Stories and Thoughts on the Road of Life

Lessons from 2009...

2011-06-10T16:16:00.000-07:00

So I was on my blog today seeing if it was still alive and I saw a post I never published from over a year ago. A lot of these lessons have proved true and played out in amazing ways. So here it is...

As 2009 ends and 2010 begins, I realized that I'm coming on five years in Richmond, five years married, ten years as a Christ follower. This past year is the culmination of all these longer term milestones...

A lot of this year for me has been about finding my own cause and helping others find theirs:

How to acheive real balance (keeping sabbath, spreading out vacation days, stepping out of some responsbilitie, etc)
Good or bad, everybody has plans/agendas for you, not just God...
You have to care what people think (but only a little bit)
If you're doing God's work, some people WILL hate you for it
New beginnings and challenges are worth the effort (Carver MC)

Helping others find theirs boils down to this... my cause doesn't have to be your cause but what is your cause? And no cause is not a cause.

The question I'm left with is not the traditional one - whether the choices you make hurt anyone, but a new one, who benefits from the choices you make?

2010 was the culmination of almost five years in Richmond. I believed that God was daring me to be great and He continues to press me in that direction for His glory. What about you?

Mission: School Supply Drive

2009-09-15T17:09:00.001-07:00

One of the greatest issues in Richmond right now are the challenges many of the children in the city face growing up. Education really becomes one of the keys to breaking cycles of neglect and poverty, giving our children a real chance at a future. Our Missional Community, located in Carver Community, recently undertook a school supply drive at Carver Elementary School. Carver is a school with an excellent principal, dedicated staff, and great kids. But with 96.5% of students participating in free and reduced lunch, its evident that many of the children are coming to school dealing with very difficult circumstances even before they step foot in the building.

Our rhythm of mission always begins with listening before acting. If our mission is uninformed by the actual issues and relevant remedies it will be ineffective. Principal Brickhouse has been gracious enough to catch up with me several times and provide me with the information I needed. Among other things, two basic data points were important: exactly what supplies were needed and how big was the school, population-wise. Principal Brickhouse was able to provide me with the list of supplies parents get for their kids. He was also to tell me that there approximately 500 students at the school, and about 40 teachers. With this information, we would knew what to get and some order of magnitude for quantity of supplies (i.e. we didn't want to get 10 scissors for 500 students).

Also crucial, we timed it so we could start buying supplies during the Back-to-School tax holiday. Not only were we able to save on taxes but the sales are also really good that weekend. The challenge was finding stores that didn't have limits on how many you could buy. Target was great for that. I presented this idea and some of the basic information to the Missional Community during one of our gatherings and everyone was immediately excited. People used it as an opportunity to get together and socialize while they shopped. In addition to the funds Commonwealth Chapel provided our community, everyone contributed their own money as well.

We collected the supplies at where we met for Missional Community (which happened to be my house) and people brought more and more each week. All the way up to the day that we dropped the supplies off, people were still bringing bags of supplies! All told we collected approximately 1800 pencils, 250 boxes of crayons, 500 notebooks, 200 bottles of glue, 100 glue sticks, 100 pens, 250 scissors, 100 rulers - I don't have exact numbers because we honestly lost count!

In addition to this, Rob Rhoden (our lead pastor who's wife is a teacher) suggested that we make goodie bags for the teachers, so we made 40 of them as well! We filled them with candy, munchies, sticky notes, hand sanitizer, and pens and enclosed them with a note expressing our appreciate for them and pledging to

pray for them this year. We took the extra candy and made a basket for the office staff (which somehow made it to the

principal's desk before we left ;-)

The week before we delivered the supplies, we gathered as a Missional

Community and prayed over the supplies. Our prayer was (and is) that these supplies and gifts would bless the students and the staff and allow them to focus more on learning. We prayed that the teachers would be encouraged, knowing that there were people out there that appreciated them, loved them, and were praying for them. Most of all, we prayed that Jesus would be glorified since He was our inspiration for doing this.

On the Friday before school started, a bunch of us from the Missional Community took our lunch hour to go by and drop everything off. Principal Brickhouse and the rest of the faculty and staff were extremely gracious and appreciative. The entire experience was made even more tangible when all of us saw some of the students that would get to use the supplies this year.

Please continue to be in prayer for Carver Elementary, that they would have a great year and that they would know that God loves them and is providing for them. I hope this story encourages other communities out there to "adopt" a school next year. My prayer is that the entire community of Christ followers next year would be able to "adopt" 30 schools, the next year - all of them. I hope that the details I provided in the post are helpful in planning your school supply drive. If you need any other help, or have ideas you'd like to share, feel free to email me.

Catch Me if you can...

2009-08-27T05:12:00.000-07:00

Our Missional Community ended our fast together over dinner a couple nights ago. It was a beautiful time of fellowship capped off with a time of reflection on fasting. For half the room, this was the first time they had ever tried fasting and the reflections were rich. Many people commented on how it wasn't as bad as they thought it would be - a fair enough apprehension. Others commented that the day went by so fast that they didn't have the time they wanted to spend in prayer and meditation (myself included).

Still others blessed us by being honest enough to say that they tried to pray and meditate and didn't hear anything back. This left a mixture of disappointment, defeat, and a general feeling of silliness about seemingly talking to thin air. Then one of the women in our group shared a verse she had reflected on that day from Isaiah 58:

For day after day they seek me out; they seem eager to know my ways, as if they were a nation that does what is right and has not forsaken the commands of its God. They ask me for just decisions and seem eager for God to come near them.

'Why have we fasted,' they say, 'and you have not seen it? Why have we humbled ourselves, and you have not noticed?'

The truth is, if we were honest with ourselves and each other that night, after fasting for the last 20 hours or so we felt like God owed us something. Perhaps there was a false expectation that we were going to bow our head after a day of fasting and God was going to give us all the secrets of the universe. But this transactional view of our relationship with God is not something exclusive to our group. Many people are looking for the right combination, incantation, or sequence of actions that will unlock the silence and allow God's voice to pour through.

As our community continued to reflect, our experiences blended together like a recipe producing a rich collective insight - our time fasting that day had increased our appetite for God. For the people that were afraid fasting would be horrible and it wasn't, they wanted to do it again. For the people that didn't get much time to pray or meditate that day, they wanted to make more time for it going forward. For those that prayed and heard nothing back, it made them want to pray more and seek out God's voice in their life.

It seemed that our fasting had served its purpose that day. In the absence of food, we were hungering for God more. Rather than seeing God as a vending machine, our piety as currency, we were experiencing God the Romantic. Was God being coy or elusive if he was asking us to chase after him a bit? Or is that the entire point of a good romance? The point is this: God has asked us to chase after him, but he's made himself profoundly catchable.

The same woman that shared the first verse also shared the following to close our time. It's God's promise to us that we do not desire in vain when we seek him, I hope it encourages you to start the pursuit as well.

You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart. - Jeremiah 29:13

Fasting...on purpose...

2009-08-26T06:26:00.000-07:00

Our Missional Community is currently about three weeks into a study of Celebration of Discipline by Richard Foster (which I reviewed in an earlier posting). Today we're fasting as a community and then gathering together tonight to share our experiences over dinner. Here are the questions I've asked our community to meditate on today:

What is God doing in your life or trying to tell you right now?
What are the biggest things happening in your life right now?
Is there something weighing heavily on your thoughts or heart lately?
In response to the above questions, how does this situation make you feel? What emotions does it inspire? Why does this situation make you feel this way?
Is there anything you need to confess to God? Is there anything you need to give to God? Where do you need God's guidance? Where do you need God to save you?

Feel free to leave comments on your experience(s) with fasting, either today or previously.

I'll be with you...

2009-08-09T16:25:00.001-07:00

After ten years of following God, I've come to realize that many times His call is as elusive as the nose on my face. We oftentimes speak of God as a vapor, as One that takes some divine amusement in His elusiveness. And while God does desire us to pursue him, the matter of his Will typically comes down our desire to receive it. It's our sinful, selfish nature set against his divine love; at some carnal level we will chaff against his directives because our motivations are profoundly different (at least on this side of reality). Being able to say that we desire God's will is an admirable first step but then a Christ-follower must ask the crucial question - "Am I ready to receive what He tells me?"

And then, if we can get past our selfishness as a first obstacle to recieving God's call, fear is there waiting for us. Fear tells us that our benevolence will be rewarded with failure...or worse. Fear tells us we don't have what it takes anyways, so why bother. Recently, I've been chased by some fresh directives from God for my life that, frankly, challenge my ideals of how fearless I really am. I hear God, loud and clear, but what he wants me to do... I'm not sure if it's is fully possible and I'm not sure if I have what it takes (I'm being this transparent in the hopes that someone reading this can identify and take benefit).

And so, I return to Scripture to read the stories of other ordinary people that were asked by God to do impossibly fantastic things. Gideon, Joshua, Moses, Esther, Jeremiah, Mary...the list goes on and on. People that, when confronted by God's calling, asked Him how it was even possible. His answer has (and will) always be the same, "I'll be with you."

God makes no affirmation of our amazing speaking abilities, our wisdom, or our strength. The first chapter of 1 Corinthians, goes so far as to say that God chooses the lowly on purpose. In calling us to purposes beyond our ability, He has obligated Himself to pick up the proverbial slack. To receive God's call, I must get past my own selfishness and fear; to answer His call, I must depend on Him with absolutely totality.

This will be no stoic step, God's calling on my life. With sweat like bullets and my heart pounding out of my chest, I will take the steps God is calling me to take. I pray for the cadence of Christ's followers, that we will walk in spite of ourselves in the direction of His will.

What is the call God has on your life that you need to finally receive?

#WednesdayReview - Celebration of Discipline (Foster)

2009-05-27T10:42:00.000-07:00

Last Saturday, I had a chance to catch up with a dear brother of mine, JR Woodward, for coffee. As we sat there talking about some of our favorite books we decided to start a new feature, via blog and twitter, called #WednesdayReview. I had one particular book in mind originally but, this morning, God put another book on my heart as I was reading through 1 Corinthians 9, here's what I read:

Do you not know that in a race all the runners run, but only one gets the prize? Run in such a way as to get the prize. Everyone who competes in the games goes into strict training. They do it to get a crown that will not last; but we do it to get a crown that will last forever. Therefore I do not run like a man running aimlessly; I do not fight like a man beating the air. No, I beat my body and make it my slave so that after I have preached to others, I myself will not be disqualified for the prize. (vv. 24-27)

With this, God reminded me of Celebration of Discipline by Richard Foster. This book is an absolute classic on the spiritual disciplines and a must read for every serious Christ follower. In a surprisingly ease-to-read manner, Foster lays out some of the most foundational spiritual practices in a compelling and practical way. His chapters on Prayer and Fasting, were so influential in my walk and his chapter on Simplicity absolutely changed my life. Its a fairly quick read but I actually recommend downloading the audio version and listening to it while you run or on a long car ride (its only 3 hours long).

The passage I read this morning and Foster's classic both remind me that, in life, there is no such thing as stasis. It's been said many times before that you can either grow or atrophy, which is very true of your spirituality. Our spiritual fitness is not something we can neglect one day and then count on the next - it must always be before us as a priority.

If this feature was helpful to you, please feel free to (1) check out Celebration of Disciplines (2) retweet or link to my review and (3) take part in #WednesdayReview and recommend one of your favorite books!

What's our standard for worship?

2009-05-06T08:23:00.000-07:00

Last night my friends and I were at a concert featuring Matt Nathanson and Jack's Mannequin which was absolutely incredible. Beyond just being good music, both of these bands were incredible live because of the emotion with which they played their music. To watch these guys on stage was to see true artists totally unleashed. Poets of any age have the most incredible ability to tap into emotion in a way that's infectious to their listeners.

A very simple thought occurred to me during the concert but its one I want to meditate on for a while. In the Church, do we mistake excellence for true passion when it comes to our worship - musical or otherwise? So much focus these days seems to be on the production value of our church product that excellence can subtly become a means to its own end.

I spent some time this morning reflecting on the widow's offering in Luke 21 and Jesus' observations on who gave the most. Somehow with any form of worship, its not the show that God is concerned with the but the heart. If you need any further verification you can pretty much read any verse in Isaiah.

The Church today is suffering because its lost its heart in so many ways. Strip off the all the halos and flowing garments and God ends up looking like a pretty ordinary Galilean; a nondescript rabbi that has mesmerized the world for 2,000 years because of His heart and passion - our worship of Him should be no different. Where excellence and passion intersect, its an incredible gift. But if given a choice of one or the other, I'll take the latter every time.

Comfort's Thorns

2009-03-22T09:19:00.000-07:00

Sunlight tumbled through my bedroom window early this morning finding its resting place directly on my face. It's my day off and, on a day I would normally sleep in much later, I felt this great need to get up and on with the day. There were things to be accomplished and potential to be realized of this day that were simply out of reach in the confines of my bed.

Every morning is a small dilemma though; why leave the comfortable confines of my bed, a place where I'm warm, calm, safe, and relaxed, on the promised potential of a day I'm not yet acquainted with? I don't mean this to be a cynical viewpoint but more of an esoteric perspective on life as a whole.

It seems that comfort is our temptation in almost every decision we make in life. The "easy way" always presents itself, enticing us to either do or not do something that seems inherently more risky than simply rolling over in our proverbial bed and sleeping for another hour. Gone is the great potential in risk when we would settle for much more meager assurances.

My time with God this morning has been spent on the question of how much I have done or not done because of my infatuation with comfort. Have I gained as much as I thought I did when I decided to play it safe in life? And when I suffered the consequences of risk, was it worth it? So many times, whether its Joshua or Gideon or the disciples, God sends his people out into danger with only the assurance of His presence (Joshua 1, Judges 6, Matthew 10 & 28). These are the stories of people that decided it was better to risk everything to be used by God than to settle for temporal and apathetic comforts. I wonder if these folks were nagged by the same question that haunts me when I'm when faced with these situations - what am I missing out on if I don't follow God's calling however risky it might seem?

Today I decided to get out of bed and the day has not disappointed. In hindsight I realize that I haven't regretted risk when I've taken it. I haven't enjoyed suffering but I've seen purpose in it as well. By God's grace, I hope that I can push into that ideal leaving Comfort, thorns and all, left to be picked by some other unfortunate soul.

It Doesn't Matter Who You Voted For

2009-01-31T11:25:00.000-08:00

With almost three months separating us from what was probably the most grueling political season ever, I now feel like I can take some time to reflect on it with out being sick. While much of the attention last year focused on the presidential election, many other offices were being sorted out as well. In Richmond alone, we were deciding on a new mayor, city councilperson, and school board who would then, in turn, decide on our police chief and school superintendent. Whew, no wonder I felt tired on November 5th...

With so many important offices being filled, I'm sure this election season was a mixed bag for most. You probably got some of the folks you wanted in and odds are a couple people made it in that you're not too happy about. Losing sucks in general and, when it comes to an election, people tend to salve the wound by becoming impassioned detractors of the person they didn't vote for who is now in office. Setting aside whether this behavior is constructive, it is oddly therapeutic and an important part of our democratic society.

In at least one case, the vote didn't go in the direction I wanted it to in November. I allowed myself 10 minutes to be disappointed but then I dusted myself off, knelt down, and prayed for said person. That God would bless them with wisdom and guide me in how I could support that all of our newly elected officials in achieving God's purpose through their office. In short, I would submit this - on Novement 5th and going forward, it doesn't matter who you voted for.

In a democratic society, that statement may be the political equivalent of blashphemy but I would simply ask what withholding your support for those now in office is going to achieve for the next four years. Scream and spit and snip all you want, they're in office until the next election. We can choose to obstruct to the detrement of the city and nation we love or we can choose to find common ground and offer our help on the points we agree.

Christ followers in particular are commanded to do this. In 1 Timothy 2, Paul instructs us:

I urge, then, first of all, that requests, prayers, intercession and thanksgiving be made for everyone— for kings and all those in authority, that we may live peaceful and quiet lives in all godliness and holiness. This is good, and pleases God our Savior, who wants all men to be saved and to come to a knowledge of the truth.

In many cases, we boil our allegence down to one issue that we either agree or disagree. When we're not downright hateful about our opposition of said elected official, Christians in particular are very good at passive-agressive hatefulness (ex. "Well I just hope he doesn't screw things up too badly..."). Beyond one person in a particular office, we're also commanded to seek the good of the land that we're in:

Seek the peace and prosperity of the city to which I have carried you into exile. Pray to the LORD for it, because if it prospers, you too will prosper. - Jeremiah 29:7

So Christians really have no excuse for sitting on the sidelines and complaining when the person we want in office isn't. We should love our country and our city enough to find common ground and seek God's will there. There is too much need and too much injustice for there not to be some issue we can agree on. Lets involve ourselves there, putting away hatefulness and divisivness, we can be what God calls us to be - positive forces of mercy and generosity in our world. God is not glorified by our complaining, as a Church, lets be about something more positive in 2009 and going forward.

Who's Hope is it?

