Conversations Along the Way...

Sunday Stories: A Beautiful Gift

2012-02-10T20:59:00.006-06:00

Mr. Incredible

My 7 year old might be an artist. He has loved drawing since he was four. The thing is, his drawings aren't like most little kid drawings; his are actually pretty good. He has this creative side that simply pours out of him.

Last week, he drew a picture for the assistant principal at his school. When he took it to the office to deliver it, the secretary intercepted him and said that she would make sure the assistant principal got it. When the secretary looked at this hand drawn picture, she was intrigued by the detail of the drawing. She asked my son if he had ever taken art or was in the art program. Since we didn't even know the school had an art program, he obviously said, "no".

This week, my 7 year old came home from school incredibly excited because on that particular day, he had been invited to leave his friends and the mundane normalcy of first grade during one period in order to go to art class. It turns out that the secretary took it upon herself to speak to the art teacher about the potential talent in this young first grader.

Some might say, she's just a secretary. That seems to be a nasty habit in our culture. I like to think however that she is one who empowers others. I believe this woman has has a beautiful gift, an eye, an ability to recognize the beauty and potential in others and do all that's in her power to pull it out of them. Whether or not my son excels in his art, I will be happy with all that his art teachers teach him along the way, but I will forever be appreciative and grateful from the deepest parts of my being for the secretary who took time to notice what is inside of my son and to nurture and encourage his young heart.

Sunday Stories: Doing What's Natural

2012-02-05T10:15:00.002-06:00

He called me because he wanted guidance. I don't know him very well and wasn't really sure what kind of guidance he was looking for, but I love sitting down over coffee with friends, old and new, so we got together. He told me that he's been in recovery for close to 20 years and has an intense desire to see other people set free from the power of addiction to alcohol. He needed guidance from me - so he thought - when it came to how he was helping others get free. A few years ago, he and some friends began opening their homes to others who are in recovery to spend time getting to know each other and eating dinner together; something besides another recovery meeting.

Apparently, word got out about this informal dinner gathering and people started showing up like mad. Eventually, people who weren't celebrating any sobriety were showing up, sometimes drunk on the spot and desperate for help. It seems that getting into some of the hospitals around town is rather difficult these days as many of the detox units are overcrowded. So, this man and his friends did what came natural to them. They decided to let those who were struggling through their addiction find refuge in their homes. Inviting them in. Providing a bed and food. Offering them a place and a community to detox with. Caring for them. And after 48 - 72 hours of detox, they are helping them get into programs where they might get the help that they need.

At the end of our conversation, I asked, "What are you needing from me?"

He replied, "I just need guidance on how to do this."

To which I replied,

"Well, you're loving on people, caring for them, preferring them and honoring them. I don't think you need my help. Just keep doing what comes naturally to you and keep following your heart."

Sunday Stories: Pursuing Passion

2012-01-29T14:25:00.004-06:00

Some people do. Some people are. I have a friend who is a dancer. Not an Aaron Rodgers kind of dancer, but a real dancer. For years, she has been working through and trying to figure out how to continue to pursue her hearts passion for dancing even though dancing does not necessarily pay the bills. For years I have been wondering...

'What's her deal? Dancing isn't cutting it, go out and find a job that will bring in enough money to support yourself, and then just dance on the side.'

Over the past 2 years, I have been on a journey towards identifying my own life passion and heart. Not so much a 'what I do' but more of a 'who I am'.

I have come to realize that you can't make yourself be something that you are not and you can't not be something that you are.

My friend is an artist. She is a dancer. It's not what she does. It's who she is. And so, for her, she has spent and will spend her days, her months, her years and her life 'doing' whatever she has to do to make ends meet in order to be able to continue her art, be true to herself and truly be who she is.

For this, I am grateful. So, to this friend, continue being you. You make a wonderful you. And may the rest of us continue to figure out who we are (and who we're not) and then be the best that we can be - no matter what the cost.

You Complete Me

2012-01-23T21:25:00.001-06:00

The moment was a complete game changer in our relationship. I was moaning and groaning to my wife about things I didn't like about myself and things I didn't like about other people; complaining about this and worrying about that. At the end of my diatribe, I looked at Kristy and said 'I am such a terrible person.' I was making a joke. With all of the sincerity in the world, she looked at me and said,

"Brian, you are not a terrible person. You just have a lot of issues."

She was not making a joke. She was dead serious. It was a game changer because at that moment, I came to realize much more of the depths of the love and life that we share together. Ours is a relationship where we are becoming more open and honest with one another, experiencing more trust and actually allowing one another to speak into the others life - kind of like real friends do.

In a day and age when Jerry's words to Dorothy is what people are looking for, it seems that we've actually been missing out on the true beauty of oneness. What if, being made 'complete' by another person is not the goal at all - or even possible for that matter?

When we look to another person to complete us, we in essence give that person complete power over us. When someone else completes us, we inevitably hang on every word that person says, looking for our value and worth. If they build us up we feel great. If they say something negative about us, even if it's true, it causes our world to cave in around us. This is perhaps one major reason why marriages don't last in our society.

What if, instead of looking to a spouse (or future spouse) to complete us, we looked to a spouse to be a partner in this life journey. Someone who we can be true friends with. True allies. As we work together to continue working through our stuff; knowing that we were never intended to 'complete' one another. A spouse certainly can make us a better person, but that actually only works if the relationship is authentic, vulnerable, filled with trust and love. That takes time, but seems to me - these days - to be much better than the cotton candy, 9th grade crush love we bought into along the way. And yes, for the record, I did like the movie Jerry Maguire and I might have gotten something in my eye during the 'you had me at hello' dialogue.

If you are married, does your spouse have the freedom to speak into your life? About your character? Flaws? How you come across to other people?

Married or not married, do you have others in your life who you have invited to speak into your life? People who make you a better person?

Sunday Stories: Chosen

2012-01-22T11:20:00.001-06:00

My Kristy and I packed our bags and headed out of town for a 3 day retreat last week to spend some time with a number of friends who are sharing a similar experience of life, parenthood, vocation and life mission. One evening while sitting around the fire, we were talking with some new friends who have adopted a number of African American children. They were telling us a story about one of their son's who came home from school one day, distraught and said,

"Dad, they are all making fun of me because I'm black and have white parents."

This dad looked at his boy and said,

"You go back tomorrow and you tell those kids that you are adopted.You tell them that means that your mom and dad stood at that nursery window, surveyed the whole room full of babies and said, 'That one! We want that one, right there!.'.....and then you tell them that they were in that same nursery."

The humor was funny. But the overarching message of being wanted and chosen - well that is beyond beautiful.

Sunday Stories: Follow Your Heart

2012-01-08T08:43:00.001-06:00

I'm a regular at my Starbucks. I know all of the baristas and of course the morning crowd. I've developed a number of good relationships with some of the other regulars, including Steve. Steve is writer. He primarily writes screenplays. He's in his late 40's and has been writing full time for a number of years.

Steve has determined that there is more to life than living, making lots of money and dying. He doesn't necessarily have a firm opinion on what more there is, but he's convinced there's more. This week he told me that is the reason he writes. He used to have a very well paying job, but he left it all to pursue writing, because he believes that what he writes has the power to impact and transform others through the stories he tells. This week, Steve told me,

"Brian, it's not about the money. If it was about the money, I'd be out there right now, pounding the pavement, making a buck. As it is, I'm sitting here, not making very much, but I'm following what's in my heart and I'm just hoping that it makes a difference. I have to do this."

Steve, to you, I say, way to go. I hope that your journey is full of success, but even if it's not, I hope that your heart stays alive. There is nothing better than a heart that is alive.

Sunday Stories: Selfless Love

2012-01-01T10:20:00.003-06:00

I heard a story this week about four siblings in their 50's. Two brothers, two sisters. Last week, their 81 year old father passed away. In his last few months of life, his health began to deteriorate and he began suffering with dementia as it would come and go at times.There were a number of occasions when he would be sitting at his home in his chair and would suddenly decide that he wanted to go home. Instead of convincing him that he was already at home or just putting him off, his sons would simply say,

"Ok, dad. Come on. Let's go."

They would go outside, load up in the car and begin driving their dad around asking him for turn by turn directions on how to get back to his home. Sometimes they would get by with just having to make the block. Other times, their dad's directions would take them on a long journey, passing by his old grade school, high school and other landmarks that resided in his memory. Each time though, they would end up back at his home. They would pull into the driveway, get out of the car, go inside and take their places once again in the chairs that they had left minutes earlier. The difference was, this time when sitting in his chair, their dad was at peace because his son's had taken him home.

This might be the most powerful story of love that I experienced this week.

Figuring Out Life with Others

2011-12-13T22:16:00.005-06:00

I was recently listening to a podcast by a 70 year old man that I have a great deal of respect for. He mentioned during the podcast that in all of his life, he would be happy if he just had two things: Jesus and relationships.

As one who has at times, struggled greatly with relationships, there are a couple of things that I have learned over the past few years. These are things that have come to shape how I try to approach relationships these days.

Relationships must be a value

For years I was a loner and was content. I have come to realize over the years however, that life is better with others. In order to share life with others though, I must value relationships and the ongoing pursuit of them.

Relationships take time

This one may seem obvious, but time is something that many usually aren't willing to part with. The truth is, it just takes time to get to know other people.

Relationships take commitment

It's going to get hard at some point so there must be a willingness to work through the tough patches.

Relationships take money

I understand that some may balk at this one, but sometimes I might need to actually invest -yes, even money - in relationships. Part of developing friendships is having a good time together and some times these things might cost a little bit.

Relationships must be a priority

If relationships are not a priority and are not intentionally pursued, they will not happen on their own.

Relationships take the ability to shut up and listen

Most people want to be heard, but have difficulty hearing. In order for relationships to work, it has to go both ways.

Relationships only work if both parties get to be right sometimes

Nobody likes to be in a relationship with someone who already knows everything. (I used to be that guy and still can be sometimes. It's not cool).

Many of us would say we value relationships. The problem is, our lifestyles don't necessarily their importance. Someone once told me, show me your calendar and your checkbook and I'll show you what is really important to you.

Being a loner is easy for me. Intentionality in relationships is a bit harder and more challenging. But in the end, I am hoping that a change in lifestyle early on will lead me to hopefully being 70+ years old one day and though I might not have a lot of things that others might have, I am hoping that I at least have others.

What other things might you add to the list? Or take off of the list?

It Takes a Village

2011-12-08T22:02:00.001-06:00

This past summer, Kristy and I packed up the car, loaded up the boys and headed out of town with two other couples for our annual beach trip. What makes this trip so exciting - sure, we can use that word - is that between our 3 couples we have 11 children - all boys - all under the age of 6.

These are two couples that we are quite intentional about sharing life with. We're to the place where we trust each other with our own kids, allow one another to correct/discipline our kids and actually play a part in raising one another's kids.

One night on this particular trip, Kristy got into a beautiful conversation with the other two girls. I think us dad's must have all gone to sleep (tired from keeping up with the kids all day, cooking, keeping the condo clean, etc.). The conversation made it's way towards how we are going to train our boys in the ways of God, how we will instill kingdom values in them, and teach them how to live. The question came up at one point, "How will 'I' be able to train my boys to do something or to a choose a particular path that I myself (and/or my husband) might have messed up or not chosen correctly." Another one of the girls replied, "Perhaps, but what if we share in the raising of our boys. Between the three of us, we have all had different experiences and made different choices. So I can give a whole different perspective. This way our kids can learn from all of our stories and lives."

As the girls discussed they came to the conclusion that when we truly invite one another into each other's lives we all bring different things to the table.

Since then I have thought a lot about the ancient "African" proverb, 'It takes a village to raise a child.' Some believe this proverb originated from the Nigerian Igbo culture and proverb "Ora na azu nwa" which actually means 'it takes the community /village to raise a child.' This tribe went so far as to name their children "Nwa ora" which means 'child of the community.' It has been in existence in Africa for centuries.

Adopting a daughter from a completely different culture (Africa, actually) has led me to thinking this thru at even deeper levels. It's raised a number of questions:

In our context today, what is it that causes us to think that our children are better off only learning from us (their parents)?

Is it possible that our collective experience and wisdom would actually work to make our kids better, not worse?

How does our modern day, individualistic, American culture hinder us from engaging in the centuries old practice of raising children in community?

Do you have a community of people that you share life with and allow to speak into your kid's lives? If not, would you be willing to? If not, why not?

How can we be more intentional about being a part of a 'village' to share life and the raising of our kids?

Working Together for the Good of Others

2011-11-30T22:01:00.000-06:00

This is a blog about a good friend of mine who has started a non-profit in order to provide food and critical vitamins to malnourished children in Zambia, Africa. You can actually help in very simple ways - simply by liking Umweo Bags on FB and sharing the link. Grace and peace - Brian

In an effort to raise awareness, friends of Umweo Bags will donate over $600 to this amazing cause if Umweo Bags receives over 250 likes on their Facebook page, along with receiving at least 60 shares on FB and 20 new followers on Twitter by December 25.

Umweo Bags is a non-profit organization (pulling together the final paperwork for being incorporated as a 501(c)3 as you read) that was started in 2010 by Ana Rich. While on a mission trip in Zambia, with her church - the Vineyard Church of New Orleans. Ana had the opportunity to visit a malnutrition clinic in the town of Kitwe. This clinic is a place where children in the community who are malnourished are brought, most often by their parents, to be given a chance at surviving in life. While at the clinic, children are cared for by nurses who do all that they can to provide care, nutrition, vitamins and food to these children; to nurse them back to health so that they may return home to their families, healthy. At the time that Ana was visiting the clinic, there were close to 15 children being cared for and nursed back to health.

Upon returning to New Orleans from her trip to Zambia, Africa, Ana had an overwhelming desire to help, to work to figure out how she could play a part in helping these children survive. While in Zambia, Ana had the opportunity to go to market one day. While there she purchased a handmade bag from one of the local merchants. It was this bag that enlarged Ana’s imagination as she considered ways that she could help those children who are clinging to life over 9000 miles away.

After weeks of thinking and praying, Ana pulled out her old sewing machine, though she had only minor sewing skills, and began to play around with fabric and designs to try and replicate the bag that she had purchased at market. Within a few days, Ana had finally landed on her own unique pattern for the purses. And thus Umweo Bags was born.

Umweo Bags are all made out of fabrics full of vibrant colors that in some way reflect the culture of Zambia. Bags are sold for $30 and every penny that is profit is now sent to the malnutrition clinic in Kitwe and is used to purchase the necessary food and vitamin supplements for the children. Over the last year and a half, Ana has empowered a number of other women in the community to also make bags and today, every Umweo Bag is handmade by Ana and 5 of her friends.

To date, Umweo Bags has sent $2,675 to the malnutrition clinic which in turn has allowed the clinic to purchase food. The clinic usually only has enough funding to purchase formula. However, children over 8 months old are in need of solid foods in order to get the nutrients they need to regain their health. The money that Umweo Bags sends to the clinic enables the clinic to purchase the necessary solids, such as, fruits, mealie meal, ground nuts for protein and more.

Here are some other sobering numbers:

· People travel anywhere from 10 miles to 150 miles in order to find help at the clinic

· Children stay anywhere from 7 days to 30 days at the clinic

· There is a dietician and 3 nurses that work at the clinic

· The clinic has anywhere from 12 children to 32 a time

· There are only 25 beds at the clinic

Since Umweo Bags partnered with the clinic in 2010, over 95 children have been nursed back to health and have returned to their homes nourished and healthy.

It is our heart at Umweo Bags to continue to provide as much as we can financially to this clinic to provide these children with the food and vitamins they need to survive - to provide life.

Here’s how you can help:

1. Like Umweo Bags Facebook page (here)

2. Share Umweo Bags page on Facebook (here)

3. Follow Umweo Bags on Twitter @umweobags

In addition to this, you may always purchase an Umweo Bag at www.umweobags.bigcartel.com or donate directly to Umweo Bags at www.umweobags.com

Freedom from Answers

2011-09-14T17:44:00.000-05:00

Whenever I approach life with a certain sense of arrogance and know-it-all-ness, I realize that I miss out on a good many things that I could actually learn from others. This tendency I have towards being the man who has all of the answers and none of the questions is certainly a tendency that I have enjoyed losing much of over the last few years. In exchange, I am gaining knowledge, answers, rich relationships and most of all - life.

Last week as I flew home from a trip to Mexico with some of my friends, I had the opportunity to sit next to a man and his family who were in the states so this man's oldest daughter could undergo her 22nd surgery for Spina Bifida. Though we had never met, this man and I had the most amazing conversation on our way from San Diego to Salt Lake City. The commonalities between us were incredible. Born just 10 months apart, we are the same age. He has been married for 10 years. I have been married for 9. He has 3 children - all girls. I have 4 children - all boys. He is a runner. I was holding my latest issue of Runner's World magazine. His connection with his God is important to him, as mine is to me.

As we sped down the runway and lifted off, I looked at him and said, "I really don't enjoy flying." We both laughed it off and continued in conversation. About 6 minutes into our flight as we came close to our cruising altitude, we hit a small pocket of turbulence. I became fidgety which was quite evident to him. He leaned over and said, "You know, Mr. Brian, in my religion, we believe that our God is in control. We believe that nothing happens to us apart from our God knowing about it and we believe that we can trust that things will be okay because our God is in charge."

I replied, "In my religion, we believe the same thing. I'm just not very good at it."

