greggandcyndi

consistancy

holy crap, it's hard to be consistant...at pretty much anything.  i came back from colorado wanting to read my bible and walk the dog everyday...that worked for about two weeks.  but the Lord is still in his temple, and there is still a faith that can make the mountains move...thats a paraphrased quote from a rich mullins song...i think of that quote a lot when i am feeling overwhelmed...it is good to know that God is stil on his throne, and nothing can remove him.

so here's to consistancy...

pornsunday

you should check out www.pornsunday.com and www.xxxchurch.com.  don't worry, they are safe...they're all about awareness and getting people in the church to understand the reality of porn and it's effects...like these facts...

• Number of pornographic web sites: 4.2 Million
• People who regularly visit Internet porn web sites daily: 40 million
• Christians who said pornography is a major problem in the home: 47%
• Breakdown of male/female visitors to pornography sites: 65% male - 35% female
• 30% of unsolicited e-mails contain pornographic materials
• Women, far more than men, are likely to act out their behaviors in real life, such as having multiple partners, casual sex, or affairs.
• Porn revenue is larger than the combined revenues of all professional football, baseball and basketball franchises.
• US porn revenue exceeds the combined revenues of ABC, CBS, and NBC at $6.2 billion.

steve-o-gram

today i took seven of the youth from my church to a service project organized by the youth ministry i used to work with.  it was awesome.  bitter-sweet at times, but awesome.  bitter-sweet because i miss being the worship leader for those students.  but today, God spoke to me through steve-o.  he really encouraged me.  he basically was telling me that i had an impact on his life.  it's always good to hear that.  sometimes you feel like all is vain and pointless, but then you're proven wrong.

as someone that struggles off and on with "success and effectiveness" in ministry, it is good when you hear someone witness to how God used you in their life.  so praise God in the highest.  praise God in His temple.  praise God in the heart of steve-o.

kicking my butt

i have come home from the 'desperation' conference with new resolve.  jesus is so much more holy than i am and i don't seek him enough.  i wasn't reading my bible everyday, wasn't praying, and fasting...come on...i wasn't doing that. 

this wasn't a mountain top experience.  this was a, wow, God is so much more holy than me.  Jesus is so worthy and i've been giving him crap.  this was a, how could he every possibly call me his own when i am who i am?  the answer is simply that he loves me, but he calls me to love him.  his word says that if we love him we do what he has commands...  this was a, i keep saying this...it's time for me to do it experience.

for a while now i have been allowing the mystery of God to be a stumbling block for me.  this is because i have been upset that i don't understand why things didn't work out at Heritage.  i say, 'but we gave everything' and he says...'i know', and i say, 'so why' and he says, 'don't worry about it'.  i've been having this conversation with him for months and months now, to the point of tears, to depression, to the point of fists flying through the air.  then...

today i was reading oswald, for august 3rd, and he had this to say...

We are not taken into a conscious agreement with God’s purpose— we are taken into God’s purpose with no awareness of it at all. We have no idea what God’s goal may be; as we continue, His purpose becomes even more and more vague. God’s aim appears to have missed the mark, because we are too nearsighted to see the target at which He is aiming. At the beginning of the Christian life, we have our own ideas as to what God’s purpose is. We say, "God means for me to go over there," and, "God has called me to do this special work." We do what we think is right, and yet the compelling purpose of God remains upon us. The work we do is of no account when compared with the compelling purpose of God. It is simply the scaffolding surrounding His work and His plan.

man!  i feel like job, when God said...'why do you think you know me so well?  were you there when i created the great mysteries of the universe?' (my paraphrase). 

culture may be influenced or even initiated by the few, but it is always perpetuated by the many

g. hampton

untitled

i really dont' know what i want to post about right now, only that i want to post.  it's been about two weeks i guess and it's been a pretty busy time.  the week before last started vbs, then youth assembly and then confirmation camp.  now i have a day to rest, be with cyndi and brennan and i think we will go look at used cars.  my car is a two door and with brennan and ministry, i would like a four door.  besides that my car has no radio, ac, or power anything, not even power steering. 

i feel my heart challenged about every day.  but i don't read my bible every day.  i don't get it.  i know that i am still in process, that i am still growing, that i am still becoming who i will be.  i want to be known by jesus.  it's weird in the gospels how sometimes jesus would say, "i never knew you", even though they were people that had "served" him. 

in 2 cor. 5 it talks about being a new creation...the old has gone, the new has come...i like to think that the new doesn't end.  all the new we will have doesn't come in those first moments we follow, but over the course of time.  the old is definately dead, but the new takes time.  for some it seems instant, and others slow motion, but still the new comes. 

i have an old car...about 15.  i should always have new in me.

two jacobs

This past Saturday morning a bunch of us came together as a community at faith lutheran to create a Labyrinth for our community and our first opportunity to minister to someone came earlier than most of us expected. Around 9:30am a couple of the students that had wandered away from work and around to the new “ark” playground came running back and a bit afraid. They had noticed someone decided to use the ark as a shelter for the night, and sometimes when you come across something you weren’t expecting, it can scare you quite a bit.

