Megatron: “Why throw away your life so recklessly?”
Prime: “That’s a question you should ask yourself, Megatron.”
~ Optimus Prime, during the climactic fight during the 1986 Transformers animated movie
Sunday Quote
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Category Archives: Marty
Housefull
Last night, we packed over 35 people into our house for a Superbowl party. Have you ever seen the inside of my house? If so, then you know this was a superhuman feat. Our living room is basically a large rectangle. It only has one practical place to put a television, one practical place to put a couch…you get the picture. Yet, somehow we had 35 teens and 6 adults in the place.
It was hot.
Loud.
Stinky at times.
But I wouldn’t have it any other way. In fact, those words pretty accurately represent my vision of community. And when I say community, I want you to know that I don’t just mean a group of people living together in one area, I’m talking about people who get into each others lives and get messy with the details. That’s the kind of community I mean. It’s the kind of community where it’s uncomfortable sometimes, it gets loud, and sometimes it’s not just pleasant smells and sights and sounds. It’s the kind of community that jams all types of lives together in one room to watch grown men slam into each other for the right to be called champions.
It’s eating too many chicken wings, laughing at commercials, and meeting new friends. It’s five people piled on a recliner. It’s teenagers, adults, senior adults and toddlers all in the mix. It’s the way the church should be. I’m not saying that the church should only get together to watch the game, or that it should be disorganized, but I think sometimes that the church (the body as a whole, it’s people, Christians) forgets that community is sometimes best unplanned. We get frustrated that we can’t program community, but then the reminder comes, when you open your house to teenagers and the flood inside and fill every available seating area and then some, that community doesn’t come from a program or a plan, but from an open house and heart.
This is why I don’t mind the housefuls of teens that sometimes come over, or why it wasn’t a big deal that I only got an hour of free time to myself yesterday. See, my job is to point them to Jesus and to foster community, and if nights like last night are what it takes, then so be it.
Broken and Left Out
When I was 12, I quit the church.
Rather, I felt like they had quit me, so I responded in kind. I was in 6th grade, the stereotypical nerdy, chubby kid with too many words and not enough social skills. I would go to school every day and listen to the taunts and jeers of my classmates, then go to church on Sunday mornings and hear the exact same things. I was the class joke. It made me hate church. It made me disinterested with God. By the time I was ready to transition into youth group, I was nearing the breaking point.
The straw that broke the camel’s back was when a boy threw my Bible out of the second story window into the bushes below for no reason other than to laugh at me.
Snap.
I went home and tearfully begged my parents to not go to church anymore. My reasoning was that the church was supposed to be a loving place, and if that was true, I should be treated differently than I was at school. People should accept and love me there. But, that was not the case. And that is not always the case in many churches across our country. A place that stands for truth, love, and grace can often become a place of lies, hatred, and gossip. I see it all the time as a youth pastor. People who are difficult to love get pushed to the side in favor of those who don’t take much effort to minister to, or old friends that we are comfortable with. That’s wrong. It’s sin.
Reese Roper, who was/is the lead singer of one of my favorite bands, Five Iron Frenzy, helped start a church in Denver, Colorado for people who felt left out and abused. What did they name it? Scum of the Earth. I love that name. Sure, many churches wouldn’t want a name like that, but their mission is right in the name! They are there to reach those considered the scum of the earth. The difficult. The addict. The dropout. The “special”. The outcast. The orphan. The very people that Jesus told us that he came for, the very people that God commanded his people over and over again to help in the Old Testament. What we forget sometime is that we are all scum of the earth. Because of our sin, Scripture tells us that are God’s enemies, the targets of His wrath, and separated from Him by our own wrongdoing. We are not holy….we are filthy rags, unrighteous….scum.
I was talking with an older gentleman who works with our youth yesterday. He’s become a mentor of sorts to me, and I was talking to him about my past, and he was shocked. He told me he’d always assumed that I had grown up in church, that I was a good little church boy that had never had any doubts or problems, but that now he saw differently. I was reminded in that conversation of why I do what I do, why I gravitate toward the broken and abused, and why when they walk through the door of our youth ministry I want so desperately for there to be no judgment for them. Because they are broken, just like you and me, just like all of us. And they need the same redemption that I was offered, that I have experienced in life, the same salvation that all people are freely given.
