surf.rocker

One of the features I’ve found most convenient about Twitter is that I can use it to update my Facebook status instantly to match my most recent Twitter posts. (FYI, for the nine of you who still use MySpace, you can use Twitter to update your status too. Maybe I’ll eventually post a blog about this as well.) I like that I don’t have to post the same thing two or three times in two or three places. It’s also useful that:

1. Facebook doesn’t grab posts that begin with @tags, so your personal correspondence with other Twitterers won’t become your new status on FB

2. Facebook will never grab direct messages and post them.

If those two exceptions aren’t good enough for you, then check out “Selective Twitter Status.” By using this you can designate which tweets you want to appear on Facebook by attaching the hashtag “#fb” to the end of your tweet. Only those tweets with the hash tag at the end will be posted on Facebook.

If you already have a registered account with both Twitter and Facebook, setting this up is a fairly simple process. Here’s how you can very quickly and simply link your Twitter account to Facebook:

Log into your Facebook account. Click on over to the Facebook’s Twitter application page. On the left-hand side and toward the top of the page, you’ll see a “Go to Application” button similar to this one:

Once you’ve clicked through step one, you’ll be asked to confirm that Twitter has permission to access our Facebook information. It’s ok, Twitter is trustworthy. Click the “Allow” button.

Log into your Twitter account by entering your Twitter username and password on the login screen that appears.

Now you’re able to post to Twitter from within your Facebook account if you want. However, what we’re going for here is the opposite. Not updating Twitter from Facebook, but updating Facebook from Twitter. See the button that says “Allow Twitter to Update Your Facebook Status” in the upper-right of the screen? Click that.

You should get a confirmation screen that looks like this:

Now confirm that you are willing to let Twitter update your Facebook status by clicking the “Allow Status Updates” button.

After you click this button, you will go to the Twitter application. Don’t Twitter anything from here. Go to your Twitter application or the Twitter webpage and try posting something. Then go to your Facebook profile and see if it’s been updated to match your Twitter test-post. You might have to wait a minute or two, and maybe even refresh the page.

That’s it! Now every time you Twitter something (with the exceptions of the two things I mentioned at the beginning of this post), your Facebook status will be automatically updated.

You might have wondered why we take communion every week at FCC. Or maybe you’re wondering what’s up with the idea of taking communion in the first place? It may be brand new to you. Let me sum up, in a nutshell, what communion is and what it means.

As for the what, at FCC, our communion emblems consist of a small piece of unleavened bread and a little plastic cup of grape juice. We don’t believe (as some religious groups do) that they become the actual body and blood of Jesus (that’s called “transubstantiation,” and the concept is pretty freaky and weird, not to mention completely unrealistic and unnecessary…you’ll see why).

To understand why we take communion, you need to know about the passover feast that was a traditional feast celebrated by the Jews. To make an extremely long story very short, this feast was to celebrate God setting the Israelites free from captivity in Egypt. (If you want to read more about the passover feast for yourself, check out Exodus chapters 11-12. It’s one of the most action-packed stories in the Bible!) In Exodus 13:3, Moses said to the newly-freed people, “Commemorate this day, the day you came out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery, because the Lord brought you out of it with a mighty hand.” The guidelines and a simple explanation of the feast can be found in Exodus 12:43-49.

So this Passover feast is the meal that Jesus and his apostles were gathered around in Luke 22. This is often called “The Last Supper” or “The Lord’s Supper.” You might know that in our communion service at FCC, there’s a small piece of unleavened bread and a little cup of juice that we take. The traditional passover feast actually had four cups that were passed, not just one like we have today.

The first cup was blessed by the host of the meal and then passed on to the others present. After this, they would dip some bitter herbs in fruit sauce and eat them, and a message would be given on the meaning of the passover. Then they’d sing a song.

The second cup was then passed. Then the host would break and pass around the unleavened bread, which is what the bread we take today is meant to represent. This is the bread that Jesus passed when he said, “This is my body which is given for you.” (Luke 22:19)

Then they’d eat the traditional passover meal of roasted Lamb, and after a prayer, the third cup was passed. They’d sing another song while they were passing the third cup. This cup represented the blood of the lamb (if you read Exodus 11-12, you’ll understand what this means). Now that Jesus was about to become our ultimate sacrifice, it represented the blood of the Lamb.

Jesus said “it is the new covenant in my blood.” It was this third cup that Jesus blessed, and that became the cup of communion, which is represented by the juice we take today. Matthew 26:30 tells us that the Last Supper concluded with another song.

