Tonight in our guys small groups, we stumbled upon a question towards the end of our discussion.  I liked it.  I think it has potential to increase the “get it” factor among our dudes if we press it for a while.

So tonight I decided that I’m gonna put some planning and effort behind this question that I’m gonna ask every week for a while.  I’m gonna ask it of myself and my students:

“WHAT HAVE YOU DONE THIS WEEK TO BECOME THE MAN OF GOD YOU WERE CREATED TO BE?”

I’ve spent the last 2 days in planning meetings and prepartion for a thing we host each summer with some other churches called OGN.  This is the second time we’ve hosted the meeting at the Dana in Mission Bay.  Dang is this place pretty.  Makes you feel bad for being inside at all and guilty for living in San Diego.  I mean some of the people in these meetings live in Fresno.  Seriously.  Fresno.

Here’s why Fresno house prices are $5 a square foot and SD’s are $500.  I actually went the wrong way out of the Dana on our way to dinner tonight solely to snap this pic of an AMAZING sunset.  Man if I lived on the beach I’d set a date with God every sunset and watch him paint.  Simply incredible and a beauty beyond words.

Oh… and just to prove we’re actually working and not just watching the sunset, here’s the plan we’ve come up with for the teaching we’ll be doing in the classes at OGN this year.  Yep, those are brain storm sticky notes on a window with a bay view.  I know, it’s a tough life we’re living, but someone’s gotta use this conference room, so it might as well be us.

So, today was a fun morning at Encounter in our annual dating/sexuality series. We laughed, we thunk, we prayed, we talked, we read our bibles, we sang… good Sunday with some visitors, good student involvement, and pretty high engagement in our teaching.

In main service this weekend, the “adult services” are in the last Sunday of a campaign/ re-commitment/ vision casting series on the process our church has gone through to buy our buildings that started 18 months ago and is now at the half way point of a 3 year project. Good stuff. Important stuff.

But IF you were in high school, which series would you take your boyfriend/girlfriend to?

IF you were me, then you watched two separate couples at two separate times walk hand in hand smiling and giggling right past your high school room door, acknowledge you, and then keep on going to main service.

IF you are me, then you would scratch your head, wonder what in the world you are doing, and why two dating couples would ditch a dating series to go listen to a money talk while pondering stabbing yourself in the eye with a blunt object. 14 years of youth ministry has taught me I don’t know jack about teens.

There are a few people in the christian writer/ speaker/ pastor world whose words and teaching really rub me wrong. By way of an example, there are a few whose view about women I disagree with significantly. But then I remember those men are married and (in this case) have daughters who love them and then I think… I must be missing something. Those same individuals I’m annoyed by are also cuddling and kissing and tucking in little kids who think their daddy hung the stars.

I think that all too often we treat famous people or public figures as easy targets for our angst. Somehow, subliminally we believe that their “public” position or their power gives us the right to de-humanize in some way and cast our frustrations boldly in their way, ignoring the other roles they also play. They are a “public figure” so we have the right to be public with our opinions. That’s called “freedom of speech” and the big ship makes an easy target.

While I find from time to time these feelings rising up in me, one thing that keeps me grounded is remembering that while I might not like them or understand them right now, in many cases, they are “it” in someone else’s world who sees them VERY VERY differently than I do through my eyes.

So… when I was catching up on blogrolls I have not read in along time, I ran across this video clip on a friend’s blog. It shows a VERY VERY different perspective on a few public figures who are/were “the most powerful men in the world” to some, but simply “Daddy” or “Grandpa” to others.

I cried when I watched this. I long for this kind of sweet innocence and hope.

One of the things I returned home to was a stack of magazines I had not read along with a DVR full of 24 episodes I can’t seem to get to.

But anyway, in the Newsweek article from Jan 19 I read this article and it wrecked me.  I actually printed in and used it for our guys small group discussion last night… which I think was amazing and inspiring and challenging to think through as we read Scripture and compared it to what was recorded in this article.  But reading it hurt.  It saddened me.  The words on the page pained me.

I hurt for the local church.
I hurt for the global church.
I hurt as I read some of the comments on the online post and the implications this story has.
I hurt for Ted’s family and for Ted.
I hurt for whatever pain would seemingly justify a group of “believers” to tell an old friend to take his severance package and leave the state, never to return.
I hurt for unity and grace and truth and true community.
I hurt for those in hiding.
I hurt for those who keep people in hiding.
I hurt for a family who is trying to follow Jesus and feels like they must do it in hiding.
I hurt….

I’m positive this article is biased against the Christian church in general.  I’m also positive God’s grace is big enough even for this mess.  Grace is messy.  Grace is big.  Grace is soooo desperately needed in the mahem that is the wake of sin. 

O God help us. O God protect us.