Step up your game!

Hi, my name is Troy and I'm a recovering American Christian.
I've been an American Christian pretty much my whole life.
Oh, I've had measurable periods in my life where I was less dedicated to Christ than others...but I've never really not been a Christian.
Growing up in church kind of has a strange effect on a person...especially in America.
We have this really odd perspective on what it means to be a Christian.
In America we tend to think that the church is for us, that the church exists to serve our "needs", cater to our whims and always make sure we are comfortable.
I'm not proud to say it, but, I bought in to that perspective for a while...a long while. Oh, I served in the local church,"did ministry" and paid my tithe...but it wasn't until 1997, when I had my first opportunity to step across the borders of America and see Christians, real Christians, thriving in conditions I found abhorrent, that my perspective began to change.
Since that time I've had the privilege of visiting some other countries and inter-acting with Christians in places like Eastern Europe, Central America, The Caribbean, Southeast Asia and been able to see what Christian life outside the American matrix is like.
Did you know that people actually have to walk to get to church? (uphill both ways) And once they get there, they don't have cushy chairs or pews on which to rest their weary legs...they might even have to sit on the floor...
Wayne Cordeiro, in his book The Divine Mentor, tells a story about visiting China and speaking to a group of pastors and church leaders who rode a train 13 hours to get to where he was speaking. Once they got there, they sat on a wooden floor with no air conditioning for 3 days and listened intently to Wayne speak. Only a few of these Chinese church leaders actually had a Bible, so they would share scraps of paper on which they had written portions of scripture that they had memorized. Out of the 20 leaders Wayne met with, 18 of them had spent time in prison because they were Christians. (gathering in a non-government sanctioned church in China carries with it a mandatory 3 year prison sentence.)
Ladies and Gentlemen, what have we become? Over-indulged? Yes. Self-righteous? Yes. Self-indulgent? Check. Entitled? Absolutely. We are most certainly, lazy, pathetic excuses for what Christians are called to be...and I am one.
At the end of his visit with the Chinese church leaders, Wayne asked if he could pray for them. The most amazing thing occurred in that moment...They wanted Wayne to ask God to help them become like him. What they meant was, that they would be able to enjoy the freedom of religion that we have here in America. But Wayne, in a moment of great wisdom, said; "No, i will not pray that you become like us. But I will pray...that we become like you."
As a recovering American Christian, my prayer for myself and for the American church is that we do grow to become more and more like our Christian brothers and sisters around the globe who live like what the Apostle Paul described in his letter to the church in the city of Philippi: "but whatever was to my profit I now consider loss for the sake of Christ. What is more, I consider everything a loss compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them rubbish, that I may gain Christ and be found in Him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes through the law, but that which is through faith in Christ - the righteousness that comes from God and is by faith. I want to know Christ and the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of sharing in His sufferings, becoming like Him in his death, and so, somehow, to attain the resurrection from the dead."
My name is Troy and I'm a recovering American Christian.

"I say yes...you say no..."

Forgive me father, it has been two weeks since my last blog...

I really need to put this in my weekly plan (Ryan) so that i mark out the time to just do this. Otherwise, it goes by the wayside as the "urgency" of so many other things crowd out the blog.

So, last night at the Wednesday Night SHIFT_ I did something that is pretty uncharacteristic of me...
For you who know me, I'm pretty laid back and don't typically have a confrontational tone to my communication/teaching.
However, and maybe this is because I'm getting old and cranky, I firmly planted my foot in the sit down part of our student body last night...

I was talking about the love of God, (yes, I know, the irony is comical) and what our response to his love is to be.

For those of you who read this who were there, this will be a bit of a re-run, but none the less, for context sake, I press on.

For many of us, our problem when it comes to responding to God's love is; we put Him on this sliding scale of relationship worthiness...similar to what we'd use for any other potential suitor.
Example: when we're "falling" for someone we base much of our opinion or impression of them on what we see...are they visually appealing? etc...

With God, it's like dating in the dark..."he's a good kisser and all, but when the lights came on, it's like, on wow, um, he's not like the people I usually date..."

We can't see God and so when we are, pardon the term, groping around trying to determine what he's like and keep getting bad advice from other people who've never seen Him and base their opinions solely on hearsay instead of firsthand experience...
We don't like what we think we can "see" and typically avoid any further interaction.

Or we base our opinion on how He makes us feel or what He can do for us...
And when we use this flawed system of evaluation on God, 9 times out of 10, he's not even going to register.

You see, here's something we usually don't figure out until we've made a series of poor relationship decisions or until we're older and bear the scars of time; you fall in love with a person based on who they are, not: How they look, What they can do for you, or How they make you feel.

Because, looks don't last...I should know, I used to be smokin' hot!
Stuff (possessions) loses its luster and appeal,
Feelings are a false indicator; feelings are just feelings...

When it comes to love, it's all about choice.

We choose to love, not; "Oh today I feel like it, so I guess I'm in love...but tomorrow I might not be..."

