Allnighter Recap

I'm a little late on this, but we had our big Jr. high outreach event 2 weekends ago.
We call it an outreach and we try to get has many unchurched students to come as possible but we are well aware that a good majority of the students are from other churches.
This event always makes me nervous. Just ask the other youth pastors that work with me on it. They always have to tell me that I'm an idiot and its going to be awesome. I tried to stay calm this year. I tried to tell myself to just have fun with it and let God take care of everything. I found out that it wasn't that easy.
But it turned out to be a success. God definitely came through and touched the lives of many students and it makes me feel even more stupid for doubting Him over and over.
We started off with a rally service at the church. This was by far the funnest part of the night personally.
It was a late night show theme. Another youth pastor and myself were the hosts. We went all out. We had the desk, a skyline, suits, and the monologues. We had an announcer and a band doing the jingles for every game. We rode in on a moped, played stupid games like, will it float, and stupid human tricks. (one kid had 6 toes.) Not really a trick, but by far the most disgusting. We also did some Conan comedy sketches.
After the fun, it was just a time of worship and then the speaker came up and gave the gospel presentation. 22 students made first time decisions. 22! What an unbelievable night.
After the service, we had some pizza and went to this sweet place called McDermont Field house for the night. By far one of the coolest venues I have seen for students.
(It has rock wall, zip line, surf rider, laser tag, inflatables, indoor soccer fields, and the list goes on and on and on.)
Made it back to the church by 7am on Saturday.

Events like this take a lot of work and I always dread the fact that I have to stay up all night, but it always seems to be worth it. The fact that 22 decisions were made to follow Christ, makes me want to do something like this every weekend. It makes me aware of the fact that there are so many lost people right in our community and I should not wait for a big event once a year to do something about it.

Life

Life is crazy right now. I once heard that it is better to busy than bored. I am not too sure that I agree with that statement. I will just compromise and say that there should definitely be a balance between the two. But it is crazy. There are so many things going on personally and in ministry. Some good, some bad. But just for the change of things, lets focus on the good.
I moved into a house this past June with 4 roommate's. I was very hesitant about this move for many different reasons. The last thing I wanted was to hop into a DeLorean like in Back to the Future, and land back in college.
Not that college wasn't an important time, but I lived through that once and did not want to go through it again. The 1am pizza orders and playing video games til 3am days were over. Other hesitations include the house. You have not seen a bachelor pad until you have seen this place. It is big enough for 5 adults (especially when one lives in a closet) but I don't see myself buying it anytime soon. But it works for now.
But overall experience has been better than I ever imagined. We have become more than roommate's. In a way we are a family. We meet every Monday night for cleaning and prayer. We get personal, we complain about life, we keep each other accountable, I never thought when moving here, I would find community like this. It is exactly what I needed. And thank God for this time.

We have our annual Jr. High outreach event this weekend. God always seems to do amazing things in the lives of students at this event. I expect nothing different this weekend. I just pray that students who don't Jesus will find Him and that I can make it all night at my old age.

I am currently listening to David Crowders new CD. It is different to say the least. It has gotten great reviews and is very creative but I'm not loving it. Maybe it will grow on me.

I just ordered Donald Millers new book, "A Million Miles in a Thousand Years."
I heard him speak last year at Fresno Pacific University about the book, and knew right away that it would be incredible. I just didn't know I would have to wait over a year to get it. Now its finally here and cant wait to read it. Ill let you know how it goes.

Fall is finally here. Yesterday it was 97 degrees and right now it is currently 75.
Fall is by far my favorite season. Football, cool weather, the fair, and Disneyland on my birthday. What more could you ask for?

Cowboys won their first game in their new stadium last night on Monday night football.

P90X is kicking my butt. We are on our 17th straight day of working out for an hour a day in our living room. I haven't felt this healthy in years.

Origin Into Schools

Very creative way to get the gospel into the hands of some of the most educated people in the country.
Although acting can be a bit cheesy, I am a huge fan of Kirk and his willingness to proclaim the truth.

The Letter "P"

Pity Party
The past week or so I have been feeling pretty sorry for myself. I will randomly complain about the smallest things. For example, the other day as I was opening my box of cereal, I saw a moth fly out of the box. Yes, I agree that something like that is not very pleasant, but for me it was the icing on the cake for a horrific week. I threw the box in the trash with force and dumped out any other food that I thought a bug could of possibly touched. Lets just say I wasn't very much fun to be around the rest of the day. I haven't been much fun to be around at all lately. Whether discussing work, friends, dating, my age, roommates, God, the town I live in, or some small, insignificant topic, I always, ALWAYS, view the glass half empty. I haven't always been this way. Just lately. And to be honest with you, I'm really quite drained from it. I can only imagine what people are thinking when I just excessively ramble on and on about my frustrations. To be honest, I'm surprised that people still listen.

