this hour

"Now my heart is troubled, and what shall I say? 'Father, save me from this hour'? No, it was for this very reason that I came to this hour. Father, glorify your name!"

I love my dad. He is so many things to me. My dad. A confidant. My number one fan. A teacher. A mentor. A support. A role model. A hero. A friend.

July 21st: I got a call from my mom wondering if Heather and I could meet and talk with my parents in person the next day. My gut-reaction was "this can't be good."

July 22nd: My gut-reaction was confirmed. My dad was diagnosed with prostate cancer. Cancer? Cancer.

After that, Heather asked most of the questions, my mom answered. Dad and I just sat there in silence. Cancer? It's been almost three months and I still can't convey my thoughts and emotions from that day. I just remember the overwhelming weight of the fear I felt. I spent the next few days and weeks researching prostate cancer, praying for my dad, and trusting that there was a plan. My parents spent those days and weeks meeting with oncologists, radiologists and other "-ists"; praying; and trying to find the best plan.

September 30th: Surgery, City of Hope. All over friends, family, acquantainces, and complete strangers prayed for dad and his doctors. Dad and mom got there at 5:30am, Heather, Sean, Jenna, and I got there around 6:45am. Dad was already being prepped for surgery. He did call right before they took him back, but only mom got to see him. 10:45am Doctor came out and said surgery went well and commented that dad's in really good physical shape which helped. 11:45am Dad is brought from recovery into his room. He sleeps most of the day, waking up only when the pain made him.

He was released from the hospital the next afternoon and came home to begin the healing process. The thing about dad is that he has a high tolerance for pain; doesn't react well to pain medicatoin; and doesn't communicate when he is in pain. So it's hard to really guage how much pain he is in.

October 6th: Post-operation meeting with COH staff. Turns out cancer had spread into the fat and/or tissue immediately surrounding the prostate. That means radiation treatment, but his doctors aid that would take care of the rest of the cancer. That was a blow to what we hoped was going to be a "one and done" type cancer surgery.

October 14th: Mom calls right before our small group started. Dad's leg is swollen, which could be a sign of a blood clot, which can be a side-effect of any surgery. The ER is busy, so it takes a long time to get tests done, but they finally decide to admit him and run some more tests.

That's where we stand now. Dad's in the hospital (Los Robles), mom is there as well, I'm sure, and I cannot sleep.

At our small group, I shared what was going on with my dad. I also told them that my biggest prayer for this trial is that God is glorified through this. I said I didn't know what that looks like in this situation, but that's what I want. Kasey shared a verse from John 12:27. It says "Now my heart is troubled, and what shall I say? 'Father, save me from this hour'? No, it was for this very reason I came to this hour. Father, glorify your name!"

Take my life and let it be
all for you and for your glory
take my life and let it be yours

stolen spotlight

"Taylor, I’m really happy for you and imma let you finish, but Beyonce had one of the best videos of all time! One of the best videos of all time!"

First, I'll say that this is a little bit delayed... I mean, it happened almost a month ago. But I was thinking about it today...

I heard someone say that it wasn't whatKanye said. It was when he said it. They said that his message wasn't necessarily bad (the message being "Beyonce had one of the best videos of all time"), just that he delivered it in the middle of someone else's acceptance speech. Had he said this same thing at another time, it would have been fine.

The message of Christ is similar to Beyonce's music video. Too often, it seems that Christians choose the wrong opportunity to share Christ with others or put him on display. Kanye interrupting Taylor Swift is like the guys I saw outside of a sporting event a few years back. They were literally yelling at the fans as they left the game, telling everyone within earshot that they were going to hell and needed to repent.

The message was essentially: "Jesus came to save you." The message is true! The timing is... not. Ephesians 4:15 (NLT) says "speak the truth in love."

We have the choice. Steal the spotlight and force people to hear our message or earn the audience's respect and attention and then share the message of Christ in love.

Learn from Kanye's mistake. People don't respect the message that's given in a stolen spotlight.

