The Means to an End

This is the script that I spoke from on Sunday in church about the closing of the prayer room. It really was just a blog post I got to share with more than 4 people. I guess that is good. Enjoy:


This prayer room brought us into a focus of prayer. I think it brought many people back to prayer that had somewhat lost their way. I know that was the case for me. It gave me a place to get away from everything else in my life and rest with the Lord. I know I slept less this month than anytime since college. But I was usually refreshed and ready to face my day, even after a night with no sleep. Prayer was a means to an end. It was a path I had forgotten, one that I had probably at times scoffed at, but it brought me to my end. It brought me closer to my Lord and Savior. It brought me home.

The 24-7 Prayer Movement has based itself on a Rule. This rule governs their set-up in their Boiler Rooms (consistent 24-7 prayer rooms). The Rule has layers. The inner-most layer is that their purpose is to love God and love their neighbors. Upward and Outward. The next layer is their principles: Authentic to Christ, Relational to People, Missional to the world.

The final layer is the practices that complete the inner areas. These are the means by which they achieve their purpose. To be Authentic to Christ, they use prayer and creativity. This was where our prayer room shined. You can see in the art and the graffiti, and the journals, and I believe, in the hearts of our people, that prayer and creativity were blooming in that little room. But what I want to share with you today is the other 4 practices that are also vital to our growth. For the 24-7 movement, they are stated as Mercy, Hospitality, Learning, and Mission. To simplify, they are GO and DO!

Now this is not saying that we need to stop praying, but what I have come to understand is, if all you do is pray, you will hit a wall, you will find yourself not getting any closer to God. At the same time, if all you are doing is serving, you will get your eyes off of God and you will find yourself doing things for the wrong reasons, or burning out and not doing them at all. There must be a balance, and it will be different for everyone. In fact your balance may shift in your lifetime. But to continue to grow in Christ, it takes more than one path. It takes a multi-pronged approach.

This congregation is a giving one. We see that in the Mortgage Burning Celebration we will be having soon. We see that in our support of Missionaries and Orphanages around the globe as well as local needs as LAM. But this is not necessarily being missional. Missional is really you GOING. I am not suggesting that we stop supporting mission work, and I am not suggesting that we all get our passports and shots and run off to Africa. But I am suggesting that the idea of GO and DO takes getting your nails dirty, not just your checkbooks out.
The Bible uses the word GO 1,514 times. 1,514! Including Jesus’ last words to the disciples

Matthew 28:18-20 (The Message): "Jesus, undeterred, went right ahead and gave his charge: "God authorized and commanded me to commission you: Go out and train everyone you meet, far and near, in this way of life, marking them by baptism in the threefold name: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Then instruct them in the practice of all I have commanded you. I'll be with you as you do this, day after day after day, right up to the end of the age."

We are commanded to go. Ever heard of a Wild Goose Chase? This was a concept created by the ancient Celts. They called the Holy Spirit the Wild Goose. So a Wild Goose Chase was a journey one was sent out upon in order to get closer to the Holy Spirit and in turn closer to God. Sometimes our Wild Goose Chases are becoming the answer to our own prayers. Sometimes God lays things on our hearts and then, we pray over it, and we get this sinking suspicion that we are to do something about it. Not just pray, not just send money in support, but to GO and DO.

And this is the scary thing, sometimes that is the only plan you get. Not many of us jump at those things. We like the approach of sending something, we love the fact that we can be ever fervent in our prayers. But sometimes we are called to be more. We are not just called to pray over poverty in our community, we are to create outreach to let them know they are loved by God. (That is what I believe this Angel Food Ministries thing can be). We are to see people making a real effort to clean up their lives and their community and lend a helping hand. Sometimes we see them doing nothing at all to help themselves, we see them digging themselves deeper and deeper into their sins, and God calls us to reach out and be His mercy. We are not to be judgment (we are to have judgment) but God is the great judge. We are to be mercy, we are to be loving and kind and compassionate. And if it is used against us, we are not to be fools, but we should not withhold mercy. We should work to not be calloused over by the wickedness in the world, because even those who are abusing our mercy and seeing mercy from Christ. They are experiencing Him, and that is worth a few times of facing injustice in return.

