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I wasn’t going to update tonight, but I feel like typing, I feel like talking. At Youth Conference, there was a skit that was done. There was no dialogue; it was all actions being done to music. There was a young man who came on stage, sat on a chair and seemed to be reflective/discouraged/repentant. Also on stage was a board covered with paper, and from stage left came a person in a black shirt who wrote the word “Porn” in big letters on the board. Then one by one more came out and wrote other words like “Hate”, “Masturbation”, “Greed”, “Envy”, “Hopeless”, “Shame”, “Unlovable”, and so on. All the while this young man is trying to cover it up and pleading with them to stop, but the toss him aside. It gets to a point where all six of the people in black shirts are on stage writing more and more of these sins and lies on the paper, and two of them are physically beating the young man down. From out of nowhere, a man in a white shirt comes and the black shirts are tossed aside and scattered say for one still beating the young man. The white shirt guy tears down the paper to reveal a clean sheet underneath, he then tosses away the last black shirt, picks up the beaten young man and carries him off stage. With the music playing, this became, by far, the most powerful Youth Conference Drama presentation of all time. Even more then “Being Sunday” sorry Carmen! Anyway, Kyle decided he wanted to do this in church for Good Friday Service, and so tonight he ran through it with the kids, and it was once again so powerful, so I am praying that God will impact our congregation through this skit, this dramatic presentation.

Today began my most important of roles in conjunction with The Edge Youth Centre. Today began my music compilation job. For almost the entire day I sat getting music off of CD’s and putting it together for a huge play list of music for the Youth Centre. I have really enjoyed this job, because all I have done is get and listen to music, and read the occasional lyric when I am not sure what the song says.

I am nearly done reading the book “Messy Spirituality” by the late Michael Yaconelli. I like the book, I like how it is written, I like the stories, and the practicality of it. It talks a great deal about grace which is good, which is something I have been having to learn more and more about, in receiving grace, but also in giving out grace, but one area where I have had a hard time with this book is in the area of excellence. “Doing things excellently” is somewhat of a buzz-phrase in the world and especially with Christians, and especially with me. I realize that things will not always turn out perfectly, and so there needs to be grace, but does that mean that we should do things half-assed, or that we should accept people who consistently do things half-assed and just assume grace is going to cover things. This strikes me most in the area of Church. I don’t think God is glorified to the extent he could be when we don’t give him our best, I admit, we and I make mistakes and there is grace, but I think we need to understand that grace shouldn’t keep us from doing and giving our best, just because we know God is going to give us grace. I don’t know what, but “doing things excellently”, as it relates to Church ministry is a huge deal of mine, brought on by Youth Conference last year and also I think by the mentorship of my senior pastor this year. He really believes in doing things excellently. I was talking about this skit that we are doing, I didn’t want to do it if we weren’t going to have the time to practice it and get timing down. I would rather scrap something, then show a crappy version of that. Sure people would’ve had grace and told us it was great when it really wasn’t, but that’s not what I want, I want God to impact people truly and not do some crappy thing and have people give us false grace so we don’t feel bad. Rather then have all that schmeg happen, I would rather just can something. Is that wrong? Am I a man without grace? Am I a jerk? What are your thoughts? Am I too legalistic, would you call me a Pharisee? I don’t know, I feel justified in my thoughts.

In “Messy Spirituality” I found this interesting quote: “Rest is the ultimate humiliation because in order to rest, we must admit that we are not necessary, that the world can get along without us, that God’s work does not depend on us.” This is brilliant, I never thought of this that way, rest to me was always just something I did when I was tired cause if I didn’t I didn’t function very well, and then I just ended up being useless to anything. But with true rest, resting in the Lord, we need to step away from everything and trust, and admit that things will not fall apart without us. I never thought of it as a humbling experience, and maybe because of that I have never experienced true rest. I am going to try that this Monday. What are your thoughts? Disagree, agree?

For today’s song of the day, I am choosing the song that we use for this skit. Yes it is a Christian song, and yes it is by Audio Adrenaline, a band who to be honest, I have never listened to for an extended period of time, and one that I probably won’t listen to other then this song which is actually and amazing song. The song is called “Ocean Floor”, and if by chance you have ever heard it, you know what I am talking about. It’s like Audio Adrenaline got possessed by some spirit of good song writing for one song and out popped “Ocean Floor” like a well timed baby. Anyway, it’s a great song, and it fits so perfectly with our skit, you should all see it sometime, it might even make you cry. But you should at least (if you have the means and or the desire) check out the song “Ocean Floor” by Audio Adrenaline.

Ps. Congratulations to Troy, and Matt Russell, and Catherine, three friends who were chosen to be RA’s. Now I don’t mean to whine (like a tragically unposted blog of Matt Russell’s), but this leaves me with two glaring problems. 1. Who am I going to live with? I have no friends other then this…and 2. Who’s Floor am I going to be on. These problems were so much easier three days ago when Troy told me that Russell didn’t get RA, but since we found out he was wrong I have been presented with a whole other realm of problems….AAAAAAHHHHHHH MY LIFE IS A SHAMBLES!

Also, I am moving to Calgary in a month, pray I get a job, a good job, the right job. Love you all
The One, The Only
The Shaolin