my life…in text format

On Monday I had the fantastic experience of attending a Cleveland Cavaliers playoff basketball game. The Cavs are currently in a tight best of seven series against the Boston Celtics and game 4 was on Monday night with the Celtics leading 2-1. After Monday’s game, the Cavs had tied the series 2-2 (they have since lost one game and back to one game down).

Monday morning I was getting dressed and I realized something as I was pulling my LeBron James number 23 jersey over my white long sleeve Cavs t-shirt. It was clear that I was a fan of the Cavs and specifically LeBron James. It was clear that I didn’t care much what people thought of me considering the jersey is probably about 2 sizes to big as shirt sizes go.

What’s interesting is that as I was donning my paraphernalia of fan-hood, I realized that I was more excited to wear this LeBron James jersey then I was any T-Shirt that expressed my faith in Jesus Christ.

Let me explain…I decided earlier this week that I was going to take every Tuesday to attempt tackle an issue of popular culture and discuss it and how it relates to faith. Well…some people would say that sports is not a valid part of popular culture the way that music, movies and art are. With over 20,000 people pouring into an jam-packed arena every night, with sounds louder than that of a jet engine, I would say that for those 20,000+ sports would be a very valid part of pop culture.

Which brings me to my main purpose for writing.

I am not a bigger fan of LeBron James than I am of Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ is my first choice between the two…that’s easy. What’s interesting is that I am more willing to wear a LeBron James jersey than I am most “Christian T-Shirts” I see. It’s not that I don’t like wearing my faith where all can I see…I want EVERYBODY to know that I follow Christ and hopefully I can make such an impact that they are DRAWN to Christ because of Christ living in me.

What I don’t like is the way other people respond to the Christian message on a lot of material that shares the Christian message.

I saw a woman wearing a shirt yesterday that said the word “LOST” and it looked very similar to the LOST logo from different advertisements I’ve seen from the popular ABC show. I liked the shirt, I liked the message, I didn’t like how I would have to explain the shirt to someone who didn’t understand its intended message.

Maybe that’s the point, maybe the idea is to create conversation and if that’s the case, great! I hope the discussion is effective and engaging.

Don’t get me wrong, there are some amazing shirts that create some amazing, open conversation about very important issues. Check out To Write Love On Her Arms or this site to see what I mean.

And this isn’t a post about “shirts”. It’s a post about how followers of Christ have a wonderful message that they should share with their lives first. Drawing people to ask questions and shake their heads in disbelief at the selfless, sacrificing, passionate, heart-felt love they feel emanating from deep within the followers of Christ.

What do you think about all this?

Any thoughts?

Over the past year the word “culture” has really crept into my vocabulary in a new way. I am fascinated by culture. I like to look at how culture changes over generations and our perspectives differ and our experiences and values create unique subcultures.

That being said, every Tuesday I am going to pick something in popular culture and investigate how it relates to myself, my faith and my spirituality. Pop culture impacts me whether I like it or not. It has influence in my life. What I want to do is figure out how to leverage the influence it has on me and use it for the glory of God.

Sounds fun right?

Every Monday (except this past Monday) I am joining Neil and a group of creative geniuses in Ingenuity and Pandemonium…

and every Tuesday I am picking pop culture apart. Generally, I want this whole blog to incorporate pop culture in some way, shape or form all the time. But Tuesdays will be a day when I dedicate a post to the topic.

I like this.

It seems fun!

I’m sitting in a comfy green chair in the cafe section of the safehouse right now. There are approximately 50 young people munching on some peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and it’s absolutely beautiful outside. I am tired and at this point, I can feel the weight of leadership as it seems to be heavier today than usual.

All that being said I can’t think of better job on the planet. I just got to tell 50 teenagers, right before there were served their sandwiches, that we loved them and cared about them. I got to tell them that every person that works here was at one time rocked so hard by God that we wanted to do something to share that love with other people and this is the way we decided to do it.

What ways do you share the love of God with people? Day to day as you go through your job/social life/friendships/hobbies what ways do you feel you can share God’s love with those around you?

