I'm Going to Kenya

Its official. I am going to Kenya this summer. It’s something that I have been in prayer for a while now, and now that it is actually happening I don’t even know what to think. I am excited, I am nervous, I am extremely pumped. This will be the first time I really go out of the country and over seas to a foreign land in which I have only dreamt about. The team that I get to go with seems amazing and one of the best things is Kristin Graham gets to come with me. We have talked about this and have talked about the possibilities of us going and serving together and how we think it would be a way for us to grow even closer together out in the mission field, serving God and others together. I know for a fact I will not be the same when I come back, I know going into this my heart will be broken in ways that I have never experienced before…despite all that, I am beyond excited, because I know it will be in the best way for me to understand God and his people in a place that I have no idea about.

If that was not exciting enough, the person who runs all of the missions at CCV approached me today and she asked me if I could be a co-leader on our mission trip. WOW. I really didn’t even know what to say. “Really? Me? I never been on a trip like this and you want me to lead?” is what I asked, and she said that I am already leader here at church and they can use my leadership skills to lead the team of 14 people in Kenya and they would send me through training in order to do so. Needless to say (but I am going to say it anyways) I am honored and so excited for the next process in the next few months. Kristin and I will be praying that God will prepare our hearts for what we are about to experience in August.

Now I am not exactly sure what the trip looks like yet, we have our first meeting this Sunday night. But going off of last year, it sounds like the first week we will be helping out and putting on a medical clinic in a village. 2 of those days we will be on Safari. I really can’t wait until people start to ask me what I will be doing and I will say, “I’ll be on safari.” When I think about that, I imagine myself in a picture with a shotgun, a straw hat, with my foot on a big boar, or maybe even a lion. I don’t know, I can dream.

I know the second part of the trip we will be putting on a Vacation Bible School for students there. We will be playing games, talking about Jesus and I will be leading a small group of Kenyan boys. Holy crap we are stoked. I know all of this will be happening in one of the biggest slums in Africa, which to be honest, I don’t even know how I am going to handle seeing what I am going to see.

If you can just be in prayer for Kristin and I for what we are going to have to do to be prepared for this trip. Also, we will need to be raising money for our trip. Its around $3,000. Yup. A lot. Please be in prayer for our money for this trip, and if you want to throw a couple of bucks my way, I know I would appreciate it.

You have no idea how excited/nervous/pumped/scared I am for this trip. I am just amazed that I will be able to get to be apart of this, not only that, but be able to lead it.

I love it. God is good.

Random Fact: Jasmine is the only Disney princess who is not the main character of her movie.

Something Bigger Than Me...

You can Check out the video of the baptisms HERE. I recommend it. People getting baptized in their regular street clothes.

I have been wrestling with God a lot lately it feels like. I think it’s a healthy thing sometimes. It allows me to come to my own understanding of what God is trying to do in my life.

One of the things I have been working through is that I have been teaching students that we are apart of something bigger than ourselves. The fact is that we are so naturally self-centered, and it seems, not matter how hard we try, it’s really hard to resist not being selfish. The thing is, we are all apart of a story and we just assume that the story is about us. The story is not ours. It’s God’s. We are apart of His story and we allowed being apart of it.

I am reading a book called “Radical” by David Platt (check it out HERE). In it he talks about how we have lost the idea that we are apart of something bigger than ourselves. We have lost the mission that Jesus explained to his disciples. When Jesus was telling his disciples to go out and make more disciples, he told them that they were going to be “sheep among the wolves” that they were going into battle with the world to fight for the lost because they are worth fighting for.

Platt explains that we were designed like the USS United States in the 1950’s. This ship was a huge fighting machine. It was designed to mobilize 15,000 troops anywhere in the world in less than 24 hours. Massive, massive ship built for war. The thing is, it was NEVER used for its purpose. It was turned into a luxury liner for presidents and celebrities and it was only able to fit around 2,000 for comfort.

This is what Christianity has become and what Platt compares it too. We were built for war. But we have become a luxury liner. Notice how when on a mission, the USS United States was able to mobilize 15,000 troops. When used for luxury, it only held 2,000. Big difference. Much like Christianity, when Christ gave us our Great Commission he was sending us out on a mission to reach millions. The 12 disciples alone helped the church explode across the world in a matter of a short time. Today, we are comfortable here in America, we have become luxury liners, comfortable with where we are at not reaching, as many people for Christ like we were built to do.

