This Week's Shameful Article About Christians

Read THIS and weep. Well, at least I did.

Individual Earthquakes

I have just recently moved to a new state and a new ministry and have been completely swamped with time, but I have been reading a lot and thought this was a great article from TheOoze.com . Enjoy!

Individual Earthquakes

A World Of One Hundred People

If we could shrink the Earth's almost six billion population to a village of one hundred people, the resulting profile would look like this:

Fifty-seven Asians, twenty-one Europeans, fourteen North and South Americans, and eight Africans.

Seventy would be nonwhite.

Seventy would be non-Christian.

Fifty percent of the entire world's wealth would be in the hands of six people.

All six people would be citizens of the United States.

Seventy would be unable to read.

Fifty would suffer from malnutrition.

Eighty would live in substandard housing.

Only one would have a college education.


We Americans focus way too much on our "right" to be a Christian nation (although in my book, that's a silly term and cause) and forget our responsibility to the rest of the world to distribute wealth, goods and services equally.

Cinematic by Cool Hand Luke

The other night I had a dream
It unfolded to the silver screen
A tragic fire, some tears were shed
I woke to find our hero dead
And wondered, "What if this was me?"

If my life was cinematic
With a soundtrack so dramatic
You'd be the hero and You would save me
And it would have the sweetest ending

I want to live in such a way
That when I'm gone my friends would say
That if my life was turned to Him
I'd be standing on a mountain shouting victory in the end
But in my heart I know it's only true
If I'm supporting actor and the Oscar goes to You

If my life was cinematic
With a soundtrack so dramatic
You'd be the hero and You would save me
And it would have the sweetest ending

I don't want to let You down
I want to make You proud
If anyone is watching me
I want to make it count for something

What if it ended here?
What if the credits rolled now?
What would the critics say?
Would it be the biggest let down?

If my life was cinematic
With a soundtrack so dramatic
You'd be the hero and You would save me
And it would have the sweetest ending

I want to make You proud

No matter how carefully I try to put the puzzle of my past and present together, I am always cut by the sharp edges.

The Power Of...None?

I used to think one person could make a difference. I remember seeing the movie "The Power of One" several times in the theater when I was in college. The great thing about college (if you had a little bit of spending money) is that if you like a movie, you can always find someone - a roommate, the guy down the hall, the girl you've been wanting to ask out - who hasn't seen it. That's how I saw Groundhog Day eleven times in the theater, I swear on my auntie's undies.

Anyways, there is a scene in The Power Of One where the grown up "P.K." comes to an amazingly beautiful waterfall and reflects for awhile. Afterwards, we see him back at school, talking to the headmaster (played by the incredibly talented late Sir John Gielgud), asking him if they could start a Saturday school for the townships of South Africa. The headmaster says "There would only be 12 or so of them teaching. What kind of difference would that make?" P.K. then says "A waterfall begins with only one drop of water, sir. Look what comes from that."

I remember my early ministry years - bright-eyed, filled with aspirations and dreams of making a difference in the lives of teenagers. Those were fun years - all-nighters, sumer trips, broomball, watching kids make spiritual commitments, all that jazz.

I look at those same eyes in the mirror today. The sun has bleached the area around my gas permeable contact lenses (the lenses are smaller than most contacts) into a hazel-green hue; the area covered by the contacts are still the original brown. But in those eyes I see defeat. I see bitterness. I see dreams unfulfilled, expectations unmet. I see disapproval by angry parents, I see harsh words by cruel church-goers, I see someone who has been beaten down by many things church-related..

My first real recollection of a sense of awareness that something is wrong with the church is when I was a youth pastor in Dallas, TX. I had just moved my wife and I from my hometown, where I had been a youth minister at my home church for six and a half years. We had some disagreements with a new staff member who was given far more power than he should have received and thus was making it difficult on other staff members.

At the new church in Dallas, the youth pastor was scheduled to do the invocation at least once a month. The first Sunday I was scheduled, I prayed from my heart, out of my excitement at being somewhere new, somewhere fresh, somewhere different. That week, I got an e-mail from someone in the church who had counted the number of times I said "Lord" (I think 8 times) and the word "just" (I think 10 times) in my prayer and wondered if I would be a better "invocator" if I prepared what I was going to say in advance.

I had some dabbling with an uneasiness at church before: I remember singing strange songs at church camp, trying to match the exuberance and fervor on my fellow campers' faces and failing miserably. Every year at camp there was a talent show at the end, and one year each "family group" had to come up with some kind of skit or act for the show. Our family group decided to do a marionette skit, where we would memorize a long passage of Scripture, and each marionette, sitting on another person, would spout out their part of the passage. I screwed around all week long and didn't memorize my part, so at the talent show - when it came to my part at the end - my partner and I decided to do a short comedy sketch about me forgetting the last part of the Scripture. Everyone thought it was funny except for my family group leader, who took me aside afterwards and asked me if I thought Jesus was laughing at my rebellion.

I remember the anger on my stepfather's face at my home church one Sunday. My mom had been struggling with lymphoma for a few years. Her chemotherapy had made her hair fall out, so she would wear a wig to church every Sunday. One weekend she decided she had enough with the wigs and threw them out. At church that Sunday, I looked around me and saw the stares and glances - the same glances I see people make when they are uncomfortable around people in wheelchairs or who have prosthetic limbs, and my heart ached for my mom. My stepfather was so angry at the reaction of people around us that he and my mom proudly walked out at the end of service - and never attended another church service again.

This year marks my tenth anniversary of being a full-time paid minister. These last ten years have been marked by many lows and many highs. However, the last few years I've struggled with wondering if I would be more fruitful and more fulfilled if I worked at a regular place of employment and used my gifts as a volunteer in a local church. But the last year has also seen me drift away from the idea of the typical American church model driven by individualism and consumerism. I certainly haven't given up on God, I just don't think church the way it's done in today's times - keeping its feet firmly planted in modernity - is a cause worthy of my investment anymore.

Can one person make a difference? I think he can - outside of the trappings of the modern church. The problem with church people is not so much sin or evil - it's just that the devil makes us so busy with doing church activities that we don't really do anything for God and for His mission. Anyway, I'm starting to ramble, so I will stop for now.

Lottery Scams And One More Thought About Church Marketing (But I Wouldn't Count Out More Thoughts In The Future...)

Today, in the mail, I got lucky.

It was actually supposed to be yesterday (today is Sunday but I didn't check the mail yesterday), but I got lucky today.

I got a letter in the mail that told me a lottery ticket that I didn't purchase was the winning lottery ticket in the El Gordo Sweepstake Lottery Program, and I won $615,810.00. Woo Hoo!

