[muse]

The Following is quoted from Fred Mckinnon’s blog.

Hey Everyone,
Usually when something seems “too good to be true”, it is. In this case, that doesn’t seem to be the way things shake down … and this is verified by USAToday news.

A rather new Payment Processor (like PayPal, Alertpay, etc) has launched by the vice chairman emeritus and current founder of AOL (American Online) to create “Revolution Money Exchange” … a competitor to PayPal.

Through tomorrow, you will get a free, $25 credit if you open a banking account with them. I just did it, and the $25 was in my account right away, and of course, I’ll be xferring it to my bank account right away, too!

Help a brother out by setting up a free account by clicking the button below. This will give you a free 25 dollars and give me 10 more.

If you’ve ever asked me about what I see myself doing in five years, ten years, or what you think God has for me to do in the future, I’ve probably either beat around the bush for a few minutes or told you straight up that I know that I will pastor a church one day. I say I know this because…well, I do. It’s kinda like the way you know a song is about to come on the radio before it comes on or the way you know a person’s about to call you just before they call you.

I just know.

Whatever the case, I’ve really been giving a lot of thought lately to what that church would look and feel like. I think I’ve got a grip on several aspects of it, and there are some that are not quite there yet, but I would like to share with you what I do know already and that is the purpose. The purpose is twofold, but simple (this is not a pithy statement of purpose and vision, so don’t take it as that commercialized bull that I detest so much):

1.) To facilitate an authentic, intimate creator/creation relationship (in which a person worships passionately, prays often, lives righteously and hears clearly from God), upon which all Christian life rises or falls.

2.) To provide authentic, intimate community in which people can be introduced to a loving God through the love of the saints. (Caring for widows and orphans, comforting the afflicted [and afflicting the comfortable], setting the captive free, healing the sick, casting out demons, and preaching the gospel [with words, if necessary.])

Loyal readers, you know that if ever I get something that tickles my funny bone, I’m gonna share it with you, so get ready to feast your eyes on this:  Jesus People.

Apparently, a group of comedians have been spying on we Christians and have nailed down our mannerisms and habits to a “T.”  Watch these videos (which are a surprisingly accurate critique on mainstream Christianity) and take the opportunity to laugh at yourself.  Ever been “that guy?”  I know I have. Keep in mind that this is parody, so it can get a bit extreme with the sterotype.  Enjoy (I’m partial to part three myself):

Part One:

Online Videos by Veoh.com

Part Two:

Online Videos by Veoh.com

Part Three: MY PERSONAL FAVE!!!! If you don’t watch any other, watch this one!

Online Videos by Veoh.com

This stuff is funny.

Okay loyal readers, as promised, I have a report on how the Walk to Emmaus was not cheesy, did not suck, and various other thinly-veiled accolades hidden behind noncommittal euphemisms .   Oh my God, that was a tightly-constructed sentence!  I just listened to it in the Mac Talk tool in textedit on my new mac and nearly giggled in glee.  I’m such a total word nerd, but I digress.  As aforementioned, Emmaus did not, in fact, suck.  I’m gonna have to recant a little and say that there were parts that were just a bit cheesy, but not overwhelmingly so.  For instance, the first song we did for worship was (I kid you not) “Do Lord.”   (As in: “Do Lord, oh do Lord, oh do remember me.  Do Lord, oh do Lord, oh do remember me.  Do Lord, oh do Lord, oh do remember me, away beyond the blue.”)  I haven’t sung that song since VBS back in the days where I still refused to eat actual chicken off the bone, considered lettuce grass, and still thought girls had cooties.

So there was the absolutely stellar presentation of my favorite mid-eighties to late-nineties selection of worship music, which actually ended up being kind of nice in a strange, nostalgic kind of way, kind of the way that old cartoons like Pirates of Dark Water and the Smurfs have that “Oh my God, I was a total retard when I was a kid” kind of appeal.  I have to give props to the guys from Saint Simons United Methodist Church for their great job on making two acoustic guitars being played at the same time not sound like a total train wreck, a feat which is not easily achieved.  Anywho, content-wise, Emmaus propagated a lot of truths that are sort-of common knowledge, but we bear hearing over and over again, and featured a pretty solid base of clergy and lay-people who had some great things to say.

I have to say that my two favorite talks of the week were the Prevenient Grace talk given by Jay Hanson and Andy Holmes’ talk on Perseverance.  Other good talks were given by Joe Fendig, Neil Barley, Westy Westmoreland, and a couple of other dudes who were good, but whose names I forget.

Now, maybe I’m not supposed to share this, but I refuse to propagate the popular position that Emmaus is a secretive cult, so I’m spilling the beans.  If you go on the Walk, you’ll find that you don’t lift a finger…for anything.  Everything is done for you and you’re pretty much saturated in an atmosphere of people doing things for you.  I was served my food, cleaned up after, and ministered to by people whose names I never caught and who were so seamlessly integrated into the background, that I feel guilty to admit to you that I didn’t notice most of them.  Now trust me, as someone in “full-time ministry,” I’ve gotten VERY used to giving my time and attention to people.  I have been taught to serve people in every way and I find myself doing it out of reflex sometimes, and that’s not a bad thing.  What’s bad is that I had forgotten how to receive.

