Day 118: Bloggus Humungus

WARNING!!! The following is extremely, extremely long. (I can not say extrememly enough. It took me three days to complete it, so don't feel bad if it takes you three days to read it. I have even made the text smaller to take up less space.)

Written July 4th

It is raining outside. Well it was about 5 minutes ago. Rain is nothing unique in Germany. It is actually pretty common, sort of like the North West. There is a problem with today’s rain; today is the 4th of July. For every American out there, the 4th means fireworks, and fireworks are firewon’ts in the rain. Hopefully the skies are empty by now and the fire will work tonight. Let’s hope. (Side Note, I am back from the evening events and the fire worked.)

I want to talk about last night and the 14 straight ours of computer games that I participated in at the LAN night. I also want to talk about my conversation with my dad just minutes ago. I also want to talk about the last two weeks in Italy and what Jesus was doing then. I also want to talk about my future and where I am going and what my “mission” is. I want a lot of stuff. But in the immortal words of the great Mick Jager, “You can’t always get what you want, you can’t always get what you want, you can’t always get what you want, but you get what you neeeeeeed.”

My parents called me this morning, or morning their time, just waking up my time, which made it like morning. My day began at 00:01 while I was deeply involved in one of the many Warcraft III or Tribes II games played last night and this morning. I was invited to a LAN party at the Creiglow’s house. These apparently are a regular thing here in the Heidelberg youth community. A LAN party is when a bunch of self proclaimed geeks get together and connect all their high powered computers on a Local Area Network (LAN). They then proceed to smash into oblivion each other, especially any NOOBS. NOOBS being people that haven’t played before and therefore do not know all the short cuts and secret items that when purchased give you ultimate powers including +34 strength, 100% mana recovery and max agility. I never found or bought any of those things, but I was yelled at for trying to buy them and not being in the fight at the time. When you don’t know what to do and no one will tell you, it takes a little longer, sorry.

Seeing that my day started then, ended for the first time at 0830, and started again at 1400, when my parents called around that time, it was “morning” for me. It was great that they called because I hadn’t spoken with them in weeks and whenever that happens, I miss them. They are great parents. Both of them love each other more than life itself and love us kids with everything that they are. I am so lucky to have them as parents. I don’t thank God enough for them. If some of you are thinking that the former sounds a little like sucking up, it is. I am now about to reveal a frustrating conversation and I want dad to know that I love him and even though I get frustrated, it is those conversations that I feel are molding me and “disciplining” me more than if I just agreed and accepted.

The conversation with my mom and dad started as normal. Mom and I talk about various goings on. What things she has made for their house, how my brothers are doing, her job and the like. Dad is listening and patiently lets mom and I talk. At some point, dad and I start into a talk about golf, or Europe, or me, and then mom usually goes away. At least it seems like she does because you rarely hear from her again. This is not a bad thing; it is how our family works. Dad and I can talk a lot and when we get going, don’t get in the way. Today was no different.

Dad was asking about Europe and I was describing the ministry history in the Heidelberg Community. See last year there used to be two different youth ministries: the present MCYM (Beyond) and the now gone Malachi. Malachi is a part of Cadence International and they are still in other parts of Europe just not Heidelberg any more. I don’t know all the details of what happened before I got here, so if any of this is wrong, sorry to those that know the right. All I know is that Malachi stopped. Beyond took over some of the things and from what I gather, there was a noble effort to work together and that has happened to some degree. Why were there two ministries in the same place you ask? Well, I don’t know exactly, but I do know that they are both important and different. Malachi focuses a little more on maturing Christians; Beyond is a little more out reach oriented. When the two merged, it was and is important for both aspects of ministering continue.

Written July 5th

Oh, I forgot to mention why this conversation started. The LAN party was made up mostly of kids and adults from Malachi. That started my dad and I on the conversation of discipleship and as with most conversations between him and I, it turned back to me. I am starting to wonder if I want to talk about me, or my dad wants to talk about me, but that isn’t relevant here.

What is discipleship? Would I even recognize it if I saw it? I don’t know. I don’t know a lot and that was something we talked about. Obviously a part of discipleship is growing, growth of the younger as guided by the older. An older person should have more life experience, more grasps on the truth of life if only because they have seen more of it. So since I have been called to make disciples, I should know what that means.

My dad described all the things I had heard before while growing up and why it is important to grow and mature. I Peter 3:15 says something about being prepared to give an answer. I Tim and a lot of the NT mention things about false teachers, false doctrine, and how we need to fight against those things. So studying and knowing the Word and having a good knowledge base are important. Having a firmly grounded faith so that you are not tossed by the waves is important. This is where I start to have to some… I don’t know… confusion. In my mind I know what that says, but then I also know that the Bible talks about useless talk, endless genealogies and foolish controversies. I have seen in my growing up and especially recently how so many “Christians” argue about things of their faith that to me are so secondary. Where is the balance between good knowledge of Christ and useless talk? My confusion comes when they ask me what I think and my answer is usually, “I don’t know.” I used to know, but now I am not so sure.

