Thinking Through Life and Leadership

What are you communicating to your children and the next generation?

2012-02-02T11:19:00.001-05:00

I was reading in the book of Acts earlier today about the stoning of the disciple Stephen. Like a growing number in his day, Stephen had decided to accept the grace and mercy offered by Jesus' sacrifice on the Cross. It's a heroic story of standing up for what you believe found at the end of chapter 7 in the book of Acts.

But what stuck out to me the most while reading this story was young boy standing off to the side. His name was Saul. He was a student of the great philosopher Gamaliel (mentioned in Acts 5:33-39). Saul was a Pharisee of Pharisees. One of the best, brightest, most privileged kids coming up in the ranks in Pharisaism. He was going to bring things back to way they were before Christ. Remember the Pharisees were the ones who killed Jesus and did everything in their power to stop the spreading of the Gospel.

This is our first exposure to Saul. It's not a lot, but it's very important. The Pharisees weren't happy with Stephen, because he was doing what God had told him to do which was in opposition to what the Pharisees wanted. So they stoned him. And by stoned him, I mean they threw enormous rocks at him until he was dead. Dead. And while all this is going on, the vicious murder of a man, the men throwing the boulders at him had young Saul hold their coats on the sidelines. Acts 8:1 says, "And Saul was there, giving approval to his death."

Can you imagine the incredible impression that would have on a boy? What children see imprints on their brains for the rest of their lives, especially something as dramatic as this. No wonder Saul turned out to be such a killer of Christ-followers. Acts 8:3 says, "Saul began to destroy the church..." Children, and teenagers, are impressionable... what they see you do, they will do. What they hear you say, they will say.

It reminds me of the movie "The Help." It is a movie about racism in the south and African American women as maids (or "the help") in the homes of white suburban families. Throughout the movie, young white children see the way their parents treat these black women so harshly. One of the main plots of the movie is the dramatic, and positive, impact the main character, Aibileen - a maid, has on the young child of the family she works for. It is scary to think the impact people have on their children without even being intentional about it.

I'm a youth pastor, so I work with teenagers all the time. Let me just put it out there... They have issues. Some really big, ugly, disgusting, fat, unhealthy issues... but those issues didn't just come from no where. I've talked to I don't know how many parents that say the same thing over and over again... "I don't know how this happened."

I'm not blaming parents, I'm not blaming society, or music, or television or any one thing in particular. But listen to me: If you want your children to turn out a specific way, you need to be intentional with what you are communicating to them. It's not rocket science, but it is work. Put in the work and you'll see the results.

Now, on a positive note, Saul has a dramatic conversion and is radically transformed by the power of Christ and becomes one of the most influential figures in all of Christianity. This is the same power that can transform any person today. No one is too far gone to be reached by the love and grace of God. But guess what? There is more work involved for you. Pray for them. Show them the love, mercy and grace of God. They are still impressionable, no matter how old they are. Don't give up.

A Very Brief Word on Fasting...

2012-01-05T12:07:00.000-05:00

Fasting is not a magical way to manipulate God into doing our will; it’s not a way to get God to be an accomplice to our plans. Neither is fasting a spiritual way to lose weight or control others.

Fasting clears us out and opens us up to intentionally seeking God’s will and grace in a way that goes beyond normal habits of worship and prayer. While fasting, we are one on one with God, offering him the time and attentiveness we might otherwise be giving to eating, shopping or watching television.

Fasting is an opportunity to lay down an appetite.

Laying down an appetite is an act of self-denial, even though it may not seem like a large sacrifice, it brings us face to face with the hunger at the core of our being.

Fasting exposes how we try to keep empty hunger at bay and gain a sense of well-being by devouring creature comforts. Through self-denial we begin to recognize what controls us. Our small denials of the self show us just how little taste we actually have for sacrifice or time with God.

Guidelines for Fasting:

- Don’t fast when you are sick

- Don’t fast when you are in a hurry and are fasting for immediate results regarding some decision. Fasting is not magic.

- Stay hydrated

- Start slow and small (one meal); work up to longer fasts

- Don’t break your fast with a huge meal – always break a fast gently

What to do in Time Set Apart for Fasting:

- Bring your Bible and glass of water during your fast

- Relax. Place yourself in the presence of God. (Repeat Samuel’s words, “Speak Lord, your servant is listening.”)

- Praise God for his faithfulness (Psalm 103:1-5)

- Bring your desires before God; ask if it is in line with His will.

- Be still and listen

(taken from chapter on Fasting from "Spiritual Disciplines Handbook: Practices that Transform Us" by Adele Ahlberg Calhoun found here: http://tinyurl.com/7z3o4hf )

Relentless Branding

2012-01-04T11:32:00.001-05:00

4 Key Steps to Start a Prejudice (or the opposite)...

2011-12-20T12:08:00.000-05:00

Ok, obviously I don't want you to start a prejudice. But I was reading the book of Exodus today, and the first chapter pretty clearly lays it out for you. Here's what it says:

"Now Joseph and all his brothers and all that generation died, but the Israelites were fruitful and multiplied greatly and became exceedingly numerous, so that the land was filled with them. Then a new king, who did not know about Joseph, came to power in Egypt. "Look," he said to his people, "the Israelites have become much too numerous for us. Come, we must deal shrewdly with them or they will become even more numerous and, if war breaks out, will join our enemies, fight against us and leave the country." So they put slave masters over them to oppress them with forced labor, and they built Pithom and Rameses as store cities for Pharaoh. But the more they were oppressed, the more they multiplied and spread; so the Egyptians came to dread the Israelites and worked them ruthlessly. They made their lives bitter with hard labor in brick and mortar and with all kinds of work in the fields; in all their hard labor the Egyptians used them ruthlessly." (Exodus 1:6-14)

Here's a little background. New King, doesn't remember Joseph. Joseph was a good guy, a good Jewish guy. He helped out the Egyptians, like the New King. Remember the dreams of the fat cows and skinny cows? Yeah, Joseph helped the Egyptians deal with a famine. So, Joseph an Israelite, helped the Egyptians survive a famine. But, the new king/pharaoh doesn't remember... he's ignorant (i.e. has no knowledge or memory of Joseph's extreme service to Egypt). So the new king forms a prejudice. Here is how he does it:

1. Start with an irrational fear.

The new king has a bad feeling about the Israelites. He sees the Israelites are gaining numbers and this scares him - irrationally. The Israelites aren't out to get Egypt and at this point Egypt isn't out to get them. But when we get uncomfortable about something, like more of 'them' than 'us,' we get scared. So, the new king, acts on an ignorant irrational fear.

2. Scare other people

The new king doesn't hash out the problem or just deal with it himself, he tells the whole nation. He causes a panic. It's like Y2K. Some of you might not remember that, but it was a huge scare that happened at the turn of the century. All of the computers were going to crash and basically stop the world from spinning... Only one problem, it didn't happen. Somewhere along the way someone got scared, and then they scared other people. Soon everyone was scared. The new king shared his irrational nightmare with the whole country and soon everyone was on board.

3. Oppress

This is where it gets tricky. If you really want to oppress people you'll have to have people convinced you are right in your irrational fear. Otherwise, your oppression is going to seem like hatred driven by fear (which, by the way, it is), and that will make you look petty and weak (which, by the way, you are).

4. Oppress Them Worse

If you oppress people, they will revolt. Look at the Human Rights Movements of the 1960s. Obviously there was a need for serious change, hopefully no one would argue with that. The oppression and injustices people were facing was appalling, yet suburban Caucasian Americans were scared - irrationally - so they oppressed. And uprisings and movements started, in order to spread the truth and liberate those being oppressed. And what happened... they were oppressed even harsher. Same thing happened in Exodus. The Israelites were still growing in population, even after the pharaoh ordered new born male babies to be killed. He took it a step further and told the whole nation to throw male Israelite babies in the river...

There you have it: 4 Steps to Prejudice.

(A quick word to anyone who is prejudice... You are in the wrong. "Hatred starts a fight, but love covers over a multitude of wrongs." [Proverbs 10:12] Truth equals freedom and people express grace when they see clearly how wrong they've been. Every revolution tears down what was before it creates something new. Trying loving someone rather than acting on an ignorant irrational impulse.)

Your Hero isn't a good guy...

2011-09-30T10:53:00.000-04:00

What if you found out after years of following someone they weren't a good guy? What if Obi Wan Kenobi was on the dark side? What if Billy Graham smoked or turned out to be an alcoholic? What if your hero had a bunch of gruesome details that you didn't know about?

Well there was a book written recently about Walter Payton. If you don't know, Walter Payton was arguably the best running back in NFL history, probably one of the best players of all time. But it wasn't just his playing that made him great, it was everything else about him too. He loved the game, loved people, helped out in the community. The NFL now gives out a citizenship award named after him. His nickname was "Sweetness." He was awesome! But the book... is the 'definitive biography.' And the author totes there must be nasty details exposed to keep it 'definitive.' Now I'm not happy because I love Walter Payton, but I'm also a little worried on another level.

As I listen to sports radio there are other sports greats mentioned for their flaws and heroes and icons and all of the skeletons in their closets come tumbling out. I recently heard a small talk Mark Driscoll gave a leadership conference about discipleship and mentoring. Mark Driscoll is the pastor a very large network of church based out of Seattle. Driscoll said he has had mentors before too. People he looked up, wanted to be like. But eventually things came out, or Driscoll disagreed or something happened that changed the way he viewed his mentor. After awhile, he realized he couldn't rely too heavily on one person for all of his leadership/personal/executive/life advice questions. Driscoll realized he needed a team of people who specialized in one thing to be able to address that issue in Driscoll's life. Now, Driscoll isn't someone with an enormous amount of problems, he just understands simply because someone is in leadership, doesn't mean they are qualified to answer every question you may have.

Our problem arises when we lean to heavily on our leaders or mentors or heroes to help get us through life. Heaven forbid your leader has a flaw... The reality of it is, no one is perfect... EXCEPT JESUS. And if we lean on anyone other than Him, we are bond to be disappointed. It's perfectly normal and fine to look up to someone, but idolize them to the point that you demonize them because they aren't perfect.

Jesus saves, no one else does. Lean on Him.

We're Providing BackPacks for kids who need them... you should help!

2011-07-12T13:26:00.001-04:00

Our church is trying to raise back packs for our community so kids can go to school with uniforms, backpacks and the proper school supplies. I'm excited about it.

I was on the phone with a gentleman at one of the schools we are helping. He mentioned to me that his school has seen an influx in students from Burma and Nepal. Apparently there is current civil unrest there and families are fleeing to our area. Either way, these students speak little or no English. They don't know much about our customs, but despite that they turn out to be excellent students... once they have what they need.

That's where we fit in. We are providing them with backpacks full of school supplies and uniforms to wear. This school's demographic is already 98% below the poverty line... I guaranteed him we'd help. These kids can succeed with our help. Contact me at 717-397-1112 or PastorAaron'sEmail to see how you can help.

Break your religious routine (and yes you are in one)...

2011-07-07T11:07:00.000-04:00

Lately I've been on a mission to destroy "religious routines." Let me explain:

You see, I believe we all get into routines in life. It's how we survive. Common behaviors turn into patterns, which turn into habits, which equal or daily life. Routines make up your morning (unless you have kids, someone tell my two year old she needs a routine please...), routines make up your work day, make up your evening, make up most of our relationships. And unfortunately, routines make up most or our relationships with God. Most people don't really know what God wants them to do so they go to church and listen to a pastor (like myself) tell them what to do, how to get closer to God, how to live a holy life. But most of us pastors, don't know your life, so we just throw our big general principles that should help anyone given any circumstances. Which is fine. It would be wrong of us to do a sermon for one person in our audience. Some pastors do that, if you're one... STOP! It's annoying, and immature.

The only real way to know how to follow God, is to listen to God for yourself. Then God can lead you through the specific situations, relationships and trials of YOUR life.

But since most people don't typically devote the effort it takes to actually be lead by God, we rely on pastors to tell us how it's done. And then we get ourselves into these routines. Not necessarily bad in themselves, but not the point either... We read our Bibles, pray, listen to Christian music, go to church, raise our hands during worship, sit patiently for it to end, and we repeat... That's about it. And that's more than most people have in their routines.

They had routines in the Bible too, different, but still a routine. They used to take goats and birds and animals with them to church. Then they'd kill the animal or leave it there at the altar because they thought this is what would make God happy. It would get them closer to God. Because someone told them it would... Sort of like us. Like reading our Bibles or a certain devotion, or a new cd, or whatever...

Jesus said the greatest thing we could do is to "Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength." And then the second greatest thing we could do is "Love your neighbor as yourself." He said "there is NO commandment greater than these." I wonder why we act like there is? Many churches act like tithing is the most important thing we can do, or worshipping or volunteering or whatever... All those things are great, but not the greatest.

Jesus commended someone listening to Him say this when the man said, "To love God with all your heart, with all your understanding and with all your strength, and to love your neighbor as yourself is more important than all burnt offerings and sacrifices."Which means it's more important than whatever you've fit into your routine. More important than your religious habits...

Jesus said this man was not far from the kingdom of God. Are you? Love God and love someone else, someone maybe you don't like, someone you don't know, someone who doesn't deserve it. God's love is intense and always act, and it acts in any way possible. Is your love for God like that? Is your love for others like that? Let's break our routines and do something intense and radical for God and for someone else... It's what God would want.

PA Young Adults NOT Voting! Here's why...

2011-06-11T11:29:00.001-04:00

I read in the paper today that Pennsylvania ranked 40th for 18-29 year old voter turn out... I know it's not 50th but it might as well have been. The newspaper article went on to talk about how technologically savvy young adults are, but really failed to make the connection between voting and tech. It was really a solution-less article. Or for that matter a causeless article. It stated the problem, young adults aren't voting, but failed to mention why or how to fix it.

Let me say, I'm not genius or political analyst or expert on, well... anything. But I am a young adult and this concerns me, but not too much because I fall into the category of voter no-shows. I would imagine some people might theorize that young adults are just uninformed about the current issues and politicians. But I would argue that this generation of young adults is the most informed group of people EVER! We are on Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, and any other social media site publishing our thoughts about the ever changing world around us. We see and feel everything. Including politics. It's ignorant to assume anyone doesn't know about current issues, because we the people of the United States make up the issues... so inherently we know them. We are bombarded with thousands of messages every day. I would argue that we are one of the most socially aware generations in history... Then why don't we vote?

I blame history class (well sort of). I am a youth pastor, so naturally I interact with students. And all of them eventually complain about their homework, and most complain about History. But I jump to the defense of history because if there is anything that could help us avoid future national blunders, it's history! Learn from your mistakes I say... But clearly, we, as a nation, are not. I'm not blaming politicians alone, I'm blaming all of us. We learn about our history not just to celebrate it and remember bearded presidents, but to learn and change.

In my opinion, my generations understands, sees the lack of change and instantly turns to apathy. "Well they (politicians) aren't going to listen to me, so why should I care." You can't argue complacency because this generation rises to the occasion to be a part of positive social change. Look around. There are thousands of organizations reaching out to change the world around them, with 20-somethings at the helm. I believe "what good is it going to do" has become the young adult mindset towards voting. The Obama administration was the perfect example of young adults rallying behind a cause. We believed in change... wasn't that the point? But again - backfire. Promises broken. Important issues tabled for political agendas again. Not to hammer the president, a great deal of good has come out of his presidency. But I don't think it's the change so many young adults believed in.

"Rock the Vote," was a campaign several years ago intent on getting young people to vote for someone. Basically just to show up and show that the campaign worked. And it did, for the most part. But where have we gone? To the corners of apathy and disbelief. Our vote counts? Prove it. Whose to blame? All of us.

I Lost 80lbs!!! Here's How... Health Tip of the Day

2011-05-25T10:25:00.000-04:00

It's true. I've lost around 80 pounds since September of last year. That's 9 months. 80 pounds, in 9 months... It's almost been humorous what people ask me. "How'd you do it?" "What's the secret?" "Are you sick?" "Are you eating?" Too funny. I actually got so tired of people asking me if I was sick or unhealthy I told one woman I was sick (and she told other people - backfire)... Anyways, I thought maybe I should share some of my healthy lifestyle advice.

The very first thing I would like to suggest is: water.

Water is the best thing for your body. It cleanses you, refreshes you, revitalizes you, and helps you lose weight. Drink more water than you need to. Even when you aren't thirsty, DRINK WATER! If you drink 2 glasses of water before a meal, you will eat less. Water makes you feel full faster. There isn't all the junk in water that there is in soda, juice, coffee, tea, beer, or other beverages - obviously, it's water! I drink incredibly cold water because if you drink enough ice cold water, you will literally lower your body temperature. And your muscles will have to work harder to raise your body temperature back up. There you go, it's like a full body workout in a bottle of frigid Figi water...

Bottom line: If you are really serious about getting healthy you need to do this. If you can't simply add more water to your life, you won't do any other weight loss or healthy lifestyle tips either. Get after it... drink water!

Are there such things as a pathetic prayers?

2011-05-17T10:52:00.000-04:00

We are moving. Which is lame. In the course of our five years of marriage, my wife and I are on our fifth move. We're getting pretty good at it, but that doesn't make it any easier. Moving is a frustrating, tiring, expensive process. Part of the expense is forking over the new security deposit for a new place, while crossing your fingers your current landlord doesn't find something wrong with where you live now. Unfortunately there is a pretty obvious 'wrong' incurred by us where we live currently... One day my daughter thought it was a good idea to dump over a huge mug of my coffee. Burning herself and leaving a cantaloupe size stain in our carpet. Two feet to the left and it would have been on the kitchen tile, but whatever... We've tried everything to get it up. Lemon juice, soap and water, carpet cleaner, 'professional' carpet cleaner, EVERYTHING. It's not working. We tried something new the other day and I asked my wife how it went (because obviously I didn't clean it up) and she said it looks better. She told me she actually prayed over it while she was cleaning it... that made me laugh.

