Energy Vampires

This past Sunday Pathways @ Washpark started a new series called "Energy Vampires". Throughout the series, we are looking at what things suck life from us and from our relationship with God. Our main teaching pastor, Susie Grade, kicked off the series by talking about the regrets that we hold on to from the past, especially our guilt, grudges, and grief. At the beginning of the message they showed this Igniter Media movie that spoke to the regrets many of us have. One of the quotes from the video that resonated with me was "I Regret Consistently Missing Time With God Yet Somehow Never Missing My Show On TV." This resonated with me because there have been many times that I miss my time with the Lord; however, it is fairly rare that I miss watching the shows I follow. As I watched the video I felt convicted about how I chose to use my time and how little I give to God. Check out the video below.


Blessings,
Jason

Meeting God in the Morning

   
       This Spring semester, one area I am working on in my life in that of discipline. I have realized that I want to lead a more disciplined life, and so I decided that I would make this the focus of my character contract. One of the ways I have been putting this into practice is waking up at 6:00 A.M. 3 times a week to spend time with God. The other week, during my meeting with one of my mentors, she challenged me as to why only 3 days a week? Why do I not wake up Monday thru Friday(or everyday) to spend time with the Lord. I honestly told her that it was due to laziness. She asked that as part of our mentoring I spend one week waking up at 6 and having a quiet time.
       As of this morning, I have spent the last week successfully waking up at 6 and spending time with the Lord. The time with God has been good. I have been reading through the Psalms, journaling out my prayers, and leaving space to just sit and listen to God. Nothing radical has happened, I didn't hear an audible voice or feel God leading me into something crazy, but I have seen my relationship with God grow through the repetition of spending time with Him. It was nice to know that Monday thru Friday I will wake up and be with the Lord. There were some mornings that I was so tired that after I had my quiet time I fell asleep in my chair and Amy had to wake me up, but I faithfully continued to wake up each morning.
       One thing I did see throughout this last week is that I actually spent more time with God than I normally do. Usually when I would have a quiet time I would spend 30 minutes, however, this past week I spent an hour most mornings. It has truly been refreshing and a time I have valued.

       Do you have a regular quiet time?  What time works best for you to meet with God? What sort of things has God been teaching you lately?

Blessings,

Jason

A quick update

Hey everyone,

I have been very busy lately as I am writing the biggest paper I have written to date (30 pages). My paper is for my Greek class and is taking a lot of time which is why I haven't been blogging. I wanted to post a Psalm that I have been thinking a lot about lately. One of my mentors shared it with me the other week and I have been thinking through how it affects my life.

Psalm 106:13
"But they soon forgot what he had done and did not wait for his plans to unfold."


What does it look like for us to wait for God's plans to unfold?

Is our tendency to try to make our own plans, find our own jobs, or wait on God's plan to be revealed?

Do you think we miss out on God's plan because we forget He is working?

Just some questions I have been wrestling with and for you to ponder on this beautiful Tuesday.

Blessings,

Jason

How Should We Pastor

      Classes are in full swing here at Denver Seminary, and I find myself adjusting to an abnormal schedule. Due to the much anticipated arrival of my son I have chosen to take a lighter course load this spring. Amy and I decided that it would be wise being that we will have a newborn while I still have at least one month of school left. In addition to my classes this spring I am also trying to find a job to help support our growing family. I find myself extremely excited for this season and anticipating the many wonderful things God has in the works for my family. 
      As part of my studies here at Denver Seminary, I am required to take part in a mentoring program during five semesters of my studies. Each semester I create character contracts and skill contracts, to help me work on areas of my life that I believe I need to grow in. For my skill contract I will be spending the semester looking at what skill set is needed for a pastor today. To complement my conversations with pastors and church goers, I am also reading Eugene Peterson's Five Smooth Stones for Pastoral Leadership. I started this book last week and already I have found my nuggets of wisdom that Peterson has learned through his many years as a pastor. One of the aspects of the first chapter that has shocked me was the theological significance and depth he has shown exists in the Song of Songs. I have read through the Song of Songs many times, however, I always read it through the lens of marriage and physical intimacy. Throughout his first chapter Peterson explains that while there is a relational element we can learn from this book, we must also look at what the Songs tells us about the character of God and our relationship both to Him and others.
      One of my favorite quotes from this book came when he was describing the pastoral themes found within the Songs and how these show a type of "saving love, the kind of love that rescues from nonbeing and creates being-in relationships." As he continues describing how we should approach the Song of Songs he profoundly states;

