Rollercoaster Life

Wow, Kris and I have had a great couple of months, of celebrations, tears, dreaming, saying good-bye, saying hello, finding opportunities, and allowing God to move. It has been good and the best is yet to come. I had a great conversation today with someone. We talked about allowing God to work and being a part of what He is doing. Is there a time, where you get uncomfortable with what God is doing where you go to grab control of your life, because where he is leading it is WAY too scary and crazy?

Sort of like riding a rollercoaster and as you go up the first hill someone says -- hey put your hands up, and you go along with it because it is no big deal to have your hands up as you creep up the hill, but what happens when you start heading down the other side? How many of us due to fear that our arms will hit the wooden coaster and break off or fear that lunch will get shared with everyone behind us, bring our arms back down and grip the bar of the roller coaster. See I think when we give God control over our lives, He will take us on a roller coaster ride that will blow our minds, but we got to be willing to trust Him and allow Him to take over and don't put our hands down and try to take over our life.

I am learning to ride with my hands in the air, I still tend to bring my hands down and manipulate the ride, but I am learning to enjoy the freedom and the potential of life lived fully alive!

Home Is Where The Heart Is?

I am about 4 weeks into my transition from a great ministry opportunity to another great ministry opportunity. My family is still in Michigan, I am living and working in Minnesota. Question that I have when I talk to is, where do I refer to as home? Is home where I eat, sleep, work or is it where my family is? Home for me is where the most important thing on my heart is. Obviously home is where my family is -- hopefully family and I are living in the same place soon.

But as I was thinking about this concept of home being where you heart is, I realize that that concept carries through to my life and how God fits into it or better said how I let God into my life. I see people struggling everyday because the desires of their heart are of this world -- you know like material things, accomplishment, money, success (whatever that is). They are trying to find a home in a world that isn't safe, isn't supportive, is wired to take instead of give. On the other side I have had the privilege to do life with people whose heart is the desires of God and these people are content with the things of God. I have had to really gut check myself as I challenge myself -- where is my spiritual home -- is my heart dragging me to this world or am I allowing my heart to lift me to God. I believe that home is where the heart is and that spiritually when I allow myself to align my heart with God's I am at home -- even if it looks crazy to this world. Where is your heart? What attracts it, what does it pursue, where does it find peace. Whether we like the answer or not that is where we are making our homes.

10 Conversations That Prove That You Are On A Student Ministry Retreat

1. I'm Cold -- Well you look wet -- yea, I jumped into the lake (water temp 40 degrees) -- why did you jump in the lake with jeans and a sweatshirt on? -- I thought it would be fun, I am still cold -- Why don't you take your wet clothes off and put dry ones on -- I only have shorts and a T-Shirt left -- do you have any other clothes -- yea, but I don't want to get my other pair of jeans dirty before tomorrow
2. After you return from a weekend -- Hey are your parents picking you up? -- Yea, but they are going to be about 30 minutes, they wanted to make sure we were at the church before they came
3. I NEED my cell phone for emergencies, my parents said you would understand
4. I need my laptop for journaling
5. My iPod only has Christian music on it -- why were you just singing AC/DC Highway to Hell while you were listening to your iPod? -- Ummmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm
6. I am tired, do I have to go to chapel and listen to the speaker
7. How fast can we get home, because I have a lot of stuff to do -- do you have a lot of homework -- not really, I just need to talk to my friends, take a shower, eat real food, and watch Desperate Housewives
8. I have to go to the bathroom -- didn't you go 15 minutes a go when we left the gas station? -- no, the bathrooms were gross and I didn't want to go in there
9. I still have to go to the bathroom REALLLY bad, I think I read somewhere that you can die if you don't go
10. What did you get out of tonight? I accepted Jesus into my life for the first time! Thanks for inviting me.

