Brandons everywhere....

I had the opportunity to be led in worship by Brandon Grissom at two conferences this summer. In addition to having a cool name, he is also an awesome songwriter. Check out his tunes.

http://www.purevolume.com/brandongrissom

Wind and Hail

A few weeks ago, while driving to Hibbing Minnesota, I was caught in the worst storm I have ever seen. We drove under a cloud that was do dark it felt like night, and I mentioned to Emily that I thought it was a tornado waiting to happen. Just after I thought we had made it out from under the dangerous cloud, it started to hail... and I mean really hail. Luckily, there was an overpass right where we were so we quickly drove under it... for a few minutes we watched in awe as the hail fell like a blizzard.

In our safe spot under the overpass I remember telling Emily to keep her seatbelt on, because we might get hit by another car trying to find safety...

It was frightening... but then it got worse... much much much worse.

No hail was hitting our car where we were parked, but then it started blowing under the overpass completely horizontal. I saw the trees bend over sideways before a wall of rain and water and wind began slamming into the front of our car.

I closed the visor that covers the sun roof... I was pretty sure that the window was going to break. As wind violently shook the car, I realized we were directly under more than a hail storm... and only an overpass was seperating us... What can you do... I just prayed that the Storm and Wind would not break completely through the window.


After about ten minutes, it slowed down. The entire freeway was covered in hail...tons of it...

A woman got out of her Suburban truck parked next to us and walked toward our car... she was shaking... I made her sit in our car... Her front window was shattered she kept saying... She said... "I just kept praying that it wouldnt suck me up..."

She sobbed in our car.

It made me think. We forget how awesome the world is. We forget how small we are. We are powerless against the fury of a tornado... or a thousand other "acts of God." and nature.

Powerless. Yet not without hope.

The power of the storm, is nothing compared to the power of the one who made all of this.
It made me glad that I would never have to face his fury because of the hope that he has provided for us.

Mood Swings

I hate school. I know I am not supposed to... that I am supposed to celebrate how blessed i am to learn and to study theology, but I don't love it... and I am really struggling to be thankful even though i know i should be. I love learning, and I love that I now know about Hebrew and Greek. But I hate the authoritarian structure of school where learning is controled by power structures and systems. Considering how much there is to know about the universe, much less God, aren't we all really learning together? Does a teacher or an institution own the truth they are purveying?
Especially in Christian circles, I think we would do well to cease being and creating experts, and to focus instead on creating communities of seekers who are seeking God together. As the book of Hebrews says,

"And it is impossible to please God without faith. Anyone who wants to come to him must believe that God exists and that he rewards those who sincerely SEEK him." Hebrews 11:6 (NLT)

Ok, so I struggle with anger over school... I guess I am still thankful that even this fallen expression which i really dislike, is better than nothing. It is better than not having a place to learn about God at a higher level. I am thankful for how the knowlege of God that I have found has helped me to be more effective in my search for him. Learning about him is worth the struggle...



PIC: http://pradamama.pansitan.net/hello/212/1555/640/School%20Bus%20Lance.jpg

The Gathering & Letting go of the past...

I was thinking lately about how much I miss the Gathering...
The Gathering was a community of young adults that I used to be part of, but which no longer exists...

I do not miss the program... or the building we held is in, but I really miss the community of people that came.

They were in many ways the closest circle of friends I ever had.

For a season, the amazing people who made up the Gathering were so interwoven in my life, and now I only run into one of them in passing, or once in a great while.

It is really sad... but I guess unavoidable...

the lives that twenty somethings live is so unstable... with college, jobs, relationships, marriage, babies, & more causing great upheavals and moves.


Regardless, I miss the community that I was a part of... it is almost like lost family members.



I miss:

Cookouts,

Camping,

House worships,

Nuemann's Cabin,

Xtreme Worships,

Winter retreats,

the $10 retreat series,

Tuesday nights,

Ministry Team Retreats,

Game nights,

Superbowl Parties,

New Years Experiments,

Star Wars openings,

Worship Practice,

Ministry Team meetings,

Trips to My Parents house,

Burning down chicken coops,

& all the other activities where I was part of the Gathering Community...


I believe that the Glory days of the past are not the only Glory to be had in my life... They cannot be regained... they are over...and I have had to let go of them in order to move forward... BUT. There are new Glory days that are yet to be revealed... And I am living in them now...

Babies are cool....

Ainzley continues to amaze.... she keeps getting cuter. Maybe Emily and I will have one some day...

