Giving up on sports.

Something is changing in me. Maybe it is just a new season I'm entering, but for now I'm done. I'm done with sports.

Let me clarify... I'm done living my life in a way that consumes me with if "my team" wins or loses, or whether I can rub in it that other people's teams lose. I find no more entertainment or satisfaction in it.

This sentiment started developing before I went to Kenya, but has been solidified as I have tried to figure out how to live my life as a result of what I seen, what I experienced in Kenya. Tears well up as I sit here just thinking of the little ones in Mathare who have, and in Ngata at the Baby Centre, who have been abandoned by their parents, have near nothing... and I'm going to care whether sports teams win or lose?

Naked Grandma

Like Elvis and his mom...

Less than nine hours until I am ...gone, leaving for Kenya.

I'm so freaking excited.

I'm looking forward to...
getting away from facebook and twitter (once I'm in the plane)
no trash talk or gloating about sports teams
no political ads and people complaining about political ads (I voted two Tuesdays ago)
getting away from here
getting out of my comfort zone
getting into another part of the world
spending time with the children in Mathare
meeting the people and the babies at the baby center
hearing God in a loud booming voice because all of my distractions will be thousands of miles away.

As it seems with every trip I go on, I am up way too late and am nowhere near packed. Time to get some sleep.

Almost drowning

I am in water deeper than my head, and I feel like I can't doggy-paddle any more.

Work.
Planning events.
Life.
Bills.
Student loans
Attempting to raise support for the trip.
Preparing for the trip.
I leave for Kenya in less than nine days.

I am almost drowning in everything.

I am so unqualified, so not prepared for this. I have to fight the natural urge to want to shutdown, to disconnect.

I am tired.

I need rest.

Matthew 11: 28-30 sounds really good right now: ²⁸"Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. ²⁹Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. ³⁰For my yoke is easy and my burden is light."

It is time to slow down, time to rest.

It is time to float for a while.

A song that messes me up right now.

I hadn't heard this song in a while. I heard it last night and it just messed me up. May it mess you up, too.

A need for a change of scenery

Growing up, I remember listening to my dad tell stories of when he was in the service and stationed in New Mexico, Germany and Thailand. For some reason, it was the stories of his time in Thailand that captivated me.

Eleven years ago, I went through The Laborer's Institute, a three month intensive program put on by Kingdom Building Ministries designed to train and help raise up laborers for the Kingdom of God. It involved a month of "drinking from a fire hydrant"... soaking in the Word and listening to different speakers pour out wisdom. The second month was spent overseas somewhere in the 10/40 window, building relationships, teaching English, and sharing Christ's love. The third month consisted of more training and helping minister at different church camps. It was to my excitement when I discovered that I got to go to Thailand in the second month.
A year later, I actually had the opportunity to go back to the same place in Thailand with NMC.

Those two trips taught me a lot about myself, how inexperienced and immature I was at the time, and helped me to grow in my faith develop my worldview as a Christ-follower. It was in these trips that I truly experienced spiritual warfare, and saw God answer prayer. It was in these trips that I realized that God used me, but more significantly spoke to me and taught me through the people around me.

So here I am eleven years later, changed, but staring down indifference and lack of focus in my life. I feel like the last year has changed my paradigm when it comes to being called to do ministry and follow Christ (which you very well may see in posts to come). I feel like I am being drawn to be a part of something... something bigger than myself.

An opportunity that has been around for a while has definitely captivated my attention, and my desire to not be satisfied with where I am with my walk with Jesus Christ. I was going to take part last year, but for many reasons wasn't the right timing. But now it is.

Towards the end of next month, I will have the opportunity to go to Kenya to the African Gospel Church Baby Center, as well as visit the Mathare slums and travel to Salgaa. I am so excited for this trip. There is something about traveling away from your comfort zone to help you break out of your comfort zone. I want to see God move. I want to see God continue to use me, I want to hear God speak to me in a way that I could never hear in the comfort of my life and my surroundings here.

I would love for you to join with me in this journey by praying for me in the weeks to come.
Pray for my support: It takes money to do this, and I could use some help.
Pray for the team(this includes me): for all who are going, that they would see God in a new way, and would never be the same as a result of it.

Back... Again...

Let us try this again. My computer has been very ill, but I am giving it a heart transplant, which means I can blog again.