The love lyrics of the Song are a guard against every tendency to turn living faith into a lifeless 'religion.' They make sure that as we proclaim the truth of God, we do not exclude faith in God. The Song provides correctives to our tendencies to reduce faith to a tradition, or to make an academic dogma of it. It insists that however impressive the acts of God and however exalted the truths of GOd, they are not too great or too high to be experiences by ordinary people in the minutiae of the everyday."

What a picture of the importance of our relationship with God and the necessity of remembering not to exclude faith in God as we proclaim him. As I look forward to obtaining a position as a pastor, it is important to remember that we must not reduce our faith to merely a tradition. Tradition is important, but we need to remember that we serve a living and active God, one who must be worshiped whole-heartedly! I am excited to continue reading this book and see how many other ways I find that Peterson challenges my preconceived notions about pastoral ministry.

Blessings,

Jason

Control

      Throughout this past week, one of the things that God has been teaching me is about control. We all would like to believe that we are in control of our lives, however, I have been learning just how little control I actually have. I have been looking for a job lately, and while I hope to find a job working as a pastor or director at a local church, I have also applied at Starbucks, Panera, Home Depot, Dish Network, Tattered cover, and many other companies.  Out of all of those applications I received one interview, which is not that abnormal from my experience of trying to find a job this past summer/fall. Lately I have been left questioning if perhaps the reason none of these jobs applications are producing anything is because God has a job in store for me but it has not been the right timing yet.
      With our son arriving in April (and our income ceasing) I have tried to remain patient, trusting that God is in control. I believe that God will provide, and I have seen Him provide for Amy and I many times throughout our marriage. Despite this knowledge there are times when I get nervous and realize that April will be here before I know it, I need a job quickly. After thinking about this a lot last week, I have realized how little control I actually have. I can pretend that I can take matters into my own hands and find a job, but when I apply to countless companies, only to never hear from them again, I realize that God is the only one who is in control. I was talking with one of my mentors last week about my lack of control in life and how much Amy's pregnancy has made me realize this. Amy can do everything in her power to protect and nourish our son throughout pregnancy, but ultimately our babies health is out of our control. I have read many stories of miscarriage and know that these mothers were doing everything in their power to keep their babies healthy.
      The reality of our life is that we are not in control. Of course there are certain elements of our life that are within our power to control, but as a whole God is the only one who is control of our lives, what jobs we will get, and if our children will be healthy and safe. I am thankful that I have a my faith in God to help comfort me during these times when I realize how little control I have in my life. Praise be to God that He is the one in control for He truly knows what I need more than I do. May we all recognize that despite our desires we are not in control of our life, and in recognizing this may we turn to God even more, recognizing our deep need for Him every hour of every day.

"Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? Look at the birds of the air; they neither sow nor reap not gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? And can any of you by worrying add a single hour to your span of life? And why do your worry about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; neither toil nor spin, yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not clothed like one of these. But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which is alive today and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you--you of little faith? Therefore do not worry, saying, 'What will we eat?' or 'What will we drink?' or 'What will we wear?' FOr it is the Gentiles who strive for all these things; and indeed your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things. But strive first for the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. 

Matthew 6:25-33 (NRSV)

Do you have silence in your life?

