Forgetting People While We Remember People

Monday night at Young Adult Ministry, I had the pleasure of watching leaders at The Freedom Center prayer over folks who attended the gathering. It was really cool to see generations brought together… leaders of today praying over leaders of tomorrow.

As I watched this unfold, I couldn’t help but think of prayer, and the journey our family was about to take.

Last Tuesday night, Faye and I packed up the minivan, buckled in the kiddos, and made our way to the city that I was born and raised… Philadelphia, PA.

…feel free to sing the first line of “Fresh Prince of BelAir”… most do. No, I’m not from West Philly, to answer your question 🙂

My family is facing a lot of life threatening sickness right now. I’m not going to share details, because I don’t have permission for that on a public forum (some I do, some I don’t, so it’ll all stay vague), but I will say that death is becoming a possibility, if not a reality, for a few in my family. It was time to go see people.

People…

When I found out the news of what was going on with everyone involved, I began to pray. What else should I do? What else could I do? If I had miracle elixirs (first time I’ve ever typed that word!!), everyone would have gotten a bottle or 2, but I didn’t… still don’t… so I put these people in the hands of the One who CAN do something.

We emailed people for prayer for them… texted people to pray for them… we talked to the pastors in our church… to our leadership team for Young Adult Ministry… I have a group of friends that I run stuff like this by, they were told… we wanted heaven moved!!

As we went to Philadelphia, we didn’t know what to expect. Would they all get healed? Would people come to love Jesus? Would both happen?

I sat in living rooms, by hospital beds, in rocking chairs, on sofas, stools and more… talking, laughing, listening, watching, praying, hurting, thinking… and it dawned on me that in a way, I forgot these people.

I spent a lot of time talking and texting others to pray… praying myself… but not a lot of time actually talking to them… actually praying over/with them.

It’s easy to remove yourself in that way. It’s dangerous too. It makes the life Jesus lived, in the dead middle of people… hurting, sick, needy people… that much more impressive (and a bit overwhelming) when you really look at Him.

I hope you don’t have to find that out the way I have had to find it out, but most of us would prefer to stay distant… to feign involvement from a distance… that’s not what Jesus did. How else would the world be changed?

I’m not talking about every need being met… I use to feel overwhelmed at that, but I believe the Lord shows me (and you) when to operate this way. Oh, the trial and error of those times in my life, hahaha!

One of my family members is literally surrounded by death everyday with this sickness…

“Is it hard? Hard to be around this everyday?”

They said, “Yeah, it’s really hard. Sometimes, it’s harder when it’s not you, when you have to watch other people going through death.”

People.

Don’t forget about the people.

In the middle of praying for people… go be with people. Sometimes, we’re the ones that meet the need, or comforts the hurting, or whatever… instead of searching, hoping for someone else to do it, we should. Sometimes, we’re the phone call or the text message or the knock on the door… not hoping for another to cross their path, or for a supernatural feeling of peace or comfort (Though both are possible). Sometimes, you don’t TELL them in the hallway that you’ll pray for them, you stop right there and do it.

If you are a Believer, the power you have flowing through you is meant to be released on people… not just on your knees by your nightstand or at your kitchen table or in your car on the way to wherever.

People…

We shouldn’t forget people while we are remembering people.

They Call Me Don King

Growing up through the late 80’s and early 90’s, there was one man that was synonymous with boxing everywhere.

This man was recognizable, personable (albeit, sleazy), and rich rich rich… and he wasn’t even a boxer.

Don King… look him up, you’ll recognize the hair. He looks like one of those Troll dolls that somebody tasered.

Don King was a boxing promoter… maybe still is… I don’t know. His job was to hype the fight… publicity… giving the people what they want and the drama to keep it intriguing. They set up the fight, financially back the fight, and generally look out for there own interest. Don King was amazing at that for 40+ years.

My wife and I head up the Young Adult Ministry with an amazing group of leaders. Last night, we saw a unity in generations. We have talked about one of the goals for this ministry being the bridging of the generational gap. We saw steps towards that last night… an older generation imparting wisdom and knowledge to a younger generation… a younger generation receiving that and (hopefully) walking in it.

There is a divide between 20 somethings, and most people over 40. Our goal is to close that divide… to introduce spiritual fathers to spiritual sons… to introduce spiritual mothers to spiritual daughters. Think of what it would mean to walk down the hall of your church and actually know adults… think what it would feel like to talk with a young adult whose life you helped changed through prayer. That is so exciting to me!! It doesn’t happen anywhere near as much as it should (By the way, it’s VERY Biblical for that to happen!!).

What does all this have to do with Don King!?

Glad you asked… because I was trailing off 🙂

Yesterday, I was going over my message. Sometimes it’s spontaneous, most times, the Lord gives me an idea, and I have to study it, walk it out, for the complete thought.

I Tweeted, I texted, I Facebooked… and now, I was going to bring truth to MAKE people want this… as much as I want this.