However, before you all try to get ahold of me and pretend you're my best friend and all, there's something I need to tell you.

It's a hoax.

Yeah, I knew it right away, but just to make sure, I checked out snopes.com, and sure enough, it was one of the many lottery hoaxes that are known to dupe and cheat people all over the world. I hate scams. I feel sorry for those who get taken in by these scams, but it happens all the time.

Sometimes I feel like I'm a scam artist in the church.

When we market the church, we of course are trying to present the church in the best light, as the perfect place for someone to come, get plugged in, make friends, get closer to God, and become a super holy Christian. Unfortunately, in my experiences, those kind of things happen to church people few and far between. Most of the time, there is a select group of people within the church who might have started the church or knew the right people and all, and they are the ones who are really benefiting from being at church. The rest of the people attending go each week, hoping that whatever was promised to them at first will come to fruition, but will most likely leave disappointed each week.

Just like a lottery scam. A letter from a scam artist presents the situation in a perfect light and promises great things to happen if you take part in what's going on. However, when you read into it and research, you find out that they really just wanted your money and didn't care about you at all in the first place.

Sound familiar?

My family and I went today to church. We went to a church nearby our house that is a huge megaplexchurch thing. They had almost 12,000 people on Easter Sunday (and Saturday evening - which I always think is kind of funny that people celebrate Easter on Saturday night - what does the service look like? "Well folks, Jesus is still in the tomb as of right now, so we're just going to sit here and wait until tomorrow. Thanks for coming.") The thing I dislike about this certain church is that they are the best marketers of their church that I have ever seen. Slick promotional materials, billboards, concerts, website design and all - but when you actually go to a service and look beyond the showy worship, the flashy preacher, the Starbucks inside the church building, the free Krispy Kreme donuts, the guest speaker who I guess won the T.V. show "The Apprentice", and more - you realize that it's all just a facade. There is no depth. Of course, I'm basing this on three visits to this particular church and numerous conversations with people from my former church who started attending after they realized what this huge church was all about - nothing.

Church marketing sucks. A church is naturally attractive to unchurched people when its people are living authentic Christ-like lives on display in front of them. When that happens, you don't need artificial means to get people to come to the church and then sock 'em with Jesus - they've experienced Jesus already in the lives of people who love Him and love others.

Which reminds me, I'd like to invite you to a new church that I've founded. I've decided to call it El Gordo Church of the Lottery Christ. Want a donut?

A Gamecock Is Better Than Two Wildcats

I'm not the biggest basketball fan, but I do enjoy the time around the NCAA men's tournament, affectionately known as March Madness. Of course, the tournament goes into the beginning of April, so what do you call the part in April? April Agitation? April Acrimony? April Acerbity?

Anyway, three games particularly came to my attention - two of them were in the NCAA tournament, the other one was actually in the "we're not good enough to be in the NCAA tournament" NIT. Let's talk about the two NCAA games first.

The first game was Arizona vs. Illinois in an Elite Eight matchup. Arizona is my favorite college basketball team; I of course was rooting for them. Amazingly and stupidly, Arizona gave up a fifteen point lead with four minutes to go, and Illinois sent it to overtime. Illinois was ahead and Arizona had the chance to take the last shot. They called timeout, worked out a play that I'm sure they practiced a hundred times, and then went down the court with a few seconds left and didn't get a good shot off at all. Stoudemire clanked one, and the game was over. Illinois won. I was pissed.

The second NCAA game was again a team called the Wildcats, this time it was Kentucky vs. Michigan State. Once again the game went into overtime, and once again the team behind called a timeout, set up a play that they had practiced a million times, went out on the court and again didn't get a good shot off at all. Michigan State wins the game.

Contrast this with what happened in the NIT championship game, featuring St. Joseph versus the Gamecocks of South Carolina. With ten seconds left, St. Joseph ties it on a three pointer. Rather than calling a timeout, rather than setting up a play, rather than stopping momentum in order to think out a solution in order to win the game, the Gamecocks coach let the game continue and allowed his players to improvise. What happens? A three pointer at the buzzer to win the game and the tournament. I must have replayed the last thirty seconds of that game with my Tivo about thirty times.

What's the point of all this? Well, it's my second example of bad marketing in the church. My point is that sometimes churches spend all their time coming up with strategy, purpose, vision, direction, goals, directives, etc. in order to then do something for the sake of the Kingdom, when I believe God is calling us to take action now. I mean, it's good to have all that stuff, but in the churches I've been a part of, it seems like doing all of the background work ends up taking all of the staff and elders' time; time that could have spent actually running the church and meeting new people and fulfilling God's purpose for their church. They act more like the two Wildcat teams who had to strategize the "final shot" and act less like the Gamecocks, who actually made the final shot.

Another example of marketing gone wrong in the church.

Pitfall Harry and the Marketing of Church

I used to love the game Pitfall back in the good old Atari 2600 days. Of course, my family had the Sears version of the Atari 2600, which meant that some of the cartridges worked, others pretended to work but usually ended up just turning the TV screen odd and unusual colors.

Thankfully, Pitfall was one that worked. I played that game almost as much as I played Defender (I'm proud to tell you that I reached 900,000 on Defender once. I played it for six hours straight and I swear I still have the groove in the palm of my hand from that old black joystick with the one red button). Unfortunately, as opposed to my obvious genius at playing Defender, I was never really good at Pitfall. But heck if I didn't try.

One of the areas in Pitfall where Pitfall Harry usually died for me was the part where you had to jump on and over three crocodiles in a pond. You couldn't just jump over them quickly all at once, you had to jump on each one of their heads, wait for their mouths to open and close, and then jump to the next one. I was always a little confused as to where my little Pitfall Harry should stand on the crocodile. If he went too far one way, he went into the drink. If he was too far the other way, into the crocodile's mouth he would go. It was a constant tension, trying to find that right spot.

This brings me to the subject at hand, as you see in the title above - church marketing. On one hand, marketing is important in the church - developing a logo, an identity, a website, some t-shirts, etc. You can make a pretty good case that every church needs some kind of marketing; otherwise, who in the community even knows that the church is around? At my former church, we needed to have signs with our logo, service times and location; otherwise no one would know where we were meeting and when. This area of marketing would be what I call the "Pitfall Pond". If you don't have some of these marketing concepts within your church, you will get lost in the pond of church anonymity. (Of course you could make the point that the best marketing tool for the church in getting your name out should be your people; very true but usually highly unlikely. Most "church people" don't know any unchurched people outside of their work relationships, especially if they've been involved in church for more than a few years.)

