A Disneyland moment

I thought it appropriate to include a Disneyland moment from time to time on this blog, just so that I can keep my Disney points standing high. I think once in a while I'll just throw in one of these DL moments with a piece of Disneyland trivia for everyone who doesn't care. My mind is full of more Disneyland trivia and facts then anything else, so here it goes.

Pointless DL fact: 

When you first walk onto Main Street USA, look to your left and you'll see the Disneyland Firehouse. Above this is a window, inside this window is a light. The light you'll notice is always on, this is because this area was Walt's personal apartment. Back in the day, when Walt was in the park, he would have his light burning. Today it is left burning 24-7 in remembrance of Mr. Disney.

Bedtime Stories

Tonight my wife and three kids went to see Disney's newest film Bedtime Stories. We all really liked it, my 4 year old especially. I left the theatre looking like I peed my pants from my 2 year old dumping his drink on me, but thats about typical. The movie is about a guy who discovers that the bedtime stories he tells his niece and nephew at night are coming true in his everyday real life. He begins altering his real life with the stories he tells to them. How cool would that be if we could dream up our tomorrow, and have it come true? I know my life would be so different, I'd be driving an 03 Cobra Mustang, while my car wash guy washes my fleet in the 30 car garage. I would have every Mac product on the market, my home 4th home in the Matterhorn at DL would be our weekend getaway, and my kids would serve me daily as God intended them to - at least I think that was Gods purpose in kids right? Anyway, I wonder how different other peoples lives would look if they were able to control their tomorrows. 

I met with a band today we have playing for our youth New Years Eve party we have going on tomorrow. Their an amazing screemo band called "The Waiting Ends".

http://www.myspace.com/thewaitingends

One of the guys in the band was telling me about a friend of his who is leaving for Mexico tomorrow for about six months to do some missions work. He explained how his friend felt God calling him there less then a month ago, but that his friend didn't hesitate a moment and immediately began making plans to follow this call God placed on his life.

My favorite verse in the Bible is only a couple words long but to me has huge impact; it's Acts 3:12. The NLT says "Peter saw his opportunity, and addressed the crowd".  In this we see that Peter was first looking for an opportunity to be used, but then he did something so many including myself seem to struggle with, he took action. He saw his opportunity, and went for it.

I wonder how many of us are like Peter, or like this guy who is leaving for Mexico. How many of us would just uproot and leave the comforts of home if God called us to tomorrow? It's easy to say, "I would," but I think if that were true, we'd see many people living totally different lives then the one's they live now. 

If we could control our lives like in this Disney movie, most of would be living a different life then the one we're living now. But the thing is, God can alter our tomorrows, the issue is that we generally don't give him the control he needs to do so. If we did, I believe our lives might look quite a bit different. It's my goal to give God every aspect of my life, holding nothing to myself, not my job, not my hobbies, not my spare time, because I can't control my tomorrow, but giving my life over to someone who can is pretty cool. He may not always - or ever do what we would do, but I've found that it generally works out better that way in the end. God seems to know what he's doing! 

I wonder what our lives would look like if we gave God every single piece of it, how would it be different, what would we be doing, where would we be living if we allowed God to tell the bedtime story of our life? Wow that was pretty deep eh? Ok maybe not, but it makes me think.

Jeremiah 29:11 

Pistachios and Aspens

I have three kids, one 4, one 2, and one 5 months. There are some things I've learned that are difficult to teach you kids as a Christian, and especially as a pastor. Peoples expectations and level of offensiveness are so different from person to person. My son who is two is speaking quite a lot now, however his speech is that of a two year old. Spaghetti is pronounced by him as spsgeffi. Car is pronounced far and so on. As parents we try to teach him the proper way to pronounce words. We normally do this by breaking longer words down for him. If he is trying to say grandma, which he pronounces fama, we will break it down into grand - ma. He loves Dora the explorer, however his version of explorer is more like, fora (he like the letter f is seems) 

If have recently learned however that there are some words which are difficult to break down for him. 

I like pistachios from time to time as does he. The other day I tried breaking down this word 

and realized it didn't sound that great. At least I could see some people getting offended over it.

There are only a couple of ways to break this word down piss- tachio, or pist- achio. Either way

you can see the problem. This is the same with many words I've discovered. Like that little dog

with the funny name, what's it called, a Shitsu? Or that beautiful tree the Aspen.

It's funny how things affect people differently. Some people would think this is humorous, while

others would be offended by the simple thought. As Christians it seems we often let small issues

separate us. Differences in doctrine between denominations for example, not the big issues,

but often it's the small differences, like the way the other church takes the offering, or the

songs they sing in their worship. I am not a big fan of the numerous groups, denominations,

and levels we have built around Christianity that we must fall into.

I often myself get caught up in the stereotypes we have for each other who serve the same God,

and will spend eternity in the same place. I'd like to get to a place where I can see other Christ

followers as just that, people who have decided to follow Christ, same in purpose, in passion,

and in faith. We can do so much more working together in unity then apart. 

Anyway, this has simply been a thought on my mind this evening.

The Christian World

Today I was flipping - well I guess we don't flip through channels anymore, we skim, or scroll. Anyway, I was scanning through our channels on Direct TV and came upon TBN. Their current program that was being aired was simply labeled "Christian News". I've never watched Christian news, but it caused me to roll my eyes and shake my head a bit as it reminded me of this trend in the Christian world so many live in. Take this Christian news for example, ss this simply Christian related news stories? Maybe about how Pastor Gorge in Ohio got a new Bible for Christmas? Or is it simply a Christian take on world news? Either way, news is news right? I know many people complain about how negative the news is, how they only seem to focus on crime, and murders, and the scummy parts of our society. And I agree, but Christian news? What is that exactly, and what is it's purpose?

