I took this picture several weeks ago while taking a walk. It takes me about 40 minutes to walk from my house to the house I grew up in. The neighborhood you have to walk through to get to it is full of trees and beautiful old yards that you can just tell have lots of memories of family. These yards, these trees, these houses are rich. And I don’t mean with money. I mean with soul.
I was listening to the new Desperation Band record. It’s a great one by the way! I recommend that you get it! It has some tunes on there that are deep. So while I was walking…. I was….. of course worshipping. It was probably funny to see me walk by your house because I was either stretching my arms out wide OR playing air drums. As I was walking I noticed the sun light dancing around the dark asphalt beneath my feet. When I looked to my left, the picture above is what I saw. I stood for a while just breathing in beauty. Breathing in creation. I thought that this is what the bible must mean when it says that creation cries out to God.
Luke 40“I tell you,” he replied, “if they keep quiet, the stones will cry out.”
Then I thought… ‘Capture this somehow!’ ‘Don’t let this slip by!’. So I grabbed my ALWAYS present iPhone and snapped this beautiful pic. I now think that God was showing His glory to me that day to remind me of the little things that aren’t as little as I think. An incredible sunset is not little. It is glorious creation. It is God reminding me of His sovereignty. Reminding me that He is with me.
Last Thursday was Thanksgiving. I am thankful for so much. I am thankful for the little things that shouldn’t be little to me. A great pastor and man of God, Matt Chandler, found out that day that he has a tumor in the frontal lobe of his brain. He is young, healthy, a new father of a third baby and the pastor of a thriving church in Texas that is literally just about to open a huge beautiful new building. How quickly life can change. They are hopeful and even joyful. God will be glorified through this season for him and his family. I am prayerful.
As I drove the 40 mintues to my in-laws for Thanksgiving dinner I couldn’t help but think about Matt. I couldn’t help but glance in my rearview mirror and see my 2 beautiful kids and my incredible wife and think about how quickly life was moving by and how quickly it could all change. Wondering how it would feel to get news like that pastor. How that would change how I looked at everything. God remind me of the little things that aren’t so little….. the sunset above…..my babies laughing in the backseat of my car.
May we rejoice, may we see and may we feel God in the little things.
In January of 2007 God arrested my heart for Northern Uganda. I was a very self absorbed american (i find that i still am for the most part….sadly) that didn’t pay much attention to anything other than what I was doing. Want to know how I justified it? I work for a church and helping people and worshipping God is my job. I am paid to have heart for people. It wasn’t until God showed me what true depravity looked like that I got it. There are people who worship God that literally need Him to provide or they won’t eat, be healed or live. That wasn’t me. I don’t want for much. I have been able to selfishly attain whatever I want materially. That wasn’t enough for God. He wanted me to understand what it meant to be completely reliant on Jesus and following Him completely. While I will admit that I don’t understand it as I should…. my eyes are being opened.
I still have my heart for Uganda, but my heart is now stirring in a direction for those being taken advantage of in the sex trade. Hundreds of thousands of young men, women and children are being prostituted for another’s gain. Innocence is being stolen all over the world and there is little that we have done to stop it. God is stirring in me the unstoppable movement that He did when He gave me Uganda. If I do NOTHING am I a contributor?
So there is a great song called God of this city. It was released a little bit ago by Chris Tomlin. I’ve been doing it for about a year now. If you listen to Christian radio like Air 1 you may have heard another version. I’ve liked it so I finally got around to looking it up and it turns out that the song was written by an Irish band named Bluetree. Pretty cool!
* for facebook friends….if you look at the posted date of that ‘Uganda is Imminent’ you’ll see that it was posted originally in January of 08. Sorry for the confusion!! *
So, today is March 11th and it has been almost a full month since i’ve been back from Uganda. So much has happened in these few short weeks. My band had a few out of town dates and we had our first ever ‘Small Church Conference‘ which went incredibly well. Even as I’m typing this I’m amazed at how much has happened in such a short time because it seems like just yesterday I got off of the plane from Uganda. I find my mind, and in turn my heart, drifting to Uganda more and more. I know that I’m called to serve here, in OKC, locally, but I know I’m called to Africa as well. I feel like I have left a piece of me there and actually I feel like having gone a second time that I’ve left a bigger piece than before.
