Intro to My Journey Through Numbers

This begins my journey through the Pre-Res Book of Numbers. I'm going to issue a new blog every couple of days as I make my way through this captivating book. Check back for posts of significant parallels or simply my thoughts on something I come across. I'm making this journey in The Message, so when I reference a specific text or use a quote, unless I specify other wise, check the text in this version and compare to other translations as well. This should be interesting... it is at least for me. I've found so many remarkable things and can't wait to share them with you. I'll be posting on Tuesday, so be sure to check back!

Superman Comic

According to a Fox News article , the first comic book ever to introduce Superman is to be auctioned today. Only a hundred copies are known to exist and are estimated at $126K! This #1 edition is expected to go much higher than that.

The guy selling the comic bought it when he was nine years old after begging his father for $0.35... I think this will be a good return on his father's investment. He will finally be able to pay his father back the $0.35 he borrowed as a nine year old.

The dad should charge interest especially given the fact we are in a recession and needs to take every opportunity to take advantage of this crisis. :)

Good luck auctioneers! Happy bidding!

Search Me Oh, God!

We are excellent at seeing what's wrong with everyone and everything. I have to admit, last night watching the address to Congress I did my share of yelling... I mean commenting at the screen. I saw everything that I thought was wrong. And, I let my wife know about it. Am I implying that we are to keep our comments concerning government under wraps? Not at all! Thankfully we (still) live in a country where this is supposed to be the norm.

But, today it has caused me to consider myself. I prayed a sarcastic prayer to God that He would open the eyes of the new administration... yet the sarcastic tone caught my attention. I immediately prayed that God would open my eyes instead. Then my mind exited the political and turned to the sacred... the spirit... the temple of God housed in me (I do still hate that the political and the sacred have to be separate, but such is life).

My prayers turned to myself... "God, my Father, what wicked ways do you find in me?" Then the flood came, right? If one looks, really looks, wicked ways are not hard to find. Especially if I'm the one looking and the microscope is pointed at my heart. I shuddered. Of all the prayers for God to answer!

Why has Christianity resigned sin to the big three... sex, drugs and rock and roll? I might argue that God had something to do with two of these...! What about the subtle way we talk about each other, or think about each other? What about the way we are jealous and envious when our friends get the big breaks we think we deserve? Or, the way we inwardly nod in agreement when someone gets what we think they deserve?

Search me, oh God, but not too deeply. Let me keep some of these things. Don't expose them just yet, I've not finished with them. -NOT SO FOR ME LORD! Search me, cleanse me, help me to cast down imaginations, let my will fade as vapor, let me not force my way.

I want to be able to jump into His arms when I stand before Him at last... when I see Him and we are not strangers. I don't want to shrink back in shame. Cleanse me, oh Christ my Lord, as only You can.

March Calendar...

What up, REVOLVE? Here's our calendar of events for the month of March! A lot of cool things are happening and you don't want to miss out! Like always let me know if you have any questions. See you @ REVOLVE!

Long Lost Friends... FaceBook!

I just signed on to this , FaceBook thing... I know! I'm old school behind the times. I've peeked in on a few old acquaintances and I've got to admit how fun and addicting this is. Eleven plus years of forgotten friendships... and then bam! It's like you get to catch up on an entire decade all at once. Kinda like a bad episode of Back to the Future II.

I'm shocked to see how many of my old friends have hooked up and married other old friends and now they have mortgages, babies (multiple), Ph.D's, etc., etc. Some of us have gained a few more pounds than we probably wanted to; some are barely recognizable because of the pounds they've lost. It seems we are all working together to balance the planet.

What has been shocking though are the extreme make-overs some seem to have gotten... not in looks, but in character. A few of my old buds were good, godly guys and girls and now their pictures tell a different story. Life has gotten them. Better to rule in Hell than to serve in Heaven? Maybe?

It seems like we all suffer from identity crisis. Now remember, some of these guys I'm seeing for the first time in more than a decade. A lot changes... nothing rarely stays the same.