This is where it gets especially meaningful for us as Christ-followers. Traditionally in the passover meal, a fourth cup was passed. This fourth cup was meant to be a celebration of the coming Kingdom and was shared immediately before leaving the meal. At this particular gathering of Jesus and his disciples, no fourth cup was passed. Instead, Jesus said, “I will not drink of this fruit of the vine from now on until that day when I drink it anew with you in my Father’s kingdom.” He is waiting until we’re with Him, sharing the feast together.

We take communion every week at FCC for three reasons:

1. To remember the past; Jesus’ death, burial, and resurrection that make it possible for us, if we accept Him, to be righteous under His blood in the sight of God.

2. To recommit ourselves to Him. Matthew 26:28 tells us that when we accept Christ, our sin is covered by the blood of the Lamb, and we enter into a relationship with God and agree to the terms of the new covenant. In this communion service, our emphasis then is not only on what Christ has done for us but also on our commitment to Him as a result of our relationship with Him.

3. To look forward to His coming. Communion is a constant, weekly reminder of the future and of the hope we have in the promise that He would return for us, because He promised to drink that fourth cup with is in Heaven. Paul wrote that when we take communion, we proclaim the Jesus’ death and resurrection until He comes.

Communion is really one of the biggest reasons we even get together on Sunday mornings. It’s a chance to celebrate our hope together.

What does communion mean to you?

I started blogging in college with the intention to make it a frequent part of my life. I’ve enjoyed writing for a long time, and I set out with great intentions. Needless to say, it wasn’t long before I was missing the mark in several ways, the least of which has been inconsistency in posting. Every once in a while, I begin posting with a “renewed commitment” to post every day, or every other day, or once a week, or twice a month…..get the picture? My writing and posting continually becomes more infrequent, until I stop altogether.

If you’ve followed my blog for any length of time, you’re probably laughing at the idea of me writing a post about consistent blogging. Please understand that I’m not claiming to be a top-notch blogger like several writers that I read often. I’m just like many of you who will read this post: a well-intentioned writer struggling to learn and grow in my ability and blogging practice. Lately, by using a few helpful ideas and remembering some important things, I’ve done much better at making my posting more regular. Here’s how:

1. Make it your goal to write posts that add meaning or value to your readers.
For quite a while when I first started blogging, I was writing about my day: about things that I laughed at or that annoyed me, things that I did, things I had to do tomorrow, etc. It was all very self-centered writing, focused on topics that were really only interesting to me and maybe a few people who really were interested in the inner workings of my life (thanks for reading, Mom). Over the past few years, the obviously struck, and I realized that by writing posts that focus on topics that are interesting to my readership and that add value or meaning to their lives, I create a stream of people who will come back more and more often to see what’s new. My goal is to write each and every post with YOU in mind. At the end of each post, I would like for each reader to have learned or heard or understood something worth the time it took them to read what I took the time to write. I promise you, you’ll find that if you make it your goal to do the same, you’ll invest more of yourself into your blog, and it will create a feeling of accomplishment and worth in you that will help motivate you to be a consistent blogger.

2. Keep a log of ideas and inspiration.
One of the reasons I skip a day (or a year) between posts is that some days, I just don’t feel inspired to write. It’s blogger’s block, a condition that befalls even the greatest writers. To help eliminate this problem, I’ve started keeping a short list of ideas for useful and meaningful blogs in my office. On a day when I just can’t get into a groove with a new idea, I can refer back to that list for some ideas of things that recently inspired me, and that tends to spark some creativity to help me get going.

3. Utilize your blog platform’s “drafts” feature.
If you could see my Wordpress admin panel, you would see that I’ve already started more than 10 or 15 blog posts. Some are nothing more than a title, some have tags added (this is often to remind me further about why I started to write the post), some have a picture, some even have some text. I even have one or two that are nearly or fully complete. I could probably publish 3 or 4 posts a day and clear that folder out. But by utilizing the “drafts” folder when I happen to have a day where I am motivated to write several posts, I can save them for a day when I’m not so motivated. I have a list of posts already in the works that I can put some finishing touches on and then I’m good to go. This is a great way to avoid missing a day. If your blog platform doesn’t have a drafts folder or option, or if you’re blogging straight to a website without that feature, just create a folder on your computer and use your text editor or word processor in the same way. Save each post as an individual file and pull them out on a “rainy day.”

4. Write posts that encourage comments.
Nearly any writer in the world will get discouraged and eventually stop writing if he or she feels like no one is reading their material. By writing posts that encourage readers to leave comments, you’re killing two birds with one stone: you’re getting valuable feedback that should help shape your blog and writing in the future and that will help you get to know your audience, and you’re creating a source of encouragement to continue writing simply by the fact that you know someone is listening. One of the most effective ways I’ve ever seen this done is by Pete Wilson on his blog, WithoutWax.tv. At the end of each post, he writes a sentence or two in bold lettering asking a question or encouraging comments on a specific thought or topic. You can probably see, if you’ve read my blog, that I’ve modeled this part of my writing after him.

