the feel again

i know i shouldnt get emotionally attached, cause that’s when things start getting complicated, and that’s the last thing i want. I just need to keep telling myself that it’s all just a bad idea really, cause it is. Going away for 6 months in August and who knows if I’ll even come back in January or not. so this shouldn’t happen. not like this. Not right now. I just need to breathe and pray, and breathe some more. 

complaining

it’s too hot in my house, my room especially. so i can’t sleep.  The spider bite i got on my arm pit is getting worse. My new diet is freaking my body out. No sugars- sweets or sodas,  No meats ( fish is an exception), low carbs, and no bread. My hair unruly. Everything is uncooperative.

But God is good and that’s all that matters. Tonight at church, we went to Dallas International Street Church. it’s a little church in the slums of Dallas for poor/ homeless people. These people literally have next to nothing and it’s probably one of the most spirit filled places I’ve been. The holy spirit is filled in that place. it was such a humbling experience. I loved it. So many people eager to worship God and receive prayer. it was truly beautiful and heart breaking.

Restless, restless, restless. Did I mention I was restless?

It’s just getting to that point again where it sucks to be still. I’m impatiently waiting till August when I can get out of Texas and start over in sunny Florida. Its completely bittersweet because I have so many friends here that I’m going to miss so much but then again , I love the sense of new beginnings and starting something new. It’s an adventure of sorts and I’ve always liked the thrill of adventure.

So all that’s left for me to do until then is finding things to occupy my mind in the mean time. Schools almost over and summer will be here, bringing the return of old friends.

sometimes it’s…

sometimes it’s hard. Dressing revealing and having sex was how I felt wanted. If I could get a guys attention that way, then i felt good. Because for the first time in my life, I felt wanted. Wanted by someone, something. But now, I’ve given all that up. Now don’t get me wrong, it’s all been for the better, but just sometimes it gets lonely. Cause now it feels like I’m invisible. I feel like I’m not pretty anymore. Boys don’t flirt with me anymore. They don’t take me out on dates. They don’t stay up all hours of the night texting me. They don’t want to kiss me, hug me, or even touch me. I already have insecurities and self confidence issues, and this isn’t helping. I just want someone to notice me again….

God give me patience. I know you have a plan, far better than my own. Allow me the strength to hold true to what you want for me and not fall into old habits for momentary happiness

{postsecret}

I used to think I was the strangest person in the world but then I thought, there are so many people in the world, there must be someone just like me who feels bizarre and flawed in the same ways I do I would imagine her, and imagine that she must be out there thinking of me too. Well, I hope that if you are out there and read this and know that, yes, it’s true I’m here, and I’m just as strange as you.

stillness

so we are laying here and I’m trying very, very hard to stay still. It’s the first time our bodies have been against each other. The electricity could light cities. My body feels like jumping up and down. I feel like Charlie, I’ve got a golden ticket. I’VE GOT A GOLDEN TICKET! Breathing is complicated, like Algebra 2, which i had to retake in summer school after failing my junior year. Only 30 seconds have gone by. This is worse than holding your breath underwater. I want to say so many things, and then again, nothing. I feel everything

South By So What!

my friend and youth pastor Bobby wrote thi about our experience on saturday about what happened at the South By So What music festival at Quick Trip Park. I thought I’d share. Enjoy!

This past Saturday I was graced with an amazing opportunity to minister at a concert with nearly 6000 people present. God opened a door for the opportunity and I would like to thank Mike Ziemer for allowing me to follow through with it.

Mike Ziemer is the founder of Third String productions and at the prior 2 Third String festivals I have had the privilege of being able to minister on a small sc…ale. So when this festival came up I naturally asked mike what he would be ok with me doing as far as ministry goes, I figured maybe a worship service before the gates opened, or something small. We met up and Mike said “you can run your own stage if you want”
At first I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. Then reality sat in and I began to realize that this might be too big for me to accomplish. The price tag on that would be too much. So I wrestled with the idea for a week and a half.

And then Mark McCord, a church planter from Switzerland, spoke at our church on a Sunday morning. One of the things he said hit me hard. He said that if God is telling you to do something, do it without a “Plan B”, fully rely on him… that was confirmation that I needed to do this, I needed to take the opportunity and use it to glorify God. I was going to run a stage for worship, speaking and prayer at a secular music festival It also meant that I needed to believe and trust for the provision to make it happen.