I have talked a lot about the means, but I have yet to state the End. What are we aiming for? What is success in this adventure? To get ever closer to God. This is the END of our journey. The end that our means are getting us to. We are ever trying to get closer and closer to God. We want to be nearer to Him. Now many of us like to use this “nearness” as a means itself. That our being nearer to God will help us get what we want. But if that is the mindset, you are not making your relationship with God your focus, you are making yourself the focus. If we as a church are going to grow, it is going to be in searching and trusting in Christ and in the leaders He has established here in our church, that we are working for that one goal. That nearness. It is not an agenda to do his thing or her thing or even to balance his things and her things to not upset anyone. It is about doing God’s thing. And doing it WHOLEHEARTEDLY. In complete trust and faith, that it will get us to His presence. So this is my challenge to you today use the means of GO and DO to help get us to the End we so desire.

SALVATION IS HERE

Maybe redemption has stories to tell
Maybe forgiveness is right where you fell
Where can you run to escape from yourself?
Where you gonna go?
Where you gonna go?
Salvation is here
--Switchfoot (Dare You to Move)

I was never the boy who thought girls had cooties…I always liked them. I had a “girlfriend” since 1st grade (Tonya was the first). Growing up, I never was without one for long. I grew up in church and Christian school, but girls were my value, my worth, my addiction. It wasn’t bad parenting, it was just the way I was “wired,” I guess. I am not trying to start a debate on internal vs. external reasons for things, nor am I saying that God made a mistake with me, but I honestly believe that I came with this wiring and it is part of my gifts, but it is a part that is easy to screw up in very major ways.

Looking back now, when I was growing up I was told over and over and over again the dangers of alcohol and drugs and I kept myself pure from them, not drinking until I was of age. But I had not had those same lessons about sexual purity ingrained in me over and over again from a young age. And sadly, it is easy to screw up at a young age. I had a girlfriend all the way to my senior year of high school. I took that year “off” from girls to “find” myself. I do think I grew a lot that year. It was that year I fell in love with my wife, but it was also the beginning of a time where my problems festered and grabbed major roots.

But this goes much further back than Senior year…I saw my first Playboy at a friend’s grandfather’s house around the age of 10. I remember being drawn to it…wanting to see what the big deal was…being utterly amazed at what I found. I knew it was wrong, but I didn’t know why it was wrong. It was beautiful…it was like art…it was a woman…and what could be wrong with that. My friend was scared and didn’t really look, but I drank it in…I gulped my first sips of that sweet poison, and I have never forgotten it. It was not immediate, I am sure of that, but over time my mind kept remembering and was drawing me back for a repeat performance. The next years of this story all blur together from the same basic images burned into my mind constantly. I found any way possible to get my fix of naked women; I don’t believe I ever acted out in any rude or disgusting or vulgar way to the women in my life, but I was in constant search of my next fix.

The images of magazines, movies, TV, then later, all of a sudden, this concept of the internet was in my home. And it was all day every day available pornography, and all you had to do was click and say you were 18, no real check, just enter at will with one little “white lie.” I would overhear in the locker room the easiest and best ways to find it online and the sites to see, then when I got a chance I would go. I never shared those things, because then people would know what I was doing; and in my world, I was better than that, so silence was golden. I was addicted. I would sneak into other parts of the house after I was supposed to be asleep and watch dirty movies on HBO, or Cinemax, or Showtime. Sometimes I stayed awake for 3-4 hours just to get my rush. And when I would be going to sleep, I would be dreaming and fantasizing of me in those roles with the women I had seen. I bought my first video at 16; I was so nervous I would get carded. I practiced my response to that question numerous times before daring to go up to the counter. I was also so nervous, I looked at the video titles from the next aisle over in the store, so no one would know what I was doing. All of this led to me purchasing a 20 year old movie involving David Hasselhoff (even in this serious story, take the time to really think about that and chuckle). On the rare occasion I would go to a bookstore, I would go to the photography section and find photobooks of nude “art” so I could get my fix there as well. I would pull the swimsuit issue from the trash (my mom’s poison control) and look. I was completely desperate for my stimulus. There was a time when I couldn’t get to sleep without masturbating, I would lie awake for an hour and afterwards be asleep in 5 minutes. My mind was overrun with images and desires. I was utterly enamored with the female form. God is good and with women he was great. It was almost like the little devil and angel on my shoulder conversing; my mind would say “this is wrong,” then something would say “it is honoring the beautiful work of our magnificent creator.” (That is the most twisted Sunday School answer I think anyone has ever come up with)

