A Day in Abilene

We’re at ACU today interviewing summer interns. As much as I didn’t want to come this year, I’m glad I did because it’s always a fun experience. We meet some interesting and not-so-interesting people looking for a summer gig. It’s also a good growth experience for us when we have to put our best, most honest foot forward about what our youth ministry is like. Occasionally we’ll start in on something that’s “great” about our youth ministry, then simultaneously realize it’s no longer the case, or it’s not as great as we wish. Most of the time, though, we can honestly say we have a great student ministry at West Houston full of wonderful teens, hard-working parents, and Godly leadership through our shepherds and deacons.

We have a full afternoon of interviews after a fairly slow morning, so it should be exciting. Hopefully we’ll leave Abilene knowing who our summer intern will be. If not, it could be an interesting summer.

The Dailyness of Life

Joe Baisden was both the preacher and the most energetic man at the Belton Church of Christ for 35 years. I stayed in his house two summers when I served there as a summer youth intern and always enjoyed gleaning wisdom from him. He regularly used the phrase “the dailyness of life” to describe the ho-hum, the normal, the routine. For a man with the energy of Joe B., “normal” and “routine” were his personal hell. This phrase – the dailyness of life – stuck with me. I thought I would take a minute to walk you through the dailyness of my life. Below is my typical Monday and Wednesday. In the immortal words of Terrell Owens, “getcha popcorn ready.”

Turn off the alarm clock. Visit the restroom. Get dressed. Jump around on the landing with our Boxer, Maggie. Let Maggie out. Feed Maggie. Go workout at the YMCA. Come home. Shower. Put on deodorant. Get dressed. Fix hair. Brush teeth. Spray cologne. Check on the boys. Feed the boys breakfast. Go upstairs to get the boys’ clothes. Back downstairs to dress the boys. Put Levi’s lunch bag in his backpack. Help the boys get their shoes on. Grab my work stuff. Walk out the garage door to the car. Wave to the kids waiting for the bus in our driveway. Drive to April’s house. Pray for Levi. Pray for Titus. Pray for Seth. Pray for Mama. Drop Titus and Seth off at April’s. Drive to the donut store parking lot. Walk Levi across the street to Birkes elementary. Jog back to the car. Drive across the street to WHCC. Walk in the office. Tell Mary good morning. Check my box in the work room. Sit at my desk. Turn on my computer. Unload my bag. Check my email. Check Facebook. Turn music on. Begin reading/typing/emailing/calling/praying/dreaming/planning. Lunch. More reading/typing/emailing/calling/praying/dreaming/planning. Go home. Something fills our time from 5:00-7:30 or 8:00. Get the boys ready for bed. Take Seth to his room. Change Seth’s diaper. Put Seth in pajamas with a shirt on top so he won’t mess with his diaper. Lay Seth down with his two footballs, train, Elmo, Mr. T, and blanket. Go to Titus and Levi’s room. Help them get pajamas on. Lay on the bed and read a book, sing, say prayers – or some combination of the three. Tell them goodnight. Turn on Titus’ closet light. Turn off the overhead light. Go downstairs. Get a snack. Join Christina on the couch. Turn on the TV. Watch American Idol, The Office, 30-Rock, Parks and Recreation, Lost, or whatever happens to be on that night. Lock up the house. Around 10:00 we go upstairs. Brush my teeth. Throw on some shorts. Lay down. Go to sleep.

If you need a moment to soak it all in, I understand. It’s pretty exciting.

The older I get the more I realize great things are relative. Some people feel moved to do great things publically in ways that reach many people. Whether they write a book, preach to millions of people weekly, cure disease, hike mountains, star in movies, they make a deep impression on people globally. I have moments when I want that for myself, not for the glory but to feel like my life has meaning.

Maybe you have felt this way before and have thought the dailyness of your life is meaningless. Doing the dishes, driving the carpool, sitting in your cubicle, paying the bills, driving to soccer, watching television, ordering take-out, it all gets monotonous, but only because we make it that way. It doesn’t have to be so. Consider Mother Teresa’s famous words: “We can do no great things; we can only do small things with great love.”

