Urban Village Church One Year Birthday Party

Down to the River; Urban Village Church

The ups... downs... and all arounds....

As a man who walks with God, we have to recognize that we stumble... we have to admit that we fall. We enter seasons where we just struggle to get by and make sense of what God's calling is for us. I feel like the last few weeks has been a season like that for me. It has been hard to really make sense of what it is that God is calling me to do. In that time, I have lost some of my ambition to live a more examined life, I have lost some of my ambition to really get into scripture, to blog, to lead, to learn, et... Some of us know what this time in our lives is like... So today I wanted to write post about what to do when you find yourself in a rut...

One of the best things you can do is go back to the basics... meet with your friends... old friends that build you up and have a history with you in your walk with God. For me this looked like sitting down with Corey Grazul the Youth Pastor at Family Bible Church and dreaming again... Remembering what it would feel like to plant a church... Remembering what it would feel like to use my mind to advance his Kingdom... It felt good, I began to feel the Spirit moving in me again...

A second thing that should be done is holding yourself accountable... Dig up some of your old writing or if you are a thinker like myself, remember the goals that you set for your life and ask yourself if you are really meeting those goals. Begin with easy goals and challenge yourself to engage God again by allowing Him to transform your heart again. Let HIM IN!!! Really this looks like allowing yourself once again to be accountable to God. Perhaps some of you can relate to the act of minimizing God's voice in your head...

A third step that one might choose to engage in is getting back into the Bible. I know it is tough, I know that people struggle staying disciplined, but you've got to do it, find some way, listen to it online, or on a podcast. whatever you can do...

Hopefully these steps can help somebody else out there who is finding themselves in spiritual rut...

Grace and Peace,

Jon

Updates... and such...

So about two weeks have passed since I ratified my new anti-pop habit. The only thing that was tough about that transition was that I had a killer headache the first day, but since then the temptation has been relatively low to go back to the addicting drug. Admittedly, it was something that I gave up because it had a benefit to me. 

I'm thinking about trying something new... I'm going to buy my bag, which one I'm not sure yet, and then I am going to put my budget on Ice. Save from food purchases and trips to visit Elizabeth, I am going to stop buying Cords for Chapel, new things for others and myself. I am going to conscientiously attempt to make myself the substitute for the stuff I buy. Rather then buy something for somebody, what would it look like to be with them. Rather then buying something for a ministry, maybe I could find a way to be the ministry. 

The reduction in the amount of stuff that I own is super important, right now I think that all the stuff that I own in this world could fit into two carloads (they might have to be my dad's van) but I think that is decent for everything that I own. But I really hope, for the time being to get it down to one. And I want to stop finding so much satisfaction in having the next thing, what if I just try and be the next best thing that I want to have...

For the next month, I am going to resist every temptation to buy a new thing, and to spend money in unnecessary ways... I know economists are telling me that this is a bad time to start becoming conscientious about my finances, but it is for my own good and sanity in the long run...

God bless,

Jon

To the Smell of Burning Leaves...

It isn't thrilling to wake up to the smell of burning leaves with the smoke so think that you wish you could drop to your knees and breath through their shirt... I couldn't help but wonder why in the world the Albion department of Parks and Recreation insisted on burning all the leaves down at Victory park. It smells bad, and those leaves could have decomposed and fed the nutrient base for the soil in the park. I didn't get it. Admittedly, in order to let them decompose, you would likely have to transport them somewhere, but none-the-less, how much CO2 was sent into the atmosphere? 

The entire College campus looked like it was midday Los Angeles... Maybe something should be done about burning leaves....