Last night, I went to the hospital to visit my friends who just had their first baby. This was only the second or third time that I've gotten to hold a newborn, and there's simply nothing quite like it. 24 hours previously, this baby boy had been in his mother's stomach, and now he was out in the world with the rest of us.
My friends called me a sucker and a baby hog because of how much I held him. I held him twice, and probably for an hour between those times. He had such amazing features. We were jokingly calling him Wolverine because of the length of his finger nails, pretty long for a newborn. He also had this hair on his shoulders that his dad told me would go away soon. His cheeks were the softest things I've ever touched. A few times he opened his eyes to check me out a little. Thankfully he didn't cry though he looked set to a couple times.
My other friends' 7 month old cried when I was patting him on the back on Sunday, broke my heart. Making a child cry is the last thing I would ever want to do, especially when they're that young. His mom assured me he was just having a bad day, but I still felt guilty for making him cry.
Back to the newborn...he literally has his whole life ahead of him. What kind of kid will he be? If he's anything like his father, he'll probably be a fun-loving little guy with more than a hint of orneriness. What will he be when he grows up I wonder? I praise God that he has two loving parents who are still together and who are in it for the long haul.
There is something about new life. It parallels the spiritual life pretty well. There are verses in the Bible that tell us we must be born again and that the old has gone the new has come. Christ died to give us a new heart and a new life. He died to save us from sin and the slavery associated with it. New life is inspiring, whether it's a new born or a new life in Christ. Both are worth living well, although I have to argue that one is much more fulfilling than the other.
His mercies are new everyday, and we get to walk in that light. In Him, there is eternal life to be found, starting now, not in some distant future. I truly believe God will restore and renew this earth. I don't believe we go somewhere off into the cosmos when this life is over. The Bible talks about God coming down from the heavens to us, to His people. In this life there will be untold suffering and hardship, but when we rise again with Him as He did on the fateful Easter morning, there will be no more suffering and no more tears. I eagerly await that day, and pray for it's speedy arrival. How glorious it will be, when we are fully reconciled and restored to God and His original plan. I don't believe we can ever achieve that in this present reality but only when He decides it's time to come back. For some reason, I don't think He'll come back in my lifetime. God's timetable is a lot different than human timetables, and if it took almost 2,000 years for Israel to reestablish itself as a nation; what makes us think it won't be another 2,000 years before He comes back to reclaim us as His own?
In the meantime, we are called to care for creation and take cues from creation on creating new life and sustaining life. We are called to evangelize, yes, but this should come as naturally as breathing. I don't believe in tracts that you hand out to complete strangers, I believe in developing relationships with a person first before we have any right to speak into their lives and share our beliefs with them. I've heard that if 40 people started discipling 3 people, in 27 years all of America would be discipled, and not too long after that the whole world. There is strength in small things, and you're able to concentrate your efforts much better. Sometimes I think mass evangelism is a get out of jail free card, not requiring much sacrifice except the ability to speak to large crowds but not doing the difficult part of investing into their lives and truly discipling them. Christ calls us to make disciples, not just converts. We've lost that notion somewhere along the way, and it's time to go back to our roots. We must make a genuine effort to live among the world around us in an incarnational way, not take people out of their culture and bring them to church. Rather, we ought to bring the church to them. Throw parties at your house, invite others over for dinner and expect nothing in return. Serve the world around you, whether that's at your job or at the local soup kitchen or somewhere globally. Get out of your comfort zone and start dying to yourself in order to truly live for Christ.
Sunday, July 24, 2011
What a night!
The other day, Thursday to be precise, I was bored around 10:30 so I called a friend to see if he wanted to go to Applebee's. He did and so I picked him up and started driving. Shortly on our way, the car in front of us stops suddenly and I see that they have a flat tire. So I decide to pull up behind them when they go to the side of the road to see if I can help in any way. Come to find out, they don't have a jack for their SUV. After taking the bolts off their tire when it was still on the ground, I proceed to get the jack out of my car to see if I can lift up the SUV enough to change their tire. When I got the jack completely vertical, it didn't lift the SUV an inch. Thankfully, they had called road-side assistance to come help so I decided it was okay to leave them until assistance came. Not only that, but the girl who got out of the backseat was a former student of mine who gave me a big hug. Now, keep in mind that this girl was one of my worst students ever and made my life miserable for a year. That's about the closest I've ever had to come to loving my enemies. It was almost as if she made it her goal to see how many of my buttons she could press in a day. Then she hugs me; maybe I had a better influence on her than I had originally thought.
