Legen- Wait for it…

February 8, 2010

superstippy Life, Ministry , Leave a comment

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

February 4, 2010

superstippy Youth Ministry , Leave a comment

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

February 4, 2010

superstippy Book Reviews , Leave a comment

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

February 4, 2010

superstippy Life, Music , , , , , , , , Leave a comment

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.

February 3, 2010

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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.

February 2, 2010

superstippy Blogging, Life 5 Comments

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.

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