So, as scum of the earth, I reach out to fellow scum of the earth, knowing that we all have some kind of hurt, some kind of story to tell, and redemption waiting in the wings for each and every one.
Transparency
We talk about a lot of things on this blog.
Ministry. Parenthood. Video games. Bad haircuts. Love. In all of it, I have one goal, which is transparency. If I’m going to run a blog about my daily life, where I share my opinions, tell stories, and expose my life to people, transparency is a necessity. I struggle for it, and with it, each time I write something here.
I ask myself questions like, “How much is too much?”, and “Did I overshare?”. The problem with transparency, to me, is that it is addictive. When I come here and talk about something I’m dealing with, or tell a story about my family, the negative emotions associated with those things drift away. Coming here helps me to process what i’m feeling and what is really going on beneath the surface of an issue.
A few months ago, one of the guys in my life that I really consider to be a mentor brought up this blog, and one of the first things he pointed out was the level of transparency that I’d been writing with. Originally, I hadn’t noticed, and I’m being honest when I say that. I was just writing whatever came into my head and out of my fingers as I typed. But, as I tried to figure out what this blog would and wouldn’t be, telling stories about my own faults, failures, triumphs, and strengths just came naturally. I was proud, then, that someone had noticed my transparency even when I hadn’t, because that meant that I was willing to share my life with people.
It’s risky to be transparent in our culture, especially in ministry, where a wrong step can see you crucified for something you’re still in process of figuring out. That’s a risk I’m willing to take though, due to the fact that transparent people connect with their intended audience more. Since I work daily with people, I want them to know that I’m approachable, that I’m friendly, and that I have faults too, just like them. I never want to give off the impression that just because I’m called to ministry means I’m on top of some tall ivory tower and cannot be approached.
So, until something changes, I’ll continue to write about all my problems, my fears, my joys, my wins, my losses, and everything in between. Because that’s what I want people to know about me: the whole story, nothing edited or censored. Because, after all, don’t we all long for that?
For someone to really know us, as we truly are?
Thunder, Lightning, and….Tornadoes?
I’m sleepy. Very sleepy. But, I was up huddling in a bathroom last night at midnight when I should’ve been sleeping. So, if this post is a little disjointed and not very good, you’ll know why.
My wife probably thinks I’m crazy. In fact, last night, she pretty much confirmed it when she said, “I can’t ever remember going to the bathroom or a closet when I was growing up.” She was referring to the fact that when bad weather strikes our area, I make my family load up in the car and go to our church, where we can be safer. We don’t have a basement, and if you know our house, there are no interior rooms, so we have to go somewhere else.
The storm last night fooled us. Lulled us into a false sense of security. So, we went to bed. I had just settled down and Erin was brushing her teeth when we heard it. Sirens started to go off. I immediately got up, got dressed, and grabbed a few things while Erin woke up the children. We carried them to the car and took off for the church. By the time we got there, the sirens were off. Not sure what was going on, we got inside, made them a small bed in the bathroom, and waited. Checking the weather, I saw early on that the tornado warning was cancelled, but the wind was still bad, very bad. We stayed for about an hour, then returned home, exhausted, and collapsed into bed in order to be woken up at what seemed like just 5 minutes later.
Am I crazy for heading to the church? Possibly. I do have a fear of storms. It started with the movie Twister when I was 16. Am I crazy for protecting my family? Absolutely not. They are the things that mean most to me on this earth. To that end, I will always do what I have to do in order to make sure they are safe. In the end, tornado or not, we were where we were supposed to be, and are better for it.
Now, if I can just get some sleep today.
Sunday Quote
“Being unwanted, unloved, uncared for, forgotten by everybody, I think that is a much greater hunger, a much greater poverty than the person who has nothing to eat.”
~ Mother Teresa
On Lolcats, Fails, Bronies, and More…
PROTECT IP / SOPA Breaks The Internet from Fight for the Future on Vimeo.
In visiting our site here yesterday, you may have noticed that we went dark for 24 hours to protest and raise awareness about SOPA and PIPA, two bills that are currently before Congress and will be voted on January 24. We’re back to normal today, obviously, though I’m not quite sure what normal is for us.
If you haven’t been living under a rock the last few months, you know about these bills and how they could potentially cripple the internet as we know it. If you have been, here’s the quick run down: major organizations in the United States, mainly the MPAA and RIAA (those who make movies and music) have pushed legislation into Congress to stop pirating from offshore websites, thus keeping American property ours. This keeps foreign websites from hosting torrents or files that are illegal downloads. Under SOPA and PIPA, these websites could be shut down permanently, with no warning, and no due process.
