and they're off!

The race that I call my senior year of college is now underway. The finish line for me is just 9 short months away. On Monday night, as I was getting my room settled for the semester, I looked over my schedule of classes with a confidence that comes in having done this process for the last 3 years. I was ready for the year, excited about my new apartment, and ready to breeze through my classes. Well it only took me about 15 minutes into my Contemporary Apologetics class to come back down to earth. One question that the professor proposed for the class discussion was "what does one need to know to be saved?". After a half an hour of describing and re-describing the ABC's of Christianity (Accept, Believe, Confess), the question that I found most interesting and unsettling for me to think about was "what did people before Christ need to know to be saved?" This is an entirely different question than what one needs to "do" to be saved, but intellectually what do they really need to "know" to be saved?

So this is where I write to you from tonight, at my desk with a question and three blank pages in front of me to wrestle with my answer. Well, I guess I should get back to my paper...

you are the future...

I am currently at the General Council in Indianapolis. Today I attended a luncheon to discuss the new leadership that will change hands tomorrow as our movement known as the Assemblies of God elects a new General Superintendent. The purpose of this lunch was to discuss insights and shed light on shared visions of what the future of our movement could look like. It was very encouraging to see a group of almost 150 people that are interested in finding new and creative ways to do ministry. One of the many topics of discussion during our time together revolved around the idea of the leaders of today establishing mentoring relationships with the leaders of tomorrow. Looking for better ways to advance the kingdom of God is always great. I feel that this could play a vital role in the future of our movement. The saddest times, are those when a movement stops moving. Meetings like today give me great comfort in the fact that we are making progress.

Acting

I am currently in Rhode Island at the SNED Senior High camp. This is our last camp of the summer, but also the last camp ever for me as a member of this team. I have traveled with this team (3D) for the last two summers and I can honestly say that it has been one of the most enriching experiences of my life. The theme for this week is "The Last Stand". This theme took on a whole new meaning that night as I stood on stage at this camp. I realized that night was my “last stand.” This was the last time that I would have the opportunity to minister to students in this capacity. It was literally the last time I would stand on a stage at a camp as a member of this team. I thought a lot that night about all of the great times that I was able to experience as the Lord moved in the hearts and lives of the students we came in contact with.
After service tonight I was talking with a member of the team about t-shirt ideas for next year. I brought up a shirt idea that I had last year for the team. It was a design that said, "The world is our stage." After our conversation about the shirt design, I went back to my room to have some quiet time. I could not get that quote out of my head. “The world is our stage” It was almost as if God was reminding me that even when I stepped off of that stage tonight, I was entering another stage. As Christians, the world is our stage, some may feel like they are playing the lead roles, while other may feel like stand ins, but the important this is not to focus on who is in the limelight, but making sure we don’t step out of character. I know that when we normally think of actors, they are people pretending to be someone they are not. I like to think of the actors on this stage so as people they are not yet, but with Christ’s help can soon become.

“ The world is our stage, so ACT as if God were real.”

I am Free?

A few months ago I traveled to Washington D.C. with a group of students from my school. The trip was called the "Innovative Leadership Experience." A few days into our trip we got bored and decided to play a game. It was called Bigger or Better. We basically took a penny and traded up to see how much we could get with the penny that we started with. We started with a Penny, we traded that for a pen, them we traded that for a flashlight and so on. By the end of the game, we ended up with a bunch of free stuff including a $100 MP3 player. It was amazing! I have to say up front here that one of my favorite words in the English language is the word "free." However my thinking has taken a different direction as of late.
Thinking back to my time in Washington D.C. I can remember the first night of our trip. We decided to go take in the sights of the Lincoln Memorial as well as the other Memorials in the area. After we finished at the Lincoln Memorial, we headed towards the War Memorials. The last time I had seen any of these memorials was in fifth grade, and I can remember laughing it up with some of my friends as we watched a homeless man getting arrested because he would not get out of one of the fountains. This experience was very different than the one in fifth grade. Perhaps it was because I was older and more mature, or it could have even been because of the deep bass voice of one of my close friends giving me in depth descriptions and background information about each and every landmark we came in contact with that night. I was filled with reverence and awe, as though I was in the presence of men who have done so much more for myself and my country than I could ever know or fully appreciate. These were men and women that found a cause that was not only worth living for, but for many of them, it was even worth them giving their lives for. I stood there in that park in the company of names that new more about what "free" means than I could ever learn playing a game with a penny in a mall.
I could sum my entire experience in that park that night with one simple phrase. As we were winding down our time in the park we walked past the Korean War Memorial and there I saw a fountain with an inscription in it. And just as my eyes began to see each words, my friend with the deep bass voice read the words aloud right behind me: "FREEDOM IS NOT FREE." He said, "What a profound thought." I agreed with him and after a few more minutes of silence between us, we headed back to the hotel.
Last week I was on the road with the team and I received a text message from a friend. They asked me if I could pray for them. Their cousin was serving our country in Iraq and the news just reported that He had died in Iraq. I was instantly brought back to my time in D.C. to that inscription on the wall of that fountain. "FREEDOM IS NOT FREE." My friend's cousin left behind three children all under the age of four. This is one of those everyday reminders to me that the freedom that you and I get to have each and every day of our lives cost something. This makes me want to live a different kind of life. One that cherishes each breath, a kind of life that is grateful for even the smallest freedoms, because more than likely those freedoms were secured at a high price.
This kind of thinking brings me right to the cross. To Jesus, one who came to a people that were in the worst kind of bondage, the kind that would lead straight to death. He knew what it would cost to secure freedom and he lived and even gave his life for that freedom. This is why we must live a different kind of live.