It instantly brought me back to a tape cassette my brother and I used to listen to as kids (or perhaps we were forced to listen to). Tape cassettes are an older version of cds for those of you wondering. It was a Christian kids cassette. My parents used to perform Christian crusades for kids in parks and churches when my brother and I were younger (which is as cool as it sounds). They'd dress us up in clown outfits or stuff us behind some puppet stage and we'd go through some stories of the Bible hoping people would respond to the Gospel message. It was awhile ago, so I can't really remember if anyone did. All I can remember is crying my way off stage when my dad dressed me up like a clown... not for me. Anyways, they had certain cassettes that would accompany these crusades and one such cassette had a segment called "Pathetic Prayers." The basic theme of these segments were someone did something dumb, and now they are praying for help. For example: In one such case, "Ole Egmont" had broken a window with a baseball (relatable for the kiddos). And he was praying for God to "heal that window" before his dad got home. "Heal that window God."

Naturally, my mind would shoot to "Ole Egmont" as my wife described scrubbing the carpet on her knees in prayer... Which made me wonder, "Is there really such thing as a pathetic prayer?" Honestly, I've thrown a shout-out to God to "heal that carpet." I'm not above that. And I don't think God is either. Will God heal my carpet? Probably not. But it's nice to know I can bring the most mundane, yet important, concerns of my life to a loving Savior.

What do you think? Are there prayers that are too pathetic to offer to God? If so, what would they look like?

You're ugly...jk (The Power of 'jk')

2011-04-29T09:58:00.001-04:00

This last weekend I was at a youth convention with a ton of students. Which deserves a moment of reflection... ahhh... loud music, bright lights, late nights. I'd like to thank 5 Hour Energy for even making that weekend possible.

While we were there I called a student out on random little lies. This female student said, "I was just kidding." Which spurred a conversation for us... does 'jk' wipe away the responsibility of a lie. It actually became a running joke for our group. Someone would say something ridiculous and we'd all blurt out "JK!" It was really funny for awhile...

When I got back, I thought about... "Does just kidding about a lie, revoke the lie status?"

Here is what the Bible says, "People who shrug off deliberate deceptions, saying, "I didn't mean it, I was only joking,"Are worse than careless camper who walk away from smoldering campfires. Needless to say Smokey the Bear would not be happy with our jk-ing. Scroll down to verse 28 and the it says, "Liars hate their victims."

Is joking lying? I was just kidding... is that really an excuse for someone not to get mad? What are your thoughts?

20 Life Lessons from Bruce Lee

2011-04-17T17:51:00.002-04:00

1. Apply What You Learn

“Knowing is not enough, we must apply. Willing is not enough, we must do.”

How many people do you know that read a lot of books and spend a lot of time buying courses, but never apply the knowledge they learn?

You may even notice these tendencies in your life. It’s hard to take action and apply what you learn, because we’re all afraid of failure, and taking action can be paralyzing from time to time.

However, success in life doesn’t happens until you use the knowledge that you have inside of you. Most of us have exactly what we need to get to our goals, but we make excuses not to even get started.

2. Learn, Discard, Create

“Absorb what is useful, Discard what is not, Add what is uniquely your own.”

It’s all well and good to learn from others, but it’s not until you take action that you discover what works and doesn’t.

When you discover what doesn’t work, you simply discard it and keep going. When you keep moving forward, you will create your own path.

Living a successful life is all about experimenting and trying new things. The more things you try, the closer you will get to true success.

3. Simplicity

“Simplicity is the key to brilliance.”

If you can simplify your life, your goals, and your tasks, you will not only be happier, you will also get more done and be more successful.

It was not until I started focusing on one single task and one major goal in my life that I started seeing rapid results in the direction of my dreams.

If you’re trying to go after multiple things at once, you will end up accomplishing none of them. Pick one thing that’s the most important to you and go after that.

The funny thing about focusing on one goal is that it seems that you’re neglecting all the others aspects of your life, but when you focus on one goal, magically the other aspects of your life improve, sometimes dramatically.

4. Break Barriers

“Using no way as way, using no limitation as limitation.”

We all have negative beliefs that stop us from being as successful in life as we would like.

The only person holding you back is you. Once you become comfortable with overcoming your fears, you will start seeing dramatic success in your life.

One of the most common characteristics of successful people is that they are willing to try new things and face their fears. They are not fearless, they are merely willing to do what it takes.

5. Be Open-Minded

“Take no thought of who is right or wrong or who is better than. Be not for or against.”

There’s no right or wrong in the universe. It’s completely subjective.

Getting caught up in the drama of who is right or wrong or who is better than will only distract you from reaching your goals and creating a successful life.

Stay open to new possibilities, and the viewpoints of others. You can never know what you will learn when you explore things you at first thought were pure nonsense.

6. Contribute

“Real living is living for others.”

It wasn’t until I found my passion and started contributing to the world with my writing that I started feeling fulfilled.

We all have our unique gifts that we can use to make the world a better place. These are usually talents and skills you have that you are very good at, and that you like to do.

It doesn’t matter if you like to make jewelry or if you enjoy cooking, because everything is connected to everything else.

You are here to make a difference with the talents you have. There’s a reason why you are you.

7. Manage Your Time

“If you love life, don’t waste time, for time is what life is made up of.”

We are surrounded by distractions, such as e-mail, Twitter, and Facebook. They are great at connecting us to each other, but they distract us from what is truly important.

Learn to manage your time, and get the most valuable tasks done before you start to play. Use time management courses to get your life in order.

You can often double, triple, or even quadruple your productivity by using just a few simple time management tips.

A good one that I use is to write down the three most important tasks for the next day before I go to bed.

8. Be Flexible

“Notice that the stiffest tree is most easily cracked, while the bamboo or willow survives by bending with the wind.”

Life will throw curve balls at you, so you have to get used to being flexible. The more comfortable you can be with being uncomfortable, the faster you will grow as a human being and the more success you will have in life.

This is exactly what distinguishes successful people from unsuccessful ones. Successful people are more willing to be uncomfortable, because they know that that is the fastest path to their goals.

Whenever you bump into something that makes you feel bad, stay flexible, and find the positive in the situation. I’ve found that most of the problems in my life are blessings in disguise.

The only thing separating positivity from negativity is time.

9. Set Goals

“A goal is not always meant to be reached, it often serves simply as something to aim at.”

If you want to create your dream life you want you first have to know what you want. For the longest time I avoided setting goals, because I thought it was unnecessary.

It wasn’t until recently that I discovered that goal setting can not only make me more productive, it can also dramatically increase the clarity I have.

When you set goals, use the S.M.A.R.T criteria, which stands for specific, measurable, attainable, realistic, and timely goals.

10. Be Patient

“A quick temper will make a fool of you soon enough.”

One of my weaknesses is my impatience. However, I’ve learned to channel my impatience into getting more done and being productive.

It’s also important to realize that most of the things that are truly valuable in life take time.

For example, I discovered that creating an online business usually takes anywhere from 3 to 5 years, if your goal is a full-time income.

Whatever you do, keep taking small steps each day toward your primary goal, and you will be surprised at how much you can accomplish in just a few years.

11. Kill the Box

“All fixed set patterns are incapable of adaptability or pliability. The truth is outside of all fixed patterns.”

It’s easy to get into a rut, which is simply a familiar pattern that feels comfortable. If you truly want to grow as a person and lead a successful life, you have to get out of the box.

In fact, throw the box out altogether, and start following your heart wherever it leads you. This can be as simple as following your highest excitement in the moment.

Most people are stuck in their minds and never listen to their heart’s deepest desire. Don’t let this be you.

12. Control Your Thoughts

“As you think, so shall you become.”

What you think about, you draw into your life. If you’re constantly being negative, you will draw more negativity into your life.

Instead of focusing on the negative, think about what you want to get out of life and focus on the positive.

This is another way of telling you that you have to set goals and focus on those goals as often as possible. The results you will get by doing this will be dramatic.

Most people sit around whining about their miserable life, and then they wonder why nothing good ever happens to them.

13. Take Action

“If you spend too much time thinking about a thing, you’ll never get it done.”

Don’t over analyze and over think. Take massive action even if things aren’t perfect before you start.

Most people that try to get things perfect never get started at all.

I used to be a perfectionist, but I realized that by taking action, I could get much more done and make much more progress.

I also realized that people don’t want perfect. They just want solutions to their problems.

14. Allow

“I’m not in this world to live up to your expectations and you’re not in this world to live up to mine.”

It’s easy to get stuck on what other people would think of you if you became successful. Most people are so afraid of this that they never rise above mediocrity.

It is not up to you to make people happy. You can only make yourself happy, and the way others react is just the way they will react.

Don’t let other people dictate how you live your life. Determine what you want, go after it, and don’t look back. You will be much happier for it.

15. Create Your Own Destiny

“To hell with circumstances; I create opportunities.”

You can make all the excuses in the world, but nothing happens until you stop blaming your circumstances or people in your life, and take control of your life.

It is up to you to take responsibility for your life and create your own opportunities. You may not be able to do exactly what you want right now, but you have the opportunity to take steps toward it.

No one will create the dream life for you. You have to do it yourself.

16. Be You

“Always be yourself, express yourself, have faith in yourself, do not go out and look for a successful personality and duplicate it.”

As I said earlier, you were born with unique talents, gifts, and skills. When you try to be someone you’re not, you will only attract people into your life that are not in harmony with you.

When you are you, and that includes the weird things about you, you will find that the most amazing and interesting people start popping up in your life.

Sometimes this may take years, and sometimes it can happen in just a few days. Let whatever happens be okay and go with the flow.

17. Have Integrity

“Knowledge will give you power, but character respect”

No success in life is worth it unless you have integrity.

It’s very hard to find people that are honest and have integrity as one of their highest values. It’s easy to throw in a lie here and there and try to manipulate people.

Only conscious people realize that this won’t make anyone happy in the long term. It might get you what you want in the short-term but it’s not a recipe for happiness.

Live with integrity, and people will respect you. And best of all, you will respect yourself which is a very desirable character trait.

18. Learn the Rules, Break the Rules

“Obey the principles without being bound by them.”

If you want success in life, learn what other successful people have done to get to where they are.

It’s important to learn the principles of success, but not be bound by them. Once you know what you need to do, follow your heart and your intuition.

If you want to learn how to create a profitable website for example, I recommend you sign up for a training course, and follow the instructions step-by-step.

Once you start seeing success, you can start breaking the rules and begin experimenting.

19. Do Things for You

“Showing off is the fool’s idea of glory.”

Life is not about impressing other people. If you try to show off, it will backfire.

And if you try to seek the approval of others, it will just make you miserable. The only person that needs to approve of you is you.

This goes hand in hand with many of the quotes above. You can only be you, and it is not until you reclaim your unique self that you can be truly great.

20. Believe in Yourself

“You just wait. I’m going to be the biggest Chinese Star in the world.”

Last, but definitely not least are the expectations you have of yourself. Your beliefs will determine the success you have in life.

There are ways to overcome limiting beliefs and negative expectations, but nothing happens until you accept that they exist within you.

And nothing happens until you take full responsibility for the life that you have created in this very moment.

Are you good dirt? Something I learned from a Children's Bible.

2011-04-12T14:41:00.000-04:00

It's weird how reading things from a different perspective changes everything...

I try to be a good dad, and a good Christian dad, so I read the Bible to my 2 year old. But we read her "Beginner Bible: Timeless Children's Stories." And I was reading it the other day and I almost started crying because it hit so close to home for what so many students I know are going through. Even stories I've heard over and over again seem so very practical from her book. I'm sure she doesn't get much of it. She likes the animals getting on the ark, the statue Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego wouldn't bow down to and the trumpet sound daddy makes at the end of the whole book.

I'd like to show you an excerpt from her edition:

The Farmer's Seeds
Jesus like to tell the people stories. His stories had special meanings. One day, he told this story. "Once there was a farmer. He went to his field to plant his seeds. He scattered the seeds here and there. Now some of the seeds fell on the path. The birds flew down and ate those seeds. Some of the seeds feel on rocky dirt. They sprouted, but there were too many rocks. The roots could not grow and get water. So when the sun grew hot on them, they died. Some seeds fell where there were weeds. The seeds sprouted, but the weeds grew bigger and crowded them out.

Other seeds fell into good dirt. They settled deep into the dirt where no birds could get them. And they grew and grew and grew."
The people wondered about the story. "What does it mean?" they asked Jesus. And Jesus told them. "The birds and weeds and rocks are like some people's hearts. They hear God's word, but they have their hearts on other things.
They do not understand.
They do not love God and follow him.
But the good dirt is like the hearts of people who do understand.
They love God.
God's love grows in their hearts like a beautiful, healthy plant."

Somehow simple words make things clearer. Where is your heart? Is it on 'other things'? Are you good dirt? What are the birds, rocks and weeds in your life? Open your heart to God... Our world's apathy chokes the Word of God in so many lives. Don't be one of them.

How would you label the next generation? The Jersey Shore Gen?

2011-04-07T11:27:00.001-04:00

On my way to the church the other day, where I am a youth pastor, I pulled up to a stop light behind this car...

If you can't read what it says on the back of the car, the sticker reads, "I am god." I had to take a picture of this. Not only the arrogance this individual, who I must assume is a man - no idea why, but the self-proclamation of his divinity was obnoxious. First of all, I'm confident God would not drive a red Chevy Cavalier. Nothing against red, Chevy, or the Cavalier, but I'm sure there is some Evangelical joke about what kind of car God would drive... (My dad used to tell me God would drive a Honda Accord, "the disciples were together in one accord," Acts 2:1. I know. Not funny.)

More importantly, what sort of a message is this individual trying to communicate? On some level, if you really believe to be that superior to everyone else, whatever, that's your own ignorance. But to feel like everyone else needs to change lanes to get out of your glorious way is a bit much.

This seems to be more of an epidemic lately than ever before. Being that I work with teenagers, I get to meet a lot of students who are confident the world revolves around them. Wonder if any of them drive a red Cavalier? Our society, and especially younger generations, are so incredibly me-minded. It's actually not even me-minded, it's no one minded, because these students do things that are obviously not good for them. I read recently that 1 in 6 teenage girls has sent nude photos over their phone... Who does that benefit?

It's almost as if students are entering the next level. It's not selfish. It's not me-minded. It's just... just... there's not even a word for it. It's the one-life-to-live generation. It's the Jersey Shore generation. It's the -everything-will-eventually-work-out generation. It's the flaunt-it-while-ya-got-it generation. The weird thing they still have the happily ever after painted in their future. I don't get it. I'm sure they know what they do has consequences. I'm sure they know doing drugs consistently makes you a drug addict. I'm sure they know sex before marriage equals chances of 'unplanned' pregnancy, STDs, direct link to divorce, and a host of other problems. I know they know these things. But it's NBD (no big deal).

When will it all work out? How? What's going to get them to their happily ever after? If you aren't intentional about your future, you'll end up somewhere you didn't intend.

Read a story recently about the daughter of a famous actor. This daughter made a sex tape. And sold it. And the famous father did everything he could do to buy it back and try and save his daughter's reputation. But the scary part was, she didn't want it back. She saw people like Paris Hilton and one of the Kardashian girls that made sex tapes and thought making a sex tape was the way she could become famous.

That's sad. And stupid.

If you aren't intentional about your future, you'll end up somewhere you didn't intend.

Man shoots machete from slingshot = ouch! (Perseverance pays off?)

2011-03-31T11:39:00.000-04:00

This guy frightens me. For a number of reasons, maybe the fact that this seems more than a hobby to this guy. My grandfather made my brother and I slingshots when we were younger, they really didn't work very well and they didn't shoot machetes, but it was nice. Secondly, this guy didn't stop after the slingshot nearly chopped off his arm in a machete/slingshot related incident.

Wow. Stupid or disciplined? Out-of-his-mind or perseverant? Incredibly-gluttonous-for-pain or genius? Okay, not genius but on some level you are admiring his passion right? Still no?

Lately I have gotten in much better physical shape. And when I was first running and working out it was painful. VERY painful! And there were times where I didn't want to continue. I remember working out with my friend and throwing up in his back yard because I was so out of shape. Not much more humiliating and attractive than throwing up in someones back yard. All we were doing was running up and down his hill. Granted it is a very steep hill and I was VERY out of shape, it wasn't what we were doing that made me throw up, it was what I had already done. I had gotten myself into this mess. I ate all of that horrible fast food, I didn't exercise when I should have, I lived horribly. And now I was facing the pain. I had the consequences right there in front of me (and in front of my friend).

I think this is the wall most people hit in a lot of different areas of life. We start to experience that pain, that discomfort of change, even good change and we quit. We don't like the pain, we don't like the sore muscles, we don't like having our arms nearly lopped off by machetes so we quit... Or we like our current, unhealthy condition too much to really change. We like fast food, we like having sex before we're married, we like watching TV instead of working out, the couch is more comfortable than the treadmill, so we quit... We give up. We don't really put forth the effort it takes to live healthy.

Think about all of the areas of your life you'd like to improve. Spiritually. Emotionally. Financially. Relationally. Educationally. Physically. Are any of these areas going to magically get better on there own? No. And you know that. But we like the couch more than the gym. It's easier to fire up another cigarette than it is to really quit. CHANGE HURTS. And the longer you avoid it the more it's going to...

So I applaud you machete-slinger. Keep up the craziness and don't let anyone tell you to quit. And for all of you avoiding the change you need. Get off the couch. Put down the drink, cigarette, drugs, whatever it is holding you back. Break up with that person. Go to church, read a book, call your parents... for cryin-out-loud CHANGE!

