After many many many flights we have made it to Ohio.  We’ve already gotten to see so many of our dear friends.

The Philippines trip was AMAZING.  Please pray for us as we process it.  An update is coming soon I promise!

The cake our church made for us, to send us out.  We feel so loved by Streams Of Life Fellowship!

It’s 628am and Jess and I stayed up all night.  I think thats the best way to travel when you’re traveling overseas.  Yesterday we got to grab dinner and catch up with Craig and Colette Crandall from Maryland.  We also said goodbye to some friends that recently got married and will be moving to Texas while we are away.

It’s minus 6 hours but a day in advance in the Philippines, compared to here in Honolulu.

Our team mate April made it from Buffalo to Dulles.  She’ll be meeting up with Jeff and Hannah and they will be flying to Korea.  We are going to leave our house here in Honolulu in about 2 hours, to be there in plenty of time for our 11am flight.  We fly to Tokyo and then to Korea where we will meet the team.

It doesn’t quite feel like a reality.   Exciting.  Pray for us please

If you have no clue what I’m talking about you can check out more info here –> Philippines

Happy Friday!

[The Rainbow Before Church On Sunday]

Hey everyone.  I’m slamming busy lately.  I’ve taken over the role of personnel director here at YWAM Honolulu and we’re preparing to set up a booth at the HIM conference which is Hawaii’s biggest Christian conference, which means I’m working on getting some things for that ready, along with getting our new website ready to launch.

We recently booked all of our tickets for our trip to the Philippines and are excited about that!  If you want more info on that trip, or are interested in making a donation click here.

We recently celebrated Jess’ birthday.  We took a little “trip” to France to celebrate.

I feel like God is highlighting a few things to me tonight.  I just returned from our weekly homeless outreach in Waikiki which I’ve really fallen in love with.  I’m feeling a bit scatter brained too so I’m hoping this post makes sense.

Something that blew my mind tonight as I was driving a 15 passenger van down to Waikiki was  that none of my students knew the Lords Prayer.  Pastor RK had asked all of the homeless people to pray the Lords prayer for Waikiki for the 40 days of Lent.  So I told our students that we should pray it… and none of them knew it.  It makes sense though, the kids that are ten years younger than me, have grown up in non-traditional churches, or grown up not in church at all.  It makes me believe even more in the need for our organization.

Other than that, God is highlighting faithfulness to me.  Faithfulness, means being faithful and obedient to what God has said no matter what.  Showing up every week, whether you feel like it or not, not allowing your life to be dictated by your emotions.  God would you make me a more faithful person in every area of my life.

And the second is compromise.  So many of the homeless guys we work with down there can QUOTE scripture, and are drunk or high. I wrote a bit about this last year.  But these guys didn’t just end up here.  Small areas of compromise started… and weren’t kept in check, and destroyed their lives.  God that you would help me crush any areas of compromise in my life.

Engage:  Where do you need to be more faithful in your life?  Or what area of compromise do you need to stomp out?  Share with us in the comments.

Today’s post is a guest post from Jon Barnes, a good friend of mine. I wouldn’t be who I am today without the hours that Jon poured into me while I was in high school. Jon is one of the most creative people that I know.

In Part 1 of this blog we took a look at some of the reason why Christian artists/creative’s fizzle out in their craft or never really take flight. Make sure you read Part 1 covering community, mentoring, sacred/secular tensions and busyness and then pick it up here:

Laziness

Some Christian artists don’t create art because they have become lazy, plain and simple. They’ve lost touch with their first love, have allowed staleness to overtake them, or settled for too little in their pursuit of creative expression. They’ve lost the hunger and forgot the deep satisfaction of iron-forged creative dedication. Maybe they’re like Uncle Rico from Napoleon Dynamite and are living off the art of their past, stunted in their craft and not willing to push forward. Laziness takes root and slowly, over time, cools the creative fires.