All of these encounters affected my real relationships with girlfriends. I would desire for them to do those things with me. Not go “all the way,” but just make me felt like I felt when I was seeing those things on the screen. I wasn’t pushy or gross (I don’t believe I was), but my mind had turned what I had seen into the expectation of intimacy. Somehow, by the grace of God, I was able to abstain from intercourse, but more damage was done than I care to admit.

In college, I remained physically pure with real women, but inside I was defiling my mind. I was around other guys to whom this was the norm and there were no issues in their mind (at least none I knew of). On the exterior I was much better than them, I respected women. But my insides were rotting from swirling through this addiction to this cesspool of smut. At some point though, I made a decision to quit. I don’t remember the exact time or place, but it was a conscious choice to do what was right. I was getting ready to get married, and I was getting myself back into the Word and my little angel on my shoulder finally won the battle he had been fighting for years. And it worked, I broke my addiction free and clean. No real help necessary, not really admitting anything to anyone, just me and God…then…

After being married for a little while, I was talking to my “best-friend” on the phone and he was living with another buddy of ours from high school. They had been talking about things from high school and the buddy mentioned about how on a missions trip in high school I had brought up my porn battles in a “debriefing” session with all the people in the room (male, female, leaders, my parents). I mentioned that was something the Lord had really laid upon my heart that I needed to come to grips with. On the phone, I could hear them both laughing and remembering how they had choked back chuckles when it had happened. Then replaying it over and over about who all was in the room and people’s faces. I remember thinking that I had opened my heart about something that was killing me on the inside, and it was a joke…I was a joke…obviously this must not be such a big deal…or being right and pure is a joke.

Immediately, like that night, I was back online…dying. Married…Christian… clean and sober for years…and one joke did me in. I knew it was wrong, but it was “normal”…something guys do…and to be a real man, I would do it too. No more “Sunday school” reasoning, this was about being a man.

All of a sudden I was back in my addiction…up to my neck…the one that “Christians” don’t deal with and DEFINITELY don’t talk about…and no friends to talk it out with. So I drank away my pain with my drug of choice, naked women. I started with my old sites, but in just a few years, the internet had expanded to no end. The sites you could share music with, could now be used for so much more. And then I found my biggest draw yet: stories. Letting my mind, that I had trained for years to have these visions, take off and run with whatever story I read. And this was from a guy who despised to read books. (On a positive, this experience taught me the joy of reading, and allowing the mind to run wild with ideas, just better content)

The reality was, I was dying to get caught, I was dying for someone to back up that little angel that I was no longer listening to. Someone to tell me this was WRONG, because I couldn’t believe it myself. I needed to be shaken or slapped or anything to get me back to thinking straight. I effected my life…and my marriage…I couldn’t treat my wife like I should…I couldn’t get to sleep without seeing naked women.

Then it finally happened. Innocently enough, my wife was looking for something she had seen online the day before and opened the history of our web browser. There was her worst nightmare laid out before her eyes in alarming detail, and she was married to it and carrying it’s child. We got counseling, I found a great friend I could talk to about things…things were great. Then the Lord asked us to move back home to Keystone…to help our struggling church…with a struggling staff that was all family. So when the Lord and family (with first time grandparents) call you home, you go. But your friends don’t move with you. And when you only have one, and he doesn’t come too…and your only “friend” here is the one who sent you back into your darkest places in the recent past…what is to happen, and why would God call us into that? The closest men in my life for over two years have been my father (the pastor) and my father-in-law; neither are ideal candidates for discussions about this type of struggle. And any acquaintances or friends that are new…it’s not easy to catch them up…not like you drop it into your introduction to each other…or over dinner…or really ANYWHERE. It’s not like a conversation naturally leads to that…and in all honesty it’s not like I am dying to share these stories of my greatness and nobility, honor and valor…I am talking about my nasty, vile, disgusting, secrets…that I am in many ways happy to keep secret…to use my clean start with new people. And from the outside, no one is going to steer me there as if I need it. From the outside I look silky smooth…I am the pastor’s son who is constantly helping at the church; I am married to the only woman I have ever slept with, and I am madly in love with her; I am a dad to an adorable little girl. Those things wouldn’t be in my past. But there they are.

