Category Archives: Ministry
I’m Lame
It’s hard to believe that we are almost half way through January. It’s the 13th and this is my first post… lame!!! I can’t sleep… or… don’t want to sleep right now because Riley our 3 yr. old just went into the emergency room. I’m waiting up to hear what’s wrong with him. It’s the worst feeling in the world to know your kid is hurting and you can’t help. Even worse is when you try to help and your kid just doesn’t want you to touch them. Since I’m sitting here alone just me and my thoughts, I couldn’t help but over analyze the whole situation. As a Dad it breaks my hart to hear my son cry in pain, and when he fights you while your tyring to help, words can’t do justice to the feelings you have. As Christians I think we are some times like a sick 3 year old. We find our self in hurting situations and when our father tries to help, we throw a fit. Now I don’t believe for 2 seconds my son loves me any less, he just doesn’t know how to express his pain but to lash out. Isn’t that exactly what we do even as adults? Instead of calming down and allowing God to help us, we lash out and hurt what ever is in our way. I know I’m guilty of this. My prayer is that I just grow up. My 9 year old wants us to do everything for him when he’s sick. Well maybe not that bad, but as he’s grown up he knows dad just wants to help. He doesn’t fight me while I’m tyring to assess the issue. He communicates where it hurts better. If we can grow up spiritually and understand our father is there to help and tell him what hurts our healing time can be shorter. We won’t damage other relationship out of our own poorly expressed pain. If your hurting let God help, He is there as a loving father. He wants to make it better. Just like I want to make Riley better tonight.
p.thad
Prayer
I just listened to an awesome teaching on prayer this morning by Craig Groeschel. One of the best explanations of how and why we should pray I’ve heard maybe ever! If you have a spare half an hour go here and watch this message. The stand out Principal I got was this:
When you have a issue in life you can PUSH thru it.
Pray
Untill
Something
Happens
The bible says we should pray all the time, always in constant communication with God. The part I struggle with is waiting for the answer. I can do the Pray part, it’s the until something happens part that gets me. For me I found that a ton of short prayers all day long works better than long prayers. There are people who are into hour long prayer sessions and even longer, I think that’s awesome. However, my ADD kicks in somewhere during minuet 3 and by 5 minuets in I’m spent. When I pray through my issues keeping them for-front in my communication with God all day long the PUSH Principal is at work. Then, I find that I don’t feel like I’m not being heard by God as he is top of mind all day and not just during a prayer session. Answers come in the right timing and I see how God works in my daily life.
Prayer is such a big subject, and there are so many kinds of prayer I don’t think there is just one right way to pray. But no matter how you choose to pray commit to it. It’s valueable. It will make a difference in your life.
p.thad
Religious Tourette’s
I have had the opportunity to do a lot of speaking this year and this past week has been no exception. I was at a local school this past Wednesday and “it” happened again. “It” has happened to me a lot lately, two weeks ago I speaking to our church and they did “it” too. Every time I start to pray people fold their hands and bow their head. I think it must be some from of religious tourette’s! I can’t find any where in the bible that says when someone prays the proper protocol is to bow your head and fold your hands together. Yet people do it as some kind of involuntary nervous reaction. I wonder what God must think when he sees us doing these seemingly religious acts that he never ask us to do? We must look like we have religious tourette’s. Clucking our prayers with our heads bowed and all the other religious acts church people pride themselves on. How entertained God must be… but is he happy with it? Have we gotten to a place where we are so comfortable with what we do that what we are isn’t as important? I hope and pray that the head bows and folded hands aren’t just a way to seem involved in prayer. The bible says to pray without ceasing, that might just mean you’ll have to pray with your eyes open! Don’t use someones prayer as a quick mental time out. Don’t disconnect from what’s happening or about to happen. Instead when someone prayes connect with them in agreement however you can. And by all mean stop tring to bite your spirtual ear with all religious stuff you do. God doesn’t care what you wear, how long your hair is, or even if you have a tattoo. Just Love God and others and the rest will work itself out.
On a Cold Day
It’s a cold day in the AK. So I thought I would serve up something to warm the soul. I have been reading the book of Romans a lot lately and have been captivated by a single verse. It’s unique, interesting, and relevant. That verse is Romans 12:1:
I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service.
