scared......

i'm really scared right now.

there are no fun options at the moment with what's happening.

i
keep
waiting.......
and
searching.........
but
the
solution
is
not
coming

strength will rise as we wait upon the lord

the question i have is.....

how long?

inspiration....

so...i'm totally ripping off my friends in maidavalemusic.com but that's ok. they put up a blog saying what they are diggin right now. my shameless attempt to be a copycat...

music....u2 "pop", tool "aenima", calhoun "calhoun", the black crowes "shake your money maker", carrie underwood "carnival ride", the beta band "the three e.p.'s", charlie hall "flying into daybreak", colin hay "going somewhere", between the buried and me "alaska" (particularly the song "selkies (the endless obsession)"), eric clapton & b.b. king "riding with the king", jars of clay "redemption songs", metallica "st. anger", and queen "a night at the opera".

books..."blue like jazz" by donald miller, "a new kind of christian" by brian mclaren, "ragamuffin gospel" by brennan manning, "chasing daylight" by erwin mcmanus, "walt disney: the triumph of the american imagination" by neal gabler and "sexgod" by rob bell.

movies..."snow white and the seven dwarves" (so not kidding...i read walt disney's autobiography recently and my already vivacious love of disney was reinvigorated), "fight club", "seven", "national treasure 2", "the mania of wrestlemania", "eternal sunshine of the spotless mind", "garden state", and "the constant gardener".

there ya go...shameless rip off.

the puzzle.....

so in the midst of my un-employment post-college period i haven't done so much. i sleep a lot, a eat more, and i read more. of these three things i would say sleep has been my favorite with reading coming a close second. i've finally gotten around to some books i've wanted to read but didn't have the mind energy for while i was in school. now, that they are done and i don't want to spend anymore money until i get a job i decided to retreat back to the safety of my bookshelf. for some reason "blue like jazz" was calling me for another look. i've read the book several times and every time i feel convicted about something else. one passage in the book particularly hit me....

he started talking about marriage and how scared he was of it and not just that but a close intimate relationship with someone of the opposite sex. lately i've been thinking about things that are such as well. donald miller wrote in the book that he was insecure. i think i figured out what my deal is by reading his.

i am insecure when it comes to who i am. not in a i don't know what to do sort of a way, it's the fear of rejection. i've been burned by a lot of people in the past who said they were my friends. i've had hard times with my family where i've felt outright rejected to a point. so it's almost a defense mechanism for me to build up a wall around myself. only one brick at a time does anyone actually get to see in. i do this because i'm afraid of someone were to really get to know me, they wouldn't like me. this is such a dangerous thing because i feel i will miss out on so many awesome, joyful things in life if i keep doing this. the scariest part is i'm allowing what other people think of me to determine my self worth. rather than letting myself be secure in that God made me who i am, i let others decisions about me effect how i feel about me. i shouldn't do that anymore. it's time to just be secure in my own self worth. until that happens, i'm probably not going to attract a female.

just an observation...does anyone else deal with this?......

my story...."the country years"

so i left off last time with me moving to the small town of cullman, alabama. all 3 of you that read this are riveted i'm sure. rather than sum up all of this in one post i'm going to separate it into two. the happy one and the sad one. first the happy one.....

living in the country was an education. to the right of our house was a cornfield that hadn't been planted, harvested, or tilled in probably ten years. the reason being that the man that owned it was a drunk. not a drunk in the realm of he liked to have a beer here and there but a full on wake up in the morning, open up a can of "beast", and continue drinking until you pass out. if any of you know anything about beer, beast is the worst stuff you can buy. it is cheap though, so i guess if you are a raging alcoholic, it's a nice choice to buy in bulk at sam's. to the left of our house was a rather large cow pasture and 4 football field sized chicken houses. needless to say, the smell at times was not very pleasant.

