TATTOO on the HEART

Discipleship reality check…

// June 29th, 2009 // No Comments » // OUT LOUD THOUGHTS

“…whoever of you does not forsake all that he has cannot be my disciple”

- Jesus; LUKE 14:33

At times, I think I’ve made “disciple” and “Jesus follower” so simple, so weak, so shallow.  I think all too often it means something drastically different than what we’ve seen lived.

Being a disciple doesn’t mean that you live some teachings of your master.  It means you take on the life and lifestyle of your master.

In Luke 14, Jesus shares a few examples of what that looks like: taking up a cross, loving Him so much that the way you treat your life in sacrifice would suggest that you hate your life.  He talks about the cost involved.  He’s very specific, concise, clear, and speaks pointedly.

Because this is what HE did.

And He wasn’t asking people to merely follow Him because He did it, but He was asking them to do the same – to lose everything as He had for the sake of others.

Be my disciples.  Take on my life and lifestyle.

“Do as I did” – it’s really the simplest way to put it.  Jesus was saying, “What you see me doing, you go do.  I’m giving you authority and power and a mandate.  That’s all you need.”

But we don’t think of making disciples who do those same things.  Heck, our “disciples” don’t even do what we do.

So we’re not truly making disciples.

Or maybe, we’re not disciples ourselves in the first place.

These days the Church doesn’t have a reputation for dying for its people.

1 John 2:6

Father’s Day…

// June 22nd, 2009 // 1 Comment » // EVERYDAY LIFE

A few weeks ago, Jessica and I were walking around the farmer’s market in Ocean Beach and ran in to some friends who run a booth down there.  They sell an array of items from overseas – mostly handcrafted sculptures out of bone and wood.  However, this was the first time I’ve ever looked at their jewelry, and noticed the various creations that looked really manly.

That’s when an old urge came back from my teenage years of getting my ear pierced.  Of course, back in those days you only got one pierced and, if you weren’t gay, you pierced the left ear.

I opted out of getting pierced – in part because of the stigma’s that you’d get while living in the south.  You know, no good employee would have piercings.

But one great thing about SoCal is that most things – even facial tattoos – hardly get a second look.  So there I was staring at manly earrings for the first time in my life and thinking, “Hey, I can do this.”
Father’s Day

I got back from Milwaukee literally 27 minutes before Father’s Day.  The next day rolled around and Jessica asked me what I wanted to do, and I said, “What about getting my ears pierced?”

So everyone started getting ready to go out.  Victoria (11) asked Jessica about getting a nose piercing to which I actually said, “Yes.”  Of course, Victoria said, “I was afraid you’d say ‘yes.’”  You was already thinking about the fact that she’s sort of a scaredy-cat.

I told her it’d actually be pretty cool if she got a piercing with me.

If you’re scratching your head, I just don’t see what the big deal is.  In Hebrew tradition, Daughters younger than Victoria were pledged to be married to men with a visible sign of placing a ring in their nose (Genesis 24:34-51).

Maybe I was counting on Victoria being a scaredy-cat, but at the same time I wasn’t going to just be religious about the matter.  After all, a piercing can always be removed.

We loaded up the whole family and went to Apogee Piercing right down the street in Ocean Beach – a place that I’d highly recommend if you’re thinking of getting one.  The staff is friendly, knowledgeable, and not pushy.

Furthermore, I’d learn that they were obviously more “moral” than me as they wouldn’t even consider giving Victoria a piercing.   They actually told us, “For moral reasons, even when a kid is with their parents, we won’t pierce a person under 15.”

Hmmm.

Anyway, minutes after signing my waiver, my family gathered around a sterile medical table.  Victoria made a strange gulping sound as they pierced me and ran down the hall.  Jadyn – the 5 year old with a fascination with a macabre fascination with booboos, just stared at me.  She did kind of scratch her ear while she was watching.

Thanks to Jordan over at Apogee!  Best Father’s Day ever!

Back from Wisconsin…

// June 22nd, 2009 // 2 Comments » // EVERYDAY LIFE

Well, I finally got to visit Wisconsin this past week.  I was invited to speak at a youth camp right outside Milwaukee. I was pretty close about a year or so ago when I was in Traverse City, Michigan. One ferry and about 5 hours separated me from popping my head in.

