Passionate

When you are passionate about something, it changes everything. You can’t just passively sit by and let opportunities to expose that passion go by. If you are passionate, you can’t hide it, it’s impossible. Whether it be about a sports team, board game, political view, moral upbringing, or faith in Jesus, the same idea applies. Those who decide to follow Jesus, must be passionate about it, or else the world will pull you away from that original conviction. It isn’t a once a week thing. 2 hours on one day doesn’t cover 7 days. You are defined by who you choose to be in the middle. During the times when you aren’t distracted, or when you are pressed to the edge, or when you think your guard is down. That’s who you are, and your natural passions come out. Forget happy, happy is here now, and gone the next second. God doesn’t care  about your daily happiness any where near the amount he cares about your overarching joy, which can only come from him day in, and day out. The rest of us, who choose for our passions to not rest in Jesus, are either faking it, want to do our own thing while proclaiming God exists and thinking that covers us, or not actually serious about this passion.

When you are passionate, you can’t be talked out of it. Your crazy, energy about that subject can be contagious, but no one can take it away from you. To be nuts for Jesus is so ideal; It doesn’t allow the thoughts/judgements of others break through, it doesn’t allow for your life to be dictated by daily emotions/circumstances, and it allows you to realize your life isn’t in your hands anyway/He’s in control.

It’s hard to relinquish control, I know. Those who peer into the life of a crazy Jesus follower must think we are out of our mind because how could we possibly want to not be in control of our own lives? Good question. One of the many that can’t really be answered outside a faith in Jesus and a strong trust in Him.

It’s hard to convince anyone else that there aren’t ‘levels’ to Christianity. “Oh, He is just on another level” or “I can never be at her level, so why bother…” I’ve heard these a ton before. I’m not sure how to talk someone out of this mindset. There’s no 10 step plan to a better you version of being a better Christian. To God, it’s a foreign thing for us to be better at following him than others. Nobody will attain perfection. All will fall short. All continually need forgiveness, so why elevate some and degrade others? It’s important to remember that it’s not about what you think, but about what scripture says. We can make up all we want about how we think life should be, and how we’d like to justify certain actions regardless of what God says…but it just doesn’t matter. Truth will still be truth. God loved the world. Like really loved us. In order for us to be set free from the repetitive cycle of attempting to fulfill ourselves with selfish desires, falling short of doing that, feeling empty, and trying harder. A life serving ourselves will never be as gratifying and full as one serving God…but damn it takes a lot to really believe that, I won’t lie to you there. If you are used to satisfying yourself, you know it can be really good, and hard to believe that stopping that and sacrificing will be as good, I know. I won’t try and sell you. But if you stay open to God, leave your thoughts at the door, and let Him speak to you, like really get out of your own way, He will captivate you, draw you in, show you what His presence is like. And that’s worth fighting for. Because loving Jesus will cause you to do some crazy things. Like lifting your hands in worship. Feeling peace in utter chaos. An attitude change to positive when it just shouldn’t be that way, a fire in your heart to share the good news with everyone you know, the desire to read an old book that couldn’t possibly relate to you, except, oh wait, it does.

To those who are chasing, let go already. To those who think you’ve got it figured out, let go already. To everyone in between, let go already. It’s not you, it’s Jesus, thank goodness…

Life is a dichotomy

So do you recall those versus in Romans where Paul rambles about doing what he doesn’t want to do and not understanding why he does what he does? Yea, I always thought it was sort of hard to follow as well. I know the bible says exactly what God wants it to. I also know he inspired folks to write it. But sometimes I think He let some stuff go that could have used an inspired editor as well. I mean heck, Paul is sarcastic a lot in the New Testament and that seems to be cool. I like that about God, and the bible.

Anyway, I think I can paraphrase Pauls sentiments a little bit. Or at least give my perspective. The more I live on this earth, the more I discover how much everything is a dichotomy. Nothing is so cut and dry one way, it’s always somehow, confusingly, both. To follow Christ you must do nothing to deserve it, but everything to do it on a regular basis. If you don’t it’s cool, but if you do, it’s also cool, ok? God will forgive you no matter what, but don’t think about that before the sin, only after. Because you’d be abusing grace. Which we technically do all the time anyway, but it’s only those sneaky in the moment, un-premeditated sins. If you planned to sin, that’s bad. But Still forgiveable, but don’t think about that, because that’s not living it out, but don’t worry, you don’t need to in order to be saved, only if you want to give God glory, which you should, because that’s the only reason your alive. This making sense yet? I’m sure my two make up words in that paragraph really helped the already remarkably coherent picture I’m painting.