We are involved in something bigger than us, which requires us to be the war ship rather than the luxury liner. I have taught it but I don’t think I have fully understood what it means or what it feels like…until last night.

Last night I was able to be apart of the 5:30pm baptism service at CCV. I was honored to be able to be in one of the baptism pools on the side of the stage when Jeff Vines (our senior pastor) called people to come forward if they have not been baptized and called themselves a Christian. I was blown away at the response. This was the first time that I was able to be apart of baptizing people on a large scale like that. It was amazing. I don’t even know how many people came forward, but there was a time when another pastor had to jump into the pool with me in his jeans because the line was so long. This had to be just a little feeling of what those people in Acts 2 felt like. It was awesome. There were 133 baptisms total this last weekend. Two of the ones I did were students of SHIFT Students. Super pumped.

I think was the first time I fully realized and understood that I truly was apart of something bigger than myself. It was a truly humbling experience.

Random Fact: Riding a rollercoaster can temporarily 'cure' asthma.

Remember When...

I was driving around yesterday with Jeff Snodgrass (whom I work with at CCV for SHIFT Students) and we were driving through In-n-Out for lunch. We had just left San Dimas High School visiting students at lunch. I like going on campus for lunch because the looks you get from students who don’t know you. They know you are not in “the norm” there and they stare you down. It’s quite humorous. Its like you are an antelope on the African plain and you are walking into a lion’s den, they just are amazed and wondered that you are there. Well, we were talking with some students and their friends, one of these students who i have been trying to get to come on a Wednesday night for a few months now (who just started coming recently by the way, Praise God!) and she was 1) excited to see us at school and 2) excited to invite others to SHIFT later that night.

That’s such a cool thing to see. This girl, who really has not “done” church before has been excited about the message of Jesus that she has been hearing and is excited to invite others to hear too and come hang out at church for the night. It’s exciting.

One of the questions Jeff and I were asking each other was, “How come the newer believers are usually the ones that are excited to invite people when the ones that have been coming for a long time are not as pumped to bring new people?” Why are people who are just starting to come to church inviting and bringing more people to Wednesday nights than people who have been coming every Wednesday for the past year? There is something exciting in he fact that new believers are excited, but there something wrong that older believers are not as excited as they once were.

Isn’t it true though? Don’t you remember when you were a kid and you opened that ONE gift you wanted more than anything in the world and you were the happiest kid in the world? But what about 3 months later? Wasn’t that toy always in the closet or under the bed because you got bored with it and the excitement gone?

I can see that being somewhat ok with a toy, but there is no way this should be happening with Christians. The fact that we can take a breath (take a deep breath right now) and realize who is allowing us to take that breath, is more than enough to start dancing right there in the street. We cant allow us to fall into the trap of mundane and routine rituals on a Sunday (or whatever day you go to service) because there is nothing that is more exciting than waking up every morning knowing that Jesus has paid a price for you in order for you to live.

There should nothing more nerve-racking to you than there are people who are close to you who do not know this Truth that Jesus died for them and offers them a new life.

What am I saying? We need to realize that in Luke 15(The Prodigal God) is an everyday thing, that God is waiting for us to realize that we cant do life without Him and will embrace us when we come to Him, no matter what our past looks like. Jesus already paid the ultimate price, there already is this unbelievable grace waiting for you.

If we have been a Christian for a while now, we need to be like a new believer everyday! Much like someone who comes to Christ for the first time, they never have experienced this presence before in their lives and they are excited to share it everyone. If we have been a believer for a long time, we need to have this excitement again, we need to be excited and invite others to come to know Christ just like you did when you first realized what life can be like with a loving God. The fact is, every day we wake up, we are born again. We are new in Christ. He has allowed us to be here another day, another breath. AND THAT IS EXCITING! We need to not fall into the routine that this is a normal thing, just another day type feeling because Jesus is more than that!

Let us start acting like new believers and being pumped and bold and inviting others to share the love you have from God so that they may get to experience it too, just like we did when we first became believers.

Random Fact: Apple laptops can stop bullets.

Flood of Blood

I have the great privilege to be in a Life Group with a group of amazing guys. We have been meeting for about a year now and we have gotten really close. It is one of those groups were we don’t only just meet on Monday nights, but it was turned into a network of friends who hang out outside of Mondays and genuinely care about each others well being and a place where we can keep each other accountable. I love these guys so much and it is amazing that we get to hang out and grow in life and grow spiritually as well.