If I drop off FB and don't visit for another eleven years, do you think it will all cycle back ending a bad nightmare? We of course then will be in our forties and a decade closer to the big show. Will mortality matter? I hope none of us are planning to die in our forties, but will our libido be settled so we can finally focus?

I doubt it... Hopefully, we'll loose our desire to "be something" and set our goal to become focused on the things that make us of no reputation. Then we can get centered on Him and these types of things can't be corrupted.

Broom Ball!

Hey, REVOLVE! Don't forget to bring your "A" game when we play Broom Ball tomorrow night... Remember, we are meeting at church at 6:45pm and leaving at 7pm to go to the Pelham Civic Ice Arena. We are going with Mission Baptist, so get ready to mingle. Bring your buds and the cost will be $10 for two hours of icy-cold-broom-balliness... okay, maybe I should just shut up! See you tomorrow night...

"She..." Series "Great Mate" Intro to Session Three: "I Am Woman"

Tonight I begin session three in our series, “Great Mate.” We will be looking at the role of women tonight! Just for this occasion, I had my lovely wife sit in with me while I studied for this session and give valuable input on her fellow gender... Because when it comes to women, they are a great mystery…

So complex, yet simple… a paradox yet every part of her being a complimentary whole. She is strong and aggressive but as gentle and fragile as silk thread. Beauty unparalleled, curved and sculpted by the same hands whose beautiful works have been emulated in many a painting through the centuries yet never duplicated in splendor nor in wonder.

It’s the female bear so greatly feared when a hunter crosses paths with an unattended cub.

She comes with a warning, “Better to live in the corner of a rooftop than in a large house with a brawling woman!” Anger and passion, quiet and gentle; a force to be reckoned with... who can understand the depths of a woman’s heart? Tears given to her to break the most stubborn heart, yet a smile so warm to cure any a world’s disappointments. Statuesque and sassy, yet the warmth of an intimate embrace is the opium of the man.

She is a truth serum making the strongest of men malleable putty in her hands. The force of strength… the spine she is to any man deemed Great. She is behind the scenes quietly making things happen or behind the lectern stealing the show. She has the wiles to ignite a mighty nation’s political parties; both favorably and unfavorably, but it is she the sparking igniter. Craved and lauded yet pushed down by masculine fears.

Men will beat bloody fists against each other for only the hopes of attracting her attention. Men will aspire to poetry and painting to try to encompass her beauty yet poems and paintings cannot express gentle kisses given from her passion nor tightly held embraces. Paintings and poetry become blind and deaf in her shadow. She is graceful and clumsy and makes both beautiful. Man will leave the security of father and mother and will sweat and toil to provide her the same security and shelter he abandoned. He will break his back to be able to place on her neck costly pearls and diamonds both of which she will make their beauty fail against the backdrop of her simple neck.

She is created in His image the same from the rib of man, and man will pursue with all his power and striving to have her remain by his side. Who can explain and understand fully who she is? She is woman… she is beautiful mystery… She…

Speaking at Green Pond CoGoP...

Hey, REVOLVE! will be leading worship and I will be speaking Sunday evening at a youth service at the Green Pond COGOP. I appreciate their invitations and look forward to hanging out with these guys this week.

As always my faithful compadres will be accompanying me leading worship... Aaron, Joseph and Cameron. Thanks again guys for the being there...

Also, that afternoon after the AM service REVOLVE! will be playing flag football... yeah, we can't let go of football no matter what time it is... and, thankfully we have decent enough weather at times in February to make this happen, however I believe this particular weekend is going to be cold so bundle up guys! See you there...

Binding...

Sunday night REVOLVE! Student Ministry was priviledged to share in the worship service at Cottondale Community Church. We were really glad to be there and everyone was great to us. The REVOLVE! college band got to lead worship... Aaron, Cameron and Joseph did such an excellent job! I was glad they got to be there... and made me proud!

I shared a message entitled, "Binding"...

The theme of the message was basically, "what are you tied to?" I contrasted our ties to this world and our tying ourselves, or binding ourselves to God. God instructed the Israelites coming out of slavery in Egypt to bind His words to their hands and foreheads. and to teach them to their children day and night. This Jewish practice is referred to as "wrapping the straps", "laying tefillin," "black leather boxes", or by the Greek word, phylacteries.