Maybe a better question to ask is also, if you’ve never experienced God’s love, in what ways can someone who HAS experienced God’s love share it with YOU?

We are made for community.

Let’s engage :: :: ::

By no means am I a perfect person. As a matter of fact, I tell people all the time that I can’t believe I’ve been privileged to do some of the things I have the amazing opportunity to do because I am such a flawed human being. Saying you are flawed though has kind of become a cliche in some ways. It’s a pseudo-humility so people will think you are humble when in reality you are quite proud that you are so flawed, because it makes you seem so human.

That being said, I won’t belabor the fact that we are all flawed. You know it. I know it. Which is the beauty of this post.

Recently, I was talking with a friend and she was describing a trip she was getting ready to go on. A six day vacation to see some friends and I am excited for her and wanted to hear more about it. So I asked, “What are you expecting from this trip?”

That’s an important question, I think. “What are you expecting?” We’ll come back to that later.

To be honest, I was expecting to hear a long silence as she contemplated what I thought was a difficult question but she answered almost immediately with a series of things she was expecting to happen while on this trip. As she was laying out the things she wanted to happen and what she wanted to get she said these words, “Hopefully something happens spiritually.” Those words struck me. Not because she wanted something to happen spiritually, which I think is great, I hope something happens spiritually for her too. The word that struck me in that sentence was the word “hopefully.”

I think I can honestly say that one of my least favorite combinations of words in the English language are the words that form the phrase, “All Hope Is Lost.” I don’t think there is a more tragic statement a human being can utter than when they say they’ve lost all hope. It’s interesting to me because the word LOST can mean a lot of things.

When you hear the word lost, there are several different things that come to mind. Pastors talk about “lost souls” all the time, some people immediately start thinking about ABC’s hit TV show, still others hear the word and they think it’s an exact description of what they feel about themselves. But when it’s attached to the word “hope” what is really being said?

It’s certainly possible to misplace your hope. To put your hope in the wrong things and to expect one thing to give you something else entirely. That’s why people empty bottle after bottle of alcohol or jump from meaningless relationship to another. But I don’t think misplacing hope is what is really being said when the word “lost” is attached to the word “hope.” I can misplace my keys, forget about them and lose them. Searching around my house frantically trying to find what I had lost while they are sitting right where I left them. I had just misplaced them. Misplaced hope is still hope. So when we say “all hope is lost” it’s even more tragic then putting that hope in the wrong thing.

Lost hope is the thing that drives the girl to sit in her room alone, with the shades drawn and the music loud as she drags a blade across her skin in order to relieve herself of the pain that hope in the wrong thing had created. Lost hope is when a young man experiences abandonment from his father at a young age and slowly but surely sinks deep into himself, never being able to become the man that God intended Him to be. Quietly, subtly, he lives the life of a dissatisfied shell of his former self because hope was lost long ago.

What are we risking when we say, “I’ve lost hope.”?

Have you ever felt that all hope was lost?

I don’t like the phrase “All Hope Is Lost” because while hope certainly can be misplaced, it is something that belongs to people and it is one of those things that is difficult to take, but is given away by the owner. Hope can be battered and bruised and abused, absolutely. Hope can allow us to put ourselves in situations that will undoubtedly hurt is in the future. But we enter them anyway, in hope that what we are afraid will happen….won’t happen.

If you are a hopeful person, you’ve probably been hurt. Because hope is the thing that kind of drives us beyond risk.

“I hope he won’t hurt me.”

“I hope it’s worth it.”

“I hope I don’t fail at this.”

Those are statements with huge risk attached but hope is what gives us justification to run into them anyway. It makes it seem possible. Hope.

Call me an optimist but I don’t think hope is taken from people. I think hope is given away. I think the nature of hope gives the holder of said hope the power to believe or to give up.

