Building our own Jesus

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Lego jesus

Hello again friends,

Most of my work at the Seminary these past few weeks has centered around the so called quest for the historical Jesus. Summerizing hundreds of years of scholarly work in two seconds for you, it is an attempt to find the "real" Jesus, divorced from the agenda and theology of the Gospels, and focusing only on provable historical facts. If I'm more than honest, it's about as exciting as watching the grass grow.

You see, as I pour over the countless scholars who have submitted their own idea of what Jesus must have looked like, I realize that the "Jesus'" they're all coming up with look incredibly like the scholars studying them. If you are a liberal, non-violent scholar, you tend to build a liberal, non-violent Jesus. If you are a conservative evangelical scholar, you tend to build a conservative evangelical Jesus. Where it turns truly comical is when these scholars lose their creations upon each other, noting how absurd it is that the other side could ever craft something like that.

I hope that as I work with the students at Veritas, I'm not presenting myself dressed up like Jesus. I hope that I'm letting Jesus have his way with my entire life, including the part of my life that defines who Jesus is to me. I hope I am less concerned with the answers of who the "real" Jesus is, and more concerned with the questions the REAL Jesus is asking of me (Have you fed my sheep today Jason?) God created us in His image, and it is our job to find ourselves in his vast expanse, rather than placing him into our world...

...however tempting that might be.

Godspeed,

Jason

Hitting the books

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Stack of books 2

Hello friends,

Now that the dust has been shaken off from the trip to Haiti (actually, not true, there's still a ton of dust on all my shoes from the trip) it's time to get back into work. Today being my day off, I'm trying to get caught up on work for school.

I left school for the trip with a 98% in the class, and I'm trying with all my might to hold on to that score. I've probably mentioned on the blog a few thousand times that I'm not a very academic minded person, and so doing well in school is a brand new thing for me. And so I'm trying to strike this balance in my brain that I'm absolutely struggling to find: how good is good enough?

I have limited time during the days, working full time, being a full time husband, training for upcoming summer cycling events, and trying to keep a band together and practicing, so school has to find it's place in that scheme of things. However, I'm not paying $1000 a class to sit around and do poorly, so I'm certainly going to give absolutely everything I have.

Does anyone else out there feel caught in the tension between the two? I'd love to hear some thoughts, if only to know that I'm not crazy and all by myself!

Godspeed,

Jason

Haiti Update #4: Live Simply

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1105 live simply1

Hello again!

I am back in cold, nasty Pittsburgh. Of course this makes me sad, but not nearly as sad as leaving my new friends in Haiti. I absolutely loved my time there, and I loved getting to know the people we got to know.

Anyone who has ever done a mission trip like that before knows that it is all but impossible to boil everything you saw, experienced, heard, and learned into a single take-away. But as we traveled, I was reflecting on it, and realizing how the concept of living simply came up again and again on our trip, and how my life back here in the 'Burgh has a tendency to be anything but simple.

Take for instance eating. In Haiti, we had three square meals a day, and that was really it. There wasn't a whole lot of snacking in between meals. The meals we did have were amazing! Pasta, barbecue beef, stuffed shells, and all kinds of sides to go with them. But for all the more I ate at meal time, the removal of snacks from my diet for a week made me lose weight I'm sure (I've been to scared to step on the scale and be proven wrong!), and just made things a little bit easier. I was in the airport on the way home, and thought about getting my usual road-trip snack of twizzlers or m&ms, and realized that I didn't need them, I just felt like I did. (That's a theme that might come up again and again in this post!)

This morning I woke up and turned on CNN as I often do, and started to feel a little bit sick to my stomach. Every morning in Haiti I would wake up at 6 AM, grab a cup of Pastor Pierre's famous coffee, and go to the roof to do my devotions and watch the sunrise. After about the third car advertisement this morning on CNN, I wondered if I really needed to put myself through that. Wasn't it much better when I was just simply watching the sunrise?

I have heard tell of people coming home from Haiti and selling all of their clothes. I left everything I took with me in Haiti, and I'm beginning to think that my closet might under-go and over-haul. Do I really need 20 $15 shirts? Or could I sneak by with a little bit less?

The temptation is to react wildly I think, to throw everything overboard and start over. But sadly, that's not practical or even possible in a lot of cases. My take away is that for an entire week, I lived as simply as I could, with Haitian people who have mastered living simply because their situation demands it of them. To truly live in honor of the trip we took, I'm going to do all that I can to live simply. To spend less and to give more. To worry less and to love more. To shop less and to pray more.

I'm sure there will be more thoughts as the week goes on. But for the moment, it was an awesome trip, and I thank you all for your prayers while we were away. If you wouldn't mind transitioning and start praying for the paper that's due in two days...