Catalyst Last

:: CATALYST WEST :: APRIL 23-24, 2009 ::

:: Perry Noble :: You Can Do This

Ezekiel 37

- The size of the vision God will give you is directly related to the pain and discomfort you're willing to go through.

Playing with Pain
1 - Trust Him
--Ministry starts when God's hand is on us.
--Sometimes ministry is dryness and dryness always leads to desperation.
--I don't want to preach nice sermons

2 - Believe him
--Just do what God told you to do and God will tell you what to do next.
--What would you be willing to attempt for God if you knew you could not fail?
--we consistently obeyed Jesus and, when we were ready for it, he blew our freakin' minds!
--Reasons we run from big vision God gives us :: 1-fear :: 2-laziness :: 3-discovery is more important than development
--Leadership is as easy as listening to God. "Dude, pick up that hammer."
--It's not about imitation, but revelation.

3 - Honor Him
...by finishing what you've started
--As leaders we get so close and then we stop and wait for something to happen.
--God says "I'm not through with you!"

Ephesians 3:20 :: Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us ::

Chan

:: CATALYST WEST :: APRIL 23-24, 2009 ::

:: Francis Chan ::

1 Timothy 6:15 :: which God will bring about in his own time—God, the blessed and only Ruler, the King of kings and Lord of lords ::

- If you hear your name in conversation more than you hear "the holy spirit" your congregation won't go anywhere!
- Do I say "I'll follow only if..?" or "I'll follow even if..?"
- I never read the book of Acts, put it down and go, "that's just like us!"
- Our churches are so stoppable today!

Acts 4:13 :: When they saw the courage of Peter and John and realized that they were unschooled, ordinary men, they were astonished and they took note that these men had been with Jesus. ::

- When do I pray for boldness? When do we pray for boldness?
- Exegesis vs. Isogesis
- If you started with scripture, would you come up with church the way we do it?
- I was taught to teach exegetically, but I wasn't taught to live that way.

John 6:63 :: The Spirit gives life; the flesh counts for nothing. The words I have spoken to you are spirit and they are life. ::

- It is not my flesh at all, but God's spirit.

Thoughts from the Saddle

:: CATALYST WEST :: APRIL 23-24, 2009 ::

Summer always seems to be the craziest time of year for me. Summer camp, family vacations, and the invariable summer-move-in-to-a-new-house have kept me busy and I haven't posted in a while. I've got three more blog posts focusing on Catalyst West (from way back in April). It'll be a barrage of great insight from wise Christian men who have more experience in ministry than I do.



:: Rick Warren ::

-These are people Jesus died for.

As Leaders we need to do the following:
- Divert Daily :: What energizes you? If you work with your mind, you need to relax with your hands.
- Withdraw Weekly :: If you don't take a sabbath, you are sinning! Call it "sabbath" and treat it that way.
- Abandon Anually :: don't take your laptop or your cell phone.

- Energy management is more important than time management.
- If you do ministry Jesus's way, you will last in ministry. If you do it your way you will not last.
- Jesus is the model. Not Rick Warren, not Andy Stanley.
- Never stop learning. Learn from everybody. You need to be humble.
- Never compare yourself (for two reasons)
1 - Discouragement
2 - Pride
- Never give up.
- I don't try to be profound, I try to be simple.
- To move people from unbeliever to missionary you need to have an intentional plan and it must be incremental.
- Take people from "come and see" to "come and die." A church has to be both. You cannot be one or the other.
- I'm not interested in a crowd, I'm interested in an army!


Rick had a couple of important points for leaders to remember. We need to take breaks and ministry needs to be modeled after Jesus.

Foundational

: CATALYST WEST :: APRIL 23-24, 2009 ::

Recently, I went to the CATALYST WEST conference in southern California. The conference was packed with great speakers. I took some notes on what they said and am putting them on my blog so that 1) I can re-evaluate what each speaker said and hopefully gain something from it, and 2) you might be able to gain something from my notes as well.

