C1

This past Tuesday, Tasha and I were privileged to join with our friends from Return Worship to lead CharlotteONE, a college and young adult gathering in downtown Charlotte. CharlotteONE was started as a tool to reach the young professionals of Charlotte. C1 is a parachurch organization that strategically partners with local churches and their already existing or non-existing college ministries. David Hickman, the founder and the brains behind C1, invited Return to lead this Spring semester and what a huge honor it is!



If you're in the Charlotte area, come out every Tuesday night to First United Methodist Church at 7 pm to experience the movement of God happening with C1.

This week we played:
1. I Am Free (Desperation Band)
2. Here is our King (David Crowder)
3. Marvelous Light (Charlie Hall)
4. Jesus Paid it All (Passion)
5. Mighty to Save (Hillsong)

Flashback Friday: Nile River Baptisms

This day marks 1 of the top 5 best days of my life. During one of my 3 trips to Uganda, Africa (2004) I had the privilege of baptizing a bunch of new believers who were saved in the church that my brother, Smooth, and I started in a village 3 years earlier (2001). And we baptized them right there in the Nile River in Jinja, Uganda. It was an incredible day! Words can't express the feeling of returning to the church 3 years later and see it exploding at the seams with new believers. We praise God for the work still going on in Uganda even after the horrific struggles they've experienced in the past 30 years.

Enter the Worship Circle

Just finished Enter the Worship Circle by Ben Pasley. Ben is a worship leader, song writer and creative writer. The book is evangelistically driven, with hopes that an unbeliever will pick it up and be hooked because of the spiritual hunger of this generation. His main goal is to argue that the spiritual hunger in every soul is placed there by the one true and living God, Jesus Christ, whom should be the center and focus of our worship. His creative style (using 7 different perspectives, or voices), and quick easy-to-read chapters add to the book's ability to hook you and makes for great toilet reading.

Overall, a great read and I only came away with 2 criticisms:

1. He's a bit too mystical for my taste. It's obvious that he comes from a tradition that places a lot of stock in prophetic dreams and visions. Now, I certainly am not one to put limits on what God chooses to do today and how He chooses to do it, but I do have reservations when prophetic dreams and visions overshadow the biblical revelation that we have in God's Word. I'm not presuming that Pasley does that, but I do see it as a small red flag.

2. Though the book is written with the unbeliever in mind, Pasley never quite brings the reader to the point of decision. He clearly communicates the need for a Savior and how much we all need Him, but then leaves the reader hanging as if to say, "You'll figure out what to do next!" This is a major criticism I see of the book, because I think that for many readers, the end will only leave them frustrated and perhaps more confused. But then again, the Holy Spirit can work through anything.

One of the best nuggets I pulled out comes later on in the book. The chapter is simply called "Music" and it's a personification of music, as if music could communicate thoughts about God and itself. Here's some of it:

"I am constantly trespassing the boundaries that confine the language of words. I am passion given voice. I am the music of the worshiping soul ... I exist in the heavens, in the spiritual world that some men never see, and I move like a great tide from the throne room of God into the rooms of worshipers everywhere. My distant half-brothers fill the earth with reflections of love for everything but the living God. They are only half-rhythms and half-music, and they only hint at the sacred, even if pointing to the profane. I am pure. Whether aggressive or sublime. Whether future or primeval. Whether simple or confused. I can be angry or sad or lonely or happy or insane or romantic. I am the sound of relationship between people and God."

Flashback Friday: My Patient Girlfriend

My incredible wife turned 29 yesterday! I was out of the blogging world all day yesterday, and for good reason - we were hanging out together!

(Dan and Raina, thanks for watching the kids for us last night. We owe you one!)

It was a love for music and worship that brought us together while in college at North Greenville College, in the smallest town on the map, Tigerville, SC. We met while playing together in our BSU praise band, and from there it led to more opportunities to lead worship together, a beautiful courtship, and now a family and a ministry.

She put up with a lot in those early days. Here's a small list I've compiled as I sit here and think about how incredible she was (and still is) to endure my idiosyncrasies.

Top 10 Things Tasha Put Up With:

1. My terrible communication skills.

2. The fact that I frequently fell asleep on the phone during life-altering conversations about our future together, God's will, and small stuff like that.

3. My tendency to wax philosophical after just coming out of Systematic Theology.

4. An absolute love affair with Ramen noodles.

5. A dorm room bed whose sheets hadn't been washed in 3 semesters (thankfully, this information was never disclosed until after the wedding ceremony - of course, this was intentional).

6. My one pair of jeans that were never washed.

7. My '94 Mitsubishi Eclipse with NO defrost - the speculation and talk that must have went on as we pulled onto campus with foggy windows - not helpful for 2 kids trying to demonstrate pure lives in front of peers!

