December 12, 2009

Unrecognized and Ignored

I shared this story with our youth this past week:

It was Friday morning, January 12th, in the middle of the morning rush at the DC Metro. As over a 1,000 people passed by, a young white man in jeans and baseball cap pulled a violin out of its case, threw a few dollars down as seed money, and began to play.

A rich sound filled the Metro plaza, an elegant and pure melody that these walls had never heard before. An occasional passerby dropped a few coins in the case, but for the most part, the musician was ignored.

1097 people passed by that morning. The violin case managed to collect a mere $32 and change in donations.

Who was this unrecognized brilliant young musician?

“No one knew it, but the fiddler standing against a bare wall outside The Metro in an indoor arcade at the top of the escalators was one of the finest classical musicians in the world, playing some of the most elegant music ever written on one of the most valuable violins ever made.” (Pearls Before Breakfast, Washington Post, April 8, 2007)

The musician’s name was Josh Bell. Three days before this experiment that the Washington Post arranged at the Metro, Bell filled Boston’s Symphony Hall, where average seats went for $100. Two weeks later there would be standing room only at the Music Center at Strathmore in North Bethesda. But on this particular frigid January morning only a handful of people paused for even a moment to take in the beautiful sound that under normal circumstances filled Halls and packed auditoriums.

The violin that Bell cradled was a 3.5 million dollar instrument hand crafted in 1713 by Antonio Stradivari. It is said that no violin produces a sound as wonderful as Strads from the 1710s.

Sixty three people passed by before anyone even seemed to notice the musician at all. A middle aged man slowed his pace for a moment and glanced to the left. He kept walking, but it was something. Not a minute later a women tossed in a dollar without even stopping. It was six minutes before someone even stopped to listen.

Only seven people stopped at all to listen to the master musician, twenty seven people gave, and over 1,000 never stopped, never even turned to look.

The master musician had gone unrecognized and overwhelmingly ignored. (Click here for the original Washington Post Article and a short video clip of Bell in the Metro )

2,000 years ago the very creator of the universe showed up, and very few people even noticed.

You’d think that people would recognize our master creator by what they saw and heard. But overwhelmingly, people were too busy and too blinded to notice.

Of course, God didn’t choose to enter the world as a conquering king or triumphant hero. His arrival was humble and simple. He came as a baby, born in a dirty stable because there was no room at any of the inns.

The master creator showed up on earth to save us from the walls we had built between ourselves and God. His arrival was hardly noticed, but for centuries to come, people would celebrate this single, momentous, yet ignored occurrence- one of the most significant events in human history. This event is what we call Christmas. 2,000 years ago most people missed it.

Are you missing Christmas this year?

October 15, 2009

Awake and Alive Lock-in

Pray for me as I have an "all night lock in" tonight...UGH!!! LOL! Were taking our students to the Skillet, Hawk Nelson, Decyfer Down concert, then eat tons of food!, gym games that will big pain to my body (big target on my back always), open game room, watch a movie, sardines & flash light tag in the big church (always to biggest hit), then smack down some Krispy Kreme's. 13 hours of fun and torture all in one long night. My Friday will be shot but it's all for our great students whom I truly enjoy. Great students and leaders!

February 27, 2009

Tonight kicks-off our big youth event called Disciple Now Weekend. Our youth will be divided up into 9 host homes with 18 small group leaders from around the state of Oklahoma, mostly college students. Our speaker for the weekend is Anna Meadows who is one of the youth pastors at Life Church in Oklahoma City and our worship band is Kyle Cantrell from Journey Church in Norman. One of the biggest draws for the weekend is our Saturday afternoon paintball. The youth as well as the adult leaders love it.


Our theme is Live Love. What I hope happens this weekend is that our youth and adults will respond to the challenge by the Holy Spirit and respond to Him to live out our lives with love and care for others and through us they will see Christ and be drawn to Him.


I am currently reading a book titled, The Spirit of the Disciplines by Dallas Willard, which focuses on the understanding of how God changes lives. In the book Willard states that we must practices such things like "...simple and sacrificial living..." and "...service to others." I pray that we will truly understand how to do so and produce godly fruit in our lives.

February 13, 2009

Flashback with Facebook

The Facebook phenomenon continues to draw in younger people these days. But at the same time, older and older people are increasingly finding their way to this online social network. As a result, I'm suddenly more connected with people who I went to high school and college with over 15-20+ years ago.

And "flashing back" to our own high school and college years can be a real advantage for those of us in youth ministry. I like to have our volunteer youth workers think back to when they were in middle and high school, "What were you like when you were a teenager?" "Which of the students in your small group were you most like when you were in middle or high school?"

  • Were you the shy & quiet kid, not making eye contact with anyone?

  • Were you the frenzied tornado kid, ricocheting back and forth across the room?

  • Were you the kid with way more on your mind than your facial expression revealed?
A little blast from the past can go a long way toward helping you to consider what your ministry feels like to every type of kid. But the "flashback" serves me best when I think about my own journey through middle/high school. How I was trying to figure myself out... and I could have used some adults to help guide me.

How I wanted so much to be "cool"... and yet how tricky that was. And how I had no idea how much Jesus loved me... and what that meant for me. I'm thankful as a youth 18 year old lost college freshmen I had a godly man, John Ramirez, BSU Director, who came into my life and reached out to me with the love of Christ.

When students in our ministries are adults one day, will they "flash back" and think about how much God became real to them through our efforts? May it be so!

(part taken from scott rubin)

February 2, 2009

Update on Me

Here is an update on my stomach issue. In stead of just an upper GI they did both upper and lower GI's (fun) last Monday, January 26. My wife, Jennifer has some funny stories as some of you know what I'm talking about...you are really out of it. During the lower GI everything looked normal and they took a biopsy of the colon. During the upper GI this is what they saw and did:
  • Stretched my Schatzki’s Ring
  • Mild reflux
  • Gastric mucosal abnormality characterized by erythema (whatever that is) - biopsied
  • Erythematous duodenopathy (whatever that is)
  • The 2nd & 3rd part of the duodenopathy (whatever that is) - biopsied

The doctor started me on Nexium and I am waiting on the pathology results of the biopsy. It’s been a week now and I still have not heard from the doctor concerning the results. My stomach has done very well the past five days, I even pigged out with my 9/10 grade guys LIFEgroup during our Super Bowl watch party last night and my stomach did not bother me. I guess the Nexium is working well. It's a magical purple pill. I will share the pathology results when I here from the doctor. Thanks for those of you who have asked about me and who are praying for me.

January 15, 2009

Pray 4 Me



Just asking for some prayer as my stomach has been bothering me for about a month now. Today I finally was able to see the Gastroenterology & Internal Medicine Specialist, Dr. Jeff Bigler, who is very cool. I answered tons of Q's for him. He has scheduled an upper GI scope, lab work, and an abdominal CT scan. So we will see what happens with all of this. Thank you for praying for me and I know that the Lord will take care of me and restore my body. Pressing on!

January 12, 2009

Facebook - 150 Million Active Users

I like using facebook. I enjoy connecting with friends and people who I have not seen or talked to in many, many years as well as current friends. I have been a member of myspace and facebook and a few other social networks but my favorite has to be facebook. I like its structure, its security, its ease of use, its applications, and more. I know facebook has been catching on recently, but I had no idea how much.
Check this out...today I came upon this description of the growth of facebook and how it is expanding, and expected to continue growing in 2009. AMAZING. Check it out...