Losing Touch With the Mission

This one is huge. Why do we create? What are we doing in this world?  Who are we as followers of Christ?  The core questions of our identity as both creative people and followers of Jesus should be the driving factors in what we produce. And if we lose touch with our mission we lose touch with our art. Usually this obstacle goes hand in hand with an ever-decreasing interest and time spent in the word and a lack of intimacy with Christ.

Fear of Reception (Christians)

Another reason that Christian artists don’t create is due to fear of what other believers will say about our creations. This fear can be paralyzing and often comes from a bad experience or past precedent. It may stem from a question of form (music style, artistic nudity, subject matter) or message (political, stories of abuse, theology), but most certainly is focused around a “what if they” idea regarding how e think our art will be received by our church, peers, etc.

Fear of Reception (The World)

The other side of the “fear of reception” coin is the fear of how the rest of the world will accept us (or not) when they see, know and understand the Christ-driven ideas behind our art. This is a genuine fear that keeps many creative Christians on the safe side of things and is also a manifestation of the fear of man. The antidote is getting in touch with our calling and reminding ourselves that God created us for a purpose and our gifts are no accident.

And there are more potential reasons as well. Significant personal loss, struggles of faith, health issues, anger at God; there are many reasons why Christian creatives do not tap into their fullest potential and the reasons can often be complex, inter-woven, and deeply emotional.

Friends, I’m calling these out as someone that struggles as well.

This ain’t easy. There’s no roadmap. But hear this- stay hungry.  Pursue your craft with excellence and unparalleled ferocity. Ask yourself what one thing is holding you back from wild creative success and ask the Lord to give you the wisdom to step past it.  We’re creatives. Life is short. Go and make.

Have you experienced any of these challenges in your life as a creative person?

Bio:  Jon is currently Director of Communications at a Baltimore-area marketing and communications firm and has enjoyed a wacky buffet of careers over the years including youth pastor, law firm unicorn trainer and running his own design shop. When he’s not dreaming of fancy cheeses he’s creating videos for his YouTube channel or re-enacting scenes from Knight Rider episodes with his 2 boys. Jon and his family live in Ellicott City, MD. @pumthuggee. www.pumthuggee.com

Today’s post is a guest post from Jon Barnes, a good friend of mine. I wouldn’t be who I am today without the hours that Jon poured into me while I was in high school. Jon is one of the most creative people that I know.

This one’s for the artists.

We’ve all had a creative dry spell or suffered from writer’s block here and there, who hasn’t? But sometimes as artists and Christ followers a unique paralysis falls upon us- a paralysis that’s not just a “desert season” or a funk but something deeper and rooted in how we think about ourselves as Christians artists in the world. The following is a list of reasons why Christian artists (aka creative people) stop making art or creative works.

Lack of Community

A big reason why Christian artists fail to flourish is because they’re flying solo. They have no community, no team, no support. They’re like an ember that’s tumbled out of the fire ring and is slowly cooling down. Sometimes it’s the fault of the artist for minimizing the necessity and value of true community, other times the fault is no one’s, it’s just dang hard to plug in and find like-minded people who are both highly creative and strong believers. Either way, finding a creative community is key. Creative folks were never meant to go it alone.

Lack of Mentorship

Similar to the reason above, many artists fail to launch (or stay launched) because they do not have an older/wiser mentor of some kind. The mentoring relationship is hugely important and for Christian artists the role of mentor is part Biblical disciple-making and part artistic guide/guru. Artists who make a distinct priority of being mentored and mentoring others will go a long way.

Unresolved Sacred/Secular Tensions

Some Christian artists stall out in the actual (or perceived) great divide between “regular art” and “Christian art.” It’s a tension that’s not new to our era, although we do find ourselves in the unusual modern predicament of having “Christian music” and “Christian movies,” etc. But the challenging part of the creative process is understanding how the artist relates to the world, the church and creative subject matter as well as coming to peace with the ideas of what is “sacred” and what is “secular.” Or that there is no such distinction at all. Either way, it’s something that artists have to wrestle with. We will be all over the map on this one but the point is to work out the struggle for ourselves in a way that compromises neither art nor mission.