3 Things You Need to Know About Your Child's Facebook

2011-03-21T11:27:00.000-04:00

I'm a youth pastor, so naturally I have a lot of teenage friends on Facebook. Yes, Facebook. If you're not on it, why not? More than likely the people you know are, your family is, and you should be too. But I've noticed a couple trends in Facebook that I think parents in particular need to be made aware of...

1. Your child has pictures on Facebook...
Even if they don't own a digital camera, or have never taken a photo in their life, somehow they have multiple photo albums on Facebook. Where you need to be concerned as a parent is, what pictures are the posting? Probably ones you've never seen. I'm not saying they're bad, but I'm also not saying they aren't bad. Maybe it's just me, but I've probably seen 300 photos of teenage girls, and boys, snapping weird photos of themselves looking at themselves in the mirror. I'm not sure if this is an attempt to be seductive, but it is certainly the epitome of vain. Regardless, you need to be on Facebook to monitor your child's photos activity...

2. Your child's Facebook friends have photos of them on Facebook...
This is more alarming than the last. Mainly because it's even harder to monitor. But it gives you a glimpse into the world of your child without actually being aloud in. Which I know sounds a little creeper-ish, but you kids need to learn the value of a digital thumbprint just as much as anyone else. I've heard it said before that anything remotely controversial that has been online for an hour will never be taken offline. In our overly exposed world, teenagers need to learn the value of digital modesty, and learn it quickly...

3. Your child says things on Facebook they wouldn't say in real life...

This bothers me more than any of the rest (unless of course the photographs are extremely inappropriate). When people, especially teenagers, get online, it's almost like they view it as playing a game. They step into some alternate reality and escape from their normal lives for a bit. But unfortunately that isn't the case. Facebook doesn't represent a virtual avatar, it represents you and me and your child. It's important they understand they are representing themselves, not a character. It's also important they understand Facebook is not a diary. Too often students say things that should be left in confidence, things they should be saying to you. Learning about break-ups is inevitable via Facebook's relationship status. But posting about the details and how heartbroken you are isn't necessary. Discernment and discretion are clearly something we have not passed on.

Bottom line, you need to be on Facebook. And you need to check out what your kids are saying, what their posting and what people are posting about them. THEN, you need to approach them about it in real life. "Hey saw you posted something on Facebook, everything ok?" Unless harsher conversations are necessary. Teenagers do an excellent job 'ratting' themselves out on Facebook. Want to know if your kids are on drugs? Check Facebook. Want to know where they were Friday night? Check Facebook. Want to know how serious they are, or how far they've gone with their new boyfriend or girlfriend? CHECK FACEBOOK!

Christianity is Communication

2011-03-15T15:50:00.000-04:00

Communication is about imparting information from one to another—a spouse communicates what he’s feeling, a teacher communicates what she thinks and knows, and a leader communicates the organization’s vision and next steps. In the Bible, we see God communicating with humanity about his character, the world he created, our tendencies as fallen bearers of his image, how we can best live this life, and how we can best relate to him. Obviously, these truths and principles belong at the heart of what we believe and practice. - Scott McClellan http://tinyurl.com/46ftpxt

A friendly reminder from Gungor...

2011-03-15T11:59:00.000-04:00

It's nice to reminded of these things every once and awhile... God isn't like you!

Thoughts on People who are "Takers" by Donald Miller

2011-03-14T10:59:00.001-04:00

A Creator Gets Rid of the Takers in Their Life This is a harsh thing to talk about, because most of us think we are supposed to love and be accessible to everybody. But here’s the truth: if you were accessible to everybody, all the time, you’d be spent. God did not design you to never say no. Instead, He designed you with limitations, and you have to manage those limitations well. It’s a sad fact there are people who are takers. They take your soul, bit by bit, they use you, they make you feel ashamed or guilty when you don’t allow them to use you and so forth. If it’s at all possible, and by that I mean if you aren’t married to them or related and responsible in some way, these people need to go. By letting them go, I don’t mean be mean to them or tell them they are jerks, but you can know they aren’t going to be lifelong friends and make decisions accordingly. You can get them information they need and so forth, but just know it isn’t going to be a give and take relationship. In my life, I find that I’m not a very good friend to the takers, so they are better off without me anyway. They make me feel guilty, so I give to them out of compulsion, not out of love or friendship, and that doesn’t really help them much anyway. Here is how you know if somebody is a taker: 1. You always feel kind of guilty around them, but on paper, you can’t figure out how you’ve hurt them. 2. They have been in a long line of short relationships. 3. They hurt people and do bad things, but it’s always somebody else’s fault. 4. They don’t make you feel good about yourself or your work. Takers can change, but the only way they change is when the taking doesn’t work anymore. And if you let them stay in your life and take from you, you aren’t helping them change.

God wants you to be cold...

2011-03-11T12:08:00.000-05:00

I know what you're thinking already... "God would rather us hot than cold." Really? What makes you so sure? What's wrong with being cold? Does cold automatically mean distant from God? Where did that idea come from?

If you've been in any sort of religious circle for too long, you've no doubt heard the wonderful verse found in Revelation 3. "So, because you are lukewarm - neither hot nor cold - I (God) am about to spit you out of my mouth." Yes, spiritual vomit. But if you read this whole passage there is no applause for heat and no scolding of cold. We just assume hot is better. We like heat. We LOVE fire. Gotta be on fire for Jesus. Tongues of fire. Purge us with fire. Send Your fire Lord. Pillars of fire. God is a consuming fire. Baptize us with FIRE! Sounds like we are a bunch of pyromaniacs if you ask me. Seriously. Think about it, how many illustrations have you seen in church with a candle or some sort of fire reference? Yeah, too many to count. What is our fascination with heat?

There are quite a few negative references to heat in the Bible too... the fire of hell, where the fire never goes out. James 3:5 compares the evil things we say to the fire of a burning forest. In Jude verse 23 we are commanded to pull people out of the fire. Revelation refers to hell as the 'lake of fire.' Now I'm trying to shake your theology of the flame, the Bible commands us not to put out the "Spirit's fire" also... but where does the hatred of cold come from?

I'll tell you where. YOU! You don't like being cold. You get a blanket and crank up the heat while sipping HOT cocoa when you're cold (not totally directed at my wife). I think tend to associate sickness and death with cold. Matthew 24:12 is really the only reference I can find to cold = bad. "Because of the increase of wickedness, the love of most will grow cold." But is cold bad? Who would want to be cold?

ME! I like the cold and so should you. It's actually very good for you body. Don't get me wrong extreme cold = hypothermia just as easily as extreme heat = heat stroke. But some cold is good. I've been a fanatic about weight loss lately and one of the great, easy ways too lose a few pounds is by drinking a ridiculous amount of ice cold water. If you do, it will literally drop your body temp. and your muscles will have to work harder to pull your body temp back up. (Not only that, but water might be the very best thing for you body.)

Think for a second of the way God is using the "cold" reference. When we think of cold we use it as a metaphor for bad situations. Sort of the same way we use "dark" (although there are a ton of Biblical references to darkness = bad). People say things like it was a "dark time in my life." What does that mean? It was a bad time. Lonely. Hard circumstances. Back-to-the-wall sort of thinking. That's like cold. Hard times. Lonely. Depressed.

I think about those crazies that jump into freezing cold lakes and rivers around January 1. If you ask them about it, they'll tell you it's invigorating and good for your heart. Well... it is. Being in those dark, lonely, hard, cold times of life are really good for us too. Just like the ice cold water makes your body work harder, hard times in life are the best time to flex your spiritual muscles and rely on God. It's not easy. But if you think being a Christian, or life in general, was going to be easy you are in for some seriously 'cold' times.

Brace yourself, embrace the 'cold' times... get close to the Spirit's fire. The cold times reveal our deep need for it.

"God" The Roller Coaster

2011-03-09T10:43:00.001-05:00

I love roller coasters. Ever since I was a kid. I remember being at Six Flags in St. Louis once and literally riding one right so many times that I vomited. Now, I don't know where you're from, but that's dedication... Think about our fascination with roller coasters. I mean we, as a nation, spend millions of dollars every year attending parks that are entirely devoted to roller coasters. Roller coasters are a rush, they shoot adrenaline through our body and then we get off with our head spinning and run over to our group of friends and frantically encourage them to ride the coaster we just got off.

Some times I think we mistakenly treat God like a roller coaster. We act as if God is this ride that we approach, like we are waiting in line with some anticipation. We're a little scared, not too sure what to expect. And then we get strapped in, and whoosh we are off. The twists and turns spur change and new found realizations about life. Before we know it we are right back where we started. Our hair a little disheveled maybe and we're out of breath for sure, but back where we started nonetheless. We jump off of our ride with God and run to tell some people about how amazing it was, they should ride the ride too... It's almost like we spend the rest of our lives standing at that little fence watching all the rest of our friends enjoy the thrilling coaster of God, hoping to maybe catch a wave as they go zipping by. But just like us, after awhile they are standing at that little fence snapping photos of their friends on the ride too.

I can't imagine this is how God views a relationship with us. Moses maybe knew God better than anyone ever. God told him, "I know you by name and you have found favor with Me." God ever say that to you? But right after this, Moses declared the he wanted more of God. Moses says, "If You are pleased with me, teach me Your ways, so I may continue to find favor in Your eyes... show me Your glory." You see Moses realized, our relationship with God isn't an event. It's not an altar call or a single service. It's not a worship service or a song on the radio. It's not a conference or a convention. It's not even a season of your life. It's all those things and so much more. We too frequently equate God with a moment, or a specific time and place. We even read the Bible that way. "God moved in the upper room with the apostles." True. But He was also around for ever other verse of the Bible... We act like the 'upper room' experience and others like it are the crazy parts of the roller coaster. Then after we've gone through all the loops and spun around a few times we're left dazed and confused looking for someone to point us to the exit.

The only way God could be a roller coaster is if it were a never ending roller coaster, that with ever twist and turn made you crave more and more. Life with God is journey, not an event. It's good to be moved by a single event with God, but those events are there to draw you closer to God, not so you'll get your fill and leave until you're empty it's time to ride the ride again.

In Hosea chapter 13, God says, "When I fed them, they were satisfied; when they were satisfied they became proud; then they forgot me." This is painfully true for us today. We ride the ride, jump off, then search aimlessly for the next thing to fill the void.

It's time to experience God, never-ending, everlasting. Your relationship with God should draw you closer to Him every day. It should make you crave more and more of Him. Everything you see and do should make you want more of God.

God isn't a roller coaster, He is the beginning and the end, the King of kings and Lord of lords. Experience His journey for your life...

God's Love is defined as:

2011-02-15T14:29:00.002-05:00

God's love is defined as:

- unfailing (Exodus 15:3; Psalm 6:4, 13:5, 18:50, 21:7, 26:3, 31:16, 33:18, 33:22, 36:7, 44:26, 48:9, 51:1, 52:8, 62:12, 77:8, 85:7, 90:14, 94:18, 107:8, 107:15, 107:21,31, 109:26, 119:41, 76,88, 130:7, 138:2, 143:8, 12, 147:11; Isaiah 54:10; Lamentations 3:32; Hosea 10:12; 1 Corinthians 13:8)

- abounding in 'love' (Exodus 34:6, Numbers 14:18, Nehemiah 9:17, Psalm 86:5, 86:15; Joel 2:13; Jonah 4:2)

- maintaining (Exodus 34:7)

- great (Numbers 14:19; 2 Chronicles 6:42, Nehemiah 13:22; Psalm 5:3, 17:7, 89:1, 89:49, 106:45, 108:4, 117:2, Lamentation 3:22; Ephesians 2:4)

- eternal (1 Kings 10:9)

- endures forever (1 Chronicles 16:34, 41; 2 Chronicles 5:13, 7:3, 7:6, 20:21; Psalm 100:5, 103:8, 106:1, 107:1, 118:1-4, 29, 136:1-26, 138:8; Jeremiah 33:11)

- everlasting to everlasting (Psalm 103:17, Jeremiah 31:3)

- higher than the heavens (Psalm 108:4)

- faithful (Isaiah 55:3)

- inseparable (Romans 8:39)

- patient (1 Corinthians 13:4)

- Kind (1 Corinthians 13:4)

- compelling (2 Corinthians 5:14)

- sincere (2 Corinthians 6:6)

- wide, high, long, deep (Ephesians 3:18)

What do you, NYU and ice crushing have in common?

2010-12-08T12:26:00.002-05:00

If you've ever had to fill out a college application they usually ask some interesting questions. For instance:

"In order for the admissions staff of our college to get to know you, the applicant better, we ask that you answer the following question: Are there any significant experiences you have had, or accomplishments you have realized, that have helped to define you as a person?" (NYU)

With the obvious answer being, yes. We are defined by 'significant experiences' and/or accomplishments... One applicant took it a step further. Here is his essay in response to this question:
"I'm a dynamic figure, often seen scaling walls and crushing ice. I've been known to remodel train stations on my lunch breaks, making them more efficient in the area of heat retention. I translate ethnic slurs for Cuban refugees, I write award-winning operas, I manage time efficiently. Occasionally, I tread water for three days in a row.
I woo women with my sensuous and godlike trombone playing. I can pilot bicycles up severe inclines with unflagging speed, and I cook 30-minute brownies in 20 minutes. I am an expert in stucco, a veteran in love, and an outlaw in Peru.
Using only a hoe and a large glass of water, I once single-handedly defended a small village in the Amazon Basin from a horde of ferocious army ants. I play bluegrass cello, I was scouted by the Mets, I am the subject of numerous documentaries. When I'm bored I build large suspension bridges in my yard. I enjoy urban hang gliding. On Wednesdays, after school, I repair electrical appliances free of charge.
I am an abstract artist, a concrete analyst, and a ruthless bookie. Critics worldwide swoon over my original line of corduroy evening wear.
I don't perspire. I am private citizen, yet I receive fan mail. I have been caller number nine and I have won the weekend passes. Last summer I toured New Jersey with a traveling centrifugal-force demonstration. I bat .400.
My deft floral arrangements have earned me fame in international botany circles. Children trust me.
I can hurl tennis rackets at small moving objects with deadly accuracy.
I once read Paradise Lost, Moby Dick and David Copperfield in one day and still had time to refurbish an entire dining room that evening. I know the exact location of every food item in the supermarket.
I have performed several covert operations with the CIA. I sleep once a week; when I do sleep, I sleep in a chair.
While on vacation in Canada, I successfully negotiated with a group of terrorists who had seized a small bakery. The laws of physics do not apply to me.
I balance, I weave, I dodge, I frolic and my bills are all paid. On weekends, to let off steam, I participate in full-contact origami.
Years ago I discovered the meaning of life, but forgot to write it down.
I have made extraordinary four course meals using only a mouli and a toaster oven. I breed prizewinning clams. I have won bullfights in San Juan, cliff-diving competitions in Sri Lanka, and spelling bees at the Kremlin.
I have played Hamlet, I have performed open-heart surgery, and I have spoken with Elvis.
But I have not yet gone to college."
- Hugh Gallagher

This beats the pants off whatever it was I wrote in my college application. What's so ridiculous about this to me, is not Hugh's answer, rather the question itself. Of course we all have excellent experiences and accomplishments (and failures) that make us who we are...

So let me ask you...

Are there any significant experiences you have had, or accomplishments you have realized, that have helped to define you as a person?
(hopefully you are wooing women, or men, with your sensuous and godlike trombone playing...)

Selah is a pain...

2010-11-09T10:05:00.000-05:00

So I was reading in the book of Psalm today, specifically 42-50. And as I was reading I was SO annoyed at how repeatedly the word Selah kept popping up. I mean seriously... I'm reading here, not trying to take a nap. For those of you that don't know, selah is a Hebrew word that is found in the Bible and found a lot in the book of Psalm and it is not easily translated. Most people simply believe it means to pause, which isn't too far off. Psalm 46 is eleven verses long and has the word selah three times. You can't cover much biblical territory pausing that frequently, especially you if you are being sovereign enough to pause for the extent of a full inhale and exhale, which is what I bet most people do... guilty as charged. When I sit down to read the Bible I'm ready to get some insight covered, learn about Bible characters and get some leadership principles under my belt.

Most of the psalms were written with a musical mindset, so to think of the word selah in a place where you might be transitioning for chorus to verse or verse to pre-chorus isn't completely inaccurate, but it's not really completely accurate either. As I said, it's hard to translate. A more accurate translation of the word might be: "Let those with eyes see and with ears hear." Selah is really a command to "stop AND listen." How can you listen while reading? Unless you are old enough now to 'read' books on tape... I know my grandfather used to listen to Johnny Cash read the Bible every night after dinner, if he didn't he would have been reading a Bible the size of a coffee table with print the size of a license plate because his eye sight was so bad. I wonder how long Johnny Cash paused in the book of Psalm? Wonder if I can get my hands on those tapes...

On the other hand, maybe stopping and listening is what we need most. Especially while combing the Bible for useful insights. For instance, Psalm 46:8-10 is between the brackets of two selah references and says:

"Come and see the works of the Lord, the desolations he has brought on the earth. He makes wars cease to the ends of the earth; he breaks the bow and shatters the spear, he burns the shields with fire. 'Be still, and know that I am God; I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in the earth.'"

Now, you tell me, did you get everything said there? Probably not. But there is a lot said. The writer could have written simply "Come and see the works of the Lord" and we could reflect on that for quite awhile before our heads explode from too much exposure to awesomeness. But how about following that... "He makes wars cease to the ends of the earth..." I bet you'd like it if our president would STOP and LISTEN to those words...

What sort of wars do you have going on in your life? When was the last time you just rested in the Lord? I'm not saying you have to get alone in complete silence, I know some people will tell you that, but not me... I love listening to worship music while praying, I feel like it motivates me to press on. But you do need to be still...

More stillness...