2009-01-20T12:40:00.000-08:00

On the heels of Barak Obama's inauguration, I feel a certain weighty inspiration. Here is a man that appeals to our ideals of hope. Agree or disagree with his specific stances on issues, but hope is universal because it springs from our God and it was Jesus' message, His Good News, before it was anyone elses.

There was one particular part of our President's speech today that captured me because I feel like its a message the Church could take to heart in the era of transition we find ourselves collectively in.

...They understood that our power alone cannot protect us, nor does it entitle us to do as we please. Instead, they knew that our power grows through its prudent use; our security emanates from the justness of our cause, the force of our example, the tempering qualities of humility and restraint...

The Church for too long has enjoyed a season of Power and has operated in the world under that mode. The consequence is a culture that rejects us because the Gospel is not a message about power. The Gospel is a message about justness, humility, and restraint (more on this in a future post).

Earlier in his speech, President Obama said that the world has changed and so should we. He meant the country but I think its a message for the Church as well. We shouldn't fear change as if the Gospel will be altered in the process. And we shouldn't see change as merely packaging. If the Gospel is timeless, it will find context in our current time. In these changing times, we will contexts shift but our Gospel of Hope remain the same. As I said, before Hope was Barack Obama's message, it was God's. As followers of Christ, we should be a people inspired by Jesus' message of Hope and Change. To those that carry that banner, I look forward to joining with you...

The Wager of Devotion

2007-01-17T20:23:00.000-08:00

What if I told you something really bad was about to happen to you? You won't know when, where, how, who - nothing, just that something bad is going to happen to you and when it happens...well, its gonna be bad. You would probably walk around pretty jumpy. Perhaps you would find yourself being a little more timid, not taking as many risks. But as careful as you are, you can never be sure if or when "it" is coming.

Now what if I told you why something was bad was going to happen to you? What if I told you the reason was because you were a follower of God? That one day there would be consequences for being so devoted to God, persecution, death, or even worse - ridicule!

How fortunate are we that our hardships as Christians in America don't even come remotely close to violence or death? This is, unfortunately, not always in the case in other areas of the world where following Christ can mean jail or death. Their plight is much the same of the Jewish nation throughout the ages. I was reminded of the story of Shadrach Meshack and Abendigo in the book of Daniel. Faced with the consequence of a fiery death in a furnace, they chose God over the king, boldly stating that they would rather die than disavow their God. They said that God had the power to save them from this fate. But even if he chose not to, they would still not bow down to the king. This was quite a dangerous wager they had going with the king and with God. They could face the fire and God would either save them or not save them, but what was more unbearable to them than anything was walking away from their God. Their boldness for God was rewarded as God stood with them in the fire; their devotion, shining in sharp contrast to the thousands of Israelites that had chosen to capitulate in the same situation rather than face the same trial.

Lest we think that God is somehow obligated by our actions to work this way or that, think of John the Baptist. He is our counter-example in one way. Like many prophets, he was bold for God but was eventually killed by the same people that he was sent to. We should hear echoes of Jesus' life in this example as well. Here were more followers of God that decided that nothing would stop them from proclaiming their devotion to God boldly and suffered as a result. What was more unacceptable to them than even death was to say that they almost fought the good fight, almost finished the race, almost keep the faith.

This brings us back to our current dilemma, if fiery furnaces and death aren't our consequence for following God then why do we walk around as if it were? At the risk of scorn or a snide comment from a coworker or classmate, many Christ followers sheepishly go about their devotional lives hoping to not draw much attention to themselves. Their compromise is a devotion not so bold as to draw attention but not so cold as to equate to, at least in their own minds, rejection of God. I doubt that God is fooled or that he's very pleased. Should he savor a glass of lukewarm water anymore than you or I would?

By their scorn, our culture in many ways has the church up against the proverbial ropes. Where Christians have found the courage to boldly display their devotion for God, they often lack the love and respect necessary for the message to be pure and the hearers to be affected.

We've feared the fire for too long and our world is ill served by the timid faith produced as a result. What this world needs more than anything is a Church that is proud of her Savior. Nothing will build peoples' faith in God more than people with faith in God. Nothing will give people confidence in God more than people who are confident in God. Nothing will help this world know what God is like more than people that model, by their lives, what God is like. Nothing will make people desire God more than people that desire God.

So if my life is a wager between the possibility of persecution or the assurance of God's pleasure then gimme the dice - I'm betting it all on the latter.

U-turns in the Kingdom

2006-12-24T10:52:00.000-08:00

We've spent the last several Advent weeks preparing for Christmas tomorrow. What continues to strike me is Jesus born in a barn. The humility and simplicity of how God chose to enter into our world carries a profound weight to it that's too easily lost on the season. Philippians 2 says,

Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus: Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient to death— even death on a cross!

We understand what happened at Christmas but we don't understand what any of it means. Not that there's any one meaning or reason but, more to the point, that we don't give it any thought at all. I should wonder as I think about Christ's birth if the humility I see in that act would have some influence on the way I live my life. Christ had everything we strive for in life, and he forsook it to be with us. And, in some kind of ironic twist, we find ourselves forsaking God for all the things we strive for in life.

If it seems backwards, it should. We often find ourselves going in the complete opposite direction that we should be going, doing exactly the opposite of what we should be doing. Our values, our goals and pursuits are cast in stark contrast to God's. That's why God's ways seem so counter-intuitive to us sometimes - who's wrong, him or us? That's why Jesus and others use religious terms like "repent", which literally means, "to turn around" or "to go the other way".

God, born a helpless baby in a stinky manger. Divinity stuffed into humanity. Light shining in the darkness. The most valuable thing in the world, found among the worthless. Its the incredible foolishness of the Christmas story cast against our "normal" values and pursuits that jars us out of our apathy and spiritual inertia. All of a sudden, I'm left to ask what's more foolish, God sacrificing his glory to be with us or me selling my soul for money, prestige, or power.

Looking into the face of a little baby, I'm brought to my knees. Yes, God I hear you. Yes, I understand - or at least I'm beginning to.

The people walking in darkness have seen a great light; on those living in the land of the shadow of death a light has dawned...

Blogger's Block

2006-10-27T06:06:00.000-07:00

Hello long lost blog. It's probably been evident that I have lately found a lack of time and motivation for writing more in my blog. I'm honestly not too worried about this. First of all, the day that I wrote because I felt obligated too this would cease to give me any pleasure at all. Secondly, I've noticed in my life that I go through seasons when I am either "inhaling" or "exhaling" spiritually. In other words, sometimes I have something to say, sometimes I feel I should just shut and listen. One inevitably leads to the other so I'm confident this "blogger's block" will come to an end.

Sufficed to say that, during this season of listening, God has begun to tell me much. I feel like he's leading me into some very new exciting directions. I feel like God is actively at work in my life. I get a sense of his movement and his pulling in a very specific direction. I'm trying to confirm all of this with him by staying in conversation with him.

In the meantime, I'm just going to sit here, be quiet, and listen...

Army of None

2006-08-14T04:13:00.000-07:00

Rule #1 on the battlefield - find out who's firing at you.

I've been doing some thinking lately about what/who the chief opponents of the church truly are. There's a lot of rhetoric around this issue and a lot of comforting answers that don't have that much truth to them. And so while the church would like to think the cause of its problems are some combination of gays, MTV, and the democratic party, I think the root cause hits a lot closer to home.

Taking a long term view of church history over the last 2000 years it would seem that the church is a victim of its own success. The church was a tiny mustard seed that grew into a 300 lb. gorilla which then in turn became a 90 year-old women in a walker. As a church, we wonder what we can do to fight those that oppose us but I propose that our greatest enemy is oftentimes, ourselves.

The church suffers from a self-imposed sickness that has perhaps more severely hindered its health and growth than Satan’s opposition ever did. Or, to think about it another way, perhaps apathy has been Satan’s most effective tool over the millennia.

In short, apathy has led to lethargy which has, in turn, led to atrophy.

At the risk of nostalgia, a summary reading of Acts picks up on something very fresh about the Christ followers before they had even begun to be called Christians. There was an urgency to their mission; a sense of sacrifice and excitement that has since largely abated. Somewhere along the way, Christians ceased to be the ones being thrown in the lion's den anymore, they were the lions. For centuries, the midevil and catholic churches could sit back and tell the world that it should come to them - effectively reversing the Great Commission that Jesus had left his followers when he returned to heaven.

Had the church really heard from Jesus to change his command to them or, having achieved a certain level of power and comfort, thought it had accomplished its goal of conquering the world and welcomed anyone that wished to relish that victory to join in doing so?

Before the church had even effectively begun, Jesus stated the problem and the solution in very clear terms. Staring out over a valley of hurting and lost people, he said, "The harvest is plentiful but the workers are few. Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into his harvest field." Jesus is saying that the problem is not the harvest but the workers!

The modern day church is in urgent need of a sense of urgency about its mission. Is the church still filled with men and women willing to sacrifice anything to glorify Christ in the world? Are we even excited about our faith anymore?! Thankfully, I do believe that the answer is yes. As with every generation, the Lord preserves out of it a remnant that has stayed true to his calling. There exists in this remnant a passion that can still save the world.

And, as it most always is, that remnant is led by its young people.

I see a certain sense of irony in the fact that the generations (X and Y) accosted and chided for their relative lack of motivation and apathy would be the generation whom, by its passion for God, could save the church - and thereby, the world.

In Isaiah 6, God calls out, “Who will I send and who will go.” In the story, Isaiah responds that he will go but, notice carefully, God wasn’t speaking directly to anyone – there is no referent in God’s statement. What I’m led to believe about this call is that its an open invitation as valid today as it was when Isaiah heard. God’s voice is echoing out of heaven calling to each of us and demanding a response. I believe that our generation will respond but let us state very clearly to those that hestitate that no response is effectively a ‘no’.

The time for inaction in God's church has passed. Echoing the words of many a biblical author, love for God will not merely be shown by sentiment but truly by action. I believe that this valley of dry bones can once again rise to be - "a vast army".

Adore

2006-07-17T18:29:00.000-07:00

I don't have pages to write tonight but, sitting here listening to music and worshiping God, a very simple thought occurred to me. I find many people, especially in very recent conversations, with a very strong belief in God and a very adamant belief in Christian doctrine.

But very few times do I meet someone that simply adores God.

God is the most beautiful person I've ever met. His teachings are the best advice and guidance I've ever received. Jesus is the greatest man that ever lived and I wish I could be everything that he was. Loving, kind, caring, giving, joyful, funny, powerful but gentle.

I see a lot of people that believe stuff really strongly. I meet very few people that adore anything except themselves. And selfishness is a paltry form of adoration. As Christ followers, we can say that we adore someone so far beyond us and yet so close that he adores us more. Our God smiles when he sees us, he dances over us. He has celebrated every day that you've ever lived. I've never lacked a single thing. In every situation, he's provided for my needs and then more. So I know today, surer than anything else I know, that God rejoices over my joy.

I feel no need to be articulate tonight so much as to communicate how totally fixated I am on my Jesus, my God. Let my adoration be my testimony tonight.

Demonstration vs. Demonstration

2006-07-11T15:57:00.000-07:00

As always, I really appreciate JD and Colbey's comments. Their response to my last blog caused me to think more about how Jesus took a stand against the conventions of his day that he opposed.

In general, people have a pretty ugly way of disagreeing with one another. A random sampling of the news today will verify this fact. Rarely do I find people/groups that can disagree with one another in a civilized fashion. And on this accord, Christians are as guilty as anyone else. In fact, with a mandate to be just the opposite, I'd say Christ-followers are doubly incriminated for their hateful displays of opinion and protest. It's doubtful that loud demonstrations have ever swayed the opinion of any great number of people but, rather, to solidify them in their views.

What we see in Jesus is an entirely different and loving way of demonstrating his opposition to the wrongs of his culture. But his methods weren't just different, they were far more effective. Jesus protested the culture of the day by demonstrating the alternative. He advocated his message by his actions and, by doing so, subverted the positions of those he opposed.

This is a very different kind of "demonstration" though. The term demonstration has multiple meanings. When you think of the first, think of shouting lines of protesters holding big signs stating their opinion on something. Think of the second, for example, as me demonstrating a product I want you to buy by actually showing you how it works. The first kind of demonstration involves much more talk, the second, a lot more action.

Jesus preferred the second, he lived out the message he was preaching thereby demonstrating its validity. This, I believe, presents a real challenge to many so-called Christ followers because yelling is oftentimes far easier than actually changing one's life to reflect Jesus' commands. I don't know whether I'm more amused or heart broken when all Christians do is talk about their faith and then wonder why no one is convinced. Honestly, why should someone else adopt a doctrine into their lives that we are either unwilling or unable to adopt ourselves. Our hypocrisy has drained the Gospel of its power and simply yelling louder compensates not for the loss.

As followers of Christ, we will begin to change the world when we, first, change our lives. If we pay attention to the One we claim to follow we'll see an example already provided. Christ's example shows us that his lifestyle is possible for those that are willing.

So the question becomes, are we willing?

Enigma

2006-06-25T19:45:00.000-07:00

At first, I was going to name this blog something to the effect of "Pissing off Pharisee's - A Practical Guide". While I will talk about this, "Enigma" seemed to strike more at the heart of what I've been thinking about lately.

This past year, there've been times when I've acutely felt a tension about living the life I want to live in this world. At times I can feel opposed, other times scorn. Most people are nicer than that, they're just kinda confused (maybe/hopefully a little intrigued) about the whole thing. It led me to think about the opposition Jesus was met with living the kind of life he lived while he was here. Oddly enough, Jesus met the most opposition with the so-called "religious people" of his day. For some odd reason, something inside of me takes great joy in how much Jesus pissed off "religious people". :-)

As I thought about it, what angered the religious leaders of Jesus' day most was not Jesus' direct attacks on them and the culture they set up. After all, most of Jesus' "direct attacks" were in response to a question or attack initially directed at him. In fact, many people of His day were issuing such direct attacks and didn't draw nearly the ire that Jesus did. The reason Jesus inspired such anger in the relgious people of his day is far less salient. Simply put, he wouldn't play by their rules.

I read many of the first interactions Jesus had with pharisaical types as an attempt to recruit by the latter. Initially, the Pharisees were probably just trying to figure out who's "side" Jesus was on. Many people were disappointed to find out that Jesus wasn't on any of their sides. He was on God's side. He was on the side of the poor and oppressed, people whom it wasn't very advantagious to side with. As he grew in power and influence, I think it bothered people very much that Jesus would not align himself with their cause.

Two other things really escalated the matter. Jesus' lifestyle wouldn't have been as potent if it had not been so successful. By successful, I mean many things. First, consistency; Jesus was able to live a life that didn't comprimise the ideal he preached. Beyond that, it was staggering how well Jesus' lifestyle worked in a world that was seemingly so set against it. He seemed to swim against the current of his culture with an ease that, I think, frustrated many people that wanted him to just "get with the program". Jesus life turned everything they understood about life on its head and, most imporantly, made that life attractive to others. The Pharisees, in a very unguarded moment, even once proclaimed, "Look how the whole world has gone after him!" (John 12:19b - in fact, read the whole chapter). It's when Jesus began drawing others to himself that the Pharisees' frustration turned into rage. Jesus' lifestyle gave people not just another way to live but a better way to live.

Jesus was an enigma because it was impossible to understand him apart from God. When we talk about proclaiming the Gospel, far beyond mere words, we mean taking Jesus' lifestyle and demonstrating it in our own lives. We'll find that, as we do this, our lives will sometimes have the same effect on people that Jesus' did. To make a lifestyle of out Jesus' teaching will, as a natural consequence, draw the attention of those around us both inside and outside of the church. Some responses will be positive and encouraging others, out of sheer confusion or fear, will not be as encouraging. We must be prepared for either. Once people have tried to understand you apart from God, and failed, they will have to turn toward God to make any sense of your life. Like the dancer that once said, "If I could say it, I wouldn't have to dance it", we will say more with our actions than our words could ever have expressed.

You will be an enigma because it will be impossible to understand you apart from God...

What's Playing? - Angels and Airwaves

2006-06-13T11:09:00.000-07:00

So this begins a new feature I'd like to start on my blog. Periodically, I'd like to talk about new music (or at least new to me) that I've been checking out.

The name of the band may not seem familiar but the band's vocalist and front man, Tom DeLonge, will be immediately recognizable for the millions of Blink182 fans, who have appreciated his work for many years already.

Beginning with Blink's last album, DeLonge's songwriting prowess has began to grow and mature, continuing that upward progression with his new project, Angels and Airwaves, and their debut CD, We Dont' Have to Whisper. Once you shake the notion that you're just listening to another Blink182 album, you'll start to appreciate the depth of this offering, particularly in its lyrics. You'll definitely want to pull the lyrics out of the jacket on this one and give them a read as you listen.

DeLonge takes a departure from typical teen angst over the problems of the world and takes this opportunity to sing about the solution in inspiring fashion. Intended or not, many of the lyrics have a decidedly spiritual tone to them (at least to this listener). For instance, A&A's track, A Little's Enough, is a song about a world where there is no pain and allowing that healing to start in your heart now. Check out an exerpt from the song...