The following Tuesday I was opening the coffee bar and a man that I know came in (he will remain anonymous because I’m sure that he would prefer that). We talked for a bit I asked how his life was and he told me about his life and then he asked how I was and I began to tell him how God was opening some amazing doors for ministry. I told him about the opportunity to run a stage at the festival, that I was committing to it and believing for the provision. He asked how much I would need to do this. I told him, an amount that is impossible for me to come up with on my own. And he said, “well don’t worry about the money, I’ll take care of it”
My jaw hit the floor. Just like that my prayer was answered, “The Awakening Mission” was born

The next few weeks I began to prepare for what would eventually be the event that would light a bonfire in my heart for generation. Everything seemed to be coming together. This was going to be the event to change the lives of thousands of kids, or so I thought.

Just when I felt like I had everything straight I hit a huge roadblock. My sound guy called me the Monday before the festival to tell me that his equipment was no longer available! Scripture tells us that we are not ignorant of the enemy’s devices, and this one was obvious. After careful deliberation I elected to run the sound myself and use the sound from the Lighthouse Venue… Hell was not going to win this battle!

So for the rest of the week I was busy, working a full time job, being a pastor, being a husband, being a father, shopping for stage lighting, making sure a stage was built, stripping the lighthouse of all audio equipment, developing a ministry lineup for the stage and staying in touch with everyone involved.

By the time Saturday morning had arrived we had accomplished everything that needed to be accomplished to make this happen. The only problem was that I was the only person involved that understood the technical side of the sound setup, which meant that I had to do all of that… and it’s way easier said than done! I was stage hand, audio engineer, stage manager, booking agent, pastor and several other things just to pull this off. Needless to say I was spread thin.

When we finally got started we noticed that the response from the people attending the festival was not what we had hoped for. Even when my friend Levi The Poet performed the crowd for our stage was small. And that’s when we began to notice that people really don’t want anything to do with the idea of church, or God for that matter.

When my friend Tyler Collins was speaking a group of kids stopped to hear what he was saying. The stopped as he was talking about loving others. He mentioned making friends with people becoming friends on facebook… just a few general things that would help start relationship. But as soon as he said the words “The Lord” one of the kids threw his hands in the air and said “f***” and walked away, with the rest of the group in tow.

We hit several stumbling blocks throughout the day. Power outages, people without instruments, absolutely nobody being there for speakers and several other things. We decided that we were going to focus our efforts on a 9pm worship service. I don’t think any of us realized the spiritual battle that would take place.

We had over 1000 fliers left for our stage so we began to hand write on each of them “Church 9pm” and started passing them around the festival. Opposition was met right off. Kids were saying “we’re here to party, not to hear about Jesus”

The spiritual darkness was heavy. My friend Tyler pointed out that a majority of the kids were wearing black, but that was only an outward expression of their hearts. I’ve never seen such a concentration of profanity on Tshirts in my life. Walking around that place was spiritually and emotionally taxing. Young girls were flaunting their bodies, and boys were disrespecting them. The spiritual influence of the enemy was prevalent.

After 2 hours of spreading the word for the “church service”, the time came. With around 6000 kids in attendance about 60 showed up to the service. The band Least of These led us in worship. It was amazing worshiping with this group in this atmosphere. It was obvious that God had brought every one of us there for that moment.

The headlining band of the festival was Asking Alexadria. They have lyrics such as “I’ll never bow to the one who claims to be devine. I’ll tear down your gates with my bare ******* hands; and burn the world that you rule over, no matter how convinced you are you’re not a God of mine; you’re not a ******* God of mine” and that’s some of the more tame stuff…
At the same time that was going on we were singing “All glory, honor, power is yours amen. All glory, honor, power is yours amen. All glory, honor, power is yours forever amen.” The gates of hell were definitely present, and we were definitely not backing down!