Busyness

This one isn’t unique to Christian artists but it’s a valid one. Many creative people don’t create (or don’t create to their full potential) because they’re just too busy. And don’t get me wrong, I’m not slamming the tasks and time that life demands. Our kids need time with us, work needs working, home needs homemaking, for sure. Good things. But if we’re in touch with our calling we have to live with priority when it comes to the ever-shrinking pool of time and energy we have. The farther you trek into adulthood the better you have to become at carving out creative time. The fight is not with your creativity; it’s with making the room in your life to create. Many Christian artists stop creating because they haven’t cultivated the ability to carve out creative time when it’s no longer naturally occurring.

Have you experienced any of these challenges in your life as a creative person?

In Part 2 of this blog we’ll look at 4 more reasons why creative Christians often fizzle out in their artistic mission. Stay tuned.

Bio:  Jon is currently Director of Communications at a Baltimore-area marketing and communications firm and has enjoyed a wacky buffet of careers over the years including youth pastor, law firm unicorn trainer and running his own design shop. When he’s not dreaming of fancy cheeses he’s creating videos for his YouTube channel or re-enacting scenes from Knight Rider episodes with his 2 boys. Jon and his family live in Ellicott City, MD. @pumthuggee. www.pumthuggee.com

If you have thirty minutes free, I suggest watching the video above.

Andy  Mineo.  I don’t know him personally, that’d be cool though.  I started following him on twitter before I ever heard his music.  Someone had retweeted some of his tweets and I found them inspiring.  I was instantly impressed with his social media game.  I just watched this interview with him.  I love that his talent has opened doors for him in the secular world.  I think Christian Rap has far surpassed any other Christian genre.  I love that this guy is business minded… he mentions about how he’s always thinking above the live show, and different ways to involve the fan.  I love that he preformed the song You Can’t Stop Me, that talks about the obstacles that he faces, that we all face, like I wrote about recently.  I’ve got a guest blog coming from a friend that is going to talk about creativity, christianity and obstacles, so be looking for that, it’s a good one.  And maybe my favorite part, he didn’t flinch once when tons of f-bombs were being dropped.  Haha.

In light of my last post, I’m praying for Andy.  Praying that God would protect him, and that he’d grow in character as he grows in influence.  That he’d grow in the fruits of the spirit as well as the gifts.  Praying all of those things for me too, and for you too.

Engage:  Have you heard of Andy Mineo?  What do you think?  Let us know in the comments.

You can read the full article here.  –> As I Lay Dying Frontman Tim Lambesis Pleads Guilty in Murder for Hire Plot | Music News | Rolling Stone  

Somewhere along the line, this band labeled themselves as Christians.

But now the front man, is being put in jail for a murder for hire plot.  He paid an undercover cop $1000 to kill his estranged wife.

When I first heard about this, I was appalled, that someone would take another humans life for $1000.  I was also appalled that someone would want their wife dead.

People don’t just arrive at their poor decisions.  There’s a downward spiral.  I don’t know if these guys were ever on a Christian label ever or not.  But I think Christian labels should start assigning pastoral care to their bands.  I feel like Christian rap labels do this type of thing.

Who was checking in with this guy?  How’d he go from being in a Christian band to having multiple affairs, drug use and then hiring someone to murder his wife?

Do me a favor?  Check in with people. Check in with people that you know that are in the limelight, that appear to have it all together.  Be willing to listen and not judge.  Pray for those that are in the spotlight, it seems like the devil loves to take those people out.

Pray for me and Jess as we’re in full time ministry.  If you have an established relationship with us already, take the time to check in with us and see how we’re really doing.

Engage:  Who do you need to check in with?  Reach out to them and do it!

*** DISCLAIMER *** this post contains obscene language, which is a reality of working with people that live on the street.  If you’re offended by that type of thing I’d turn back now.