Let’s be more literal. I want to serve and love God. I just happened to also be really selfish. So I also want to serve and love myself. Or what I know to be loving myself. Over the course of my days, I’ve used girls, alcohol, pride, stubbornness, and anger as outlets to my selfishness and have enjoyed doing what I want to do temporarily. The physical pleasure of whatever I chose always seemed like a great idea at the time. And it’s not that those choices change my eternal outcome. They don’t change grace. I’m still covered. (which shouldn’t be missed here, because it’s a ridiculous focal point) It’s what it starts doing to me as a person. Hands down sin starts to separate us from God. It’s as simple as looking at how easy it is to not read your bible the 2nd day after you haven’t the 1st.

There have been a lot of studies on pornography and what it does to men psychologically. To sum up: not good things. There’s something about being able to secretly get what you want at the click of a mouse without telling anyone. It’s cheating the system. It’s demanding intimacy and creating it digitally. You change the way you think of woman. You change the way you think of society. Then you confuse what is reality and what is your fantasy world. I only bring this up because I’ve been challenged by some new non-christian friends on multiple fronts about Christianity. (Side note: i’m not more frustrated with Christians who live in the bubble and have 90% christian friends, but claim their 10% is missional living…pff, you aren’t even trying.) Non-christian friends who trust you and are willing to open up and ask questions are the best thing ever for your faith. You have to go back to the basics and answer questions…like what is sin? why is that a sin? why are you so hard on your self? why do you want to sacrifice that? etc

So to bring it back, there’s consequences to our sins. Sure, we highlight the big ones, alcohol, sex, stealing, etc. But sin is any action that doesn’t give God glory and meet the mark of perfection. That includes far more than the “media-worthy” items. Every action leads to another one at some point. Whether it’s a lesson learned, or future subsequent habit. As Christians, we ‘sacrifice’ so much because we know a life fulfilled can only be in Jesus Christ. Which is a big picture concept. Because short picture, in the moment, we want what we want. And it seems awesome. and it fulfills us temporarily. But eventually, we will want more, and more often, and it will never be enough. I’ve never met someone who had sex before they were married once, and then said okay, now that I know, I can wait til I’m married or hold off for a while. Nope, the bar has been set, they need more, or at least the same, over and over. Eventually, this becomes like a fleeting or empty feeling because you don’t want to be defined by it. You are more than that. You just may not know it yet.

I want to serve God and yet am constantly clouded by the desire to serve myself. I know what’s right and yet sometimes like doing what’s wrong. In the midst of wrong, I learn more lessons about right, which should help me do future right but also confuses me into thinking that if I do more bad, I seem to learn more about right, so that could be good, right? (I’m sorry, I’m chuckling even writing sentences like that.) Can I just have some time to do what I want and see what happens? No; eyes are always watching. Christianity is behind defined around me based on my words and actions. eek, pressure.

I have to give everything. I have to give nothing.

I want to do what I want. I want to do what He wants.

Following Jesus is extremely easy. It’s also extremely impossible.

Who else wants to join me? Half the fun is figuring it out together. I promise.

Forecasting the unknown

Man, has time just sneaked by every so quickly…

I’m in the midst of working with Matt Cohen and Pete Horning on the marketing plan and execution for citylight church. I have a strong background in putting together a strategy, proper mechanisms for getting out a message, and tracking results/adapting to them. However, there is so much guess work in our demographic. I can tell you who lives in manayunk. Ages, backgrounds, hobbies, general likes, etc But, I can’t tell you a thing about how they actually feel about God. There’s so much shooting in the dark. We assume they need something super eye-catching and cool to come back to church. what if they don’t? Or we assume they just want the truth and jump right into scripture? What if that’s not right either? A strategy is difficult to pin down when a room full of christians committed to this cause are developing what we think is best for others to hear…when in fact, we don’t really know…

We want them to know who we really are. We don’t want to trick anyone into coming to church. However, we also don’t want to dive so seriously into what we are about that it reminds them too much of the church they’ve come to understand and want to ignore that they don’t ever come. Where does that leave us? Stuck. We think people want to know what’s actually out there. We think they value true community. We think they want to be loved. We think they don’t want to be told what to do. we think they think Christianity is a bunch of rules they don’t really want to follow. We think, we think, we think. What if we’re wrong? Or half right? How do we approach it. Folks who love jesus will come if they are searching. Folks who are closed minded towards the existence of God will not come. It’s the tweeners. The not-sure-ers. The ones who are searching. who know life has to be more than this, but at the same time can’t get out of their own selfish way to find that out. Those are the folks we have a chance of impacting.

