Changing the Unchangable...

I want to share with you a story about a student that I spent a lot of time getting to know while on our our recent trip. I have received his permission to share with you, so I hope his story can give you a little hope with similar situations...

Going into this week, I noticed many students on the trip who have been doing this whole Christian thing, but even more interesting to me, a few who have not. When I first met my friend Paul, he was very open to learning new things... but that is all this week was. It was going to be a learning opportunity for him to learn more about the Christian Religion, so that he could look at all of the religions from an outside point of view, then go from there...

To make things even more interesting to me, in a random lottery, Paul ended up in my D-Group (small group) for the trip. From the get go Paul challenged every fact and idea that came his way, and very intellectually rebuked or looked at it from different angles. Many times Christians are scared to death of people like this. They are afraid they won't be able to answer their questions the right way, or know all of the information they need to meet the needs of someone like that.

I still remember this quote that Paul said to me and my Co-Leader the second day of conference. "I didn't feel anything, even thought all of the other kids were very emotionally moved by the worship and the message... I don't really expect to either" and basically got to the point that he was here to learn.

The cool thing about him being in our D-Group is that he was having his needs met in two ways. My Co-Leader was Damian who throughout the whole ordeal kept challenging Paul to let down his guard, and allow himself to be emotionally moved by what the Spirit was doing in the room and on his heart. And on the contrary, I was able to help Paul with his very challenging Theological questions about the faith. I would not have been able to had it not been for going to Bible College, and really having some incredible professors challenge me to ask those same questions. So as you can see, it is no accident that the incredible needs of this student could be met in this group.

I remember on one night, their was an activity in worship that challenged everyone in the room to allow the Spirit to lead them to do different things. Maybe it was to post a prayer on these big boards. Maybe it was to pray, or to read the Bible. But in this particular moment I felt moved to write Paul a note that simply said "Don't stop God from doing to you what He's trying to do". Paul later on said thank you, but was still not open at all.

As the week went on... Things changed.

When God is working on your heart, no matter how realistic, no matter how intellectual and no matter how closed to conversion someone can be, God can still do his work. As the days went on, and the questions got harder and God worked even more on his heart, I could tell that he was already not the same man.

On the last day Damo and I had the opportunity to just sit down on a bench and to talk to him alone. We asked him how he was, and what questions he had. He shared some unbelievable stuff, and asked some really hard questions. We helped guide him the best we could, and answered his questions the best we could. We layed our hands on him and prayed... and sent him away with the challenge to pray his whole way back to the dorms. I knew from the second he left when I looked over to Damo and he had tears in his eyes that God had taken hold of his heart.

We had figured out that Paul had a new Mission. Paul's new mission was to change Christianity as it is today. To get past the legalistic and occasionally hate-driven faith and take us back to our core... Jesus Christ, and the love he challenges us to share.

Shortly after, I had received word that Paul had decided to hand his life over to God, and be baptized.

Very shortly after me and Damo baptized him at the very creek, in the very spot that I was baptized only a few years ago.

I hope all of you can learn from this that no one is "unsavable". If you invest enough love into someone, they will eventually be able to see God. It doesn't take yelling or convincing. Just guiding.

I also challenge all of you. I would not have been able to help Paul nearly as much if I had not been equipped to do so. I challenge you to ask yourself... are you equipped for todays Pauls? 2 Timothy 3:16-17 says, "16All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, 17 so that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work." When you really have to defend your faith... are you equipped?

Through this ordeal the Kingdom is a stronger and better kingdom. I look forward to a long lasting mentorship and friendship with Christianity's newest weapon.

Passionate Teens... Why I do what I do...

Throughout my recent trip to Johnson City, Tennessee there are a few main reasons why I couldn't help but think about how far I have come, and why I do what I do. It's kind of cool how that particular college has quite a bit of history with me. It's where I first decided to hand my life over to God. The next year it was where I first decided to go into full time ministry... and that is what i want to talk about now. When at CIY this year now as an interim youth pastor, I got to see why I made the decision in the first place. The one word to describe the reason is... Passion. I got to see students giving all of their energy and emotion into worship, prayer, and helping other kids in the group. If even 1/10th of that passion could be harnessed for the kingdom. This youth group... This Church... This Town... Well they would be changed for the good forever.

So I captured just a little clip from this week of the passion that drives me every single day...

On the road again...

