Youth Pastor's Unite

Okay, so maybe this is not a revolutionary as I think it is, but right now it is my own personal mantra. We have since left the world of full-time ministry some two years ago to be a part of an exciting adventure of church planting with some friends.  The life sold to me in my undergraduate education preparing me to go into ministry is to work my way up the chain to become some big shot with a comb-over in an office with some title of bishop this or that.

What was never revealed to me is that following God into the great unknown does not as neatly work as the climbing the ladder of ministry success presented in my college classes.  In the real world no one really cares how many kids showed up to your "Big Night" (insert cool and relevant title here) event.  Or even the really important things like how many young people's lives were forever changed by the gospel of Jesus cannot land you a job outside the bubble of the church.

Even the church does not help with this.  As presented so well on facebook lately is all the pictures that tell the story of what others think we do and what is actually done by a pastor, youth pastor, or worship pastor.

We are more than pizza eating, retreat taking, X-box playing, funny storying telling pranksters.  We have real marketable skillls.  A lot of us oversee 10's to 100's of volunteers on a weekly basis.  Some of us organize major events or large scale fundraisers. We plan, organize, and pull off major trips.  We are master communicators to an audience that has the attention span of gnat. We put in looonnnggg hours and then after we get home from that our phone rings with another counseling session that cannot wait.  And we are given responsibility for things of great importance - some else's children.  

So whether you are still battling in the foxholes on the battlefield for students.  Or you are like me a veteran of the battle who has taken on a new war.  You are more than a youth pastor.  You are someone's hero, someone's teacher, a life-changer.  You are capable of great things - even in a place not called the church.  Know that you are more than the label laid on you and that you are an invaluable asset to the place that pays you for your services.

Youth Pastors Unite!

Starting Fresh

Today at LifeGate, we opened the doors to our new location at Veteran Park Elementary, at least in a public grand opening service.  It was a simple reminder of what we are doing.  At the close of the message, my good friend Ashley gave those there the opportunity to make a fresh start with Jesus.  At least 6 hands went up.

How big was the party?  The bible tells us over 1 lost person angels in heaven celebrate, so how big was it today with six lives transformed by God's loving grace.

This runs in perpendicular with the rest of my life.  While our church is starting fresh in a new location, lives today are starting fresh with Jesus, my life seems to continue down the same road.  Still in the same job, despite my best efforts to make a improvement and move up.  Still in the same financial battle of trying to move the needle on youthful decisions of taking on debt.  Still, still and still...at least that is how it feels.

The one thing I do remember from high school geometry class is this: two lines running perpendicular to one another eventually intersect.  What this means is that my road full of stills will eventually collide with God's road of new things.  The prophet Isaiah jotted down these words from God - "see I am doing a new thing, now it springs up. Do you not perceive it?"  My hope is at that intersection of my still and God's new is something unlike I have ever known.  Isaiah goes on to say: "I am making a way in the wilderness and streams in the wasteland."

A lot of us live in the still...still struggling to make ends meet, still fighting and discontent in a marriage, still working the same passionless job.  My hope for you is that road intersects with God's pathway of new.  At that connection is the potential for discovery of fresh start God is preparing for you.

Time for Tebow

While everyone else in the world is putting out their two cents on the Miracle Man Tim Tebow, I thought I would join the party.  I am really not sure where this blog about the QB leading Denver is going to go, but this much I am sure of, there is a 10 year old boy in my house who has found a hero. Now Drew just sees the tough runs, come from behind victories and the overtime 80 yard bomb that sunk the Steelers.

As a parent I see the post-game news conference where Tim comes off awkwardly charming and sincerely genuine, incredibly out spoken about his faith and love for Jesus.  While the half world is taking shots at his arm angle, orthodox throwing style and his lack for being a true QB and the other half argues if there is a place for faith in football and sports in general, I see someone that for my boys is worth watching.  And not just between the lines.