On the other hand, I believe marketing is dangerous. I believe we can get so focused on marketing, that it ruins God's design for what He wants the church to be. We can get so caught up in imitating corporate and business marketing methods that we fail to truly live out our calling as a church. This area of marketing would be what I call the "Crocodile's Mouth". If we focus all of our attention on this, we will get chewed up and spit out.

Let me give you a couple examples of the latter area of marketing. The first one I will cover in this post; the second one will follow in the next post. The first example would be the "Purpose-Driven" model. Most people would agree that Saddleback's model for church growth and health is an effective marketing and vision-directing tool for a church. I am one of those few (I think there aren't many of us) who would disagree. Perhaps if a church takes a couple of concepts they learned at the conferences that they paid big bucks for, they may be okay. The problem is that most churches just try to copy exactly what Saddleback has done in their own community, with their own people, in their own culture and geography and style. I know of churches who basically just copied Saddleback's purpose statement, the "going around the bases" process diamond, and whatever else they could pillage and steal. The great thing about just copying something at a conference is that you don't have to put any hard work or prayer into it. You don't have to seek God to see what He is calling your church to be in your community. All you have to do is churn out a purpose statement with the five 'M''s: magnification, maturity, multiplication, membership and ministry.

The problem is that vision and purpose statements most likely reflect a marketing statement of what the church wishes they were. Rather than Saddleback's mission statement, perhaps a more honest statement would be something like: "At So-and-So Community Church, we want to build the biggest building in the state, manage a multi, multi, multi-million dollar church budget, build a parking lot bigger than the one at Mall of America, and get our senior pastor to publish a book so that he can become a household name and bring in even more people."

Here's a mission statement for a church that someone has written that I would actually like to see a church have:

At So-and-So Community Church, we are a church that is trying to overcome our differences and inadequacies to somehow reach the lost in our community because we are honestly concerned about their eternal destiny but we're not really sure how to do it and we often fail to show Christ's love...but we really do love Christ and the lost.

How do we find the right spot between the crocodile's mouth and the pitfall pond? I think it's different for each church. And I think it takes a lot of prayer to know exactly what kind of marketing and how much marketing a church should strive to have (or not have).

Next time: the second example

Love Is Not A Commodity

I'm reading Blue Like Jazz by Donald Miller for the third time. I bought it a couple of months ago, perhaps three and I just can't stop reading it over and over. This book, along with several others I have read lately have become almost something like investigative journalism to me. These books investigate my own soul and show me what I've been feeling and thinking about for the last several years, especially when it comes to the church and my role in it.

Anyway, I've been struggling lately again over the whole situation with my former church. Struggling may be too soft of a word. The bitterness burns deep.

I guess the thing that bothers me the most about this situation is that ever since I left this church, I haven't received one phone call. Not one. I have made some phone calls, and I appreciate (I guess) the kind words that people have said to me in those conversations, but yet not one person has called to see how I am doing or how my family is. It's like once we left the church staff, we ceased to exist as living, breathing human beings.

It's been quite some time now.

Anyway, reading is always a cathartic exercise for me, and so I was relieved recently to read towards the end of Blue Like Jazz a section about one of the differences that Miller finds between Christian and non-Christian groups. He uses his own life experiences to compare these two groups; growing up as a Christian he obviously has a large case study of what they do; and he compares those experiences with the experience he had for a month, living in the woods with some non-Christian hippies. His conclusion is that he felt more accepted, more loved by the hippies than by any Christian group that he has encountered or experienced.

An excerpt:

And that's when it hit me like so much epiphany getting dislodged from my arteries. The problem with Christian culture is we think of love as a commodity. We use it like money...I could see it very clearly. If somebody is doing something for us, offering us something, be it gifts, time, popularity, or what have you, we feel they have value, we feel they are worth something to us, and perhaps, we feel they are priceless. I could see it so clearly, and I could feel it in the pages of my life. This was the thing that had smelled rotten all these years.

Love is not supposed to be a commodity. I have felt the opposite for awhile now. I feel that when I was on staff at church, when I was leading worship or putting together a video announcement or developing a graphic for the bulletin or participating in a staff meeting or leading a small group - only then did I really have value in the eyes of the Christians at church. Once those responsibilities were gone, once I no longer had any of those things to offer, I no longer had any value in their eyes - and to prove it, no one has even decided to do something as small as check up on me, to make sure that I'm even still alive.

My wife works at a "secular" place of employment, and everyone there knows of our situation. We have received calls and e-mails and notes of encouragement from non-Christians hoping for the best and checking in to make sure everything's okay or to see what the latest development is in my quest for a new ministry. Everyone at her work has been very supportive. I do know that when I do become involved in a church again, I will go out of my way to make sure that I do not allow love to become a commodity in the way I treat others - whether they be staff members, church members, seekers, or someone else.

America #1?

Here is a great article about whether America is really #1, as we Americans like to think it is. The only point that I would argue with is the area of health care. The writer of this article seems to think it's a shame that we don't have socialized health care or something. I understand his/her point (they are making the point that everyone but us and South Africa among developed nations provide some kind of health care to all of its citizens), but I would rather see something different than socialized medicine.

Anyway, here's the article:

America No. 1?

America by the numbers

by Michael Ventura

02/03/05 "ICH" - - No concept lies more firmly embedded in our national character than the notion that the USA is "No. 1," "the greatest." Our broadcast media are, in essence, continuous advertisements for the brand name "America Is No. 1." Any office seeker saying otherwise would be committing political suicide. In fact, anyone saying otherwise will be labeled "un-American." We're an "empire," ain't we? Sure we are. An empire without a manufacturing base. An empire that must borrow $2 billion a day from its competitors in order to function. Yet the delusion is ineradicable. We're No. 1. Well...this is the country you really live in:

• The United States is 49th in the world in literacy (the New York Times, Dec. 12, 2004).
• The United States ranked 28th out of 40 countries in mathematical literacy (NYT, Dec. 12, 2004).
• Twenty percent of Americans think the sun orbits the earth. Seventeen percent believe the earth revolves around the sun once a day (The Week, Jan. 7, 2005).
• "The International Adult Literacy Survey...found that Americans with less than nine years of education 'score worse than virtually all of the other countries'" (Jeremy Rifkin's superbly documented book The European Dream: How Europe's Vision of the Future Is Quietly Eclipsing the American Dream, p.78).
• Our workers are so ignorant and lack so many basic skills that American businesses spend $30 billion a year on remedial training (NYT, Dec. 12, 2004). No wonder they relocate elsewhere!
• "The European Union leads the U.S. in...the number of science and engineering graduates; public research and development (R&D) expenditures; and new capital raised" (The European Dream, p.70).
• "Europe surpassed the United States in the mid-1990s as the largest producer of scientific literature" (The European Dream, p.70).
• Nevertheless, Congress cut funds to the National Science Foundation. The agency will issue 1,000 fewer research grants this year (NYT, Dec. 21, 2004).
• Foreign applications to U.S. grad schools declined 28 percent last year. Foreign student enrollment on all levels fell for the first time in three decades, but increased greatly in Europe and China. Last year Chinese grad-school graduates in the U.S. dropped 56 percent, Indians 51 percent, South Koreans 28 percent (NYT, Dec. 21, 2004). We're not the place to be anymore.
• The World Health Organization "ranked the countries of the world in terms of overall health performance, and the U.S. [was]...37th." In the fairness of health care, we're 54th. "The irony is that the United States spends more per capita for health care than any other nation in the world" (The European Dream, pp.79-80). Pay more, get lots, lots less.
• "The U.S. and South Africa are the only two developed countries in the world that do not provide health care for all their citizens" (The European Dream, p.80). Excuse me, but since when is South Africa a "developed" country? Anyway, that's the company we're keeping.
• Lack of health insurance coverage causes 18,000 unnecessary American deaths a year. (That's six times the number of people killed on 9/11.) (NYT, Jan. 12, 2005.)
• "U.S. childhood poverty now ranks 22nd, or second to last, among the developed nations. Only Mexico scores lower" (The European Dream, p.81). Been to Mexico lately? Does it look "developed" to you? Yet it's the only "developed" country to score lower in childhood poverty.
• Twelve million American families--more than 10 percent of all U.S. households--"continue to struggle, and not always successfully, to feed themselves." Families that "had members who actually went hungry at some point last year" numbered 3.9 million (NYT, Nov. 22, 2004).
• The United States is 41st in the world in infant mortality. Cuba scores higher (NYT, Jan. 12, 2005).
• Women are 70 percent more likely to die in childbirth in America than in Europe (NYT, Jan. 12, 2005).
• The leading cause of death of pregnant women in this country is murder (CNN, Dec. 14, 2004).
• "Of the 20 most developed countries in the world, the U.S. was dead last in the growth rate of total compensation to its workforce in the 1980s.... In the 1990s, the U.S. average compensation growth rate grew only slightly, at an annual rate of about 0.1 percent" (The European Dream, p.39). Yet Americans work longer hours per year than any other industrialized country, and get less vacation time.
• "Sixty-one of the 140 biggest companies on the Global Fortune 500 rankings are European, while only 50 are U.S. companies" (The European Dream, p.66). "In a recent survey of the world's 50 best companies, conducted by Global Finance, all but one were European" (The European Dream, p.69).
• "Fourteen of the 20 largest commercial banks in the world today are European.... In the chemical industry, the European company BASF is the world's leader, and three of the top six players are European. In engineering and construction, three of the top five companies are European.... The two others are Japanese. Not a single American engineering and construction company is included among the world's top nine competitors. In food and consumer products, Nestlé and Unilever, two European giants, rank first and second, respectively, in the world. In the food and drugstore retail trade, two European companies...are first and second, and European companies make up five of the top ten. Only four U.S. companies are on the list" (The European Dream, p.68).
• The United States has lost 1.3 million jobs to China in the last decade (CNN, Jan. 12, 2005).
• U.S. employers eliminated 1 million jobs in 2004 (The Week, Jan. 14, 2005).
• Three million six hundred thousand Americans ran out of unemployment insurance last year; 1.8 million--one in five--unemployed workers are jobless for more than six months (NYT, Jan. 9, 2005).
• Japan, China, Taiwan, and South Korea hold 40 percent of our government debt. (That's why we talk nice to them.) "By helping keep mortgage rates from rising, China has come to play an enormous and little-noticed role in sustaining the American housing boom" (NYT, Dec. 4, 2004). Read that twice. We owe our housing boom to China, because they want us to keep buying all that stuff they manufacture.
• Sometime in the next 10 years Brazil will probably pass the U.S. as the world's largest agricultural producer. Brazil is now the world's largest exporter of chickens, orange juice, sugar, coffee, and tobacco. Last year, Brazil passed the U.S. as the world's largest beef producer. (Hear that, you poor deluded cowboys?) As a result, while we bear record trade deficits, Brazil boasts a $30 billion trade surplus (NYT, Dec. 12, 2004).
• As of last June, the U.S. imported more food than it exported (NYT, Dec. 12, 2004).
• Bush: 62,027,582 votes. Kerry: 59,026,003 votes. Number of eligible voters who didn't show up: 79,279,000 (NYT, Dec. 26, 2004). That's more than a third. Way more. If more than a third of Iraqis don't show for their election, no country in the world will think that election legitimate.
• One-third of all U.S. children are born out of wedlock. One-half of all U.S. children will live in a one-parent house (CNN, Dec. 10, 2004).
• "Americans are now spending more money on gambling than on movies, videos, DVDs, music, and books combined" (The European Dream, p.28).
• "Nearly one out of four Americans [believe] that using violence to get what they want is acceptable" (The European Dream, p.32).
• Forty-three percent of Americans think torture is sometimes justified, according to a PEW Poll (Associated Press, Aug. 19, 2004).
• "Nearly 900,000 children were abused or neglected in 2002, the last year for which such data are available" (USA Today, Dec. 21, 2004).
• "The International Association of Chiefs of Police said that cuts by the [Bush] administration in federal aid to local police agencies have left the nation more vulnerable than ever" (USA Today, Nov. 17, 2004).

No. 1? In most important categories we're not even in the Top 10 anymore. Not even close.

The USA is "No. 1" in nothing but weaponry, consumer spending, debt, and delusion.

Reprinted from the Austin Chronicle. www.citypages.com/databank/26/1264/article12985.asp

St. Bono's Venture

If you know anything about me, you know that I love U2. My love for them started when my older stepbrother had the opportunity to see them in concert at Red Rocks Amphitheater in Colorado - yes, the same concert where parts of Live Under A Blood Red Sky was recorded, as well as the video for Sunday Bloody Sunday.

In the other blog I frequent, Geezerville USA, one of the members there commented on the lack of credible voices in Christendom today, and offered up Bono as perhaps the only one who we really can look to right now. Yes, Bono. I wholeheartedly agree with him. Here's a post from another journal I have concerning Bono, his mission, and what we should be doing:

There are a couple of comments that I just can't stand as a church staff member from members of the congregation.

#1, which will always be #1 in my mind, is some kind of derivative of "I really got a lot out of worship today."

But #2 is right behind #1. It's the statement that you often hear people say as they're leaving your church - "This church just isn't deep enough, and we want to go deeper."

Our staff talked about #2 this week as we are dealing with a couple of our members who are struggling with how "spiritually shallow" our congregation is. The youth minister said something which I'm still thinking about two days later: "You're never gonna go deeper in your faith than when you apply to your life what it says in the Bible."