   
       Throughout my adult life, I have asked myself this question on numerous occasions, do I have enough silence throughout my daily life? Far too often, my first instinct in the morning is to retrieve my coffee, sit-down with my iPad to read my e-mail, read the paper, and check Facebook. I find that my natural response to times of silence is to fill it with noise, for example turning on Pandora while I am home studying. When I am not at home, I am usually either interacting with people or listening to the radio in the car. Case in point, while I type this I currently am listening to the Mumford & Sons radio on Pandora. The question of if I have enough silence in my life is an important question, one that is worth taking the time to ponder.
       In his book, Celebration of Discipline, Richard Foster states, "If we hope to move beyond the superficialities of our culture, including our religious culture, we must be willing to go down into the recreating silences, into the inner world of contemplation." As I read Foster's classic work I am left wrestling with the lack of silence in my own life, and asking how I can "move beyond the superficialities of our culture" and mold my life to reflect Christ. I believe that we all need to consciously create spaces of silence within our daily lives, in order to allow ourselves the opportunity to hear the voice of the Lord. Many have questioned whether or not God still speaks in the twenty-first century, but I want to challenge this idea with the notion that we are asking the wrong question. The question is not if God still speaks, but do we as Christians still listen? I for one know that I am guilty of not listening and then becoming frustrated that I do not hear the voice of God in my life clearly. If we began creating spaces of silence I believe that we will find God speaking just as clearly as he always has.
       I want to encourage you to join me in creating more silence in your life throughout the next week. Make the effort to turn off your music, shut down your computer, and embrace the silence. I guarantee that it will be awkward at first and you will feel pressure to return to the noise, but I urge you to recognize the awkwardness as a sign of your need for silence in your life. As Christians, it is important that we work at deepening our faith and fight the societal pressures to fill our lives with noise. We must seek whole heartedly after Christ, but in order to do this it is imperative that we stop what we are doing and listen, perhaps then you may hear the soft voice of God speaking in your own life.

Blessings,

Jason

Busy, Busy, Busy

This week I am slammed with papers due, Greek homework, and writing a sermon for Sunday. My desk accurately portrays what my week looks like...a lot going on. Anyways, hopefully I'll be able to write some blogs once I complete my sermon.

God Bless,

Jason

Humility

     One of the requirements of the MDIV program here at Denver Seminary is to be involved in a fairly intensive mentoring program. Part of the mentoring is working on 'character contracts' which seek to help one develop their character in order to be healthier and more effective pastors. This semester my character contract is focusing on humility. How does one obtain humility, what does it look like, how did Jesus display humility? These are just a few of the questions I have been wrestling with throughout this semester and at times it feels like I now have more questioning about humility than when I started this process.

I was journalist a little bit about this process yesterday and wanted to share some of my thoughts. These are not completely polished or finalized thoughts on the topic of humility, but more just a glimpse of my mind working through humility.

Here he was, God's son, part of the triune God head, in a mans body, walking around in His Father's broken creation. I imagine Jesus was actually hurting in more ways than we often recognize. Here He was in a world that was meant to be beautiful and a representation of God, but instead it was/is broken, damaged, torn apart, filled with sin and yet there in the midst of everything was God's Son in all His glory. How did Jesus walk around day after day in this broken world without crying all day over the destruction of something so beautiful, yet do damaged now? Was it because He was God? Yes and yes. Jesus was able to walk the earth because of His great humility which he exhibited. Humility, humiliation, one can see it throughout Jesus' life. From His mother asking Him to perform miracles before He is ready, as if he were a magician to being spit on, mocked, and crucified on the cross. The question for me becomes am I willing to be spit on, mocked, or crucified for Christ, because these actions take great humility. Some days I think the answer is emphatically Yes! However other days I don't know if I could endure it. Thankfully these are the days Christ upholds me and reminds me that it is ONLY by His strength now my own. Praise God!