I grew up emulating Ryne Sandberg.  I knew nothing about his character or him as a person.  I just knew he played second base for the Cubs and that is what I wanted to do when I grew up. #23 was the number on my jersey and number in my heart.  I defended him as nearly perfect, the best second basemen the game ever had.  I love that my boys love a winner on the field.  I love more that my boys love a person who is a winner off the field and in life.

Tim Tebow may, but possibly won't win a Super Bowl or an MVP, but he has won over my kids and as a parent that is just fine by me.  Sometimes we need to measure a winner by not only the wins and losses on the field but the man he is off.

So Go Broncos, at least Go Tim.  (Still and always will be a Bears Fan)

Leaving Athens

Today was the first day of the 2012 at least in terms of LifeGate Church.  We have taken residency of Veterans Park Elementary School and looking to be a light into that immediate community.  Tucked in the message of my good friend Ashley Wilson was a statement that was as much a side note as anything, but it stood out like a flashing light blinding my eyes.

Ashley mentioned how the Apostle Paul worked and toiled in Athens to plant a church with very little success and he left Athens for Corinth.  It got me thinking about the Athens in our lives.  Athens is the places that we have labored, toiled, sweat, blood and tears poured out only to find little success.  Funny how Paul never mentions that Athens was a worthless venture, only that his work bore out little success.

Could it be that the Athens in our lives are preparations for the Corinth's to come?  In the sacred text of the good book we find two letters to the church at Corinth.  Those two books are filled with some wonderful praises for that group of saints and some pointed corrections for that same group of saints.  Yet we find no letter to Athens, no further mention of fledgling fellowship.

I have had Athens in my life.  Blood, sweat and tears and little success found.  Although Corinth might have been the 1st Centuries Las Vegas, Paul found success in the hearts and lives of those people.  The lights of the strip of Corinth could be blinding, but Athens has prepared my for what is ahead.  May the days ahead bring great fruit as we leave Athens and move to Corinth.

Skipping Church

For the first Sunday in over a year, I will not be gracing an auditorium, cathedral or sanctuary as we travel home from the feast week called Thanksgiving.  This beckons the inevitable question is skipping church ever healthy? 

So before I get myself in the deep messes of life, let me say, I love church.  It is what I have given my life to.  I believe church is a place of healing, hope, and salvation. But for church-folk like me, is a week away a bad thing?  Now I am missing my Sunday routine, because I am creature of routine, but sometimes being able to step away from the routine re-aligns our vision to why we do what we do. 

Most of us who do "church" can get caught up in doing "church".  One more Sunday of serving, shaking hands, eating pasteries, singing songs and then repeat the next week. We treat our church routine like our daily routine of washing hair.  While vitally important to what we do, it falls simply into the pattern of what we do. Sometimes absence does make the heart grow fonder, or at least more aware of what it is and why it is we do this thing called church.  Church truly is the gathering of God's people, which can be lost in the busyness of the Sunday routine.

So this Sunday I have broke routine.  I will spend my Sunday in a car traveling the roads returning back home with a renewed perspective on why I show up every Sunday to the place called "church".  Church is not what we do, but it is who WE ARE!

Let Thanks Begin

Due to the excess of holiday schedules and time off at my place of employment we are feasting for thanks tomorrow. In reality Thanksgiving is the speed bump from Halloween to Christmas were we are only slowed down by that triptofeeling stuff in turkey. So it got me thinking what on earth am I thankful for.  Here is a list:

*Salvation
*My family
*Matching Socks (nothing worse than a lone sock)
*The invention of electricity
*Sleep (at least in intervals)
*The certainty of uncertainty (at least I am sure of one thing)
*Losing 40 pounds in two years

Giving thanks for the most part is the ability to slow things down, to take a picture of what life really holds.  As a people we move at the speed of sound times the speed of light.  Most often we probably miss all that we have to be thankful for.  So maybe add some more triptofeeling stuff to your diet, take a nap, wipe the drool from corners of your mouth as you wake and realize we have a whole lot to give thanks for.

