I have been doing some thinking and as some of you know that can be dangerous sometimes. I have been reading through the Old Testament and I have read some interesting things. It is not that I have never read them before but I am just seeing them in a different way and to be honest I have a TON of questions. So many times when I would ask in college or when I ask other staff people here at Calvary what was meant by this or that in the OT people just respond with the generic answer, “That is the old covenant. Jesus is the new covenant.” Ok, I understand that. But at what point do we stop dismissing things in the Old Testament as Old Covenant and embrace them as Truth for today? Where do we draw the line on passages that should be preached from the OT and passages that are just great history lessons? What happens when people want to preach things like Leviticus 19:28 and we say it’s Old Covenant but when someone preaches Psalm 45:11 it sounds beautiful?

Trust me, I am not a heretic, nor do I believe what is talked about in Leviticus 19:28 tells us not to get tatoos in our world today. Not just that, there are so many passages that are tough to understand. What about Leviticus 19:27 where it says, “Do not cut the hair at the sides of your head or clip off the edges of your beard.” Really? If we are going to preach vs28 then we need to preach vs27, right? So what about Leviticus 20:18? What do we do with things like that. I am not trying to be gross or graphic but I mean if we are going to preach through Isaiah and Psalms and Genesis and Proverbs don’t we need to preach through the whole thing? Listen to me, I am just asking these questions ’cause I want to get it right. I’m not asking because I think that we should still make sacrifices (I understand that Jesus was our sacrifice, once and for all) or that we should make all the burnt offerings (our lives should be lived as an offering with a pleasing aroma to Christ). I just need some feedback.

So here is the deal. All of you OT scholars I need you to leave some comments. Please help me understand where we start and where we stop in preaching the OT. I will say it again so not to be called a heretic: I love the OT, I read the OT, I preach the OT, but I just want to know how far to take it. Leave me some info and maybe we can further our discussion about this topic. Thanks in advance for everybody who reads this and decides to comment on it. If you are confused about this issue leave your questions here so maybe they can be answered too. Thanks ya’ll!!

So this will be the coolest post you have ever read about the number 50. Before I waste anymore time I will jump right in. Wayyy back in October I started setting some goals. I had been reading some leadership stuff and it was like you will never get anywhere if you are not aiming for something, goals will help you work harder, etc etc etc. So I was like ok, I will set some goals, some being for attendance and stuff and then others being for salvations. Anyways, I felt the number 50 (salvations) being impressed on my heart and initially I was like absolutely NOT. Oh yeah, to throw a twist in there my goal was by February 1st. I tried reasoning with God and tried to tell him that the number was too high but he wasn’t having anything to do with it. God was like 50 or bust, so I was like 50 or bust. So I began praying. I have a huge white board that I plan on and write goals on and stuff like that so I began to log the progress of the goals on that board. The number went from 12 to 28 then to like 31 and then one night it jumped to 42 and I was like ok, what is going on here. I am in a youth ministry of around 100 students and we have seen 42 students accept Christ (all but 16 of which have been directly through the Student Ministries at Calvary…the other 16 were at an FCA event). 42…put em’ on the boarrddddd YES (whitesox fans will know what I am talking about). By this time, needless to say, God was blowin’ my flippin’ mind!!! He is so incredible. So here is the crux of the story. Our Winter Retreat was January 30th, 31st, and February 1st. Derik Idol was the speaker. The number was still sitting at 42. In the back of my mind I was thinking, “It was a good run at 50, i’m glad I set a goal that would make us be so dependent on God.” I was in for an awakening! Little did I know, God was bout to drop a BOMB! On the 31st, saturday night, at our Winter Retreat Derik gave a message on taking a stand for Christ. He challenged all the followers of Christ to continue to take a stand for Christ and then he turned it into a salvation message, which Derik has a way of doing with every message (he’s gonna have to teach me that tecnique cause its sick). Anyways, he gave the challenge and we didn’t really get a count of people that accepted Christ that night, until the next morning. Derik threw down a challenge for those that had accepted Christ to continue with baptism and then he was finished. He kind of walked away and then he walked back to the front and said, “If you accepted Christ last night I want you to come write your name on this paper so that I can pray for you by name.” I thought that was pretty awesome. To get to the point, after all was said and done, 8 students accepted Christ on Saturday Night!!!! Saturday Night was January 31st(that’s before February folks)!!! That means 42 + 8 is 50 and God had made our goal a reality!!! God was like pray for it, seek it, fulfill your end of the bargain, and I WILL MAKE IT HAPPEN!!!!! God is so awesome guys, do we even take the time to realize it?!?!? Seriously, as you are reading this post does it even excite you that 50 people have gone from spending eternity IN HELL to spending eternity with THE CREATOR, GOD and his son Jesus Christ!!! If not, you need to check up and see where you’re at because if that don’t fire you up then your wood is flippin’ soaked!!!!!!!! I just want to say THANK YOU for all those who pray for Sherry and I on a regular basis, because you have a huge part in this ministry. God is blowin’ Delware up!!!

