Valley Church Ryan

Colossians 3 Pt. 1

2010-03-23T10:29:00.005-04:00

I was privileged to preach on this amazing text on March 21st at Valley Church. This was a continuing series on the Book of Colossians that we started in January and will end on the 28th of March. It has been a very Jesus centered book that was a great kickoff to Valley Church.

Three weeks ago, we looked at Colossians 3:1-4 - If then you have been raised with Christ, seek the the things that are above, where Christ is seated at the right hand of God. Set our minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth. For you have died and your life is hidden with Christ in God. When Christ who is your life appears, then you also will appear with him in glory.

These verses set the tone for everything else that we saw in Colossians 3. Colossians 3 is full of very practical encouragements from Paul. He follows these verses up by commanding, imploring the people of the Colossians' Church to put to death sexual immorality, impurity, wrongful passion. He also encourages them to take off anger, deceit, lying, malice and slander.

Likewise, Paul encourages the church to put on compassion, kindness, humility and meekness, as well as having an attitude of forgiveness because they have been forgiven of so much. Paul connects the first 2 Chapters of Colossians with what he is encouraging in verse 14 & 15 when he says: "Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts... let the word of Christ dwell in you richly..."

Paul lays out that putting to death and putting on these things, again, are works of the Spirit that prompt and compel our own willful acts. In other words, we see and experience the good love of the father and our champion Jesus Christ and in light of that, we are compelled to submit ourselves to what He asks us to kill (confess and repent of, flee from, consider of no worth or without life, decomposing) and put on knowing that these actions will bring life to the fullest and pleasing worship, not to mention the true work of the church.

If there is one thing to say about Colossians to this point it is this, it is Jesus centered. Jesus from beginning to end is the hero. He goes before us, lives in us, and is behind us. This Jesus centeredness is the foundation for what comes next in Colossians 3:18-4:1. Stay tuned for Colossians 3 Pt. 2

People Watching in Western MA

2009-11-19T11:01:00.005-05:00

I am not sure if this creepy or not, but I love people watching. I love watching what is so important to people and how they react when those important things are challenged or threatened. The mall is the best place to people watch. There are plenty of "important" things for people to pursue and their facial expressions, body language and to a much lesser extent, their own words write the story of that pursuit. It is quite hilarious and at times really discouraging to see human depravity at it's finest.

However now, being a church planter/pastor/older creepy guy, I find the local coffee shop to be a much appreciated and richer place to watch people go about the "important" things in their lives. The coffee shop is much less

out loud and much more introspective, which is fine with me, because I get to create their inner monologue.

Unfortunately, today, their was a young woman who decided to not have a silent inner monologue, but in a tragic decision, decided to let everyone in the coffee shop know what she was thinking. It started when she walked in. She was wearing a green shirt that simply said

"Treehugger" across the front. (Ryan's internal monologue insight #1:"Sister tree's aren't the only things getting hugged by that tight shirt right now." ) She proceeds to walk up to the

counter loudly talking to her friend about "What this area really needs is...". I can't honestly tell you anything after that, because I have been conditioned by Fox News, talk radio and a history of a legalistic church to shut down upon hearing those words.

She orders her Chai tea with non-fat organic creamer and a twig from a holly bush and sits at the table next to me and begins to include all the coffee shop in the conversation she is having with her friend. The topic? I have no idea. I'm not sure there was a common thread to any of the conversation. It began with a story about seeing an ad for free massages. (Ryan's internal monologue #2: "If you see an ad for a "Free Massage" and you think, "What a great idea! I can't wait to partake of this soothing activity from a total stranger at their house out of earshot of anyone outside the house who could help me if the masseuse decides to tenderize your head with a sledgehammer", then you deserve to die a grizzly death I guess.) The girl then continued telling the story about going to the address of the ad and finding a couple who gave massages (Ryan's internal monologue #3 - All I can think of is this: Will Ferrell Hot Tub Lovers) and had lots of cats. (R I M #4 - Of course they did.)

As if this weren't enough, in the same sentence, without a break, this conversation turns to the geological make up of the mountains of Western Massachusetts. I am not kidding. There was no cheesy transition like, "Speaking of relaxing activities, I was studying the geology of the mountains of Western Massachusetts the other day to relax from a long day of being exposed to the soul stealing entities of electricity and indoor plumbing, and you will never guess what I found out, they are mining those mountains for Pixie Stix!". Nothing like that. It was as if someone just pushed the button to change the channel on the conversation in mid sentence. Free massages from a flyer one minute and Historical Geology the next.

However, the most random and telling thing happened after the tight-shirted treehugger's (R I M #5 - I don't say "treehugger" in a Fox News/Rush Limbaugh derogatory way. I refer more to the self-labeling and circulation challenging t-shirt) friend left the coffee shop and she was left alone. As they were settling into their table, the tree hugger stood up quickly and announced that she needed sugar in her organic, chai, rosebud flavored tea. However, as she stood up, she glanced at her friend, saw that there was something wrong and then sat back down just as quickly and said, "Silly me, I am drinking chai, you don't need sugar for chai." The conversation about the massage and the rocks then took place and about 20 minutes later, the tree huggers friend left the coffee shop. As soon as the door closed, the tree hugger went over to the condiments table and dumped sugar into her tea, drank two sips and poured it out.

When we first arrived in Western MA, we were introduced to the culture by a variety of sources. A couple of women who had just recently graduated from Mount Holyoke College took us around campus and explained how it is common for women to arrive on campus and change their identity a full 180 degrees just to fit in. These changes usually take many forms and some much more drastic than what I saw this morning, but it was a great reminder of who we are ministering to. And it also was a blast to watch.

"My hypocrisy knows no bounds."

Val Kilmer as Doc Holiday, Tombstone

Achan in Our Bones. Pt. 2

2009-10-30T09:32:00.003-04:00

This happened. Jesus happened. Jesus paid the debt that was and is owed. He satisfied the wrath of God forever. All of God’s wrath was poured out at the cross. Just listen to these verses:

I Corinthians 5:21 For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.

Romans 5:9 Since, therefore, we have now been justified by his blood, much more shall we be saved by him from the wrath of God.

Romans 3:21 But now the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the law, although the Law and the Prophets bear witness to it— 22 the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe. For there is no distinction: 23 for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, 24 and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, 25 whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith. This was to show God's righteousness, because in his divine forbearance he had passed over former sins. 26 It was to show his righteousness at the present time, so that he might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus.

Hebrews 2:17 Therefore he had to be made like his brothers in every respect, so that he might become a merciful and faithful high priest in the service of God, to make propitiation for the sins of the people. 18 For because he himself has suffered when tempted, he is able to help those who are being tempted.

I John 2:2 He is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only but also for the sins of the whole world.

I John 4:9 In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only Son into the world, so that we might live through him. 10 In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins.

To sum up all of these verses again, God didn’t change. He is a Holy God who still demands a sacrifice for transgressions against Him and mistrust in His character. However, this is a Holy price that we are incapable of paying. In fact, Paul says that the law, the Old Testament rules and regulations by which Israel lived and which Jesus fulfilled were given to prove we are incapable.

Enter Jesus. All of history is HIS Story of redemption. All history is His Story of rescue and propitiation, taking on what He wasn’t guilty of to pay the high price of the guilty, which includes me, you, everyone of us who have ever lived the Bible says.

But wait a second. When we examine Achan, you have to point out that he really Sinned, with a capital “S”. This was a big deal. 1.8 million dollars? From God non the less. That is a big time crime. Granted. It was a big deal.

But are we really any different than Achan. Look at what Achan took from God: His gold and silver.

Who is responsible for providing for you? Who gives good gifts to His children and provides for their every need? Biblically, all of our life and everything in it is God’s. He deserves it all. Do we withhold even a portion of it? Do we take from His “first fruits” to do the things we think we want and need because be believe if we don’t we will not be taken care of? Do we date and do relationships the way we want because doing the way God wants is too constricting and not nearly as fun? All of these steal from Him. All of these are acts of worship of us. In each case, we tell God we are better god than He is. That is no different than what Achan has done.

What about that “goodly Babylonish garment”? Wearing or even owning this Babylonian robe would have given Achan or anyone who owned it status, great status. For a Jew to have it and wear it around would have been saying, “Look what I have now! Look what I did! I defeated the Babylonians!” It is saying, “I came, I saw, I conquered.” Simply, Achan’s sin is the foundational sin of all other sins I believe, pride. Achan, like us wanted this garment to wear and gain status with whoever would recognize it and admire it and in turn, admire him for having it. Babylonian garments are not quite as chic as they used to be, but many other things certainly are. Certain technology, the right car, clothing, style or look and even the right cause to support all serve as pride boosters for us. We cloak ourselves in these things to gain favor from others. We gain status by owning them and using them. Again, we are no different than Achan.

Some of you may be hearing this and saying, sure I do those things, but I do these other things to make up for it. I am saving the planet or I treat others with respect at all times or I even read my Bible a lot. The Bible calls this philosophy religion. Jesus doesn’t think to highly of it and Paul call your own “earned righteousness”, a bloody tampon. (Take it up with Paul.)

We cannot earn our way back to God. Achan could not “do” anything to satisfy God’s righteous wrath. He sinned against God. Done deal. He was doomed. He couldn’t take it back, give it back, say he was sorry in a real sincere tone, wax the Ark of the Covenant and be OK. Being right with God doesn’t work that way.

Only through the grace and mercy of Jesus Christ can we be right with Jesus. Only through what this bread and this cup signify is true life found. On the night before Jesus was brutally murdered as the last and only complete sacrifice, He took bread like this and said, “This is my body, given for you.” He is pointing to being that sacrifice for us that we cannot pay. Also that night, He took the cup and prayed over it and said, “This is my blood of the covenant poured out for many…” He again pointed to this being a covenant between His Father and us. This covenant like the covenant Dan talked about last week has God’s roles and our roles spelled out. God’s role; to come, live a perfect life, die a horrible death, raise from that death on the third day and then give us forgiveness and life from our past sins, current sins and future sins. Our role: Believe, follow, and allow His light to shine in us for His glory and our perfect good.

For many of you today, accepting this gift of salvation and no longer being responsible for the curse and penalty of your sin is as simple as praying to God and asking His forgiveness and accepting this grace. Remember when Joshua told Achan to “give glory to the God of Israel and give praise..”? This is what you have a chance to do this morning. Pray this to Jesus. Tell Him you have sinned and need His rescue now. Then, step out this morning and partake in this communion. There is nothing magical about this bread or this juice (It was probably bought at Big Y and their aren’t many magical things there.), however, what it represents is supernatural. Jesus did die for your sins and is offering you salvation this morning.

For those of you who have been rearranging your flesh to do the good things and stay away from the bad things in hopes of earning enough God points to be OK, repent of your religion. Pray that Jesus would forgive you for being self-reliant and for not submitting yourself to Him. Come and take this communion and remember that the cross only gives us freedom to live, love and worship.

For those of you who are living in this grace and mercy now, let this again remind us of the greatness of our Savior King. Respond to this message again in a fresh way by going crazy as you sing to your Savior this morning. Take the words to these songs and put deep inside of you and let them explode out as you sing. Worship out loud this morning for the glory of our King Jesus.

We all share in Achan’s sin. We are all guilty of the same pride that he had which God took issue with, however, we are now offered the love of a Savior Who has loved and rescued us from our own death.

Achan in Our Bones. Pt. 1

2009-10-28T16:57:00.007-04:00

This is the rather long manuscript from my sermon I was blessed to preach at MERCYhouse last Sunday. Thanks Robert for the opportunity!

Get Real: Joshua Chapter 7

For those of you who don’t know me, I am Ryan McCullah and I am the planting pastor of Valley Church, a church that is a church plant from MERCYhouse and part of the 2020 Vision.

We are currently hosting 3 House Churches in the South Hadley and Holyoke area right now and our Leadership Team is meeting weekly to pray and prepare for our official launch in April. It has been an amazing year here at

MERCYhouse and I anticipate the launch with an equal amount of excitement and sadness because we know we will not be able to see many of you on a weekly basis like we get to now. However, we are clear about what God is doing and we believe He is using us to speak to the dry bones of the Pioneer Valley like God asked Ezekiel to in the book of Ezekiel.

We have been studying this amazing book of Joshua for 8 weeks now and I hope that you have been as encouraged, blessed and challenged as I have by this amazing book and the messages that Robert and last week Dan have brought from this book. I hope to continue representing this text authentically and in a way that will continue to encourage, bless and challenge.

I have been in ministry now for 13 years and one of the most difficult parts of teaching the Bible is dealing with scripture like we will find in Joshua Chapter 7. Before we begin, let’s pray and read the scripture.

READ Joshua 7

Last week, Dan taught on the miraculous events surrounding the fall of the great walled city of Jericho. God provided the victory through some very specific means and had very specific desires about how the city was to be left after it’s defeat. Like Dan said last week, God knew His role and commanded that Jericho be fully destroyed and it’s gold, silver and other vessels of bronze and iron be taken into the treasury of the Lord. He expected the Israel to know it’s role and obey. However, we will see this week that this didn’t happen.

After Jericho was defeated, Joshua set his sights on the small nearby city of Ai. Ai was a much smaller and less fortified area than Jericho, but sat up much higher in elevation than Jericho, which was believed to be some 750 below sea level. This is kind of like conquering the mainline United States, but falling in defeat to the state of Hawaii. (Don’t laugh, those coconuts and pineapples hurt if you get hurt with them. You have to be trained to know how to defend yourself against passion fruit.) However, when we compare and contrast the attack of Jericho with the attack at Ai, we see a few things emerge.

First, nowhere do we see God tell Joshua to attack Ai. Neither do they ask God whether they should or not. This seems to be a result of a Jericho victory hangover. It seems as if these are quite the over confident actions. In fact, Joshua only sends a small group of 3,000 men to attack Ai.

Second, notice how Chapter 7 begins. “But the people of Israel broke faith…”. The whole nation was is in the path of God’s anger. We see that the perpetrator of these actions that have caused God’s anger is one man, Achan.

