Letter #2

So I was remembering just the other day how it seemed like we would move almost every six months.  A new town, a new home, a new school, a new set of friends.  Our life was filled with transition.  I would look to you to see if everything was alright.  You were steady.  Never unshaken. Then I knew that everything was going to be okay, because you, my big brother, thought so.

You are at one of those points much like when we were kids.  Life has changed, transition is upon you, whether you want it or not. I want to be the one who you look to and know that everything is going to be okay.  I can't make you promises that it turns out the way you want or think it will.  I can say this God is on your side.  In the darkest of moments and this might seem to be the darkest, he walks with you.  His promise is to never leave.

There are always consequences and outcomes of the decisions we make and you will have to face those.  Know this, I am the one walking in the school first letting you know "hey we're going to be okay."

A Letter To My Brother

For 33 and one half years, we have been brothers.  Bonded by the similarities in our DNA that link us to one another.  Although time, space and life has created separation that has seemingly become cavernous to say the least.  The once in separable bond of childhood has been severed by the complacency of two men who have failed to keep kindled the love and bonds of the children they once were.

We have both been hurt by the same things.  Wounded by the divorce of our parents.  Damaged by a childhood that left us without roots or really much of a place to call home.  Seeking the love and affection of the same man, a man we called Dad.  For years I stayed wounded, kept hurting and allowing myself to be hurt.  I carried the heavy baggage of the damages done in my life.  I let the wounds fester and get infected until they nearly poisoned everything good that God would place in my path.  They were wounds that would scab but never heal.  A situation, a comment, a failed promise would re-open that wound and I would have to start healing over again.

Something happened as we became grown up children trying to be men.  At some point I got tired of all the hurting and finally found healing.  On my heart is a scar that I am perfectly okay with.  You see the scar is a reminder that I am completely healed from all the hurt that life gave.  The scar is the simple statement I am no longer broken, but whole.

Right now your wounds are gaping and open and festering.  You are broken inside and out.  Your pain is as deep as you have ever known and probably deeper than you realize or will admit.  But take it from someone who closely resembles you, you can be whole and be healthy and not hurting.

I love the passage where Thomas has to see Jesus' wounds to believe he is who he says he is.  The resurrected Jesus reaches out his hands exposing his wrists where I believe are not open gaping wounds, but simply scars.  Scars that reminds us that he was broken for your and my broken lives, broken hearts and baggage we carry.  In the words of my favorite band: "give me the answers, give me the way out, give me the faith for these hard times."

Never stopped loving you,
Jeff

Healer

In the background while I type this post is smooth soothing sounds of the song healer sung by Mike Guglielmucci.  Mike said to have written this song while facing a battle with cancer.  The truth came to known that Mike's cancer was one of his own making.  While his body was not being eaten away, his soul was.  Mike was losing a battle to pornography and sexual addictions.

Our world and our culture find it easier to accept and believe that Mike was crying out from the a physical ailment.  Had Mike come out and said that this song was birthed out his desperate need for God to rescue him from his life of addictions, do we listen the same?  If from the beginning he confessed his jacked up soul and that he needed God to bring healing, do we even make a big deal of it?  Or maybe we just teat him like another fallen man of God that we toss by the waste side.

While in no way to I condone his actions and the lies that followed.  What I do believe is that this song was birthed out of a man's incredible need and desire for God to heal him.  Sexual addictions are real and tremendous diseases that affect so many.  It is a disease that is kept hidden and secret, but a disease nonetheless.  It is something that as men, as people, as an over sexed culture we need healing.

"I believe you're my healer."  No matter your disease heart attack or heart failure, demonic attack or moral failure.  He still heals...

"You Discipled Us With Your Life"

On a large ceramic coffe mug that was signed by former students and youth leaders from our time in Illinois,  mug that often holds my morning caffeine fix, is this one thought from a youth leader: "you discipled us with your life."  Earlier in the week I posted a blog called the It of Your Life.  That simple expression defines and describes the IT of life of my wife and I. 

The youth leader was Andre Tripplett.  We got news yesterday that at the age of 27 Andre went home to be with Jesus.  But as Meredith and I have reflected the past 24 plus hours we came to this conclusion.  There are a lot of people who don't get our IT, but Andre did.  Not only did Andre get IT, but Andre lived IT. 

Discipleship is not a 6 or 13 week study.  It is not a getaway weekend retreat. It is not a book you by at the bookstore. While all these things are beneficial. It is simply life on life.  It is late night conversations.  It is unexpected phone calls.  It is watching the students of your life win. It is watching them lose.  It is giving everything you have to individuals to at times see them walk away and do exactly the opposite.  It is years later seeing them giving IT away. 

Our IT does not necessarily attract large crowds.  Our IT is not a church growth plan.  Our IT is slow, grueling and the most rewarding way we could live our life.  Our IT is putting our lives into someone else's life and teaching them the most important principle of being a disciple: give away all that you have been given.

