“Roof is said to have sat in the Wednesday night prayer service for an hour before opening fire.”  [article here]

News of shooting inside of a Charleston church, white against black.  An hour outside of where my parents live.  This incident bothered me a lot.

What will it take to achieve peace?

The news references how easy it was for Roof to obtain a gun.

Will banning guns achieve peace?  I don’t think so but maybe the number of fatalities would not be so high if firearms were not used.

It’s peculiar to me that Roof sat for an hour inside of the church before beginning his violence.  It reminded me of the Columbia Mall Shooting.

“At the bottom of the escalator, on the first level, is the food court. Under the eye of another video camera, he lingered for about an hour, sitting, standing, pacing, Ulman said.”

Why did these two young men wait an hour before doing their horrendous acts of violence?

What were they waiting for?  And what was going through their heads?

Violence creates fear, fear creates isolation and division.

But perfect love casts out fear.

What if in that hour before, someone approached these kids, smiled at them, shook their hands, asked them how they were doing and spoke a word of encouragement to them?

We HAVE TO BREAK DOWN WALLS of separation.  We NEED COMMUNITY.

For that to happen we need to step into people’s lives with the message of their value.

1 John 4:18 There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love.

Are these kids acting out because they feel punished by society?

Do they know they are valuable?  Do they know they are created in the image of God?  Do they know that a loving God has a good plan for their lives?

How will they know unless they are told?

I’m not excusing their actions.  Once bullets start flying, discussion is over.  But I’m not excusing our lack of action either.

Living in Hawaii I’ve had to break out of my cold, east coast, introverted, leave me alone, don’t make eye contact, I’m in a hurry attitude.  I’ve seen the value of making sure that you greet everyone in a room with aloha, a smile, a hug and a kiss on the cheek.

We cannot allow the effect of violence to create more fear.  Let the works of the enemy spur us on to even greater love!

Let’s lead with love and empathy.  Let’s care for others.  Let’s be initiators!  Let’s believe that we can truly make a difference

If we don’t believe and act on these things, then we’ve chosen our destiny.  One that is dark, separated and inhumane.

Would you smile at a stranger today?  Would you let your walls down?

That requires great vulnerability, walls are sometimes a needed defense mechanism.  But we’re meant to connect and walls are a hindrance.

I’m not promising that everyone is going to receive you well.  But that’s on them not you.  Bless and do not curse.

Can we keep our cool a little longer and realize we’re dealing with other human beings?

What if every day you made it your mission to randomly encourage one stranger?

I close with something I just saw on facebook:

“They’ll probably describe the 21-year-old who shot nine yesterday as a lone gunman. But someone shaped his ideology, made the apartheid-flag patches he wore, indoctrinated him, modeled gun use as a legitimate means to power and racism/white supremacy as a coherent ideology, and made high-powered guns readily available; no one made him do it, but many made him.” – Rebecca Solnit

 Lets take responsibility for the world we live in.  Let’s have conversations, lets listen to other opinions.  Let’s love with abandon, even strangers.  And let’s listen to and mentor young men and women.

 

update: 06.19.15 – It looks like the church did indeed welcome Roof into the Bible study based on the testimony below:

and this article:  Charleston Church Killer ‘Almost Didn’t Go Through With It Because Everyone Was So Nice to Him’ – Breitbart http://bit.ly/1d6CHyG

 

i don’t even know what constitutes hip hop but it started with a H.

in my continuing attempts to not be a perfectionist, here’s a song I wrote and recorded as a FUN way to commemorate Tyler’s and my friendship.

this is the first time jess and i ever recorded music together.

LISTEN WITH HEADPHONES and LISTEN TWICE then hit SHARE

Leave some comment love.

As you probably know I thought I was writing a book.  Haha.  I’m still writing the book… don’t worry.

I finished the content and sent off some sample chapters for endorsement.  I sent it to an author who inspired the writing of my book.  I was excited when he told me to send the endorsement request!

I was not excited when I got his response:

“Bluntly, in my opinion, you do not have a manuscript worth publishing! How is that for being direct! Jim, you ramble.  Then you flat out knock two other books that have stood the test of time through several printings.  Your two sample chapters—they each have a nugget of truth that could be said in a single sentence.

I am sorry, but there would have to be a major…MAJOR…rewriting to put a positive tone on such an important subject for me to add an endorsement to it.”

Ouch?