God rightly commanded that the whole city of Jericho be burned and the gold, silver and vessels of bronze and iron be brought into the treasury of the Lord. This was a common practice when a land was defeated to take the “spoils” of the first city and put them within the treasury of the Lord. Basically, this was a war chest of all the gold, silver and precious items from the first fallen city of every land. These items were brought together and everyone recognized that they were set apart for the Lord. They were the Lord’s. The items or spoils from the rest of the cities of the conquered lands were then given to the people. We later find out that Achan had stolen some of the spoils and hid them in his tent. It was one man’s actions; however, the whole nation is culpable and must suffer the consequences. They collectively are all guilty of breaking the covenant they made with God.

They then suffer by experiencing an embarrassing defeat at Ai. They suffer by not moving fully into the promise of what God had promised them.

They suffered by not being OK with God.

Joshua came mourning before God and asking why this happened. God spoke very clearly when He said that the reason for this defeat was that sin had come to people of God. Sin was the problem. Sin needed to be dealt with.

God then commanded Joshua to lead. He commanded Joshua to gather all the people. God was ready to hunt the one who broke faith in regard to the devoted things of Jericho. In Chapter 6, God told Joshua to tell the people to stay way from the things of Jericho that were described as “devoted things for destruction”. These things included everything inside the walls of Jericho including the “spoils of war”: gold, precious treasures, fine garments and other valuables of this immense walled city.

So why was God so concerned with His people staying away from these things? Because, God describes them as objects of destruction. Because they are objects of destruction! They destroy! Hurt! Bad! Danger Will Robinson, Danger! I believe it is the same reason I was angry recently, when I found my youngest daughter Kiah wielding a large kitchen knife trying to get into her birthday presents after I had told her no. Why was I angry? Am I a control freak who hates the thought of my youngest daughter having fun and enjoying her birthday presents? No. I am a father who hates the thought of my daughter bringing me 3 severed fingers covered in blood saying, “Look what I did Daddy!”

So how did God deal with this sin? He had the people consecrate themselves, which included separating themselves out from one another, washing their clothes and abstaining from sexual relations for a period of time. He then had everyone wake up early in the morning, gather in their tribes and then God performed the most terrifying game of pick’em in history. (Not only is getting picked last in this game embarrassing, but it is life threatening. Kind of like “Duck, Duck, Dead”) He narrowed down the peoples by clans and then by individual families until Achan had been identified as the culprit.

Joshua then approaches Achan and asks him to “give glory to the Lord God of Israel and give praise…”. Interesting wording there. But we will come back to that.

Achan comes clean and tells Joshua that he took a beautiful cloak from Shinar, 200 shekles (80 lbs) of silver and a bar of gold weighing 50 shekles (20 lbs). A side note here, to put this in perspective, this amount of gold and silver actually adds up to roughly the amount of wages a common worker would earn in a lifetime. (Median income in MA – about $60,000 a year – 30 years – $1.8 million)

The amount is not the offense necessarily, even though it is immense, the real issue is Who he stole from. Let’s examine this for second. You see, this is not an 8^th commandment issue (Thou shalt not steal), it is really a first commandment issue (You shall have no other God’s before Me.) Achan is really questioning God’s character by taking these for himself. He is literally saying that God will not take care of him well enough, so he has to take from God to take care of himself. Achan is saying that he is a better god than God. See how this offends God? See how questioning His goodness could be an issue?

God was so offended by Achan’s sin that He brings swift and permanent judgment on Achan. Joshua sends men to dig up the tainted treasure and bring it back and lays it before God, Achan and the people to all see. Once there, Joshua and the men gathered everything of Achan’s; his livestock, the gold and silver, the tent he lived in and even his family. Then, they stoned Achan and his family and lit the remaining things on fire.

As shocking as that is, this next part may be even more shocking. This action of violence and vengeance actually satisfied God’s wrath. The chapter ends by saying, “Then the Lord turned from his burning anger.”

What?! This violence and vengeance satisfied God? That is so out of kilter with the God that we hear about all the time right? This simply doesn’t fit! How can this be? This seems like a totally different God than the one we see in the New Testament right? If this is truly Who God is, then He will not fit in here in Western MA. He is way too intense for this place. This sounds like such a different God than the one we see Robert talk about each week. Is it that it’s me? Is it that Ryan drew the short straw and only represents Vengeance-God and Robert gets to teach about, post counseling, “on His meds” God? What is so different? What has changed?!!!!

The De-Churched

2009-10-28T16:55:00.000-04:00

Time flies.

2009-09-14T15:24:00.004-04:00

A year ago today, our friend and fellow warrior in Christ, Baranbu Ochunyi passed away.

Keep dancing for Jesus my friend, we will join with you one day.

To read the Eulogy, go here.

Testify.

2009-08-16T22:25:00.015-04:00

I was honored to preach at MERCYhouse on 8/16/09 on I John 5:6-12. Here is the manuscript of that sermon. I hope it is used to glorify Christ.

I John 5:6-12

It seems as if we have spent a lot of time hearing from this dude, the Apostle John. We studied his account of the life, death and glorious resurrection of his best friend Jesus. We saw as he told stories that no other account told and really gave insights that were very unique about the God/Man, Jesus.

All summer, we have been tracking as this same John has been writing and telling of how this love of Jesus practically plays out in our lives. I think now would be a good time to reassess what we know of John.

Remember, John and his brother James were apostles, disciples and followers of Jesus. It is believed that this same John wrote the Gospel of John, I, II & III John as well as the book of Revelations. However, to really know what happened to John as a person as he followed Christ, we have to look at a story about John that he conveniently left out of his Gospel account (and I think you will see why).

In Matthew 20:20-28 we see James and John accompany their mom to see Jesus. The purpose of this visit is to ask Jesus a very important question. John’s whole family, it appears, is very interested in being seen as so important that one day, John and James will be able to sit one at the right hand and one at the left hand of Jesus. Being able to follow Jesus gave John the opportunity to see what power and ability there would be in the future if they continued to follow Jesus. This opportunity was very inviting and worth the chance to approach Jesus to see if they qualified. So the question really has to be what does John hope to be defined as by doing this? It seems that early on, John wanted to be defined or known as important and needed. He had his Mom ask for him to sit at Jesus right hand. This signified a place of power, honor and trust.

However, as John wrote his Gospel, which is dated later than all the other Gospels, we see that he defined himself in a totally different way. In John 21:7 we see John describe himself this way, “That disciple whom Jesus loved said to Peter…” (Emphasis added) Do you see it? When John wrote his account of his best friend Jesus and he mentioned himself here, John refers to himself, defines himself and calls himself nothing more than the “disciple whom Jesus loved”. Something happened from the beginning of Jesus ministry to the end of his life that John witnessed which moved John to desire to be defined in a wholly different way.

I think we will get a glimpse into what John witnessed to change his stripes when we look at what he wrote in I John 5:6-12.

This is he who came by water and blood – Jesus Christ; not by the water only but by the water and the blood. And the Spirit is the one who testifies, because the Spirit is the truth. For there are three that testify, the Spirit and the water and the blood; and these three agree.

John continues in verse 6 building on the trustworthiness of Christ for our faith. In verses 4&5, he reminds us that faith in Jesus Christ can only overcome the world. Beginning here in verse 6, we see John begin to lay what I call the “rebar” portion of I John.

Rebar or reinforcing bar, is a common steel bar, and is commonly used in reinforced concrete and reinforced masonry structures. It is usually formed from carbon steel, and is given ridges for better mechanical anchoring into the concrete. It can also be described as reinforcement or reinforcing steel.

Here, we see John reinforce this whole chapter in which he has over and over again encouraged us to love one another, know that we are children of God, walk in the light and overcome the world. In verse 6, he lays out that there is a message, a testimony in which God, Himself, is communicating a foundational truth. John lays out that truth by first reminding us that Jesus came by both water and blood.

We understand the blood part pretty well. Jesus came as a human, full of breath and blood and poured out that blood as a literal sacrifice for the propitiation of our sin. He had to come by blood in order to shed it for us.

So what does the water mean? Some commentary study on these verses brings you to see that what is probably referred to here, is the baptism of Jesus. So what made that such a big deal? Well, look at Matthew3:13-17.

13 Then Jesus came from Galilee to the Jordan to John, to be baptized by him. 14 John would have prevented him, saying, “I need to be baptized by you, and do you come to me?” 15 But Jesus answered him, “Let it be so now, for thus it is fitting for us to fulfill all righteousness.” Then he consented. 16 And when Jesus was baptized, immediately he went up from the water, and behold, the heavens were opened to him, and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and coming to rest on him; 17 and behold, a voice from heaven said, “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased.”

Jesus presents Himself to John the Baptist to go through a public act that was being used to show the cleansing that was to come. By offering himself to be baptized, Jesus is endorsing John’s ministry and identifying with sinful people he came to save through his substitutionary life and death.

(Kierkegaard’s Parable Video).

This event was one of the events in scripture where we see each member of the Trinity together. Jesus is lowering Himself to serve and be served, therein glorifying the Father by this act of submission. God the Father peaks down from heaven and yells, “That’s my Boy!” and sends the Spirit, which John says is the Truth, to rest on Jesus to affirm Who He truly Is.

Do you see it there? Do you see the testimony that is given in this event? If you don’t, John is about to spell it out for you.

If we receive the testimony of men, the testimony of God is greater, for this is the testimony of God that he has born concerning his Son. Whoever believes in the Son of God has the testimony in himself. Whoever does not believe God has made him a liar, because he has not believed in the testimony that God has born concerning his Son.

John makes the point that if we receive the testimony of man, then how much more should we receive the testimony of God. We often accept the accounts and testimonies of people and weight them against their character. John, rightly, says that sense it is in our nature to trust according to character, then how trustworthy is the testimony of God and His Spirit about Jesus?

What are the consequences of not believing this testimony? Unbelief is actually a question of God’s character. It is offensive and provoking to God directly to His face when we do not believe Him. It is the original sin of the garden. Adam and Eve both questioned the character of God and went against how He was loving them.

MERCYhouse, it is beyond simply saying or thinking that we believe God. It is living in that love. James rightly says that faith without the works to back up that faith is futile. Faith in the testimony and character of God, without the life lived out to show His love isn’t really faith. You see, when we live knowing and trusting God, we become part of the testimony. John says that here. He says we have the “testimony within himself.” So MERCYhouse, do we believe the testimony of God more than we believe the testimony of men? Do we have the testimony within us? Do you individually believe God’s testimony above the testimony of man or woman or even yourself? What about beyond what we see, sense, fear, feel or want?

And this is the testimony that God gave us eternal life, and this life is in his Son. Whoever has the Son has life; whoever does not have the Son of God does not have life.

So here is the payoff. This is the big picture, the main point, what it is all about. This is God’s testimony – He gave us eternal life in His Son Jesus. Whoever accepts Christ, His grace and mercy, which are capable of forgiving us of all unrighteousness, we begin to live. We then are given life.

A few years back, I was watching one of the many disaster movies that came out and found myself enjoying it more than most. Toward the end of this movie, Armageddon, there was this scene that I want to show you now that I think communicates a bit of what John is talking about here.

Armageddon Clip

(I couldn't get this clip to load. But it is the clip at the end where they draw straws and Affleck draws the short straw and Bruce Willis pulls his oxygen hose and throws him back in the elevator.)

I love this clip because it shows an amazing picture of sacrifice. In one of his few movies roles that actually doesn’t make me want to vomit into my hat, Ben Affleck shows what true worship actually looks like. After Bruce Willis pulls Affleck’s oxygen hose and shoves him into the elevator and Affleck realizes the sacrifice that has been made, he responds to this love that is shown by crying out to Willis that he loved him.

This clip, however, is really flawed when we measure it against the love and sacrifice that Christ showed for us. To be more accurate, the movie would have to depict these men somehow creating a giant asteroid, launching it from space toward earth willfully and then coming back to earth to deal with the consequences of the collision, which they have no ability, desire or capacity to deal with. (Somehow, I can’t see that being a Hollywood Summer Blockbuster.) However, the picture of someone who did not draw the short straw taking our place and paying the price we could not pay is accurate and does echo the great sacrifice of Christ.

We have no capacity for life. All have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. We are dead in our trespasses and sin. Paul calls us still born. We are in need of rescue and John points out clearly here that Jesus is our Rescuer. Life does not exist outside of Jesus Christ.

So what is standing between you and Him today? No matter what it is, He is bigger. He has paid for you when you couldn’t. So what is your response today? What is your heart bursting to do, sing, or cry out today? Live authentically today in the light of Our King.

FAIL.

2009-08-11T15:35:00.002-04:00

13 & Life to go.

2009-08-03T12:42:00.005-04:00

This time 13 years ago, I was in my office of University Heights Baptist Church. I wasn't preparing a Bible Study or putting the finishing touches on going to camp. I was getting into my tux and enjoying the time with my friends who were about to stand beside me on stage as I waited for my soon to be bride to walk down the aisle of UHBC.

So much has changed in those 13 years: 3 kids, 11 different jobs, 13 different houses, 9 different towns and nearly 40 more lbs (for me, not her). However, one thing has remained. God has continued to bless me beyond what I deserve by allowing me to be loved by, respond to, lead and care for Christie Beavers McCullah. If you know her, you know how amazing she is.

As I right this, she is asleep on the couch across the room from me. Why is she asleep? Well, we are staying with our amazing friends Will and Rachelle Joyce. They have two fantastic young boys, Jackson(4) and Thomas Ryan(2) (that's right, Thomas RYAN), and Rachelle is pregnant with Boy #3 (I am hoping for Eugene) . Well, a couple of days ago, Thomas Ryan developed a pretty rough cough. It has made him not feel well and sleep difficult. Last night, after Rachelle had served in the Kids area of her church, driven us all around St. Louis, prepared our meals for us and generally been an amazing host, she crashed around 10 PM. Around 3 AM, Thomas Ryan woke up with his cough and decided that it was time to play, so he went into the room where the girls were sleeping and began to ask them "What doing?". Christie heard him get up and went in to see if she could get him back to sleep. It took a while, but Christie eventually rocked him back to sleep. Christie wasn't going to say anything about it this morning, but the girls loved the fact that they had a cute late night visitor and told Rachelle. Rachelle was shocked to hear the news of her son paying social visits last night and asked Christie, "Why didn't you wake me?" Rachelle and everyone who knows Christie knows the answer to this question. Christie loves and serves because she is aware of how loved she is by Jesus. She simply gives because so much has been given to her. As her husband, I often have to tell her she can't give anymore at times. But that is how she is wired.

