OK, so this post is going to be a lighter one. I don’t know what it is about Beyonce’s music that just makes people want to dance! If you don’t laugh at these, something is wrong with you…
The first one is personally my favorite, what do you think?
Posted by: Adam | 09/27/2009
All You Single Babies
Posted in Uncategorized
Posted by: Adam | 09/25/2009
God’s Odd Provision
This is my official resignation from attempting to figure out what God is doing in my life. A wise professor of mine told us in our first class this semester, “Kids, You want to truly make God laugh? Well just go ahead and tell him your plans.”
I mean initially I laughed it off. But there is some real truth to that one.
This last week I signed a contract that binded me in to buying my honeymoon. I was so excited, it is going to be an amazing trip. However, the day after that, my car got a cracked engine block. That is a $3500 problem. I have been trying to get Honda to make an exception, so I have been praying all this week that the case manager who is dealing with my case will have a softened heart. I told everyone I could to pray along with me. I was really looking forward to what God would do with the whole situation…
God’s Answer: Take away my job.
Hah, I’m not going to lie, when it happened today I laughed it off, because for a second there I thought I pinned down how God does things. Things were real slow at work so they took away all of the morning hours and Fridays. (aka, all my hours) So I prayed more then ever this week, and assumed that how much I prayed will sway God to do what I (think I) need him to do.
So these last couple of days I have been stuck using my brother’s car. (who is currently in boot camp in Georgia) I threw on the radio (because of no MP3 input) and of course it started playing my brothers programmed channels… COUNTRY MUSIC.
I thought, “Hey, let’s see how this goes.” To my awesome surprise a song came on that spoke right in to my situation. I can just picture God singing some of these words to all of us. I feel as if every situation is a new opportunity to grow, so I’ve learned some new things this week. You can’t always view the worst circumstances as a bad thing. Some of the words from this song really spoke. (who knew God could speak through country music)
He may not give me fancy things, but “that don’t mean he don’t love me.” Check out the video:
Posted in Funny, Personal, Teaching Moments
Posted by: Adam | 09/16/2009
“Oversaved” or “Undersaved”
“If your friend buys you a vaccum cleaner… and you rebuke it because it’s a dirt devil… you might be oversaved.
That was one of the many jokes I listened to from comedian Michael Jr. last year when he joined us at a CCV outreach event last year. This concept of being oversaved isn’t new, but it always gets a good laugh or two. For those of you who aren’t familiar with this “oversaved” talk, I will attempt a quick explaination. Someone who is oversaved is someone who attempts to “over spiritualize” everything. Perhaps you know this person… and if you don’t, well, maybe you are that person.
CHECK OUT THE CLIP
Of course you can say,” well, being overspiritual isn’t possible. You want to get as close to God as you can.” Well yes, but when you function in a way that is constantly uncomfortable for non-Christians (in a bad way), or even partially for show, this being oversaved concept can be really counterproductive.
I look back at my first years of Christianity, and I realize now that I was definitely oversaved. I remember my first party after God “ruined” my life. I’m pretty sure I told one of my best friends that they should think about their actions because I would love to see them in heaven when I die. Yeah. I told you I was oversaved. So we see the problem there. However, recently I have been witnessing a problem that is completely the opposite, “underdsaved” people. Now I am not talking about people who haven’t accepted Jesus as their savior. I am talking about complastency. The Christian norm seems to be shying away from a constant state of submission and service. It seems to be shying away from living every moment with the joy of knowing you have the Spirit within you. It seemd to ultimately be shying away from passion.
Last night I stumbled upon an old journal I started back in my “oversaved days”, and something stuck out to me. As ignorant and annoying as I may have been… I was passionate. I felt God in my life. I tried to love people with a genuine concern for them.
It’s funny, I think if you were to ask me today, I think I rather be oversaved. Of course we all need to find a happy medium and it’s something we can can do together. Are you oversaved or undersaved?
Posted in Uncategorized
Posted by: Adam | 08/07/2009
Enough Excuses!
