RECEIVE GRACE! DO GRACE!
Back by popular demand - Monday Fun-day! Because according to Roger Rabbit only cartoons can die from laughing too much! (And who couldn’t use a few more laughs?)
harsh language warning
2020 has been challenging enough - spring for the good stuff!
The best part of every camping trip! Especially if it’s soggy!
Praying you all have a great week! If you’re ready for some more laughs - head on over to the JC’s Village Pinterest board “Blessed Are The Funny”
What follows - is simultaneously - instructions to make JC’s banana bread - and why I won’t be invited to compete on the Great British Bake Off! So - if you’re a “real” baker - you’ve been warned. For the rest of you - I’m not saying that any of what follows is what should happen - just that this is what does happen when it comes time to make another loaf of banana bread!
Turn the oven on to 350 and grab 3-4 brown and yeller splotchy bananas. If they’re puny bananas you might need 5. Chuck yer ‘nanners into your food processor, along with a couple of eggs, sugar, salt, baking soda, cinnamon, and a splash (or a glug) of homemade vanilla. This situation could look something like this:
Pulse your food processor a few times so everything blends up nice and smooth. Then go ahead and add 1 1/4 sticks of butter. I usually slice the butter into pats and put them in one at a time while the food processor is running.
The last thing to add is 1 1/2 cups of flour. I usually pulse the flour in 1/2 cup at a time. All told - the food processor runs less than 5 minutes.
Pour the batter into a greased loaf pan and toss it into the oven. Set the time for 57 minutes and get a couple of toothpicks out. If the bananas are particularly large or ripe or both - then it’ll need an extra minute or two. If not - then a little less.
Once the banana bread has baked - pull it out, let it cool 15 minutes or so and then remove from the pan and let cool more on a rack before cutting and serving.
This loaf is going to Danika, so instead of slicing into it - here it is all wrapped up and ready for delivery. The whole recipe is listed below.
Pre-heat oven to 350
3-4 ripe bananas
2 eggs
1 cup of sugar
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp sea salt
splash of homemade vanilla
a “pfoof” of cinnamon from your big ol’ can of Watkins cinnamon (some folks call this a “dog fart” of cinnamon - gotta love those dog lovers!)
1 1/4 sticks of room temperature butter
1 1/2 cups of flour
pour into into loaf pan and bake for 57 minutes
Makes almost enough.
Enjoy!!
2 hours later - fresh out of the oven!
A few times a year JC’s weekly dinner has my homemade pizza on the menu. If you’re into making a very hearty homemade pizza that’s about as healthy as a pizza can be - here’s how we do it!
To start off - I use this bread recipe for everything - loaves of bread, pizza crust, and buns - it’s really forgiving and easy to use.
Of course - if you know me then you know that’s just where I start and I’m notorious for making food without a recipe or barely following a recipe. So - the link above is where I start - and the info below is what actually happens.
Above are all the ingredients and equipment I use. The recipe is pretty specific about the steps and I do more or less follow it in that regard.
First I mix 4 tablespoons of yeast with 2/3 - 3/4 cup (eyeballed) hot water from the tap in the small (16 oz) metal bowl. I buy yeast in bulk not packets. I use 4 tablespoons when I make dough that’s a 50/50 blend of whole wheat flour and white flour. Swish the yeast and water around a few times (I don’t stir it with a spoon - too much yeast ends up stuck there) until most of the yeast granules are mixed in the water. Then set the bowl on the stove top in front of the oven vent and preheat the oven to 170 so the dough has a nice spot to rise. The mixed yeast and water should look something like this.
Then I warm the big metal bowl with hot water from the tap and then put two cups (measured out) of hot water into the bowl. Then I measure out a tablespoon of sea salt and 4 tablespoons of granulated white sugar. Again - I use 4 tablespoons not three as the recipe directs when making dough with 50/50 whole wheat and white flour. Here’s a picture of my salt and sugar in the water before I mix it all together.
Add 4 cups of white flour to the salt n’ sugar water and mix it all up. Then add oil - again - I never measure the oil - I just give it a glug. I’m pretty sure the final amount ends up being closer to 2/3 to 3/4 cups too. Add 3 cups of whole wheat flour and the yeast and mix it all up. Initially - the dough will look like you’re trying to make “marble rye” - but keep mixing it till it’s all mixed together.
Up until this point all I mix everything together with is the tablespoon I measured out the yeast, salt and sugar with. But from this point on the spoon isn’t all that helpful. So - use another 1 cup (but add it in a bit at a time as you are sure you need it) of whole wheat flour to get the dough to the right consistency.
Consistency is key - the dough should be sticky - but not soooo sticky that you can’t lift it. The quantities of flours are less important than the consistency - so I don’t sweat it too much. If you need to add a bit more - cool. If you don’t need it all - cool. No biggie.
Here’s a short clip of my dough’s consistency.
Once your dough is thoroughly mixed and the right consistency - pop it into the oven for about 40-45 minutes to let it double. If it doubles sooner - then that’s fine too.