My Songs

In my life there is a marriage between creative thought and music.  Most likely this started as a young kid while creativity was in abundance and Mtv was brand new and strictly forbidden in my house.  But in my rock 'n roll rebellious ways we would sneak off to watch the top 10 videos to see if Stryper could dethrone the kings Bon Jovi (how could God not like a song titled "Livin' on a Prayer"). So we would ride bikes singing loud about the 4th grade heart-breakers who "gave love a bad name" and how bad we were that we were wanted "Dead or Alive". We wore our denim coats with a wife beater wishing we had hair like down the middle of our backs with poofy bangs.  It was our rocker dreams lived out with drums made out of ice cream buckets. Yes, I am child of the 80's.  C'mon girls - admit your secret Madonna wardrobe you rocked out...

While on more than one occasion I have been told music is not in my future - including 5th grade band teacher, lead guitarist from Third Day, and now Grammy and Dove winning producer Nathan Chapman.  So I am grown enough now to admit I am never going to make it in L.A. or even Nashville, what it does not change is that I have a song.  I love what psalmist David wrote - "sing a new song unto the Lord."  Thank you David for permission to not clap on beat - not on the 2 or 4, but closer to one and three quarter and maybe two and five-eighths.

I think we all have a little Taylor Swift inside of us: the want to take our life experiences and put them to melody. While most of the world does not have the talent to make stories about broken hearts and broken bones into record breaking records, I think there is something freeing in finding the melody of your life.  My songs spill out not in three and half minutes smash hits, but sometime in 40 minute messages to crowds of people.  Sometimes it is in the written randomness of this blog.  But it is my expression.

While somewhere inside me there still the desire to rock out like Jon Bon Jovi - I have accepted that my songs may never make the radio...

Something Important

What I have often found incredibly interesting in life is our measurement of importance.  What for one person might be of great importance (i.e. the Cubs winning a World Series in my lifetime) is more like page 6 news to someone else.  Now I have not thought long and hard about how we scale importance in our individual lives, but without question there is a scale.  And that scale functions as key component in our decision making process.

The things we find important we do, the things not so important get pushed aside.  Now understand, I am King of the land of procrastination and I have ruled over this land for many years.  But even amidst my delaying the inevitable, I still have a sense of necessity to do that thing of importance.  So the question stares me in the face how do we take something that for so many and for so long has ranked low on the scale and make it higher.

As part of a church planting team this seems to be the cyclical discussion much like the chicken and the egg.  Here in Lexington with all the seeming trappings of a Southern city, church attendance has somehow been subtracted out of the Southern hospitable ways.  So what we face is trying to move going to church and being a part of church up the scale of importance.  Church has to surpass some big competition such as sleeping in, Sunday brunch, and every other mounting task that gets placed on the balance of life as important.

As an insider of the ways of church, I realize that going is a critical part of this life we call following Jesus.  I also recognize that it is not the only part of being a Christian, but a small piece to the whole.  But without question, the large group gathering is still in America the place where most will make a decision to follow Christ.

So here is my unthought out gut reaction to the question posed of making church going for un-chruched going folks important.  You are important enough!  Not profound but true.  Most people go to church for the first time because someone they know, like and trust invites them.  Most don't go because they feel a need to be in "church".  Most go because someone important invites them and that raises it up the scale of importance.  If you want to make going to church important for someone that it is unimportant to invest and invite.

A man named Ehud

At LifeGate Church we started as series entitled "Drive-In - Stories of Biblical Proportion" and Pastor Ashley retold the Old Testament story of Ehud.  What makes this story one of those great biblical stories is that Ehud stabs an enormously obese fat king and the fat of the king's belly swallows the sword.  Then all the king's attendants just think that the king is on the "throne" (if you catch my drift) before finding him dead.  It is are really odd and cool story!

Here is my point - Ehud was left handed.  Now in our modern culture this seems like no big deal, but thousands of years ago it was treated like a curse.  Even some fifty years ago, teachers would smack the knuckles of children trying to use their left hand to write.  My kindergarten teacher asked me what hand I threw a ball with I said my right and then proceeded to pick up my pencil with my left.  This was immediately tried to be corrected, but to this day, I write and eat left handed and threw a ball right handed - now you see where the oddities of my brain surface from.

