Francis Chan

Here is a great article I encourage EVERYONE to read.  It is such an amazing look at what it means to be a Christian, and what a great way to preceede my next blog about being a worshipper(currently working on).  Please take the time to read this article and let it challenge you.  Francis Chan is one of my personal favorite speakers, but let this short writing challenge you, change you, and make you a “better Christ.”  Check it out here.  Stay tuned for my next blog: “painting worship.”

College.Church.&.Thoughts

So I have been in a certain college in KY since yesterday, and have had the prievelage to skip the power outage back home (Madisonville, KY check it out it is pretty crazy) and spend time with some friends all the while staying warm. Although I go to Community College back home, I have always wondered what it would be like to go to a larger college or university. My experience has surely been a great one and I have enjoyed it fairly well.   I am currently sitting at a coffee shop, watching the snow fall, and they played some Coldplay this morning!  And of course I have come away some thoughts already after one night of staying. Here they are:

-The grass isn’t always greener. Although this is a very large campus and close to 20,000 students attend here, it all seems to boil down to the same thing, like back in Madisonville, spending time with friends. The great American-teenage past time.  The time spent with friends can’t be traded and I certainly have enjoyed it.

-College Church. The thought there are so many churches around this campus kills me. My friends told me about some of the Christian affiliate programs on the campus and we drew the conclusion that with all the people that attend each of them put together wouldn’t equal 10% of the student population. That is startling. I wonder how empty the churches are around here. There is so much potential of free thinkers here to be changed. There is so much opportunity for a pseudo-church to be established on campuses everywhere but for some reason, college town churches seem to build buildings instead of infiltrating the colleges themselves. Just saying. I’m not trying to shoot off from my mouth, I just see so much potential for a positive change here. There are tribes here, but with the right leadership they could know Christ.

-Refreshment. It is refreshing to see people, young people, that like to wrestle. That don’t take everything sitting down, but want to poke, prod, and test: beliefs, ideas, and those things supposed as “truths.” Anytime people are searching or are honest with not knowing “it all,” that is refreshing.

Grace and Peace.

>>The.Winds.of.Change.r.a.blowin

>>Hello.  As I looked at the stats for my blog, honestly, I saw that they were pretty low for the past few days.  I then thought to myself “wow I need to blog.”  But in another attempt to stay authentic; I really need to come clean.  Lately, my blog has turned into a leadership frenzy, and although I have tried to put out quality posts and posts that really mattered to me, I have decided to play by the original rules.  I hope everyone that has been reading has enjoyed the posts.  I hope they have been insightful, challenging, and encouraging, but don’t be surprised when I deviate from the leadership stuff.  Oh, and I may not post everyday either.  Quality over quantity.

Thanks everyone so much for your support and following my blog.  I hope it becomes and stays a source of challenge and inspiration to your life.  It brings me joy that some how others can connect and share in these ideas and experiences.  God bless.

>>Oh.Ye.Commoners

>>Hallo everyone.  Just wanted to share a quote with everyone that I picked up somewhere along in life.  The quote goes, “God must love common people.  I mean, since he made so many of them.”   This quote is so true.  Maybe that’s why throughout the entire scripture we find these Joe Nobodies making a difference and changing the world.  In one book we find a young boy who had been watching sheep, defeat his country’s greatest threat and delievering his people.  In another story we find a king’s servant who wants to rebuild a wall, and resurrects his nation from the building of the burnt city wall.  Also, we find in one portion of scripture where one guy is talking about Jesus (the most contreversial and world changing figure of all time) and how He is the messiah, and the person listening says, “How can any good thing come from Nazareth?”  Jesus’ home town was so common that someone missed the memo about God using ordinary people, doing ordinary things, and living in ordinary places.

So when you lead ordinary people, or you feel ordinary/common yourself, remember: people thought nothing good could come from an ordinary town and from a seemingly ordinary person.  But something did, and it changed the course of human history.  With this conclusion we come to understand that it isn’t about, “Can I?”  It is about, “What can I do?”