So I am currently in Johnson City, Tennessee for Christ in Youth's MOVE conference. For those of you who don't know I actually started this blog because of my internship last year with C.I.Y. throwing these same conferences. That is actually where my blog is going to begin tonight. It has been really exciting see a bunch of friends that I had toured with last year just randomly down here, but at the same it has been equally as difficult. It has honestly been hard for me to be down here, and to not be directly involved in making the conferences happen. Perhaps I have some kind of weird control issues, or maybe I just genuinely miss the job. I have been talking to my girlfriend Melissa several times about just missing the impact that CIY has on teens, and the possibility of being involved with large conference planning sometime in the future. I think it's a really cool thing. Anywho, at the least it has gotten me very excited for our middle school conference Stretch. I look forward to going into full steam plan mode when I get home. Hope to blog again before the trip home. Peace.

Dangerous Wonder... I GET IT!

So last week I decided to step a little out of the norm, take a short break from work and have a nice 3 day adventure trekking the Appalachian Trail. Ever since trekking in Fiji it has just been something I have found so exhilarating. So me and my last roomate from Eastern, Bryan Jones, not to be confused with my senior pastor Brian Jones, hit the trails late Thursday night at the Pennsylvania-Maryland border.

I found very quickly that hiking at night can potentially be a very BAD idea...

Even with our snazzy head lamps we could hardly see. The blazes on the trail were somewhat faded, and there were trees knocked down all over the trail from a very large storm that they got in that area a few days prior. About 2 miles down the trail we ran into a down tree, and began the difficult task of searching for where the path continued on the opposite side. After about 10 minutes of searching, we had still not found the path, and decided if we should make the executive decision to hike back down to the Jeep, and drive to our next checkpoint.

Finally the decision was made to head back... HOWEVER, we quickly realized that we had gone back down the mountain a different way than we had come up, and we had run right into the REAL Appalachian Trail, which was NOT the one we were hiking on... If we would have continued we would have hiked all night to nowhere. We had eventually gotten to a spot where we laid down our tents and continued the next day.

The next day was just... Hard...

We hiked basically uphill for about 8 hours that day... When we finally reached our checkpoint 15 miles later we were absolutely exhausted. We were sore, our legs felt like Jello, and man were we excited to find a shelter. They have these shelters along the AT for hikers to hang out, and not have to set up a tent. So we set up camp, took showers in the freezing spring, and cooked a nice freeze dried dinner. Shortly after we set up camp we were greeted by two separate groups. The first was a man in his mid 40's named Gene, and the next group was two women in their mid-40's as well.

Our time spent with these people was so much fun, we laughed, we gave advice about the trail that was ahead of us the next day, we shared our food, we talked about our home lives and what has lead us to be in the middle of nowhere that very night. We had just met these three people, but it felt like I've known them all my life by the time we parted ways the next day. At the very end of our stay with them, the topic came up of what I do for a living. We told them we are youth ministry majors and and work at churches, and they told us immediately that they were Christians as well. It was an incredible experience.

The last day was spent doing a lot of downhill, we also got to jump in the Potomac river, and lastly have a huge "ManBurger" immediately following our 45 mile journey. It's moments like that where I just feel so... alive... It's what I live for... It's what I write about. Heck, if even one person can get a little look inside a reckless life for Christ by reading this rambling, than I will be one happy man.

So what I learned:

1 ) - Even when it is dark in your life, and you are a little scared and not quite sure where you are going, doesn't mean that you should ever give up the adventurous attitude. With a true, genuine faith in Jesus Christ, you will come to find that the woods will end eventually... A clearing will come...

2 ) - If you want something bad enough... You will have to WORK YOUR (fill in the blank) off to get it... the reward will follow. Sometimes when life seems to be all uphill, you have to work really hard to get up it, but when you do... there isn't a better feeling. Working hard is definately a big part of the dangerous wonderer's life.

3 ) - Sometimes being Religious can really get in the way of being Spiritual. Right after meeting our friends in the shelter on the trail, I immediately had this weird feeling that this is what Acts 4 is like:

³²All the believers were one in heart and mind. No one claimed that any of his possessions was his own, but they shared everything they had. ³³With great power the apostles continued to testify to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus, and much grace was upon them all. ³⁴There were no needy persons among them. For from time to time those who owned lands or houses sold them, brought the money from the sales ³⁵and put it at the apostles' feet, and it was distributed to anyone as he had need.


I now work at a church, and this time I got to spend seeing the world as God created it, and not necessarily knowing what was coming next was probably the closest I have felt with Got in months. Don't ever let Religion get in the way of your faith. Continue fighting to learn more, and to do what truly makes you feel alive. God has given us the feeling of happiness to be used abundantly... go live in harms way... go down paths you may be unfamiliar with... Dangerous Wonder... I get it...