From that point on, we conversed for the entire hour and a half flight. We talked about everything from raising our kids, to our vocations, to our favorite hobbies. It was the most beautiful 90 minutes of my day.

I learned a great deal last week from this Muslim man from Saudi Arabia. I learned a great deal about love and life, about family and priorities, about sacrifice and selflessness, but most of all, I learned about faith.

It causes me to wonder how many times I have missed out on opportunities to learn from others who were different than me because I thought I was the one with all of the answers?

These days, I feel as though I am on a continuous journey of learning just how much I don't know. And I must say, I am loving the process and finding great freedom in this journey.

Katrina: Becoming Who We Are Going to Be

2011-08-29T11:31:00.001-05:00

In some ways, the storm that changed our lives forever has made us who we are and we are better versions of ourselves because of the fury of Katrina.

Lots of things were wrong about Katrina. The way she destroyed our city. The way she took lives and homes and hearts from people. There is nothing that can prepare you for an event like that in your life. The best you can do is hope that something like that never happens to you and trust that if indeed it does, you will have the grace to walk through it. I hated that storm. That storm crushed my heart and angered me. That storm threw my life into confusion and created enough doubt to last for years on end.

And at the same time, that storm saved my life and led me to my heart. I could literally write for hours about how Katrina has impacted my heart and life over the last 6 years, but for today, on this 6th anniversary of Hurricane Katrina, here are just a few thoughts on how Katrina has impacted my life.

Katrina changed my life...

...by bringing new relationships into my life. Had it not been for Katrina, I might not have met some amazing people, many of whom still play a significant role in my life today.

...by giving me a greater imagination for what humanity can do when working together.

...by giving me a greater imagination for what the community of faith who follows after the teachings of Jesus could really look like when we put aside our individualistic, independent, it's- all- about- me lifestyle and actually live our lives for the sake of one another.

...by allowing my beautiful Kristy and I to realize that our marriage is not made out of where we live, what we drive, what we own or any of those externals, but our marriage is built on our love for one another and an amazing friendship. You always hope that you're marriage is built on something solid, but until you come face to face with the reality of life in your marriage, you just don't know. I realized one afternoon after the storm as I sat on my refrigerator out on my front lawn, looking at everything we owned piled up in a trash heap, that my life and my identity were actually not wrapped up in my stuff. It was as though chains fell off of me in that moment and I was free. I realized that our relationship was built on nothing but who we are together. We cried about our stuff and then we embarked on a richer, deeper life of togetherness that I don't know we would have ever found apart from Katrina.

It's been six years and I honestly believe that I am still processing. Those days were difficult. We still realize on a regular basis new ways that the storm impacted us and our family. I think this story is still being written as we continue our journey of becoming the people we are going to be.

We lost much. Many lost more than we did. I'll never forget what was lost.

But for everything that we lost, we gained much more...we began to find ourselves and we found an imagination for what could be.

8 Miles, Eminem and Reconciliation

2011-08-16T08:08:00.000-05:00

When I started listening to Eminem, it was simply because of his undeniable ability to tell a story. With unrivaled passion and heart, he is an artist who is capable of drawing one into his story, allowing others to feel and touch and experience what it is to live his story. I figured, at most, I would develop a richer ability for storytelling and at the very least I would have some good music to keep me running strong miles.

A few Saturdays ago, as the sun set, I laced up my running shoes, grabbed my ipod and headed out the door. It was a Forrest Gump moment, through and through, as something inside of me was compelling me and 'I just felt like running.' I set out with no predetermined route as I figured I would simply run until I didn't feel like running any longer.

About one mile into my run, my thoughts took me places that I had not intended to go. I became overwhelmed with thoughts and feelings about relationships from my past that went wrong. In many of these relationships I had been offended or hurt by the other party. In all of these relationships, I retaliated - defended my hurt and struck back. The way in which I was best able to defend myself was by becoming an expert wall builder - building walls around my life and my heart, severing the relationships and moving on.

As my feet pounded the pavement, stride after stride, I felt my heart pounding within my chest. These faces of people that I really loved and yet banished from my life kept flashing through my thoughts. I sensed that something needed to be done to reconcile, but had no idea how. Some of these relationships had been severed over 12 years ago, with no words spoken since. So, I kept running.

My running playlist is quite diverse. It has everything from 'Christ is Risen' by Matt Maher to 'I Need a Doctor' by Eminem and Dr. Dre and everything in between. At around mile 4, Eminem's 'Not Afraid' made it to the top of the playlist. The story behind this song is fascinating (as is much of Eminem's whole story: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c-svXcxBYdk), but what struck me most on this night was the powerful heart of the bridge:

And I just can't keep living this way
So starting today, I'm breaking out of this cage
I'm standing up, I'm a face my demons
I'm manning up, I'm a hold my ground
I've had enough, now I'm so fed up
Time to put my life back together right now

As his words resonated within, I knew that if I was going to truly break out of the cage that was barring me in, I would have to lay it all down. The hurt. The pain. The resentment. The need to be right. The desire to win. If there was going to be reconciliation, I would have to allow myself to forgive and I would have to ask for forgiveness, because no matter how much I might have been hurt, the truth is, I was also guilty.

Eight miles later, I was done with my run. The next 36 hours proved to be 36 of the most powerful hours of my life as the silence was broken between me and all eight faces that came into my thoughts that night. Emails. Facebook messages. Phone calls. Different communication with each. Same result with all: Forgiveness. Reconciliation.

I've never experienced the power of reconciliation at this level and I am so deeply grateful for the forgiveness that was so quickly extended towards me.

I've hesitated posting this particular blog because some will be inclined to hail me as some type of hero for taking certain steps. For the record, hero's don't take 12 years to get their crap fixed. I do believe that stepping away from relationships is necessary sometimes when one has been hurt, but I also know firsthand that allowing those relationships to float away into some obscure land of silence without ever going back to forgive and ask for forgiveness is a sure way to keep oneself behind bars. The interesting thing about life behind the bars though is that there is a fuller life of freedom just on the other side. I decided to post it today because I can't help but think that there are others who may be trapped in this land of silence and perhaps it's time to move to a new land.

Reconciliation

2011-08-05T22:16:00.001-05:00

I was recently reconciled to an old friend after 12 years. I happened upon the lyrics to a song that this friend wrote during the time we did not speak. Twelve years is a long time. It gives people a chance to change, maybe mature and hopefully grow. It changed me. It kind of sucks to lose 12 years and relationship. But reconciliation is quite beautiful and I'm grateful at very deep levels for it.

"But I am older, I am wiser, a whole lot smarter
And I thought it through
And there's been a change in me
Because you must examine all the evidence you can see
And I nailed you down and pinned you up and questioned
Is this love for you enough for me
Cause there's so many good things and true things
And I want to hear them out and see how they play out in me
There's been a change in me, I'm no longer who I used to be
Cause I'm wide open now
I am utterly convinced of you"

The music is much richer when you know the story behind it and even sweeter still when you find yourself in the story.

Lessons from Mohammad

2011-07-28T23:44:00.000-05:00

About 3 weeks ago, my Kristy decided to completely renovate our kitchen. In the early phases she made countless trips to Home Depot. After her 5^th trip or so, she mentioned to me how pleasant her experiences at Home Depot had been as everyone had been so helpful. Having been a long time customer of Home Depot, I know first- hand that people at Home Depot are not friendly. People at Lowe’s, yes. Home Depot, not so much. There have actually been many times when I would rather walk out of Home Depot without the part I needed because I didn't want to ask for help and get that whole 'are you really that dumb' look.

A day or so after Kristy explained how wonderful everyone at the Home Depot had been, we took a trip together to work on obtaining cabinet shelves. The project turned out to be slightly challenging and we needed help. And help is exactly what we got. A wonderful woman helped us as much as she could and was so amazingly helpful. When she couldn’t figure out exactly how else to help us, she called a man over by the name of Mohammad. This man, was incredible as he assisted us for the next 45 minutes, striving to wrap his mind around our project, understanding what we wanted and needed, finding the materials we needed, cutting the wood we needed and even helping us carry it to check out.

During our time with Mohammad, it became overwhelmingly clear to me that I needed to get in my own life whatever the heck had gotten into these employees at the Home Depot. The importance of becoming increasingly aware of the people who enter my life on a daily basis allowing myself to be available to listen, understand, relate and serve. This is something that Mohammad taught me on the lumber aisle of Home Depot.

I wonder what would really happen if more people practiced the true art of hospitality? How might this change our lives? How might it change our world?

*I told a friend about my Home Depot experience. He went to Home Depot tonight and had the same wonderful experience. He asked the employee why everyone was being so nice. It turns out it was a management decision to put a new face on. Good job Home Depot. I'm happy you figured this out, because Lowe's is much further away from my home.

Engaging Life

2011-06-23T22:24:00.002-05:00

Life moves so fast these days and I find that I have trouble keeping up. The subtitle of this blog is 'Learning to live and love and be engaged in the everyday, ordinary moments' and yet I find that many days I forget to engage. Engaging seems to be a conscious decision that I have to make. Thankfully, this has been a week full of conscious decisions to slow down and engage and for this, I am so grateful.

This week I experienced fullness in life in a number of ways through engaging:

Being fully present at my boys swim meet (which means I left my phone in my pocket!)
When texting a long distance friend, I accidentally called him. I noticed before he answered but decided not to hang up and talk if he did answer. That conversation was wonderful and it was refreshing spending time actually dialoguing instead of texting.
A visit to the hospital to spend about 20 minutes with a friend who was there turned into an hour long stay as we laughed and talked. I learned so much about this amazing person as I just had the opportunity to sit and listen.
Having breakfast with a friend who I haven't shared a meal with in over a year. His life stories were amazing to hear and I learned so much from him about life, redemption and second chances through our conversation.
Relaxing on my back porch one evening with a couple of friends talking about politics, travel, religion, girls (our wives) and more.
Falling asleep aware of the sound of rain on my roof.

Engaging life is a beautiful thing. May we all spend more time practicing engagement.

How about you? Where did you engage life this week?

The Church of Beautiful Letdowns

2011-06-22T21:37:00.001-05:00

I began working on this blog about 4 weeks ago. In that time, one blogger that I follow posted a blog in which she posed the question 'Have you found a congregation in which Jesus and his friends would be welcome?' Today's post has turned into my response.
____________________________________________________

Not long ago, I had to go to the doctor. I had not been able to taste food for 39 days and I finally figured that it was time to get it checked out. As I sat in the waiting room, there was a lot of sniffling, coughing, runny eyes and Kleenex. None of us were well; all of us were in need. We needed whatever the doctor could give.

The week after OBL was assassinated, the pastor at the church I am a part of spoke about how uneasy he felt with the celebrations that were taking place in the streets and the way facebook lit up with 'christians' encouraging OBL to enjoy hell, rotting and forever torment. His comments were not political. They were not about whether or not he personally believed bin Laden should have been killed or how he personally felt about bin Laden's meeting with death. His comments were in the context of his teaching about how those who are citizens of God's kingdom should be shaped by kingdom of heaven values and how we must fight against being shaped by our cultures values. He spoke about living in the tension of kingdom realities. He encouraged those who follow Jesus to be challenged by Jesus' teaching on loving our enemies, praying for them and blessing them as opposed to dancing in celebration that they may spend forever apart from the love and mercy, grace and beauty of the same Jesus who willingly gives those things to us, though we do not deserve them either.

Within days, people were leaving the church. Some even said that church is no place to be talking about that kind of stuff.

Fast forward 5 weeks in this same church. It was a pretty cool day as close to 40 people were being baptized, choosing to align their lives with God's kingdom. I walked up to one woman and asked her why she was being baptized. She said that she'd lived a horrible, horrific life and she didn't want that life anymore. She told me that she wanted a new life - one where she follows Jesus. She said that she found hope for this type of life in this particular church.

Her response was sobering and exhilarating. In the same month, I saw people who have it all figured out and are convinced that Jesus' love has limits, choose to walk away from the family, while others whose lives are a wreck choose to believe that maybe, just maybe, Jesus' love has no limits, so they walk into the family.

I got to thinking about the kind of church I want to be a part of. It's kind of crazy and it's pretty messy, but it seems right. It's the kind of church that stumbles and bumbles its way through life and to Jesus. It's the kind of church where people who live really crappy lives can find Jesus and experience new life. It's a group of complete letdowns who have been made beautiful by the love and mercy and grace of Jesus. Everyone there has a story; everyone has wounds, has bled and has scars. It's a place where you can belong before you believe. It's a family of ragtag screw-ups that have a few things in common. Our desire to know Jesus. To be like Jesus. And to see heaven invade earth in our everyday, ordinary lives. We also share a common desire to be challenged and changed.

I'm convinced that people like this don't eventually leave churches because the pastor (or anyone else) encourages them towards love or forgiveness or mercy or grace or beauty or kindness. I'm convinced that the people who are so acutely aware of their need for God are actually the ones who have the biggest hearts for change and the most outstretched arms to anyone else who wants in on it.

The church that I want to be a part of is a lot like the waiting room at my doctor's office. It's full of people who must see the doctor because if they don't their day or week or month or life will be miserable. And once we've seen the doctor and healing has come our way, we still walk with a limp, but our limp is our best friend, because our limp is our constant reminder that there was a time when we couldn't walk at all. It keeps us humble. It keeps us grounded. It keeps us real. It allows us to love as we live in the tension between kingdom realities.

That woman's story was one of many like it that I heard that weekend, which leads me to believe that the congregation that I am a part of is becoming one that I think Jesus and his friends would be welcome at. I pray that we continue to move in that direction. I pray that I continue to move in that direction. I pray that all of God's beautiful church would move in this direction.

"We are a beautiful let down,
Painfully uncool,
The church of the dropouts
The losers, the sinners, the failures and the fools
Oh what a beautiful letdown"

Beautiful Letdown by Switchfoot

Theological Humility

2011-06-17T00:21:00.001-05:00

Last week, a friend said to me,

"...theological humility is what allows God to challenge and change us."

It immediately dawned on me....this is probably why I didn't change for years. Because a person who already knows everything doesn't need to change and I knew it all. And then this interesting thing called life happened to me. One of the greatest movements in my life over the last 6 years has been the journey towards admitting and being okay with the fact that I might be wrong about certain things and that there are a whole lot of things that I just don't know.

I was once the King of Opinions. I had opinions about things that I was well versed in. I had opinions about things I had no idea about. If we were talking about it, I had an opinion and my opinion was the right one. Period. My opinions didn't stop with thoughts on parenting or marriage or the cats vs. dogs debate. My opinions ran in all directions including theological issues about why God does what he does, who's in and who's out in God's economy, why my way was right and everyone else's way was very wrong and on and on.

Arrogant people can be such asses. So, if you caught the arrogant ass version of me along the way, I am truly sorry.

I am still a work in progress, but I am happy to say that today, things are a little bit different thanks to a number of people who chose to love me through my arrogance. Along the way, I have had good friends tell me that they didn't like me because I knew it all. Co-workers have expressed how much of a delight I was not to work with because of my opinions and ability to trump all others thoughts and ideas with my self perceived better thoughts and ideas. And here I was thinking that I was God's great gift to my little universe. At least, that was my opinion.

Lately, I have been challenged on some of my previous dogmatic stances when it comes to life and theology.

Questions like:

What if people in the far reaching places of the planet never know the person of Jesus before they die nor had the opportunity to hear about the redemptive, restorative plan of this resurrected Jesus?

Why are some people born with passion for the opposite sex while others are born with passion for the same sex? If God controls these things, but then says that one should not have relations with the same sex, doesn't this make God kind of cruel?

Does God actually control all things?

Does God really think that whole 'love your enemies and literally pray for them' thing is going to work?

If God is so good, then why do babies die in their mother's wombs sometimes?

I could list hundreds of these types of questions.

Recently, I was reading my boys a story out of the book of Genesis. We read about a time in which there was famine in the land of Egypt for 7 years for lack of rain and many people were without food. My 6 year old son asked me,

"Dad, people had no food to eat because there was no rain?"

"Yes, son."

"But doesn't God make the rain?"

"Yes, son."

"So, if God loves everybody, then why didn't God just make rain so people could have food and not go hungry?"

Now, here's the deal. Theologically, I think there is an answer to this question and the other questions posed above. Now, for those of you who are concerned at this point, let me reassure you - I believe that Jesus is God's son. I believe that he came to the planet to crush sin, death, evil, tyranny and oppression through dying and ultimately coming back to life. I believe that Jesus is the way to God and restored life. Beyond this, there is a whole lot that I'm just not sure of.

These days, I don't think that theology is enough. Because theology misses the most important part of a person. Theology misses the heart. Theology hits us square in the cranium and for the most part, it stays right there. I could have loaded up my son with all kinds of theological answers, but let's face it - theology will never satisfy the heart of a 6 year old (or 56 year old) who is struggling with why a loving God would intentionally withhold waters from the sky to cause a famine in which people die for lack of food. How do we explain this to our boys who know their sister - whom currently resides in Ethiopia - is in an orphanage with barely enough food to survive the night?

How do we answer that question? Can we answer that question? Should we answer that question?

Or is it okay to let some questions, be just that? Questions. Mysteries. Spaces of tension.

So, how did our conversation end?

"So, Dad, if God loves everybody, then why didn't God just make rain so people could have food and not go hungry?"

