Life is short...sometimes too short!

Most of us do not want to think of our own imortality but from time to time things come up and we find the very subject monopolizing our conscious thoughts.

We write wills. We talk about how we want our crap distributed. We plan elaborate ceremonies so people can come pay homage to the person that no longer is. We throw a granite marker to remind people if our existence.

What if we left our marker by loving like there is no tomorrow? What if we loved without fear of rejection? What if we lived life trying to love those society wrote off? We are afraid to love. When we love we become vunerable. When we become vunerable we may get hurt. It is at that point we really love. The very moment we experience pain is the moment we learn to love.

Love can do some amazing things. It will cause a man to give the shirt off his back. A woman will endure hours of pain in order to bring a new life into this world. Love causes us to do crazy things too.

The most amazing thing love has done was held a man to a tree. At anytime this man could have come down. But, because of the tremendous love he had he endured. He loved like there was no tomorrow.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Friday morning dump!

I have not been on here near as much as I would like to. I have several posts sitting in drafts waiting to be finalized, but whether they ever make it is another story. I am really wanting to become more disciplined and a better steward of my time. I have all these ideas I want to make a reality, but can't seem to find the time to push forward on them.

I am thankful for the people I get to walk through life with. I get to hang out with the most inspirational teenagers I have ever met. They are truly amazing. From organizing a school-wide (public school) mission project to looking at the hard verses in scripture and asking what is God really saying in this verse? They challenge me as we walk together in this crazy thing we call life. As a student pastor I wish our gathering realized the role they could be playing in shaping our church body in the future. It is frustrating at times to see them and me written off as "the youth". There is so much talent amongst them. We have authors, interior decorators, singers, musicians, servants, teachers, encouragers, artist, photographers, you name it and it is probably represented within our group. But they are the "youth" group. I have been able to watch this group grow in their walk consistently. They have wisdom that only comes from walking in relationship with their Lord. I pray that no matter what lies ahead in their future that they will spur each other on to grow and chase after their relationship with Jesus. That they run after it with reckless abandonment. That they do not grow weary.

I am weary. I continue to pour out and constantly try to empty myself into the students and my family. I love that part. It is refreshing to know I have given all. I am weary from being drained. My job drains me daily. I try to do a job that honors Christ, but at times feel like I get taken advantage of. I am reminded of how Christ was taken advantage of and push forward. I try to serve two masters. Money and God. I have to work to pay the bills, but that takes away from the task that has been laid in front of me. I push forward sacrificing what I can. I am drained from constantly being on guard. I know that is Satan trying to disrupt what I am here to accomplish, but it wears on you. I try to be all things to all men/women, but realize that some people don't want that. I push forward. I am broken and beaten, but I push forward longing for the day when I can look back on this and see the Master plan.

I search for clarity and direction. I am humbled that God has called me for these tasks and even ask "Why me?" at times. I push forward still. How much easier would it be to run, but then I realize there is no place to run. God has put me here for His purpose so I continue to cling on and push forward.

Dreams are meant to be reality

I dream big. I don't mean the dreams that I have in my sleep. Not the dreams of having someone I didn't know give me the keys to their brand new Ferrari. The dreams of changing the world. The dreams of giving someone a new outlook on life. The dream that someday extreme poverty can come to an end. These aren't really dreams though. I think these are the passion to love others blooming within our own minds. I read a survey that if every person who claimed to follow Christ would give to charity world hunger would be cured. If Americans spent less at Christmas people around the entire globe could have clean drinking water. (As we dump the half bottle of lukewarm Voss (imported Norwegian water) down the drain). On the space station it cost $700 to filter enough urine into enough clean drinking water to fill a 16 oz. bottle. I was recently reminded that there are 3.5 million homeless people in America, nearly half of them are children.

I dream big. I dream that with a generation that cares more about doing and less about talking these things can be something my grandchildren can read about these things in their History books. My children can be a part of the solution. From buying responsibly to giving of time, the ways to contribute are endless. What if we decide to "need" less in order to give away more?

The only time we see a person walk away from Christ still searching was the man who wasn't willing to give up what he had. Have we walked away from the true message of scripture. The word purpose has become a buzz word among leadership in the last decade. The problem so many times is we were defining our purpose when it had been clearly defined for us 2000 years ago. Love others, love God. Maybe instead of trying to rewrite the purpose we should be trying to be creative and come up with as many ways we can to love others, and love God.

Loving is not just throwing money at a problem in order to disguise it. That would be equivalent to putting a band aid on an amputated arm. In order to love like Christ we must suffer like Christ, sacrifice like Christ. We were never told it would be easy. Never told it wouldn't have a price. Love came and conquered death. But it had to stare death in the face in order to do so. It had to be near.