We are going through the Johns for our small group: 1, 2, 3 John and then going through the Gospel of John. Last night we went though 1 John 1&2 and these two verses stuck out to me like how Shaq would stick out in Midget Town:

1 John 2:5-6 (New International Version, ©2010)

5 But if anyone obeys his word, love for God is truly made complete in them. This is how we know we are in him: 6 Whoever claims to live in him must live as Jesus did.

This is how we KNOW we are in him… we must live as Jesus did. OUCH! This punched me in the face like how Mike Tyson did to Allen in the Hangover for stealing his tiger. Who ever claims to live in Him (which I do) must live as Jesus did (which I do not). I try…I try really hard but I fail miserably.

The bar is set really high. And I didn’t know how I could reach that. But as we were talking we started to think about how we almost need to be thankful for our shortcomings because its only then how much we need to look to Jesus. We fall short, and we look to Jesus to take the rest, because that is what he did on the cross.

If you remember Jesus in the garden, he was sweating blood before he was arrested. People say that he was just so anxious for getting arrested and dying on the cross. I think there is more than that. I think Jesus knew from the very beginning what he was going to do and he was not really worried about that. I think it was more along the lines that Jesus was about to take the whole world’s sins on His shoulders. The prayer of “Father, take this cup from me” is more on the lines like, “Father, I am about to have the entire world’s sins from the past and the future poured onto me right now, take it from me.” That’s why he was sweating blood. That is a lot to take.

To think that we, who deserve the punishment, fall short because we sin, and Jesus taking my punishment for me. It is like if we were to be standing in front of a huge 200 foot tall dam and the dam breached and millions of gallons of water came rushing at you. Scary. Then as soon as the water was about to hit you, a huge opening in the earth started at your feet and all of the water poured down the crack instead of hitting you like a truck… that is what Jesus did for us with our sin. THAT’S NUTS.

How am I supposed to live as he did? How am I supposed to walk in the light if that’s the light I am supposed to walk in? GRACE. That’s how. We have a God who does not sit on top of a mountain and waits for us to come to Him and find the right path to Him. He is a God that comes down to meet us where we are at and he did through Jesus, His Son, who died for me and who died for us so that we are able to live as He did. Even though we will not be able to fully live as Jesus did, His grace for us will allow us to be viewed in favor when we meet the Father in Heaven.

And that is amazing grace.

This Truly Breaks My Heart...

Over these past holidays I got to spend a lot of time with my family. I love every single person in the family. My aunts, uncles, cousins, grandparents, and my immediate family. I don’t know what it was about this year, but something hit me really hard. Not everyone in my family believes in God. Not everyone in my family knows the love of the God that created them. This breaks my heart. This breaks my heart to the point where I am at tears just even thinking about it. I hate the fact that they do not know the love and the forgiveness and they do not know the grace that the Lord will give to them. They don’t know that Jesus suffered on the cross, just for them.

I am sad at the fact that some of my favorite little cousins are being brought up in a home where they have no idea who Jesus is. Their parents used to go to church, and for whatever reason they do not like/believe in the institution of church. My alcoholic uncle, who has a true golden heart, who genuinely cares for everyone in the family, has alcohol as a god rather than the One True Creator. He sits at home while my aunt attends church. I have cousins who do not know God, an aunt, and an uncle. It breaks my heart.

I want to partially blame myself. Even though I have spent time with them, I have not done my part in sharing my faith. My uncle refers to my job as “that thing you are doing with the kids”. I can do a better job at what my job is and the entire purpose of what I do. I can and need to be more intentional on how and when I talk to them about my faith.

Going back to my last post, I can work on this idea of “boldness” with my family. This is something that I must do. There is a hope already though. Over this Christmas season I invited my entire family to JOY, the Christmas services that CCV (the church I work at, check them out HERE). EVERYONE CAME! Even those who have not stepped inside a church in I don’t even know how long. I just pray that the seed that was planted that night though the message grows with a little help from me and a lot more help of God.

I hope that my tears of sadness for them turn into tears of Joy one day.

Random Fact: Cracking your knuckles does not actually hurt your bones or cause arthritis. The sound you hear is just gas bubbles bursting.

