weekends've had in a while. I went to the Darius Rucker/Rascal Flatts concert, took my brother Frankie to his 1st Steeler game, celebrated my birthday because I was sick last week (ya i know who gets sick on there b-day), and I started my hockey season. As the goalie, I am proud to say that we are currently 2-0. You guys should check us out some time in Murrysville. Check out the schedule for the Vipers online. The bigger the crowd the better. www.padekhockey.com. Well in between all of that busyness I came across something I had written a while ago about a pet pieve I have with fellow Christians that I try to avoid. It spawned on another thing in me so with out further a-do here is the spin off of that letter......

one of my biggest pet pieves are christians that feel its important to obnoxiously, vocalise, display, and basically prove to the world they love jesus like they are insecure middle schoolers. (some one say amen, some one say ouch) It should just be a relationship with ourselves and christ, the rest will fall into place. One of the biggest turn offs I hear from unbelievers is that they can't stand when Christians are on some sort of soap box that they themselves arent even aware of. An example in the celebrity world could be an athlete. I have heard many people talk about how they are tired of guys like Tim Tebow or the Late Reggie White throwing God in every ounce of lime light they get. I can understand both parties in this situation. If I am Tim Tebow or Reggie White I want to express my love for the Lord as much as I can. Understandable. If I am an unbeliever I am cool with "Christians" and I don't mind a few things about God being said in the media but all the time can wear some one down. Understandable. The Lord said that we are to be the salt of the Earth. Alot of us love a certain degree of salt on our food when we are eating or cooking. We all love different ammounts of salt on our foods. Some of my friends just phene for the stuff others just like a good small shake but one thing we all have in common is that we all don't like too much salt on our food. It's just nasty having a boat load of it. Not only is it gross but unhealthy. Do you see where I am going with this? As the salt of the earth we need to not drop a boat load on the earth because it can be intollerable for others. If we ambush our friends and family about Jesus we are dumping large ammounts of salt that will turn them off to christianity. We need to learn how to sprinkle this salt and be tolerable tasteful christians to the world so we don't defeat our purpose of winning over souls for the Lord. How do we do this? I believe the best way to lead is by example. I won't follow some one that doesn't practice what they preach. That is what we need to do. We need to lead by our example and not our mouths. Be the best Christian that your bible tells you to be. Be that one kind person to the cashier who is screwing up every ones order, Be the one that opens and holds doors for others. Positivly distinguish yourselves by your actions. As you know I play alot of basketball. If you tell me, "hey man I am a good basketball player", I'll actually believe you when I see you on the court and see 1st hand you have a jump shot or can play killer D. The same can be applied to our Christianity and faith in the Lord. Don't spend your time flappin your gums telling me how much you love Jesus and he loves you. Show me. Here are a couple great cliche's for you... Actions speak louder than words. Love is what you do, not what you say. Stay strong in your prayer time. Stay strong in your bible reading. be involved with fellow believers. Those are the 3 things we need to strengthen our relationship with the Lord. Everything else will, as I mentioned above, fall into place. Our actions should shine the light of the Lord not our fancy christian t-shirts and bumper stickers. Lets be the approachable enjoyable person and let jesus shine through us.