Nevertheless, what everyone else saw as a curse or a handicap in the life Ehud turned out to be the very thing that God used to rescue not just Ehud, but all of Israel.  We all have an Ehud-ness about us.  We all have that thing that seemingly stands in the way of our success.  I have often heard people say that in spite of that thing, they succeeded.  But what if through that one thing everyone else say is a roadblock or a handicap would be the one thing that brought success in your life.  While my head is searching for all these examples of what someone's Ehud-ness might be, it could be anything.  Anything that we or someone else has looked at and said that will be the thing that holds them back. But in reality, it might just be the one thing God chooses to use.

It is the details of this story that I find most interesting.  Ehud had his sword strapped to the inside of his inner right thigh, a place where only a south-paw could draw from.  What if God set you up in such a way that whatever is seemingly your handicap, your obstacle in your life is set up just so only you can use it to win with and not in spite of.  Take it from a fellow lefty!

Firsts and Lasts

The blog has been empty for some time due to life and my laziness.  But in those moments that I have been away there have been some life moments that will never happen again.  In that moment I realized that I was seeing something very special.

During the past three months we took on the roll of typical American parents.  We have three lively and wonderful children.  The two boys consumed our spring and early summer with the grand ole' game of baseball and the four year old princess got her groove on in a dance recital.  It was a season of first's.  First base hits, first dances, first win, first losses.  It was a season of life filled with heart ache and joy.

And at the exact same moment of all these first came the realization of all the lasts.  Raising three kids and calling it quits there (more of them than us created a zone defense rather than man to man) made me realize that these very same moments were lasts.  While there will be other moments in life for firsts, these were the last first base hits, the last first dance recitals.  That coupled together were first and last moments in one, maybe not last for my kids as they will hit again and dance again.  But for me as a parent these were some last firsts.  It made me appreciate that moment in time for my kids and for myself as a parent.

This has caused the awkward realization that with every first of Andrew my oldest, comes the last with Avery my youngest.  There will be a day soon that we have to navigate a first day of middle school and on that same day navigate our last first day of kindergarten.  Each high school experience will end with one's senior year and another's freshman year, until there is just one high schooler left.  The road ahead for us will be filled with the beautiful moments that at the very same moment in time is a first and a last.

Mountains, Valleys, and Places In Between

"Ain't no mountain high, ain't no valley low" are the words belted out in 60's soul song.  But the truth is there are mountains high and there are valleys low.  And many days we trek through them.  A mountain top is that pinnacle, peak experience of jubilation and joy.  While the valley may be summed up best by the psalm "though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death" primarily because a valley feels like dying. 

Yet, while we climb mountains to great moments and we fall deep into desolate valleys, the majority of our lives are spent somewhere in between.  Caught between your wedding day and that first big fight are all the days of living.  Smashed between your first day of college and the anxiety of your final finals, is four years of living.  Sandwhiched between a baby's first breath and an old man's last are all the days of the in-between.  While the mountains and the valleys are usually the easiest memories to pull from, don't miss the moments in-between, otherwise you might just missed the majority of life as it happens. 

So many times our focus sets on the big moments - whether big wins or big losses - and we lose sight of all the moments that are found in between ascending and descending hills. It is often the places in-between where we are shaped the moments.  I have found in easier in life to worship on the mountain top in the Moses' moments of God's glory.  In the same I have found prayer easier to come by in the depths of personal hells.  Where we have to tough it out is when life is life.  When life is not throwing a curveball, but giving us our daily dose of the every day.  It is in those moments where instead of being without option and sensing the necessity of going to God, that we have to "chose" who or "what" it is we will worship or pray to. 

The toughest roads are not the climb to the top or the tumble down, oftentimes the terrain that requires the greatest navigation is the road in-between the two!  Keep climbing the mountains, surviving the valleys, and navigating all life's moments in-between!

