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There are two critical questions to ask when you’re presented with an idea that calls you to completely reorient your life. Is it true? and Is it worth it?...

Everyone has their own idea of the the best way to use Twitter. I’ve been using it for over three years, and I’ve applied what I’ve learned to aggregate the 14 tips below. You don’t need to follow all of these tips, but if you want to gain followers, be helpful, and use this tool for maximum impact, I highly suggest taking this advice to heart. There’s no condemnation if you decide to eschew the rules of Twitter engagement below, but consider yourself warned: it will be really hard for me (or anyone else) to follow you if you’re tweeting all crazy. ...

There are two analogies that have helped students I work with understand how God reorients someone’s life. To start, God must become our first priority. Before we meet God, our priorities are all out of line. We live for money, travel, massive homes, and then our spouse and maybe our children fall in line later. If we live primarily for something or someone other than God our god can (and will) be stripped away from us. If our spouse is our god, our god can die, or leave us. If our career is our god, we could lose our job and thus lose our god. Any god that isn’t God is temporary and untrustworthy....

I’m a freak for data. I love knowing how I spend my time, tracking fitness, donations to our ministry, books I’ve read–practically anything that is measurable I want to measure. One thing I hadn’t ever done a good job of was tracking my fitness. I kept a journal of my workouts for a few months. I tried a pedometer for all of three days. Then, I heard about the FitBit One and received it as a Christmas gift. The FitBit One is the fanciest pedometer you’ll ever meet. It’s far more than a step counter–it’s a fitness data machine. It tracks your steps per day, flights of stairs you’ve climbed, calories burned, sleep efficiency and more. Here’s my review after two months of daily use. ...

It’s a bit late to post a blog about goals for the year if you’re trying to figure out new year’s resolutions, but it’s definitely not too late if you’re just curious about what I’m striving toward this year. Read 52 books This is lofty, but I’m on pace so far at a book per week. I nearly hit 40 books last year, so I think it’s attainable. Living overseas helps in the sense that there are less relational opportunities (because I’m an extrovert but my old age is transforming me into an introvert). Study 12 books of the Bible Niki and I are doing this together. One book of the Bible each month. We’ve never read the Bible on a reading plan together, so it’s been a joy to share insights with each other as we go. We tried to plan so we had a mix of Old Testament and New Testament along with different types of books. I normally read two to four chapters each day, and go through the book as many times as I can. ...

I love hearing about what other people are reading, so I wanted to do unto others as I would have them do unto me–share books I’m hoping to read. There are now hundreds of thousands of books published every year In a world of information abundance, I hate picking up a book that isn’t worth my time. Here are the topics I’m most interested in: Jesus Marriage Stewardship Discipleship Leadership Theology Missiology Exegesis Christian Living Biography Here’s this year’s partial list. I’m sure I won’t read all of these books, and there are others I’ll likely come across and pick up instead of some listed below. I’ve listed the book title and author and they’re sorted by category. If you want to find the list on Amazon organized by title, click here. ...

During our pre-marital counseling, our pastor shared a key question that has changed nearly every relationship in my life. The question is simple. Am I believing the best about this person? When someone shows up late to a meeting. When the dishes aren’t done. When the trash smells and hasn’t been taken out. When you haven’t heard from someone in ages. When your emails go without a response for weeks. When something is said that cuts to your core. It’s incredible what the benefit of the doubt does in a relationship. ...

Valentine’s day is fast approaching. That means a whole bunch of guys are going to propose the same day as every other guy on the planet. Please, please don’t do that. Any day but February 14th. Nevertheless, dudes are notoriously not creative when it comes to popping the question. I can’t say I have a lot of experience in proposing since it’s a one-time thing for me, but our experience was pretty spectacular. Here’s my version of our engagement to show I’m qualified to give you insight: it started with a scavenger hunt in Athens, OH and ended 30 hours later on a beach in Fort Myers, FL. If you want the full details from Niki, here’s her perspective. People we didn’t know heard about the story somehow and we would randomly overhear them talking telling their friends about it in coffee shops and college hallways. I didn’t imagine it would be that remarkable, but nonetheless, she said “Yes!” That’s the end goal, right? So, gentleman, feel free to take notes, and ladies, please feel free to pass this along to your man if he needs some tips if the P-Day is drawing near. ...

I still prefer physical books to eBooks, but one thing I love about eBooks is having all of my notes and highlights already digitally documented. Unfortunately, Amazon and Apple don’t make saving your notes in a clean format simple. Since I’m a fanatic when it comes to organization and digital hygiene, this is not acceptable (more on how to fix that later). If you are just looking to get all of your notes and save them in a document, PDF or paper copy (because you hate trees and have filing cabinets from the 1980s) here’s the quick and dirty process. ...

I recently gave an update on a charity: water project I started in 2010 that raised over $5,000 to help build three wells in Africa. Some of you may wonder how it happened. Outside of a lot of prayer and generosity, it was a simply telling a compelling story (over and over again) that people wanted to be a part of. Below are the 12 steps I took to create a successful online fundraising campaign. Some of these steps may be out of your control, some may need tweaked for your campaign, and some may need thrown out all together. Nonetheless, best of luck on your exciting adventure. ...