Better Days...

For our first Greek IMPACT of the semester I put together a preview video of what to expect this semester. It was something that was clearly perculating somewhere in the back of my mind because when it came to me (obviously not until late the Wednesday before our first Monday) it came with a flurry. What didn't come, though, was the song. What song would perfectly fit the vision of where we want to go this semester?

Now you would thing this would be an easy question, except for 2 caveats - I am so committed to making everything we do in GI be both Scripturally sound (as in Jesus-based) and culturally relevant (also Jesus-based). So that automatically disqualified about 100 80's, Mellencamp, and contemporary Christian songs that might have fit. The other great problem that arose was my increasing unfamiliarity with what 'cool' music is nowadays.

But then it came to me - a fresh song from one of my all-time favorites. And thus - Better Days by the Goo Goo Dolls became the song. Of course, God in his abundant preparation had been planting this song on my heart for about 4 months, but despite my many Google searches and minutes spent flipping through the music selector at Barnes & Noble - I could never figure out what in the heck the song was that ended 'cause tonight's the night the world begins again.'

God is good, and it all came together in just about 8 short hours on a Saturday morning. So why do I share this story? Good question.

Because truly this entry is not about the song, or even about the video (although it is online at www.greekimpact.net if you care to see it!). No, this entry is about these words, and immediately how they impact the next 7 days of my life.

And you ask me what I want this year. And I'll try to make this kind and clear. Just a chance that maybe we'll find better days.

I can't tell you how easy it is to get caught up in the 'business' of life, of ministry, of relationships, and forget to think about what I really want for them.

I see the next 7 days as critical in my life and ministry development.

This weekend more than 35 Carolina Greeks will head to Wrightsville Beach for Greek Getaway. We've never had more than like 23 so the logistics of the travel, the 5 beachhouses and all that go with it could be enough to obsess over for weeks. But what do I want from the weekend: I want students to have an experience with Jesus at the beach - away from the social & academic pressures of Chapel Hill - that will propel them in their faith development this semester. I want it to be unlike any retreat they have ever been on because they were met by Jesus in the midst of their rest - not because they inhaled more information.

And next week I get to do the one non-campus-ministry-related thing that I do each year - go to the Catalyst Conference in Atlanta. 10,000 'next generation leaders' hearing from some of the greatest Christian minds in our modern society (Stanley, Maxwell, Giglio, Stott, Buckingham, Peterson - to name a few). Sure I'll pull some great ministry tidbits from these ministry giants - but what I truly want from that time is for my soul to be nourished and fed by the music, the community and work of God in my heart as I step back from campus and life and sit in his presence in the Atlanta Gwinett Center.

So what do I want this year - or more specifically this week? I want that we would all experience the refreshing presence of Jesus anew, or maybe even for the first time.....

Growth

This may be a little too 'administirial' for my reflections, but it's what I was thinking today, so....

It dawned on me after Greek IMPACT last night why so many churches, small groups, youth groups and college ministries struggle with growth. Why so many of them DON'T grow, and are content with remaining the same size they've always been. For the first time this year at GI - I don't know a good number of the folks that are coming in our door every week. We are regularly seeing between 45-60 folks at our meetings this year and with a good number of them being freshmen and sophomores it's just hard to do.

It's wierd, though, walking around 'your' meeting for 'your' organization and not knowing your audience (perhaps part of our problem is indeed that we think its 'ours'...). In fact, I can see how it would be intimidating and unfulfilling for people at times. Afterall, if we are honest with ourselves, isn't there something deep inside us (or right at the surface for many I fear) that wants to have a 'Cheers'-type ministry" "where everybody knows your name. And you're always glad you came"? At the heart of it, isn't this the problem?

Now some would say this is not a problem. Of course you want to be somewhere were everyone knows everyone and we all feel comfortable and challenged by one another. Of course I'd love it if Dave and Dusty and Kristen and Cassie and the other 10 or so seniors who graduated could come back and I could feel comfortable having a bunch of people I know and love around to affirm me and challenge me and love me.

BUT I think this is where we go seriously wrong. This is where we miss the gospel all together. And, I believe, this is where we kill the idea of religion or faith for anyone on the outside who would have any desire to see what God is up to.

It's like we live in the Acts 2:42-46:

They devoted themselves to the apostles teaching and to the fellowship, to the breaking of break and to prayer....All the believers were together and had everything in common....Every day they continued to meet together in the temple courts. They broke bread in their homes and ate together....

But we forget to read Acts 2:47:

And the Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved.

We love the idea of the disciples and how close they were to each other, but we forget about the thousands that they in turn led and spent time with.

We love the fact that Jesus tells us in the Great Commission that he is 'with you always,' but forget that he first told us to 'go into the world and preach the good news.'

In order to truly understand and live the gospel, I believe that our ministry groups, our small groups, our friendship groups and our churches HAVE to grow. We HAVE to be ok with growth, in fact I'd go as far as to say we are abusing the grace and the community God has given us if we DON'T play an active role in growing those places of our lives.
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Ok, off the soap box for today. Got the laptop back today - but they didn't bother to fix it at all. So it's going back to Dell (shocking) for actual repair this time. At least they knocked a hundred bucks off the thing.....

Serenity, etc...

So I did it again. I have somehow now managed to break my laptop twice in the span of 3 months after having gone 9 months without damaging this one, 3 years for the one prior and 2 years for my 1st one. What it is about my beloved Dell I shall never know, but hopefully once it returns to me from the soon-to-be-$500-richer-Dell Depot with a new LCD and a new motherboard I shall have no more problems. Little tip for those of you doting around with leather bags - treat the leather. My leather strap snapped 2 weeks ago thus sending my bag and my laptop plummeting to the brick floor of the UNC pit. And no for all you neo-nazi's out there - a Mac couldn't withstand that punishment either!

