Jon Stolpe
Jon Stolpe
Warranty Not Required
Don’t you wish things lasted forever?
Have you ever had something fail right after the warranty expired?
Last week, our water heater had to be replaced. We’ve been in our house for just over 9 years which is hard to believe. When we moved into the house everything was brand new. It was nice knowing everything would last for a while. Nine years later, we are starting to see things fail. Our dishwasher has been hanging on now for over a year, and our refrigerator makes loud noises from time to time. Nothing last forever, but I was hoping some of these appliances would last a bit longer. The warranty has run out on these household items.
If you read my Ice Breaker post a couple of days ago, you will remember that one of my goals is to dunk a basketball again before the end of the year. I thought this was a “stretch” goal, but I also was pretty sure it was something I could achieve. Sunday night at the end of youth group, I was talking to one of my friends who is also a leader. He knew about my goal, and he encouraged me to give it a try on one of the basketball hoops in our church’s gym/auditorium. I knew dunking was out of the possibility, but I figured it would be interesting to see how high I could jump. I stretched out for a few minutes, and I moved to the far side of the court so I could get a running approach. I took off towards the hoop, and I took off a few feet from the basket. As I launched myself “upward”, I struggled just to touch the rim.
As someone who could dunk fairly easily four years ago, this was quite a discouragement. It was also a reminder that my body is wearing out. The muscles in my legs have weakened. My limbs and ligaments have lost some of their flexibility. My knees are a bit sore. And my hours spend running over the past several years have greatly impaired my ability to explode vertically. What happened to the warranty on my body?
This week, I’ve been reminded that things wear out and people get old. It’s a fact of life. It’s easy to get discouraged when things wear out. I want to stay young, and I want my things to last forever. If we dwell on the deterioration of our things and ourselves, we will sink deeper into depression.
There is an answer!
I can take care of things to help them last as long as possible, but they will ultimately break down. I can take care of myself to keep myself strong and able, but I will eventually wear out. This goes for you and all your things too.
The answer lies in putting our trust in God and His love.
The book of Lamentations reminds us:
The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases; his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness. Lamentations 3:22-23
God’s love for us never wears out. His mercies upon us never break down or run out. In fact, they are new every single morning. If you’re looking for encouragement, lean into God, His love, and His Word. Start your day with Him.
With God, we have no need for extended warranties.
What is wearing out in your life right now? How do you stay positive when everything around you seems to be crumbling?
December 2014 – Top Posts and Commenters Plus BOOK GIVEAWAY
Here are the highlights from December 2014. Thanks to everyone who read along and commented. Your readership and participation in the daily discussions are what make The Stretched Community. Thank you!
Overall, traffic was down from November (18.07%). This was expected though as many readers take a break as part of the Christmas and New Year’s holidays. Traffic was up 176.97% compared to a year ago. The top 10 posts included posts from 2014. Again, most of the posts were from late September and early October. There was one post from February. If you missed any of these posts, I hope you’ll go and check them out now by clicking below. The post with the most engagement was one that didn’t make the top 10 list below – On Public Speaking.
Top 10 Posts:
- Experience The Supernatural September 29, 2014 (491)
- Redefine Rich September 29, 2014 (402)
- 3 Steps To Take Before You Can Serve Effectively September 30, 2014 (383)
- September 2014 – Top Posts and Commenters PLUS BOOK GIVEAWAY October 1, 2014 (368)
- No Excuses! October 2, 2014 (318)
- A Tribute To Grandma October 8, 2014 (314)
- Ice Breaker – Homecoming October 3, 2014 (309)
- 5 Things To Remember When We Say Or Do Something Stupid February 12, 2014 (308)
- From The Mountain To The Valley – Life After Short-Term Missions October 7, 2014 (265)
- Knowing God So We Can Make Him Known October 9, 2014 (213)
Top 10 Commenters:
- Steve Y (23)
- Larry Carter (20)
- David Stolpe (8)
- Caleb Suko (4)
- Carol Peterson (4)
- Jon Stallings (4)
- Joseph Lalonde (4)
- Tony Palus (4)
- Joshua Rivers (3)
- Dan Erickson (2)
As promised at the beginning of the month, I have randomly chosen someone from the top commenters list to receive a copy of 
For the month of January, I’ll be giving away another copy of On Track: Life Lessons from the Track & Field
Thanks to each and everyone for reading and for commenting. I’m looking forward to January with The Stretched Community! The month of January will include more STRETCHING posts. I’m excited for the fresh start of the new year. With it, I’m working on several new posts I’ll be excited to share in the coming days and weeks.
