Dangerous for the Whole Family!

Ok, so now that I've been back in Atlanta for about two months, I thought I'd start up my blog again. Since I'm no longer doing full time mission work, I thought I'd transition the blog to some thoughts I've been having about life, living in Atlanta, and the church. We'll see what happens...

So last week I was driving down to Valdosta early in the morning, and I heard something on the radio that got me thinking. I was scanning through a few stations and ended up on 104.7 The Fish. Besides the fact that they mostly play recycled songs from the early 90's, something disturbed me about the station. Their promotional tag line is "Safe for the Whole Family", which seems like a pretty standard non-denominational motto for a spiritual radio station, but I started wondering, is "staying safe" what we've reduced the Christian life to?

The actual picture on the index page of 104.7 The Fish

Let me preface this by saying that I know "Safe for the Whole Family" is just a marketing ploy to target The Fish's middle-class soccer mom demographic, but I can't help but think that this attitude is a large part of the problem with the modern church. Let me explain:

From what I've read, God does not seem to be very concerned with "staying safe". In the Old Testament, God allows Job to have his entire life destroyed before his eyes, Israel runs away from Pharaoh into the desert and David, the man after God's own heart, was chased out of town by his crazy boss (who happens to be the king), Saul. So far this doesn't look exactly like living in a planned community in the suburbs.

Charlton Heston, pre-NRA

In the New Testament, Jesus comes into the picture by being born in an animal shelter to an unwed couple, and his family fleeing for their new son's life. Later Jesus spent a lot of time on the wrong side of town with some unsavory characters, including greedy tax collectors, prostitutes and probably Lindsay Lohan and the cast of "Jersey Shore". Finally, God allows his one and only son to be murdered by his own people to absolve the sins of billions of people who won't really appreciate what he's done.

Even Jesus loves a good Snooki poof

Finally, we come to the apostles, who seem to be the antithesis of safe living. All but one of them were beheaded, crucified, skinned alive or otherwise murdered. Paul, another prominent figure in the New Testament, was ship wrecked, thrown in jail a few times, was on death row and was put under house arrest. Not only is this not "safe", it's beginning to sound suspiciously like a Tupac album, who incidentally, has never been played on 104.7 The Fish (trust me, I checked).

Tupac gets no love from The Fish

My point is this: We should not be scared about the world in which we live. Yeah, there's a lot of bad stuff out there that we should protect our kids from, and we shouldn't flirt with the things that cause us to sin, but we should by no means live in a vacuum. In fact, the Bible calls us to do quite the opposite. Be a light in the darkness. Visit those in prison. Bring hope to the hopeless.

True Christianity is very dangerous. It requires us to shun the status quo and give up our old comfortable life to take on a new one. It calls us to the counter intuitive act of admitting we are not good enough by ourselves. It begs us to trust that there is a higher power and a plan for our lives- even when we don't see the bigger picture. In Christianity, true safety comes by living a life of constant faith and trust, hoping in the grace of Jesus Christ, not by making sure your ten year old doesn't hear the word "ass" on your morning commute (trust me, he's already heard it more than once).

So to 104.7 The Fish, I ask two things:

1. Start playing something other than lame, rehashed Newsboys songs. They were never good in the first place, and there is a ton of awesome Christian music out there. Future of Forestry and Mutemath would be a good starting point.
2. Stop lying to us that Christianity is safe. It isn't, and if it is, we're doing it wrong.

Outreach Testimonies

Here are some videos of people from our latest outreach teams. Hope y'all enjoy!

Asia Trip: 2/3 Nepal and Transitions

First up, Nepal. At first glance, Nepal is a hopeless place. The caste system that is in place there determines people's worth to society, the people are poor uneducated and what most people in the west would call backwards. It's a Hindu nation, which means that the entire country is pretty much chaos. There are temples on every street corner, cows running in the streets and little to no infrastructure, even in the main city of Kathmandu.

But there is hope. Nepal is one of those places that is hard to be in, but a place that you can really see God move. In almost every mountain village we went to, our contact Robby would tell us about house churches that people from YWAM Maui had helped to start and people that we had shared to Gospel with that had become believers: 30 Christians in this village, 5 in the next, a house church here, a small group there. It is truly amazing to see the long-term impact that our small YWAM base has in these mountains.

These are people who are often forgotten by the world, but God does not forget about His people. The beauty of God's creation is constantly testifying to His majesty in these far off trekking villages, and lives are being changed. The bottom line is, the Lord is faithful in all things, in all places He remains the same. God is moving in Nepal, and I am so glad that I got to be a part of it!

