Legen- Wait for it…
Dary. (That is a reoccurring line from How I Met Your Mother. Which happens to be one of my favorite shows)
“The name of Jesus was legendary.” That is a line from a book I’m reading right now called “simple small groups”, by Bill Search*.
That statement was in reference to Jerusalem in the time immediately following the death of Jesus.
The name of Jesus was legendary.
It was almost infamous even to the Roman empire in the area, and especially to the Jewish people as a whole. Everyone knew who He was, and what He claimed, and who He claimed to be. And you either believed that or you didn’t. And at that time…it was a very risky thing to believe.
As I read that line though. I got to thinking. The name of Jesus is not legendary today. The majority of people in developed societies/cultures/countries, have heard that name, and may or may not know what He was about.
But His name isn’t legendary. And that’s my fault. And yours. (If you are a person who claims to be a Christ follower). Because that’s not really our concern. We are concerned about whether or not our church, or our Pastor, or our community of believers (or ourself or our families), become legendary in the name of Jesus. But if we’re completely honest with ourselves, we’re not, as a whole, really worried about whether or not the name of Jesus becomes legendary.
So. What can you (I/we) do this year to make the name JESUS legendary? This month? This week? Today?
Right now?
-Stippick
* You can get that book here.
Disciple Now
Disciple Now. What is there to say about it? It is a blast of a weekend, but it takes a lot out of you.
For those of you who don’t know what a Disciple Now is, here is a quick explanation:
Our kids sign up to go stay in a home with their friends for a weekend. People from the church open up their homes for students to be able to do this. This year we have 39 homes. People from the church offer up their cars to cart kids around all weekend. This year we had need for 330 seats. People volunteer to cook/deliver food to all of the 39 homes. We bring in a leader for each home to lead the students through a Bible study through the course of the weekend. They come from all over the state, and we even have a young lady flying in at midnight tonight just to hang out with some 6th grade girls for the weekend. There is a group of ladies who coordinate all of this so that it is not mass chaos. They are awesome. And funny. Many people donate money to scholarship some kids to be able to go, and to help with food.
Like I said…that’s a very brief overview. There are probably a lot of people, and a lot of jobs I left out…but you get the gist…
So tonight we had our Thursday night kick-off, and it went really well. One of our senior girls put every guy in our youth ministry to shame by eating some of the most disgusting things I’ve ever seen. I met with my guys to talk about the weekend, and they all seem really excited for the weekend. I know I am.
So anyway. I’m writing this tonight to ask you to be praying for this weekend. For the students. For the leaders. For the host homes. For the transportation. For food coordinators. For the many people who make things happen administratively. For the worship leader and speaker for Saturday night. And anyone and anything I’m leaving off. This is a big weekend in the lives of our students that can have a huge impact on them.
Thanks so much guys! Have a great weekend!
-Stippick
Blue Like Jazz
I just finished Blue Like Jazz by Donald Miller.
It is an excellent book.
People told me fore the last several years that I “had” to read it, because they know that I “like to read, and they don’t so if they read it, it must be good, and it totally changed their life”. That is precisely why I did not read it. When there is a ton of hype of about something, I tend to not be very interested in it, because if it’s attracting the masses who don’t normally like that kind of thing…that could mean it’s not that good. I’ve done the same thing with The Shack (which I plan to read this year), and The Twilight Saga (which I plan to read if there is a gun to my head). Anyway.
Blue Like Jazz wasn’t my first Miller book. “A Million Miles In A Thousand Years” was. Also a good book. I read that because he was coming to our church on his book tour for it, and I decided I wanted to hear him speak and if I was going to hear him speak, I should know a little bit about what he was going to speak about. I loved the book and was sold on the guy.
Blue Like Jazz was Miller’s breakout book. It is, as he himself says, about Nonreligious Thoughts on Christian Spirituality. And most of the thoughts he shares are fairly nonreligious (Good job Don…(I call him Don because we have a picture together)).
What I loved most about it is that it is honest. There is not a whole lot of that in christian writing. There is a lot of “How you can be a better Christian”, “Use this formula to be joyful in Christ”, and things like that. But Miller makes it a point to show how he came about doing those things. And that he still struggles with it constantly. That is my kind of guy.