8. The fact that our fanciest dates were Sunday's "Wear a Tie for Roast Beef and Potatoes" day in our school cafeteria.

9. The blank stares and courtesy responses she received from me immediately following her music theory classes ("sure babe, counterpoint, mmm hmm, yea... theme and variation ... right... mmm hmmm....")

and finally,

10. My nasty, unwashed, dreadlocks!



Tasha, you're a very patient woman. Thank you for almost 6 incredible years of marriage! I love you more today than ever. Thanks for joining me in this journey together. Now, let's go to Oak Island, NC and continue our ministry together at this winter retreat!

We would appreciate your prayers for the students that we minister to this weekend at Fort Caswell Baptist Camp - that the Holy Spirit will work in their lives in a powerful way. Thanks so much.

Flashbang

Just finished reading Flashbang: How I Got Over Myself by Mark Steele. I definitely recommend if you want an easy page-turner packed with truth. It's a book of personal stories and musings from Mark's life as a comedian and film maker who happens to be a devout follower of Christ. I laughed out loud all the way through the book. He's a clever writer and definitely knows how to use humor effectively. It's hard to approach this book with your guard up, so when Mark draws his analogies and the truth comes flying at you, it hits hard.

Here's a quick takeaway from Chapter 1:

* (Background: He tells a comical story about having several pet birds growing up. They were allowed to roam the house freely, but always returned to their cages when they were ready.)

"The parakeets, the finches. They all lived far, far beyond their normal life spans because they spread their wings into the wild, all the while returning to the cage to rest and refuel ...

So real freedom has nothing to do with getting away from the cage.

We think our society is so elite because we choose our own freedoms, but really, we are just in constant denial of what it means to be a true human being. We fight against the cage for the sake of freedom, but we are nothing close to free."

Flashback Friday: Brandy

The great theologian Woody Allen once said, "I'm not afraid to die; I just don't want to be there when it happens."

As a 10-year old boy, I was there when death came calling for Brandy, my precious cocker-spaniel. I was riding the bus. Brandy liked to chase my bus quite frequently. I think it made her feel mighty. Like she was the cause of this enormous yellow contraption running in the other direction. I felt a thump.

"Hmm ... I wonder what that was!"

I asked my brother, Smooth. He didn't know. We disembarked.

A huddle of neighborhood kids began to gather around Brandy at the foot of my driveway. She lay there in a pool of her own blood, struggling, gurgling her last few breaths. I sat dumbfounded.

"I just ran over my dog," I thought to myself. Maybe I wasn't the one driving, but I was an accomplice nonetheless. I was partly to blame.

"How can I go on?" I wondered. "How can these people go about their normal lives when Brandy lies here in her final moments?" It was a crushing blow to a young developing soul.

Why did she have to love me so much? Why couldn't she at least have had some measure of disdain for me, or my bookbag, my middle-school odor, something? - something that would have acted as a deterrent on that fateful day? - that horrid day burned forever in my memory.

If there was one thing I learned in the midst of that tragedy, it's this:
Skipping school saves lives!

Here's a traditional haiku poem I just wrote in Brandy's memory.

K-9 FOOL

Oh, Brandy, you fool.
I miss you. Why did you go?
That fateful day - bleak.

You ran toward death
Unbeknownst to you - big bus.
You fool. Death on street.

I wish'd you'd been smart
Instead, you loved me too much.
The pain. The sorrow.

Sobs. Tears. Time passes.
Less tears now. I'm grown. You're dead.
There's no tomorrow.

Rockstar Zeke

Here's one of the coolest presents we've ever given our kids. With some of Zeke's Christmas money from the grandparents, we bought him a junior guitar. It actually has real strings, stays in tune (that is when Zeke isn't using torturing and banging on it like you would a sick kitten), and is the perfect stunt double when I bring mine out. My Taylor guitar has been thanking me everyday that it no longer has to endure the beating that Zeke provides. It wants to know why this didn't happen sooner. I'm wondering the same thing.

What a little rockstar! Notice the picks the size of Texas!!

A Thread of Consistency

For a gift several years ago, Tasha's mom and aunt spent several weeks quilting her a memory blanket--a blanket made up of scraps of t-shirts and other memorabilia from Tasha's childhood--pieces of cloth that had special significance in Tasha's life at various stages. It was a pretty special gift.

Now, I don't know much about quilting--and let it be known that that's a good thing--but I do know that throughout the process, the entire thing hinges on a central thread, a central weave, a common starting and continuing point. It's all held together by a common, consistent thread.

This morning my pastor posted a blog challenging the men in our church to step up and be the godly leaders that God has called us to be for our families--to live lives of consistency in our homes. I think as husbands and fathers striving to be men of God in a depraved culture, the challenge comes in making it stick in the home--living out what we preach under our own roof--where little ears are listening intently--where little eyes are watching our every move--watching for consistency.

I'm thankful that I had, and still have, a dad who modeled this type of example in our home (About this time last year my dad stepped out on a limb for me, risking his image in the face of a particularly influential group of people in order to come to my aid. I wrote a post last year about my reaction to it and my increased respect and honor for him). As a pastor's kid, I watched my dad day in and day out live out in our home exactly what he preached from the pulpit. There was a consistency that ran through everything he taught, said and believed like the central thread in a quilt holding the whole thing together. That central thread of consistency was what drew me to Christ years later as a teenager.