Praise
Although it has been a rough week, I am finally starting to see the sun shine through this storm. The scary thing is, compared to others, this storm was minor. It is terrifying to think how I will respond when something major comes my way. When I take a look at my life and see what all God has blessed me with, I cant help it but to continually praise Him. He continues to be faithful time and time again, and shame on me for ever doubting it.

P90X
If you don't know what this is, you need to. It is an intense DVD workout program that last for 90 days. The original plan was to do it alone. I wasn't very confident in that idea considering that any other workout routine I have tried has failed miserably. But I really do think this time is different. It has caught on in the house. 4 of us 5 room ates are doing this workout on a daily basis for an hour a day.
I am only on my 5Th day of workouts but I am hurting from my head to my toes. It will kick your butt. Only 85 more to go until I am a muscle machine.

Playoffs
Football season is here and the Dallas Cowboys are off to a great start. I know its only been one game, but I believe this is the year. Maybe not Superbowl, but I think it is the year for the playoffs. I am predicting 12-4 record with a loss in the NFC championship.

Parents
The Parents have had a rough few weeks. My mothers back continues to spasm. She is waiting on all sorts of paperwork to be done for her to have some procedures done to stop the pain. Until then, please keep her and my dad in prayer. She is in constant pain and any prayers would be much appreciated.

Chris Tomlin ' I Will Rise'

Simply Amazing!

Turning 30

I have pretty much all together given up on blogging. Probably obvious to the few readers that every now and then, out of boredom or curiosity, click on the link to see if there have been any updates. But for this occasion, a blog post is necessary. I don't really know why, but it is.

I will admit, that my birthday is not for a couple more months. (2 months, 1 week, and 1 day to be exact) but I am already nervous, excited, sad, eager, depressed, and flat out scared about the approach of my midlife crisis. Yes, you heard me correctly. Mid Life Crisis. I am sure something will happen to me in the next 30 years like getting hit by a truck or Jesus coming back. So if I am living way passed 60, I will be a happy man or at least hope to be.
But 30 is coming and there is nothing I can do about it. I mean, where did the time go? It was only yesterday that I was playing basketball for my high school and pulling allnighters studying for Spanish. What happened to college? That flew by. And now I have been in Cali for 6 years. Really? 6 years? Time continues to tick away, and there is nothing I can do about it.

I don't have the statistics of the average American 30 year old man but when I think of this person, I think of someone I'm not. In my mind its a husband with a kid who owns a house, has a dog, drives a nice car, wears a tie to work, and comes home to dinner on the table. For some reason, I have let society completely deceive me and make me think this is SUCCESS, that this is happiness. If that's the case, I am really behind.
Don't get me wrong. I have a great life. I have a job doing something I love, I have been blessed with some great friends, my family is close by, and I am healthy.
It just seems like something is missing. That something needs to change. And I am anxiously waiting for that day to come. I just have to be patient. I just have to let God do His work in me and the rest of the story will soon fall in to place. God, I hope so.

Life has many seasons, and I cant wait to see what God has in store for me. My prayer is that my story will have involved some leaving and some coming home, some summer and some winter. My hope is that this story will be about changing, about getting something new born inside of me, about learning to love a woman, about learning to love a child, about moving myself around mountains, around water, around friends, about learning to love others more than I love myself.

Life was never meant to be stagnant. To replay the same scenes over and over again. Its our responsibility to branch out and live life to the fullest. I have had a fun and entertaining first 30 years. It has had many laughs and even a few tears. I have traveled, met interesting people, fallen in love, fallen out of love, helped some, hurt some, and have desperately tried to draw closer and closer to the God who loves me unconditionally, the one who has given me this story to tell.

My prayer, my dream for the 2nd half of the story is to know Him and to make Him known. To take risks, to let people in. To be nicer, to get closer to my family, to start my own family, to travel, to learn, to let people in. (did i say that already?)
Lets just hope that all this will happen before that bus comes.