If you are like me, then you can find a million and one reasons to justify just about everything you do, or more importantly don’t do. For example, a couple weeks back, I remember Melissa and I had planned a trip to Sedona, Arizona for the day. I told her that we will talk about what we want to do that morning because I had been very busy that whole week. That morning came, and I remember telling her I should catch up on some homework that I had instead. Luckily Melissa knows me so well she heard exactly what I was saying, “I just don’t feel like going!” Granted she got pretty ticked, because she hates hearing excuses, she rather me just tell it like it is. I think most people are like that, people like to just get to the bottom of things. That is a real shame, because I feel like we are all pretty full of excuses. Christians are definitely not excluded from this pandemic, in fact I think they give some of the best. I just want to talk about one big excuse that I know I’ve given:
The Excuse
People don’t like to be bothered.
I remember this cool quote from that movie “Crash” that came out a couple of years ago that describes this problem, it says, “It’s the sense of touch. In any real city, you walk, you know? You brush past people, people bump into you. In L.A., nobody touches you. We’re always behind this metal and glass. I think we miss that touch so much, that we crash into each other, just so we can feel something.”
Last night I was in the town of Pecos, Texas finding a place to sleep. I ended up at this Best Western and I walked in to something unexpected. The lady behind the counter sensed I was from the northeast real quick, and just started giving me this attitude. I didn’t get mad, I just figured she had some past experiences that lead to her not being kind to me. Any idiot can get mad and be rude, but I thought instead I would ask more questions. It turned out it wasn’t that long ago that her husband has passed away, and he had some people who were bad influences from the Philly area. By the time I had left I had her laughing. Who knows what that may have done for her.
On top of that, I had this class yesterday on personal evangelism where I was challenged with tough questions about who I had told about Jesus. I could think of one person in specific who I am scared to death to share with. I’m sure that he would recieve it quite well though (yes Melissa, you were right). I think most people are interested in talking about what goes on in their heart. Yet we are so scared to talk about it. If we truly believe in this whole God thing, then we should have a strong desire to share it with everyone! If we truly believe what the Bible says, then we would almost have to hate someone to not share the good news with them!
Even if you don’t want to spend hours talking theology with someone, you can always just make them smile and ask them any simple question about thier faith, I think it will go a long way. We can’t let fear get in the way. I think this verse in Romans talks about this very clearly. Verse 10:14 says, “14How, then, can they call on the one they have not believed in? And how can they believe in the one of whom they have not heard? And how can they hear without someone preaching to them?”
It almost seems like common sense. Imagine you are in a classroom, and you are the teacher. The whole year comes down to this last test that the students take, and they all absolutely bomb it. You get incredibly frustrated, because you want the students to pass to badly. You end up going to the smartest child in the class, and with a red face and temper flaring you ask the child why they did so poorly, why they failed. The child looks back at you with a questioning face, “but teacher, you never taught us any of this.” OOPS. Seems kind of odd, but how many people have you told? If you are a Christian, there are students everywhere, who have you taught?
If you have a cool story about sharing faith, please post it as a comment here!
Posted in Uncategorized
Posted by: Adam | 08/06/2009
Road Trip Home
I don’t even know where to start. First off this week Meliss and I went to the Grand Canyon, and camped out on the South Rim. She did a blog about that, so check out her post or check out the photos from the trip.
Grand Canyon... Conquered!
Moving on, it’s hard to believe that we are going to be heading home in less than 10 hours. I almost feel like I have a whole seperate life out here. Regardless I have been blessed with some great friends, an incredible staff and a whole ton of memories and adventures to take home with me. We’re going to be taking a different way home than we took to get to Arizona, so I figured before I head to bed I would lay that out for you real quick:
Tomorrow (Thursday) - Peoria, Az to Pecos, TX
Friday & Saturday - Allen, TX (Meliss’s Uncles)
Sunday - New Orleans
Monday – Opp, Alabama (My Grandparents)
Tuesday – Panama City, Florida (Beach Day)
Wednesday - Aiken, South Carolina (Uncle and Aunts House)
Thursday – Bel Air, MD (See some great friends)
Friday 14th – Home Sweet Home
So that’s all. I will have a lot more for you when I unpack back home… litterally and figuratively. If you want to follow where we are on our trip home, then just check out my twitter updates on the right side of this page.