I like this. Sure, protect your stuff, whatever.
But that’s not all SOPA and PIPA could do. In the interest of protecting intellectual property, ANY website would then be able to be shut down even due to just one small image or piece of text. Companies within our borders will have to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars to keep their websites free of any user posted material which could cause a copyright infraction, which would cause them to be immediately shut down. No warning. No due process.
I don’t like this.
That means that my favorite webcomic artist can’t draw a Batman joke anymore, or he might lose his job. That means that your favorite Lolcats, or Brony pictures can’t be made, or those websites could be shut down.
No Cheezburger Network. No Failblog. No Reddit. And it gets worse.
Under this act, the law would extend even to Facebook or Twitter. Imagine this: those social networking sites that you love to waste time on so much….gone. Loss of contact from family and friends, loss of connection to the world, all because someone posted a picture of Angry Birds with a caption on it.
What really burns me up about this is that these acts don’t create jobs like the MPAA and RIAA says, they just continue to allow them to line their pockets. These laws would actually cause unemployment, as thousands of creatives in our country would lose their jobs. Again, the rich get richer, and the poor get poorer. We are spending our time and money fighting for stupid legislation like this while thousands of people in our country don’t have a job. Where are the bills that all of us are fighting about to create jobs? Where is the push for that? Why are we even CONSIDERING a bill that would cause even more Americans to become jobless?
Greed. That’s it, plain and simple. The Hollywood Juggernaut is hungry, and it doesn’t want to slow down, even though the world is clearly moving in an opposite direction from it’s archaic means of distribution and creation. The power is in the hands of the people, not just in the hands of a select few, and they hate it.
So, what can you do? Do you want to see all your favorite YouTube funnies go away, or do you want to continue to enjoy the internet as it is, a tool that has broadened the world we live in and made it, dare I say it, a better place?
Accountable?
All my life, I’ve need someone to tell me what to do.
From my earliest memories, I have always worked best from a list. If you write down what I need to do, then I can usually look somewhat successful. I’m constantly writing myself reminders and lists, leaving them where I can find them. I verbally process in lists, which greatly annoys my wife, as she feels like it’s me telling her what to do, which I”m not. I just need to say it out loud.
Recently, I’ve noticed that this isn’t just true for my professional life, but it’s also true for my faith. I’ve told the teenagers that I minister to many times that following Jesus isn’t just a list of rules or checkboxes that you must fill to be in standings with Him, but oh, how I wish it was. I wish it was just something that I could go through each and every day, merrily checking boxes until I achieve the ultimate relationship with God. But, that can’t happen. What can happen, however, is that I can find someone that will get into my life and talk with me about the things that are going on there. What I need is an accountability partner, which regretfully, I don’t have right now.
So, this week, I’m going to try and fix that. I’m looking for an accountability partner. I need someone who is going to walk with me through my highs and lows, through the best times and worst times. I can’t be my family. It can’t be my wife. It can’t be a member of the opposite sex. I need a man who will guide, teach, mentor, correct, and love me through all the stuff I think, say, and do each day.
Do you have an accountability partner? If so, how did you find them? And now that you have one, how do you maintain that relationship?
Man’s Best Friend
So, I’ve been reading lately, which is dangerous, because of the fact that I don’t read very much, but when I do I get obsessed with a book and try to devour it as fast as possible. When I do read, it is usually a book about youth ministry, a fiction book just to take my mind away for awhile, or some kind of faith related book. It’s been a long time since I’ve read a book about marriage, and I didn’t expect the book I’m reading to make much of a difference (I originally downloaded it just to see how much I disagree with the author), but I’m two chapters in and it’s already convicted me and got me thinking about my marriage.
When I married Erin back in 2002, I was convinced that she was the perfect one for me. I believed that God had knit her together in her mother’s womb with me in mind. Before you begin to doubt, I still believe it. It believe it today more than I did on that day we exchanged vows. I often told her that she was my best friend, and that I was thankful for her, and that she was everything I wasn’t, my perfect compliment. As anyone can tell you, marriage is hard, extremely hard, a fact that movies and television shows don’t often show, since everything is usually wrapped up at the end.
