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These things are connected: A conference, a magazine, a flight, and dogsitting.

This Fall I attended (actually served at) a brand new conference/event called STORY. I volunteered for 2 reasons: 1.) Then digital (now real life) friend of mine named Ben Arment was the founder and architect of the event. 2.) There is something about the word ‘story’, and the concept of stories that stirs something deep within my soul. I knew I needed to be at this event.

At the conference everyone received a bag with all kinds of promo, conference info, and a free issue of a magazine called Collide. This particular issue of collide had the word ‘STORY’ written on the front in a very cool font (liken it to dangling a shiny object in front of me). I liked it, but apparently not enough to read it.

I’m typing this blog on a plane via the WordPress app on my iPhone (I love technology). Up until now, my iPhone and all of its marevelous apps has merely served as means of providing a soundtrack (John Mayer, Switchfoot, Johsua Radin). This is primarily because I have been reading the afformentioned magazine. Turns out this issue contained all sorts of articles that captured my attention, and directly addressed a topic that I’ve found myself engrossed in lately: The idea of leveraging our lives to tell a story, and our participation in a Grand Story.

I think that it is no coincidence that I have chosen to read this 6 month old magazine while on a plane travelling to Florida where I’m spending the next 7 days primarily alone, at my friends house in Bradenton caring for his dogs while he is out of town. I have a full plate of work planned for these 7 days, but I’ve made the commitment to myself, to others, and to God that a primary purpose of this trip will be focused dreaming, thinking, and listening.

I’m listening to, observing, and participating in The Story. I’m confident the next 7 days will be providential for my life, ministry, and future.

I’m bad at resolutions. Hopefully I’m better at goals. This past Sunday we had our first full group Student Ministry gathering with our student community at Journey Church. I knew that I wanted to share something that would inspire our students to begin this new year with a new perspective on what it takes to be in an intimate relationship with Jesus Christ.

The main point of my talk was that I did not want our students to rely on myself, our church, and other adult leaders in their life as dispensers of spiritual knowledge. Instead I challenged them to allow our moments together to inspire them to seek God at a new level on their own. From their I shared these points ideas centered around the idea of setting some personal spiritual growth goals for the new year:

1. You have to know where you’re going before you can get there (write it down).
2. Your direction determines your destination (your actions determine where you actually go).
3. Share with someone. Accountability is key.

I then had each student write down some goals. Some actions steps to go with those goals. Then they shared some or all of them with the group. It was awesome!! I loved hearing what the students felt like they needed to do in order to take the next step in their personal relationship with God.

Being faithful to my own principle #3 above, here are my goals:

1. Read the whole Bible (this is partly a personal desire, and partly necessary requirement for a pastoral process I am going through.)
2. Study the Redemptive Story of God at a deeper level (this is a concept that I have been engrossed by lately…)
3. Further develop and understand my personal theology. Some people use their theology as a weapon… I’m not interested in that. I do however feel like it is important to know what you believe, and why you believe so. I think this is an ever evolving process.
4. Intentionally develop and disciple another Christ follower. Every believer should have someone in their life that they are loving on, and journeying with. It’s a calling on each of our lives.

Those are my goals for 2009. They scare me. They excite me. How about yours?

If everywhere you go you have a problem with other people. Guess what: You are the problem. It’s called brokenness. God sends (or has sent) you people to love you, speak truth to you, fellowship with you, and help lead you towards wholeness. You’ve pushed them away. You’ve offended them. You’ve convinced yourself that you are right and they are wrong. You’ve believed the lie that you are unloved by them, by God. Anything but admitting that you might be flawed, that you might be broken.

The prideful selfish heart of man may be our greatest downfall. We all fight it. None are exempt (especially me!). It was a primary side effect of the Fall of Man way back in the beginning. The difference is that some revolt against it, want no part of it, and beg God to replace their prideful selfish hearts with loving hearts concerned more with others than themselves. It is only then that we have the capacity to become whole people, no longer leaving others hurt in our prideful wake.

Nothing breaks my heart more so than when I observe the effect of this type of hurt. Especially within the Church. No one wins. One person sinks deeper into depravity. Another person gets their heart and spirit wrecked by brokenness. The Church becomes less healthy, and thus less appealing to those who need her most. There has to be a better way…

Tonight marked the third straight Christmas season that we have taken the student ministry from Journey Church to what has become a very special place for myself, our adult volunteers, and our students. The place is Brookside Extended Care in Mason, Ohio. Brookside is an AMAZING long term care and learning center for the severely mentally and/or physically handicapped. Many of the residents at Brookside are teenagers or young children… all of them are wheelchair bound, and only a couple can audibly communicate.