After we sit in Applebee's for a while, I tell my friend that I have to go outside on the patio because I'm freezing sitting there in the air conditioning after having sweat through a shirt while working on their car. We go outside and sit down, only to be interrupted by some ghetto girls who were yelling so loudly on their phone that I couldn't even hear my friend who was sitting right across the table from me. Then she hands the phone to her friend who proceeds to chew the poor guy out on the other end of the line just as much as the first girl did and just as loud. I'm not sure what yelling produced, but I'm pretty sure it didn't lead anywhere productive. This was a good lesson for me in teaching as I realized yelling doesn't really produce anything positive from my students.
After they finally leave, the guy on the other side of us starts to talk to us. He basically told us his life story of how when he was 19 he 'slapped' someone with a BB gun. I'm not even 100% sure what he meant by slapping someone, whether he meant shooting someone or literally slapping them across the face with it. Anyways, he got 3 years of prison for it, so there was obviously more to his history than just that. He talks to us non-stop for about 20 minutes before we finally excuse ourselves to go home.
My friend and I get in the car and I say, "What is it tonight?! Why are all these random things happening to us?" We laugh and then go home. Oh, and another thing that happened that night was that I got scammed by someone. She told me her sob story of how her boyfriend had left her and she needed to take the bus back down to Ft. Myers so I gave her $20. Then I asked my waitress if there was a scammer in their parking lot and she repeated the exact story that the woman had told me. It was extremely frustrating, to say the least.
That was one of the craziest nights I've ever had. And all for just wanting to go to Applebee's late at night to kill some time. Wow, what a night!
After we sit in Applebee's for a while, I tell my friend that I have to go outside on the patio because I'm freezing sitting there in the air conditioning after having sweat through a shirt while working on their car. We go outside and sit down, only to be interrupted by some ghetto girls who were yelling so loudly on their phone that I couldn't even hear my friend who was sitting right across the table from me. Then she hands the phone to her friend who proceeds to chew the poor guy out on the other end of the line just as much as the first girl did and just as loud. I'm not sure what yelling produced, but I'm pretty sure it didn't lead anywhere productive. This was a good lesson for me in teaching as I realized yelling doesn't really produce anything positive from my students.
After they finally leave, the guy on the other side of us starts to talk to us. He basically told us his life story of how when he was 19 he 'slapped' someone with a BB gun. I'm not even 100% sure what he meant by slapping someone, whether he meant shooting someone or literally slapping them across the face with it. Anyways, he got 3 years of prison for it, so there was obviously more to his history than just that. He talks to us non-stop for about 20 minutes before we finally excuse ourselves to go home.
My friend and I get in the car and I say, "What is it tonight?! Why are all these random things happening to us?" We laugh and then go home. Oh, and another thing that happened that night was that I got scammed by someone. She told me her sob story of how her boyfriend had left her and she needed to take the bus back down to Ft. Myers so I gave her $20. Then I asked my waitress if there was a scammer in their parking lot and she repeated the exact story that the woman had told me. It was extremely frustrating, to say the least.
That was one of the craziest nights I've ever had. And all for just wanting to go to Applebee's late at night to kill some time. Wow, what a night!
Sunday, July 17, 2011
grad school, teaching and self discipline
Tomorrow, I start grad school. It isn't a traditional graduate school but is rather online like a lot of the new ones are. I've decided to get it in K-12 Curriculum & Instruction with a specialty in ESL, or English as a second language if you're not familiar with educationalese. I'm looking forward to it. A couple years ago I tried to start grad school but was unsuccessful in my pursuit of it. At the time I was really depressed, so I don't know what I was thinking trying to start grad school in that state of mind.