During worship I delivered a message of Repentance and Righteousness, probably not the most sensitive message to deliver in the environment. And the Holy Spirit moved. I believe that God prepared the hearts of every person there for that moment. As I closed out and worship picked back up I said that I would be available to pray with anyone who felt led. And that’s when the work of the Holy Spirit was most evident. Thousands of kids were singing along to a band that blasphemes my God but at the exact time we were worshipping him and kids hearts were being broken! Several kids came over for prayer, expressing that they had been living lives that were outside of the will of God. One girl said that God had allowed her to experience the exact shame and guilt that I preached about in my message and then I affirmed it while speaking and let her know that it is not God’s will for her to live in that shame and guilt. I looked at her and told her she was a beautiful daughter of God and those shameful things were a thing of the past. I held kids, cried with them and prayed with them. It was beautiful. Amidst all of the spiritual darkness of that festival God was alive and well, and proved to be even more powerful than the desires of the flesh to the kids that were present. Several kids even came to me afterwards and asked how they could be involved in this ministry! And after worship Alex, an intern with Come & Live and new friend, gave his testimony and everyone stayed. This was a hungry group.

Least of These has a line in one of their songs that I think we can all relate to. It goes “I don’t need your grace I can do this on my own” It relates to us, because we’ve all tried this at some point. My friend Nathan said that as we were singing this song he had a vision of the rest of the festival actively living it out. As we were acknowledging our brokenness and tendencies to try to do things without God, there were 6000 kids that were actively saying that and worshiping something that was completely demonic. He said that he just saw the tshirts from all of the bands waving in the air like banners declaring that they wanted nothing to do with His grace.

As we were packing up at the end of the night and I was rejoicing over the 1% who came to join in worship with us I was also lamenting the fact that there were about 6000 others who were actively choosing, in essence, hell. I began to ask God why…. And He spoke. He said that the previous generations “generational children” have “spiritual cancer” and they were dying. As I thought about walking through the fest earlier that day I considered the feelings that I had… and realized that it would be very similar to walking through the cancer unit at a pediatrics hospital and realizing that nearly every one of the kids you were passing were terminally ill.

When I mention the previous generation, I don’t mean that everyone in that generation is to blame, but a large percentage of that generation has displayed Christ in a way that is disgusting. They proclaim Christ with their mouths while actively pursuing divorce, adultery, prescription drug abuse, physical abuse, emotional abuse, workaholism, alcoholism, pornography addiction, materialism, and a host of other sins. These “generational parents” have effectively turned the majority of a generation away from Christ, by falsely portraying him. And to be honest I can understand. I would want absolutely nothing to do with this Jesus either.
It is up to the Godly men and women in the “parent generation” to reach out to their “generational children” and begin the process of reconciliation. And it is up to the Godly brothers and sisters in this generation to love our brothers and sisters in a manner worthy of the bearing the title “ambassador of Christ”. Reconciliation begins with us. We have to understand that the scars are real, and that true damage has been done.

My burden for this generation has increased 100 fold since this past weekend. Imagine if that same group of people had role models that had portrayed Christ in an accurate manner. Had proclaimed his word and also live it out. Imagine the possibility of 6000 kids worshipping Jesus while 60 where worshipping the blasphemous. With those number winning over the 60 isn’t so daunting. But even with what should have been a discouraging turnout God revealed something encouraging to me. If of the 60 that came to worship only 10% (or 6) were truly impacted, and at the next festival each of them had the same mission that I had and each of the 6 reached out and brought in 60 of their own, there would be 360 kids impacted at the next event. And if out of that only another 10% were impacted in the same way that would mean that 36 new individuals would have the same fire and at the next fest each of those 36 would reach out and get 60 more, that number would be 2,160… the number grows fast. By the 4th festival there would be more kids worshipping our creator than were at the festival all together on Saturday. The kingdom operates in mysterious ways, and I’m excited to be a part of it.

One of my goals for this year is to develop The Awakening Mission into a fully functional ministry, to see reconciliation in this generation, to see 12,000 kids worshipping my God at a “secular” festival. If you feel led to be a part of it, let’s discuss how you can be. Where many would see an impassible mountain, I see an opportunity to speak to it and tell it to move. The gates of hell will not prevail while brothers and sisters, people just like me and you are dying. This is a mission, it’s a battle. Its going to be tough but I’m not backing down.