Posted in Adventures
Posted by: Adam | 08/02/2009
Perfect Love Casts Out Fear…
There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love. 1 John 4:18
Well I guess I am not quite there yet…
Sorry I haven’t written in a week or two, but I have been out exploring all kind of new places! This post will be directly about the most recent adventure that I just got back from today. We took a trip up to the mountains with the high school guys, and we called it “M3 Extreme.” The M3 is part of the churches mentorship program, where it literally means “Mentor 3.” Each staff member is responsible for intense, in depth relationships with a sophomore, junior and senior. When that senior graduates he is replaced with a new sophomore. It is a really awesome program, but let me explain the EXTREME part for you now.
At the peak of Granite Basin, 7435 feet.
As I mentioned we went up hiking in the Prescott Hills. The trip was once again lead by our “Man vs. Wild-like” friend Dan Simpson. The trip was a complete success, but had one specific moment that stood out more than most. When we woke up early Friday we went on this intense hike to “Granite Summit.” When we got to the top, they had set up a crazy place for us to rappel. Now if you aren’t familiar with rappelling, it’s when you basically walk backwards off a cliff. It just so happened that this cliff was a good 400 feet down… Honestly, that part was a blast!
Half way down the rappel, 20 feet left!
So anyway, we rappelled down, and then we traversed across the cliff we landed on. For those of you who don’t know what that is, it’s when you have to climb sideways with your hands and legs. This is when things got pretty crazy. My partner for the whole thing was my office mate Russel Rader. He is awesome, and this is one cool story we have together. After the traverse, the next place we had to go was up the cliff to our only way out. This is when we made one sucky mistake… we went the wrong way. Russel and I climbed the most difficult crack we could have possibly picked. I just remember holding on for dear life, with a terrible grip telling myself, “Adam, you should not be worried… WHAT! If you fall you are taking Russel with you and you are going to hit the side of this cliff then dangle 15 over the edge!” Yup, that is pretty much what I told myself. I ended up climbing with everything I had and literally jumped to a place with a better grip. It was scary, and I was full of fear. I was so ashamed. I mean, I got to experience an incredible rush, and a once in a lifetime view. But I was ashamed. If only I feared the LORD the same way I was scared on that mountain. The kind of fear that almost paralyzes you. The kind of fear that get’s your heart beating like you just drank 7 shots of 5 hour energy. How do we learn to feel that same way when confronting sin, how about when we’re confronting evil? What about when we’re faced with making a “right” decision that will make our life much more difficult. I feel like there certain times when you just need to put the fear aside, and only fear the one thing worth fearing… the most powerful force in the universe.
Today was a cool day though. I woke up and went mountain biking with the crew, and was able to reflect a little while out on the trail. I was partially glad that the trip was over so I could go get a shower and get in some clothes that don’t smell like 3 days in the wild with 15 guys. But a small part of me was wishing I was right back out on that cliff, telling fear it had no place in my life.
Check out the Pics from the rest of the trip on my PHOTOS PAGE. Here’s a couple videos as well:
Posted in Uncategorized
Posted by: Adam | 07/21/2009
God’s Glory Revealed
“So God created…And God saw that it was good.“
Yesterday I had a really awesome experience. As part of the high school ministry team, I get to be involved in some really cool things. Next week some of the high school guys small groups are going on a tough outdoors trip in Prescott, Arizona to just spend some time with their group and leader. Since I don’t have a group I am going to go up and help the trip leader Dan Simpson. Let me tell you a little about Dan. Dan is not only the guy who has been gracious enough to let me life in his house this summer, but Dan is also a hardcore outdoorsman. He runs this ministry at the church called “The Edge.” It’s basically a ministry centered on living an adventurous life. So Dan walks in to my room at 7am and says, “Hey Adam, I want to go up to where we’re going to hike and scout it out, do you want to come?”