What people don’t tell you is that living with your best friend is hard. Extremely tough, even. Taking two lives and squeezing them together until they become one is hard enough. I’ve known lots of people who are best friends who start out as college roommates and end the semester never wanting to see the person again. Somewhere along the way, friendship gives way to just being a good roommate, and then, being a good roommate gives way to just making it through the semester. I realized a couple of days ago that there were days in our house where that was more the case than me treating Erin like she was my best friend.
If a man is to be his best, he needs to live with his best friend. That means that a man’s wife must be his best friend. She will see him at his best and worst, his highest and lowest. A man’s wife will put up with all kinds of junk in the name of love and support. Yet, for many man, we adopt the idea of ball and chain when we think of our wives, and not the idea of the best friend, walking side by side with us through any and all circumstances. Men, why is it that we will let our friends become closer to us than the one we pledged our lives to in the vows of marriage? I believe we have a problem here.
Truly, man’s best friend is not a dog, or a fishing boat, or the boys at work, but his wife; the woman who has born many burdens, children, and responsibilities, all because she once fell into the same love that her husband claimed to feel for her. In treating our wives like best friends, we should be inviting, open, friendly, kind, funny, and unafraid to be ourselves, just like we are with “the guys”.
My resolve is that I stop seeing my wife as a roommate with sexual benefits and treat her as the best friend that she, and I, deserve. To allow the friendship we share to blossom into a lifelong relationship that is fulfilling and exciting, that never leaves us lonely. My desire isn’t to just have a good marriage, but an exemplary, extraordinary marriage. Guys, if you’re reading this today, would you join me? Let your wife become your best friend, and be her best friend as well. We may have to sacrifice a few things, but in the end, isn’t gaining the best marriage possible worth it? I think so.
To Catch a Liar
I knew this day would come. I just didn’t know it would come so soon.
We caught our little girl, Annaliese, in a lie this past Friday. And it wasn’t just one lie, oh no. It was a lie that was topped with a lie, which meant she’d tried to cover it up! How in the word does a 3 year old girl learn that? If there was ever a greater argument for the inherent sin nature of mankind, I don’t know what it is.
First, we found the evidence. Isaac and I were in the floor playing with his Rescue-bots when I first saw it: pink hair that was uniformly cut, laying in small tufts around their bedroom. It wasn’t much, but enough to give me pause. I didn’t think much about it, thinking it was from some previous hair pulling. (My daughter had a problem with pulling doll’s hair, and her own, and sticking it in her mouth and sucking on it. Gross, I know. But, she’s getting better.) Then, I noticed more hair in the floor right before their nap, cut in the same straight line.
The pieces began to fall into place. There were child scissors in the floor of the living room when we got up that morning. The hair matched her Fluttershy pony’s hair.
“Did you cut that pony’s hair?”
Her face immediately dropped, but she shook her head. ”No!”
Erin went to get the pony. Sure enough, there was a chunk out of her hair. By this time, both kids were getting in bed for their nap and so in the bedroom I asked again.
“Annaliese, tell me the truth. Did you cut the pony’s hair?”
Tears. Mumbled, gurgling cries. ”No!”
Erin comes in with the pony. Showing her the hair that’s been cut, she repeats the question I asked, which causes Annaliese to cry even more. Then, it happens:
She blames her brother, saying he did it. Isaac goes off like a timebomb.
Here it is, World War III, in their bedroom, all over pony hair. Finally, we get them calmed down and I gathered up all her ponies with hair. I sat on the edge of her bed and sighed.
“Annaliese, no one is going to spank you, no one is going to yell at you. Just tell us the truth: who cut the pony’s hair?”
Looking down, a tiny hand shot into the air and she sniffed, “I did.” And in that moment, all my illusions that my daughter would be daddy’s perfect princess were shattered. Dramatic? I think not. My expectation is that my children do what is right and that they be perfectly honest with me at all times. Here, I was seeing the exact opposite. She had done something she wasn’t supposed to, (played with scissors) lied about it, (told us that she didn’t do it) and then shifted the blame to her brother. (Another lie.)
Silently, I gathered up her My Little Pony toys and put them in a Walmart sack, where they currently rest on the top shelf of my closet. She can have her ponies back in a month. Until then, we will remind her of the lie, and why it is wrong, and pray and hope that she makes better choices next time.