Andre gave.  And he gave some more.  I think from the outpouring of comments that document his impact.  Whether he knew it our not he discipled us with is life.

To 'Dre

I am sitting at my desk with the sound of clicks on a keyboard because if I were to say it aloud I might break down and cry. So here is to my friend where so many days were spent over a cup of coffee dreaming, growing, laughing.

You were truly a man after God's own heart. While I thought I was teaching you, you were really teaching me. Your life was teaching me how to be humble, how to be graceful, how to love unconditionally. I watched you smile in midst of incredible pain, a smile that would light up a room. I watched you open you lengthy arms and embrace those who needed a hug. I watched as you unassuming persona spoke words of life and built others up, all the while your meekness never recognizing how great you were.

I think all of us somewhere in us looked at you and said "I wish I could be like that." You were a musician, an artist, a brother, a son, a servant, a friend, a hard-worker, a leader, a worshipper, a LOVER OF JESUS. You were bright, intelligent, smart, funny, witty and at times slow to get a joke. You were an overcomer as you fought you dsylexia to continue to read and learn and grow. You are the kind of man tha I want my boys to grow up to be like.

My heart broke when I heard the news. Yet at the same time leapt with joy for you. You are playing that over-sized Guild guitar in the one place you always wanted to be, with Jesus. Today, you will never lay hurting in a hospital bed, but will lay yourself at the feet of Jesus. Today, you will never have to sit out a dance for shortness of breath, but will dance for eternity. Today is an ending and a beginning. Today, we don't say good-bye, but simply say we will see you soon.

Your my friend and a brother. You are my favorite black man.
I love you!
Love,
PJ

Mentoring

While a college student at Lee University, I was given the experience of a life time. Several men in my life took time out of their lives to invest in me. At the time it was one of the more trying experiences, looking back it has been the most rewarding.

We are in a day and culture that lacks fathers and father figures. Mentoring is the principle that Jesus taught his disciples when he summed it all up in six words "freely you have received, freely give." Whether we recognize it or not we all have something to give. The most important thing we have to offer is our time and our attention. Imagine with me the difference you could make just by taking one hour out of your week to give away to someone else. It would be revolutionary.

For more information on how to mentor or where to begin, feel free to contact me.

The "IT" of our life

So this morning I got the awesome opportunity to speak at our church LifeGate Church. While preparing for this message I got stuck looking for a word. While usually I have very little difficulty with words, I just could not come up with an adjective to describe this something. The best word I could come up with is "IT".

"IT" is the indescribable, can't put into words dream and vision and life-calling that God puts in our hearts. It is the doctor who leaves a practice for medical missions, the businessman who gives up major profits to start a non-profit, the pastor who gives up a salary to follow a dream. That is the "IT". "IT" is the one thing that God drops on you that you just have to do. "IT" is the one thing that make you feel alive. "IT" is the one thing that makes you feel like you.

Lexington and LifeGate are our "IT". It is not that we don't have questions about how it all works out, it is just that we know that this is "IT".

Chase after, start, follow and dream up the "IT" of your life.

Six Words

As with most of my life I look for ways to bring to summation what takes me 1000's of words into a few words, just so I can say a 1000 more words about those words. But in short, my life has really come down to 6 words. They are found tucked into Matthew 10 as Jesus is sending out the 12. Funny how we see things a new for the first time sometimes. As I came back to these six words again last night with a group of college students I looked past the little picture and saw a bigger image.

As much as I love chapter and verse divisions in the bible sometimes they hinder us from seeing the gospel story as a story, but often veiwing like a collection of stories. At the end of Matthew 9 Jesus looks out and sees Israel as helpless and harassed, sheep without a shepherd. Then immediately after that in the story Jesus sends out the 12 with these six words tucked in: "freely you have received, freely give."

Simple, short, to the point, but filled with so much. These six words make you and me responsible for what we have been given - time, talent, treasure, wisdom, knowledge. Every teaching, devotion, sermon, revelation that has been given. We have the responsibility to give that away.

Those six words have shaped, developed and been buried inside my heart. So the challenge for us is this: what are you giving away?

Tuesdays with Morrie

I just recently finished the book "Tuesdays with Morrie". It is a riveting book about a college professor dying of ALS and his final Tuesdays spent with a former student. In the last weeks of his life Morrie shares the lessons of life with Mitch Tuesday after Tuesday.

Mitch called Morrie "Coach". This reminds me of what I feel the calling of my life. It is simply wrapped up in six words "freely you have recieved, freely give". Coach in my life was a man named William. Despite our differences he invested his life into mine. It took me several years of self-centered me focus to realize that all the lessons William passed on to me, where not for me or at least me alone.

At the end of the book Morrie tells Mitch how we never die but that our words and lessons we have passed on live on with those we have coached. I often hear the echoes of William in my life. Just the same as those I have coached probably hear the echoes of my lessons in their life.