Green trees were the first sign
The deepest blue, the clearest sky
The silence came with the brightest eyes
And turned water into wine

The children ran to see
The parents stood in disbelief
And those who knew braced for the ride
The earth itself then came alive to say

I, I can do anything
If you want me here
And I can fix anything
If you let me near
Where are those secrets now?
That you're too scared to tell
I'd whisper them all aloud
So you can hear your self

While not every part of the CD is filled with this much depth and meaning, I wouldn't say there was any part that I truly didn't like. The CD on the whole is an impressive and significant leap forward for DeLong's art. Personally, the power of some of DeLong's lyrics have actually inspired me to revisit my poetry as an avenue of personal expression. Overall, the CD is definitely worth checking out. Post your thoughts on it once you give it a listen...

Suprised by Goodness

2006-06-06T17:35:00.000-07:00

After a month's hiatus from blogging, I'm finally sitting down to write about some of the stuff God's been teaching me over the last month. The good news is that I have a whole month of stuff to write about!

More than anything, this past month, I've seen God answer numerous prayers in absolutely amazing ways. Like many people, my prayer life comes in waves but, recently, I've experienced a real renaissance in prayer. What's struck me most during this time is how suprised I am when God answers my prayers. Perhaps I wouldn't have normally noticed it but the frequency and magnitude of God's answers have made this fact increasingly apparent.

The Bible is stuffed with quotes from God saying if we pray to him about things, he'll answer. Most notably in Matt, chapter 7, Jesus says, "Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives; he who seeks finds; and to him who knocks, the door will be opened."

I'm not sure how much more plainly he could say it. But then he goes farther: "Which of you, if his son asks for bread, will give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a snake? If you, then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask him!".

In this passage, God not only speaks of his willingness to answer our prayers but, even moreso, his enjoyment in doing so. As I've thought over this passage recently, one question lingers in my heart: God, I know you're good but are you really that good?

It's not a very orthodox question to ask, but its honest. I'm continually underestimating how good God is and he's, therefore, continually suprising me by answering prayers that I, honestly, never expected him to answer. It's some kind of excessive-compulsive need I have to draw a line around God; to know his boundaries so I can say I've figured him out.

It is with much regret that I must admit I am running out of energy trying to put God in a box. He simply refuses to respect the boundaries I place on him. I'm compelled to start asking for impossible things like entire cities and an exciting desk job. I'm becoming convinced my prayers are almost tangible in God's presence. And most dangerous of all, I'm starting to believe the prayers I pray.

God keep suprising us with your goodness. Amen...

New York City

2006-05-30T08:14:00.000-07:00

So I just got back from a trip to New York City with my wife, celebrating our first anniversary! We had a blast checking out Manhattan. We went to a show on Broadway, wandered around Times Square for about a day, walked through Central Park, and a ton more. I love cities and New York City is one of the best. You definitely have to love people though because everywhere is crowded! And don't even think about taking a car to visit, buses and the subway will take you anywhere you need to go for a fraction of the stress. We'll definitely visit again, there's so much to do. I posted some pics up on flickr for anyone interested.

I know, I know, I've been pretty lax with posting lately. More posts are soon to come I promise.

Arnold vs. Chuck (aka Nuclear war)

2006-05-12T08:20:00.000-07:00

What else could be said? It's reasonable to suppose that the solar system would be altered forever by the clash of these two titans. Of course, Arnold would eventually win (no doubt) and then he would rule that was left of the Earth as Grand Imperial Governa of da Planet!

A long narrow road

2006-05-05T19:21:00.000-07:00

With the cross fresh in our memory from Easter a month ago, its helpful to spend some time thinking about what God intended Jesus' sacrifice and resurrection to result in. Surely Jesus' death and resurrection mean eternity in heaven after we die for those of us that follow Him. But for centuries, the underlying assumption has been that Jesus' cross had to do with death, his and what happens to us after ours. But, if we look closer, I think we'll find that Jesus' cross had far more to do with life than it ever did death.

Does it ever stike you funny that Jesus bothered being born and growing up - living an entire 33-ish years of life here just to be crucified in the end? Couldn't he have landed on Earth full grown, died a blameless death, and rocketed back up to heaven after the resurrection? If God took the time and trouble to live 30-some years here, I think we could spare a couple minutes to see if we can understand why.

Because Jesus' life wasn't just him biding time between his birth and his cross. It was him demonstrating a new kind (or quality) of life. In the words of NT Wright, "a new way to be human." Jesus' life was the blueprint, our example to follow long after he had gone back to heaven.

So how does Jesus' life and his cross fit together? The latter makes the former possible - Jesus' death frees us from Sin and gives us another way. It enables and inspires us to live our lives the way Jesus did his. But we often hold his life at arm's reach, thinking that his death was the only thing that directly affected us. Between now and heaven, we think we can admire his life, appreciate his death, and then get on with our own lives.

To know that Jesus lived a life that he intended us to emulate is a challenging thing. We have no problem being "good" to the extent that its convenient. But when our goal becomes to live our lives like Jesus would, we've chosen a more difficult way. A narrow road as long as our lifespan. We have to be willing to pay the price to walk down this road because it is the life we were intended to live. From the accounts of other that have already walked down that road we know that it has its rewards - a quality of life this world will never be able to match.

We also know that, walking down this road, we'll succed in drawing attention to ourselves. Some people shy away from this because of the stigmas arounding "radical" followers of Christ. There have been plenty of loud-mouths that call themselves Christians and do a horrible job of representing who he really is. Surely we don't want to be lumped into that group. But we have to understand that if we don't step out there accurately modeling Jesus with our lives, the only thing people are going to know about Jesus is what the loud-mouths say - and that is a tragedy.

Looking down that road and over the horizon, I see the glow of something great beyond it. Along the path I find little notes of those that have gone before me encouraging me to continue. Going a little further, I meet other travelers heading in the same direction as me. And the longer I walk down this road that I was so afraid to start walking down, the more wonder how I could have walked anywhere else.

The Best Job in America

2006-04-21T08:43:00.000-07:00

Now some might say that playing Jack Bauer on TV is the best job in America but, according to CNN, I have the best job in America! Wow, do I get a trophy or something?! Well, its not like getting paid to play baseball or nothing but it will do for now I guess. What interests me is that job fulfillment didn't play a factor in the ranking. I guess I'm not suprised by that but my evaluation of a great job would be knowing that what I do matters. That the world is a better place because of what I do. Now certainly we can (and should) ask those same questions of our lives overall. I definitely feel like I do a lot of meaningful things that help the world - I just do them after work. If that's the case then, does my job have to be world-changing if some other part of my life is? As old as I may seem to some of you, I'm still way too young to claim to know the answer that question.

I'm in a book!

2006-04-21T07:15:00.000-07:00

Perhaps that whooshing sound is my fifteen minutes of fame rushing past me but I found a book today that I'm in! Well...I was co-author of a chapter in the book. Still cool if you ask me. Words I wrote are in a textbook now. Check it out at Oxford University Press and reserve your copy today! (I've been promised a zero percent commission on every copy I sell)

An Easter Story

2006-04-15T09:25:00.000-07:00

What if you were walking along the river one day and you saw a man drowning in the river? You run up to the bank of the river and call out to him. He answers back insisting that he is not drowning and tells you to go away. Watching him for a second, its readily apparent that the man's words do not reflect the severity of the situation. If someone doesn't jump in an save him immediately he will, without a doubt, drown. So you jump in the river, grab him, and start pulling him toward the river bank. All the while he curses at you and tells you he doesn't need your help. When you reach the shore, he rips himself out of your arms. Screaming at you he says, "I told you that I didn't need your help!!!" And then he storms off.

Time goes on and the man you save goes back to his life. He enjoys a good life with people and things that he loves dearly but the event at the river continues to haunt him. For any number of reasons, he can't admit to himself that he was in trouble and needed to be saved. He convinces himself that he owes you no gratitude since, after all, he didn't ask you to do what you did. But still the event remains fresh in his mind day after day, year after year.

But as time goes by, he starts to take a new perspective on that day at the river. Maybe his situation had been a little more dire than he had been willing to admit at the time. He starts to think that your actions were more appropriately based on the facts of the situation than his words at the time. He looks around at his life, everything that's beautiful and everything that he loves. He realizes that every day he's lived from that fateful day to this is, essentially, a gift because he wouldn't have had it if you hadn't saved him. This realization falls over him slowly, first understanding, then denial, then acceptance.

Finally, he's ready to admit that he did need your help. That he has you to thank for the life he can enjoy now because he wouldn't have had his life otherwise. That every good thing he has is in some way tied to the fact that you saved him years earlier. He begins the work to find you and thank you. It's difficult at first but, with some work, he tracks you down and has the chance to finally show his appreciation for what you did at the river. Any such appreciation comes with it some regret for how he treated you at the time, and so he apologizes as well.

This Easter we focus on Christ's sacrifice with a tone of appreciation and apology. The Apostle John says it this way that, "While we were yet sinners, Christ died for us." Drowning in our own sin, Christ saw it fit to save us even as we cursed him for it every step of the way. Praise be to God that he paid more attention to our situation than he did our words. Would we, today, turn around and thank him for what he did and praise him for how awesome he is.

Happy Easter everyone. Praise Jesus for first enduring, and then conquering, death itself. For that we praise him.

Bringing Chaos to my Order

2006-04-08T09:21:00.000-07:00

I'd worked so hard to prepare for the day that was coming...

In one month I would graduate with my PhD, get married, move to Richmond, and start a new job. It was something coming over the horizon that was so gigantic that you saw it for miles before you ever got to it. I'd thought about it for at least a year and begun to make plans accordingly.

I was putting the final touches on my dissertation and preparing for my defense. We took trips to Richmond and scoped out apartments to live in. I applied to three dozen different jobs looking for something in Richmond that I might enjoy doing. We were planning the wedding and all the details associated with that. Planning, planning, planning. Preparing, preparing, preparing.

But at some point something changed. My efforts to be responsible and diligent became my efforts to "plan out" anything that had the potential of being difficult. I'd busied myself with planning so I wouldn't have to deal with the fact that I was afraid of all the change that was about to happen. None of the change was bad but if was going to be difficult to acclimate to nonetheless.

God broke through my busyness to confront me with my fear and tell me it was okay to be that way. I wrote down in my journal what I heard from God at that time: "You run and run and run because you're greatest fear is true. Graduating, getting married, getting a job, moving to Richmond, everything else is going to be hard. It's going to be difficult no matter how much you prepare. And I'm not going to let you sidestep this one... I can bring chaos to your order."

Idols come in many forms, they are whatever you've chosen to worship instead of God. Our idols are worthless because they are not as worthy of our worship as God is. And for me at that time (and I'm sure many others) my idol, what I chose to worship instead of God, were my own plans and my preparations - my attempts to control an unknown future that I was afraid of. Sometimes we find that our plans are safer than faith. Why trust God when I can just control everything and take care of it myself?

But our best attempts to control our own future can't compare with God's ability to guide our lives. But that's definitely a step of faith because God's plans aren't at all predictable, comfortable, or safe. What we think we want is predictability, comfort, and safety but standing on the other side of that kind of life I'm reasonably sure I'd be pretty disappointed with living such a boring life.

Long story short, "the month" came and went. All of our preparations really helped us get started in Richmond but, as God predicted, it was (and still is) hard. I'm pretty sure that the unknown will never be comfortable for me but knowing that God's active in what's happening in my life is exciting and comforting in its own way.

"In his heart a man plans his course, but the LORD determines his steps." - Proverbs 16:9

The Thinking Diet

2006-04-06T08:24:00.000-07:00

This is Brad Wilson's idea but its just so brilliant I had to post on my blog...think about it and let me know what you think...get it...think about it(!)...hmm...might make more sense after you read it...

--------------------------

Burning calories by "thinking hard" instead of "working hard".

Think about it. The neurons and electrodes in your brain require some sort of energy to operate. So every time to think a thought your brain is sending electro charged signals through the chemical compounds of your neural connections. These electrical currents must come from somewhere! Where does the energy come from to operate your brain? From calories of course. From your metabolic system. Therefore, I must conclude that I can burn calories by thinking.

There's big money in this. I could write a book or two, make a cookbook, start a TV show and radio show, develop an entire program. I'll call it: "The Thinking Diet: Burning Calories by Thinking Deep Thoughts".

Now the only thing I have to do is run some tests to determine what sort of thoughts burn the most calories. For example, maybe thoughts on early renaissance architecture burn more calories than thoughts on femoral arteries. Or maybe thoughts about figs can use more calories than thoughts on checkers stratagem.

Instead of working out, we'll think-out and ponder figs for an hour every day. We could start Think Tank Gyms. No longer do we need expensive weight equipment and tread mills. We'll stock our Think Tank Gyms with lots of chairs and books about early renaissance architecture. People will pay us to provide them with coaching and training classes to better prepare their minds for thinking-out.

I'm pretty sure it will work.

-brad

Kickin' Ass at the Monument 10K

2006-04-02T07:02:00.000-07:00

So I ran my first 10K yesterday with my wife here in Richmond along beautiful Monument Ave. Richmond's such a cool city, they always seem to have fun things like this going on (and 20,000 people show up for the party). Katie and I came in just a little over our lofty goal of an hour and a half to place 14516 and 14518! That's right folks, 14,500th place!!!! Booyah, yea!! And with that we still be like 5,000 people! hehe, anyways it was pretty fun and I think you should come run the Monument 10K with us next year.

Hello New You!

2006-03-24T10:26:00.000-08:00

Last night in Core Community, we kicked off our "Soul Clinic" series which is focused on healing but also so much more. God's ultimate vision for us is not just to get us back to "normal" again but to take us far beyond that. The passage we focused on was in Judges 6, the story of Gideon, a farmer's son living in Israel during the time of the Midianite occupation. Verse 11 and following says that a angel came and sat down near Gideon and greeted him by say, "The Lord is with you, O mighty warrior!" Nothing in the story would lead us to believe that anything about Gideon was mighty or militant and yet the angel greets with the name "Mighty Warrior." Gideon was just as baffled as we are by the salutation and endeavors at that point to correct the angel is his obvious error.

But was the angel mistaken or was he just privy to things about Gideon that even Gideon was not yet aware of? Gideon does go on to defeat the Midianites and save Israel in quite a "might warrior-ish" way. So it would seem that Gideon was the one mistaken in the first place.

As we think about God's vision for our lives we should have a similar sneaking suspicion that God may know things about our true identity and potential that we are not yet aware of. If God came to us today with a new name, a name that spoke to our destiny in this life, would we balk like Gideon did, like Abraham did, like Moses, Mary, and so many others did? Or would we take in good confidence that God is seeing us not only as who we are but also as the person we're becoming?

Today you may doubt how extraordinary you are but God doesn't. I believe that, for many Christ followers, God has already laid a vision on your heart of what your life should be about. For those that haven't received that from God, Christian or not-yet-Christian, he is faithful to provide that if you pursue him and listen. My prayer for you today is that you have the wisdom the hear God's calling on your life, his vision for who you are, and that you would have the courage to pursue that new identity.

Greetings, extraordinary person! The world is waiting for you.

Slackers of the world UNITE!

2006-03-21T09:26:00.000-08:00

It's fascinating to see how the world's philosophy of "more is better" is collapsing upon itself in so many different arenas at once. One huge example is definitely the workplace. Conventional wisdom would say that a person that works 80 hours a week or works on two projects is twice as productive and valuable as a person that works 40 hours a week on one project - maybe but maybe not. Check out this article I found on workplace productivity and creativity, its pretty good. Of course, I say that overwork affects more than just our creativity but that's another blog ;-) Enjoy!

Big UP to peps that link to me!

2006-03-18T19:53:00.000-08:00

You know, in blog-land there's no greater honor than to be "linked to" by someone else's blog. These days, I actually owe a chunk of the hits to my blog to Eric Young (like a quarter of my hits) and Chris Poch as well. This blog is just to tell ya how much I love ya! One of these days, I promise I'll put up a "Friends' blogs" section on my page but this will have to suffice as gratitude in the meantime...

Blog's back up!

2006-03-18T18:43:00.000-08:00

Silly blog wasn't working for a day or so there, it just came up blank. I had to republish my blog and then do a shift-refresh to get it to show up again. Of course, I haven't been posting much for the last month or two so it wouldn't have made much of a difference that it wasn't working! Well, many of the reasons that I haven't been posting lately have been resolved so I expect to start posting more frequently again.

The real story of Saint Patrick

2006-03-17T06:13:00.000-08:00

Ah, four leaf clovers and pints of green beer. St. Patrick's Day is really a fun holiday to celebrate. But beyond knowing that we should where green today (which I didn't) many people really have no clue who Saint Patrick is and why we celebrate his life. Here's a real brief history:

His name was Patricius, a young Roman citizen living in Britain with his family back in the 5th century. At the age of 16, Patricius' town was attacked by Irish raiders and he was carried to Ireland as a slave. His master was a druidic high priest who taught him the celtic language and the customs of the druids. Though lukewarm in his faith as a child, Patricius' faith grew deeply during this trying time. At the age of 22, he escaped his master and joined a monistary in France adopting the name Patrick. Twelve years later, God issued Patrick a strong call to go back to Ireland to preach the Gospel to the people that had enslaved him. Stories of Patrick's ministry work in Irleland is legendary even to this day. Among other things, many powerful Celtic prayers are credited to him including one of my favorites, Saint Patrick's breastplate:

I rise today
In power’s strength, invoking the Trinity,
Believing in threeness,
Confessing the oneness,
Of creation’s Creator

I rise today
In the power of Christ’s birth and baptism,
In the power of his crucifixion and burial,
In the power of his rising and ascending,
In the power of his descending and judging.

