Nathan Ykema

Twenty-Five Investment Rules

Nathan Ykema — Sat, 03 Sep 2011 13:30:00 +0000

25 Investment Rules from Jim Cramer:
1. Bulls and bears make money; pigs get slaughtered.
2. It’s okay to pay the taxes.
3. Don’t buy all at once; arrogance is a sin.
4. Look for broken stocks, not broken companies.
5. Diversification is the only free lunch.
6. Buy and homework, not buy and hold.
7. No one ever made a dime by panicking.
8. Own the best of breed; it is worth it.
9. He who defends everything defends nothing, or why discipline trumps conviction.
10. The fundamentals must be good in takeovers.
11. Don’t own too many stocks.
12. Cash and sitting on the sidelines are fine alternatives.
13. No woulda shoulda coulda.
14. Expect corrections; don’t be afraid of them.
15. Don’t forget bonds.
16. Never subsidize losers with winners.
17. Hope is not a part of the equation.
18. Be flexible.
19. When high-level people quit a company, something is wrong.
20. Patience is a virtue – giving up on value is a sin.
21. Just because someone says it on TV doesn’t make it so.
22. Always wait thirty days after an earnings pre announcement before you buy.
23. Never underestimate the Wall Street promotion machine.
24. Be able to explain your stock picks to someone else.
25. There is always a bull market somewhere.

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Thoughts on Jesus for President 2

Nathan Ykema — Tue, 02 Aug 2011 12:11:10 +0000

‘Jesus reminded Israel that God’s plan wasn’t for them to be God’s favorite or to be more blessed than others. Rather, they were blessed to be a blessing for the whole world.’

What if we, as the body of Christ, took every blessing we received, not as a sign of God showing us favor, but as a sign for us to bless others?

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Thoughts on Jesus for President 2

Nathan Ykema — Tue, 02 Aug 2011 12:10:17 +0000

Jesus reminded Israel that God’s plan wasn’t for them to be God’s favorite or to be more blessed than others. Rather, they were blessed to be a blessing for the whole world.

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Thoughts on Jesus for President 1

Nathan Ykema — Sun, 31 Jul 2011 14:49:59 +0000

Jesus did not want Rome’s power or gain a foothold in the culture wars of his time. He didn’t want to climb Caesar’s throne. This political language doesn’t harmonize with the contemporary church project of ‘reclaiming America for God’. Precisely the opposite: Jesus was urging his followers to be the unique, peculiar, and set apart people that began with Abraham. He didn’t pray for the world in order to make governess more religious: he called Israel to be the light of the world – to abandon the way of the world and cultivate an alternative society in the shell of the old, not merely to be a better version of the kingdom of this world.

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The Powers That Be (4)

Nathan Ykema — Wed, 09 Feb 2011 03:27:54 +0000

We are dead insofar as we have been socialized into patterns of injustice. We died, bit by bit, as expectations foreign to our essence were forced upon us. We died as we began to become complicit in our own alienation and that of others. We died as we grew to love our bondage, to rationalize, justify, and even champion it. We died as we set ourselves in the place of God and tried to control our own lives. And by a kind of heavenly homeopathy, we must swallow what killed us in order to come to life.

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The Powers That Be (3)

Nathan Ykema — Wed, 02 Feb 2011 01:58:18 +0000

There is a valid place for sensible patriotism. But from a Christian point of view, true patriotism acknowledge God’s sovereignty over all the nations, and holds a healthy respect for God’s judgements on the pretensions of any power that seeks to impose its will on others.

Filed under: the powers that be

The Powers That Be (2)

Nathan Ykema — Sat, 29 Jan 2011 04:31:02 +0000

After reading the following in The Powers That Be by Walter Wink and watching ‘Beyond Scared Straight’ I couldn’t help but think about the state of our culture, where violence is seen as pleasurable and a way of life. ‘The myth of redemptive violence is the simplest, laziest, most exciting, uncomplicated, irrational, and primitive depiction of evil the world has ever known. Furthermore, its orientation toward evil is one into which virtually all modern children are socialized in the process of maturation.’

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So Much Packed In

Nathan Ykema — Tue, 25 Jan 2011 02:06:25 +0000

This conversation on twitter between Scot McKnight and Jon Tyson has so much packed into it. I know Mr. Tyson knows 700 times more than I ever will about the missional church…

I love McKnight’s response and it actually made me laugh out loud. For one it’s very pithy but also it speaks a great deal of truth…and it’s a good reminder for me…READ THE BIBLE!

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The Powers That Be 1

Nathan Ykema — Thu, 20 Jan 2011 23:12:47 +0000

“Temporally : the Powers were created, they are fallen, and they shall be redeemed. This can be asserted as belief in the final triumph of God over the forces of evil. But this schema is also simultaneous: God at one and the same time upholds a given political or economical system, since some such system is required to support human life; condemns that system insofar as it is destructive of fully human life; and presses for its transformation into a more humane order. Conservatives stress the first, revolutionaries the second, reformers the third. The Christian is expected to hold together all three.” – Walter Wink

If I’m completely honest I spend 90% of my life figuring out the third part…how can I be a part of the transformation to a more just system…whether it’s in my classroom, small group, or part of a worship team and larger church community. I’d love to find a way to more fully engage in upholding, tearing down, and transforming.

Filed under: the powers that be

Willow Christmas 2010

Nathan Ykema — Sun, 19 Dec 2010 23:33:40 +0000

Fostering an intimate Holy Spirit filled room of 7,000 people is no easy task. The clip below is just a small portion of how the team at Willow is doing just that. If you haven’t attended a service yet please please please do!

Check out service days and times here: http://christmas.willowcreek.org/

Download now or watch on posterous

IMG_0161.MOV (34332 KB)

Filed under: Bass and Music