One Word Resolution

One of my good friends, and a man that I look up to greatly in ministry is Mike Vander Dussen. He just recently moved up north to be an executive pastor at a church up there. He started a blog in which I started to read. He just wrote one that I loved. You can read it HERE, but in summary, he says that instead of having a whole list of New Year’s resolutions, which we wont get anywhere near to being done, we should have a New Year’s Word that we base the whole year around. The idea in this is that is we focus on one word; we are more inclined to do everything around that one word rather than a whole list. For example, Mike says, “Maybe you’re struggling with your weight, well instead of resolving to eat better, your One Word may be ‘Healthy’. Therefore instead of just changing your eating habits, you focus on everything that makes your life healthy and just maybe for the first time you actually achieve the weight that you have always wanted.”

Such a simple idea and I think it can actually work. My word for 2011 is going to be “Boldness”. I want to be able to speak as bold as Paul did in the New Testament. It didn’t matter who was listening or where he was, he spoke the love of God no matter what. I want to be more like that. I want to start conversations with strangers and end up talking about God. I want to have the tough conversations with my family who does not know the Lord but I have just been too nervous to strike up conversation with them about Him.

See, I don't want it only in church related topics. I want to make it a goal to be bold in life. When it comes to making decisions. When it comes to going places. Just in every aspect. I going to work hard on this, and I am excited to see where it will lead.

Today will be a good first test as I go out and ask strangers to answer some questions for a video we are doing for Shift Students tomorrow night.

I hope to keep myself accountable and I hope that those that read this help me keep accountable to this as well.

It’s been a while since I have done this, but I am going to start again:

Random Fact: A cow gives nearly 200,000 glasses of milk in its lifetime.

[Posted with iBlogger from my iPhone]

Today is...Bleh

I don’t really know what it is about today, but I am just not motivated. I don’t know if it’s a combination of the weather and it being Monday and getting back into the grind of things or what? But I just know I do not like it.

I started off this morning running late because for whatever reasons all of the iPhone 4’s in the world alarm clocks decided not to work in 2011 so far. So I woke up late and in a hurry as I brushed my teeth in my underwear as I tried to put on deodorant at the same time as trying to put on a shirt. I bet I looked ridiculous. I got to work and we had a quiet time, like we do every Monday when we get into the office. I usually look forward to them, it s a great way to start off the week with my team here, but today I was distracted and couldn’t focus. I don’t feel like doing anything. I want to go back into my bed and watch the huge numbers of movies and TV shows that I have on Netflix (which is the best invention ever if I were to choose one).

Even things that I usually enjoy, such as food (Subway for lunch, yum) and watching Modern Family on the lunch break with everyone, didn’t snap out of this weird mood I am in today. I feel like I just want to be Jabba the Hut from Star Wars (yes, I just made a Star Wars reference) and just be fat and lay on the couch and eat 21 Choices chocolate and Kit-Kat mixed frozen yogurt. Don’t judge me, that’s just want I want to do.

But, and there always is a “but”, and I love how God does this sometimes when you need it, I read this:

"Whatever you do, do your work heartily, as for the Lord rather than for men."
Colossians 3:23

I, in fact, think I have one of the best jobs. I love it. The other day I went to lunch with Matt Ferrer, a dude who is in my small group, a guy that I work with here at CCV, and just a great man of God in general, and we were talking about how lucky we are that we have the jobs we do. Where else can we do what we love, serve God, and we are able to make a living off of it. It’s truly a blessing. We were talking that I am a pastor, but if we want to get technical, I also am a professional filmmaker because I get paid and I make videos for Wednesday nights. Stretching a little bit? Ya, sure, but I am just saying.

I read that verse from Colossians 3 and I just felt motivated again and reminded me of that conversation I had with Matt. Even as I am sitting here, not feeling motivated today, what I am doing; I need to “work heartily” for the Lord and not for man. I am working for Him, not for others. Ultimately, no one else matters, I am serving God, in a great place, a great church, with a great team, with an amazing volunteer staff, and with some awesome students…and its all for Him.

Pretty uplifting, and its amazing that I read that at the exact time I needed to hear it.

The Worst Verse In The Bible

The other day I was reading something from a pastor named Steven Furtick. He said something that was interesting to me. And I agree.

He said that the verse Jeremiah 29:11 is one of the worst bible verses in the Bible. Now before you get all angry, listen. If you have been around church at all, you have probably heard this verse.

"Jeremiah 29:11 (NIV)
For I know the plans I have for you," declares the Lord, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future."