This morning I read from a parallel Bible with the NIV in the left column and the Message translation in the right. I have to notice that the Message completely leaves out any trace of the speed bump word selah. I read fast, and sometimes I don't like inhaling and exhaling while the word selah tells me to stop, but leaving it out doesn't seem quite right. I hope we're not missing what we're looking for by skipping over a chance to reflect on God's word...

Ever experience a 'divine-course-correction'? I wanna hear about it...

2010-08-31T10:01:00.001-04:00

I was just reading the Bible and it seems like God has an end destination in mind where He wants people to end up. But during their lives, people don't always make accurate decisions to get there, and God has to intervene and try and sway them in a new direction... a "divine-course-correction." Have you ever experienced this? I bet you have... I'm worried that maybe we are too good at ignoring God's gentle nudges into the right direction and we choose something other than God's plan for our lives. Either way, I want to hear about your experience with God's push in the right direction.

2 Reasons I would fight you...

2010-08-20T12:54:00.001-04:00

I don't consider myself to a very tough guy. I don't feel like a wimp, but compared to like Rocky 4, I'm not really tough. On my way to get my Bacon Ranch salad from McDonald's this afternoon, I saw two adult men in a fight. I'm talking punching, swinging, pushing and a group of other guys trying to restrain them. It was weird... took my right back to high school (and, all things considered, it doesn't appear fighting technique improves with age - still looks as pathetic as it did then).

I can barely remember the last fight I was in... I was in junior high and after school some older student was picking on my brother and I and so he and I got in a fight... in a church parking lot... irony anyone? But it was terrifying. I feel like I held my own against this older, more experienced fighter, but I still walked away feeling like a loser. Maybe I was, who knows? We both walked away totally fine. In high school I can remember breaking up a fight. As a senior I had seen several fights and felt the adrenaline rushes, but I came across a couple of freshmen that looked so awkward I felt bad for them. Neither of them wanted to fight, you could just see it... but their friends were pushing them on pretty furiously. I got close and turned each of them around and told them to go their separate ways...

Why do we want to fight one another? Having seen this two men, easily in their mid-40s, violently trying to injure another human, it's hard for me to think what would push me to that point. So I thought about it and I can think of at least two reasons:

1. If someone ever harassed, especially physically harassed, someone of my immediate family.

There is nothing on this earth that I care more about than my family. If someone felt like they were going to extend their personal space to make someone in my family feel abused, 'nuff said. You know what, I'll go further than that... I've known my wife for awhile now and I can read her pretty accurately, and if she ever gave me that "I'm uncomfortable" look, it would be time to engage.

2. If I EVER saw a man hit a woman.

It's appalling to me the way some men think. Bunch of ignorant, scared, little punks running around thinking they can beat on a woman. What kind of a man do you think you are? Does that make you feel strong? Not on my watch... It wouldn't matter where I was, in-public or in-private, wouldn't matter...

That's all I can think of... which makes me feel even more like a pacifist, but I'm pretty mello. I get worked up about Illinois sports and car trouble, but other than these things, I'm pretty chill.

I wonder what the spiritual principles in this are? Jesus said to turn the other cheek, but the Bible also talks about righteous anger. I think the point would be to make sure you have things you care about. If you aren't willing to engage and show some passion/aggression when you feel like you are being stepped on, then maybe you aren't passionate enough...

60 HOURS in a church van...

2010-07-23T10:00:00.000-04:00

I recently got back from a retreat with some of the students from our youth group. It was an awesome time together speckled with a horribly long ride in a van...think I'm exaggerating try over 60 hours total. Sit back for a second and sense the gravity of that... 60 HOURS!!! With a youth group... I'm lucky there wasn't a gun in the van, and so are the students. I'm not sure you get it... you are thinking, "Well there's Red Bull and 5 Hour Energy, so you'll be fine. You're a youth pastor, it's your job. You should be used to it. All youth groups go on trips."60 HOURS! I'm not sure I can stress that enough. That's nearly three days, with the back of my legs sticking to the same vinyl seats as hundreds of sweaty teenagers. And still, I'm not sure anyone played the alphabet game once... 60 HOURS!!! I'm still not convinced you understand the severity of the situation. 60 HOURS!!!! There should be a fundamental truth in our doctrinal laws about this... "We believe, (always a dramatic pause after "we believe," so everyone understands what's about to be said goes right to our very core) any youth event, that's travel plans could end worse than Paul's shipwreck should be avoided. (Proverbs 11:21)" Imagine a closet that smells like mildew and sweat... now imagine where that sweat came from. 60 HOURS!!! I've been on many youth trips, none compare to this one...

It wasn't just the van ride. There seemed to be a recurring theme at this conference. It was a very empowering time and it seemed to emphasize the enormity of God. GOD is HUGE! God is big, powerful, super, awesome, never-ending, and a whole bunch of other adjectives that express huge-ness. One of the speakers of the conference titled his message "God loves you. (Redefined)." His whole point was we don't understand this phrase. We have used it so much, we have said it and read it on bumper stickers and tracts so many times that we really don't even think about it. GOD... the creator of the universe, that sprinkled the stars out in the universe, that cause the seas to roar and winds to soar, the God that died on the cross and rose from the dead, the God that was and is and is to come... The God of everything and everyone... LOVES... infinitely, unconditionally, sacrificially, never-ending, giving, humble, powerful, life-altering love... GOD LOVES you.

Sometimes we hear something so many times that it loses it's intensity. You hear youth trip in a van, you just think it's normal and it's loud, and it was, and I should be cool with it. I pray that when we hear "God loves you," we just stop and reflect and remain tremendously thankful for God's acknowledgement of our existence let alone His undying love for us.

After we left this conference, on the never-ending road home, I was reading in Colossians and this one verse just struck me. And it wasn't even the whole verse, it was two words, I'll let you guess which words...
"Once you were alienated from God and were enemies in your minds because of your evil behavior. But now, he was reconciled you by Christ's physical body through death to present you holy in his sight, without blemish and free from accusations..."

Did you guess? Well, either way... the two words were "but now." Think about the intensity in those two words. If you are a follower of Christ then there was a time when you were living in what the Bible refers to as "darkness." Meaning you were alienated from the truth of God, you were unaware of GOD's LOVE. BUT NOW, something happened and you follower Christ and you know His LOVE and you experience the freedom that comes from living a life after GOD...

I just pray that you don't take for granted something you heard over and over and over again... Don't miss out on GOD's LOVE... it's life altering. You don't want to miss that transition - But now, - those two words carry so much weight, if you haven't experienced it... don't miss it.

Shameful Rules...

2010-06-08T09:59:00.000-04:00

Researching shame lately and there is so much beneficial information out there once we introduce ourselves to this painful mindset. Here are some unspoken rules that are typically evident in a system based around shame:

- How things look is more important than how things really are...
- What others think is the most important thing...
- Women are here to do what men want...
- Not showing feelings is the same as not having them...
- If you don't have anything nice to say, don't say anything at all...
- God helps those who help themselves...

Unfortunately these rules are rampant in many of our family systems all over the world. Another rule out there is the "can't talk rule." This rule says, the problem isn't the problem, you are the problem because you brought it up. This sort of mentality is extremely dysfunctional and extremely harmful to everyone involved. If we don't break these rules intentionally, we will pass them on accidentally.

God loves you! INTENSELY! Shame-based systems assume the person is the behavior. God sees through that and sees the person as His beloved. It doesn't mean He always approves of what we do, be He knows there is no truth in the statement, "You are what you eat..." God SO loved you... INTENSE LOVE! Start to view yourself the way God views you, it's liberating!

Introspection... can you force it?

2010-06-04T10:51:00.000-04:00

I've been doing a sermon series on youth talking about emotions and being offended. We have been talking about how when we get hurt we put up emotional and relational walls that keep people out of our lives, and more importantly, they keep us from interacting with God. So all of these messages have been about tearing down these walls...cue Hillsong united song...

I know these have been powerful messages, but they are very introspective... how do you force people to evaluate their own lives? Just about every sermon you'll every hear, from Billy Graham to your local minister, involves some form of self-reflection, at least it should... We all have emotional baggage God never intended for us to carry around, how do we get people recognize their lives through biblical principles? Aside from grabbing people by the neck and shaking them, yelling "THIS APPLIES TO YOU!" I think I would do whatever it took...

God is trying to speak to us through the lens of the Bible, I mean they aren't just graphic, humorous, grotesque stories in the Bible... they are there to show us how to live healthy lives. Change isn't an easy thing, but it starts with one step...

And I really don't like the "A journey of a million miles starts with one step" analogy because a failed or abandoned journey starts with one step also. Maybe introspection is a mental one-step at a time journey. I had a student tell me once they had a mini version of herself running around in her head opening and closing file cabinets trying to find information... the little me in my head laughed for probably an hour straight... But maybe she's right. Maybe that's where introspection is at. We have to get people to open the file cabinet with their name on it and sort through the files of their life. If we are really going to affect change we have to get people to put markers in their lives that indicate something different happened from this point on... like a chapter change of life. Introspection isn't just about analyzing for the sake of it, it's about analyzing for the sake of something better. Otherwise it's just contemplation, but introspection indicates some alternate desired outcome.

So at the risk of sound overtly cliche, maybe the mini version of yourself that lives in the crowded cubicle of your mind needs to start reading the files of your life, maybe the mini-you needs to take one step on the journey of introspection...

Everyone needs to watch this... the Tithe Rap (Farm Remix)

2010-06-02T10:38:00.001-04:00

Everyone needs to watch this... the Tithe Rap (Farm Remix)

2010-06-02T10:38:00.000-04:00

These ads are scary...

2010-06-01T16:27:00.000-04:00

I think Hitler is wearing a cape here...

I love two things about this photo... obviously that Jesus is holding hands with this kid, and secondly, how hairy Jesus' legs are...

I think I am like 3 or 4 on this list - Sports Nuts... really? Emos? I wonder who this person's friends are?

Help people overcome porn addiction

2010-05-26T11:58:00.002-04:00

Help people overcome porn addiction

Dark Night...

2010-05-26T10:12:00.000-04:00

Today I was reading John of the Cross's "The Dark Night of the Soul," not the Dark Knight with Heath Ledger, the Dark Night... John's dark night is a little less entertaining to say the least. The dark night is this event that Christ followers have on their spiritual journey when God will remove all of the pleasure and joy out of following God. Exciting stuff I know. I wrestled with this thought for a bit. Will God ever really remove all joy and pleasure from our relationship? And it didn't take me long to look back over my spiritual journey until I could recall several different frustrating times in my life where I felt a serious lack of joy. I'm sure you are the same. You can remember when people have hurt you, when you have been overlooked, when you have been mistreated and, if you are a serious spiritual at all, you would cry out to God and ask, "Why?" Why is a good question, but I think it's probably an errant question here. I think most of our experiences that we assume are spiritual droughts are really people problems...

I've been reading a phenomenal book recently by Chip and Dan Heath called "Switch." And one of the first things they try and teach about change is that what seems to be a people problem is really a situation problem. They talk about a study done at a movie theatre with popcorn. People are fat. And they love popcorn. How do we fix this problem? Give people smaller popcorn buckets... not the people (popcorn eaters) - the situation (popcorn buckets). Fix the situation not the people...

I think we have a misunderstanding of what is actually happening in these "spiritual droughts." Are they really God testing us, or is it just our random quarreling with other humans? I have to be honest, I don't think many people come to this place of extreme brokenness before God, where there is no joy and there is no pleasure. Maybe some do, but I think it is rare and after you get to that point, then what? Does God bring it all back? I really enjoy being a Christian. I'm not saying its always easy, I'm not saying it's always joyful, but the experience of being in a relationship with the Creator of the Universe outweighs any discomfort I may experience. The pros outweigh the cons... I think we really just like to complain and share with people our 'spiritual groanings,' making ourselves seem devout, yet really just facing the typical life problems as everyone else. "Well God is really just workin on me right now, taking me through the desert." Yikes... I hope not, because I imagine a spiritual desert to be far worse than any Sahara you can imagine.

When I read things like the "Dark Night of the Soul." I think of Job. Here is someone who God totally lets get hammered. Job loses all joy, all pleasure, all of his family, all of his possessions, and he still sits down and says, "God is God no matter what." I hope I can get to a place like that someday. I can withstand a lot, but I think my breaking point is somewhere just before earthquakes and tornadoes destroying my life...

Maybe we need to reevaluate situations and see if they are from God, or just a situation where we need to turn to God... Just because things are hard in your life right now, doesn't mean God is taking you through the spiritual gauntlet, but it does mean you should seek His will for your life during the process.

Marketing God...

2010-05-14T11:55:00.000-04:00

I've been reading a couple of books lately - one is "Church Marketing 101," which I must say I bought primarily because of the cover, and I know what you are thinking, "Don't judge a book by its cover." but the guy on the cover looked trendy and I was hooked instantly by his 'Rob Bell-ish' glasses... the other book is "Digital Strategies for Powerful Corporate Communications," no cool guy on the cover of this book, but I love communication.

So I have been in thought about church marketing and how we can give people a good idea about what happens at church. It sounds sacrilegious to even think, "Selling Jesus" but we need to get Jesus' message out there... period! And we need to do a good job at it because we are going to be held responsible to God.

"Marketing is an organizational function and a set of processes for creating, communicating and delivering value to customers and for managing customer relationships in ways that benefit the organization and its stakeholders." (I've italicized what I think are our main responsibilities)

Now we don't need to worry about the value - God will provide that, rather God is the value. But we do need to communicate that value to people who don't know about and people who don't understand it. The delivering part is about giving people the opportunity to connect to God. And finally the managing customer relationships is what church is all about.

Confused yet? Me too... keep reading...

Our job as Christians, and especially mine as a pastor and communicator, is to communicate the value of having a relationship with God. It will enrich your life and empower you to live life to the fullest. As a pastor, when I communicate a message I provide people with the opportunity to connect with God in a real way (in a sense, delivering God to them, or delivering them to God... that sounds weird). And church is supposed to be a fellowship of believers, which should, strengthen our relationship with God together (unfortunately it doesn't always happen that way).

Let's work together and make this happen. WE NEED to make this happen! We need to communicate and deliver the Gospel message. And we, as the church - a living, functioning organism - create healthy relationships with one another.

Piano Stairs - this is awesome!

2010-05-14T10:07:00.000-04:00

What this makes me wonder is the church has the greatest, most fun, beneficial thing to offer people... are we presenting it in the wrong way? Are people choosing the escalator when a little more work is more fun and more beneficial? What are your thoughts?

Effective God...

2010-05-13T10:19:00.000-04:00

So I was reading from Jonathon Edwards this morning... whoa! What an amazingly powerful, practical and relevant guy. I mean for someone around so long ago, it wasn't bizarrely worded, it was simple and dead on. I'll only mention a couple of things that I read, even though I read a ton, because I simply just couldn't stop.

The reading started off with this : "The kind of religion that God requires, and will accept, does not consist in weak, dull, and lifeless "woulding" - those weak inclinations that lack conviction - that raise a little above indifference." This is such an amazing thought. For so long people go through the motions and perform. God isn't after performance, He is after your heart, your devotion, your life. There is nothing in the Bible about going through the motions. If anything God wasn't anti- going-through-the-motions. He was all about radical sacrifice and life-alteration.

The main chunk of my reading was on what Edwards called "the springs of action.' He basically outlined several things that spring us into action. He called them our affections, the things that affect us. There are good things and bad things (love, hate, joy, hope, lust, etc.) These things are what keep our lives in motion. If it wasn't for your love of your family, you might not go to work. The one thing that really kicked me in the head with all this was this:

"There are thousands who hear the Word of God, who hear great and exceedingly important truths about themselves and their lives, and yet all they hear has no affect upon them, makes no change in the way they live. The reason is this: they are not affected by what they hear."

What does this mean? Does the power of the Word of God not hold weight over some people? Is God still not piercing hearts? Is the Holy Spirit done engaging people? Seriously... what does this mean?

I think it means we as a people have become so apathetic to anything other than what immediately concerns us, that if the pastor isn't speaking about our direct, immediate situations we are going to tune them out. We only care about the things that are affecting our lives and if we are talking about something in church that doesn't, guess what... I'm not gonna listen. Which is super unfortunate.

Last night I gave a message about Abraham, and stepping out in faith and expecting God to build a city for us in the future (see Hebrews 11:8-10). Powerful stuff... at least I thought so. I even had all the students do the "Father Abraham" song and dance... what could be more powerful? But only a couple of students responded. It's probably because a story about Abraham being circumcised at 99 years old isn't very relevant. Students aren't worried about sacrificing their son on a mountainside because it's not applicable. And that's my fault... not God's. The story and message are true and good, but it's my job to affect these students with the Word of God.

On our end... let's work on not being such apathetic couch-potatoes.

This commercial is cool!

2010-05-10T15:36:00.000-04:00

Check out how awesome this video is... what would you do if you were just randomly there?

Got the sudden urge to watch American Grafitti...

2010-05-07T10:05:00.000-04:00

This video is hilarious - Swagger Wagon

2010-05-06T20:59:00.000-04:00

This video is hilarious...

Can we really 'pick our battles'?

2010-05-06T15:33:00.000-04:00

I've heard so many times, "pick your battles." Which essentially means, when you see numerous things going on that you disagree with, you choose the most incorrect and deal with it. For the most part I agree with this. If my 16 month old decides to put a piece of grass in her mouth while trying to stab a friend, I will have to address the stabbing first and let the grass pass through her system, even though I really don't support grass eating.

Now that I work with students in the church, I think I might see things differently. Yes I'm still going to stop my daughter from stabbing someone, but I think we need to start addressing the grass eating too. Otherwise my daughter is going to turn into someone who lives out in fields with donkeys eating grass and I would have to prepare a meal of grass when she came home to visit.

