church

last weekend i had strep throat and was unable to make it to a sunday gathering of jesus followers.  man it was so refreshing to join in communal worship, prayer, and meal.  it’s so encouraging and reenergizing to be a part of the body of christ, especially when we gather together.  a woman prayed something that stuck with me this afternoon.  i can’t remember the exact prayer but it went something like this:

“god we know that we’re no where close to the place that we want to be, but today we thank you that we’re not in the same place we were at when we met you.”

all too often in my life i see the person that i’m not, the person i’m failing to be.  this afternoon i had sometime to reflect on the person i am today versus the person i was many years ago.  praise be to god for transformation!  i have a LONG LONG way to go, but man i needed to hear that today.  god’s at work.  he’s not done, and i thank him for that.  but he has been at work, and i praise our god for that!

bitter sweet confession

he who covers his sin will not prosper, but whoever confesses and renounces them finds mercy.
proverbs 28:13

therefore confess your sins to one another praying for each other so that you may be healed.  the prayer of a righteous man is powerful and effective.
james 5:16

blessed is he whose transgressions are forgiven, whose sin is covered…then i acknowledged my sin to you and did not cover up my iniquity.  i said, “i will confess my transgressions to the lord” - and you forgave the guilt of my sin.
psalm 32:1, 5

the idea of confessing my sin to a friend has become a significant and difficult discipline in my life.  listening to confession has also become a significant and difficult discipline of my life.  in the past week i’ve heard confessions of adultery, hatred, rage, drug and alcohol addiction, pornography addiction, and eating disorders to name a few.

i don’t know if this is theologically correct or not, but as i begin to wrestle with the ideas of sin and shame i’ve come to this thought: sin is the junk that disconnects us from god, shame is the junk that disconnects us from each other.  many may disagree, but this is just the thought that’s currently going through my head.

we all have just bad crap that we’ve done in our lives.  we all have skeletons.  we all have secrets.  god knows them all but people don’t.  i believe that the practice of confessing sin to each other is lost.  talking with students, peers, and adults this past week has shown evidence to this.  rarely do we ever talk about the skeletons and secrets.  we live burdened lives, carrying around guilt and shame.  i believe that the only way to rid yourselves of guilt and shame is to confess them to someone.

in the verses above we find 3 things when we confess our sin: mercy, healing, and blessing.  isn’t that what we want for all of our sin and shame.  lets stop being fearful of judgment and rejection and start recieving mercy, healing, and blessing.

this blog is a little scatter brained, i know.  there’s just so much going on in my head in regards to confession right now.  take whatever you can from these thoughts.

hands

so here’s the link to the organization i want to raise money for.  it’s called h.a.n.d.s. (or helping all nations in deeds and service).

also, they have a sunday morning church service and breakfast.  they need money in order to do this every week.  they also hand out clothes to the homeless and those in need at these services.  if you have money and/or clothes please go to their page and let them know.  they also could use volunteers.  i need to do this as well.  we need to feed, clothe, and house jesus!

god, games, and videos

we arrived back to parkcrest yesterday afternoon from point loma nazarene university.  it was a great week of camp for many of the students.  it was a terrific week of camp for me as well.  i learned a lot from what it takes to organize a group trip to how i can better communicate to students.  who knew that mistakes were the best way to learn.  i only pray that god’s hand was in my mistakes.

we played many games at camp, a lot of them in a camp wide competition.  we were all given t-shirts according to our teams.  my team’s shirt color was pink….PERFECT!!! (and i really do mean that.)  my team finished 12th out of 16 teams in the week long competition, but we also had a ton of fun, so that makes us champions (really i’m just trying to find some sort of consalation for coming in the bottom half of the camp haha).  my favorite time of games though was at free time with many of the “parkcrest-ian” students.  we played ultimate frisbee, football (which most of you will call soccer), and just some silly games.  at the end of our game playing we all sat in the middle of the soccer field and just talked, joked, and laughed.  it was great!

there were also several videos made at camp. several of them are on youtube.  my two favorite invovled 3 dancing boys in the dorm room and 3 girls rhyming.  i walked out of a room to see three young men down the hall dancing to our lead counselors ringtone.  my favorite lines in the video come toward the end from tyler, “i’m running out of dance moves….i’m going to back flip off of the wall.” haha, enjoy.  the semi-rapping girls caught me as i was walking out of the cafeteria to diss on my pink-shirt-wearing team.  i don’t get the hand signs at the end but apparently they were “hating” on me. haha

my favorite part of the week though was hearing and seeing how god was moving in students’ lives.  i had several young men approach me to talk to me about their struggles, desires, and lives.  there’s nothing more beautiful than hearing someone talk about falling in love with god.  he’s so worth following and loving.  i thank god for revealing himself to students and to me this week.