One thing has changed in these 13 years. I love her more now than I did when we said "I do" 13 years ago. I really never understood what that meant or that it was even possible to grow in your love of someone. Infatuation and the feelings of early love are intense, but it is true that deep, abiding love does grow. As my body grows in places it shouldn't and my jokes and nuances become less "cute", God has replaced our capacities to love and serve one another with super natural abilities to love one another.

I now recognize that loving Christie is my first act of worship of Jesus. Her protection, welfare, success, capacity for joy and provision are my pleasure to take care of and Jesus is glorified when I love her as He loved His Church.

Thank you all, as our community, for loving us, praying for us and supporting us. Your accountability and love are a vital part of our marriage working. Thank you and we love you all!

Most importantly, thank you Jesus for blessing me with my Bride, Christie and for the amazing blessing that was set in motion on August 3, 1996.

"Fun"raising Tour Report 3

2009-07-22T11:30:00.011-04:00

About a week ago, we arrived in Eastern Oklahoma. As we arrived, I was again reminded of how similar the landscape of Eastern Oklahoma and Western Massachusetts really is. They are both beautiful!

When we arrived, we went to my grandparents house to show them what was happening in MA. It was great to see them and let them know what God was doing. The girls spent the time mourning the upcoming separation from their Poppie, my dad and their Grandma Joanne. The time finally came to leave and their was much sadness. Part of being called to do what we do means being away from people that we love dearly. It is not always easy, but we know what we are called to do. Please pray for our girls to continue to listen to the Spirit as He communicates His will for our lives and gives peace to deal with the consequences of that calling.

The girls spirits were lifted when they arrived at their Nana's house though. It was great to see the girls continue this time of joy on this trip by seeing their Nana and Grandpa Ed. We have been with my mom for about a week now and it has been great! They have loved swimming, playing, watching movies and hanging out with Nana. It has also been great hosting many of our friends who live around here as well. Our friends Matt & Cara Yakel and their kids Keagan and Kate came over and hung out one night and we swam & BBQ'd. It was great to see all of them again. It is wonderful to be with people that pray for and support us throughout the year. We were able to hang out and swim and laugh, a lot. It is always fun to be around these friends.

Sunday, the 19th, we traveled to Dewitt, AR to speak to FBC, Dewitt. My good friend Lindsay Robinson is getting married on the 25th and I am officiating the wedding, so it was great to join her and her fiance that weekend. It was also a blessing to be introduced to her pastor at FBC, Kelly Jones and his family. As you can probably tell by this picture, Kelly is very funny and we had a great time together. Kelly was kind enough to open up his pulpit and allow me to present our ministry and speak Sunday morning. The podcast for the sermon I preached is found here: FBC, Dewitt Podcast. Thanks so much Kelly & FBC Dewitt!!

When we got back to Eastern, OK, we reconnected with the girls who had a great time that weekend with their cousins and other family. On Monday night, we swam and grilled out and had a great time. However, at dinner that night, Kenzie mentioned that she thought that she swallowed something sharp that was hurting her throat. Knowing that she has asthma, we thought that it might be something to do with her gag reflex, but as she continued to complain about it, we sensed something was pretty wrong. Luckily, my cousin Russell, who is a respiratory therapist, was eating with us and looked into her throat. He suggested we go to the ER because he saw something "shiny". I looked to confirm what he saw and sure enough, there was something there. We loaded her up and went to the ER. On our way there, I called my friend Matt Duke, who is a registered nurse, and got his opinion on the situation. Within 20 minutes, Matt shows up at the ER to sit with us and see what he could do. However, as Kenzie got more and more nervous, Christie suggested bringing Matt in and having him explain to Kenzie what is going to happen. This seemed to calm her quite a bit. Matt also stayed back with us and helped in some of the more difficult moments of the procedures we had to go through. After finally getting her sedated enough to look into her throat, the doctors pulled a bristle out of her throat from the brush that I had used to clean the grill with. It was such a fluke thing that caused her such great pain. It was really crazy. I tried to take a picture of what it looks like in comparison to a quarter. It is blurry, but it will give you some idea of what it looks like and how long it was.

There were some really scary moments obviously, but there were also some almost funny moments as well. They gave Kenzie Catamine to calm down so they could calm her down and get the other sedative in her. Basically, Catamine is a derivative of PCP, so Kenzie was high as a kite. She reverted back to believing she was in the pool and held her breath and moved her hand back and forth like she was swimming. It was quite funny to see her enjoying herself on that ER bed with all of the lines, monitor cords and oxygen lines coming from her. This of course was interspersed with her yelling (very slowly) in terror "MMMOOOMMMYYYY!!"

I really am not sure I could have made it without my freind Matt there. He and I got to know each other when we were college at Carl Albert State College (Chuck Albert). We both were relatively new in our life in Christ and found great community and accountability together. Much of the work that we do in the Mancave in MA now is based on the life and friendship in Christ that Matt. myself and our other friends shared. When we in college and I was studying jounalism, I often made fun (lovingly of course) of Matt's pursuit of being a nurse. I even convinced him to get his new Bible imprinted with the name "Nursey Boy". However, as I watched how God had created Matt to help people like he does, it was obvious that Matt was obeying the leading of the Spirit. We would often have discussions when he was early in his career as a nurse and I was a new Youth Minister that if I had a bad day, a parent may be upset, but if he had a bad day, people died. Matt was always quick to remind me that there were eternal consequences in what I did with people, he only helped keep them from those eternal consequences for as long as possible. I say all of this to say it was amazing to have a skilled nurse and professional like Matt there Monday night. However, it was better to have a friend like Matt there.

Thank you everyone who was praying for her and for us. Matt's wife Angie kept everyone updated on Twitter about what was happening and I had many people ask about how Kenzie was doing and tell me they were praying for her and us. Thank you all!!!

July 4th, Oklahoma Style

2009-07-13T14:40:00.004-04:00

Will Rogers once quipped, "If you don't like the weather in Oklahoma, wait a minute and it'll change." July 3rd was 103 degrees. July 5th was near 90 degrees. This video was July 4th, around 4 PM. What a blast!

That's right. It's not lying.

2009-07-13T14:33:00.003-04:00

This is not Photoshopped (unfortunately). This is not the temp gauge right after starting the vehicle. This is Oklahoma at it's finest.

Ryan's Funraising Rants & Raves

2009-07-13T13:17:00.008-04:00

"Welcome to Newcastle... apparently home of the Village People."

Christie cut in line in front of all of these children to ride the Segue at the Oklahoma Science Museum. I thought the only thing they would have at the Oklahoma Science Museum would be a bucket of Anthrax, "One of the most dangerous chemicals known to man!" No, they had rocket boosters, and big fun wooden tree houses and a "Science Live" Show where a college student "blowed up" a lot of stuff and made jokes about maiming little kids. It really was a great time here are some other pics. The full set should be on my Facebook soon.

McCullah Funraising Tour Report 2

2009-07-08T13:21:00.015-04:00

We left Ft. Worth on the 29th of June and headed for Oklahoma. It was neat having the girls cheer when they crossed the Oklahoma boarder, even though they have collectively only lived in Oklahoma for 4 years between the 3 of them. We moved to Richmond when Maddie was 3 and Kenzie was 1. Mikiah has never known Oklahoma as home, but each of them know Oklahoma to be a special place because of the special people that live here. This trip so far has been a trip full of those special people that we have known for a while and new special people that we are blessed to now know and call friends.

In Ft. Worth, we met up with Christie's old roomate, Kim Vanderbeek Malone and her two precious twin sons. We sat and ate ice cream in the food court of a mall and then let Christie catch up while we took the kids to the pet store downstairs. The visit was far too short, but it certainly was better than the Facebook messages that we had been exchanging. Nothing can replace a hug and a good laugh with an old friend. There is no Facebook App for that.

The kids were excited to see their Poppie and Grandma JoAnne in Ft. Worth. They loaded up our suitcases and brought us back to Newcastle/Blanchard/who-knows-where Oklahoma where we have been ever since. It has been great to hang out, enjoy catching up and resting. The girls have enjoyed watching the birds each morning and swimming. We had a big fireworks display planned for Saturday, the 4th, but the amazing Oklahoma weather reared it's ugly head and a storm passed through that afternoon and the house we were at lost power. It rained so much that the family members that had parked on the lawn, found themselves stuck in the mud when they got ready to leave. I put on my redneck hat, went and got my Dad's truck and pulled the van out of the mud. The ManCave and Fortress of Manitude would be proud.

We took one day and went to Stillwater to give the girls what called the "Mommy & Daddy College Days Tour". Kenzie and Kiah slept through it and I think Maddie realized that if she didn't at least look interested, she wouldn't get any ice cream at Marble Slab. (That's my girl!) We got to hang out with Christie's brother and his wife Megan that night. She is a Vet student at OSU and she showed us around where she works and some of the things she is studying. It was a lot of fun and the girls had a blast. We of course started the afternoon with cheese fries from Joes and ended the evening with pizza from Hideaway. It was great seeing Christie's brother Micheal. He is a great guy with a huge heart who loves to help those in need. Megan is a blast to be around and so ridiculously talented that I shutter to think what she could do if she had the time to only focus on her artwork.

Sunday, the 5th, we were blessed to share what God was doing with two churches. Sunday morning, we were able to join Surrey Hills Baptist Church and share what their support had been used to do. Surrey Hills was actually the first church we visited last summer when we initially began to approach churches about support. They responded in a wonderful way and supported our ministry financially and in prayer all year long. It was great to revisit them and let them know where there money was going and how it was being used for the Kingdom.

That night, we truly were blessed to see that God is truly going before us when we met with the folks at First Baptist Church, Sulphur. To understand how far back God has been working on this, you would need to understand our College group that we were a part of at University Heights Baptist Church in Stillwater, OK. Our fearless leader of that College Group was none other than Robert Krumrey, the pastor of MERCYhouse. One of our many friends in that group was Misty Franklin. She was originally from Sulphur and was very involved in the International Student ministry. We stayed in contact with Misty and later caught up with her when we lived in Richmond. She heard that we were moving to join Robert in MA and began praying for us and supporting us. In the Spring, we were planning our trip back to the area and Misty contacted us about her home church being interested in hearing about what God is doing. This allowed us to be there on the 5th and experience what God was doing in Sulphur! There was a great Spirit in that church and believe it or not, it was there even though they sang (gasp!) hymns played on a piano! (Sarcasm implied) At the endo the night, we saw where God was sending FBC, Sulphur and how they had a heart to support church planting. What a blessing!

The grandparents were sweet enough to take the girls to the zoo on Monday and Christie and I got to sleep in and take the day off. We ate at our favorite Japanese Steakhouse in the area and went to Mardel's the Christian Culture Superstore. Christie and I spent the day just walking, looking and being together it was great!

I have to admit, through everything though, the highlight has been seeing our neice Karlee. She was born in September and we had never been able to see her until we arrived on this trip. We have played with her and girls are loving getting to know her. She is quickly stealing our hearts. Had I not already seen that God can bring beautiful daughters from an ogre like me, I would have never believe that this precious little girl belongs to an ogre like my brother.

PS. This is a picture of me ground and pounding my brother. He thought because I was a little older and fatter that he could take me. Bad idea. Shortly after this, I forced him to say, "I'm a little sissy boy who eats my own boogers." like I did back in the day. Good times.

McCullah Funraising Tour Report 1

2009-07-01T21:42:00.007-04:00

Oh what fun it is to tour when it is 105 degrees! We have had a great time on the "Fun"raising tour so far.

Tuesday, June 23rd, we flew into Houston and were picked up by our great family friends the Craigs. We knew the Craigs back when we were in Yukon, OK. They were a tremendous family who helped, encouraged and loved on us as we were served there in Yukon. Bob and Vera along with their grown kids, Josh and Katherine, have continued to love us and support us as we have moved to Richmond and now onto Massachusetts.

The Craigs showed us around Houston and we had a great time. The highlight (according to me) was the Houston Space Center. Growing up, I dreamed of being an astronaut and loved watching the Space Shuttle take off. I also loved hearing the stories and watching the films of the all of the Apollo missions that were launched in the 60's & 70's. So the Space Center was a dream. On top of all of that, there was a George Lucas exhibit on display at the Space Center. You seriously could not tell the difference between me and the kids most of the day. I was constatnly yelling. "Oh look at this!" or "Do you know what this is?!" It was amazing.

We got to see many of the original props from the movies including the original R2D2 and C3PO, hand written script for Star Wars and the costume of Indiana Jones. It was so cool to experience this with family and good friends.

However, the coolest part had to be seeing the rocket that launched the Appollo missions. It was huge! It really is hard to explain and these pictures do not do it justice. This massive rocket was an amazing scientific acheivement of a different time in American History. It truly was a blessing to see this thing.

The trip has had some work in it as well. On Saturday, we drove to Sulphur, LA where we connected up with our old friends the Taylors. Bobby is the pastor of Life Church in Sulphur. He was Christie's Youth Pastor back in the day when hair bangs resembled Venus Flytraps. It was great to see him and his family after many years and see what Life Church was all about. I presented what God was doing in all of their 3 services and it was a blessing to talk with many members of Life after the services.

Many talked about the statistics I presented of the lost state of Massachusetts, but the work of the Spirit that we see at MERCYhouse. It was very encouraging to hear the kind words of the Life Churh people and have them pray about supporting our ministry in the Pioneer Valley.

It was also encouraging to see what a mission minded church they are. This picture shows where they as a church are going this year on short term mission trips. It was amazing to hear how many of these short term trips led to sending individuals, couples and families off to the uttermost parts of the world to serve in a full time capacity. Bobby is responsible for setting this direction and passion in Life Church. It was a blessing to see.

Stay tuned for Report 2 - Newcastle, Ok, Surrey Hills, Sulphur, Ok this time and the 4th of July!

PS. Check out more pics from our trip on my Facebook page!

Being religious is like saying you are warm...

2009-06-18T10:34:00.006-04:00

Gallup released a new set of data this morning that you can find here. It shows the state of the US and each of the individual states in regard to their religious affiliation and emphasis. It is pretty brand new data, but there are some real interesting things to take from the study though.

4 of the 5 least religious states are New England States.
My state, Massachusetts is tied for the 3rd least religious state. (One would have think that if some Catholics were pushed about their "practice" of faith, whether this number would fall or not. However, if Baptists in Oklahoma and Texas were pushed about their faith as well, those numbers might also fall.)
When looking at the religious "pockets" in the US, New England is by far the least religious and largest pocket.