My point is, whatever we choose not to address will continue. Whatever battle you choose not to fight will go on and get bigger and harder to defeat. The longer we allow bad habits to go unaddressed, the longer they will go on and the worse and more severe they will become. This is discouraging. I like the idea of defeating big obstacles and letting the others pass by. But the others that pass by, don't disappear they reappear in bigger, meaner, uglier, more harmful sins.

"Pick your battles"... Only if you want patterns of immorality to continue...

Are you a chicken?

2010-04-30T09:44:00.000-04:00

When I was in youth group as a teen, my youth pastor would tell this random story about geese and eagles, that came fully equipped with different goose and eagle sounds. It was like a motivational message. He would say that when flying through a storm, geese would get scared or knew they couldn't handle the winds and rain and would go lay in the mud (HONK, HONK - that's the goose sound). Looking back, I think the mud part was just to make it sound worse, they could have laid on someone's lawn furniture just as easily to wait out the weather. But an eagle, (dramatic super hero entrance music plays) an eagle locks its wings into position and uses the storm to propel it further (SQUAWK!). I was pretty close to my youth pastor so I heard this story several time and could que the squawks and honks. I'm sure it was inspirational to some students, and I hope some locked their metaphorical wings into position and rode out the storms in their life.

I was reading from Francis de Sales today and it reminded me of this story. He talks about different birds, ostriches and chickens (cheep, cheep). Both birds, but neither really fly. Chickens do, but its really more funny than anything and it's usually only a couple of feet off the ground. Many NBA players and skiers fly with more grace than chickens. Francis says that is the way many Christians are. We are trying to get our feet off the ground and fly but we can't seem to get away from our sinful habits.

"Hens fly in a clumsy fashion, near the ground and only once in a while, but eagles, doves and swallows fly aloft, swiftly and frequently. In a like manner, sinners in no way fly up toward God but make their whole course here upon the earth and for the earth."

I don't think he means we are

all awkwardly stumbling around through life, although some people are, I believe he means we struggle to attain that level of spirituality that God wants for us.

My brother toyed around with the idea of writing a children's book. I was actually really surprised at how good it was, nothing against my brother, but I imagine getting published to be a real challenge, but I think this book could have. The premise was about a duck that always struggled to do things, couldn't walk, couldn't swim, couldn't quack, couldn't fly. But over the course of its life it had developed the discipline and perseverance to get passed difficult situations. I think that's what all of our awkward flying leads to. Most people don't set out on a journey with God and then sore in the clouds for the rest of their life. We stumble. We hit the ground hard. But that doesn't mean we give up. We keep at it. We read the Bible, we talk to God and we get passed storms, just in time to regroup and dust ourselves off before the next one. I don't see my life ever being a breeze in the clouds. I imagine there will always be something to trip me up, but the longer I'm a Christian and the more time and energy I devote to God, the longer I stay in the air. If we invest in our spirituality it will show itself in practical ways and our daily lives will improve.

So let me ask you, are you a chicken? Hang in there. Keep awkwardly flappin around...

Passing Judgement... is it for you?

2010-04-23T13:08:00.000-04:00

Because I work in the church, I get the wonderful privilege of being stereotyped with so many generations before me that yelled at people with tattoos and piercings and hippies...thanks a lot (sense the sarcasm). I recently had an experience where several people seemed to be wrong and no one seemed to be telling the truth, leaving me in a pickle with who to reach out to. Well I reached out to more than one of them, even though it is still hard for me to figure out who is right and who is wrong. I talked with a fellow pastor about this and he said he is just trying not to pass judgement on anyone. I immediately nodded along. I will be first to tell you how upset I am at people who turn others off from the church and God because of their narrow-mindedness. A great deal of the time, I feel like I am doing damage-control because of what other people have said and done in "the-name-of-God." It's infuriating...

But then I thought some more... it seems like more and more articles that I read suggest the confrontational sort of approach to ministry. Our generation has been given everything and that's why we are so fickle. Think about careers. If we don't like what we are doing, we have been told the whole world is available and so we abandon one career and jump to the next thing that tickles our fancy. The world is our oyster. And since Christ's message can be confrontational people don't like it. They head to coffee shop churches and mega-churches with anonymity and refreshments...not correction. Nothing against either of these types of churches as long as they confront people with the hard truths found in Scripture. Maybe our approach to reaching people distant from God should be more abrasive and less passive. I mean, was Jesus passive?

But then I thought some more... "Do not judge, or you too will be judged." (Matthew 7:1) I'm not interested in being judged. But doesn't the Bible say I'm going to be judged no matter what? Revelation 20:13 says "each person was judged according to what they had done." The passage in Matthew goes on to describe cleaning the massive amount of sin out of our own lives before correcting the speck in someone else's. Not to boast, but my life is pretty good. I follow God everyday, read my Bible, pray everyday, grow, grow, grow (too much Sunday School as a kid...); does that enable me to be the steward of God and hand out consequences? Jesus himself said, "Do not suppose that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I did not come to bring peace, but a sword." Aren't we supposed to be Christ's representation to people today? Confused yet? Me too...

Where's the line? How far can we go? People seem pretty irritated by judgement and correction, but don't they need some? The Bible says when we present the message of God to people it will be like the smell of death, maybe we should expect people to be turned off...? Is there a happy medium where we can all just get along?

I think the true answer lies where so many other answers do... the cross. Yes, Jesus came with a sword of correction, but He also performed the ultimate act of grace when He laid down His life for the same people He was correcting. Grace is limitless and reaches far beyond tattoos, hippies and druggies...it reaches to the worst criminals imaginable. Grace is about forgiveness. Yes we are to preach the truth of God's Word, but truth without grace is judgement and that's where we get into trouble. For many years, overly judgmental pastor preached with more criticism than forgiveness and truth. We aren't out to save the world only God can do that, we also aren't out to judge the world, only God can do that. But we are hear to spread the Word in entirety.

Let me leave you with some parting words from Jesus, "My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends...If the world hates you, keep in mind that it hated me first. If you belonged to the world, it would love you as its own. As it is, you do not belong to the world, but I have chosen you out of the world...If they persecuted me [and they did], they will also persecute you. If they obeyed my teaching [and they did], they will obey yours also." (brackets are mine).

God is calling us to spread the message of the Gospel to all the world: in truth and in love.

America's Money Issues... solvable?

2010-04-15T09:35:00.000-04:00

So I was watching the news the other day, apparently I was in the mood to be depressed, and that's exactly what happened. News of wars, buildings collapsing, trapped miners, volcanoes, earthquakes, and of course how horrible our economy and our government is. But I decided to do a little research myself, and I do mean a 'little' research, I'm certainly no statistician or economic expert. But I do know times are hard financially for practically everyone in America, and if times aren't hard for you, praise God, help out the rest of us! So the following is what I've found:

- Americans spend over $382 BILLION on alcoholic beverages in a single year

- Americans spend over $13 BILLION on pornography in a single year ($90 billion worldwide)

- Americans spend over $140 BILLION on fast food in a single year

- Americans spend over $10 BILLION going to the movies in a single year

- Americans spent over $9 BILLION at Starbucks last year

These are just a few things that total over $550 BILLION on incredibly wasteful spending. I'm not innocent, I like McDonald's and Starbucks and going to the movies. But if we are in such economic crisis, maybe, as a country, we put down the beer and porn and start making some wise financial decisions.

1 Corinthians 6:12 says, "Everything is permissible for me - but not everything is beneficial. Everything is permissible for me, but I will not be mastered by anything."

This verse is telling us we have the liberty and ability to do practically anything we can imagine, but how much of it is really good for us? We can spend our money on anything, but where will it lead us... Oh wait, I know... it will lead us to right where we are, economic crisis. I heard Dave Ramsey once say, "Debt is like financial whining. 'I want it.'" I hope we haven't become a country of whiners, spending money we don't have on stuff that will do us more harm than good. Check that verse out again. You can do whatever you want, but what is going to benefit you?

I lost my wedding ring, what did you lose?

2010-02-16T09:22:00.000-05:00

So I went sledding yesterday with a bunch of students from our youth group. It was an awesome time, it's funny how seeing 16 year-olds fly off of a sled into a bank of snow can really make you laugh. However, it's not funny how much sledding hurts today rather than yesterday when I was falling down (makes me feel old). We had a really great time hanging out, sledding, sipping cocoa... it was a fun day. Sitting there in one of our hosts recliners I randomly noticed some horrific news... I lost my wedding ring. It's weird to lose something like that, I never take it off, I typically instantly notice when it is not on, but for some reason... it was gone. I looked all over the house and then made the horrific trudge outside, knowing if it was out there, I wouldn't find it. I mean we have about three feet of snow right now, not to mention we were sledding over probably four or five acres of land. My mood instantly sank. And of course my wife is off visiting her family a couple hours away, so I had to make the dumb husband phone call and tell her I lost my wedding ring, the ring she placed on my finger years ago telling me she loved me and reminding me of it everyday...I would have rather looked for this ring by myself rather than with a herd of students, not that they couldn't be helpful, but because of how emotional I felt. It might sound lame, but I wanted to cry...maybe it would have been different if my wife had been there and we could have been angry and sad together, but it was like I was all alone again...

I wasn't all alone, my wife was upset, but she is still my wife and she still loves me. The hardest part for me to understand was how it could have just fallen off, this ring never falls off! It must have happened amidst a snowball fight where I took my gloves off to pack snowballs more accurately (and yes I checked that spot for the ring thoroughly). And then all of a sudden like alight bulb going off in my head, I noticed... it's gone...

I wonder what sort of a light bulb needs to go off for us to realize our relationship with Christ is suddenly gone? Sort of like the ring on my finger, the longer we don't think about our relationship with Christ, the sooner we'll start to neglect it. And then all of a sudden...poof, it's gone. I can't see many people sitting down with the Bible and just overruling every belief about God they have or checking off every detail of their relationship with God and then setting the Bible down putting their relationship with God to rest. If that happens I think it's probably rare. More often then not I think people probably make decisions that seem appropriate or beneficial at the time. Drinking too much with some friends seemed like a fun idea at the time. Skipping one class couldn't amount to too much lost. Going out to dinner with this coworker of the opposite sex, that isn't my spouse, doesn't mean anything... we're just eating. Taking a little extra cash from the drawer won't mean anything in the long run of this mega-corporation. But all of the decisions like this mean something in the long run of our life... Every decision we make cultivates our existence. Every choice we make, everything we do determines the life we are creating for ourselves. Are we going to be a good person or a bad one? What kind of morals do we have? It's not so much what you say about these things, but how you act that really determines what you believe. And too many times people make decisions that negatively affect their relationship with their Creator.

If we neglect to take care of our life with God, then we are going to be alone... God is always out there, waiting to be discovered. Just like my ring is out there somewhere waiting for me to dig it out from the snow filled yard and slip it on my finger like it was never gone. God wants to be a part of your life, your decisions, your beliefs, your thinking, your family, your everything... But we have to turn and make those decisions, we have to pick Him up, we have to discover Him, we have to embrace Him...

Maybe this is what people used to mean when they said, "Have you found Jesus?" I love the sarcastic response, "I didn't know He was lost." No, He's not lost... He is where He has always been... we just left Him there and walked away and we lost Him. Just like I lost my ring...

LOST alternate endings...

2010-02-04T11:31:00.000-05:00

So I'm obsessed with LOST, if you haven't watched it DON'T! It will suck away a good portion of your life. Anyways, if you haven't caught up, don't keep reading...

The start of the 6th season, is mega-confusing. Apparently blowing up the bomb at the end of season five worked, but it didn't work also. They were trying to make all of the island action never happen and end up in LA where their plane was originally supposed to land, and that's what happened... for at least half of the episode. The other half makes you believe it didn't work and they are still trapped on the island. MEGA-CONFUSING, but mega-awesome also.

I read an article that talked about what they believe is going on...(see how obsessed you become, I am reading articles to try and unravel the mystery of a TV show, that's pathetic). The article said they were playing out two dimensions, two worlds, two time frames... because what they did worked it reset everything and they are living their lives out, landing in LA like nothing happened, but they can't just undo everything so they are also living in another time frame... sort of Back to the Future-ish, or like an alternate ending on a movie, but both the alternate ending and the actual movie happening simultaneously.

I think this is the perfect example as to how many of us live out our lives. We live one way at home, another way at work, maybe another way at church or wherever. We have alternate endings with different friends and alternate endings for different locations. It's the classic two-face scenario. You can be whoever you want wherever you go...

I've been watching LOST for too long now. I can't keep up with all of the questions, characters, drama and lies. It's all too much, there is too much going on, too many secrets, too many questions, too many people, too many unknowns. I can't handle it. I am really just watching for it all to be over now (and I love it!).

Aren't you kind of just waiting for all your different personas to be over? Hoping that it will all be done and you can just be one person again? Why are you playing the games of secrecy and lying when you could just be one person? One agenda. One life. One set of morals. Not two, not three, not countless stories to different people at work and home and church. Just be you. Be who God made you to be. Stop the different dimensions of you, stop the alternate endings. Pick the right one and go with it...

Change huh?

2010-02-03T10:59:00.001-05:00

Change is a scary thing. I'm not sure anyone really likes it or wants it. Even through difficult times people will stay in their miserable state to avoid change. Why? What's the matter with us? Why do we find it so hard to do something new?

I recently read a blog about change. This person thought change was necessary and inevitable. "There is never anything wrong with change." Wow... that's a pretty bold statement. Never anything wrong with change, they say changing for the 'right reasons,' is a good idea and site a verse to back it up... Changing for the right reasons is definitely a good thing, but what if you change into something bad? If there is something in your life that needs change, here's an idea... CHANGE! But makes sure you are strategic about it, make sure you are intentional about where you are going to end up. Don't just change because you are unhappy or because you can't win. If it seems like you are constantly losing in some situation or just banging your head against the wall, step back and evaluate, don't rush into change.

God says, "I the Lord do not change." Aren't we supposed to be called to be like God? The problem is we aren't like God, we are like...well, not God that's for sure. If you are going to change, ok, but if you are going to change something and end up less like God, don't change. But if you are simply changing to ease your mind or feel better, then maybe you are changing for the wrong reason. Change because you are changing to be like God, not because you are unhappy.

James 4:7-10 says, "Submit yourselves, then, to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. Come near to God and he will come near to you. Wash your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded. Grieve, mourn and wail. Change your laughter to mourning and your joy to gloom. Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will lift you up." Laughter to mourning? That doesn't sound like an appealing change. But when we reflect upon our unGod-like state, perhaps a little humility is more appropriate than a big cheerful, smiley countenance.

There is a big sign hanging in the sanctuary of our church with a Bible verse written on it. I don't really like it, not the Bible verse, I don't really like the sign. The verse is great, I wish more people read it, but the sign looks kind of weird I think. It's a pretty familiar verse though, 2 Chronicles 7:14 says, " if my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then will I hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and will heal their land."

Want God to hear you? Turn from your wicked ways. Change. But change to get closer to God. Change to be more like God, not to make yourself happy. Step back and evaluate your change and make sure you are changing for the right reasons and changing into something that will make God happy.

What are you planning for?

2010-01-26T09:25:00.000-05:00

Today I was reading about Thomas a Kempis's thoughts on death and whatever there could be afterwards...as usual he sheds some very profound light on the subject. He talks about sin, the present and what we should be planning for. "Very soon you life here will end; consider, then what may be in store for you elsewhere. Today we live; tomorrowe we die and are quickly forgotten..." What really perplexed me about this chapter was how a Kempis says we should plan ahead but then criticizes people who do. Let me explain... In this chapter a Kempis talks about how foolish it is to plan ahead for long life. "Why do you plan to live long when you are not sure of living even a day? How many have been decieved and suddenly snatched away! How often have you heard of persons being killed by drownings, by fatal falls from high places, or persons dying at meals, at play, in fires, by the sword, in pestilence, or at the hands of robbers! Death is the end of everyone and the life of man quickly passes away like a shadow." First let me commend him for thinking of so many different ways you can die. I mean really, falling from high places? He must have really been trying to shake the fear of death into people. But he wasn't. In this very same chapter he criticizes people who live life walking on egg shells hoping not to, well, fall off high places, or any other style of death out there. He basically says that is no way to live at all, in fact, "it is better to avoid sin than to fear death." But back to him criticizing planning ahead... He is basically saying why are you spending so much time investing in something you very well may not get to see? He's not saying don't benefit society or plan to make the world a better place, but he is saying what are you doing about it now? A lot of us spend a great deal of time thinking and planning to make our lives a little bit easier tomorrow or a little ways down the line. We add more money to our retirement, pad our 401ks, invest in stocks and bonds and tips we heard from people... but all of this planning could easily be for nothing if tomorrow never comes. But there are ways to plan and act that will make a difference...

The second aspect of a Kempis's is directly related to the after life. This is the type of planning we should be doing, thinking about our eternal resting place which is literally just a step ahead of us everywhere we go. a Kempis says, "Think of nothing but your salvation. Care only for the things of God." Now he isn't saying spend 24/7 in the church, but he is saying to spend your time/energy/money on what God's will is for you life. You could send money to an orphanage, build an orphanage, spread the word about the AIDS epidemic in Africa, go to Africa, provide for someone in need, give to a local charity... the point is the only type of planning that matters is one that ends with you spending eternity with Jesus.

So my question is simple, what are you planning for? Thomas a Kempis's opening statement says it plainly. "Very soon your life here will end; consider, then what may be in store for you elsewhere." What are you spending your resources on? Is it something God would be pleased with or is it something all about you? What are you planning for?

The Treadmill of Conditional Love...

