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Whoa.. Remember this blog??

The Rock- You can trust God to be with you in bad times because you’ve seen how faithful He’s been.

     This week I play the character Vinny (extreme sports dude) along with Marshall (odd ball) and Gordo (nerd/genius). Vinny walks on stage with a broken skateboard, convinced that his only way in the world is through professional skate boarding, his world, and thus his faith, is shaken. Marshall soon follows with a bunch of Popsicle sticks. He was trying to build the world's largest tower of Popsicle sticks when a piece of my broken skateboard hit his tower. Marshall's faith is also shaken. Grandpa Henry, the wise old man, tries to inform us that we're being a bit drastic. Then, Gordo enters saying that his remote controlled lawn mower has gone nuts and was responsible for my broken skateboard. He feels like a failure and wonders, as all the boys do, "Why do bad things always happen to me?".

     In the end, Marshall gets a new copy of his record books and realizes his tower was going to be too short anyways and he would have needed to start over. Then Gordo receives some mail from "The Young Inventors Club" informing him if he submits one more bad submission, he's out. Gordo is thankful his lawnmower flipped out now as opposed to later on at the contest. Vinny then pieces it all together with the line: "Bros! This is just like Grandpa Henry has been saying: Bad times or bad things turning out to be blessings later on in life."

     So how does this reflect into my life as a leader in the student ministry or to our ministry as a whole?

     This seems like a lesson we could always use. It's usually not anything like a skateboard or a tower of sticks as we become adults, but more like car wrecks and failed projects. Recently I had a friend tell me about the trials in her life. All within about a year of each other. First, her unhealthy relationship with her boyfriend of nearly four years came to a sudden end. Being the mature Christian she is, she quickly realized the blessing this was, although she still dealt with a lot of emotional turmoil. More recently, she was told one of the worst things any child could hear, that her parents were getting a divorce. Her father, a leader in the church, informed the service that he would be resigning from his position. She told me how her and her father had really been butting heads with all that had been going on. To make matters worse, she claims, "he's even starting to turn away from God."

     A few weeks later at lunch, her recently graduated from high school sister, informs her that she is three months pregnant. Despite the baby being healthy, the doctor says that her sister's health isn't as good. With a mild case of depression, weight loss, and overwhelming anxiety they fear that it may effect the babies health. The younger sister is currently without a job and the father has several struggles he's currently dealing with.

     She tells me all this not for sympathy or as an excuse for anything but to make a request. A request for prayer.  Rarely does she change the topic to herself, if at all.

     Her maturity amazes me. She feels that God made her go through the break up with her boyfriend to be encouragement to her mother. She grasp the magnitude of the divorce by comparing how heart wrenched she was over four years, and compares it to the pain her mother must be feeling after TWENTY-FOUR years of marriage and three children. She ends each story with "Please pray for...(God's truth to be clear, God's spirit to lead, God's love, God's mercy, God centered life, God to give peace,)"

     Never have I been so encouraged by such devastating news to one of my friends. Not because of any update on the status of any of the situations, but because of the spiritual maturity and humility (not to make this about how hard it is on her, but the need of prayer for her loved ones) by her in this situation. She's truly someone that doesn't need to be reminded that "bad times or bad things" can turn into blessings later on in life.

Take the story of my friend or take the story from the sketch and look at your year coming up in the ministry or in your studies. When I asked people, "What's one piece of advice you can offer me going into being a leader in the ministry?", overwhelmingly the answer was this: Don't get discouraged. If a study doesn't take off, if my small-group isn't clicking, whatever may happen, we can remember this:


"And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose." -Romans 8:28


Love you guys. God bless and please pray for me friend and her family.


     Next post I change it up. I talk about the impact of the high school ministry on my good friend and future room mate Samuel Flynt and how a young boy changed his heart and brought several people to tears at a local church retreat.   

finding my Father

Ok, here comes the mandatory VBS post. I feel like just because I'm helping with that, there's that obligation to do it, even though there's really not or whatever. And I promise, this one's good (at least I think so, but I also like Demi Lovato, fart jokes, and peas with barbecue sauce, so it's your call).