So what does all this mean? Well, I initially would like to say that I am really encouraged and have a different spin on what I see. One could look at this and say what a tragedy that New England is not religious. However, I think being described as religious is a lot like being described as being warm. If you are warm because you are snuggled on the couch in your favorite blanket, great. If you are warm because you have been set on fire, not so great.

Just like we have to find out what it means to be warm, we must find out what it means to be religious. Does it mean that people go to church more often? Does it mean that people pray and meet the needs of their neighbors? Does it mean they voted for the clean cut worship leader on American Idol and not the Glam rock gay guy?

What does it mean? Will this info simply continue to create a gap between these parts of America that Fox News and CNN love to widen? Will the religious look in judgment at the crazy liberals and pray like the Pharisee in Luke 18 in thanks that we are not like them?

I hope not. I hope it means that there is genuine faith in Jesus and lives lived for the gospel in these most religious parts. I also hope that the honesty of New England is seen as a confession of where we are and a realization of what God can do here. In fact, I have so much hope that God is working in this, I have wagered my life on it.

I totally stole this...

2009-06-01T13:20:00.003-04:00

Baptist get them saved
Presbyterians get them educated
Methodist get them organized
Episcopalians introduce them to High Society
and Baptist get them saved.

Dr. John Hannah,
Church History Conference,
Omaha, Nebraska

An oldy... I'll let you decide if it's a goody.

2009-05-20T11:01:00.002-04:00

I first started a blog on my old MySpace account (remember MySpace?) and I had a few that were worth bringing forward to this blog, so here goes. This is from March 26, 2006. Enjoy, or not.

Protective Cups

I was cleaning out my office the other day when my wife walked into the room with a bothered look on her face. This usually means that one of the children has lodged a something in an orifice that they cannot dislodge or that we are out of Miracle Whip. (Dear God, please don't let it be the Miracle Whip.!) On this day however she proceeded to tell me that our neighbor boy was in our back yard adjusting a protective cup in front of our girls. My initial reaction, as it often is, was to think of ways to adjust him so he would no longer need the protective cup because he was doing that in front of my girls; however after careful consideration of facts such as our neighbor boy is young and not meaning anything harmful by his actions and that it is not nearly worth the effort to run the boy down, I decided to let this infraction slide by. The next day, when I was talking to our neighbor, the mother of the boy, she told me about the situation and the discussion they had to have with their son about adjusting the protection plan in front of the girls. She also told me that apparently the local little league has just begun to issue protective cups to all the boys who play summer baseball. Apparently the protection was handed out at the first practice and the first "drill" was to have the boys put them on, run around and get used to wearing them.

The sights and sounds of that practice had to be something like this:

(Coach calls the boys around him over by the home team on deck circle.)

Coach: OK boys, settle down. I have something that I need to hand out to all of you. Now everyone gets one, so don't knock each other over trying to get to these like you did with the ice cream sandwiches. I still have a blood stain from Kevin's nose on my favorite "Git R Done" t-shirt. My wife has washed it 3 times and it will never be same, so let's try to be a little more civil with this one. Before I pass them out, I need to explain a little about this piece.., (Coach snickers).., er, piece of equipment. You see boys this is a very special thing that will protect some very special things. Well boys there's no use beating around the .., uh.., I'll get right to the point. The county little league commission felt that everyone who plays Little League this year has to wear one of these. (Pulls out protective cup like he is David Blaine).

(Kids gasp at the sight until a little boy in the middle of the ball-capped mass raises his hand)

Coach: Yes Kevin.

Kevin: Why do we have to wear a plastic turtle shell when we play? I thought we were the Devil Rays this year.

Coach: Kevin, we are the Devil Rays and it's not a plastic turtle shell. It's a protective cup.

(Kevin raises his hand again.)

Coach (with resigned frustration): Yes, Kevin.

Kevin: Coach, why do we need that special kind of cup when we have the ones that say "Shoney's on them? Besides, that one had holes in it. Won't the Gatorade run out?

Coach: Kevin, it's not that kind of cup. It is for protection, not drinking. This goes down your pants and fits in the front part of your underwear. (Pause as boys giggle) Do you see. It protects.., you. It will keep you from getting too hurt if a ball pops up and hit's you between the legs.

(Giggling subsides as boys and men alike cringe in imaginary pain)

(Hands automatically raise everywhere)

Coach: OK boys. One at a time, yes Tim. (Passes box around for boys to get cup)

Tim: So your saying that when we put these on we won't be able to feel when we get hit in the wee-wee?

Coach: That's right you won't feel it regardless of whether you get hit in the wee-wee or the paw-paws. You should be OK. That's the point.

(Kids begin squirming and standing, soon yelling ensues)

Various kids screaming:

(As one kicks the other in the crotch) Hey it is true! I hardly felt that! Let me try! (Kicks the other kid) Wow! I'm never taking this off! I can go into my big sister's room anytime I want now!

(As one kid chases Kevin with a bat) Come on Kevin stay still. You heard them say it's not gonna hurt. Let me hit you in the crotch with the bat. Quite running you big sissy.

(Coach stand waving his arms and yelling.)Coach: Boys! Boys! Sit down! Calm down! Boys quite throwing baseballs at your crotches. Here, give me all the baseballs. OH!! (Coach doubles over in pain) (In high pitched voice) Boys, they don't make the coaches wear them, so please don't throw things at Coaches' crotch. (Coach clears throat and stands up. Looks over the still squirming boys and motions to the one bowlegged boy still standing up.)

Coach: Hey Dale, can you help Jimmy get that cup turned around. I think he has it on upside down.

Jimmy: Coach how do you know it is on upside down?

Coach: Well Jimmy, you look like you just got off Secretariat. That's how.

I'm guessing the first "drill" went something like that. Listen, I played baseball and I was a boy. I guess I missed the Johns Hopkins study on baseball injuries to the "pawpaw" region. It's not that I had a problem with this, but I felt I had to pretend that I didn't even know where my "pawpaw" region was until my honeymoon night. I cannot imagine as a Little Leaguer having to deal with such pressure. I mean isn't it enough to carry your father's hopes of success, fame and fortune on your 8 year old shoulders. Now to put on top of that the pressure to measure, manipulate and execute the use of the protective cup properly? It is almost too much to handle. Oh well, at least we're not women. Can you imagine a coach trying to explain those issues? I know. It makes my head hurt as well.

Charismatics & bored people

2009-04-04T15:53:00.016-04:00

I grew up in a really conservative church, oh who am I kidding; Jerry Falwell was too liberal for the church I grew up in. Even though the were ultra conservative, they enjoyed being scared by a good demon story. Especially if the result of that good demon story was that those being told the story would tithe more, go on "visitation" or wash the buses used in the bus ministry. One particular demon tale was actually "captured" on tape by the infamous radio show host, Bob Larson. Being bored with being told we were going to hell, my buddies & I from church decided to listen to the tape and scare ourselves. (Think of it as a horror movie for the fundamental Christian kids.)

So I grew up and Christ opened my eyes to His grace, mercy & love as free gifts of life, not golden eggs for good little kids who look for them. He loved me first and my heart responded.

However, because spiritual warfare was addressed in my past life, I had not given much thought to it or it's affects. Maybe the fact that I never thought about it or simply pigeon holed it as past times for "charismatics" & "bored people", was in fact a weapon in spiritual warfare. I really am not sure.

But, since moving to MA, I have seen and experienced genuine spiritual warfare. It is all around us. People all over our church and on our staff are finding themselves in the harshest circumstances & in some of the most devastating anguish of their lives. False accusations from outside, false accusations from inside, misunderstandings, depression, crisis of belief, attacks on marriages, unexplained drops of support, blatant sin & inconsistent submission have been the norm for MERCYhouse since October. I don't think this blog would afford me the space to tell each of these stories. Needless to say, however, they all are real and there is very little explanation than an attack of the enemy.

I have been asking "Why this? Why now?" The only thing I can sense is that the closer you get to the front lines, the more fire you take on. Last year, as I prayed that prayer and asked God what he created me for, I sensed Him showing me that church planting and specifically in an area like New England. So we began to pursue that. Sense we have arrived it has been very evident that we were created for such a time and place as this.

A wonderful man of God, Rich Malone, once told me years ago, "There will be a time and place where you will be able to spread the wings God has given you and fly high for His glory." That meant a lot then and I feel like I have found that time. However, I am also seeing that we are flying high near the front lines and the enemy is not happy. Peoples lives are changing and God is using our lives to model what His love and grace looks like and the joy in life that He gives.

John 10 shows us that the enemy has come to steal, kill & destroy. I believe that is what the enemy is trying to do now.

No, I have not turned charismatic and I am far from bored right now. My ears are just wringing from the enemy mortar fire right now and I am aware of our need for prayer cover .
Please pray for MERCYhouse.

Pray for our staff and especially our Pastor Robert Krumrey and his family.

Please pray for the pastor of our new church plant, MERCYhouse Nights, Nate Cartel, his family and Kristen Brumbaugh, who is coordinating many MH Nights details.

Pray for our staff member, Lois Grandmaison, who is ministering on the Smith College campus as well as to many, many women of MERCYhouse.

Please pray for our Worship & Arts director, Cindy Pollsen, who leads us in worship, both on Sunday Morning and in our Tuesday Night House Church.

Finally, please pray for us. Pray for our girls, Maddie, Mackenzie & Mikiah. Pray for their hearts to be guarded and drawn to Christ daily.

Pray for Christie & I. Pray that we would love Jesus, love one another & love others.

Thank you all!

Is he serious?... April 1, 2009

2009-04-01T12:00:00.005-04:00

Thoughts, insights & musings from the great mind of rmack32... If the Oklahoma Basketball team had played the game it played against Syracuse, against North Carolina and the game it played against North Carolina, against Syracuse, OU would be in the Final Four... I think we are pregnant with child number 4... Theology is a much needed thing, but something that distracts as well... Just kidding about the child # 4 thing... So far, I'm really impressed with Barack Obama... I watched a movie last Friday called "The Boy in the Stripped Pajamas". It is English and very serious. When it was over, I wanted to rip the flesh from arms and coat them in anti-bacterial gel to help me take my mind off of this torture that was that movie... No really, we are having child #4... Just kidding about the Barack Obama thing... Any movie that talks about a boy in pajamas, by general rule, should be left alone probably... I texted the greatest quote ever in the history of texting last night. It said, "The Spaghetti Monster is fun to think about, just not worship as god."... Now that is theology I can get... We really are having child #4, yes, Christie is pregnant... Is there a medication people take to be able to actually sit through American Idol and it's evil twin Dancing with the Stars? That would be the only explanation possible for being able to do so... George Bush's first 100 days were much more productive than Barack Obama's; however, neither of them can hold a candle to Millard Fillmore... Just kidding about the pregnancy thing... My attention to baseball, angry irish rock bands & all things organic has increased since moving to New England... My attention to the Civil War, race relations & Sonic has decreased since moving from Richmond... Wireless internet has ruined my TV viewing habits. I only watch what I want, when I want it now... Seriously, Christie and I are going to be parents again, due sometime in January... Just kidding about the Millard Fillmore thing... That was a fun sentence. I guarantee you that I have never uttered that sentence before today. Welcome to history... I'm beginning to question the value of wishing someone "Happy Birthday" on Facebook. Are we sending the wrong message in a drive by "Happy Birthday"?... OK, Christie and I are not really pregnant and it hurt my head trying to count 9 months forward from last month... I was told there would be no math... Is this a wast of blog space? Time? Effort?... Yes, Possibly, No... We really are pregnant... Are Yoda & Kermit the Frog related?... My oldest daughter has turned into a super model overnight... We're not pregnant... Happy April 1 day...

Happy St. Patrick's Day

2009-03-17T10:34:00.002-04:00

I live in the Northeast now and things like St. Patrick's Day & Columbus Day are now really important holidays. It is a cultural shift from living in Oklahoma, where "Cow Tipping" Day, and Virginia, where "Nicorette Day" were really big holidays. Now, in the Northeast, we celebrate holidays that actually have meaning. However, looking at how St. Patrick's Day should be celebrated now, it makes past celebrations look paltry in comparison. On Sunday, there will be a huge parade that will mosey down the streets of nearby Holyoke, MA. As one of the members of our House Church told me, "The parade is not that big a deal. It is basically a dog in the back of a hay truck. The real party happens on the side of the street, where everyone begins drinking beer at 8 AM & stays drunk all day. That's the Irish way."

Who knew? All these years, I have wasted my time with green cardboard leprechaun hats & shamrocks pinned to my nose. I mourn my ignorance.

Oh well, it's not that bad. At least I haven't celebrated like they do in Alabama by smoking crack and being interviewed by the local news.

Now that looks like fun. Happy St. Paddy's Day everyone!

Yes.

2009-03-11T14:57:00.000-04:00

Yes.

Now how do I do this?

Looking Back...

2009-02-26T10:29:00.004-05:00

So Youtube serves many functions. Time waster. Ministry help. Pulse of the Culture.

Last night, it became a time machine to my past. It actually had done this many times before, but last night really was off the charts. Christie was watching Criminal Minds or Law & Order or Death & Destruction or Mame your Mother or whatever Crime Drama was on last night. I have had my fill of them and God has provided me with wireless internet, so I found my way to Youtube and searched one of my favorite memories from my past. To my utter surprise, I found not only a remnant of my past, but I found the full monty of my past. Check it out:

I didn't say that the slice from my past was life changing, but it was certainly a formative part of my life. This was 1986. I was in the 6th grade and local professional wrestling on Sunday Afternoon on Channel 23 out of Tulsa was a highlight of my week. I was able to watch my favorite, "Dr. Death" Steve Williams take on the villains from Bad Street, USA, The Freebirds. This particular match was the match after Dr. Death returned from being put in the hospital by a pile driver on the concrete from Terry Gordy, the enforcer of the Freebirds. Dr. Death was my favorite for many reasons. 1. He was an All America wrestler at OU. 2. He played football for Barry Switzer at OU. 3. He could spell "OU", possibly. I was 11 years old, that made it good enough for me.

I could go on about the stark contrast of this wrestling versus today's wrestling, or how there are spiritual implications about overcoming the pile drivers onto concrete that Satan gives us and coming back from being robbed from the things in life that you feel you deserve, but alas, I won't. 1. That is all a crock of crap, we don't deserve anything. 2. Who cares. It pales in comparison to the unadulterated nostalgia of the past. Enjoy. (PS, the entire match in on Youtube if you are interested.)

