Choose Unity....

It seems like there are so many things that break communities apart: lies, divorce, breakups, backstabbing, picking sides, jealousy, bad communication, and the list goes on and on....and on....and...well you get the picture.

You see the thing is that so often, we all choose to live out one of these things that divides and breaks communities.  I know for me, I often jump to choosing one of these things because it makes me feel better about myself.  I think that in some way by making the other person lesser, I have just made myself better. By beating down someone, I am the better person....right?

I think it is pretty obvious that this is not how it should work...but then how?

For me, I believe that we are all created to live within community with everyone, not just the ones we like, but everyone.  Through this we learn a lot about ourselves, other people, life, love, God and so much more.  It is through us working through the struggles that we learn, that we grow, that we learn to love.

For too long communities have been full of people choosing to divide and making the whole community suffer...I say CHOOSE UNITY!  If we are ever to look like the Body of Christ and live out God's Kingdom here on earth we must all CHOOSE UNITY!  We must be willing to choose love over success, love over fame, love over self, love over personal glory.  We must CHOOSE UNITY!!  To do this, we must choose love, an unselfish love which was shown perfectly in Christ!


"The way God designed our bodies is a model for understanding our lives together as a church: every part dependent on every other part, the parts we mention and the parts we don't, the parts we see and the parts we don't. If one part hurts, every other part is involved in the hurt, and in the healing. If one part flourishes, every other part enters into the exuberance.  You are Christ's body—that's who you are! You must never forget this." -1 Corinthians 12:25-27 Message

So today, this week, for the rest of your life....CHOOSE UNITY, choose to love first.  Choose to deal with the hard stuff and grow through it, not despite it.  Through CHOOSING UNITY, I believe the church will start to heal, and when the church starts to heal, the world will start to be healed by the church...and then we will see what it really looks like to see LOVE REDEEM!!!

This will be far from easy, and it will take time, effort, pain, and tears, but it is worth it!  So today I CHOOSE UNITY!!!! WHAT DO YOU CHOOSE?

We set them up to fail...

I have been back in ministry and school together for the past year and for the most part it is great to be learning theory while being in the practical.  I would say this is the only way to go through seminary or grad school even.

Through our school, we have a retreat format which means we have intense weekends one a month as opposed to weekly classes.  This weekend was one of those weekends, and usually I learn a lot of books stuff and also have a lot of fun in fellowship with many other youth pastors.  This weekend there was something else.  Something worth writing down.

Part of this semester we were broken up into groups and required to write together 6 youth group lesson plans and actual put on one of them for the group.  Friday night was one of the groups turn to share one of their lessons.  Through several different interactive small group activities and a wrap up time, we learned about how often we set people up as perfect, and when they don't live up to that perfection we look down on them or discard them altogether.  It is what we do with Pastors, Teachers, Coaches, people in leadership who are still just people in the end.

One of my peers in the group, Teddy, kept saying throughout the lesson the phrase "We set them up to fail, We set them up to fail,We set them up to fail"  I agreed with him, but did not realize how much more it would apply later this weekend.

So after two days of 10 hours of class each day, and a morning of 2 more hours, we finished our intensive weekend with a special conference with an author of a book we had read (details left out because they are not the point) this semester.  From reading a lot in school, you gain appreciation for authors in their books, but it is rare to hear one talk about the book you read to really hear it from them.  Needless to say, he had written a book, and that in itself is impressive, and it was pretty good a times too so even better.

So I was pretty excited, as I always am to meet and hear from the author.  I expected him to be something special that was a great and better example of what I wanted to be, not perfect but close.

As soon as we started, I realized I had a very wrong impression.  He was arrogant, brash,only allowed himself to speak for the most part, and at one point told me that he assumed that I just didn't care what he had to say because I was on my computer.

I was not happy, and really just stopped listening (even though some of it could be useful).  I had set him up as perfect and he had failed me.  "We set them up to fail, We set them up to fail, We set them up to fail."

We do this all the time in our lives, we build people up and then when they fail us in someway we write them off.  I think the better approach is to remember that we are all human and all fall short, ALL, EVERYONE, PERIOD.

The only one we can look to as perfect is God through Christ, for the rest of us, we need to come at all relationships with love.

"We set them up to fail, We set them up to fail, We set them up to fail."  Why don't we LOVE FIRST ALWAYS, knowing that we can always learn something from everyone and if we look for that as opposed to looking for perfection, maybe we can start Redeeming.

I have learned from this speaker, looking at it this way, that often I write off teen ability to lead or have the drive to do more.  I pray, I will be more open to learning differently from the teens I work with every week.

"We set them up to fail, We set them up to fail, We set them up to fail."  Why don't we LOVE FIRST ALWAYS, knowing that we can always learn something from everyone and if we look for that as opposed to looking for perfection, maybe we can start Redeeming.

Simple Redemption...

One of the simplest
forms of redemption
is picking up
a piece of trash
that wasn't yours.

More about Redemption...

I think that we as Christians are called to be people of redemption. 

Redeem can be defined as to free from what harms, but for me if prefer to set right.  The big idea is God created, and somewhere every early on, humankind messed it up somewhere.  The rest of the story is God working to redeem, set right, the world again. And Jesus, God with us, through his life, teachings, sacrifice, and resurrection, opened the way for us all to be a part of this redemption story!

Redemption can be a very scary idea, because it sounds like it has to be this BIG thing, which is can be, but I believe that God calls us to make choices of Redemption that will all lead to God's Redemption of the world.

So today, what choices can you make to live out of this redemption story God has called us to as Christians?
What ideas do you have?

Where did this blog come from...

For several years now, I have had a bumper sticker on my car that has a black background in simple white letters that reads: "Love Wins."  It was what I felt summed up my belief in faith, God, life, relationships, etc.

As I am in youth ministry and now also in seminary, I have been spending a lot of time reflecting on all of my beliefs, and within it...my understanding of it all has changed a bit.

I have known for some time that from scripture, life, God, OK well everything, that it all came down to one thing: LOVE.  Let me specify that this is not a romantic love, but rather a deep relationship, unselfish, sacrificial type of love. (See Jesus in scripture) 

With this understanding, I realize that within this world today just saying "LOVE" leaves a lot up to the imagination and so by adding another word it helps to guide the mind as to where to go.  This is where "Love Wins." came in.  I felt it help to specify the LOVE idea.


Love Wins is the idea that God is Love and in the end, Gods Wins, not only that but also that it wins in everything we do.


Now, as I have continued on my journey, I feel that LOVE still is the truth for it all, but "Wins." was lacking in helping to define the LOVE.  The problem with "Wins" is that it implies a loser and also a competition; neither of which fit the kind of love I am talking about. 

So, I needed to find another guiding word to point to the kind of LOVE I am referring to.  This is when I came upon the idea of "LOVE REDEEMS."  Still referring to the same LOVE, but having a better guiding word.  "REDEEMS" says it sets things right again, it builds up it doesn't tear down.  "REDEEMS" it what God is all about, and what Jesus did. 

I believe that this represents my understand on the Christian Faith, and the God whom we worship.  Join with me in stories of redemption, faith, love, and so much more....