i finally got my first cats as a result of this move. living in apartments was just not feasible for the cat situation so getting my own pet was a primary concern for me at age 10. we started with two sisters who were still kittens when we got them. we named the two spot and sassy, unfortunately sassy didn't last longer than a few months. sassy was outside one night and never came back. later on i found cat fur and some of her remains in the yard. i never told anyone because it was my dad who put them outside for the night. i didn't want him to know he killed her by doing it. spot lasted a long time but her story will have to wait. after sassy died, one day a friend of ours dropped off three kittens. honestly, all three of the cats were retarded. we named them sam, mo, and tiger. within a year, two of the three would be dead from feline leukemia. it was determined all three of them were born with it and it was only a matter of time before it happened. the third cat was the meanest cat that ever lived. he used to sit outside under the stick of this dead bush and growl at anything that walked by. mind you he was so fat that he couldn't have done anything about it but that's beside the point. after the death of the other two we got another one of spot's siblings from a different litter, he was already named when we got him and it happened to be spud. tiger didn't like spud, and since he was so mean we took him to the pound. dealing with him just wasn't worth it anymore. lastly, one summer night at church there was this ugly little black kitten running across the road alone. i felt bad for it because it was obviously not big enough to be away from its mother the entire time yet and was all alone out there. so we wound up taking her home. we named her spooky and needless to say. we did not know how important this cat would be to our family.

having all these cats meant there was cat food outside on the back step on a regular basis. the possums learned this and would frequently come up on our step and eat out of the cat dish. those ugly, brutish things were mean too. the cats were afraid of them and we were mad because we didn't have all that much money at the time and feeding the neighborhood possums was most certainly not in the budget. so my dad started killing them when they came in the yard. and we didn't own a gun so my dad did it with a wooden baseball bat. it was brutal killing. he would chase those things across the yard and beat them to death. as a kid i found it fascinating. one night he was beating one to death in the yard when he heard a bunch of hissing. the lights weren't on outside so he started yelling for us to turn the lights on. when we did there were 5 baby possums scattered out across the yard that had been in their dead mother's pouch. my dad put on gloves and picked those ugly things up and put them in a trash bag and we drove them to the dump a few miles away and left them at the front gate. i'm sure the people that worked at the dump were appreciative of a dead mama possum and several baby possums clinging to life inside a black garbage bag. that springs to life another one that happened as well. we came home from church one night and one ran out from the garage and ran up a tree. my dad and i were on the ground yelling at the thing while it hissed and spit at us (seriously). my dad was unsure how to get it out of the tree until he spotted a nearby 2x4. picture this....my dad in a shirt, tie, and khakis flinging a 2x4 at a possum up in a tree hissing and spitting. now that we are on the same page i'll continue. after several minutes of heaving, dad knocks the thing out of the tree and takes the bat and starts to beat it to death. the possum escapes my dad's clutches and runs into the cow pasture bleeding. my dad not one to be outsmarted by a possum jumps the barb wire fence splitting his pants but by gosh, he beat that possum to death. my dad refuses to be outsmarted by a possum.

there were several more happy times that didn't involve violence. i was a part of a wonderful church. today i would probably choke at the thought of having to go to church there but there was a man who take great interest in me. his name was mickey. seriously, his name was mickey and he was our minister of music. i looked up to that man so much. he was always so kind to my family and especially me. i was in choir with him and handbells. handbells weren't so much fun but the whole ritual of practice was. he would go pick up the kids from school so they could participate. since i was homeschooled, my mom would go up to practice the organ for sunday and i would ride with him to go pick up everyone else. i loved that part of the week. for a year straight i got to do it and spend time with him. i'm so glad i tracked him down years later. being able to tell him how much he meant to me was awesome. mickey means so much to me because he taught me my first guitar chords and was there when i bought my first guitar. he helped me pick and out and played it to make sure it would suit my needs. he also gave me a book with all the chords i would need. he really was a light in the darkness for me.

thanks mickey, i wouldn't be a lead worshipper if it weren't for you.....i hope you found peace.

my story..."the beginning"

i am hesitant to even write what will be a hugely multi-part mini-series that could take years. being that i don't have a job yet, just graduated college, and am currently bored to tears; i figured there was no better time than the present.

i was born april 14, 1984 in birmingham, alabama. there was nothing remarkable about the day of my birth other than i was 3 weeks early and was born with jaundice. being born with his had no effect other than i had a full head of really dark hair and looked very much like a mexican when i was born. i lived in a suburb called roebuck where the middle incomers were known to prowl. my childhood was uneventful. other than the normal trips, birthday parties, etc. nothing stands out except for two things. my mom was the church organist at roebuck baptist church. worse, my dad was a deacon and sang in the choir. i'm not trying to say there is anything wrong with either of these things but i'm saying i was basically in church 'round the clock since 9 months before i was born. i kid you not. this time in my life was very cool because from birth - age 6 or so i had a church family that saw me and interacted with me all the time. a lot of my precociousness comes from this i think. i was around older kids and adults more than kids my own age. so my vocabulary and attention span was already on a higher level than most kids. factor in my mom and dad read to me several times a day and you have a very interesting combo that set up a pattern that i seem to repeat to this day.