Give it Away

I was driving home the other night. It had been a long, emotional, tiring day. These days are rare for me. I am very good (probably too good for my own good) at bottling everything up inside. I think I could probably win an Oscar for hiding what I am truly feeling from people at times. Trust me, this is not something I am proud of.
I had a good 45 minute drive home so I had plenty of time to just pray and think about life. A time to be real and open. I was pretty overwhelmed with so many different emotions that I just needed a release.
And as I was praying, all of a sudden a song popped into my head. Not just any song. This was a song that I haven't heard since Jr. High. A song that was released in 1992. It was a song that was good and comforting for me to hear.
So I plugged in the ipod and listened to Michael W Smiths song "Give it Away"
Throughout the song it tells the story of people who say they love but it cant truly be love until you are willing to give it away. To show them with action.
I immediately felt convicted and was reminded of how selfish I have been lately. How I say I love (and do) but am too scared or selfish to actually show it. I think this selfishness is something that could possibly and unfortunately made me lose some great things in life. There was nothing I was willing to do to sacrifice. Isn't that what love is? Sacrifice?

This has been a lesson well learned and it something that I believe is changing who I am as a person. I'm tired of living the fearful, timid, secure, easy, convenient, selfish life and I truly want to LOVE people with action. I want to sacrifice. I want to give it away.
Jesus was the ultimate example of what love could truly be. Love was His life and He gave it away.
In what ever way I can, I want to sacrifice for the good of others. I want to gain back the things that were possibly lost. I want to change.
I know this blog is just "words" but I am ready to take action.

Thanks God for this awesome reminder.

Benefits that dont benefit

It has been quite some time that I have posted something that has had any true value or even deep thought to it. But for some reason, I thought that today, I would share what God has been teaching me lately. So enjoy yourself readers(or reader)Today is that day.

The last few weeks, my relationship with God has been crappy. Seriously, crap. I don't blame Him though. I have been in this state of complacency. A place where I feel like a hamster spinning on a wheel everyday. Nothing new, nothing exciting. I go to work, I go home, I go to sleep, and the cycle continues.
For some reason, the connection with God's love just has not seemed to be there lately. I don't really know how to explain it. This has lead to some deep thinking that has made my head want to explode.

I sometimes wonder if Christians have selfish motives in their relationship with God. Truth, God blesses us. It is wonderful. He gives, He provides, old self, old habits, old perspective have all completely been turned upside down and spun around.
But, the question is, am I just in it for the benefits? Am I?
There is no doubt that having a relationship with God, you will have beneficial transformation. But sometimes it seems as if its nothing but a consumerist approach to God's love, doesn't it? It's like I've been attracted to this one-stop-shop of Jesus fixes, Santa Clause, rub the lamp, kind of relationship. but if that's all I'm in it for, then what about the parts of the Bible that I'm reading that talk about uniting with Christ's suffering and pain in our connection to the world? Loving our enemies, giving better than receiving, that's not all that desirable to me. Where do all these things fit into my consumption of "Benefit(ME) Jesus

The sad part is, when all these things seem to fade, its as if Jesus Himself abandoned us.

But this is what I have realized. I have realized that I cant just go on consuming God's love. Instead I am letting His love consume me. I am letting it surround, penetrate, overflow through me.

Karl Barth, was asked one day what the most profound discovery he ever found of God in all the scriptures.This was asked of a brilliant aged man who spent countless hours contemplating and living this gospel his entire life. Amongst some of the other greatest intellectual theologians in the entire world he simply answered, "Jesus loves me this I know, for the Bible tells me so." Jesus loves YOU, and He loves ME, and He loves His whole creation!

I can only explain my previous disconnect with God's love was the result of my lack of acknowledging it was within my midst. Other things have always gotten in the way of me knowing, experiencing and seeing God's Love. Who would have thought the the benefits of Christ would be one of those things?


"And I am convinced that nothing can ever separate us from his love. Death can't, and life can't. The angels can't, and the demons can't. Our fears for today, our worries about tomorrow, and even the powers of hell can't keep God's love away." Romans 8:38 NLT

Reminder to Volunteer leaders

I cannot stress enough, and I think any youth pastor out there would agree, on the importance of volunteers in your ministry. After a few years of being a youth pastor I have really come to believe they are the glue that holds a ministry together.
The ministry will not be successful without good, well trained, passionate, loving, leaders who will be an example of Christ to the students.

These leaders are not easy to find.
I have found out that there are leaders who come on board but don't necessarily do their job. I want to make sure that everyone on my staff is going in the same direction and doing their part. So I came up with a nifty little illustration to make this happen.

If you have ever been on an oar boat with a group, you know the steps you must take to get where you want to go.
1. Every one must be doing their job
2. Every one must be in unison

If you fail to accomplish either one of these steps you are either going to go no where or go in the wrong direction.

My goal is for my volunteer staff to be on the same page. To work together to accomplish the vision of the ministry. So I came up with this little reminder to give to all the leaders. They can put their oar in a place that will remind them on a daily basis the vision of our ministry.