"I don't know, son. But I do know that Jesus promises us that no matter what happens to us in life, he will be with us. We might not always feel it or even think it, but I can promise you that Jesus loves us and will be with us through all of it."

And when he gets a little older, I'll give him a little more. At least the little more that I might know. But one thing is for sure....I don't ever want to give him or anyone else just something to satisfy the head. I want to be a person who engages hearts. But in order to be that person, I think we have to first, have our hearts engaged.

How about you? What has your experience been with engaging God with your head vs. your heart?

Waiting for Zoe

2011-06-02T21:07:00.002-05:00

So, it turns out that the adoption process can be very fun and exciting and at times discouraging and drawn out. It's been fifteen months since we made our decision to pursue adoption and applied with America World Adoption Agency (AWAA). We spent five months pulling together all of our paperwork, meeting with our social worker and getting all of our ducks in a row. In September 2010 we mailed our dossier to Ethiopia and began the process of waiting. Eight months later, we are still waiting and at present, there does not seem to be an end in sight.

For those who are interested in keeping up with our adoption journey on a regular basis, you can follow us over at our adoption blog here.

These days we have started a new tradition to help us keep our heads up during the waiting. Our dossier went to Ethiopia on the 24th of September, so we have declared the 24th of each month Zoe Moon day. On Zoe Moon day we take the boys out and we celebrate with ice cream. It has turned into a much anticipated family night and Kristy and I look forward to it just as much as the boys.

So, until we are able to actually meet our Zoe we will continue to wait and while we wait, we will continue celebrate her arrival with ice cream.

And for all of you dads who already hold your daughters...you're doing a good work that matters greatly. Keep up the good work and don't forget to spend some time eating ice cream with your daughter. Here's a little John Mayer for you.

John Mayer - Daughters (Official Music Video). Watch more top selected videos about: John Mayer

Your Turn

2011-06-01T21:52:00.001-05:00

Now that summer is here, I thought it would be cool to go back and look at your favorite blog post that you wrote this spring.

If you're a blogger, leave a comment with a link to your favorite blog post that you wrote in March, April or May. (If you're not a blogger, leave a comment with a link to a favorite post that you read on someone else's blog over these last 3 months.)

I'm looking forward to reading your favorites!

How Can We Raise Centered-Set Kids?

2011-05-31T11:15:00.001-05:00

For those of you who enjoyed, 'Did Jesus Die Because of the Cookies', I have tweaked that blog and it is running today as a guest post over at Not the Religious Type. It's called How Can We Raise Centered-Set Kids? Check it out when you get a chance.

Letting God Off the Hook

2011-05-25T12:49:00.003-05:00

I recently listened to a podcast of a roundtable discussion between a pastor of a christian church and 4 members of his church who are part of the LGBT community. It was an interesting dialogue as this pastor so lovingly engaged in honest conversation with his four friends who are all seeking to follow Jesus and are lesbian, gay and/or bisexual.

During the course of the conversation, one of the women said that she went to this particular church simply because someone invited her. She described her experience that day in that particular church as 'profound.' Having very little previous exposure to church she said that day she decided to 'allow herself to encounter God', but in order to do so she felt as though she had to 'let [God] off the hook for all the stupid things people say about him.'

I wonder....

As a follower of Christ, am I more of a hindrance to people connecting with God or an aid?

Do my words and life express God as some angry, unattainable deity that is full of wrath and judgment or is he as approachable as Jesus was to the prostitutes, poor, thieves and bums?

Do people in my life need to let God off of the hook because of stupid things I say about him (or ways I portray him)?

Finally, if you are not one who follows God, I'm curious what kinds of 'stupid things that people have said' would you need to let him off of the hook for in order to investigate him further?

Navigating the Waters of Public School

2011-05-23T21:50:00.003-05:00

As parents of 4 boys, Kristy and I spent a good deal of time praying about, talking about and figuring out which avenue we would take for educating our children. Our options were, magnet school, public neighborhood school, homeschool, private school or unschooling. (Wikipedia: Unschooling)

From the very beginning, I sensed that God was leading us to put our kids in the public neighborhood school for a couple of reasons that I'll mention shortly. That being said, public school was a scary option for me. I grew up a private school boy. Pre-K - 12th grade. All private. All the way. I had very little experience with public schools but what I did know (think I knew) was not good. I saw Dangerous Minds and Lean on Me. I knew some stuff about public schools. The only thing that public school had going for it in my mind was that my wife went to public school and she seems to be doing fine these days.

With 4 (soon to be 5) kids, we had no choice but to eliminate private school as an option simply due to the cost. Unschooling was never a real thought. Homeschool was also easy for us to eliminate for two reasons. The first was that Kristy and I didn't feel cut out for it. The second reason, which is why we also felt led from the beginning towards the neighborhood school was that we wanted our kids in an environment where they would be able to experience life and practice their faith with people who do not all believe or live like we do. (We have lots of friends who have chosen both private and homeschool for very good reasons that work very well for them. We also will not rule either of these options out for the future, however at this time we simply felt led in a different direction.)

That left us with the magnet school or the neighborhood school. We went back and forth for a while but upon touring our public neighborhood school, we were immediately sold on it. We really liked the school facility and faculty and we loved the idea that our kids would go to school with other kids who they live in the same neighborhood as.

Some have asked how, as a Christian, I feel about what my boys will be taught in public school. I'm actually okay with my kids learning about evolution and humans coming from monkeys. I'm okay with them learning about GLBT issues and orientations. I'm totally okay with prayer not being allowed in school and think that Happy Holidays is actually a better way to go than Merry Christmas. These things don't bother me, they just remind me of how important my role is as a parent to actively pursue God and to continually lead my kids to the heart of Jesus so that they may learn how to ultimately be led, not by rules, but by his spirit. I don't mean to sound like I take these things lightly, but this is the world that my kids will grow up and live in, so I want to teach them early how to navigate these waters in everyday real life situations.

Our first year at the school was a very good one. Our oldest 2 were at the school this year in Kindergarten and Pre-K. We loved their teachers. We loved their friends. Both of our boys became best friends with kids in their classes that were of different races. This totally blessed my heart because my boys will not grow up seeing color (which is also good considering their sister will be black). On the whole it was a great year!

Last Friday our family was there on the second row for our oldest son's graduation from Kindergarten. He was so cute on the stage with about 50 other Kindergarten students, singing songs, reciting poems and stories and receiving certificates.

And then it happened....right in the middle of the program.....a fight broke out.

But this wasn't just any public school fight. This one was even better because it was between parents. Right there on the front row, 10 feet from where the children were standing and watching and learning. One man was actually hauled off to jail, another woman escorted to the back of the room and two other adults were watched closely for the rest of the ceremony.

I'm sad to say, but my initial response was that we needed to get our kids out of this school. We needed to place them somewhere where evil and stupidity couldn't touch them. After calming down though and getting back to God, I feel even more strongly that this is the very reason we need to keep our kids right where they are and as parents who follow Jesus, our role is to continue becoming more engaged in the lives of our kids friends, their parents, the teachers and so on. This is where the rubber hits the road. This is where our hope that life can be different actually gets played out. This is where the kingdom of God touches the kingdom of the world in very real, very tangible ways. This is the tension we've been invited to live in. These are the waters that we feel we have been called to navigate through with grace and mercy, hope and light.

So, the journey will continue. If we continue to feel this is the direction God is leading us, we will have 3 at the school next year. Four the year after that. And five the year after that. My prayer is that Jesus in the Jeansonne's is evidenced by more of his kingdom touching that school and the lives of those involved at the school in tangible ways every year.

And for those who are curious...yes, it is still scary for me.

The Smell of Rain

2011-05-20T17:34:00.000-05:00

I originally posted this blog in January of 2007. Today, I was saddened to realize that I have not progressed as much as I had hoped. This morning, my son, Micah - who is now 6 years old - graduated from Kindergarten. I saw all of the important parts and was very happy to be there. However, at the post graduation celebration, Micah asked me if I saw one of his friends during the graduation. When I replied 'no', he looked at me and said, "That's because you were playing with your phone. You should really throw that phone away." Emails, text messages, tweets, FB messages. All a whole bunch of things distracting me from the moments that I so desire to live in. The following blog spoke life to me again today. I hope it does the same for you. Grace and peace.

____________________________________________________

A couple of weeks ago, I started a new tradition with my 2 year old son Micah. We have started waking up on Monday mornings and heading off to Dunkin’ Donuts – just the two of us. We’ve been doing this for a couple of weeks now. We turn into the parking lot and Micah begins yelling ‘donuts, donuts!’ As soon as we walk in the door he turns to his left, opens up the cooler and takes out a chocolate milk. I then sit him on the counter and ask him what kind of donuts he wants. The answer is always the same – ‘chocolate.’ After we get our six donut holes and our chocolate milk, I give the bag to Micah and he leads me to our table where we sit and talk about donuts. Sometimes Superman goes with us, sometimes it’s Woody and other times it’s Buzz, but the most important part of the morning for Micah is that we’re together and we’re eating donuts. It’s all about the moment.

Kids are funny people. I’ve always liked kids, but I didn’t really appreciate kids until I started having my own. When you have your own kids, it’s really cool because you finally have someone in your life that has to do what you say and you get to practice counting to three a lot. The most amazing thing about kids though, is just how much you can actually learn from them. If my boys have taught me one thing then they have taught me a thousand things. But one of the things that I love most is that they have taught me (or are teaching me) how to slow down and live in the moment.

This morning I left my home around 6:30 am. It was cold and rainy – a typical January morning in New Orleans. This morning for whatever reason, I was not in a hurry. As I stepped out of my front door, the cool morning air brushed across my face and I felt alive. As I stood on my front porch looking out at my car through the falling rain drops, I was filled with a sense of awe. It was cold as I stood there in that place, but I experienced an overwhelming sense of God’s presence as I realized that today was another day of life, full of opportunities, full of possibilities. I pondered running as quickly as possible to my car or just waiting it out for the rain to stop. I chose to wait. And in that moment, I could smell the rain. I don’t know how to describe that smell to you. All I know is that it was the aroma of life. It was fresh. It was refreshing. It was the moment that I was in. It was the only moment that I was being guaranteed.

On Monday mornings, Micah is so content to eat his donuts. He has no idea that there is more to do that day. As far as he is concerned, it’s just him and his daddy enjoying chocolate milk and chocolate donuts. His finite mind cannot fathom that there would be anything more, anything better than where he is at that precise moment. I hope that one day; I can be just like my boy.

Thank you, Micah. I love you.

Hoping Jesus Doesn't Return....Yet

2011-05-19T22:09:00.000-05:00

Harold Camping has predicted that Jesus is coming back and the world is going to end on Saturday, May 21, 2011. Yes, for those of you reading this post on it's published date, that is in 2 days.

I, for one, certainly hope this guy is wrong. (Actually, in no way do I believe this to be true, since Jesus says that he doesn't even know when he's returning but only God the father does. It seems odd that God would tell Harold before he told himself.)

The idea of Jesus coming back has always been a bit difficult for me. I've often heard people say they 'can't wait for Jesus to come back' or they 'so look forward to the glorious day when Jesus returns'. I get it - kind of. But honestly, I've never felt that same level of excitement about it. For the longest time, I figured it made me a bad Christian. Over the past couple of years however, I have become quite comfortable with my feelings and actually believe that it's okay to hope Jesus doesn't come back quite yet.

The problem for me is that there are a number of things that I still want to see, do and experience on this beautiful planet before God comes and restores it. Now, I certainly understand that a new heavens and reclaimed earth are going to be much better than the current one(s) however, I can't help but think that there are still a few things here and now that I would like to see how they play out:

I want to know what kind of men my boys will grow up to be.
I want to know what it's like to walk through a lifetime and grow old with the woman that I love.
I want a number of people in my life to have a real, tangible experience with Jesus that brings healing to them and leads them to an even richer, more beautiful life journey.
I want to know if the Saints will win another Superbowl (It's still so surreal to be able to use the word 'another' in that sentence.)
I want to experience more of the church actually being god's people and reflecting his beauty and glory and representing him well to all of creation and humanity - drawing people to the resurrected Jesus, this side of the restoration of all things.
I want to continue learning how to live more the way of Jesus, having my heart and character transformed in the middle of crap.
I want to meet and raise my Zoe.

I'm no dummy. I understand that even if Jesus doesn't return for hundreds of years and I actually do get to see these things play out, there is no guarantee that they will play out well or the way I hope for. I also believe that if Jesus does come back on Saturday, none of the above items will matter to me anymore. I know in my heart that the restored, reclaimed, reconciled, redeemed, new heavens and earth will be quite nice, but in the highly likely event that he doesn't come back....

Well, these are just a few of the things I'm working towards, dreaming about and looking forward to.

How about you? Have you ever felt a bit ashamed by not sharing others exuberance about the sudden return of Jesus?

What dreams in your own life has God placed in your heart that you would still like to see play out?

Ordinary Moments

2011-05-16T00:53:00.002-05:00

I was 16 years old; hauling my dirty clothes to the laundry room, grumbling about it the whole way. That's when my mom stopped me and said,

"Brian, routine is good. Ordinary is good. Life is made up of ordinary and it's in these ordinary moments that we can experience life at its fullest if we just pay attention."

We live in a society where ordinary is not really seen as a good thing; extraordinary is the goal. If we are not intentional, I believe that it would be very easy to spend all of our days striving for the extraordinary at the expense of missing the ordinary.

I spend lots of time focusing on the next thing, often times hoping that it is anything but ordinary. The next meeting. The next meal. The next date night. The next paycheck. The next kid. The next whatever. I still, at times - 18 years later - get annoyed when I have to spend my time cutting the grass, cleaning the garage, repairing a broken chair or prepping a meeting, driving to an appointment or exercising. All very ordinary, mundane, routine events. Yet, all opportunities to engage in the moment. All opportunities to experience the fullness and richness and beauty of life if I would simply engage and be present in those everyday, ordinary moments.

Maybe today would be a good day to practice living and loving in the very ordinary moments. Perhaps, we would experience life differently and more fully if we stopped looking ahead to the next thing and simply enjoyed and experienced the current thing. Maybe today we could experience the beauty and richness of life right where we are.

Did Jesus Die Because of the Cookies?

2011-05-13T14:55:00.000-05:00

For about a year now, I have been wrestling with how to teach my boys - ages 6, 5, 4 & 2 - about Jesus, salvation, eternity, sin, resurrection and what it means to actually follow Jesus.

Since I was a kid I have struggled with the idea that Jesus had to die because I did bad things. I started learning about Jesus and religion at a fairly young age and I remember walking down to the front of the church because I wanted Jesus to forgive me for my sins and come and live in my heart. The idea alone that some grown man was going to come to live in my heart was difficult enough to figure out, but on top of that I was always curious why Jesus had to die. I just figured that I must be pretty evil for a 7 year old so someone had to die.

Fast forward 27 years. I was recently having a conversation with a friend, who asked me, "So, why exactly did Jesus have to die?"

To which I replied, "So that he could come back from the dead."

And just like that I had my answer.

Jesus' mission to this planet was not to come to simply die for humanity's sin (although this was part of it), but his mission was to come and crush and ultimately destroy evil. And the way to obliterate evil was to beat evil at its own game....take evil's best shot - death - and conquer it. And once death was conquered, this released an overarching plan of redemption, restoration, renewal and reconciliation.

This understanding makes Jesus much more powerful and actually makes the good news good. As I'm working through how to teach my boys about Jesus, I desire to teach them about the place that Jesus takes in my life and his desire to be the center of their own lives. I want them to understand that life with God is not about sin management, but it is about walking with God in a reconciled relationship. The problem for me lies in this traditional teaching that Jesus died on the cross to forgive us for the bad things we might do. This reasoning seems quite anemic. Really? Is that the best Jesus can do? Simply forgive us for bad things? Seriously, how do you explain to a 6 year old that God killed his son Jesus because my son stole a cookie from his brother? So, now Jesus forgives you, but you need to quit doing bad things - like stealing cookies or peeing on the side of the house. See what I mean? It's weak. And honestly, who wants to follow a God who would kill his son because some 6 year old kid is stealing cookies from his brother.

So, now I am working a new way to explain Jesus and salvation; life and beauty; forgiveness and restoration; renovation and renewal to my boys.

It’s something like this....

Death sucks. Life is beautiful. When we do things that don't line up with God's goodness and love, it leads us away from beauty and life and God. Hurting ourselves and others is not cool. Doing good and loving others is really good. Not forgiving people is harmful. Forgiving people is freeing and loving. Jesus did die. But he died so that he could actually come back to life. And it's the coming back to life part that gives all of humanity the chance to live differently. When he came back to life he invited us to actually live really powerful and different lives, just like him (and superman and batman). He invites us to live lives in which we look to love Him, as well as love and forgive others; help others and work to make this earth more like heaven through blessing, making peace, living selflessly, extending mercy, creating beauty and on and on.

So, I know you stole that cookie from your brother. Now I'm not thinking that Jesus is really pissed, but perhaps there is a better way to approach this whole cookie situation. Do you think your brother feels loved when you take his stash? No? Then perhaps the Jesus way is to learn how to love your brother and practice the life giving solution. The solution that encourages love and unity; that is full of beauty and preferring your brother. The solution that gives life. And this solution is doable when we allow Jesus to shape our hearts, minds and lives.