If so, then U2's Bono is the deepest Christian I know.

Bono isn't just trying to get deeper into the Bible - he's living out what the Bible commands us to do.

'I tell you the truth, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me.'

He has founded an organization called DATA, which attempts to get countries to cancel debt that African countries owe, so that those countries can use their own money and resources to take care of their people rather than paying back countries who really don't need the money. (check out the website at www.datadata.org)

He has been involved in Operation Christmas Child, a program of Samaritan's Purse (Billy Graham's son Franklin is founder and president) that delivers Christmas shoeboxes to thousands of kids who usually never receive presents of any kind.

He has become the hands and feet of the AIDS epidemic in Africa, speaking at churches and in front of dignitaries around the world to inform them of the problem and to encourage them to show compassion to the African nations who are struggling under the weight of AIDS.

You may question his music, his interviews, his lifestyle - but never question this:

Bono is a saint.

A saint who is "walking as Jesus did".

And an example of a deep Christian.

Will St. Peter Be At The Gates, Or Will It Be John Waters?

I'm one of those people who roots for the underdog.

Which is one of the reasons why I was rooting for Sideways at the Academy Awards. Heck, I knew it had a snowball's chance in you know where of winning. Anyone who had a brain bigger than the size of a pea knew that either Million Dollar Baby or The Aviator was going to win the big prize of best picture. I have to confess I didn't see either of those movies. I did see Sideways, and I believe that it deserved to win.

And when the winner, Million Dollar Baby, was announced, I turned off the T.V. and realized that a lot of times, the underdog doesn't win. It really doesn't. The small guy usually has no chance of being on top at the end. That's what makes us like movies like Hoosiers - a true story of a little high school basketball team who won the state championship in Indiana.

I'm trying to be the small guy. The underdog. The one who seems to be last, but according to Jesus, will be first.

There's a book I love. It's a novel by a man named Reed Arvin, who was a close friend of Rich Mullins and who produced several of his albums. It's called A Wind In The Wheat. It's a story about a musician with an amazing gift from Rose Hill, Kansas. He uses his gift at a small church, as well as a convalescent hospital. Until he's discovered by a music producer from Nashville. Then his life takes a completely different turn and he makes a CD and becomes famous and gets signed by Atlantic Records and becomes this huge Christian and secular artist. I don't want to ruin the book for you, but he eventually bottoms out and realizes that he isn't called to be that big guy. He's called to be the little guy. At one point in the book, he talks to his manager, the guy who found him in the first place, and he talks about who he's thinking about the chair stackers in his church back in Rose Hill, and how these same guys would stack the chairs week after week, never getting any recognition, but yet serving in the small things. Basically, the underdogs. While you have the big dogs preaching and leading and being upfront and whatnot, every church needs the servants in the church, the ones who do the behind the scenes stuff, the ones who get no recognition.

I want to be one of those people. As a worship leader, and one who is recognized as being pretty successful, whatever that means, I'm beginning to realize more and more that I want to be the underdog. I want to be the one who's stacking chairs and who's behind the scenes and who is doing what Jesus has called us to do - to be the ones who serve - not for attention, not for fame or fortune or recognition or popularity, but who simply serve.

Sideways won pretty much every Spirit award possible. The Spirit awards are the Independent film awards that are given out the night before the Academy Awards. I have watched the Spirit awards ever since Memento picked up everything a few years ago from the Spirit Awards. The Spirit Awards are essentially the Underdog Awards.

My prayer is that when I exit this life and enter the next life, I will be awarded the Spirit Award, the underdog award - and not the Academy Award.

Spongebob, Tinky Winky, And Other Liberal Sinners

I know that the original story is a little old, but when I was leafing through Entertainment Weekly today, I saw a hilarious article on it.

If you haven't heard what happened a few months ago, I'm sorry to have to personally inform you. Both Dr. James Dobson and the American Family Association came out and lambasted Spongebob Squarepants because he was included in a video that promoted tolerance. This led Dobson and the AFA to declare that Spongebob was gay.

No, not gay as in stupid. Gay as in gay.

I'm not making this up. Really.

So, the Tony and Grammy award winning team of Marc Shaiman and Scott Wittman wrote a song about other cartoon characters and what might be wrong with them too. Unfortunately, it didn't make the Oscars, but it should have. I am giving you the song in its entirety because I'm beginning to despise Dobson's insistence in leaving his comfortable Christian area of promoting families and whatnot, and going into what should be for him the unfamiliar and awkward ground of Christianity marrying politics. Enjoy.

Pinocchio's had his nose done
Sleeping Beauty is popping pills
The Three Little Pigs ain't kosher
Betty Boop works Beverly Hills

Superman is on steroids
Tinky Winky is in the pink
Dammit to hell, wake up and smell
The stink beneath the ink!

Chip n' Dale both are strippers
Scrooge McDuck is really tight
Bugs Bunny is a sexaholic
And Snow White has been up all night!

There's something fishy 'bout Nemo
Batman and Robin share a sink
Winnie the Pooh, we know what he's into
The stink beneath the ink!

Fred Flintstone is dyslexic
Jessica Rabbit is really a man
Olive Oyl is anorexic
And Casper is in the Ku Klux Klan

Cinderella's into identity theft
Pocahontas is addicted to craps
Dumbo's an overeater
Josie and the Pussycats dance on laps

It's clear the Road Runner's hooked on speed
Charlie Brown is seeing a shrink
People of America, take a whiff
Smokey the Bear just lit a spliff!
Tom and Jerry are dating 'N Sync

Oh the stink...
Beneath the ink! (Don't blink)
The ink! (The kink!)
The stink beneath the ink!

And those of us who are trying to live out what Jesus is actually calling us to do just continue to hunch down, shrug our shoulders, and wish that moronic Christians would stop making it harder and harder for unchurched people to take us seriously.

How Lloyd The Overlook Hotel Bartender Got It Right - Which Is More Than Most Christians Can Say...

I like Stephen King books. I've probably read most of them - including Christine, It, Pet Semetary, the Dark Tower series, and a few of his short stories books. I'm not as passionate about King as one of my brothers. I believe he has all of his books and reads them over and over again.

There was one book of his I could never get through, however. That would be The Shining. It just plain freaked me out too much.

I'm one of those weird people that actually liked the miniseries better than the movie. Yeah, go ahead film snobs. Get mad at me. The miniseries was more true to the book (from what I read), and I'm not a big fan of the directing of Kubrick. Once again, go ahead and get mad at me. I liked the idea that the weapon of choice was a huge kick-ass croquet mallet, not an axe like in the movie. Anyone can get killed with an axe, but it takes someone special to get their head split open with a croquet mallet. It could also be the fact that my wife and I were in Estes Park, CO at the same time they were filming the miniseries. We didn't get to see anyone famous, but we did get to see them make fake snow.