Godspeed,

Jason

Haiti Update #3: Veritas South

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Photo

Greetings friends!

I dare you to go to your local drug store, buy all the bottles of Pepto they have, and then proceed to paint your walls with it. I make that dare, because that's almost exactly what I've been doing all week here in Haiti! We built a new school through the Westminster capital campaign, and they are just now getting around to painting it. The trick is though, we have to do the painting while the students are in school. The teachers here must hate us, because all of the students watch us through the windows of their class room, and some even crowd around us during the breaks. And while the color of the bright pink paint seems to be burning a hole in my retina, it's nice to have a project that has a definite end. You don't often get that on mission trips like this.

We did have one incident yesterday where a student kicked over a bucket of blood red paint on the floor. Panic ensued, as students ran in every direction to avoid being yelled at by the teachers and administrators. But somewhere out there there is a boy with a bright red shoe, and he is our culprit. Tom and I worked as quickly as we could to run water on the paint, but the floor doesn't have a drainage system, so we couldn't do a whole lot with it. So now the school in La Croix has what would appear to be a generous crime scene on the floor!

And then there was last night. I've had a lot of highs as a youth minister, but nothing that could compare with what was going on last night. We decided, since we're in the same time zone, that we would have Veritas South here in Haiti. At 6 we played some games, introducing the Haitian students to "Chubba-Chubba-Can-Can". They didn't quite understand it at first, but once they realized just how mean that game can make you be to your friends, they lit up and started getting a bit violent. At 6:30, I attempted to give what I thought would be a 30 minute talk, but apparently my translator was very good, because it went by in only 15 minutes, leaving us with about 20 minutes to kill. I grabbed my guitar, and started singing some of the songs I had heard the students singing through the week. Then, after almost each song we sang, we'd sing it again, and the kids would teach it to us in Creole. Sheer beauty I tell ya. Sheer beauty.

Then at 7, we Skype called our friends back home at Veritas. I don't know about the gang back home, but it was an awesome experience for me and for the Haitians. They really seemed to enjoy seeing what a youth group in America looked like. We shared a couple of thoughts together, and then after the call both youth groups prayed for each other. It was a spectacular time! As we were leaving and making our way back home, one of the students looked at me and said "So...we're doing this again tomorrow night, right?" Any suggestions for Veritas games that we could play here in Haiti would be greatly appreciated!

It's been an awesome trip. I can't really wrap my mind around all that I've seen and heard, but I'm sure that will be part of blog posts to come. Thanks again for your continued prayers. I think at the moment, we just need prayers for the team's energy to power through these last few days before we make our way back home to (snowy) Pittsburgh.

Godspeed,

Jason

 

Haiti Update #2: Education

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Greetings again faithful readers!

The picture above is the view from our rooftop circa 6:45 this morning. The sunrise here is unbelievable! This strikes me as rather odd/sad, because the sun rises just like that in Pittsburgh, but I'm never attentive or awake enough to notice it. Something to work on in the future I'm sure.

Yesterday was our first real work day here in La Croix. The morning went by rather slowly, as we were all looking for ways that we could pitch in and help out, but the jobs were few and far between while the students were at work. But around lunch time, we found ourselves needing to paint 20 chalkboards for the school. This has contributed to my hands having a slightly greenish tint to them for what would appear to be the remainder of the trip. This morning we used our brute strength to carry those bad boys across the square and into the school.

In the afternoons, we've been helping Reeny with her English classes. That has been the most fun part of the trip for me at least. Yesterday we were working on the difference between the words "reading" and "writing", which is rather difficult with a Haitian accent. But man, the look on the kids faces when they figured it out, that was worth more than a solid brick of gold.

In fact, education seems to be one of the biggest and most important aspects of our trip and our mission here in La Croix. Bobbie has her chemistry class, those of us who are mechanically inclined (and the fact that I fit in that category should scare us all) are working in the school building that Westminster's capital campaign raised funds for. Reeny has her English class. Paul is building a computer workstation for the kids with state of the art education software on it. It's truly amazing to see how much learning has been going on down here.

I hope I'm learning too. My biggest prayer in all of this is that God is at work in me, educating me in the ways of his Kingdom through these beautiful children that we get to meet each and every day. I think that he is, but if you wouldn't mind joining me in that prayer, that'd be spectacular.

More to come.

Godspeed,

Jason

Haiti Update #1: Holy Ruckus

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Greetings friends!

I've written to you from a lot of cool places in the past, but today I am writing to you from the roof of the La Croix mission in Haiti, just as the sun is coming up over the mountains. Words cannot express the beauty that can be found here! Hopefully later on I'll be able to take a couple of photos and post those up as well. 

