H O N O R

At Coldwater Church on Sunday we tore through the story of Joseph. The message had deep implications for me. Like Joseph, it is important for me to bless the generations before me and after me. Like Joseph, I want to respond well to both dishonor and honor. I want to make the most of every opportunity. Like Joseph, I want to demonstrate competence, forgiveness, and overwhelming mercy! I want to make the best of unseen and seemingly unplanned circumstance.

I'd also like to make sense of dreams and visions, but that seems like an aside.

Success

I have been trying for weeks to figure out a way to get my sermons on our church website. Today I figued it out. Thank You Blogger. I'm a little nervous to link them to the church page just yet. I think I said "hell" in one and I wasn't talking about the place. Feel free to preview them first as a ttsm reader. The quality is not great but we are two huge steps forward from where we were.

Abundant Life

"...I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly" - John 10:10

I remember watching a VHS of Mark Lowry when I was a kid. He described the ups and downs of life using a wavy motion with his hands. He then went on to the describe the abundant life of a christian using the same but much bigger wavy motion with his hands.

Is that the best we get? higher highs? lower lows? I feel like I am at an abundant low. A messy pit I may never really climb out of. At the same time I feel like I'm racing to a peak and am hopeful it doesnt "peak" but keeps climbing. Make sense?

Perhaps the good shepherd is calling us to a way that is not just bigger, but also different, and also infinetly better. I long to know his voice, to experience his means of grace, and to share it with others. May it be so.

Random Links on my wife's birthday

This guy can preach, but this sermon was a little atypical.

I finally got shot by Daley. Very Professional.
Very Personable. I don't know if I had more
fun taking pictures or eating pasta.
It was way cool.

384,000 shoeboxes so far. We spent today at the west coast OCC processing center, with seventeen Jesus followers from our church.

Preach'n on a Sunday Night!

Tonight I spoke on simplicity. Launched out of Judges 6-8 and the story of Gideon. Less is more. Trust God. Glorify Him. I actually had a lot of fun telling the story of Gideon and challenging folks to critically look at some of our modern conveniences. The whole application point really boiled down to Security, Storage, and Simplicity. Maybe that would of been a better title than the simply put "Less is more".

Some surprise congregants...

my boss... Was scheduled to be on vacation but stayed home and came to church. Told me, "less is more, you went for nearly 50 minutes". Interesting comment from a guy that talked about being careful with your tongue this morning. What was up with that?

my mom... Was in Laughlin all week end and had some real challenges. I didn't think she would stop by for a long winded preacher on her way home. Momma didn't say much but you know she loved it...That's just how mommas are.

my bro... came on his own to the church where we both grew up. This meant a lot to me. Some possibly well intentioned folks made some fairly judgemental comments and I'm pretty frustrated. T-Spoon had some very nice things to say about appreciating what I do, ... regardless of these people.

HERE'S THE RANT!

Tonight I felt like I had to apologize to my brother for the stupid things other people said. I also felt like I had to express my own gratitude for him making the physical, financial, and emotional effort to be in church and hear me preach. I felt like I had to clarify that I don't personally agree with this "If you died tonight..." approach to evangelism and also voice my own frustrations about people's (especially christian people's) inability to just be nice and love people with out coming across like "I'm better than you... and you could be better too... if you were just like me". I said all these things and I never prefaced my questions with "I just have to ask" or added the addendum "I had to say that", or inserted into my offerings of our conversation any other excusatory parenthetical clauses. Why? Because if you have to say, "I just had to say" You're wrong. You didn't have to. And further more... you should not have. No way! You need to allow the redemptive love of Jesus to come through you. This, "us and them", "in or out", reductionism is not working. It's time to try something new!

END OF RANT

The night was redeemed when my mom and bro both came over for some family fun that involved chicken, macaroni, black beans, karaoke revolution, and three happy toddlers. It was a pretty good day.

It's not a "oneafta"...

Normally youth pastors always get to speak on the same sundays; the "oneafta" Christmas, the "oneafta" Thanksgiving, the "oneafta" New Years. There's also the "onebefor"s... labor day, memorial day, etc. I think you get the picture. Topherspoon gets to preach this Sunday. Here's a peek at my title and the "Green Day-esque" background I'm thinking of using for my power point. What do you think?

I don't own a storage unit.

I received some research results from Focus on the Family this week that suggests Clergy have greater happiness and job satisfaction than most other occupations. The irony in that is the award winning percentage was like 67% are happy at their job! Isn't that great! Only 33% of those who have the call of God on their life are miserable and unsastified! And most of those are probably Baptists (there's no research for this, I'm just guessing). All jokes aside... I do like my job, and I am priveledged to be friends with some of the most gifted communicators on the planet. The problem is, I'm always working when they are preaching. This creates a real conflict when I go on vacation and want to visit 7 different churches on one sunday and my wife is thinking we should just do church in the car. So I came home from conference on Saturday and was catching up on all my bloghead buddies and found out my friend Dan was preaching at the Grove this last weekend. I was mildly dissapointed I couldn't be there but I had to play the "guy in charge" at our church this last weekend. Divine appointments? God brought the same message to our church via Dave Ruiz, (the coolest trumpet playing Russian missionary you'll ever meet)! Of course, I had to listen to Dan's message via the streaming video and BAM, it was like getting hit again (but in a good way). So here's a snapshot of the conversation that took place in my kitchen.

"So maybe adoption is not just, like maybe we should consider that, if we can't have kids... maybe this is how we as christians should be living out our faith." says my wife.

"Dan Lance and Dave Ruiz would certainly agree with you." says me.

"But do you?" asks my wife.

Why does God always hit me with the one two punch? Why is Pastor Dan hitting me with this spiritual uppercut? Why during a week when my checking account is a mess, and I'm scheduled for a vasectamy on Thursday, is God speaking to me about growing my family? I guess it's time to "prayerfully consider" being a little less comfortable. What will it look like to care for the orphans and widows? I somehow feel like Dodgeball for Rwanda is not enough.

State of my soul...

So this week started rough. Two broken down buses last week, both vandalised, while sitting on the side of the road. Spoke four times on Sunday. Did my first funeral yesterday. Three kids, one wife, and myself all with upset stomachs. Things are getting better.

Ask any youth pastor, and they will share a similair experience about when they speak in "big church", (I mean to the entire congregation as opposed to "just students"). Number one difference... Way more attaboys. I actually had a student come up to me after my message two weeks ago and share how "it really ministered" to him. After I picked myself up off the floor I thanked him and was able to pray with him directly to his circumstance. But this is far from the norm. All that to say, adults are generally way more flattering than students, and us "youth pastors" are never really sure what to do with that. I was very thankful to speak on a sunday that was not a "oneafta" . (By this I mean the "oneafta" Christmas, or the "oneafta" Thanksgiving, or the "oneafta" New Years. In my circles these are typical Youth Pastor Gets to Speak in Big Church Sundays.) Anyways, it's over and so is the funeral. The buses are back home, running, glass replaced, and graffitti soon to be removed. My stomach feels much better and so far, breakfast is still there. I did get paid for the funeral and that is always nice! :)

Looking forward to the rest of the week! Hey, now that I think about it, Sunday was the "oneafta" Martin Luther King Jr. Day.