2010-01-21T10:04:00.000-05:00

When I was living in Minneapolis I heard a great message about making people happy, especially our loved ones and parents. The speaker said, "At some point you have to realize, your parents' happiness can't come from you. You aren't responsible for making your parents happy." I had to opportunity to share this with a student recently who was going through a situation like this. One of the student's parents was very conditional with their love. Always a performance based sort of situation. The student shared with me about feeling like they needed to get excellent grades and do well athletically. Every area of their life needed to not only be fine-tuned, but better than everyone else's too. It wasn't just a matter of doing well, it was doing SO well that they outperformed everyone at everything they ever did. Getting a B on an exam wasn't even an option, in fact an A wasn't really good enough unless it was 99% or higher. The student told me about a time coming home from a sporting event with a friend in the car the student's parent went on and on about how well the friend did but didn't even acknowledge their own child's exceptional performance. Sometimes I wonder how people can be so narrowly focused. I mean this student is off-the-charts awesome! So incredibly talented and the possibilities for their future is limitless, but the parent either didn't see it or it wasn't good enough.

I tried to counsel this student, praying God would give me some sort of profound insight that would help heal the wounds that still seemed fresh. I said sometimes parents project on their children because of things that happened in their childhood. Maybe they didn't do so well in school and so you have to do amazing otherwise they believe your adult years will be marked with mediocrity. Perhaps they weren't athletically gifted at all so they need their child to perform extremely well at a number of different sports.

It's almost like that twisted show on TLC or something with the child beauty pageants. I'm sure you have seen these commercials too. Now I've never actually watched this show so it may not be fair of me to judge the women on this show, but, well here goes... For the most part it seems just like these women have gone off the deep end and no longer care about their child's mental well-being and are now more concerned with fulfilling some fantasy of their own through their child. I've seen commercials where it shows the girls throwing temper-tantrums and screaming like little divas. I can't imagine the conversations on the way home for some these girls that don't place well in competition... Hopefully these women have enough sense not to tell their little girls, who have clearly built looks and appearance highly in their minds because their mothers enter them in beauty competitions, hopefully they aren't telling them things like they need to be better looking, or more talented... that would be so traumatic.

I told this student about the love of Christ and the love that God has for each of us. It's an unconditional love. A love that doesn't depend on getting an A in Chemistry or scoring 30 points at a basketball game. It's a love that loves all the time, through speeding tickets, failed exams, cheerleading competitions in the rain, sitting fourth or fifth chair through a band recital, broken relationships... its a never-ending, all-giving-never-taking, sacrificial, unconditional love. God loves us no matter what we look like, how we perform, who our parents are, what kind of car we drive, who our friends are, no matter where you have been and what you have done and all the mistakes we have made... no matter what! God loves us (period).

I told this student that it seems like he was running on a treadmill. The parent would dangle their happiness in front of the student like a carrot. If you keep running and keep performing well then I'll be happy, but if you stumble or even get distracted for a second then the carrot of fulfillment moves farther away. It's a twisted strategy that ruins more than one life at a time... it's unhealthy for the parent and the student, and basically anyone either of them interact with. I told them to get off the treadmill, you'll never make them happy... it's not your job. There is no point off in the distance of treadmill running that will meet your quota for parental fulfillment, you'll just be running for ever. The only real fulfillment comes from Christ and acceptance of His free love. That's where we find self-worth, where we find happiness.

It's certainly not just a student issue. Many people believe climbing to the next rung on the corporate ladder will mean happiness and fulfillment, or at least a break... but it doesn't. Chances are it means more work, more stress, more headaches and more dysfunction. What point in your mind do you have that you think, "If only I can get there, then things will be okay, then I'll be happy." Do you really think you'll be happy? Are you running on the treadmill with a fictitious carrot dangling in front of you?

The Power of Faith...

2010-01-19T10:08:00.000-05:00

The other night I was reading an article by an author on PsychToday's webpage. He told this really amazing story about a female speaker he had the opportunity to hear. This woman managed to survive the horrific genocide that happened in Rwanda. If you don't know much about what happened in Rwanda, you really should, some of the things that were done are horrific to read about let alone many people, such as this woman, lived it. This woman and several others were taken in by a pastor. He hid them in a very small bathroom in the rear of his home. Six women in a 3foot by 4foot bathroom for over 90 days. Each of the women lost half of their body weight, simply trying to stay alive by hiding from the people committing these terrible acts. Finally they came to the pastor's house seeking to find people to kill, rape and torture. They searched outside, under bushes, in trees, on the roof, in every room of the house. Then they came to the small, locked bathroom in the back of the house. The woman said it was then that she found herself throwing up some prayers for God to deliver her from this horrible situation. She said she heard two voices; the first said, "Just open the door and get it over with," and the second said, "Be calm, I will protect you." And He did. They left the house without ever jiggling the handle to the bathroom. The six women walked out into a town they couldn't even recognize. Littered with dead, decaying bodies. The woman then started reading the Bible and managed to teach herself English because of it, she could only say the words in her head because she could have been harmed if someone over heard her. This is truly a miraculous story of healing and salvation.

But the author of the article didn't think so. He thought it was just circumstantial. I suppose she was just lucky... He believes perhaps it is these types of experiences that lead people to faith, but he apparently hasn't had any. The author suffers from Asperger's Syndrome which is a type of autism. He recounts several times where he has been on the brink of death or extreme physical peril and he says every time he survived he credits it to himself for rising above adversity, personal success, or some sort of inner strength he was able to call upon to get him through. He closes out his article by saying he hasn't any experience where it was mandatory to call upon faith to survive. He remains a good person and he knows it because people tell him and that's how he will continue to live until something changes.

There is one line in his article that I couldn't get over... "Fortune favors those who prepare for it." I'm sorry to anyone who enjoyed this article and I'm sure this guy is an awesome guy, but for the most part I found this to be one of the most obvious displays of narcissism I have ever seen. "Fortune favors those who prepare for it..."really? So then the opposite must be true. Misfortune favors people who don't prepare for favor or who don't try and better their situations? What a bunch of garbage! Go over to Haiti and tell that to the people still lying under piles of buildings that fell on them... From someone struggling with such a disorder, I am appalled to hear something like that. To think that you haven't had experiences that point to faith is ridiculous... you just don't look in the right direction. I'm sure you have had hundreds of situations that point directly to Christ, let alone a belief in any God, and you simply choose to look inwardly and pat yourself on the back. Well good work on all of your accomplishments and all of your wonderful accolades... let's hope eternity rewards you appropriately.

Here is the link to the article: http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/my-life-aspergers/201001/the-power-faith

"It's the abilities, not disabilities, that count."

2010-01-15T10:27:00.000-05:00

Today I was reading a wonderful insight from Peter Drucker the leadership guru and he had a really cool thought. He said the spirit of an organization hinges upon the abilities not the disabilities. Inscribed on Andrew Carnegie's tombstone are these words: "Here lies a man, who knew how to enlist, in his service, better men than himself." Pretty profound stuff from someone who helped shape our country from the beginning. "It's the abilities, not the disabilities, that count." This means that we need to focus on all of the talents and capabilities of the people around us rather than spending the majority of our time on the problems and hindrances that plague staff meetings and brainstorming sessions.

I love the movie Patch Adams, except that the girl gets killed. I hate that part. Maybe I'm a little too optimistic and hopeful in my movie watching, but this was true story also. I especially like the parts where Robin Williams is in the mental institution staying with the guy who is afraid of squirrels... something like that would happen to me (plus I've lived in Minneapolis where the squirrels are the size of minivans and steal food right off of your table while your sitting there... devilish little kamikazes). But Patch meets and elderly man who throws tables around and calls everyone idiots, who was at one time supposedly a genius. Patch goes to the man and tries to uncover this crazy question the man asks everyone when holding up four fingers... "How many do you see?" When everyone answers four, the man runs off and calls them a moron or something. But talking with the gentleman a little longer, Patch discovered something interesting. The man was so fixated on getting past the problem and to the solution that he was no longer looking at the problem. Once Patch changed his perception and looked beyond the problem he saw the correct answer.

President Franklin D. Roosevelt had a man working for him during WWII named Harry Hopkins. This man was near death, very sick, every step he took was torture and brought him nearer to the grave. But he was productive and talented, so Roosevelt wanted him around. But because the man was so sick he could only work for a few hours a day, which forced him to cut out anything that wasn't an immediate necessity. Winston Churchill called him the "Lord Heart of the Matter." It is recorded that he accomplished more than anyone in wartime Washington.

I think there are problem areas of our lives that we should prioritize this intensely. What problems are you so focused on that you haven't even started to search for the solution? How can you reallocate your abilities to conquer whatever is disabling you? "It's the abilities, not disabilities, that count."

Confrontation: No One Likes it...

2010-01-12T09:36:00.000-05:00

So I was watching the Bachelor last night (please take a moment to chuckle and belittle my manhood, I'm sure watching such a pathetic show calls for it) and it was a pretty peculiar episode. Without offering names and giving you the show in every detail, one girl apparently had sex with a crew member since the onset of the show (again take a second and laugh at obvious stupidity). She was then confronted and asked to leave the show by the host-guy, Chris... I think. After their conversation she muttered some random remarks and stomped off to her pack her belongings. What intrigued me about this the most was the confrontation. As much as I want to believe the whole incident was staged by ABC, the body language and dialogue between the two seemed pretty genuine (perhaps just good video editing). Chris pulled the woman well enough aside that no one could hear their conversation and began by spilling the beans. He called her out and she just sort of stood their like a deer in headlights, caught, in trouble, kicked off the show. I can only imagine the weird "I'm-in-trouble" feeling she was having in her stomach at that moment. And Chris the host of the show looked just as awkward, and I think I heard the word awkward come up a couple times between them. He said the same thing over and over, "It's not fair," "We take this serious," which should have been 'seriously,' but whatever...

Other than give you the rest of the play-by-play of the exciting bachelor night, the point is, where do we learn how to be assertive and confrontational? I think to some degree we just think certain people are good at it, especially celebrities, people on TV or our superiors, but I'm not sure that's the case. We think since we see someone in a movie or an interview calm, cool and collected then they must always feel comfortable in every situation. I would imagine they get those sick feelings in the stomach just like us employees and random people. The only thing I can think of that would make someone better or more comfortable with confrontation is experience.

Think back to the Bachelor episode... when you have had to have a confrontational conversation with someone, don't you typically say the same thing over and over again hoping that one point clear everything up and they will automatically see things your way. "Well your performance just really isn't on par with what we would like to see from you... We really need you to step your day-to-day performance... If you look at some of the projects you have handled they just aren't up to our standards of performance." For as often as you say that one main point it seems like they still walk out of the office in a fog. They usually sit there just like this blonde stood there listening to the host... they seem to be apathetic, indignant, not saying much, throwing out a few random comments to either contradict what you're saying or a reassurance that things will get better, a lot of nodding usually takes place.

I recently wrote about passive-aggressive people and their deceptive ways and how the real happy medium is assertiveness. But how do we attain assertion? Where does it come from? A seminar? A book? Some good advice? Not likely, the only place I can think of is experience. Unless you are some sort of overly confident, narcissistic individual that recognizes everyone as their inferior then my guess is you are one of those people that would say, "I really just don't like confrontation." Well no one does... but get over it, cause you have to confront people sooner or later, or they are going to walk up and down your back and you will always be miserable. My recommendation would be to start small. If your kid steps out of line on a small thing, call them out on it. It will slowly start to push them back in line and it will help you get better at confronting the big things. If you have an employee who is a real problem, dock them a sick day for frequent tardies. It will let them know you are pulling the reins a little tighter. Then when you really have to crack the whip they will know you mean business and you will have affirmed your assertion early on.

In everything there needs to be a measure of grace, but even Jesus pushed some tables over when people were acting like idiots. I'm sure the conversation on the Bachelor was super awkward for even the cameraman last night, but some times you have to kick trampy blonde models off of your show... are you ready to confront some people? Be ready, it's gonna happen sooner or later...

Passive-Aggressive People...

2010-01-08T09:59:00.000-05:00

I was reading an article recently about passive-aggressive people and their behavior... It seems like more and more people choose the passive-aggressive route rather than any other form of communication anymore. Chances are your mind has already fluttered up thoughts of individuals you really can't stand because of their twisted tendencies. Being passive-aggressive isn't aggression and it's not passivity... its a little of both, but I wouldn't say that it's in the middle of the spectrum either. It's passive and it's aggressive... brilliant stuff I know. Passive-aggressive people find ways to sabotage, undermine, deceive and betray. In a way, they try to retaliate for a wrong that the individual (certainly not you or me) feels was committed to him/her. We withhold, disengage, make excuses and blame others for our own mistakes, all the while keeping "intact" this strained relationship.

You see this a lot in the boss-employee relationship. I used to work at a really large retail chain store with around 150 employees in an incredible high-traffic area. I can't possibly imagine how I survived holiday shoppers and, even worse, how I survived retail managers during the holidays (must have been the grace of God). Most of the managers I worked with were pretty cool, they were younger mid to late 20s, but there were a couple that were stuck in the retail machine into their 40s and 50s... nothing against this if is what you love doing, more power to you. There was this one over-the-hill manager where I worked who may have been one of the most passive-aggressive people I have ever met. She was a really nice lady, big glasses, crazy out of style hairdo, and waddled instead of walking... and she was always carrying her "I'm the leader" clipboard. For some reason any time I wanted to leave early or had to call off because I was sick, she was the one that answered the phone. She was so great at making me feel bad about how busy the store was and how she needed me to be there, blah, blah, blah... and I'd end up feeling bad, which I probably should have. It was my job to be there. They don't call it work because it's like playing video games... it's work. Anyways, when I would work with her later, I would always have a bit of a chip on my shoulder, always secretly hoping I would have some enormous problem even to great for seasoned veteran like herself. I was a little more shut down in conversations with her, decided to not notice her walking through the store sometimes, left without saying goodbye. You tell me, whose really in the wrong?

Two of the main symptoms of passive-aggressive people that go hand-in-hand are guilt and manipulation. When a passive-aggressive person communicates with you there always seems to be a 'this-is-your-fault' slant, as if they are trying to get you to do something. "Well, I guess if you're going to be late there is nothing you can do... We are all just going to be sitting here waiting for you, so try and get here as soon as you can." There is a layer of guilt embedded there. Probably not your fault you are going to be late, but all of a sudden everyone waiting on you blames you for the delay. They say 'hurt people hurt people,' well, guilty people leverage guilt. Watch out for them, because there is something sort of inner anger or insecurity they aren't exposing. Not only that but you have been manipulated into rushing through whatever engagement is detaining you potentially hurting someone else. Any relationship laced with guilt or manipulation is unhealthy and desperately needs to be cleansed or abandoned... trust me.

I can't imagine Jesus struggling not to be passive-aggressive. He knew who He was, He knew what He was doing, there wasn't some sort of ulterior motive He was trying to manipulate people into, and you never see Him pushing loads of guilt on people (and if anyone could have He could have). Jesus wasn't guilty, He didn't need to use guilt to manipulate people... He used truth. Jesus was in the middle of the spectrum, not part passive part aggressive... He was assertive. He knew what to say and how to say it. He had knowledge and wisdom and it guided Him (what a novel concept). He wasn't afraid of what people were going to think, rather than try and salvage a relationship Jesus was honest enough to hit people with the truth with some love to go with it. Assertion is knowledge. It is knowing who you are, knowing what you need to do, knowing your relationships, knowing God, knowing where you want to be... being assertive is healthy. Jesus was assertive... are you?

Resolving to Change...

2010-01-05T16:10:00.000-05:00

Well it's the new year... I'm sure you're all as thrilled as I am. It seems like the older I get the less and less I care about transitioning from December to January, is it really that big of a deal? But what it does provide us with is the opportunity for reflection. What did I accomplish this past year? What caused me to fail or stumble? What will I do differently this next year? How can I make these things happen? I know you all make a list like this on January 1st... yeah right. Neither do I, but it's probably a good idea. What else is the change good for? It's a fresh start, a redo, a second chance, a third chance, maybe a fourth chance or however many it takes. The new year's celebration is what? A celebration of death of another year? The celebration of the birth of another year? A celebration of success or failure? Expectation or reflection? The new year is typically a time when people make all sorts of resolutions that they hope will change the course of their life or make their life better in some way... people don't generally make resolutions to hurt their lives. Yet what is a resolution? A resolution is a promise, proclamation or good intentioned attempt to do the right thing this time around. Yet for the most part a resolution is simply an acknowledgment that something in our lives isn't aligned correctly, that we have made some mistakes that we don't want to continue. For the most part if we were really going to change, or resolve, whatever issue we are declaring immunity to, we would just stop doing it. If you really wanted to stop drinking, then stop. If you want to join the gym in the new year and lose weight, just do it. Think about it, if there was something you really wanted to change, you would just do it. Really, how many new year's resolutions can you remember keeping until year's end? Probably very few if any. I read a psychology article recently that said resolutions are basically an excuse for people to binge on their dirty little habit one last time without feeling bad about it. "Well I'm going on a diet on January 1st so I need to eat a huge breakfast, a huge lunch, and an enormous dinner with two sides of dessert on December 31." What?!? That just sounds dumb. If you really wanted to resolve something about your life, you would just change. So change! Don't wait for some magical date that is going to allow you to keep up whatever your habit it. If you want to have a better relationship with your spouse, start now! If you want to lose weight, stop reading and go to the gym... wait... keep reading then go to the gym. The point is resolutions shouldn't be a anything more than change. Change is the answer and change can happen anytime you let it. Change now, or tomorrow, or tonight or immediately! Change the next way you interact with your spouse, or the next interaction with your boss or that annoying kid in your class. Change is up to you... If you are going to make any resolution this year, how about resolving to change...

Valley of Dead Decaying Cats...