Here is the fourth installation.

:: Ravi Zacharias ::

Foundational Pillars
1) The Dimension of Eternity
2) The Dimension of Morality
-You Can never be righteous until you are redeemed. You can never worship until you have been righteous and redeemed.
-What you applaud, you encourage, but be careful of what you celebrate. What is the world asking us to celebrate?
3) The Dimension of Accountability
4) The Dimension of Charity



With Ravi, I was listening so intently because I had to in order to comprehend what he was saying. The thing that stood out to me most from his message was not even in my notes. He told a story:

Someone was telling Ravi about the first entirely postmodern building built in the United States. The person told him that the entire building was made without any purpose. The man raved about the building and the idea behind it. When he was done, Ravi simply asked one question, "Did the architect apply the same principle to the foundation?"

What is foundational in your life?

"Therefore everyone who hears these words of mine and puts them into practice is like a wise man who built his house on the rock. The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house; yet it did not fall, because it had its foundation on the rock. But everyone who hears these words of mine and does not put them into practice is like a foolish man who built his house on sand. The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house and it fell with a great crash." Matthew 7:24-27

Line 3 Believers

: CATALYST WEST :: APRIL 23-24, 2009 ::

Recently, I went to the CATALYST WEST conference in southern California. The conference was packed with great speakers. I took some notes on what they said and am putting them on my blog so that 1) I can re-evaluate what each speaker said and hopefully gain something from it, and 2) you might be able to gain something from my notes as well.

Here is the third installation.

:: Craig Groeschel ::

"I Was Taught And I Thought..."

Romans 12:2 - Don't be conformed to the pattern of the American church.

1) I was taught and I thought ... that the church should be a safe place. But I'm learning that the church needs to be dangerous again!
-Preach Christ! Preach dangerously.
-Don't trust the package, trust the power of the message of Jesus.
-So many people are cultural Christians but practical Atheists.
-Lukewarm pastors create/foster lukewarm churches.

2) I was taught and I thought ... my highest calling was to build my church, but I'm learning that my highest calling is to build His Kingdom.
-Are you more concerned with building our kingdom than building His Kingdom?
-Don't build your church on what you aren't, but what you are.
-Your church will never reach your entire community.

3) I was taught and I thought ... that success is only found in the big numbers, but I'm learning the scorecard is changing.
-Don't blame yourself for the decline or you'll be tempted to take credit for the increase.
-We need to see ourselves as a small church with a mega-vision.
-People don't want to join a mega-church, they want to join a mega-vision.
-How can we celebrate the numbers in our church when so many are lost?

What Line Believer are you?
Line 1 - I believe in the Gospel enough to benefit from it.
Line 2 - I believe in the Gospel enough to contribute comfortably.
Line 3 - I believe in the Gospel enough to give my life to it.

We need to be Line 3 believers!



I'm tempted to infuse my thoughts here, but I think Craig said it best, so I'll leave it at that.

Five and Nine

: CATALYST WEST :: APRIL 23-24, 2009 ::

Recently, I went to the CATALYST WEST conference in southern California. The conference was packed with great speakers. I took some notes on what they said and am putting them on my blog so that 1) I can re-evaluate what each speaker said and hopefully gain something from it, and 2) you might be able to gain something from my notes as well.

Here is the second installation.

:: Guy Kawasaki ::

10 Keys to Innovation

1) Make meaning.
2) Make mantra - Are there two or three words that can describe your church/ministry?
3) Jump to the next curve - If you design your [church] around what you (programming), you'll miss the next curve.
4) Roll the DICE
D = Deep
I = Intelligent
C = Complete
E = Elegant
E = Emotive
5) Don't worry, be crappy - get it out there, then perfect it.
6) Polarize people - it is impossible to please everyone. Something great creates controversy.
7) Let 100 flowers blossom
8) Churn baby, churn
9) Niche thyself - what makes our church unique and valuable?
10) Follow 10, 20, 30 rule
10 - optimal number of slides
20 - minutes for presentation
30 - size font
11) Don't let the bozos grind you down
"If you want to see what God thinks of money, look at who He gives it too."