Anyways, so there's this little girl named Ali, and I tell you this, she makes "top 5 cutest girls that ever lived" NO contest. We're talking about the girl who had to make two trips to the bathroom, because the second time she had to go poop. And YES, she said POOP. I know, awesome right? But the thing that was really different about her was, she wanted her dad to take her, not just some other helper. In fact, she was the only little one that was having problems being away from her parentals (at least the only one that vocalized it). Well, all the other VBS staff is more strict than me, so after that second trip, they started to be more firm about her being in class... until she said she needed to go poop, again (She said poop again, it was so cool). So my mom asks me to bring her to find her dad, so he can take her to the bathroom. Well, so we're looking all over the place (even though I know that he's not there) and she's constantly saying that we have to find her dad. That we NEED to find him. And I (being the weirdly associating person that I am) was like, "hey, I could relate her finding her dad to today's VBS lesson" (the lesson was Luke 2:41-52, the boy Jesus in the temple) except be like, "hey we're trying to find your dad just like Jesus's parents were trying to find Him." I was thinking about that for a while, until VBS was over, and she was finally reunited with her dad and she said bye to me, and in a cute awwwwwwwww voice, proclaimed, "Thank you for helping me find my dad!"

And then it hit me. That's when I felt the message Jesus was giving me. In this little girl was the burning desire to find her dad, and that was it. She didn't want to color, she didn't want to act out a Bible story, she didn't wanna play with a puppet, she wanted to find her dad. And I got it. I wanted to find my Father. I wanted to have that same desire to drop every distraction people would throw at me and just go seek my Heavenly Father. To seek and strengthen that relationship with Him, just as He seeks me. Isn't that what it's all about?

This little girl showed me what I wasn't doing, and I got it. Thank you so much Ali, I am so looking forward to seeing you tomorrow at VBS! :)

Forgiveness is Bliss

After reading the post by Cody I thought of this article! Though the steps are a guide on forgiving others, they can definitely be applied to ourselves. If there is something that you have not forgiven yourself for, you should post and share about it only you are comfortable with doing so. I think it will be something great we could all pray about during the week.

A Wrathful, Jealous God. And why that is good news

I was reading Is God a Moral Monster? by Paul Copan today, (which by the way our School of Ministry class starts this thursday if you still wanna join and lean about the God of the Old Testament) and as I was reading, I thought to myself, someone could write an awesome sermon out of these first few chapters. Thats really how good they are, they not only refute silly attacks on the nature of God (so far they have been silly) but the explanation leaves me with a much fuller understanding of who God is, his character, and nature. And it is beautiful.



The chapter that stuck out to me talks about God's jealousy for his people. The question is, isnt it immoral for God to be jealous? On the surface this may seem like a good argument. "You said God was loving, but but how can a loving God be jealous?" And they would be right if God were a teenage girl in the sky obsessing that she diddnt get invited to the slumber party, and all the cool girls did. But this is not the case.


God is jealous in the Old Testament beause his people have forsaken and forgotten Him. God established the nation of Israel and continually seeks to bless them, but they reject Him. God laments in Ezekiel 6:9: "how I have been hurt by their adulterous hearts which turned away from Me, and by their eyes which played the harlot after their idols." And in Isaiah 65: "I have spread out my hands all day long to a rebellious people, who walk in the way which is not good, following their own thoughts, a people who continually provoke me to my face." God has invested in these people, and is rewarded with indifference or rejection.


God continually compares His relationship to His people as a marrage. But what man or woman, if they really love their spouse, would not feel jealous if they caught their significant other in bed with another? But this is how God feels in the Old Testament! His wife (Israel) has turned from him to worship idols and other false gods. Wouldnt you be upset?


I, for one, am glad for God's jealousy, because it proves that He loves us. God is not a removed, indifferent God, but He wants a relationship with us.


God's jealousy reminds me of another attribute of His that is very unpopular in our society: God's wrath. The objection is that a loving God whould never be filled with wrath or anger, He should accept everyone, right? I am glad that I serve a God who sees a difference whether someone cares for the sick, or punches babies, a God who doesnt would be a moral monster. He would also be rather unloving.