at the age of five an unfortunate event happened. our neighborhood went from suburbia to ghetto in a very quick fashion and the value of property dropped meaning my dad lost money on the house he had built for us when it came time to move. we had to move and all we could afford was that crappy townhouse that was pretty much the ghetto. at one point there was a murder in one of the nearby townhouses and a drug thing was definitely going on in the neighborhood. as a kid i didn't understand why my mom would make me play outside only directly in front of our door. looking back, the fact she let me play outside at all is astounding. in the midst of all this at age 6 my sister anna kate was born. i loved being a big brother and all that came along with it. i wish that had remained. it's only been since my sister hit high school and most recently college that i feel we have a good relationship again.

when first grade hit i started going to a private christian school. this in itself wasn't too bad but i started getting in trouble on a regular basis. the foundation of my trouble wasn't me being a bad kid, i was just really bored. the rate at which i learned vs. the rest of the class was off the charts. what would take some of the kids a week took me a day. so instead of being quiet, i started acting out. me having to sit through entire recess sessions became a regular occurrence. by the time 3rd grade hit my mom made the decision that would change my life. i was pulled out of school and became a home schooler. i know that most people's first impressions of home schoolers are; that of stupid kids wearing dirty clothes, with unwashed hair, and the permanent kool-aid stain around their mouth so i know what you are thinking (you thought i didn't?). thankfully, we were most definitely not that way and the pace at which i was able to learn became very rapid. i started mowing through work and was able to start some grades earlier due to my capacity to absorb, entertain, and retain schoolwork.

in all of this there were a lot of family problems that i wouldn't become aware of until a couple of years later. to close out this blog. at some point, our family decided to move to a small town outside of cullman, alabama that was called bremen. worse, in cullman county, there were several communities with the worst names known to man: brushy pond, good hope, holly pond, hanceville, colony, crane hill, and the area we were in...cold springs.

to say i received an education would be an understatement. to move from the monstrous town that was birmingham to a county where the main town was 20 minutes away and that town only having about 15,000 residents was quite a change.

to be continued.....

rambling....madness

i'm mad at myself. i did something really stupid not 10 minutes ago. i got a phone call that was expected yet nevertheless shook me on the inside. i should have not pushed the feelings aside. i told my friends and then just kinda went oh well and i shouldn't have done that.

i felt the explanation would have taken longer so i decided not to bother. now i'm wishing i had bothered. ugh....selfishly i hope she dies soon not because i want her gone but because she's suffered so long and with the cancer probably spread all over it's only a matter of time.

it's time to get ready to say good bye for the first time.......

Modern vs. Post-Modern and why it's all a bunch of crap....

i should preface this post with a cautionary word. i am a member of an emerging church here in tallahassee, florida full of post-modern people and i love every bit of it. that being said, i read a book this past week by a couple of young, hip pastors in their early 30s who completely rip apart the emerging church, rob bell, brian mclaren, and erwin mcmanus. i got so angry as i turned the pages that i started shaking. however, since i didn't want to respond without reading their whole argument i pressed on until i read the entire book and i've come to a conclusion. the modern movement of the church is trying to attack the post-modern movement and i haven't the foggiest idea why. to top it off, the stuff the wrote was downright hurtful and their views are bent from only one perspective.

i don't want to rehash their whole book and then destroy it because then i would be no better than they are and i certainly don't want to come across like i have all the answers but there are several things that i want to bring up for discussion.

the two authors of this book grew up in the modern evangelical church. they then state they wear those hip black glasses every post-modern thinker wears and one of them even writes for espn: the magazine. their main idea is that even though they should be post-modern, they aren't and are instead going to do what they can to call into question the emerging church movement. first of all, why you would want to bring down a ministry that is nothing like your own....and second, why would you write a book attacking rob bell, brian mclaren, and erwin mcmanus when you never even bothered to contact them to interview them for your book is beyond me. rather than write a book about how terrible their ministry is, shouldn't it be your first mission to first interview them, then write your book if you aren't satisfied with their answers? just throwing it out there. i also find it very interesting that nowhere in their book do they attack passion or northpoint church even though they're primary demographic is post-modern college students and young singles and families. i wonder why that is?