I challenge you to make a list of your “dailyness” and beside each one, no matter how great or small, write out a way to do it with great love. See how ordinary they seem when they are performed with the love, humility, and grace of Jesus. After all, His “dailyness” was spent being a blessing to others and sharing a piece of the Kingdom of God with them. There is a piece of the Kingdom in everything we do, our job is to find it, live it, and share it.

Free Flow

Last night at Refuel (our high school Wednesday night gathering), I gave our students the opportunity to flex their creative muscles. I asked them to choose a Bible story – any story – take a theme or lesson from the story, and write a poem about it. For an example I scribbled one down from Matthew 25, the parable of the sheep and the goats:

ON A GOOD DAY

On a good day you seldom cuss

Or gossip or lie or cause a fuss

On a good day you keep from stealing

Though you spend little time kneeling

On a good day you tell the truth

Despite your heart being hard as a tooth (it rhymed with truth, shut up)

On a good day you avoid your brothers

While simultaneously avoiding others

I wonder, ‘Are your good days really so good?’

Then why are the poor still without food?

Not exactly headed to the publisher, but it gave the students a template for what they were to do. Here are a couple poems they came up with:

From Matthew 5 – the Salt of the Earth:

Salt was added to the recipe

Because salt is the main necessity

When the salt isn’t present

Life is most definitely not pleasant

But when it is added

Life is not matted

For salt is the best flavor

That men could ever slave for

And another:

From Peter’s Denial of Jesus:

I look but I don’t see

But I see what I want to be

They look but they don’t see

What I should be

Fear overtook me

And blinded me from reality

I have fear

I am weak

I am a hypcrite

O Lord, help me

I need strength

Another:

From the 10 Commandments:

Jesus knows what’s good

Especially for those in the ‘hood

He knows how you feel

And knows you shouldn’t kill

Don’t cheat on yo gurl

But spread the word to yo world

Be respectful to yo pops

Don’t forget about dem cops

Don’t eva eva tell no lie

Otherwise yo gon’ die

Don’t say the Lord’s name in vain

Otherwise you gon’ feel da pain

Don’t worship no other gods

Or you gon’ be stuck like peas in a pod

Don’t covet what ‘cho bros got

Or you gon’ get dropped

Word to yo mutha

There were a few others the kids didn’t turn in. It was a fun, light-hearted night with lots of laughs, but it was inspiring to see the teens get creative and express themselves and, for a minute, to allow what’s on the inside to come out.

Any poetry or prose to share from Blogland?

When Sanity Takes a Smoke Break

In my brain skydiving is the stereotypical “Adrenaline rush-New Year’s resolution-Mid-life crisis” sort of adventure that everyone wants to do but few muster up the guts to pull off. I currently fall into this category as I have wanted to try it, but in the sort of way that a person wants to get shot just to see what it feels like. Maybe someday I’ll strap on that polyester suit, attach myself to a 37-year-old “instructor” who refuses to grow up and says words like “gnarly,” hurl myself to the ground and pray the sweat on my palms won’t act like WD-40 when it comes time to pull that cord; but until then I’ll admire skydivers from afar.

I fully understand people do this everyday and safety regulations are such that an accident is unlikely, but, as Jerry Seinfeld puts it, skydiving is just another activity in which the goal is to not die. I tend to avoid these activities.

Not this guy.

Felix Baumgartner is going to jump out of a pressurized balloon at 120,000 feet

Felix Baumgartner, the current pride of Austria, is going to jump out of a pressurized balloon at 120,000 feet – the place where the sky-blue wall of earth meets the shoreline of blackness in outer space. He is attempting to break the current record of 102,800 feet set in 1960 by US Air Force Captain Joe Kittinger, who, incidentally, is helping with Baumgartner’s training.