2009-12-30T10:14:00.001-05:00

I was talking with Julie, my wife, the other night and we were talking about revival and what it means. Lately I have been feeling like God is about to do something really tremendous in our midst, as long as we don't blow it. But she is very smart and she said the story of the "Valley of Dry Bones" has been on her mind lately, which is cool because that is totally a story about revival and renewal. In Ezekiel 37, God leads Ezekiel into a valley of bones, dried up dead bones. And God makes them all come to life. It's a foreshadowing of what God wanted to do through the people of Israel, and it's a foreshadowing of what God wants to do through us. Revival is about reconnecting with God powerfully. It doesn't necessarily have anything to do with masses of people or media or craziness, it simply has to do with God RE-connecting, RE-viving, RE-newing... its about a coming back to God. And frankly revival itself shouldn't be necessary, we should constantly be in a sovereign state with God, but unfortunately life gets messy and we need to RE-connect.

It makes me think of that show "Hoarders." I know I talked about this show awhile ago, and if you haven't seen it, I'm not sure if you should watch it or not...super gross, but amazing insights into people (at least I think so). These people were once normal, functioning, healthy people but somewhere along the way they gave up on healthy behavior and made decisions that wrecked their lives and so wrecked their lives that a TV station noticed and came and filmed the misery. But there is hope, they can clean, but not without help. Someone has to say, "You need help. Let's film this mess and clean it up." (I added the film part for dramatic effect). I watched as they cleaned up one lady's home and of course all of these women have cats, lots and lots and lots of cats. And because they can't take care of themselves they can't take care of their pets and their cats die. And they decay in the rubble. Gross, but a picture of how horribly derailed life can get.

The Story of the Valley of Dry Bones is a story of hope, restoration, relief and salvation. It would be like God making one of these gross dead cats come to life and say, "Look lady, this dump needs cleaned up and God can help!" First the lady would probably fall off of her garbage heap because her dead cat climbed out of layers of trash and then spoke to her... But then I could see her cry because of how real the mess becomes when she has the opportunity for cleansing. This is why revival is so powerful. We get the opportunity to see what a mess we have made things and then we become so insanely grateful for the healing that takes place. And God is the only one who can bring it. God is the one who sends scary pets to shake us out of decaying complacent state, so He can clean up the mess and RE-vive us. That's what revival is.

Ezekiel 37:1-3 says, "The hand of the Lord was upon me, and he brought me out by the Spirit of the Lord and set me in the middle of a valley; it was full of bones. He led me back and forth among them, and I saw a great many bones on the floor of the valley, bones that were very dry. He asked me, "Son of man, can these bones live?" I said, "O Sovereign Lord, you alone know."

God only knows. But He'll show you your valley of 'a great many bones.' Can they live again?

Open Your Mouth and Digest

2009-12-29T09:25:00.000-05:00

This past weekend was a little crazy, it was the weekend following Christmas after all. Hopefully all of you have recuperated. There was something I celebrated that wasn't Christmas related though... on Saturday my one year old daughter Elizabeth finished her first jar of baby food for me! Now I know what you are thinking, "Not a big deal." Well maybe not to you, but after watching my wife shovel jar after jar into the baby's mouth, I wanted a piece of the action. But every time I would try she would get fussy, or start pushing the spoon away or spitting the slushy food all over me and then laughing about it. But finally I caught her when she was so hungry she didn't care that it was me, she didn't mind being fed my dear old dad. I felt myself getting excited towards the end of the jar, but didn't want to distract myself or the baby from our current situation. She started to get a little upset every time my wife would walk through the kitchen, but a little wave of the magic wand (i.e. the spoon with food on it) and she was back to business. It was really exciting, ok mildly entertaining maybe... alright, alright totally a moment of enjoyment only for father-daughter, maybe even just father but I was still pretty charged up about it.

Afterwards, I wondered how many times God offers us something and we push it away. Sometimes we take what God gives us but we don't understand the full capabilities of what God offers and we neglect the gift and it doesn't mean much. The ultimate gift from God is salvation. Salvation from sin. Salvation from addiction, depression, loneliness, pain, bitterness, and any other emotion of "hang-up" life brings our way. Salvation is what God wants to give each of us. But sometimes we are too stubborn to open our mouths and eat this spiritual and life-altering food. I can just see God getting excited when He knows we are about to take those steps leading towards salvation, just like I was on the edge of my kitchen chair near the end of the baby food jar. Even if you are in a slump of life and things are going poorly and you don't see any end in sight, God might be sitting on the edge of His seat because you are taking some steps toward Him. That's what God wants. He wants to give us gifts that will change and benefit our lives... but ultimately it is up to us. We have to accept His gifts, we have to take those steps, we have to open our mouths and digest. When we make decisions that lead us towards God we are taking steps toward accepting his gifts, we are digesting that spiritual food. When we change our behavior to align our lives with God's Word we are digesting spiritual food. And then God will be far more excited than I was when Elizabeth finished her jar of turkey and carrots. Wherever you are, whatever you are going through, take some steps toward God. Open your mouth, eat, and digest... and He'll rejoice.

Merry Christmas

2009-12-24T16:52:00.000-05:00

I hope everyone has a Merry Christmas! All I am going to say is that I hope all of you guys remember what the real meaning of Christmas is... it's not about gifts, family, food, or basically anything our society says it is about. Christmas is about Jesus. Jesus is the reason we celebrate. Jesus is the reason we should celebrate everyday. All of our lives should be a celebration for Him, bring glory to Him. The reason Christ came to Earth was because there were a lot of lost people roaming around and they needed someone to point them in the right direction... enter Jesus. This holiday season take an extra special second to thank God for all that He has done for you and if you can't think of anything, maybe you shouldn't celebrate Christmas this year. But trust me there are numerous reasons to be thankful...

Do Well Before You Do Good

2009-12-22T09:35:00.001-05:00

The leadership guru Peter Drucker said, "It is not enough for a business to do well; it must also do good. But in order to 'do good,' a business must first do well." Aside from the fact that my grammatical mind is spinning out of control trying to figure out these sentences... I really like what he is saying. In the church world people are always trying to get things done outreach-wise. Always wanting to plan some block-party, or social outreach to help people, which is great. I am excited the people of God are on board with a huge part of what it means to be a follower of Christ. But at the same time, what if we have an event that is in shambles because we aren't prepared enough or organized enough of an institution to have a decent presentation? Then people will think we are a joke. People won't come to our church, people won't see God through our disorganization and shady work. I believe in this wholeheartedly. Before we can put together a decent outreach, we need to be a decent structure ourselves (do well, before do good). Or, what if we do put on a decent outreach and when people decide to check us out, we don't live up to the hype of our events? Again, people will be disappointed and turned off. God understands this principle. He has given us sheep to tend and nurture and help heal so they can in turn evangelize the world. I'm not preaching don't do outreach, because that is anti-Bible. I'm saying let's get our foundation together before we believe we can assist other's.

True Charity

2009-12-17T10:00:00.000-05:00

I feel like a broken record with as much as I talk about, or talk from, Thomas a Kempis's book "The Imitation of Christ," but really... with a title like that it would have to be good. Today's chapter was on charity. "He does much who loves much. He does much who does a thing well. He does well who serves the common good rather than his own interests." That is pretty profound. I thought about adding my own thoughts today, but I'm not sure I need to. This chapter was so insightful and so revealing, if only our society and culture and world could get a hold of this. But maybe that's not even the problem. Yes, our society and culture is insanely narcissistic and self-indulgent, but what is society made of? You. Me. Us. Individuals. Society and culture as a whole would never operate narcissistically if we didn't. Kempis, or a Kempis, believes we don't even understand real charity, but even our charity is out of self-interest and vanity. We seek to make ourselves look good or feel good for a time. I can remember preaching messages talking about how giving to others will make you feel good... in planning messages like this I think "What will motivate them to do this?" "What will they want to hear?" That's pretty messed up. I can't even believe I would do that... but I have, and I did it because I wanted people to respond, I wanted people to give, I wanted people to be charitable. But at what cost? Is it real charity or more vanity? I suppose only Christ sees the heart of someone.

"If man had but a spark of true charity he would surely sense that all the things of earth are full of vanity!"

Here is where I would say something compelling like, "What is keeping you from being more charitable?" or "Where can you spend your time or give your resources?" But the answers are pretty clear... What is keeping your from being more charitable? YOU! If we only knew what others were going through we would need to be charitable, for them... and I want to say not for us, but I have to say for us too. Because it is beneficial for us, not that it will make us look better or alleviate some sort of guilt, but because when we do things like that it builds a more Christ-like character. I heard someone say once, "People who pray more, pray more." When you do something a little, it turns into a little more, and a little more, until its a lot. Charity is the same, but only true charity. If you are doing something out of guilt or to make yourself look good, you'll go in and punch your charity time card and leave feeling a little better. But true charity reproduces and turns into charitable behavior and creates a pattern within us. Not just an event or a soup kitchen or Toys for Tots, although those are good things, true charity is a lifestyle... like so many other things that helps us in the Imitation of Christ.

God WILL give you more than you can handle...

2009-12-15T09:41:00.000-05:00

So today is my daughter's 1st birthday... I can't believe it has been a whole year since my wife and I walked around a mall in Minneapolis for like two hours then sat in the movie "Australia" with those Australian actors and a few hours later here came baby Elizabeth Kay. Now she is all over the place, but awhile ago its like she couldn't even roll over, or basically move at all. Where did the time go? This has been the craziest year of my life. I moved half way across the country with my wife and 3 month old. I started a new job as a youth pastor, I am continuing my education... and it seems like everyday I am stepping into the unknown. Who knows what waits around the next corner? There is no telling what issue or problem someone in the church might be facing...am I equipped to deal with that? In my continued reading of "The Imitation of Christ" by Thomas a Kempis I read a sentence today that said, "An old habit is hard to break, and no one is willing to be led farther than they can see." This just is one of those sentences that sounds like it is right out of the book of Proverbs or something... just amazingly insightful. But, not over-step my limits, I'm not sure this is entirely true... I think people are always wanting something to believe in, something to buy-in to, something that challenges their faith - even if they have none. I remember a part in Erwin McManus's book "The Barbarian Way," where he describes how a group of rhinos move through the desert. He says they are incredible fast, like 60 mph or something ridiculous like that, but their vision is really poor. They can only see like 15 feet in front of them. Which means, when they are running ridiculously fast, they can only see what's coming at them for about a second. He believed this is the type of passion the church needed to be moving forward with, reckless intensity facing things head-on with the Holy Spirit. Think of the Israelites in the Old Testament wondering around in the desert. They had no idea where they were going, but they knew they were moving. Think about the disciples... they were pretty clueless. Think about your life today. Unless you are some super organized person, chances are you don't know too much of what is coming down the chute of life. I don't want to disagree with Thomas a Kempis too much, but I truly believe people are looking for something to follow that they cannot see... isn't that what faith is?

Now, what does all this have to do with my daughter's birthday? Well I think a lot of it has to do with how much we can handle. In life we are constantly being pulled different ways, adding more responsibility, having kids, dreaming bigger dreams, and life has a way of piling things on top of our already over crowded plate of responsibility. A lot of times you will hear people say, "Well God wouldn't give me more than I could handle." Wouldn't He? Maybe that is part of the refining process. Maybe God is trying to stretch you? Maybe God is trying to get you to realign your priorities? Maybe God is trying to get you to handle more? I think God would give you more than you can handle because He loves it when we aren't able to rely on ourselves. The more we have to handle, so much so that we can't handle it, we have to lean on Him... and that makes Him happy. Maybe we should all lean on God now, before we keep adding things to our plate that we hit the wall of insanity and just sit there pounding our heads against it.

Happy Birthday to my daughter! She's awesome, I'm glad God added her to my life, I am very blessed!

Are you a hoarder?

2009-12-08T09:41:00.001-05:00

So I was watching this show "Hoarders" on A&E last night and it was absolutely disgusting... you really need to watch it! It is unbelievable the amount of stuff some of the people hold on to. Granted some of them have physical disabilities, but there is no way any of it should go this far. Last night's episode featured two separate women in different spots in the country. The first woman hadn't used her bathroom in 2 YEARS, simply because she couldn't get to it... therefore, she had piles of full diapers all over her home. They said there were diapers stacked 4 feet high in the bathroom and a wall of diapers a foot thick in her kitchen. The other woman's heat and water had been shut off for 2 years... she said she wouldn't have anyone come out and fix the problem while her home was a mess. It was so bad at her home that the goats that were around her home literally came and ate part of the wall of her home, exposing what was her bedroom to winter weather. It is unbelievable how people can let things get so bad. I'm sure neither of these women saw this in their future, neither of them wanted to find dead, decaying animals under piles of trash throughout their homes, neither of them wanted to be an embarrassment to the families, but neither of them wanted to let go either. They believed the pain of letting go of some of the stuff they had collected over the years would be worse than the unlivable conditions they created. I think a lot of times we can be the same way, not just with our possessions but with our emotional garbage too. All too often we get hurt by what people do to us, or say to us or about us, or however it happens we get hurt, and we sit on it. We think about it, we over-analyze it, we build deep-seated resentment towards people and we collect piles and piles of emotional trash. The first woman on the show started to let some stuff go with the help of a clinical psychologist. The psychologist asked her on a scale from 1 to 10, ten being you are going to die if you don't have this and 1 being I could care less, what can we get rid of? The first thing brought to the woman was a door mat, that was nearly destroyed, filthy, unrecognizable... and she said 9! 9! Meaning she would almost die if she didn't have this door mat that had her last name embroidered on the edge. The psychologist asked her if door mats are meant to be kept forever, when was the last time she had even seen it... The psychologist then brought her a small gold pin that had been the woman's mother's. Of course the woman rated this a 10, but seeing the comparison in the two items was a real eye opener. After some rational discussion the woman saw the logic in letting it go the door mat and many other trinkets of trash.

My question for you would be, what are you holding on to that is causing you pain? What are you unwilling to let go, simply because it has become a part of your life? What emotions do you now feel because of something that happened to you, but ten years ago you never felt that way? I heard a pastor talk about counseling a woman who had been hurt badly by another member of the congregation. Her story was totally valid and she had every right to be hurt and angry and offended. The pastor asked her if she had a calendar or a Palm Pilot or something like at which time she pulled out her Blackberry. He said why don't you pick a date on the calendar when you are going to stop letting the people who hurt you control your life. When are you going to control your own emotions? When you going to stop letting the people who did something to you control the way you live? Kind of introspective I know, but what about you? Do you have someone in your life controlling you? If it's not God, it's not the right person... Maybe it's time to do some emotional house cleaning and get rid of some of the junk that has been holding you down. Confess to someone, forgive someone... allow the healing to begin. Because you don't want to be an emotional hoarder.

The HEART of the matter...

2009-12-04T09:43:00.000-05:00

As I was reading the Proverbs of the day a familiar verse popped out at me, Proverbs 4:23. "Above all else, guard your heart, for it is the wellspring of life." That's a pretty profound statement on a number of different levels. The author of this passage is Solomon, the wisest man ever, not only that but at the beginning of this chapter he gives a considerable amount of credit to his dad, King David, one of the most heroic and amazing Bible characters and someone said to have had to be a "man after God's own heart." This has huge implications for us... I have always believed whenever the Bible talks about the heart it is talking about more than just your physical heart, I don't think anyone would argue with that, but that when someone refers to the heart they are talking about a life change, or our inner-most being, who we are, our essence. I know a lot of that sounds a little weird, but if you just knew the heart as a central part of our organs, then how would you describe the heart singers write songs about ("Achy Breaky Heart" comes to mind... that's scary). Jesus says in Matthew 12:34-35, "For out of the overflow of the heart the mouth speaks. The good man brings good things out of the good stored up in him, and the evil man brings evil things out of the evil stored up in him." All of this good or all of this evil flow out of our heart and comes out of our mouths. But in not only comes out of our mouths it comes out through the way we treat our spouse, the way we speak to our children, our coworkers, it dictates our whole life. When we say something we didn't mean to, or do something and think, "I don't know where that came from..." Jesus would have been like, "I do. It came from your disgusting heart." Because we are human we even imagine God this way... Genesis 6:6 says, "The Lord was grieved that He had made man [because we are horribly wicked] and his heart was filled with pain." When we talk about the heart we are talking about something important to us. You never tell someone you sort-of-like they have a place in your heart, unless they are related to you. That's why so many teenagers and people in the twenties and early thirties get so attached to someone of the opposite sex... we give them a piece of our heart. And Solomon the wisest man ever, says "Above all else, guard your heart..." If this is such an important part of how we live, why don't we make it more of a priority? Do we think the emotional scarring isn't painful? Do we think we have become to hard-hearted as a society that we are immune to heartache? This is SO important that Jesus says it again in Matthew 15:18-19... "But the things that come out of the mouth come from the heart and these make a man 'unclean.' For out of the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false testimony, slander." Solomon said 'above all else' we need to address this issue, Jesus said every evil thing you ever did came from your heart. It is up to us to take responsibility for our heart. A lot of us have had really tragic, horrible, unfortunate things happen to us over the course of our lives... but you don't want to be someone who uses those things, most of them probably not even your fault, you don't want to be someone who uses those as a crutch. You don't want to be someone full of excuses why they do something, but doesn't change... You want to be someone with a clean heart...

What are our motives? A winning story...

