I have decided that I do not like it when I open someone's blog and it has music embedded in it. I just don't like it. Even when I open up someone's blog that I have been to before and I already know and have experienced it's music, regardless of that, it still scares the business out of me. It just always seems to catch me off guard and since I leave my sound on (and that's probably part of the issue) there you go. I know that's weird, but there I am.
That is all for now, have a great day!
Once in a great while I get to speak at
Mobile Christian School here in town for chapel. The chapel services are split in to two different services. One for middle school and one for high school teens; each lasts about fifteen minutes.
I don't get the opportunity very often, but from time to time I do. Since I get the opportunity so infrequently I often beat myself about the brain to figure out what to talk about. I have this internal struggle that says - be funny, be balanced, but mostly be real and very honest. Well for the middle school chapel I spoke about the choosing of King David, I used an illustration of three beautiful bags, one large, one medium and one small. I had three different volunteers come up and take bags and not look inside them until I told them to. In each bag I placed a different article, in the large bag I placed an old receipt and a pencil and some other trash. In the middle-sized bag I placed a small t-shirt and in the smallest bag I put in a ten dollar bill. These are middle schoolers, so my main objective was to get them to see the old "you can't read a book by it's cover" thing, reading 1 Samuel 16:7. And to apply it in their lives with each other. At the end I shared what I bad job I have done with this in my own life, and shared some funny stories and examples, overall I think they understood what I was saying, and probably really identified with it and were hopefully in some way encouraged.
In continuing to wrestle with this thought I decided that sharing that message with the high school group, even though I knew they could use it, would probably not be as strong. So I basically decided to allow the spirit to guide me through a discussion of what I blogged about yesterday. I said some funny things, told the story about the handbag and then began reading from John 15, after that I found myself in John 13:34 and then finally in Matthew 5.
Now, in my attempt to be "funny, balanced, and real" I found myself with an audience so deeply connected that you could break the intensity in the room with a hammer. I asked them to consider what MCS would look like if we lived out John 15:12, and John 13:34, and Matthew 5? I saw people squirming, I saw people looking at me like, "I can't believe you are going there."
Yeah, today somehow, by the power of the Spirit I went there, I spoke about Jesus never qualifying anyone before he loved them , and that we needed to stop sizing people up before offering them love and friendship. And I shared about how I have miserably failed at this.
I know the teens at MCS get a lot of stuff thrown at them about how they are wrong and they have to be perfect and sinless, and I know it annoys them, because people come as if, "I am so perfect." I would be annoyed too. One time a guy even stood before them and said, "If you aren't a member of the Church of Christ, you have no place in heaven." That was a stellar day, trust me.
So, I try to be very mindful of what I say to them, I want to do it in a way that challenges them, makes them uncomfortable but yet also helps them realize that God is seeking to build a relationship with them that will bring them life and that by knowing and seeking God's will and living his principles their lives will be better ones.
Immediately after the talk I noticed that some kids wouldn't talk to me. If you know our situation, then you know why what I said might encourage some of them to avoid me, some of them did and in a big way. I left there wondering if that wasn't Satans way of trying to discourage me, I think it was. I often think about what it is that God wants from me in these situations. I pray today that I was used to encourage and share a message of hope with somebody. Only time will tell as to what the response was or will be.
May God allow us to always "go there" even when it isn't the most popular thing and even when Satan attacks after it's been done.
I know I heard a song once with that title. I know it has to do with being in a club of sorts, you know like a place you hang out, maybe you dance a bit, whatever floats your boat I guess...I remember thinking about this phrase, "In Da Club" a few months ago.
There are times when I have been at my church and this thought has popped in to my mind...
Mobile, AL is an interesting city.
There is a certain part of it, like many very southern cities, that refuses to change, actually I like the phrase, grow up.
It's funny to me really. I don't quite get it. For us, in Mobile, that area is referred to as where the 08'ers live. The phrase refers to the zip code; that people in that area are typically (I know I'm generalizing and maybe even sound judgmental, but I'm going somewhere) snobbish, very self conscious, and usually somewhat rude, if you aren't from their side of town. Now, when I use the term from, I mean like, born in their zip code - seriously.
My wife Susan went with us two weeks ago to
YIA in Birmingham. This is a big deal because Susan doesn't usually do that well with youth trips, she misses our child too much and it's just hard on her. So for a reward, I promised to buy her a
Vera Bradley bag. Susan is not totally consumed with herself, thus needing such bag as compensation, but I wanted to do it because she is a good, loving wife and she makes many sacrifices for our family. Thus, last week, the two of us decided to venture out to buy such a bag. So, of course, this search leads us to my favorite part of town, the 0 to the 8. We find ourselves in this fru-fru little frilly shop, which will remain nameless to protect the guilty. At which the moment we walked in and a woman approaches us, with a look as if I am bleeding profusely from my head, and Susan has on no top, and says, "Uh, Hi, uh... can we help you?"
At this moment, I felt dirty. I am not sure why, but I did. Maybe it was because all of the people in the store turned to stare at us. Maybe it was because for that brief moment I was reminded of my own sins. Or should I say for that moment I realized that I have been the store clerk and our church has been the store customers.
My wife and I did go ahead and walk around, for some reason I felt the need to let them know that I was good enough to be in the store as if somehow I would let them know that everyone and anyone was. My wife and I finally walked out, we had this eye contact thing that said, "We ain't buying nothing here."
I realized that day, that that was the worst I had ever felt, and I never wanted to go back to that feeling again. God knew I needed that, I wish there was someway that others could have the feeling that I had that day. Not to make them feel bad, but just so that they could understand the feeling of others when they come into a place and don't feel accepted.
We spend a lot of time talking about accepting others, we teach about it, we say it's important, but I don't think any other lesson could have been as powerful for me as that one was.
I realized how so many people must feel upon entering the church for the first time, how hard it really must be. The fear of not knowing what people would say or how they might act. Isn't this sad that people would worry about how people in a church might act towards them?
Does it say something about the lives that we've made for ourselves outside of a building or Sunday service?
What if we began to treat each other as if we really valued them? In Don Miller's book "Blue Like Jazz" he talks about being reminded that Love isn't a commodity to be sold and traded on the open market. What if we began to live this everyday? In other words, people didn't have to be this or that for us to like or love them.
I struggle with this, Jesus command to us in John 15. "Love each other as I have loved you." I get so frustrated with other people and I don't let them in to my "club." And I'm still miserable. Jesus precedes it with this, "I tell you this so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete."
What if I lived this everyday of my life, what would be different? What if our churches lived it?
I guess like Jesus says, I might actually be "complete."