It’s been a while since I studied aeronautics so for those of you in my boat who don’t understand what 120,000 feet is like, here is a fact to consider: at 65,000 feet your blood starts boiling. Mr. Baumgartner is going almost twice that altitude!

He will don a pressurized suit prior to entering a pressurized balloon/capsule. He will travel into the atmosphere for two and a half hours, shut off the pressure inside his capsule which will, Lord willing, instantly inflate his pressure suit, keeping his body safe from the immediate effects of the extreme altitude. Then he will simply step off the capsule and free fall back to earth. The fall itself will take a little over five minutes and after the first thirty seconds he will reach the speed of sound. In accomplishing this feat, Baumgartner is setting four world records:

1. Altitude record for free fall

2. Distance record for longest free fall

3. Speed record for fastest free fall by breaking the sound barrier with only the human body

4. Altitude record for the highest manned balloon flight

This might not go on the record, but I submit he will break a lesser-known fifth world record: highest altitude a man has ever wet himself. I do not envy the dry cleaners responsible for washing that pressure suit.

Anyway, I saw this guy on the Today Show a few days ago and have been dying to share his story with those of you who may have missed it.

Any skydivers out there with cool stories to share?

Wind Bags

My mom used to tell me my mouth would get me in trouble. I knew she was right, but for the life of me I couldn’t stop the monster that was my sarcasm or, more than that, my need to convince others that I was right. I was that obnoxious kid who argued for the sake of arguing. It’s only taken me thirty years to begin to understand the uselessness of an argument. Seriously, how often does a person “win” a verbal sparring match? Besides that, what constitutes victory in a war of words?

I’m taking a creative writing class at a local junior college and our first reading assignment was from a book called “The Trigger Town” by Richard Hugo. Hugo spends a page or two in the opening explaining to the reader that his way of writing is simply that – his way. Students have argued with him in the past over issues of preference and his plea is for the reader to put aside their arguments and write however they feel like writing. He says, “As Yeats noted, your important arguments are with yourself.”

I like that.

Sadly this concept will most likely not resonnate with popular culture. If we convinced people their most important argument is with themself, entire news networks would collapse for lack of viewers. ESPN would be whittled down to a 30-minute show once a day. Unfortunately talking heads have gained quite the foothold on society and it sweeps us up in its wake. I recently heard a man confess that he stopped listening to talk radio for two weeks and his stress levels plummeted. 

There are healthy ways to engage in a discussion, arguing is not one of them.

In my opinion arguing is useless for a few reasons:

1. Love is rarely, if ever, the result – I have never experienced an argument over an issue that resulted with the two sides loving each other more deeply. Arguing, by nature, lacks humility and shows no concern for the other side.

2. No one wins. Even if one side concedes, the relationship is still torn and needs repair. One side now sits inferior to the other. 

3. The sides only become more entrenched. The goal is to get the person to see your point of view, ergo you are digging in as deep as your feet can get. One resists “crossing over” at all costs, even when it is perfectly obvious their arguments have fallen short.

The next time you engage in a conversation with someone with an opposing view, try to keep these ideas in mind:

1. Your words should lead to love or, at the very least, peace.

2. If you are not humble enough to accept that your counterpart may be right, you have no business engaging them in conversation.

3. Being right will never win you as much goodwill as being kind.

4. Be ready to redirect if it becomes heated.

5. As Don Miller points out on his blog, God is the creator of everything that is true, including your little argument. Our job is not to use God’s truths to arrogantly raise ourselves above our friends and neighbors, but to harvest His truth and humbly share it.

What are you doing HERE?

I was kicking around ideas for our church camp this summer when I stumbled across one of my favorite passages in the Old Testament – 1 Kings 19:9-18. Elijah has been on Mt. Carmel battling with the prophets of Baal. Elijah’s prayers to Jehovah are heard in a magnificent way, leaving the prophets of Baal defeated (aka “dead”). Queen Jezebel gets word of her prophets being slaughtered and decides Elijah cannot go unpunished for this, so Elijah flees to Mt. Horeb apparently to do two things – 1. Escape Jezebel, 2. Complain to God.

