Reset 2012: Ashes

Good morning dear bloggers!

Today is Ash Wednesday. Tradition has it that in the early church, when a new convert wanted to join, they had to go through a 40 day preparation period before their baptism, which followed a liturgy of death and resurrection. The practice continued until today, where we celebrate Lent as preparation for the resurrection that is to come.

But simply put, resurrection doesn't make sense without death. We have a tendency in the Church to focus only on that which is positive, that which makes us feel good inside, that which makes us happy. Sure, that's all well and good, but without death the resurrection is just another story. Without death, Christ's work loses it's meaning. We don't call it "sad Friday" because it's the day Jesus died, we call it Good Friday because this death is leading us somewhere unbelievable.

And maybe that's the greater point. Maybe we need to look at death (and by this I should say I mean all different forms of death, personal, professional, emotional, financial, and all the other ways that darkness creeps into our lives) for where it's taking us. Ash Wednesday is all about staring death right in the face and saying "You don't scare me." through the power of the Risen One.

Today, if you attend an Ash Wednesday service, you'll bare the mark of death on your forehead all day. Let it be a reminder. Every time you look in the mirror, let it remind you that on our own, we're nothing more than a pile of dirt. I know, I know, sounds miserable. But the trick is, and what we really really need to remember is, we're not on our own. We are A LOT more than a pile of dirt. Not because of who we are and what we've done, but precisely because we've put ourselves to death, and let Christ reign in our hearts and in our lives. (Galatians 2:20)

May we all stare death in the face today, and realize that he doesn't have the last word. Jesus does.

Godspeed,

Jason

Reset 2012: Pre-Game

Greetings friends,

Today is Fat Tuesday, and while I originally thought that this was a celebration of portly people like myself, it's actually the pre-game celebration for a liturgical tradition within the Church known as Lent. The idea goes like this: when Lent arrives on Ash Wednesday (tomorrow), the tradition has it that you would give up something near and dear to you for a period of 40 days in dedication to Christ. So naturally, since today would be your last chance to enjoy such things, you party as hard as you can and consume as much as you can. This is where Mardi Gras comes from, and obviously that hasn't been blown out of proportion.

But for me, Lent is way more than giving stuff up. Lent is a period of re-dedication, of pushing the reset button on our walk with Christ. In an era of human history where my phone literally tells me when it's time to get up, time to eat, and time to go to my next meeting, I think it's easy to forget things. It's easy to forget why we do what we do, why our day holds to the patterns it holds to, why we feel strongly about that which we feel strongly about. And so in Lent, we hit reset. We order things as they should be, we put things back in perspective.

And not just for a minute or two either. Lent lasts for 40 days, a stark reminder that sometimes to get to the promised land you're going to need to spend a little bit of time in the desert. You can't bring our typical consumer culture to Lent, because it demands all of your attention for a long period of time. You have to sit. You have to wait. You have to see things play out over a period of time.

And so my plan is simple (or at least it seems that way on the surface). I'm going to be getting up early each day (6:00 AM for those who were wondering), and spending a significant period of time in prayer and in scripture study. I'm going to be working through the Divine Hours (a habit I had but seem to have lost along the way) and reading through the daily lectionary (again, a habit that once was and isn't any more.) I'm not really giving anything up (other than sleeping in I suppose), so I guess I'll have to skip out on the party today. But I'd invite you to join with me! Pick up a bible, read a little bit, pray honestly and expectantly, and see where the Spirit leads you during these 40 days. Whether you're church tradition celebrates Lent or not, it's always helpful to push the reset button from time to time.

Also, if you're not doing anything and you're in the area, tomorrow night at 8:00 Westminster is hosting our annual Ash Wednesday service to kick things off. If you're a regular Veritas attender, we're going to wrap things up 10 minutes early or so, and head down to the sanctuary. Everyone else is welcome to join us as well!

Here's to a happy Lent, and to pushing the Reset button.