Guy is a Christian who is well-known in the business world, having worked with Apple Computers for years before starting his own company.

Some of his points might not make much sense if you weren't at the conference to hear him elaborate on these points. Others might seem like they fit in a business model, but not a church. What I'll do is just focus on two of the points that I think we apply in a church setting most easily: #5 and #9 (with a little #6 mixed in).

5) Don't worry, be crappy. In ministry we often try to create the "perfect" (insert noun here - program, event, resource, etc). But what about those kids, students, adults who are in our ministry while we our work is still in progress? They miss out. Wouldn't it be better to give them a mediocre product and refine it, than to give them nothing at all?

9) Niche thyself. The value of a church is simple, it is the message of Christ. But in order to draw in outsiders*, our delivery must be unique. If people have avoided church thus far, why wait for them to change? We need to change the delivery to reach them. If we want to see our church be truly effective, we need to reach fewer people more completely, than reach people en masse superficially.



*Kinnaman, David. Unchristian: What a new generation really thinks about Christianity ... and why it matters.

Uncertainty

:: CATALYST WEST :: APRIL 23-24, 2009 ::

Recently, I went to the CATALYST WEST conference in southern California. The conference was packed with great speakers. I took some notes on what they said and am putting them on my blog so that 1) I can re-evaluate what each speaker said and hopefully gain something from it, and 2) you might be able to gain something from my notes as well.

Here is the first installation.

:: Andy Stanley ::

Uncertainty is why we have jobs. Uncertainty is why we need leaders.

Life is uncertain, but God is not uncertain.

Uncertainty is not an indication of poor leadership, uncertainty is the arena in which great leadership is found.

Uncertainty is when God shows up.

Clarity :: As a leader it is okay to be uncertain, but it is not okay to be unclear.
Flexibility :: Plans change, vision remains the same.

In uncertain times, to be clear we need to go back to the original thing we were called to.

Joshua 1:10-11 :: So Joshua ordered the officers of the people: "Go through the camp and tell the people, 'Get your supplies ready. Three days from now you will cross the Jordan here to go in and take possession of the land the Lord your God is giving you for your own.' "

The reason a lot of churches are dead is because people long abandoned the vision and fell in love with the plan.

No decision was sacred, but he never changed the vision. (referring to Sam Walton, founder of Walmart)

BE HONEST (when sharing vision)!

Leadership is not making decisions on your own; it's about owning them once the decision has been made.

teachable moment?

Two in one day? You may say I'm getting carried away... and I might agree. I'm just feeling contemplative.

Some think God is trying to teach us something in every situation. The other day, through [Lemony Snicket's] a series of unfortunate events (I couldn't help it), I ended up having to clean coolant off of my car. I lifted my windshield wipers to clean the windshield and the wipers as well. I then opened the hood to clean off any coolant in the engine compartment... forgetting that one of the wipers was still up. I cracked my windshield, cracks going from the bottom of the windshield all the way to the top.

Don't worry, though, I paid to have it fixed.

Which brings me to my point: What is God trying to teach me in this moment?

I am stupid. Seriously. I am not nearly as smart as I think I am. God has a sense of humor and was just using my windshield to remind me that He knows more than I do. Lesson learned for now. I'll forget and have to pay another $155 to replace my windshield again... or something else that I break in my stupidity.

Play in the yard?

I visited my parents last weekend and went to church with them. While sitting in church a thought struck me so I started writing. Here is what I wrote:

"Before I make this analogy, I'll say this: analogies are frustrating in that they will always be incomplete or fall short or fail on some level. Yet there is still value in them because they [in this case] help us to better understand who God is.