But over these nearly three years…no friends…work…child…parents…church struggles…annoying people…faith challenges…building a house…another child…marriage…macho attitude…how it will reflect on my family…helping others…sponsoring clubs…wearing myself out…and no friends I feel I can rest upon, that I can let my guard down with, I have been pulled ever closer and closer to that deep end. I have stared my demons in the eyes…I have looked for what is on late night TV…I have been tempted to click on the dirty emails…I have typed my old internet haunts into the address bar…but each time, I have struggled to keep from drowning. My lungs have taken on water, I am coughing and hacking and churning to stay afloat…at times the waves calm, and it becomes easier for a while, but the root issues have to be addressed.

I have to find a place to pour my passions so that they will not be able to be sucked from my being through porn. And I need a friend to be able to open up to. This blog is becoming that, I get to shit out on a page for others to read, the contents of my heart. But the reality is that I can hide from this screen the lies and the pain and sorrow and addiction if I choose to. And my passion needs to be something to replace those evil desires in my being. I need something(s) that affects my spirit the same way, except for Good and not Evil…I need my redemption story…I need my purpose for this pain…I need my community of hope…I need my rescue line…I need my continual salvation…I need my truth…I need my salvation, and I need it daily…and it is continually provided…how cool is that?

24-7 Vision

In getting our 24-7 prayer room set up, I found this "poem" that was written by Pete Greig from the first ever 24-7 prayer room. This was and is his vision for this movement. I hope that it will become our vision and focus as we move together in prayer.

The Vision
So this guy comes up to me and says "what's the vision? What's the big idea?" I open my mouth and words come out like this…
The vision?

The vision is JESUS – obsessively, dangerously, undeniably Jesus.

The vision is an army of young people.

You see bones? I see an army. And they are FREE from materialism.

They laugh at 9-5 little prisons.

They could eat caviar on Monday and crusts on Tuesday. They wouldn't even notice.

They know the meaning of the Matrix, the way the west was won.

They are mobile like the wind, they belong to the nations. They need no passport.

People write their addresses in pencil and wonder at their strange existence.

They are free yet they are slaves of the hurting and dirty and dying.

What is the vision?

The vision is holiness that hurts the eyes. It makes children laugh and adults angry.

It gave up the game of minimum integrity long ago to reach for the stars.

It scorns the good and strains for the best. It is dangerously pure.

Light flickers from every secret motive, every private conversation.

It loves people away from their suicide leaps, their Satan games.

This is an army that will lay down its life for the cause.

A million times a day its soldiers

choose to lose

that they might one day win

the great 'Well done' of faithful sons and daughters.

Such heroes are as radical on Monday morning as Sunday night. They don't need fame from names. Instead they grin quietly upwards and hear the crowds chanting again and again: "COME ON!"

And this is the sound of the underground

The whisper of history in the making

Foundations shaking

Revolutionaries dreaming once again

Mystery is scheming in whispers

Conspiracy is breathing…This is the sound of the underground

And the army is discipl(in)ed.

Young people who beat their bodies into submission.

Every soldier would take a bullet for his comrade at arms.

The tattoo on their back boasts "for me to live is Christ and to die is gain".

Sacrifice fuels the fire of victory in their upward eyes. Winners. Martyrs. Who can stop them? Can hormones hold them back?

Can failure succeed? Can fear scare them or death kill them?

And the generation prays

like a dying man

with groans beyond talking,

with warrior cries, sulphuric tears and

with great barrow loads of laughter!