The night before we left one of our great African friends Martin said that he had hoped that we would come back to the states with everything but our hearts. Because if we left our heart then surely we would swim the ocean to come back to find it. I feel like that is true. I just got done uploading a ton of Uganda pics and will be uploading some video soon but as I was doing it Gulu came rushing through my head again…..literally…..the smells….the sounds…..the faces……the light and the dark. It’s funny how the brain works. We are such tactile people. Have you ever had an experience that has melded a certain taste, smell or sound to a particular memory? It’s pretty amazing and maybe in some cases it’s God’s way of helping that memory to stay alive……today in my office….by myself…. I was in Gulu ……and I miss it.
Some of the highlights of this years trip was being able to lead worship for 3 days at a conference. Last time I got the flu before I left so I sang maybe twice the whole time. This time I got to lead quite a bit. Which was awesome and terrifying all at the same time. Usually before I would lead there would be a time of incredible African lead worship with drums and dancing and then me……the hairy american guy with just an acoustic guitar. The amazing thing….God showed up. As a worship leader that has a band that gets to travel around a little, I’ve seen and been able to do some pretty cool things. Hearing a room full of Ugandans sing from the depths of them a song that you’ve written is on a whole other level! Glory to God!
Other days we saw over a thousand men, women and children sitting under shade trees receiving healing and hope through the Trauma Counceling ministry that Favor of God does. We were able to go in to the prisons and preach to prisoners that are truly guilty until proven innocent and watch them accept the love of Christ by the dozens. We were apart of crusades that saw hundreds accept Christ and then travel to a military hospital to hand out bibles. We saw hundreds of men and women crammed in to tiny buildings to be taught the bible in portable bible schools to then go and teach others. We ate in homes of wonderful people that we are so honored to call family.
So, I have left Africa with my heart, or at least part of it, there. I can’t wait until it’s time for me in a year or so to once again travel back to serve and simply be a small part of the incredible move of God there.
I leave for Uganda in 6 days. I find myself remembering all of the incredible things we experienced last time. This trip there are only 4 travelers as opposed to 10 from last time. I think the traveling will be easier given the people that are traveling with me and that I know what kind of grueling travel to expect.
During this trip it looks like I will have the opportunity to lead worship for a 2 day worship conference in Gulu, Uganda. I can’t wait to see what happens with that. God is so alive, so present and His people are so uninhibited there. I’m sure it will be an experience like no other. How do you prepare for something like that? I mean first and foremost the language will be a barrier. I’m not sure how this will work. I know only that it WILL work because God is behind it. That is a very cool prospect.
I can envision the children’s faces as we hold their hands and hug them in the camps. I remember as they check their own hands to see if our ‘white’ had wiped on to them. I can hear the children laughing as we play with them at the orphanage. I remember the tears we cried when we first saw true worship in a mud hut with nothing but hands clapping and voices raised. I can feel the hope and joy we saw in the prisons and the tenderness of those we prayed for in the hospitals. I can see the change as we saw people accept Jesus for the first time in camps, prisons and hospitals. Soon those memories will become reality again. I am grateful.
Every so often as a worship leader that writes their own songs you find that you are actually inspired by God. What I mean is as a song writer I get inspirations from God all of the time. Sometimes they flesh out in to song ideas and then sometimes that inspiration is received exactly as it was intended. I usually don’t tell my church about the songs I write. Mostly because I want to guard myself from thinking that the songs are mine or that I’m worthy of praise. I’m not. God is through the songs HE gives me!
This past week God inspired me once again and the song fleshed out. With the economy today and the uncertainty of politics I felt like God was urging me toward the completeness of the Father. He is our source, our rock our provider. We do not place our hopes in anything else but in Him and in Him completely. Sometimes it just feels good to repeat truth openly. That’s what this song is. In a time that is uncertain and scary we believe that He is God, faithful in every way. That He is in control and that He is who we’ll lean on.
Sometimes we need to remind ourselves of truth by speaking it …… or in this case ….. singing it.
Here are the lyrics. I hope you will be reminded of truth.
