Category: personal

i had a real cool experience today. the dad of a youth who graduated two years ago had a heart valve collapse and was rushed to the i.c.u. a local hospital. our senior pastor, bill, and i went to the hospital to visit with him. we went to the icu waiting room looking for family members but couldn’t find any. since it was visiting time we figured the family was probably in the room visiting with the dad and therefore we thought we would hang out for awhile. while waiting we accidentally overhead a doctor telling two women who were not related to the dad we were trying to see that they would need to consider signing a “do not resuscitate” order on their son/brother. it was a rough experience for them. bill and i stayed waiting for visiting time to end hoping that the family from the father we wanted to visit would step out. the doctor’s conversation with the mom & sister of the dnr patient became more difficult and eventually the doctor just point-blank explained what he wanted them to know and left the mom and sister crying in the hall way.

it was at that point that we realized JESUS was standing in front of us waiting to be comforted. i got the chance to walk over, introduce myself, and ask if there was anything we could do. all they needed was a chance to talk through what had just happened and then pray over it. so that’s what we did. we listened, and listened, and when they had said enough we prayed. after we prayed the doctor had come back to walk through everything once again. bill and i decided to try and leave a note for the dad we had come to visit. it turns out he had been moved to another hospital an hour or two before. the whole time we had been at the wrong hospital yet it still felt like the right one to me.

i hate it when i am really excited about a bible study and it simply crashes and burns. that’s what happened this morning. right now i’m in a time period where sunday mornings are simply not my favorite things. that happens from time to time. i don’t feel like we’re doing anything exciting and challenging right now and therefore it’s sometimes a bit hum drum. i know myself well enough to know that most of these feelings come from my emotional cycle and that the feelings will disappear when the summer arrives. of course, my 11th & 12th grade sunday school class is a different story all together.

i usually look forward to my times with these kids each week. we usually have great discussions on scripture and how JESUS is changing our lives. i really enjoy the whole thing. i thought i was going to have the same experience today. i was really looking forward to what we were going to be discussing. i was convinced that it mattered and that the teens would get into discussing it. boy was i wrong. i don’t know what was going on – probably a large dose of senioritis – but our discussion pretty much ended before it ever had a chance to get started. it was ugly.

after the lesson i quickly left the building feeling pretty dejected.

still i know that sometimes that garbage just happens. it could have been any combination of things – poor communication skills on my part, a lesson that wasn’t just right for that time, a gorgeous day outside that had everyone wanting to get out of the building, young love, young hatred, who knows what it could have been. sometimes, no matter how well i have prepared, no matter how excited i am about what we are going to be dealing with, no matter how important i think the topic is … sometimes for various reasons it’s just not going to connect, the students’ minds will go else where, and the whole thing is going to flop.

i know this is just going to happen every now and there nothing i can do about it. of course, that doesn’t mean i have to like it when it does happen. i don’t like it. in fact, i hate it.

on the good side – i have a student whose dad is a tour bus driver for the u2 vertigo tour and today he brought me one of the the tour’s stage staff t-shirts.

i am very prideful. for me much of that pride comes in the form of wanting to do things at a pretty high level. i want the things that i do to stand out as original, creative, and quality. i believe that allot of people don’t see this because i try to do the opposite of what my prideful self wants. my prideful self wants to do things that i receive the credit for so instead i try to be laid back and pass credit towards other people. this doesn’t always work and therefore allot of times i do things for my glory rather than for GOD’s glory.

i tell you the above to set up the following – i had a very prideful moment tonight. i try to walk montana, our basset hound, every other day or so. i love walking montana. it is a very peaceful time during which i can either just enjoy the quiet or take my ipod and listen to music or messages. tonight i decided to listen to a rob bell message on community when my prideful moment happened. during the intro bell talked about what he had discussed during his previous two week’s messages. apparently during the previous weeks before this message on community bell had talked about about the concept of “journey” within the scripture. i hadn’t heard the message but all i was concerned about was how similar his message was to my message from this past week at “the view.” all i was worried about was that anyone hearing my message might think that i stole ideas from rob bell.