It seems Elijah’s main question is “Why am I doing this?” How lonely it must have been to believe, really believe, you were the only person on the planet who believed in the One True God.

God asks Elijah, “What are you doing here?” What a loaded question! Randy Harris, a professor of mine, taught us once that when God asks, “What are you doing here?” He’s essentially saying, “Why are you here and not there?” “What are you doing HERE?” Elijah’s answer is pretty straight-forward:

“I have been very zealous for the Lord God Almighty. The Israelites have rejected your covenant, broken down your altars, and put your prophets to death with the sword. I am the only one left, and now they are trying to kill me too.”

Then God does what He does – He shows up. He tells Elijah to go stand on the mountain  ”for the Lord is about to pass by.” A powerful wind blows and shreds the mountain, but God is not in it. Then comes a violent earthquake that shakes the rocks loose, but God is not in the earthquake. Next is a fire but God is not in it either. Finally there comes a gentle whisper, followed by a voice that asked again, “What are you doing HERE, Elijah?” Elijah gives the same response, but this time God sends him. He tells him to return the way he came and anoint two men – Hazael and Jehu – as leaders of Aram and Israel, respectively. Finally he tells him there will be 7,000 in Israel who have not bowed to Baal.

The wind, the earthquake and the fire are a microchasm of Elijah’s previous few days – arguing with the prophets of Baal, calling down fire from heaven to consume his offering, and finally killing all of Baal’s prophets – violence, chaos, fear. Yet in the midst of it all God is gentle as a whisper.

I believe Elijah was “there” because he was running for his life, but he was also looking for something: a reason to continue. God gave him a reason – because God is there, because God is with him.

Life gets hard. In the hard times are you satisfied with having only God and nothing else? I hope as you’re reading this you’re reminded that God is with you in the chaos – the wind, the earthquake, the fire – but He’s also fully capable of comforting you with a gentle whisper. When you hear it, leave your cave and go where He sends you. You may even find 7,000 people ready to join you.

Get Real-er

Several months ago I started forming a list of my Christian beliefs that did not line up with my Christian lifestyle. For instance, I believe Christians should have a prayerful lifestyle – Sick friend? You should pray. Financial hardship? You should pray. Beautiful sunrise? You should pray. Texans fan? You should pray. I believe prayer is not only commanded but that it works; I believe God hears us.

I believe these things about prayer yet I do not practice them often myself. There are other facets of my walk with Jesus that I believe yet do not practice such as the power of the Holy Spirit, loving my neighbor as myself, storing up treasures in heaven rather than treasures on earth, not worrying about tomorrow, removing the log from my own eye before pointing to the speck of dust in yours. Sadly, these are not hidden or “light” commands; these are the blatant, foundational principles of Jesus and anyone who would come after Him. If you compared your beliefs with your practices, how would they measure up? In his book “God in Search of Man,” Abraham Joshua Heschel writes this:

Is our religious attitude one of conviction or a mere assertion? Is the existence of God a probability to us or a certainty? Is God a mere word to us, a name, a possibility, a hypothesis, or is He a living presence? Is the claim of the prophets a figure of speech to us or a compelling belief?

A friend recently mentioned an article in a Christian publication that highlighted how the average Christian spends their time. Included in the article was a pie chart breaking down the various areas of a Christian’s life: work, family, entertainment, sleep, spirituality. The last one caught my friend’s attention. Why would a Christian consider spirituality separate from work or family or entertainment or even sleeping?

Jesus lived His beliefs. Jesus taught about the Kingdom of God more than any other teaching. He believed His mission was to bring the Kingdom of God to people on earth, and He carried this with Him everywhere He went. A wedding in Cana is more than a celebration with friends; it’s a great time to honor the bride and bridegroom by turning stale water into the most luscious wine the guests ever tasted. After all, Jesus was the bridegroom, the Church His bride, why not bring honor to them at a wedding feast?