One of my favorite movies, Catch Me If You Can, has a story that recurs throughout the movie about two mice that felt into a bucket of cream. One mouse quickly gave up a drowned, the other mouse swam and swam so hard and so long that it eventually churned that cream into butter and crawled out. One mouse lost hope, the other mouse refused to give up or lose hope and kept fighting even though all logic pointed to the fact that it was going to die. It believed there was a different way and it struggled and fought until it had enough leverage to crawl out of it’s mess.

I love the word hope because even though we are all flawed, we can choose to hope beyond hope. We can choose to believe that something great will happen spiritually as we take a vacation away from the ordinary.

I want to sit here and type the words, “When all hope is lost, we can still hope” because that’s how powerful hope is. Of course, that doesn’t make sense grammatically but hope is kind of an anti-logic. That’s what makes it so beautiful.

If it weren’t for Jesus Christ, I would be condemned to separation from my Creator forever. But since Jesus Christ came to earth, died a death I deserved to die and was raised from the dead, I can HOPE in Jesus. I can hope that my life is bigger than the breaths I breathe each day and I am meant for more than just a short stint on this ball of dirt. I can hope.

The Bible says that it is impossible to please God without faith. It also says that faith is the substance of things we hope for and evidence, the truth, the things that point to the things we can’t see. Without hope, you can’t have faith.

Hope is one of the ingredients of faith.

I love that. Because I can choose to hope beyond hope or I can choose to stop swimming and drown.

Don’t forget that hope isn’t something stolen from you, it’s something you give away. Don’t give your hope away.

Faith. Hope. Love.

What are you expecting?

::

So, I’m sitting in my dad’s comfy recliner, watching a movie. It’s almost midnight and I’ve spent the last 40 minutes our so typing on my sister’s new computer. She recently purchased a Macbook Air and it is SLICK! Around this time of year, my family gets crazy busy. The sis is gearing up for final exams and papers and all that jazz, my folks are working their normal schedule plus working hard to get Safehouse Summer camp all worked out. It’s all very exciting!

Spring is officially here, the Indians are playing baseball again, the Cavs have clinched a playoff spot and I saw a commercial yesterday for official NFL draft hats. I love Spring time because the jackets come up, the sleeves get shorter, the light stays in the sky longer and the feeling in your heart starts to reflect the weather.

Weird how that happens, isn’t it? When I look outside and I see green, I see color, I feel warmth I feel…more alive. What it is about Spring time that does that to us? I was talking to a parent of a friend of mine just a couple of weeks ago and she was talking about how her mood is effected by the weather. When it is grey, she is grey. When it is cold and rainy, she feels down. I never thought that was something I had to worry about, until I saw the green, and the sunshine and the blue sky and I felt happier.

It’s strange that I didn’t realize the bad weather was effecting me until I saw how the good weather effected me in the opposite way.

Of course, I think this really has a lot to do with our souls. I think we all go through times of “winter” seasons in our lives, when the clouds cover the sun and the rain falls. We feel…cold and dark. But then, just as it always gets darker right before the sun starts to break over the horizon, we can hope that Spring will come.

When Spring comes, the flowers have reason to begin their push to color the world again. The sun starts to call out the leaves from their hiding places somewhere deep within the trees and the grass wins out over the snow, mud and slush from a cold, hard winter. Where is it that the flowers come from? When they begin their journey upward, they have to start somewhere and I love how God made it so they start from such a place as: the dirt. What was just weeks before cold, hard and frozen is now the place that gives birth to beauty and life.

Whenever I think about flowers breaking through the dirt, I get encouraged about my own dirt. The things that try to bury me. I feel refreshed and thrilled that even if there is dirt, I can break though. Reach out towards the Son of God and be pulled from the dirt and create a beautiful example of God’s amazing grace.

As this Spring gears into full swing, think about the stuff that the Son wants to pull you from. Be encouraged that this is a time for new life to be reborn. And that’s true for you as well.

Love. 

Every now and then, I’ll walk downstairs and my dad will be watching one of those shows on the Discovery or Learning Channel about how those crazy tall skyscrapers are built. The process, the technology, the equipment…it’s all very fascinating. One thing you don’t see a lot of on those shows, in the midst of the monstrous cranes and beans heavy enough to crush a man like a rotten tomato, if you notice, they don’t spend a lot of time on the foundation and how it’s built.