It immediately reminded me of a critique I got on photo.net in 2006 of a photo I took in Prague.  Part of the critique was

“In short, with due respect, this is one of the worst photos I have seen critique requested since I’ve been onPhoto.net”

Haha.  Man.  Sometimes you have to laugh otherwise you’ll cry right?  There was a little bit of me that wanted to crawl in a hole and never come back out, I’ll be honest.

Why is it that negative words repeat in your head over and over again but the positive things people say about you get questioned for authenticity?

“You don’t have a manuscript worth publishing.”
“You ramble.”
“They each have a nugget of truth that could be said in a single sentence.”
“This is one of the worst photos I have seen critique requested.”

I’m honestly doing okay.  Which I’m surprised at, I think at any other time in my life those words would have crushed me.  I guess I’m growing and maturing.

I did a Doing Ministry Well interview with Steve Sprague which will be released soon.  Steve is the headmaster at Trinity Christian School in Kailua and his 3rd tip on doing ministry well was something along the lines of  be humble, there’s a temptation to want to puff yourself up and feel like as a leader you have it all together, but the reality is that no one is perfect.  Because of that, there needs to be an honest feedback loop for people to speak into your life.

You’ve got to chew the proverbial meat and spit out the bones.  Sometimes idioms make no sense.  Most of the time I call into question if I’m quoting them correctly.  Anyway, I’m rambling.  😉

Put an end to the downward spiral of replaying the negative words over and over again.  DO NOT ALLOW IT.  Seriously, it does you no good.  Take a snap shot of it, find the truth in it, apply the truth and then let it go.

My take away truth?  Lets get some more eyes on this book before it goes to be published, uh, which is now a lot further away than June that I thought.  But that’s okay.  I would rather release a quality product.  I’m glad that I set a hard deadline to get as far as I have, otherwise I’d still be poking at this book for the next 10 years.  I’ve got the skeleton, rambling and all, of a good book.

Refining is real.  And sometimes refining hurts.

I had a friend go through and edit my initial draft quite at the beginning of the year.   She referenced a portion of my book where I mention two other resources and told me it came across negatively.  I rewrote it trying to better communicate what I was saying but obviously I’m still not communicating what I’m trying to say, as referenced with this latest endorsement fail.   Today, I got another endorsement denial referring to that same portion.  Man, communicating clearly is DIFFICULT.

Humility is having an accurate view of yourself.  Here’s my reality.  This is my first attempt at writing a book.  I have no formal writing training and I’m moderately successful at actually doing task at which I’m writing about.  I bring to the table a different voice and perspective than what is out there.

It was suggested to me that I read up more on fundraising before going back and writing again.  I looked up the resource that was suggested.  It’s $60 and 238 pages.  That FEELS inaccessible.  Is the reality that investing $60 and maybe a month or two or more of study would GREATLY benefit our support long term?  Yes.  But I’m writing the book that I want to read.  And I represent a tribe that’s following the call of God on their lives, most with no college degree that don’t have 60 extra dollars anywhere.

Maybe I’ll keep that part in the book and add the above paragraph just to be controversial.  Controversy is good for sales right?

I think this was suppose to be a how to post.  It didn’t turn into that.  Someone call me an editor!

What’s the hardest critique you’ve gotten?  How did you deal with it?

WHAT?!  It’s JUNE?!  Crazy.  Check out this past weeks links!

Here’s a video I saw that excited me.  I hope to have a home someday.  I have no carpentry skills but I suppose I’d be up for learning.  I just love the idea of having a large garden and some chickens

Wish whoever the camera man would use some type of stabilization device when moving and shoot with a bit more depth of field but… I’m being picky.

 

If you haven’t already check out this weeks episode of Doing Ministry Well!  This week we interview Danny Lehmann.  Danny is an amazing man of God, I love sitting and talking with him, he is full of so much wisdom, don’t miss this episode!  If you haven’t yet PLEASE rate, comment and subscribe on Itunes to keep up with the most recent episodes!

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7 Things Great Leaders Do: Advice For Today’s Young Leaders – Ron Edmondson http://bit.ly/1PHfKiv

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5 Bad Reasons to Plant a Church – Ron Edmondson http://bit.ly/1S4Nr1s

Are you liking Wednesday links?  Did you find any of these links useful?  Or share with us some of the links you’ve been finding interesting this week!  Let us know in the comments!

Jess and I have never preached together so on May 24th we co-preached the topic of Jesus!

Check it out and hear how good God is and how brilliant my wife is!