These phylacteries contained four texts of scriptures, 2 from Exodus and 2 from Deuteronomy. And, the Jews made it a practice, as instructed, to wrap these black leather boxes around their arm up to their biceps and around their foreheads. While they wore these phylacteries they were to pray the prayers contained in the little black leather boxes that were bound to their hand and forehead. This practice literally bound them to Torah and in essence to God. It also bound them to prayer, as the word tefillin is the plural form of another word from which it is derived called tefillah. This word means prayer... so in essence the Jews who wrapped the straps were binding themselves to prayer. The Talmudic rabbis taught that anyone who recited and prayed the prayers that were contained in the tefillin without actually wearing tefillin were in fact liars.

Then, in Revelations 14:9, John tells of the Beast's plan to have his followers bind to themselves on their hands and foreheads his own symbol. You see this is Satan's plan. To have us bind ourselves to his ways instead of God's ways... to follow his program and not God's program. The mark of the beast then becomes an affront and an offense to God. First century Jews who converted to Christianity would have recognized this picture John was making while reading the Revelation of Jesus Christ, and could have identified exactly what it meant to take the mark.

We also looked at Paul's question in Romans 7:24, where he says, "Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death?" Some believe here, after Paul transparently outlines the spiritual struggle that he found himself in - which is the struggle we all find ourselves in - that his statement body of death was an allusion to a Roman form of punishment for murder. According to Valerius Maximus in his "Deeds and Sayings" he details a form of punishment where the Romans would tie living people to rotting corpses, squeezing them tightly together at every point possible, face-to-face, and allowed them to rot away together. If this is the picture Paul is trying to paint to the Roman Christians, then what a beautifully morbid picture he paints of our struggle between flesh and spirit that takes place in the Christian.

What stinking, rotting corpse is it that we are bound to in life and that we struggle to get free from, but for some reason to no avail? Do we bind ourselves to some corpse and have chosen to live with the corpse of lust, greed, lying, pride or any such thing that we've not chosen to deal with in the spirit? It becomes this pet that we protect and hide in our lives all the while its rotting stinch is slowly destroying us? We think no one sees it, no one will ever know, but the truth is He who sees all does see... and this corpse we try to hide and protect is going to be our end.

Paul announces in verse 25 of chapter seven that the only relief, the only One able to deliver him from this rotting corpse is Christ Jesus our Lord! He alone can set us free, and He alone is whom Paul revered and served so radically. Jesus alone is the answer... so I ask, "What's binding you?" Do you bind yourself daily to God, taking up your cross or have you settled on binding yourself to this world? Think about it...

"Great Mate" Series... Session Two: "It's A Man's World"

What makes a man? By society's estimate this guy is no "girly man"... many would argue, as would Arnold himself, that he is a true man.

But are muscles and strength and good looks the estimation of a man?

Arnold's campaign for governor of Caly-forn-ua exposed his youthful immorality. The American public found out that this man's man had been nothing more than a womanizer and treated women as an object to play out his lustful desires.

In Session Two of our series "Great Mate" we looked at the biblical measure of a man. The theme, after all, of this series is understanding what it means to be a man or a woman, and how these two roles fit together biblically to propel our planet forward.

In Ephesians 5:21 -33 we looked at the very familiar passage where Paul teaches how husbands and wives should treat one another. This text has been the subject text of many a fiery sermon where male pastors asserted their "headship" - which is the biblical role of the male - but in a very unbiblical way. Banging on pulpits, they have commanded women to submit while failing to see our role in the relationship. Look at the text from The Message concerning the man's role as a husband:

25-28 Husbands, go all out in your love for your wives, exactly as Christ did for the church—a love marked by giving, not getting. Christ's love makes the church whole. His words evoke her beauty. Everything he does and says is designed to bring the best out of her, dressing her in dazzling white silk, radiant with holiness. And that is how husbands ought to love their wives. They're really doing themselves a favor—since they're already "one" in marriage.