During the fourth watch of the night the disciples were alone on a boat in the middle of a windy lake when Jesus suddenly walked by. Caught up in panic, the disciples almost missed the message – the Kingdom of God supersedes the laws we live by, even the laws of nature.

After being falsely accused, convicted, beaten, humiliated, and nailed to the cross, Jesus cries out, “Father, forgive them!” because the Kingdom of God brings forgiveness to brokenness, it turns hate to love, it absorbs injustice in order to build up with righteousness.

Had Jesus’ message not been mirrored by His actions, He would have never made it to the cross. Is your discipleship a reality only in your mind or does it dominate your life? Find a significant way today to make your belief a reality.

Happy New Year

2009 brought a lot of blessings from the Lord for the Jones family. This year we’re stepping out in faith in some major ways and I can’t wait to see how the Lord blesses us. May everyone feel the grace and love of Jesus this year.

My goals are to run a half-marathon, catch a game at a new baseball stadium, read an epic novel, and learn to play the harmonica. Any goals for Blogland?

Rabbinic Thought for the Day

I’m (still) reading a book called “Meet the Rabbis.” Yes, the title needs a little work, but the book itself is great. I read a chapter today on the parallels between the Sermon on the Mount and rabbinic teachings. Some of the rabbinic stuff came before Jesus’ time (Hillel), and some came after, but it all flows through the same Jewish stream of thought.

As I read today I was amazed at the premium the Jewish culture puts on wisdom. While we find it important, I don’t think Christians hold wisdom in the same category as Jews. This stems, I think, from the rabbi’s teaching method of training would-be rabbi’s to know how to ask questions rather than answer them. It makes sense, doesn’t it, that a wise person would know what questions to ask rather than what answers to give. Amazing.

Anyway, here are a few samples of the rabbinic passages that closely mirror Jesus’ sayings in His Sermon on the Mount:

DISCIPLES PRAYER – “May His name be magnified and celebrated as holy, in the world which He created according to His will. May He cause His Kingdom to reign in your lives, during your days and in the lives of all the house of Israel, in this world and in the time that is near to come. Let all the people say, Amen. (Kaddish, Daily Prayer Book)

ON FAITH AND CONTENTMENT – Rabbi Eliezer the Great taught, “Whoever has a piece of bread in his basket today, and questions in his heart, ‘What shall I eat tomorrow?’ is of little faith.”

ON JUDGING OTHERS – Hillel said, “Do not judge others until you put yourself in his or her place.”

Stories about Jesus are my favorite parts of Scripture, but a close second is the Old Testament. Reading these Rabbinic writings today showed me the reason I’m such a big Old Testament fan – the depth of wisdom. The amazing thing is, paraphrasing Paul in 1 Corinthians 1, it’s not wisdom that makes sense to those outside the Kingdom of Heaven. Godly wisdom is about giving, repentance, holiness, and knowing the words of God. Unfortunately, God gives us no get-rich-quick schemes or successful capitalistic business models. Instead, Godly wisdom is about simple acts of love, the reaching of one person out to another for the blessing of both. Godly wisdom says when we give, we receive. When we are disciplined, we are free. God’s words build up, heal, and bless better than our own.

I’d like to make a prayer for wisdom a part of my daily ritual. You should consider joining me.

Christmas Eve Gift

Christina’s family has a tradition on Christmas Eve. You call someone in the family and the person who says “Christmas Eve gift” first wins. I think they used to win something like five bucks or one of those plastic candy canes filled with M&M’s, now it’s just for fun. Lame.

We survived our first Christmas at my folks house in Midland where, as usual, we racked up the gifts. Christina and I left with: new corningware, new Cuisinart cookware, four gift cards (2 to Ann Taylor, 1 to Academy, 1 to Home Depot), $300 cash, and some candy from our stockings. The boys got more than I care to write right now (mostly because I can’t remember it all). We spent a day in Odessa at the ice skating rink at Music City Mall and that night Poppy (Dad) loaded hay bales in the bed of his pick up and we went on a hayride looking at Christmas lights. It was pretty cold, but that only added to the holiday spirit. When we got back we roasted marshmallows in the fire place and had a Wii tennis tournament for prizes.