This week was an incredibly enjoyable experience as I’d have to say the people of Wisconsin (and particularly Whitefish Bay) are some of the nicest you’ll ever meet in your life. And by the way, in case you’re wondering, the correct pronunciation of Wisconsin is “Wes-kaun-zin.”
I had a lot of favorite moments, but here are a few:

• Driving through Whitefish Bay – Maybe I’ll get a chance to vacation there. It’s definitely a hidden gem that’s apparently not been discovered by tourist. Outdoor amphitheaters, art, history, beer, Pabst, houses that look like they were transported from Germany – it’s just a really cool place with a smalltown feel.
  

  View of Lake Michigan

• Milty Wilty – I had frozen custard for the first time in New Jersey many years ago, but Milty Wilty? Well, I’ll say this: you ever heard how doing crack one time could cause you to be addicted? Same principle at work here.
  

• Dairy Farms – I grew up with a view of grain silos, but I simply love dairy farms with real black and white cows. I’d hoped I would have gotten the chance to milk one, but we didn’t fit that in to the schedule.
  

• Late Night Cards – sometimes I really miss being a youth pastor, and it was so cool getting to play cards until you’re deliriously tired and you laugh about pretty much everything. Despite looking at my opponent’s cards, I lost miserably. I did learn how to play Texas Hold’em. Lost every single one of my chips. Got loans from other players. And then when I couldn’t get loans from anyone else, I let out a big, hawking yawn and said it was time to crash.
  

  You see a bed - a teenager sees a card table.

• Stars – sometimes you forget they’re out there. At 2am I laid – somehow comfortably – on a rock and stared into the millions of stars that were just layered in the sky. Sometimes people look at the vastness of space and feel insignificant. Quite the opposite for me. I felt a God who was staring down at me with light from the heavens that he prepared for me a 1000 years ago. And I was enjoying a moment he planned with me in mind. It was awesome.
• Milty Wilty – a spiritual moment as well. Told you it was addicting.
  

  Okay, not Milty - this was Culver's frozen custard dripping in the humidity

• Old School Camp – campfires, smores, songs, OFF!, humidity, outdoor sports – just such joy in simplicity.
  

UMC Whitefish Bay – if you read this, thank you so much for sharing your life with me.  Hope you guys enjoyed me (or are recovering from me if that’s more appropriate!). It was truly wonderful.

And a quick shout-out to:

Alex , Connor , Colin, Andy, Keith, Daniel, Danny, Sam, Bettine, Mary, Kevvy, Mitch, Will, ‘Kenzie, Georgia, Maggie, Grace, Riley, Jessyka, Annie, Sarah, Marshall, Nathan, Amy, Lori, Judy, Paul, Mel, Chris, Kali, & Neil.

Love you all.

Imago Dei…

// June 14th, 2009 // No Comments » // OUT LOUD THOUGHTS

We can’t be truly hospitable; we can’t invite someone into our lives, we can’t truly love someone, until we live in a place of sameness and equality.

I think I’m the frustrated writer right now because this is much depper and profound that my ability to describe it. The statement just doesn’t manage to convey all that I’m trying to say.

If others are “weird” or have strange ideas, does that mean I’m calling myself “normal?”

And if I’m calling myself normal, then it’s probably what I think everyone else should aspire to be. The ideal is somehow myself.

And it suggests that I’ve figured out a lot or I have fewer needs than other people.

It’s impossible to identify with the poor and needy if I’m not poor and needy.

It’s impossible to extend grace if I don’t feel that I need it, and if I’m not in an ongoing process of receiving grace from God.

I’ll never be able to accept the beauty in all creation as long as I have an overstated, exaggerated view of my own beauty. I will never value the beauty of God’s very personal creation as long as I’m trying to conform it to myself. If I do, I’ve misunderstood God as Creator and my place here if I’m trying to create people in my own image.

It shows that I’ve failed to seek God to know His vastness, beauty, and peculiarities if I can’t see how others reflect – in a different kind of way – the image of God.