I will have a very big announcement on my blog soon. But for now, I will leave you with a couple of pics that I took this summer:

Sunset from Beulah Beach in Vermilion, Ohio

Night descending upon the Elkhart Co. 4-H Fair

Back.

Well it has been a while since I have posted. Let me start off with this...
Growing up I heard of a magical far off place. I never went to this place, but I knew all about it from memorizing this wonderful little song:

The restoration of... Stephen Baldwin?

As I was surfing the world wide web, I stumbled across this: The Restoration of Stephen Baldwin. You can check it out, but basically the premise is, that because Stephen started living radically for Jesus Christ, he fell upon hard times... just like Job. Somebody has taken it upon themselves to create a site to ask for donations to build his wealth based on what took place in Job 42:11.

Here are my initial thoughts on this issue:

• Are we to assume God works the exact same way in similar situations?
• Are the people spearheading this movement thinking God does not care about Stephen that we must come to his side?
• Are the people spearheading this movement putting God in a box, thinking that the only way people will see that our God is greater by the "restoration" of one's bank account?

My gut reaction on this is that this is wrong. I believe in a God that can do whatever he wishes, because he is in control. At the same time. I do not want to be presumptuous on what God wants to do. I want to be a follower who listens intently on his voice and his will for my life and the lives of his children.

Be Sick, Be Loved

I love following Jon Acuff, on twitter, face book, and his blog, Stuff Christians Like. Last week he spoke at a conference in which he explains his satire behind his writing, and goes on into a great message. If you have the time watch this:

Be Sick, Be Loved from Foundry LA on Vimeo.

Remembering, Praying, Trying to live differently

I strongly believe that God wants us to look back at history and previous events to learn about ourselves, human nature, and how God fits into the picture.
I am a little saddened this morning as the 0nly reference to a earth shattering event is on Twitter by my favorite band.

Do you remember what I am talking about? I am talking about that day eleven years ago in a high school in a suburb of Denver, Colorado.
Everyone focuses on the victims, and traditionally the two shooters are not thought of as victims. But I feel that they deserve compassion as well.
What pushed Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold to do shoot an injure 24 people and kill 13, and then themselves? Were these to kids evil incarnate, with nothing that could have been done differently? Or did the Christians who were daily around these two, in a sense, fail miserably in Christ's mandate in pointing them to Jesus Christ?

I don't want to make accusations and say that something else should have been done differently, we cannot change the events that have transpired. My point in thinking out loud is to ask what can we do now? Those who else who live in a relationship with Christ should hurt for the people that Christ hurts for, should show compassion on those that Christ has compassion for.

Do you really ever wonder what they did to themselves? I will refrain from putting the picture up on the blog due to the graphic nature, but if you wish to see it, here it is. I believe that the darkness that was in their hearts, was once a part of me. And now that I claim to follow Jesus Christ, I need to live like him, to see people like he did, to love on people like he did.

I will leave you with the tweet from @fiveironfrenzy via Twitter:
"A new hope. Where is your freedom? A new hope. Cast off your burdens." Let us remember, forgive & hope for the future.

Hi. This is my blog. Here is Stew drawing during church.

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Most of you will not understand this...

but for the few out there, here you go:

Back to the Basics #2

Passion.

What is your passion, more specifically what drives you? What gets you excited?
And how are you using what you are passionate about to impact the kingdom of God?

In my journey in the last seven months or so, I've thought about this on and off. When it comes to knowing God's will for my life, I get frustrated... often... a lot. Now, I do not necessarily adhere to any concrete definition of what God's will for my life is. I know that God knows the plans he has for me. I think that as long as I am living my life as a living sacrifice to his will, then the specifics are not mandatory.

I do believe however, that I am the one who puts so much emphasis on "what exactly" God's will is for my life. I place demands and expectations at the feet of my Savior, and expect him to comply to my understanding, my desires (my desires... as in selfish Jeff, not the Jeff who seeks to do the will of God).

And there is the problem. I think that today there is a problem of not knowing what our passions are. We confuse selfish desires and passions that God wants to grow in us and use for his kingdom.

Upon pondering this subject, here are a few things that are rattling around in my brain.

1. Jesus, Be the Centre. Yes boys and girls, sometimes the church answer is indeed the right answer (And spelling like the British is fun, too). If you don't have this priority in your life, we will need to stop this discussion and have a completely different one first. But for the rest of you, y'all know this, and if you are like me, its good to be reminded of it from time to time.