If you’re interested in guest posting here, leave a comment to connect with me.
How was your month? If you’re a blogger share a link to your top post in the comments? What was your favorite Stretched post this month? How were you STRETCHED in December?
In case you’re interested, here are a few other interesting stats about December (based on Google Analytics):
- Users – Decreased 45.68%
- Sessions – Decreased 15.54%
- Pageviews – Decreased 18.23%
- Pages Per Session – Decreased 2.82%
- Average Session Duration – Decreased 6.67%
- Bounce Rate – Decreased 1.23%
- New Sessions – Decreased 12.57%
On Track – Life Lessons from the Track & Field is now available on Amazon in paperback and for Kindle. Click the link below to get your copy today.
As a reminder, I am offering a FREE pdf copy of the interior of the book to subscribers of The Stretched Newsletter. Head over to the main page of the blog and sign up on the right hand menu bar to get your copy today for FREE!
Ice Breaker – New Year’s Goals
Each week on The Stretched Blog, I ask an ice breaker question. The questions are designed to help us get to know each other here in The Stretched Community. I’ll provide my answer to the question here in the post, and then you can leave your response in the comments. While you’re in the comments section, see how others answered the ice breaker question.
(I’m always looking for Ice Breaker question ideas. If you have an idea, send me an email at jon@jonstolpe.com. If I use your question, I’ll give you credit and share your links.)
This week’s Ice Breaker is inspired by the start of a new year. Many of us set goals seeing January 1st as an opportunity for a fresh start. Here’s an opportunity to share one of your goals with the Stretched Community.
Question: What is one of your goals for the new year?
My Answer: I set goals in many different categories – faith, family, fitness, fun, financial, marriage, missions, and writing/speaking. I won’t go into all my goals for the new year. Instead, I’ll share one of my goals for 2015. My fitness goal for 2015 is to dunk a basketball by the end of the year. About four years ago, I could still dunk a basketball. A number of factors have prevented me from throwing it down like I used to. I’m older. I’m not as flexible. I weigh a few more pounds. I have been primarily working on my running instead of jumping. I’m excited for this goal, because I think it will lead to a healthier me by the end of 2015. I intend to lose some weight, gain flexibility, and strengthen my legs and core. I’ll keep running, but I will be also focusing on doing the things necessary to dunk once more before the year is over.
Answer this week’s ice breaker question by leaving a comment. I look forward to reading your response! (As always, feel free to share links.) And keep Stretching!
The Best Of 2014
Happy New Year!
I’m looking forward to 2015.
Before we get too far ahead of ourselves, it’s a good time to look back at 2014.
Here are the fourteen most viewed posts in 2014 (several of them were written prior to 2014).
Top Posts of 2014
- Experience The Supernatural September 29, 2014
- Ice Breaker – Giving Thanks at Thanksgiving November 16, 2012
- 5 Things To Remember When We Say Or Do Something Stupid February 12, 2014
- Ten Things Every Small Group Leader Should Know March 7, 2012
- Redefine Rich September 29, 2014
- September 2014 – Top Posts & Commenters PLUS BOOK GIVEAWAY October 1, 2014
- 3 Steps To Take Before You Can Serve Effectively September 30, 2014
- I’m Losing My Patience – 6 Ways To Rediscover Patience April 2, 2013
- No Excuses! October 2, 2014
- Ice Breaker – Homecoming October 3, 2014
- A Tribute To Grandma October 8, 2014
- Knowing God So We Can Make Him Known October 9, 2014
- From The Mountain To The Valley – Life After Short-Term Missions October 7, 2014
- Ten Reasons To Attend FamilyLife Weekend To Remember February 27, 2012
The people at WordPress created a year-end report to highlight the year on my blog. Here are a few details from their report:
The concert hall at the Sydney Opera House holds 2,700 people. This blog was viewed about 43,000 times in 2014. If it were a concert at Sydney Opera House, it would take about 16 sold-out performances for that many people to see it.
