I went to Dare2Share’s Gameday event with my youth group this weekend.  The idea behind the conference is to encourage, inspire, and equip the next generation to win souls for Christ and the transformation I saw in my kids (as in the youth I teach and pastor not my biological children, because I only have one and he’s six months old… although he was there and had a great time)

The transformation I saw in my kids was …. It was God.  It was so encouraging to see them and that’s going to do a whole heck of a lot to get me through this week.

So here’s the video they based a large part of the conference around.  The gospel acrostic: life in six words.

Check out sopastrike.com for more information.

Example

Three blueish mice. See how they run!
They all ran after the farmer’s accountant,
Who cut off their ipads with a carving cellphone.
Did you ever see such a sight in your life as three blueish mice?
There was a crooked man, and he went a/an enormous mile.
He found a/an week against a/an weighty stile.
He bought a/an classic cat, which caught a/an neo-classical mouse,
and they all lived together in a little crooked neon.
healthy Jack Horner sat in the corner, eating his orange pie.
He stuck in his nose and pulled out a/an nail,
And said, “What a good screwdriver am I!”
Old King Cole was a/an harsh old soul,
A/An orange old soul was he.
He called for his bannana, and he called for his photoshop,
And he called for his cameras three.

Question: If we played madlibs with the bible, like 1 Corinthians 13:4-7 and replaced the word “love” with your name, would it be accurate?  I mean I know people have said “replace Love with JEsus and you get a picture of Jesus.”  Well if we’re supposed to be Christ like right? So can we replace our names in there?

Answer:  Cards on the table, I did this and got an epic fail.  I mean EPIC fail. If Ben Hur was the star of Lord of the Rings recast against the backdrop of an evil galactic empire it would not come close to the epicness of my fail here.  But I can honestly say that I am trying, and I am getting better… according to my wife at least and I think that counts for a lot.

So what next?  I now have seen a glimpse of what the ideal me looks like.  “Sage is patient, Sage is kind.  He does not envy, he does not boast.”  So I got something to work towards.  It isn’t the complete picture, and I probably won’t get there for a good long while, but that doesn’t mean I can’t do better.

There’s something powerful about it, and it’s something I didn’t consider until I saw THE BOOK OF ELI. I saw it when it first came out, but I’ve really been thinking about the way the main character recites scripture. I know that he does it from memory, but at the same time it’s as if there’s something deeper, as if he’s reciting it from his heart.

Corny, but true. Here’s a clip.

(PS, BOOK OF ELI is rated R for brutal violence and language although neither appears in the clip)

Background: in the world of “Blue Exorcist” there are five ways to fight demons: with a gun, with pharmacology, with a sword, by taming demons and turning them against one another, and by reciting scripture.

One of the exorcists in training is very serious about his work and is determined to master multiple methods of fighting demons, rather than specializing in a single technique.   His choices? A machine gun and scripture.  He is in fact so serious about his work, that while his classmates are struggling to memorize Psalm 30, and Mark 5, he’s already memorized half of psalms, the entire gospel of mark, and the entire gospel of John…. Oh, and it’s Old King James, complete with reciprocating prepositional phrases (not that I know if that’s a real thing, but if it was you know it would be in OKJ).

Now I’m not going to argue the usefulness of scripture in edifying ourselves or in taking our stand against whatever obstacles the Christian might face.  (cf Luke 4:1-13; Eph 6:10-18) What I’m going to ask, and what I’m totally convicted of myself is something entirely different.

If I believe in the power of scripture, why don’t I have more of it memorized?

Can you ask yourself the same question?

Are you good at memorizing scripture?  Any tips for someone who isn’t?

The other interesting side effect of this practice is that I’ve been sleeping better at night.  I didn’t notice it at first because – well he’s still an infant and he does a great job waking me up at night.  But as I reflect on the quality of my sleep over the past couple of months, I have certainly been sleeping better.

I’m sure we can argue for days on end as to WHY my sleep is better, but as far as I can tell, only one thing has truly changed that might make a difference and that is worshiping every night before going to bed.

I didn’t worship at first, I just sang the songs, but lately I’ve been more deliberate about it, and I’ve been sleeping better.  I’ve been calling on the name of the Lord to fill the house and our bedrooms, and it is his presence that is granting me the peace to sleep well.  In his presence my spirit knows peace and my body can rest.