2.Who are you? Who who? Sorry, Old men flailing their arms and CSI just popped into my head there, but seriously, what makes you... you? What gifts, abilities, talents did God bestow upon you? If you despise underwater basket weaving, chances are God is not going to make you go into that realm. That is, unless he gives creates in you that desire...

3. Flounder... with feeling! Definition: 1 : to struggle to move or obtain footing : thrash about wildly 2 : to proceed or act clumsily or ineffectually. If you are going to struggle with what your part in the kingdom is and how to get there, struggle through it... in order to get to the other side. At times it feels like I'm in a holding pattern in my journey. But that is not true. God still desires me to be an active member of the kingdom while I figure out where I might fit best according to my passions. God doesn't want me do be a mindless robot doing things just because, he wants me to be fully engaged in a relationship with him and active in his kingdom. And sometimes it takes Stubborn Jeff to go through some character building time to be aligned with God's heart.
At times I feel like I am not where I am to be for much longer. Maybe this is a glimpse of what is to come, maybe this is just not clear because of my specific spot in the journey. My goal is to continue to trust him.

4. Wash, Rinse, Repeat. (Give up, Give in, Do it again.) In 1757, at the age of 22, Robert Robinson said it best when he penned the these lyrics:

Prone to wander, Lord, I feel it,
Prone to leave the God I love;
Here’s my heart, O take and seal it,
Seal it for Thy courts above.

If someone has figured out to surrender their will to God once and for all, please tell me how. Until then, there is a lot of surrender that must take place.


At times I see people around me who are without any driving force, without purpose, without passion. I just wonder how would God's church look if his people truly were engaged in the kingdom with the gifts, desires, and passions that God has given them?

What is your passion?
What drives you?
What gets you excited?
How are you using what you are passionate about to impact the kingdom of God?

Back to the basics

Ah, training wheels.
I remember way back in the day when I first started to learn how to ride a bicycle. It took time and yes, it helped immensely to have the extra wheels. If my dad would have tried to teach me how to ride without training wheels, I think I may have eventually been successful. But I think it would've been very difficult.

The other day I was trying to instruct a new employee on how to complete an assignment. A few minutes into the process I realized a deer in the headlights look. It hit me. What I thought were specific instructions, were really not. It was my fault, not his. I had grown accustomed to saying something to one of the guys who'd been around for a while and was used to my instructions.

Recently I've had the opportunity to talk to a student who is new to this whole Christianity thing. In answering questions, this has made me think hard about the things I take for granted. This situation has, in a sense, refreshed my soul. I feel like there is something there that is taking place that God desires for me to be a part of.

At the same time, I'm troubled. I feel like far too often as a church, we expect everyone who doesn't understand what a relationship with Christ is to automaticaly understand, and to come to the church, magically assimilating into the body of Christ. I'm pretty sure Christ said "Go and make disciples," not "sit and wait for people to become disciples and come to the church."

So how do we do this? How do we continue to grow people in their relationships with Jesus Christ, while guiding others in the initial steps? It seems to me we can do one really well, but not both at the same time. If the each part of the body of Christ has a specific purpose, why does the church at times just look like the ear?

A picture is worth a thousand words

In the realm of homework this week, this picture is a pretty good description of how I feel:

Playing Favorites

I'm not perfect. I display favoritism over people at times. I'm sure that frustrates people.

The church is not perfect. I see favoritism displayed and it frustrates me. One might say it isses me off.

Jesus Christ is perfect. I see favoritism, but it is an all-encompassing favoritism. He loves all of his children the same, and doesn't choose one over another.

The point?
I'm not perfect. I must not rely on my own strength for I will undoubtedly fail.
The church will at times fail because it is made of people. My focus can't solely be on the church. Jesus Christ never fails. No matter what has happened or what will happen in my life, he is the one constant.

"Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles, and let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us. Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy set before him endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God." Hebrews 12: 1-2

This made me laugh

Brown paper packages tied up with strings...

Here are a few of my favorite things from 2009:

1. Turkey Run.
In May, I had the opportunity to get away from everyone for a few days and head to Turkey Run State Park in Parke County, In. This was the first time in about 13 years since I've been there. I love just walking the trails, taking pics of wildlife and the nature, and being in a place that I could recharge my batteries. I had amazing weather while down there. It was in the 70's the whole time and it didn't rain until the morning I had to head home.