But what impacts them most? genuineness? Hope? Love? Truth? community? sense of belonging? We need to know in order to hit on them. I know it’s weird bringing the advertising world to church but the same principles apply. We know we can’t satisfy everyone, therefore the ones we have a chance to, we want to make sure we do it effectively. We trust that God is at work in this city, but can’t be so lazy as to not put in the best effort on our part either.

If you have input, we clearly need it. Especially if you fall into the middle category I described. What matters to you most? What would make you give church a chance again? Forget church, give God a chance again. We aren’t just a new building with new noise. We are the people that make up the church that aspires to grow and challenge each other in the presence of Jesus.

citylight. a place for those who want to know God…it just happens to be a church

 

They have faces

We had family time at citylight this past week. It’s an old ACF tradition that I’m quite accustomed too. As you probably can imagine, I was the first to jump at the microphone. Soar throat that couldn’t speak and all. I wanted to share about how good God has been and how tempting that is to redefine God. God isn’t good because he provided me a jump, a roof over my head, a church to be a part of, and parents that love me. Those are wonderful blessings, but I refuse to fall into the trap that says God is good because my life is good. God is good because he is and always will be God. He defined what amazing grace is. He saves a ridiculous peasant sinner like myself and that’s why He is good.

Something caught my emotions pretty fierce while I was up their though. I hid it well, nobody could tell. But I had been waiting almost two years to be a part of this church. A church that was a dream, a mystery, a future that seemed like it would never come. I’d pictured it a thousand different ways, but reality was now right in front of me. The people I’d prayed forever for to be in those seats…well, were. The people that made up the church body that I’ll give my next who knows how many years too were there. They finally have faces. It was such an overwhelming, powerful moment. To finally put a face to such a strong passion was the biggest blessing of all.

It’s real. I spent a year and a half not being a part of anything. Not belonging anywhere. Now I have a home. God never intended for Lone Ranger Christians, so it’s beautiful to now have a body to pray for, lean on, worship with, grow with. In the good times and bad, we will define together as a church that God is good. If we don’t stand on that truth, we will fall for anything that comes our way. Accept God has prepared this place and it’s evident. And His grace will allow us to prevail.

my citylight journey begins

I feel like I’ve been waiting forever. Doing work behind the scenes. Seeing glimpses of what would be. Now it’s here. Finally. I work outside of Philly and will be attending citylight in Manayunk for the next….many sundays. It’s refreshing. And yet, there’s a lot of work to do. I’m excited to work on the marketing plan with Matt Cohen. I’m excited to do anything and everything for the church and the community. I’m excited to be in the presence of the Lord and other believers consistently. So cool.

“God will you make us, a people that love you. Please take our offerings, that we set before you. God hear our prayers that, we’re lifting up to you. God see our tears that we’re struggling to see through.”

Song was on in the background, seemed good. I definitely need God to grab a hold of me and make His Joy my strength, which is why I liked the first line. Loving is not easy for me. But when it comes to God, there isn’t a good excuse to avoid it, so I need him to mold me into a man who loves him passionately. It won’t always be easy. Time will be sparse. Enthusiasm won’t always be there. Relationships will be difficult at times. It’s time to start viewing God as good because he is good, not because good things may happen to us.

We attempted to celebrate communion tonight. Which is a great way to look at it instead of the routine of being sorrowful and down. Sure, Christ paid a ton for us. However, he conquered it! We are free! We are saved by a holy perfect God! That is worth being excited! That’s a better approach I think. I liked it anyway. People get stuck in routines.

I tend to play devil’s advocate a lot or disagree with most Christian statements folks make. I learned something tonight though. When you disagree with God, it’s going to be hard to worship. Great point. It’s like putting walls up between my heart and God when I do that. I fight too much.

This was random, but I’m okay with that. The journey will be a wild ride and it’s so good to be on it. Here’s to what the future holds. “I may be weak, but You’re spirit strong in me. My flesh may fail, but my God, you never will!”

Thankful Thanksgiving Post

What a poignant day to give thanks. So, in no particular order here’s what I’m thankful for:

1. My new job at Bailey. What a blessing from God. Wonderful place to work with cool people everywhere and a vibrant future in sight.
2. The laptop Bailey gave me
3. citylight church. What’s I’ve been looking forward to for 1.5 years is finally here and I’m in the midst. Can’t wait to see what God does.
4. A new-found perspective on sports. It’s just not my whole world anymore. My heart won’t be broken by the Phillies again.
5. My mom. for cooking everything on thanksgiving while I sleep and watch football.
6. Tim Tebow.
7. $5 burger night at Kildares
8. For senses of humor everywhere
9. For Justin Kerekes’ striking similarity to Sheldon from Big Bang Theory
10. Very Vanilla Soy Milk. I dunno, just cause
11. Bacon. on everything
12. every girl who has ever flirted back with me
13. The Big Bang Theory and How I met your mother
14. My orange american apparel Hoodie.
15. For Mark Huey’s Laugh. have you heard it? If so, it’s in your list too.