Sheepish Grins Pt. 2

2009-01-08T13:34:00.004-05:00

I Shall Not be in Want…

So, since the Lord is my Shepherd, I shall not be in want. The word “want” here has a greater meaning than just physical need. We see here that the Shepherd takes such good care of the sheep that their needs are taken care of and they are utterly content. Again, they delight in being the sheep of the good shepherd.

In fact, they are so satisfied in being this Shepherds sheep that their desires for other things shrink because they know how good the Shepherd really is. They could not fathom needing anything else. They have all they need and they trust the Shepherd with the things they don’t have. It really is that simple.

We often times wrongly believe that following Christ makes things perfect or that following Christ will mean material prosperity. In fact, whole theologies are wrongly structured on the idea that following Christ will make you materially wealthy and rich. In fact, the Bible shows the complete opposite sometimes and there were rich people, poor people and middle class people, biblically who followed, served, and glorified Christ with their lives.

Adversity was and is always part of life. The point here is that these people, the sheep, are content with whatever adversity comes. We see over and over that following Christ, loving and knowing the Good Shepherd, means that whatever winds may blow or storms may come, our needs are met and we can be content to know He is with us and will never forsake us.

So how do we demonstrate this contentment in the adversity? The sheepish grins on our faces of course. Seriously, have you ever been in a situation that is overwhelming you and you just know that somehow, there is a Good Shepherd loving you through this?

We felt this since last April. It was then that we knew that God was calling us away from Richmond and to here. We began doing work on our house to get it ready to sell when suddenly the bottom fell out of the economy and the housing market. There literally was not a worse time to put a house up for sale in the last 20 years. When things began going south in April, we began to pray about this being the right thing to do and we sensed God confirming this calling. I walked away content and confident that despite what would come, God would work. April turned to May and May turned to June and so on. As money ran out and got tighter and tighter, especially as we moved here and had to pay rent and a mortgage, God always blessed. We continued to pray and trust God in His calling us to this ministry. Each month, some money that we were not expecting would come in and we would be able to make a mortgage payment. Finally in November, no extra money came in and I had to have some serious discussions with our mortgage company. We entered December and did not see anything else moving or happening and faced the new year 3 month behind on mortgage payments. Through each part of this process, people would call and want to know what was happening with the house and I would always simply tell them that nothing had happened, but also convey the content that I felt in knowing that God was at work. Usually these conversations would happen with a sheepish grin on my face as I realized the coinciding craziness and faith in that statement. Two weeks ago, we got a call from our realtor in Virginia and he said he had a call from someone interested in renting the house with a possibility of them buying it later. On Christmas Eve, he called and told us that the agreement was a done deal. The rent that we are charging for the house is about $100 less than the mortgage payment. We were very happy to be this close, but we still didn’t have the extra $100. In looking at some of our donor income, however, we began to see one donor who upped their donation by $100.

You see, it is the contentment in knowing whether we sell the house in April, December or the thing goes in total foreclosure, we are His sheep and He is good. I was confident that God was moving and working and there would be an amazing story to tell that would echo His Amazing Grace.

“He Makes Me Lie Down in Green Pastures…”

Sheep are a strange animal. They are very sensitive and the slightest hint of fear or intimidation sets them off and the shepherd must know how to best take care of the sheep. There are 4 requirements that must be met for sheep to lie down:

1. Freedom from fear

2. Freedom from friction with other sheep

3. Freedom from internal parasites or external pests such as flies

4. Freedom from hunger

Shepherds go to great lengths to meet all of these requirements and often the sacrifice of time, energy and money is nearly overwhelming. The work of a shepherd is so the sheep can live fully and ultimately to his glory as he sells them.

We are no different. We suffer from the same fear, friction, pests and hungers that keep us from true rest. Only in the presence of the Shepherd can we find relief and true comfort.

Fear rocks sheep like nothing else. Ewes, heavy in lamb, will abort their baby if the slightest hint of harm or harassment happens. Shepherds must watch over not only the flocks, but the areas around the flocks for any possible predators such as cougars, wolves or dogs. Once a predator has been found or even a clue hinting that predator is in the area, the Good Shepherd hunts down the predator and destroys it.

It is the same with Jesus. As His sheep, He knows the wiles of Satan and the affect of sin in our life. He will not allow it to destroy us. He pursues us and convicts us of that sin. Remember when He cleared the temple? It was to clear the House of His Father from the distractions and predators that stood in the way of genuine worship of His Father. He hunted and destroyed for the sake of genuine worship.

Sheep will often times engage in turf wars with one another and could even kill one another over patches of land. They do various things to intimidate one another and send signals of aggression. If these conflicts exist, it can affect the sheep greatly and keep them from resting. Do you know what the remedy for this conflict is? The simple presence of the Shepherd.

The analogy is clear that sheep are those who follow the Good Shepherd, Christians. Christians are no different than sheep. We claim our territories and attach unnecessary feelings and emotions to things of little importance and then we will fight to maintain that importance with other Christians. These disagreements and conflicts often times distract and destroy us and keep us from true rest and peace with Jesus. Like sheep, we respond to the presence of the Good Shepherd. When we put ourselves aside and worship Him (He must increase and I must decrease), we truly are set free to rest and live.

Flies and internal parasites absolutely drive sheep literally crazy. When these things are bothering sheep, the sheep are disoriented, annoyed and restless. A good shepherd “anoints the sheep’s head with oil” to keep the flies and parasites from pest. However, the shepherd can only do this if the sheep allow Him to examine them. The sheep develop a pattern of daily or every other day making it a point to “check in” with the shepherd to ease their own mind and the shepherd takes the opportunity to examine them for these bothersome pests.

We all have affects of our past or present and maybe even fear of our future that we live with. These internal fears haunt and intimidate us and paralyze us from true joy in Christ if we do not allow the Good Shepherd to examine us and begin to help heal us from these things. David again wrote what we now can model in Psalm 139 when he begins the Psalms by saying:

“You know when I sit down and when I rise up; you discern my thoughts from afar. You search out my path and my lying down and are acquainted with all my ways. Even before a word is on my tongue, behold, O LORD, you know it altogether. You hem me in, behind and before, and lay your hand upon me. Such knowledge is too wonderful for me; it is high; I cannot attain it.” (Psa 139:2-6)

So David shows that God already knows everything there is to know about him, but still at the end of Psalm 139 he says:

“Search me, O God, and know my heart! Try me and know my thoughts! And see if there be any grievous way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting! (Psa 139:23-24)”

David is aware that God knows everything already, but by the end of the Psalms, he delivers himself once again to the Good Shepherd in submission to His examination and knows that it is for his best that he is examined in this way.

Finally, sheep must be free of hunger. Notice that the shepherd makes the sheep lie down in green pasture. In the Middle East where this was written, green pastures are not as common as we expect. In fact, for a pasture to be green and suitable for sheep grazing, much work and effort on the shepherd’s part had to be done to prepare the field. Often these pastures are in remote areas and not easy to get to. However, the shepherd makes the effort and the sheep, once free from the other annoyances, can lie down and have their hunger met.

Meeting our hunger needs is no different. It cost Jesus a lot to be our Shepherd and to prepare a proper place for us to rest. Christ works hard to prepare the soil of our faith to yield His fruit. He delights in preparing us to enjoy Him, but He will not settle for sharing us with someone or something else. He is a jealous God, because He is the only Creator. Everything else is created and not worthy of such worship and consumption.

Sheepish Grins Pt. 1

2009-01-06T13:06:00.008-05:00

The following is the manuscript of the sermon I preached at MERCYhouse on January 4.

Last week, Steve Mirigian broke down scripture in a very academic and intelligent way. Now that I am preaching this week, I am afraid that I will sound like Elmo trying to explain nuclear fusion compared to him. (“Look Dorothy, nuclear transmutation!” That joke killed with my 3 year old.) So anyway, I was asked to preach on the 23^rd Psalm. As many of you may know, Psalms 23 is a Psalm correlating us to sheep and God to the Shepherd. So I had the task of meditating on the theme of sheep. Since Steve brought up the theme of Monty Python last week, all I could think of when preparing for this sermon was this video.

Thank God that I was not asked to talk to you on my own, or you would get utter silliness like that and we would waste everyone’s time today. However, I was not asked to come speak to you on my own today. I was asked to seek the Holy Spirit to be given a message to bring to you in regard to Psalms 23. So hopefully, here is God’s Word.

Psalms 23 is a loved and well known passage of scripture that has meant a lot to a lot of people. Usually when this happens in today’s American society especially, you will begin to see it used for capital gain, such as these things: Psalms 23 t-shirts, hoodies, boxer shorts and even thong underwear. Merry Christmas, only 360 shopping days left till Christmas, beat the rush and order the thongs now.

I grew up in Oklahoma, which is really in the heart of what is called, Tornado Alley. Every Spring and Fall, we could count on anywhere between 3 to 10 tornadoes approaching where we lived. It was part of the culture to deal with tornadoes. So much so that many people in Oklahoma were forced with the choice of putting a swimming pool in the back yard, or a cellar. Now for those of you who do not know what a cellar is, it is basically a large cement room that is dropped in a hole and covered up with dirt so only the door sticks out. Now my family growing up chose to get the swimming pool and even though I am sure that cellars would have been fun for all kinds of scientific experiments, I am sure my parents made the right choice. My social life certainly developed because of it. However, when tornadoes would come through we would have to find a neighbor or family member that would let us in their cellar. When we would get in there, it was usually the most spiritual time of our lives. Commonly, we would pray, however more commonly, we would sing hymns or quote Psalms 23. We would hear the thunder roar and the hail pound the door. We would feel the rain drench and the winds pound and Psalms 23 would bring comfort.

So with Psalm 23 being so popular and common, I wanted to bring a different perspective to it this morning. I began reading a book called A Shepherd Looks at Psalm 23 this week and much of what I am going to present today is taken from this book. It gives some amazing insight into what it meant to be a shepherd during the time this Psalm was written as well as how this would have been culturally understood during that time. Especially here in the Valley, there is an understanding culturally of farming and some of the lifestyle cycles that farming brings, but even with our advanced knowledge, we can’t understand all of the intricacies of being a shepherd during this time, so lets look this morning at the 23^rd Psalms from a Shepherds perspective.

The Lord is my Shepherd…

David begins writing this Psalm by proclaiming that the Lord is his Shepherd. So, it begs the question, Who is the Lord? David is referring to Jehovah the Lord God of Israel. Jesus confirmed this statement as He was God incarnate and declared emphatically, “I am the Good Shepherd”.

In Colossians 1:15-20, we see that it was Jesus who was responsible for the creation of all things both natural and supernatural. Understanding this and seeing what David is in turn saying here, we see that Jesus is our Shepherd. When we reflect on the life and achievements of Jesus, we gladly state, “HE is my Shepherd!”

Saying this links us with divine destiny. It is a big statement that claims to others, “Look at my owner! The God that made all of us and all of this is my owner.”

Not only do we make that claim, but it is Christ, Himself Who calls us His sheep. He invites me to consider myself His sheep. We are His special object of His affection and attention. On top of all of that, all of this was His idea! I belong to Him simply because He deliberately chose to create me as the object of His own affection.

Not only that, but when I turned and ran away to follow another master who tempted me with false hope and joy, It was Jesus Who pursued me and bought me at an incredible price with His own blood at Calvary.

There are similarities to sheep and humans in many ways. It is no coincidence that God has chosen to call us His sheep. We, like sheep, suffer from our mass mindset (mob instincts), our fear and timidity, our stubbornness and stupidity; our perverse habits are all parallels of profound importance.

Yet, despite these things; in fact, with these things in full view, Christ chose to buy us, call us by name, make us His own and delight in us. It is in this delighting in us that allows us to know and be known by Him. He has given, is giving and will give Himself to us and for us. As I live in His offering of Himself to me and eat of, live from and dwell in His goodness, I emanate His glory. John Piper said it best when he said, “God is most glorified in us, when we are most satisfied in Him.”

How do others know that we are satisfied in Christ? When a shepherd buys sheep, the first thing he does is round the new sheep us and put his mark on their ear. It is a distinct mark that can be seen from far away and identifies them with the shepherd. As believers, we are the same way. The Spirit of God living in us is the mark for all to see. The Spirit lives in us and guides us and shows us things about ourselves and others that only can come from God. The Spirit is our mark that links the emanating glory to the Lord Jesus Who is our Shepherd.

What we did on our Summer Vacation (and the rest of 2008)

2008-12-26T08:48:00.004-05:00

Hey Everyone,

At the prompting of Matt Yakel (http://frame45.blogspot.com/), I wanted to post the link to our video that gives an update of what God has been doing in us this year. It is not professional in any way, but it was a lot of fun to put together. Thanks for praying and supporting us!!!

Ears to hear

2008-12-21T17:02:00.003-05:00

This is the manuscript of the sermon I was able to preach at MERCYhouse, Dec. 21, 2008.