The busiest day of the year was September 30th with 428 views. The most popular post that day was Experience The Supernatural.
Your most commented on post in 2014 was Help Me Pick A Book Cover Design
These were your 5 most active commenters:
1 
2 
3 
4 
5 
To see the whole report, click here.
Two of the bigger highlights for me this year was the release of my first book, On Track: Life Lessons from the Track & Field
How was your year? What was one of your highlights from 2014? If you are a blogger, what was the top post on your blog, and who was the top commenter (please share links so we can all enjoy)?
The Best of 2014: Top Stretched Post #1
2014 is rapidly coming to a close, and I thought it would be a good time to back at a few of the top posts from 2014. I’m re-running the top 3 posts written and posted this year on The Stretched Blog. It may surprise you to see which three made the top of the list. Tomorrow, I’ll provide more details on the top posts from 2014. I hope you’ll take time to reread the excerpt from the post and head back to the original post to chime in on the comments.
My #1 post written in 2014 was posted on September 29th – “Experience The Supernatural.” If you are paying attention, this post was posted the same day as the #3 post (shared here on Monday). In other words, the 29th of September was an unbelievable day for The Stretched Blog.
Here’s and excerpt from the post. Click here to read the whole post.
Experience The Supernatural
When I was a child, I watched cartoons. One of my favorite cartoons was Super Friends. I liked watching the superheroes from the Hall of Justice work together with their different superpowers to fight evil. My favorite character was Superman. He was the leader of the Justice League, and his supernatural powers were pretty cool to a young kid.
Of all Superman’s superpowers, I always wanted to fly. I can remember running down the hallway of my parents house from my bedroom into the living room. Several feet from the couch, I would leap into the air towards the couch. While I’m sure this wasn’t the greatest things for the springs on the couch, it was a fantastic experience for me. For a very brief second, it felt like I was flying.
Today, the television and movie screens are filled with stories of the supernatural. People are attracted to the supernatural. They find ways to experience the supernatural through these movies and television shows.
Read the rest of this post here! And check back tomorrow for the other highlights from 2014.
If you are a blogger, share a link to one of your top blog posts from 2014 in the comments below.
What was one of your favorite Stretched posts from the past year?
The Best of 2014: Top Stretched Post #2
2014 is rapidly coming to a close, and I thought it would be a good time to back at a few of the top posts from 2014. Starting yesterday, I’m re-running the top 3 posts written and posted this year on The Stretched Blog. It may surprise you to see which three made the top of the list. On January 1st, I’ll provide more details on the top posts from 2014. I hope you’ll take time to reread the excerpts from the posts and head back to the original posts to chime in on the comments.
My #2 post written in 2014 was posted on February 12th – “5 Things To Remember When We Say Or Do Something Stupid.” While the post was written way back at the beginning of the year, I think it applies to many of our situations today.
Here’s and excerpt from the post. Click here to read the whole post.
5 Things To Remember When We Say Or Do Something Stupid
This post is stupid.
Wait!
What I mean, this post is all about how to respond when our words or actions are stupid.
We all do stupid things.
We do things we regret – things we’d like to take back.
We have all said something dumb. Once we say it, we want to catch our words and stuff them back into our mouths.
We’ve even done something really ugly. We’d like to go back in time and delete a scene from our life reel. But it’s not that easy.
Read the rest of this post here! And check back tomorrow for the #1 blog post of the year.