:)

Wednesday Night Thoughts

Topic -- I John 4
Teaching -- Middle School -- Who is bigger God or Satan? I John 4:4
Music -- Jeremy and Rebekkah -- 2 great people who came and led us in 6 praise songs
Attendance -- 75 MS 52 -- HS

Thoughts -- awesome middle school involvement, students who accepted Jesus in the past week, really are bringing that relationship home to mean something, singing went really well and students stayed connected, small group leaders invested heavily into the students.

Very impressed with what God is doing through the lives of the students, great attendance even with football games and no school the rest of the week

Do Christians Give Jesus a Bad Name

A couple of thoughts keep hitting me or keep getting presented to me: do people who call themselves Christians give a good example of Jesus. Recently I have been working through Acts and I John and when you combine them you have an interesting look on life. I John has a major theme about Jesus' love, experiencing it, living it, and allowing yourself to understand it while Acts talks about the church, the original church, not necessarily what it has turned into today. The combination of those teachings and some great conversations have challenged me to to question my life, my motives, my actions: would people see Jesus through how I live my life, are people attracted to Jesus by my actions, words, etc... What makes my life different because Jesus is in it?

When I ask myself the tough questions I have to admit that I am pretty selfish at times, that I like things that are comfortable and I want people to think the same way that I think. When that doesn't happen my first reaction is to say that they are wrong, I am RIGHT! But sometimes I am wrong, and sometimes both of us are right.

One thing that I am eternally grateful for is that God is bigger than me and my understanding and I wrestle to leave it at that. So for today I am challenging myself to not give Jesus a bad name, to show people selfless love, and to capture every moment of life that I am fortunate enough to have.

Who Is Your Number One Team?

When push comes to shove who is your number one team, who do you stand by, who do you defend? Who are you willing to talk about, who are you willing to downplay in front of others? Who are you willing to spend time with and who will you not cancel plans with? There are so many opportunities, activities, and relationships in our lives that many times I believe we straddle this fence of life where we struggle to define who is really our number one team in life. Work is important. We need to value our families. Friends are the people we count on to share life with. Within those groups, there are subgroups, how many of us have talked critically about someone in our family to another family member – like a parents, brother, sister, spouse? How about at work, do we defend our team that we are responsible for even when it involves being critical of the overall leadership? How about our friends – who is the one person you would not be critical of? Who are the people you would talk about behind their backs if it meant fitting in?

I read the book “The Five Dysfunctions of Team” yesterday and one of the points they made was – who is your number one team – in a business sense is it the senior management level that you are a part of or is it the area that you directly lead? Is it ok to talk about the people above you to the team you lead?

In a real life, spiritual sense how many of us have difficulty standing up for the number one team in our lives? How many of us will downplay our faith, or mumble about oh it is just something we do on Sunday, or say, yea it’s not for everyone, or I go because I have to? How many of us are willing to be critical of Jesus, of followers of Him, just so that we can fit in?

As we live our lives we have to keep reminding ourselves what is our number one team? What group of people are the most important in our lives? Which group of people are willing to fight for, defend, which ones have we messed up by being critical of them to people we have no business doing so. How many relationships have we burned by not living for our number one team? I am still wrestling through what this means for me, but I have failed at times in the past and I want to make sure that my future involves living for the number one team at my job, in my family, with my friends, and most importantly with my relationship with God.

What Is Love?

How do you love people around you? Seriously how do you show the people around you that you love them. Is it a father who helps his 16 year old daughter find a car, is it in a small group of adullts who help a random senior citizen move into a new apartment, is it a community who comes around 2 families that lost everything in a tornado, is it talking to a friend who is feeling low, is it encouraging someone to take a risk. This has been my last week -- how about yours?
Go love someone today!

Horizons – Day 1
Wow, it is weird starting a new job for the first time in 9.5 years. It is different not being around all of the really comfortable and strong relationships and all of a sudden being alone and restarting new relationships. Part of the greatness of this experience is the opportunity to STOP and really take time to listen to what God has to tell me, not the students I work with, not the adult volunteers, but me. Kind of difficult, but so important to making my life about following HIM, and not my plan. I am very grateful for God leading my on this opportunity and I can’t wait to see what the next step looks like.