We left for the trip on Friday afternoon and flew to Miami, where we encountered our first major snag, in that apparently Travelocity never officially made our reservations for our hotel room. This actually panned out quite well, as it meant that we could spend the night in the same hotel as the rest of our team. It just meant that I also had to bounce around the Miami airport like a mad man a little bit on Friday night! 

We woke up at an ungodly hour of the morning on Saturday to board our flight to Port-Au-Prince. Flying in over the mountains was beautiful, but also a stark reminder of Haiti's poverty. There are hardly any trees or forested areas in the country. It reminded me of Africa in a big big way, but not as much as driving from Port-Au-Prince to La Croix. The markets, the people carrying unbelievable loads on their bicycles, and the ridiculous driving all took me back to my time spent in Malawi. The location is different, but poverty is poverty everywhere. 

On Sunday, we went to worship at the church in the mission. It was amazing! People here worship with a complete reckless abandon, they couldn't care less about how people might view them. Hands in the air, dancing in the isles, it didn't matter. They were going to display their love for God. My favorite part of the service were the prayers, where people just prayed out loud whatever they wanted all at the same time. It was like a holy ruckus, and I was super pumped to be a part of it. 

Most of the rest of yesterday was spent resting up, getting ready for the work that we're up to this week. We sat in on a short English lesson taught by one of our team members, which was a lot of fun and allowed me to dance upon a chair. How could you not love that! I also have access to a guitar, so there have been a couple of songs bouncing around in my head, so hopefully Tree Anthem will walk away from this trip with some new tunes. 

Today, I think I'm going to be spending most of the day in the school here at the mission, doing some painting and whatever handiwork I am actually skilled enough to complete. We're shooting some video while we're here, and the internet connection seems to be pretty strong, so maybe we'll post a video blog or two along the way. 

Thanks for reading along, and thanks even more for your prayers! God is very good to us on this trip!

Godspeed,

Jason

Travel Blog!

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Hello friends!

Today is the big day! A group from Westminster Presbyterian Church has been planning to go to Haiti for quite some time, and we're getting on the plane at 5:00 tonight! The best news of all though is that my wife and father in law will both be on the trip as well, and so it's a whole family affair! I'm really excited about what God's going to do in our lives through this trip. I'm really excited to see how God is moving in and through the people of Haiti, and how our stories can intersect. I'm really pumped for new worship experiences, both formal and informal, new ways to meet God in a new place.

That's the best part of mission trips, I think. To change the scenery a little bit on your typical prayer life and devotionals, to take a step out of the normal and dare I even say comfortable in your life, so that God can interact with you in a way that he might not be able to while you're at home. So I ask for prayers, that our team would be open. Open to do whatever we can to help the people of Haiti, and also open to allow God to have his way with our hearts through this trip.

I think there will be internet down where we are, though it may be spotty at best, so I'm hoping to hop on and post some pictures and updates of the trip. If the internet is fussy, I'll keep writing the posts any way and then share them when I get back to the States. Your continued prayers are amazing, and I look forward to what God has in store for us through this trip!

Godspeed,

Jason

The ocean in a cup!

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Beaches

Hello friends,

Last week, some of us on staff at Westminster Presbyterian Church were giving ourselves metaphorical high-fives, rejoicing in our wonderful decision to delay the start of our Wednesday evening activities as week into the new year. Rather than start last week, we decided to start tomorrow night, to give us time to ease back into the swing of having a full time job before trying to figure out what our next moves would be.

That was all well and good, and probably would have continued to be well and good, had I actually taken the time to ease myself back into the swing of having a full time job. Instead, I spent most of last week trolling the internet looking for hilarious youtube videos. The result? It's Tuesday, I have messages to deliver on Wednesday and Sunday, and I am totally stuck. Way to go J!

Actually, it's not the problem you would expect. Or at least it's not the problem I expected. You would expect after three weeks off, I would just be out of practice. You would think that after a few moments of opening up the bible and/or my favorite commentary, bouncing the "sermon writing ball" off the wall a few times, and busting out my trademarked yellow legal pad would be enough to get the blood flowing again. But I don't think my writers block (at the moment at least) is due to a lack of discipline, or even a lack of things to say.

I think it's that I have too much to say!

That blank page is not intimidating because it's blank. That page is intimidating because there is so much I want it to be. There is so much that I want to communicate through the lost art of the sermon that 20 minutes just isn't enough to contain the whole thing. When I sit down and open my bible, I'm struck by the unyielding grace of the God of the universe, who in spite of everything has decided to share his love and his grace with me through his son. I want to try to find a way to help other people feel the way I feel when I think about that. I want to try to express the joy that's going on inside my bones every time I say the name of Jesus out-loud. And the whole time, this blank page is staring at me, almost laughing at me, daring me to write something down, to make physical something that is so deeply spiritual.