And here's the deal…if this doesn't work....I can always revert back to the old school method:

"Jesus died to forgive you for your sins. So, if you don't ask for forgiveness and stop stealing your brother’s cookies, you're probably going to go to hell. "

Citizenship

2011-05-07T22:15:00.001-05:00

There have been lots of comments rolling in from the Religion is a Crutch for the Weak post. As with all posts, some people agree; others disagree. Conversation and wrestling with difficult issues seem healthy to me, so I invite you to join the conversation if you have not already.

In light of the thoughts that have been expressed and a number of questions that I have been asked, I thought I might lay a few more of my cards on the table.

In the post blog thought section of Religion is a Crutch for the Weak I mentioned that as followers of Jesus, we must ask ourselves:

   Do we allow Jesus to determine what it looks like for us to
   follow him or do we inform Jesus what it looks like for us to
   follow him?

When it comes to following Jesus, I think it’s important to remember that Jesus does not and will not force us into any type of life. However, he does invite us into a certain type of life. A kingdom life. He invites us to become people who are ruled by a different king, who live under a different rule, who experience life under a different system than the one that runs this world.

In 1 Peter 2:11, Peter says, “I urge you as aliens and strangers to abstain from fleshly lust.”

In Ephesians 2:19, Paul says, “So then you are no longer strangers or aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the Saints and are of God’s household.”

In Philippians 3:20, Paul says, “For our citizenship is in heaven, from which also we eagerly await for a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ.”

If what Peter and Paul are saying is true, this means that those who follow Jesus are citizens first and foremost of the Kingdom of God. Our citizenship lies here. Our lives, our views, our actions are all, above anything else, to be of the kingdom. For this is where true life is experienced at the richest, deepest level. If it is true that our citizenship is in God’s kingdom, then this also means that our earthly citizenship is no longer our primary citizenship nor is it where our allegiance lies.

Many take these passages to mean that we are no longer ‘residents’ of this planet and we are just passing through trying to get to some kind of ‘heaven’. This, however, is a poor interpretation of Peter and Paul. For we have been created to dwell on this planet and this planet will be our home - even in the future age when God creates the new heavens and new earth - here - on this planet! So then, when Peter/Paul talk about being aliens/strangers in this world, they are talking about being aliens/strangers to the system by which this world operates and instead we are invited to live life according to the system by which God’s kingdom operates. In order to understand this more fully, the following chart might help. The following kingdoms are characterized by the following:

Kingdom of the World Kingdom of God

Hate Love

Envy Contentment

Violence Peace

Oppression Submission

Evil Good

Selfishness Selflessness

As we begin to more deeply understand that these kingdoms stand in complete contrast to one another, we will begin to more fully grasp that we are invited to live lives that do not operate according to this worldly system.

So, how might this understanding translate towards our thoughts on the killing of Osama bin Laden? According to Romans 13, it seems that God has placed governments in place to maintain peace. To execute justice. To protect citizens. We must remember that earthly governments might be put in place by God, but this does not make them Godly. Earthly governments, no matter how good they might be, are still worldly systems that do not operate according to Kingdom of God principles. That being said, every single government on earth is a kingdom of the world system and since this is true, there is no kingdom of the world system that I would rather live under than that of the United States of America. The U.S. government did exactly what any good worldly government system would and should do. They found the evildoer and executed justice. I am grateful that the U.S. government was relentless in their pursuit of this terrorist and did what it felt it needed to do to protect others in the world from evil.

But just as Romans 13 speaks of worldly governments, so Romans 12 speaks to the people of God - those who live under the rule of a different system, a different kingdom. Those whose citizenship resides in God’s kingdom. In Romans 12, Paul explains that those who are no longer citizens of the world’s system are now free to live according to God’s ways. And the way of God is that we would abhor evil and pursue goodness. Be devoted to love. Never pay back evil for evil to anyone. Never take revenge. Feed our enemies and bless them.

Even though we understand that the government which we live under is working within what seems to be their God ordained right and we may be grateful that our government has worked to protect us, the question for us as followers of Jesus is still:

How do we respond in our hearts, words and actions to this news?

Do you take comfort in knowing that there is one less mind out there today, plotting evil and destruction and death towards thousands of people? Most of us would probably answer, ‘yes.’ Do you feel peace because you live (if you live in the U.S.) in a country that will protect you? Perhaps, yes. Do you feel grateful that there are men and women who are willing to risk their lives to protect you? Perhaps, yes. It is my opinion and understanding that these feelings are probably okay and are in line with Romans 13.

The authority in place acted as good worldly authorities should. That is how systems of this world are set up to work until Jesus comes back. I believe that we can all be grateful to God that he does not leave us on this planet that is full of evil without placing systems in place to bring correction and to combat that evil.

That being said, for those who follow Jesus, we must remember and be formed by the fact that there is also another system that is already in effect. It is the system which followers of Jesus live by and within. This system is characterized by love, beauty, forgiveness, hope, awe, mercy, grace, kindness, graciousness, peace, hope and more.

So, as a citizen of this kingdom, the kingdom that we are actually invited into to experience life:

How do you feel that a human life was snuffed out? Do you
feel God’s pain?

   Do you feel the heart and grief of Jesus that a man who He
   created in his image chose to walk a path that did not glorify or
   reflect God’s beauty and glory on earth?

Do you grieve over the fact that violence only perpetuates
violence and the cycle goes on and on and on?

   Do you grieve that this man whom God loves with all of his
   life, might now never know the amazing gift it is to walk with
   God and to share life with him?

Is there a part of you that hopes this evil, violent murderer
found his way to the Creator of Love before it was too late?

If we cannot answer these questions with a ‘yes’, (and I believe that very few of us, myself included, can) then perhaps we could agree that religion is a crutch for those who are too weak to experience this kingdom life on their own. Perhaps we could make our way to Jesus and ask him to empower us to experience life more fully, as he intended, lives that are identified by love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, gentleness, beauty, awe, generosity, graciousness, grace, mercy, hope and more. Lives that understand that no one, not even our super awesome selves, is worthy of redemption, yet Jesus crushed death in order that all might experience this beautiful hope.

Finally, I did not personally lose a loved one in 9/11. If there ever comes a day when I am faced with this type of horror and terror on a more personal level, I pray for the grace of Jesus to empower me to actually desire to follow him through it. If you are one who has personally been affected by this type of horror or terror in your life and you are desperately trying to figure out this kingdom life, I do not know nor do I pretend to know what it is like to be in your shoes. I am deeply sorry. And I promise to pray that as you wrestle through what must be the darkest of days, that you would have glimpses of hope and light in your heart and that Jesus would somehow be real for you in this time.

Grace and peace.

Please feel free to leave your thoughts and join in the conversation. Agree. Disagree. Just be respectful of one another.

Dash for the Stache

2011-05-04T20:49:00.000-05:00

Last week I ran in my second half marathon - the Country Music Half Marathon in Nashville, TN. This one was a bit different from my first half marathon, as I was running:

a) by myself

b) the course was very hilly

c) I was running for my friends mustache

In preparation for the Nashville race, I spent some of my time training on the treadmill at the gym to simulate some of those Nashville hills by putting it on an incline. Yes, for those of you who have not experienced New Orleans before, the only place to find hills is at the gym....on the treadmill.

My training went very well and I remained cautiously optimistic that I might be able to run the race in the same time that I ran the ultra-flat NOLA race, which was 1 hour 49 minutes. If nothing else, I just wanted to finish before the 1:55 mark.

One week before the race, I was drinking coffee with a buddy of mine and I asked him if he cared to make a little wager. If I run the half in less than 1:40 then he shaves his mustache that he’s been sporting for the last 20 years. I’ve been trying to get this friend to lose the stache for years in a number of ways including countless poker hands together where I try to win it off of him, but he NEVER takes the bet. On this particular day, he did. The reason: he knew there was no way I’d be able to do it.

The week before the race, was my last 12 mile training run, which I ran it in 1:42. I immediately texted him letting him know that his stache was safe.

The morning of the race was incredibly exciting. I positioned myself in corral #2 at 6:55 a.m. and surveyed the landscape. Corral #2 was positioned on top of a hill so I could see down forever. As I stood in a sea of people, over 31,000 runners, I could feel the adrenaline pumping through my veins and I had a crazy thought that I just might be able to run this race very well.

As the gun was about to sound, I placed my earbuds in, took a couple of deep breaths and we were off. The first mile was downhill and my confidence was sky high. At mile marker #1 I felt great and knew this race was going to be a fun run. There were certain marks along the course that when I passed them, my friends would receive a text message letting them know what my times were. I was looking forward to these marks because it made me feel like my friends were actually a part of the race with me even though they weren’t doing anything (except enjoying coffee on their sofas). I actually felt great at each marker.

5K Marker: I hit it at under 24 minutes

10 Marker: I hit it at 47 minutes

10 Mile Marker: I hit it at 1 hour 16 minutes

I was moving right along, feeling great! I knew if I just kept my pace I would actually finish under 1:40 and that stache would be history.

And then the wheels fell off....kind of.

At mile marker 11 I began to realize that the hills were taking their toll on my body. My calves were aching. My butt was sore. My quads were burning. I finally determined in my mind that these weren’t actually hills but they were mountains....and I was starting to hate them.

The end was so near, though. So, I pushed. I knew I’d be just fine if the course didn’t throw any more of these ridiculous mountains my way. So many people were counting on me. I had to win the stache.

And then I saw it. Mile marker 12. I could see it from a distance and I realized that my shot at beating 1:40 was within reach, but it would take everything I had. I hit the marker at 1 hour 33 minutes. This was it! I had to run the final 1.1 miles in less than 7 minutes and knowing that I am capable of that (on a good day) I said, “Legs! Let’s go!” To which my legs replied, “Hell, no! We’re staying right here.”

It was at this moment that I realized that mile 13 was upmountain. And I don’t mean just the first part of mile 13. I’m talking about the whole mile. If you have ever wondered what your natural vocabulary really is, I would suggest either:

a) accidentally miss the nail and hit your thumb with a hammer when no else is around

b) run a half marathon only to realize that mile 13 is upmountain

When I finally finished dialoguing with my legs, we decided to compromise - I would not make them go faster if they promised not to actually walk.

All this to say, that I ran that 13th mile in a little over 8 minutes and finished the race with a personal best of 1:41:47. Crossing that finish line was absolutely exhilarating and made all the better when I saw my bride and my 4 boys standing at the finish line with hugs and kisses. Honestly, I was upset that I missed my goal by 1 minute 47 seconds, but the truth is, I never thought I’d even get close to finishing under 1 hour 50 minutes.

Later that day, my buddy text messaged me and informed me that in celebration, of my new personal record he was going to shave off the stache even though he won the bet. The ‘Dash for the Stache’ was a great experience and was made all the more fun because of the great community of friends that participated in it with me in heart and mind. You guys know who you are and you were awesome. Thanks.

*Special Note: Someone asked me if this is a good time. For me, yes! But to put it in perspective, the guy who won the Boston Marathon (26.2 miles) this year, finished in 2 hours 3 minutes.

Religion is a Crutch for the Weak

2011-05-02T05:20:00.004-05:00

It's been said by those who do not 'believe' in God that religion is a crutch for the weak.

Upon waking today, I think that those who utter such words might be right.

For, my religion (so to speak) is one of following a God who is not dead, who hates death and who does not rejoice over the death of any. It is one of following a God who asks me to love people who hate me, to forgive people who hurt me, to bless people who curse me, to befriend people who annoy me, to serve people who oppress me, to care for people who detest me, to....

So, today, I admit that I am weak. At this moment, I feel powerless to do the very things that I want to do in my heart. I feel anemic when it comes to thinking and speaking and loving rightly. I feel weak and so yes, I admit that I am not strong enough to move about or live without my eyes set in the direction of the one who is not dead.

Today, I am reminded of one of my favorite quotes by Greg Boyd, (and I paraphrase) "The kingdom of God always looks like Jesus dying on the cross for the ones who were nailing him to it."

So, as news of Osama Bin Laden's death spreads and as views of the President of the U.S. are expressed over these next few days and weeks, if you are a follower of this particular Jesus - the one who dies on the cross for the very one's who were murdering him - perhaps we should proclaim our weakness and ask him for the same strength to practice love as he did and does.

Depending on your views of the President of America, (and remember, not everyone shares your views) perhaps proclaiming your weakness, you may pray for this leader instead of spewing venomous words as he tries to lead a nation through very tumultuous times.

Maybe, just maybe this type of 'religion' - the type that is sold out to learning to love - is indeed for the weak and for this reason, those who want to live this type of life need to look to the one and rely on the one who has shown us how to actually do it.

Post Blog Thought: Someone asked me if this means that I think America should not have pursued Bin Laden and brought him to 'justice'. I think this is the wrong question. The right question might be more along the lines of - In how I respond to this news, am I allowing Jesus to determine what it looks like for me to follow him instead of me determining what it looks like?

Community without Unity?

2011-05-01T13:40:00.003-05:00

This week bloggers around the blogosphere are taking part in a Rally to Restore Unity by sharing their thoughts about and desire for seeing more unity in the body of Christ and less division. For more about the Rally to Restore Unity, check out Rachel Held Evans blog here. This blog is my contribution and one of many that will be written this week about Unity.

There have been numerous books written and messages preached over the last number of years about the importance of community within the 'community' of believers. Within the church. For centuries, community has been a central element to what it means to be a part of the church, but as of late, there is certainly no shortage of material available on the 'how' and 'why'.

I like the idea of community. The idea of sharing life with others. The idea of knowing and being known. I like the idea. The problem is, I have always been a bit of a loner. Case in point - after being single and living alone for 7 years, I remember climbing the stairs to my 3rd floor apartment just 3 months into my new marriage thinking, "When I walk through that door, she is going to be there. She is never going away. She will always be here when I get home....forever." (For the record, I love my wife and think she is amazing. Eight years and 4 kids later, we are enjoying the ride of our lives. You can learn more about our lives together here and here.) However, over the last 2 years I have made huge strides in understanding the need for community in my own life and allowing my life to become more engaged with and in the lives of others. Community really is beautiful and is a lifestyle that followers of Jesus are invited into. I read in one of N.T. Wright's books (hey, this is more reference than Rob Bell gives) that when Jesus calls people to follow him, he calls them into the family, into the community. According to Jesus via Wright, it seems impossible to follow him and not be in community. (You might disagree with this and I'm okay with that, I guess, since this blog is actually about unity and the idea that we don't all have to agree and we can still love and respect one another.)

Which is a great segue to my question: We love to preach community, but is community even possible without unity? If my own journey is any indication, then I would propose that true community is not possible without unity. And this has been the missing point for me, for quite some time.

For years, I have been opposed to those who don't believe as I do. So painful to admit and something that I am not at all proud of, but I have always struggled with this. The reason is both simple and hard and probably worthy of it's own blog post, but suffice it to say, that I don't like living in this place.

The church (the people of God) seems to be in a scary and awesome place these days. We have all kinds of characters from Joel Osteen to Rob Bell to Mark Driscoll to a whole bunch of men and women who no one knows except for the communities they lead and pastor faithfully. The beliefs and hopeful practices that come from those beliefs are as wide apart as the earths poles. We focus a lot of attention these days on these big names. Lots of people are writing lots of things about these big names, their followings, their thoughts, their influence and so on. For those of us who enjoy reading and writing and studying, we have a tendency to be quick to form opinions. And herein, lies the problem. Because opinions inevitably lead to judgments. Opinions and judgements: both very popular among people and both incredibly destructive to unity and community.

The problem is much bigger than most of us understand it to be though, because it doesn't actually start or end with these big names. The truth is, it starts and ends for most of us in our own cities, our own coffee shops, our own Home Depot's, our own communities of faith. We focus on figuring out who's 'in' and who's 'out' based on our own ideas and opinions about how belief plays out and we allow it to cause judgmental divisions between us, which in turn, leads to a lack of unity. And without unity can we really have community? True, honest, authentic community? Can we really experience the love and life of Jesus if this is the game we choose to play?

As I journey towards both unity and community, one of the greatest things that has helped me are the wise words of an odd source - a Pharisee named Gamaliel. In the book of Acts, Gamaliel stood before the council who desired to kill the apostles and he said to them, 'Leave these men alone. If their words and plans are man made, they will fail. However, if they are from God, then not only will you be unable to overthrow them but you will also be picking a fight with God.'

So, today, may we learn to stop fighting one another and stop picking fights with God. I point no fingers today, instead, let it start with me. May we all experience the beauty and awe of what it is to be full of love and respect and wonder for one another and for the whole body of Jesus. May we begin to experience unity and in turn, may we begin to more fully embrace life in the community.

Who are those who you disagree with?

How might your disagreements be turning into opinions and judgments?

How might those opinions and judgments be separating you from the very people that God might want you sharing life with?

How might we continue to learn to love and respect one another (even if we disagree) as we all journey towards Jesus?

Working to Right What's Wrong in the World

2011-04-17T12:35:00.003-05:00

Last year, a friend of mine began making purses called Umweo Bags. She sells these purses and 100% of the profit goes to providing food for malnourished children in Zambia, Africa. (Read her story here).

A different friend owns a boutique in New Orleans. Not too long ago, this store began to carry these Umweo Bags as a way to fulfill their larger vision of creating a better world for children to live in.