For the third year in a row the group of teenagers that we brought to Brookside absolutely blew me away. Here are a bunch of cookie cutter suburban teenagers walking into a room full of kids, teens, and adults in wheelchairs, and unable to physically function at a high level… I can’t imagine the mindset of our teens walking into that moment. Each time we’ve gone, our students have stepped out of their comfort zone, and into the lives that they can hardly imagine. They color with (for) the residents, they make crafts to hang in their rooms and on their wheelchairs, they talk to them, they joke about cute boys and pretty girls, they talk about sports and TV shows, most of the time with the only response being a moan, or a stare from a drooped head. It’s sobering to witness and participate in.

Tonight when we left, on the drive back to the high school, I asked my car full of junior high boys what they thought of the experience, and if it reminded them of anything from Scripture. Here are some responses:

• It was really cool for us to visit them since they don’t get many visitors.
• It’s hard to believe that’s how/where they live their lives everyday.
• It’s tough to think about the fact that they are just teenagers like us.
• On Scripture: It reminded each of them about the stories they had heard about the lepers. Specifically how in our society, we often outcast the handicapped, and avoid them when we encounter them in public.

The most amazing thing about our trips to Brookside is how each time we intend on “blessing” those residents, and each time we leave feeling so much more “blessed” by them. (I put those words in quotes because I’m not even sure what that means… it’s a churchy way of saying that we feel fuzzy inside I think.) Our teams from Journey Church that go to Guatemala each year end up telling a similar story. We go to show love to those people, and end up feeling as much or even more love in return.

What’s up with that? I think the answer lies somewhere in Jesus’ words at the end of Matthew 25. When we serve the “least of these”… we are serving Jesus Himself. Jesus is pleased when we serve the downtrodden, the forgotten, the handicapped, the unloved, the ostracized, etc… When we do this, we make Jesus happy, and we make our own hearts happy… it “blesses” us. It makes me wonder whey we don’t do it more often…

I followed a link on Twitter today for a youth ministry. I figured I could give  a few minutes and help whoever it was trying to gather information to do so. One of the final questions they asked was an essay question that simply asked: “What Is The Gospel?”

This is my answer. I would love to know how you would answer this question!

The Gospel is God’s ongoing story of restoring all people (available to all, given to those who accept). God has been, is, and always will be authoring a grand story, which He has invited us to play a role in. It is the story of creation, fall, redemption and restoration. We have a choice to make: Will we star in our own story of brokenness and insignificance, or play a supporting role in God’s grand story of hope, redemption and healing. To join God’s story is to play a part in advancing the Kingdom… not through rules, regulations, and religion, but through love, justice, and relationship.

The Gospel is nothing more, and nothing less than God offering everything He has to us in order to restore us to the people that we were created to be. He does this so that we may enter into a loving relationship with Him, so that He may fill us with His Spirit, so that we may be fully equipped to complete our primary task as humans made in God’s image: To reflect the Glory of God, so that others may see, and the Kingdom may advance. That is Gospel.

I had this thought a couple of weeks ago. I meant to blog it then. I went to Southern California and forgot about it (SoCal has a way of doing that to you). I saw something today that reminded me about this thought.

What does it mean to be a leader? I’m not even sure that’s the right question… maybe it’s: “What does it mean to be a servant?” or “What does it mean to live?” I dunno… in the context of my faith community, the question would be: “What does it mean to live big?” We have this thing… we talk about living, giving, loving, serving BIG. We believe a big life is the reason Jesus left heaven, came to earth, and did what he did.

Anyway… let’s just roll with the idea of leading. My theory is that leadership means discovering whatever it is that you do best in life (the things that God has most wired and gifted you to do), and figuring out a way to leverage that for the forward motion of others. Leadership at its core is about moving others (individually or organizationally) forward right?

Well, I think living is just as simple. If you aren’t leveraging what you do best in life to move someone else forward to a better place, then you simply aren’t living. You’re dying…selfishly.

This is what I saw today that reminded me of this. It’s a simple concept, just a guy who recognizes that God has given him a unique set of skills and passions, and has decided to use those things to help others. He is living, leading, serving, whatever he’s doing… I like it, and I want to do similar things.

Click here to read all about Help Portrait. Watch the two videos below to understand it fully.

I had a really engaging small group discussion with some of the high school students in Journey Church’s student ministry last night. We talked about a variety of subjects, and the conversation got pretty deep. Questions were asked by me that were over their heads, and questions were asked by them that were over my head! Good stuff! Probably one of the highlights of my year.