I am also a big fan of the way he writes. It’s very “train of thought” like. I actually know a few people who don’t like his writing because of that. But when I am thinking…I’m thinking in my train of thought. I like to read that way (I also like to write that way, in case you didn’t notice).
Here are some of the topics he covers:
Magic
Faith
gods
Church
Romance
Community
He uses a lot of stories from his sometimes cooky past to illustrate what God taught him about those, and other things, and where that has put him today, and how God is still changing how he feels about some of those things.
Those are just a few. Head over to your favorite bookstore or your local library and pick this book up, it is well worth the read.
Jesus is on my dance card
A dance card was used by women way back in the day at a formal ball, and she listed there the men she intended to dance with, and in what order. The first usually being the person she had the most interest in, and then going down from there…I think you get the idea.
So. Jesus is on my dance card. He literally makes me want to dance sometimes. Sometimes it’s a jig (like when I listen to “Wake Up, Oh Sleeper” by Bear Rinehart, Jason Crabb, and Jonathan Shelton), and sometimes I’d like to have a slow dance. With Him (like when I heard the song “Here I am to Worship” tonight).
That thing about the jig dancing has been around for a while. When I got the second Glory Revealed cd, I heard that song, and it put a little something extra in my step…so I put it on a speaker for my roommates, and Jacob, Braxton and I danced our hearts out. To Jesus. So, rest assured, if you ever see me with headphones and I look like I’m having a spaz attack, I’m actually listening to that song, and Jesus and I are having a party. Or, if you hear the fiddle music coming from my speaker…that’s probably it…
So tonight, I’m at Shockwave (our youth service here at First Baptist Georgetown), and we sang the song “Here I Am To Worship”. I like that song a lot. But tonight, a certain line caught me. The one where it says
You’re altogether lovely…
There was just something about it that caught my ear, and made me want to do a waltz, or something with Jesus. The word lovely is one I imagine a man using to describe the woman he is with (wife/girlfriend/date…whatever the case may be) at some formal event where there is formal dancing.
Jesus is lovely. So lovely.
So I’m sitting there thinking how nice it would be to dance with Jesus, and I had to physically stop myself from dancing by myself right there in the back of the Shockwave room. Because. That’d be weird. Right? That was what I thought. But then I thought of 2 Samuel 6:14. (Something you should know: Sometimes I say “…and then I thought of (insert Bible verse here)…”, 9.9 times out of 10, I did not really think of that verse right off the top of my head. I more than likely thought of a story, and went searching for the verse.)
So. I thought of that time David was dancing (I’ve always heard that he was dancing naked. But both of the translations I looked at (NASB, and ESV), said that he had on a linen ephod. I have no idea what an ephod is.) when they brought the ark into Jerusalem. This just happens to be in chapter 6, verse 14.
Long story short, they are finally bringing the ark of God to the City of David, and this one guy touches it, and God kills him, and David gets upset, so he doesn’t take it all the way to theCity of David, but when it blessed the place he left it, he brought it to the City of David, and he danced a jig. That’s what I got out of it…
David was a man after God’s own heart. He was all kinds of screwed up, and sinned a ton (me too…), but he was always trying to figure out how he could best love the Lord. So. When he brings the ark into Jerusalem…he is so stinkin’ happy and overcome with love and joy…that he dances.
So. Even though it will probably look funny, I think you should expect to see me dancing more in the near future. When I get over the fact that it will be socially looked down upon.
And. I can’t wait until I get to dance with Jesus. Forever.
-Stippick
You’re welcome.
A while back, I wrote a post called Saying Thanks. It was about the importance of…saying thank you to others. Crazy, I know.
So today I want to talk to you about saying “You’re welcome”.
I hadn’t even really thought a whole lot about this phrase until I was sitting in my Funny Bone defensive driving class (That link is for those of you who may need it. Pretty fun, and worth the 35 bucks). The guy who was teaching was talking about something that I don’t remember, and said, “What ever happened to ‘you’re welcome’? We’ve got all this “no problem” stuff going around these days.”