You see, you can get so used to being an outlet that you can forget how to let people pour into you.  It started out being very awkward letting people serve me because I had to fight the overwhelming feeling that I should be doing something, but once I got past the guilt, I actually felt my walls come down a little.  Then, there’s the BIGGIE, the really huge thing that I will never ever reveal about Emmaus because you have to experience it to understand.  It’s the one thing that I won’t tell you about if you ask me, not because I’m cultish and everything, but because it genuinely is a surprise and a pleasant one at that.

Let’s just put it this way: this past weekend was a turning point in my life.  I’ve been in some amazing times of worship and have clearly felt the presence of God before, but his weekend was the closest I’ve ever, EVER felt to the Body.  Ever.  If you have a chance to go on the Walk, then run, do not walk.  Do not pass go, do not collect $200, just go straight on the walk to Emmaus.

Decolores,
Ben

…at all.

More like, face-melting.  More to come.  I’m tired and am gonna call an early night.  Much love.

-Ben

I had meant to post this before I left for the Walk to Emmaus on Thursday.  I didn’t get a chance to.  Enjoy.

I’m sitting here in the laundromat, waiting for my clothes to finish drying, a near-constant task since my own dryer gave out a couple of months ago.  It makes me wonder how much I’ve spent at this laundromat.  Anyway, so I’m going to be out of commission for a few days, headed to the Golden Isles Walk to Emmaus.  I’m kinda excited, kinda dreading it.  Excited because it’s a weekend away from cellphones and crap like that, but not excited because I’ve got the sinking feeling that it’s gonna turn out to be cheesy.  I know, I know, I’m a terrible person for judging something before I do it, but I mean, come on.  It’s not like the Church has this great plethora of non-cheesy bag of tricks to pull from.  I swear to God if this turns out like that time in youth group where they told us to write the names of people we don’t like on a poster board and throw darts at them, only to find a picture of Jesus underneath…I’m leaving.

I’m having a bit of an awkward feeling, too, because earlier, I was talking to the people who are taking me to Emmaus (it’s a tradition to have others drive you to the place, which just strikes me as awkward) and I ventured into what might be called awkward territory.  Okay, so I was talking to these people and I asked them if I should eat beforehand because we meet at the thing at 6:30, which is kinda late to be fed and watered, and they were like “yeah, you should eat.”  Me, being the friendly guy that I am, was all like “Well, how about we meet early and I can take you guys out to dinner.”

I immediately had an incredibly awkward feeling.  These guys are a good forty years older than me…easy.  They’ve been believers for longer than I’ve been alive, and I just begin to think “Boy, I hope they didn’t take that the wrong way.”

The lady just chuckled a little and said “You’re so funny.”

Umm.  Okay.  Awkwardness level increased.

“Well,” I said, initiation my patented ‘foot in mouth’ syndrome, “we never get to spend any time together and I’d like to get to know you guys.  I’d be happy to buy you dinner.”

“No, no, no,” she laughed, “let me ask my husband.”

About two minutes of awkwardness.  I really meant that I would take them out to dinner.  Did they think I was gunning for them to take me out?  Because it was beginning to feel that way.

“We’ll pick you up at five-fifteen,” she said, “how’s that?”

Awkward.

“That’s fine,” I said, “I’ll look forward to it.”

“Us as well,” she said.

We said our goodbyes and I feel more awkward now a few hours later than I did then.  Wonderful.  God, I hope they don’t want to go inside my house when they come.  It’s a hot mess right now.  A big one.  A very large hot mess.

So…meditate on the awkwardness of that situation and tell me if I’m overreacting, because I’m feeling the overwhelming need to apologize to someone and I’m not quite sure who to apologize to.

-Ben

Friends, I’m working here on about, oh…9 hours of sleep in the last 48.  There is one reason for this, a new toy that’s mine to play with, soon to play with permenantly!  Yes friends, I’ve become addicted to the electronic form of crack.  Actually, no, crack is so dirty and undistinguished, and referencing its electronic form as an addiction would pretty much mean I was addicted to those trashy celebrity gossip blogs.

Wow.  I can’t believe I just joked about drug addiction.  That’s pretty sad.  Anywho, moving on:  I have become addicted to tinkering on a Mac.  Yes.  I’ve joined the techno-geeks and become a total Mac groupie.  Thank you Jay and Brooke Sellers for officially destroying any chance of me dating in the near future.  Ha, dating you say?  Pshaw!  I’d rather be creating cool stuff on the

with my:

.

Yes.  That is Garage Band.  Yes it is primitive and clunky.

And yes, I’m an utter pimp on it.

Proof to come soon.

Ladies and gentlemen,

It’s 3:15 AM on Easter Sunday (March 23, 200 and I’m sitting (somewhat inonspicuously) in my car in the Burger King parking lot, taking advantage of their wifi hotspot.