If you really love someone, and they are hurt by a person or situation, shouldnt you feel angry? In fact wrath and anger are born out of love. If you dont love someone then wrath and anger are not possible, because you dont care. I am glad that God cares about us, enough that He would get angry or wrathful when bad things happen, because it shows that he actually cares what happens. God is not a nihilistic, impersonal diety. God is a Just Judge. He cares when we hurt others, because He loves everyone. He holds us accountable, because those we have hurt matter to Him. And He loves us so much that He sent His Son to die for us who have hurt those He loves.

The Rock: Faith—trusting in what you can’t see because of what you can see.

Bottom Line: You can trust that God will keep His promises because you can see the promises He’s kept.

     This is the basis behind everything we do this week. Talking to the kids about what it means to have faith through (extreme) examples and supporting it with the word.

     To start, I played a character named Tyler along with characters named Gordo and Samantha. Tyler's shtick is that he films everything. Gordo is a genius, nerd that's also extremely awkward. Samantha is in love with the earth, always trying to protect everything on it.

     The basic story is that Samantha is riding her new bike around and accidentally runs over a turtle. She's devastated that she's taken a life of one of God's creatures and is convinced God will want nothing to do with her because of her actions. Later, during a funeral for the turtle, Gordo shares a few prepared words, ending with this:
   "That means that nothing can come between us and God’s love—not death, not fear, not even a terrible accident. Let me close with this passage from Hebrews, “Never will I leave you; never will I forsake you” (Hebrews 13:5, NIV)."

     Samantha then comes to the realization through Gordo's entire speech that God won't leave her no matter what. ---------------------------------------------



     I look at this extreme story and see the parallel into my own life. It might seem ridiculous when shown in the above light, but the fact is that people all around us are in this situation. People think "With the life I've lived, there's no way God would want anything to do with me." or "With everything I've done recently, I can't show my face in a church". I have a friend who frequently jokes, because of his atheistic beliefs, that he would burn if he went into a church. One time our "second mom" (the mom of one of our friends, that we all kind of adopt as our second mom because we see her and love her as our own) told us all to come inside before our friend left for a trip so that we could all pray. He jokingly responded, "ah man, I'm going to hell".

     I say all this to make a point that although WE KNOW about our Father's unconditional love, other people have only HEARD of it. They need a "Gordo" to show them the information that they haven't fully grasped.

     I'll finish with a story that I told my good friend when they said they didn't feel like they could go back to church because of how sinful of a life they had recently lived. They planned on going back, but wanted to put it off a little while.

     When I was about 13 years old my father was very upset at me for something I had done. I'm pretty sure I had gotten in a fight with my step-mom. So when my father got home, I ran away. I walked around the neighborhood for an hour or so just in case my dad went looking for me. I walked through all the side streets and ended up at a McDonald's not too far away. I sat quietly at a corner booth crying tears of anger and worry. About an hour later I see my father's truck pull up to McDonald's. In my mind the smartest thing to do was to take off running. So I went out the side door of the McDonald's and hid next to a bank by some bushes. A gentleman from McDonald's walked over to me and asked if I was okay. Through my tears and my jumping breathe I told him I was fine and that I didn't need anything. My dad, of course, drove off. With the way things are now, had he come over there and just grabbed me and threw me in the truck (like I'm sure he wanted to do), the cops would have swarmed that place.
     I sat by those bushes for about 10-15 minutes, although it felt much longer. I eventually got up and got back to walking the streets. I knew that I had made a marginal situation even bigger. How upset my dad was before was nothing compared to how upset he was going to be now. I wandered the streets for another half hour to an hour just getting the courage to go back home. Eventually, I made the trek back to that two bedroom house where I assumed my father would be waiting on the couch, if not the porch with belt in hand ready to take care of his embarrassment of a son. I dragged my feet up the red brick stairs and through the white door to find my dad on the couch. With no belt in sight. My entire neck was drenched in tears.
     Everything I had pictured happening, the wrath, the belt, the anger, didn't happen. The only emotion my father showed was relief. Relief that his son had come home and wasn't hurt. After the relief, we talked about my mistakes. He punished me, of course, but the majority of punishment was dealt by me towards him in the hours leading up to my return.
     We can turn our back on our Father, but the Good News is that He will never turn his back on us


