and when the walls come tumbling down.

I'm  fairly new to ministry, but I’m beginning to see a pattern amongst ministers and those placed in roles of spiritual leadership. To keep from getting hurt, ministers put up "walls" (they call it experience) and these walls are keeping them from accomplishing ministry. This is the benefit of my newness to ministry. I have yet to build up walls that tell me, "Oh that person says they will change, but they really won't", or "Lets plan an event for 150 people, but we will probably only get 50-70", or "He said he would help out, but I wouldn't but much stock in that."  Sometimes, as ministers, we limit people based on our own experience.  The problem, however, is that people are not all the same, and people CAN change.  Situations might look similar on the outside, but they are most often different.

    What if Martin Luther King Jr. or Rosa Parks built up walls during the Civil Rights Movement? Would the fight for equal rights have as effectively moved forward?  What if these leaders thought, "I have experienced horrific things and people don't change."  What if they had let their vision or passion fade because of circumstance or past experiences? We would have lost a lot more than just names of streets!

   I’m scared as I hear some ministers talk about the walls they have built up and their lack of faith in people as if these walls are a "badge of honor." To be honest, it sounds less like wisdom and more like a fading faith. And furthermore, we live in a culture where we are expected to "coexist",  to not stir the pot too much because everyone is entitled to do as they please.  So when a person DOES pursue their God-given vision, they are labeled as "small minded" or even "prideful".  No one wants correction or discipline from anyone or anything else and we become horrible listeners, never accepting correction, even when it is grounded in truth. This leads to ministers and spiritual leaders using their walls as an excuse to not speak truth into peoples lives. We have become spiritually neutered.

    I recently finished a teaching series with my students; we talked about extreme urgency.  It is funny what the Bible says about youth and how it often contradicts what is said of youth today.  When Solomon wrote Ecclesiastes and Paul wrote to Timothy they used language like “be the example to older people because of your youth, passion, and focus.”  Paul tells Timothy to “be a leader to the older generation, teach THEM what the scriptures say and encourage THEM.” There seems to be an underlying idea that as a person gets older they may lose focus on what life is all about because of their experiences or "walls".

    Now in saying these things... protecting yourself is very wise and learning from experience is very important.  Seeking counsel from elders is biblical, but God must be the filter of all things.  Because in doing kingdom work, and in preparing and teaching people for eternity, using experience learned in a broken world might not always be the best filter for decision making. Maybe taking a risk on people is the wise choice.  Maybe we should let God be the counselor and not our past and present circumstances. Of course I'll end on a Braveheart Quote..."All men die, but few men really live!"

We should be more like Dogs.

   My friend Chris has a dog.  My friend Chris loves this dog. I mean he really loves his dog.  Everyday that Chris comes home he embraces his dog (Pilot) with a 20-30 second hug/belly rub.  Chris even has his own language with Pilot that I have recently became fluent in, I think.  About a week ago Chris and his wife Makenzie went to Florida on vacation and the place they were staying didn't allow pets.  So Chris asked me to house/dog sit.  Now Chris is a detail man, he likes things to be done right.  He gave me detailed instrucions on how to take care of Pilot, even showing me the correct way to walk him.  In our "intro to dog walking 101" Chris made a comment that stuck with me. He said, "Now Pilot might fight you alittle, because a dog can only have one master." 

   In Matthew chapter six Jesus explains you can't serve two masters. You can only be truly devoted to one thing.  I've always looked at this from the perspective that if we try and serve God and something else God will get jealous and disconnect from us.  But what if its something a lot bigger than that, what if we can't serve two masters because only one Master is capable of showing us authentic love?  What if only one Master is truly capable of providing for us, and the rest are really just a waste of time. 
  
   I defiantly didn't embrace Pilot (Chris' dog) everyday with a 20-30 second hug/belly rub; and I tried to speak to him in their special language, but he just looked at me like I was stupid.  I think Pilot didn't respond to me the way he does with Chris (his true master) because I couldn't give him the love and affection he needs like his master could.  And I think that is the reason why we need God as our one master, because only in HIM can we find the deepest desires of our hearts.  Only HE can truly provide for us.

Caution: Pride May Cause a Rash!

   In the beginning of the Bible we see a beautiful relationship between Adam and Eve and God.  They had a perfect relationship, completely open and vulnerable.  So open in fact was the relationship that Adam and Eve could commune with each other and God in a garden completely naked. But all of that changed in the third chapter of Genesis.
 
   After being deceived by Satan and eating from the one tree in all of Paradise that they were asked not to, they hear God coming to commune with them as He had done every day.  But this time was different.  Adam and Eve had felt something they had never felt before... Shame. This caused them to hide from God and cover themselves with leaves.  When God found them HE asked them why they were hiding from HIM.  Adam responded by saying, "I heard you in the Garden, and I was afraid because I was naked; so I hid."  God responds by asking them, "Who told you that you were naked?"

