Costumer Check-out Till #1

Really? This is life? I have a hard time believe that anyone is truly satisfied out there these days. The black hole of personal gratification is destroying society, and people are pretending that its not happening. Everywhere I look there is yet another reason to believe that there is no point in living "this way" anymore. I see an education system that doesn't teach our youth how to gain knowledge, but rather how to get by with doing the least work possible. I don't see educators teaching kids how to grow into functioning adults, I see educators who teach children how to get rich and meet their ever growing selfish desires. I don't see a desire in society to work towards the common good of our neighbor. I see a health system that doesn't care about people but cares about money. I see aid and care workers more concerned about the bottom line then I see caring and aiding. I see politicians who separate who they are from what they do. I see leaders voted in based on promises to make it better, not actions inclined to integrity and character. I see the heart of society crumbling as families are destroyed because of self seeking addictions (and I'm not just talking about porn, but entertainment, money, and selfish arrogance and pride that are the idols of today)

I see pockets of grace here and there, but those pockets are shrinking and becoming further and further apart. Every aspect of culture has been affected so deeply by this disease that we no longer recognize the disease anymore. We just accept that this is life, and there is no other way. And then we get mad and jealous when other people tell us there are other ways to live and so we force upon them a broken system so as to conform them to ourselves. Cause heaven forbid someone shows some sense of individuality and uniqueness. We pretend with every ounce of energy that everything is alright, but this is a facade, a false mask we throw on, and then while at home in the safety of our closet we weep for the reality is this life is empty. And not empty because we dislike who we are, or we hate the relationships we are in. It is empty because everything that has been fed to us over the last 50 years has meant nothing. We thought that ultimate joy, complete satisfaction could be found by identifying ourselves as consumers. A society founded on Capitalism lost its way and found Consumerism and we became the cancer the devours a healthy organism. We took on the properties of locusts as we consumed our way through the resources and people we were connected with. No longer did we care about people using their talents to find success in a world market, we started to care much more about what products we could attain ourselves. Vocation became a means by which we could consume. And when our salary fell behind our demand to consume, we went out and got credit cards, and mortgages, and loans. All in an ugly attempt to fulfill our need to consume. At no point did someone take a step back and ask the question, "what happens when we consume to the point that there is nothing left to consume?" Then what happens? Well I think part of the reality of that question we face today. We hear every minute of the day the looming crisis that faces the world economically. We have consumed so long and so hard that there is nothing left to consume and so the markets crash, and the world goes hungry. And a new destructive cycle begins, giving us the illusion that it can save us from the empty hollowness that is the secular world. 

At some point in the past even Christians began to be influenced and affected by the world we live in and so we too seek the consumer way. We treat church in this manner, seeking entertainment from the professionals we pay to produce religion. We don't actually care about God, or Jesus, or the Holy Spirit. We don't care about the golden rule to love. We like to think we care, and we like to think that if Jesus walked into the room today he'd come and sit beside me. We see programs as a means to consume religious stuff, we see Sundays as a time to consume religious entertainment, and we see the church as a drive in movie theater where we are able to pay for, participate in and appreciate a product. Never once do we seek to develop a faith in God; who needs faith when you can just consume after all. And when we begin to feel guilty we pack up a shoebox full of plastic toys and pencils for orphans in Africa to show that its not just about ourselves. That we aren't always consuming but sometimes we crap out enough thought for others to give to those in need. To give useless pieces of trivial consumerism so that others can see what they are missing not living as we do.

Pretty bleak outlook I have isn't it? And yet the state of church and the state of society today is loud enough to speak on its own. We have fallen for the trap that all that matters is what we can get for ourselves. Not what we can give, not what we can contribute, not how we can be active members of society, critically thinking, and appealing to the good that is buried deep in each of us. We don't care to serve anyone because we don't think anyone deserves our service. 

And then I was reminded today that there is.

Beloved - Tenth Avenue North

Love of my life, Look deep in my eyes, there you will find what you need. Give me your life, the lust and the lies, and the past you're afraid I might see, You've been running away from me.

You're my my beloved lover, I'm yours, Death shall not part us, it's you I died for, For better or worse, forever We'll be, my love it unites us and it binds you to me, it's a mystery.

Love of my life, look deep in my eyes, there you will find what you need. I'm the giver of life, I'll clothe you in white, my immaculate bride you will be, come running home to me. You've been a mistress, my wife, chasing lovers that won't satisfy , won't you let me make you my bride, you will drink of my lips and you'll taste new life.

there is hope.

Give me eyes

From our latest discussions on compassion based living at youth, I have created the following reminder for us. Hope you enjoy it

Long Rides, Long Hours, Long Thoughts...