Ok, so January was the busiest but most productive month of ministry so far here at Calvary.  We went through a series called New Years Revolution where we looked at what it would take to see a revolution started right here, right now.  We talked about having the Hands, Feet, Mouth, and Mind of Christ.  We camped out in Matthew for the month of January and took a look at Jesus’ life because he was/is the greatest revolutionary!  In January we took part in a community clean up and had the opportunity to serve at two different homeless shelters.  It’s incredible to see students being a part of something that is bigger than themselves.

Designed by my bro, @jasonwagner

• On the week of the 18th and 21st of January we saw our biggest attendance since I have been here.  At Traffic, our high school ministry, we had 42 students and at Fuel, our middle school ministry we had 60.  We had the opportunity to speak the truth to 102 students in one week.  Dude, that blows my flippin’ mind.  Praise God!  We’re not looking back either.  Our ministry is continuing to grow and lives are continuing to be changed (more on that in a second).

• On January 23rd, we launched our new site at the church and it is off the hook.  Check it out here.  Or, just type in CalvaryWesleyan.org since the link is being stupid. We have the ability to change everything right from our church and I can update it and change templates on any of the student pages.  Oh yeah, if you visit the site I apologize for no pictures yet.  It’s been busy up here.
• January 24th we did a fundraiser (I hate fundraisers…ha!) but it was actually fun.  We went bowling!  From 2-5 a local bowling alley gave us ALL of the the lanes.  Yes, I said ALL.  Anyways, we had about 70 people show up from the church and it was pretty cool.  It was $15 for shoes and all you could bowl and they gave us half of that for EVERY bowler.  We made around $850 in 3 hours and all I did was bowl with my students.  It was a good trade off, I bowl 3 hours and we make $850.  I’ll take it!
• Lastly, but definitely not least was our Winter Retreat from January 30th – February 1st.  We went to Denton Wesleyan Camp which is in Maryland but its only about 15 minutes away.  I had more fun than I could have ever imagined.  Dude, we saw some incredible things happen that weekend.  Josh Dawalt led worship, my brother played lead guitar, Joe Sprowl played drums, and Chuck Craft played bass.  It was awesome.  They practiced for about 4 hours on friday and it all came together.  They led us in a weekend of Fee, Hillsong , and Charlie Hall.  They had it bumpin’ in there.  On Friday night we had a band come play and they were INTENSE!  Oh yeah, Derik Idol brought the word and he punched the students right in the neck-face and challenged the crap out of em’.  We saw 8 students give their lives to Christ for the first time and tons of others were challenged to take a stand for Christ EVERYDAY! 

Well, thats been my past month.  I hope I get to blog more regularly in the near future.  It is a fun time of reflecting and putting my thoughts into words! Kinda like a sort of therapy…

Yesterday I talked about the  opportunity that I have to coach an indoor soccer team.  The other day we had our first game and we got beat pretty bad. 11-2 bad. Yeah, it was our first game and half of the players are from one school and the other half are from another.  So that is the long story short when it comes to our game.  I brought two things away from the game that apply to our everyday lives and I believe they could be a valuable lesson learned. Tomorrow I will try to share how these apply to the Church.  But here are my lessons learned for today…

#1 Our team was letting the ball come to them instead of attacking the ball. 