Why not? The foundation is one of THE most crucial components of the entire building. A faulty foundation, even off by inches will create thousands of dollars worth of setbacks and potentially risk the lives of thousands of people.

So why not talk about it? If I’m a person who works or resides in that building, I want to know that the foundation is solid. Sure, I would love the unique design and great view of a fancy skyscraper, but if it’s sitting on a faulty foundation, I’d rather live in a two story, crappy-view-of-the-building-right-next-door apartment that has a good foundation.

We need to remember the foundation. It’s what everything else is based on. Literally. I constantly need to be reminded about trusting in Christ as my Savior.

Why? I’m a Christian. I’ve prayed the prayer. I’m a pastor. I know the verses.

But

I

still

make

mistakes.

I still sin. I know I do, and there are times when I really think it would be a good idea to just bang my head against a wall because of it. I need to be reminded of my foundation.

Jesus Christ is my salvation. I need to remember that my foundation is not my knowledge of scripture, my ability to communicate the Word of God or even a series of good deeds. My foundation is not how long I read scripture each day or how much I pray.

My foundation is the most important thing to the house Christ is building.

Christ died for me.

Christ died because I screwed up.

Because

I

sin.

Christ died.

Then…completed the process by raising again from the dead.

If nothing else good ever happens in my life again, I still owe God everything I have had or will ever have because of that one act of selfless love.

When we pray and we say “In Jesus’ Name” at the end of our prayers, what we are really saying is that because of Jesus’ death and because of Christ’s sacrifice, the sin that separates us from God and the sin that makes it so we cannot be in the presence of God is paid for, atoned, and we are justified through Christ. In the Name of Jesus we pray because in any other way, by any other name we wouldn’t be able to come before God.

It’s all because of Jesus I’m alive.

Just remember the foundation. Your house is built on one and unless you are a contractor or construction worker, I bet you rarely ever think about your foundation. Not because we don’t care or because we’re bad people, but because it’s always been there.

It will always be there.

If you’re a Christian, you may or may not know how easy it is to forget the foundation of our faith.

Jesus Christ.

If you’re not a Christian, maybe you were burned by somebody who did, in fact, forget the foundation and did something outside the character of Christ.

I am being reminded of my desperate need for Christ and His blood atoning my sins. It’s a humbling and freeing realization and I pray you experience it too.

Because to remember your foundation is to be reminded of our need of a foundation. And when you remember you need a foundation, realize you have a foundation…a solid one, a sure one, you are freed to build a skyscraper and know that it will withstand the harshest of storms.

Believe that the price has been paid. Believe that God’s anger at our sin has been pacified by Christ’s death. Believe that the foundation has been laid and you are free to…

Build.

Remember.

Look up.

Believe.

Friday, February 22, 2008 : : : : 5 Bands /// 1 Night

Each band has its own, unique sound. It will definitely be a night never before seen @ safehouse and the first of many, many more to come.

Don’t miss it. Seriously. You won’t want to it. If you do want to miss it. Then you better have something amazing you are doing instead. And unless you are going to be playing in the Super Bowl or some other championship game, you should be here.

Contact info in the flyer. Let me know if you have any questions.

I saw a quote on an away message on my buddy list. It said, “If you’re lonely, it means you don’t want to be alone.”

I thought that was profound. I know people who don’t have a problem being by themselves. There are some days I feel like that myself. I just need to get away, relax, enjoy reflecting, reading, watching TV, whatever. Recently though, I’ve begun to look inside myself to find out what that word “lonely” means for me.

I was talking with a friend just recently and I mentioned that as a leader, it gets really lonely having to deal with everything and have everybody look at you as the one to know the answer or take the lead and stay the course. It’s difficult to do that. It’s a lonely road. That’s the nature of leadership. It comes with the territory.