Joaquin Phoenix on Late Show

This has to be one of the funniest but most ackward late night interviews I have ever seen.

True Love Waits

Every two years our church holds a True Love Waits conference. It is a conference that challenges students to make a commitment to remain sexually abstinent until marriage. It was a very long and challenging weekend. These poor kids had to sit through awkward sessions on what a s.t.d. can do to you. You could see the disgust on their faces. Even I almost passed out at one point. I guess the goal was to scare the sex drive out of them.
They learned about teenage pregnancies, abortions, and who knows what else.
But most importantly they learned that Gods way is by far the best way.
The truth is I have really never been sold on these kind of public commitments. For one, I never made one and I'm still following Gods plan, and two, many of these students are going to break it anyway.
The statistics show that about 80% of these students are going to break this public pledge of purity. So why do it?
I have learned that I need to set aside my normal pessimistic views (more like annoyingly realistic) and focus on the 20% that will keep this pledge.
How awesome is it in a world like today that these students have chosen to make a really unpopular choice and get up in front of their friends and family and choose to save themselves for their future spouse?
Our speaker said something that really stuck out. He said "if the world isn't making fun of you, you are doing something wrong."

Good job students. I'm proud of you!

Great Idea NBA

Just saw this on MSN. The NBA all star weekend will now include the game H-O-R-S-E. I think its genius. The actual game itself is a joke, the dunk contest never has any big name players and the three point contest usually isnt that great.

Throw a mic on some of the best shooters and have them goof off and try to make crazy shots. It will be entertaining to say the least.

My future

I have had a membership to the gym for the last year. I really didn't use it much. If you think about it, a gym is one of the biggest scams out there. You pay a lot of money every month to go lift heavy things. Who does that?
So last week I decided to put my membership on hold. But after a week, I took it off hold. Now I am confused on whether it is worth keeping or not.
These two new items are going to help my decision. They are going to change my life.

#1.
- Most "seen on TV" products never really seem to work but this item is amazing. You just place it on the door and do as many pull ups as possible. I can do about 3 right now. It can also be used for pushups, situps, and tricep dips.

#2.
- I just tried this the other night for the first time and I am still sore. It makes you do all these weird excercises that you would never do at a gym. Yoga might be my favorite right now.

If all goes well, this will be me in a few months.

App of the week

This Christmas, I finally caved in and got me a new little toy. Yes, I had to purchase the iphone. Everyone was doing it. I figured in order to be successful at my job and in life, I must have this phone. Okay, not really. I really enjoy the games.
But my favorite thing to do is find different applications. There are thousands of them. You could probably survive on this phone alone with all that it offers. Well, you would still need food and water but I am sure they will make an app for that someday.
But until then, once a week, I will let you know some of my favorites. Here is #1.


I am starting school this week and thought that this would come in handy. You can record anything around you and then they are saved for replay. The best part of all, you can use a Wi-Fi connection for transfer of files to your computer.

If you got a iphone or itouch, this app is pretty cool. (itouch will need a mic)

My knee hurts

We are well in to the new year. Usually sometime in December I reminisce on the past 365 days and think of all the events that took place in my life. Whether they are good or even bad, I think it is really important to make sure you are living life. I had a great 2008. I have a great job ministering to young youth, I have family in the area, I have great friends, (old and new) and I have health.
Its very difficult to try and arrange the level of importance between all these things, but I have learned in the past (when I had mononucleosis) that without health, you have nothing. Seriously, ask me sometime about my dreadful kissing disease that I somehow caught in the year 2002. I wouldn't wish it upon my worst enemy. But 9 months later, the disease left my body and I have thanked God everyday since then for my health.
But now 7 years later, I have pain in my knee. Its not bad pain but it is definitely bothersome. I have a goal, like every other year, to get in shape. But now, when I try to run, my knee hurts. Its all because of the stupid half marathon that I ran in September. Even though my knee kept screaming at me to stop running, I didn't listen and now I don't know what to do. I tried to diagnose it myself. If going by the picture above, I think I have either a spranged meniscus, a broken patella, or a torn bursa.
"Why don't you go to the doctor?" you might ask.... Well because I don't want to.
I have a phobia of doctors and hospitals and needles and blood. Just typing these words makes my hands sweaty and causes me to have short breaths. The worst possible news that the doc could give me would be "you need surgery." If I heard those dreadful words, I guarantee that I will cry like a baby.

So I guess I have a choice. I can either not the run the rest of my life, or I can go see a doctor. Running is overrated anyway.

So I will continue to have goals for this new year but I don't think the Disney half marathon is going to be one of them.