Dental Ow-age

This week has been ridiculous, but hopefully after tomorrow's meeting with H&R Block, I can be done with obligations for the break!

Dentist & Orthodontist
I'm very good about brushing my teeth and flossing. I got a perfect 10 on dental health, and I got a "none" rating on gum bleeding after the dentist's brutal flossing adventure. On a typical day, I brush 4 or 5 times and floss, but even with this all in mind, I had three cavities in my front four teeth.

They were shallow and early in their decay, but today's trip to the dentist was ridiculously painful. I don't know what my deal is with being numb. First, when the topical anesthetic is put on my gums, my heart races, and I keep thinking, "I'm going to be numb," and I have to breathe deeply so I don't black out. I don't know how much is mental and how much is physiological. I know some is definitely physiological, and probably most of it since I've fainted from a reaction to a numbing eye drop before, and my heart does crazy stuff after the topical stuff.

However, even more, once I get the numbing shot, in 10 minutes, I feel everything again. EVERYTHING. Maybe it was because the cavities were so far forward. However, every time the drill went on (I cringe every time I think about today), it was horrible. Oh man, especially when they'd drilled it down and then the assistant blew cold air on it. OWWWWWW.

Ug. Yeah, so I kept getting shots, and then 10 minutes later, I would feel it all again. About 5 minutes after walking out, I felt everything again. Yeouch.

I'm glad that's done, but man, my teeth were throbbing after I felt it again.

I told my nephew Evan (he's 5), and he told me:

Evan: "Uncle Sterling"
Me: "Yeah?"
Evan: "You should brush your teeth...EVERY DAY!"
Me: "I do! I usually brush 4 or 5 times a day!"
Evan: "Oh.......You should stop eating food!"

haha

Evan also insists that I want a boomerang for my birthday (instead of a wife or ordination or both, which I really could go for).

Done in May
It's about TIME! I can't wait to be done with school for all intensive purposes. Maybe one day, I'll be "Dr. Sterf" instead of "DJ Sterf," but I really just want to get out and pastor a church. I'd do the degree if the church or elder board wanted me to keep up some form of Theological education, though that'd be well within part-time.

32-Minute Video
I had an interview with a French gaming mag, and they literally took out everything I said about Jesus and Salvation. They did keep a general 'God' in there, but yeah, here's the entire interview unedited:

http://www.djsterf.net/articles/franceinterview.html

They did want to link a YouTube video from my channel to the interview, so I made a 32-minute evangelistic video with a lot of random stuff in it (DDR in a suit, a tour of the church, Buffalo Wild Wings, Psalm 23 devotional, etc.). It's 32 minutes long.

Link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aJVzkMeF1W4
Embed:

Church
I finished the series on being sent & commissioned by God (Isaiah 6 - Matthew 28 - Acts 13). I'm starting another on some passages relating to the power of Prayer (starting w/ Acts 3 & 4). The Minor Prophets continue with Micah this Sunday. I think I'm done with Youth Group for a while.

I did a show for the Youth Group, and I played MAGIC Speedball as the last song. I still have the audio from when people absolutely freaked out during the speed-up. I had eight sections this time, each separated by a song or set of songs. The sections this time were: General Intro - Testimony - Talents - Glorifying God - Perfection (our lack of and God's solution to) - Discipleship - Suffering - Hope.

Hehe that's enough for an entry. God bless.

Ridiculous Week

Crazy week. It's not letting up until the end of next week, either. Yikes.

Watch this video:



Pretty sweet.

I spent some time today praying for my future wife and family, so that was my Valentine's Day activity. Outside of that, I've had 12 papers/assignments this week, I preached Wed. night at the midweek service, and I have to prepare Sunday School on Amos for Sunday. Weekend class yet to go!

As Isaiah said, "OY!"

Old Man vs. New Man

New Cross Allegiance video, done by Chris Fowler, with music from Sonstruck. I edited this tonight, and I'm really psyched about how it turned out.



(Link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y0EOFjVIiOo )

So watch that. Pretty sweet. This one is more of an edification video. I'm also finishing up one on Jonah, so that should be out in a few days.

Three "New" Videos

Not the -most- new, but still...

(1) Jeremy Chambers: The Evangecube, in English


(2) Jeremy Chambers: The Evangecube, in Spanish


(3) DJ Sterf (Sterling C. Franklin): Snow


It was neat one day: the first day I intentionally started prayed for God to multiply the channel, and the subscribers went from 21 to 42 in a day. Sweet, God is blessing very well :D

"Good Person"

Newest Cross Allegiance video ("Good Person"):

Link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r7u5u8AExSA

Embed:

Hotness. Other than that, I'm in beast mode, as always.

How do we define 'good person'?

The Sign of the Fish (Icthus)

Check out the new video from DJ Sterf on Cross Allegiance! YAY! He's so dreamy! lol actually no, I have the tight fro going on, and it looks stupid.

Link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pou6dSa1AqU

Embed:

Happy New Year...from Cross Allegiance!

Happy New Year! My friend Chris and I made the first video for Cross Allegiance (the open-source channel on YouTube I was talking about in an earlier entry). Check out the video below:

Link is http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NCUmNwytjaI if you can't see the video (e.g. on Facebook).

God bless you. : o )

Pulse Outreach - Day Zero

Today, I took off from Chicago-O'Hare and landed in Fargo, North Dakota for a full week of ministry with Pulse Outreach.

I checked my bags in, and the lady realized that one of my suitcases was really light. It was full, but all it had in it were my arcade shoes, a DDR pad, and the hard foam inserts (hahahaha). She told me, "Wow, this is light, you must be going shopping!" I told her that it was a DDR pad for an evangelistic tour, and I think she was skeptical as mess. haha, but my suitcase was indeed very light.

Our landing was very interesting -- we went down to land on the North runway, but there was a massive flock of birds that started to fly up as we came down. In order that we wouldn't crash and burn, the pilot jammed the plane up drastically, and we made another approach. After a few nauseating tight turns of the plane, we realized that the birds won.

We had to land on the East runway, which I thought was hilarious since we just got owned by a flock of birds. Thankfully we had no crisis or complications from the birds, and praise the Lord, we landed safely.

Tomorrow's brief homily will focus on the temporal vs. eternal -- what matters in life. See the video for a brief outline of what I'm thinking.

I also rocked out at an Assembly of God church up here in Fargo. It was bangin'. I generally love Assembly Churches, especially ones with order, Spirit-led worship, and especially solid Scriptural teaching. This one definitely had the first two, but it was a ministry show-and-tell night, so I actually went out with Jordan (a full-time Pulse Outreach worker) to another college service and listened to that message.

Know something cool?

All or Nothing

Philippians 4:13 - I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.
John 15:5 - I am the Vine; you are the branches. Whoever abides in Me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from Me you can do nothing.

So are we being strengthened to completion, or are we trying on our own strength and doing nothing significant? What really will last? Are we trying to earn our way into Heaven?

The price has been paid for us -- Jesus has already paid the price for our sins. As Paul and Silas told the Jailer: "Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved" (Acts 16:31a).

Christianity is so basic. How much do we complicate things?

Jesus gave His life for us, so let's devote all our being to Him. Just as Romans 12:1 states, Offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God!

Prayer

While we do that, please pray for the Pulse Outreach tour, that many would be encouraged and blessed, but mostly that lives will be changed through this event.