This may not at first glance seem significant, but look a little beeper. The second to last word of this verse is very powerful. Reasonable, what is reasonable? It seems to me that we live in a culture that’s unreasonable. Unreasonable gas prices, unreasonable expectations, unreasonable behavior. Yet Paul urges us to give our self as a living sacrifice and that is our reasonable service. I looked up the word reasonable and found it means:
1 (of a person) having sound judgment; fair and sensible
2 as much as is appropriate or fair; moderate
In a jack up world Paul said it’s reasonable or it’s sound with good judgment, it’s appropriate and fair, to live as a sacrifice to God. It’s our normal everyday lives that we use to honor God. It’s reasonable to live with integrity and honor. In a society that wants the shortcut and a quick fix let’s not fall into the trap of saying that serving God is unreasonable, or too time consuming. But let’s live our lives serving God and others, cause after all it is just reasonable service.
p.thad
Bless Back
At Third Place Youth we launched a new project called “Bless Back” I got the idea last year from an awesome church on the east coast, you can check them out here. The main idea behind this project is for our students to give to someone who they want to sow into. This week instead of taking an offering like any normal service, we GAVE our students an envelope with cash in it. Amounts ranging from $3 to $5. They were challenged to go sow into people. I’ve been captivated by the parable Jesus told in Mark 4:26, where he said the kingdom of God is like a farmer. I’m praying our students will learn from this that they should have a farmer mentality, constantly sowing. I love how Galatians 6:10 says that when ever we have the opportunity to do good we should do good to everyone. I’m seeing that the lack we get so annoyed with is caused by our lack of sowing. I’m not sure everyone “got it” tonight, but I’m praying they will. I ask our students to write about their experience during this “bless back” project, so as the stories come in I’ll post them.
UPDATE:
One of our students wrote a blog about “bless back” here go check it out.
later
p.thad
This Time Last Week
It’s amazing that another week has blown by. I was just thinking to myself that this time last week I was finishing up a camp/retreat with some awesome students from Cook Inlet Academy High School. I had such a great time hanging out and speaking to them. I learned from them, even though I was the speaker, I think they taught me more than I taught them. My favorite moment of the whole week was sitting around the camp fire the last night. Many of the students shared some of the things they had gone through in the last year or so, and how the staff and kids at that school had impacted their situation in a positive way. I realized how important it is to just be there. In most every case that the kids shared it wasn’t some great bible study or a wonderfully powerful prayer that helped them through their darkest moment. It was a person showing compassion with a hug or just simply listening and saying “your gonna make it, hang in there” that turned them around. It was an eye opening experience. I wish some of us “mature” Christians could grasp the art of just being there. Imagine if instead of trying to “witness” and “evangelize” we focused on being there with compassion for those who are hurting and in need, what a difference it would make. Anyway, here are some great shots from last week.
Later
p.thad
Awesome New CD
I just got a copy of Elevation Church’s New Worship album “We Are Alive”.
I have to say it’s amazing! Do yourself a favor and get a copy of it ASAP! You can get it HERE
Thanks to Wade Joye for sending me a copy, and the whole Elevation Church team that worked on this project. You guys are doing a great job.
Making Worship Real.
A topic I’ve had on my mind a lot lately is how do we make Jesus real to people who don’t care? I have kinda coined the term “Church Monkey” in 3PY the last 2 weeks, witch I understand may be a little over the top. However, it communicates the very real problem that many people just act in church how they are trained to act. They show up on Sunday only because it’s time for church, not because their passion and drive to grow and serve is so overwhelming that they simply can’t stay home. Maybe in some other post I’ll dive into the term “church monkey” more in depth but for all purposes today I’ll leave it alone. On to the core of this rambling. I saw this video from Mars Hill church, it’s worship, it’s raw, It’s not anything like I’ve ever heard before in a worship context.
Could you imagine if this was the sounds you heard coming from your local church? Just a guess but I think church would be filled with less “church monkeys” and more people interested in finding a meaningful relationship with the Almighty Creator, God.
When Problems Come.
Well, what a week! I say that with some sarcasm. Honestly I have encountered a couple of the biggest problems I’ve seen in a long time. We’re not just talking tough decisions, I mean serious life changers here. However, in the middle of all this I got to thinking about how our church staff and my wife and I have handled these situations in stride. I’m not stressed about this stuff. I know God has a definite answer in store.
All that aside I think the reason I’m not stressing about this stuff is the way we handled each situation as it came up. Here are the 3 keys I think made this processes seamless and smooth.
1. Don’t make decisions in an emotional state.
When the biggies hit, it’s far to often we fly off the handle and react in the heat of the moment. No one wins in this scenario people just get hurt.
2. Talk through the problem.
The Bible says there’s wisdom in the counsel of many. Quick decisions made on a whim are rarely the right ones. When you slow down and talk through a situation you gain perspective. I recently needed to make a discipline decision but didn’t have anyone handy to talk through it with, but I didn’t skip this important step. I talked through it with my self. I stated the problem, in this case a bad behavior, and talked “under my breath” through the best way to handle the problem. By allowing my self the time to “talk my self through it” I was able to come up with an optimal solution that was a win-win for all involved.3. Make a plan of action.
No problem is ever solved until you correct the wrong. This last step is the sum total of the previous two steps. The thing to keep in mind when making a plan of action is the steps need to be clear, with a clear outcome. You don’t want to leave problem solving steps open ended. Open ended step may cause your problem to compound and you’ll find yourself in a bigger problem. So define what you will do and what you want that action to accomplish. That way if your actions don’t achieve the desired outcome you can alter the plan not repeating the same mistake.
I’ll leave you with this valuable quote:
“You are defined by the problems you solve!”
Discuss:
