My greatest fear and my greatest hope

What is it about Christianity today that turns people off? My greatest fear , as inspired by a chapel speaker, is that people, and especially youth would experience a Christian lifestyle, whether it be in church, a christian school or a christian college and even a summer camp, and would spend 5, 10 or 15 years recovering.  

Why is it that people get turned off my Christianity? Maybe it is because it has turned into a cookie cutter faith that expects everyone to experience Christ the same way, singing the same songs and going to the right churches. Christ doesn't belong in a box. The Lord doesn't work on OUR timeline when we THINK he should.  Maybe it is that people think that their God is the right one and everyone else is inferior if they don't believe in the God that they believe in. 

I had a conversation with a good friend of mine tonight. She said that she is frustrated with her youth group because the youth leader expects them to have grown up, adult answers. She said that people are being asked to leave her youth group because they are goofing off. She said that they aren't allowed to talk about something (drugs, alcohol and other secular issues) in youth group because they "aren't youth group appropriate". 

A few things: 

1. Christ ate with tax collectors, prostitutes and the diseased....never did he say that those people weren't deserving of his grace, love and mercy.  Those people weren't deemed "not Christ appropriate". 

2.  If youth group was supposed to be for adults, where there was no fun and people would be expected to have all the answers...they would call it adult group. It probably wouldn't even exists because none of us have all the answers. 

3. To all you youth out there. Don't you let anyone tell you that you are acting like a kid or tell you to grow up. You have your entire life to be grown up and deal with grown up problems. Don't let anyone tell you that you need to not act so childish or to be mature.  Christ calls us to have a child like faith. We grown ups should strive to be like you. 

My greatest hope is that people can find Christ and be so consumed with his love that he infiltrates every part of their lives.  Not just your "Sunday at church" life or your "youth group life" but your day to day, ordinary life. 

I hope that you can be so moved by God's love that you want to share His love, His light and His grace to everyone around you.  My greatest hope is that you not be happy with being a Christian...but you become over-joyed with your RELATIONSHIP with Jesus. 

My greatest hope is that you worship Christ with your life.  That your worship isn't the song you sing on Sunday's, but comes from the inner soul of the person singing the song. 

If you are an athlete, my hope is that you compete for an audience of one, always thanking the Lord for the talent he has blessed you with. 

If you are a photographer (Kara...cough cough) that you see the Lord's beauty through your lens and share his beauty to other around you. 

If you are a snowboarder, I pray that you thank Christ daily for the amazing mountain that you are on and the pure white snow it is covered with.  

If you are a a person who serves others, I pray that you do it because the Lord has blessed you with a servant heart, and not to gain the recognition from others. 

Do not be discouraged when you see people who are sharing the gospel on the street corner, traveling to third world countries, raising their hands in praise or kneeling during worship.  If that isn't you.....IT IS OKAY! God created us in his image but all as unique individuals. You may not worship Christ the way someone else does.  So worship Christ with your life, with your actions and with your heart.  

God doesn't belong in a box with limits on how people experience him and worship him. God isn't only found on Sundays in a church and Wednesday nights during youth group.  God is so much bigger the the limits that we try and impose. 

Do what you do. Use the talents, passions and gifts the Lord has given you, but never forget where they came from.  A very smart man said ,"I wonder if people will fall in love with Jesus by watching me love him. I wonder.....?"

Ask yourself that question. 

P.S. Kara--This one is for you. Do what you do girl....don't let anyone tell you different. 

The art of losing myself

In the blog of the guy that is taking over my position at Sonlight camp, he had this quote that just hit me between the eyes. 

"God can’t use us to our fullest potential when we remain who we are.”

Sometimes I try so hard to hold onto this picture that I have of myself. I hold onto who I am, what I want to be and who I wish I could become.  

There is one major flaw in that entire last statement....I this...I that. 

It isn't about what I want. We live in a selfish, self centered society where climbing our way to the top and stepping on people to advance ourselves in encouraged.  Hypothetical gold stars are given out to those who conform to this world. 

