YEPPERS

This song has really been a good word to me here lately

Delirious? Mission Bell

“Our God Reigns”

40 million babies lost to God’s great orphanage
It’s a modern day genocide and a modern day disgrace
If this is a human right then why aren’t we free?
The only freedom we have is in a man nailed to a tree

100 million faces staring at the sky,
wondering if this HIV will ever pass us by.
The devil stole the rain and hope trickles down the plug
But still my chinese take away could pay for someone’s drugs

OUR GOD REIGNS, OUR GOD REIGNS
FOREVER YOUR KINGDOM REIGNS

The west has found a gun and it’s loaded with ‘unsure’
Nip and tuck if you have the bucks in a race to find a cure.
Psalm one hundred and thirty nine is the concience to our selfish crime
God didn’t screw up when He made you. He’s a father who loves to parade you

OUR GOD REIGNS, OUR GOD REIGNS
FOREVER YOUR KINGDOM REIGNS

Yes He reigns, yes you eign, yes you reign
For there is only one true God
But we’ve lost the reins on this world.
Forgive us all, forgive us please as we fight for this broken world on our knees…

this song rocks my world

A good comedy…always makes me happy…

A warm afternoon, with my windows down and my roof open while listening to music loud…

Nacho Cheese Doritos…

Fishing with my dad…

Guitar solos…good ones…

Playing the guitar…

Robby Kroll’s laughter…

Japanese food…sushi…all of that stuff

Helen Keller jokes…

Chips and salsa

One thing I’ve come to realize about spiritual gifts and callings, is that a lot of people, myself included, limit ourselves to what those callings are. We’ll say “I’m called to THIS ministry…nothing else.” So throughout our whole lives we’ll do what we’re called to and do nothing after that season of ministry is over in our lives. It would be like a pastor leaving a church, and just sitting around until the next church came around that offered him a job. Or a worship leader leaving a church and not joining any church unless he/she could serve in the worship ministry only. Sitting around and waiting until something comes around that appeals to us. We waste time waiting when we could be serving in another place. I’ve played worship music for the past two years, I can play the guitar, but it’s just boring to me now. God’s going to take me out of that ministry within the church. I think we need to extend our gifts and passions OUTSIDE the 4 walls of the church. Maybe the pastor that leaves a church needs to become a teacher and get involved in a generation that so desperately needs to see something real. Maybe musicians need to quit thinking that they’re musical ability automatically makes them a worship leader, and they need to give music lessons and invest in some lost people.

I think maybe we’ve been fed this idea that using your gifts outside the church doesn’t glorify God…that’s a load of bullcrap. I commend bands that leave the world of christian music…real bands that have talent and take their message to a lost world….what an opportunity. I’m afraid that there are pastors out there who don’t even REMEMBER what it is like to be in a lost world…because they sit in their church office 30-40 hours a week, prepare sermons, and wait for people to come to them with their marital problems, lost friends, complaints about church stuff…and all that crap. Maybe they could have some more sermon illustrations of lost people getting saved outside the church walls, and maybe just some good sermon illustrations in general…you know the pastors i’m talking about…they use the same illustrations…over and over and over. Wouldn’t it be sweet if you called the church office, and the secretary said…”i’m sorry…he’s not here.” To which you remember…oh yeah…it’s tuesday…he’s out investing in lost people. I just think that to be a pastor it would be hard to be among lost people in your work place.

I was thinking about persecution today randomly. So many early Christians were beaten, scourged, burned, and all kinds of crap. I mean, I think Paul was probably wierd and deformed looking. People threw Him out side the city thinking he was dead. I’m going to go out on a limb and say that even if someone didn’t know one of the disciples, they could make a very good educated guess because of how bruised or deformed they looks. What if the thorn in paul’s side was physical pain from beatings? Man, I know if I got sick or broke my arm, I would excuse myself from a mission trip, but I don’t know if Paul would have.