2009-12-03T09:45:00.000-05:00

So I was sitting in staff meeting the other day, which I love because it is an awesome chance for me to pray with a couple of great men of God. But we got to talking about some of the random occurrences of the church... you know the usual drama. We had some praise reports and some prayer requests. It is really a great time for us to get together and see what God's will is for us and this church. But this past week we actually had a death in our church. And death is never really easy to deal with, especially when the family involved is largely unsaved. But this particular death didn't come as too much of a surprise, the gentleman was ill for a long while and had actually been visited a few times by members of our staff while he was in the hospital. I can remember a few months back when our other two pastors reflected on visiting him individually and on their own, but what was really exciting was one instance when they talked about going together. They described the hospital and the hallway... how there is always medical trays and equipment strategically placed. I always see those electric carts that look like someone is going to check my car battery to see if is capable of starting my car...anyways. The man they were visiting didn't know the Lord, but his wife has been a believer for quite awhile. She is a devoted wife, always comes to church, always praying for him, keeping us posted on his condition... a real wonderful lady. Our pastors were in his room, making small talk, trying to keep his spirits up, make him laugh, basically anything they could. I don't know about them, but we didn't really learn about hospital visits when I was in school to become a pastor, except that you should do communion, which still seems a little odd to me, but I see the point. Well these pastors offered to pray with him before they left, as they always did, but this time was different, this time he was a part of the prayer. Now before I tell you the rest of this story, I must say... I am not a "super-spiritual" person. When I say that I mean I don't get revved up about a song on the radio and think it was from God, I really don't think God gives us good parking spaces, and I don't dissect every piece of mail that comes through my door to see what God is trying to tell me. I know there are spiritual forces at work, I know God loves us and is trying to communicate with us, but sometimes I think people get a little carried away. Back to the story... As they prayed in that hospital room, this man connected with God, maybe for the first time, maybe this was one of many times, but it had certainly been awhile. It's obvious he aligned his life with God. The three men were there in the room with tears streaming down their faces, even reflecting on the story both pastors tear up. Leaving the room was easy, because it was a victory, a win for God... One More. One more person connected to God. A pastor can thrive off of a situation like that for months. The gentlemen lived awhile longer, and our senior pastor was able to discuss with him what happened. He said, 'I saw a window at the end of my bed, with a cool breeze blowing toward me. And I didn't hear any voices or anything, but it was like someone dropped the thought into my head, "It's okay over here."' This was a man who didn't know anything about heaven and up until that point may have not been headed in that direction. The funny part is that when the family gathered around him near the end of his death, a member of the family who is a traveling evangelist approached him to make sure our two pastors had sealed the deal correctly and checked this man's eternal resting place with the Almighty. When our pastor asked the gentleman about his experience with the evangelist, he said they had talked about God and heaven and eternity, but it was different than in the hospital room. He said, "It was like I was joining a club or something."

What's the point? Well what are our motives? What are our methods and principles? Do you think Jesus spoke to people and made them feel as if they were signing up for a credit card or subscribing to a magazine? Let's try and meet people where they are and connect them to God and get ourselves out of the way long enough so God can really impact people. I'm super proud of our two pastors and proud to serve along side them. This man went to be with the Lord a couple of weeks ago, and his wife is a happy lady...

Think you're smart...

2009-12-02T10:45:00.000-05:00

Today I was reading Proverbs 2, being that it is the second day of the month, and I realized I have underlined nearly every word in this chapter of the Bible, which looking back really irritates me because for the most part I am anti-underlining except for really profound and specific passages. But Proverbs 2 is just so stinkin good! The whole chapter is devoted to finding wisdom and the benefits of seeking wisdom. "For the Lord gives wisdom, and from his mouth come knowledge and understanding" (Proverbs 2:6). King Solomon, reportedly the wisest man in existence, would naturally know all sorts of stuff about... well everything but especially wisdom. When God asked Solomon what he wanted, anything within his imagination, Solomon asked for a discerning heart. Basically the whole book of Proverbs is devoted to seeking wisdom and the extreme benefits of putting that wisdom into practice. At the beginning of the whole book Solomon says, "The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge, but fools despise wisdom and discipline" (1:7). The point here is that the type of wisdom, knowledge and discernment that Solomon had originates from God. There is no other way we can get it, there is no book, no mentor (aside from the Holy Spirit), and class we can take that will allow us to have this type of wisdom. I know a lot of times I get pretty egotistical and I feel awfully proud of my accomplishments and the wealth of knowledge stored in my head. I'll go to my wife after studying Scripture or sociology or psychology or anything really and I'll just upload a ton of information her way. She is usually in the middle of some other task, making dinner or folding laundry or one of the other hundred things she does. And so I'll get frustrated that she doesn't pass out from the amount of info I am spewing her way, but aside from nodding her head or raising her eyebrows and the occasional, "Really...," or "Uh huh," she doesn't respond quite the way I would appreciate. So I'll stop and say, "Are you listening?" and of course she is. So I say, "Well don't you think that pretty awesome?" because it always is... and she'll say something like, "Well that sounds pretty common sense," or "I think I learned that in Sunday School" (that one always kills me). And I wonder how she could know so much, because she is not lying, she's crazy smart and more discerning than I will ever be. She doesn't have the expensive education I have she doesn't read a dozen leadership books a month like I do, she doesn't listen to leadership podcasts or read leadership blogs... where the heck does her knowledge come from? A long time before I met her, my wife devoted her life WHOLLY to God and God made her freakishly smart. Proverbs 2:10 says, "For wisdom will enter your heart, and knowledge will be pleasant to your soul." When my wife connected to God, God dropped little trinkets of wisdom and knowledge into her life, just like He does with all of us... but she changed. She changed the way she thought, changed the way she spoke, changed the way she behaved and changed her life. Thomas a Kempis said, "Put no trust in your own learning nor in the cunning of any man, but rather in the grace of God Who helps the humble and humbles the proud."

"For the Lord gives wisdom, and from his mouth come knowledge and understanding. He holds victory in store for the upright, he is a shield to those whose walk is blameless, for he guards the course of the just and protects the way of his faithful ones. Then you will understand what is right and just and fair - every right path." (Proverbs 2:6-9, italics added)

If we want to live our lives wisely, the first step is connecting to God. Then we need to apply the wisdom He gives us. And I'm not saying that when you connect to God you'll all of a sudden be able to hear His voice, when before you couldn't. I'm saying READ THE BIBLE. I know that sounds innovative, but there is such a wealth of knowledge in Scripture, even if you aren't completely convinced on God or this Christianity thing, there is so much valuable information in the Bible that will dramatically improve your life. But... you have to apply it! When Proverbs 2:10 says, "wisdom will enter your heart..." it is saying 'wisdom will enter your life,' but only if you let it... The choice is yours and mine, and it always has been. Maybe, just like Proverbs says, the first step to attaining wisdom is admitting we don't have it and God does...

Family Get Togethers...

2009-11-28T21:14:00.000-05:00

So over the past couple of days I have been staying with my wife's sister and her husband and their four year old. I would have called them my "in-laws," but that has some negative connotations and they are an awesome family (Rob, Jen and Tali thanks again for letting us crash with you guys). But being that I spent this Thanksgiving with my wife's family and not mine it was a little peculiar. We have only been married for a few years and her family is still getting to know me and I am still trying to get to know them. Before this holiday season I read an article or saw an interview about why the holidays cause so much stress when we get our around our families. The article stated (I'm pretty sure it was an article) that when we get around our families we revert back to the role that we used to play as a child when we grew up with our parents and siblings. By "role" I mean, if you were the spoiled one as a child, your family will treat as the spoiled one. If you were a complainer growing up, the people you grew up with will treat you as the complainer... So even though you likely grew up and grew out of whatever role it was you played during some of the most awkward years of your life, your family will treat you like that same confused adolescent. Some people leave these extended weekends with their family feeling bizarrely confused about who they were and how they simply fell back into "the swing of things," even though its probably incredibly unhealthy for our emotional well-being. Fortunately for me, know one in my wife's family really knew me while I was growing up (thank God) so I can be me now... what an interesting concept. But unfortunately for me, everyone seems different when the whole family gets together than when we hang out with individual couples... not bad, just different. I love my 'in-laws,' and I know they love me. I am thankful they don't have to know all about my tangled past to accept me and welcome me into their family. I appreciate being able to learn about them by seeing the roles they used to play and observing how they have grown and changed into the people God has turned them each into... and of course it is great to see them continue to change and grow still. I am thankful for them. I am very blessed. I wonder what my family and I look like to my wife when we get together? Hopefully not too scary... I love them too! Hopefully you can be thankful for some similar stuff too...

Probably what God intended...

2009-11-25T11:50:00.000-05:00

I was reading the Imitation of Christ by Thomas a Kempis again and there was this one paragraph that stood out to me. The whole book is fascinating and incredibly insightful for anyone trying to live a life of peace and devotion to God. But sometimes when I read the oddest paragraphs stick out to me. I was reading C.S. Lewis's essay titled "Miracles," which again is a wonderful piece of work all the way around, but there was a simple paragraph that stuck out to me. In Lewis's work he writes a small paragraph at the end of a chapter talking about history and miracles... not the history of miracles, but the human history and miracles. He described how as humans we write history around important events and people, such as wars, natural disaster or presidents and dictators. But he believed that if miracles do happen, and they do, then that is probably how God's timeline of history is laid out. A miracle here, this miracle here, that miracle there... God's timeline of history wouldn't revolve around civil wars or economic downturn, but would be plotted around supernatural occurrences that He had a part in. This changed the way I look at history, and how unfortunate our current society must look on God's timeline of history. Nevertheless, it was profound to me how amazing this one paragraph was. In Thomas a Kempis's book there is a paragraph that has completely changed the way I pray. I am in the process of memorizing this paragraph and will say it every time I put my head down for some serious prayer. Granted I won't say this every time I pray over a meal or over someone at the altar, but when I kneel before God (which kneeling is something that should happen frequently in our prayer lives; there is something powerful that happens when we express that type of humility and submission) in times of extended prayer this will be the first thing I say...

"O God, You Who are the truth, make me one with You in love everlasting. I am often wearied by the many things I hear and read, but in You is all that I long for. Let the learned be still, let all creatures be silent before You; You alone speak to me."

What a powerful statement. I am so glad I stumbled upon this. I don't typically go into times of reading looking for sentences to change an area of my life, but usually big picture ideas. Ways I can change the lives in my youth ministry or in my church or sermon ideas... not paragraphs to add to my prayers. I wonder what would happen if we read the Bible this way? What if paragraphs from God's Word would just start leaping out at us and changing the way we pray, the way we talk, the way we interact with people, ultimately the way we live our lives? That's probably what God intended when He inspired the writes of the Bible to write what they wrote. Granted they were talking to specific people in a specific time, but for some reason we haven't changed to terribly much and we have the same problems they had back then... Next time you read the Bible or any book for that matter, don't just fly through the pages hoping to get done quicker and race to the next book you bought a little too hastily. Soak in what God may be trying to show you through another author... be open to changing the way you pray, or the way you work, or anything. Be open to God and what He has for you. Maybe you should read the quote by Thomas a Kempis again and when you read it, say it to God and let Him speak to you...

A ride on my bike...

2009-11-23T13:06:00.000-05:00

So I decided to go on an extended bike ride this morning, which is pretty rare for me these days, unless its a stationary bike at the local Planet Fitness... Anyways, I threw on my ancient high school, swim team sweatshirt and grabbed my ipod and out the door I went. Of course, being that I don't exercise near as often as I should, I was extremely sluggish for the first mile or so, but I shifted down and kept on pedaling. The ipod is the greatest invention as far as exercise goes, I can't even remember how I used to workout... remember those guys on roller skates with boom-boxes on their shoulders... yeah, that's what people used to do. I was listening to Deas Vail, which if you don't have any of their music I highly recommend it (check out "All the Houses Look the Same"). But after about 20 minutes of drudgingly pedaling along, I realized it wasn't just my out-of-shape exterior that was keeping me from typical speeds, but once my back tire slipped out from behind me while taking a turn a little fast, I discovered both of my tires were flat and rather than ruin the wheels on my bike, I threw my bike on my shoulders and walked home... (when a guy in a white Honda truck stopped and asked if I was ok I told him I was training... training for what? Apparently stupidity, for not checking my tires before I left). But it was really a nice break away from everything. Walking there with my bike on my shoulders, it gave me an excellent opportunity to reflect a lot on what has been happening in my life lately... some good, some not-so good. And of course God crept into my mind pretty quickly. I thought about how he must have walked everywhere, from town to town, speaking to this person and that person, healing person after person, trying to get people to realize what he was really trying to show them behind his parables, but walking and walking nonetheless... Whether he knew what awaited him or not, he certainly knew his goal and he never stopped, he kept walking, meeting every obstacle with force and determination. He didn't let people slow him down, even if someone didn't understand his story or didn't catch the metaphor he didn't get hung up on the past or people's drama... he just kept walking. I can imagine a lot of silence in Jesus' day. Our world is surrounded by all sorts of noise, TV's, laptops, commercials, radios, ipods, cars, people, people, people... There is rarely a moment of of silence in the constant monotony of life. Always someone else or some other advertisement, another assignment demanding our time, distracting us from the real task at hand. Walking there with my bike on my back, even though I had Deas Vail pumping through my ipod it was as close to a moment of silence as I have had in awhile. It was great to reflect on my life, Jesus' life and how I can get mine more inline with His...and one of the first similarities that I could come up with was that we were walking. And it didn't take long for me to think about the bike on my back and the cross on His. Naturally mine didn't mean anything except that I had forgot to put air in my tires, but his meant everything. Everything to everyone. Everything. Everything to me, to you, to your family, mine and everyone that is in the middle. Everything to everyone. Whether they know it or not, the cross is there hope, it is their future, it is their job, it is their obligation, it is there everything. The cross is the central point in our faith, it is what Christ endured for our salvation, it is what saves us. Without it we are just aimlessly walking, meaninglessly, pointlessly walking in different directions, for different reasons, reaching different destinations... all of it pointless. The Cross unites us. And it is what Jesus was walking towards and it is what we need to be walking for... take a walk.

Humility

2009-11-20T10:05:00.000-05:00

This morning I was reading a devotion by Thomas a Kempis about humility and I never looked at humility this way until now. He says, "If you wish to learn and appreciate something worth while, then love to be unknown and considered as nothing. Truly to know and despise self is the best and most perfect counsel." This seems contradictory to everything I have ever thought about knowledge and humility; not that I have ever thought about the two of them together... Thomas is basically saying I should not only desire to be anonymous but also to love being anonymous and nothing... I believe in our current society this is completely backwards. Our culture uplifts assertiveness and encourages the success of the "alpha male." Perhaps in the hierarchical culture Thomas lived in (hope no one is offended that Thomas a Kempis and I are clearly on a first name basis) this type of humble attitude could still offer some sort of a bright future, but there is no way success could be attained in our society without some narcissistic gumption. How will anyone ever notice me if I don't make them notice me? I mean, how can we succeed if we are going to let people walk all over us? Aside from the fact that humility doesn't mean letting people walk all over you, it seems Thomas's idea may not apply for leadership today...

Unless...

Unless, we are looking at success all wrong (and everyone can breathe a huge sigh of relief that I am not disagreeing with Thomas a Kempis). He goes on to say, "Wherefore, if you see another sin openly or commit a serious crime, do not consider yourself better, for you do not know how long you can remain in good estate. All men are frail, but you must admit that none is more frail than yourself." Thomas isn't talking about degrading ourselves, but he is talking about admitting that our status, our accomplishments, our titles, our salaries, and everything else we think makes us important don't really mean anything if our character isn't in "good estate." It is unfortunate that our society will praise someone who climbs the corporate ladder at the expense of multiple failed marriages and estranged children... I mean what kind of legacy does that leave? Tyrone Wells has a great song out called "Carolina Blues," that talks about a girl he knew had a grandfather that died and she was the only heir. This girl inherited everything, "more than she could dream, truck loads full of money with a castle by the sea. But he was always lyin, as selfish as could be. He left her with empty words and painful memories." He goes on to talk about how his grandfather didn't leave him any money to spend, but... "grandpa was an honest man, seeking after truth. Grandpa had the kindest eyes, Carolina Blues..." Three times in the New Testament it says, "What good is it for a man to gain the whole world, yet forfeit his soul?" Thomas a Kempis had it right... we need to direct our attention on what really matters...

"Characteristics of Organization"

2009-11-19T10:26:00.000-05:00

Today I was reading a small leadership insight from Peter Drucker which talked about the extreme clarity of focus many organizations have. "Organizations are a special-purpose institution. They are effective because they concentrate on one task...Society, community, family, have to deal with whatever problem arises. To do so in an organization is 'diversification.' And in an organization, diversification means splintering." Ouch! Splintering sounds painful. As a pastor, I couldn't begin to try and count the different problems brought through the door of the church. Everyone experiences a lot of junk in life and it would be ridiculous for us to try and turn them away simply because we are trying to be narrowly focused. More and more books are coming out encouraging the exclusivity of tasks the church should perform, or at least encouraging churches to filter through the lens of their few ministries. But unfortunately people outside the church don't think that way. They just want help... and they have come to us to get it... If someone came to our church and outlined a specific problem in their life, it would be ludicrous for a pastor to turn them away simply because their problem doesn't fit into the flow of our church's mission statement. Jesus says in Matthew 11:28-29, "Come to me all who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls." He didn't say, "Come to me everyone dealing with leprosy, but not you, you and you." God's plan is for restoration and healing for everyone... not just 'church-people.' Now maybe you are thinking, 'well we would never turn someone away that was dealing with a problem.' Good... but would your church provide a place for them to grow and unload some of their emotional baggage? If your church doesn't provide an healthy outlet for people to connect with God in such a way that they can work through whatever problem they have, then maybe you need to rethink your mission... Maybe you need to rethink the focus of your church... maybe you need to look at what Jesus' mission was and who benefited from it. Peter Drucker said diversification is "splintering." I agree. Splinters are a painful thing, especially when they get lodged in your finger and you have to peel away have of your hand just to get to it... Splinters cause infections, and I'm sure Mr. Drucker would agree this splintering within an organization could cause organizational infection...But fortunately, God's mission/focus/vision applies to everyone, every problem, every layer of society, every country, every man, woman, teenager, and child. Even though there are a tremendous amount of problems and diversity the church is forced to deal with, God's message applies to all of us... This is something to celebrate!