In ministry I see this so much.  I see people that let things come to them instead of attacking things and being aggressive.  A lot of Christians live most of their lives being reactive instead of proactive.  Examples…Instead of asking for accountability for the addiction to pornography we allow it to grow into a sleeping monster and one day it is exposed.  Instead of keeping a date night every week with our spouse we sit back and wonder why our spouse wants a divorce when we have shown him/her no attention.  Couples don’t read Scripture together, pray together, or talk about Spiritual things together until it is nearly too late.  Christians fall into habits that they don’t like: drinking, smoking, drugs, greed, pre-marital sex, selfishness, etc.. because they are just letting life come to them.  So many times in life we just let life come to us instead of attacking it and taking a proactive approach.  If we continue this cycle much of life will pass us by and we will wish we had years of our life back so we could try it again.  DON”T LET LIFE JUST COME TO YOU, ATTACK IT AND DO SOMETHING!!  We need to be active because The Kingdom is at stake!  There is much more to lose than just a few years of our lives, people are dying and going to hell every day!  Let’s be aggressive!

#2 Our team had a lack of communication 

Oh my, I don’t even know where to start.  Since we have players from two different schools it was difficult to get on the same page.  There was NO communication and it caused atleast 4 or 5 missed opportunities and 4 or 5 goals to be scored on us.  Again, this happens so much in our everyday lives.  When I lived with Davey most of our arguments or frustrations stemmed from a lack of communication.  When I look at mine and Sherry’s relationship 99% of our arguments come from lack of communication, I admit mostly on my part.  In life, this is something that we ALL struggle with.  We all need to communicate more.  We all need to share our feelings  more.  We all need to confront more.  It is just a fact of life.  That doesn’t mean we have to be OK with a lack of communication, we just need to work on it. 

My challenge to you guys is how can we make this better in our lives?  What are the steps we need to take to live an Aggressive Christian life?  What are the steps we need to take to live a life with better communication?

My new title is…coach.  Yeah, it is a little weird.  I know you are probably thinking what kind of team plays baseball during this part of the year.  Well, that”s the even funnier part.  It’s not a baseball team, its an indoor soccer team.  Yes, I did play soccer for 3 years in high school.  Anyways, I am so JACKED about this team and I will tell you why.  About a month ago I was at an indoor soccer game for one of my students and it was awesome!  Guys were getting checked into the wall.  Players were taking rips on goalies from like 3 yards away.  It is an extremely intense game.  So later that week I was approached by one of our students with the idea of starting an indoor soccer team with guys from our youth group.  Naturally I started thinking if it would fit, the logistics, the cost, etc..  It all came together.  Keith, one of my all-star leaders decided he would pay the 800 and some bucks it cost to register the team and it was on!  There was only one catch.  There was ABSOLUTELY NO WAY I was going to coach an indoor soccer team just for the sake of coaching an indoor soccer team.  So we started to talk about it as a chance for sports ministry and that is what we did!  4 of my guys (actually 3 guys and 1 girl) found 7 guys to come and play with us who don’t attend our youth group and most don’t attend church at all.  So every Saturday night for the next 10 weeks I will be coaching, but I will be coaching with a purpose.  My students have a chance to meet them on their turf (ha!) just like John the Baptist did in Matthew 3.  It says in The Message that his message was simple and austere (uncompromising) just like his desert surroundings.  Folks, that is what we have to do if we are going to see lives changed.  We have to meet people WHERE THEY ARE!!    I saw it happen all the way through college on the Southern Wesleyan University Baseball team.  We met people where they were and lives were changed (and are still being changed)!   That is what I love about my church.  We are meeting people where they are.  If they are hurting, we are comforting them.  If they are lost, we are loving on them.  If they are addicted, we are celebrating recoveries.  If they are homeless, we are giving them a chance to get on their feet.  If they are nominal Christians, we are doing all we can to light a fire under their rear ends! Whoooooooooo!  This is going to be an awesome year!!!!

Check in tomorrow to see what I learned in our first game…of course it was about life and not about soccer.

It seems there has been a lot of hype lately about Lecrae.  I know that a lot of people have been listening to him for a while but I have hopped on the bandwagon here recently.  Honestly, the hype is legit.  He is one of the best rappers I have ever heard, Christian or Not.  The dude is unbelievable, he speaks more Truth in a four minute song  than most pastors are able to speak in their whole career(ok maybe not but he does cram a lot into 4 minutes).  It amazes me how he uses so much Scripture and even is able to quote the reference.  That’s pretty impressive to me.  Davey Blackburn did a post on him recently and there has been a lot of Twitter traffic about Lecrae lately as well.  I was talking to one of my students the other day and he said his favorite song was Indwelling Sin.  I admit, it is not my favorite song on the CD (Go Hard is…) but it is an incredible song.  If you have the time listen to the song.  Click Here. While you are listening here are the lyrics:

SIN: Aye look what’s good fam it’s me again. The one you used to call your friend. I know you aint forgot me?