The text contains six verbs, six things, that husbands should observe to be considered biblical husbands...

1. He goes all out in your love for your wives...
2. He has A love marked by giving, not getting...
3. His love makes the church whole...
4. His words evoke her beauty...
5. Everything he does and says is designed to bring the best out of her...
6. He dresses her in dazzling white silk, radiant with holiness...

Guys, what if we truly did this for our wives? What if we applied these rules more fully to our marriage? How drastically different could a rocky relationship be if the husband took the initiative to love his wife this way... the way Christ loved humanity?

For the sake of being brief I won't comment on each of these like I did last night. But, the point is God wants us males to step up and be MEN... real Men! Not men with creamy lotion-y hands, or melon butter make-overs. We are designed to be strong, confident, protecting even passionate and fiery. However, being these don't exclude us from being understanding, gentle and compassionate.

Notice that Jesus, when the woman caught in adultery was brought to him, treated her with respect uncanny for that of first century women. Everyone likes to speculate what Christ was writing in the dirt, but miss the fact of where Christ was... in the dirt. Why? Because that's where the woman was. His forgiving nature wasn't an approval of what she had done, but his actions to love, forgive and correct followed the above model of evoking the best in her. He encouraged her to not sin like this anymore and yet at the same time respected her as God's daughter, his sister. His forgiveness dazzled her and dressed her in white silk garments radiating with his holiness.

Men, this is our order... these six rules are what defines us. Not muscles and looks, but the actions that elevate women... our wives... and bringing the beauty out of them in a respectful and honoring way. Come on guys, let's grow up, show up and be MEN! If we will, our wives will have no problem in honoring us and allow us to lead, right? The text ends with a benefit for us guys... we are really doing ourselves a favor since we are "one", right? And, husbands, you know what I mean... (wink!)...

4 Rules for a Youth Pastor's Blog Photo...

For this post I'm not going to incorporate a picture...

For all of we blogging youth pastors there's an MO or mode of operation (I can't spell the Latin off the top of my head and I'm too lazy to look it up at the moment) that is particular to each of us . It has to do with that of our blog's pic for ourselves. Here's the breakdown:

1. A picture of us and our wife/girlfriend...
2. A picture of ourselves with a gaggle of our own children...
   
3. A picture of ourselves that doesn't show how fat we are getting...
4. A picture of ourselves doing something that only we think is funny...

Now by itself #1 is the most popular followed in second place by rule #2. If you don't believe me, click on my profile (Rule #4), and then click on "occupation - youth pastor". Go through each of these and see if a picture of the youth pastor of any given blog profile isn't posing with his girlfriend/wife. If you combine rules #3 and #4 then it will be by far the most popular, but standing alone I think rule#1 is king.

What these rules say about us as youth pastors...

Rule #1 says I'm cool enough to hook up with a chick so you should definitely hang out at the student group where I'm the youth pastor. That's the basic point. This especially applies to the youth pastors who post pictures of themselves with their girlfriend. Those of us fortunate enough to be married only post this type of picture b/c either we married up (which is 95% of us... the other 5% happen to be female youth pastors in which this rule would apply to their husbands) or we are afraid of our wives and don't want to catch grief.

Rule #2 is self explanatory. It's for the youth pastors who have discovered the joy of life in having children. We then become that annoying person who always wants to show off pictures of ourbaby's first drool, first doo doo, first anything... and yes, I am that guy now (x4 - but not all at once).

Rule #3 is also self explanatory. That's why you will see youth pastors who are 31 and are still using that picture of themselves when they went to their Sr. Prom and were somewhat good looking back in the day. This explains to the students we pastor that I wasn't always this fat dude who's married up and now has four children. I would have loved to use this type of pic for my blog profile, however I'm over being fat now and just want to be funny.