A couple hours later I find myself strapped to a 40 pound bag trekking up this absolutely massive mountain. The hike was tough, but Melissa, me, Dan and another intern, Garret, gave it all we had. At one point I was pretty sure we were all going to die. We had to inch our way across this cliff side on top of this old dead log, with sharp thorn-like bushes to our left and a 400 foot drop about 2 feet to my right. In the distance you could see huge thunderstorms and that was very apparent by the 50 mph winds that were pounding up against us as we hiked the side of this cliff (which wasn’t even part of the real path) I tell you all of this to just intro something that was said that was very profound.
We got to a safe place to just look out, and one of the guys just said… “Look at just how big and powerful God is. This isn’t even God moving, this is just what he had already made.“
To me that was powerful. I felt on top of the world. I could see to San Diego on a clear day from where I was standing… And that was only one little piece of what God had created. I’m going to say something that might seem like common sense. It’s really hard to see God in the world if you’re not willing to go see the world and if you’re not willing to seek him. I think it’s very difficult to look out off that mountain with an elevation of 7300 feet and not understand God just a little better. The problem lies in the fact that not many people are simply willing to both figuratively and literally get to 7300 feet. As soon as people lose the will to try to see God, the sooner you stop finding Him.
“Do you not know?
Have you not heard?
The LORD is the everlasting God,
the Creator of the ends of the earth.
He will not grow tired or weary,
and his understanding no one can fathom.”
-Isaiah 40:28
CLICK HERE for more photos of the hike.
Posted in Adventures, Teaching Moments
Posted by: Adam | 07/16/2009
CIY 2009
So another year of Christ in Youth “MOVE” conference is under the belt. It was a really awesome experience, and it had some unexpected moments that really turned it from good to great. I just thought I would take a little time to share with you a couple of things that were really cool.
Location, Location, LOCATION!
Let’s be honest, there are few places cooler than a beautiful beach on the west coast. This Cali beach was the perfect temperature all the time. It made for great beach days and lots of outdoor activity.
The awesome 7 guys in my group
Catching Up
It was really awesome getting to see the director of the conference, Jayson French. He was the guy I spent the whole summer with when I interned there. I was able to catch up with him and have lunch one day, and even chat with his family for a little while! It was so good to catch up with them, I hope they can make it out to the wedding. I’ll be completely honest though, it was hard to be there at the same time. Some of you may know that I was all set up to intern with them again this summer until my plans changed. The cool thing is that no matter what my plans were, I was going to be at Chapman College this week regardless of my decision, cool stuff.
Powerful Message & Worship
One of the pastors who came to speak at the conference had one message that really spoke to my heart. His name was Jim Johnson and I think he was on to something awesome. He began to explain how he is going to be a lot of traveling this summer, and he does not want one of us to pray for safe flights or safe travel for him. He wants us to pray that if God has it in his plans for him to get there safely that he preaches the word BOLDLY and DANGEROUSLY. I think that’s a cool point. We are always about safety and protection, it prevents us from doing so many things. We are usually trained at not talking to strangers… well I say forget that, go find a stranger and make them smile. Life Dangerously… awesome stuff.
Unexpected Finale.
The last night instead of just going home, we were going to have a cool experience on the beach and then drive home on the coach buses over the night. I kind of just wanted to home, but I am certainly glad I didn’t. The beach was incredible. The mood was perfect. We had a couple of bonfires going on the beach and the sun was just setting. It was the perfect temperature and everyone was in a great mood from having God poured in to them all week. It was also my first west coast sunset and it was beautiful.