This time however, I'm feeling much better mood wise and much more able to tackle additional responsibilities. Plus the first class is free so I'm going to see how well I'm able to handle it before committing any money to it. This degree should help my teaching significantly I hope; mainly because I think 65% or more of my school's population is ESL. Obviously, a degree specializing in that subject would be beneficial in learning new ideas for how to teach to that population. I think teaching kindergarten will help in that also as I learn more activities that are hands-on based. The hands-on approach is very beneficial for the ESL population; unfortunately I haven't had much of a chance to incorporate much of that due to always feeling pressed for time to work on test prep. So while I'm not the craftiest person you'll ever meet, I do look forward to having the students do some hands-on learning and just making learning fun again.
It seems like I lost that ability a little bit when I was teaching 5th grade. My last year in 5th grade I can remember being so angry with my students, and at the same time frustrated that we were cramming 25 of them in a portable which was way too small for them. There wasn't enough space per kid; now they have 2nd and 3rd grade classes out there which is better than 5th grade. The portables are still too small though, even for those grades. For some reason they said it wasn't safe enough to build a building on that part of our property so they decided to just make portables instead. That's another benefit of teaching kindergarten, I get a really big classroom.
In addition to starting grad school tomorrow, I'm also taking a 4 day Kagan Institute at my school district during the first week of August. Kagan is a cooperative learning approach to teaching that I'm really eager to get my hands on and learn how to do better. They base it on a bunch of scientific research that says cooperative learning helps students learn and retain information better, but I think it will just provide more fun for the students in a learning environment. The extra retention is just bonus in my book, particularly for 5 year-olds.
This is going to be a great year I have a feeling, if I can make it past the first couple of weeks. I was talking with a couple of friends yesterday at a birthday party and sharing how every kindergarten teacher at my school had told me the first couple weeks were hell and that I would question why I ever got into the education field to begin with. After that though, hopefully the kids will be used to a new learning environment and not think I'm a big scary monster haha.
I have some strategies for personal development too. I've been lifting weights a lot over the last few weeks, minus this last week. I lift with my good friend Curtis, who is a great guy who used to be in the military and his business tries to help veterans find jobs in the private sector. This past week I took the week off lifting mainly due to Curtis being out of town for business but also because I wanted to start being more serious about cardio and starting on that again. So I ran a couple times last week which was really good and used a couch to 5k program on my phone. It's been really helpful, although now I can't maintain my speed for the lengths of the runs anymore so I have to slow my speed down to where I'm still running but just not as fast as I was. I was running 8mph for the lengths of my runs, now I do 8mph for the first minute and a half and then knock it down to 6mph for the last minute and a half of the runs. This week I hope to combine weights and cardio, doing one or the other every day but Sunday. Monday, Wednesday, and Friday I'll lift and then on Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday I'll do my couch to 5k program. Running burns a ton of calories, particularly when you weigh as much as I do.
There's room for much improvement in my diet as well, but instead of trying to make a ton of changes all at once and failing miserably, I'm going to try to focus on one change at a time, and fail miserably that way instead, haha, hopefully not. I think it will give me a better chance if I focus on one thing at a time and then try and incorporate other changes as I go along. My friend pointed out that I had gained weight the other day and we were talking about it today - how it's so hard to gain control of your weight in American culture. Everywhere you turn there is awful food that is cheap and easy to eat and we drive everywhere. I lost 30 pounds when I went on my round the world trip and as of now have gained back 20 pounds of that already. Can you believe that?! 20 pounds in 3 months! Who does that?! Hopefully with throwing some cardio in the mix that will help me lose some weight or at least not gain anymore. The diet will have to change too for me to see any real loss, but like I said before, one thing at a time.
My parents are both incredible self-disciplined in most areas of their lives, not sure where I fell off the wagon. I do have some self-discipline in a few areas I suppose, I just need to increase the amount of areas by about ten-fold and I'd be doing okay. No one is perfect of course, but that's also an excuse a lot of people give for not doing anything to change their current behaviors, whether that be in taking care of their bodies or how they manage money or whatever. A couple weeks ago I listened to a podcast sermon by Matt Chandler that said discipline comes from love, not love comes from discipline, referring to the spiritual life. His point was that people need to focus their attention on their love of God and then discipline will come from that, not the other way around. I thought about that for a while, and have to disagree a little bit. To start, I would totally agree that initially love leads to discipline. But if you then take that discipline and apply it to studying Scripture or praying more, then I think your love of God can increase from that as well, and you have a virtuous cycle instead of a vicious one.
