How do we promote ourselves?

So Leanne and I were listening to K-Love this morning on our way to the UCM and as we're approaching the last leg of our 10 min drive the information update comes on. The second story today was about how to stay faithful in college. Leanne and I instantly perk up to listen, this being the area we are doing ministry. I can tell that we are both expecting to hear something passionate and full of life but what comes to my ears? A guy that is 80 years old telling us how college students today can keep the faith. 80 years old? We as a church (or the radio station!) cannot find someone in a successful campus ministry somewhere that is less that 4 times the age of most people going to college this year? The really hard part is that it is not like he said anything earth moving coming from 50 years of campus ministry. this guy was just a retired Pastor from WI. This has really got me thinking. I've been running into more and more of these little nuances when it comes to campus ministry. A while back I had preached a sermon at a church where God really moved and stirred the hearts of several in the congregation. The pastor of that church was absent but when he came back he had several comments of which my favorite was this: "Kel did a wonderful job, why are we (as a church) wasting him on campus ministry?" Indeed, why do we waste our time on campus ministry at all? Its hard for me, a campus minister to accept statements like this. One I'm glad for the compliment but in the very same breath I was cut to the bone. You see, people do not take seriously the role of campus ministry in the Church. Oh sure there are a few people here and there that will give us lip service, but when it comes down to it most people do not feel that the ministry we do on campus is important. You can see this in the K-Love news update. They did not go and find someone that is doing campus ministry, they went and asked someone about what they thought about campus ministry. Thoughts need to change, ideals need to change, hearts and lives need to be changed when it comes to how we view campus ministry. I was personally brought to know God through campus ministry and know the importance of what we do on campus. I see first hand the pain and the need of students as they go through college. This world is a broken and fallen world and the college campus is often a place where much of it culminates. The campus is also where people are trying to figure out who they are and what they want to do with their lives. The church needs to be present in the midst of these decisions. I for one am trying to figure out how to better present campus ministry so that everyone can see its importance, will you help?

Casting the first stone

For whatever reason this morning the passage in John 8 about the adulteress woman and the pharisees popped into my head. I pondered the story and tried to put myself into the story:
I was on a dusty road and it was very hot outside. Thankfully there was a slight breeze but even that was being stifled by the large crowd that had gathered. The religious folk were after it again this time they had brought a woman forward. She looked absolutely exhausted, her clothes were tattered, and by the looks of her, she hadn't bathed in a few days. Then Jesus, who some say is a prophet came walking up and as he did the Pharisees called out to him. Telling him that this woman was an adulterer. I instantly felt bad for this woman, for I knew what was coming to her. In Rome where I'm from, sex is power but here these people were about to kill this woman and knowing these Jews, it probably wasn't even her fault. Sometimes these religions can be so dark and painful towards the very people that need them most. This woman is poor and probably was trying desperately to find someone to take care of her, who knows. Jesus comes up and they demand an answer for what this woman has done and he....ignores them? He is just drawing on the ground, what is he doing? They tire of this and press him for an answer. He slowly stands up and says, "If you want to kill this woman, let the person who has no sin throw the first stone." Ha! They are all standing around looking like someone just slapped them across the face. Wait!?!? They are leaving? What did he say again? sin? Has not one person in this group of so called righteous people not sinned? I figured they would all be ready to start chunking stones at that, but they are actually shamed? Amazing.

This story has some pretty profound meaning, so often we think that this story is about Jesus forgiving sin, which is a part of it. Or we use it to say that we shouldn't be judging people, while is also good but I think that this story has a much more revolutionary undertone to it. You see, the Jewish people were a people that were slow to change and once they had their minds set it took a crazy amount of effort to get them to change. Here was a woman that had sinned and by the law she was to be put to death. Now the Pharisees cared little about the actual sin and merely wanted to test Jesus. Verse 6 says, "They were using this question as a trap, in order to have a basis for accusing him." How sad is it that these teachers of the Law of God are using the life of a woman so that they can try to trick Jesus. How wicked are their actions here really. You see the amazing part about this story is the fact that with one short sentence, Jesus turns the tables on these "holy men" and convicts them to their core. These are the same men that boast that they have kept the law to the letter since the day that they were born. These are men that pray on the corners daily and pay their tithes and alms to the temple. Yet it is these religious elite that are shamed by Jesus and not one of them will claim to be free of sin before the judgment of Jesus. THAT is amazing. the passage that directly follows this story talks about judging and how Jesus has come from the father and that the Father is with him so He could judge correctly and best of all verse 15 says, "You judge by human standards; I pass judgment on no one." The one person that could accurately and correctly judge, is the one person that does not judge. This is why the story about the adulterous woman is so incredible. God has every right to judge people but He does not. Jesus has every right to say that this woman has sinned and deserves to die, but does not. God is all about forgiving and loving and sadly many religious people are not.

Lord I pray that today you give me the strength to love like you love, forgive all who wrong me, even if they don't deserve it. Give me your heart for people.