Anyway - the point to this random diatribe is indeed the subject of the day - serenity. It's amazing the added peace I have found while sans laptop. For the last 10 days now I have been soley reliant on my Treo, my pad of paper and whatever files I remembered to copy to my flash drive to get me through the day. As a result I have spent less time on the Web and more time getting done what is immediately in front of me. There is a certain serenity in a return to the days where we didn't NEED to be in the know all the time. I actually go several days now without knowing if the Braves won a game or not (they haven't). It takes me a day or so to know whether my fantasy teams are winning or not (they aren't). I have seemingly lost control of the news intake, fantasy player selection, instant e-mail respondage, and other things that used to compete (and typically win) for my thoughts and attention in my non-meeting time.

I wonder if perhaps that wonderful guy named God - all knowing - might have had something to do with this? I wonder if perhaps there isn't a joy in serenity. A joy in not knowing what is going on all the time, and being ok with that. A joy in reading a book printed on paper, reading the newspaper, talking on the telephone - those things that are so easy to neglect in our wired culture.

I wonder if I didn't have to lose my laptop to recover a part of myself that had been sorely missing.

At our Greek IMPACT meeting on Monday I defined LOST as it relates to faith and also to general culture. I proposed 9 definitions that dictionary.com listed for the word 'lost' and asked students to place themselves in one of them. Initially I placed myself squarely in definition 3 - having gone astray or missed the way; bewildered as to place, direction, etc - because I LOVE to get lost and then find my way out. Or at least I did as a kid (another one of those things that if I actually took the time to get in a position where I could lose myself in the wildernes I might actually enjoy it).

Upon further reflection, however, a more accurate portrayl of where I often find myself might have been definition #8 - preoccupied; rapt - as that hits right at the heart of every obsessive, overindulgent, workaholic tendancy that often prevades my life.

So perhaps this time of serenity - of relative peace without the Dellie - will teach me a little something about moving out of the lostness of preoccupation to a place that appreciates the moment and appreciates finding or recovering those places in life that information overload often pushes out.

What are the places in your life that you have lost the serenity that you used to cherish? Where are the areas that you have lost yourself and need the bigger work of the Lord to help you recover?

Impulse...

It's been awhile (if anyone reads this), I'm sorry!

As I was hanging out in the Indianapolis airport two weeks ago waiting for a flight that was inevitably delayed an hour, I came across the most interesting impulse buy perhaps EVER. Now I admit, I'm a sucker for the impulse buy -my senior year of college I spent my tax refund check 3 different times before it ever came, one of those times an impulsive purchase of a $300 palm pilot back in the early days of palm piloting. I often get suckered into the soda or the candy bar in the checkout line, and let me loose anywhere near a bookstore and impulse damage is sure to ensue.

But as I strolled through the Northwest terminal I came across the most fascinating vending machine ever. Not only can you now buy stamps, sodas, snickers and other sundry items in a vending machine, but at least in the Indy airport you can stop off and buy an IPOD.

I kid you not, right there on the concourse in a vending machine you could choose between the IPOD video, IPOD mini, IPOD nano and a variety of IPOD accessories, all for the impulse price of anwhere between $19.99 and $599.

As I stood there and checked out this fascinating site, I wondered who in their right mind would buy an IPOD out of a vending machine. As I continued to ponder this, however, I realized that in fact I given the right financial circumstances (ie not being married to a wife obsessed with lowering some college consumer debt the size of Ghana's GDP) would gladly put my Discover Card into said vending machine and get on my flight with a brand new IPOD nano. Shoot, for another $12 or so I could even charge it up at one of the many fee-based charging stations that airports now have. (And thus is the attitude that allowed me to accumulate a Ghana-esque tab while in college)

This whole line of thought really got me thinking about this idea of impulse, though.

Why do we spend so much of our lives living and acting on impulse? Why do I get temporarily 'down' and impulsively spend $4.36 on a venti vanilla latte - like that will somehow perk me back up again? Why do I impulsively spend $25 on a new spy thriller when were I a little more patient I could check it out of the UNC library for free?

Why don't these same impulses drive our relationship with the one constant in our life - Jesus?

In fact, if you're anything like me, you often find that these very impulses overtake that one relationship that we should be cultivating the most. I wake up in the morning, knowing that I want (and need) to spend time with the Lord. But impulsively I jump on the laptop to see if I got any 'must read' e-mails. An hour later I have read and replied to e-mails, impulsively checked ESPN, MSNBC, Scout.com and myriad other sites, and now I'm running late so I don't have time to spend with the Lord. I'd do it later, but some other impulsive thing comes up - like porch time with the friends, a tv show that we want to watch (because we can't DVR it and watch it later), or more e-mails that 'must' be responded to.

Oh that we would find a way to live life to the FULL, while also not always living our life purely out of our impulses. People think that Paul of the Bible is crazy when in Romans he goes on this diatribe of:

"what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do......Now if I do what I do not want to do, it is no longer I who do it, but it is sin living in me that does it."
(Romans 7:15-21)

You know what I think he is - NORMAL, just like you and I as we battle what we know we should do with the everday impulses that pop into our lives. Or at least I hope so!

So my goal this week is to reign in the impulses a little bit. The laptop is back in the shop (screen broke this time - oh the agony of it all), Kim is out of town for 48 hours, and I have so much work to do that I can barely see over it. Sounds like a great week to stick to a schedule doesn't it? Also sounds like a great week for the devil of impulsiveness to totally mess it all up!