Umweo Bags sell for about $30 each. Recently, the store owner asked if they could have a 'one-of-a-kind' bag to sell for around $75. The logic here, as expressed by my friend, is that often times, when two women enter the boutique together, they will try to out buy or 'one up' one another. So, if one girl decides to purchase an Umweo Bag, her friend will be inclined to purchase the more expensive one-of-a-kind Umweo Bag in order to 'win'. Unfortunately, in this particular situation, the spending of more money to purchase a more expensive bag is not driven by the desire to feed more children, but is driven by a desire to be the winner.

It's an interesting place we live in, this land of America. I absolutely love the fact that I live in America, however I often wonder just how disconnected we really are from the rest of our brothers and sisters around this globe. To begin to truly understand and grasp the thought that today over 1 billion people do not have access to clean drinking water. And they won't tomorrow. Or the next day. To begin to grasp the fact that a child will die every 15 seconds today due to water related illnesses or for lack of food. (Stats)

There seems to be incredible irony that two women shopping today will try to outspend one another and due to their insecurity and selfish motives they will spend more money which in turn, will provide food for starving children.

But I do not wish to simply pass a flippant judgment against these women. Because I too am guilty of careless spending based off of my own insecurities and selfish desires. It's quite sobering and it makes me wonder, do I personally realize how dire the situation is on our planet? Am I personally allowing myself to be acquainted with the fact that brothers and sisters that I share this world with are in desperate need and that I can make their life and existence better by being transformed in my own heart to live a more selfless life?

How about you? What strides are you making towards becoming a more selfless person? What role are you playing in making this world a better place and better existence for the millions of people who are not currently experiencing 'better'? Perhaps, allowing ourselves to become acquainted with the reality of the situation would be a good starting point for many of us.

My friend is spending her free time making and selling Umweo Bags. Keep up the good work, friend!

Sharing Life

2011-03-24T20:54:00.006-05:00

When Kristy and I started our journey towards adoption, I was content to tell a few people and pretty much leave it at that. Once those few friends knew, I didn't really talk about it all that much. That has been my mode of operation most of my adult life. I have some insight into why my default position is to operate this way (another blog for another day), but suffice it to say that operating this way has kept me in a lonely place for many parts of my life.

About 7 months ago, I was sitting in my office when my wife sent me an email with a link to a youtube video. At her request, I began watching the video only to realize that it was an adoption story of a couple from TN. As I watched this video, I was overcome by emotions and could truly sense the presence of God all about me. The video told of the couples journey from the day they decided to adopt to the day they brought their son home from Ethiopia. One thing that stood out to me more than anything was that throughout the video, this couple was surrounded by people who seemed to be as excited about their adoption journey as they were. At the end, the couple came walking through the airport with their new son only to be welcomed by more than 50 friends and loved ones. It was a celebration of epic proportions right there in the airport. It took everything within me not to cry, so I just gave up and began to bawl at my desk.

I immediately began to wonder, "Who will be at the airport when we bring our precious Zoe home?"

And in that utterly lonely moment, tucked away in my office, I felt like God said to me, "No one will be there, because you are not letting them into your journey or your life."

That day, everything changed.

Kristy and I became intentional about inviting our friends deeper into our lives and our journey. And our friends and loved ones have been amazing as they have stood by us, loving us, encouraging us, praying for us, asking us about Zoe, blessing us, thinking of us and standing with us. Over the past 7 months Zoe Moon has become known and loved by so many people and our lives are more full today because we are learning how to truly share our lives with our friends and loved ones.

Today marks 6 months since we went DTE (dossier to Ethiopia). Six months of waiting. The news out of Ethiopia has not been very good as of late and the waiting is challenging and at times very difficult. All the while, our friends have stood close and have remained faithful to support and pray.

Today, when I arrived at work, my co-workers, my friends, unbeknownst to me, made their way down the stairs to the lobby to greet me. Most were wearing their Zoe Moon shirts as they were full of smiles and laughter, encouragement and love. They remembered that today is Zoe Moon day in the Jeansonne home. The day that we celebrate our Zoe every month as a family. They are wonderful friends and family and I love them dearly.

Living life and being vulnerable with others is outside of my comfort zone. It is dangerous and risky, but I must say, that it is much more fun and exciting and meaningful than living alone in my own little world. I have concluded over this last year that life is better when shared with others.

Thank you, friends!

When I Was Paralyzed

2011-03-20T20:57:00.006-05:00

In March of 1996, at the age of 19, I had the opportunity to do an internship at the Vineyard Church of Anaheim, CA. Fifteen years ago this month marked a turning point in my life. It was an incredible time as I lived with 10 other interns, from all around the globe, as we shared life together for 2 months experiencing and investigating God and learning what it is to be the church. It was at that time that I truly fell in love with the church (not the organization, but the actual family of God). That internship impacted and changed my life forever and is one of the primary reasons that I find myself following my heart and pastoring today.

I was greatly impacted by many opportunities and people during my time in Anaheim, but none had a greater impact on my life than the 24 year old who led the internship program, Jamie Gillentine. Jamie might have only been 24 at the time, but his wisdom and maturity, his passion and his intense love for the Kingdom of God and Jesus were indescribable. His love and his life were contagious and he quickly became a mentor, a role model and more than anything...a friend. I believe that I am who I am today, in large part because of Jamie. He taught me early on how to follow my heart, he showed me what it looked like to trust Jesus and he taught me how amazing the life of God is when it is lived out with the people of God.

A few years ago, I received word that my friend Jamie had a serious accident while enjoying a day at the beach. Just before it was time to call it a day, Jamie decided to take one last swim in the cool Pacific when he charged the water and dove straight into a sandbar. As soon as his head struck the sandbar he shattered his sixth vertebrae. He immediately lost all feeling and movement from his upper body down. By the grace of God, Jamie found himself on his back, able to breathe and call out for help.

The prognosis was not good, but Jamie, being the man of faith that he is as well as an intense fighter, underwent major physical therapy and today, just four years later, is more than 90% recovered.

Jamie and I don't speak often, probably about once every couple of years, but whenever we do speak, there is a bond that is not easily explained.

I called Jamie about 5 months ago, as I found myself in a difficult place in need to talk to my friend. Without going into all of the details, I basically found myself in a place of questioning certain things in my life, trying to work through and understand 'calling' and direction in my own life as a follower of Jesus, as a pastor, as a leader, as an active participant in the community of faith. I began to pick Jamie's brain asking him question after question about his life experiences and searching for whatever wisdom he could pass on to me.

When I asked him how he felt about dedicating his whole life to pastoring people, through all of the joy and excitement as well as heartache and pain that pastoring can bring about, he replied in a way that I will never forget for all of my life.

Jamie responded, "Brian, when I was paralyzed, I remember laying in my bed, crying out to God and saying, 'God, if this is how I'm going to spend the rest of my life, on my back in this bed, I just want to thank you for the opportunity that you gave me to spend the first 39 years serving your church.' There is nothing that I would rather waste my life on, than waste it serving the beautiful bride of Jesus, with all of her flaws and all of her mistakes, she is still beautiful. What better way to waste your life."

In 2011, I believe that the institutional, organized church in America does indeed have a lot of flaws and shortcomings. I am an optimist however, and I, for one, believe that she is redeemable and is beautiful and is very much worth 'wasting' my life on. When I hung up the phone with Jamie on that day, I decided that I would do everything that I can to continue working towards seeing the church become the beautiful family that Jesus gave his life for.

I am incredibly grateful for my friend Jamie, for his love, his example and his life. I am grateful that he 'wasted' two months of his life on me.

Here's a video of Jamie's physical therapy. I hope you enjoy!

Rock n' Roll Mardi Gras Half Marathon

2011-03-04T16:53:00.022-06:00

The Rock n' Roll Mardi Gras half marathon would be the first official race of my adult life. Prior to our training, I had never run more than 2 miles at a time. When we started training, I simply wanted to finish the race. After a few more weeks of training, I changed my goal to finishing under two hours. Upon realizing that the friends I was training with had finished last year's half marathon in 1:57, we decided to train with our goal time being 1:55.

Our training went very well and by time race day got here, we felt prepared and ready.

I got up at 5:30 a.m. on race day. It was a cool February morning in Nola with the morning highs in the low 50's. As we arrived downtown around 6:30, the traffic was backed up, so my friend's wife dropped us off and we walked about 1/4 mile to the start line.

We got to our corral (#5) around 6:45 and had just 15 minutes until the gun would fire. The adrenaline rush was incredible and I could not wait for this thing to start. Our group was 5 strong. Heading towards the start line, my friend Ana and I felt like we could nail 1:55. Two of our other friends were using the race as a training run for an upcoming marathon, so they were planning on a slightly slower pace. Our 5th friend actually decided to register for the race the night before, so none of us (including him) had any idea what his pace would be like. Ana and I knew that if we were going to finish in 1:55, we would have to set our pace early and stay steady.

In order to keep us on track, I kept a piece of paper in my pocket with mile markers and times that we should hit each marker (aka splits). Our goal was to hit mile #1 at 8 minutes 42 seconds.

As we stood in our corral, they began playing 'Eye of the Tiger' over the PA system. It was finally time for the race to begin and then the gun sounded! As we approached the line, we started our watches and took off. Those first 500 yards were challenging, like a pack of greyhounds trying to jockey for position. After that first 1/2 mile, we were able to settle into a decent pace - me, Ana and Mike (buddy who signed up for the race the night before). Robb and Tommy (guys training for full marathon) were not far behind.

We made it to mile marker #1 in 8 minutes 40 seconds. We were ahead of schedule! The race became very comfortable after our first mile. It was a beautiful morning and we enjoyed great conversation as we worked our way through uptown neighborhoods and eventually through downtown. When we finally reached mile marker #12 we arrived there in 1 hour 41 minutes. At this point we were more than 4 minutes ahead of our target time. With just one mile left we were looking to destroy our intended time. We kept our same pace for that final mile until we hit mile 13. With just 1/10 of a mile left we finished our race with an all out sprint, weaving in and out of other racers to cross the finish line in 1:49:20.

It was so amazing, finishing the race almost 6 minutes faster than our target time. We ended up running 8:21 miles, which was 21 seconds faster per mile than we had trained for.

There are a couple of specific things I remember about the race:

1. Because this was a Rock n' Roll series race, the course was lined with over 1o bands that were playing live music as we ran through the streets. Most of the bands were great, but around mile 9 we passed a Scottish Bagpipe band. I remember thinking, "I love bagpipe music, but I feel like I'm at a Scottish funeral. How is this going to help us run faster?"

2. At mile #3, a woman on the side of the road was there cheering everyone on. She yelled out "3 miles down, only 23 more to go". The guy next to me says, "Easy for her to say, she's standing still."

3. Running with our friend Ana is motivation in and of itself. She is quite chipper and talkative and able to keep one's spirits high even when tired. Along the race, there were plenty of spectators there to cheer us on and any time Ana could, she would shout out a very chipper "Good Morning!" Most spectators were surprised by her exuberance. Around mile 10 we passed some spectators who told us hello. Ana did not respond. Mike and I recognized this and we knew it was time to get Ana another energy packet of Gu...quickly.

4. Running down streets like Magazine and Decatur was amazing.

5. At mile 12 (after the Gu had kicked in) we were back to carrying on conversation. Most people in the race were pretty tired by this point, but the adrenaline was still moving through our bodies. Spectators were there trying to cheer on the racers and I overheard one spectator say to another, 'wow, they're still talking!' That was kind of cool.

6. The last 1/10 of a mile was so cool. We could see the finish line and took off on a full sprint. It truly felt like we were flying and then we crossed the finish line 6 minutes ahead of our goal. That was an amazing moment. As soon as I crossed the line, I heard the voice of my wife coming from the crowd as she called my name. At that moment I had to intentionally hold back the tears. It was so wonderful having her there, along with a very good friend of mine, to watch us finish.

All in all, I would say that this was a great experience. So much so, that I am planning on running the Rock n' Roll Country Music Half Marathon in Nashville, TN at the end of April.

So....the training continues!

Journey to 13.1

2011-02-21T20:13:00.011-06:00

I really stumbled into the whole thing.

As part of our adoption process, both Kristy and I had to have full physical exams. At the time, I was not concerned about my health. I figured that the test results would say that I probably ate too many cheeseburgers and fried shrimp po-boys, but other than that I thought I'd be okay.

I went in for my physical exam in September of 2010. It turned out to be everything I thought. Other than my triglycerides being a point or two too high, the doctor said I was fine. He told me to exercise a little more and eat a little better. (Isn't this what doctors always say no matter what?)

So, that's how I began running.

I actually started off on the elliptical machine at the gym. I would work that machine for about 25 - 35 minutes to build up my endurance. I didn't mind this so much because at the gym all of the elipticals have TV's and since Kris and I don't have a TV at home, it was kind of cool to catch up on ESPN. After about 2 weeks on the ellipical, I started running 2 miles, 3 days a week. It took me about 20 minutes or so when I began. I quickly started building up my endurance until one day I invited myself on a four mile run with a friend of mine who is an avid runner. I didn't miss a beat and was able to keep up for the whole run.

That day, I decided to start training for the Rock n' Roll Mardi Gras Half Marathon that was coming up in 5 months.

This turned out to be one of the most fun decisions I have ever made. It was an amazing experience. My training consisted of running 4 days a week. I would run short runs of 3 -4 miles on Mondays, Wednesdays and Thursday and then a long run, between 8 and 12 miles every Saturday.

As I started out I was averaging about 10 minute miles. As my training progressed I was able to consistently run at 8:50 miles.

My friends, who I was going to run the race with, had already run a half marathon and had finished in 1 hour and 57 minutes. We wanted to beat that time so we came up with a schedule to help us run the race in 1 hour and 55 minutes. Each Saturday for our long runs we were consistently aiming to run 8:42 miles. On the day of our 12 mile training run, we nailed it. It took exactly 1 hour and 44 minutes, which was right where we needed to be to finish our race on time. We were definitely feeling prepared.

The overall experience was fantastic. I hurt myself twice during my training which led to me missing about 3 training runs. I tweaked my back one day and landed in the chiropractors office within hours. He fixed me up good and had me back in my running shoes within about 3 days. The other injury was a mild foot injury, but I believe that was simply due to the increase in mileage that I was experiencing.

Throughout my 5 months of training, here are a couple of things that I learned:

1. I found that I run much better in cold weather than hot weather and I run very fast when temperatures are below freezing before the sun rises.

2. I run better to music than I do to podcast.

3. Whenever my run mix lands on tracks by Eminem or Rocky soundtrack tunes, my pace picks up considerably and I play the air drums.

4. Running on a treadmill is misery compared to running outdoors.

5. I actually love running and had no idea for a long time.

6. Above everything else, I learned that running with friends is much more fun than running by myself. This in turn has caused me to re-evaluate all things that I have always done by myself. There's something very beautiful about sharing life with others.

I'll post soon about race day and how we beat our desired time.

What Do Your Tweets Say About You?

2011-02-10T22:09:00.005-06:00

Last week, I was listening to sports radio one morning as the guys were talking about the potential upcoming lockout in the NFL. At one point, the discussion turned towards the idea that the only way the players are going to be able to win out against the owners is if the players, all of the players, actually stick together – which of course probably won’t happen because the players aren’t all on the same page. This would not have been as big of a deal 10 years ago, but today in the world of status updates and tweets players are going to quickly show each other, the world and most importantly- the owners – that they aren’t all in agreement and the owners should easily win this thing. All of this to get to the most interesting thing that that the radio show host said that morning when he was talking about Twitter (and I paraphrase) – “We live in a world where you can tell everyone exactly what you’re thinking at every moment about everything. The problem is people don’t think before they hit send.”

This isn’t really a new problem; this whole idea of people not thinking before they hit send. In the past, there was no ‘send’ button to hit, but it was all about spewing things off at the mouth. At least back then when we would let our mouth speak before our brain kicked in, it would only hit a few people (which is no better, but illustrates the point.) Now, though, in 2011, it’s easier to share with 10’s of 100’s of 1000’s of people with the simple click of a button.

Lately, I have been paying much more attention to what I tweet as well as what others post and tweet. It’s fascinating how much you can learn about a person (or yourself), by just checking out their one sentence updates or tweets. More than anything, you can begin to determine what a person’s life is about, what consumes their thoughts and their time, what they are for and even more often, what they are against.

Both Twitter and Facebook give people an opportunity to write a bio. I enjoy the bio section, especially on Twitter as it gives you a chance to communicate who you are and what you’re about in a very short snippet. It’s interesting though how my bio really doesn’t speak nearly as much about me as my updates do.

I took a look back through my last 25 tweets, just to see what I am all about or at least what my tweets say I'm all about. Here’s what I found:

Tweets about:
Friends I love: 3
Running: 5
My family: 3
Coffee: 1
Writing: 10

Random thoughts: 2

Football: 1

I'm actaully okay with these numbers. (I was very curious to see what I was going to find in the archives). It’s my desire that people would know me for what I’m for, not for what I’m against; for what I love, not for what I hate. That people would know me for who I really am and who I am becoming; not for some phony me.

Just like in my speech, I think the best way for me to continue growing in these areas is to actually think before I hit 'send'.

So, what are your thoughts? What do your tweets (or fb updates) say about you and your life? Do people know you for what you are for or for what you're against? Do they convey the real you? Do you think before you hit send?

Letters to Zoe

2011-02-04T21:49:00.007-06:00

One of my fondest, most vivid memories is of the day my first son was born and that first night in the hospital with by beautiful wife and our new baby boy. Even today, 6 years later, I can distinctly remember holding him in my arms and the words that I spoke over him and to him that night. Just as vivid and memorable is the night that I experienced the same feelings with our second son, just fourteen months later.