Am I allowed to not know? Sometimes when I am hanging around kids, I feel inadequate because I don’t know all the detailed history and meaning and common biblical interpretations. If they were to start asking me a bunch of questions, I would probably have to answer, either I don’t know or ignorantly most of the time. Some times I feel like I should know this stuff, sometimes I feel like I really don’t want to know it. Well, I would like to know it, but I think there are a lot more important things so I am not going to waste time on it. Two issues my dad mentioned were Adam and Eve, if they really existed or is Genesis just allegory, and hell, is it a real place. My response to both of those is, I don’t know. The bible mentions both things and to me it seems like they are real, but does it matter? If some one is arguing with me about those things or any other secondary issue my first thought is, “what are they hiding or what issue are they avoiding by bringing up this insignificant topic?” I would rather get them and myself to the heart of the matter and discuss it. My dad and I argued about this for a while. As I said, I see his point. It is clear in the bible, but here is my point. Too many people, good “Christians”, lose sight of their first love when then educate themselves beyond their own understanding.

If I knew all the answers, then I would be scared that a kid would see that and desire all that knowledge instead of what is really important. Plus, I wonder if I could be humble in dispensing what I knew. I already have a problem with humility and that would only add to it.

Here is another thing. Humans are inherently lazy. I am. Given the option of working out your own faith, or having someone tell you what you should believe and do, most people would choose the later. I realized this about myself some time ago. It wasn’t until after college did I final start to seek things about faith for myself and not rely on my very knowledgeable earthly father.

My dad has been to a great seminary, he has a wonderful education and insight. He knows the truth and seeks to dispense it as best he can. When I was growing up, he was that mentor/guide for me. I would go to him with any question or issue that had come into my life and he would tell me what I believed. I didn’t mind and neither did he, but when I grew up, nothing made sense because I had not sought the knowledge from the source. My understanding was based on my dad. All of it was probably right, but that didn’t matter because I didn’t really believe it.

Because of my short comings, I don’t want others around me, especially young men and women, to make the same mistakes, which brings me to my mission/purpose. What is my mission? Ultimately it is to know God fully and see the world come to know God also. I know that is a very broad mission, but I think I will stick with it. If I refine it and narrow it then it is possible that I will lose sight of it. Lose sight of my first love.

Can I have such a broad mission? Part of me doesn’t think so. I don’t know why, nobody has told me otherwise, but I haven’t really asked. My life’s next step is to complete the Young Life application and work towards being on staff. I am pretty sure that somewhere in the application process, they are going to ask me to make a mission statement and the other things that go along with that. Can something that simple be my mission statement? I hope so, but doubt it. Life is not that simple. Life requires that you have complicated, deep, challenging ideals and philosophies that no one else understands. You have to be unique and complex otherwise you will be seen as inferior. You have to have specific goals because if you don’t have goals, how will you know when you achieve them? “It is not a game unless somebody wins!” I said that just yesterday so I know I believe it somewhere in the recesses of my mind.

Written July 6th

All of these thoughts stem from my last two weeks spent in Italy. Down there I was the leader for eight guys, five the first week and three the second. All of the guys knew of Jesus Christ at least in their heads. They had some sort of church back ground or previous encounter. This is significant because Italy Beach Break is very much an out-reach camp. Its focus is on kids that don’t know Jesus from Jordan, Michael. The activities, program, and talks are all focused on those kids. My eight guys had heard everything said those weeks before. Most of them had been to that exact camp before. When the topic of the day was how we are designed to be in a relationship with God, my guys where like, “duh!” This camp and many like it across the States and the globe are tried and true, their methods have been refined so that a leader of kids can very easily present the information and guide them. My situation was different but not unique. With my guys, it was less following the script, but challenging them to take the next step.

Church kids I understand. Being one, I can look them in the face and understand if they really believe what they know. So with eight “church” kids I went off script and tried to get them to go the next step. Did it work? Ask them in twenty years.

So here is where my question about my mission comes from. God obviously allowed the paths of each of our individual lives to proceed in His plan for His glory. The blind dude in John 9 was blind so that the glory of God would be revealed. God obviously gave me a history for a purpose. Was that purpose, is my mission to kids like me, “churched?” The first week in Italy, I had kids I knew and the “churched” ones worked best. The second week was an unknown but they ended up being the same type. Different issues and at different place, but still the same challenge was laid down. Coincidence, I think not! But I am not sure.

Here is where I end. This blog will probably never be read to this point because we are a generation that can’t stay focused for more than a few minutes. If anyone did get this far, bravo!!! Maybe I will tell you about the details of the two weeks: The ocean, Waterpark, Cinque Terre, and Pisa. Probably not. Just know that it was great. Glorious to be exact.

If you don’t hear from me for another couple weeks, it is because I am off traveling around South East Europe. I will be in touch with how things are going. I promise.

Until then and tomorrow.

Jason