In order for the Lord to consume us from the inside out we have to lose ourselves. We have to give up control of our lives to Christ and let go of the things of this world. We can't just give up certain parts of our lives. We can't give up control of our spiritual life and our physical ailments but hold tight to our relationships and flaws and expect that Christ show up.  Christ should consume every inch of our being. From our work, to sports to our relationships.   

The change starts with us. The change starts with me. I have to let go of myself.  But most of all, I need to learn to accept the grace and mercy of Christ. I have to lay my flaws, my physical ailments, my social ailments and my doubts....my life...at the foot of the cross. 

The things you can learn from "those darn kids!"

I am in the real world now. Working and living in Denver, paying bills and fighting rush hour traffic.  Dealing with office politics.  Witnessing people be torn to pieces by family tragedy or devastating circumstances. Oh...and getting hit in a parking lot by a man who refuses to give me insurance information and offers me cash (which he had plenty of since he had numerous drug charges on his record.)

It is so easy to get frustrated with this world. It is easy to get lost in the terrible things happening in this world. It is easy, as an adult, to see how complicated the world's issues are. Even to ask the difficult, age old question of why God would let such things happen to the world and people. 

Being an adult is exhausting.  I have been blessed to work with kids for the past six years and they have taught me so many lessons about life.  

Like the girls that dance outrageously on the deck to N'Sync and Backstreet Boys. 

Or the kids that try and see how many s'mores they can eat. 

Or the group of boys that takes dodgeball to the extreme. 

Or that other group of boys that carry around a teddy bear that they won in some camp competition just because. 

Or the ones that wear crazy, knee high socks...because they can't figure out a reason not to. 

And even the group of kids that ride around stick horses with cowboy hats and squirt guns raiding the craft bus. 

For me, there are so many kids that have taught me life lessons. 

But there is one in particular that continues to teach me, even from a different state. I am learning that talking on the phone to someone you love is far more important than writing a paper for school or studying for a math test. Or that sometimes you have to watch a movie with your friends to admire the really cute Prince Caspian....just because.  She is teaching me to enjoy the simple things....like bunnies and even annoying people.   

She is teaching me that I can't get frustrated with myself for "driving backwards". It just gives us something to laugh about.   She is teaching me to just be in awe of God and the things he does.  She is teaching me that even I, the adult in the real world, can be inspired, challenged and changed by someone younger than me.   What she doesn't know...is that I want to be like her when I grow up! 

Romans 8:15:^{15 -17}This resurrection life you received from God is not a timid, grave-tending life. It's adventurously expectant, greeting God with a childlike "What's next, Papa?" God's Spirit touches our spirits and confirms who we really are. We know who he is, and we know who we are: Father and children. And we know we are going to get what's coming to us—an unbelievable inheritance! We go through exactly what Christ goes through. If we go through the hard times with him, then we're certainly going to go through the good times with him! 

"Your grace overwhelms my brokenness"

Grace is a word that keeps coming back to me. It is coming up in conversations and in the message at church. But grace is a funny thing and a funny word. It can't be defined simply and in a single word.  This single word can pack such a punch. It is thrown around in songs and we simply skim over it thinking that we really know what it means.  So take a minute.....slow down.....

My dad always told me that grace stood for God's Riches At Christ Expense, an acronym of sorts.    Even that definition is hard to understand. But I am coming to understand it more. 

Grace, to me, is making mistakes, big or small and after running so far away from Christ and the heavenly father is standing there with his arms open waiting for us to come back. 

Grace is the fact that we are not perfect.  The only perfect being died on a cross so that we could broken and of this world and still receive Christ forgiveness and grace. 

But this is by far my favorite definition of grace, by Fredrick Beuchner:

“After centuries of handling and mishandling most religious words have become so shopworn nobody’s much interested any more. Not so with grace, for some reason. Mysteriously even derivatives like gracious and graceful still have some bloom left. 

Grace is something you can never get, but only be given. There is no way to earn it or bring it about anymore then that you can deserve the taste of raspberries and cream or earn good looks or bring about your own birth. 