And I thought to myself, I thought, “Self. That is an excellent point. Make a mental (and electronic) note to blog about that”. So I did. And here we are.
He made a great point. If you’re at a restaurant, and you say “Thank you” to a waiter/waitress, you’re more likely to get back a “No problem”, than a “You’re welcome”. And it’s so simple. Of course it’s not a problem for you waiter/waitress. It shouldn’t be. You’re doing your job.
But what about a friend? What if you say “Thanks” to a friend? Shouldn’t they be comfortable enough to say “No problem”, because maybe it really wasn’t a problem for them. That’s true. But saying “You’re welcome”, is not only a courtesy, I think it speaks to being able to receive love/praise/…thanks…from someone. If someone is actually taking the time to thank you for something, chances are, they are genuinely grateful for whatever it was, and you should feel just fine saying the words “You’re welcome”.
Try it.
-Stippick
I want to be a writer.
I know that probably comes as a shock to most of you. If you were to look at my life from the outside you might think: “He would like a mediocre job and to sit on the couch and read and watch tv for the rest of his life.” You’d only be 15% right in that thinking though. I say 15%, because honestly if we could make a living at it who of us wouldn’t just be a little lazy and do our hobbies?
So. Anyway. I want to be a writer. An established, published writer, who you will someday say things about like: “Have you read the latest by Stippick? Powerful stuff man. Powerful stuff.”, or “Man, that article by David Stippick the other day made me laaauuugh!”. You know. The normal things like that.
I want to write fiction and non-fiction. I want to write articles. I’d even love to write a screenplay for a movie, and create and write for a television show. I think I can do those things. Although, that movie may only get made out of pity by my good friend James Hunt who I know will one day be making all the hit movies you’re going to see.
I also realize that this doesn’t just happen. It takes discipline to work at it, and being able to listen to the critiques of loved ones, and people you have never met, and being willing to hear “No”. But also knowing that some of those loved ones are just to close to see that you might actually be good at something they hadn’t noticed, and those people you’ve never met may not be the people who need to hear what you have to say.
So anyway. As far as the discipline goes, I am even so scattered on here. Part of that is because I’m honestly scared to write. Anyone who can type and knows how to get on the internet can have a blog. So what makes me different than any of those people? I don’t know. I honestly don’t. Maybe there isn’t anything. Maybe in eight years I realize that this dream will never happen, and I’ve wasted a lot of time and $25 a year on a domain name, and just give up. But right now…there’s just something inside of me, and God is pushing me telling me that I do have something to say. I have read this blog post on Stuff Christians Like several times in the last few days as I struggle with that, and here’s what I’ve decided.
I’m a good writer. I’m not great. But I’m above average. God has given me a passion for it, and He’s given me talent for it. It is something I need to chase after until He tells me to stop. I know that that means I’ll spend quite some time working a day job. But I’m ok with that. If that is what is required of me to get where I think He is pointing me, then I really have no option but to do that.
So. I’ve declared it publicly. Which…honestly doesn’t mean much other than that now you all know for sure. And you might ask questions about it. And that might make me uncomfortable for a while. But I shouldn’t be uncomfortable in my own skin. Now when people ask me what I want to do, I can really say “I want to be a writer” (because I’ve made that fact known on the interwebs on my blog that has a steady readership of two), and “I’m actually working on a book right now” (because that’s actually true).
I want to be a writer.
-Stippick
P.S. If you know anyone in the biz, let me know.
It’s Not You, It’s Me
Dear T.V.,
It’s not you, it’s me.
I need a break.
I’ve spent a lot of time with you lately. And I thank you for making time for me. We share a lot of things together. We laugh, we investigate, and sometimes I almost cry with you. You’ve been a really good friend, but I think we both know that we’re a little unhealthy for each other. I mean, I know I’m willing to admit that you can be for me.
Like last year, I NEVER saw you…and I’m still alive. Will it be hard to not know what’s going on with my friends over at How I Met Your Mother, and not get the bad guy with my partners at NCIS? Yeah. I’ll even miss chasing the psychos with the BAU, trying to change the future with the folks on FlashForward. And oh so many other things. But I think this is best for us. Maybe I’ll appreciate you more, and be a little more selective about the time we spend together.