Godspeed,

Jason

Sunday Post-Game: Lent week two

Greetings friends.

What an amazing day of worship today! I don't know about those of you who attend, but it seems to me lately that the Bridge is growing in the ways that we haven't been able to put words to. You wouldn't be able to look around and notice the changes physically, but it's been there. Every Sunday has been a pretty consistent experience of God's love for us in singing and in prayer and all kinds of ways. It's just been good.

(PS--this photo is SUCH a keeper)

Mandi was the worship leader this morning. It's been such a joy to have her voice be a part of our worship leadership. She's a great person to work opposite me and Ed, just to give us a bit of spice in our leadership. It's been wonderful. She was joined by Ian Gallo on the bass and the (can you even handle this?) electric cello, Kristi Reismeyer on the electric violin, and me on a variety of hand drums and percussion. Such drums always make me feel like this:

(actually, not a bad representation of me this mornin, what with the coffee and all)

Mandi's set list:

• O Worship The King
• I will worship/Worth of my praise
• Prince of Peace 
• Heart of worship
• Blessed be your name.

Heart of Worship had to be one of my favorite moments of worship in a while. I just laid out of it, and let the strings and Mandi carry it. It was so wonderful.

Today's sermon was about peace, but more about what peace is not. As you saw when I was teasing the sermon, I was kind of taking a shot at those people in the world who think that if you have enough stuff, if your financial needs are met, then you'll have peace. I don't think so. I talked to the people who think that winning whatever argument they're in will bring them peace, even though I don't think it will. I talked about people who assume that if you simply avoid suffering, you'll be ok. If you sneak through life without offending anyone, without bothering any people, you'll work it out. It doesn't work like that. Jesus was SOOOOO willing to offend people, and so should we. (as long as we're simply speaking truth.) True peace, being none of these ideas, requires us to be satisfied in the love of Christ. I love the quote "God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in Him." Good thought.

I have an afternoon off. The Pens have won 5 straight. At 6 it gets serious. Let's go Pens!

More later,

Godspeed,

Jason

Sunday Post-Game: Lent week one.

See this? A piece very much like this is required to get the signal from my laptop to the projector in the WROC. About 20 minutes before the Bridge was to start, it became clear that we could not find this piece of plastic.

You get the picture. 

Huge props go to Dave Debor, fellow MAC enthusist, who brought me his adapter. At which point, all of our tech issues from the day had passed!

So happy!

For the first time in what feels like a long while, Jim was able to give me a theme early enough in the week that I could shape the set list around it. And I think it worked out beautifully!

• Sing to the King
• Here is Our King
• O Praise Him (All this for a King)
• Wholly Yours (An awesome version with me Ed (banjo) and Elise)
• Saviour King

Christ the King

The whole set went really well, but in particular I lost myself in the midst of Here is Our King and O Praise Him. It was just one of those moments that felt so right. It was an awesome day of worship. Plus we got a new microphone for Jim. We had been calling these microphones Britney Spear's mics:

It has occurred to us that this might be too girly a name for the mic used primarily by me, Jim, and Ed. So the new mic shall hence forth and forever more be referred to as the Garth Brooks mic. 

(Rock)

All in all it was a great Sunday. Only problem now is that I am up for preaching on Sunday, and I have no idea what to talk about. Any suggestions?

Godspeed,

Jason

Wednesday Night Post-Game: Reset

Hey Bloggers,
Have you ever had an idea that was so great, yet you had the idea a little bit too late so you had to cram about a month's worth of preparation into about a day? That, my friends, has been my weekend.

The story goes a little like this: I was in the youth room on Saturday before Ed's wedding, and the Wii was broken. 

Cue failblog:

It wasn't that bad, and I didn't break anything in the youth room. I just had to push the reset button on the thing and let it cool down a little bit. Kind of like how you used to have to blow on old NES cartridges to make them work.