What about you?

His presence

“We need your presence, more than anything.” -lyric from Christ Tomlin song (with Cristy nockels, whose voice is angelic)

What an attitude. I like to ramble on a lot about Christianity and how I think it works to the enth degree. However, once you grasp this one line, throw the rest out, you’ve got it. When we realize what we need, our life gets sorted out for the best. How many times do we think we just need______ a girlfriend, a better job, more friends, the new iphone, more time for fun, etc? From there, we will then be able to live for God, but not until then. Funny how silly we are sometimes.

I know that this one line will be the cry of my heart until it becomes reality. The Lord has blessed me with a new job (I start tomorrow) in the area of citylight where I’ll be serving. He saved me from what could have been a really bad car accident on the turnpike back when it snowed like crazy. He’s protected my family from a plethora of health issues. He’s given me wonderful relationships to learn from and enjoy bountifully. Let’s face it, He’s been real good. What did I do to deserve this? That’s the beauty. Not a damn thing. Not once, did I do something that makes me think it’s starting to make sense on why all these things are happening to me. God’s grace is overwhelming…and His presence can be. But you have to WANT IT. have to SEARCH for it. PLEAD for it. I haven’t done that. Haven’t been desperate to just be alone with Him because I think I’m so busy and so important with my issues.

I need the presence of Jesus more than anything. ANYTHING. That’s rather all encompassing. From there, the minor inconveniences of life will fade away. My selfishness will start to dissolve. My tendency to sin will happen less and less. My ability to share how great God is will only increase.

Make time for moments of His presence. I can’t imagine you will regret it. It’s not a chore or a check list, it’s an honor. A chance to engage with our creator and attempt to know him more.

Philly Half-marathon. check. 1:45. Move to West Chester. check. start job at Bailey, soon to be check. What’s next?

 

 

Guest-Author: David Kraft

The following post is not mine. But it mimics a lot of my thoughts on the Penn State circumstances. Dave Kraft was a former Nittany Lion Athlete and is a friend of mine. He did a great job of encapsulating where the focus should be, the shortcomings of the media, and the proper response. It’s a great read:

 

“Before all this news about Sandusky and the sex scandal broke at Penn State, I had written a post on Occupy Wall Street. I was literally putting the finishing touches on it before I posted it when I first got wind of the scandal. Maybe at some later point I’ll post that. For now, my thoughts on the tragedy that has unfolded at my still loved University.

It took me a few days to be able to process everything I was feeling. This is the best I can do for right now and there’s an article I posted a link to at the end that does a good job at further describing the media circus tragedy that has ensued.

If you haven’t read the full Grand Jury Report, even though it’s very graphic and extremely sickening, it gives some facts and info that isn’t misconstrued by the press so I strongly recommend it.

http://i.cdn.turner.com/cnn/2011/11/07/sandusky_grand_jury_presentment.pdf

All in all, there was failure on multiple levels. Clearly primarily Sandusky for being a pedophile, but also on the part of McQueary, Curley, Spanier, the janitor, janitors boss, and Joe Paterno , but also the DA and police in charge of an investigation that was conducted back in 1998 involving two different victims (The police were told by the director of police to drop it!!!! Yet nothing was done then?? excuse my language but WTF?? Why isn’t that director in trouble?) Nothing was done then, even with audio evidence of Sandusky admitting he did some seriously wrong, even when it was reported to the police…. It wasn’t reported again by the OPP staff in 2000 when a janitor witnessed and reported another victim in the showers in a sexual incident. This was also written up in the Grand Jury report. Why aren’t they in trouble? The answer is obvious to me, they aren’t the face of the program, it wouldn’t be big news. I hate the press all the more for this now.

Don’t get me wrong, I am certainly not trying to make excuses for what happened and as far as I’m concerned, anyone who was aware of what McQueary saw on ’02 (including McQueary, Curley, Shultz, Spanier, Paterno, and Second Mile etc) had a moral responsibility to ensure that the police were notified after the 2002 incident and should receive just punishment. They failed. Sure they failed the school, the fans, and the alumni but most and above all THEY FAILED THE KIDS! I don’t doubt for a second that it’s best for the University for anyone with any connection to this to step down, even, as much as it pains me to say this, JoePa.