5. If you aren’t passionate about something, don’t waste your time writing about it.
One of the fastest ways to kill your consistency is to “pander” to an audience. I’ve seen many bloggers who write about things they don’t really care about just to attract readers. DON’T DO THIS! Write about what moves you, what you enjoy, and what you care about. Don’t try to write outside of your base of knowledge or understanding, or you’ll come off as shallow and uninformed. Write from your heart, and you’ll find it’s a much more rewarding and enjoyable experience. Yes, it’s important to keep your audience in mind, but remember that the audience you want (that is, one that shares things in common with you) will seek you out if you’re true to your passion.

I hope these few ideas help to shed some light for you. What helps you avoid this trap? What have you found helpful to make you a consistent blogger?

That’s right. There is no “off the clock,” there’s no “off duty,” there’s no “time off” when you’re a leader.

For the past couple of months, I’ve had a group of Sr. High guys from RSM (that’s Refuge Student Ministry, our teen ministry here at FCC) that I’ve met with to talk about, study, and grow in leadership. One of the things that I hope is being communicated extremely clearly is this simple, foundational lesson in leadership: when you’re a leader, you’re always leading.

What that simply means is that people are always watching you. You might think that you can “get away” with something when no one is looking, but the truth is that someone is always looking. Your leadership doesn’t click on when you show up to RSM or FCC (or to wherever you lead; a job, school, home, church, organization, etc.).  Leadership isn’t something you can “turn on” when you come to a worship service or a Bible study or a church event. And just the same, it isn’t something you can “turn off” when you leave.

And leadership isn’t necessarily always something you choose. Often, leadership chooses you. Or to put it in better terms, God chooses you to be a leader. Sometimes just by choosing to follow Jesus, you’re choosing leadership. It isn’t a responsibility you really get to pass on, either. When people begin to view you as a leader, they’re going to watch your example and usually they’re going to follow it.

So what does this mean for you? It means you’ve got some serious responsibility. You’ve got to keep in mind that you have the ability to earn yourself a reputation for being an honest person of integrity, or for being a hypocrite and a liar. You’ve got to remind yourself frequently that people see what kind of person you are no matter where you are and when you’re there, and just like you can’t fake doing the right thing, you can’t take back doing the wrong thing. So you’ve got to walk through your day-to-day life with that understanding.

Before you stress yourself out, you need to know that everyone makes mistakes. Everyone does stupid things in leadership that they wish they could just go back and hit the “reset” button or the “delete” key. We’d love to have some kind of super-whiteout that could cover up those embarrassing blips in our lives that we’d rather not have on the record. Don’t think that one mistake will blow your chances at being a good leader forever. It does mean that you might have to work hard to make up for something, but it’s work well worth it.

What does your life look like? Would you be embarrassed if someone that looked up to you heard what kind of language you use around certain people? Would you be building a positive or a negative reputation if people saw who you were when “no one’s looking?” Take some time to think about what your life looks like when you’re not at RSM or FCC or your place of leadership. What do other people think when they see you when you’re out of the leadership spotlight?

How do you hold yourself accountable to “walking the walk?”

Saw this video this morning on DC Curry’s blog. How lucky is this guy?!

Every couple of days for the next 2 weeks or so, I’m going to write a post about one of the songs from the CD that we’ll be releasing soon. I wrote all but one of the songs on the record, and I really hope you’ll be moved by them as much as I enjoyed writing them.

To understand this song, there’s someone you need to meet.

Her name is Ellah. She’s a 6-year-old girl from Zimbabwe. She has the same birthday as I do, November 24. She lives with her family in a small two-room brick-under-asbestos house, in a little village that is hot and dry because of a lack of rain. Ellah’s family is peasantry and relies on rain-fed agriculture. Her family raises goats and chickens, but they can’t afford cattle, which are essential for draught power. They have a small garden that they tend, which sits on the bank of a stream in their village. They’re also able to draw a small amount of water from that stream.

Ellah and her brother and sister live in a community severely affected by the HIV and AIDS crisis. Her family doesn’t have money to pay for food, school, or medical care. Because of that, Ellah did not attend school for several years. She helps her mother cook meals, and likes to play ball games.

For a little while now, Ellah has been my sponsored child through World Vision. We’ve all seen commercials on TV of some guy walking along the railroad tracks carrying a sick-looking child, or sitting in a slum with a poor family from a third-world country, or standing next to a bedside of a dying boy or girl. How many times have you seen one of those commercials and ignored it or changed the channel?