Pain

There are times in life when pain comes. Sometimes we see it outside of ourselves. A close friend goes through a breakup, a coworker loses a relative. The other day I was driving down the road and I had the misfortune to witness a cat get hit by a car driving the opposite way. Now I would not describe myself as a cat lover but as I saw one of God's creatures flailing its last before it died I was struck by the devastation that pain, hurt, and death leave on our lives. What's really awful is that somewhere sometime in this life we will be hurt. We will go through this pain. Evil has so pervaded this world that there is a 0% chance that anyone will be able to avoid it. What's sad is that even though we all go through these hard times, even though pain and hurt is one of the most common things about our world we often have no idea what to say. We think that our pain is unique and that we can't speak into the lives of those that are near to us. Now don't get me wrong everyone's situation is unique but as a whole we all suffer together. It is sad that we have lost our sense of community and that people don't realize that we have a common humanity that runs so much deeper than anyone gives it credit for. This humanity is the same throughout the entire world. Do they not smile in Zimbabwe? Are people not sad when someone leaves in Korea? Yet we think that we are alone.

Brothers, we do not want you to be ignorant about those who fall asleep, or to grieve like the rest of men, who have no hope. We believe that Jesus died and rose again and so we believe that God will bring with Jesus those who have fallen asleep in him.
1 Thessalonians 4:13-14

Once again we are called to be different than those around us but I love the reasoning this time. We are called to be different because we have hope. Notice the verse does not say that we shouldn't grieve, but that we should do it differently. The verse doesn't say that the loss of someone will not hurt but that our perspectives should be different than those who have no hope of a resurrection. Jesus Himself wept at the death of Lazarus and He knew that He was about to raise him from the dead. The most important part of this scripture though is the fact that Jesus died and rose again. God conquers death, the one thing that humanity cannot do itself, God steps in a provides a way where we do not have to be separated from Him. My favorite way that this is talked about is when someone says or sings "the grave is overwhelmed" because it basically shows that the love of God and the finality of the death were pitted against one another and the love of God completely exhausted all that death way. Death could not contain God and will not get in the way of Him trying to get to His children.

So have hope and dare to be different when it comes to hurt, pain, and suffering. Dare to say something to those that are hurting or even better don't say anything and do something for them. Then you don't have to worry about saying the wrong thing.

A lesson in facial hair

I've been getting a lot of comments about my current choice in facial hair and I realize that its a lesser known style. so I thought I would write a post about some of the different options for facial hair so that you could be enlightened.

1. the Goatee
I've been doing some research and it turns out that the goatee is defined as being any facial hair that is grown primarily from the chin.



Much like a goat

This very much looks like what I have now though I would argue that there are some basic differences. First of all its hard to distinguish between varying styles of goatee. Technically a soul patch is also a goatee, but I don't think that it really belongs in the same category.

Here is a pic of a soul patch:

Garth Brooks obviously tried sporting this look and failed miserably. His career definitely took a tumble after this one, lesson learned: no one, not anyone is fooled by the soul patch. Very few people can pull it off.

Here is what I think of when I consider a goatee:
This is technically called a "circle beard" but for the sakes of this post I'm going to say that his is a goatee regular. Also note: not a career killer, the goatee is in if you can pull it off. Just make sure that you can grow enough mustache or you will just look silly.

The type of facial hair that I'm growing is typically called a chin beard, which is a lame name. I'm not going to walk around calling my facial hair by a part of the face. Other facial hair styles are named after famous people who had them....

For Example:

The musketeer is a pointy mustache with a bit of scruff on the bottom. The two do not connect though. Made famous by the guess who? the musketeers.

Another famous one is called the rico and is named after famous cigar maker George Rico. He's the one on the right. notice the soul patch and the chin beard that doesn't connect.












So, what do we call what I have right now? The long chin beard that grows to be longer than your normal chin beard. Here is a picture of me right now:








I'm calling this my crowder after one: David Crowder. Here is a pic:



So there you go, I'm calling my facial hair a crowder. Its an awesome style and David Crowder is also awesome. So there you go.

whirlwind craziness

So I'm in Michigan right now visiting Leanne's side of the family. Its been a crazy last couple of weeks. In the last 17 days I've spent exactly 2 of them at home. Its been hard for me and hard on my family. then we got up a 3:30am and flew to MI. Needless to say, I was a zombie for most of yesterday and after sleeping for many hours (11+) I'm still a little dreary eyed but I feel like myself again. Leanne and I are starting an exercise regimen to start training to run a 5k this fall sometime. I'm really excited about it, the hard part is that we can't go and do it together because one of us has to watch the baby. Its ok though, it feels great to do something besides sit on my butt all day.

