Sermon Summary + 5-miler + Hawaiian Chicken

Hey, everyone!  Did you enjoy your extra hour of sleep last night?  I'm really not liking the fact that it's already pitch black outside and it's only 6:21!  Oh well, it'll make me do my running outside earlier in the day, which is just fine with me!

Faith Find
Yesterday and today, I listened to two more sermons from North Point Community Church's sermon series "Christian."  I'm going to summarize the major point from the sermon I listend to yesterday, and tomorrow I'll summarize the one from today:

Yesterday, I listened to "Insiders Outsiders," which discussed the way Jesus followers should deal with people that are also Jesus followers and those that aren't.  It referenced 1 Corinthians 5 where Paul is addressing the church in Corinth and telling them to judge one of their members who was committing a horrible sin.  I've always thought that Jesus said not to judge, but Andy Stanley suggests that the Bible tells us not to judge the "Outsiders" and leave that to God.  He also says that the "Insiders" or the followers of Jesus in your small group/church/circle of faith should judge each other by holding each other accountable. 

The reason behind this distinction is that the "Insiders" have made the commitment to follow Jesus, so those people should be held to that standard.  "Outsiders" may not know what Jesus says to do, so why should they be judged on that standard?  Andy Stanley uses the language that Paul uses in his letter to the Corinthians by saying that instead of judging those non-followers of Jesus, we should "win them" by sharing the love of God with them.  It made me think of that "you attack more flies with honey than vinegar" expression, and that's exactly right.

Today's Training
I set out for my longest run yet, a 5-miler!  I was quite nervous, but knew I needed to get this done if I'm ever going to be able to run 13.1 miles. 

My iPod/timer died when I was about 4.3 miles in, so I added my warm-up/cool-down walks to my route and used the time when I left and time when I got back to estimate my pace.  I think if you just counted my run, I would have averaged a 10:30 pace, with which I'm very pleased!  I felt really accomplished after completing my run :)

A few related notes:

• I bought a Garmin Forerunner 110 yesterday on Amazon.com, and after today's iPod timer issue, I can't wait for it to get here!
• I signed up for my first 10k on December 1st in New Smyrna Beach.  It'll be the longest race I've ever done, and I'm excited to see how that goes.

Diet Tip of the Day
I have a recipe to share with you!  I found the original recipe/idea on Pinterest, but I tweaked it a little because I couldn't find the Hawaiian barbeque sauce the recipe called for.  So, here is my version of Slow-Cooker Hawaiian Chicken:

This picture doesn't look very appetizing, but it's GREAT!  Promise!

Ingredients:

• Up to 4 chicken breasts
• 1 20-oz can of crushed pineapple
• 1 bottle of Lawry's Hawaiian marinade

Put the ingredients in your slow cooker and cook for 3 hours on high or 6 hours on low.

I served the chicken over brown rice with a side of brocolli.  It got rave reviews from my husband, and I really enjoyed, too!  The chicken was very tender, and the marinade mixed with pineapple provided a really interesting mixture of sweet and tangy tastes.  This will definitely be a repeated recipe!

I can't believe it's Sunday evening already.  Have a great start to your week!  Back tomorrow evening after round 2 of Bodypump at the YMCA.