CRAE: Oh yeah you always get me caught in sin.

SIN: Here you go with that again. You act like we aint cool or sumthin. Lets go smoke a Kool or sumthin. Talk and sip a brew or sumthin.

CRAE: Naw man I aint trusting you/ Aint nothing but lust in you/ Thanks be to God I obeyed the teaching I was entrusted to/ cause when you pass by you just want ya boy to backslide/ Have me feeling sick like I’m coming down off a crack high/

SIN: Man that’s a flat lie/ you act like I’m the bad guy/ you know when me and you get together we have a grand time/ lets take it back. All the way to like the 6th grade/ last thing on your mind back in the day was trying to live saved/ remember house parties, kissing in the dark?/ man that was innocent fun come on…

CRAE: NOW don’t start/ See dawg I live by the Spirit so I don’t gratify/ all them old sinful desires that never satsify/

SIN: Aye come on KILL THAT!/ Look me in my face and tell me I’m a lie/ You aint feeling chasing women, getting drunk, and getting high, stacking money, staying fly, living up the playas life, we was having fun now gone try to be religious guy

CRAE: Aye Yo man first of all LOWER YOUR VOICE! Who you talkin’ to?/ Handcuffed in August ’02 I got caught with you/ Truck flipped over on 35 that was all from you/ I’ll mess around and lose my life man tryna walk in you/ I’m standing on these stages and got these people believing me/ what I look like trying ta gratify this disease in me/

SIN: So Now I’m a disease? Man please. I got yo back dawg/ I aint saying drop the Jesus and be a rap star/ All Im saying is when it’s you and me lets be real folk/ We aint gotta be selling drugs and tryna kill folk/ Maybe just a lil…

CRAE: What? A lil this, a lil that, a lil BET late at night, that’s like a lil crack, see you aint gone lie to me/ I see how you be tryna be/ BET tonight becomes addiction to pornography/ and that’s in no way honoring the God who’s ruling sovereignly/

SIN: Man you know you miss them old days

CRAE: Yeah you right possibly/ But after that I sober up and think of Jesus holding up…his skin up on the cross for all them drunken nights I’m throwing up/ every thought of blowin up is captured in his flowing blood/ I start thinking Philippians 4:8 when you showing up/

SIN: You know I aint gone quit right?

CRAE: Yeah I know but I’m dead to you/ and one day I’ll be present with Jesus who died and bled from you/ Colossians 1:15 thats the God that I trust in/ the Father crushed Him/ In doing so he has crushed sin

I know the lyrics start when the actual song starts, but I think the most powerful part of the song is at the beginning when Lecrae is just going through everyday life. I think this is Nick’s favorite song because this is the struggle that we all have every single day. Maybe not the same exact issues, but we all have our struggles. The enemy is always trying to influence us to gratify our sinful nature. Unfortunately for all you youth pastors or people who are trying to influence the people around you (I think I just included ALL Christians) the one we are most often ministering to is the guy that is talking to Lecrae in the gas station. His direct quote is, “I got Jesus too, but Jesus and Hennesy go good together.” Wow, when I listened to that so many peoples faces went through my mind at the speed of light. That is why, as Christians, we need to show people what it means to love Jesus with all of our hearts, minds, souls, and strength. It’s not about just being a believer, its about being a follower of Jesus Christ! Man that part frustrates me because I know that SO MANY PEOPLE LIVE LIKE THAT AND THEY THINK THAT IS ALL THERE IS TO CHRISTIANITY!!!!! God didn’t come to JUST save us(thank God He did) but He has come to SET US FREE and crush sin!

Hope everybody has an awesome day!

I am pretty excited because me and Rodney (my right hand man when it comes to construction) have completed the stage in the youth room.  I am super pumped about it because it adds so much to the room.  Early next week I will be posting pictures!  I hope everybody has an awesome Saturday!!

Lately I have been doing a lot of thinking about perspective.  It all started when I was talking to Derik Idol about what he might speak on at Winter Retreat and one of the things he mentioned was perspective.  Soon after that many different examples of perspective flooded my thought flow, like when I was laying in bed freezing and Sherry said she was hot or when I was sitting in the caf with some students and they were complaining about the “slop” when people are starving to death everyday or me not being satisfied with my 93 Integra that has over 200,000 miles when I am in the richest 1% for even driving a car, so I decided to put my thoughts into a blog. 

