Staying Alive

Things I've learned from watching horror movies:

1. Any time you hear a strange noise coming from the basement and ask, "Jim is that you?" If Jim doesn't answer it's not him and it's probably not a good idea to go down there.

2. If you are an attractive and intelligent women your chances of survival are high. If you are only an attractive women your chances of being murdered first are high. If you are only an intelligent man you don't have a prayer.

3. Before going on a weekend outing to a secluded lake where many teenagers have been murdered years before you should probably have your car serviced, as they have a terrible time starting when you are being chased by homicidal maniacs.

4. Whenever one of your friends says, "We should split up." don't listen, that person is crazy and should be sent off by themselves because their stupidity is a danger to everyone.

5. When killing any type of monster, beast, or deranged killer make sure they are dead. I don't care if you shot it in the heart, stabbed it through the head, or ran over it with a train, until you cut it into little pieces and burn it to ash there is always a chance of it getting back up.

6. Never go back for a dog, cat, or even a kid. The only reason these things are around is so more people can get killed looking for them. If they turn up missing while something is on the loose killing people the best thing to do is get to the next country as soon as possible and wait for them to turn up later.

7. If the thing coming after you moves very slow such as a zombie, don't run, power walk. If you run from something slower than you, you will always fall down and for some reason not be able to get up fast enough before said thing catches up with you. It's better to travel at a moderate pace and keep it safe.

8. It's true, if you have premarital sex in a horror movie you'll die. If you are newly weds and have sex you'll still die (Not enough time has passed). If you want to have sex but no one will let you, you die (I think it makes you look perverted). The only people in horror movies aloud to have sex and live are couples that have been married a good number of years (Nobody cares what they're doing).

9. Killers will always use the strangest things for weapons but never firearms. You can leave all the rifles and handguns laying out if there is a psycho killer around, but make sure you lock up all the garden tools, home improvement items and the ice cream scooper.

10. If you suspect you might be in a horror movie never take a shower, look in a mirror, go in the attic, check the fuse box, pull sheets off furniture, or open a door behind which you heard strange sounds. None of these things are known to turn out well for the parties involved.

Who's Your Target?

Psalm of Thanksgiving

I heard from God last night. Not in the super spiritual Old Testament way where God spoke to me through a burning house plant or anything. But, not in the cliche, "This passage in the Bible spoke to me" way either. It was more like an, "Hey idiot, open your eyes and look at what this really is" type thing. To put it in a more common way, a light bulb came on, I had an epiphany, or a moment of clarity if you will.

The last time I felt like God was telling me something, was probably well over a year ago. "What," you say, "Isn't God suppose to speak to the pastor every week as he prepares his sermons?" If so I've been missing the call lately. The strange thing is it didn't come while I was praying or trying to spend time alone with God. It hit me while I was checking the score of last night's football game.

I felt good today, better than I have in awhile. This doesn't mean that everything is going to be easy from this point on, but I now thing I see my place in where I am right now. It's not much, but it's just enough. Last night I realized I'm a pastor, maybe not a very good one, but one of God's and that means a lot.

Thank you to whoever prayed for me, I know someone must have.

Thank you to Cris Elrod for reminding me that the enemy only attacks what he fears.

Thank you to God Almighty, for never giving up on me, the least of his servants.

Okay, let's do what we've been put here for...

Complaint Psalm

I was forgotten about today.

I was warned about how lonely you can feel as a pastor, but I never thought that it would happen to me. I thought I was too surrounded by people, too emotionally strong, maybe even too blessed by God. Long story short, I was wrong.

I remember feeling it come on for the first time months ago. It was the time my wife went back to work after having the baby. I was left with the two kids at night and that with the new job and the new church started to weigh on me. I remember standing in my friends' kitchen trying to explain what was going on with me and how difficult it had became for me to preach. They told me I wasn't by myself, they told me my preaching was fine, I got a hug. I started to feel better.

Tonight wasn't a big deal, and I know it's irrational for me to be sad about it, but isn't that the way demons work, whispering irrational things into your ears until the little things add up to a crushing weight?

I have found myself:

preaching community, yet feeling alone

teaching people to overcome sin, while I struggled with my own

trying to help people understand God, as I wrestle with Him myself

urging people to pray, although I cry out to God unanswered every night

The whole thing reeks of irony, or maybe just hypocrisy.

Either way, this is not self-pity, although I'm sure it sounds that way. I know I'll get through this the way I've been brought through dark places before.

I just want to give a warning to those of you in the beginning processes of planting a church. This has been one of the best things I've ever done , yet it has also been one of the darkest. Don't do this unless you know you've been called. If you have been called, God help you.

As for me, Though He slay me...

Proof You Shouldn't Mix Two Things You Love

Something To Put In My Ear

I have been in a new music drought for about three months now. I used to always have a new song or two that I'd be playing over and over again while working at my computer, but I've been relying on old stuff for a little to long now. So, over the next few days I'm going in search for new music, not necessarily brand new, but at least stuff I haven't heard or took the time to appreciate before. I'll bring back my results soon. Pray for me.