Geez, guess I had a lot to write about. As I sat down to write this blog, I didn't think I really had anything to talk about. Just get me started though, and I'll go on and on. Hope you enjoyed it!
This time however, I'm feeling much better mood wise and much more able to tackle additional responsibilities. Plus the first class is free so I'm going to see how well I'm able to handle it before committing any money to it. This degree should help my teaching significantly I hope; mainly because I think 65% or more of my school's population is ESL. Obviously, a degree specializing in that subject would be beneficial in learning new ideas for how to teach to that population. I think teaching kindergarten will help in that also as I learn more activities that are hands-on based. The hands-on approach is very beneficial for the ESL population; unfortunately I haven't had much of a chance to incorporate much of that due to always feeling pressed for time to work on test prep. So while I'm not the craftiest person you'll ever meet, I do look forward to having the students do some hands-on learning and just making learning fun again.
It seems like I lost that ability a little bit when I was teaching 5th grade. My last year in 5th grade I can remember being so angry with my students, and at the same time frustrated that we were cramming 25 of them in a portable which was way too small for them. There wasn't enough space per kid; now they have 2nd and 3rd grade classes out there which is better than 5th grade. The portables are still too small though, even for those grades. For some reason they said it wasn't safe enough to build a building on that part of our property so they decided to just make portables instead. That's another benefit of teaching kindergarten, I get a really big classroom.
In addition to starting grad school tomorrow, I'm also taking a 4 day Kagan Institute at my school district during the first week of August. Kagan is a cooperative learning approach to teaching that I'm really eager to get my hands on and learn how to do better. They base it on a bunch of scientific research that says cooperative learning helps students learn and retain information better, but I think it will just provide more fun for the students in a learning environment. The extra retention is just bonus in my book, particularly for 5 year-olds.
This is going to be a great year I have a feeling, if I can make it past the first couple of weeks. I was talking with a couple of friends yesterday at a birthday party and sharing how every kindergarten teacher at my school had told me the first couple weeks were hell and that I would question why I ever got into the education field to begin with. After that though, hopefully the kids will be used to a new learning environment and not think I'm a big scary monster haha.
I have some strategies for personal development too. I've been lifting weights a lot over the last few weeks, minus this last week. I lift with my good friend Curtis, who is a great guy who used to be in the military and his business tries to help veterans find jobs in the private sector. This past week I took the week off lifting mainly due to Curtis being out of town for business but also because I wanted to start being more serious about cardio and starting on that again. So I ran a couple times last week which was really good and used a couch to 5k program on my phone. It's been really helpful, although now I can't maintain my speed for the lengths of the runs anymore so I have to slow my speed down to where I'm still running but just not as fast as I was. I was running 8mph for the lengths of my runs, now I do 8mph for the first minute and a half and then knock it down to 6mph for the last minute and a half of the runs. This week I hope to combine weights and cardio, doing one or the other every day but Sunday. Monday, Wednesday, and Friday I'll lift and then on Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday I'll do my couch to 5k program. Running burns a ton of calories, particularly when you weigh as much as I do.
There's room for much improvement in my diet as well, but instead of trying to make a ton of changes all at once and failing miserably, I'm going to try to focus on one change at a time, and fail miserably that way instead, haha, hopefully not. I think it will give me a better chance if I focus on one thing at a time and then try and incorporate other changes as I go along. My friend pointed out that I had gained weight the other day and we were talking about it today - how it's so hard to gain control of your weight in American culture. Everywhere you turn there is awful food that is cheap and easy to eat and we drive everywhere. I lost 30 pounds when I went on my round the world trip and as of now have gained back 20 pounds of that already. Can you believe that?! 20 pounds in 3 months! Who does that?! Hopefully with throwing some cardio in the mix that will help me lose some weight or at least not gain anymore. The diet will have to change too for me to see any real loss, but like I said before, one thing at a time.