Two things used to always get me in the Christmas spirit for sure. One was going down the snack aisle of the store and seeing that the Little Debbie’s Snack Cakes had been changed from their octagon shape to the Christmas tree shape. It happens every year around Christmas and for me it always was the Yule Tide shot heard round the world. The second is this:

I love Charlie Brown because of its’ simplicity and directness. Linus becomes a prophet and preacher here when he proclaims, “Charlie Brown, this is what Christmas is all about”. This morning I want to explore a little bit more of what Christmas is all about.
We see in Luke 2:8-21 that Jesus has been born into the world fulfilling prophecy after prophecy and setting in motion the salvation of the world, the single greatest act of worship in all of history and indeed even the purpose of history itself. So after Jesus is born, something a bit strange happens; lets look:
“And in the same region there were shepherds out in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night. And an angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were filled with fear. And the angel said to them, "Fear not, for behold, I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people. For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord. And this will be a sign for you: you will find a baby wrapped in swaddling cloths and lying in a manger." And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God and saying, "Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace among those with whom he is pleased!" When the angels went away from them into heaven, the shepherds said to one another, "Let us go over to Bethlehem and see this thing that has happened, which the Lord has made known to us." And they went with haste and found Mary and Joseph, and the baby lying in a manger. And when they saw it, they made known the saying that had been told them concerning this child. And all who heard it wondered at what the shepherds told them. But Mary treasured up all these things, pondering them in her heart. And the shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all they had heard and seen, as it had been told them. (Luk 2:8-20)”
So we see that near where Jesus was born in the stable, there were shepherds watching their sheep at night. Shepherds… farmers… keepers of the land… rednecks….the lowest of the low. Being a shepherd stunk. (Literally & figuratively) Shepherd was the rung just above starving to death. So Jesus, the Savior and Redeemer of the world… the Messiah and promised King arrives to save and serve and the first people invited to worship and observe this arrival are … redneck sheep wranglers?
Jesus was born in a stable, possibly close to the Inn had no room for his parents and was full of people who could afford a room. Why weren’t the angels sent to the people of the Inn to come out and worship and observe this arrival? Why wasn’t the Inn Keeper, a small business man, the backbone of the Bethlehem economy and the one who had to turn Mary and Joseph away, invited to come celebrate? What about the King over the land, Herod, why wasn’t he there to celebrate… wait, he had other plans for Jesus in a Moses sort of way. Shoot, why didn’t He send the angels to the Mayor of Bethlehem? Surely he knew about the prophecy of the Messiah being born in Bethlehem and he had a file in some drawer on what to do when the Messiah is born in town and large plastic key ready to give to the baby once it is born right? Why go to the shepherds who were further out in the fields? Shepherds who had no societal standing at all? Who were the “nobodys of nobodys?”
I think we get some insight into why when we see Jesus address the purpose of his coming and who it was for in His own words: “And when Jesus heard it, he said to them, "Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. I came not to call the righteous, but sinners." (Mar 2:17). Jesus came for the sick, the lowly, the sinner. That is what Jesus was called and known as, “a friend of sinners”. From the beginning of His life here on this earth, Jesus drew, as he describes them, “those who have ears” to come hear him.
For whatever reason, the shepherds had ears. Now it would be easy to have ears to hear if you had an angelic host singing too you and telling you all of this, but God’s grace is often times just as shocking and jolting. I see it time and time again when people are affected by the free grace to us, but the expensive grace to Jesus. I remember when I actually got grace. I fought it. It scared me. I didn’t want it. I wanted to earn it. I wanted to do something to have some right to call the righteousness it brings my own. Grace frightened me. Like the communication from the angels, grace is big and scary and hard to ignore.
Look at what the angels say when they appear before the shepherds: “Fear not, for behold, I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people. For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord. And this will be a sign for you: you will find a baby wrapped in swaddling cloths and lying in a manger.” The second part of this message was a commonly known phrase and expected future occurrence. It was a cultural phrase that was passed down from the oral traditions. Kind of like “Four score and seven years ago...” or “Give us your tired, your poor…” It, in a very small way, is like knowing that in a couple of months someone will walk on a stage and say “This years Academy Award for Best Actor goes to…” or “The winner of Miss America 2009 is…”. It is common phrasing. Jewish people were looking for the Messiah. They knew that prophecy was out there that the Messiah would come from Bethlehem. That was common knowledge. What was uncommon was that this was being proclaimed by an angel, to a shepherd and for all people.
So let’s break this down. Angels are messengers from God. Their job is to do what God tells them to do. They glorify God and worship Him. Period. They are God’s. When you see angels in scripture, they are there representing God and doing his work. We get a very small picture of this when we see the Secret Service work. They do the work of the President. They protect, clear, deliver messages, etc.
So an angel, messenger of God, is sent to … a shepherd. Kind of like a member of the Secret Service sent to the hog farms in Arkansas to give a message, not to the owner of the farm, but the teenage kid who is feeding the pigs so he can earn a little bit of money to buy a Wii or the illegal alien who is working there late at night to send money back to his family in Mexico. That is the stark contrast that we see here.
I believe the angels were sent to the shepherds because they had ears to hear. They knew their brokenness and place in society and they needed, looked for and cried out for help. God used these circumstances to give them ears to hear. Christ can give everyone ears to hear. Christ’s work and redemption is for all people. However, not everyone hears.
I once had the privilege of talking with a man named Dave Busby. Dave was the second oldest living person who had Cystic Fibrosis. Cystic Fibrosis is a hereditary disease that affects the lungs mainly and causes mucus to fill up the lungs and the person affected to eventually drown in their own mucus. I got to sit down with Dave who was an amazing man who loved God. We were in a church in Atlanta and he had his oxygen tank on one side, his mask on and he slumped a bit because of the polio that had formed in him as well. I sat next to him and asked him what his condition insight about God gave him that I and others who don’t have this disease are missing. He simply said, “I understand my need for Him daily, probably, better than you do.”
Dave understood that his condition gave him better ears to hear. He understood that the fight to breathe gave him more of a capacity to appreciate and worship God the few moments in those few moments that he could breathe easily. Dave was given ears to hear and respond to God in the midst of some really difficult and painful times.
These past two weeks Christie and I have walked through some rough stuff as well. Two weeks ago tomorrow, we learned that Christie was pregnant. Christie was shocked and I couldn’t get the smile off my face. I love being a Dad. I love being a child of the King first. Then because I am a child of the King, He has called me to love being a husband and to love my wife as He loved me and I absolutely adore my wife and being married to her. She is the person that I get to demonstrate the love of Christ to most and in turn glorify God in the most. Then, because of this love, God has blessed us with 3 amazing daughters who are fun and bright and so amazing. My thought is and has always been “If one child is this much fun, how much more fun and full of praise will two be. And if 2 is that much more fun and full of opportunities to praise, how much more fun will 3 be” and so on. So we found out that she was pregnant, but the doctor told us that because of some of the things happening with Christie, we need to check some other things out. So we did a series of blood test throughout these past two weeks and we found out that Christie was miscarrying. There was no more pregnancy. The time between us finding out we were pregnant and we weren’t was less than 48 hours, however, we fell in love with the idea of being pregnant and the coming baby in that short time. Our hearts began to be shaped for that baby. When we found out that the baby wasn’t coming, it hurt. Our hearts hurt. We still mourn this baby we never knew and only had knowledge of for less than two days. So it is natural when you go through trauma like this to ask “Why?” However, I have found through this and other things like this in life that the question of “Why” is not nearly as important as first asking “Who?” and then asking that Who “What?” What are you saying Lord. These things are happening and the Grace that you brought through this child that laid in that manger now allows me to hear from You. To have ears to hear. What do want to say? What do I need to see? How do I need to respond?
How do I know the shepherds had ears to hear and responded to this message? How do we know? They said so. “Let us go over to Bethlehem and see this thing that has happened, which the Lord has made known to us." They recognized that what had happened was from God and they responded with action. They were afraid but the message was clear and they followed. They didn’t just talk about what they saw and how cool it would be to go and worship in theory. They responded and worshiped. They went and found Jesus and glorified him in the only way they knew how. I would love to have been there to see these bunch of rednecks worship. “That sure is a purty Savior baby aint it?”
Whatever they did was effective. Scripture here shows us: “And when they saw it, they made known the saying that had been told them concerning this child. And all who heard it wondered at what the shepherds told them. But Mary treasured up all these things, pondering them in her heart. And the shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all they had heard and seen, as it had been told them.” We see that the shepherds story was a topic of conversation and people that heard it wrestled with it. We see that is was a blessing to Mary and we see that it changed them. They returned praising God for what they had experienced. They lived out the Glory of God and in turn, worshiped I believe in Spirit and in Truth.
So the message to us is the same today. A child has been born. A Savior has been sent. He is the Good News and the Joy. He is the Way, the Truth and the Life. Do you have ears to hear this morning? How do you know you have ears to hear? You are serving, sharing, living and loving.
Is God speaking to you to respond in worship of Him, to maybe give some of the glory that you are giving to yourself to Him? Is He allowing you to see more and more of Who He is and who you are not?
If so, that may scare you. It is not easy to know that we are not what we think we are and we cannot do what we think we can do. It is a startling thought to recognize that we cannot save ourselves or that our degrees, our grades, our family history or good works (however many they may be) cannot save us.
Maybe you don’t get it. Maybe this is so foreign and out there that it all seems like I have been speaking German. Then I dare you to ask God to give you ears to hear. Ask Him to show Himself and who He really is. Go home today and read the book of John and you will see Him, I promise.

The Flounder of Holidays

2008-11-19T18:58:00.008-05:00

Whether it is Wal-Mart, TBS or my wife, one thing really bothers me. I hate it when Christmas stuff starts appearing and taking center stage before Thanksgiving has come and gone. I hate it when Wal-Mart becomes Santa's Third World Country Sweat Shop of Love. I hate it when The Grinch That Stole Christmas is broadcast on November 14th. I hate it when Christmas music fills the house when we haven't even reached Turkey Day yet. It is as if we are opening the door to see that it is Thanksgiving and saying "Screw You! Go back to the Nerd Holiday Hole with Arbor Day and Boxing Day!" We treat Thanksgiving like Larry and Kent "Flounder" Dorfman from Animal House when they went to the Omega house and were promptly taken to the area of the room with the Indian guy, the blind guy and kid picking his nose. Thanksgiving comes along every November and we take it by the shoulder and bring over to the couch and introduce it to Presidents Day and Earth Day and say "Well that's great, you guys will get along well. Stay here and get to know one another.", as we run back to dance to Christmas tunes played by Otis Day and Knights. "Wait till Otis sees us! He loves us!"

I know what you're thinking: Why can't I have a moral conscious like Ryan? Why doesn't this same genius fall on me like it does Ryan? Why can't I be more like Ryan and enjoy Thanksgiving without offending it by looking at the cute holiday right behind it?

I don't know Pedro, but I will pray that Thanksgiving takes it's rightful place among American Holidays even if it has to assault us in a armored Lincoln Continental inside a Turkey float that has the words "EAT ME" across the side of it. Maybe then we will learn to care. Maybe then we will be a little more human.

Oh by the way, feel free to send my wife a note and congratulate her on finding the "Holiday Sounds" channel on our cable.

Top 10 Things I learned on Twitter Today

2008-11-17T15:42:00.004-05:00

10. Matt Yakel is at war with his printer at work. TRANSLATION: Matt needs to get out more.

9. Fallon had a horrible case of the Mondays and hates parking in downtown OKC. TRANSLATON: Fallon needs to stay in more.

8. Cara Yakel threw a kid out of class today. TRANSLATION: Cara needs anger management classes soon.

7. Matt Duke has a crazy name like SOH Priest for his Twitter account. TRANSLATION: I will get an e-mail later explaining what it means and how out of touch with Charles Spurgeon I am.

6. I may have to fly to Oklahoma to beat up some Freshman in college. TRANSLATION: Cara is rubbing off on me.

5. Geoff Moore is not mentioned nearly as much on Twitter as he is on this blog. TRANSLATION: Some things just can't be explained.

4. Matt Yakel, Matt Duke and I are going to reenact the fax machine beating scene from Office Space. TRANSLATION: Cara's influence is epidemic.

3. Matt Yakel has a crack problem. TRANSLATION: Wouldn't you if you had to live with that angry ogre?

2. Food stamps in Oklahoma can be used to buy cigarettes. TRANSLATION: See explanation note for #5.

1. None of us got a single thing done at work today. TRANSLATION: Tomorrow is another day.

The Next Great President

2008-11-05T09:59:00.004-05:00

Here is the short list of who I believe would have made the best President in this last election.

1o. Osama Bin Laden - When he shows up to the inaguration, we shoot him. Duh, come on people work with me here. Sure it will hurt for a while to have your President shot, but it will be fine because his Vice President, Clay Aiken, will step in.

9. Elmo - Could it really be that much of a intellectual change from W?

8. Ronald McDonald - His great plan for America will be the Great Happy Deal: A Mcrib in every pot.

7. John Hagee - For those of you who don't know who he is ... well, don't waste your time. It would be a hoot though.

6. Hulk Hogan - Because he has done such a solid job with his own family. I'm just sayin'.

5. Yoda - "Govern you, I will."

4. Theo Epstein - Seriously, the guy led the Red Sox to win the freaking World Series. My guess is that if he had all of the United States to choose from, he could even find a real shortstop as well.

3. My neighbor Steve - Seems like a nice guy, likes NASCAR and hates Jeff Gordon. Same qualifications as W. Actually more qualified than Obama.

2. Jaime Farr (The guy who played Klinger on MASH) - I doubt he is very busy and if we ever get in real trouble and he wants out, he puts on a mu-mu and then hilarity and hi jinks ensue in the Oval Office.

1. Elmer Fudd - "SSSSHHH ... I'm hunting Bin Wadin..."

See what this stupid political season has driven me to. Praise God it is over.

Brian "Barnabus" Omulokoli Eulogy

2008-09-20T22:25:00.002-04:00

In some ways, I feel like we are here to memorialize a superhero; like we are here to memorialize Batman or Captain America. Hearing these stories told and songs sung about someone really makes me think that this is an enormous task to memorialize such an amazing life. I don’t think Barnabus had any superpowers, although I did see him run really fast and beat Shawn Elledge in a foot race in the parking lot of the I-Max theatre. However, I don’t think Barnabus possessed any real comic book like super powers.

However, when we look at the life that this young man lived, it is easy to see how people can talk so lovingly and heroically about Barnabus. Take for instance the story Barnabus’ mom, Rose, tells about how as a kid, she would buy him a suitcase full of clothes, then leave for a while and when she would return, Barnabus would have given the whole suitcase full of clothes away to the workers of the village and surrounding areas. Finally after numerous suitcases full of clothes, she stopped getting onto him and she, instead, helped him simply give the clothes to the people in need as well. Or there was the time that she bought him a brand new coat here in America because the winters were a bit different than in Kenya. Rose sent Barnabus out with his new coat on the bus. When he returned home, he was without the coat and she began to scold him about losing something that cost so much. When she finally came around to asking where it was, he told her it was with a friend. She asked who this friend was and who his or her parents were so they could go get the coat. Barnabus then explained to her that the friend he gave the coat to was not a friend from school, but rather an older gentleman who looked down on his luck and cold and besides, he didn’t know who the man’s parents were.

Well there were these other legendary times while Barnabus was employed by J Sarge to be the math tutor and like most jobs, Barnabus was only paid for the hours he worked as a tutor on campus . Regularly, Barnabus would invite people to his house after the tutoring center closes because he hated telling people that he couldn’t tutor them after hours. Many family members and friends encouraged Barnabus to become a private tutor and charge those who came to his house for his time, but Barnabus just couldn’t do it. He just had to help those people who needed help and he couldn’t even think about charging them.