I rise today
In the power of the love of cherubim,
In the obedience of angels
And service of archangels,
In hope of rising to receive the reward,
In the prayers of patriarchs,
In the predictions of prophets,
In the preaching of apostles,
In the faith of confessors,
In the innocence of holy virgins,
In the deeds of the righteous.

I rise today
In heaven’s might
In sun’s brightness
In moon’s radiance
In fire’s glory
In lightning’s quickness
In wind’s swiftness
In sea’s depth,
In earth’s stability,
In rock’s fixity.

I rise today
With the power of God to pilot me,
God’s strength to sustain me,
God’s wisdom to guide me,
God’s eye to look ahead for me,
God’s ear to hear me,
God’s word to speak for me,
God’s hand to protect me,
God’s way before me,
God’s shield to defend me,
God’s host to deliver me:
From snares of devils,
From evil temptations,
From nature’s failings,
From all who wish to harm me,
Far or hear,
Alone and in a crowd.

Around me I gather today all these powers
against every cruel and merciless force
to attack my body and soul,
against the charms of false prophets,
the black laws of paganism,
the false laws of heretics,
the deceptions of idolatry,
against spells cast by women, smiths and druids,
and all unlawful knowledge
that harms the body and soul.

May Christ protect me today
Against poison and burning,
Against drowning and wounding,
So that I may have abundant reward;
Christ with me, Christ before me, Christ behind me,
Christ within me, Christ beneath me, Christ above me;
Christ to right of me, Christ to left of me;
Christ in my lying, Christ in my sitting, Christ in my rising;
Christ in the heart of all who think of me,
Christ in the tongue of all who speak to me,
Christ in the eye of all who see me,
Christ in the ear of all who hear me.

I rise today
In power’s strength, invoking the Trinity,
Believing in threeness,
Confessing the oneness,
Of creation’s Creator.

For more of Patrick's story, I recommend reading The Celtic Way of Evangelism. It's a fascinating book and an easy read.

Now that you are sufficiently informed on the true meaning of St. Patrick's day you can feel free to celebrate with some green beer!!! Here's a tip: you're not drunk until you have to hold onto the grass to keep from falling off the Earth. :-)

It is finished

2006-03-10T05:36:00.000-08:00

Today is a really special day for me.

Today a very tough season of my life comes to an end - God has again provided in an amazing way. As I look back on this trial, I'm left with a lot of different thoughts. I don't blame God for this trial, although I've been tempted to many time over the past several months. I wonder what I could have done differently that could have shortened this trial or made it go away altogether. I wonder if I should have been stronger, wiser, or prayed more. But then I realize that is neither here nor there. Perhaps in the same situation years from now I would have fared much better. Being stronger and wiser, I would have known exactly what to do and how to handle myself. But, again, that thought has very little value to me right now. The point is that a trial is a trial because it was tough for me where I was at right now. I can't be down on myself about what I might have done differently. But, going forward, I do pray to God that I've learned something that will help me in other situations I may face. Perhaps some time in the future I will be in a very similar situation and will know better what to do - but only God knows the balance of my story.

Lastly, I've been haunted by what other people thought of me through this trial. Where they disappointed, where they suprised that I didn't handle myself better though it? I don't know. I probably will never know. But, in the end, it doesn't really matter. Throughout this season, I've asked God to guide my actions and help me to honor him always. In the end, if God is pleased with how I handled myself through this time then I'm more than satisfied with that.

Praise God for navigating me through yet another stretch of troubled waters. Today is my victory dance. :-)

Are you happy?

2006-02-15T09:45:00.000-08:00

I was reading an article online that I thought people would be interested in. Pew Research Center did a study on happiness and came up with some interesting results: http://pewresearch.org/social/pack.php?PackID=1

One of the gigantic assumptions of this survey, however, is that people know what happiness is - that I would debate more than any one point of this survey. Either way, pretty interesting stuff for your enjoyment...

Three Images for Evangelism (the carpenter)

2006-02-11T20:46:00.000-08:00

So after weeks of non-posting-ness I am back (!) to talk about the third image for evangelism. Frankly, I don't know what everyone has done in meantime without something to read on my blog. Anyways, sorry it took so darn long...

So while the first two images (the fisherman and the farmer) really focused on the task of evangelism prior to a person deciding to follow Christ, the third image (the carpenter) has more to do with what happens afterwards.

The carpenter is a critical image for the modern church to catch hold of since what it conotates is so severly lacking in most churchs' philosophy of evangelism. My dad (among other people I know) is a carpenter which makes me the son of a carpenter in several senses. What I admire about them is that they are truly craftsmen and care about their work. They take pride in what they are making. They are artists in every sense of the term, really putting a part of themselves into what they are constructing. Carpenters also see their "projects" (I'll come back to that) to the end. No carpenter worth his (or her) toolbelt would ever think of leaving a project half finished. Think of a table with three legs or a door with only one hinge on it. Carpenters know that if you don't care about your work you will, invariably, produce crap.

When we come to evangelism, the vast majority of churches have misinterpreted Jesus' call to go tell the world about Him. We have focused on conversions to the exclusion of discipleship. In other words, we'll move Heaven and Earth to get someone to pray the "sinner's prayer" but then, content with the notion that they're not going to hell, we leave them to figure out life as a Christian on their own. Denominations measure their success by how many "decisions for Christ" their churches acculmated over the past year. Most churches I have come in contact with run evangelism classes fairly regularly, but ask them about whether they have any classes on discipleship and they might look at you funny.

The point is that after helped someone come to the point where they are ready to follow Christ, why would we short-circuit that by basically "orphaning" them as baby Christians? New Christians don't magically become mature Christians. God doesn't just zap them and suddenly they are reading their Bible everyday in the original Greek and Hebrew. Just like the carpenter, we have to see our work through to its finish. The goal - a fully mature Christian that can then go out and help others follow Christ. Let me say that again in case someone missed it - our goal is help people become fully mature Christians that can then in turn help others beceome fully mature Christians. The church has largely missed this point for over a thousand years. If you were fully committed to helping someone start following Christ, be just as committed in helping learn how to do so for a lifetime!

I want to end with one final point I touched on earlier. In my analogy of the carpenter, I purposely used the word "project" to bring up a crucial issue that Christians need to understand. People that don't follow Christ are not "projects" for us to convert, they are people for us to love. It is not our mandate to see how many people we can shove into some "convert-o-matic" process that churns out decisions for Christ that really don't mean anything. I have actually heard Christians say, "I don't actually care if I know anything about their life, I just want them to 'pray the prayer'." It is this kind of cold-hearted mass produced evangelism that has largely been the church's undoing for at least the last 50 years.

If evangelism is motivated by love, we will see that the fisherman, the farmer, and the carpenter will naturally characterize our demonstration of the "Good News" to the world. And if entire churches began to adopt such a "strategy of love" we would surely hear people say as they did in Jesus' time, "look how the whole world has gone after Him!"

Three Images for Evangelism (the farmer)

2006-01-15T10:25:00.000-08:00

So in my last post, I talked about the first image that helps us understand evangelism, the fisherman. Now I wanted to talk about the second image, the farmer.

The farmer is a helpful image for evangelism, namely for his patience. The farmer understands the delicate balance between diligence and patience necessary for a seed to grow. So, with faithful regularity, the farmer waters the seed but she knows that too much poking and proding will usually do more to jeoperdize its grow than help it.

The farmers primary tool is, obviously, the seed. Our seed is the Gospel (or "Good News"). Just like the seed, the Gospel has all the potential it needs to grow inherently built into it. Christians need not "oversell" the Gospel as if we were some used car salesman trying to dupe some moron into buying a lemon. No, we should have more confidence in our message than that. The truth is that, if the Gospel is displayed and demonstrated as purely and truely as it was intended by God, it will have no problem bearing fruit. God told us in Isaiah that his Word never returns to him without accomplishing the purpose he intended for it. So, like the farmer, lets go out and diligently "plant" the Gospel in peoples' hearts and minds by demonstrating the beauty of it in our lives. Our relationships and growing friendships with those around us is the "water" the Gospel needs to grow. And if we are patient and diligent, we will in time see a harvest in the world around us.

Praise be to God for these three images! They are far to clever to have come from me alone. I am encouraged and informed by them even as I write about them - I hope you are as well. This is enough for now, I'll write more about the third images (the carpenter) soon. Till then, remember the fisher and the farmer as you live your life today.

Three Images for Evangelism (the fisherman)

2006-01-11T05:11:00.000-08:00

Of all the concepts and terms in Christian Spirituality that get misused, abused, and misunderstood, I'd have to put my money on 'evangelism' being at the top of that list. I don't have the first delusion that I'd be able to dispell all of the misunderstanding surrounding this very volitile word but I've been thinking lately about some useful images that might help convey the true meaning of what evangelism is as best I understand it.

The images I was thinking of are the fisherman, the farmer, and the carpenter. Each of them has a method to what they do that illustrates an important point about evangelism. They each also have a primary tool that we will use as well, in a metaphorical sense. And it probably goes without saying that all I've really done is shamelessly steal images that Jesus used in his teachings 2000 years ago.

First, the fisherman. What I like about the fisherman is that he (or she) is smart enough to know that fish are not prone to simply jump into his boat without him making an effort to draw them in. The fisherman has to go where the fish are because it simply will not happen the other way around. The fisherman's primary tool is the net which he casts out and then draws back in. Whatever fish happen upon the net as its being drawn back in are drawn in with it.

Much like the fisherman, the church will starve to death if it expects the majority of people that are not yet Christian to suddenly realize their need and show up at our door. There are cases where this happens but it remains a faulty assumption. Much like a fisherman's net, we use relationship, a network of friendships, to draw people into Christian community where they can see the Gospel at work in peoples' lives.

I hope to write more before the weekend about the next two images, the farmer and the carpenter. But until then, please post your thoughts on this first image, I would really appreciate your input. This is a series of images I hope to develop into a helpful tool for teaching effective evangelism.

Providence Path

2005-12-20T09:23:00.000-08:00

So last week I was sharing about the fact that I've largely found contentment in the job I am doing right now. Even in the monotonous parts of it, I've found new opportunities to practice humility and a servant's heart. That's my present situation. The second half of what I've been learning has to do with my future situation. I've spent the better part of six months praying about various aspects of my future in very specific detail as to what I desire. First off, I don't think there's anything wrong with that. You should ask God for the desires of your heart and you should be candid about what you want. But what I've become less and less clear on what exactly I want or should want. So in several areas I've coveted either a particular apartment with an even better view of the city than mine or I've coveted a contract with a five-minute commute. But lately some of these prayers, at least for me, have seemed somewhat presumptive.

I'm finding it hard to communicate what I'm feeling right now. All I can say is that God knows what's best for my life and I don't, so why I am asking for anything from God in these big areas other than that his Will be done? As I think about it, that actually sounds strangely like faith to me. And so while I still pray often and pray for very specific things, I've began to give more and more of my life to God for him to decide what's best. And so I simply pray, "Give me the job you want me to have and let me live where you want me to live. Just give me You." I know that sounds incredibly pious but its honestly what I'm feeling in my heart right now. In addition to what I talked about last week, this new attitude of faith has given me a lot more contentment in my life and allowed me to appreciate God's goodness more and more. So hopefully somewhere in this rambling blog entry you heard something that you could identify with or that was helpful to you. I feel very taken care of by God right now and that is a fantastic feeling that only makes me want more of Him.

Hola!!!

2005-12-13T18:48:00.000-08:00

I would like to take this opportunity to welcome the first international visitor to my blog from SANTIAGO, CHILE!!! Hola me amigo, como esta? Mui bien, et tu? Si si!! Yo Ciero Taco Bell!!! I don't mean any of that to be offensive, it's just all the Spanish I know (or I guess, don't know). Anyways, welcome amigo...

This isn't to say we don't have any non-American visitors. Colbey, in fact, is from Mars!. But I don't know how to say 'hi' in Martian, so Hi Colbey!!!!

Profound Monotony

2005-12-13T06:21:00.000-08:00

I'll lead this entry off with a quote from Oswald Chambers that JD sent to me about a week ago:

"Christian perfection is the perfection of a relationship to God that shows itself amid the irrelevancies of human life. When you obey the call of Jesus Christ, the first thing that strikes you is the irrelevancy of the things you have to do, and the next thing that strikes you is the fact that other people seem to be living perfectly consistent lives."

My implication by this quote is not that I have, by any means, perfected my walk with God but, rather, that I resonate with this irrelevancy that he talks about. I'm struck by it on a fairly regular basis. I joke about the TPS reports I write and the Matrix that I plug into each day. I feel the apparent disconnect between what I do for eight hours each day and what I feel is my purpose in life.

But as of late, God has faithfully began to provide me with a more helpful way of looking at the same situation. Here's another quote I read the other day about brother Lawrence in the book, the practice of the presence OF GOD:

"Although he had a great dislike for kitchen work, he developed quite a facility for doing it over the fifteen years he was there. He attributed this to his doing everything for the love of God, asking as often as possible for grace to do his work. He said that he was presently in the shoe repair shop, and that he liked it very much. He would, however, be willing to work anywhere, always rejoicing at being able to do little things for the love of God."

This quote made me think, what if, instead of being here at work, I was on a spiritual retreat at a monastery with brother Lawrence (it sounds kinda silly but just go with me on this). In such a place I would know going in that the goal was to increase my intimacy with God and, to that end, I would first need to learn how to prepare myself for such intimacy. In such a context, it would make perfect sense to be tasked with something like washing dishes or scrubbing floors. These kind of simplistic tasks are designed not to challenge the mind with their complexity but to teach humility and simplicity. Theses tasks would leave ample space in one's mind to contemplate God, to quiet one's soul enough to actually feel the presence of God. Just this last weekend, I had the opportunity to help my church renovate our building by pulling carpet staples up from a stairway. This extremely monotonous task seemed to pose no problem for me. I rather enjoyed the opportunity to do something simple to serve God and to take the opportunity to talk with God about life.

With all of these thoughts swirling in my head, it occurred to me that I have been given some very similar "monastic tasks" at my current place of employment. But, in this space, I have not valued simplicity or the opportunity I have to contemplate and talk to God. I see it as a drudgery and I'm bitter for the whole experience.

So I've decided that a change of approach is necessary. Each morning, I have begun to ask God for patience, humility, and the grace to my job well out of love for him. During the day, I look forward to activities that leave much of my brain free to think about God and I look for opportunities to love and serve my coworkers.

I'm almost positive that at some point I blogged about my desire to find the Kingdom in this space. To pray and wait until I began to see God breaking into this place so that his presence is apparent to me and everyone. These recent thoughts have been very exciting to me as they represent a possible to answer to that prayer from God. Could such an attitude actually make it possible to turn this entire building into my own personal monastery? Surely this would signal God's entrance into this space - a breaking in of his Kingdom. This is pretty exciting for me. God has begun to infuse meaningless things with purpose and irrelevancy with its own importance. It's still so new, but I am experiencing a profound monotony here that has brought me a lot of joy and has almost immediately made my spirituality more provocative to those around me.

A Turning Point?

2005-12-11T19:33:00.000-08:00

After six months (almost to the day) of being in Richmond, I feel like just recently I've been given some very important insight into things by God. While I don't have time to elaborate right now, I do plan on blogging several times this week about it. Pray, specifically about my thoughts on work and life in Richmond in general. These are the areas that I feel like God is very specifically speaking to me right now. It has gone to show me that finding insight from God can often be best described as "wrestling" with God. I don't think God does this for any frivoluous reason. Rather, I think the process of wrestling with God brings us into closer proximity with him than we may have been for quite a while.

These past few months of wrestling with God have been incredibly rewarding. My take-away and my encouragement to others is to not just walk up to God, ask him a question, and then walk away regardless of the answer (or lack thereof). But, rather, to pursue God. He will never run so fast as to not be caught, but he will run just fast enough for us to see in our hearts whether or not we are willing to seek him out. I know that may be a problematic statement for some people to digest. If it is, please post your thoughts. I'd love to have more conversation about this awesome topic.

More Time Than You Think

2005-12-07T09:44:00.000-08:00

I just read the best article about Americans' use of time during the week. The article basically says that we have, on average, as much free time during the week as we have work time. Studies like this are great because they dispel the myth that Americans are too busy. Rather, it supports the fact that we're all just really good at wasting time. We're far too busy being stupified by our televisions (we average almost 3 hours a day) or doing something equally as trivial to engage in many other activities that would improve our (mental/physical/social/spiritual) conditions.

The take away for me is that we cannot passively manage our time and expect it to be spent well on a day-to-day basis. We must be active, even aggressive, in the way that we manage and protect our valuable time.