   When I was around five years old I lived in Florida.  My Mom told me of this story the other day where we were in a grocery store and she was in line checking out and I told her I had to go poop.  My Mom told me to go to the bathroom because it was in eye sight of where she was checking out.  Now apparently when I had finished my "business" I had discovered that there was no toilet paper in the bathroom.  So I did what any five year old boy would do, I walked out of the bathroom with my pants still around my ankles crying and yelling to my mom, "There is no toilet paper in the bathroom!" My mom, without missing a beat, finished paying for the groceries and then opened up the newly bought toilet paper and cleaned me up.  Now this wasn't the only time this had happened to me.  When I was in middle school, I was in a public restroom and after finishing my "business" again discovered no toilet paper to be found.  But this time I was old enough to know what shame was.  There was no way I was going to walk out of that bathroom and admit to anyone that I hadn't wiped yet.  Since it took awhile for me to get home I had developed a rash because of the un-wiped area, Which led to me again crying and having my Mom put ointment on my butt.

  I've realized now that shame can actually separate us from the ones that can help us.  Adam and Eve tried hiding from God after eating forbidden fruit, God being the only one at that point who could save them by sending HIS son to die on a cross.  I was ashamed to ask any of the employees at Sears if they had any toilet paper because the men's restroom was out. Eve got the pains of child birth as punishment and Adam got sentenced to physical labor and working by the sweat of his brow, and I got a rash!  All three of us learned the dangers of letting pride get in the way of help.  What ever you have done know this, God is the one who can bring salvation to your life.  If you feel to dirty, to diseased, to ashamed to let God in on your broken existence, then you are in fact hiding from the ONE who can set you free.  I pray that we learn to let go and let God flood our lives with new mercy's everyday! 

Communion Chaos

Ever since I was little I have served communion at my Church.  In fact, I have done communion so long I feel I have become some what of a prodigy; when new people start helping with communion I feel its my responsibility to step in and show them the ropes.  In all my years of service I had never had anything go terribly wrong...that is until a couple of weeks ago.  This particular Sunday felt like any normal Sunday, another Sunday of masterful "passing out of the elements," when towards the end of my designated section I RAN OUT.  With only three people to go, there were no more crackers and no juice! Panic set in.  Would these people still get to heaven?  So I told the three "lost sheep" I would be right back, I would go get some more flesh and blood, but as I walked away our Pastor began his sermon.  So I gave up and went back to my seat.  The whole time our Pastor was speaking I kept getting dirty looks from the three people jipped out of communion. At first I felt embarrassed, then I felt angry.  Who were these people that they could get upset with "the prodigy."  I mean its just a cracker and some juice (probably sugar free), so what's the big deal.  It's just symbolic, it doesn't have any real power.

In Exodus is the account of Moses receiving the 10 commandments from God.  Moses is in the mist of leading Israel to the promise land, but along the journey God calls him up the mountain for a chat.  The Bible records Moses was gone for a good amount of time and while Moses was gone Israel grew impatient.  So Israel builds a golden calf to worship until Moses comes back.  I have often thought of the value of God giving Moses the 10 commands as something tangible to show Israel, as if  the 10 commandments would replace the golden calf they made.  I think God understands the value of symbols, of having something you can see and feel to help us worship Him.  Jesus himself was flesh and blood, the same flesh and blood that makes us.  You could see Jesus.  I think God knows we have short attention span's and if we don't have something physically getting our attention, we will waver.

After my horrific communion experience I now look at communion different.  Communion now has a more meaningful feel to me.  I understand communion is important, because it points us to the sacrifice of Christ.  It unites us with the very moment when Christ died for our sins, and made us Children of God.  Don't underestimate the power of symbolism in your relationship with God, because God gives them to us as a loving gesture to remind us that WE ARE HIS.

Mystery of His love

I've been getting into Poetry lately.  Part of the reason for my new found desire to read poetry is to expand who I am, and how I see things.  I'm starting to realize that the beauty of poetry is being able to describe that which cannot be systematically explained (or explained my mere facts.)  Poetry can describe beautiful scenery's or raw emotions in a way that simply listing facts can never detail.

Part of my "Whimsical List" is seeing God in different types of literature, such as poetry.  This hasn't been easy, mainly because there is a lot of poetry I don't get and as I read it my mind wonders to stuff like "why do kids eat their boogers but won't eat their vegetables?"  But I'm sticking with it because I have come across some poetry that reaches my very core.  Donald Miller writes in one of his books that the reason we find poetry in the Bible is to explain what cannot be explained my mere facts.