I’m blessed that part of my job is to take some of our Discipleship Training Students down to Waikiki every Tuesday night and partner with a pastor that feeds the homeless and spends time with them, listening, talking to and praying for them.

This past Tuesday was crazy.  I got there and started talking with Joe, who usually is happy go lucky, positive attitude, nothing seems to shake him.  He was scribbling in his journal, and I asked him what he was writing.  He was obviously fired up.  He told me that he had gotten 3 tickets from the police in the past week, and wanted to tell people his side of the story.  Not happy go lucky Joe.

Then as I was sitting there talking to him, an asian guy was holding a baby.  There was a local guy sitting next to him, who had a wad of cash out.  The asian guy put something in the local guys hand, and then the local guy popped whatever was in his hand in his mouth.  I’m pretty sure I saw a drug deal, with the dealer doing it while he was holding a baby in his arms.

I stood in the food line and talked with Martin, who apologized for smelling like alcohol.  He showed me his torn up leg from when someone threw a beer bottle at him while he was sleeping.   He then told me about how he got in a physical fight with his dad this week.  I asked Martin how old he was, thinking he was older than me, I was wrong, he’s two years younger than me.  Been on the street for about 10 years.

I saw Barbara who I met last week.  Her eye black and blue like she had been punched in the face recently.  She got her pizza and left, didn’t want to stick around and talk this week.

When all the pizza had been handed out one of the guys that we met for the first time last week, came up to talk to one of our students.  He was being kind of loud saying “your God didn’t answer my prayers, I prayed for a wife and I don’t have a wife, and now you’re out of pizza what kind of God is this?”

RK the pastor always stashes a few pieces at the end for himself and his kids.  As RK was taking it out of the box, the guy we met last week, came up to RK and started saying some obscene things.  “I’ll suck your c**k for that piece of pizza man.”  And he kept saying it, loudly.  RK looked at him, confused.  All of us were quite taken aback by the situation.  “Come on man, is that what Jesus would do? Would he eat that piece of pizza in front of me?”  And he repeated the obscene comment again.  RK started to take a bite out of the piece of pizza while looking at this guy, you could tell that he was not impressed with this guys obvious lack of respect.

Then one of the girls (maybe in her early twenties, 110 lbs maybe) that is always there with her family (I think she’s the mom of the baby I talked about earlier) yelled the guys name and said come over here and took him out of the pavilion.  The asian guy came up to RK and asked, want me to go punch him in the face.  RK declined the offer.  RK and I discussed what had just happened.  “I’m not giving that guy pizza if he’s being that blatantly disrespectful, if he came on time like everyone else, he would have gotten pizza.”  RK said.

While we were having this conversation, I guess the girl was beating up the obscene guy.  One of our staff said she saw her grab him by the ear and throw him into the sand and hit him a few times, and then one of our other students said he saw the asian guy come up behind him and hit him in the back of the head and then hit him the face a couple of times.

The girl came back and walked up to Pastor RK and said sorry for that guy, and said that that guy would never do it again, and thats how they learn down here.  The asian guy came up too and apologized for the guys behavior.

One of the students Dalton, who had just returned to Nepal saw the fight and was enraged.  I guess while the lady was beating him up, she said that her kids were around and not to say obscene things.  Dalton went over to the guy who had gotten beat up, who said he blacked out when he got hit in the back of the head, his face now bleeding.  Dalton is a former drug dealer, and actually confessed and repented to drug use during his lecture phase and went on outreach and successfully completed his DTS.  He told me that his heart was really changed in Nepal.  That he saw real poverty there and was sad that some guy was willing to sell his body for something to eat.  Dalton mentioned that it took everything in him not to scream in the ladies face.  He went and took the guy that had gotten beat up and bought him a sub at subway.  All the while the lady and her kids were taunting them both… “oh is he going to suck your c**k now?”  Dalton thought it was real interesting that the reason she was beating the guy up was because her kids were around, yet now her kids were taunting him, repeating the same obscene comment.