Which leads us to rule #4... After we are over the fact that we are married to a beautiful woman and that somehow we pulled that off before having gotten fat after having babies and gaining weight that my wife didn't gain while she was growing a human being inside her stomach (my 7 year old's words) we post the picture that we think encapsulates our God given ability to be funny which is why God called us to youth ministry in the first place. Being funny is all we have now! Being funny is what makes anything we would have to say in a pulpit anywhere ever matter. Being funny is our excuse to incorporate two forces of nature into our sermons, God's ability to love us unconditionally and saying the word fart in front of a group of teenagers who still think fart is a funny word (and, yes, I giggled while I typed fart... oops I'm doing it again... giggling not farting).

It is an amazing thing to get to be a youth pastor and requires the 4 rules for a youth pastor's blog photo as a requirement to be able to do our job. It's probably why so many youth pastors are guys. Check the profiles we are all 25 to 35 and all think we are funnier than we actually are. I guess that's why I type this blog thinking it's so funny that somehow it's going to make its way into the hands of the Pulitzer prize board people and that they are actually going to award the prize to me. Being a youth pastor is a great and awesome thing so I applaud you all! Especially the dude that has the picture of himself looking like the incredible hulk doing a push up. Believe me if you don't make the connection on that one, then you can't be told!

God bless the youth pastors!

REVOLVE! Is Headed to Laguna Beach...

It's true guys! We are headed to Laguna Beach in June! I know, can you believe it? Okay, so it's not this Laguna Beach... so hopefully it will contain a lot less drama! (what am I thinking... you guys at REVOLVE! are drama queens in your own right!) We are going to Laguna Beach Retreat in Panama City, Florida for our very own REVIVE! 2009 Conference.

So, the count down begins! Start marking your calendar for June 19th through June 22nd for REVIVE! Conference. And, here's just a bit of a break down on Laguna Beach Retreat...

1. Beautiful white sands Florida beaches
2. 8 private acres
   
3. 13 pools
4. 4 heated pools (as if we'll need this...)
5. Beautiful white sands Florida beaches
6. Basket ball courts
7. Beach volley ball courts
8. Beautiful white sands Florida beaches
9. Catered food for 4 days and 3 nights
10. Oh, did I mention... Beautiful white sands Florida beaches!!!

Be at REVOLVE! for all the details and information... Also, don't forget REVOLVE! Summer Concert Series coming in June! So, there's a lot to look forward to this summer... be there!

"Great Mate" Series... Session One: "What's Love?"

We began the Great Mate series last night at REVOLVE! Student Ministries. We are off to a good start...

Romans 5:8 says that "God put His love on the line for us by offering his Son in sacrificial death while we were of no use whatever to Him." (The Message)

Did you catch that? It says "while we were of no use whatever to Him." This goes against everything our planet tells us love is supposed to be about. The world's version of love is a system completely based on what someone else can do for you. Its evident. Just pay attention to the commercials that were on during the Super Bowl this year. Companies paid millions of dollars to show Americans and the world exactly what it is that we value and hold so dear. Its not even about the products as it is the way we sell those products. What was Danica actually selling for her company of choice? You could almost make the case for prostitution, right?

Our system is based on what someone else can bring to the table. But, we see something drastically different from the system God has to offer. While we were of no use whatever to Him Christ died for us. This love, this unthinkable type of love, puts the world's system on its head. While we were in our filthy, stinking, lustful, lying, murdering, selfish state Christ gave Himself sacrificially in love for people that couldn't bring anything to the table. This is the love we are to try to attain to; this is the love that the Holy Spirit places the capacity within each of us - the believers who dare to walk the walk of the Master.

Last night I gave our students three basic rules of love to set the stage for the next three sessions in our series, Great Mate.

1. No one can truly love themselves until they begin to see how Christ truly loves them.
2. No one can truly love another until they begin to see how Christ truly loves them.
3. This selfless love from Christ is the basis and true definition of what love truly is for the three relationships we have in our lives... God, ourselves and others.

When we grasp this love then we can love more freely and our relationships will become the biblical idea God had in mind for humanity.

Next week we begin session two: It's a Man's World. We are going to look at what it means to be a real man through the example of Jesus. See you at REVOLVE!

