LaRosa Johnson {dot} com

Over the course of the past two Sundays I’ve been teaching a series of sermons on the topic of worship. One of the key points of the sermon dealt with the motivation for worship, which turned out to be the mercies of God. In many ways, it was a bit of a revelation to me just how much of a mental activity worship is, and especially when you bring in the motivating factor. As a believer, that really isn’t a problem for me; it doesn’t take anything for me to find praise for all that the Lord has done because He has done so much for me. Of course I have my times where I don’t read like I should, and so on, but that’s more the exception than the rule; overall, my life is all about being a bondservant of the Lord Jesus Christ.

Worship isn’t what this blog entry is about, as I have plenty of motivation in that area of my life. There is an area of my life, though, that lacks serious motivation and I can’t come to grips with what’s going to motivate me to change things. What am I talking about? I’m talking about my health, the need to lose some weight, get fit, and all that it entails. Right now I’m tipping the scales at about 255 lbs. (I’m 6′5", to put things in perspective a bit). Before I met my wife, I was a fairly active guy, playing a little bit of basketball and weighed around 180-185 lbs. and wasn’t able to gain weight to save my life (my goal weight was always 200 lbs.). Since getting married, life has changed dramatically. I’ve gone from being in college (2000-2002) where I walked to class nearly everyday up and down hills (you could say at least a couple miles per day), to having day jobs where I was on my feet the entire time or constantly on the go lifting & carrying around computers & monitors. Both of those kept me pretty fit, but neither was my ideal job. So, I finally get the kind of jobs I had wanted (web design), but I was soon confined to sitting at a desk 8 hours a day (plus throw in sitting in a car for about an hour each way) and I’m no longer as active as I used to be. After having kids, things got all the more difficult because those responsibilities came before anything else.

To this point, I’ve pretty much stopped playing basketball (haven’t shot hoops in over 2 years) and don’t do any physical activity outside of chasing my kids around the house. I mean, it’s my desire to work out and get fit, but I just don’t seem to have the motivation to want to fit it into my schedule. Upon moving to Texas and having a house with a garage, I bought a Bowflex in hopes that I could use it to lose weight and build some muscle. Now, I’m a morning person, so working out in the AM would probably be best, but I already get up at 5:45-6:00 AM and that’s early enough; I don’t want to get up any earlier than that. With 3 kids, I can’t do much of anything until they go to bed, so working out after getting home from work is out of the question. That means that I’m not free until 8 PM at the earliest. By that time I’m either tired or have studying to do, so I end up giving either of those priority, instead of working out. Sure, I could do it before studying, but I just don’t do it (mainly cuz it takes me forever to cool down & stop sweating to even be in a position to work/study).

So, what’s my problem? Why can’t I motivate myself? I have Robin in my ear almost daily, yet that doesn’t help any. I don’t want a gym membership because: #1 I can’t afford it, and #2 I’d have to drive too far, which is out of the question with today’s gas prices. Plus, I have a Bowflex here that I need to make use of. I can feel the added weight taking its toll on my body, yet I still do nothing. A co-worker recently had a heart attack due to his health, and that’s not even a motivating factor. I don’t want to think that it’s going to take the same thing happening to me to begin to make a difference; I really don’t want that to be the case. What can I do to resolve my lack of motivation? At this point, I really don’t know. I have more questions than answers and more motivation to do other things than what it’s going to take to get into shape.

Is there anyone out there with any ideas? Anything at all? If there’s one area of my life that I’m not happy with, this is it, and I really want to do something about it. Okay, rant done… feel free to leave ideas and comments (or a good swift kick in the rear).

LaRosa Johnson LaRosa, Life

Yet another interesting night in the pulpit. I got a call yesterday afternoon from Radley, one of the other pastor-teachers in training, telling me that he wasn’t feeling too well and asked if I could fill in for him tonight. Feeling fine at the time, and already having a new study ready to go, I figured I could fill in with no problems. Well, wouldn’t you know it, I came down with a sore throat, stuffy nose, and other symptoms later on in the afternoon and evening hours. Now, how was I going to preach with my throat being on fire?!

I went to work hoping I’d fight it off. Not even a few hours into the work day, I just knew I couldn’t keep it together enough to focus on my work. So, I talked with my manager and headed home, where I literally crashed the rest of the afternoon, while being plenty drugged up with cold medicine. It came time to get ready for church and my throat was at the worst point it had been all day. I journeyed on anyway because I knew that the Word had to go forth and it was too much of a short notice on a Wednesday night to have anyone else fill in.

Needless to say, I (barely) got through all of my material, with my throat burning the entire time. There were quite a few points where I just wanted to call it quits and just close early, but I pressed on, knowing that I wanted to finish what I had started for the service of the Lord. So, I finished, and only about 5 minutes early.

Hopefully, that’s something I won’t have to do that again any time soon, but it’s comforting to know that I was able to do it and see the Lord sustain my voice so that I could do His work.

Well, pray for your boy as I try to get some rest and soothe my aching throat & body. God bless!

LaRosa Johnson LaRosa, Ministry

I’ve noticed that quite a number of people have visited my blog in recent days looking for the 30 Day Challenge I did concerning Logos. As a matter of fact, it turns out that there were quite a few more people reading it than I would have ever expected, but that probably had more to do with Logos talking about it on their blog as opposed to anything I had done. Anyway, as you can probably tell, the blog entries can no longer be found on this blog, which has sparked further discussion on other websites. Well, I just wanted to take a brief moment to tell why I took down the entries.