“Why are you trying to promote me?”

His words stopped me cold.

“How will they know if I don’t tell them?”

And it was then that I discovered that as I do this, I wasn’t trusting the Lord to do His part.

I’ll never stop alerting people that Young Adult Ministry exists (There are so many young adults and young married folks in our local Body), but I have to trust that the Lord will do His part.

I wonder how often we do that… over sell something or try to do things under our strength because we don’t trust the Lord to do His part… or maybe we are unaware of what His part even is.

It’s not my job to promote God or defend God or anything like that… I partner with God… I co-labor with Him. I cannot enter into the realm of what He does… because I cannot do what He does. I told everyone last night… what it boils down to is that you want it or you don’t. We’ll go after what we really want.

I hope this is enlightening for you… it certainly was for me.

The Religious Confusion of Election Day

I sit here on my love seat realizing that what I just typed as a title for this is a FAR more complicated title than I care to admit…

The past 24 hours have been… interesting. Before I get into the meat of this, I have some thoughts…

1. Christians… Jesus is King, you’re right… but Jesus was King last year and last week and He will be King next year and in 4 years… He would have still been King with Romney as president too… so, calm down with the “…but Jesus is King” type stuff… makes you sound like He didn’t need to be as much of a King if your guy was elected.

2. Does anyone else realize how sad I am that I have to stop tweeting about David Palmer from 24 being our next president!?!? I hope Twitter is still around in 4 years 🙂

3. Contrary to what a solid amount of people are saying… I was glad we had social media for this… I don’t know that it was handled correctly… but the connectivity of thoughts never ceases to impress me.

4. Obama supporters remind me of Michigan fans when U of M wins 😉 HAHAHAHAHA… man, I’m going to hear it about that one.

5. The Church has a really good opportunity in the next 4 years… of course, we would’ve had that no matter who was in office.

Going to break this into parts…

Voter Apathy…
I observed a solid amount of young adults that didn’t vote for various reasons. Some reasons had a bit of sense behind it… some were just plain stupid reasons. There are obvious questions that aren’t “religious” for someone that doesn’t vote.

Why do you chose to have no “voice” in the management of our nation?

Do you believe you have an opinion about the management of this nation that anyone should even entertain after yesterday?

I love that second question… I’m strongly behind the thought that if you didn’t vote, don’t say jack about the president or the way he does anything. When you engage in the process that the rest of us did… I care what you think.

Anyways… honestly, I don’t know if voting is Biblical or not. I had the opportunity to vote and didn’t for years… and I do regret that, because it adds to the perception of entitlement and apathy that my generation struggles against.

What really pushed a button was the young adult Christians that take the mindset of “God wins anyway” and “We’ll be ok because Jesus is King”. While those things are very true… you guys do READ the Bible, right?

The question I have for these people is… Do you say this because in the FAR end, you know this to be true, or because it justifies your sense of apathy towards what happens politically in this country?

The Bible says that thing are going to get worse… much worse. If those that use this thought believe that “it’ll all work out” while you are alive, you are sadly (and pathetically) mistaken.

I’m not going to go down the list, because it stops you from reading the Bible to see what I mean, but please understand… if you mean the peace you will have in the midst of insanity, cool, I’m with you. If you think, “Ehhh, we’ll all be cool”… situationally, no, no we won’t… and your optimism will burn up quickly in the face of suffering as will your unfortunately misguided ideas of what is “good” and “bad”.

I would have the greatest respect in the world for you if you said… I just don’t care or I just diet want to… disagree with you, but respect you.

Please look at the events leading up to the results of Jesus’ victory before you apathetically embrace a victory. It’ll help you appreciate that victory even more.

Jesus Didn’t Need To Be AS MUCH a King?
I want to harp on this a little more, because I understand the concept… I don’t understand the context. I mean… I guess I wanted Romney to win. I honestly cared for Obama less than I cared for him… so, that’s the reason. And for any out there that say, “Well, why vote for someone you don’t believe in… give the current president more time”… understand the foolishness of that comment, before you say it.

However, I am not going to be so disappoint that I say “…but Jesus is King”.

He is… but He wouldn’t need to be less of a King because you have a man in office that disagrees with abortion and gay marriage.

I mean… Romney isn’t even a Christian… so this values thing is even more odd to me at times for those that would use it as an excuse… though, someone that supports abortion is not cool in my book.

I understand what you mean by this… I just think we should be very careful about the context of that phrase. Jesus is King… and is no matter what… no “but” about it.

This has been fun for me… like I said, mean or not… I love seeing people’s thoughts. Facebook, Twitter, blogs, all give us insight into each other that we wouldn’t get otherwise. And if you talk about the ugliness… know that it existed before social media, it was already in hearts… and you are called to be light about it, not complain about it. You and I are incredibly privileged to be trusted with the Gospel in this age.

I will continue to pray for our nation as a whole… same as I would’ve if that other guy was voted in.

Selah.