Anyway, I was in Barnes and Noble today, hanging out, listening to the iPod and reading through some magazines, when I happened upon an interview in a music magazine. It was an interview of Joe Turkel. Now, that may not be a familiar name to you - but if you love the movie The Shining, you probably know that Joe Turkel played the part of Lloyd, the bartender of the Overlook Hotel. You know, the one that helps Jack Nicholson go bat-s**t insane. It's obviously been several years since the making of The Shining, so I decided to read the interview to see what has been happening in good ol' Joe's life since then. It was a good interview - it mostly focused on Joe's relationship with Stanley Kubrick. I guess Kubrick wasn't a real easy guy to get to know, but since Joe did three movies with Kubrick, he probably knew him as well as anyone.

At the end of the article, Joe was talking about Kubrick, and the last thing he said about him hit me like a ton of bricks. Seriously. I had to read it over and over again to make sure that what I read was what I read. He said this:

I once asked him, many years ago, "Stanley, are you religious?" And he just shook his hand at me in a dismissive fashion. I should have asked him then if he believed in God, which I didn't. I regret never having asked him that. There's a big difference between the two.

How did Lloyd the Bartender get it right, and we Christians get it wrong so often?

Religion is what creates crusades and inquisitions and indulgences. It is what creates the idea that if you aren't a Republican, you aren't a real Christian. It is why the old joke goes that Baptists don't allow foreplay because it could lead to dancing.

It's sad that the world views Christians as religious. As Don Miller states in Blue Like Jazz, "She couldn't believe that a girl this kind and accepting could subscribe to the same religion that generated the Crusades, funded the Republicans, or fathered religious television."

The difference between Christian religion and Christian spirituality - and great quotes from Blue Like Jazz for support:

1. Religion tries to explain everything about God; spirituality embraces the mystery of God.

In his book Orthodoxy, G.K. Chesterton says chess players go crazy, not poets. I think he is right. You'd go crazy trying to explain penguins. It's best just to watch them and be entertained. I don't think you can explain how Christian faith works either. It is a mystery. And I love this about Christian spirituality. It cannot be explained, and yet it is beautiful and true. It is something you feel, and it comes from the soul.

2. Religion gets us to focus on relatively meaningless things, mainly ourselves; spirituality gets us to focus on what God wants us to focus on, mainly others.

Satan, who I believe exists as much as I believe Jesus exists, wants us to believe meaningless things for meaningless reasons. Can you imagine if Christians actually believed that God was trying to rescue us from the pit of our own self-addiction? Can you imagine? Can you imagine what Americans would do if they understood that over half the world was living in poverty? Do you think they would change the way they live, the products they purchase, and the politicians they elect? If we believed the right things, the true things, there wouldn't be very many problems on earth.

3. Religion tells us we need to sell and market Jesus; spirituality tells us we need to be Jesus to those who are hurting, dying, suffering, lonely, addicted, AIDS-infected, cast out, and unloved.

I was a salesman for a while, and we were taught that you are supposed to point out all the benefits of a product when you are selling it. That is how I felt about some of the preachers I heard speak. They were always pointing out the benefits of Christian faith. That rubbed me wrong. It's not that there aren't benefits, there are, but did they have to talk about spirituality like it's a vaccum cleaner? I never felt like Jesus was a product. I wanted him to be a person.

Lloyd the bartender is right. Being religious and truly believing in God are two different things altogether. Thinking of this almost gets that awful scene of the blood flowing down the hall out of my head.

Mr. Slug, Evangelism Explosion, and You

As I'm writing this, I'm wearing my favorite shirt of all time. It's a white t-shirt on what you could call its last legs (there are holes starting to appear in several places), but I'll probably continue to wear it anyway. It's a shirt that I found when I was attending a convention as a youth pastor in Colorado. I have no idea what city I was in when I bought it or anything, but I remember walking over to the booth and this t-shirt immediately caught my eye.

On the shirt, there is a giant brown slug with two orange antennae. It now looks like a big piece of crap on my shirt, but I don't care. I will still wear it. There is writing on the t-shirt as well. It says, "Mr. Slug Likes Me", and underneath this announcement, it says, "Sometimes when I walk by a tree, I think, 'Does Mr. Slug like me?' Now I know. That makes me grin."

The last part I had to remember because it's so faded, you can't see the last two sentences. Underneath the giant slug/poop thing, it says "Meaningless Ministries, Inc.", and underneath that it says "Read Ecclesiastes." When I bought the shirt, I asked the guy selling it to me what the heck the bottom two lines really had to do with the rest of the shirt. He told me it was an evangelistic opportunity every time I wore the shirt. I sniffed the air around me to see if there was any hint of lingering marijuana use, and then asked him what the heck he was talking about.

He said something like this: "Well, the shirt is really meaningless, isn't it? So when someone comes up to you and asks what your shirt means, you can tell them that it's meaningless, but there's something in your life that has meaning, and that's your relationship with Jesus."

I like the shirt. But I really hated his explanation for what it meant. Even at the time I bought it. Which is very surprising. You see, I used to be one of those kind of people who read books like Contagious Christian and Out of the Salt Shaker and other books on evangelism, and Ithought that evangelism could be done with tracts or with a four point presentation, or with knocking on people's doors and stuff. I was told in college in a class that that stuff works, and it's stuff we should be doing as Christians. I don't think that way anymore. I don't think that way about anything Christ-related anymore. I don't think you can narrow down things that pertain to your life in Christ into a nice neat little package, or a three-point sermon, or a (God-forbid) process. I won't even get into the whole discipleship/growing deeper in your relationship with Christ/go around the bases and hit a home run for Jesus approach to life in Christ. That's another post for another time.

When I used to wear my Mr. Slug Likes Me t-shirt out of the house (I think I might get arrested with the way it looks now), every once in awhile someone would ask me what my t-shirt meant. I told them it meant nothing, that it was just a t-shirt with a giant slug on it. Usually the person would say, "Oh, that's cool. I thought you were wearing a shirt with a turd on it, and that would be really weird." We would never get to the part about the meaningful stuff in my life. I would just pay for my Milky Way and leave the Circle K.

To me, evangelism isn't a program. It isn't a process. It isn't something you can pin down and say that one method works for everyone. Evangelism is messy. It involves getting to know people and loving them and living out what Christ means to you in front of them, knowing that there may never be a time when they will ask you why you're different. There may never be a time when you will lead them to Christ (whatever that means). It just means being who God has called you to be. It doesn't mean to befriend people in order to make them Christians. That sucks and isn't very truthful. It's about loving people just because they are people, because God made them.