it’s interesting being at a camp that’s geared toward high school students.  in the beginning of the week i had the mindset that this was for the students and the students alone, which is true for the most part.  to be honest and transparent, i felt strange worshiping the first night.  i wasn’t sure if i should be as “into the music” since i was a leader.  i remember watching the students raise hands, shout, and jump during our time of musical worship.  everything inside of me wanted to lift hands, jump, and sing as loud as possible.  but i was hesitant due to the fact that i was a “leader” now.  how dumb, right?!?!  by day number two it hit me that this worship was for god, not for the students.  i lost my voice that night of worship.

i viewed the sermons in a similar way this week.  the messages were supposed to give students a solid foundation of what christianity is.  foundations?  please, i’m a leader…i know all of this stuff already.  at least thats the thought that first passed through my mind.  one thing i learned from sports is that fundamentals are never done being refined.  apparently the same lesson from sports can be applied to this situation of fundamental christian teachings. this past week we talked about god, man, sin, grace, the church, and scripture.    i don’t have anyone of those “doctrines” fully understood yet, probably never will.  i thank god for making himself more real to the students AND i this week.

the speaker said something one night that stuck with me.  he said (this isn’t an exact quote) “we need the only one that can make dead things live.”  it was beautiful watching god raise dead things to life this week.  some of the students i talked with had been living in a state of “death” their entire lives.  this week awakened them to “life, and life to the full.” 

i pray that god continues to raise dead things to life in this world!!

summer camp

so on sunday i leave for summer camp….as a leader.  wow!  i never thought about this day coming.  its been an interesting process getting ready.  i’ve made some mistakes and learned some stuff.  i did some stuff right.  i did my best.  hopefully in some small way it was pleasing to god.

more importantly though, i want you guys to pray for the students going on this trip.  all the work was for nothing if students do not experience intimacy with their creator.  pray for all distractions to be removed.  pray that god may find honor and glory in this next week.

long time no blog

i haven’t blogged for quite some time.  i haven’t even been on my page for a while.  it was a nice unplanned “break” from cyberspace.  something inspired me to write today though.

i woke up super super early today, and by super early i mean 6:30 am (get off my case, that’s super early for me ha).  anyway, i woke up to meet up with some local youth pastors this morning to talk about whats going on in youth ministry in long beach and the surrounding communities.  it was refreshing to see and talk with other people that have a heart for youth.  there were about 10 people that showed up.  the age range was from about 22 (thats me, i was the youngest) to 60.  it was such an encouraging meeting.

working at a specific church can often limit one’s vision of what god is doing in the larger community of believers.  the meeting this morning gave me an opportunity to witness what god is doing through the body of christ on a larger platform.

it also gave provided me with a chance to exercise humility.  coming out of college you think you know more than you actually do.  listening to some of these older men talk about their vision and listening to the wisdom they had to pass down was humbling.  it brought me back to a place where i could listen and learn because i have so much of that to do still.

i hope god continues to teach me through different means about ministry and being a more complete follower of jesus.

what it’s all about

therefore, if anyone is in christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come! all this is from god, who reconciled us to himself through christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation: that god was reconciling the world to himself in christ, not counting men’s sins against them.  and he has committed to us the message of reconciliation. we are therefore christ’s ambassadors, as though god were making his appeal through us. we implore you on christ’s behalf: be reconciled to god. god made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of god.

II corinthians 5:17-21

so much so little

i recently was talking with a friend and made a statement that sounded something like “i’m at this point in my life where i’m still free to do anything.  i have no family, responsibilities, or anything else holding me back.”

as i begin to dwell on this idea that god has given me this gift of freedom i become overwhelmed with what to do with it all.  there are so so so so so so so many freaking things i want/can do.  i’ve thought about pusuing a masters degree.  i’ve thought about coaching soccer.  i’ve thought about just working as a valet and feeding hungry people.  i’ve thought about finding a janitorial job in a high school to be around students more often.  i’ve thought about going to india to serve.  i’ve thought about running the long beach marathon as a fundraiser for a local organization.  i just have so much i want to do and it seems like i have so little time to do it all in. 

i believe thinking about so much keeps me from doing anything one thing well.  i need to start discerning what it is god is calling me to do, and finding tangible ways to do it.  so here are some tangible things that i’m doing right now or am committing myself to right now. 