  I believe that in our society today humility is not something at carries with it a high value. We believe that one should seek out power, wealth, and prestige rather than humility. As Christians we are called to a different lifestyle, one that is committed to humility, and with this humiliation at times. I am challenging myself (and you) to take some time this week to think about ways in which you are pursuing a humble life? How can you in your humility both become like Christ and also know Him more deeply.

God bless,

Jason

Our need for a Sabbath

On the Sabbath-

we learn that efficiency is

not God’s highest goal for

our life.

-Rob Bell

Hate him or love him, I believe that Rob Bell has correctly described both what our Sabbath should be as well as why we need a Sabbath. Far too often in our lives we buy into the worlds message that the most important aspect of our life is our efficiency. We run around 7 days a weeks trying to cram as much into the 168 hours we are given in a week. We find ourselves complaining about not having enough time in our days or wishing that God would just give us a 26 hour day so we could accomplish more. Rarely do we stop and think about if we are trying to do too much or if we are scheduling God right out of our busy lives.

In the fall of 2010 I was finishing up my job as a youth director after being let go due to budget cuts. My wife and I were packing up our apartment, Amy was graduating college, and we were preparing to move from Portland,OR to Littleton, CO. Needless to say life was chaotic and I felt as though we were constantly busy. It was during this same time that I listened to a lecture Rob Bell had given to graduate level counseling students at Mars Hill Graduate School in Seattle(there is no relation to the church). Bell was explaining to the students that we all have ingrained in us a need from our Creator for rest in our lives, The Bible is very clear that we are commanded to take a day of rest, a Sabbath every week. As Christians we try hard to follow the instructions we are given in the Bible, however, too often we ignore God's call in our lives for a Sabbath. We come up with excuses time and time again that prevent us from carving out intentional times of rest. One of the things that stuck with me from Bell's lecture was when he challenged the students to take a Sabbath. He informed these students that if they don' t begin taking a Sabbath know, when will they? If you can't find time this week to set everything aside and rest in the Lord then when will be a good time.

I was greatly challenged by this and felt convicted of the fact that I have never taken a Sabbath on a regular basis. As I began seminary a year ago I committed to taking Sunday as a Sabbath. The Sabbath for me would mean a day of rest, a day without the stresses of homework or work. Some Sundays this means that Amy and I go to church and then come home and take a long Sunday naps. Other Sundays I take time to talk with family or catch up on reading. Really there is nothing that I must do except be with the Lord and rest in Him. My Sabbaths have become a time of remembering that I can not do it all, that I need God to help me and am dependent on Him. While taking a Sabbath has at times been difficult, like when I have a huge paper due Tuesday, I have grown to love this day more than any other. God has used my commitment of the Sabbath to refresh me when I am week and amazingly there is always enough time to get everything done.

I want to challenge you this week to take a Sabbath. This may mean that you have to skip watching your favorite show in order to finish everything you need to so you can rest on the Sabbath. Your Sabbath doesn't have to be on Sunday, it can be any day of the week. I believe if you commit to giving this time to the Lord you will find that He will give you all the time you need and your time resting in him will become invaluable. May we all rest at some point this week in our Lord and Savior, and in doing so recognize that it is not all about us. Blessings, Jason

Do you tailor Christianity to fit your needs?

Tailored Jesus?

I read this interesting article a few days ago titled "More Americans tailoring religion to fit their needs". I have been thinking about the concept of tailoring Christianity to our needs, and have been wrestling with the question of how much do we ignore difficult parts of the gospels because they don't fit our version of Christianity. My OT professor, Dr. Danny Carroll, challenged us in class yesterday that far too often in westernized Christianity we often cling to our theology too tightly. He suggested that even when we hit verses that disagree with our theology, we allow our logic to trump the scripture. We twists the scripture to support our own theology rather than allowing scripture to reshape our logic. I was challenged to continually try to allow the scripture to be the basis for my life rather than my own ideas. If you want to check out the article I have posted the link below. I'd love to hear your thoughts on the question of how much do we tailor Christianity to fit our needs.