Good worship = good sleep.

But a theme song?  A song that I can flip my Itunes to and all of a sudden I am just inspired?

Now I have soundtracks and playlists that I run through when I’m given a certain task or I am in a certain mood that I need to get through in order to actually work on the thing that’s in front of me.  But one song that’s on all of these playlists is my theme song for 2012.

Pillar’s cover of Shine,  originally by Collective Soul.

Now the funny thing is that I didn’t know that Pillar didn’t write this song, but my excuse is that I spent most of the 90s living overseas.  But Shine reminds me that it isn’t about me, but Heaven’s light shining through me, around me, and onto me.

So what’s your theme song?

This was a great weekend.  I started out the weekend sick but so much good happened that I can hardly believe it.

• I joined in with our churches detention center ministry
• I taught children’s ministry on Sunday morning
• I had a great opportunity to encourage some good friends of mine
• I was in turn greatly encouraged by these friends
• I wrapped up Dave Ramsey’s Financial Peace University and was greatly blessed by it
• I came to understand biblical stewardship

But there’s one thing I want to talk a bit about and that’s the time I spent at the juvenile detention center.  I was there to share my testimony, which isn’t anything all that spectacular compared to men who had REALLY radical encounters with Christ like the guys from Seventh Day Slumber, but it was a life turn around story so I shared it with the hope that the young people hearing it could take it for it was: a story that basically says “anyone can get their life turned around.”

Didn’t quite turn out that way.  A fight broke out in the middle of my testimony, a Muslim in the audience decided he wanted to make me look like an idiot and spent the entire time asking me if Jesus was a man and the Son of God then why bother following him when we can just follow God?  He kinda shut down when I tried to dive into it a bit and explain the mystery of the dual-nature of Christ and Trinitarian theology.  (Note to self – ministry time is not systematic theology time)

So I’m pretty bummed out as we’re wrapping up and say “if anyone wants prayer before going we’re going to be over here to pray for you all.”  I almost didn’t even say it, one of the team members had to remind me to make the offer.

Six out of the 18 kids who were there asked for prayer.  One of them came up to me personally and said, “I want to turn my life around I just don’t know how, and I’m afraid I’m gonna mess it up.”  I gave him my phone number and said “I don’t know if I’ll be able to help, but if I can’t, I know people who can.” And then I prayed for him.

As I walked out I had to ask myself what exactly did I do that made these kids so eager for prayer.  What did I say that made them want more?  Was it how open I was to Mr. Muslim?  Was it my own story or the way I was just kind of stoic while I waited for the guards to break up the fight?

Duh Sage – I thought – It was the presence of God in that place.

“Surely the Lord is in this place, and I did not know it.”

A baby is what keeps me up at night right now, but before the kiddo came along, and once he starts sleeping through the night and I get over my depravation, it was something else entirely.  It was an innocent enough question at first but the answer, as I explored it, and as I continue to explore it during my more intense moments of insomnia is rather harrowing.  The question was asked by someone in my youth group.

“What happened on the seventh day?”

My gut response was to answer this question with a question.  “What does scripture say?”

The kid answered “It looks like Eve ate from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and evil.”

What?! WHAT?! No.  It says “and He rested on the seventh day from all his work that he had done.” Gen 2:2 right there black and white!

And yet, I don’t know the fall DIDN’T happen on the seventh day.  What does it mean, if the single most catastrophic event in the history of faith, original sin, occurred only because God was resting, and his absence allowed room for sin to enter the world.

Now the good news is that all we need to do to stay away from sin and be holy is be in the presence of the Lord and pursue his presence.  The bad news is what happens if God decides to rest again? Has he rested since?  There’s a three hundred year gap between the last prophecies in the Old Testament and the birth of Christ – was God resting during that time?

What about the Inquisition? The Holocaust? 9/11?  Was God resting then?

Is He resting now?

I don’t think so.  We only need to look around to see him at work. We can be still and hear his voice echo through the ages to us and be reassured that his word is still good and our God is faithful, he will not repent from his promises most notably “I will not leave your or forsake you”.  And usually this is enough to get me back to sleep.  This is enough for me to train my eyes to Jesus and walk in some degree of confidence.

Because while God may have rested back at the end of Creation, He is always at work, and he is always doing new things, and he will not forsake me.