Two adult leaders and myself went over to the playground and asked the students to stay behind so that whoever we found would not be embarrassed by having a large group of people around him, but also because the person could have been potentially dangerous and we didn’t want to take the chance of any youth being hurt. We climbed up into the ark and began attempting to wake the person. After a few hello’s and asking “are you okay?”, the boy woke up.

At first the boy didn’t know where he was…groggily he asked, “Am I in a tree house?” We told him that yes he was in the second level of a playground and again we asked him if he was okay. He said he was okay and explained that he was there because he and his friends had too much to drink the night before and he had been too tired to go home, so he crashed in the ark sometimes after midnight. We asked him his name and he said “Jacob”. After a few minutes he was awake and aware enough to get up, and we told him we could give him a ride home, so I drove him home. I talked to him on the way and let him know that if he needed anything to call me and when I dropped him off I gave him my phone number. I could tell that he was hung over and probably had a bad headache and didn’t feel very well.

What happened with Jacob reminded me of Jacob from the bible. In the old testament there was a person named Jacob that was a trouble maker and wasn’t the most honest, but God had a plan for him. One night when Jacob had decided that he wanted to change and that He wanted God to help him change, the bible says that Jacob wrestled all night with a man that was believed to be an angel. Jacob wrestled with this angel all night long and when the angel saw that Jacob would not give up, he asked him what he wanted and Jacob replied he wouldn’t let him go unless he blessed him, so the angel changed his name (Jacob) that basically meant “undercut”, to Israel, which meant, he who strives with God, or someone that doesn’t give up on God and seeking after Him. The angel also injured Jacob for some reason. He touched his hip and gave him a limp for the rest of his life.

Jacob from the bible and Jacob from Saturday morning have something in common besides their name. They both made a decision that brought pain. Jacob from the bible decided to not give up striving with God and ended up with a limp and was also probably very sore from wrestling all night. Jacob from Saturday morning decided to get drunk and woke up in a potentially embarrassing situation with a bad headache and a hang over. Living life without experiencing pain is impossible. There are going to be times that pain is inevitable; it’s going to happen. And sometimes we will be the ones that made the decision that caused us pain. What’s important to know is that sometimes pain is a good thing. For Jacob from the bible, pain meant that he hadn’t given up, that he had wrestled with an angel all night long and was blessed for it. Jacob from the bible had a limp for the rest of his life that reminded him of that night, which reminded him to never give up seeking after God, and reminded him that he was now and forever changed.

Let’s pray for Jacob, that next time he be more like Jacob from the bible. Then let’s pray the same thing for ourselves.

modesty

cyndi recently bought me "modest mouse".  so far, i like it.  reading through the lyrics, i can see that they have a lot of questions and/or about God.  things like..."you wasted life, why wouldn't you waste the afterlife?"..."if God controls the land and disease, keeps a watchful eye on me, if he's really so damn mighty, my problem is that i can't see, well who'd wanna be?...such a control freak?"  thank God He let's us ask these questions.

John Deere Jr. High School

there is this very cool person at my new church, and she teaches jr. acheivement classes at John Deere Jr. High School...anyway, her guest speaker fell through, so she asked me to fill in for twenty minutes, so i did.  let me tell you, i haven't felt that lost in a while.  i enjoyed it, but i'm so used to talking about the Jesus, and being intentionally spiritual, it took me about ten minutes to get to a point that i was comfortable and felt like i could hear the spirit telling me how to communicate to them something that was of actual value.  so in the end, i felt like something had been said that was good for them, in a motivational way, and i'm glad i got the opportunity, even if it was last minute...

breakfast with john

this is john (not john the writer).  john and me have been friends now for about three years.  he was the sound guy at riverside umc when i was there.  we got along pretty well, and got to do some cool stuff in ministry together.  anyway...part way through being at riverside, john was sent to iraq and was in baghdad for almost a year.  it has been awesome to see how his faith has grown, how he came home from iraq with his faith intact, and how he wants to go deeper still...hence "breakfast with john".  we are going through "out of the question...into the mystery" and so far it has been pretty good...plus we get to go fishing and disc golfing afterward.