Progress

... So my stairs are safe finally... no more richoty temporary treds... Now I just have to tile, and the last major project is done... well except for the laundry room and kitchen... but those don't count...

Francis and Her Bone

My Dog is ferocious. Francis gets really jealous of her Cousin Chewy. Chewy belongs to Cory and Vicky, and she is a bigger dog so she gets bigger treats and bones. Francis loves to steal Chewy's bones so much that Cory and Vicky always give Francis her own when we visit...

I suppose that there is some spiritual application here... but I can't really figure it out... I just wanted to share the pic.

Trip to the Rock... with 60+ Middle schoolers!

I am now done with my final summer trip... It is awesome to be done. This trip was awesome... we camped by Lake Superior for a night and got to jump off 20 foot cliffs into a river. I loved it. I really loved all of the trips and enjoyed getting to know students and leaders in the ministry better. I think that I actually learned a few students names! That is really important and really hard when there are hundreds of students.
I talked about Elijah with the students from 1st and 2nd Kings. I think that many people have believed the lie that the Old Testement is a boring book... but there are so many awesome stories in it. They point out how Man drifts away from following God and must be reminded of how real and great God is. I need that reminder too...

... Elijah the prophet walked up to the altar and prayed,

"O LORD, God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob,
Prove today that you are God in Israel and that I am your servant.
Prove that I have done all this at your command.
O LORD, answer me! Answer me so these people will know that you,
O LORD, are God and that you have brought them back to yourself."

38 Immediately the fire of the LORD flashed down from heaven and burned up the young bull, the wood, the stones, and the dust. It even licked up all the water in the trench! And when all the people saw it, they fell face down on the ground and cried out,

"The LORD—he is God! Yes, the LORD is God!"


1 Kings 18:36

Ainzley & Gracie

Here are the latest on my Nieces... Ainzley is 6th months old already... pretty amazing. The picture of Gracie is from May I think... but I love it... they are both super cute!

SEMP changed my life...

This week I had an opportunity to be a group shepherd at Sonlife's new Merge conference for students. Merge is their replacement for SEMP. Merge is a spiritual formation conference that helps students to "Merge" with God's story. Having been through it once now, I have to say that it has tons of potential, but still needs lots of fine tuning. I think it made a real difference in the lives of students attending it.
On a different note... can I just say that SEMP changed my life. I know that is not really true... that it is God who changed my life... and that it just happened to happen so clearly at this crazy conference of 1000 plus teens that I attended in 1991 (Whatever it takes...). It was the teaching... and the worship... and the crazy service and sharing opportunities... and the exposure to so many awesome Christians and youth pastors... It was the "hitting the streets" and the awesome youth group times... I remember crying with 45 people from my youth group one night as we all considered how far we had to go and how far Christ had gone for us... I remember the crazy and real and beautiful way that God would speak to me there... he would confront and comfort and challenge me. I am a youth pastor now, and my experience at the SEMP conference is largely responsible for that decision. I was given the opportunity to see that Christianity was real... that it was livable.. and that God had a purpose for me... as backward and awkward and bazaar as I was... I was his... I had a reason to live that was bigger than myself... I was to live to make the world a better place... just like Jesus did. I was forever changed. Even though I like MERGE... I am sad that SEMP is no longer... It leaves a little empty spot in my heart.

More than you realize...

We have so much more than we realize, we are just used to taking our blessings for granted. I just returned from an awesome week building houses for people in poverty in Mexico with a team of nearly 40 middle school students from Elmbrook. It was awesome. The students blew my mind with their willingness to get dirty and serve. They met and exceeded every challenge that we through at them, with amazing attitudes.
One awesome highlight was seeing the students interact with the children from the Colonia where we were building. They showed these young children the love of Christ through endless piggyback rides, hugs, and attention. The whole experience has really challenged me to not underestimate middle schoolers. They "got it" in a way that I wonder if many adults are capable of. Their willingness to give is shocking... and convicting.

The Torrid Tale of a Shrewd Rascal... or ... How to Win Friends and Influence People...

I recently had the opportunity to speak at Elmbrooks 20something ministry. I had a great time, and it brought back really good memories from when I used to be a 20something pastor. It is a awesome age to work with.
As part of my talk on the parrable of the shrewd manager in Luke 16, I thought about some of the best excuses I have come up with for why I waste large chunks of my life waiting for something... I am not sure what ... but something. I have noticed I am not the only young adult to struggle with this... what do you think of my excuses?