Ultimately the conversation centered around the question why. More specifically, how would we answer questions like these:

• Why do you love God?
• Why do you go to church?
• Why do you even do this “Christianity” thing?
• Essentially this: What’s the point of God/Church/Christianity?

I have a great fear that there are thousands of people sitting in Christian churches each Sunday, who have been in the pew for a long time, but have no clue how to answer these questions. I’m not suggesting that there is ONE right answer, but I think there are some key principles and ideas that people simply fail to understand, or lack the ability to communicate about.

So… how about you? Why?

There is something about a good story that has the capability to capture so much more than just our attention. A good story can capture our hearts, souls, bank accounts, or any number of other things. Bottom line, I love a good story… as does just about every person on the planet.

I had the great privilege of going to Chicago last week to serve on the resources staff for the inaugural STORY conference. STORY is the product of one of my favorite bloggers, and good friend Ben Arment. It was truly a wonderful experience for me to serve alongside Ben and so many other great leaders as we poured into the 1600+ ministry leaders who attended STORY.

The heart of STORY was to gather and learn from some of the most gifted Gospel Communicators in the land.  These leaders talked about their stories, how to more effectively share stories, and ultimately about the greatest story ever told: the Gospel story of rebellion, rescue and redemption. It was quite an experience.

I highly recommend that any ministry leader who was unable to attend STORY purchase the 2009 STORY DVD. This DVD will include all of the main session teaching content, and some of the creative elements as well. This is a steal for $79. Also, begin making plans now to attend STORY 2010 in Chicago. STORY will be expanding to a 2 day event next year, with tickets available now for $149. You can click here to find both of these resources!

Check out the STORY Flickr photostream for some great shots from the event!

I have a confession. To anyone who knows me this should not be a secret: I really (really really really) like sports. I like to watch them. I love to play them. I get wrapped up talking about them. My dream job would be that of a sports talk radio show host.

Here’s the thing though. I don’t just like one sport. I become engrossed by just about ANY sport. Seriously. Off the top of my head, if given the opportunity I would watch these sports on live or on TV: baseball, basketball, football, futbol, hockey, boxing, mma, nascar, golf, tennis, and horse racing.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m not ashamed of any of this. People have passions. One of mine is sports, and I’m totally okay with that! The only problem I have is when I catch myself watching some sporting event on TV, and I come to the realization that I’m wasting a large amount of time watching a game that I have no rooting interest in. So…

I think I have a solution. Maybe solution is the wrong word. Maybe more like a commitment. Of all of the major sports I listed above, the one I care least about is NBA basketball. I don’t have a team that I deeply care about  (I root for the Cavs because they are close, and I’m fascinated by Lebron). So with that in mind, I have made the following decision. I’m not going to watch NBA basketball games this year. The season starts tomorrow. I won’t be watching. I’ll catch the highlights on SportsCenter, but I won’t invest large amounts of time watching games I don’t really care about.

What will I do with my extra time? I dunno. Hopefully something productive. I’m not going to say: “Everytime I could be watching the NBA, I’ll read the Bible”. Sure, that’s a great goal, but probably not something I’ll be able to accomplish. My only goal is to not watch the NBA, and to do my best to use that time productively. Talk to my wife. Read a book. Write a blog. Clean the house. Anything but the NBA. Until the playoffs… I’ll have to watch Kobe vs. Lebron in the Finals!

I love to write. I really do. With that said, I don’t have an explanation for why I go through seasons where I don’t blog. I think it’s because I often begin to blog for the wrong reasons. I blog so others will read. Or more specifically so others will comment, and say something like: “Oooh, good post. I really enjoyed reading that”.

Confession: I crave the affirmation of others. It’s a weakness of my flesh. Sorry.

Back to my original thought. I like to write. Really… I do! I love to find new creative outlets. Recently I began writing a weekly recap column for the Fantasy Football League that I’ve been in for 4 years. It’s fun, I get to pretend like I’m an expert, and analyze meaningless fantasy football stats. I even give away weekly awards. It’s sort of an homage to Peter King’s weekly Monday Morning Quarterback article on www.si.com

Recently I’ve been feeling an urge to blog again. Not sure why. I think I just need an outlet. I’ve been reading more lately than I have in several years. I want to share some of the things I’m learning, processing, and struggling with.

I’m embarrassed by my lack of consistency in blogging. Every time I end an e-mail with my signature, I see my blog address, and hope that the person on the other end won’t visit the blog. I hope they’ll see my Twitter URL and check that out instead. I’m a good Twitterer!

All of that to say. I’m blogging again. Not for you. But for me. Hope that’s okay.