So, my dear, dear friend, starting Monday I’ll see you in 40 days. I hope that you stay safe during that time.
Lots of love,
David
P.S. I’ll check you out during the Super Bowl.
The Weekend
Alright. So, this is a few days late (not in the sense that you were on the edge of your seat waiting for my new blog post, but in the sense that it is Wednesday, and I am writing a blog about last weekend). So sue me. Won’t do you any good though, all I’ve really got to my name is this computer. And if you got that I wouldn’t be able to blog anymore. If that’s your goal though…good job trickster. Good job.
Anyway. The Weekend.
Friday night and part of the day Saturday was our Youth Ministers Retreat (We call all of our youth workers ministers. That’s Biblical. 1 Peter 2:9-10). It was a ton of fun. Friday night, we waited entirely too long for our pizza, talked about loving the kid that is hard for us to love, and then spent a lot of time hanging out talking and playing games. Saturday morning Shanna did an awesome time talking with us about Think Orange, and making our Youth Ministry more family driven (She did an awesome job by the way), and Michael talked to us about adding a little more pizzaz into our Life Groups (Sunday School), and gave me a few things to think about in the way of what I do on Sunday mornings.
To be honest with you, a lot of times, I complain that everyone I hang out with is in their thirties, and I don’t have a lot of friends my age, but Friday night reminded me that these are the people that I haven chosen to be doing life with. And I was reminded why. I love all of those married couples that I spend the majority of my time hanging out with. They not only pour into my life and minister to me on a regular basis, but they allow me to pour into and minister to them in ways that I don’t always realize at the time it is happening. I realized that even though most of them are at different life stages than me, I am very blessed to be journeying with these people. So, to all of you who were on the retreat with us (AND to those of you who weren’t able to make it), I love you guys a ton, and I am having a blast doing what I get to do with you guys! Thanks!
So anyway. I come home, and I end up spending quite a while hanging out with my brother over at his house. This is something that I don’t do nearly as much as I’d like. He spanked me in 6 games of chess. About four moves into the 7th game, I Was tired of being beat, and I knocked all of the pieces off of the board. APPARENTLY…this is NOT proper chess etiquette. I had a great time though, and want to make it a point to go get beat by him as often as possible. So, to you big brother, I love you a ton, and am enjoying hanging out with you more these days.
On Sunday I drove out to Waco after Life Groups for the birthday party of a very good friend. He turned 22 this last week, so some of us got together to celebrate. I had a ton of fun, and got to see some of my friends (who happen to be my age) that I don’t get to see that often. It was a great day of eating, Beatles Rock Banding, Golden Globe watching, and just hanging out and catching up. Just like the youth ministers I work with, I was reminded of why these people mean so much to me, and how blessed I am to be doing life with them as well. So, to all of you at the Mike Jones Birthday Party ‘10, you’re great friends, and I am lucky to have you in my life.
Thanks for a great weekend folks!
Cheers,
Stippick
Dear Son,
I’ve wanted to write to you for a while, but didn’t know exactly how to say what it is I wanted to say.
I guess it comes down to this: I love you. I always have. Since the day I found out you were on your way. The Bible says that children are a gift, and I won’t be able to wait until you arrive. The day you get here is going to be in the top five best days of my life. To be fair, three of the others are the day I met Jesus, the day I marry your mom, and the day we get your sister. I’m not entirely sure what the other one will be, but I’m sure there is some kind of other milestone that will rank up there.
I digress.
Watching you grow up will be one of the most exciting things I’ll ever experience. I can’t wait to see your first steps, and your first smile. I can’t wait to hear your first laugh, and hear you speak your first words (Which had better be some form of “daddy”…). There will be a lot of firsts. First days of school, first skinned knee, first best friend, first world ending melt down. I’m looking forward to that one. Maybe there will be a first favorite sport, song, or book. I want to be able to remember all of those.