Common excuses for that young adults employ....
-I can’t start at a church right now, I am not sure how long I will be here and I do not want to waist time getting to know people and then move.

-I can’t do anything about my problems at work... they are my bosses or co-workers fault, and I am just a helpless victim with no power or voice....

-I can’t really walk with God because my pastor is so lame... or he didn’t teach me the right things... or because my Church doesn’t have the things I need...

- I cannot really make a difference in my world because no one has told me specifically what I should do... I mean shouldn’t someone lay it out so I can do it...

-I cannot change my life because I am a helpless captive waiting for God to provide my deliverance...

My thought... Maybe we need to take some responsibility for our lives...

Faith, Hormones, and raccoons

I love middle school students. I have had the opportunity to spend large chunks of time with them lately, and it is a really good thing. They are just like adults, just more open and transparent about what they want and think. Adults by contrast, are far better at hiding their desires. On the most recent of my excursions, we were to "Jump the Cliff". This name is particularly odd, because we did not in fact jump and cliffs, unless one considers rappelling to be Cliff jumping. I do not. We did climb cliffs, go caving, hiking, camping, and also hit up Noah's Ark... it was a great time.
As we were going about all of this I had the opportunity to climb a couple technical routes on 70ft cliffs. One route was awesome in that I had to climb out from under an overhang to get up... way challenging and fun... the other route I took was really tricky. It was a crack climb, were instead of hand holds, there was a crack in the rock you could sorta jam your hand into and then make a fist. This would give you enough of a hold to keep ascending. It was way hard, but so sweet to conquer.
I also loved caving... it is so fun to squezze through little holes in rocks... On our last day before we left, we did Noah's ark which I had never been to. It was awesome as well. I especially loved the "Point of No Return" It is a straight drop down that is way intense. It even times you... my personal best was 3.3... I am convinced I could break under 3 if I was not afraid it every time.
One really great lesson I thought about was in regard to the similarities between climbing and life. When you climb you have a rope to catch you if you fall. What is most significant about the rope is not its safety features, but rather that it frees you to try things you would never try without it... Faith is the same way... God will catch us if we fall... but maybe even more to the point... we can live in an entirely new way because our faith tells us we are safe to risk new and adventurous things. God will catch us, so why not try bold things for him!

Awake... to a Living Hope...

So I spent the weekend with a few hundred middle school students. They were gathered at sonlife's new Awake conference. The 20 Middle schoolers that I took loved the conference. As a part of it, they were challenged with the plight of Aids in Africa. I was amazed at how they responded... they really deeply cared.

I know that many write off this generation as selfish, lazy, undisciplined...etc... but I am constantly amazed at how open they are to serving God... they really are willing to WORK for him... to serve others. This group called living hope stopped to talk to them as part of their awareness bus tour, and the students just really embraced what they were saying. Students are not as skilled as justification as adults are... so they actually listen when they hear about people with real needs...

I hope that they are forever ruined to the soft blanket of white suburban Christianity... that they never learn to justify their lack of concern...

To be honest... these students give me so much hope for the future... no matter how many Christian experts tell us how terrible that they are... they defy such naysaying by having a faith that actually produces action... and fruit

for more on living hope: http://www.lhbustrip.com/

2 books 1 CD

~Village thrift is recent entry from the Worship Circle. I love the first two circles, and used to use their tunes nearly exclusively when I was working with The Gathering. This new CD rocks... it has a song on it called simple which is maybe my favorite worship circle song of all time. Brought back happy memories of the good ole days of the Gathering, and all of the people who used to be a part of that. All good things must eventually end...

~Lencioni is brilliant. I really enjoy all of his books, but The Five Disfunctions of a Team remains his Magna Opus. Still Silos is great, especially for the church. We are so good at encamping in our little circle and fighting against others in our church, or other churches to build our own Silo... when really the only silo that counts is the Kingdom of God.

~I love xxxchurch's new book, The Dirty Little Secret. It is all about how the church and christians have failed to fully consider the porn industry's humanity, and also about how Christians can find freedom in Christ from porn addictions. To be honest, I found it helpful, because I am not immune to the temptations the book speaks of. We need to help each other with the very real temptations that are pushed at us daily... we need people to walk with on these issues (thanks Jason).

Ainzley

She is a cute baby. We saw her this weekend while visiting my Mom in Illinois. As few weeks ago, all the Brown brothers met up at Trent's house. It was really fun to see Gracie and Ainzley together... I have some video from that to post soon.

