Greetings everyone! Well, it’s Hump day on our Group Week of Hope trip and it’s been an amazing trip so far! Some of the highlights from our trip….
-Safe and fun travels on the way up (Lots of inside jokes forming!)
-Has been awesome watching the students interact and connecting with students from other groups (Groups are from LA, Oregon and Colorado)
-Amazing worship experience on Monday Night!!!! The Holy Spirit was very thick and doing some business in many of our student’s hearts. I haven’t seen our group be this real in my time here so far and it was super encouraging!
-Hearing all the stories from the different crews and how God is moving in them and through them is just a blessing (Projects include serving the homeless, ministering to elderly, working with abused children, doing various work projects working with organizations that meet the bare needs of the community!…..more to come later
-I love our group! They already connect well together, but God is definitely doing something to break down some barriers and help us get to an even deeper level with one another!
-Watching the students stop and pray for one another on the spot and seeing how joyful they are in serving has been my favorite!
Today, I was reading an article in the news about Adult ADD. As I’m reading this article (You can read it here) and I started to look through the symptoms it dawned on me that I might actually have ADD. I mean, I’ve always been hyper and a procrastinator at times, but I’ve worked hard at being organized and focused. The road has been up and down at times but compared to when I first got in ministry, I’m light years ahead of where I was.
However, I still find myself at times struggling with this ability to focus and I can remember joking with a close buddy of mine because he used to take some medicine that we called his “Focus Meds”. I wonder, if I should start taking some of those.
If you’re a big picture thinker like me you hate being boxed in and you’re usually the one who likes to find new ways of doing things when someone tells you this is how we do it. We like to be artists and we love to create and face new challenges.
In the midst of the creativity, inspiration and dreaming….needs to be balanced with organization, tasks, taking care of business….whatever you want to call it. I have found myself one too many times on the first part of this! It’s something I’m proud of, but at the same time something that I dislike about myself.
I love being who I am, but if I’m honest I need to continually focus more on the organizational side of leadership and life.
The article had some helpful tidbits….maybe even some things I could use, but ultimately my strength, focus and ability to get things done can only come from the One who gave me life.
I’ve been gone for awhile! To be honest I’m still learning how to carve time out of my schedule to sit down and share some thoughts. I don’t want to just babble on here, I want to share some good stuff and hopefully spark great discussion and debate.
I figured, if I don’t make time it will never happen, so I’m going to start making time! Even if only 1 or 2 people are reading this! Don’t call it a comeback, I’ve been here for years See you soon!
Last night I had the privilege to hear an awesome message at the Flood. The question that was posed was, “When I look at my life, do I see much or do I see little?” It’s much like the story in the Bible about the 3 men who were given the talents. Two of them saw their abundance and chose to do something with it, while one lived in fear because he basically had the mindset that he didn’t have much.
Fear fuels the attitude of Scarcity. I can’t give to that because I don’t have much. I can’t help because I can’t help myself. I don’t have anything. I want to hold on to that thing even though I never use it and someone else needs it. If I give of my time, resources, money, energy, whatever it is then that means I might not have enough. It goes back to being about “I”.
A quote from last night…..
“God desires that you would be generous, not because He wants something from you, but because He has something for you.”
When we live our lives with an attitude of generosity we not only bless others but we ourselves are blessed beyond measure, and I believe that God blesses those with generous hearts. I’m not talking about giving more money! I’m talking about living out a lifestyle that is generous in all areas of life.
It starts with being Thankful for what you do have! Being thankful causes you to not live in fear! So, what am I thankful for?
-My journey with Jesus
-My wife
-My family
-My friends
-My partners in ministry around the world
-My partners in ministry here
-My group of students
-the Air I breathe
-The fact that I live in America
-The fact I live in a technological age!
-My college experience (Basketball, student gov, radio, etc)
-My gifting
-Recognizing my brokenness and my need for a Savior
-Good music
-Good food
-Good conversation
I could list so much more, but I’d love to hear from others…….
What are you thankful for?
Being thankful leads to a heart filled with generosity
I love Grace! I’m not talking about a woman’s name or the thing we say before our meals. Grace. Forgiveness you give to someone who doesn’t deserve it. Grace. It’s the extended hand you give to someone in need. Grace. It’s treating someone like their human regardless of their past mistakes or their current lot in life. Grace. We all want it but at times it can be so hard to give because we’ve been taught to get even, to settle the score, to get our way no matter what the cost. To focus on our tasks and worry only about ourselves.