There was one last unexpected thing that happened that was really special. Out bus ended up breaking down in California… I know, should be a drag. Well it was anything but that. One of the kids on the bus brought his guitar, and I handed out all of these flashlights that we had from the beach. The students held an unplugged worship set right in the bus while they patiently waited.
CHECK OUT SOME VIDEO FROM THAT.
It was an amazing ending to an amazing week. Although it’s nice to be back in a nice bed, I wouldn’t trade this week. Another great CIY down.
If you are interested at checking out more photos from this trip, check out my Photos Page!
Posted in Personal, Youth Ministry
Posted by: Adam | 07/10/2009
CIY MOVE, Leaving Tomorrow
The time is approaching, it is the night before we leave for the MOVE summer conference put on by CIY or “Christ in Youth.”
CIY has a very special place close to my heart. Believe it or not, the whole reason I even started this blog was so my family could keep track of me while I interned for CIY two years ago. They do some incredible things over at CIY. They stir up your soul, get your blood pumping, push you with hard questions, force you to spend alone time with God and of course take you out of your everyday environment.
I am really excited to head out tomorrow, but I am nervous at the same time. I don’t really know many of the kids except for two of them in my group. I also don’t know the campus that well. I do know that I am excited to hit these kids with an awesome week that I know they will have if they let their defenses down a little bit.
Before I head out I just wanted to give you a brief overview of my history with the MOVE event and that should show you a little bit of what it has meant to me.
MOVE 2004 – Two days after getting in huge trouble with the police I find myself in Johnson City, Tennesee with the youth group that I had only attended a couple of times. On the second day there I then decided to give my life away to something bigger, and was baptized that night.
Move 2005 – I had decided at this conference that I wanted to dedicate my life to full time youth ministry.
Move 2007 - I apply and am accepted to work as an intern for the move conference based out of Joplin, Missouri. I learned from some incredible speakers, awesome fellow interns most importantly my conference director Jayson French. We threw 6 conferences in Michigan, Indiana and Tennessee and traveled to MANY more states.
Move 2008 – I attended this move as one of our church’s main leaders in the time between youth pastors as the youth group. I had deep relationships with the students who went and was able to see many of them change their life that week.
Move 2009 – I will be spending this week as a high school intern along with 50 other leaders and over 400 kids on 6 coach buses to Chapman College on the California coast. I know it’s going to be incredible and I can’t wait to give you all an update when I get home!
CHECK OUT SOME OF MY FIRSTS POSTS FROM MY CIY INTERNSHIP HERE!
Posted in Uncategorized
Posted by: Adam | 07/05/2009
Workin Hard
I must admit, I’m a pretty big fan of the 4 day weekend… well kind of 4 day weekend.
In my journey to see as much of the area as possible, a couple of friends and I thought it would be fun to take a weekend trip to Cali! Another intern, Jeri and her fiance’ of 3 weeks, Mike kept Melissa and me company as we headed out to Huntington Beach, California.
I was scared to head out there knowing I probably wouldn’t want to come back to Phoenix where it was 109 degrees today and is still 102 at 10:30 at night.
It was the perfect weather. It was about 80 degrees with a light breeze. There was a ton of little shops, a ton of palm trees and a whole lot of people out on the beach. The cool thing about Huntington is that it is also known as “Surf City” for its great swells and large amount of year long surfers. I must admit, I wouldn’t mind grabbing a board and heading out to sea right after a long day of work.
So we stayed at a pretty nice Marriot Hotel just a couple of minutes away, but before we went to bed we had an awesome dinner at the Macaroni Grill! We had to come home Saturday so that Meliss could get back to teach for the 4-6th grade classes. Sunday all I had to do was hit the pool for a little while, then of course head to youth group then played a little basketball.
I know what you are thinking. What a tough life. But hey, the best part of it is, I still have another full day of relaxation! I think I will take it to get a little work done. Anyway, I figured I would post one more time before we leave for C.I.Y this week. I’ll shoot you guys some photos from that when I get back.
For more photos from my trip to Cali, check out my Photos Page.
Posted in Adventures
