If I had my way...

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

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

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

"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

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

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:

1. Do you really pick and choose like a 2nd grader playing "Duck, Duck, Damn"?
2. If our ideas of "fair" are not so important, why were we made to be so consumed with "fair"?
3. 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...

1. Who would win in a fight, Batman or Captian Ameirca?
2. Is Starbucks coffee laced with crack, like I suspect it is?
3. 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?)
4. 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)
   
5. Would the Apostle Paul cuss if he had to put $4 gas in his car? I thought so.
   
6. 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.
   
7. What is Your favorite number? Mine is 4 then 3 then 9 then 4 again.
8. OK, you can shoot straight with me, Amy Winehouse is an alien from another planet, right?
9. 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?
   
10. Can I ride on the ark?

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

Unicorns and Halley's Comet

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.