Testimony

2005-11-24T18:48:00.000-08:00

I just posted four new pieces of poetry that I put together earlier this year. I've spent a lot of time this year reflecting on my story, this is just part of it put to art. It's called Testimony, feel free to check it out and the rest of the art I posted on the right of the page.

If you don't like The Office...what's wrong with you?!

2005-11-22T11:21:00.000-08:00

If you haven't already seen The Office you need to check it out - Tuesdays at 9:30 on NBC

The Simplicity of Greatness

2005-11-17T00:36:00.000-08:00

You know I was in the bathroom today (you know that's where you do all your thinking too) pondering the question, "What is greatness?" Of course, my thoughts on the throne are not always this deep but, at least for today, I was curious what caused great men and women to live the lives they lived. My answer to the question returned me to one of my favorite topics, priorities. It would seem to me that greatness is the wisdom and courage to set your priorities rightly. By rightly I mean that the things the are truly the most important are the things that are actually top of your list. Understanding what is truly important is where wisdom comes in. Courage comes in when actually try to live out our priorities because it will involve challenge. And so, whether or not you like my answer, if you were to ask me why there are so few "great people" in the world and in history I would say this: Most people in our world are neither wise nor couragous, some are one or the other, and very very few are both - and even then its hard to be both all the time. "What a dismal outlook on humanity!?!" you might respond - perhaps, I don't mean it to be but I just wanna be honest about what I see when I walk outside.

It really isn't that dismal though, I believe that greatness is entirely possible for every person, we just don't avail ourselves of the opportunity. I would even go so far as to say its simple - not easy, but simple. Jesus, in fact, made it his business, then and still today, to produce such people. Aside from the all the religous rules and regulations we typically ascribe to the soap box that Jesus stood on, he was really here for one simple purpose: to teach people to set their priorities correctly and give them the courage to live them out. We celebrate his life on Earth because, in it, he modeled what he taught. His priorities motivated him to come and live the life he did and his courage allowed him to live it out, even if it resulted in the cross.

Some people say that great people inspire them because they did what noone else could do. I think that's a pretty dismal thought. I would, rather, like to say that great people inspire me because they show me that greatness is possible. I pray for a world full of people that believe that greatness is possible in their own life. I pray in faith because I believe that will one day happen.

Keeping your "eye on the ball"

2005-11-08T12:45:00.000-08:00

Just a short post to share something God told me yesterday. I have had a hard time lately getting my attitude right about certain things that I don't think are going very well. It's an interesting paradox because, in the midst of those few not-so-great things, most of my life is going better than I could have ever imagined. It was this last point that I believe gets lost in my own mind when I'm whinning about some small detail that doesn't go my way. It was during one of these times that I was complaining to God (which is alright to do, don't get the wrong idea) that he told me,

"You must never lose sight of your blessedness."

Like most times that God speaks to me in such a clear fashion, his word is simple but so true. In the midst of trying to make sense of my problems, I cannot cannot cannot forget how blessed I am by God in so many other ways. That's like ditching my life preserver as I'm trying to swim for land (I can't swim, so that would truly suck). Sometimes I feel like I'm almost constantly forgetting how good God is and I wonder if that makes it hard for him to keep being good to me - but that's grace and God can never be anything other than what he is - love. Take some time today with me to remember how much is good about your life. If everyone even tried to do this on a regular basis I think this world would be a very different place.

God and Jack

2005-11-02T12:36:00.000-08:00

Okay, so I've discovered the remedy for a crappy attitude:

Step 1: Pray
Step 2: Listen to a Jack Johnson CD (it really doesn't matter which one)
Step 3: Blog about it

Do you ever get the feeling that your job is pointless? I dunno, I guess I just go through these times when I forget all the ways that I'm blessed and choose to dwell on the unfounded and unhelpful thoughts. This afternoon it will take discipline to steer my attitude in a helpful direction but sometimes thats what it takes. Just a short blog to let everyone know I'm still alive - alive and doing better than my blog would portray I promise ;-)

A Paradoxical Pursuit

2005-10-17T08:25:00.000-07:00

These past several months, nearly all of my thoughts and learning have centered around my acclimation to all of the change in my life. I've graduated, gotten married, moved, left college, and started a career. And while absolutely none of the change in my life has been bad, change is just difficult. It is the pain of leaving familiar things and the effort (and sometime pain) of acclimating to new things.

But the question occurred to me the other day, why is change so hard? Why do we dislike it so much? One would think that in the world we live in, where everything is always changing and nothing stays the way it is, that we have at some point become accustomed to the constant flux of life. But this is not, and has never been, the case. The paradox is that we expect something from the world that was never promised us. We strive toward some constant stability that this world has really never offered. And yet we pursue it still. True some have largely given up on the quest for stability, saying they rather enjoy bouncing around life in all its newness but, probably more accurately, this is largely a resolution to the state of things around them than something they really had a choice over.

And so I contemplate in my own heart why change is so unnerving and uncomfortable. I think about where this desire comes from and where my heart could possibly hope to find what it desires. And so I've come to realize that we are, in fact, made for such constancy and stability but, as with many other things, we have been looking in the wrong places.

This is a perfect example of a larger issue I'll only briefly touch on here and perhaps write more about later. Built within each of us is most certainly a desire for the Person that created us. Think of a child's desire for their parents but much deeper than that. And so people will go about life convinced that they have no desire for God but still desire the things of God which, ironically, is the sum total of who he is (let he who has ears hear). Constancy and stability are some of those things of God that we almost universally desire. We have in Jesus a God that describes himself as a Rock, who calms storms and says that he is the beginning and the end all at the same time. He rises above all of the change and flux in our world to become the One that we can always count on above all others.

I still find it comical that, just to maintain our phony sense of independence, we would settle for cheep imitations rather than go to God and take what he offers. Thirsty and wandering in the desert, I, for one, will take the water setting in front of me and drink deeply. I know many that, for some reason, would rather eat sand - I know because I was once there. If I was made to desire the things of God I will no longer look for cheap imitations elsewhere. In the midst of all the change that I am now both enjoying and struggling to acclimate myself to, I find so much joy in the fact that the peace and constancy that I look for and need can always be found in the same Place.

Mondaze

2005-10-10T12:25:00.000-07:00

Mental Note: Stop apologizing for not blogging in a while every time you blog.

It seems like these days I'm learning so much so fast but its taking a while for all that I'm learning to come together into focus and make a coherent picture. Perhaps that gives some measure into the depth of the things God is showing me right now. These last couple months have been challenging but I have a profound sense of gratitude toward God for taking me down this path.

This Monday had started like most do. My body is here doing work but my mind usually doesn't come into work till about noon. My mind met me for lunch today and hopefully I can convince it to keep me company for the rest of the afternoon. It seems like Mondays in particular, I feel more "ecclesiastical" than most days. By that I mean that I find a kindred spirit in Solomon as he endeavored in vain to find purpose in many of the things the world so passionately pursues. His conclusion in the end is that there is only God, nothing else under the sun matters.

Well thanks Solomon, that does me a whole hell of a lot of good as I sit at work motivating myself to write another TPS report. I'm not as jaded as I sound, I promise. But continuing Solomon's contemplation does seem like a worthy activity for the 90% of my brain I usually don't need during the day.

Forgive my candor but, much like David's psalms, feelings aren't always the truth but erring them goes a long way towards exposing them for what they are. As always, if you read this and my other thoughts on this page, you honor and encourage me by your patronage. Thanks.

Consider the Source

2005-09-27T07:43:00.000-07:00

Well let me first apologize for taking ten years between posts. Life has continued to be an amazing learning experience with new knowledge and wisdom coming from some of the most unlikely of sources. It has, however, prompted me to reexamine who and where I am taking my advice and example from. This is what I wanted to write about today.

It seems like in our culture we have many people we would call "idols". We even have a show called "American Idol" that rolls around the country looking for new ones. We have ads that tell us to "be like Mike" and we can buy the jersey of our favorite athletes. We read their books and learn their life stories because, for us, there is something about them that we want to be true about us as well.

There is something missing in this, however, because our focus becomes too intent on merely this habit or that trait to the exclusion of the entire person. We oftentimes devalue the position an idol might have in our lives by leaving the post open to a myriad variety of not-so-worthy candidates. Did he or she have to compensate in some areas to become a star in others? Perhaps a man is the best in his field but he is a horrible husband and father. Perhaps a woman attained an incredible amount of power and leadership and yet lacks compassion or humility.

Would we still want to follow most of our idols if we really knew the whole story about them? Or, perhaps, is ignorance bliss? My personal rule of thumb and my encouragement today is to look at the entire person when looking for someone to admire and idolize. What I don't mean is look for perfect people because, by my count, there only been one of them (and he's an automatic on my list of idols for that and many other reasons).

Let me explain in fuller detail how I advocate this criteria. I would say that it is, arguably, true that just about anybody can be the best at just about anything if you sacrifice everything else for it. This goes back to a previous article where I asked if what you devote yourself to is worthy of the sacrifice. But even a worthy devotion (we're not even going to talk about unworthy devotions here) is not license to neglect every other area of your life. No, I think that holding all of one's passions and priorities in balance, seeing that all of them are attended to, and excelling there is infinitely harder than just picking one thing to the exclusion of the rest.

I want to see athletes that are faithful to their wives and good fathers to their children. I want to see women that can lead companies with power and grace. I want to see ministers that take as much time keeping their own lives in order as they do everyone elses'. I want to excel in my own field but never to the exclusion of my wife or my God. Even if I never am somebody's idol, I want to live that kind of life. And I wish that kind of life on every person because that quality of character and depth of life has always been our destiny. We should stop reserving that life for the people we see on TV and claim it for ourselves today.

But that's just my opinion...

This Grand Experiment

2005-09-17T17:54:00.000-07:00

These past four months have definitely been some of the most interesting of my life. Over the course of one summer, I find myself in a vastly different place than I was just a season ago. Most everything that I knew and that was true about my life for the first 27 years is now different.

And so with such change there is to be expected a certain amount of adjusting that's in order. Change management involves missing where you've been and getting excited about where you are. Sometimes its beautiful and sometimes its messy. Change is hard and I can confidently attest to that now first-hand. But recently I've become suspicious. I've started to wonder if all of the difficultly I've had with my attitude and false thinking about my situation is simply me adjusting to change.

I'm starting to thing there's more going on...

I've made big goals for myself here in Richmond. Upon graduating and getting married, most people would be satisfied with getting along with their spouse and being able to pay their bills. Katie and I have ventured beyond, truly believing there is more to life and more to our purpose in Richmond than simply that. What we left in Blacksburg was more than school and a church we loved. We left comfort, we left purpose, we left belonging and satisfaction. What most people will spend their entire lives looking for, we found. And now God has asked us to leave it and refind it in this new place. Why would he do that? Because, in my experience, I don't know a single person that believes that it can be found in the life I'm now living.

I've worked and labored with many people in college that, whether they conciously admit it or not, believe that graduation is retirement from ministry. With a forty hour (or fifty or sixty, depending on who you ask) a week job, many people say I should be satisfied just giving to the church and letting the "professionals" do all the grunt work now. But the lie goes even deeper than that. What I see are people that really believe that true community and deep connection with other people simply impractical for the working person. They get up early for work and get home in time for dinner then bed. The weekends are reserved for errands and then I do it all over again. That may seem like a charactature of what people actually believe but I assure you its not that far from the truth. Somehow "growing up" has become a spiritual and social death sentence for many people.

And so Katie and I have begun a grand experiment to see if spiritual growth and ministry and deep intimate community are still possible in the work world. Have we really just plugged into the Matrix or is more really possible? We're not alone in this endeavor by any means (so as not to sound too overly heroic in this endeavor) but it can sure feel like it sometimes.

But it is in the midst of this that I have had the hardest time keeping my attitude positive and my thoughts truthful about the situations I find myself in. Its as if my mind is being sabatoged in an effort to short circuit our efforts to unplug from the Matrix. I feel attacked and I feel opposed. Many will cynically reject the idea of spiritual warfare as superstituion but, to be sure, we do have an enemy that's come to kill and destroy any effort we make toware "life to the fullest".

My final conclusion on the matter (at least for now) is that Katie and I must be on to something. Because I see now other reason for such a viscous attack on my mind and my heart. Whatever we're on the presipous of discovering must be a dangerous truth - the fact that life is possible, here and anywhere Jesus is. This, in my estimation, may be the most dangerous truth in the world because of how radically it would change our lives if we believed it.

What I believe in theory, I'm starting to believe in practice. Lies are being undermined by experiences to the contrary. And I feel a momentum about the whole thing (kind of like at the top of a roller coaster, just before you tip over the peak) that excites me even in the midst of trial. Pray for us during this time, us and everyone else that's taken part in this grand experiment.

Stay tuned....

The One Man Curriculum

2005-09-14T08:10:00.000-07:00

Sorry I haven't written in a while. As of my last post I've been working on some of my "least used tools" and have been doing more listening than writing. Being a good student has always taken a tremendous amount of effort. Sometimes the simplest things, like sitting down and just listening to the teacher, can seem so difficult to do. I've learned a lot over the last week about my attitude and thought life. How so much of my circumstances, while most out of my direct control, can be positively or negatively affected by my attitude toward them.

It was in the midst of learning all of this that I took a second this morning to reflect on Jesus the Teacher. How he was there when I was very much a spiritual baby, as far as my talent and knowledge was concerned, and how he is still here today. I didn't start with one teacher then graduate on to another. Nope, I began with Jesus, I'm still with Jesus, and I'll always be with Jesus. He will always be my one and only Teacher no matter how much I ever grow or learn. He'll always have more to teach me and his example to me will never be less compelling than it is.

It's those last two points that have struck me this morning. I've found a Teacher that has yet to even scratch the surface of what he has to show me and I find that extremely exciting. I've also find a Teacher that has always practiced what he teaches, and his example is profound and powerful enough to deserve my entire life's passion. I consider myself extremely fortunate to be able to follow Jesus. I don't hear his followers saying that enough. The Master has given us a full scholarship to this profound life institution he has set up and we often look at the opportunity with a yawn and a sigh. So I say it again, I feel like the luckiest man in the world to be able to know Jesus and learn from him. And every venue I have to state that fact, I plan on doing so - starting with this blog and moving out into the world that I find myself in.

Today I praise God because he is more worthy of praise than anything this world has to offer. Amen.

The Least Used Tools

2005-08-25T04:58:00.000-07:00

Somewhere along your journey with God, you may have already realized that one of his preferred roles is that of teacher or trainer. To follow Jesus is to essentially apprentice him in how to live life. Just like any apprentice, you learn a lot of the main skills you will need fairly early on since they are the most common tasks you will do. But as you apprentice longer, you learn some of the more obscure tasks necessary in only special or unique situations. It's not enough to say that these situations don't happen much, therefore I won't learn the skills necessary to handle them. No, it is good to know what you would or should do in the event they do come up.

Jesus speaks of many such virtues, the ability to love and the ability to forgive. These we definitely have the opportunity to use everyday. There are other virtues that Jesus taught about that many of us do not regularly have the opportunity to use. Jesus talks about loving your enemies and praying for them. We all think such a thought is very noble but, in reality, we oftentimes don't have an immediate application to this. I may have people that I don't care for, but I wouldn't necessarily call them "enemies" of mine. Or when Jesus tells us to "turn the other cheek" when responding to ridicule or abuse. I'm fortunate enough not to face this on a constant basis but what happens when I do? Will I prepared to respond to that in the manner that Jesus, my mentor, would have me?

The first time something like this happens, we are often unequipped for it. What did you do the first time you realize you really do have an "enemy", someone that actively works toward your misfortune. Or what did you do the first time someone ridiculed you in front of others? You may still be in the process of overcoming some of these things. It may still take some time for us to respond to situations like this in a Godly manner. But when you finally do begin to respond in such a way, when you begin to see victory in these situations, many of us feel a profound sense of closure about that virtue. We think, "Well God, I'm glad we figured that lesson out. Now lets leave that and move onto the next thing." And we pack that lesson away into our box of "life tools" expecting (or at least hoping) to never have any need for it again.

So it sometimes comes as a suprise when a very similar situation arises some time later. You know this situation, you've faced something like it before. But will you respond to it the way you did before; could you possibly even respond better? And so we dig that tool out of the bottom of our tool box to see what kind of condition it's in. Many times we find that we're a little rusty in our handling of it or that the tool has become a little dull. It doesn't take an incredible amount of time to get it back in working order but we feel inconvenienced for having to do so. It feels like we're retaking a class we already finished and we question the Teacher over the wisdom of this. Frustrated, we ask God, "Why am I having to deal with this again? I learned what I needed to learn the last time so what's the purpose of dealing with it again now?"

Perhaps I'm rambling, but this is I'm feeling right now. Praying for my enemies and responding to ridicule in a Godly way is not something I've never done but its not something I do often. I struggle to find purpose in this. It's like having to take a test again just to see if you'd get the same score. But, reluctantly, I am beginning to see the purpose in the Teacher's ways. These aren't skills that I can just acquire and then just discard. I not only have to keep them, but I have to keep them in good repair. While I'm working on one part of my character, I don't want to neglect another part and see it atrophy. These virtues may be some of my least used tools but they are no less important because of it. They are no less a part of who I am and can just as easily lead to my undoing if I let them fall into disrepair.