And now I'm faced with the same challenge. To live a life that emulates Christ in the home. My kids often see me singing and leading people in worship, and sometimes, during rehearsals, Tasha will sit them down in front of the stage in their booster seats as they eat their meals with beaming eyes. I see them watching, observing (though sometimes they are lost behind the layer of food caked on their faces and I wonder, as I'm singing, who that pizza thinks he is eating my kid's face like that). They're beginning to understand what I'm all about--from a limited perspective, no doubt, but a perspective nonetheless. And so I'm challenged to live it out. I'm challenged to be real. To one day help them make some minutiae of sense out of tough situations--like when their friends' dads walk out on their families. I pray to God everyday that He will keep me a man of purity, a man of integrity, a man of the Word and a man of my word.

Last year at a leadership conference I heard John Maxwell make this statement in regards to maintaining moral purity and integrity,

"Everyday I wake up scared to death that I have the capacity to blow it. I never live under the assumption that I am beyond the capability of falling and failing morally."

That's where I want to live--never assuming that moral failure is beyond me. That I'm always just one choice away from losing everything. For me, this becomes a driving force, a catalyst, an impetus to wake up everyday cradled in the arms of my Savior, putting on the armor of God and allowing Him to live His life through me--trusting that He is helping me to weave a thread of consistency in my life that will hopefully one day be evident to my kids.

My Girls

The 2 women in my life whom I adore above all others. This was taken 2 days after Christmas. Rainy was still on the Christmas high, I think. Tasha, well ... she was too! I love my girls!!

Scent of Evergreen

Miss Piggy once said,

"Never eat more than you can carry."

I should have taken her advice this past week. As with many of you, I'll be hitting the gym again this week with newfound inspiration that somehow accompanies the magical letdown of the closing of the Christmas season. Or at least my intentions will be hitting the gym. As the season lets down, so do our bellies. I'm not sure how all of that works, but it does.

I usually go into a clinical depression this time of the year as I begin to see the lights of the season slowly fade away with each sunny day that passes. The ambitious home owner who was psycho about decorating only 30 days ago is now psycho in the other direction. I wish his previous psychosis would linger a little longer. Because I get sad. That's why I don't decorate the outside of my house. I'd never have the willpower to remove what I spent so many grueling, passionate man hours to put up in the first place.

Tasha takes care of the inside. She tackled it today for a few hours. I asked if she would spare the Christmas tree one day longer to give me time to process what's happening. I asked if I could have just one more quiet morning with my coffee and Bible beside the tree before the pitiful thing is devoured by Friday's sanitation crew. Because I need it. She politely obliged. So, tomorrow marks the death of our tree and the death of the scent of evergreen that fuels the drive inside me all through the month of December. I suppose I shall have to discover another form of fuel for the months ahead. Thanks to global warming, I can't count on snow to give me that push any longer.

I'm jealous of my inlaws, Robbie and Larry Litke. They live in Colorado Springs, Colorado and they were literally snowed in on Christmas day. I would have asked them to mail me at least the head of the snowman they built, but I don't think the postal service is too keen on delivering indigenous carrots and unpackaged coal. I would have loved to see it though. I think I forgot what snow looks like. It's yellow, isn't it?

To celebrate New Years' Day, we played with our kids outside. I'm discovering that's how we celebrate everything. But not in the snow. Because there wasn't any. But in the sunshine of the day. In the water-starved tract of land that once resembled our backyard. Now it's a barren wasteland, complete with a heap of plastic yard ornaments knows as kids' toys--more now thanks to the gift-giving insanity of the grandparents. But I love them (I love to kick them-the toys that is, not the grandparents...well, only on occasion, like when they give a superfluity of unnecessary gifts to their grandkids). I love them because my kids love them. I pushed Rainy around on her bike today and began teaching her the difference between her left and her right. She started to pick it up quickly and I was proud. I was proud to be called her dad.

I'm proud to enter into 2008 with a family that I love more than anything else on this earth. I'm proud to enter into 2008 with fresh vision and passion for what God wants to do through us, our ministry, our church, our friends all over the world, and our family scattered all over the US. I'm excited because while half of the Christians around our country today are too worried about boycotting the new dollar coins because they don't say, "In God we trust," I'm thankful that God can take care of Himself and doesn't need my measly efforts to try to defend Him. I'd rather spend my time focusing on how I can communicate the message of the Gospel to the junkie who just walked out on his wife and kids. I'd rather focus on how I can minister to the college student who is thinking that an abortion is the best answer to her "problem." I'd rather figure out a way to love the unlovable. To touch the untouchable. I'm thankful that God has put me in this country. But I'm also thankful that this country is not the be all and end all of salvation-history. I'm encouraged because God's mission is never deterred, faltered or hindered. He's not in the least bit scared, intimidated or shocked by the condition of the world, our country, or our politics. He's interested in seeing all men come to repentance. That's never changed. And I pray that never changes in me. That's the fuel. That's my scent of evergreen.