how stupid is this? first, rob bell is an amazing speaker. i have taken ideas from him before (though i ask permission via email first and give him credit during the message when i do). if i had known that he was speaking on journeying before i spoke on it you better believe that i would have listened to the message and gladly used ideas if they fit. second, the only reason i was worried about rob bell messages was that i simply didn’t want anyone who heard my message thinking that i had not come up with the message myself. it was entirely about me wanting the credit from what others considered a good idea. this is pathetic. finally, i continually forget that everything is dependent upon the HOLY SPIRIT and not me. it’s not my skill (of which there isn’t much) that reaches people and brings healing. nope it’s the power of GOD. this is why sometimes messages that I think are great don’t seem to move anyone and other times messages that i thought completely sucked end up with people running towards GOD. HE does all the work i am merely a very poor instrument and therefore HE should get all the credit.

so part of my healing is telling y’all how prideful i am.

my name is robert and i am a very screwed up human being.

the bic atlantis pen is the greatest pen in the world. i love it for general writing and doodling but especially love it for writing in my moleskine journal (allot of other pens just don’t feel right on the thinner, finer moleskine paper).

here’s a flash diagram of how this wonderful writing instrument is put together.

i figured i would post a couple of the testimonies that were given with the shoes that we used as remiders of journeying with GOD. these testimonies were written concerning shoes that people donated to be a part of our worship service.

At first glance, they seem insignificant, even useless. They’re just a beat up pair of running shoes, not even fit to be given to Goodwill. When I was little, my mom would call them “grass cutting shoes” because that’s all they are good for. But listen closely and hear the story they have to tell.

Where did I get these shoes?
I bought them in San Francisco, Ca. The whole family lived there for a summer. Just before that trip, we paid off some major debt that had stacked up over the years. For Susie especially, it was a first sense of financial freedom. She accepted the summer of fun in the California sun as a blessing from God, the proverbial light at the end of the tunnel. These shoes were the first thing that I purchased for years that didn’t make Susie cringe when balancing the checkbook. Why is that relevant now? Without freedom from debt, following God’s call to be missionaries would be impossible.

Why did I get these shoes?
Over the two previous years before staying in California, I lost 70 pounds. A lot of that is attributed to a rigorous, daily exercise routine in which I wore out my shoes. These shoes were bought as part of a continuing physical maintenance program. Why is that relevant now? Without freedom from obesity, following God’s call to be missionaries would be impossible.

Where have these shoes been?
Frankly, they’ve been all over the world, but no place as important as Chattanooga, Tennessee on June 05, 2004. What happened there changed my life. Very few would be surprised to know that I was at an Audio Adrenaline concert. Very few would be aware that for a month before that concert, I’d been dealing with a call to foreign missions. I was (and am) working with Audio Adrenaline to raise funds to build an Orphanage in Haiti. The mission work was called “The Hands and Feet Project” after AudioA’s hit single. While pondering and praying over the logistics of a national fund raising plan, God was calling me to a more permanent position on the foreign mission field. During the Chattanooga concert, I accepted the call. I cried the whole way through “Hand and Feet” and have at almost every concert since that day.

Why are these shoes here?
These shoes are here because I have pretty feet. There’s nothing special about my feet. They stink; they need Desenex on occasion; I get an ingrown nail from time-to-time. But I am the Hands and Feet of Jesus. I bring the Good News to others and it’s my feet that make that happen. According to God’s word, that makes them pretty.

another one:

My name is Susie Austin and these are my shoes. I remember when I bought them. They looked awesome in the store and I got a great deal on them. The first time I wore them to work though, they HURT my feet so bad. I had blisters on my heels and it felt like a vice had been clinching my toes for hours! Luckily, I am not one to give up or waste money, so I was going to do whatever it took to break in these shoes. Many days and many miles down the road, they have become a staple in my wardrobe, a part of me. It just comes natural to pick up these shoes and wear them almost on a daily basis.