It didn't take me long to realize that though my heart was full of love and full of words for my sons, there was no way I would ever be able to remember everything on my own and there was no way for them to one day, in the future, know what I was saying and feeling for them at these present moments.

So, began, letters to my sons.

I love the technological advancements that have been made over the years that have made communicating much easier through avenues such as emailing, texting, facebooking, tweeting, blogging, skyping and so on. But for me, there is still no better way to communicate and express myself than through a handwritten letter.

Today, I am the proud dad of 4 beautiful and amazing boys. My boys are currently ages 6, 5, 4 & 2. At present, my Kristy and I are also in the (very slow) process of adopting our daughter, Zoe Moon, from Ethiopia.

These days, I keep a journal for each of my boys in which I regularly write letters to them. The letters are usually written at random times throughout the year as well as a letter to each boy on his birthday every year. This has been an amazing way for me to communicate with my boys and also have a book of letters to one day give to each. Even now, as they are growing older, I have recently begun sitting down with them and reading some of their letters to them.

Not too long ago, I headed over to Barnes and Noble to pick up my newest journal. This one is a little different. It's pink. And I cannot wait for the day that I am able to hold my Zoe and begin reading all of the letters that have been written to her even while she is over 8000 away.

I'm curious, what are some of your fun and creative traditions?

Birthday Traditions

2011-02-01T22:20:00.010-06:00

Birthdays were always a special day in my family when I was growing up. It was normal to wake up on the morning of your birthday to a house full of streamers, balloons, party favors, presents and much more. The entire day was devoted to that birthday boy (or girl). You ate what you wanted for breakfast, got to choose your favorite meal for dinner and of course, mom always baked your favorite cake.

When Kristy and I started having kids, I knew that big birthday celebrations were one tradition that I wanted to keep going. For this reason, we make sure the whole day is special. The birthday boy (they’re currently aren’t any little birthday girls in our home, but that will change as soon as our Zoe arrives!) is king for the day, choosing what we eat, what games we play, what cake we eat and so on. Our birthday boy wakes up to a home decorated full of balloons and streamers and Happy Birthday signs. We sing happy birthday every chance we get throughout the day. I have also added what has quickly become the favorite tradition of the boys…breakfast with dad.

Having four little boys, I work very hard to spend one on one time with each one. Sometimes it is easier than others but this one thing I have found certainly works very well at least once a year. The morning of our boy's birthday, I take that one boy out to eat breakfast wherever he would like to go. It doesn’t matter which day of the week it is (which means they get to be late for school if needed). It’s pretty cost effective while they’re young because they usually just want to go to IHOP most of the time. I’m sure when they start getting older, they’ll want to hit up The Court of Two Sisters or Brennan’s or some other high roller place, but until then, Dunkin’ Donuts and IHOP are the fan favorites. It’s kind of interesting, because I take the boys to eat breakfast one on one at other times throughout the year, but for some reason, that birthday breakfast is one they enjoy the most.

This week, we celebrated our 3rd boy’s 4th birthday. The breakfast with dad tradition might seem like a weak tradition on the surface, but this year, I realized how amazing it really is when my 6 and 5 year old boys started telling their 4 year old brother just how lucky he was because he got to go to breakfast with dad.

Nate’s choice for breakfast was beignets at Café du Monde. We had a great time….just the two of us. It was a great birthday for my amazing boy.

What kinds of birthday traditions do you have in your home with your loved ones - kids, spouse, etc.?

For those who are interested, I will be doing my first book giveaway with this blog. Here’s how and what you win:
1. Share this blog on your FB page or retweet it
2. Become a follower of this blog or a follower on twitter
3. Leave a comment in the thoughts section of this blog about your family birthday traditions

To win you must do all of the above (unless you don't have a FB account).

A winner will be randomly selected on Friday, February 4 at 5:00 pm. If the winner is the father of a son under the age of 12 that dad will win a copy of John Eldredge's book, The Way of the Wild Heart. If not, the winner will receive their choice of any one book under my ‘books that changed my mind’ list. (Dads - if you already have Eldredge's book, then you'll also be able to choose from the list.)

Good Words

2011-01-20T08:44:00.003-06:00

I was reading through the mail yesterday and noticed a card that one of my wife’s friends had sent to her. It came to her the good old fashioned way via the United States Postal Service delivered right to our home. It seemed like a normal type of thank you card with lots of ‘thank you’ verbiage however at the end of this particular thank you note, were the words, “I am glad that you are a part of my life.”

Words are amazing little things that we often don’t give much thought too. Our words have a lot of power though. Power to build up or tear down. Power to inspire others or cause them to retreat. Power to encourage or power to destroy. I think that telling someone that you’re glad they are a part of your life ranks right up there on the list of best words one can say to another. Maybe today would be a good day to think about the words that we speak and to use our words to speak life to others. Maybe today would be a good day to let those we love know we love them instead of assuming they know. Maybe today would be a good day to tell someone that you're glad they are a part of your life.

Living a Bigger Life

2010-10-29T16:24:00.006-05:00

One of my greatest fears in life is the fear of living a small life. For the past few years I’ve been trying to figure out what kinds of thoughts, habits, ideas and practices lead to living a small life compared to the thoughts, habits, ideas and practices that would actually lead to a big life.I spend a great deal of time thinking about this, reading about this, and observing the habits of those whom I think are living big lives.

Here are a couple of things that I have observed and learned about what makes for a big life…

1. Be generous with your money
People who live big lives are generous. They are generous with their time, their energy and their money. We live in a time when money is everything. It is rare these days to find people who are willing to part with their precious dough. It’s interesting though at how fascinated and inspired we are when we hear stories of people who are willing to give away their hard earned money. People who are able to give away the most precious commodity known to man are people who are not owned by money, but instead own it and make it serve them.

2. Regularly do things that aren’t for your own benefit
Most people live their lives completely for themselves. It is a rare thing for people to get outside of themselves and do things for others that will in no way, shape or form benefit them. Sadly, when we live only for ourselves, it leads to a very small life. Conversely, when we begin to regularly serve people and do things that aren’t for our own benefit - our lives become increasingly bigger.

3. Have ambition
People who live bigger lives want something. They have dreams. They have goals. Of course, these dreams and goals usually don’t revolve around themselves. If one’s dream or ambition is to get that car they’ve always wanted or to get that bigger home, well, let’s face it….that makes for a small life. Our goals for the end of our year can’t simply be all about having a better body, better health and reading ‘x’ amount of books. There is nothing wrong with these goals, but there has to be more. Our big life dreams and ambitions must be outside of ourselves and for the sake of others.

4. Be You
Many times, we don’t even realize that we are each created uniquely and the most amazing thing that we have to offer humanity and our planet is our self. People who take time to figure out who they are, what they love and what they have to offer have the potential to live some of the biggest lives. Figure out who you are and be that person (unless that person is not generous with their money, rarely does things that benefits others and has no ambition. If that’s the case, then figure out who you are and don’t be that person. Instead, work on becoming the kind of person that lives a big life.)

5. Learn to love
People who live big, love big. Learn what it really is to love people. Learn to love life. Learn to love moments and to love seasons. Don’t be a complainer or a pessimist. See the good in people. Don’t look for problems, but instead look for opportunities in how to live and love bigger.

What about you? What do you think makes for a bigger life?

What kinds of things have the potential to keep one stuck living a small life?

Bringing Zoe Home

2010-09-22T21:33:00.015-05:00

Over that past few weeks, I have been spending a lot of time reflecting on the way I approach life and people. I have always been a fairly private person, which I believe is okay to a point. Lately, however, I have had some things in my heart that I find myself not sharing or celebrating with others the way I want to and should be. It’s an interesting thing that is happening to me and it is part of my own personal journey of learning more about myself and continuing to become more like the me that God created me to be. That is, one who lives from his heart and not so much from his head.

Along the way, through our adoption process, (Kristy and I are currently adopting a baby girl – Zoe – from Ethiopia) I have not really expressed my heart for our adoption. So, today, I’d like to share what is and has been going on in my heart over the past few months and years.

Adoption is actually something that Kris and I started discussing at the time of our engagement. At that time, 8 years ago, we both had a heart to possibly one day adopt. For me personally though, it is something that I have had on my heart for most of my adult life. Honestly, I can't explain why except that I always felt blessed growing up, especially in high school, because I had such great parents and a great home life. Growing up, many of my friends did not have this same experience and I can remember thinking that if I could ever give another child who didn't have a family - a family, then I would.

Obviously, Kris and I both desire a large family (we currently have 4 boys) and when we (she) decided that we (she) were/was probably done having biological children, we (we) both still sensed that we weren't actually done 'having' children. I think that God gives us the grace to do the things he asks us to do. I don't think God asks everyone to adopt or have a big family, but I do sense that it is something that he has called us to do.

We chose Ethiopia because we both have a heart for Africa. It is hard to explain heart stuff, but if you’ve ever experienced ‘heart stuff’ then you know what that's like. Throughout our research, we came to realize that there are only a handful of African countries that currently participate in international adoption. We also learned that Ethiopia had become a major player in international adoptions and there were many U.S. adoption agencies working with Ethiopia. At the same time, Ethiopia is one of the few African countries that has infants that may be adopted. There are over 5 million orphans in Ethiopia and most of these are due to poverty.

One of, if not, the biggest hurdle that was standing in our way of actually pulling the trigger and deciding to fully jump in was money. An Ethiopian adoption cost between $25,000 and $28,000. Once we knew that this was God though, we committed to simply figuring it out. We had about $8,000 saved up in our emergency fund, so we knew we could start with that. Then I thought about jumping into my 401k. After more consideration, I decided that we would not jump into the 401k, but instead would pray and ask God to provide the money. Because we wholeheartedly felt God's leading in this endeavor, we believed that he would either provide the money by people giving towards bringing Zoe home or by us borrowing against the equity in our home. (Which is different than going creating new debt.) We determined that we were good with either way he decided to work it out or both ways.

To date we are $12,200 into the adoption. Awesomely enough (perhaps you have not heard the word awesomely used in a sentence before, but let’s face it….it really works here), God has already provided 1/3 of the money from the gifts of beautiful people around us who have simply desired to give financially towards Zoe coming home.

This journey (we are now officially 4 1/2 months into it) has been a lot of fun and pretty stress free so far. Most families take a minimum of 6 months to complete their dossier, but we have been cruising along (Kris is a stud) and we completed our dossier last weekend. As of this writing, our dossier is now in Virginia at our adoption agency, America World and will be sent to Ethiopia on Friday. Once our dossier is in Ethiopia, we will be put in line for receiving our little girl. From the time we are put in line, it should take between 7 and 12 months to bring Zoe home.

Things have been interesting around our home. We are regularly talking to the boys about their baby sister, Zoe. They are incredibly excited about having a brown sister and they love telling people that they’re getting a brown baby from Africa. (These are the words they have chosen on their own.) At the same time, Kristy is incredibly anxious to get started on Zoe's room and it's pretty cool for me too, because we've never had little girl stuff.

One thing that I have realized throughout this journey is that there are a lot of people who simply don't understand why we are adopting. I think this is in part because there is not much adopting going on around N.O. and secondly, because I have not done a good job of expressing myself. Some have thought that we just want another child. Others have thought we just want a girl. The truth is - we don't need any more kids (if you ever visit during dinner time, you’ll understand). Nor we don't need a girl. For us, these things are wonderful, but at the heart of the matter, our desire is to give a child who has everything stacked against them - a chance to live. I know that 1 in 5,000,000 doesn't seem like a lot, but it will mean a lot to that one, so we're starting there.

I write these things here and I invite you into this journey along with Kristy and me because, at the end of the day, I believe that we all play a part in this adoption. I honestly believe that anyone who prays for us and prays for Zoe, anyone who prays for the workers at the orphanage, anyone who gives money towards bringing Zoe home, anyone who educates themselves or asks questions, is playing a part in providing this child with a family and forever changing her life. To all of you, who have already played such an integral part, through your prayers and thoughts – THANK YOU!

I’d like to invite you over to our adoption blog also to check out Kristy’s heart for this adoption. You can check out her blog: Life and Heart Change here. (Warning: you might need Kleenex).

For those who are interested in keeping up with Zoe’s journey home, Kristy updates our adoption blog fairly regularly and you can reach that blog here.

If you have any questions about our adoption journey, please ask!

Love Always Wins

2010-09-11T14:56:00.006-05:00

It was a crisp, warm, sunny morning in New Orleans, Louisiana. The events of that day are forever branded in our minds and the images of that fateful day will be recalled in our memories every year on September 11 until the day that we depart. The whirlwind of emotions that we felt on that day and even today, looking back are just that….a whirlwind. Depression. Anger. Bitter sorrow. Fear. Feelings of superiority, pride, humility. If you are anything like me, you probably experienced all of these emotions, feelings and more.

I have often wondered, what God was thinking and feeling on that awful day in history. For a short time, I thought for sure that God was angry that someone would attack his homeland. That people who didn’t even believe in him would destroy his chosen people. I thought that God would surely execute judgment on those who hurt him, on those who hurt his people. And I believed that the instrument that he would choose to bring about justice would be the ones who were attacked. I believed that he would want us to find those who were responsible track them down and destroy them. I would not have said any of these things with my mouth, but I believe my thoughts and actions said them loud and clear.

Today, as I sit and reflect upon that day, my life and the Creator God, I am embarrassed and humbled.

I am embarrassed because over these past few years, I have begun to realize how much I did not know this God that I had committed to following with my life. I was following a god who was confused. I was following a god who was a contradiction. I was following a god who I thought was on my side because I live in America. It turned out that I was actually following a god who hated the same people that I hated. A god who had murder and revenge in his heart, just like I did – which in turn was also what the men who flew the planes into the towers had in their hearts. I was following a god who was full of wrath and anger, disappointment and hate.

Nine years later, I am humbled and happy to say that I do not follow that god anymore. For the last 9 years, I have been on a journey towards the God of the Bible and his son, Jesus. The more I come to know this God, the more I am convinced of what he was doing on the 11th day of September in 2001. Some might say that it is naïve to know what God was doing on that day, but in the New Testament, Jesus says that those who have seen him, have seen God. So, all I really have to do, is look to Jesus to get an idea.

And when I look at Jesus, I see love.

One of my favorite authors writes, “The Kingdom of God always looks like Jesus dying on the cross for the ones who were nailing him to it.” On the day of the crucifixion, as Jesus hung suspended between heaven and earth, he cried out to his father, God and asked him to forgive the men who were torturing and killing him. Have you ever wondered if God did forgive them? I believe the more we know Jesus, the more convinced we will be that indeed, in that moment, God did extend forgiveness.

Jesus never fought violence with violence. He told Peter to put down his sword when the armed guards came to arrest him in the garden and Jesus willingly handed over his life and laid down his rights, power and will and allowed evil, violent men to execute him. And then, he took upon himself all of the evil and injustice of the world, took their best shot – death – and in the most unbelievable act in the history of forever, he snickered in the face of his enemy, in the face of violence in the face of injustice and said, “Is that all you’ve got?” and he came back from the dead.

It is because he came back from the dead that we can now be filled with his life. It is because he came back from the dead that we are set free from fighting violence with more violence – which only continues the vicious cycle – and we can be people of love and forgiveness, mercy and peace.

On the day that those planes were headed for those towers, I believe that Jesus was praying. I believe that he was praying for those on the airplanes who were filled with terror. I believe he was praying for those in the towers who had no idea what was coming. I believe he was praying for families and loved ones. I believe he was praying for those misguided men who were guiding their missiles towards the towers. I believe he was praying for you and me.

I wish Jesus would have stopped those attacks on that day. I don’t know why he didn’t. I wish he had.

But since he didn’t, that means he watched it unfold just as I did and I have to believe that he wept bitterly as he watched it, just as I did.

As I orient my life around this Jesus, today is a day that I remember and I pray. I remember those lost and the loved ones they left behind. I pray for those who lost so much on that day.

I also pray for love and peace and more people who will turn towards these things. As I wrote earlier, fighting violence with violence only leads to more violence. But Jesus taught us a way to fight violence that ultimately brings about heart and life change. To fight violence with love is no easy task, but it is the way of Jesus and he has already proven that it works and in the end – love always wins.

Today – may love rule in your family, your relationships, your life and in your heart.

More 9/11 Reflections:

Remember 9/11 - Chad Estes

Muslims, Americans and Jesus Like Love - Crispin Schroeder

Guns and Pipes and Other Things Nice

2010-08-19T21:29:00.008-05:00

As I was reading through some of my previous blogs and some of my not yet posted writings the other night, I realized that for any who read this blog and don’t actually know me outside of the blogosphere, you might be left to think that my only interests are thinking deeply and my kids.

Alas, there is more to me…

So, here are a couple of things that you might, but probably don’t know about me, my interest and my life...

Guns

I have always had a fascination with guns. I remember getting my first bb gun as a kid; a Daisy multi-pump pneumatic air rifle. I would go into the backyard each day, set up an opposing army of aluminum cans in the trees and club house, man my post behind the gas grill and take them out one by one. My fascination with guns has not seized and to this day I love going to the range and lighting up some paper. I usually shoot handguns, but also enjoy shooting rifles. My holey targets serve as trophies in my garage and my favorite trophy is a quarter that I blew a hole in from 100 yards away with a .308 rifle.