My parents are both incredible self-disciplined in most areas of their lives, not sure where I fell off the wagon. I do have some self-discipline in a few areas I suppose, I just need to increase the amount of areas by about ten-fold and I'd be doing okay. No one is perfect of course, but that's also an excuse a lot of people give for not doing anything to change their current behaviors, whether that be in taking care of their bodies or how they manage money or whatever. A couple weeks ago I listened to a podcast sermon by Matt Chandler that said discipline comes from love, not love comes from discipline, referring to the spiritual life. His point was that people need to focus their attention on their love of God and then discipline will come from that, not the other way around. I thought about that for a while, and have to disagree a little bit. To start, I would totally agree that initially love leads to discipline. But if you then take that discipline and apply it to studying Scripture or praying more, then I think your love of God can increase from that as well, and you have a virtuous cycle instead of a vicious one.
Geez, guess I had a lot to write about. As I sat down to write this blog, I didn't think I really had anything to talk about. Just get me started though, and I'll go on and on. Hope you enjoyed it!
Monday, July 11, 2011
MIssional communities and one of my passions
First off, let me explain what that even means. The word missional is a new one that is apparently not recognized by my spell checker as it keeps highlighting it. One way to understand it is that you are purposeful about being on mission wherever you are. Whether you are at home or abroad, you have a mission to bring the gospel to the people around you. That's the first part. The second part is communities. This means people who gather together to be in one another's presence and worship God, whether in service or evangelism or giving or singing or any other number of possibilities.
Earlier tonight, my pastor put on a BBQ for people who wanted to become a part of our church plant, The Creek. It was a wonderful time and I stayed there for about 5 hours. Ryan invited a few of us who have been part of the church for a long time to come and get to know some of the new people. One couple who I felt sorry for asked me about my trip and then we got talking about Haiti and starting business and just a lot of stuff I'm passionate about. If you read this blog regularly, you're well aware of how I can ramble on and on. This is no different when I'm talking to others, particularly when it's something I'm passionate about, such as traveling and international development.
I talked about how I would love to be a part of something that encouraged people to be entrepreneurs in order to create jobs. I truly believe that creating jobs is the only sustainable path out of poverty. You can give all the aid in the world, but unless people provide for themselves, they're dependent on others for basic necessities and it's a vicious cycle where well-meaning Westerners come into a 3rd world country, provide aid, and then leave for long periods of time without making any real lasting change. So much of foreign aid is simply for the people who are going to the developing country. It makes them feel better about themselves, like they did their part to alleviate poverty. Some of the material I've read over the last year or two, has really questioned this approach.
There are basically 2 prevailing points of view. One is that sustainable development will come from the top down, in basically a paternalistic relationship where the rich come to save the day and show the poor how to do everything, or more likely do it for them instead of teaching them how to provide for themselves. The other view, of which I subscribe to, is that sustainable development has to come from the bottom up. People in poverty need to be empowered to improve their own communities. The first step, in my opinion, is empowering them to create businesses to provide jobs for their fellow man. This is incredibly difficult in countries that are known for being corrupt and having so much red tape that it's virtually impossible to get something off the ground without bribing some official along the way.
Micro-enterprise seems to be a step in the right direction. Some criticize this form of development as being akin to using one credit card to pay off another. From what I know, this is not the case. I will never forget meeting a woman in the Dominican Republic who had received a micro-loan and was incredibly grateful for it and said it had helped tremendously. That pretty much sealed it in my mind as a very good tool for development. If you want to give aid, a loan is much more effective than a one-time donation of money.
I find hope in things that I see in different magazines and in particular a show I watched while I was staying at a couchsurfer's place in Paris. It had these stories of people who were making a difference in their own communities through sustainable business practices that were creating jobs for local people. It was simply awesome and really inspiring. One had found a way to use rice husks to create electricity. I think this was one of my favorites because it used what was once a waste product and turned it into a renewable resource. Absolutely brilliant. Another was a guy who had set up shop in Ghana I believe to make bicycles out of bamboo. Bamboo is a fast growing tree that is easily replenished.
Well, I could go on forever about this stuff, but considering it's a little past 2:30 in the morning, I'm going to call it a night. I have to stop drinking caffeine at night. I used to be able to drink it right before bed and it would calm me down. Anymore and I'm up all hours of the night. You'd think I'd learn, maybe by the end of the summer.