When you’re a kid, I plan to make it my personal mission to be at every school play, sporting event, or piano recital you have. Whatever your passion is, I want to support it. I’m sorry if it doesn’t always seem that way, or if I ever let my work get in the way of that (Although if I continue “work” like I am now…this shouldn’t be a problem).
I’m going to treat you like a prince. Because you are. You’re a child of God, who is the king. Don’t get me wrong, you’ll still get disciplined, and when you get upset with me for it, I’ll have to remind myself of how much the Bible reminds us that God centered discipline is vital for raising a child. I’ll probably have to remind myself equally as often how much it talks about love and grace. And I’ll need to remember myself at your age. While I wish you would just learn from me telling you about mistakes I’ve made, I know that there are some things you will need to find out for yourself.
When you hit your teen years? Please understand that I always doing what I thought was my best to love you. If I was ever too harsh, or got too angry, I am sorry. I wanted to show you a firm love…but love nonetheless. Like I said before though, don’t mistake discipline for anger or meanness. A large part of me was probably just scared of losing you to friends, or other influences. I’ve seen (even in my own family) what can happen when children become distant from their parents, and the results can be devastating. I’ve seen families ripped apart for years, and I have a huge fear of that happening with you. To be fair though, I’ll probably do things like give you huge hugs and kisses, and yell how much I love you in front of your friends. But, its my job as a parent to embarrass you just a little bit.
I didn’t start to follow Jesus until I was 16 years old. Know that it is one of the biggest desires of my heart to see you begin that relationship at as early an age as you truly understand what that means. And I want to see you grow in that relationship every day from that day forward. I am so scared that I won’t model His love to you enough, or live a life where you see Him through me enough, so please know that as much as I love you, I am a total screw up buddy. As your earthly father, it is my job to model God the father to you, but I will fail time and again. He never does. He is perfect, and I hope you know that because I have spent time in the Word with you day in and day out.
I love your mother very much, and I will always try to show that to you and your siblings. Let me tell you something though. There’s honestly no reason for you to “date” girls until you’ve grown up a little. I’m probably going to want you to wait until you’re 16. You can have some great friendships with girls, but you don’t need the hurt that comes along with giving your heart, and doing things physically that you’re not emotionally ready for. That being said. I know you’re going to get your heart broken at some point, and you might break a heart or two. I’ll always be there for you to talk to, and try to make sense of the situation. Things are never as bad as the heart seems to think at first. I’ve been there. Treat every girl/young lady that you meet as is she were your mother or sister (And you will treat them well…I promise), and the way you would want other guys to treat them.
Make sure that the good friends you have are going to help you grow in your relationship with Christ. That’s not to say that you can only hang out with “church” kids. In fact, I want you to hang out with peers who do not know Christ. But I want you to be doing life with people who are going to push you onward towards the goal of Christ. Be open with each other, and allow yourselves to be called out and built up by each other. I’ve also hopefully allowed other adults to come into and influence your life. Know that those adults that I’ve allowed to really pour into you are as good as your parents. I wouldn’t allow them that position in your life if I didn’t trust them with it. Even though it may hurt me at the time, you should always free to go them with something you may not want to talk to me about. But I want you to also know that you can come to me with anything.
As you grow up, and head off to college, and start a career and a family of your own (no pressure on any of those, I’m 22 and I’m not anywhere near ANY of those), I want to know you, and you to know me as a man. I never got to do that with my father. I’ll always be your daddy, no doubt about that. But, our relationship will change as you become a man of your own. I hope you will be a man of God, and passionately pursue Heart every day. Remember, where you are, I’ve already been. I want to help you through those things.
I’m sure that there are tons of things I’ve left out here, but hopefully I’ll fill in the blanks along the way.
I love you more than you will ever know son,
Your Daddy
Uneducated thoughts on Haiti
There are a lot smarter people out there with theology degrees that have spent years in school that probably know a lot more about any Biblical references I will make, so understand that these are just my thoughts based on how I view the world, and my own relationship with God.
This year, I’m reading through the One Year Chronological Bible. I’ve had it for a few years, and finally made the commitment to get to it this year. So far, so good.