Pipe Smoking

I have a bunch of friends who enjoy smoking cigars. I’ve tried it a few times, but have never really liked it. For as long as I can remember, I have always enjoyed the smell of a smoking pipe, so for some time, I have really wanted to try the whole pipe thing. Not too long ago, I went with a friend and bought my first pipe. My pipe is old and rugged looking – very cool. His pipe is shiny and polished – very metro sexual. After smoking my pipe just once I knew it was for me. I thoroughly enjoy it. It makes me feel smarter and I think it is probably going to make me a better writer – kind of like Tolkien or Lewis….or maybe not that good.

Jesus

I really like Jesus and his teachings. I try to live my life according to the things that he taught. Some days are better than others. I figure that if everyone on the planet tried to live by his teachings, the world would be a much better place. I don’t like religion or consumer Christianity. I don’t think Jesus likes those things either.

Poker

I greatly enjoy playing poker, primarily Texas Hold ‘em. If I’m going to hang out with a group of guys, this is my favorite thing to do with them. I enjoy watching poker tournaments, but would much rather play. I have never had a royal flush, but I did take down a monster pot once with a four of a kind.

Writing

I love to write. I am a thinker and a contemplative type. I started keeping journals when I was 19 years old and still carry a journal with me daily. I think best through writing, which is one reason that I began this blog some years ago. I have about 30 blogs in the queue. Some have to do with faith; others are about my kids and my adventures as a dad. Some are about marriage and still others are about movies and books that I enjoy. I also enjoy working on short stories and perhaps, one day, a book.

Deep Conversation

I enjoy dialoguing about matters of love and life and theology. Most of these conversations are best enjoyed with a good friend or two over a great cup of coffee, a good beer, or a pipe. I am open to different sides of the argument and am okay with us not agreeing if you are okay with it.

Toys

One thing that I love about having kids is the fact that I get to still play with toys. Transformers. Matchbox cars. Knights and castles. Monster trucks. There has to be a place in every guy, I’m sure, that just never really wants to grow up. My newest favorite toy is actually one that my wife gave me for Father’s Day. It is a black baby doll. I cry just about every time I look at it because it is the first toy I am going to give to my daughter, Zoe, as soon as we bring her home from Ethiopia.

Dancing

I love to dance. I don’t dance well. I dance like a 33 year old white guy and am actually self conscious about it, which keeps me on the sidelines a lot of times. However, I am not hindered at home and will dance all day with my boys. I can’t wait till Zoe gets here. I think she’s going to be able to help me with my moves.

How Dave Changed My Life

2010-08-08T22:45:00.008-05:00

My life and my marriage will never be the same...and the way it happened was really an accident. It occurred one day while I was on itunes checking out a few of the new tunes on the 2009 release Big Whiskey and the GrooGrux King by the Dave Matthews Band. One track title – You and Me – arrested my attention like no other.

It only took me a few seconds of listening before I was taken by the words that Dave was singing. Rich with sweet acoustic guitar, well placed tambourine and the amazing Dave Matthews signature strings, the South African poet sang straight to my heart:

We can always look back at what we did
All these memories of you and me baby
But right now it's you and me forever girl
And you know we could do better than anything that we did
You know that you and me, we could do anything

You and me together, we could do anything, Baby
You and me together yeah, yeah
Two of us together, we could do anything, baby [Full Lyrics]

The same heart that those words penetrated is a heart that is full of dreams and ideas. and desires. I want this planet and the people that I encounter on it to be better off because I am here. I have a heart to impact my world in a variety of ways. The way I raise my kids. The way I respect and honor people. The way I care for nobodies. The way I love people who are different than me. The way I learn how to give of myself. The way I take care of the planet. The way I treasure my wife. The way I love and live and engage in the everyday.

There are two things though that hold me back – doubt and laziness. As I sat however, and meditated on Dave’s words I was reminded of two other very important things.

Number 1: I am married to and get to share my life with an amazing woman (who also has dreams and ideas).

Number 2: Right now is the only moment that we are guaranteed.

Therefore, if Kristy and I have dreams, then today seems like a good day to get off of the sofa, get to God, allow him to calm our fears and follow our hearts.
We’ve been given time and life together….today….and we can do anything.

My soon to be daughter, Zoe, is going to know this song, as it is one of the biggest reasons that we are now 4 months into adopting our baby girl from Ethiopia. Adoption has been on our hearts for more than 7 years, but doubt, finances and laziness were keeping us on the sidelines. I’ve come to realize that whenever I’m sitting on the sidelines, it’s because I’m allowing my head to win the contest with my heart. But my life is most full when I allow my heart to win.

I love when my heart trumps my head. It is a beautiful thing.

So, what dreams are in your heart?

What is holding you back?

What words has God been speaking to you through music or art or books to encourage you to move? How will you respond?

And Kristy....I love that we are learning to love and live on this journey together. You and me. You are simply amazing.

And, Dave.....thanks.

American Jesus: Jesus, John & Jerry

2010-08-07T21:04:00.005-05:00

The other day my family and I were with some friends in Orange Beach, AL. It was a beautiful day in beachtown with sweltering temperatures over 100 degrees. Like any normal people who are exposed to such heat, my friend Dave and I grabbed a couple of beers and headed on down to the lazy river – because lazy works when you’re on vacation.

As we slowly moved down the river our conversation was quite diverse as we discussed our marriages, our kids, our dislike of Guinness, our love for reading and our disdain for pop Christianity.

It was this last topic that got me thinking about starting a blog series entitled American Jesus.

It seems that in the land of the free and the home of the brave, there are a whole lot of versions of this religion called Christianity. At the same time, a lot of people make a whole lot of money selling their version of Christianity. The interesting thing about this is that some of these versions of Christianity only work in countries that can afford it. It’s what I like to call the American Jesus mentality.

All around our great country, there are countless numbers of people who have somehow bought into this idea that God's single most desire for their life is that they would be healthy and wealthy. That god only has good things in store for those who have full faith in him and who trust him. If you’re single, have faith, because god has a good plan for a hope and a future (which we interpret to mean a spouse.) If you’re sick, have faith, because god has a good plan for a hope and a future (which we interpret to mean full health.) If you’re jobless, have faith, because god has a good plan for a hope and a future (which we interpret to mean a job, but not just any job! Instead, if you have enough faith, it will be a job that will provide more money than you know what to do with, because obviously God desires that all his children have lots of money, houses and boats.)

While floating along the lazy river, enjoying the last of my refreshing beverage, I had this thought. How did Jesus interpret this popular verse? And should we perhaps interpret it the same way. I sometimes think that Jesus would say to us, "You keep using that verse. I do not think that verse means what you think it means."

Here’s a thought: When John (the Baptist) was rotting in a dungeon beneath Herod’s palace, while Jesus hung out at parties, drank wine at weddings, feasted with all kinds of high class and ragamuffins– what was John thinking? Might he have been thinking, “Why am in Herod’s prison? I thought the Messiah was coming to do away with Herod!” And, “If this Jesus is really God’s son, then where’s the welfare and prospering?”

A better question might be, why didn’t Jesus head down to the prison and tell John, “Hey John, don’t worry. Remember what Jerry said, “I know the plans I have for you declares the me. Plans for welfare and not for calamity to give you a hope and a future.”

Instead, Jesus sent some of John’s followers (Jesus didn’t even go!) to the prison to tell John….I am the guy. I am God…I’m just wearing these sandals. I am here to show people what the life of the future is all about. And John, whoever is not put off by me because of the way I do things –even if those things seem different than you thought they would be…well, that person will be happy they stuck with me.

A few days later, Herod had John’s head cut off.

Make no mistake about it. I believe in a God who loves the human race beyond measure. I believe that this God does heal people in the present, does bless people – some with stuff, some with brains, some with common sense and some people just get a cat. But the story that this God is telling is not about health and wealth this side of new heavens and new earth, but a story about people being invited to be reconciled to God here and now and to live the life of the future in the present. It’s about learning what it is to love God and actually love people, learning to forgive and show mercy and recognize beauty. It’s a story about God laying his life down so others could experience life and then God inviting us to lay our lives down so that still others can find life. The truth is, it’s a far cry from getting rich and living to be 120.

American Jesus is a pretty popular guy these days. The only problem is that he doesn’t look anything like the real Jesus that we read about in the Bible.

Where have you encountered American Jesus?

When has God not behaved the way you thought he should/would? Is there a chance that God is different than you thought? Are you open to that thought?

Join us next time for American Jesus: Jesus and the Prostitute

Learning to Lead

2010-07-06T21:16:00.006-05:00

Tonight was another good old fashioned Jeansonne boys dance party. The new thing at these dance parties is that now the boys like to take turns leading or being the ‘Dance King’. The Dance King gets to create the moves and the rest of us follow. Jonah, who is 4 years old, is a dancing machine. He is currently working on his head spin. I’m not kidding! I have to regularly tell this kid that spinning on his head is not a dance move I want him perfecting. All the same, he has great moves and beautiful creativity when it comes to choreographing a piece. The interesting thing about Jonah though, as well as most kids….and most adults for that matter is that he loves to lead and be in charge, but he’s not so keen on following. Immediately upon my transferring the Dance King title and role to his older brother, Jonah threw a fit, walked his way to the corner of the room, plopped himself down and pouted.

I walked over to Jonah to explain to him that part of being a good leader is learning how to be a great follower. I urged him on and encouraged him to learn what it is to follow someone else’s lead. The truth is you can’t lead well until you learn to follow well.

He’s 4. He didn’t get it. But I figure that it’s never too early to start learning.

Is it possible for us to actually learn this valuable lesson at an early age in life?

Did you have to learn this lesson the hard way or were you able to learn it on the dance floor of your parent's home?

A Scary Little Thing Called Risk

2010-06-11T22:16:00.012-05:00

Last year, I was talking to a friend about money, faith, risk, trust, heresy (the prosperity gospel) and the Kingdom of God. During our conversation he told me that he had been saving his money in various ways. Primarily, he was stashing money away in his 401K as well as keeping a savings account in which he had built a sizable cushion – enough to keep him going for some time if he were to ever find himself out of work.

He went on to tell me that a number of his friends had recently lost their jobs due to the economic downturn. Without even missing a beat, he said that he felt like God was telling him to use his savings to start paying his friends rents and mortgages. His words were, "All this time, I thought I was saving this money for my own crisis, only to realize that the money wasn't supposed to just sit there when other people were in need."

Fast forward to 2 months ago. Same friend. Same type of conversation. This time, he mentioned to me that he had greatly reduced the amount of money that he was dumping into his 401K so that he would have more cash at his disposal to actually give away.

I've been wrestling a lot lately with what it means to actually follow God with my life and with my money. What it really looks like to take risk and to trust him.

Here are some of the thoughts and questions that I have been wrestling with:

If all of the current resources that I have really belong to God, then should I be more pro-active in asking him how to use them? Instead of asking God how he can help me save more, should I first be asking him where I can give more?

If Jesus says, "Follow after me and I'll take care of everything else", when, exactly, should I start doing this? Do I start taking risk after I feel like my 401K has enough money in it? Do I decide to start giving money away once I’m feeling secure in my savings? Or my house is paid off?

If the life of the future lived in the present by God’s people is one of generosity, then why am I not more generous?

I've realized over this last year that I used to be a lot more generous. Then I became a lot more careful. For the past couple of years, I have been very focused on planning and saving. Trying to put myself in position to have all of my bases covered so that one day, I can finally have enough, finally relax....and then.....I can really start to be generous and follow after the things God is asking me to do.

Don't get me wrong....I think saving is smart and I think it can also be good stewardship. At the same time, I wonder these days, when Jesus said,”Follow me, put me first and I’ll take care of the rest…” Did he actually mean that we should follow him and literally trust that he would work everything else out?

I fully comprehend these ideas with my head, but recently, I’ve realized that I really do get a wonderful sense of security from the amount of money that I have in my bank accounts (or anxiety from lack thereof). The interesting thing is, when I think about God’s call to follow and trust him, it seems like the only ones who ever get to really find out if he was serious when he said he would take care of everything else, are the ones who take risks to follow him.

The thing is - risk is really scary for me. But lately, I’m realizing (again) that this Jesus following life…a true, authentic, Jesus following life is probably supposed to be lived more in the world of risk and trust than it is safety and stability.

So, how about you? Have you ever wrestled with the risk and trust vs. safety and stability issue?

How much comfort and safety do you receive from stuff?

If you are a Jesus follower, have you asked him lately where he might want you to risk something?

8109 Miles

2010-05-14T18:02:00.015-05:00

Kristy and I were married on March 1, 2003. Like most couples, we both came into our relationship with lots of thoughts and ideas and dreams about what and who we could be as a couple. From the very beginning, one of the things that we discussed often was our desire to one day adopt a child. We were so young at the time (and we still are), but individually we both shared a similar desire, a heart to one day be parents to a child who did not have parents.

It was not long into our marriage that we became pregnant with our first son. Micah was born in 2004.

Our second son, Jonah, was born in 2005.

Our third son, Nate, was born in 2007.

Our fourth son, Lucas, was born in 2008.

It’s not that we really had anything against 2006; we were just taking a little breather.

Though, we were incredibly busy having all of these little fellas (some of us were busy making, some busy having) we always kept our conversation about adoption going. We would discuss between pregnancies if the timing was right and each time the timing just didn’t feel quite right.

After Lucas was born, we picked the conversation up once again. Only this time, something felt different. We both sensed that we still wanted more children, but we also sensed that we might be done actually having children. For the past year or so, we have revisited the conversation about adopting a child, many, many times.

The desire has continued to grow and in January of 2010, we took the conversation from ‘should we one day adopt?’ to, ‘we should one day adopt.’

In March of 2010, Kristy and I took a trip to Austin, TX together with our 4 boys to spend about 8 days with some friends. While we were there, we experienced incredible bonding as a family and amazing time being fully engaged with one another and God. On that trip, I remember looking at Kristy one day and saying to her…

“We have our lives to live and love together. If there are dreams in our hearts that have been placed there by God, then we need to trust him and chase after those dreams. We can do anything that we want. We are deeply connected to God and we can trust the stuff inside of us.”

We came home, and decided that now is the time.

On April 28, 2010, we applied to adopt a baby girl from Ethiopia.

Today, our application was accepted. (This sentence should be read with a ridiculous amount of enthusiasm and excitement!)

We are choosing to adopt a child, because feel that God has given us a heart for more. It is true, with our track record, that we could probably have more natural, biological children; however, we know that there are millions of children around this amazing globe who do not have wonderful homes to grow up in and we would like to open our lives and share our love to make a lifelong difference in at least one of these children’s lives.

We have chosen international adoption because our hearts have been enlarged by the love of our incredible God - our God, who is a global God and has taught us so much over the years about his kingdom and his intense love for all people. At the same time, Kristy and I both have an unexplainable leaning towards Africa.

For those of you who are interested, we invite you to journey with us. We have created a new blog for this journey at http://www.jeansonneadoption.blogspot.com/.

Along the way, we would greatly appreciate all of your prayers. There are actually a few specific things that you could pray for:

Please pray for our daughter who, more than likely, has not yet been conceived.

Please pray for us and for the process. International adoption is a long and tedious process and there is a lot of red tape. Please pray that things go smoothly.

For various reasons, international adoption is incredibly expensive. We have a game plan in place, but would appreciate your prayers in this area.

Please pray for our daughter’s biological mother and father who will be placed in the position of having to put her up for adoption.

We are incredibly excited about this path and this journey and look forward to sharing it with you.

Thanks so much for your thoughts and prayers!

* 8109 miles is the distance from New Orleans, Louisiana to Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.

Time to Dance

2010-04-25T10:35:00.011-05:00

I have a new morning routine. My new routine is designed to help me slow down and be more engaged in this good life. In my new routine, I try to get up before the rest of the family (as I did in my old routine), but now, instead of getting ready and hurrying off to Starbucks before work (old routine), I now stumble straight into the kitchen. I usually put on some type of music to set the mood for a happy home when my people wake up; something that is conducive to worshipping God – usually a little Dave Matthews, U2, David Crowder, Norah Jones or Veggie Tales. Normally, by this time, the boys are awake (and it does not matter if it is 5:30 am or 7:30 am – If I’m in the kitchen, somehow, they know it) and we begin working on breakfast. After breakfast everyone goes to their rooms, gets dressed, brushes their teeth and whatever else needs to be done.

It’s during this time, that I make my way to our playroom and set the ipod to any number of songs that immediately signal to the boys….it’s time to dance. It’s kind of funny because they know what these tunes are.

As soon as my people hear, I Got a Feeling (Black Eyed Peas), Hey, Soul Sister (Train), Christ is Risen (Jeremy Riddle), I Just Haven’t Met You Yet (Michael Buble), or any other number of songs – they dance their way to the playroom – no matter what they were in the middle of. Literally, sometimes they arrive with a toothbrush in hand, sometimes with just one shoe on, sometimes with no pants – no matter what they were in the middle of – each Jeansonne boy finds his way to the playroom, moving to the music (even our 15 month old…he can’t talk but he can dance!)

For the past number of weeks, it has been the greatest moment of most of my days. Me and my boys dancing it up together, for minutes each morning. Unfortunately, these boys are learning their moves from me, but that’s another blog for another day. (If you need an image think of an NFL player’s touchdown celebration and combine that with Ellen’s mad dance skills.)

It’s a fantastic way to start our day.