Earlier tonight, my pastor put on a BBQ for people who wanted to become a part of our church plant, The Creek. It was a wonderful time and I stayed there for about 5 hours. Ryan invited a few of us who have been part of the church for a long time to come and get to know some of the new people. One couple who I felt sorry for asked me about my trip and then we got talking about Haiti and starting business and just a lot of stuff I'm passionate about. If you read this blog regularly, you're well aware of how I can ramble on and on. This is no different when I'm talking to others, particularly when it's something I'm passionate about, such as traveling and international development.
I talked about how I would love to be a part of something that encouraged people to be entrepreneurs in order to create jobs. I truly believe that creating jobs is the only sustainable path out of poverty. You can give all the aid in the world, but unless people provide for themselves, they're dependent on others for basic necessities and it's a vicious cycle where well-meaning Westerners come into a 3rd world country, provide aid, and then leave for long periods of time without making any real lasting change. So much of foreign aid is simply for the people who are going to the developing country. It makes them feel better about themselves, like they did their part to alleviate poverty. Some of the material I've read over the last year or two, has really questioned this approach.
There are basically 2 prevailing points of view. One is that sustainable development will come from the top down, in basically a paternalistic relationship where the rich come to save the day and show the poor how to do everything, or more likely do it for them instead of teaching them how to provide for themselves. The other view, of which I subscribe to, is that sustainable development has to come from the bottom up. People in poverty need to be empowered to improve their own communities. The first step, in my opinion, is empowering them to create businesses to provide jobs for their fellow man. This is incredibly difficult in countries that are known for being corrupt and having so much red tape that it's virtually impossible to get something off the ground without bribing some official along the way.
Micro-enterprise seems to be a step in the right direction. Some criticize this form of development as being akin to using one credit card to pay off another. From what I know, this is not the case. I will never forget meeting a woman in the Dominican Republic who had received a micro-loan and was incredibly grateful for it and said it had helped tremendously. That pretty much sealed it in my mind as a very good tool for development. If you want to give aid, a loan is much more effective than a one-time donation of money.
I find hope in things that I see in different magazines and in particular a show I watched while I was staying at a couchsurfer's place in Paris. It had these stories of people who were making a difference in their own communities through sustainable business practices that were creating jobs for local people. It was simply awesome and really inspiring. One had found a way to use rice husks to create electricity. I think this was one of my favorites because it used what was once a waste product and turned it into a renewable resource. Absolutely brilliant. Another was a guy who had set up shop in Ghana I believe to make bicycles out of bamboo. Bamboo is a fast growing tree that is easily replenished.
Well, I could go on forever about this stuff, but considering it's a little past 2:30 in the morning, I'm going to call it a night. I have to stop drinking caffeine at night. I used to be able to drink it right before bed and it would calm me down. Anymore and I'm up all hours of the night. You'd think I'd learn, maybe by the end of the summer.
Monday, July 4, 2011
Freeeeeeedom!!!
Today is the 4th of July, which probably means nothing if you live outside of the United States. For those of us who do live in the United States, however, the 4th of July is what we recognize as our Independence Day. It is the day that we declared our freedom from the tyranny of Britain.
With that in mind, I've been thinking about freedom and how many people live within a free nation but are not very free at all. How many people are enslaved by some kind of major financial debt? How many are enslaved by sin? How many are enslaved with the American idea that more is always better? What does true freedom look like? There are undoubtedly prisoners in other countries who are imprisoned due to their faith but are still experiencing freedom in Christ. Similarly, there are people who are not in a prison of the usual kind but through poor choices are in a self-made prison that they can't see the way out of.
"It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery." Galatians 5:1 In this sense, we are free to live for Christ because of what He's done for us. God grants us free will, and we are free to either choose Him or reject Him. If we choose Him, we are free to die to ourselves and pick up our crosses daily. Free to die, doesn't sound like it makes a lot of sense but it does when taken in relation to the kingdom of God, where many things are upside down compared to the rest of human nature. A leader is to be a servant to all, in a dog-eat-dog world we are to be open-handed and generous with the things God has blessed us with.
