Home invasion

So.... I read about this guy who broke into someone's house.
The homeowner was actually home so then the home-invader pulls a gun on the homeowner and starts screaming that he wants everything the guy has and flat out tells him that after he gets it he's going to kill the homeowner anyway.

Luckily the police show up and rush into the house to find the guy, with a backpack full of stolen stuff from the house, standing over the homeowner with a gun to the homeowner's head.  With all the police surrounding him he drops his gun and turns himself in.

At trial, they bring eyewitness after eyewitness, the homeowner, the neighbor (who was actually the ADA and who saw the whole thing - and was the one to actually call the police in the first place), and each of the dozen officers who responded and subdued the suspect.

The whole time, the defendant just sits and smiles, laughing and shaking his head at times.

Then, the defendant, the home-invader, insists that he be allowed to take the stand, despite his lawyer trying to convince him not to.  When he gets on the stand, he doesn't even wait for a question, he simply turns straight to the judge, leans into the bench, smirks and laughs and says, quote:
"You know what, guilty as charged.  I did it all, every bit of it, only these fools left out the dozens of other times I've done this same thing and that if they hadn't shown up that dude (the homeowner) was good as dead"

The entire courtroom takes a collective gasp and the previously composed judge is all of the sudden visibly taken aback, but before anyone can even muster a 'proper' reaction, this guy continues:

"But you know what judge, I just can't help it, it's what I do, but it's not who I am, what I do can't be helped by nobody, but - you know my heart though!"

The judge takes a second as the entire courtroom holds it's breath and then the judge leans back in his chair and responds:

"well, let's see... we caught you at the scene, we have more than a dozen eye witnesses, and as if that wasn't enough, we have your own Complete admittance."

-at this point the courtroom can't take it anymore and bursts into cheers and applause as the judge raises his gavel-

"But" the judge continues, gavel paused in the air, "we're going to forget about the law, you are free to go" and the gavel slammed down.

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Not that you need anytime to think, but take a moment  -- what's your reaction to this 'judge'?



We can all agree that this guy has lost his ever loving Mind, he's a fool, and a mockery to the court!



But...



This is what many expect God to do when he judges us.




Let that sink in a minute.



People live their whole life ignoring the existence of God, indifferent at best, and make statements like "well, I'm a good person", "I'm good enough", "I'm better than That guy", "if God's really just he'll know my heart", "a Loving God wouldn't really judge people", "if God's really the 'god of love' than he would never find anyone guilty", "My God wouldn't have any laws!", ....

Any of these sound familiar?


**story adapted from PRo's (Derek Minor) song "Not Guilty"**

Reading the Bible in a year

Many people attempt to set out to read the Bible in a year, and some do... many however don't quite make it.  For many reasons, people get discouraged and stop (Leviticus not being the least of these....).

This year I'm in a facebook group for everyone who wants to read the Bible in a year and I invite any and all of you to join this group.
The group will serve a lot of purposes I would say, but one of the chief reasons is accountability (even the accountability of a group also serves more than the implicit purpose by creating a sense of camaraderie among those involved).

I will share some of my observations from reading the Bible through in a year on here (I will be using The One Year Bible in ESV which takes a passage of Old Testament, a passage of New Testament, a passage from Psalms, and a passage from Proverbs each day) as well.

Everyone is doing different versions, different plans, and different translations so it doesn't matter what you have.  For our group, it will also serve as a place to ask questions and share insight (my favorite part!).  The group is made up of the crazy, the busy, the crazy busy, the parents, the workaholics, the frazzled, the real, and the honest and I would Love for you to be one of them!

http://www.facebook.com/groups/513954795305422/

I am a sinner. I am a Christian.

I am a sinner.

Try as I might, I will always be.
Though I am saved by the undeserved Grace of Jesus Christ and my eternity is secure, I will never stop being a wretched, imperfect, selfish, self-centered man.

I want to do good and yet am continually shocked at my nature and ability to think and do 'bad'.  I pray with Paul for the removal of my innate nature (purposely redundant), but remain with Paul as the Chief of sinners.

As a Christian, I am set apart, saved, sanctified, and redeemed... but by NO act or ability of my own-and that will never change.

My prayer for the new year is more of Him and less of me, for transparency in actually Being who people Think that I am, and for grace and mercy (both undeserved) everyday.

No matter how many times I bargain, beg, promise, and voice deals with God for his grace (funny, right?), there is nothing I can offer on my own of myself, no promise of Holiness can I keep on my own.
 
I am a Christian.

The worst blogger ever.

For the people who follow this blog, for those who check it, I have 2 things I must say to you today.

Thank you.
and, more importantly,
I'm sorry.

I am, in deed, a terrible blogger, ha!

I started this blog to share and as the time passed and 'life' happened, and church events piled up, I simply didn't continue it and it became easier and easier to not blog and harder and harder to 'find' time to write (something about a road and good intentions...).

This year I plan to change that, I want to focus on This blog.

Again, for those who follow this blog, thank you.  If you like it, I ask that you share it, tell your friends about it, facebook it, tweet it, instagram it, shoot it through outerspace, smoke signals, whatever your thing is ;)

I dislike, greatly, New Year Resolutions, but I suppose that's what this is - a resolution to re-dedicate myself to this blog and to all of you.

an open letter on Youth Ministry:

a lot of these come directly from a letter GROUP publishing and the Simply Youth Ministers Conference 2012 put out, then a few are tweaked and several more added.  Enjoy.     Youth ministry is not a job.  It's not a 9-5.  It's not a paycheck.  It's a life.  And it's not about you, or me for that matter, it's for "the glory of His name's sake" and for every kid we get the priviledge of coming in contact with.