I don’t know this man in the video, but his story is a beautiful depiction of how life should be and how we, as humans, should see those around us.
I must admit that I had a little bit of pride swell up inside of me when I saw that this took place in my hometown of Columbus, OH. If you haven’t followed the rest of the story this man was offered a job to do voice work for the Cleveland Cavs and they offered to put him and his family up in a free house. That might strike some of you with the attitude, “That’s not solving anything”. Maybe it won’t in the long run, but to extend grace to someone is a beautiful thing!
After following this man’s story the last day or two it’s taken on a deeper meaning for me. For those of you who don’t know me, my father was a huge radio personality in Columbus for many years. He had a “Golden voice” just like this man. My dad has been gone now for over 10 years but when I think about my dad the word that comes to mind is Grace.
"My Pops"
My dad was the most loving, caring and gracious person I ever knew. He just knew how to connect with people regardless of who they were and where they came from. He would extend a hand of friendship to anyone he met…..pizza delivery person, gas station attendant, the single mom, a teacher, a CEO, a person out of rehab…..it didn’t matter. He made them feel human. He made them feel as if they mattered. He extended GRACE. To his wife, his sons, his siblings, his extended family, the neighborhood kids, strangers, to all!
The last couple of days I’ve followed this man’s story I know that if my dad was still around he would have been the first to extend grace to him. He would have offered him a warm meal, hot shower, change of clothes and I bet he would figured out someway to tag team with this guy to be on his radio show.
I miss my dad, but most of all I miss watching him extend grace to all people. I miss seeing people changed by a love that didn’t come from my dad, it overflowed from the love he received through Jesus Christ. It was Christ living in him. It was my dad being Jesus to people who didn’t deserve it most of the time. He did it because God had extended grace to him.
My hope is that my life would not only be filled with grace, but that it would overflow with the love and grace of Jesus Christ. Thank you dad for being a living example of what it means to live life! Thank you for showing me how to treat people. And thank you Jesus for extending Grace to us all, even when we don’t deserve it.
So, today I went to the Apple Store, which is like the Willy Wonka Chocolate Factory for Mac peeps! I thought I had seen somewhere, or read somewhere, or possibly dreamed up somewhere a program that would magically take all your duplicate files on your computer and help organize and arrange them.
For those of you that truly know me, know that organizing things and color coding and all the things that make the world go round is something that I have to constantly work on and strive for! It doesn’t come naturally for me. I remember my first ministry position in good ole Bowling Green, OH and I went into it thinking that the only thing you needed to do in Student Ministry was learning how to eat fast food and pizza and drink a coke while hanging out with students.
Fast forward 8 years now and I have come to realize that Student ministry, but Ministry in general (Much like any job) is way much more then what is seen! There is so many things that must go on at a systems level, an organizational level to make any group of individuals work together towards a common goal. It’s HARD WORK! There’s no easy way out as much as we’d like there to be one.
Relationships are like that too! Not all the time, sometimes you meet another soul and it’s like you’ve been together you’re entire life. You speak the same lingo, understand the same jokes, are moved by similar things and it’s just easy. Other times it takes a lot of HARD WORK to make relationships work. It’s messy, it’s emotionally draining, it’s not always fun and sometimes you just want to give up. You wish there was an Easy Button to make things work or clean up spilled bad blood, or make things right. But that’s usually not the case.
It takes….
Hard Work
Sacrifice
Focus
A love for the common good
Desire and Determination
All those seem to not be fun words! But at the end of the day it is so well worth it to look back and say…. “We’ve come a long way”….. “I’m stronger, we’re stronger because of this!”
My hope is that I always strive to turn away from the “Easy Button”. That I don’t shy away from learning things because they seem to difficult, or turn my back on opportunities to grow and be changed just because it’s not comfortable!
There’s lots of things that I need to work on…….Including looking for the “Easy Button”
It’s back to blogging! Started to pick this up pre summer and then summer hit and it was like a track meet for 6 weeks! Good to be back! More thoughts coming!
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See you soon!