As anyone who has read this blog for any amount of time knows, I have a serious passion for Bible software and its ability to aid believers in comprehending the truths of Scripture. I’ve written reviews, spoken about my desire for the "ultimate" Bible application, and most recently this 30 Day Challenge to forgo my use of WORDsearch and exclusively use Logos (since I had owned it for a few months but hadn’t made much use of it). Well, in writing all that I had written concerning the challenge, I failed to take into consideration the possibility of consequences for my employer, WORDsearch Corporation.

With that in view, I discussed these possibilities with my superiors after they became aware of my challenge. They completely understood my zeal for Bible software in general, how I actively use it on a daily basis, and promote it via this website. After they addressed their concerns to me, the decision was left in my hands as far as what to do with the blog entries. Out of respect for my employer, I opted to remove the blog posts. By no means was I threatened to be fired or anything of the sort, but it was a decision that I felt was best for the company given the circumstances.

Therefore, I’ll try to keep speaking about Bible software on to the content and how its used where appropriate. As for directly reviewing and speaking about software enhancements to any software, I’ll be a good deal quieter to that. TM will continue to keep its focus on teaching the Scriptures, allowing the Word to speak and the tool to decrease. Likewise, the blog will continue to share my life and thoughts, just not towards Bible software, my employer, or their competitors.

LaRosa Johnson Bible Software

Okay, so I’m sitting down looking at the latest mailer from a rather popular Christian bookstore chain. I thumb through it like I normally do, but I started to ask myself a question. Why is it that out of a 44 page mailer that only 3.5 (maybe 4) pages are dedicated to Bibles? I just find it a bit puzzling that a Christian bookstore would only give such small place to Bibles, let alone near the middle. Why do the latest Christian self-help books, kid videos, music releases, lame Christian t-shirts, knick-knacks, and so on fill up the pages of these mailers?

I get it though, they’re advertising what sells and what the people want; but, what does that say about Christianity today when this is the kind of stuff that’s being advertised. I will say that I saw Chris Tomlin’s latest release being advertised in there and I did purchase it, but it wasn’t from a Christian bookstore. Back to my point, what is this saying about the state of Christianity? I can at least appreciate a mailer from CBD (Christian Book Distributors) that at least gives me a listing of the latest commentaries, lexicons & so forth along with the other stuff. But you’ll never see these Christian bookstore chains advertising these kinds of things.

As a matter of fact, I’m a bit disheartened when I visit most Christian bookstores. Why do the actual tools that help people learn the Bible (dictionaries, commentaries, ect.) only get a corner in the back of the store with only an aisle or two worth of stuff?

I’m not pointing fingers, at least I’m not trying to; I just thought it a bit disheartening to see the kinds of stuff that Christian bookstores are wanting me to buy, which is "cheap & easy" Christianity in most regards. Okay, I’m done, rant over.

LaRosa Johnson Bible, Ramblings

That’s the question that’s on my mind tonight. I’m sitting here pondering what I want to do with the UrbanWordz podcast. As it stands right now, it’s a quasi holy hip-hop and teaching podcast aimed at extracting the biblical truths of some of today’s hot holy hip-hop music. It’s something that I had planned on doing monthly, and had done rather consistently up until June; I haven’t put up a new one for July or August.

I’ll admit that I like the podcast and what it brings to both the Christian community and the HHH scene, as it has a niche that no one else is really tapping into. I enjoy it, but it’s hard work and requires a lot of brain power. The process of putting together a podcast looks like this: 1) find a solid holy hip-hop artist, 2) find a song with a biblical message and that doesn’t hit on a topic that I’ve already covered (that part gets hard), 3) find some Scriptures to base the study on, 4) prepare a brief outline of what I want to talk about and discuss, 5) record the podcast & mix it down, 6) upload to the website and create the new page. Now, the actual process of recording the podcast isn’t all that bad, but it’s finding the song that presents a problem. For starters, most artists don’t include the Scripture that their songs are based on in the liner notes. Secondly, so many artists these days tend to hit on a lot of the same topics (just in different ways) that it makes it difficult to find original subject matter to base a study on. That’s part of the reason why I haven’t done a podcast in the past couple months, I’ve just had a hard time finding a good song to use (not that there’s a lack of good songs, just finding one to base a study on). On another hand altogether, I feel that I’m limiting myself in a way because I’m forcing myself to talk about someone else’s stuff, instead of maybe bringing in something new altogether (that may or may not have been covered in a song).

At this point, I don’t want to drop the podcast. It adds a nice bit of flavor to the website and the media/audio component is a necessary part of the ministry, I feel. I’m just not sure what to do with the podcast. Do I press through and try to make it work with the way it is now, and struggle to find songs? Or do I try something new? In a way, I’m leaning towards doing something new, but I haven’t the slightest idea of what that would be. I figured that I could just do something like I’m doing for the devotions and Bible studies, find a book of the Bible or character and start doing an audio teaching (basically a mini-sermon [or full sermon]) at least monthly. The only thing with that is remaining consistent because it’s already hard enough to remain consistent with the written devotions. It doesn’t make much sense to add another layer of study on top of that, which would require just as much work in exegeting a text.

I’m not sure, I’m still mulling over ideas. But the reason I’m writing is to get some input from you guys and what you would like to see. What are your ideas for the UrbanWordz podcast? At this point, I’m pretty much open to suggestions while I figure out where to go from here. So, leave any & all suggestions as a comment below.

LaRosa Johnson Ministry