Every single day we must choose to love, if we don't, on those days we don't feel like it, we probably will walk away, disillusioned, confused, angry and bitter.
And then turn around and jump right back into a relationship based on the same criteria...my what an intelligent bunch we are...

So, how does this all shake out with God? We have to take this infinite, all powerful being off the sliding scale of relationship worthiness and chose to love Him, in the same way that we must choose to love one another, every waking moment of every day.
And like in any other relationship, another primary factor to falling deeply in love is, TIME.

See, we can become infatuated with God, much like we do with people...We like the way He makes us feel, He does stuff for us, but when the feelings fade and the stuff He does isn't as obvious or it becomes, just not enough, we quickly fall out of "love" with Him.

...and this is where the foot gets firmly lodged...We've gotta stop farting around and commit ourselves to knowing God.
Not knowing of Him, or about Him, but in our brains, hearts and soul, spending the time, making the commitment to know Him! The Bible tells us, from cover to cover, that the only worthwhile pursuit in life is to know God.
"...but Pastor Troy, this sounds a lot harder than simply loving Him..."
Is it? When you're truly in love, you commit everything to being with the person, to knowing them...
In fact many of you know exactly what it's like to be in love...because,
you commit all your time to your: sport, music, theater, homework, vanity, so-called relationship, recreation, entertainment...
You love the world around you, but you're avoiding the one who loves you most.

God desperately loves you! And He's shown it, over and over again...all He asks in return is for your love and devotion.
The only question you have to ask yourself is, are you willing to choose invest the time, in spite of what you don't know about Him?

It's a yes or no answer.

Life and Love and Why...

Trust is a funny word.
It has many implications.
I trust God.
I trust my Wife.
I have trust in my friends and family.
I trust that the mode of transportation I choose will get me safely to my destination...
(I also trust in the men and women who operate those various modes...)
I trust in the electric company to keep the lights on.
I trust that my body will continue to function "normally".
I trust that the food I eat will not make me sick.
I trust in strangers, on whom I rely, to do their jobs.
and so on, and so on...

By definition trust is: reliance on the integrity, strength, ability, surety, etc., of a person or thing; confidence. Or, the confident expectation of something; hope.

I give trust without much thought in many instances,
yet I am reticent to give trust when it comes to things that I feel the need to control.

I find it easier to trust God for help in the major, crisis-like things, yet in the day to day stuff...I give little thought to the level of trust I give Him...because much of what I achieve appears to come from my hand.

Trust is easy as a philosophical consideration, but much more difficult to make a day to day practical application.

Trust: It is something that we often take for granted, never really thinking about it. (unless it comes to money...)
If we dwell on it, I think trust frightens some of us.
But I need to ask, do you need more of it in your life?
If yes, where or in whom will you place your trust?

I LOVE MY JOB!

Over the past couple of weeks I've had the opportunity to enjoy some great times with our students at Bethel Church. And I've come to the conclusion...again...that we have some amazing teenagers who are a part of our student ministry.
For those of you who know me, I'm not an overly excitable person.
I'm pretty low-key and relaxed. However, there are a few things that bring the emotion out in me and one of those things is seeing students grow and transform as their relationship with God progresses and matures.
I've had the privilege of serving in youth ministry for the past 18 years, (and counting...), and over that period of time, Kathy and I have had the honor of serving with some incredible people.
The common thread, that weaves those of us who love youth ministry together, is that passion for students...to see them really get it! To see them grab on to God and really learn what it means to follow Him is what motivates and excites us.
I think that's why I've grabbed on to Rick Warren's words from the Catalyst conference in April...
"...we have to be about helping people move from a come and see approach to church, to a come and die devotion to Jesus Christ."
That's what our lives are to be about...transformation, and that's what has become my mission and passion, now more than ever, seeing students move from a state of ambivalence toward God to a place of complete and utter surrender to Jesus Christ.
So, through all the challenges and triumphs over the years, all of the flat tires and broken down church vans, the near death experiences in church vans, the horrible camp food, did I mention the awful camp food? teaching middle schoolers about "metric-time" in Canada, miles and miles of amusement park pavement and roller coaster track, Lost luggage on missions trips, encounters with scary street people, 7 foot tall transvestites and crazy Rastafarians, broken limbs and busted out teeth of skaters, irate parents, teaching people the wonder and elation of surfing, fainting episodes at Creation festival due to dehydration, countless relationship dramas, the histrionics of middle school girls, over-flowing toilets, puke fests and bathroom breaks along the road, doing "the Mexican two step" because we couldn't resist the road side taco stand, near drowning experiences on the Deschutes, the miraculous healings, Holy Spirit baptisms, radical transformations of drug dealing teenagers, party people learning to "party" with Jesus, athletes seeing there's more to life than what they can achieve on the field of play, bookworms coming out of their shells and discovering their gifts and purpose, kids really getting it and getting fired up enough to reach their entire campus for Christ, students grasping a mentality of service instead of consumption and discovering what it really means to love one another...man, I LOVE MY JOB!
And I'm looking forward to the start of the school year, where we can really ramp up the call, to move students from a come and see approach to church, to a come and die devotion to Jesus Christ!