"So your job is to play with teenagers one day a week?"

Prep lesson, write message, fix church van, lead kid to Christ.

"are you ever going to BE a Real preacher someday?"

Scrape jell-o off celing, lead Bible study, recruit and train volunteers... again.

"You're not a parent of teenagers yet, so you STILL can't really understand kids"

Organize mission trip, brainstorm new game, take students to lunch.

"I forgot to bring my permission slip, my money, AND my Bible"

Plan fundraiser, write newsletter, write blog, write email, crush the stinky kid in dodgeball

"We KNOW it's your one day off, but the senior preacher needs to see you"

read text from kid who finally gets it.  pray with parents at their child's funeral.

"You'll need to use your vacation time to go to THAT camp"

host family intervention, conduct divorce counseling, survive overnighter and attend 8am staff meeting.

"Because of you I AM studying youth ministry - and it looks so fun and easy"

turn in budget reports, listen to the voices of students in worship

"You made a difference in my life and showed me GOD is real"

talk with angry parent, reupholster church pew, visit student in the hospital

"Can you pick me up?  I think my mom is too drunk to drive me home"

pain youth room, plan retreat, endure middle school band concert

"Why does it smell like something died in the church van?"

find lost student during scavenger hunt, be the entire church's full time IT person

"Sunday counts as a work day for you?!"

Wife is hurt because you're never home, secretary is mad because you aren't in the office as much as them, parents are mad because you didn't have a lock-in

"Must be nice to not have a Real job"

40 hours a week in the office, while all of the people you're supposed to minister to are in school, so then another 40 hours out of the office at meetings, dinners, bonfires, interventions, concerts, sporting events

"you really think you need to leave 20 minutes early just because you have a 3 hour youth event tonight after hours...."

Cry at graduation.

"You know, if you ever decide to get back out there in the real world again, I hear Food City is hiring"

The double standard of Christianity

This past Sunday I was fortunate enough to preach a sermon on John 8 and 1 Corinthians 5.

To make the connection, we were wrestling with being judgmental, tolerance vs. Gospel living, and exploring whether there was a double standard in Christianity, and what exactly that meant for us.

So we started with John 8 (previously explored in the post "Chick-fil-a and what it Really means") and the story of the adulterous woman being brought before Jesus and how he responded... his deep, profound, life changing response that I believe is to shape all of our encounters as Christians.  We then took a hard look at 1 Corinthians 5 where Paul writes to the church at Corinth seeming to Judge them and ends with a very, very important statement:  "¹² What business is it of mine to judge those outside the church? Are you not to judge those inside?"

statement How do you (we) rationalize not being judgmental (judge not lest ye be judged) and examining the 2x4 in our own eye before gouging at the spec in our brothers And "are you not to judge those inside?"?

Well, there are 2 main points:
number 1:  When Jesus made the statement "whoever is without sin, cast the first stone" the rest of the crowd left, leaving only Jesus and the woman.  What must be noted here is that the crowd left because they all had sin.  Jesus didn't.  So by Jesus' own statement, He could have, in fact, cast the first stone.  But he didn't.  See, the crowd wanted to condemn the woman but couldn't.  Jesus could have condemned the woman, bud didn't.
number 2:  Paul's statement "What business is it of min to judge those outside the church?"

Bingo.
Ever take your kid to practice and some other kid on the team is acting the complete fool?  What do you do?  nothing.  maybe roll your eyes, make a comment under your breath to your spouse.  But then at that same practice, your child does something small, approaching whatever the other kid was doing.  Now what do you do?  You grab them up, sit them down, talk to them, time-out, whatever.  The child's response?  "why did I get in trouble and not them?" "they were doing the same thing, how come you're yelling at me?"
We all know the answer... because they weren't your child - they weren't yours to discipline.  But yours was.

Check out the sermon and share your thoughts - what do you think?

http://highlandviewchurch.org/zVideo/2012/2012-09-30sermon.htm

the baby roller-coaster

Hey all:

I want to thank you all for the patience and the prayers as there's been a hiatus from the already irregular posting on here.  I want to thank you (for those of you who also follow me on facebook and sent notes, comments, likes, etc.) for all the support over the last few weeks with the baby roller-coaster.

My wife and I have been trying to get pregnant for about 8 months, with our second.  A few weeks ago, she tested positive!  Not long after, doctors held her hand and explained to her that she could die (ectopic/tubal).  The very next day they called back and said that no, now they thought she was fine, but that the baby was gone; that my wife had miscarried and it was over.  They told her to start taking pain narcotics that they would prescribe and to stop taking her progesterone (which she Has to take to sustain a pregnancy).
We were devastated.  We wept, we held each other, we locked ourselves away.  And then... something just didn't feel right.  Hope, as a Christian, is one of our most precious commodities, and we found it.  Erin never took a single pain medication, and she did Not stop taking her progesterone - she ignored the doctors and never skipped a dose.
We began to pray, and have our friends pray, their friends pray, our church pray, our family pray.  We didn't have 'faith' that God would save this baby, because He had never promised that, but we had Hope... because we knew he Could.  We were praying for a miracle.

A week later (a long... agonizing Week) the doctor's office called back and said her next set of blood work (which was to show whether a D&C would  be necessary or if her body would just take care of things naturally) registered... perfect.  Mom and baby were fine.

We're not promised tomorrow, none of us.  Not me, not my wife, not this unborn baby.  But for now, we have just witnessed a powerfully undeniable miracle from the Living God, and we could Not be more excited or more thankful.