It’s interesting because it forces you to look at every relationship you have. I’ve been faced with this in the previous weeks. My family is a family with a lot of responsibility. We work as leaders of a youth ministry that serves hundreds of teenagers each week. And not just once a week, but 6 days a week. And over the years of watching what God is doing, our family has grown so amazingly close, it’s almost too good to be true. Knowing what I know about the importance of family and seeing the effects of a broken family on the soul of a young person, I cannot take any credit for the way our family lives. It is by the grace of a much bigger God that we are able to function as a single, family unit.

Over the past few weeks, my love for the three other members of my family has grown exponentially and in turn my amazement and love for my God and Savior has grown as well. Every person in my family has made mistakes. Every person that makes up the Denen family has done things they would take back if given the chance. But, we’ve been together. We’ve made those mistakes knowing that. Together. Four. One. Family.

We all have our own situations that we deal with separately. I have things I have to go through a day and deal with that my Father and Sister don’t have to deal with and vice versa.

But we are there for each other. We are together.

I love that. Because I know that if we are broken and flawed and misunderstand each other at times but we are together, how much more can a perfect, flawless, understanding God deliver you when you rely on Him?

This hit me just two nights ago when I was sitting in my parents room talking with my dad and sister about some very important topics to each of us. We are living four separate lives, but we are living them together. When my dad left the room, my sister and I started talking about the similarities between her scenarios and my own scenarios and was astonished at the similarities of what, on the surface, seem to be completely opposite situations.

I love when God reveals things about His character through life…or something like it.

We are living life. Another quote I saw on an away message on my buddy list had this phrase at the end of it, this is a rough paraphrase, unfortunately, I can’t remember the whole thing exactly:

“There’s got to be more to life than just being alive.”

I couldn’t agree more.

This is a very unstructured post, I usually like to take more time to nail down the thoughts, but I thought it was necessary to get this out of my head and written down quickly, so I could chew on it myself.

If it doesn’t make sense…it’s my fault, not yours.

Do you have a family that, no matter what you go through, you go through together? If so, thank God for the grace that He has given you to be in that situation.

If you don’t, it’s certainly not because God has forgotten you or cares about somebody else more. For whatever reason, maybe…once again, because of the poor choices of other people you don’t have that togetherness…listen closely please…

My dad’s mom passed away of breast cancer when he was seven and he didn’t meet his father until he was eighteen and was raised by a grandmother riddled with bitterness due to a failed relationship. It was because of his aunt…who took him to church with her that he was able to find the grace and strength to survive.

And the things that my dad did NOT have when he was growing up are the very things that he worked so hard to provide for me and my family. The reason being he knows what it feels like to not have it. You see, because of the life he grew up with, he was able to really understand the importance of living…and not simply just being alive.

Don’t underestimate the power of a big God because somebody else’s situation is better than yours. Don’t sell God short. Because my dad is a great father, but he’s not perfect. God, on the other hand, is not a reflection of my earthly father…

He’s the perfection of my Father. He’s my Father, perfectly.

Here’s to not just being alive, but really living…

“Obsessive. Compulsive. Detective.”

That’s the tag line on the cover of the Monk season 4 DVD set sitting on my shelf. If you don’t follow Monk, it may be hard for you to understand why the show is so addicting. It’s about a former police officer that was discharged for having a mental breakdown after his wife’s untimely murder. The show follows Adrian Monk (played by actor Tony Shaloub) as he solves crime as a private consultant with obsessive compulsive disorder. His need for everything to be perfect is usually the very thing that helps him find what the police miss and ultimately solve the crime.

“You’ll thank me later” is a classic Monk line. He says it right as he is wasting your time straighting you pencils or clipping your roses so they are all even in the vase. He’s portrayed as a brilliant freak. A man with a problem…well, several problems. They paint a picture of a broken man in need of fixing.

The show is supposed to be humorous, the crimes committed in each episodes sway back and forth from cheesy and impossible to well thought out and prime time drama worthy. The dark foundation of the show (Monk’s wife’s murder) is dealt with in a light-hearted way that brings the viewer into an understanding of exactly why Monk acts and thinks the way he does.

It makes you wonder if he is the only one thinking correctly.