Tommorrow (or rather this morning), I am leading worship for almost two thousand people at the Saint Simons Island community sunrise service.  That thought (in the words of Amy Winehouse) makes “my guts churn.”  Granted I’m not crying for anyone on the kitchen floor (another Amy Winehouse reference- see the song “You Know I’m No Good”, or on second thought…don’t), but I am really nervous.  Consequently, I woke up early.  Really early.

I woke up at about a quarter till three and can’t go back to sleep.  I’m totally awake and utterly miserable about it.  This is definitely out of character for me.  Usually it’s oversleeping that’s my problem. 

 Well, I’ve checked my e-mail and my myspace.  I’ve tinkered around on youtube and even added some new apps on facebook.  Why does it take me thirty minutes to do something as simple as find my keys and yet, I can cram thirty minutes of web-browsing into the wee hours of the morning somewhat effortlessly?

I’m retarded for not drinking some milk and going back to bed.  I think I’ll go do that now.  Folks, this has been gloriouslly random and strange, but I think I’m gonna go give sleep a second chance.  What the heck was I thinking?

Loyal readers, I am inspired.

 I am worked up, hyped up, and revved up (and ready to go, no less).

The latest project of the inward journey has become a process of deconstruction, and before I start losing folks, let me throw out details on terminology:

1.)  The Inward Journey:  The process of inner healing, of working through past (and present) pains, hurts, and issues, learning to keep short emotional accounts (which means to not let past stuff affect present stuff), and allowing the Holy Spirit to strip away all the labels, titles, and other worthless crap we clothe ourselves with until we are left with (and consequently are forced to own our name.

2.)  The process of deconstruction:  The process of deconstruction is basically my way of reversing the unhealthy pattern of developing false identity patterns.   That unhealthy pattern goes as follows:

____________________________________________________________

 1.)  We are exposed to a lie about ourselves.   Exposure to this lie isn’t restricted to hearing, but includes percieved lies, seen lies, felt lies, ect.  For instance, my father (whom I love dearly and have worked through some of this stuff with) used to love to say:  “Boy, you can’t do nothing right.”  Whether I acted like I believed it or not, this lie attached itself to my perception and as we all know, perception is reality.

2.) We believe the lie.  As we all know from our journey of faith, our beliefs are not so much determined by what we say, but by who we are and (by extension) what we do.  Like I said before, I didn’t necesarilly believe that I couldn’t get anything right but the truth that my dad believed that about me (and maybe other people did to) settled firmly into my consciousness.

3.)  That believed untruth results in reactive living.  Because I believed that my father (and others) believed I couldn’t do anything right, I took a three-fold approach to debunking that particular untruth.  One, I became very performance-oriented, attempting to exceed any expectations of me by leaps and bounds.  Two, anything I percieved that I might fail at, I never took a chance on or gave a second thought.  Three, I became critical of others intent on proving that even if I was incapable of doing anything right, that there were others who couldn’t either, which made it not so bad.

4.)  Our actions are integrated into a negative self-perception or identity.  That’s a fancy way of saying that because we act a certain way, we believe we are a certain way.  Let’s take for instance, the criticism I talked about in number 3.  I am not naturally a critical person, I am usually relatively patient gracious, which is part of my personality type, but because I am reactively critical (because of the believed untruth), then I must be a critical person, musn’t I?  Wrong.

 So, all of that to say that I am inspired to deconstruct myself, to open up the rusted-shut maintenance door to my psyche and take out each cog and sprocket, one by one, and let the Holy Spirit reveal what each piece of me really means and what each piece’s real purpose is.  Hopefully, this process will result in a much more cleaned-up, refined, and intentional Ben.

What do you think?

Well, people, it’s your friendly neighborhood Ben, back for a visit.  I actually had to reactivate my account to post this, so I hope everyone appreciates this.

 This is, actually, my first post of the new year, and strangely enough, I feel like it really hasn’t been all that long since I’ve posted, but hey…I get the message, thanks to Jay and Brooke Sellers.

So, here’s what’s changed in my life since you’ve last been here:

 1.)  I’ve started looking for a house to buy.  Woot.

2.)  I’ve made great strides in my process of “inner healing” (thank you Living Well), or as we call it over at Elevate: “the inward journey.”

3.)  I’ve started getting really serious about learning guitar.  My chord library is now up to about ten chords and I’m really excited.  I lead worship from guitar at the small group bible study I attend a couple of weeks ago and I was happy to find that I “didn’t suck.”  (Thanks to Jessica Snyder for that glowing accolade.)

 4.)  The spiritual kick that I’m on now (and have been for the last few months) is twofold:    

      A.)  That God is seeking to release a devastating revelation of his love that will blow those who encounter it away.

and

     B.)  The aforementioned love of God is breaking the spirit of fatherless, the orphaned posture that has attached itself to this generation.

That’s about it.  Hopefully, I’ll get some more inspiration and toss you guys a few more bones (”you guys” being Brooke Sellers and Kevin Eades, quite possibly the only people on Earth who actually read this blog.)