When I think of perspective I think of how cool it is that we can all think as individuals, have our own opinions, voice our own criticism, and just see things from our vantage point.  Perspective is defined by dictionary.com as being the state of one’s ideas, the facts known to one. That is so true (obviously) because sometimes our perspective is shaped by the facts that we know. Ok, lets make this a little more personal so you have an idea of what I am talking about.  The Sunday before Christmas I walked to my office to find a big frame in wrapping paper.  I picked it up, imagined it being some awesome picture that Picasso painted so I tore into it.  When the paper was off I saw a picture and it was anything but Picasso.  Lets just say it was “average” at best.  It was a pencil sketch of Jesus with the Serenity Prayer hand written at the bottom.  I was like uhhhh is this supposed to hang somewhere that people can see.  Uhh, no.  So this is where the whole perspective thing kicks in.  I didn’t think about it much the rest of that day or Monday on my day off but on Tuesday I found out the whole story.  I was sitting in staff meeting and we begin to talk about our (yes the whole staff got a drawing) drawings of Jesus.  That is when my Senior Pastor dropped the bomb we shall call Perspective.  I found out it was from an 80 something year old lady who had suffered from a stroke.  Before her stroke she was an artist that painted and drew very beautiful pieces.  Her doctor told her it would be good therapy to draw again and she refused, knowing that her work wouldn’t be as high quality as it had been before.  After refusing, her daughter told her that the staff at Calvary wanted drawings for Christmas (which was probably a lie because I never told Santa that).   So wiith that request this 80 something year old lady who had suffered from a stroke drew my picture of Jesus and hand wrote the Serenity Prayer.  Needless to say my perspective was totally changed.  My heart was completely broken!  My “average” drawing is now a masterpiece that I will probably keep with me through all my years of ministry.  It is beautiful now that I know the story.

So I guess my question to you is this: What do you need a change of perspective on in your life?

A little bit after I got done eavesdropping on the General Manager and a Barista (soon to be Shift Manager) five high school students walk in.  I wish I would have had a video camera or at least a voice recorder because the conversation that ensued was priceless.  They talked about everything from Sarah’s new hairstyle to Jesus Christ Superstar.  Yeah, it was interesting to say the least.

Then the conversation took a turn.  I would say that these 5 students were probably Christians because the content of their conversation was clean and they brought up a topic in which they seemed to have a lot of discontent.  The question that they asked was, “Why can’t Christians make good shows, good work, good movies, good _________(you fill in the blank).”  To me it was a legitimate question.  There are so many times when I am listening to XM32 “The Message” and I just want to throw up because at least half of the Christian music is HORRIBLE, HORID, AWFUL, PAINFUL, and so many other adjectives that I don’t know what else to say.  So I listened in to see what their take on it was.  The crazy thing is, they see it the same way I do. 

Some of their statements were that Christians are…

• Way too serious
• 2nd rate actors, singers, filmakers, etc, etc, etc… (ouch)
• Always trying to get across a message
• Usually acting nice because they have alterior motives

Those are just a few, but they are definitely enough to know that there is an issue here.  So my question is…what are we offering to Christ?  Are we giving Him our best?  Are we doing all that we can do or are we just giving people only what they expect.  Sometimes I find myself slacking in doing the creative thing or doing the outside of the box thing or not giving excellence because I feel like my students aren’t necesarily looking for it.  Yeah right!  Who am I kidding?!?!  These are the same students that walk out of a movie theater and critique a production that someone spent millions of dollars on and hundreds and hundreds of hours and I expect them to give me mercy?!?!  Really?!?!  These are the same students who listen to a Daughtry song or Lil’ Wayne and say man that song sucks.  Really?!?! I expect them to give me mercy?!?!   No.  They expect excellence.  They see it everyday, whether it is TV, on the radio, on YouTube, or countless other places.  Maybe, just maybe the sad truth is that they have seen average and below average work for so long in the church that they don’t really expect anything cool, creative, intriguing, different, or outside the box to be shown in the church.  Ouch!!

So my question is what are we giving God?  Are we too serious?  Are we giving Him second rate crap or are we digging deep and giving Him everything we got!  We need to spend and be spent in His ministry.  I promise, if you are tired He will fill you up.  He will not let you run empty! Please, all 8 people that read my blog, be serious about God’s work.  Let’s give Him ALL WE GOT!