You know, now that I think back to all the story of heroism that I heard from people about Barnabus, I believe there may actually be some superpowers there that we need to examine. Maybe it is the superpower of giving. He gave more than anyone else I knew. His Mom said he had a special way about him where he could never say no to anyone. He would simply help everyone at anytime. He simply put himself aside for other people.

Maybe his superpower was encouragement. I am guessing there will be many smiles on many faces right now when I simply mention the thought of Barnabus’ smile. It wasn’t only his smile that was encouraging; he had a way with words as well. He could let you know how special you were as a human being and give you practical advice for how to best accomplish your dreams.

Maybe his superpower was wisdom. If you ever talked politics with Barnabus, you may not have agreed with everything he said, but he was very wise about his view of whatever situation you were talking about. If you were ever blessed enough to study the Bible with Barnabus, you know that his silence meant that he was developing some insightful wisdom about the scripture that he would deliver in a humble, low unassuming voice which was known to make people around him simply sit stunned in awe.

I know what you are thinking, “There are no such things as superpowers. What is this nutjob in a suit talking about?” All I can do today is present to you what everyone who knew Barnabus knows. Barnabus had the capacity to love, serve and encourage in a way that was beyond human. So what was behind Barnabus’ abilities? I believe the answer may have been found as I read a few of his journal entries. In a line titled “The American Dream through the Holy Spirit”, Baranabus had this verse from Galatians:

But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law.

(Gal 5:22-23)

You see Baranbus really did posses superpowers. He was given the fruit of the Spirit because of Jesus Christ and His death on the cross for our sins. Barnabus not only believed in Jesus or had faith in Jesus, he lived Jesus. He became more than someone waiting to get to heaven, he lived life here as if somehow he could make a difference and make this place look a little more like heaven.

Here is the point to Barnabus’ life: He knew all life was a blessing of the grace of Jesus and he lived, not to be a nice person and have Jesus greet him last Sunday and say, “Thank you for being a great guy and helping all of those people. That was really nice of you. Come over here and talk about that with Me.” No, Barnabus lived life that he knew was not his own. He lived the gift of life out loud not for his own glory, but for the glory of Jesus. He hoped that after he finished helping you with your Calculus or Trigonometry, that you would have encountered the love of Jesus. He hoped that by him helping you move or by giving you the shirt off his back, you would remember the love of Jesus, because it was that love that compelled him to live out supernatural service, encouragement and love.

On many occasions, Barnabus spoke about his need for a Savior as well as the need of his country, continent and new home here in America to confess their sin as well and receive salvation from Jesus. You see, the Bible is very clear that all have sinned. We all worship things that are not God. Barnabus often commented about the trap of material things here on earth that distracted him from his first love. He knew that these fleeting things could not sustain, could not fulfill. He also knew that he did pursue those things as well and worship them, created things, instead of the creator and that was sin.

Barnabus knew that his sin separated him from God. He became aware from his Grandfather, that sin is an offense to God and creates separation from God that we cannot cross back to God on our own as well as a penalty that we cannot pay. He was also aware that sin destroys him. We prayed many times about having a pure heart free from the effects of sin.

Barnabus believed that in order to be rescued from his sin, he needed someone who could save him. He knew he could not do it on his own. His grandfather again taught him about Jesus and His payment for what we owed to a Holy God because of our sin. He learned that Jesus took our place even though Jesus’ life was absent of any sin.

Barnabus’ life is a testimony to the renewing power of Jesus grace and mercy. He was led to Jesus by his grandfather and Barnabus confessed his sin and surrendered his life, all the decisions, all the plans, all the desires to Jesus and began to live as His Word directed him to live. Do you want to know the source of Barnabus’ superpowers? It is the promise that once a person surrenders their life, Jesus takes residence in your heart. He sends His Spirit to live in us and guide us to live a life holy and pleasing to God. Do you see it? This is why Barnabus could live such and extraordinary, superpowered life, because it was not Barnabus, but Christ who lived in Barnabus who compelled, equipped and guided him to live in such supernatural ways.

As I prepared for this time, I knew that Barnabus would be very disappointed if I didn’t let you know that you have the opportunity to surrender your life to Jesus today. If you ever admired the heart of Barnabus or his ability to be selfless or his desire to see humanity be better, then pray today and ask Jesus to save you from the penalty and consequences of your sin. Barnabus’ life and now his death is being used to communicate Christ’s love to you today. Listen and respond in prayer.

So what about Barnabus now? Where is he? He is with Jesus. When Jesus was hanging on the cross, he was surrounded by two thieves. One of those thieves, that very moment, worshipped Jesus as God and Jesus said, “Today, you will be with me in paradise.” Today, Barnabus is with Jesus in paradise. Psalms 84 gives us amazing insight into what it’s like to be in the presence of King Jesus:

How lovely is your dwelling place, O LORD of hosts! My soul longs, yes, faints for the courts of the LORD; my heart and flesh sing for joy to the living God. Even the sparrow finds a home, and the swallow a nest for herself, where she may lay her young, at your altars, O LORD of hosts, my King and my God. Blessed are those who dwell in your house, ever singing your praise! Selah Blessed are those whose strength is in you, in whose heart are the highways to Zion. As they go through the Valley of Baca they make it a place of springs; the early rain also covers it with pools. They go from strength to strength; each one appears before God in Zion. O LORD God of hosts, hear my prayer; give ear, O God of Jacob! Selah Behold our shield, O God; look on the face of your anointed! For a day in your courts is better than a thousand elsewhere. I would rather be a doorkeeper in the house of my God than dwell in the tents of wickedness. For the LORD God is a sun and shield; the LORD bestows favor and honor. No good thing does he withhold from those who walk uprightly. O LORD of hosts, blessed is the one who trusts in you!

(Psa 84:1-12)

Despite my initial shock and sadness over losing a dear friend, it was another dear friend who reminded me of:

But we do not want you to be uninformed, brothers, about those who are asleep, that you may not grieve as others do who have no hope. For since we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so, through Jesus, God will bring with him those who have fallen asleep. For this we declare to you by a word from the Lord, that we who are alive, who are left until the coming of the Lord, will not precede those who have fallen asleep. For the Lord himself will descend from heaven with a cry of command, with the voice of an archangel, and with the sound of the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ will rise first.

(1Th 4:13-16)

You see, finally today, we do not mourn because we will not see Barnabus again or because we are unsure as to where he is. No we mourn today because we love him and miss him. Our mourning today is for us and that is OK. Jesus mourns with us. What we can’t do is be fooled to think for one second, Barnabus would choose to leave the side of his King right now. He is too busy dancing and singing in honor of Jesus, because being near Jesus makes you want to dance and sing. So let’s sing today. Let’s celebrate a life poured out for Jesus. Let’s celebrate by praying for ourselves to mourn and heal. Let’s pray to accept the gift of salvation today. Let’s celebrate by singing about the glory and majesty of Jesus. Let’s celebrate by mirroring the generosity and selflessness of Barnabus by giving as God leads to help his family get him back to Kenya for burial. Let’s celebrate by being one in Christ today. Quite simply, let’s celebrate because Barnabus did an amazing job showing us how.

Brian "Barnabus" Omulokoli, My friend

2008-09-15T13:38:00.007-04:00

I woke up this morning knowing that I had a very important meeting with a man from a missionary sending agency that was critical to our support and ministry here in Massachusetts. I slept in due to a very long weekend at our Fall Retreat and a long day of service and ministry yesterday at church. I quickly jumped in and out of the shower and began to dress for the day. Our washer broke, so we had the repairman here to look at it and tel us what needed to be done to fix it ($150 and about a weeks wait of course). As I was telling the girls and Christie goodbye, I got a phone call from my friend Matthew Ussery. I thought he was calling to tell me about his internship at his church or maybe what dumb thing the seminary had done now. I began blathering on about our church and how great it was to be in Western Mass really doing what I felt God had created me to do. I talked non-stop about discipleship and ministry. Matthew waited for a pause, by this time I was nearly at the end of my driveway. Then he said, "Speaking of people you have helped disciple, have you heard about Barnabus? I saw a conversation on Facebook about him dying yesterday." I heard the words and as my brain processed this information, my body went numb which unfortunately meant my hands and feet which were driving the van. The van rolled to a slow crawl as I began to listen to Matthew apologize for having to tell me this.

I turned the van around and ran into the house asking the girls to move from the computer so I could confirm what Matt was talking about. I got onto Facebook and saw message after message from my friends and students talking about Barnabus and how much they miss him. I got off the phone with Matt and looked at my phone and saw that I had my phone on silent and that I missed several calls and my friend Shawn Elledge who works at the North American Missions Board had left a message last night telling me that Barnabus had died.

Barnabus is gone. I will never be able to pick up the phone when I see Barnabus is calling and hear him say, "Hello Mr. McCullah." in his thick African accent. I will never get to see him dance again hear on earth. I will not get to celebrate when he goes to Virginia Tech which he so looked forward to.

I will however get to see Barnabus again. He is now walking alongside Jesus and singing praises to Him. He is dancing for Jesus, because being near Jesus and knowing Jesus just makes you want to dance. He is there because of Jesus, because of submitting his life to Jesus and trusting that in Him is real life.

I will see Barnabus again. My heart hurts until then.

Aug 31 Sermon from Mercyhouse

2008-09-01T17:33:00.002-04:00

So I am worn out. So worn out that being goofy and writing a lot is simply not an option right now. However, I did preach a sermon and here it is.

Later,
Ryan

Breaking the wind beneath my wings.

2008-08-11T00:16:00.005-04:00

I was joking around with one of my good friends at our goodbye dinner and we began sharing our true feelings about how we felt toward one another. We rotated sharing and it went something like this.

Ryan: "James, did you every know that your my hero?"
James: "Really? Well, you're everything I wished I could be."
Ryan: "Oh James, I can fly higher than an eagle, because you are the wind beneath my wings!"

This was followed by a fair amount of manly hugging and giggling.

I then began to tell James the story of how in high school, at one of the graduations one year, this song was actually sung during the graduation ceremony. It got me to thinking.

I wonder if they were aware of what exactly this song was saying and who it was being said to? So let's begin with the first lyric, "Did you ever know that you're my hero?" Really? A pimply faced 18 year old who managed to show up to class more often than he didn't and who has a 95% chance of misspelling "Baccalaureate" is your hero? What sad existence do you live in when this is your hero? How do we live in a society that lauds the great accomplishment of a student graduating high school along side a life long mentor or a rescue worker. Let's see, a kid goes to school for 12 years and doesn't flunk out or a fireman pulls a baby from a burning building. Now be careful, what if I told you that student had to take Geometry? Holy Crap Ronda, fire up the karaoke machine I gotta reward this kid with some Bette Midler.

This reminds of Chris Rock. For those of you that believe in this sort of thing (I don't, because I don't see color), Chris Rock is apparently African American. Ad for those of you that believe again in this sort of thing, I am apparently what is referred to as Caucasian or Pasty-White. With that being said, feel free to let your mind wonder to Michael Scott doing his best impression of Chris Rock as I recount this joke. Chris Rock tells the story of going back to his neighborhood and talking with people back there and before he knows it, people are asking him to buy them cars or give them money. He asks them why he should do that and they respond "Because I haven't been to jail." or "I take care of my family and support my kids". He then begins a funny tirade yelling at them about how they are supposed to not be in jail and they are supposed to take care of their kids.

Singing this song is a lot like that. We have people sing sappy crap like this at graduations, because we are sad that these kids are old enough to be graduating, not because graduating high school is some hero making accomplishment. Like Chris Rock said, you're supposed to graduate. It's not that big a deal. So here is my hope. When it comes time for high school graduation next year, act like your going to give the graduate a big hug, then right before you embrace, smack them on the back of the head and say, "What are you standing here for? We could have put a monkey in a cap and gown and marched him across the stage tonight and had him do what you just did. Go to college, get a job, and make something of yourself. Quit just standing here Nancy!"

Deep down, I think they will appreciate the encouragement.

It's coming...

2008-08-05T10:24:00.002-04:00

Wait for it. Wait for it. Wait for...

Wait

for

it....

If I had my way...

2008-07-22T11:37:00.003-04:00

This trip to Oklahoma has been a blessing and a curse at the same time. We have had an amazing time with so many of our friends and family and at the same time we know that the time will come soon (next week to be exact) when we will have to leave and go back to telephone and Internet relationships. So in honor of that, let me dream a bit about what a perfect Ryan constructed world would be like. Consider this like an alternate universe for all you comic book geeks or Neverland (not to be confused with Neverland Ranch) for everyone else.

Our family would live in a town outside of the Bible Belt where few people know Jesus and we would be planting a church. The staff would include our future ministry team at Mercyhouse and our new friends from Fuelchurch in Poteau and the same excitement and hope would be leading us that is leading them toward the cross right now. My great friend Matt Duke would be our lead elder and specialize in ministering to Chicago Cub fans who are crushed yearly by the expectations of a World Series. His wife, Angie Duke, would serve as our Care ministry coordinator and minister. She would take care of all the felt needs of people that will build bridges to eventually carry the weight of the gospel. My friend Matthew Ussery would help me teach and stay theologically straight as we ministered together. He could also relate to the Cub fans because he is from Seattle.

On staff with us would be my great friend Josh Craig who would serve alongside my father in law, Robert Beavers as the counseling ministry and team of our church. When those Cub fans sink into that deepest depression, they would go see Josh and Robert and they would walk them through what it takes to connect with Jesus again. These guys would help our church go where few churches have gone before as we communicated through, prayed through and faithed through setting up a proper foundation of where church and community coexist with counseling and health.

Our staff would also include my next great friend Will Joyce who would head our arbitration and reconciliation ministry. Will would be available to the community and area to help arbitrate and settle disputes between people who simply can't come to a resolution, but trust the character of the church and Will so much that they will live by what he and his ministry team decide.

My mentor Tom Westbrook and his family would be the patriarchs of the church, because every church needs Godly leadership and a wise kick in the backside every now and then. Tom has a rich history of kicking my backside.