While it’s rising, get your pizza toppings ready. Here’s what’s going onto this pizza - lots of veggies. I’ve also used pepperoni, sausage, artichoke hearts, capers, zucchini and summer squash, raisins, and of course pineapple. It takes a while to chop everything up if you’re using lots of fresh veggies - but it’s soooo worth it.
Once the dough has doubled (like the above dough) - pull it out and split it up into 4 roughly equal lumps (oh yeah - by the way - this dough recipe makes 4 pizza crusts, or 2 loaves of bread, or about 18-20 buns). Once the dough’s out of the oven - go ahead and turn the oven temp up to 350. Anyhoo - split your dough up, oil-up or spray with cooking oil 4 pizza pans. and press a dough lump into each one.
If you want a fluffier crust - let the dough in the pan rise again - another 20-30 minutes should be plenty. It’s not necessary to put it back in the oven - it’ll want to rise just out in the kitchen on the counter or on the table - just not outside in winter. (LOL). If you want a crispier, firmer (aka: sturdier) crust - then go ahead and bake it once it’s pressed into the pans. I bake it for 20 minutes at 350 degrees F. It should come out golden brown. It usually takes me most of the time the first two crusts are baking to finish all my chopping and cleaning up.
At that point - go ahead and start “decorating” your pizza. I like to spread a couple tablespoons of pesto on the crust first (if you want to use pesto - let your crusts cool just a bit first - otherwise the hot crust soaks it up and you don’t taste it as much), then pizza sauce, fresh spinach, fresh mushrooms, onions, garlic, pepperoncinis, bell-peppers, olives, and whatever else sounds good at the moment - kind of a veggie supreme. I like a blend of cheeses too - as you can see from the toppings picture above - and find it easiest to put all the cheese blends into a bowl and mix them together - makes it much more efficient to get all the cheeses evenly on all the pizzas.
Once everything’s on your first two pizzas the way you like - pop them back in the oven for 25 minutes at 350 again or until the cheese starts to brown. If I time it right - while the second two crusts are baking - I’ll have my first two pizzas all topped and ready to bake - and while the first pizzas are baking I can top the other two crusts, clean up, and get the dishes washed up.
If you have leftover pizza - it freezes just fine once cooled and reheats beautifully in the oven if you’re reheating enough for the family or in the toaster oven for a single serving. You can nuke it - but it’s not crispy anymore at that point.
That’s it! Enjoy!
So there’s that lovely passage in 1 Corinthians 2:11-16 that talks about the Spirit of God knows the mind of God and lays out that there is a connection between accepting God and understanding His mind - and which ends with the stunning verse “but we have the mind of Christ.” Wow. What a statement!
Philippians 2: 5-8 that talks about having the mindset of Christ and goes into detail about what His mindset actually was - and again - what we read is some very heady language and the character of Christ as it’s laid out in this passage is just as mind-blowing as it is in the previous passage.
Brilliant theologians have written whole books on just these verses - and I am not going to attempt to add to that.
What I do want to do is ask you if you have the voice of God in your head? Seems that the first step we can usefully take towards understanding God’s ways and His will for us is to listen to Him. I don’t know about you - but for me that meant surrendering the voice that used to be in my head, you know, the voice with which I speak to myself and maybe you have a voice with which you speak to yourself in your head. I’m told not everyone thinks this way, but many do. I’m just talking about your internal monologue.
And regarding that I’m asking, does it sound like God? Does it sound like the sorts of things God would say? God calls Himself our loving father, and Jesus is our Good Shepherd (Matthew 5-7, Luke 15, John 14) - among many other references in Scripture to God’s love for us, John 3:16 being perhaps the most famous.
Comparison is called the “Thief of Joy” - and I agree with that assessment.
Training myself to think the way God thinks has been a huge Bringer of Joy in my life. It’s also been an excellent way to catch temptations when they’re just a little tiny thought, when they’re easily replaced with truth. Tiny changes in any moment may not seem significant, but they are the building blocks of a transformed life. Much of how we suffer in this life, particularly in the West where we live relatively secure lives free from war and famine, results from being tricked into seeing things differently from how God sees them. We might feel frustrated with how God made us or the life He gave us, but all this has been done in such a way as to perfectly compliment His calling for us and opening our eyes to this can help us see His generous preparation and provision for us in a whole new way. This is another way to describe the way God transforms us. He leads us away from thinking about ourselves, our lives, this world in worldly ways and towards thinking about these things His way.
Got questions? Let’s grab a cuppa and chat!
Over thirty years ago I started meeting with college students for Bible study, discipleship, encouragement and accountability. In all those years I’ve never met a Christian who said, “Gosh. I guess I just have too much of God’s love.” Usually, the reality was closer to the opposite, people in trying circumstances and eager to sense more of God’s love and comfort. These weren’t people who lacked faith, rather, these were people with strong faiths who invest in building their faith. I’ve felt this myself, and however much of God’s love I might have ever felt, I’ve never felt so much that I didn’t wish for more.