Well this weekend I spent roughly 24 hours in a vehicle driving, and normally on something like that I spend much of the time thinking. I mean besides the obvious thinking about the road and vehicles and gas mileage. But this time I did not do as much thinking as I normally do, and I am not entirely sure what the reason was. In fact I almost appreciated the time more being able to just dump whatever was in my head space and just be empty for a bit. Now I know this kinda sounds shallow, or mind numbing to you, but to me to just not think for 24 hours while being awake was a gift. In my daily schedule, I am always thinking, thinking about the next event, thinking about the next coffee meeting, thinking about this project and that project, developing curriculum, talking to leaders, communicating with parents, thinking about family, friends, life... the thinking never stops. The place I notice this the most is on Sunday Mornings where despite my involvment in the service I should be able to worship just as all those I am with. But I am not. I find my mind racing to this or that. I spot someone in the audience and I think about them, or I'm trying to map my escape route so I can make sure I get a chance to talk to that one key person. It has been a while since I genuinely was able to engage in worship on Sunday Mornings. Not because the desire isn't there, but because my head space is full. And so to go 24 hours with minimal interactions, and minimal thoughts was incredable. I listened to music, I looked at the road, and I emptied my mind. Now that I am at work though I think that I need to be careful. If my mind has been emptied, then now is the time to be selective about what goes back in, to control my thoughts. What are those items I need to focus on, what are those items that just clouded the space, and what are those items that just take up space. 

For me personally one of those items I need to focus on is how to I worship God. One that is clouding my thoughts (not necessarily bad but has no resolution in the near future) has a lot to do with our current talk series at youth nights. The question is why should I care? we posed this question at youth the other night in response to Brandon Heaths song Give me your eyes. Though this is an important question to ask, the answer could be a deep and long journey to find, and though I need to take that journey I should put clear boundaries around that thought so that it does not cloud the rest of my head space eventually choking everything out and becoming more of a problem then a thought. And perhaps that thought I need to not focus on as much is "what about me?" What about my pleasure, what about my entertainment, what about my fun what about me? I agree that a balance is needed between the incoming and outgoing aspects of one self, but to focus singularly on oneself is a trap of selfishness and apathy.

As I reread this blog its content does not make much more sense then the thoughts that race through my mind, but I guess thats why i call it random ramblings. When do you get a chance to empty your mind? When its empty, what do you fill it again with? What do you think?

Books of Summer

Well as you can obviousely see I do not make it a priority to jump on blog and do a ton of blogging, and today I was feeling a bit guilty about that so I thought I'd come on and say a word or two. Recently I have been doing a lot of reading and one of the books I have read is one not yet published, but is coming out in Septmber, props to James for sending me the book. Its titled "So you don't want to go to church anymore" by Jake Colsen (actually a pen name for 2 contributing authors). The book itself is written in narrative form, telling the story of "Jake" as he tries to experience God in tangeable and real ways in his daily life. He is fed up with going to church and doing christian things and not feeling like he has even started to know who God is in an intimate form. Although it is written as a narrative it is really an expression of thoughts regarding personal spirituallity by Wayne Jacobsen and Dave Coleman. I don't want to give too much of it away though as I really think you should read it yourself, it is worth the read, if for no other reason then an interesting story. I am still digesting the information found in the novel myself and am probably going to read it again to fill out my thoughts some more on it, but overall I was impressed and challenged by what was written. You can find more about the book at the website www.jakcolsen.com

While we were still sinners

During the course of LYC, the phrase came up again and again, Romans 5:8 says "But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us." Now I'm sure I realized what this meant, and I'm confident that during my schooling and many years of being a Christian I was fully aware of the doctrine of Christ death as a substitutionary sacrifice. But not until Sid made a small comment did I really understand that passage. See I have been a "Christian" all my life, born and raised into a bible believing church attending family, so as much as a blessing that has been it means that I have no recollection of a night and day difference of me prior to Christ, and me after meeting Christ. So to talk about how Christ died to set us free from an alternative lifestyle never really connected with me. As far back as my memory goes (which at times isn't that far) I have always had a "Christian" lifestyle. So to talk about a lifestyle of sin, death and no hope doesn't really resonate with who I am. I have always known hope, I have always known Christ, and experienced his reality. So to say that while we were dead in sin Christ died for us, yes I understand that sin is death and that we all have sin, but I have always known hope to counter balance the deep depression that comes from the guilt of sin. But instead of imagining this verse as it applies to a lifestyle, we picture that particular sin we struggle with, what if we imagine that time when we committed the crime, when we turned from God and said I know better, what if we look at the very moment the precise second we turned our back on God, and then say for that very moment, that very spot in time, that act, Christ died. And then that got me thinking, if at our very moment of least worth to God, the time when we are least deserving of anything from God, when we are virtually worthless to the King, God's perspective says, the price He is willing to pay, is a handsome ransom. The ultimate price, the life of His perfect Son. Imagine then how much God loves and values each one of us when we are not in the moment of sin, but in the moment of triumph, (obviously this is pushing personification on God who is beyond human conception, and cannot be compared to a scale of Love that we may have) if our worth when we are worthless is Christ, what then is our worth when we feel the loving embrace of God the father, when we are worship him in mind body and spirit? Indeed, God does demonstrate his love for us, while we were worthless; God still valued us enough to send his Son to die in our place. What love indeed.