I BELIEVE - Vs. You are God, even when I don’t know the turns this life will make You are Good, even if my heart breaks Pre-Chorus: You are the truth that I will hold to You are the hope that I will reach to Chorus: I believe that You are God, faithful in everyway
That You are in control, You give and take away
Take my heart in Yours, I give it all away
You are what I’ll lean on, You are what I’ll lean on Bridge:
You are the rock, You are the source
You are all I’ll cling to
So I’m in church right now listening to Isreal preach on 1st John. We hit a part in the text about if you deny Christ you deny the Father. So I got on my iPhone and am blogging. The point is interesting and I believe true but how does that effect our every day spirituality? I mean it’s easy to understand that if you deny Christ then you are not a Christian right? What is interesting to me is if you deny one then you deny all. All meaning Jesus, the Father AND the Spirit. Here’s where I think it becomes tangable. If you deny Christ then you deny the Spirit and more over if you deny the Spirit you deny Christ. So as ministers and as leaders and as church we must be so careful about denying practically the Spirit AND over emphasizing the Spirit. If you deny the importantance of the Spirit; doesn’t it make sense that you are denying the importance of the Christ? He is three in one.
I grew up in a Catholic home which means overall the Spirit was a pillar of the church not a practice by any means. The thought of the Spirit being alive and active was reserved for TBN and weirdos. When I came to know Christ as my savior I was in a Methodist church. In that church I was discipled well but the idea of the Spirit was something we studied and not really applicable and if it every actually happened then it was scrutenized harshly. After that I had been exposed to the polar opposite. Churches that were completely Spirit focused and basically operating under the idea that if the Spirit didn’t ‘manifest’ itself then the service was a bust.
How have we gone to the full extremes? If it’s true that if we deny one we deny all then we must confirm all; meaning that Father, Spirit and Son are ALL alive and ALL living and ALL active today. We must guard against putting one in a confining box because if we do then we put ALL of God in a box. God will not be confined.
What a measuring tool! Are we operating in our ministries as if He is FULLY present and are we creating atmospheres that will allow God to move in all three and NOT what be believe the magic combination should be?
I’ve been doing ministry now for over 10 years. I’ve been in many situations ministry wise from traditional Methodist to heavy Evangelistic to community driven to even Catholic. Yep Catholic….. ‘and also with you!’. Anyway, what I’ve learned over a short time in ministry is that people long for authenticity. Authenticity in truth, leadership and experience. The church has created tons of ways to ‘deliver’ the word of God from thumping people on the heads with their bibles to ‘edgy’ sermon series like ‘At The Movies’. I mean what could be more authentic than Nacho Libre right? Once all of that is stripped away what’s left….simple truth. Is it possible that we are robbing our people of authenticity by clouding it with catchy worldly junk or clouding it in religious muck? Is it the truth of a living God moving today and in our lives that moves people authentic change or creative props? The idea of the truth stays the same but the delivery has to change has been abused. The truth HAS to stay the same and the delivery has to be careful to not muddy up the message. We must take care to not take focus off of Him and on to the ministries that are supposed to connect us with Him in the first place. When people see the church they should see Jesus……not glitz and glamour. Let’s give people authenticity.
Israel and I stayed in a Days Inn in Texas in May of this year. This is where said incident happened. Now, let me say that I have stayed in many different hotels, and I have had many odd experiences…..but….never one like this.
So, here’s what went down. Israel and I checked in to the hotel, got our keys and went to our room. When we entered our room we noticed that the bathroom door was locked from the inside. We called the front desk and they said they would send someone down. A few moments later we heard a knock on the door. When we opened the door we found a man standing there with a crowbar. Yep a crowbar. I asked if I could help him he said he was here to ‘unlock’ the door. I opened the door and held it open while he moved to the bathroom door to work on it. He literally began to pry the door open. This guy works for the place mind you! So, I think to myself….no one will believe me unless I take a picture…. so I use my great hand to eye coordination and I flip my crackberry to silent to snap a silent picture. Unfortunately for me I didn’t know that it didn’t actually silent the camera I also didn’t realize the flash was on. Yep, so I clicked the picture button and a very bright flash followed by a loud ‘chick chick’ happened in the guy’s face. He turned to look at me with a look like I just called his mother something and my only response was…..’um…I’m sorry…I guess my phone isn’t working correctly….’. He asked me to back up. He crowbared the door and from then on the facilities were available.
I’ve included two pictures to document the incident. 1. the actual picture of the man and his crowbar and 2. Israel’s facial reinactment of the incident.
The actual crowbar
The reinactment
I should also add that Israel saw the crowbar man at the door and instantly opened his macbook that was not even on and proceeded to check imaginary email. traitor!
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