now, i think what bothered me most about their book is they didn't even bother looking through the lens of the target demographics of the two schools of the church. the two authors wrote their book from their perspective. both grew up in the modern evangelical church, one is a pastor of a modern evangelical church, and one is only an attendee at the other guy's evangelical church. let me make this crystal clear that there is nothing wrong with that, at all. jesus is meant for all people and i applaud them in their ministry but they forget (or have no clue) the main point of the emerging church. the emerging church emerged (pun intended) because the numbers at modern evangelical churches started shrinking and a whole generation (i use this broadly, not literally) quit coming to church and searching for jesus. so, the emerging church was created to help minister to people who had never grown up in church, been to church outside of a wedding or easter, and people who had been to modern churches and felt something not resolving within themselves. let me illustrate my point here with this:

at the author's church, the average attender has grown up in church, understands the church lingo of words like "salvation", "trinity", "sin", etc... so these things make sense to him. when the pastor gets up on sunday and talks about sin and how homosexuality is wrong and things that are such his congregation agrees because that is what they have grown up hearing and fits in with their value system.

now, take an average college student, 20, or 3o something. never been to church, has had homosexual friends, drank, smoked stuff, done drugs, and was brought up without any knowledge of church lingo. if this person walked into the author's church their first instinct would be to leave. not because what is being said isn't true but because they were raised differently and have no firm foundation for anything of what's being said. so how do you reach these people?

it starts with friendship. not saying we want to save you. not saying you're going to hell. not saying gay people are going to hell if they don't repent. it starts with being a friend. then as you get to know the friend and they ask questions about your life you can start sharing about Jesus. your church, etc. they may be interested, they may not be. but if there comes a time to bring this friend to a church and introduce them to a community of believers, where do you take them? the modern evangelical church? or an emerging church?

let me clarify once again, my aim is not to attack the evangelical church or defend the post-modern church even though it's probably apparent where i stand in this argument. i just want to ask these questions and let you decide for yourself what you think. i encourage you to read their book, then read rob bell, brian mclaren, and erwin mcmanus's books and then decide for yourself.

one more issue i want to cover before closing out is the author's stance that the emerging church has to take a stand on certain issues like homosexuality, etc. the authors want them to publicly come out and say how they feel on this issue. i want to point out this is the worst idea on the planet for the emerging church leaders. we live in a day and age where homosexuality is more or less accepted and if you have a problem with it then you are a crazy bible thumping jesus freak. brian mclaren has a book out about his correspondence with a young woman who was a not a believer at all. she was however at one of his book signings as a harp player and she met him and read his book. she emailed him and said she was intrigued by his book and what he said in his presentation because the gospel he presented was one she hadn't heard before. she had gone to church in the past and been told homosexuals were going to hell, she was going to hell if she didn't get saved, and that she needed to be born again. she said she had questions, and the book is their email correspondence. by the end of the book by showing her love and support and asking questions, brian was able to take a post-modern girl and teach her how to love jesus. here's the kicker though, before she became a believer, she was a staunch supporter of gay rights and wanted nothing to do with him if he started any gay bashing. now here is the question i pose for you to think about. if these emerging church leaders dealing with this demographic were to come out in public and condemn and take stands on certain issues, would they be able to effectively minister to who they are called to minister to?

i know a counter-argument to my writing today could be, well where do i stand? well i'll tell you. i believe jesus loves us all and has a plan for each of us. there are things like sin, lifestyle choices, etc. that keep us from him on a daily basis. only with the love of christ, and the guidance of his word will i know how i am to live my life. it is not my place to judge anyone else's lifestyle because i have so many thorns in my side keeping me from walking the path christ wants me to. instead of finger pointing, can't we all just love each other like christ would and let that love convict ourselves on what thorns we need to pull out of our bodies? one day, when all this fades away christ is either going to accept us into himself, or he won't. jesus said, "above all, love the lord your god with all your heart, mind, soul, and strength; and love your neighbor as yourself." if we can accomplish these two goals, then all these other issues these authors want emerging leaders to take a stand on won't matter. but until we can accomplish these two goals, i guess we'll be making these same arguments 20 years from now.