A New Song?

Many people will disagree with me on this... It seems there are always cynics. but I happen to enjoy new years. I like the idea of starting over. A new year, a new me. Because lets face it, there are things about me that need to change, like my singing. Let me explain.

When it comes to Jesus, I tend to sing old songs. They are great songs, I mean, I like them. They are easy to sing, I'm not being stretched and forced to learn new things. I'm comfortable with these songs, they worked in the past so why wouldn't they work now? Now I'm not actually talking about worship songs (as many of you know the vibration of my vocal cords on many occasions frightens even young children). I'm talking about how I worship God in general.

I was reading psalm 96:1 where it says, "Sing to the Lord a new song" and immediately I didn't like that verse. My mind began racing, looking for reasons to justify my distaste for trying something new. It seems that I'm very comfortable worshipping God in the ways that make me, comfortable. For example, I like reading the Bible, but I hate doing cheesy spiritual devotions. I like worship music when I drumming, I hate singing it because I can't hit a note to save my soul! I like praying before dinner, Its usually short and sweet because I'm hungry. I don't like fasting and having a "quiet time" because I get hungry and side tracked if I pray longer than two minutes. You get where I headed with this.

And then it hit me! Would it really be to much for me to worship God in a new way? I mean really! What if I just tried to worship God in new ways that were challenging for me? Would God appreciate it? Would I feel "closer" to God? What if I didn't, would that be a bad thing?

So I'm left with the question. How will I sing a new song in 2011?

The Power of Young People

I'm always interested and inspired by what young people can accomplish.

I think something happens when we grow older. It seems like when I was 20 years old I thought I could change the world. I had all these ideas about how to fight poverty, stand up for justice, and grow the church with people eager to reflect God's love to others! It seemed that no matter who I told me plans to they always responded in a way that informed me that they knew something I didn't. Do you know what I mean? I remember when I was in college and suggested that our church do a huge push to help the homeless in LA. I got push back from many people saying things like, "There already are homeless shelters in LA, the homeless just don't want to go to them." There are other churches who have successful ministries in downtown. We're trying really hard to focus growing our church. " My favorite response was this one. "It's a lot of work to help the homeless and now simply isn't the right time for our church to help them." The right time? I thought anytime was the right time to love other people. I guess I missed that passage in scripture where Jesus said to love others only when the timing is right. Anyone else found where that one is?

The thing I found interesting is that no one said that the idea was a bad one. They just gave reasons why it wouldn't work.

Looking back over the last six years, I've noticed something has happened to me. I have found myself telling other people why their ideas for spreading the love of Jesus wont work. What happens to us as we get older? Why do we do that?

Thankfully there are young people who are making a huge difference in the world. A group of guys got to together and went to Africa for fun and adventure. They made a short movie that sparked a national movement. The power of young people is amazing. invisible children

Deck the Halls, Not Your Family

I think its funny, sad and all around entertaining. Too often the Holiday season works people up and leads to stress and frustration instead of joy and peace. RELEVANT Magazine wrote an interesting article title Deck the Halls, Not Your Family and filled it timely advice so you can thrive during this busy season. Please enjoy.

http://www.relevantmagazine.com/life/relationship/features/23595-deck-the-halls-not-your-family

Urban Rescue New CD

Just wanted to give you all a heads up. Urban Rescue has a new CD out titled "Just To Be Here."

Urban Rescue has been the worship band at Forest Home for many of our camps. They're fantastic. One of my favorite things about this band is that they have a genuine love for God and want to help others connect with Him. The lead singer, Jordan, is also a friend of mine. I have enjoyed many conversations with him about God and what it truly means to follow Him.

The single off their EP is "Sing." You can hear it for free from their website and blog. http://urbanrescuemusic.com/ http://www.justtobehere.com/

It is also available for download from itunes. http://itunes.apple.com/us/album/just-to-be-here-ep/id403936453

Download it, Listen to it, worship with it!