A good sleep is grace and so are good dreams. Most tears are grace. The smell of rain is grace. Somebody loving you is grace. Loving someone is grace. 

The grace of god means something like: Here is your life. You might never have been, but you are because the party wouldn’t have been complete without you. Here is the world. Beautiful and terrible things will happen. Don’t be afraid, I’m with you. Nothing can ever separate us. Its for you I created the universe. I love you. 

There is only one catch. Like any other gift, the gift of grace can be yours only if you’ll reach out and take it. 

Maybe being able to reach out and take it as a gift too.”

- Frederick Buechner 

“Wishful Thinking”

As stated in the last few lines.....it is up to us to accept that Grace that Christ offers us. There are no strings attached to Christ's grace. It is swallowing our pride and our mentality that we can control our own lives and that we are in the drivers seat.  

Be blessed in all you do. 

Seek God's grace. 

Reach out and take Christ's grace. 

this is easy....that takes work

I had my first experience with major Denver rush hour traffic. I was frustrated for about five minutes. Then I realized that I had a choice to make. I could be that driver that gets mad, honks the horn and yells at all the other cars. Or I could be that driver that just sits in traffic, listening to the radio and deal with it.  Giving into my frustration is easy.  Not getting frustrated and upset takes work. 

Life is full of choices. Simple choices about what to have for breakfast or what drink to order at the Starbucks around the corner. 

We can choose to be good at our jobs, or complain about how much we don't like or work. It is up to the individual to make the best of a bad situation or just dwell on how bad the situation is.  It is a choice. 

Every day we wake up and have a choice to make. We can choose to have a good day or we can choose to have a terrible day.  We can choose to treat people with respect or we can choose to do the opposite. We have a choice in the way that we react to situations and to people.   We choose how to spend our time. It takes a conscious effort to see the beauty and hope in this world instead of focusing on the negative.  

It is easy to see the negative, but it takes work to find the beauty and hope. It is easy to be negative, but it takes work to have a positive attitude. To love unconditionally is hard, to hate is easy.  To intentionally live as Christ did takes work, to live as part of this world is easy. To be on fire for Christ takes effort and work, to be luke warm is easy. 

Make a choice. 

Be that person that doesn't take the easy road.

Do work. 

Every new beginning is another beginnings end.

I am still getting used to writing 2009 on things.  I rang in my new year sick, on my couch, in my pajamas and with plenty of medicine in my system. What a year it has been. This same time back in 2008 I was in Durango, substitute teaching and planning for the Sonlight Summer Camps. I remember at that point in time being so stressed out about where I would be a year from then.  I was employed up until August at Sonlight, but then after that point, it was all up in the air.  

Some one once said that experience is what happens when you don't get what you want.   I had interviewed for my "dream job" out in California in May of 2008. It was my ideal job at that point.  I could see myself in that role. I left the interview very confident.  I ended up getting turned down. I didn't get what I wanted, but I did get the experience. I was so beat down and broken at that point that I was back at square one. I had no plans or prospects once August was over.  

A good friend and mentor of mine told me to spend some quiet time with God.  To go sit in the woods, early morning, clear my head and just listen.  

There I sat....and I listened. 

Then I listened harder. 

And harder. 

God didn't come in a loud booming voice or in extreme circumstances.  An answer to prayer came the next day when I was informed of a posting for a graduate assistantship at Colorado Christian University. I applied, I interviewed and here I sit writing from Denver and employed at Colorado Christian. 

That is the beauty of New Years. It forces us to take a look at the past year and reminisce, reflect and see Christ's presence in the past year. 2008 was a new beginning and another beginnings end for me. It was full of changes. With change presents new adventures, more experience and even a new perspective.  The only thing I can be sure of in 2009 is that it will be full of even more changes and that Christ will be faithful as long as I seek his face daily. 
Philippians 4:6:
   6 -7 Don't fret or worry. Instead of worrying, pray. Let petitions and praises shape your worries into prayers, letting God know your concerns. Before you know it, a sense of God's wholeness, everything coming together for good, will come and settle you down. It's wonderful what happens when Christ displaces worry at the center of your life.