Waiting. Watching: 24 – 7 – 365.

Whatever it takes they will give: Breaking the rules. Shaking mediocrity from its cozy little hide. Laying down their rights and their precious little wrongs, laughing at labels, fasting essentials. The advertisers cannot mold them. Hollywood cannot hold them. Peer-pressure is powerless to shake their resolve at late night parties before the cockerel cries.

They are incredibly cool, dangerously attractive

inside.

On the outside? They hardly care. They wear clothes like costumes to communicate and celebrate but never to hide.

Would they surrender their image or their popularity?

They would lay down their very lives - swap seats with the man on death row - guilty as hell. A throne for an electric chair.

With blood and sweat and many tears, with sleepless nights and fruitless days,
they pray as if it all depends on God and live as if it all depends on them.

Their DNA chooses JESUS. (He breathes out, they breathe in.)

Their subconscious sings. They had a blood transfusion with Jesus.

Their words make demons scream in shopping centers.

Don't you hear them coming?

Herald the weirdos! Summon the losers and the freaks. Here come the frightened and forgotten with fire in their eyes. They walk tall and trees applaud, skyscrapers bow, mountains are dwarfed by these children of another dimension. Their prayers summon the hounds of heaven and invoke the ancient dream of Eden.

And this vision will be. It will come to pass; it will come easily; it will come soon.

How do I know? Because this is the longing of creation itself, the groaning of the Spirit, the very dream of God. My tomorrow is his today. My distant hope is his 3D. And my feeble, whispered, faithless prayer invokes a thunderous, resounding, bone-shaking great 'Amen!' from countless angels, from heroes of the faith, from Christ himself. And he is the original dreamer, the ultimate winner.

Guaranteed.

Something I should have posted 2 weeks ago

LISTEN TO U2's NEW ALBUM!!!!! IT IS GREAT ALL THE WAY THROUGH, BUT "MAGNIFICENT" IS JUST THAT!!! ENJOY THE WORSHIP!!!!! I ALSO LOVE "I'LL GO CRAZY IF I DON'T GO CRAZY TONIGHT".

Tragically Uninspired

Why am I so busy? Why to I let my mouth write checks that my body can't cash? Why do I do nothing for myself? If I did do something for myself, what on earth would that be? Carey said the other day that working out was the only thing that I do for myself, I never thought of that. But I don't work out for me, I work out for my health, so I can see my kids when they get older, so I can maintain an acceptable physical appearance. It is not like it is a release or something I look forward to. I pretty much constantly question if the little bit I do helps anything at all. But I had no witty comback for her assertation, because I don't have anything. I am sitting here jealous of all those people who have something, I am even jealous of the ones who don't have time for their something, because at least they have something.

In childhood, I set my life up around sports, and boy did I love them. It was my release, they helped straighten me up when I was screwed up, they gave me something to look forward to, they gave me easy and set friendships that already had something in common. But now that I am aging, and there aren't really any sports for me anymore. Sure I could go play some basketball, but I never really loved it in the first place. I coach baseball and football, but that has made those into more of a job than a release. I suck at golf, absolutely hate running (and it's not a real sport anyways), and can't really think of anything else to talk about as a sport to turn to. I play fantasy sports for a release and to replace the activities, and I love to play them, but they are not really satisfying. And the friendships are with random people who I never see and really never interact with.

So now I am nearly 29, with no release, and no time for one anyways. And I am not sure which is more pathetic.: I have no one that I really talk to or that I have nothing that I do to talk about.

***************

I wrote this almost 2 weeks ago now...and couldn't post it. This is not a cry for help...this is not a begging for pity...this is not a call for friends...this is just where I am. I do not know how to change it...it is a journey...it is a process...it will be personal...it will not be my doing...it will all be God's.

I will take your prayers. And for that I thank you

Dead

Have you ever just felt dead? Emotionally drained? Physically whipped? Spiritually disconnected? Blah? Head in a fog? That's where I am right now...just dead. Like I am even working to breathe. I know I have plenty of reasons I should be that way...building a home, pregnant wife, middle of a season, building a home, looming budget cuts, challenging daughter, staying up too late, building a home, getting up too early, RUN RUN RUN, a little congestion, and I am sure there is more that I can't think of right now. Even posting this is like excruciating work for me. Negativity is pouring in. Who cares? Why are you writing this to no one? This is like talking to yourself, only more pathetic...Is all you can do is make stupid lists about your pretty damn good life?