When I truly understand:
my own brokenness
My own weirdness

And God’s value, worth, acceptance, and love from me that embraces me despite AND because of it, then I’ll be unable to look at anyone in the world and not see value and worth.

Stools are easier to pull up than pews…

// June 11th, 2009 // No Comments » // OUT LOUD THOUGHTS

Yesterday, Jessica and I managed to sneak out of the house and go to the Farmer’s Market in OB.

The Farmer’s Market is every Wednesday, and it is one of the most well known things about Ocean Beach.  Food, crafts, and llama rides is one way to describe it.

Jessica and I love to just walk around and be surrounded with the eclectic mass of humanity.  It’s wonderful and beautiful.  We just find ourselves at home.

Coming off my foot casualty – and really not knowing whether it is indeed fractured or not – we ducked into an Irish Pub that has always grabbed my attention whenever I’m on Newport Ave.

Jessica and grabbed a stool next to the glassless, screenless window which provides an invitation for the rest of the world to be a part of what is going on inside.  I can’t help but to think that it’s a great testimony to the rest of the world: here’s who we are – we’ve nothing to hide.

In mere moments we were in conversation with a bar maid (hope that’s politically correct) who didn’t think I could possibly know where she was from in Indiana.  Funny thing is, I have friends who are from that precisely that little town no one’s heard of.  She’s been in OB for 6 months.

The Yankees game was on a few of the flat screens and the guy next to me cheered them in understated kinds of ways.  He’s from New York originally – the accent still lingering.  He misses the old Yankee Stadium, described its mystique and the feeling of history as he walked into its bowels.  But he wasn’t bitter.

It’s a phenomenal feeling to be fully alive.  To love and embrace life around us.  To join people exactly where they are living.  I sensed the presence of God so strongly in that place.  Coming from a background where we didn’t even go to Pizza Hut because they served beer, I wasn’t in the least conflicted.

I wasn’t because I know Jesus wasn’t.  He was there with me.

As bad as some people want Jesus to be awkward in society and as much as we paint pictures of His followers holed up in places that are separate from the world, Scripture tells of a Jesus who was all to familiar with the margins, the places forgotten, but mostly the people who were on the outside.

It was so difficult for the religious to embrace Him because He just kept doing things He wasn’t supposed to do.  He was just too familiar with brokenness.  He was too familiar to those kinds of people.  He was just too….familiar, really.

“If He was really a prophet, He’d know who He was hanging out with.”  Luke 7:36-50 (slight paraphrase)

Yep.  That’s my Jesus – at home being God and man.

And I’m trying to join Him in those places we’ve often forgotten.  The steps of Jesus are often pretty dangerous to follow because some of the things that you have to do aren’t just foolish in the eyes of the world, they are foolish in the eyes of the Church as well.

So I snapped this picture with my phone yesterday: a cross emblazoned on wood.

And in the wider shot, we find something that seemingly doesn’t belong: a pew from a church with a table pulled up to it with 2 guys with 2 Heineken’s.

I wondered about the story of these pews.  Were they once a part of a now-defunct church?  What sermons were heard by the people who sat in them?  Is the church still going but the pews were no longer welcome?

Funny how the cross blends in and finds a home in that bar.
Funny how Jesus always left the 99.
Funny how the 99 didn’t follow Him.
Funny how the presence of God left the temple only to be found in “unholy” places.
Funny how Jesus is still showing up wherever He can find a resting place – IN US {the living temple}

Untied Clodhoppers…

// June 9th, 2009 // No Comments » // EVERYDAY LIFE

Last week I got the rare opportunity to speak close to home.

A youth event put on by a youth ministry from Scottsdale was meeting in Imperial Beach, so it was quite luxurious getting to speak every evening and still sleep in my own bed.
I joined the group every day at lunchtime at various beaches around San Diego. If you know me, you know how I value relationships. I just don’t think that a speaker as any credibility if they come in town and they only time you see them is when they get on stage for their show. No offense to speakers who do that of course. I just don’t understand ministry any other way outside relationship. Most of the time when I’m out just hanging out and having conversation, God shows me specifically what He’s doing and the things that are on His heart to speak.