1) we often teach students that they should pursue and be active in things they’re passionate about and to use those passions to serve god.  well i’m passionate about football (what americans call soccer).  i love the game.  so i e-mailed a bunch of high school coaches today regarding ways to get invovled with coaching high school teams.  i have a meeting with one of them this week.

2) i feel a constant call on my life, almost daily, to feed the hungry.  so before saturday ends i’m going to go meet a stranger (probably a homeless person) and feed them.  i want to try and to this at least once a week.  all too often i believe we think feeding the hungry is for organizations.  i think i personally should be feeding the hungry.  i wonder what long beach would look like if every attender of parkcrest fed one person, one meal a week.  please ask me about it.  it’ll be an accountability for me.

3) i’m going to do a small job search for janitorial jobs at local high schools, nothing super serious but just to see what’s out there.  there’s a janitor at the elementary school where my mom works who has been working there for over 20 years.  i’ve been to the school and watched high schooler after high schooler come and talk to him for 20 plus minutes a day because he impacted their life.  they had a special appreciation day for him and hundreds of people celebrated him because of the impact he has on the faculty and students at the school.

4) i’m going to find an organization that i could serve in india sometime in the next couple of years.  i want to go for a month or so and do whatever they need me to do.  i want to bathe people.  i want to feed people.  i want to pray with and for people.  if anyone knows an organization or person/people i could contact let me know please.

5) i’m going to find an organization to raise money for by running the long beach marathon.  anyone have any good ideas?  numbers?  e-mails?

there are five things i’m committing myself to do in the next few weeks.

amazed still

“here is a trustworthy saying that deserves full acceptance: christ jesus came into the world to save sinners - of whom i am the worst. but for that very reason i was shown mercy so that in me, the worst of sinners, christ jesus may display his unlimited patience as an example for those who would believe in him and recieve eternal life.” I timothy 1:15-16

again i’m reminded of just how badly god wants to be reconciled with the world. grace grace grace. mercy mercy mercy. for ANYONE who will believe and follow christ. do we have a passion and desire to share this message with the world? doesn’t this make you fired up to go tell people, “no, you don’t have to be a good person to get into heaven. you don’t have to do anything. you just have to accept grace and mercy and love. god WANTS to be in right relationship with you.” the more i think about this. the more i get pumped up to continue to hound my co-workers at the hotel about it.

if someone gave you a million dollars and told you, “hey, i’m giving out a million dollars to everyone who comes and asks me for it, no catch,” wouldn’t you just go tell everyone? if we really believe and have recieved grace are we taking the next step and telling people about it?

the more i dialogue with the guys and lady (singular) from work, the more i realize how much harder they make life for themselves. in their minds they HAVE to do good things and be good people in order to get to heaven. they believe in a god that requires them to do something to get to heaven. i tell them about the god i serve, follow, and believe and they argue with me. “well maybe he wants to be in relationship with you, but you still have to do good things.” no.

what can i possibly add to god’s grace that will make me more deserving to be in right relationship with him? answer, nothing. what can i possibly do to eliminate my shot at recieving grace? answer, nothing. the best of people and worst of sinners both need a free serving of grace.

get fired up about it. tell people about it. lets start giving this free gift away.

the pursuit of happyness

i just watched this film for the first time.  i’m writing with eyes and cheeks filled and covered with dry tears.  there was a lot of beauty in that movie. 

as will smith encounters and meets new wealthy individuals i kept hoping that he would finally ask for help.  i’m left wondering if he would’ve asked, would anyone have given him a house to stay in?  would anyone pay for him to stay somewhere?  would someone given him food to eat?

the questions were than reflected back to myself.  would i have given this complete stranger a place to stay?  would i have given this man food to eat? 

i wept.  i have never and may never experience the brokenness that will smith’s character felt.  yet, seeing this story made me want to so desperately do anything to help those who at the end of their rope. 

questions continue to hound me.  do i actively look for opportunities to serve those in need?  do i look for people to feed?

it’s time to stop just feeling for people and start acting for people.  isn’t that what the church is called to do, to offer hope, a helping hand, love?  do we do it?  do i do it?  do we want to do it?  can we do it?

i certainly hope that i can never be content with watching a movie like the pursuit of happyness and doing nothing.  feeling and passion without action is worthless.  we need to act.

sorry if this blog is totally scatter-brained.  i have so many emotions and thoughts running through my head after that movie.