Right now, I’m in Job. Full disclosure, I’ve never read all of Job before. I’ve read a few chapters here and there before, and I know the premiss of the story, but I’ve never read through it. I’m glad I am right now though, it’s super legit, you should check it out sometime.
Well anyway, last night I’m cruising easy through chapters 32-34, and I’m really getting into it. I kind of like this Elihu guy. I was talking to my friend Jonathon Wright about it earlier today, and he said that he sees the guy as kind of a punk kid who wants to give his two cents. He makes it a point to say, basically, “I’m young, but that doesn’t mean I can’t have some wisdom right? So now you guys have all had your say, so let me have mine!” I imagine Job, Bildad, Eliphaz, and Zophar just letting the kid say what he feels like he has to say and not really considering him of any consequence.
So here’s Elihu chugging along in his discourse about how if Job really is so righteous and sinless, then how come God is jackin’ with all of his bidness?! Hmmm Job…hmmmmm? And he says this in 34:12:
It is unthinkable that God would do wrong,
That the Almighty would pervert justice.
So here’s this young guy saying, “If you’re really so good Job, then why is God doing all of this to you? He cannot do wrong. Because of who He is, and His very nature, He can’t do anything bad!” Now, he is 100% correct there. But in the context of the situation, he (and Job and his friends) didn’t understand that it wasn’t God doing any of this, but He was allowing it to happen to prove a point to Satan.
So, the first thing that came to my mind when I read that verse though, was Haiti. The second was Katrina hitting New Orleans in 2005. After both events, we have people (finite creatures created by an Infinite God) claiming that God did it to pass judgement on the sins of both places (And it’s not just “famous”…or maybe infamous…people like Pat Robertson, it’s our friends and neighbors as well). In 2005, Tony Campolo made the point that if that WAS the case, then how come the French Quarter (widely considered to be the center of debauchery in New Orleans) was left virtually untouched. It was a great point. To my knowledge, there have been no such defenses like that made for Haiti…so maybe Robertson was right.
Kidding. I’m kidding. Give me a few more minutes, and I’ll make my real point.
In the Old Testament, when we see judgement passed by God on a nation, or people, or person, or whatever the case may be, it was to give them an opportunity to turn back to him. I’m not going to list all of the instances here, but go look into it, if I’m wrong come back and let me know. I will concede.
So here’s the thing. Or…my opinion of “the thing”. What happened in New Orleans in 2005, and in Haiti a few days ago (and the tsunami a few years back, and other catastrophic natural disasters) was tragic. It’s not our place though to decide whether or not they are judgement by God upon those people . I look at it this way. The sins of the poverty stricken people of Haiti, are no worse than my middle class sins here in America. If the earthquake there really was judgement for a “pact made with the Devil” (I’d seriously like to see some historically documented proof of that), why not instead afflict the descendants of the people who made the pact, instead of causing catastrophic damage to one of the most poverty stricken countries in the world? The God of Love who I know, is not in the business of settling petty centuries old “wrongs” done to Him.
Now, that being said, I’m not the Omnipotent Creator Of All. If I was, we’d all be in a lot of trouble. Because, by nature I am in the business of settling the score for petty wrongs done to me. I think we have a perverted sense of the way God does justice. Like I said before, in the O.T., He used it as a means to bring people (usually His people, Israel) back to Him. Was it usually the last resort for Him? I think so. I think He gave chance after chance, and finally had to bring them almost to their end, and then allow them to embrace Him again. I don’t think God made the earthquake in Haiti happen (though He could have)…I think it is more likely that He would take a hand of protection off of them and allow something like that to happen.
So. I don’t think it’s my place, or your place, or the place of Pat Robertson, or anyone else to say, “Yep, just got a phone call from The Almighty, He said to make sure everyone knows that He totally wasted that place because He was super pissed at them”. It is our place to love that country, and those people through their situation regardless of how we feel about what happened. We gave up any other choice when we accepted the gift of grace on the cross. And it is our place to know that it is unthinkable that God would do wrong, or that the Almighty would pervert justice. Everything that happens, He does ordain, but it is all for the glory of His name. Doesn’t matter whether or not we see that.
-David