Despite all that my mom kept apologizing for a “thin” Christmas. She regretted that we weren’t on the beach in San Diego or hitting the slopes at a nice ski resort in Colorado. The past few years we’ve done destination Christmases on my parents bill. They’ve paid for all 12 of us to ski in Virginia, ski in Colorado, and spend a few nights at a fancy hotel on the Riverwalk in San Antonio, along with a visit to Sea World. This year we all gathered at their house in Midland and it was a BLAST!!!! My sister had the idea to buy a Wii for them so we spent the entire time challenging each other to tennis matches and baseball games and ski jump contests on the Wii Fit, not to mention everything I wrote about from above.

I think holiday traditions are important, but they lose their cheer when the tradition becomes all about out-doing the year before. Eventually you’ll run out of cost-efficient ways to entertain everyone while simultaneously disappointing those who wanted something different, something better. Holiday traditions, I think, are at their best when they’re simple, cheap, and involve the whole family.

Which brings me to that great Christmas tradition for all – gift giving. I’ll be perfectly honest, I’m not a very good gift giver. I think I’ve said before that I LOVE gift cards. They’re perfect in every way, and sadly not everyone has seen the holiday light and still see gift cards as the ultimate cop-out present. I think everyone should put a price and quantity limit on gifts – nothing over $20 and no more than two gifts per person. I mean seriously, spending $40 on somebody is pretty good. Besides, what do we need someone else to buy for us that we can’t buy for ourselves if we REALLY need it? I’m sucking the joy out of Christmas, aren’t I?

Of course the demographic that would be most devastated by this rule is grandparents. There’s a great article in the New York Times today about parents wrestling with ways to minimize how many gifts grandparents give their grandkids at Christmas without upsetting the grandparents. As a father who is in the thick of this struggle, I can honestly say it’s a difficult line to walk. On one hand you want your parents – especially the one who loves giving gifts WAY more than receiving them – to experience the  joy of brightening their grandkids lives with gifts at Christmas, but, and please forgive my language, HOLY CRAP WE HAVE TOO MUCH STUFF!!!!!! We started with one room in our house dedicated to toys, but the toys have now sent nomads upstairs to the landing and have even settled in the boys’ room. We have so many toys and yet every Christmas they multiply like rabbits in heat on viagra! It’s unbelievable!

Not only do we have way too many toys, we also wrestle with the more important issue of teaching our children that life isn’t about our things. In the New York Times article I mentioned, Susan Linn, a psychologist and author, is quoted as saying, “But when children have too much stuff and they constantly get more, we’re creating an environment where children are dependent on the things that corporations sell for amusement and soothing, instead of depending on their inner resources. The patterns of consumption learned in childhood can last a lifetime.”

Yes, yes, and yes again! How do you tell your kids that life isn’t about toys when 2/3 of the house is a veritable Toys R Us?

Nevertheless, Santa will come tonight with his toys for our boys, and they’re SO excited. When we get home on Friday they’ll get their gifts from Christina and I (which is sure to be a disappointment after Nana, Poppy, and Santa Claus). Finally, New Year’s Eve it’s back to Belton to get gifts from aunts, uncles, and cousins. *sigh*

I hope I don’t sound ungrateful. Gifts, obviously, are at their best when they’re given with love, and that’s what every gift has been this year. While I’d love to scale back the quantity, the quality has been magnificent. So, thank you Nana, Poppy, G-Mommy, G-Daddy, Gram, Karen, Greg, Grandma, Grandpa, April, Jeff, Jennifer, Peyton, Doug, Chelsea, and even you, Santa Claus. Thank you for loving our kids. I pray the love in our house will forever overshadow the toys that fill it.