(solid)

But then I started thinking about how Lent was pretty much designed to be a spiritual version of just that. We were meant to take a few moments out of our lives (40 of the 365) and push reset. Taking stock in everything that we're up to, how we need to fix things up, maybe clean out a few closets. 

My other big inspiration came from cleaning out the house this weekend, in particular a certain junk drawer that had been collecting way too much junk. This week, I challenged the kids to take an inventory of their lives, and sort out what got to stay and what had to go. Kind of like cleaning out a mental junk drawer. Just dump the contents on to the bed and get to sorting, and don't be afraid to throw things overboard. 

PS, there's a littler blog at our youth group site (www.befreeveritas.com) that we're going to be running throughout Lent. If you're interested, I'm looking for a couple of different voices to add to it, so hit me up if you're interested in writing. If not, just keep reading!

Godspeed,

J

Diary of a Lunatic: Give up

(Hey everybody! I write a monthly article for our church's newsletter. I thought I'd share this month's article here on the blog. Enjoy!)

I remember as a young boy going to youth club (our church’s version of the much better named JAM) during the season of lent. At first, I thought everyone was saying lint, and I was a bit confused as to why we had a Christian holiday to celebrate that stuff dad makes me pick out of the drier. But later that night, we met with our youth leader and she discussed what lent was all about.

Somewhere in the discussion, we were told that one of the key points of Lent is that Christians the world over would choose something to give up between Ash Wednesday and Easter. My initial response was to give up vegetables, but I was quickly overruled. As it turns out, you are supposed to give up something of value to you that is in fact getting in the way of your faith.

As the years have come and gone, I’ve given up a whole host of things for lent. Chocolate. Pop. Fried Food. Coffee (that was a bad year). And yet, the whole thing seemed a bit unsettling to me. I would give up whatever I felt was standing in the way of my faith (as I type this I have discovered that apparently what I eat has a lot to do with my faith walk...), but then Easter morning I would relapse and begin consuming it, sometimes with even more passion and zeal than I had the day before. It just didn’t seem right.

Or how about Marti Gras? The whole celebration is based on the idea that the next day (being Ash Wednesday) you’re going to give up whatever it is you love the most, so you better consume or celebrate it as much as you possibly can now! Kind of like going on a spending spree at Diary Queen the night before you start your big diet.

Is it me, or is that kind of approach to lent misleading or even misguided? In reality, the season of lent is designed to strengthen our walk with the Savior, to enhance our faith. As I think about it now, I think the early church fathers were brilliant in the timing of this season. Just as winter has lost it’s majesty and beauty and has turned into ugly slushy muck, we’re given a chance to strengthen our faith. If you’re like me, you’re going to need it to get to spring.

What if instead of giving something up, we gave in? I’ve been talking with a bunch of my friends about the concept of Irresistible Grace, this idea that no matter how hard we fight it, Christ chases us with his love and we will inevitably give in and love him back. So what if we spent this season of lent giving in to that love rather than giving up something that will only come back into our lives at Easter?

Maybe instead of giving up, we should be adding on. If you’re anything like me, your quiet time with God usually lasts for a day or two, week tops. Then the life’s insanity takes hold, and you’re left asking yourself where the days have gone. What if instead of giving something up, we added on to our faith? A new spiritual discipline? Perhaps a renewed zeal towards quite time, or scripture meditation, or even a weekly walk on the Westminster Labyrinth.

The obvious problem with this approach is that it’s a little bit harder. I admit it would probably be easier to pick something I could probably live without anyway and go on a 40 day cleanse. But this “give in” approach requires attention, or discipline. So I would recommend a prayer partner, or an accountability group. Someone you trust, someone who can keep you honest about your faith and what you’d like to add on to it. After all, the entire idea behind church is the idea of community.

And while you’re at it, stop by my blog every now and again. (http://psychoyouthmin.blogspot.com) I’ll be sharing tips and tricks along the way throughout lent to help us all add on to our spiritual lives.

May we all give in to the love that pursues us.

Godspeed,

Jason