Tuesday's Tune Warren Barfield

Singer/Songwriter Warren Barfield may not be on the radar of most Christian music fans, but once you have heard Warren you know it!  I met Warren at a youth camp some 11 years ago.  Back then he was driving a beat up Ford Mustang with two guitars, a headset mic and a box of self-recorded cd's. 

Since that point Warren has released three studio albums and traveling with my childhood hero Kirk Cameron promoting healthy and godly marriages. And now Warren is headed back to the studio to cut new music.  But this time he is doing it old school, the Warren Way!  Warren has asked his fans and listeners to make an investment into the project.  For there investment they get something in return -- from a pre-release cd to their name in the liner notes.  He is setting out once again to self record an album cutting out all the red tape of the music industry that as he puts it "gets to pick which songs he records."  Here is a link to the kickstarter project.

Until Warren drops new music, here is the break out hit that was featured in the powerful story-telling movie "FireProof", Love is not a fight.  So Warren if you read my blog -- can't wait for some new school, old school WB music!!  Best of luck on the new project!

When The Tank Is Empty

The most difficult place to be is when you feel like you need to give out but have nothing really to give.  Writers call it writer's block.  Athletes call it a slump.  In the church we call it a "desert".  Suddenly the white space of the document becomes your enemy.  All the sudden the lines of the field or court become intimidating.  And everyday spiritual disciplines such as reading your bible, prayer, even church attendance can feel like daunting tasks.  No matter what the title or category of life it comes from, it is all the same -- unfulfilling.

I have this horrible habit of driving my truck not just until it dings and flashes the miniature orange-lit gas pump on my dash.  No, I push it to the limit of watching the needle dance with the letter E as if it was the Seasame Street letter of the day.  "Today's stall on this 4 lane divided highway is brought to you by the letter E."  Well thanks Elmo, like I needed to hear it from a Muppet!

Sometimes life feels like that gas needle.  We watch the mojo of our life slowly and gradually lessen, knowing all along we need to fill the tank up with what keeps us going.  Writer must continue to read and write, baseball players continue to swing, and followers of Jesus, continue to follow.  While filling my truck is easy, yet incredibly costly, re-filling our tanks in life is not always so.  When I pump 10 gallons into my truck instantaneously the needle climbs up over the 1/2 marker and comfort is restored.  But re-filling our spiritual tank does not always  yield the instantaneous results of a stop at the Shell Station.  Sometimes we pour in bible reading, pour in worship, pour in prayer - yet we still feel out of gas.

So my best advice -- keep going to the station and topping off the tank.  In plain language keep doing the things that keep you fresh both emotionally and spiritually.  The writer James in the bible said it so profoundly simple: "draw near to God and God will draw near to you."  If we are honest with ourselves a spiritual empty tank is simply the feeling that God is distant.  Oddly enough, God promised never to leave us.

When the tank is low frequent the station more often.  My mom tells me that my truck will get better mileage if I keep it filled up.  Maybe life is that way too.  Maybe we are better served when we never get to the point of "E".

Your Creativity is Needed

My wife said to me the other day "you are the creative in this family, you need to do it."  While right now I don't remember exactly what the conversation was pertaining to, I do know that in one way she is right.  My wife is logical, numerical, structured and organized.  Me, I am more the free spirited, think with my mouth (or in this case my fingers) and a creative being.  But here is the challenge for all us, we were created in the image of a creative God.  Case in point - a redwood tree, a duck-billed playtapus, a venus fly trap and a baboon with a red rear end.  That is creativity! 

Creativity has been organized, structured and neatly boxed up into selective categories like writing, art, speaking and designing.  But we have limited the reach of being creative.  We all have the ability to be creative, because we were created by the Creator. 

You may read the words of this blog and think, "hey he ain't that good." Okay, but here is my point, this blog is an outlet of the creativity that God has put in me.  And the rebuttal would be to ask you this "where are you being creative?"  Where is the place that you can release what God has put inside you?  Maybe you creatively unpack logical thoughts.  Maybe you are creative in how you organize.  Maybe you are creative in something completely unrelated to your job or the rest of your life, but your creativity in needed.  You have to find that release of what God has put inside you.  Whether you start a blog or just journal.  Paint mural or draw on napkins.  Re-design a home or just re-organize you closet.  The creative insight that lies dormant needs to stoked and brought to life. 