DREAM BIG!

REACT BIGGER!

10:45 Experience Day 3

10:45 Experience Day 2

The Journey!

Well it is finally here! The first mission trip I have ever been on is also the first mission trip that I have ever planned. If you know me you know I am a let's go do it type of guy. So needless to say I was in shock when I realized how much paperwork there would be to do. But thanks to my amazing wife, paper work is done and everything organized. Enough about that stuff, let's get to the stuff that matters.

Our journey didn't start today. It started months ago when we, (I), felt God leading me to do something different. I had always gone to a summer camp, the church I am at has always done a summer camp. So that means we stick with tradition and do a summer camp, right? Not! Nothing against camps but lately I have been pulled into focusing on meeting the needs of others, loving people wherever they are, and serving the LOCAL community. In other words giving my life as a living sacrifice. Pretty sure the Bible says something about that. So the journey began.

Forget all the details on how we chose the trip and how we hooked up with the body of believers we are working with. Plain and simple, God did it. Camps are great. We go away for week and have this mountain top spiritual experience. We get off the bus and sprint to the top of the mountain and it feels so good. We are recharged! We get on the bus, come home and before we know it we have tripped and slid down that mountain as quick as we went up. Honestly it sucks! What a draining experience. That's where this trip was different from the beginning. We started preparing months ago. Every message I gave on Wednesday nights was pointing toward the trip. Unity, living life abundantly, love, encouragement, focus. I got this crazy idea that 30 days before the mission trip I would challenge myself to go "deeper" in my relationship with a loving Savior. Then I decided to bring everyone for the ride. Knowing it would be hard for any of us to finish it. Well I never knew how serious some of them would take it. I am pretty sure I had some parents ready to smack me when there kids gave up their cell phones for a week to focus on God. But through this whole journey I have seen friendships formed, and spiritual growth in so many of us. This wasn't a sprint to the top but a steady climb.

Day 1. We got off to a rainy start but the sun was shining when we got off the bus. The hotel was amazing and in a later post I will share how God was already preparing this place for us. We broke up into teams to get our job descriptions and started planning for Xtreme Nights. The skit practice went amazing. People were engaging with each other and not just within their circle of friends but with everyone.

Amazing start to an amazing week!

Feeling Good!

It was one of those weeks. You know the kind. You have enough to do to keep you busy for a month but a deadline to meet in a week. You feel like you can do nothing right. You have a line of people with some complaint. You crave a day off to relax but can't afford to put things aside long enough to get that time away

That was my week. I was up late working on numerous projects and getting less sleep each night it seemed. my body was tired and my mind was numb. I had been putting in extra hours at both of my jobs. There are days when it just doesn't seem worth it and I was having a couple of those in a row. I was behind quite a few paychecks at the one. Thankfully my wife has done an amazing job at juggling our bills and somehow kept everything up to date.

Something that hadn't happened in a while happened that weekend. My wife and I were able to go out on a date. Our son was invited to stay the night with some friends and the mother-in-law took our daughter shopping. We finally got to go out. We enjoyed every minute of it. It was a gift card date. Used gift cards for dinner and then used gift cards to see a movie. It was perfect. We laughed and joked the night away. We acted like teenagers going out by themselves for the first time.

We even got to go to the beach by ourselves on Saturday. I taught Laura how to catch fish. Really, barehanded. Ask her. She didn't even have to make mud pies that day. We caught crabs, the crustacean kind. The only drawback to the beach was we both got a little burnt. No big deal, we have shed and back to normal already. Then we were able to find "The Chattaway" for lunch. It is a little hole in the wall burger joint. I loved this place. I ate there for an emergent church conference I attended in 09. Somehow we found it and enjoyed a great meal.

Then it was back to reality, fun was over and back to the real world. I honestly was feeling a little, okay, a lot, beat up. I felt like a cage fighter in a handicap match. Don't get me wrong there were plenty of "good" things going on. We had 10 visitors in our youth gathering. Yes 10! It just seemed the bad was so bad in over shadowed everything else. Then I began to remember to focus on the things that matter. Love God, Love people. I had someone who was visiting tell me they wish their youth group was like ours. I had someone else tell me they wish their youth pastor cared as much about them as an individual. There was also an email sent about how much people loved our group. I am not saying any of this to receive thanks, or glory. I am saying all this to say one thing. Through life's crap God's love is still visible. Christ came to give us a more abundant life. Not an easy life with more stuff. Those people who shared in my life this week, Thank you for helping me see the abundance of life!

Ready for round two.