In the U.S.A., we take pride in being a free country. In my opinion though, that's only a surface level freedom. How many Americans are enslaved to the god of materialism? How many churches lead their people to worship at the altar of more and more stuff, bigger and better buildings, all the meanwhile ignoring the poor in their own communities? I'm grateful to live in a democracy, but I think sometimes people mistake patriotism or nationalism for godliness. God is not an American. God bless the USA? How about God bless the world?
As far as 'spreading freedom' goes, I'm much more of a proponent of civil disobedience and non-violent protests than shock and awe campaigns. Non-violent protests are able to get more people involved with your cause. Everyone can refuse to take a bus, not many people are willing to kill someone else for their cause.
Sometimes I like to listen to the Dave Ramsey podcast. Oftentimes, he has people call in to scream they're debt-free. He has them do a countdown and then yell at the top of their lungs, "We're debt free!!!!!" He always has the sound of Mel Gibson yelling freedom from the movie Braveheart in the background so you really get into it. He first asks the guest to share their story of how much debt they had and how quickly they paid it all off. It's really inspiring to see people come out from under all that weight that debt causes and they always say it's such a weight off their shoulders.
What if the Church started offering that kind of freedom? The kind of freedom that Christ alone can give? What would it look like if instead of getting lost in religiosity and expecting people to just get a hold of behavior management we actually worked on just introducing them to Christ and trusted Christ to do the work on the heart that only He can do anyways? The kind of freedom that causes people to scream, "I'm free!!!" Freed from sin, free to live a new way of life; where the dead is gone and the new has come on a daily basis.
With that in mind, I've been thinking about freedom and how many people live within a free nation but are not very free at all. How many people are enslaved by some kind of major financial debt? How many are enslaved by sin? How many are enslaved with the American idea that more is always better? What does true freedom look like? There are undoubtedly prisoners in other countries who are imprisoned due to their faith but are still experiencing freedom in Christ. Similarly, there are people who are not in a prison of the usual kind but through poor choices are in a self-made prison that they can't see the way out of.
"It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery." Galatians 5:1 In this sense, we are free to live for Christ because of what He's done for us. God grants us free will, and we are free to either choose Him or reject Him. If we choose Him, we are free to die to ourselves and pick up our crosses daily. Free to die, doesn't sound like it makes a lot of sense but it does when taken in relation to the kingdom of God, where many things are upside down compared to the rest of human nature. A leader is to be a servant to all, in a dog-eat-dog world we are to be open-handed and generous with the things God has blessed us with.
In the U.S.A., we take pride in being a free country. In my opinion though, that's only a surface level freedom. How many Americans are enslaved to the god of materialism? How many churches lead their people to worship at the altar of more and more stuff, bigger and better buildings, all the meanwhile ignoring the poor in their own communities? I'm grateful to live in a democracy, but I think sometimes people mistake patriotism or nationalism for godliness. God is not an American. God bless the USA? How about God bless the world?
As far as 'spreading freedom' goes, I'm much more of a proponent of civil disobedience and non-violent protests than shock and awe campaigns. Non-violent protests are able to get more people involved with your cause. Everyone can refuse to take a bus, not many people are willing to kill someone else for their cause.
Sometimes I like to listen to the Dave Ramsey podcast. Oftentimes, he has people call in to scream they're debt-free. He has them do a countdown and then yell at the top of their lungs, "We're debt free!!!!!" He always has the sound of Mel Gibson yelling freedom from the movie Braveheart in the background so you really get into it. He first asks the guest to share their story of how much debt they had and how quickly they paid it all off. It's really inspiring to see people come out from under all that weight that debt causes and they always say it's such a weight off their shoulders.
What if the Church started offering that kind of freedom? The kind of freedom that Christ alone can give? What would it look like if instead of getting lost in religiosity and expecting people to just get a hold of behavior management we actually worked on just introducing them to Christ and trusted Christ to do the work on the heart that only He can do anyways? The kind of freedom that causes people to scream, "I'm free!!!" Freed from sin, free to live a new way of life; where the dead is gone and the new has come on a daily basis.
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