God I need a rest...a break...a positive breakthrough...a slumpbuster...a resolution...PEACE!!!!!

What do you say when you have nothing to say, but feel the need to write? What do you do when you have so much to do, but all you want to do is get away? How do you sleep when all you can think about is all you have to get done, or what you haven't done? How do you see your wife awake for 2 hours in a day and spend it talking baseball or (not)watching American Idol? How do you not see your daughter awake at all and think you have time for another one?

Reading Purpose for the Pain, is this my version of being "there?" That place you feel you can't get out of? The one people turn to drugs, alcohol, cutting, self-destruction over? I can see how, I can see why, if those were things in my life I would be turning to them right now. Instead I turn to eating, tv, and I am drawn to other lustful behaviors from my past. For no other reason than...I don't even know why. I know they are destructive, I know they are not helping me, I know they are escapes, but they aren't nearly as bad as the drugs, alcohol, and cutting.

So I sit here paradoxically numb and in pain at once...staring at the pills and razor blades of my life...staring and waiting...waiting for one of us to blink...playing chicken with my deepest, darkest demons...hoping to hold out, afraid I can't...afraid I am not strong enough to carry the load...afraid I am not good enough for the life I have...afraid that if doing my best makes me feel like this why am I working so hard for it...afraid...

This is not a sitcom, it's not resolving by the end...still waiting for the happy ending...still waiting for the resolution...waiting to find the purpose for this pain

Gotta get back to "real life"...back to work...let me find where I set my mask down...gotta cover my pain...before somebody sees...ME

Purpose for the Pain

Haven't posted in a while. Not sure why (other than I am busy as hades). Just started reading Purpose for the Pain by Renee Yohe. These are a compilation of Journals from Renee over the years. Renee is the inspiration for my favorite site, TWLOHA. She was in deep in drugs, alcohol, self-cutting, near death. She was surrounded by friends and people she had never met that pour love into her soul. They immersed her into the love of Christ. She grew up in church, she knew it was there, but she had run so hard from it...But Jesus never stopped coming after her. I am in awe of her writing, so I am excerpting pieces here that really hit home with me. I hope you enjoy...

...But I will keep feeling,
even if it kills me,
because apathy is not living.
--Renee Yohe

...But I won't allow you to reside there
I won't grant permanence to my position
I WILL FORGIVE YOU.
--Renee Yohe

RE-BIRTH
Fear. Overwhelming doubt.
Searching frantically for expiration dates,
to mark the end of this newly purchased life,
when the light will run out.
Tremors. Of hope come and go.
Grasping with all I am,
with the desperate strength of despair,
lest I slip from the life and fall below.
Running, chasing, glimpse of a smile,
Pursuing shadows as fast as my heart will beat,
until my lungs explode
to convince this utopian dream to last a while.
Climbing a burning rope.
Scaling cliffsides to safety,
weary, pulling myself up, plagued with lethargy,
bruised, bloody, and broke.
Thriving. Swimming in a foggy haze.
Uncertain, yet boldly daring,
to mold this new world,
thrusting, in the promise of better days.
--Renee Yohe

A PRAYER
I hurt everywhere, and no where all at once. I feel so disillusioned, yet its catalyst was clarity. Reality shifted through the cracks, a rude awakening. Why would you give me these dreams? You compare yourself to a parent - if your child asked for food you would not give him a stone, these dreams are outstretched arms reaching as the child to it's father, feed my soul. I'm sorry. I'm sorry for my failures, for my doubts, help me not to put you in a box. Mend me, use me, I am yours. Thank you for always pursuing me, even when I turn my back and run. You're incredible, I take you for granted, I'm so sorry. Father, Friend, Shepard, Pursuer of my soul, HEALER, Light. Thank you. I love you.
--Renee Yohe