3 ft of Velcro

"I'll take 3 feet of Velcro," I said as the woman behind the counter looked at me perplexed. I'd imagine she was wondering what anyone would need three feet of Velcro, 8 yards of elastic and the strongest black sewing string they had available for. I was making a belt! Well, it was actually to be more of a harness than a belt. Each person on the team that I travel with for the summer has a a microphone that is used at each church or camp that we visit. The hands-free microphone attached to a power pack is a little bigger than a deck of cards. I know that sounds small, but when I am moving around on stage it is hard to hold the pack in my pocket and if I try to clip it to my belt, it will fall off. Therefore, I devised this plan to hand-make a holder for this power pack that would go around my waist. Within a few days, I got very excited about my new idea and that is what brought me to this craft store to buy all the supplies I would need for the entire team to produce one of these beauties and be a part of my newest fashion trend.
I can remember the night in a hotel room in western Pennsylvania when I finished this work of art. It had taken me a few hours, and I was surprisingly excited about my new invention. At that point, my excitement did not come from the fact that I would now be able to carry a power pack to a microphone more conveniently. You see to anyone else that looked at this harness, it was just a poorly sewed piece of elastic with some Velcro attached to it. But to me, it was a lot more. It was my creation, it was something that I created for a specific purpose and because I created it, I was excited about it. But that was back in April and by the time the summer came around I had no idea where I had packed it away. Then in the middle of our third week of camp this summer, I was going through a box of different wires and equipment when I came across the harness, my creation. I did not think twice before I took the elastic harness and secured it to the bedpost so that I could have a holder for my cell phone. Then at the end of the week, I had an extra pair of clothes out after I had packed my luggage away in the bus. So wrapped the harness around my extra clothes as I was packing up the last of my things. I remember a passing remark I made to one of my team mates saying, "I can't believe that this is the only use I have gotten out of this all summer!" Last Friday we were at a church in Delaware and as we were unpacking all of our equipment, I came across the harness. I laughed to myself, and brought it with me into the church. That night I used the harness. I know that I had already used to to hold my cell phone and to secure some of my clothes, but I began to feel that excitement that I had back when I created it. This is because I was experiencing this harness doing exactly what it was created to do, and as the one who created it, I was overjoyed to see how good of a job it was doing. Now I know at this point you might be laughing to yourself thinking "It's just a belt, what is the big deal?" But, like I said before, this excitement is rooted in the fact that I created it for a specific purpose and it was doing exactly what I had created it to do.
Now think about God, the One who created you and I, the One who has a specific purpose for each one of our lives. I can not imagine how excited God gets when He sees those He created doing exactly when He created them to do. It is comforting to know that there is a God who loves me and has a plan for my life.
I want to become the kind of person that lives this kind of life, one that is committed to exactly what it was created for, whether it would be a musician, millionaire or even a microphone holder.

Idea

First Impressions...

"You can only make one first impression."

Today the team is traveling to Hartford City, Indiana to spend the week in ministry at a youth camp. This is the first time that these students will ever see our ministry team from Valley Forge Christian College. We are very excited about this new adventure for our team. As we have been traveling for the summer, some of the members of the team have been mistaken for past members of the team by students. We always have a good laugh when this happens. This is why it will be so exciting to go and minister at an entirely new camp, we get a chance to make a first impression.
This reminds me of Christianity in general here in the 21st century. Have you ever told someone that you are a Christian and immediately they stereotype you with a ton of stuff that has nothing to do with following Jesus? This may have been because that person's first impression of Jesus was not enjoyable for them. This is why I get so excited to read about the early church right after the time of Jesus. In the book of Acts, these followers of Jesus received power from this upper room experience where the Holy Spirit was poured out upon them, then they went and began to change their world with the message of Christ. I love reading through those stories where Paul is telling people about Jesus for the first time. This was their first impression of Jesus and some of the people that heard this message were never the same again. Even though a lot of the people of that time had heard very similar stories about virgin births and resurrections from the dead about other gods, the message of Christ resonated inside of these people as they got the stripped away, raw understanding of who Christ really was and how they could be a part of this new movement that in some ways was completely against the culture of their time, yet it connected with something deep inside of many people and they began this movement that we call Christianity today. I get excited about first impressions, hopefully our time here in Indiana is a life changing experience not only for the teens that we come in contact with, but our lives as well.