Waking up early in one of the many small trekking villages to see the sun rise.

Our DTS outreach team to Nepal, with our Nepali contact Robby (in the front).

Our Nepali translators and trekking guides. These guys are all Christians who have huge visions to see the Gospel spread in Nepal.

Me in front of Annapurna South, one of the tallest mountains in the world.

Next up, transitioning. YWAM is inherently a transient organization, which is good and frustrating/sad. Friends come, stay for a few months or years, then move on to something new. I've been experiencing a lot of this recently. In the past months, a lot of my good friends have left Maui. I also am thinking about transitioning when my staff commitment is up this summer, which is both exciting and scary.

In the past three months, the Lord has been so faithful to me in tangible ways. It seems like every time I wake up God shows Himself faithful in both large and small ways. It's fun to see things line into place, getting a fresh vision for where I belong, what type of ministry I should be involved in, and when and where I should go. But...

Change can scare the heck out of me. As excited as I am about the new things God has laid on my heart, I can't help but wonder, "What if it all goes bad? What if I've heard the Lord wrong, what if these plans don't work out, what if I take a leap of faith and fall flat on my face?" As much as I have seen God's faithfulness, and as much as I want to jump into God's vision full force, there are times when we all return to the human default of doubting that God wants what's best for us.

All of these feelings converged on me as I was in worship this morning. One of my best friends on the island and roommate/travel buddy, Ben, moved to Asia this morning, which further intensified the feeling of "My life is changing in crazy ways and I'm not sure if I like it!". I found myself doubting that God has a plan for my life, then quickly realizing how ridiculous that idea is in light of His faithfulness to me throughout my life, then being frustrated and even angry at myself for my lack of faith. I like to think that I'm a pretty even tempered guy, so this was like emotion overload, especially when I was hopped up on coffee at eight in the morning.

As the frustration festered in my mind, I began to pray:

"God, I know you are faithful, you have proved that to me time and time again. Help me to trust that you have amazing things in store for my life, that you have a plan and it is good. Give me the faith that will let me remain steady through what seems like a crazy time. I know you are good, but prove it to me once again". And as I was praying, a hymn came to mind:

1. My hope is built on nothing less
   Than Jesus’ blood and righteousness;
   I dare not trust the sweetest frame,
   But wholly lean on Jesus’ name.
   • Refrain:
     On Christ, the solid Rock, I stand;
     All other ground is sinking sand,
     All other ground is sinking sand.
2. When darkness veils His lovely face,
   I rest on His unchanging grace;
   In every high and stormy gale,
   My anchor holds within the veil.
3. His oath, His covenant, His blood
   Support me in the whelming flood;
   When all around my soul gives way,
   He then is all my hope and stay.
4. When He shall come with trumpet sound,
   Oh, may I then in Him be found;
   Dressed in His righteousness alone,
   Faultless to stand before the throne.

I love hymns, and the second and third verses of this song were exactly what I needed. When everything in life seems uncertain, we can rest in God's unchanging grace, when things are crazy, He is our hope. I won't say that I gained a superhuman amount of faith in that moment, or that I'm not still a little uncertain about what the future holds. But I can say that I know without a doubt that God is in control and even when I feel overwhelmed, His faithfulness is steadfast. I will anchor myself to Him, and it will be good.

Asia Trip! (part 1 of 3)

Ok, so now that I'm back in Maui and over my jet lag, I think it's time to let everyone know what all I did the past two months.

Going back to Georgia for Christmas was really good. I got to spend a lot of quality time my family and some friends, although it's hard to hang out with everyone when you only have two weeks.

Christmas with the family was great, but far too short of a time to be at home.

On December 30th, I flew from Atlanta to Bangkok, and arrived there just before midnight on December 31. My friend Ben and I spent three days there so that I could get over jet lag and prepare for our insane travel schedule over the next 5 weeks.

One of the few good days of weather we had while in cold, rainy "Asia".

After a few days of hanging out with the staff of YWAM Thailand, Ben and I headed to "Asia" for about 9 days. Our team there is doing really well, and is partnering with our long-term contacts to share the Gospel with college aged young people. Our team really dug in their heels in this ministry, which requires a lot of self motivation and courage to go out and meet strangers in a foreign country. Ben and I were impressed with our teams willingness to get out of their comfort zone to do things like invite new friends to a Bible study or intentionally shift a conversation to God.

We stayed near the second tallest building in the world!

In a few days, I'll update my blog again with what Ben and I did while we were in Nepal, so look out for Asia Update part 2 of 3 by the end of the week!