The Temple Functioning as the Jewish Neck

Both Temples of ancient Israel were God's design to be among His people. It began with Moses and God's instructions to him to construct the Tabernacle that the Israelites would carry with them through their wilderness journey to the Promised Land. God's Holy Spirit would stretch from Heaven to the Holy of Holies and all the people would come out of their tents and bow and worship and God would be among His people. How powerful is the image of the Holy, amazing God who came near to His people. Whose God is like this, right? The Jews have a name for the Temple that we might not be familiar with. The Temple is known to them as functioning like the Neck.

Song of Songs 7-5 says, Your neck is like an ivory tower.

The Jews also believed that when Joseph saw his brother Benjamin he ran and fell on his neck and began to weep. Benjamin also began to weep. When this moment ocurred, as believed by Jews, Beresheit, Parsh Vayigash 45:14 (book of Genesis - weekly Torah reading), God showed them both the temples that would come. It is thought that because of the ecstasy they both experienced from seeing the future temples God also showed them the destruction of those temples and the loss of life the Jewish people would suffer so they both wept on each others necks. This kept them from dying from too much ecstasy. They were weeping for their future.

This scene is believed to be an allusion to the temples and their function similar to that of the Neck. The metaphor of the neck is significant in a couple of ways. First, while the temple was in existence it allowed the Jews to walk among the nations with their heads up and necks erect. But at their destruction they became degraded and walked in shame at the loss of the temple. Secondly, the neck is our life line. We can live, as stated by Rena Cohen in a paper written about the Temple Mount, without limbs, but not without the neck. If our necks are severed then we cease to live. Thus the Temple was the life line to the Jews because of God's visible presence among them.

Just as outlined in the book of Hebrews in the New Testament, we have a Great High Priest, that is Jesus, who is ever before the Father interceding for us in the Most Holy Place in Heaven. The earthly temple was but a shadow of the things which were to come. And, now we live the fulfilled plan of God in that we have received Christ, our Lord, and the Spirit of God now dwells in man! Christ functions like our Necks! He ever intercedes on our behalf and His blood shed makes for the pure and eternal atonement mankind so desperately needs. The blood of bulls and lambs were not all sufficient but the sacrifice of the Son of the Most High is now our life line. He is our neck! I praise God for this life line, our Christ, and now we have a new and better covenant. Jesus is the Neck and life line to humanity. He is the Way, the Truth and the Life no man can come unto the Father but by Him.

New Sermon Series : "Great Mate"

I'm working feverishly to begin a new sermon series for REVOLVE! Student Ministries, called "Great Mate". It sounds a bit like 'Grape Ape' the old school cartoon, but has nothing to do with a purple ape. It's about gender roles, okay and purple apes. I know, you're saying, "Wow! How ground breaking...", right? Although, not ground breaking by any stretch of the mind I've felt the need to discuss the issue of gender roles with our group. And what better a time than Valentines...

I'm planing four sessions:

• Session One: "What's Love?"
• Session Two: "It's a Man's World"
• Session Three: "I Am Woman"
• Session Four: "Pure"

This will all focus on the biblical roles of men, the biblical roles of women, how these roles work together and session one will set the stage or foundation for these roles which is Christ. All of these aspects will be shown as being valid even in a post-modern setting.

I hope the students will identify themselves with it being okay for them to be who they are, accepting their given gender, what it means to be that gender and how these genders work together in moving this planet forward.

Oh, and after we figure this all out we are going to cure cancer, bring peace to the middle east and get rid of the wrinkles on Mickey Rourke's face... wait I think that one has already been done...

I'll post status updates throughout February on each session of the sermon series. It should be a Great time... ok bad pun...

REVOLVE! Student Ministry February & March Activities...

Here ya go peoples... here is the calendar of events for February and March! I will give you a hard copy of the calendar on Wednesday night, so be there...!

There are a lot of things to look forward to in the next few months and looking to the spring and summer!

If you have any questions, let me know... if you have any suggestions, then let Pamela know... no, seriously let us know what you think!

We are planing a summer concert series exclusively at REVOLVE! Student Ministries. Be looking for all the details and announcements to come! Later-