God will Love you... Now kill our enemies...

Have you ever noticed how in America, we tend to assume that God is on our side? If we are at war, we pray assuming he is with us. I think it is interesting... i wonder what our "enemies" think or pray about?

Ancient Hebrew literature talks about a man who petitioned God, asking him whether God was indeed on the man's side or on the side of his enemy. God replied neither.

He was on his own side.

"Experts" are not always right (or... don't always believe what you read)

While hiking in the beautiful Teton National Park just outside of Jackson Hole Wyoming with my Dad, and my Friend Jason, I had an interesting experience. Coming down a mountain, Jason starts to whine about this noise he is hearing... It sounds high pitched... I figure it is a bobcat. So I tell him to stop whining and be a man. My Dad is a bit hard of hearing, so he misses half of the conversation, but catches enough to know we are talking about wild animals. He starts clapping and encourages us to also make noise.
So we round a bend and to my right is a little brown bear cub about 10 feet from the trail. It is sorta cute... almost. I causally try to get the other guys attention, when I notice that cute cubbie is not alone. Momma Grizzle is about 10 feet past her munching on an unlucky elk. -- Did you know that grizzle bears are faster than humans up and down hill, climbing trees, and in the water? Did you know that their claws are stronger than iron, and that they usually decapitate human's in one swing? Did you know that they can get nearly 8 ft tall and nearly 1400 lbs? Well they can.--
So while the bear Mom stood and stared us down... Jason bolted down the hill (I guess he figured, that he didn't have to outrun the bear... just one of the rest of us...), my dad started clapping again, repeating, "Make noise! Make Noise!", and I started considering what I would do without any weapons if the bear started to eat Jason or my Dad. --I started shaking too... -- Thankfully the bear had already picked up "take-out" elk for the night, so we were spared a ride through her digestive highway.
A little later we stopped at a ranger station, and mentioned that we had seen a grizzly bear. The ranger assured us that we were mistaken. Only black bears were in the park. He proceeded to show us a picture of a black bear in a book. I was unconvinced, and flipped ahead a few pages to another bear, and asked him what it was. "A grizzly," he replied, " but that is not what you saw... this is what you say." And he flipped to another black bear. This repeated through the rest of the book, until finally we left. But, try as he did, every single picture confirmed what the three of us knew all along. Just because an expert gives me a bunch of reasons why I can not possible have seen a grizzly... I know what I saw. It is burned in my mind, as clear as on that day, half a decade later.
There are many experts who say that Christ could not possibly have been God... and yet, for 2000 years, people have stuck to what they saw.
As John puts it in the Bible, (1 John 1:1) "We proclaim to you the one who existed from the beginning, whom we have heard and seen. We saw him with our own eyes and touched him with our own hands. He is the Word of life."


(Image from my friend Paul's amazing pictures! Check them out:
Or his blog: http://throughphotography.blogspot.com/ )

Youth Minister Smites Dodgeball Opponent...

This is a true story... Hard to believe... it would be funny if the student hadn't been hurt.



Thank to M. for passing it on

An open letter to those who work in the food industry.

Dear all food service and retail workers,

While I can hardly speak for all of Christianity, I want to extend my apology, as a Christian, to you on behalf of our reprehensible behavior. I am sorry for all of the following:

For people who leave a Bible track instead of a tip;

For groups of Christians who turn your restaurant into their meeting place assuming they have the right to it;
--especially if they have done so and bought very little;
--especially if they rearrange your chairs and do not put them back;
--especially if they preach and pray really loudly so you have to hear it;
--especially if they scare off your other paying customers,
--and then especially if they leave a crappy tip after scaring off the good tipping customers...

For that matter, for anytime Christians are cheap in leaving tips, as we notoriously are;

For all the times we have given you unsolicited spiritual opinions about your life;
-- or have judged you and critiqued your life or appearance;

For any time we have been mean or impatient;

For the times we treat you as less than human;

For all of the hypocrisy which we have paraded in front of you all the while pretending to be perfect;

For all this and more I apologize!

Today, I especially apologize to Amanda, who works at my favorite Breakfast spot... I am really sorry that some Christian told you that you were going to go to hell, just because you have a tattoo of a heart on your hand.
It breaks my heart that you had to experience this, instead of the true love Jesus.

What you were told is not true.



(pic: http://www.frenzee.net/pictures/tattoo_hand.jpg)