Last year, God began preparing me for a new challenge in my life. He began gradually breaking me into an uncomfortable area that He wanted me explore. Throughout, these past months as I’ve walked in these shoes, I have experienced “blisters” as my plans have been put on hold. I have felt the vice clinch my heart as I have had to make life changing decisions…I have had to learn to walk an uncomfortable walk in order to go where God is leading.

The funny thing is, kind of like these old shoes, I am not exactly sure when God “broke me in” to the peace and comfort of knowing that He is in control….but I know that He is. I now thank God for the assurance that all the uncertainty, all the searching and all the breaking in it took was worth it.

Now it’s time for a new adventure with God, I am ready to break in another pair of new shoes.

i just wanted to say that i love my kids.

i love my wife too and i’m ready for her to finish this semester’s school work so i can spen more time with her again.

it’s kind of weird how things work out on worship services. tonight we did our service on journeying with GOD. as i discussed in a previous blog entry we setup the whole student center to teach the message. i figured it would take students and adults about 15 minutes to go through what we had setup. the first three people to go through it just walked straight through without considering any of it. truthfully i was hurt and ticked. we had spent allot of time on the whole things and they just blew through it. i’m such an idiot. the remaining people spent 50 minutes going through what was supposed to take 15 minutes at the most. they just kept on praying and praying. it really put me in my place for getting all pouty about the first few people rushing through.

anyways i posted pictures of the night below (it was dark in some rooms so the pictures are kind of grainy) and here’s the powerpoint from the evening.

this has been around for awhile now and thus many of you have probably seen it already but amaztype is incredible. i’ve goofed off with it before but i finally put it to use for a graphic for a powerpoint presentation and it looks wonderful. i first heard about it from youthblog.

you put in any word you want and the website makes a flash image of the word out of book covers that contain the word. you can then click on any of the book covers and it will give you the information on the book. of course, you can also just take a screen shot of the word and convert it into an image for use in anything you want.

in this case, it is the title for our worship service tomorrow night.

typogenerator does basically the same thing using any phrase you type in and composing an image from various images it finds from google images. here’s an image i made with “typogenerator” from the phrase “not all who wander are lost.”

msn health & fitness – is your town down?

baton rouge has one of the lowest life expectancies in the nation but at least we’re happy. baton rouge has been rated the fifth happiest place in which to live within the united states. that makes me happy.

above is my “cat scratch” dry erase board drawing of the flow of the worship service wednesday, april 27, 2005. we’re going to be dealing with being on journey with GOD – an abraham experience. the way we are doing this is to turn the entire service into a physical journey. here’s what will happen:

• everyone usually just walks into the the student center auditorium in preparation for the service. wednesday they will start outside and begin walking around the building as a part of the service.
• this first leg of their walk around the student center will be surrounded by reminders and symbols of beginning a walk with JESUS – these are being developed by a student within the youth ministry.
• the second leg of the journey around the student center will be surrounded by reminders and symbols of hardships we sometimes face while walking with CHRIST – these are being developed by a student within the youth ministry.
• the third part of the journey will be surrounded by reminder and symbols of times or refreshing within our walk with our LORD – these are being developed by a student within the youth ministry.
• the students will then enter the building and walk a labyrinth – to calm their thoughts down and focus on conversing with GOD. i have two students who are setting the labyrinth up.
• the teens will then enter a room that is full of shoes. for the past three months i have been collecting shoes from individuals who had profound experiences with GOD while wearing those shoes. they have written down a summary of the experiences they had and those experiences will be attached to the shoes. the students will be able to enter the room and browse through the shoes and written testimonies.
• the students will then enter the auditorium for singing and a message that focus on being on journey with GOD.

if you click on the above picture it will take you to flickr where you can view an image that i marked with the flow of the view. i’ll post pictures after we finish the service.