Now I'm not bashing systematic theology, it was one of my favorite classes when I was in college; and I'm not bashing people who think more on the side of facts and reasoning.  There are a lot of Truths in the Bible that are describe in fact, one of the most beautiful Truths in the world, that God would send His only Son to Earth to die for you and me on a cross.  What I'm saying is, for me when I started focusing only on fact, when I made everything black and white, a lot of things about  God didn't make sense to me.  When I started thinking of God in a "facts only" type of mind set, a lot of the beauty of our complex and wonderful Creator slipped away. Idea's such as how I could tremble in His holly presence and at the same time feel completely safe in His mercy and love. Like trying to describe the way the sun rise seems to illuminate the morning dew, the same beauty of a life with Christ cannot be fully justified with facts alone.

Our God is bigger than the words we use, or the facts we know can hold.  My prayer is that we don't get so caught up in knowing everything, but rejoice in the fact that we serve a great God who lets us know what we need to know. May we allow ourselves to be swept away by mystery that is God's love.

I love...Ballet?

There are certain things that cannot be explained by science like the way we feel about sunsets, or love.  I never thought I would ever go to the Ballet, in fact I didn't even know ballet had a "t" on the end of it until spell check caught it.  But that all changed when I met this girl in college.  See this girl was a beautiful princess of God (aka a hottie).  This girl told me she had always dreamed of being a ballerina (embrace-whimsy).  So I did what any gentleman would do, I called my mommy and begged her to buy me two tickets to the ballet.  The funny thing is I actually had an amazing time and now have a great story with someone I would have never had otherwise.

What I've realized is love can make you do things you wouldn't normally do.  For me just the chance that love might occur made me want to spend my moms hard earned money to go to the ballet.

It's the same with our relationship with God.  Is your relationship with God a love relationship or a list relationship?  Don't get me wrong we need rules, and guidelines, but if we don't first fall in love with God we won't stick with the rules and guidelines that are apart of worshiping Him.  I've learned in my own life that not until I had fell madly in Love with God could I follow rules to honor Him.  Guidelines and rules don't motivate people, they don't change people, only love has the power to do that.  If you are serious about following Jesus make sure you fall deeply, no madly in love with God first, before you worry following guidelines and rules, because until you fall in love with God you will be trying to do it on your own power and you WILL fail.  Let the creator of the universe be your strength.  And oh yeah....embrace whimsy.  I love you and there is absolutely nothing you can do about it!

embrace whimsy?

I'm a dreamer, I have been my whole life.  When we are young we have this unique ability to make things better than they really are, to create a dream world where what could be outshines reality (what is).  It's the scene of the kid playing with the box the toy comes in before realizing there is a new toy laying in the floor beside them.  This box could be anything, it has not yet been told what it has to be, or how its suppose to be played with. 

The reality is reality (what is) is sobering.  It wakes us up from the dream world and tells us what we have to be and how things are.  Sometimes reality stinks.  If we are not careful reality can entangle us like a fly caught in a web.  The truth is things don't have to stay the same,  things can change and so can "reality."

Like I said I'm a dreamer, one time my sophomore year of COLLEGE I skipped class to go to wal-mart.  That wasn't that strange but what was strange was the fact I skipped my Bible class and went to wal-mart to buy a fresh pack of G.I. Joe's.  As a boy I would play with my assortment of toys and create bloody battle scenes using strawberry jelly.  The strawberry jelly was to give a gruesome bloody effect, but also I was a chubby kid so it was fun to lick the jelly off.  The day I skipped class I played in the grass beside my dorm for hours recreating classic battles from my past.  I still do the same things, in fact when I go to the gym I sit in the steam room  before I begin my workout; most of the time I have my IPOD on a Hillsong mix where I put on the same concert in the steam room at my gym by myself.  In this concert I perform songs I have memorized and dream of millions of people coming to Christ because the Spirit is moving, I honestly cherish this time. 

The conflict is: the dream of what could be vs. the reality of what is.  I'm not saying we should irresponsibly live in a dream world, but I am suggesting that maybe we shouldn't be so quick to dismiss our dreams of what could be.  Or, if we become inspired by music, movies, some one God has put in our lives, a sermon that has moved us and dream of a greatly reality.  Then we sleep and when we wake up reality sets in and the emotion from that inspiration is gone; what if we stuck with it.  What if even when that dream starts to sound silly, we stick with it and put forth the effort to try and make that dream of what could be a reality.  What if as followers of Christ we still dreamed of changing the world and then put forth effort to make the dream a reality of what is.  For me to embrace whimsy is to embrace a dream of what could be and make it my reality.  Not selfish dreams, but dreams of changing peoples lives for Christ.  That is one of the reasons I have started this blog, I have created "My Whimsical List"; a list of dreams I have to further the Kingdom of God that I will try and make a reality.  My desire is to embrace the whimsy of what could be, what can it hurt? What if it actually works! I would challenge you, if there is a dream God has put in your heart, embrace it. Chase after it, and see what happens and where it takes you.  Don't be stuck in "reality", Don't be stuck in the way things are. You don't have to be trapped in that web.  Embrace Whimsy.