And so I find myself in a place I haven't been for a while. Praying for people who I'm sure aren't praying for me and turning the other cheek till I run out of cheeks for them to strike. The Teacher may not have caused this situation to arise but, rest assured, he's using it to teach me something that will eventually make me a Master Life Liver. That's my goal, not comfort, not security, just him - I wanna be like him.

Choosing Your Cross Wisely

2005-08-18T13:09:00.000-07:00

"When Christ calls a man, he bids him come and die."

This is a famous quote from Dietrich Bonhoeffer on the nature of following Christ. It's famous, I believe, because it stands in vast contrast to the contemporary perception of what it means to be a Christ follower. And so while Jesus himself can say very pointedly that, "If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me," many of his followers still think that choice is somehow involved when it comes to living a sacrificial life.

Now don't get me wrong, there is choice involved but the misconception is in where that choice lies. This misconception is not only reserved to Christ followers either. In fact, this misconception is the one of the main reasons many non-Christians don't follow Christ. I would say that people are mistaken into thinking that they can choose whether they will live a sacrificial life or not when the real question is what you will sacrifice for.

This my rather long-winded way of stating that everyone will sacrifice their life for something and your choice, whether you feel like you have that choice or not, is to pick what that will be. To sacrifice your life for something is to devote yourself to one thing to the detriment of all other things - it is the proverbial cross you have chosen to carry. Most of the time all of the "other things" may not necessarily feel neglected. But when those things come into competition with that which you devote yourself to, the other things will loss out.

It may not be immediately apparent what your proverbial cross is but I believe with most assurance that you do have one whether you know it or not. And once we have reframed the argument from whether you will sacrifice to what you will sacrifice to, some really interesting conversations can happen. The fundamental question really centers around whether you are sacrificing your life for the right thing. This is a subjective question and only you have the perogative to answer that (because it was your choice, in the first place, what that thing was).

The second question that can then emerge is whether what you are devoting yourself to is really worthy of such a sacrifice. More often than not, its been my observation that people devote themselves to things that are not really worthy of such a sacrifice - they've either undervalued their own life or overvalued what they are devoting themselves to. And its not just that people have been asking these questions and coming up with the wrong answer; I think they have never even bothered to think about it in the first place. The questions have never been asked at all.

These questions are probably worth our effort and time though. They concern themselves with the ultimate point and goal of our life. And while every worthy devotion will ask for your entire life, not everything that asks for your entire life is worthy. In Christ, we follow a God that thought long and hard about the sacrifice that he made for us. On the night he was betrayed he sat in a garden and asked these very questions. And when he got up to face his accusers we know by that action that he considered that which he was passionate about was worth his life. In Scripture it says that he carried our transgressions and died on a tree for our sins - so that we would separated from God no longer. In the garden, Jesus decided that being with you was worth dying for. The cross is his resounding "YES".

We have a incredible example of sacrifice to follow in Jesus. A valuable question to ask today is not whether we will sacrifice but, rather, is what we're sacrificing for more worthy of our lives than Jesus is. The weight of his life and his sacrifice makes it hard to answer that question in the affirmative but that, of course, is up to each of us to decide.

Rain

2005-08-09T08:35:00.000-07:00

Its rainy in Richmond this morning. It's one of the first rainy days we've had this summer and for whatever reason as I sat here this morning reading the Bible, I looked out the window and thought about Blacksburg. I guess I remember sitting in Bollos so many mornings when it would rain like this and I would stare out that window and think about life, same as I did today. It's funny that something apparently quite random could trigger such nostagalia in my heart but I guess that's what made it home, the tiny, supposedly insignificant things.

I've spent the last couple months feeling like I couldn't miss Blacksburg. I felt like if I gave into that emotion I would somehow trap myself in a memory to the detriment of the life I am now living - which is equally amazing in its own right. The life I'm living now is amazing, Katie, Richmond, Commonwealth (our new church), even my job. This is my life now and this is home even if it doesn't completely feel that way yet. Until this place starts to feel completely like home, I guess I should expect to miss Blacksburg from time to time and I guess that's not such a bad thing. Maybe missing my old home is a way to celebrate all that I love about that place - the town, the school, my church, my incredible friends. None of its gone, its just less prevalent in my day-to-day reality now.

So if you're reading this you'll have to forgive my ramblings. I'm moving from one awesome reality to a new, equally awesome, reality and I'm trying to get my head around this. I think I'll just sit here and watch the rain for a while.

The Discipline of Excitement

2005-08-04T08:29:00.000-07:00

As always, JD was gracious enough to comment on my recent post and he made a good point. So, just to recap, our excitement in following God has more of an influence on our world than any of our clever arguments or slogans BUT, and this was JD's point, being and staying excited on a day-to-day basis is "freakn' hard sometimes dude!" (that's not a quote from JD but that's how I imagine him saying it if he were here right now :-) Oh how true that is JD, I, for example, had a rotten day last Thursday (I mean it was not very good at all) but the next day I was on top of the world (partially because it was friday). So perhaps complete and total on-top-of-the-worldness is a little hard every single day of our lives but its also equally true that, with a more disciplined thinking on the matter, it can less the exception and more the rule of our lives. And that is what God always intended.

To many people, the words "excitement" and "discipline" probably don't seem like they go together very well. In our minds we might think that discipline is required for running or dieting or driving less than 70 mph on the way to work. But discipline can be applied to the emotional aspects of our lives as well. Looking a little closer, the discipline of excitement involves a combination of the heart and the eyes. It is concerned with how you choose to see life and how you choose to feel about life - the operative word being "choose". And that so-called choosing is done with our mind. So if you think of your heart and eyes as a ship, let's call it the USS Attitude (it's cheesy, I know), then your mind would be the rudder. So oftentimes, in situations that we may classify as less than desirable, our natural inclination is to plot a pessimistic course for our heart and our mind to follow that does little to remedy anything.

Some people might tend to think that what I just described is not disciplined excitement or joy but just simply wishful thinking - that is not the case. Disciplined excitement or joy is different from denial because it can recognize a crap situation for what it is. But what it does do is dictate how I respond to that crap situation - that is the one part of a situation that I always have control over.

At first, controlling our response to situations may indeed seem contrived or fake but that it only because our natural tendencies have taken us a far different course for so long. But just as in any training, it will eventually become habit. Now I am by no means a master at this but what a blessing it would be to habitually look at life in a hope-filled, excited, joyous manner?!

I'm writing this at my desk at 8:25 in the morning. My day officially starts in about five minutes and today I'm going to practice what I preach. I'm going to exercise my attitude and work to see and respond to things in a way that is helpful. I'm going to act as if God is glorified most through my smile. Because perhaps the grandest experiment we could undertake on a daily basis is to live in world that feels well justified in its pessimism, rise above it, and see if others follow.

An Epidemic of Excitement

2005-07-22T05:06:00.000-07:00

When I say the word "epidemic", what images or thoughts come to your mind? There are, perhaps, many different things that you might think of. I would think the most common notion that might come to mind would be something having to do with a highly contagious disease of some sort. And if you checked out the dictionary, this would be the first definition that came up. But "epidemic" has a wider meaning that is more helpful to us here. Other definitions talk about a rapid spreading, growth, or development - the operative words being first "rapid" which characterizes the action and then "spreading" and its synonyms which denote what action is taking place. An example of an epidemic we may all remember is what happened in the wake of the 9/11 terrorist attacks. Generally, we saw first an epidemic of fear as we all wondered what had happened and what was going to happen. Not too long after that we saw an even greater epidemic of patriotism as Americans decided what their response would be to this attack on our nation. We see this latter epidemic evidenced by not only the sale of American flags but, even more importantly, how politics, culture, and even sports seemed to pause and acknowledge that something more significant was happening. Partisan politics were put aside, MTV put all their sexual and frivolous programming on hold, and sports took the weekend off.

With a clearer understanding of what an epidemic is in a more general sense, I can use a lighter example to elaborate further. Moving to Blacksburg, VA in the fall 1996, I was already a fan of football from years of growing up in Redskin country. But in Blacksburg, I learned the difference between a passing interest in football and a passion for Hokie football. Home games would turn this simple, southwest Virginian college town into a rabid, screaming, raging throng of humanity bent on Hokie world domination. Roads shut down and every green piece of grass becomes a parking lot. And as Metallica begins to blare out of the stadium speakers, 60,000 people in unison start jumping up and down and begin a chant of screaming and yelling sustained for the next three hours nonstop. If you are a football fan, this is absolute paradise, but the point is it doesn't matter if were a fan or not. You can't help but get caught up in the excitement flowing around you.

So now with that image in your head, let me finally ask you a question - have you ever met a Christian that was so excited about God that it made you want to know more about him? In my experience I've met plenty of Christians that genuinely love God with all their heart, but most of this love is manifest in a solemn obedience that could be characterized as "happy" but rarely rises to the level of "excited". A couple of weeks ago I called this the "dim life".

So does this mean that God is boring or the people that follow him? I'd tend toward the latter. Even a casual reading of Genesis or John will show that God is a wild man and that following him (read Acts) is anything but boring. Jesus came to demonstrate to us a quality of life that shines with an excitement that catches peoples' attention and draws them to God. Jesus put it this way when he talked about our lives:

You are the light of the world--like a city on a mountain, glowing in the night for all to see. Don't hide your light under a basket! Instead, put it on a stand and let it shine for all. In the same way, let your good deeds shine out for all to see, so that everyone will praise your heavenly Father. - Matthew 5:14-16 (NLT)

After years and years, Christians still are under the impression that we can bagger or legislate this world into coming to Christ - we hoped that would work because that's the easy way! For all of our well formed arguments and clever slogans, it is the passionate practice of the Gospel, and that alone, that will inspire an epidemic of excitement about Christ to sweep across our world. Because most times it's not their questions that they find are unanswerable but the answers that they find unacceptable. But finding something hard to believe does not by that virtue alone make it inherently untrue. Ultimately, it must and will be our practice that they find irresistible.

For one can only debate the concept of light until the sunrise - so shine!

Balcony View

2005-07-19T03:24:00.000-07:00

Finally, finally, finally, I got to sit down and upload some pictures of the view from our balcony this morning. Sitting on our balcony, this is the view of the city we have in the daytime and at night. I'm partial to the night view. It honestly blows me away to sit there an look over the city I want so desperately to impact and serve. Out there is a city of amazing history and future potential that has been hindered by so many social ills including poverty and racism. I strongly believe that God is in the process of doing something amazing in this city and I'm excited at the possability that Katie and I could be a part of that.

"Look at the nations and watch— and be utterly amazed. For I am going to do something in your days that you would not believe, even if you were told." - Habakkuk 1:5

The Dim Life

2005-07-05T04:41:00.000-07:00

As kind of an sequel to my last post (Shine), I was reading and thinking the other day and it occurred to me what the consequence of living a "dim life" really is. To say we follow Christ and yet live a dim life is really a dichotomy in terms that people that don't follow Christ recognize. People honestly expect something to be different about our lives, many perhaps even hope there's something different about our lives. When there is not, it not only says something about us but, unfortunately, it says something about the God we follow. In his book, The Spirit of the Disciplines, Dallas Willard says it this way, "How many people are radically and permanently repelled from The Way by Christians who are unfeeling, stiff, unapproachable, boringly lifeless, obsessive, and dissatisfied?" The point is that our dim lives not only make following Christ look bad but it makes leading a sinful life look good!

Therein lies all of the dangers of leading a dim life. First, as Paul says of the Jews in Romans 2:24, God's name is looked down upon as a consequence of our actions. Second, our actions actually make sin more attractive to the world. And lastly, but certainly not least, we loss out on the quality of life Jesus modeled for us and said was available to us today.

My plan is to take the rest of the summer to think about how attractive God looks to the people that know my life. Do the people that see me everyday grow in their interest of the God that motivates my lifestyle, or do they grow in their apathy of my religion? These are tough questions for sure, but God forbid we ever make something this beautiful so ugly - that would be the ultimately tragedy.

Shine

2005-06-30T22:48:00.000-07:00

Picture a lightbulb just barely glowing, the filament giving off just the slightest hint of orange light. Now what if I held up a second lightbulb that was completely off, giving off absolutely no light, and then I ask you if the first lightbulb was 'on' or 'off'. What would you say? Most likely, compared to the second buld which was completely off, you'd say the first was 'on'. Now what if I held up a third lightbulb that shined so bright that the contores of the bulb were not even distinguishable because of the glow. Now would you say the first lightbulb is 'on' or 'off'?

The correct answer is that it depends. If the entire range of a lightbulb's capabilities were between the first and the second then the first would certainly be on. But if the first lightbulb had the potential to shine as bright as the third then we would probably be right to say that, in its present state, that bulb is by all rights off.

With all that in mind, lemme ask just one last question. Is it possible to be living but still not be alive? Everyday we are surrounded by people with a pulse but hardly anything that could be called a very lively life. Since when did our lives get so boring that we sit down in front of the TV and watch other people live their lives?! True we're not dead, but many of us, Christians included, never come close to the quality of life we have the potential of experiencing. Jesus said this when he said, "I came to give you life - life to the fullest." He came not only to save us from going to hell when we die, but to model a quality of life that we could take on and model to the world - now. Jesus would look at the quality of many of our lives and says that's not life at all.

Jesus calls us the light of the world and tells us not to hide our light but shine like a city set on a hill. Would people look at our life and want it? More importantly, would people look at our life and want to know Jesus more? So how do we begin to achieve this quality of life Jesus says is possible? Your passions, your attitude, the rhythm of your day-to-day life - all of these things play into it but there is no simple answer. Jesus does get us a long way there when he said to "seek first the kingdom of heaven, and all these things will be added to you."

I've been thinking a lot about this lately. This is the kind of life I want to live. I'd invite you to think about it as well and feel free to leave your comments.

Spirituality at the Speed of Life

2005-06-19T16:33:00.000-07:00

So my goals of regular blogging have been somewhat stifled as of late but I am going to make it a goal to post at least once on the weekends at the very least. I will build back up to more posts from there. On to the update...

Katie and I finished our first week of work a day ago and it went really well. I'm working as a Software Consultant for Captech Ventures and Katie is a Leasing Consultant for Bramblewood Estates. God has blessed both of us with incredible companies that are really doing well. Captech has about 100 employees and plans to hire around 20 more people this year alone! Beacon Residencial, the company that owns Bramblewood Estates, continues to acquire new property all over the region as well. Katie spent her first week learning the ropes at the property while I spent my week learning the ropes at Captech and waiting to hear where my first client would be. On Friday, I received word that I would be going down to work for CapitalOne on the south side of the city. It's about a 20 minute commute (a little long) but I will be doing some Project Management which is what I wanted to learn more about anyways. I start there on Monday so I'm excited to see how it goes.

We also just came from our third Sunday at Commonwealth Chapel. What an amazing community. I've been interacting with their pastor, Rob, for several months but today was his first "official" Sunday there as their new pastor. My favorite thing about their community (other than the fact that they genuinely love God and each other) is the diversity of the church. There are babies there and 80 year olds, blacks, whites, latinos, college students, singles, newlyweds, families, and all sorts of other flavors of humanity - its awesome! I met a woman last week who sat behind me that had gone to that church for over 50 years!!! The worship is great and Rob is a great communicator. Katie and I were going to spend the summer church shopping before we decide on a church but the more we go here, the more I don't want to check out any other churches. I still think we will check out some other churches but am starting to think that this is where God might want us to be.

Starting with Week 2 of work tomorrow, I am hoping we can start to develop a routine, or weekly rhythm. We have two nights planned to do social stuff, probably one or two nights where Katie and I will get out of the house and do something, and a night or two of just vegitating around the apartment. I can't yet say that I feel swept away by the speed of life, that I feel helpless to really do anything but come home from work and just go to bed to do it all over again - frankly, I don't think this is the inevitability everyone swore it would be for us. By the end of the year I fully expect to be back in ministry doing my best to serve at whatever church we feel called by God to call home. I fully expect to get with God today, tomorrow, and everyday, same as I have for a while. Life does fly by at a pretty incredible rate but I hold to my belief that you make time for the things that are truly important to you. That with a little optimism and forethought about how you want to spend your week, spirituality is possible at this, and every, speed of life.

Too good to be true?

2005-06-05T19:26:00.000-07:00

After what seems like an eternity, I am finally able to sit down and blog. After graduating, getting married, going on my honeymoon, and moving to Richmond, I have finally settled in my apartment to begin this new chapter in my life - which I now share with my wife Katie! I still wouldn't describe life at this point as "calm", perhaps maybe "subdued chaos", but now I can actually see calmness rising over the horizon emitting a light of peace I am beginning to feel the warmth of.