Your creativity is needed because God has uniquely wired you as you and there are things no else has been designed (uhm, created) to do! Go be creative!  Scratch that itch, your creativity is needed.

Tuesday Tune on Wednesday

Summer is filled with blockbuster movies, lazy days and music.  Over the years, a song or songs have marked the season of late night swims and afternoon breakfast.  In the summer of 1993 a song marked was dubbed the anthem of that summer.  Although the airwaves were filled with newly made popular hip-hop and dance music and we were between boy bands of NKOTB and Backstreet, it was an 80's classic that was crowned the Summer of '93 jam.

Canadian born Bryan Adams made us all cry with love ballads like "Do It For You" from Robin Hood and "Please Forgive Me" (yet another "our song" but for a whole different reason). The summer of '93 found three best friends cruising late night down Sheridan Road and dating three friends and the only fitting song was "Summer of '69".  Of course '93 was shouted loudly of '69.

So here is my flashback summer moment of 1979 Toyota Supra and three friends on a 1993 summer night listening to 1984 rock anthem!  I would love to hear your summer song memories!

Sacrifice

By now in the day grills have been snuffed out, pools are closing for the evening and kids are scratching at mosquito bites.  While we have unofficially kicked off the summer season, today is a day we are encouraged to remember those that have lived and died in order that we can freely grill dogs and spit watermelon seeds.  We honor those that have paid the ultimate sacrifice for our freedom.

Grandfathers that freely joined Uncle Sam's Army to head to Germany or Japan.  Uncles that against their will went to a no win situation in Vietnam.  Dad's that served in the deserts and dry lands.  Friends who fly over foreign lands with pictures of their children mounted in the cockpit of a $150 million aircraft.  Today is about you!

I don't like to make my bed or press a crease in my pants.  I like to run, but not at 5 AM.  I  like where I live and don't feel like being "stationed" some where else.  So to all of you that make your bed so tight a quarter bounces off it .  To the ones that where fatigues or dress blues.  To SEALs and Berets.  To Cadets and Midshipmen (and Midshipwomen), simply Thank You!  Thank you for the courage you show us everyday.  Thank you for steady hands and ever marching feet.  Thank you for giving when there is nothing left in you to give.

To those that will never have the opportunity to read these words because you sacrificed at the highest cost for our country and for the prized idea and belief of freedom - may God bless the families you have have been left behind.

From a guy grateful, who could never do what you fine men and women do,
God Bless

Life, the Teacher

The greatest and maybe my least favorite teacher showed up tonight, my kids.  I have found it funny how life allows us moments to teach our children lessons we need to re-learn ourselves. Our spring has been given to the great American Pastime, while neither of the boys are All-Stars yet they are having fun playing.  I guess that in of itself is a win.

Andrew my oldest is a little more determined to become better.  If he could he might live at the batting cages taking swing after swing.  On the other hand we have Isaac.  Isaac loves playing, but playing is all he loves.  Tonight while trying to coach'em up and get that swing fined tune, Ike, as we call him, sort of just quit on me, went through the motions, checked out.  While the "coach" in me wanted to "light a fire under him" and "push'em to the limit" and every other classy coaching cliche I could come up with.  The man in me reflected on me.  I embarrassingly admit there have been days in life that I have just "showed up" or "phoned it in" or "went through the motions" with some responsibility.

While Isaac's swing is not life or death, my responsibilities at least are life. They are my life. Much like Isaac's cuts in the cage, on some days I have lacked effort, lacked energy and drive. I have given less than my best to responsibility I had.

And what would a life lessons be without God smacking you right between the eyes?  As I reflected, the verse (and probably not by coincidence) came to mind that reads "do everything as unto the Lord."  Oftentimes without even realizing it, we just show up in life.  God's expectations is that we would put forth a God-sized effort into everything we do.  Whether that things is a game of baseball or a job, schoolwork or "kingdom work", God asked for our best efforts. God asks us to treat every responsibility as we are doing it for him.  Lesson re-learned!

