Notes to My Siblings

Pennies seem insignificant. I mean, would you toss a hundred dollar bill in a fountain? Heck no. But a penny? Well, what have you got to lose? Not much. Until you go to purchase a $1.01 pack of gum and realize you tossed the penny the fountain and made some dumb wish about having a million dollars. Suddenly, that little penny is very significant.  Unless your wish for a million dollars came true (which it won't), no penny = no gum. In a country of 5,797,000 people, Sierra Leone is "home" to 320,000 orphans. That means 5% of the country's population is made up of orphans. India has a population of 1,200,000,000 people. A moderate estimate of Indian nationals enslaved/in debt bondage/etc is about 50,000,000 people. That means that 4% of the population is in slavery. Then you go to the grocery store, or out to eat, or walk down the street and see people who are clearly hurting. When you start thinking in terms of numbers of hurting people- even the number we come a

The first mistake we made was a church building. You see, by calling the four walls Christians often meet in a "church", we've lost something. We've lost the idea that we are the church. Not those four walls and a roof. By nominating the church to a building, we go to church. The second mistake we made was a set of activities that fill our Sunday mornings. By calling singing and preaching "church", we've lost something else. By following the same pattern most churches do, we do church. And we forget: we are the church. You. Me. Collectively, we are the church. "Church" isn't something outside of ourselves that we choose to associate with on certain days of the week. If you are a Christ follower, you are part of the body of Christ. You are a piece of the church. They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer. Everyone was filled with awe at the many wonders and

I still don't know what I want to be when I grow up, but I think I'm crippled by options. There are too many things that I could do or want to do, even when they're out of my comfort zone. But there I sit, day after day, in my comfort zone: a job that I know how to do but am not excited by. So many things that I think I want to do with my life can be broken down into a pros/cons set like the following: I could be a counselor. Pros: I like helping people. I like to see people grab on to a purpose. I have been told I give practical advice. Cons: My favorite phrase is "deal with it". A lot of other job fields can be broken down like that. They sounds interesting, and some parts of them I'd be good at, but others I'm not so sure about. So I give up on one idea, and move on to the next. And the next. And the next. And still I sit in my comfort zone: a job I know how to do, but am not challenged by. At some point, it has to stop. If I spend all my ti

You know what Build'a'Bear is, right? You go to this store, and can customize your stuffed animal. You can pick the shell, how full you want it stuffed, the clothes, the name, etc. You walk out with a personalized bear- one that you made to fit your desires and wants. While I might not want to admit it, sometimes I attempt to go to "Build'a'God" and get a customized God. I want God to do something, be like something, or stand for something particular, and I look for scripture, etc., to back up why God is what I want Him to be. But the Build'a'God store doesn't exist. The bear is personalized , God is personal . Did you catch the difference? God is personal, in that through Christ's death and resurrection we can talk with Him anytime, any place. However, God cannot be personalized. We can't customize God. It's all or nothing. People (myself included) try to customize God all the time. The church down the street teaches that God i

To continue the "laugh at Moriah" post from like 2011... I went to DC with my college roomie this last summer. We were taking the train in and coming back after dark, and I reasoned that taking my pocket knife (read: 4 inch blade) was a logical step. Museum security checkpoints, however didn't line up with my reasoning. I was told to "get rid of it" if I wanted to come in. So, for the next 4 museums we visited, we took a stroll through the bushes before and after to hide and retrieve my knife. At the end of the day, we headed home. With the knife. Take that, Smithsonian security. Every fall, our school does the TP Game (yeah, my school is awesome). First game of the season, and when we score the first basket, we incur a technical foul by throwing rolls of [clean] toilet paper on the court. Well, the students living off campus usually help themselves to a few rolls of school provided game TP for their houses. We lived off campus, but instead of walking out w

The word discipline always has an ominous sound to it. When I think of discipline, I associate it with doing something wrong or failing. Today I'm looking at it differently. Discipline is learning to do something right and well. Discipline is rolling out of bed at 5:30am to work out when the snooze button is calling your name. Learning to deal with physical unpleasantness and pain. Discipline is pulling out your Bible and slogging through a chapter or two, even when God feels miles away. Learning to seek God regardless of how you feel. Discipline is learning and training, not punishment. ...God disciplines us for our good, in order that we may share in his holiness. No discipline seems pleasant at the time, but painful. Later on, however, it produces a harvest of righteousness and peace for those who have been trained by it. Hebrews 12:10b-11

It was an ordinary Wednesday night at AWANA. All my little Sparkie boys were filing in, the usual banter and craziness that usually accompanies 1st and 2nd grade boys filling the room. Everything was normal, except one of my little guys seemed out of sorts. Usually happy and sweet, Tim* was sullen and cross. In the weeks that followed, his attitude continued, and some of the younger boys would complain that he hit them, or mouthed off at them, which was not characteristic of Tim. Eventually, I heard that his dad had left several weeks earlier- the same time his demeanor took a nose dive. I could google a bunch of statistics about fatherless homes and crime rates, repeated patterns, etc, but to some extent, I think we all realize that fatherlessness causes problems. Girls look for the love they should have had from their fathers in other men. Boys look for the guidance and attention their father should have given them in other men. I heard of a former gang member once who, after he

 If I truly lived to serve Christ with no regard for myself, today I would have... -Had a better conversation with the bank teller -Asked the elderly lady walking down the road in the cold dark if she needed a ride somewhere  Do we as a Christian culture train our kids improperly? Every time I see someone walking down the road, I don't see someone needing help, I see someone who is a potential danger to me. When the bank teller is grouchy, I am offended that they weren't more pleasant and conversive with me. Me. When is it time to stop focusing on the possible dangers of an action, and trust God for the possible encouragement and healing that could come from it? What things do we actually need to consider, and what to we use as an excuse to avoid doing something that's "inconvenient" to us?