Good

Church was good today even though I don't know why. On the outside it didn't look any different than any other Sunday, but it felt different to me. The last few months have kinda been an emotional roller coaster for me. I've went back and forth from feeling feeling down to feeling hopeful. Lately though, I've been feeling good, not hopeful really because that implies I'm looking forward to something and I'm not at the moment, but just happy to be doing what I'm doing with the people I'm doing it with and not caring so much about the rest.

Not everything is the way I want it right now, but I do believe God's doing things and that's enough for the time being. Maybe everything will change by next Sunday, but for right now I'm enjoying this.

Memento Mori

Today, at lunch with Bekah, I was complaining about the way a certain group of church leaders had conducted their ministries. Yeah, I know, judging another man's servant and all, I take the rebuke. Anyway, when I was done Bekah looks at me and says, "They'll be dead one day." It's a good thing I wasn't drinking my soda at the time or I would have spit it out from laughing so hard. Anyone who knows Bekah only a little bit would never believe that she would joke like this, but those of us that know her better get to see that her humor isn't as far off from the rest of our group as she would let people think.

The thing is, it made me think about the truth to what she said. We will all be dead one day, the things that bother and worry us now won't matter so much then. There is a Latin phrase that goes memento mori. Roughly it means, "Remember that you will die." Early Christians used to use it to remind themselves that if something doesn't matter after death then most likely it just doesn't matter at all.

I'm not proposing a world view that only sets it's sights on heaven and ignores the injustice and suffering on earth, on the contrary, if we take this phrase the way it's meant to be understood, then suffering and injustice become one of the things that do matter, but only in the way they effect eternity. Thus our own suffering means less and that of others means more.

Sometimes I get so caught up in the things around me I forget that one day a lot of this isn't going to matter. At the funeral last week, I got a glimpse of what you leave after you're gone. The lives you've touched whether for good or bad, and the people that you loved as well as those who have loved you.

All this may sound random, but I'm still in the process mode with this thing so forgive me if I regress.

In other news, I'm going to be adding another blog to my links section. My beautiful wife has started a blog called, Autumn's Daily Tidbits. She's an awesome woman, but please don't take the things she says about me too seriously. It should be up tonight sometime, but right now my kids want me to take them for a walk.

Top Five Romantic Movies Of All Time

Some men are afraid to show that they have a softer side, but not me. I'm so completely secure in my manhood that I'm totally comfortable letting my sensitive side show. Why just this afternoon I was thinking about poetry as I was fighting a man with one hand while using the other to tap a keg all while growing a beard. In order to give you an example of this I have composed a list of the most romantic movies of all time. Who says I don't like chick flicks?


1. The Empire Strikes Back - Han knows Leia wants him. Leia knows she wants him. She tries to deny her feelings, but after seeing how awesome he is at flying through asteroid belts and escaping giant space slugs she can hide her true feelings no longer.


2. Braveheart - This guy loved his wife so much that he killed 3,000 Englishmen to avenge her death before hooking up with the queen of England for a one night stand.


3. Rocky - Rocky proved that if a girl won't talk to you, you should keep coming into her work everyday stalking her while telling her strange stories and dumb jokes until you can get her brother to trick her into going on a date with you. For said date, take her to an ice staking rink after hours and then pressure her to come back to your rundown apartment where you can strip down to a wife beater, take off her glasses and call her pretty. Do this and she yours for the rest of the movie and most of the sequels to follow.


4. Love Actually - Yeah...I just kinda like this one. Let's not talk about it.


5. 28 Days Later - True love is running around outside in the rain without any shirt or shoes on, trying to avoid being eaten by zombies, while taking on a platoon of solders set on rape, to save a woman you met three day earlier.

Storyteller

Today, I'm off work so I can go to a funeral for a friend from back in the day. I'm probably going to see some people I haven't seen in awhile. They'll probably be a lot of memories brought up from the past about all the things Fatty used to do. So here are my two:

1. I remember the time Fatty was me, Steven, Tyson, and Kenneth on how we weren't as tough as we thought. He challenged all of us to fight him at once, the four of us verses him and a flimsy piece of PVC pipe. We all jumped him at once, I remember that I got him in a headlock. He broke the pipe over Kenneth's back and stabbed me in the wrist with the jagged piece to make me let go. Needless to say, I did. We broke even that day, but I remember thinking that Fatty was one of the toughest guys I knew.


2. My other memory is from walking with him down the street one day, this time he was lechering us on how the four of us needed to calm down and stop being so crazy. We told him that we weren't that bad and right at that moment a truck went blazing by us, and a man that looked like he'd hadn't been sober since Vietnam screamed to us, "FIGHT ON, WHITE BOYS!" Fatty just hanged his head.


Fatty was right though, we did need to calm down. Fortunately, a couple of years later I found out about Jesus, and whereas calmed down might not be the right words, my life did change for the better. Today while remembering the past I'll be reminded what my future could have been.

It was good knowing you, Fatty.