The blank page dares me to try to fit the ocean in a cup.

And so I'll do what I always do. I'll wrestle for a week, and try to get as much out as I can. I'll probably be disappointed. I'll probably think that the messages being delivered this week aren't up to snuff. And this isn't a pride thing, like I'm saying it's not good enough in the hopes that the congregation around me will tell me how great it was and I can feel pretty cool. I'm not even talking about substance or style at the moment. It's like Peter writes, I am filled with an inexpressible and glorious joy, and at the moment, I'm feeling the frustration of not expressing the inexpressible.

Anybody out there here with me? And if so, do you have a good text for Sunday? :)

Godspeed,

Jason

Not motivated at all...

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Motivation0400Hello friends!

I am sitting at Starbucks, coffee in hand, seminary text books spread across the largest table I could get a hold of in the crowded coffee shop, and I simply cannot find the motivation to get any work done at all.

I have a quiz the very instant I get back to class on Tuesday night, and my professor has provided me with a study guide (for which, I am forever grateful if you're reading this Dr. Humphry!) but I am just struggling to keep going on the task at hand. I have logged an overwhelming number of hours already today on Facebook. I take frequent breaks to try to get my Pandora station to play exactly as I please. I have stared out the window longingly at the bright sunny day.

What do you do when motivation escapes you? What sort of things do you do to get things going again?

Please, comment soon. My grades may depend on it.

Godspeed,

J

Thank you!

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20000 thank yous

Wow!

The J-Blog has hit 20,000 views! That means that 20,000 of you have accidentally found this website while searching for the Toronto Blue Jays, or that one person has been constantly refreshing to see if I will ever say something negative about Rob Bell. Either way, thanks for making the J-Blog one of the most fun things I do all week!

The Divine Hours

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Imgres 2

Hello friends,

With the new year, I've been trying to get back in the habit of keeping spiritual disciplines. This is hard for me! I struggle keeping any kind of habit alive, if for no other reason than my days are so unpredictable that I think I have a hard time keeping a schedule of praise. And so for the (what feels like) billionth time, I'm hitting the reset button on spiritual disciplines.

I've picked up Phyllis Tickle's (best name in all of Christian literature) Divine Hours and started to use it as a devotional. The Divine Hours is a continuation of the practice of fixed hour prayer, that is that three times a day, at the exact same time every day, I set aside a little bit of time to pray. So for me, I'm going to be doing my best to pray at 8, 12, and 9. I already slept through the first hour (or "office") today, but that's ok. This is a bit of a learning process.

So far (I've only been doing this for a day now) I'm really appreciating a bunch of things about the Divine Hours:

The Prayers are based largely on the Psalms. I think as Christians we tend to ignore the Old Testament, and the Psalms are some of the most beautiful pieces of Scripture in the whole bible. Using them as my prayers has been incredibly meaningful.

Repeated Prayers. Each office has the Lord's Prayer as a central component, and in addition each week has a prayer that is repeated at each office throughout the week. I am a forgetful person, and so being reminded of the same thing every day, and in this case, three times a day, can't be a bad thing. I know a lot of people are against the sort of "rote" prayer habits, but for me at least I'm finding a lot of meaning in them.

Habit habit habit. I am so bad at habit, but this book makes it fairly easy to try to break into a new habit for the new year.

Have any of you had any experience with the Divine Hours? If so, feel free to share in the comments!

 

Godspeed,

 

J

Back in the saddle and some prayer requests!

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Guy On A Buffalo

Hello friends!

Just like the guy on a buffalo, I am back in the saddle. The Christmas/New Years break is over, and so we have returned to our offices and returned to youth ministry.

To be honest, I really missed it! We still have one more week before we start back to Veritas, but even today with several planning meetings and dreaming and brainstorming sessions, the blood is starting to flow again. I was actually thinking today that I could really go for an excellent retreat, the kind where kids are opening up and late-night deep discussions are happening all over the campsite. We have a few of those opportunities coming up, so I don't think I'll be disappointed!

But I was also thinking today that there are several among us out there who are coming back and perhaps wish they weren't. I know there are several youth workers out there who are starting to feel the slow pains of burnout. And so this evening, my prayers are with you. I pray that you find the encouragement you need to keep going. I pray that God would open up new doors and new possibilities to you in the near future, and that God would allow you to see all the ways in which the seeds your planting are starting to grow.

If there's anything specific I can pray for you for, please feel free to post it here in the comments.

It's great to be back everybody!

Godspeed,

J