Thoughts

Fleeting as they seem and random as they are I have them, as do you.  I think about my kids, my wife, my work, my money and lack there of.  I think about baseball and teaching my boys the perfect swing.  I think about music as it plays over the top of my random thinkings.  I think about God and life and the collision of those two.  Sometimes I over think, like when I was a kid it would take me 20 minutes to chose between a pack of Fleer or Topps baseball cards.  I would then not pick either and buy Donruss.

The bible teaches us to take every thought captive.  All my growing up this was taught or at least learned as a negative.  It was as if our mind was the pampers of the body catching all the feces and urine that flowed freely in and out.  Maybe it was the word captive that brought this type of thinking.  To be a captive means that you have been taken or possibly surrendered to what is capturing you.  So the teaching went something like this "take captive all those bad thoughts and then just hit the delete button, get rid of them."  While I agree hold heartedly that our mind needs to purged of the cranial poverty that destroys it, what then shall we fill it with?

That leads me to this thought, while we are supposed to go all commando on our thoughts like a Navy Seal on Osama there is another side to that coin.  God all tells us to set our minds on things above.  This is the positive to the negative, the AC to the DC, the heads to the tails.  While I feel like I am at least trying  to be in constant purge mode of the filth, I am at the same time trying to capture the "things above" thoughts -- thoughts on love, faith, hope.  Thoughts of creativity and community.  Thoughts that bring life, thoughts that bring joy, thoughts that fill not just your mind, but your heart.

Our thoughts can set us up for successes or set us up for failures. It is our thoughts that often lead us to our destinations.  It is our thinking that often sets the course that we sail.   So where are your thoughts taking you?

Tuesday Tune May 24th

Owl City is the one man band of Adam Young.  Owl City hit it big with the widely covered YouTube sensation Fireflies. The man, the keys and the Mac are at in once again with a new album that drops June 14th titled "All Things Bright and Beautiful".

If you have never heard Owl City you are in for a treat.  This does not fit your traditional of any music category.  Adam Young blends poetic lyrics over elctronic mixes with a dance beat feel.  Beyond the quirky lyrics is deeper meaning that exposes the faith of Owl City.  Tuesday Tune is the first release off the new album entitled "Galaxies".

Inspiration

What is funny is that you never know where it will be found - inspiration that is.  It is mysterious, it is even sneaky at times.  It comes at the end of rain storms.  It comes in the middle of sunny days.  It shows up in the midst of tears or hidden in sounds of child's laugh.  A single second of life can bring about a fury of ideas and creativity.  A blink of an eye can open up an entire B&O Railroad of thoughts.  And then at times...nothing, nada, zip, zilch.

Often I sit and look at this blank white square that serves as place words seem to spill out of my brain into the wide open spaces of the world wide web and eventually onto your eyes, lacking inspiration.  And there are other moments my fingers cannot franticly keep up with the pace of the language longing to hit the pages of my journal or my blog.

I have spent most of my adult life in the capacity of a minster in some form or another.  From that context comes the my understanding of the greek word theopneustos used in the bible for inspiration.  Which is literally translated "God-breathed".  It is used in this context to describe the writing of the Holy Scriptures through the penmanship of man.  By no means do I claim this blog to sit anywhere near the level of God's good book.  But I do believe that at times, the words that find their way out are inspired in the "God-breathed" sense.

There are moments when days pass and I come back to a post and re-read it.  And not that the blog is perfect, grammar is still not a strong suit of mine. But as I re-read I think to myself, "wow, there is no way you are that smart."  I start to see somewhere tucked tightly in the randomness of my thougths is something inspirational, something even "God-breathed."  I realize that the source of my moments of profound insight or quirky banter or even poorly shaped thesis statements is something God gave.

So next time you find yourself inspired in whatever it is you do, just possibly you'll think that Heaven in all it's splendor has breathed that inspiration into your life!