Which brings me to my point.

In the show, everyone is trying to help Monk get over his problems and deal with the tragedy he has endured, from the police captain to his nurse/assistant as well as his psychiatrist.

One thing randomly hit me driving down the road the other day. The police captain has problems of his, his assistant is constantly talking about a lack of funds and a marital/relationship problems and there are times when problems are expressed from within the psychiatrist’s own home.

Monk’s not the only person with the problem. I found that in a show, the character, fictional as he may be, can teach us a lot about life ourselves.

We are all broken. We are all dealing with stuff. We all have different motivations for what we do. Some people drown themselves in work so they don’t have to focus on everything else. They create drama so they don’t have time to look in the mirror because they know they won’t like what they see. We spend every spare moment with friends, where’s it busy and loud and fast because when it gets slow and quiet, we have to look inside ourselves and we may not like what we see.

In Monk, Adrian Monk is the one that has problems he is trying to get help for…everyone else is waiting for the answer to find them.

Monk, although afraid of everything, could very well be the bravest person in the show. Precisely because he is looking for help.

Back to reality, it’s just a show.

But it makes me think…do I try and drown myself in things to keep me occupied from look at…myself. Do I turn up the music so I can’t hear my own thoughts, or fill my calendar with busy fun things to do so I don’t have time to be by myself because I may or may not like what I feel when I am…alone.

We are created to need people and to be in relationships with God and with other people. But if you can’t find peace when you sit and look at yourself and you fill your time with “distractions” it might not be a bad idea to take a page out of ‘ol Adrian Monk’s book.

Face the fear.

Look in the mirror. The person looking back might not be as startling as you anticipate.

  On a hot Spring day, I think it might have been Memorial Day, my dad wanted me to help him in the yard with some landscaping. I was tired, I had prepared myself for a relaxing day, school was pretty hectic and I was working as well, so in my young mind I thought I had a good excuse for doing nothing. Dad had other plans. He wanted both my sister and myself to help him outside. Needless to say, I was frustrated, I didn’t want to be out there, it was hotter than I was bargaining for and, I just wasn’t in the mood. He assured me it wouldn’t take that long, but of course, things like that always stretch out. Begrudgingly I got my work shoes on and headed outside.One of the things he wanted me to do later in the day was edge around the mulch beds so we can lay new mulch. By this time I was actually in a much better mood, ready to do whatever he needed. I edged and I edged, I was very proud of my work. You know, working with dirt and earth and the ground is oddly rewarding and satisfying. I finished what I considered to be a wonderful piece of work and was really happy about my addition to the history of landscaping mastery. Dad walked over and I was waiting on a, “wow, that looks great. good job.” Instead what I got was a, “hand me the shovel, let me show you what it’s supposed to look like.” Not in a degrading way, mind you, but in a Fatherly, teaching kind of way.What does this have to do with why I follow Jesus?You see, I was finished with my work, I was satisfied with what I had done. If it were up to me, I would have put the shovel down, washed the dirt off my hands and had a nice glass of iced tea. But my dad, knowing what it should look like completed the job.Which brings me to another reason I follow Jesus.When Jesus does something He does it completely. He doesn’t leave the work half-done and walk away satisfied that He showed some effort. When He was on the cross and He sucked in one of those last waning breaths and cried out, “It is finished,” He wasn’t saying that He was finished the way I was finished with my edging.No, He was saying, the deed has been completely done. No longer do you have to come to God the way you’ve come to Him all these years. You can now come through me, you can now follow me to God. When Jesus does something He does it completely.My dad spent two minutes on what I thought was an amazing piece of handy work. When He was done, it looked nothing like what I had created. Through the mastery of his expert hand and the beauty of what he created, it was revealed to me how short I had come of what could be.We are the same way with God.We do things ourselves, we work hard to get things right, we do what we are supposed to do…or what we think we are supposed to do. But through the mastery of His expert hand we are shown what really can be and are reminded of how short we come apart from Him. I love Jesus for that, among many other things.That’s just another reason I follow Jesus.More to come.