To all my kids -- the one lesson that threads every other lesson together is simply this "give away what you have been given". Become someones coach...

"we are Tuesday people" said Morrie. Funny Timmy, Robby, and I are Tuesday people.

"Church Clothes"

I grew up attending shirt and tie churches. Growing up my clothes had three categories: play clothes, school clothes and church clothes. So this morning on my way to church I look over out my window at a red light. In the car next to me is a man in a suit. My assumption (which could be wrong cuz we all know what assuming does) is that this man was headed to church bright and early on a Sunday morning.

Now to fully get the contrast let me tell you how I was dressed. I was in my usual jeans, button down shirts and some sanzy Steve Maddens I bought for a wedding I officiated. Now this is not a lesson on style as much as it is a lesson church.

In my childhood became this attachment to a way of dressing and where I was going. Unfortunately this taught me that church had a style. That church had a dress code. That church was a place. I am not here to fight about how we dress for our Sunday Worship services, but what I want to draw our attention to is that from a bible standpoint we are both wrong. You in your suit, me in my jeans.

Church is us, the you and the me. Church is not about buildings, it is about gathers the ecclessia which just means the assembly. So every time we gather over coffee, over dinner, or at our designated Sunday locations we are in church clothes not because of location but because it is who we are.

So I am working on changing my vocabulary. No more "church clothes" in my house. Just a closet full of clothes I wear as the church.

WHO not WHAT

This week in our iGnite discussion we looked at a passage from John 6. By far one of the coolest Jesus chapters in the Gospels. The first half of John 6 is full of the stories we love: Jesus feeds the 5000 (which in reality was 5000 men, so probably closer to 10,000 total), Jesus walks on water, Jesus cause the boat to suddenly get to the shore. All these are the images of Jesus we love -- the cool stuff.

But the rest of the chapter is a discussion between Jesus and those he just fed on the other side of the Lake. The bible makes it increasingly clear that all they are looking for is bread -- the WHAT Jesus can do. Jesus spends the next several verse trying to reveal the WHO. Jesus speaks of the authority of the Father given to Him. He says "I am the Bread of Life." And the question these men keep asking is where can we get this bread. Or the question maybe we ask -- What is it that God does for me?

We pray Lord fix my kids, God fix my bank account, God fix my car, God gives us bread again...all the What's of our life. Jesus simply says "I am the BREAD". It was a reminder for me this week to focus my life on the WHO and not so much the WHAT.

Definition

I realize that my brain works quite uniquely. I wanted the definition of the word "definition". Here is what Webster says: "it is the act of determining." I feel like that is where my life has landed in this place of constantly finding definitions. The words of my life are all there: husband, father, pastor, friend, employee, maker of the morning coffee. But sometimes it is that determining that lacks and quite possibly leaves this question: what is the definition of "me"? Or the way we like to ask the question so it makes the most sense is "who am I?"

I know, I know...I have my list of words (see above list). But does that define us or sometimes are we looking for who we are? At times I wish I could open the page of Webster and find Jeff Pitts somewhere on the page between je ne sais quoi and jello and find the definition of my life.

Until Webster gets it figured out and added to the book I will keep journeying in this process of determining who the God of this Universe is shaping me into.

Where we are...

I got to enjoy one of the things I have missed...long road trips with my wife. We crazily drove to and fro Cleveland, TN (8+ hours one way) in the course of 30 hours. But those moments between nearly missing exits came something that is critical to us, conversation.

One of the things that has always intrigued me about our relationship is that a car ride of any great distance brings out the conversations we don't usually have. These conversations are focused on the some of the big things in our lives -- dreams and visions, hopes and desires. Put aside our conversations about kids homework, laundry, and all the other daily clammerings we pontificate about.

It is in these moments that our hearts are laid open before each other with the deep stirrings that God is putting in us. It is the moment that while we are usually nowhere near where we are going, we talk clearly about where we are.

Giving Back

So I have the distinct pleasure of living downtown. Okay, so downtown Lincoln, IL is not downtown Chicago or New York. The hustle and bustle of life stops here pretty much by 5 PM. The nightlife is limited to a few local pubs and some restaurants that dare to stay open past 7:00. On the upside, just got a brand new coffeeshop - so my withdrawl will be satisfied. But nonetheless we are positioned in the heart of this community.

As I walked all 4 city blocks that make up downtown the thought struck me "am I just a consumer of this community?" Now granted I am a consumer - I will consume coffee from the coffeeshop. I will consume or at least buy guitar strings from the music show. I will feast on amazing Italian from Guzzardo's. Outside of all my consumptions am I contributing back to this community? Sure I work in a church, but that does not equal making a contribution to the town.

As followers of Christ I think we need to look for ways to give back. As churches we need to be leading the way in contributing instead of just consuming. As an individual, I need to be seeking out those that could just a cup of encouragement, a measure of joy and a dash of hope in their lives. I am challenged not just to be a consumer, but somehow to be a contributor to my downtown.