2. D.G.
D. G. could stand for Dustin Gill, which I guess is also fitting. One day Dustin saw that I had 3 disc golf discs. I told him I went once. He proceeds to show me his bag of discs and that he played Disc Golf all of the time. Then the Disc Golf Revolution of 2009 was born. I don't know how many of our friends we got hooked on this sport, besides playing with others who also have a love of the Disc Golf. There was nothing more tiring, yet more fun than taking all day to play five of the local courses.

3. Hearing God's voice in Philadelphia
Its hard at times balancing being a good leader on a student trip and being available to respond to what God has for you personally. This trip was the start of a Summer and Fall of God messing me up. Through journaling, a text message, another leader "volunteering" me to pray and the Holy Spirit speaking through me to me, as well as other events on the trip, I heard God. Hearing was only the first part, responding was the second. This led me on a journey of a restless night followed by things just not feeling right. It was only when I responded in obedience did I experience the power and security of the Holy Spirit, which led me down to one of the most dangerous intersections in Philly where drug dealers, users, prostitutes, and other people of the like hung out. I got to talk to several different people and never once felt in danger.
In being obedient then, God blessed me with an amazing opportunity with some of the students in which I got to spend time with them and coach them in being obedient to God.

4. Switchfoot concert in Valpo.
The one and only Kevin Larson asked me if I wanted to see Switchfoot at the Porter County Fair. Tickets were 10 dollars for our seats(which also got us into the fair). I'm pretty sure no fair will compare to Elkhart County's fair. Anyways, it was beautiful weather, and an amazing concert. We got to hear two or three songs off of Hello Hurricane, a lot of their hits, and they even covered Tom Petty's Won't Back Down. Overall, it was a great time where in moments it was a great time of worship to God.

5. Going back to Bethel.
I feel as if I am at times a glutton for punishment. But really, I feel as if not finishing a blasted degree had turned into a spiritual battle for me. I decided to give it one last go. All or Nothing. This is the duece. It has been everything I feared and as hard as I knew it would be. Going back to school has influenced my perspectives on ministry. I have had many moments where I would yell at myself, the unfinished papers staring back at me, and the walls of the house. At the same time, I have found moments where I find myself enjoying some of my homework. Every now and then, I find glimmers of hope and God's faithfulness in the midst of this desert that I must get through. A friend has told me that he believes that there very well could be an outpouring of blessings on me as a result of doing and completing this. It should be interesting to see, but for now I will focus on what is directly before me and see what God is trying to teach me through this process.

The big 3 albums of 2009.

I hate listening to the same music over and over. That made accidentally dropping my ipod in a ditch while trying to trap a groundhog back in the spring all the more painful. (Yes, laugh all you want.)

Music keeps me going at times. I can listen to music when I am depressed, when I need encouragement, or when I'm working on a monotonous project at work (those chairs don't just jump into their set spots by themselves.)

There has been three albums that came out in 2009 that have made an impact on me in one way, shape, or form. And if you know me, you don't have to guess what they are. For the rest of you, I'll go ahead and share with you what they are.
1. Hillsong United: Tear Down the Walls.
This album came out in the beginning of the summer/ late springish. It is interesting because of my journey in life was full of ups and downs in the summer, there were different songs that God used and spoke directly to me in each of those times. It was this album that I started playing over and over and over and over. Just ask the guys who traveled with me to set up for Summer Camp and back. I think they wanted to kill me because of it. But for the first time, I couldn't help but listen to this album all the way through and over and over. I think I am even guilty of getting a few other people addicted.
2. David Crowder Band: Church Music
In the year 2000, In the year 2000, I was first introduced to David Crowder Band and their Music at Passion: One day in Memphis, Tennessee. I was annoyed by the style of music. My, how attitudes change. I love that they stay fresh, and come up with the next thing. They aren't content with doing the same stuff, and basically sing to the Lord a new song. I love the whole techno thing that is going on in this album, too.

3. Switchfoot: Hello Hurricane
It was either at Cornerstone '96, or soon after that, my sister introduced me to a little band called Switchfoot. I just plain and simple love their stuff. I think Jon Foreman has a way with words that resonates with many people. I heard 2 or 3 songs off of this album in concert 4 months before the album came out. It got me excited to finally get my hands on it, and the whole album hasn't disappointed.

How to make Twighlight interesting for guys... or in general