I don’t think anyone knew the complete story.  I was doing my best to put the pieces together.  I felt like I was working back at my old job at a high school with at risk kids.  Some of our students were laughing at the situation, saying that the guy got what he deserved.

I guess someone called an ambulance for the guy up the street.

We debriefed from the night when we got back to our van, and I tried to my best to let the group know the big picture.  Dalton shared what he saw, and what he did.  I think everyone started to see the reality of the situation.  One of the other staff said she felt bad for saying what she said because she didn’t know the whole story.  I talked about how we needed to pray that discipleship would happen down there, that we’d show them that resorting to violence isn’t the way to handle things.

Was it funny if the girl just beat him up?  Did that guy get what he deserved if it was just the girl hitting him?  Did his obscenities justify the girl beating him up?  How about the guy hitting him.  Was that justified?

When is punishment justified?  Are consequences different than punishment?  We’ve all fallen short of the glory of God.  We are all deserving of God’s wrath.  If we’ve accepted Jesus’ sacrifice, than we escape God’s punishment and become His son, but children still get loving correction and consequences.

I talked a bit with RK the next morning.  He pointed out that middle class people solve issues with our words.  People in poverty only know violence.  The girl even said, thats how people learn down here.  And because of Ohana Hawaiian culture, the girl, and the asian guy thought they were doing the most honoring thing they could, to show RK that they respect him for coming there and feeding them consistently.

So what do you do?  No judgement on Pastor RK, he was just as surprised at everything that happened as we were.  I didn’t know what to do when the guy was being obscene, I was looking to RK, everyone was looking to RK as to how the situation would be handled.  The girl handled it though, but we didn’t know what she was going to do.  I guess maybe we had an idea.

Do they teach how to deal with a situation like this in Seminary?

Engage:  What do you think?  What would you do?  Let us know in the comments.

I’m feeling pretty broken today.  Painfully aware of my short comings and struggles.

Brokenness is good, we should probably embrace it more often.  I don’t know the last time I was truly broken… but I’m sitting at the reception desk trying to fight back tears… because lately I’m so aware of how consistently inconsistent I am.  My best intentions to be better, don’t pan out.

We can’t dwell there though.  Brokenness is only beautiful if we allow God to put us back together.  I’ve seen people sit and stay amidst their brokenness.  This is where they  got the revelation that God still loves them even in our weakness. That is beautiful, but it’s not the end of the story.  The beauty is walking hand in hand, with the God that loves you even in your weakness, into redemption and wholeness.  That’s why He loves you in your weakness, not so  you can stay there, but so that you can reach the potential that He has for you.  So that you can be who He created you to be.

At the beginning of this new year our base director gathered all of the staff and asked us, to ask God what His dreams were for us as individuals, for this 2014.

I bowed my head, and asked God what His dreams for me were.  I expected Him to name all of my struggles, because I was painfully aware of them at the time.  But He didn’t.

Suddenly God’s tenderness manifested, I knew He knew my struggles, but He chose not to mention them.  I felt His still small voice say, it was going to be a year of break through, and I sensed a smile on His face as He said it.  No condemnation, but a genuine excitement and anticipation.  I then felt like He said Psalm 29:5.  So I got my ipod out and looked it up.

The voice of the Lord breaks the cedars;
    the Lord breaks in pieces the cedars of Lebanon.

Wow.  For a while I’ve thought about how the struggles that we still struggle with, even after years of being Christians are the big strongholds… the ones that have taken deep root.  Hopefully we wiped out all of the twig struggles, and even some of the small branch struggles… but God was reminding me that His voice was going to break into pieces the 130 foot tall, 8 foot diameter, cedars of Lebanon.

If you’re reading this, would you pray for me?  Pray that I’d make right choices, pray that I’d break bad habits, pray that I’d do the hard things.  Pray that I’d be disciplined, pray that I’d walk in the full potential that God has for me.

If you’re broken, embrace it, but don’t stop there.   Take some time and listen to His voice.  Ask Him what His dreams are for you this year.

Comment and let me know what He is speaking to you.