I think God is much more spontaneous than our shrink-wrapped churches would allow you to believe.
Sure, God was a planner – but His plan was only to enable relationship to form. Jesus often seemed off script. Like the time when He was part of a kind of parade and he walks out of line to find a sawed-off tax collector in a tree.

I love that about Him.
Weeks like this are fun for me. It’s a week of discovery. You learn about people, where they’re from, what sort of sense of humor is embraced in their neck of the woods. And by the end of the week you know people on a first-name basis. Nothing’s forced. You become friends with the people you speak to and share an experience.

Wednesday was one of those important bonding moments. The youth staff at this church always plays an annual beach football game against the students. Instantly I was transformed into an 18 year old guy with something to prove. Everything went fine, I shook off tackles, threw bodies to the sand and left not a shadow of a doubt of my Alpha dog masculinity.

However, there was this one point in the game when I noticed this huge kid – a kind of genetic freak – lining up parallel to me on each offensive down. At first I thought it was a coincidence until it happened like 4 times in a row. Eventually the collision would have to happen. At first it was an incredibly beautiful sight: I caught the ball on a short pass, shook off one tackle. Then two 170lb guys grabbed me but couldn’t manage to pull me down. In slow motion, the huge kid Parker made a huge dive at me that I adjusted my body about 30 degrees to miss, but unfortunately about 45% of his 250+ lbs still nailed me. At the same time that 3 guys had a hold of me, my body decided that it wasn’t 18 anymore – it was 34, and my foot rolled up like a cheap pepperoni on a Tony’s pizza.

I dismissed myself from the game while at the same time channeling my wife like who was chastising me for acting like a kid. That night at home, I could barely take my shoe off.

Fortunately I have an old pair of clodhopper Sketchers that are abnormally wide so they are my substitute for one of those moon boots.

Despite my casualty, I was able to finish the week. By that point I knew the majority of students by their first name. Some of them actually began their relationship with Jesus during our week together. My night ended with about 125 hugs in succession from students. It was sad to say goodbye, but I’m so grateful when people share their lives with me even for the short-term.

Next week is Milwaukee, Wisconsin and hopefully new relationships. I just hope that I don’t give a bad first impression with my clodhoppers.

Home: Ocean Beach

// June 8th, 2009 // No Comments » // EVERYDAY LIFE

Yesterday, I took a walk around the main drag of Ocean Beach.   Community is tangible.  The sights, smells, noises – I fall in love with it every day I’m out there.

I dragged my cheapie digital camera to take a few shots…

Trip to the desert…

// June 1st, 2009 // No Comments » // EVERYDAY LIFE

Yesterday, I took a trip out to El Centro. It was quite a head-scratcher watching the terrain change and the temperature escalate multiple degrees at a time.

There are quite a few breaks in the mountain ranges among the desert. I saw a someone hang-gliding and imagined what that must feel like. That’d definitely be a worthwhile daytrip.

One of the coolest things to me was seeing a real life windfarm. I’ve always been fascinated by seeing them in pictures or on TV. Harnessing energy from nature is a cool prospect, but I’ve personally always found a peculiar beauty from seeing windmills.

A few miles out, I could see the blades poking up from behind the mountains. Between changing views – and my stupid finger (I was afraid my blackberry was going to fly out the window) – I didn’t think I’d get a chance to take a good picture. Fortunately the interstate afforded me a wonderful snapshot.

After a couple of hours of hills, desert, and an artificial breeze provided by the A/C, we made it to El Centro with an evening temperature of 111°.

I was really excited to be there.  The remnants of El Centro suggest that it once was a place bustling with activity from a strip malls, to theaters in the downtown, to a beautiful train station – all which are empty now.

The absence of people and activity on this night was countered by life and the hope of blessing and redemption as a new church was having its grand opening.  It was invigorating to witness a group of people springing forth to announce to the people of a forgotten city that they never left the heart and mind of God.

The place was packed.  God’s presence was tangible.  And I grinned often as I looked around the place.

Esta aqui.