With that out of the way, here's the analogy:

God guides like a parent. Sometimes he says [something like] 'clean your room before you go play' (specific guidance). Other times he says, 'go play just don't leave the yard/street' (general guidance). The tough part is learning to discern the difference!"


NOTE: anything in [brackets] I added to clarify.

My mentor, Brian Holland, has said something like this before. I'm just stealing the idea from him... because it's a good one. And I don't bring this up for no reason. right now, I am trying to figure out what God, my Dad, wants me to do... play in the yard or clean my room? What do you want, Dad?

El Hombre

"You know how I want people to remember me?" [El Hombre] asks. "I don't want to be remembered as the best baseball player ever. I want to be remembered as a great guy who loved the Lord, loved to serve the community and who gave back. That's the guy I want to be remembered as when I'm done wearing this uniform. That's from the bottom of my heart."

How many professional athletes would say that? And how many would truly think that? Very few. It's one thing to say that, and maybe even think it, but it is another thing entirely to live it.

El Hombre. The Man. Read the Article Here.

Just a Character

I've never written a book. I certainly enjoy reading books (primarily fiction) and think that it could be a fun adventure to my hand at writing. I think the most exciting idea of writing is that, as an author, you are completely in control. An author has unlimited choices when writing the book. He can create and destroy, give and take. The author can do whatever he wants because it is his story.

Let's think about a recent movie to help me illustrate that point. The Dark Knight. If you've seen it, do you remember Detective Anna Ramirez? No? Well, she was the detective that worked for Lt. James Gordon and she ended up helping the Joker and Two-Face. Anyway, my point is that she was a relatively small character in the movie. What if, after reading through the script, she said, "I think this story should have me in it more. You're focusing too much on the Joker and Batman. The real story here is my role in deceiving everyone." What if she said that? The author/director would probably explain to her that the movie wasn't about her. The story is really about how Batman saves Gotham City from the Joker and in the end sacrifices himself for the greater good. It wasn't about Anna Ramirez, but she did get to be part of the story!

Let's think about another story for a second. The Story of the World. You are in it, whether you want to be or not. You are playing yourself and, I hate to break it to you, but you have a fairly small role. The title won't have your name in it, most people probably won't even notice that your in the story.

But you are. You are in this story. It's just not your story. It's God's. And just like Detective Anna Ramirez, you can think, "this story should have me in it more. You are focusing too much on [Jesus]. The real story is my role." Okay, Okay. I know that you would never say this. But how much do you think it? How often do you stop and realize that this story that you are taking a part of is not about you at all? I know I rarely think about it.

The story is really about how Jesus saves us from sin and in the end sacrifices himself for us. The story was not ever about us. We are just a character in the story, but we get to be in the story!

God is not in my story, because it is not my story. I am in His story. Just a character, and a minor one at that. But I am glad God saw something in me to give me the part.

Cliche Love

'Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails.' -I Corinthians 13

This is so cliche. It's quoted too often. Overused. Boring. Irrelevant. Impossible.

If that is the case, our perspective needs to change. Love never fails.

Actions fail. Words fail. Thoughts fail. But Love never fails.
People fail. Money fails. Possessions fail. But Love never fails.
Work fails. Institutions fail. Countries fail. But Love never fails.
Life fails. Liberty fails. "The pursuit of happiness" fails. But Love never fails.


Love never fails. It's patient and kind.
It is not jealous or boastful or proud or rude.
It does not demand its own way. It is not irritable, and it keeps no record of when it has been wronged.
It is never glad about injustice but rejoices whenever the truth wins out.
It never gives up, never loses faith, is always hopeful, and endures through every circumstance.
Love never fails.

Happy Valentine's Day!

random consistency

I started this blog a while ago. This will be my third post. Dating back to October 2007. If I tried to "update" everything since my last post, this would get pretty long. So, I'm not going to do that. I'll just give you three thoughts for the day:

1 - marriage is full of wonder, hope, teachable moments, and love.

2 - beauty can be found in the desert.

2 - love is never more apparent than when it is given even when it is not reciprocated.