Now, dancing with my boys might just be for a season, but dancing with my boys each morning has reminded me and will hopefully instill within them, that no matter how busy and/or serious things get in our lives…..

It’s good to make time to dance.

Looking for School Zones

2010-04-24T14:15:00.007-05:00

Last week, I was driving with a friend of mine when all of a sudden I realized that I was actually in tune with the conversation that we were having. We were about 10 minutes into our drive from point A to point B when we came across those blinking yellow lights indicating a school zone. I slowed down from 35 to 20 mph only to realize that my entire day slowed down in that moment. As we drove through the school zone, I noticed the homes on the street, the kids walking along the sidewalks and most of all; I caught every single word that my friend spoke. I love hitting the school zones, because they are my new built in reminder that life is happening.

About 5 weeks ago, Kris and I took the kids on an 8 day road trip. Our adventure landed us in Austin, TX at a friend’s house. It was a life changing experience for us as we spent every minute of all 8 days together as a family. We spent our days at parks and festivals and shopping malls and other friend’s homes. We spent our evenings sitting together eating dinner, bathing the kids, reading and then after putting them to sleep, we would sit together engaged in real conversation over a glass of wine.

After being there for about 6 days, we couldn't figure out why we felt so connected to each other and to all of our kids. We could only determine that we both felt incredibly relaxed and loved the slow pace of life we were experiencing. Obviously, part of our ability to relax was the simple fact that we were on vacation and away from the normal hustle and bustle of our busy lives. But, there was still more to it than that. I have been on many ‘vacations’ and still missed the moments. This was different. This was intentional. Kristy and I ventured out on this trip very determined to make the most of our time as a family and as a couple.

It was also on day 6 in Austin that we determined to become more intentional from that day on. Since that fantastic vacation, we have been on a quest to figure out how to slow down in our everyday, ordinary life. So far, it has been amazing. As a family, I feel that we are more connected than ever before. Some of the ways that we have become more intentional include:

Getting rid of our television. We got rid of the TV and re-arranged our den to accommodate a slower pace of life.

Slowing down in the mornings. Instead of rushing out to Starbucks each morning (I was usually at the coffee shop each morning an hour before even needing to be at work), I now prepare breakfast each morning and help get the boys ready for school. I get to work on time.

Slowing down at night. After eating dinner, bathing the kids, cleaning the kitchen and putting the boys to bed (we’ve always done all of these things together), we sit on the sofa and enjoy a little wine (or beer or coffee) and real conversation. It’s cool.

Looking for school zones. Now, I try to live at a much slower pace and love hitting the school zones, because they serve as my reminder to be engaged in the everyday, ordinary moments of this good life.

Created to Serve

2009-06-28T20:27:00.005-05:00

When I was 16 years old I paid my first bill. As part of the deal, my dad would allow me to have my license and a car (a 1984 Nissan Maxima) if I paid half of my insurance. By that time, I had been cutting grass for some of those in the neighborhood for 4 years and had been learning how to make money.

At age 16, I learned how to budget money. I used a system that my parents had taught me - the envelope system. It’s really a pretty simple plan that I have now been using for almost 17 years. The concept goes like this: you budget your money by placing certain amounts into each envelope. An entertainment envelope. An auto insurance envelope. A home maintenance envelope. And so on. The money that doesn’t go into an envelope to be spent gets stashed away into savings. When it comes time to make a purchase, you don’t spend more than you have in that particular envelope.

The beauty about living on a budget is that it forces you to be disciplined with your money and teaches you to live within your means. The downside to living on a budget is that it sometimes tells you how to live your life....if you let it.

A couple of weeks ago, I had a friend who was in need. I really felt like I wanted to give some money to my friend who could certainly use it at the time. The only problem was that the envelope labeled, ‘money to give away’ only had $20 in it. I, however, felt that I wanted to give away closer to $100. Given the ‘rules’ of the envelope system, I was not to give away more than $20. (Please understand that I was not considering giving away money that I did not have. I was not planning on going into debt. The money was there, it was just stashed away in another envelope – a savings envelope – a ‘for the future’ envelope - a DO NOT TOUCH envelope).

I started to wrestle with what to do and spent a little bit of time praying about it. I believe that the budget that we are on is God honoring and I believe that God desires for us to be wise money managers. I also believe that when it comes to spending the money that he has entrusted to us, we should ask him where he would like it spent. As I wrestled for just a few minutes over what to do, it suddenly dawned on me that I was wrestling against myself. I was immediately ushered back to why I got on a budget in the first place. I created a budget over 16 years ago to serve me. At no point in time did I ever set the budget up in order that I might serve it. And the truth is....it has served me well.

As I’ve been thinking about this over the last number of days…I’ve started wondering….what other things in my life have I put in place to serve me, but over time, I have somehow started to serve those things?

It kind of reminds me of how often the Pharisees looked to the law for life and missed the point of relationship with God. At one point, Jesus went so far as to say to those guys, "…You search the scriptures because you think you’ll find life in them when the one they testify of is standing right in front of you and you can't even see it."

I love saving money. I save for my kid’s college fund. I save for retirement. I save for vacation. I save for things that I might not ever need. I save for all kinds of things. People sometimes ask me, “So, do you like to collect anything?” I usually reply, “I collect money.” But being $80 short in one of those envelopes in order to help a friend in need or invest in a friendship that is valuable to me or invest in a mission trip that I hadn’t planned for but feel that God is calling me to (might be more than $80)…...well....I’m okay with that...because my budget has been created to serve me.

In my 17 years of budgeting money, if there’s one thing that I’ve learned, it is that some things just don’t fit into an envelope.

What If We Are Supposed To Actually Do It?

2009-06-26T14:36:00.008-05:00

Brian's World

2009-06-01T17:26:00.012-05:00

My wife Kristy and I share the joy and privilege of raising 4 children…all boys.

Micah: age 4

Jonah: age 3

Nate: age 2

Lucas: age 6 months (obviously not in the pic)

Needless to say, with four small boys running around our home, there are many funny words and phrases uttered at any given moment. I love writing down these words and phrases and looking back on them when I need a good laugh. Just for fun, I thought I’d share a few.

“Nate, take the pizza off of your head!” – Brian

“Jonah, we do not put our head in the toilet!” – Brian

“God…food….amen.” – Nate’s prayer at the dinner table

“Jonah, there is no pooing in the tree house!” – Brian

“Daddy, can I go down the slide naked?” – Micah

“Jonah, we don’t climb on the dresser! Micah, we don’t push Jonah off of the dresser once he’s up there!” - Brian

“Daddy, can I pee on the fence?” – Micah

“Jonah, just pee on the fence!” – Kristy

“Mom, is my booty clean?” – Jonah

“Micah, we don’t sit on our brother’s heads!” – Brian

“Jonah, do not pee on your brother!” – Kristy

"Mom, is there poop in here?" - Micah to Kristy when she placed dinner on the table

…and then there’s my favorite…

“Hey Dad! Nate’s got a little weenie. Jonah’s got a little weenie. I got a big weenie!” – Micah

In response to Micah’s comment, I replied, “Micah, we don’t need to talk about each other’s weenies. Let’s talk about something else.” I could see the wheels in Micah’s head spinning and then he looked at me and said, “Let’s talk about snakes!”

….and to think…Lucas isn’t even talking yet.

Who Put Ice In My Milk?

2009-05-27T20:51:00.004-05:00

I like milk. In my opinion, milk is its absolute best when it’s really cold. However, at no time do I think that it is ever appropriate to put ice in milk. My reason: Inevitably, the ice is going to melt and then my milk will be watered down. And I don’t like watered down milk.

I am a Christian. And as of late, I have adhered to a Christianity that is weak and pathetic. I worship a God however, who is anything but weak and pathetic. So, what’s the deal?

Before diagnosing the problem, I think it’s important to express what I believe it means to actually be a Christian.

I believe that Jesus actually died on a cross and literally came back from the dead to redeem me, rescue me and set me in right standing with God the Father, in order that, I could now live a life that is wholly surrendered to him and is at the same time lived to the fullest. I believe that living a Christian life is about seeking God’s will, not my own. I believe that being a Christian means that I get to live a life empowered by Jesus’ very own spirit and bring love and acceptance, hope and light, redemption and do-over’s to a broken and busted up world (people.)

I love that idea. I believe that idea. I just don’t live in the reality of it like I want to.

Why not?

Because there is ice in my milk.

Somewhere along my journey as a follower of Jesus, the Christianity that I adhere too got ice in it and it's starting to melt.

When I read the New Testament, I read about a Jesus who asked people to abandon everything to follow him. He asked people to put aside their own ideas and dreams, their own agendas and plans and he asked them to pick up his ideas and dreams and agenda and plans.

It seems that lately, I have just been focused on what I think and want and have really been leaving Jesus out of my life equation. How do I want to spend my money? How do I want to use my time? What do I consider appropriate giving to the poor? What do I consider healthy boundaries for my friendships? What do I want? What do I need?

It’s not just me though. It’s as if someone came in and slipped ice in a whole bunch of our glasses.

These days I see Christians spending so much time and energy justifying why one more glass of wine is fine, even though it sends them over the top or debating exactly what constitutes sexually immoral behavior. I hear Christians justifying why it’s okay to gossip about and usurp authority if that authority’s opinion or action is thought- by them- to be wrong. I hear Christians arguing that tithing is Old Testament and that we are no longer bound by the law but should be giving cheerfully out of a grateful heart. The problem is, they barely and rarely give anything away….but at least they’re cheerful.

We do these things because we want to serve God on our terms, not his. So, we take what we like from his teachings and apply those things and the things that are too hard, or too demanding, or too ridiculous…we rationalize and justify them away. It’s really brilliant and I am sad to say that even I have been hooked.

Recently, I worked a few things around in my budget to create a little more cash flow. I quickly found some great ways to use the extra cash. The problem was, I didn’t take the time to ask God about how he would like to use the extra cash.

Why?

Because there’s ice in my milk.

A few days ago, I was driving around downtown when I was stopped at a red light where a homeless man was standing with a sign that read ‘Homeless. Please help.’ I had a sense inside of me and I had a $10 bill within my reach. Literally, my hand was only inches from grasping it in my pocket, but instead I decided to ignore the internal movement and I unlocked gazes with the man.

Why?

Because there’s ice in my milk.

Recently, I wanted to give a friend a piece of my mind. I wanted to explain why they were wrong and express my opinion in a powerful way. It didn’t even cross my mind to first have the conversation with God and ask him how to handle the situation.

Why?

Because there’s ice in my milk.

Lately, I’m pretty tired of it and I don’t want to live a life that is all talk. Don’t get me wrong. I do some walking with my talk. I actually do experience some life that is empowered by God’s spirit. It’s just that I think there’s more and I want in on it. I want to be in that place that truly says with all of my heart that all of my money belongs to God. That all of my time belongs to God. That all of my family belongs to God. That all of my possessions belong to God. I want to live a life that seeks to serve God and his kingdom first before I consider how it will affect or impact me and my comfortable life.

I’m a work in progress. I’m on a journey. And right now, I’m asking Jesus to show me just how much ice has been slipped into my milk.

If you’re reading this and feel like ice got slipped into your milk along the way and you no longer want it there….I welcome the company on the journey.

So, may the grace of Jesus be upon each of us and may his spirit indwell and empower us to move and live according to his ways and his truths. May our hearts be consumed by his love and acceptance and may our lives reflect Jesus and not some man-made, sideways, goofed up Christianity. May we live lives that are wholly surrendered to the ways and words of Jesus; lives that are full of passion, grace, mercy, love, peace, beauty and most of all life. And, finally, may we come to truly understand what we just prayed.

Camping 101

2009-04-21T22:40:00.012-05:00

Last week, I took my oldest son, Micah, camping. It was our first camping trip together – just the two of us. As our trip was nearing, I was amazed at how excited I was. The nights leading up to our time together, I could not stop telling Kristy how excited I was to take my boy camping and actually spending some quality one-on-one time with him. I enjoyed every single minute of packing our supplies, buying our groceries and buying Micah his first fishing pole. Quite honestly, I think I was more excited than he was.

I took Micah to the same camping grounds that our family went to when I was growing up. I decided not to make reservations, because I was nervous that if I reserved a site that I ended up not liking – I’d be stuck with it. So, I chose to take my chances and arrive early in the day to pick out a site that would be just right. Before we left, I asked Kristy to pray that we get a great site and that we have a great time together.

After a two hour drive, Micah and I arrived. I drove up to the window and said, “We don’t have reservations, but we’d like a camping site.” The sweet little woman at the window said, “Well, we have one site left.”

One site!

There are over 200 sites at this campground and they had just one left?

I said, “We’ll take it!”

As we drove through the park, we wove our way down the winding roads through the rolling hills and finally arrived at our campsite. As soon as I noticed which site was ours, I felt this sinking feeling inside. Our site was wide open! We were practically sharing a site with the people next to us. You could count the number of trees in and around our site – and we were supposed to be in the woods! I tried to put on a happy face for Micah as we began to set up camp. I sent a text to Kristy that said, “BUMMER! Our site SUCKS!”

We had a great time setting up camp, but I couldn’t seem to shake my feelings of being bummed. I just felt like the whole trip was going to be affected by our site being so open. It wasn’t what I wanted. It wasn’t what I expected.

After setting up camp, I gave Micah his fishing pole and I took him fishing for the first time in his life. It was the coolest thing. He caught all kinds of stuff. He hooked a tree. He caught some grass. He even reeled in a pier. And he loved every single minute of it. As we were sitting there casting our lines, Micah looked up at me and said, “Dad, you don’t like our firecamp?” (He called our campsite a firecamp.) I was taken aback. I hadn’t said anything to him about not liking our site. I hadn’t spoken it out loud to anyone (I intentionally texted Kristy so he would not hear me talking to her about it.) I looked at him and said, “No, Micah – I like our firecamp. Why?” To which he replied, “I was just wondering because I really like it.”

At that moment I realized that if it didn’t bother Micah, then there was no reason in the world that it should bother me. From that moment on, I had a change of attitude, a change of mind and a change of heart. And I had the most amazing time with my son.

On our trip, I taught Micah how to pitch a tent, start a fire, cast a line, scramble eggs, tell spooky stories, roast hot dogs on an open flame and find a private place in the woods to pee.

On our trip, Micah taught me not to let my circumstances determine my attitude and experience.

Who's Awesome Now?

2009-01-29T23:06:00.001-06:00

This evening, I had a speaking engagement at a class that my church is currently offering. As part of the teaching, I chose to use clips from the movie Toy Story to illustrate certain points. Before I went on stage, I was discussing with our production team (and particularly our video tech) about the importance of the timing on the movie clips as well as an additional power point slide that I would be using and reminding him that if the timing was off, it would greatly affect the impact of the clips.

The teaching went great. All of the points were made and lives were impacted. The media side of the teaching went off without a hitch. Our video tech was brilliant as his timing was perfect. Smooth…all the way.

At the end of the evening, a few of us were standing around when someone made the comment to our video tech that he did a good job tonight. He immediately responded by pointing at me and saying “Just doing my part to make him look awesome.”

What?

Just doing his part to make me look awesome?

He didn’t even say ‘thank you.’ He just humbly expressed that he did what he did to make someone else look good.

So, then I got to thinking…who did I make look awesome today? What part did I play in making others look awesome today? I could immediately recall one instance, in particular, where I made someone look stupid today (which I did apologize for)….but awesome?

I wonder just how much more incredible this world would be if more of us spent a little more time ‘just doing our part to make those around us look awesome?’

I wonder just how much more amazing my world would be if I spent a little more time ‘just doing my part to make those around me look awesome?’

In an ‘it’s all about me world’ it sure does seem upside down.

And it sure does seem right.

So, today, what part are we going to play in making those around us look awesome?

What part are you going to play?

Conversations Along the Way...

Sunday Stories: A Beautiful Gift

Sunday Stories: Doing What's Natural

Sunday Stories: Pursuing Passion

You Complete Me

Sunday Stories: Chosen

Sunday Stories: Follow Your Heart

Sunday Stories: Selfless Love

Figuring Out Life with Others

It Takes a Village

Working Together for the Good of Others

Freedom from Answers

Katrina: Becoming Who We Are Going to Be

8 Miles, Eminem and Reconciliation

Reconciliation

Lessons from Mohammad

Top 10 Reads

Engaging Life

The Church of Beautiful Letdowns

Theological Humility

Waiting for Zoe

Your Turn

How Can We Raise Centered-Set Kids?

Letting God Off the Hook

Navigating the Waters of Public School

The Smell of Rain

Hoping Jesus Doesn't Return....Yet

Ordinary Moments

Did Jesus Die Because of the Cookies?

Citizenship

Dash for the Stache

Religion is a Crutch for the Weak

Community without Unity?

Working to Right What's Wrong in the World

Sharing Life

When I Was Paralyzed

Rock n' Roll Mardi Gras Half Marathon

Journey to 13.1

What Do Your Tweets Say About You?

Letters to Zoe

Birthday Traditions

Good Words

Living a Bigger Life

Bringing Zoe Home

Love Always Wins

Guns and Pipes and Other Things Nice

How Dave Changed My Life

American Jesus: Jesus, John & Jerry

Learning to Lead

A Scary Little Thing Called Risk

8109 Miles

Time to Dance

Looking for School Zones

Created to Serve

What If We Are Supposed To Actually Do It?

Brian's World

Who Put Ice In My Milk?

Camping 101

Who's Awesome Now?