A lot of people use this as a staple for there life. That's great. I love that verse. It's a promise from God. But here is the issue. This becomes the worst verse in the bible because it sort if gives this "fake" view that God will never allow bad things to happen to you. Ever. He has a plan for you. True. To prosper you. True. Not to harm you. True. To have a hope and a future. True.

All of that is true. But I feel that we get this idea that God will never allow bad things to happen to us because He has a plan and doesn't want to hurt us, but as soon as troubles come our way, as soon as the hard times come, we look at this verse and say, "LIAR! God I'm hurting right now, you said you would never do this." Their faith suffers.

Now here is way I agree with Steven Furtick's claim of this being the worst verse in the Bible.

Christians have this tendency sometimes to take verses out of context. When the Bible originally was written, it didn't have the numbered chapters and verses like it does today. Did you know that? For the longest time growing up I didn't know that. It was meant to be read like a regular book, from the beginning of each book to the end, straight through. The verses are not supposed to be picked out alone, when they are they loose their context. They loose their original meaning, because in context a verse can mean something completely different in the context of the rest of the text compared to that one verse standing by itself because you then can make it mean whatever you want it too. This is dangerous.

Let me give you a personal example.

I have tattoos. Shocker right? Satan! Sadly some people truly think that. They quote Leviticus 19:28 "Do not cut your bodies for the dead or put tattoo marks on yourselves. I am the Lord." It says it right there and people always throw that verse in my face. First off, it's Old Testament Law. Jesus set the New law. But if you still want to throw that verse out let's put context to it. Let's look at Leviticus 19:26-27, the two verses before it just as an example. This is a list of laws to distinguish the Jews from the rest of the cultures around them. To show that they were not like the rest and they were God's nation. When that verse it by itself, yes it says that, but we can't take one verse out, say it's God's law and then not follow the rest of the words that follow that verse. You have to look at the whole passage. Look at the verses prior to the tattoo one.

Leviticus 19:26-28 (NIV)
26 " `Do not eat any meat with the blood still in it.".... Oops, there goes your medium steak. We Have to have our steaks extra well.
26b- " `Do not practice divination or sorcery. ".... Dang! There goes enjoying Harry Potter.

[27] " `Do not cut the hair at the sides of your head or clip off the edges of your beard." .... Shoot. Clean shaven is a sin according to this. Looks like we all have to look like we are from the Civil War.

So back to Jeremiah 29:11. God does promise us in this verse, but it gives the idea that God will never allow bad things to happen to us, and when they do, we say God is a liar and we doubt. This verse is out of context on it's own. If we look at the verse before, Jeremiah 29:10 we then see the true meaning of why God makes this promise.

Jeremiah 29:10 (NIV)
This is what the Lord says: "When seventy years are completed for Babylon, I will come to you and fulfill my gracious promise to bring you back to this place.

Before the promise given in verse 11, God tells the Israelites once the 70 years of exile is completed in Babylon, then there is that promise, that promise is there while they are going through this exile. They most go through one of the darkest times if their life, still looking to God, because God knew what He was doing. Our plans are rarely God's plan.

God is saying that the Israelites had to go through the 70 years of pain, struggle, and exile from their home lands not only before God will carry out His promise, but they are going through this troubling time because it was part of His plan, He knew it would make them stronger. It would cause them to look to God first and then, and only when they complete their time in exile will God hold tom is promise.

God does have a plan. It may not be ours. God will allow us to go through trials, just as Israelites did, but it was apart on the plan from the beginning. For us to take Jeremiah 29:11 as it is, out of context, we get this glaze over our eyes that God will never allow bad things to happen to us. That's why people cling to this verse, and only this verse, and when the troubles come, they fall.

If we look at the verse just by itself, and believe it like this, that's when it becomes the worst verse in the Bible.

But when we look this verse, the verses before it and after, and realize the true context of the verse, and we realize that even through the difficult times, it's because it still is apart of His plan. It's not a promise that God will not allow bad things to happen to you, it's a promise that EVEN during the hard times that God is there with you and has a plan and there is a reason for the troubles, we just can't see it yet. Just as the Israelites went through 70 years of exile, we go through troubles with the knowledge that God has the plan.

When we look at Jeremiah 29:11 in it's context and realize the true meaning of it, that God is there with a promise through the tough times, this verse then becomes one of the best verses in the Bible.

[Posted with iBlogger from my iPad]