     I told my friend this story to let them know that God doesn't mind your mistakes. Your scars are just marks of beauty to him. All He wants is for you to be home. Take a look at that in your life, as I do the same. Are there people around you that want a relationship with Christ but feel less than worthy because of their past mistakes? Is there something in your life that you can't forgive yourself of, even though Christ already has? Don't let something like that get in the way of a growing and healthy relationship with the one you love.


Next time I write, it will probably be to tell the story of a group of friends learning to trust God throughout "bad times". Later bros and brahs

Praying for the heart of our Father.

Hello, all my dear friends!

I'm sorry for not posting earlier, but it has been such a blessing to still hear your thoughts and know what God is working in your hearts even while we are apart for a while! Your posts have left me with much to ponder and pray about in my own walk as well as for you and our ministry. They have been great encouragements for me to not allow myself to become idle in my spiritual growth. So thank you for sharing!

While I've been away from you, I have been blessed to be working as a nanny for one of the most Godly and loving families I've ever known. And in my free time, I babysit for some couples in my church. So I am constantly surrounded by children! It's exhausting, and I do miss older company, but what I am taking away from my time with them is worth every dirty diaper I have to change or toy I pick up or mess I have to clean off the walls.

Something I noticed last semester is how incredibly generous all my focus friends are. Probably the biggest example I can think of is when Danyelle and I asked everyone at our Monday night hang-out to pitch in for desserts and every single one of you tried to give us at least 5 times more than we had spent. It may not have been such a big deal to any of you, but it touched my heart to see the same friends who would eat at Kerr rather than go out with everyone on Sunday afternoons to save money, giving up that money without a second thought. It inspired me to ask God to give me a more generous heart. Apparently, there is no better way to do that than to spend all your time with kids.

Babies are the most generous people on the planet. All they do all day long is hand you things they find on the floor. The baby girl I take care of will even pick fuzz off the carpet just so she can give it to me. She plays with her toys, but she much prefers to give them to me to play with. The 4 year old and 7 year old are less preoccupied with giving me "gifts," but they still amaze me with their selflessness. When they are taking turns playing with toys, they will often give up their turn so the other sister can play with whatever it is longer. When I took the 4 year old to a birthday party, she saved her goody-bag to give to her sister. I often hear one or the other of them talk about her sister giving her her toy because the other sister's matching toy had broken.

I'm sure some of the reason this all seems strange to me is that I haven't had to share "toys" or clothes or much of anything for a very long time. Maybe I've just gotten out of the habit. But I think most of it is due to my subconscious practice of labeling all things as either "mine" or "not mine" (i.e. "yours"). This, paired with belief that what is "not mine" is none of my concern and, conversely, what is "mine" should be none of anyone else's concern, has given me plenty of opportunity to practice selfishness, apathy, and occasionally a feeling of superiority. This may not seem relevant to praying for a generous heart, until you apply it to something like knowledge of our ultimate truth (God) and a personal relationship with the Creator of life. I'm sure a lot of our generation would agree that a religious belief is "mine" and "none of anyone else's concern," and that I have just as little right to make another person's religious beliefs my business.

Something Geoff said at SICM brought all this together for me. (I can't remember exactly what he said, so this is just what I got from it:) It is the ultimate display of hatred toward a fellow human being to know what harm they are coming to, a way to prevent it, and to keep that knowledge to one's self. There is no excuse for the amount of selfishness there is in knowing what grace and peace come from living in relationship with our Savior, and keeping from someone who is walking through life without it.

So it has been, and continues to be, my prayer for myself as well as for all of us, that we would have hearts of generosity. That we would be so filled with our Father's love for his children that we could not contain it. That no amount of cultural training could keep us from spreading the truth we know. Because it is not "our" truth. It is the truth. And the blessings that come from loving like that are beyond anything we could ever dream.