So, I'm sorry Mr. Slug. You may like me, which makes me grin. But I'm not going to use you as a way to con people into liking God. Maybe they'll start liking God if I get off my duff and start loving people and getting to know people and stepping out of my comfort zone and being who Jesus wants me to be. And maybe they won't. And that's okay.

MRI Really Stands For Morbid Resonating Images

I thought of this post as I was becoming very claustrophobic, laying in an MRI machine.

If you've never been in an MRI machine, let me share with you my experience.

First off, they make you take off anything remotely metallic - watches, rings, belts, etc.

Then you enter the MRI room, where you lay on a stretcher looking thing. They put a helmet that looks like it came from the set of Battlestar Galactica over your head, tell you to relax (yeah, right), give you some earplugs (the noise inside the machine is deafening), and then push you and the stretcher thing into the machine. When you enter the MRI machine, you are seriously an inch from the "ceiling". (I just close my eyes, practice some breathing techniques, and try not to think, "What happens if terrorists take over this building and no one knows I'm in here?") Then you hear a bunch of strange knocking type sounds, and then a constant deafening alarm sound.

Halfway through the procedure, at least in my case, they pull you out of the machine and inject you with a contrast agent that lights you up inside. When it enters your body, it feels really cold, and then there is a metallic taste in your mouth. Actually, this time, I felt nauseous, which I haven't since the first time I had an MRI (ten years ago). Then there is more banging, more noises, and then you're done.

It's old hat for me - I have to have an MRI every year. When I was 23, I started experiencing headaches, dehabilitating at times. I went to see a neurologist in November of 1993, and through a series of tests, CAT scans, and MRI scans, they finally told me on a Thursday in January of 1994 that I had a brain tumor, that they didn't know if it was malignant or benign, and that they had to do a biopsy the following Monday.

I had a weekend to prepare myself for possibly dying.

Talk about a crazy weekend.

We might all say as Christians that we are ready to die, that we don't fear death, but I think that's a load of bunk. I was, and still am, afraid of death. That entire weekend, death was all I thought about. I called some friends, I wrote out a will, and I prepared myself the best I could, but I was terrified. What was it going to be like? Would I survive? How would my family cope? Why did this have to happen before I got married and had kids? Was it better to die before I got married and had kids?

I survived. When they went in my head to do a biopsy, they discovered that it was benign, and so they extracted the tumor. I woke up, spent a couple of days in ICU, spent another week in the hospital, stayed a month with a church family while I recuperated, took my anti-seizure medicine (you have to take that kind of medicine whenever you operate on the brain), and things slowly turned back to normal.

Until two months later. When I started having headaches again. And more tests. And the doctor realizing that the tumor grew back again, although this time it was larger.

So the process began again - I had the surgery at the beginning of June, stayed in the hospital for a week, recuperated for a month in an apartment, and life turned back to normal again. Supposedly they got it all out this time.

But everytime I go to get my yearly MRI, the fears come back. What if they find something? What if they have to operate right away? Now I have a wife. Now I have a daughter. What if I die? What if something goes wrong? Have I provided well for my family? Do I need to write out another will?

And so, the fear of death continues. Although I am comforted by the words of Leonard Sweet:

"How long our genetic whirlpool will allow all these cells to talk to each other and work together is anyone's guess and God's surprise. But one day a particular system will break down. One day an organism will lose the struggle against a competing organism. Disease has functions as well as causes - the germ wins, the body dies.

For the disciple of Jesus, death has meaning for the body but not for the soul. The soul lives forever. We shall never die. 'Death, that old snakeskin,' writes poet Irene Zimmerman, 'lies discarded at the garden gate.'

So, what is death like? The best answer I've ever encountered came via popular culture. When a dying character in a popular TV show (I think it was Seventh Heaven) asked someone what death was like, that person gave a reply that keeps ringing doorbells to eternity in every cell of my body, mind and spirit.The respondent said death is like when you're a child and you get sick and feverish. You go to bed at night sweating, shivering, feeling wretched enough to die. The next morning you awake, your fever is broken, and you are feeling much better. You feel secure, snug and strong - and suddenly you realize why. You're now in your parents' bed. In the middle of the night someone came to get you to take you home."

I am still afraid. There is so much I want to do before I die. But each MRI test result that is negative brings me closer to trust, closer to fruition of my goals, and further from the fear of death. And, it helps me to seize each moment, and realize that it may be my last, so I better make it count.

525,600

525,600.

Why is that number important?

No, it's not the number of miles from earth to the moon. (382,500 km is the average distance.)

No, it's not the number of hairs on your head. (170,000 if you're a redhead, 185,000 if you're blond, and 200,000 if you're brunette or black-haired.)

No, it's not the number of insults that Calvinists have used for non-Calvinists. (That number is actually a little higher.)

If you've seen the musical Rent, you know the answer, because it's in its theme song.

It's the number of minutes that each of us have to live each year.

It's funny, because we as humans are so good at focusing on the broad picture. On January 1, we make our New Year resolutions, hoping that we will be able to change a certain part of our behavior/lifestyle by the end of the year. We fail.

It makes me wonder - instead of making yearly resolutions that are going to only make us frustrated and cause us to feel defeated, why don't we make minute resolutions?

"I resolve to change my behavior this minute."

That has a good ring to it, doesn't it?

Someone once said, "The quality of a godly life does not depend on its number of great happenings or big actions but on what happens in it one small moment after another. The soul is made up of an awful lot of moments and a lot of awful moments." There are some things we need to do if we are truly going to live moment by moment, minute by minute, hour by hour, day by day, week by week, month by month, and year by year in such a way that will honor God and work towards our goal of becoming like Christ.

(1) Magnetize Your Moments.

Make each moment holy, an offering to God. Someone said, "To make a moment is not to manufacture a moment or concoct a split-second spirituality. It is rather to identify a moment in such a way that it can become a consicous moment, an enjoyed moment, and an enduring moment that redounds to the glory of God." When a moment is magnetized by the Holy Spirit, it becomes whole, holy and eternal.

There are so many discoveries to be made in life. Use each moment to discover.

(2) Landmark Your Moments.

This is what I like to call "milepost your life". Mileposts are signs on the highway that tell you where you're at, where you've been, and where you're going. When you have a moment in your life, whether good or bad, that's worth remembering, landmark it. There is one day in your life that will be your best day. There will also be one day in your life that will be your worst day. Landmark both. You may change both down the road as well. It's good to have these mileposts in your life, because it reminds you of God's faithfulness in the good times, and it reminds you of your dependency on God in the bad times.