I’ve been thinking about how critical I am of other people. If somebody shares a conviction in their life and I think the person is wierd…I automatically just think it is completely insignificant. God may be at work in somebody’s life and I’ll seriously judge their motives in the most negative ways…and God has just really convicted me about it. I mean, let’s face it…we all have people that we can’t stand, but we still have NO room to judge at all. I’m worthless without Christ anyway. I’m just too critical maybe sometimes, and I don’t want to turn people away from knowing Jesus because of how critical a person I am. I’ll be honest, I can be pretty pessimistic sometimes and say stuff like “oh…of COURSE!!” whenever anything bad happens, and man…I just want God to inhabit everything about me. I want every aspect of my life to be specifically sanded and varnished the way he sees fit. That’s where I’m at right now…

I think it’s interesting how we listen to advertisements for conferences and what not. “Hey come to this conference at so and so baptist church.” And then we’re like…”oh that’s great…i just don’t have time.”

and then they say “so and so with the number one hit blah blah is leading worship…” “so and so from south dakota with a congregation of 6,000 is going to speak.” And then we make time for it because since those people are there…we will be fed. I personally think it should be enough to say…this is what is going to be about…and then we should go.

We want people to come…and they’re not lured because they want God to speak to them…they’re lured because so and so is going to be there…so and so is leading worship. If it’s somebody we’ve never heard of…forget it…we skip that session.

Here’s a hypothesis i could make…if there were 4 sessions to choose from…and in one class teaching there was somebody who is a well known speaker/pastor, everybody would go to that class REGARDLESS…even if the 2 other classes would be the ones they knew they needed to hear more. Just because…so and so is teaching. We want to be associated w/ so and so….we want to become a person like so and so…a person of the same caliber as so and so…so we can say…”i was in so and so’s class”

I’m at a place in my life where I’m realizing that I’ve been trying to live off of other people’s relationship’s with God. I’m not talking about what I beliefs on certain matters. I know why I believe what I believe. I’m talking about my one on one relationship with God. Seriously…how many of us look at other people serving Christ and say “wow..that’s what a person who walks with God looks like” and then we try our best to look exactly like that? I’m at a place where I don’t want my walk to look like some famous Christian writer such as Louie Giglio. I want my walk with God to belong to the both of us ALONE. People will see Louie Giglio…”oh man…Passion…wow…doing stuff like that is what real christianity looks like.” They look at John Piper “wow…he uses huge words and extremely flowery language when explaining things…that’s what Christianity looks like.” And then…we’ve tried to clone somebody else’s relationship with God into our own lives. I think the only thing we should have in common is that as a result of our relationship with God…the gospel is preached. I think each person has a different role to play.
I think the fruit of a real relationship with God is love for people and people being saved. We will embrace OUR mission…not somebody else’s.

I went to Robby and Tal Kroll’s house originally to pick up Kyle. Then they invited me and matt to go bowling…so we did…to Fortson’s delight. Why was he happy? So he wouldn’t be the only one getting made fun of the whole night…HA. Anywho..bowling is fun…apparently I gallop when I throw the bowling ball…next time you see fortson…ask him to show you on his camera…he has live footage. I scored a 200 and won the bowling match if you MUST know…HAHA…not really.

I buzzed my head again..it’s sexy…believe me! ANywho…i’m out

Do you guys think that we use Christian t-shirts because we’ve become too passive to even speak about Jesus? Yep…we just throw on our John 3:16 t-shirt and expect people to ask us about Jesus. I’ve lately been thinking that we don’t need t-shirts like that. How bad is it that since people can’t see Christ IN us we wear a freaking WWJD braclet or a Christian t-shirt. What the crap? We can’t express Christ through our lives so we wear a t-shirt…that’s a lot easier than being real. “Guys…you might get persecuted for wearing a Christian t-shirt….people might make fun of you.”
I’m to the point that i sometimes think Chrisitan t-shirts are obnoxious

Lord,
I pray that you would show me who the primary influences in my life are. I pray that you would make yourself my primary influence so that i can inhale you, and exhale you into other people’s lives. I pray that you would make me influential. I want your cause Lord. I believe, that at your center is love. I pray that I would just grow closer to you so that i would love people more. So i can influence them. I want to come thirsty to your thrown consistently. I want to drink deeper. I want to want you more. Show me your blessings in my life. Show me your glorious beauty. Satisfy me Lord.

Okay..so how many of you want to go to heaven? alright…most of you
how many of you want to die? oh…yeah

Ya see…I’m not sure that we really DESIRE heaven. It’s almost like “yea…after i’ve lived my life on earth and i’ve done all this stuff and this stuff. If i die and i have the choice b/t the 2..yea..i’ll choose heaven.”
Do we want to go to heaven because of Christ? Or because Hell is terrible? obviously there’s a little bit of both…obviously…hell would suck. But shouldn’t the fact that we love Christ outweigh the fact that we don’t want to go to hell? hmmm….