If you are a blogger, share a link to one of your top blog posts from 2014 in the comments below.
What was one of your favorite Stretched posts from the past year?
The Best of 2014: Top Stretched Post #3
2014 is rapidly coming to a close, and I thought it would be a good time to back at a few of the top posts from 2014. Starting today, I’ll be re-running the top 3 posts written and posted this year on The Stretched Blog. It may surprise you to see which three made the top of the list. On January 1st, I’ll provide more details on the top posts from 2014. I hope you’ll take time to reread the excerpts from the posts and head back to the original posts to chime in on the comments.
My #3 post written in 2014 was posted on September 29th – “Redefine Rich.” It’s kind of cool that this post was #3 as Matt Ham is just releasing his book (Redefine Rich: A New Perspective on the Good Life
Here’s and excerpt from the post. Click here to read the whole post.
Redefine Rich
What does it mean to be rich?
Matt Ham is on a quest to redefine rich. He writes about it on his blog. He talks about it on his podcast. And he’s getting ready to release a book designed to help you think differently about what it means to be rich.
I’m excited to share some special news from Matt Ham’s world. He recently released a podcast interview with me.
Read the rest of this post here! And check back tomorrow for the #2 blog post of the year.
If you are a blogger, share a link to one of your top blog posts from 2014 in the comments below.
What was one of your favorite Stretched posts from the past year?
Ice Breaker – 2014 Highlights
Each week on The Stretched Blog, I ask an ice breaker question. The questions are designed to help us get to know each other here in The Stretched Community. I’ll provide my answer to the question here in the post, and then you can leave your response in the comments. While you’re in the comments section, see how others answered the ice breaker question.
(I’m always looking for Ice Breaker question ideas. If you have an idea, send me an email at jon@jonstolpe.com. If I use your question, I’ll give you credit and share your links.)
This is the last Ice Breaker of 2014. Today’s Ice Breaker will return you to 2014. Reflecting on the past year can be a great way to prepare for a new year. I look forward to reading your answers. At the end today’s post, I included a list of the Top 10 Ice Breakers from this past year. If you have a moment, take a look back and enjoy.
Question: What was one of your highlights from this past year? How were you stretched in 2014?
My Answer: Our family had many highlights in 2014. Here is a short list:
Jon
- Self-published first book (On Track: Life Lessons from the Track & Field
- Joined local Toastmasters club
- Traveled to Guatemala with family to build two more houses in the village of Santo Domingo Xenacoj
- Continued blog writing (jonstolpe.com)
Leanne
- Earned life coaching certification and started life coaching (leannestolpe.com)
- Started second year as preschool teacher at Trinity Country Nursery School
- Continued to learn Spanish through online program and private teacher
- Puppy-raiser “walker” for Rio (Hannah’s Seeing Eye Puppy)
- Led H.O.P.E. (Helping Other People Everywhere) family-based service group
Hannah (17)
- Earned Pennsylvania Driver’s License in June
- Attended CIY (Christ in Youth conference in TN)
- Purchased first car (yellow Chevy Aveo)
- Earned All-Conference Cross Country Honors this fall
- Visited three colleges (Grove City College, Eastern University, and Messiah College)
- Raising Seeing Eye Puppy – Rio
Isaac (14)
- Started high school this year as a Freshman at Perkiomen Valley High School
- Completed first season in Marching Band (trumpet)
- Performed at Penn State Univ. in state honors piano recital
- Raised Seeing Eye Guide Dog (Cody) who is now working in VA
- Attended Boy Scout Camp at Hawk Mountain in PA
- Attended 1st CIY with Hannah in TN
Here are the top 10 Ice Breakers from 2014:
- Ice Breaker – Homecoming
- Ice Breaker – Bucket List
- Ice Breaker – Contest
- Ice Breaker – Yacht
- Ice Breaker – What’s In Your Box?