"All of my sin is gone
All of my guilt is gone
All of my shame is gone. You took it all

So I'll stand in the power of your cross"

-Caleb Delamont, You took it all

Integrity and Character

Ya Ya Ya I know, I don't post on here ever, maybe once a month, well let’s face it, I've got a busy life here, but today I felt like rambling about something that sparked my attention in a conversation I had today. The individual I was chatting with had some great things to say about the slippery slope of addictions and alcohol abuse, and he happened to mention something about integrity and character, and that got me to thinking, do we even value integrity and character today? I mean sure we all seem to admire those who are moral and good people, but do we admire people who are people of integrity, we admire people who are loyal yet we don't necessarily expect people to be loyal to who they are, instead we throw out integrity and say it’s an ideal. Same with character, we want people to have personality, but nobody takes the time to develop character in themselves anymore. When was the last time you had a conversation with someone and you went away thinking gee that person has a lot of character, or that person is a person of integrity. We normally go away from conversations thinking, man that person is funny, or I could listen to that person forever, or even I wish that person would stop whining. Integrity is something that no one has time for anymore, and I think I’m starting to understand why Paul says "suffering produces perseverance, perseverance, character and character hope" and yet it’s no wonder why character isn't a valued attribute anymore, no one values suffering and suffering is viewed as a bad thing completely. That suffering is something to be avoided, an easy and quick example of this is look at people disciplining their children, no one thinks its right to discipline and yet what kind of people are we creating, ones who have no concept of consequences to actions, and ones with little character because they have never had to suffer the consequences of a wrong action. Where this mentality crept in I don't know, I mean I blame everything on the boomers so I’m sure I could say that here, although all the boomers would blame the gen xers and the gen xers wouldn't care who's to blame as long as they don't have to suffer through making a choice about it. But how do we convince the next geners, the millenials or whatever they are called that integrity and character are to among their top traits to be developing in themselves. How can we place value on integrity? How can we show character as opposed to personality, how can we encourage our youth to grow in that area. Surely as they grow in their integrity and character we will see growth in other areas, whether maturity or in areas of spiritual growth. Mostly I was thinking about this because I’m trying to help my underage senior high's to come to the realization that social drinking isn't acceptable. Somehow the thought is that as long as they aren't drunk it’s okay, but the fact still remains they are underage, and shouldn't be drinking to begin with. So where is our integrity when it comes to that, why don't we have enough character to say no thanks. Any thoughts?

I guess I'll give blogging a shot

I always thought Blogging was a waste of time, I still do, and as a Youth Pastor, I need more things in my life to waste time on, so why not try blogging! I'd prefer to do video blogging though cause then I don't have to sit and type it all out, I can just rant and rave and have random ramblings but for now we'll just do the typing thing. The thing I'm trying to grapple with these days is this concept that I've titled Escapism. What does it mean, how does it affect us, and more importantly how is it affecting our views of God and our relationship with Him.


To me Escapism is how we as a culture are obsessed with leaving the world behind and immersing our self in an alternate version of life. Even look at the way we travel, we get away and go some place exotic, or romantic, or of child like fun, a place that is completely different then we are because we desire to get away from it all. Or we abuse drugs and alcohol in order to blunt the edge life has on us. We are all trying to escape. Personal struggles for me, such as TV, or video games, fantasy novels or movies, I can engage in these on a healthy level but when it becomes my source of "recharge" am I really just escaping everything else, immersing myself in something and hoping that life won't be so harsh when I come back? Are we creating our own little bubbles where we can jump into and leave behind everything that hurts. Now i know that there are times in our life that we need to escape to go to a quiet place and remove ourselves from situations and circumstances so we can have an unbiased attitude towards them. And one could even argue that escaping or removing yourself is a biblical thing to do, however it is biblical to escape to God and to rest in God, not to escape to drugs, not to escape to entertainment. If you ask me we are being fooled, tricked by the ultimate trickster himself to believe that in order to be energized, to be unbiased, to be renewed, to have a Sabbath rest, a truly good person would escape, to leave everything behind, to allow it to collect dust, and engage in something that only leaves us desiring to disengage even more because we are concerned about that pile of real life sitting at the door to our alternate reality.

Like I said I’m still trying to wrestle with this idea, trying to flesh it out and understand the whole idea of escaping. Then again maybe this blog is me just trying to escape my real work...


what do you think?