http://www.usatoday.com/news/religion/story/2011-09-14/america-religious-denominations/50376288/1


Blessings,

Jason

Thoughts for the Morning

King Solomon

For one of my classes this semester, Kingdom of Israel & it's Prophets, we are reading very large chunks of the Old Testament. It has been a blessing to be able to read the Bible for my homework, and I have really enjoyed diving into the OT. This morning I was finishing up our assigned reading of 1 Kings 1-11. It is in this section that we see David's son Solomon become King, rule with wisdom, construct the temple for the Lord, build a massive palace for himself(I checked and his house was almost 7,000 sq. feet), and eventually turn away from the Lord. While Solomon was a very wise man as he got older he became distracted by temptations of the world. The Bible tells us that Solomon had seven hundred wives and three hundred concubines (11:3) and that as he grew old "his wives turned his heart after other gods, and his heart was not fully devoted to the Lord his God."

I believe that far too often we allow things of the world to distract us from whole heartedly seeking after God in our lives. This passage has got me thinking about what things in my life turn my heart away from the Lord? Is it the shows I watch on TV, the desire to have "enough" money, a pursuit of education, trying to make friends and family happy? I believe that as Christians we must constantly be reevaluating our lives to ensure that we stay focused on God and serving him. This passage has challenged me to think about what areas of my life distract me from God and what areas bring me closer to the Lord. It is my hope that I will focus more on the latter in order to continue drawing nearer to the Lord. May you take the time to examine your own life this week and weed out those things that draw you away from the Lord and focus on drawing nearer to the Lord every day.

God bless

Preaching

This morning I once again had the opportunity to preach at 1st Reformed Church here in Denver, CO. I was a little nervous about preaching on the 10 year anniversary of 9/11, especially when the lectionary text I chose was focused on forgiving those who have wronged us. Thankfully, God is gracious and gave me the right words to say! I spent most of this week reading commentaries, reading Bibles, writing out ideas, praying, and writing my sermon. I spent the better part of Friday and Saturday holed up in coffee shops trying to finish my sermon. I experienced writers block Friday and thus ended up not finishing the sermon until Saturday at about 12:30p.m. This left me with a lot less time to practice than I had wanted, but God is good and everything went well.

I preached on Matthew 18:21-35, the parable of the unmerciful servant. I challenged the congregation that there are three things we can learn from this parable.

(1) We are sinners,
(2) God gives us grace,
(3) By extending forgiveness to those around us, we can truly experience the grace of God in our own    lives.

I had a blast preaching, and I am really beginning to enjoy the routine of preparing and delivering a sermon. If anyone is interested in seeing my manuscript please just let me know, and I can e-mail you a copy. I tried to video my sermon but the battery on my flip camera died.

I want to end this post by sharing a funny story that happened while I was getting dressed this morning for church. Sometimes our ability to laugh at ourselves can be just what we need to release some tension and calm our nerves. I had put on my slacks and dress shirt and decided that I should wear a tie. Now I only know how to tie one tie knot, and I have been using this exact one since the 9th grade. The only knot I know how to tie is the half windsor knot, it goes something like this,

Well this morning I decided that I wanted to use a different tie knot since you know, I am preaching and should be well dressed and have the perfect knot for my tie. I decided I should google how to tie a full windsor knot, as they project power and confidence. I read a step by step instructional online and even watched a video. I knew that now I was ready to tie my tie. I tied it while watching the video and when I was done I just laughed. There was no way my tie knot projected confidence or power! I showed Amy and we both laughed pretty hard. I know you are dying to see what my knot looked like, good thing I took a picture.

Needless to say, I don't think I have mastered the full windsor knot. I ended up just trying my good old half windsor knot, and I don't think anyone at church noticed or cared. Hope you all had a great weekend, God bless!!