Last week I preached a sermon about death at Local Pastor School. It was an interesting experience. Given the chance I think that I would preach it again, but I definitely need to shore up a few of the things that I said. It felt strange talking about my father's death with only a little amount of emotion. I can remember giving my testimony for the first couple of years and not being able to without sobbing uncontrollably. I've come to the understanding that I'm healing from the death of my father. Its interesting to me how I remember more and more of him as time goes on, all good things. I find myself thinking about random things, like how he used to take like 3 pillows with him wherever he went and it make me smile. I feel like this is how its supposed to be. Its supposed to be hard for a while but then it gets better and you remember that person well. Its still so odd though to be thinking about him and to be happy. I see the same thing happening in Leanne too. Last night her mother found some old pictures and there was a pic of her and her dad before he died. I saw the biggest smile I've seen in a while cross Leanne's face. Yes, there was a layer of pain, but it stayed underneath. I learned this in Pastoral Care class, "Grief and the movement of Active emotion to memory." I believe that when we grieve that we take all that anger, all that pain, and we move through it to become a better person. We have to remember though. We remember a person as they are, not a better or worse person, but as a flawed human being. Its key to move on.

Now I leave you with a video of the five stages of grief, featuring a cute giraffe:

tongues of fire?

So I've always thought that Pentecost was like the coolest holiday ever. Its a Christian event that I can really get behind. While being in seminary I learned about the tongues of fire and one way that we can interpret this story that I thought was really cool. I had always learned that the tongues of fire were the Holy Spirit coming down to be on the apostles. After this occurred, they could all speak in "tongues" and people from all nationalities heard them speaking in their own language. Pretty cool. What is missed is the fact that God has come down and settled "in the hearts of men." What does this mean for humanity? Jeremiah 31: 31-33:

The days are coming, says the LORD, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah. It will not be like the covenant I made with their fathers the day I took them by the hand to lead them forth from the land of Egypt; for they broke my covenant and I had to show myself their master, says the LORD. But this is the covenant which I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the LORD. I will place my law within them, and write it upon their hearts; I will be their God, and they shall be my people.

Pentecost is the day and time that this prophecy came true. Jesus came and established the new covenant and instead of having to pine and reach for God, God came to rest within the hearts of men. A really interesting comparison can be made about the image of God coming to "live" with humanity. During the time of Moses, it was God that lead the people. When God went ahead of the Hebrews, it was as a pillar of Fire. Burning bush anyone? Also, when God came down to meet with this same group of people at Mt. Sinai, it looked like the entire mountain top was on fire. Great imagery, when God comes down to live, God's presence is signified by fire and a lot of it. It happens again at the dedication of the temple. What's even more interesting is the proximity to God that is allowed in each of these situations. When God came down to Mt. Sinai to meet with Moses and the people, it was specifically instructed that the people be ritually clean. Two people weren't and they were "consumed by the fire." You see, not only does Pentecost signify the time when God came to dwell in the hearts of men, but it also signifies that the proximity barrier between God and humanity had been shattered and taken away. Before people had to be holy to even think about approaching God. There was only one man that was considered holy enough to enter into the Holy of Holies, and that was only once a year, and after about 2 weeks to ritualistic cleansing. At Pentecost, God came down and God's presence was taken away from the tabernacle, and instead was put into the hearts men.

This should challenge us in many ways. First of all, God lives in us and through us. After God came and settled upon the apostles they did many amazing things but most of all they became the messengers of God to the world. They lived the life. I've been struck lately at how unfree so many people are in america and honestly it doesn't surprise me that God isn't seen in amazing ways. The apostles were free, totally and utterly free from any sort of burden. They were able to bask in God's promises and do completely the will of God. I simply think about the amount of people that are in debt and I realize that most people in America aren't even free financially. If people cannot control this one simple aspect of their lives, then how can they truly know the freedom that God brings. Its really scary to me but I think its true. We as Americans have not been faithful with the immense amount of blessing that God has bestowed upon us. Until we start to shape up...I don't see God giving us bigger things...

Bible Reading

So I think that I am going to start blogging about my reading of the Bible. I have two reasons for this. Blogging will require me to really think about what the verses are saying and hopefully it will also keep me accountable for doing the reading. So if you don't see any posts here or anything, please feel free to harass me.

Reading for tonight Daniel Ch. 1

In this chapter Nebuchadnezzar comes and besieges Jerusalem and wins. The armies of Babylon then carry off plunder, this includes not only things from the temple like God but also the finest of the young people that are to be taught and presented to the King of Babylon for use in his courts.
showing aptitude for every kind of learning,3-Then the king ordered Ashpenaz, chief of his court officials, to bring in some of the Israelites from the royal family and the nobility--4.young men without any physical defect, handsome, well informed, quick to understand, and qualified to serve in the king's palace. He was to teach them the language and literature of the Babylonians.
It strikes me as interesting that not only did the babylonians carry off precious metals but they also took the brightest of the younger generation. Looking back on it, it is really a very clever way to keep the people at bay. If you take the brightest and the best of a people away, it will be harder for the rest to rebel against you because you are taking the one's who would be leaders. Its kind of the reverse of what happened in the Exodus. If you think about it, the Hebrews that lived in Egypt as slaves had been slaves for several generations. Typically, slaves do not read or right or know how to lead an entire nation of people anywhere. So God raises us a Hebrew in a very special way. Moses learned how to read, write, and lead in the best place in the world at the time in the Pharoah's court. This is crucial understanding if we are to really know the character of Moses. Moses was a learned man, and in that same line Daniel and his friends became learned men in the court of their enemy.