This entire experience, by that I mean the last month of my life and also the last six years or so following God, has brought me in regular contact with the concept of "too good to be true." Is that last statement actually possible? I will say that my present experience is so absolutely amazing that it does seem surreal sometimes. But the more I've thought about it over the years, "too good to be true" has turned out to be a cynical, and ultimately baseless, outlook on life. This is especially true if your worldview includes an infinite loving God like the One I am utterly convinced does, in fact, exist (without God, such a statement could make absolute sense-but that's for another blog). The even more remarkable fact is that in the Kingdom of God, which Jesus spoke so often about, this "absolutely amazing" quality of life that I am currently experiencing is what in kingdom-speak would be called "normal". Jesus calls this "life to the fullest" and tells us that his purpose in coming to earth is to give access to and model such a life. In fact, anything short of absolutely amazing in the Kingdom is odd. According to God, normalcy is found in the miraculous, joy is the rule, and love is a law more reliable than gravity. And in the world we live in it is possible to experience in part what we will one day experience in all its fullness.

Sitting here tonight, I've now come to believe the opposite about what I once believed about life - most things in this world are "too bad to be true." And even now, as I look ahead beyond the horizon of my present experience, I know that tough times and trials will lay ahead. But as I experience those times I will be resolute in my belief that they, in no way, bear any resemblance to the Kingdom I am ultimately journeying toward.

That's not just optimism - it's realism in its most profound sense.

Unreasonable Dreams and Profound Realities

2005-05-07T08:45:00.000-07:00

Faith requires us to be unreasonable in our demands upon the future. (adapted from G.B.Shaw)

It takes absolutely no vision to predict the obvious. Very little excitement can be expected if you look forward to the guaranteed. True visionaries, the profoundly non-boring of our society, have cursed the infernal concept of 'impossibility' and damned it to hell where it belongs. Why should there not be more of an impassioned hatred of such a concept; of things that hold us back, kill our dreams, and enslave our desires?

To hate such things is to find a common enemy with God. Noone has seen more casualties caused by a lack of vision than God. Over the course of eons, He's seen much of his creation fall short of their actual potential. But if our destiny has been stolen from us, we need not shake our fist toward heaven but, rather, punch the mirror in rage. If we dream small, we have ourselves to thank for small accomplishments and small lives. We are the fools with nowhere to shift the blame.

'Dream' is a verb, it's an action we take. A decision that we choose to make. We honor God by realizing the potential He's given us. In fact, apart from him we can never realize our full potential. Let us look down at the valley of slain desires and broken dreams and decide today that we'll take the high road. Wake up(!) and make your wildest dreams a destination today.

Neighbors and Strangers

2005-04-29T08:57:00.000-07:00

I'd like to say that I've never met a stranger. And many days, I can honestly say that this is the case. I walk by people just like me and whether or not I know their name, I can identify with their experience. I can see the looks on their faces and I know that I've honestly felt the same way they feel at some point in my own life. I see a look of happiness and I'm happy for them. I see sadness or worry and my heart goes out to them. I see people and I can tell they're lonely and my heart aches for them. I believe this the way we were meant to feel even though we live in a world that tells us otherwise. We live in a world that tells us that strangers are of little consequence to us unless they get in our way or we can get something from them. And I don't always feel this way, but sometimes I can look at a person and know how enormously valuable that person is; that there is an amazing story in that person just like my own life is an amazing story. They live with past hurts, present hopes, and future dreams. That there are people in their life, who I also don't know, who they love very much and who love them very much.

And, for just a second, I stop rushing about my day and I notice the people around me. The cardboard cutouts rushing by become actual people and I feel a strange sense of care for people that I couldn't know the first thing about. This is what I think Jesus meant when he told us who our "neighbor" should be. Why he told the stories he told. And why he personally did the things he did. Jesus never ever met a stranger. Not only because he's God and knows everyone (that a given :-) but because he simply never treated anybody like a stranger. What an amazing example to follow! In a world that makes such kindness seem impractical I hope we can be a counterculture of love to a world that needs to know that it is loved.

And the goods news just keeps rolling in...

2005-04-28T10:51:00.000-07:00

Well I figure celebrities make all their official announcements on their webpage so maybe us normal folks can too! Five days after getting my PhD I interviewed for, got offered, and accepted a position with CapTech Ventures, Inc. I HAVE A JOB! JOB JOB JOB!!!

With each thing, it's getting harder and harder to deny God's hand in my life. If it were just one thing or another, maybe you could say I was just a really hard worker. If the timing wasn't so perfect, you might be able to say that I'm really lucky. But this true-life Forrest Gump story is getting a little too good for their not to be Someone guiding the story. I have only one hope in life, that my story would cause people to give God a second, third, or fourth look. I strive to be a man pointing up.

Dr. Jason S. Snook

2005-04-25T17:14:00.000-07:00

Yes, it is official. I passed my final defense and I have my PhD in Computer Science. Getting my PhD is the hardest thing I've ever done in my life - then one month later I get married. I really don't how I feel right now except to say this is an amazing life God has blessed me with. Since I started following him, he's inspired me to pursue greater and greater visions of what I could become. In one month I'm going to get my PhD, get a job (hopefully), get married (definitely), and move to Richmond. Its going to be hard to top 2005!

The Open Hand and The Extended Hand (part 3 of 3)

2005-04-15T21:48:00.000-07:00

First of all, sorry for the lack of posts lately. This pesky dissertation has proven to be a bigger drain of time that it deserves to be. The last two story are only loosely related to each other. As each of them says at the beginning, they have to do with the knowledge of the kingdom of God - the good and bad things that happen with the people entrusted with that knowledge.

The first story was about a man who was consumed with his acquisition of "food" to the detriment of all other concerns - even the sustination of the people he was called to lead/serve. The second story was of a couple with a desire to give/sell their food but were unable to prepare and serve it in a form that was apatizing or palatable. The first lacked the desire to give, the second the ability. Both of these stories are as much a commentary of things I'm guilty of as it is of other Christ followers that I've observed. Let me explain each a little more fully.

The first story about the prince really characterized to me the mature Christian with a genuine love for God and desire to know him more. This Christian is characterized by the open hand, an earnest desire to recieve from God the knowledge and insight he makes available to us. There's a danger in this as well though because, while our personal walks with God are of first importance, this Christ follower can become so preoccupied with their pursuit of more knowledge about God that they forget there's a whole world out there that doesn't even know him. We should be careful that while we feed ourselves on the riches of Christ's blessing that we don't forget there's a world starving to death for the same. The canabalism at the end of the story was an intended element because I see our world, for lack of the knowledge that we hold so dearly, eating each other live in the pursuit of an alternative.

The second story characterizes another danger the mature Christian can face. The couple in the story represents Christ followers with a genuine love for God and desire to share the knowledge of God with others. This Christian is characterized by the extended hand. Unlike the prince, the couple recognizes that love is meant to be shared. Characteristic of many people that are passionate about something, they desire to share that passion with others. Their committment is admirable and their sacrifice is real and genuine, but they mistake their passion for sharing God with the actual ability to do so. With as much planning that went into picking a site for the tavern and buying the best food, the couple took shortcuts when it came to learning to prepare the food in a way that would apatizing and palatable to others. Characteristic of the tavern owners in the story, many Christ followers are eager to share a Gospel they have taken little time to know and understand themselves. This does not speak to the new Christian who, by virtue of their newness to the faith, shares what they do know even as they learn more. Such a new Christian should not be discouraged from doing so and should not wait till they "know enough" to start sharing the Good News of Christ. This story has more to do with the so-called mature Christian that have followed Christ for a while but has difficulty seeing people respond when they share what they know about Christ.

The reason why "evangelism" has been largely impotent in America for several decades now is that Christians got too focused on the packaging to the exclusion of the message. For all the slogans and diagrams we teach, many Christians have a very shallow understanding of what the Gospel is and what it means in practice. I worry that Paul might be talking about us sometimes when he says, "They want to be teachers of the law, by they do not know what they are talking about or what they so confidently affirm." (1 Tim. 1:7) We would do well to put down our books on evangelism and pick up the Bible for a while. In the same breath I'd say that we as a church must find new, fresh, and creative ways to communicate what we know of Christ. But, again, this can only spring from a deep personal understanding of the Gospel.

In short, as I understand it, the Christian walk is characterized by the open hand and the extended hand. A mature Christian must desire not only knowledge (Phil. 3:10) but also the ability to share it (Eph. 6:19-20).

I sincerely hope this thought came out half way understandable. I'm pretty darn fried right now from disseration defense prep. Please pray for me as a I gear up for that.

The Open Hand and The Extended Hand (part 2 of 3)

2005-04-09T17:14:00.000-07:00

So that first part of this parable was a little long and the title confused some people too. But bear with me, I'm a rookie parable writer and this is only the second of *three* parts. If its any consulation, the title should make sense in part 3 (I hope). This second parable is actually a prequel to the first. So perhaps the knowledge of the Kingdom of God is like a woman and her husband who decided to sell all they had to open a tavern the center of the town that they lived in. Both of them had a passion for food and wanted nothing more than to share that passion with other people. Over the course of their life, they had been to many other taverns and eaten many different types of food. After frequenting the different taverns around town for quite a while they had decided they wanted to try to open their own. They went out into the town and scoped out prime locations for the tavern. They eventually found a store front for sale right in the town square. It was expensive and they'd have to sell their house to be able to buy it, but they were passionate about opening up this tavern. They were willing to make sacrifices to see their passion through. With the store front bought, they put together a very thoughtful business plan for the first couple years. They bought furniture and a sign for the front with the money they had left over. And, oh yea, who could forget about the food?! They went out to the market and stocked the shelves with all they would need. One of the last things they did was pick up a couple cookbooks and made a menu based of off them. Their of them had actually cooked much since they went out all the time to eat. But they had eaten enough food, been to enough tavern, and most importantly, they were passionate about opening up their tavern - how could they go wrong?!

The day finally came when it was time to open the tavern for business. It was a Monday, and the town square was bustling with workers in search of a lunchtime meal. So the woman opened up the doors and announced to the people in the square that they were open! One man that was walking by shrugged his shoulders and strolled in, sitting down at a table by the front window.

"Our first customer?!" The woman thought to herself as she walked up to his table. She greeted the man and took his order, hurrying back to her husband in the kitchen to relay the message to him. The man grabbed his trusty cookbook, found the recipe, looked at it for a while, and then began to busily put the meal together. After several minutes, the man slide the meal onto a plate and announced to his wife that it was ready. She grabbed the plate and proudly brought it over to their first customer.

"You are our first customer," she stated proudly as she set the plate down in front of him. She waited patiently as he took his first bite hoping for a favorable response. Instead, the man's face grimaced as he chewed on the food and gulped it down. "This is horrible! I've never tasted food this bland in my life," the man exclaimed. The woman was taken quite by surprise at his response. "That was a little rude, sir, don't you think," said the woman. "Hardly ma'am, in fact I think I was being polite," he stated rather matter-of-factly as he got up and walked out of the tavern.

The woman was discourage by the customer's response but she finally reasoned to herself that he was just being rude. Just then, another customer came through the door. With renewed hope, she strode over to the man and took his order. Unfortunately, the response was the same. Disgusted at the taste of the food, this man also left the tavern without paying. "What is going on," the woman thought to herself, "We have a great tavern and only the finest ingredients. It must be my husband, he's just a horrible cook!" Resolved in her mind that this was the case, she stormed into the kitchen, ripped the spatula from her husband's hand, and sent him out to take orders. Unfortunately, this didn't help any. The next woman that walked in the tavern left as soon as she tasted her food, same as the first two customers.

The day proceeded like this till it was finally closing time and they had only made a few very small sales. "This is horrible! At first I just thought the customers were being rude. Then I just thought that you were a horrible cook," the woman said to her husband, "but now I'm beginning to think that to food that we bought at the market must be bad!" The next day, the couple angrily returned all of the food they had bought and got new batches of everything. Sadly, this had no effect. Customers continued to leave their tavern unsatisfied until the customers didn't come at all. After just a month, the couple was forced to close the tavern. They were devastated by the failure of the tavern and continued to be at a lose for why the customers had been so dissatisfied. Let s/he who has ears hear this, my second story.

This is the end of the second parable. The next posting will be an interpretation of them. Until then, post your thoughts on the stories. What does the 'food' represent? What do you think these stories are trying to say? All of this, including the title, will hopefully make more sense after the next post.

The Open Hand and The Extended Hand (part 1 of 3)

2005-04-05T18:44:00.000-07:00

I was feeling a little creative after my last story, so here is a series of two more parables and then an explanation. Feel free to post your thoughts as each part is posted.

To what could I liken the knowledge of the Kingdom of God? Perhaps it could be like a prince who loved food. He loved food in all its forms and flavors. He was a true connoisseur. Food from every part of the world, in all of its various array. Time between meals, when he was neither preparing, cooking, or eating, was an agony to him. Nothing else held his passion as food did.

One day the prince was walking through his enormous pantry reflecting on his love for food when he had an idea. He would make it his goal to collect all the food in the land for himself! After all the only thing better than food was more food!

And so it came to pass that the prince ordered all of his servants to go out into the land and collect for him all of the food that was there. His servants went off and began to bring back enormous amounts of food. Cart after cart rolled through the doors. The prince quickly filled his pantry till there was hardly any room to walk. After it was full, he ordered his servants to fill the basement, and when that was full to fill the spare bedrooms.

Slowly the train of food coming in through his doors began to wane till his servant proudly marched through the door with the last loaf of bread he could find. The prince was beaming with excitement. He took the last loaf from his servant and held it over his head. "With this last loaf you have brought me," he proclaimed, "I will start my feast in celebration of my goal being realized!" And so, for the next seven days the prince began to feast on the food he had amassed. Day and night he ate till he fell asleep on the table. Upon waking up he would order more food brought to him and he would begin to feast anew. At the end of seven days, the prince was euphoric. He reclined in his chair, his belly and pantry still stuffed full of food. "What more noble an accomplishment," he thought to himself, "than to be the sole proprietor and protector of all the food in the land!"

As he lay there, his stomach groaned under the strain of all the food. "Perhaps a walk would aid in my digestion," he theorized, "I will walk to the town and tell the people of my accomplishment so they can rejoice with me!" Fat and happy, the prince put on his cloak and waddled out his door and down the road. As he walked down the road toward the town the prince looked up at the clear blue sky and filled his lungs with the cool air. The sun was especially bright to his eyes since he hadn't been outside in over a week. It'd been even longer since he'd been in town.

Breathing deep, the prince's nose caught wind of something that was anything but fresh. As he walked, his eyes finally came upon what his nose had already discovered. Laying there was a man face down in the center of the road. The flies had already found him. The prince ran wide and away from the man horrified at the sight. "What has happened," the prince's voice trembled, "surely someone should have come upon that man days ago and taken him away." His grief deepened further down the road when he came upon three more bodies that had obviously been dead even longer.

"The people of the town had better have some explanation for this," he said trembling with anger. Little more than a trot was possible as he hurried down the road toward the town. The sun was rising and with it the temperature. The prince took off his cloak and cleared the hill that brought him in sight of the town.

The smell again preceded the sight, but as the prince entered the town he was horrified by the sight of dead bodies everywhere. "Is anybody there," the prince cried out in anguish, "answer me!" Silence answered back, indicating that nobody was - the entire town appeared dead.

He stumbled down the street that went through the center of the town covering his mouth and nose with his cloak. "What evil has brought such disaster to this town," he said turning the corner into the town square. The street opened up into the same scene as before with bodies lying everywhere. The only motion was from the fountain in the center.

He walked past a tavern right in front of the fountain and came upon a small campfire. Looking to see what they had had as their final meal, his stomach turned as he realized that their last meal had been one of their own. Losing his own breakfast, he coughed and wondered out loud, "Why with such great food this land contains would they have chosen to eat each other?!"

Let s/he who has ears hear my story.

Grabbing for the pen

2005-03-31T10:01:00.000-08:00

This is a pretty amazing time in my life. Its April and in less than two months, I will receive my PhD, get married, move to Richmond, and start a new job. My entire life is going to change over the span of a month and I couldn't be more excited about it! I know what's going to happen but what I'm not so clear on is how its going to happen. Back in January, I had it all figured out. I was going to have a job by February, I'd have my dissertation finished by the end of March, and I was going to spend my last month in Blackburg living it up in some kind of semi-vegetative state.

Well, that's not how things have panned out. The job search is going well, but noone wanted to hire me that early. My dissertation is going well, but I don't defend till April 22 (about a month "late"). I have no doubt that these things will happen but apparently my timing was off. Apparently, God had another Storyline in mind. My difference of opinion with God over this issue doesn't make me angry or distressed or anything really, but it has made me curious about where the differences in our two versions of my Story lay. God's version seems much more dramatic, with many things happening close together and perhaps a little to close to "the end" for my comfort. "That would make a great movie if we were in Hollywood God but this is my life," I think as I politely inform God of the "correct" timing for things. My version of The Story is comfortable and safe. It's predictable and I always end up living "happily ever after." Many times I've convinced myself that this is the story I want, this is the good story. And so as God is writing the Story of my life, I find myself many times trying to grab the pen out of his hands so I can take charge of the script.