What frustrates and angers me isn’t just that this pervert was at Penn State, or that an organization that prided itself on taking the moral high road failed so terribly when the high road was so clear, or that the police investigating it didn’t find the acts of Sandusky described by two victims in the 1998 Police report as “criminal”, or that the janitors and Office of Physical Plant authorities failed to report the incident in 2000 to the police, or the fact that aside from it happening on Penn State grounds this was a Second Mile issue (legally that is: Sandusky wasn’t a PSU coach in 2000 or 2002, and the child was a Second Mile child) yet PSU and JoePa are being crucified by the press even after they reported it to the Second Mile (their legal, albeit not moral obligation), it’s also that people have the audacity to joke around about this.

Ped State University? We Are… Pedophiles?

This isn’t a laughing matter. End of story. It’s not funny and I think it’s disturbing some people, even non PSU alum, think it is. It’s not a time for making jokes or grouping a whole institution based off the actions of 1 person and the in-action of a few.

I think it is incredibly distasteful and shows complete lack of maturity for anyone, Penn State alumni or not, to try to make light of this situation.

It honestly disturbs me, even almost more than the initial acts, that as a human race we are at a place where we will make jokes about this. Why? Cause there will always be bad apples, people who are screwed up enough to do awful crap like Sandusky did. What gives me and should give anyone any amount of hope is the greater whole being able to call that bad apple out and handle it in a mature fashion. When that doesn’t happen, THAT is a failure as a society, not just an individual, and THAT scares me.

I have prayed for those victims and everyone involved in this mess from the first time I heard about this. I hope that you will join me.”

- Kraft

failing forward

I have vaguely heard the phrase falling forward, but I was struck recently when I heard the idea of “failing forward.” When we think of failing, we tend to only think very negative things. And yet, forward, has a positive tone to it. Forward progress, moving forward etc. So how can these two terms be associated? Well, I heard the phrase in an article about Google. How they, as a billion dollar company, have proven to fail forward. They make a lot of bold choices and risks and sometimes they don’t work out. Sometimes they flop. But don’t be mistaken, They don’t simply get filed in the “oh well we failed category, let’s try something different.” No, they learn a ton from each and every tactical move they make. They get better, they grow, they pull whatever experiential data they can to make sure the next move is an even more calculated one. They are largely successful because of their ability to fail forward.

I propose, we, as followers of Christ take up a similar model. I think we tend to really harp on ourselves as bad people, or hold onto our sin for so long. In the midst of not feeling like we are ready to move on, we shield ourselves from God, which just pushes us further away. We postpone communication, repentance, and the power of Christ to change, to restore hope, to provide a new life that you didn’t think was capable. In that sense, we just let our selves fail and stay in our pitiful status until something external pulls us out or we let ourselves hit rock bottom.

I suggest, we invoke the idea of failing forward. Don’t let your sin get in the way of God. That’s what the cross was for. To get in the way of our old life and breathe a new one into us. Let your sin fail forward. Grow from it. Be challenged by it. Put it at the foot of the cross immediately. Let God know about it. There’s no hiding anyway, so why not? Don’t let anything pull you backwards when you can make sure to press on in your walk with God.

I left church last week pondering two challenging quotes from Dan: 1. “It’s more important to be with God than to do for God” and 2. “Do you long for God? or only long for what he can do for you?”

That got me good. I’m a doer, so I naturally want to do. I recognize shortcomings and want to make up for them in whatever way. I want to supplement grace, which is crazy, because by definition it needs no assistance. And yet, I keep trying to prove my worth to God. Prove that I can actually follow him at times, prove that sometimes I help people and that should make up for the times I’m selfish. I focus on this so much, I forget to just spend time with him. That’s how foolish i’m becoming.

Longing for God is what we all need. Just His presence and the faith that he will come through even when we don’t know what that looks like. I need to spend more time seeking that very feeling, time with God, status, mindset, call it what you will. He is Good.

 

2 quotes from dan

google quote. falling forward compare to failing forward.

Next Chapter, Please

For any of you that know the vague plan for my life, I must update you. If that’s you, you know that I have plans to move to Philly, job or no job, in order to be a part of a church plant that former ACF mentors are starting. The time is fast approaching that this transition will take place. Just so you know, the option for no job has been eliminated. I have been offered the position that I’ve coveted for a while now. Philly, here I come…with job and everything.

Bailey Brand Consulting. I’m honored to join your team. I know the bar is set high and I’ll do everything in my power to exceed expectations and serve the company well.

Huzzah!