My wife Christie would partner with our dear friend Kelly Carlson to lead a ministry that engages in the lives of International Students and provides practical service and ministry to these overlooked segments of American population. Cara Yakel and Brittany Gumm would both lead various parts of this ministry to reach these students and without a doubt, this ministry would be full of compassion and mercy with these three precious women involved.

The graphic design and video team of our church would be beyond belief. My great friends John Carlson, Kelly's husband (he loves being introduced that way) and Cara's husband Matt Yakel (he doesn't mind so much), would lead a talented team of designers and Mac lovers that would include our friends, Jace Tuttle, Josh Craig's soon to be fiance, Emily, our amazing friends Matthew and Michelle Thorne. There would not be a video and design team more creative, talented or fun in all the world.

Our church would offer a free clinic for people to find basic medical and developmental needs and our friends Paul and Shanda Yasuda would lead this ministry as Will Joyce's wife, Rachelle would also work with kids with speech problems to help them in whatever developmental problems they may have. My sister in law Kara would help kids who are having trouble in school or learning situations by ministering to help their families recognize what might be going on from a learning development situation. Our precious cousin Jennifer Richards would help organize and distribute the needed medicine in this clinic.

My brother Justin McCullah would lead the sports and recreation ministry of this church. His wit and wisdom that he uses daily as a coach in OKC would serve him well as he provides opportunities for ministry in a fun way. Jennifer's husband, Fred Richards would help take care of the Golf Tournaments and grounds of this church. Christie's brother, Michael Beavers, would be in charge of leading all hunting and fishing expeditions. And this ministry alone would be grounds for more competition, male testosterone and turned ankles than any other ministry.

I would try to convince my friends Colt Westbrook, Eric Meyers and/or Jason Goodson to come lead the band of our church. Many of those that I already mentioned would add to this team that would lead us weekly (daily?) into the presence of the King through song.

Our friend Fallon Brooks would give direction to the buildings and the structure of what we would need from a campus perspective. She would also serve, along with Brittany Gumm, as encouragement coordinator, simply by being who they are today and a testimony to what Jesus has and can do in the lives of people who seek Him.

My dad, Gene McCullah would fix all the little things that might go wrong on these building and grounds. His wife Joanne would help us figure out how to pay for all of this ministry stuff and be the minister of Ooey Gooey Butter Cake.

Our mom's, Vickie Jirash and Judy Beavers, would provide the grandmother touch for all the children that are involved in such a dream like this. They would lovingly guide and represent what is best about family. Between these two, these kids would be blessed with the gift of music, reading and the best brownies you have ever tasted in your life. They would be helped by Terrie Brown and Ashley Barry who would give love and compassion daily as well. Our Sister-in-Law, Meagan Beavers would be in charge of the animal rescue shelter and coordinating the kids time playing with and learning about all of the animals.

I would have all of our other friends and family attend this church and we would work to love and serve the community at large. We would also partner with, support and pray for our missionary friends like, many of whom are in crazy places of the world that would don't look kindly upon missionaries. (This may or may not be a veiled attempt to point fingers at Massachusetts.)

If we had all of these people doing all of these things, then I could simply slide fully into my role of minister of janitorial services and enjoy the beauty of what God would do through a team such as this.

I know this is a dream only. Truth is, if I lived around most of you for an extended period of time, you would want to shoot me in the face with a high powered rifle. But, I hope this communicates the encouragement that I take from each of you and your families. It has been amazing to see what amazing husbands, wives, fathers, mothers, friends, leaders and followers of Christ you have all become where you are. I am sure that God's plan of having you where you are and taking us where we are going is part of His greater plan to spread His fame.

Satan's Pillow

2008-07-16T18:00:00.004-04:00

As many of you know, we are on a tour of Oklahoma, seeing family and sharing the vision of what God is doing in our lives. We are blessed to have family that will love us and allow our children to "redecorate" their houses. (Mikiah is making a fine wallpaper stripper. That almost sounds dirty.) We have been made comformtable and shown love everywhere we have been.

However, there is one thing that must be addressed to all of America and the world. I believe it is at the core of why America's ecomony is slipping, we are paying $4 for gas and the borders are not secure. The reason for all of these things is this pillow that you see here. Apparently it is called a Gathered Pillow Sham. All I can say (actually that is not true, but it is a figure of speech) is that it certainly is a sham... a sham of a pillow!

Somewhere, the woman who invinted this tool of Satan is smiling and laughing aware of the evil that she unleashed on the world at large. How do I know it is a woman responsible for this? LOOK AT IT! No man in his right mind would create that on the sewing machine, stand back and marvel "Holy crap Jeff, I think I just made sumfin good here."

I'm not a moron. (Stop laughing!) Iknow that these things are more for looks than anything, but every bed I have slept in has had pillows like this stacked on them that look like a challenge from Double Dare. I am afraid to remove them the wrongway or else I will get slimed. It is like culling through the carcassas of the dead on the battle field in order to find a place to erect a statue in your honor.

This thing is a pillow, usually really flat or extremely plump, with a frilly piece of cloth sewed around it. It serves no purpose and is impossible to sleep on. The frill sticks out and ends up tickling your nose or stuck in your mouth. (Where is your hand? Between two pillows. Those aren't pillows!)

I can't help but believe that these things are the great symbol of the feminization of the American Male. They are placed there to say "Look at us, we're a pillow...a special pillow just for you big boy." We as men don't want and shouldn't have to settle for "special" pillows; we want plain, white and firm.

Now for a man pillow, you must go to the body pillow. Seen here. That is a pillow with a purpose. It is for the man to wrench and wrestle into submission, then pass out on top of. Man pillow. Pillow of the man. Do us all a favor and help stop blatant liberalism and make the switch today.

Confessions of an Addict

2008-06-28T00:21:00.000-04:00

Isn't it amazing what stress does to us? It is 12:22 AM early Saturday morning and I am writing this because I have seen first hand what stress does to me.

Let me tell you a little about me first of all. I am an addict. I am easily addicted to things. Things in general. If something gives me a certain feeling or I can elicit a certain response with something or by doing something, chances are that I will do that thing or seek out that thing for a long, long time. Here is the ironic, goofy and fitting part of this addiction in my life: I am not addicted to the usual suspects (drugs, alcohol, sex, etc.). My addictions are much more subtle, socially acceptable and for me, dangerous. When I get stressed, I look for comfort from television, entertainment, food and pride.

Here is an example, and you will find this hard to believe, but it is a true story. In 1986, my dad, brother and I went to get a haircut at the local barber in Heavener, Oklahoma. My brother and I got our hair cut first. (It was easier to place the bowl on our heads and cut one solid line around our head first I guess.) On this particular early spring day, I convinced my dad to let us go down the street to the local pool hall and arcade and play pool. He said yes and we were on our way. When we arrived, we began to play pool and I noticed a juke box on the wall and I walked over to it and began looking for my favorite song, (remember, I am not making this up) "We Built This City" by Jefferson Starship. Sure enough, the song was on there and I plugged in my money and I played the song. Then I saw that I could play other songs, so I plugged it in again, and again, and again, until "We Built This City" was played 14 straight times as we played pool. The other patrons of this pool hall were not too pleased, but it was my money and they couldn't say much. Here is the other ironic thing, I had the tape by Jefferson Starship, Knee Deep in the Hoopla in the car and we played it all the way home.

I just recently finished the whole series of 7th Heaven that we Tivoed. I am constantly watching, listening to or participating in something in order to keep from thinking.

So what have we learned, besides Ryan was raised on and addicted to really crappy music? I find comfort in entrainment. I find comfort in familiarity. I begin to seek these things out and hope that they will provide the stability, safety and salvation that I desire. Jefferson Starship couldn't in 1986 and my veiled attempts to settle for entertainment now are only mud pies in the proverbial slum. My holiday in Christ awaits and I have settled.

I write all of this tonight, because I crawled into this addiction tonight and I didn't want to get out, even when a dear friend came over for dinner. I chose to cling onto what I felt like was giving me comfort and worth. I sinned against her. I feel like an absolute a-hole. There is no excuse for my actions and I simply missed the mark.

My comfort, safety, well-being and life are all found in Jesus alone. I am finding the stress of life right now is causing me to desire these escapes more and more recently. My Tivo is full of shows that I want to watch and get lost in. My ipod is full of sermons, songs and comedy that would sweep me away with a touch of a button. I cannot settle for these things. My focus must be on Jesus. I hand them to Him and ask Him to redeem them if they can be redeemed and give them to me when they can glorify Him in my life.

Sizing up El Guapo

2008-06-26T10:58:00.001-04:00

"In a way, each of us has an El Guapo to face. For some, shyness might be their El Guapo. For others, a lack of education might be their El Guapo. For us, El Guapo is a big, dangerous man who wants to kill us. But as sure as my name is Lucky Day, the people of Santa Poco can conquer their own personal El Guapo, who also happens to be *the actual* El Guapo!"

Steve Martin as Lucky Day,

Three Amigos

I want to write a little bit about our El Guapos, maybe more for my own sake than anything else. I write this to chronicle what God is doing and will do only. I fully expect at some point in the future to look back on each of these things and write about how God worked them out. So here are our El Guapos.

Last November, believing it was the right thing to do for our financial future, we consolidated almost all of our debt into a home equity loan. It upped what we had in the house, but we felt we were actually doing the right thing getting ahead of our "bad debt". So now we have no wiggle room in dropping the price of our house.
Since we put the house on the market nearly two months ago, the market has been flooded with houses the same size as ours (if not bigger) and listed at lower prices.
We put down first month's rent on a house in Massachusetts that seems to be a great fit for a church plant, but it is not without it's issues; namely, work on a bathroom and a security deposit that we simply don't have the money for right now.
Our fund raising has been sporadic, at best, so far. We need $5000 a month, right now we have $1965 pledged.
We have $1000 pledged to help us move. That might get us to Fredricksburg, maybe.

If we planned this ourselves, then I would feel a lot like Dusty Bottoms in this quote:

Dusty Bottoms: Time for plan B. Plan A was to break into El Guapo's fortress.
Carmen: And that you have done, now what?
Dusty Bottoms: Well we really dont have a plan B. We didn't expect for the first plan to work. Sometimes you can overplan these things.

We didn't come up with this on our own. If I had, I would be ministering to Oklahoma Sooner Football players and rich oil men. God called us to this. We are sure of this. Our faith grows.
Thanks for letting me mourn out my fear.

RYan

Urinating near a traffic jam

2008-06-24T11:32:00.000-04:00

Yesterday, we finished our visit up to Massachusetts to prepare for our move in August. It was a great time had by all and we were able to find a great house near the town that we are looking to plant in. (Praise God! Thank You Jesus! Now we need $3000 for security deposits and rent. Praise God! Thank You Jesus!)

So yesterday, we drove over 500 miles from Massachusetts to just south of DC in a little over 6 hours. Once we got south of DC on 95 however, we went the last 70 miles in 4 hours. This included over a 2 hour dead stop in the middle of 95. On my list of things I hoped to experience before I died, "being in a traffic jam at midnight on 95 south of Washington DC" was just below "live in efficiency non-air conditioned apartment with hairy, fat sweaty man during summer".

One of the issues surrounding this traffic jam was the fact that I had been pounding Invigorating Water for the 500 miles leading up to the stoppage of progress. Naturally, once the worlds largest automotive conga line was formed, Ryan needed to relieve himself. Being a man, I am equipped to "make this happen" and I did. However, as I drained the main vein, I thought about what precautions I would take to carry out such action if this were happening in the day time. It then led me to think about what deep spiritual implications that had and how we do things in the dark that we would'nt do in the light. All of this deep theological thought caused me to loose focus and I "dribbled" all over my foot and sandle. Stupid deep thoughts.

The Ask God List

2008-06-18T12:02:00.000-04:00

Theologically, I'm not really sure that what I am proposing is even possible and I know that this silly list will be of the last concern when I actually do get to heaven, but while I am still in the middle of writing really serious stuff (sermons, bible studies, last will and testaments) I needed to drain the silly out of my brain and this is what came to mind first.

There are big things I want to ask God like these:

Do you really pick and choose like a 2nd grader playing "Duck, Duck, Damn"?
If our ideas of "fair" are not so important, why were we made to be so consumed with "fair"?
There really was not Plan B after Eden was there, it was Plan A (the cross) the whole time, right?

Then there is a supplementary list that, honestly, I spend more time thinking about. Such as...

Who would win in a fight, Batman or Captian Ameirca?
Is Starbucks coffee laced with crack, like I suspect it is?
Would my head explode if I listened to a CD of a band composed of Jimmy Page, John Fogerty, the one armed drummer from Def Leppard, Anthony Micheal and all lyrics written by Rich Mullins? (Shoot, my head is about to explode just typing this and thinking about it?)
Squirrels - jumpy - The only logical conclusion is that acorns are laced with crack as well. Am I onto something there? (Note to self, eat acorn before the end of the day, to test brillant theory)
Would the Apostle Paul cuss if he had to put $4 gas in his car? I thought so.
My friend Will just texted me this one and I think it is a good one: Is there water on Uranus? Wait a minute..., that is hilarious... water on your.... I'll go to hell if I ask God that Will, so I can't ask that one. Sinner.
What is Your favorite number? Mine is 4 then 3 then 9 then 4 again.
OK, you can shoot straight with me, Amy Winehouse is an alien from another planet, right?
Can we have a one on one round robin tournament in heaven between the clones (because all of these people may not make it to heaven) of Dr. J, Micheal Jordan, Magic Johnson, Pistol Pete Marivich, Tiny Nate Archibald, Oscar Robertson, Larry Bird and a play in game between John Havlicek and Kobe Bryant?
Can I ride on the ark?

So there it is. The list so far. Just a thought

Unicorns and Halley's Comet

2008-06-14T16:12:00.000-04:00

I was watching TV this afternoon in between writing Bible studies and I was blessed to observe something as rare as unicorns grazing in your back yard and attending Halley's Comet watch parties. As I flipped channels, I landed on ESPN2 and the Euro 2008 (soccer, futbol) and I actually got to watch a live goal being scored by one of the many European clubs that is not the United States of America. I could not believe my eyes when the player (Vooucovic or Shamalamadingdong or something like that) controlled the ball near the goal and kicked past the goalie. After seeing this, I immediately knew that I had witnessed history because goals are not scored every game in soccer. I gathered the girls around me and told them to remember this moment because they may never get to witness this again.

I wiped the tear from my eye and told the girls to go journal their feelings. It was a special moment.