(3) Live Your Moments.

"So whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God." I love that verse. It reminds me that even in the mundane moments of life, i.e. eating and drinking, there is still an opportunity to glorify God.

So stop seizing the day or seizing the year.

Seize the moment - all 31,536,000 of them each year!

"How we spend our days is - of course - how we spend our lives."
Annie Dillard

Tell Me About Your Mother

I've been in ministry for over ten years now.

That's crazy. In some ways, it seems like it was just a couple of years ago, me being the "young pup", the "new guy", the "I graduated from bible college with a youth ministry degree, but I have no clue how to really minister in the real world" one. In other ways, I feel like Billy Graham - hanging around after years and years of doing what I love, seeing all of the things that have happened over the long period of time, and just asking God for a few more years of fruitfulness.

If I didn't leave my church last week, I would have celebrated my third anniversary as a worship minister in March. Before that, I was a youth minister - six and a half in Colorado, and a year and half in Dallas. I thought I was ready to make the "switch" from youth minister to adult minister four years ago. The associate minister at my church asked me to consider taking the position that was opening up that was in charge of the small group ministry and assimilation ministry (affectionately called "The Borg" ministry - "You will be assimilated.") I told him that I would take a couple of weeks to consider it. After three days, I told him I wasn't interested and that I wanted to still be youth minister. Although I really didn't tell him why, here were the top three reasons why at the time I decided I wasn't ready to leave youth ministry:

3. At the time, I still liked allnighters, week-long conferences and retreats. I look at them now and I thank God I don't have to do that anymore.

2. Adults scared me. The only adult contact I had in youth ministry was parents of teenagers. That was frightening. Well, I had some great adult leaders, but I figured they were "weird" like I was.

And the number one reason:

1. COUNSELING.

No matter what adult ministry position you end up taking, whether it be top dog (senior minister), loud dog (worship minister), mean dog (administrative minister), or whipped dog (Sunday School director), you will inevitably get looped into the counseling ministry of the church. Even if you end up avoiding having this task get put in your job description, there will always be a time when you're alone in the church office, trying to finish up something, and a lady will come in whose third husband is beating her and she doesn't know if she should leave him or not (To which I want to say, "Pack your bags, lady, get out of there now", but I know someone who said that, and an hour later her husband came back to the office with a gun. A big gun. Honestly. Of course, it was in Texas, where everyone has a gun, so...)

My rant is this: why do people seem to think that just because you're a minister, that makes you a good counselor? Believe me, it doesn't. I'm terrible at it. I never took a class in counseling (although I did have to take a class in psychology; unfortunately it was abnormal psychology, so I can only diagnose someone as a psychopath, I can't help them through it.), I don't have a counseling degree, but yet Mrs. Smith seems to believe that somehow my words of wisdom will make a difference in how she deals with her husband's "roving eye".

If I was the head of a denomination, one of the first things I would do would be to hire professional counselors for each church over 400 people. Or I would have each church partner with a Christian counselor in the area who would take on members of the congregation for a reduced fee; in return they would have some free advertising and more clients.

In the meantime, I have to go - Mrs. Smith just called and wanted to know if getting an ingrown toenail was a sign from God that she needs to cut down on her swearing.

Hugh Grant Is A Sexy, Sexy, Beast...HA! Caught You Reading My Blog Because Of That Remark...

Watched a movie awhile ago - About A Boy.

I really enjoyed it. I like Hugh Grant as an actor (if not as a regular person), and this movie was no exception. It had some good comedy, it had some dramatic scenes, and it was just a good movie.

When I watch a movie, I try to get more out of it than entertainment. I try to apply the main theme of the movie to my life, or I'll try to come out of it with a couple of things to work on.

So, as I watched About A Boy, there were a couple of elements of the movie that struck me.

First of all, Will (the character played by Hugh Grant) knew himself. There is a scene where he is at someone's house, and they just recently had a baby and wanted Will to be the godparent. Will looked at them incredulously and asked if they really thought that he would be a good godparent. The lady replied that she always though that he had a depth to him hidden somewhere. Will replied "You see, that's where you've always been wrong. I really am this shallow." Will knew his strengths, he knew his weaknesses. He knew that he pretty much did nothing, that his source of income came from a hit song his dad wrote in the '60's, that he had a different concept of time than most people, etc. etc.

It's good to take some time every once in awhile and reflect on who you really are. Not who you believe people see you as, not the mask that you wear each day in order to hide your shortcomings, but to really realize and discover who you are. So in thinking about this movie, here are some things I know about myself.

I know that I'm a pretty patient person, except when it comes to driving. And the fact that I live pretty close to almost every retirement community in Arizona doesn't help the situation. I've never been one to use bad language, but the place where I use it the most would be in the car.

Like most Americans, I'm selfish. I don't believe in "delayed gratification." I want it when I want it, which is usually right away. If I don't get it when I want it, then I usually will sulk and complain. I have a consumer mindset and one of the reasons why I'm so bad at saving money is that I spend it right away on whatever I think I need.

People infuriate me and frustrate me. Oftentimes, I will truly believe what someone once said: "The church would be a great place if it wasn't for people." Even simple situations, like today when I was waiting in line to get a couple of doughnuts, and some old guy cut in and got a couple in front of me because I reached down to get one of those tissues, and he thought I wouldn't see him and of course I did, make me wish that most people would just disappear.

Because of the things that have happened in my life, I have a continuing struggle in my relationship with God. I ask Job-like questions, but instead of being answered by God in a whirlwind, I get no answers. I see people who have had nothing happen in their lives and who continue to get away with sinful behavior and I envy them. Everyday I get up and wonder what bad thing will happen to me next. I fear that I will have to have brain surgery again. I fear that another person close to me will die. Somehow I still hold on to this little thing called hope and stubbornly believe that God really does love me.

Sometimes I wonder if I should have gone into veterinary school rather than the ministry. I love animals and when I hear cases of animal cruelty, I get very angry and want to exact justice on them. Animals love unconditionally. One time I was thinking of how sad I become when I hear of an animal that is hurt and heard God say to me, "Imagine how I feel when the people I created get hurt. Imagine the pain I feel when people choose hell over me." This is one of the main reasons why I don't believe in Calvinism.I could go on and on, but you get the point.

The other thing that struck me in this film is that towards the end, there is a remarkable transformation in Will's thinking. He goes through most of the movie knowing who he is and accepting who he is and not doing anything about it. Towards the end of the movie, however, he realizes that he can change, that he can be different, that he can turn his life around.

And I realize the same. Although I know who I am, it doesn't mean that's who I have to be, for the rest of my life. I can change. I can be different.

And that's what makes this life worth it.