- Ice Breaker – Billy Crystal (You Look Marvelous)
- Ice Breaker – Winter Olympics
- Ice Breaker – I Have A Dream
- Ice Breaker – 2014 Fitness Goals
- Ice Breaker – Last 5 Books You Read
Answer this week’s ice breaker question by leaving a comment. I look forward to reading your response! (As always, feel free to share links.) And keep Stretching!
Merry Christmas!
Merry Christmas from The Stolpe Family!
For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him.
John 3:16-17
Great Expectations
When I was a young kid, my expectations ran high this time of the year – especially on Christmas Eve. I was so excited to find out what presents waited for me under the Christmas tree. I can remember laying down in front of the Christmas tree next to my brother as we looked at the tree together. We would both wonder out loud what was under the wrapping paper. Perhaps, we were making sure we didn’t peak. Part of me really wanted to know, and part of me wanted to wait as long as possible to unwrap my gifts, because I didn’t want the feeling of hope and expectation to end.
When I was a teenager, I went to all four Christmas Eve services with my Dad. I wanted to be at the Christmas Eve services to soak in the euphoria of the Christmas songs and the Christmas candle light. I appreciated the opportunity to ride back from the eleven o’clock service together. The ten minute drive from the church to our house was just enough time to reflect and quietly soak in the Christmas lights as we headed home together. I liked going to the late service as it meant I was pretty tired when we arrived home. I would fall asleep quickly after I slipped into bed.
The next morning, my expectation level rose to a crescendo as my brothers and I impatiently hurried my parents out of bed so we could open presents. Sometimes we would eat our rice pudding first before opening gifts, but I seem to remember the rice pudding coming later more often than not. We took turns opening our presents one at a time. First, my youngest brother, Erik, opened a present. Then, my brother, David, opened a present. My turn was next followed by my parents. We would take turns in this rotation until all the presents were unwrapped. We took our time going through this routine. It wasn’t rushed. It was relished. We expressed our appreciation for each gift. We took pictures. And we dreamed out loud about how we would use this new gift. “I will enjoy reading this book by the fire at night.” “I needed a new pair of pajamas, and these are perfect.” “I always wanted a skillet with this kind of handle.” “This gift will always remind me of so and so.”
Things have changed over the years. I’m not sure if I have become callous to the season. The build up towards Christmas used to be filled with stories of wise men, shepherds, a virgin, a carpenter, and a baby king. And now, it seems like these stories and this build up gets too easily crowded out by a rush to finish Christmas shopping, to send out the Christmas cards, and to continue with the other things that normally occupy our schedules. My level of expectation during this time is not always the same. I certainly expect the time off to rest and recharge. I like the opportunity to give gifts to my kids and to others. And I still like driving around to look at Christmas lights after Christmas Eve services. Yet it can be challenging to disengage from the busyness of every day life long enough to appreciate the season in the same way I once did.
Yesterday, I was eating breakfast with a good friend of mine. He mentioned that his five-year old daughter was having trouble waiting to open the presents under the tree. I laughed. And we talked about how refreshing it must be to have a little one in the house during Christmas time as it provides us the opportunity to see Christmas again through the eyes of a child.
Perhaps, we need to reexamine our expectations. And maybe, we need to look at Christmas through difference eyes – through child-like eyes. Christmas is a time for great expectations. It is a time to celebrate the coming of our Savior and to look ahead to His return.
“The thrill of hope – a weary world rejoices…”
We live in a world where many of us our weary from the pushes and pulls of our busy lives. We need to the hope of our Savior. And knowing this hope should bring us a thrill like nothing else. It should renew our expectation for what is to come. It should alter our perspective on Christmas.
As I think again about Christmas, I wonder what expectations Mary had as she journeyed with Joseph to Bethlehem. I wonder about the expectations of the wise men as they traveled from afar in hopes of finding a great king. I wonder what the shepherds were thinking as they left their fields and headed into Bethlehem to follow the instructions of the angels. Were they scared? Maybe. Were they anxious? I wonder. Were they excited? I bet.
May we all healthy expectations as we head celebrate Christmas and look to the year ahead!