Christians love challenges to grow in all kinds of ways, Scripture study, service, prayer, accountability and more - all good things of course but I’ve never heard of anyone offering a challenge to help Christ-followers grow in how much of God’s love I walk in on a daily basis. Maybe that was for some good reason but I haven’t heard one yet.
You could say that every spiritual act we engage in connects us with God’s Love but I believe that there’s more available from God for us. Much more. You could essentially say the same about worship and yet every church service includes specifically a worship portion, a sermon from Scripture, giving, and so on. So it strikes me as strange that Christian culture isn’t permeated with a number of practices focused on God’s love. That was after all God’s “raison d’etre” - or at least I believe John 3:16’s declaration that “for God so loved the world is His reason for sending His Son and I believe this plan was begun at the very beginning of everything.
One of the most important passages of the Old Testament is Deuteronomy 6:-9: which includes the words “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might.” NASB. This isn’t just how God wants us to think of Him this mirrors how His own motivation. It’s how we calibrate ourselves along with His purposes if you will. Jesus’ own reference of this passage not only appears in three of the four Gospels (Matthew 22:34-40, Mark 12:28-34, and Luke 10:25-38). The two greatest commandments are to Love God and Love others. We spend a lot of time talking about so many other commandments, but these often get glossed over or spoken of as if they’re “impractical”.
Jesus raises the bar quite a bit in His teaching as He goes on to say “Love your enemies” in Matthew 5:44, and by the end of that first chapter of the Sermon on the Mount implies that loving all even enemies is essential to the Life God sent Jesus to teach us how to have. Oh, my word! Enemies too? What if there’s a connection between this Love and the Abundant Life He promises us (John 10:10). That abundant life Jesus talks about is another thing I would like more of, how about you?
Some might consider so much love to be indulgent and a way to get out of obedience, but this is not a Biblical reading of Love as Jesus taught it to His followers and as they further wrote of it in their Epistles instructs us that obedience is as essential to love as love is an essential act of obedience. In fact, I believe that they balance one another. Love without obedience loses purpose and focus pretty quickly. And I believe we’re all familiar with what the kind of legalism that results from obedience without Love. I think the best way to see these is as the left leg and right leg, or even left-brain and right brain.
In our wider culture, in our individual lives, I’m afraid I’ve lost count of the times I’ve heard students and alumni struggle with facing legalism and judgment but it’s not been difficult to count the number of times students and alumni have experienced remarkable love.
And yet I am convinced that God has an enormous abundance of His Love ready and available to give us - directly in our times of prayer, study and meditation with Him, as well as in our interactions with one another.
Seems to me like one leg is significantly stronger than the other.
What could happen if we had two equally strong legs? What would it be like to have not just an abiding sense of the value of obeying God’s commands, but also a profound and life-giving sense of His eternal love for us? Can we do this? What if being strong in Love made obedience easier?
Prayer is how God disciples us
Read MoreIn celebration of Father’s Day - this week’s Monday Funday post will post a bit early. Here’s to all the Dad’s out there and all they did for us!
Gotta have at least one dad joke for Father’s Day!
Welcome back! In honor of all the mom’s out there who have in so many ways made JC’s Village what it is - praying you have a wonderful Mother’s Day!
Here's a little of back-to-school humor for this back-to-school sort of week! Welcome back Viterbo and WTC students and best semester to all of you going back to school and or sending someone you love back to school.
So - I'm told - that not everyone watches Parks & Rec ... so here's a little more Monday Funday humor - but not based on Parks and Rec. I'm sure this will be a winner!
Summer puts me in a parks and recs sort of mood - so here are some funnies from the show - hope you all have a fantastic week!
Yay! What could be better for a Monday Funday post than a little Solo movie humor ... better late than never.
ok - but why are they dressed like a sci-fi version of IL Divo?
Enjoy some 4th of July themed funnies!
This week's Monday Funday is dedicated to the ultimate summer-time adventure: the family road-trip! Enjoy!
Here's your Monday Funday! Praying you all have a great week!
A special Father's Day edition of Monday Funday. Happy Father's Day to all the Dad's out there!
Another installment of Monday Funday! Praying you all had a great weekend and that it's a fantastic week for you!
A special edition installment of Monday Funday! Praying you're all having a marvelous week!
JC's Village will be meeting this summer on Wednesday evenings for meals, Bible study, discussion and fun. We've also got some fun events planned; canoeing, a trip to the pizza farm, s'more roasts, playing some four-square and more.
Our theme is Lake Galilee Summer Camp! Remember summer camp? New friends, adventure, new skills, fun, camp-fires, growth ... well we're going to be doing all that and some more. So many of the things we learned at summer camp as kids line up with awesome things we can learn about God - and ways we can grow our walk with Jesus even stronger.
If you're a college student in La Crosse this summer - whether you're enrolled or not - we'd love to have you come and join us. Feel free to bring a fiend along. We're going to squeeze every bit of growth and fun we can out of the months ahead and have a great summer while we're at it!
This week's Monday Funday honors moms of all kinds - praying you all have a wonderful week!