But echoing down the halls of Scripture I hear a very different take on things. I hear Jesus saying that he "came" (was born, lived, taught, worked, died, came back from the dead) so I could have "life to the fullest" (John 10:10). I hear Jesus telling me, "I came to save you from a boring life, not to give you one." I realize that if the world were a theme park, my life is the rollercoaster not the lazy river. I know this and I've become more accustomed to this fact the longer I've known God. He surprised me, even scared me, at first when I found out God had a wild side. At first I was okay with God being the adventurous type - so long as he left me out of it. But then I realized he created me so I could go on the adventure with him. So I hear him again, even now, banging on my door and telling me its time for another adventure. My boring plans for the last few months of college are already shot anyways, I guess I'll go along with God and see how his version turns out...

To Die For (part 2)

2005-03-27T00:25:00.000-08:00

Thanks to everyone who was kind enough to post a reply to the first part of this story. The "end" of the story is really more a reflection on the first. If you really want an end to the story just ask and I'll post the one I thought up. Now here's the reflection:

There's no indication in the story that I had any notion of the object in my possession having any value or meaning. My running initially was just a natural instinct - a simple response to being chased. As I'm being chased, getting shot at, climbing up on a roof, and standing on the edge of that roof, I come to suspect the value of the object because of the ends these men would go to get it. The men's action contradicts their own words on the roof when they tell me the object is of no value. Without even knowing the value of the object I possess, I am able to infer by other's actions that it must have some value even if I don't personally know that yet. And so I turn heel and jump. I'll find out for myself what's so valuable about this object ("soda") but I have to hold onto it long enough to do so.

Having no prior forethought to what I was going to write the other day till it was the screen, I feel very strongly that God gave me this story to tell and ponder myself. There was on part 2 written when I wrote the first. I've spent the past several days thinking about it same as the people who were kind enough to leave their thoughts. Personally, I take two things away from the story:

First, based on the actions of others, I can infer a certain amount of value on something even if I cannot initially see that value myself. But, based on those observations, I must hold onto it long enough to find that out myself. And so, even in the midst of many hypocrites, it was the genuine and passionate spirituality of some that lead me to develop a faith of my own - one based solely on the life and teachings of Jesus the Christ. And, like the story, my initial possession was opposed both by my own doubt and the scorn of others. But with a great deal of perseverance, I held onto my faith long enough to realize its value (Luke 8:4-15) - the value of which I continue to more fully explore and discover each day.

Secondly, and timely for this Easter, I realize that the value of anything is based solely on the ends one is willing to go to get it. It's like what my parents used to say about my comic book collection I claimed was worth so much money: it's only worth that if someone is willing to pay you that price for it. And so, as I reflect on Christ's cross, his death and resurrection, I know how much my life is worth because I know what Someone was willing to pay to save it. I realize that Jesus would rather die that be separated from me.

Standing here in the shadow of his broken body draped over the crest of that lonely hill, I'm humbled by a caliber of love that confounds the world even today. I'm humbled and thankful because I am that object of great value. Even if in my own mind I'm not always convinced of that fact, Jesus certainly was. Happy Easter everybody.

To Die For (part 1)

2005-03-24T08:51:00.000-08:00

I want you to indulge me for a second while I tell you a fictional story that happens every day. I was in 7-11 one day when I decided that I wanted to buy a soda. I walked over to the freezer, walking past several men giving me rather strange looks. I heard mumbling behind me as I reached for the door handle, opened the door, and pulled out a soda. I turn around in just enough time to see one of those men lunge toward me trying to grab the soda from my hands. Another man stood behind him blocking my way down the aisle. I get a running start, pushing past him and sending him flying into the bubble gum display. As I run toward the cashier, the first man yells out, "Do NOT sell that soda to him!!!!" I'm super freaked out at this point so I slam a dollar bill down on the counter, bolt out the door, and run down the street. Ten seconds later, the two men run out of the door as well. As soon as they see me, one of them yells, "He's got the soda, GET HIM!!!" The men no sooner get out of the parking lot than the 7-11 behind them blows up in a fiery explosion. The air is filled with smoke and tiny pieces of brick. The force of the blow knocked me down and into the grass. I quickly recover and begin to run away from the men.

"Just give us the soda man, that's all we want," the man yells after me, huffing and puffing as we bolt down the street. Andrenaline has kicked in and I'm flying down the sidewalk with a death grip on the soda that, for whatever reason, these men want so badly. I run towards a building and tear open the first door I reach. I start up the stairs but then turn back, smartly locking the door behind me. When I get to the second flight of stairs I hear the sound of gun shots then someone kicking the door open. I think to myself, "Holy crap, they've got a gun!!" as I run up the to the top floor of the building. "You'll be the next thing I shoot if you don't give me that damn soda!" The other man calls after me as I run through the doorway to the top floor. Flying down the hallway, there's a door at the end that leads out to a balcony. A strong shoulder through that door and I find myself at a dead end.

Suddenly, the men run out of the stairwell and run down the hall after me. I panic and look around. "These guys are ready to kill me for a stupid soda," I think as I eye a utility ladder beside the balcony that leads up to the roof. I grab the ladder and hoist myself up. I only get about a rung or two up the ladder when one of the men grabs my left foot. I shake him off and climb the ladder to the roof. I don't even hear the men anymore, just the sound of gravel under my feet as I run to the other side of the roof. Suddenly at the edge I stop, looking down at an alley and another building too far away for me to jump to. I turn around to see the men have stopped half way between me and ladder. Knowing they have me cornered, they stop to catch their breath. Then, standing back up, one of the men points a gun at me and says, "It's not that important man, just hand us the soda and we'll let you go. You don't want to die for a soda do you?" He had a point there. Thinking about it for a second, I look at the men and then I look back behind me at the alley and a dumpster below. Taking a step back toward the edge, the man with the gun yells out, "What are you doing?!" In one single, fluid movement, I turn on my heel and jump off the edge. Falling three stories into the dumpster and running down the street. Safe - for now.

There's a part two to this story, I'll post it on Easter Sunday. Till then let me ask you a question, why didn't I just give them the soda? Post your thoughts in the comments section.

Who's in your fan club?

2005-03-22T09:16:00.000-08:00

I am one of the most fortunate men I know. I really consider myself blessed in so many ways but what I'm most thankful for, by far, is to have people in my life that love me and desire me. That statement may seem a little silly so let me explain. I could pick up my phone right now and call my parents and that five minute phone call would absolutely make their day. Tonight I will have dinner with my fiancee and that time with me will be the absolute highlight of her day. Now of course the feel is mutual in both instances but what blows me away sometimes is the magnitude of this love. That someone would love me so much that even the smallest part of me (my time, my voice, my just being around) is cause for more joy than I would have ever imagined. Small as it may be, I have a fan club (my fiancee is the president and my mom is the vice president)! I feel so fortunate to have people in my life that love me like that. I feel equally blessed to love these people in the same way, how my fiancee's voice or simply her smile can change a crappy day into a good one so quickly.

As I write this, I'm glad so many people I know have this kind of love in their lives as well. But to an even greater degree I'm so grieved that many people in the world today, many people I know, do not have this kind of love in their life. People that walk around empty, hollow and almost lifeless because, whether they know it or not, they lack this quality of love in their life. People that would say they "know" people but no one who would be interested in being a part of their fan club. This isn't just an unfortunate fact of our world, God would call it an absolute tragedy.

Before there was even time, God was the founder of your fan club. He created you for just one purpose - to enjoy you. Not many people think about how God loves us. We know that He loved us enough to go to a cross for us two thousand years ago. We stand in awe of that fact, that single amazing act of love. But did you know that if you stared up at heaven today for even an instant, that you made His day. That the shortest, most uninspired prayer is precious to Him simply because it came out of your mouth. The fact is that God is completely and totally infatuated with you. He's head over heels in love with every part of you. Did you know that He threw a party in heaven when you gave your life to Him? Did you know that every day you stray from Him, He sits on His porch with your picture in His hands waiting for you to walk over that hill and return home? The fact is that you have a fan club, you always have. God is the founder and a lifetime member. The Gospel message, the Good News, that we try to make so complicated sometimes is simply this: You are loved. Our purpose today is two-fold, to believe that we are loved and help others believe the same.

Thirsty Fish and Spiritual Deserts

2005-03-20T11:13:00.000-08:00

I've followed God now for a little over 6 years now and even after such a relatively short time I'm regularly suprised at how unexcited I can get about God from time to time. How quickly the wonder can wear off, how fast the thirst can wane. I know the excitement and the thrist that led me to God, I know how passionately I responded to Him once I found Him. How could I be bored with the God of the universe, how can I so quickly forget all the excitement I had when I first started following Him?

And then I realize that Sin has done this, it has shortened my heart's attention span. And so, as I've said before, Sin leads us in two directions: novelty and excess and this doesn't just fade away when we find God. Sin is still there questioning us, asking us whether we have found the Ultimate. It (or more accurately, he) asks us how we can be so sure there isn't something better. Same as Sin did in the garden when he asked Eve how she could be so sure that eating the fruit wasn't better than obeying God. Sin somehow tries to make following God seem boring. At first, I ask how he could possibly succeed in doing this but then I look around and see that he's convinced most of the world of exactly that fact.

We think, as Christ followers, that we have done our job if we haven't allowed our eyes to stray from God. If we haven't allowed Sin to entice us elsewhere. But I say that if Sin can get us to yawn at our faith, to be surrounded by God and godly things and yet still feel like we're in a spiritual desert, then Sin is just as happy with the job he's done. Sin doesn't care what we're passionate about or whether we're passionate about anything at all - so long as we are not passionate about God.

My task and our task, today and everyday for the rest of our lives is to keep our hearts fixed on pursuing God. Just like my relationship with my fiancee, I must freshly renew my love and committment to her regularly. Neglect can do as much damage as abuse. And so my daily prayer: I didn't just give You my life six years ago, Lord, I give it to You everyday and today is no different. Amen.

The Necessity of Pain

2005-03-17T13:08:00.000-08:00

You know, one day I'm going to write an entire book on all of the things I've learned about God teaching college courses. Over the past two years, I've gotten the chance to teach three different classes here at Tech. Here's one interesting thought from that - think of it as an excerpt from the as-yet-unpublished book on the topic. It occurred to me the other day that, at the half way point of this semester, there are some things the students I teach are learning well and other things they aren't. Some bad habits they've gotten rid of, others that they are holding on to rather tenaciously. It seems to me that sometimes the only way to get them to stop doing some of things I'm trying to teach them to stop doing is to hit them in the gradebook. If I warn them about something, some will listen and others won't. If I start taking off points for it then everyone learns pretty quick. Now, I don't particularly enjoy deducting points (it wasn't that long ago that I was the student losing points) but I've learned that I'm not doing them any favors by giving them a grade they didn't earn. And so the lesson that I'm taking away from my observation is this: Sometimes the only thing that we as humans respond to is pain (in all its varied forms). Let me frame the scope of my arguement, not all pain is punishment and its certainly not all caused by God - we do our fair share of the causing. But within this, I have learned to understand the value of pain (or perhaps a better term, discipline) in my life. Hebrews 12:7 says, "Endure hardship as discipline; God is treating you as sons." The truth is that God's not out to get me, He's not against me, and YES, He does have better things to do than pester you. But I know that God has a vision for the kind of person that I could be and spurs me on to make the vision a reality everyday by whatever means necessary. What so many people think God does out of hate, He does because He loves us. Truly, its easier to believe that at some times than it is others but we must, nonetheless, persevere in that belief all the time.

The two-fold path of Sin

2005-03-14T11:50:00.000-08:00

Alright, this is my warm up. I'm getting used to writing each day. Just like running or flossing (I guess) I just gotta get in the habit of writing. But first I have to go to the bathroom...okay back. Wow, today is two months to the day that I finish my ninth year of college and graduate for good! I honestly don't know how I feel about that yet. In a time when I should be getting a terminal case of super-senioritis though, I can say that I am so motivated to squeeze every last bit out of this experience that I can before its gone. Lord, help me live life to the absolute fullest for these last two months here. One end is also a new beginning.

Now for a halfway useful thought. I was reflecting on sin today and the nature of it. If we understand Sin, by one of its many definitions, as the pursuit of fulfillment apart from God then I would say we are led by it in two ultimate directions: novelty and excess. Since we as Christians believe there is no true fulfillment apart from God (only watered down versions) then Sin is the pursuit of that which doesn't exist. This results in a trial and error approach to many other vices such as alcohol (of which I know a lot about), or sex, or any of a number of other things. At first, most sin does have the taste of something fulfilling but its aftertaste is always bland and unsatisfying. When sin ceases to fulfill, our natural response is to either "do it differently" or "do it more". My first few experiences with drinking were spectacular, nothing but fun and more fun. But as that experience started to wane, I had to either drink more or add some novelty to my drinking in the form of games, keg stands, or other such innovations. In cyclic fashion like a hamster on a wheel, each "new" experience provided by novelty or excess wained the process was repeated. Eventually, as it did in my case, novelty and excess were pushed to distructive limits that could have seriously hurt me if God hadn't given me another way. Releasing me from this cyclic pattern and putting me back on the path toward Him, I found the fulfillment I had searched for and pursued with such vigor. This time though, I found what I looking for because I was pointed at God, therefore such novelty and excess were unneeded. I do of course try to find ways to experience God freshly and in increasing fashion today, but this is not the frenzied attempts to find purpose and peace they were previously. It is the fulfillment I found when I first came to God that I now explore the depths of. All that's left is gratitude, thank you Lord.

Who's feet do you sit at?

2005-03-12T11:25:00.000-08:00

Okay, so in the same Fortune article I was reading, Rick Warren also talked about role models. I think we'd all argee that modeling yourself off of great men and women is a good thing. We're not trying to copy them, we're not trying to live their life - but we can let their life inspire us just as they were probably inspired by someone before them. Living great lives is just our way of passing it on. Interestingly though, Rick recommended that, ideally, your models should be dead. I liked that, he said that its one things to run a good first part of the race and then flake out at the end, its a whole other thing to finish the race with power and intregity. I really resonate with that. I've been a fan of biographies for years. In fact, I should probably make time to read more of them than I do. Biographies are great because you get to sit at the feet of some of the most amazing people that ever lived. Who wouldn't want to be mentored by the greatest men and women? I may never get a chance to meet Billy Graham or Rick Warren but I can read about the apostle Paul, or Hudson Taylor, or George Mueller. I can be there when D.L. Moody was preaching to thousands, when Francis Shaeffer started L'Abri for wayward spiritual wanderers. Yes, I will continue to look forward to having coffee with Rick Warren or Ravi Zacharias one day, but for now I have all of the greatest people that have ever lived at my fingertips. I would encourage you as well to avail yourself to that opportunity.

Efficient vs. Effective

2005-03-12T11:11:00.000-08:00

I love going to Barnes and Noble because you can sit down and read all of the magazines you might not otherwise read. So with the preface - I was reading an articles in Fortune magazine about the "the best advice I ever got". They basically asked 25 of the country's most successful people what was the best advice they ever got. The question basically got back to "who was/are your mentors"? A couple that I liked included: Find out what you are truly good at and then surround yourself with people that are strong in the areas you are weak. Do what you enjoy and do what you're good at. Balance is the key to success. And a whole lot of others I can't remember (so they must not have been that good).

They also interviewed Rick Warren in that piece. He said several things I really liked. First, he said that a lot of organizations (churches, businesses, etc...) focus on being efficient but not about being effective. Being efficient has to do with what's going on inside your organization but being effective has to do with what's going on outside your organization. Effective has to do with the people that are not using your product and why are they not. For the church it has to do with the people that don't believe our message and why they don't. I've personally seen a lot of efficient churches that run like well oiled machines, but they suck because no one who's not already a Christian would want to be a part of it.

I think that the more I read from Rick Warren the most I admire the man. He had another good piece of advice but I might make that another blog because it hits on a whole other topic.

My challenge

2005-03-11T22:00:00.000-08:00

I've toyed with the idea of starting a blog for quite some time. I've always held off because, honestly, I didn't understand why the hell people did it. What a self absorbed waste of time (I thought)! I've come around on that opinion somewhat. I've always thought that journaling in its many forms is a vital discipline for the soul. Journaling is an excavation of the heart, it is the materialization of thought and feeling. What I don't understand is how so many people can do it online. A crucial component of journaling is the ability to be brutally honest about what you think, about what you feel. I don't think its impossible online, I just don't think most people have the balls to be that honest. Perhaps their consulation is that no one reads .00001% of all the crap people are blogging online these days. And so I too now throw my hat into the ring fully believing most of this will be posted for only God and I to read.

So why now? It has nothing to do with 'now' at all. But one day, sometime in the future, I want to be an author. I'm not going to just turn around and write my first book immediately. No, I have to learn how to write. I have to learn how to poor my heart out onto a page. I have to learn how to get all these ideas rattling around in my head onto "paper". And I have to make a habit of it. And all of a sudden all of the things I need to do sounds like a lot of the things that journaling allows me to do. I will blog because I've been able to journal privately for a whlie now. I must learn to do it where someone else might possibly see it.

I think, however, that I will be too honest for most. If my thoughts don't offend some, my language might certainly offend the rest. No apologies, no political correctness, but I will write from my heart. This is the start of my career as an author. I write to no one now, perhaps one day I'll write to millions.