Back At It

I simply needed the time off. My brain was empty. I needed to recharge. Ever been there?

You would think writting a blog entry once a week would be easy. Well, its not. "Just write about what you're thinking." This un-encouraging encouragement usually comes from those who do not have experience. It reminds me of the baseball fans that see their pitcher screw up and think to themselves, "I could do better than that, how hard could it really be?" Well apparently for me. Its more difficult than I imagined.

This is a short little post that says I'm back at it!

The next few entries will be about what God is teaching me, things I find interesting, and of course, youth ministry.

Please stay tuned.

Facebook

I like Facebook. I think most everyone does. It seems like everyone is talking about social networks; movies are being made, books and endless articles are being published and there seem to be hundreds of Christian Conferences explaining how to use this tool to reach the lost. I like Facebook, I'm just concerned. At the risk of being trendy I've written some of my own thoughts on Facebook.

As a Youth Pastor I'm concerned with how high school students use Facebook as well as their parents. It seems to me parents are not completely tuned in to what their teenager is doing on facebook. Girls are posting half-naked pictures of themselves with their friends. Guys are sexually harassing most female "friends" and/or bullying weaker people and leaving threats on the walls of others. Continually high school students post things on their wall that they would never say in "real life." They have a difficult time differing from their "online life" and their "real life." Unfortunately parents have no idea what their teenager is posting. I'm certain many of them would not be proud of their teens online activity. Many parents say they don't want to "invade on their child's private life." Really? Is that really good parenting? I'm not so sure that it is. In a worse case scenario a teenagers private life is where they hide their drugs, drink their alcohol and experiment sexually with others - not necessarily with the opposite sex. Not wanting to invade a teenagers private life is like believing that what happens in Vegas actually stays in Vegas. Its never a good idea.

As a younger 20-somethings adult, I'm simply concerned for my generation. I've noticed our attention span is getting shorter and shorter. I'm finding it more difficult to stay focused on something long enough in order to complete it. For example, I tried reading a well written 2 page article this morning and couldn't do it without my mind drifting off into lala land thinking the article would have been better if he would have simply added more pictures and made bullet points. Maybe its just me, but I don't think it is. I think as a society we are struggling to focus on things that matter, things of substance. We want our information to include a few picture and 160 characters. To prove my point, I'm willing to bet that people reading this blog post won't make it to the end. If they do, I'm betting that they skip a lines along the way. Let me know how you did!

Lastly, I'm concerned that our culture is becoming more self-centered as we attempt to portray ourselves better than we really are. I leave you with a quote from this mornings article, "A self-image controlled in much the same way corporate brands are controlled. Complete with pictures, videos, songs and most of all, metrics-the number of friends we have, the kinds of friends we have the kind of associations we have. We endlessly noodle, refine, create and consume a digital projection we want others to see. However, we are rarely what we project... The problem is that in real social settings, there are limits to what we can hide. At a certain point, people intuitively see through us." They discover what we really are; our flaws, our weird attributes, and our nervous twitches. Its time consuming to create a perfect image of who we want to be. The problem is that we and others are let down when they discover who we really are.

I'm not against Facebook, I like it, I'm just concerned...

You're Welcome TOMS

I love seeing progress. Its been a small passion of mine for awhile. I like the idea of it, I like the impact of it, and I like how its changing the way people do business and how people buy clothes. I'm talking about TOMS SHOES. I through the idea out to my high school students at PULSE and they jumped on board. At first we just wanted to raise money within our own ministry to help support TOMS. As word got out to others in our church we eventually did a huge shoe drive at Desert Springs and spent over $2,000 on shoes. We even donated the shoes that we purchased as a church to a local rescue mission in Indio. It has been fun to watch our students feel like they are making an impact on peoples lives while learning to give or their resources and possessions.
Thank you TOMS for leading by example, and to the students of PULSE, for having the heart of Christ and fueling our mission with the energy of youth!