Many Christians like to surround themselves in a Christian world thats safe, protected, and isolated from the rest of the world, or the "secular" world. But do we really need our own version of everything? We have our own television networks, (which only Christians watch) 0ur own Christian radio stations (which only Christians listen to) our own fictional novels, our own stores, our own cloths, our own breath mints, even our own version of YouTube. The Bible tells us to be in the world, just not of the world. It seems however that our Christian culture as a whole is doing allot of work to take us out the world we were created and called to live as witnesses of Christ in.

Many people don't have normal TV and programming the rest of the world has, they have their own Christian TV. Some Christians listen to nothing but Christian music. It seems like there has been a pull in the Christian world that tells us to separate our lives from the world around us. Don't listen to secular music, don't watch secular TV, don't go into that store, its not a place Christians should be. Jesus called us to go be witnesses in all the world. He set the example for us that teaches; in order to reach those we are called to reach, we must live in the same world they do. The more we as Christians separate ourselves from the world, the less effective we become in reaching those we are called to reach.

I am in no way suggestion we should fill our minds with a bunch of garbage, I am simply saying that we should take a look at our lives, are we in the world, or are we pulling ourselves out the world and into a Christian isolation camp? The ones we are called to reach don't live in our Christian world, they don't watch our christian TV, or listen to our Christian radio, or suck on our Christian mints, nor would they want to. If we are going to be effective in reaching those outside our comfy protected Christian compounds, we need to be in their world. We should have our music on their radio, our programs on their channels, and maybe even suck on their mints. Crazy? Yeah maybe, but Jesus did it, so maybe we should to.

Anyway, when Jesus came to this earth he didn't push the world away, he didn't separate himself from it, he surrounded himself with it. I think we could learn from him and the way he lived in this world we live in. It's quite a concept, living the way Jesus did, but maybe we should try it. Maybe we'd have better results. I don't know thoough, the Christian mints are pretty swell. 

Christmas

Today is the day after Christmas. We had a great time with family, got some great new things we really didn't need but love anyway. My wife and I really tried to help our kids realize how much they have. Not just the loads of packages they opened, but in general. The food they eat but never think about, the cloths they have, even their health. About a week before I drove one of the students in our youth ministry home. He told me about how him and his dad moved to Susanville after they were evicted from their apartment and how his dad had lost numerous jobs. We drove by a rout he walked everyday to school at around 7am. I am usually out the door around 8ish, in Dec-Feb the temperature in Susanville at those times in the morning averages out in the teens and can drop into the negative double digits. 

His walk takes him about 10 minutes. The snow this night was about 12 inches. I could see his footprints between two homes up a steep hill. I asked him about the cold how his boots did in the freezing snow. He told me that the boots he was wearing he got from a friend of his at school a day or two earlier and that before that he only had some hightop converse. This kid had in the past come to the church acting as if he was starving, complaining that he hadn't eaten in days. Teens are full of drama and exaggerate frequently, because of this I would normally just blow him off and tell him to go grab whatever he found in the youth refrigerator. I wonder now how much truth there was to his drama, it made me wonder about some of the other teens I have worked with over the past 2 years. It made me so sad for him to realize the poverty in which he lived everyday. 

Our kids have no concept of skipping a meal, or getting nothing under the tree. Often even us as adults don't clearly grasp the reality of life that so many around us live everyday. It makes me so sad to think of other kids like the one I drove home who live in a world that we often think only exists in other parts of the world, or the country, or only in that other part of town. Depressing situations for people young and old exist right down the street. I really only realized it when it was right in front of me.

Church Vocab.

Church words. Ever notice how there are certain words we only use in church? Have you ever heard the pastor say something like "I covet your prayers over this or that", or after someone tells another a story about how God did something in their life you hear,"hallelujah. I don't know why many of us feel that we must use a different 

vocabulary when were at church or talking to fellow Christians then we do with the 

rest of the world. Anyway, just wondering who does that, and why.

Oh Brother

Ever been to church, or heard Christians refer to each other as brother or sister? You'll hear maybe the pastor introduce a special speaker as Brother Brad, or Sister Sue. I don't really get that? I have a brother and sister, I rarely - actually I've never referred to either of them as Brother Ricky, or Sister Rachel. Why do Christians do this? "Because were brothers and sister in Christ". Were also all humans, and creations of God. We don't call each other fellow human, or creation person. I guess it just makes the special guest feel better. Anyway brothers and sisters in Christ... I'll never call any of you this in person.

Christians Are Losers

Huh? Christians are losers said from a Christian? Yeah, it's true. See, Christians have to lose something to gain all that God has for them. I know, you don't want to here about God, well, God is so much more than you probably could ever imagine, but that I'll save for a later time. As far as being a Christian loser, as I said before it's true. Before you're a Christian, you are away from God. God is perfect, we are not. To be made perfect we have to give everything to God. That doesn't mean we have to give him our personality, and the things that make you, you. God created your personality, he made you, you, and He loves you. 

We as Christians give Him what keeps us from Him, all our bad stuff, AKA: SIN. Sin is basically selfishness. It's wanting to do whatever we want whether it's good for us or not, and whether it hurts others around us or not. God wants to take all that away, and hence, Christians are losers. We in a sense lose that old nasty way of living in exchange for God and all the Hope of having way more than this world can ever offer. Let me know if you want to here more, I'd love to talk more about how you can become a loser too!