Let me tell you that now more than ever, the need is real. If you missed my last post about God’s design for religion, the short version is that James 1:27 tells us that God’s intention for the church is to care for those with needs. Not just spiritual needs, but physical and emotional needs. Health needs. Hunger needs. Educational needs.

You see, by meeting physical needs, we’re able to meet spiritual needs as well. By giving them water, the door is opened to give them Jesus. If we teach them to read in school, then the Bible can come alive. That’s how lives are changed.

On one hand, I picked Ellah because we share a birthday, and I thought that was pretty cool. On the other hand, FCC has a working relationship with a mission in Zimbabwe, and my hope is to someday go to meet Ellah and her family face-to-face. I write to her from time-to-time, and she writes back. I hope that through the funds provided by the sponsors of children in her village, that hope can come into a world of fear and darkness and sickness.

WAITING FOR THE SKY TO FALL

I wrote “Waiting for the Sky to Fall” for Ellah and the hundreds of thousands of children just like her all across the world who are waiting too. They’re waiting for a hand to extend hope, and all the while, it seems like we’re sitting around waiting for God-knows-what. We’re looking for Jesus to come back, while she’s looking for her next meal, if you can call it that.

My friends, I say this with love, but I hope it stings: children die every day, and when we “change the channel” or emotionally disconnect from the problem, we might as well be killing them.

I’m not asking or expecting any one person to change the world. I’m pleading with you, with the church, with Americans, with anyone who hears this, to stop disconnecting and start fulfilling the mission that we were given by the CREATOR OF THE UNIVERSE. Talk about getting orders from the top.

“Waiting for the Sky to Fall” is all about realizing that we have the power to change lives, one at a time, and bring Jesus’ hope to the hurting people of the world. And it’s about time to step things up.

If you want to get involved and make a difference, check out World Vision’s website. To sponsor a child really does cost less than you’d pay for a cup of coffee each morning at McDonald’s. And if sponsoring one child isn’t enough for you, you can sponsor entire families, or even go so far as to adopt an orphan through organizations like Holt International. You can start making a difference today, and that, my friends, is one killer way to find fulfillment and purpose in life.

No more waiting…let’s go be the church.

The entire song, “Waiting for the Sky to Fall,” should load in the player below. If it doesn’t check out Mercy Rising’s MySpace or Facebook page for a preview.

How are you helping to meet the physical, spiritual, or emotional needs of others? Leave a comment and tell me about it.

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Images are copyright 2006 World Vision Inc. All rights reserved. Used with permission. 1-888-511-6548 http://www.worldvision.org

No, I didn’t misspell “religion.” I spelled it that way on purpose.

Over the past year, I’ve become very passionate about something. It really bugs me that more and more church leaders are telling people that religion is bad, and that God doesn’t want us to be religious, and that we don’t have to be religious to please God, or any variation of this idea. And I’ve become passionate about showing how untrue that is!

Now I realize that this may be an unpopular idea to promote, but BEFORE YOU TUNE ME OUT, HEAR ME OUT. I understand the motive. We’re (and by “we’re,” I mean myself and fellow church leaders and Christ-followers) trying to help people see that following Jesus isn’t about stale, old, sit-your-butt-in-a-pew-and-shut-up, don’t run in church, sing old songs you don’t like, boring, legalistic (get the idea?) “churchy” stuff. And, for what it’s worth, I completely agree.

Where I see a severe disconnect in theology and logic is this: God SURE AS HECK DOES want us to be religious, but to understand the why, we need to understand the what.

Simply put, God’s idea of religion is NOTHING LIKE what I described above. In James 1:27, we read a simple definition:

“Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world.”

Do you know what that means? That means that religion means rescue. God designed religion to be a rescue for hurting people. And His plan for us, as religious people, is to be a hand that helps, not a hand that swats or scolds.

In early church culture, there was no one to look after widows. They weren’t landowners, almost never had a job, and had no means of survival. Orphans, likewise, were pretty much on their own in terms of survival and basic living. No one was there to meet their needs. So God challenged the early church with the mission and purpose of being the rescue for these hurting people. He gave them the purpose of meeting their needs and providing for them. And listen up: that’s our mission too.

So hey, when you send people or supplies or money to Haiti, you’re being religious, God’s way. When you sponsor a child through an organization like World Vision, you’re being pretty religious. When you visit an elderly lady who’s lonely and just have a short conversation, you’re one religious dude (or dudette). Are you seeing where I’m going here?

“Religion” doesn’t have to be about the self-elite, or self-righteous, or “holier-than-thou” that we have been conditioned to instantly associate with church. Following Jesus is absolutely, 110% about religion.

The problem isn’t religion, it’s not Christianity. The problem is what we’ve turned it into. In many ways, we’re as bad as the Pharisees who made their own laws and warped God’s design and plan into their own twisted, screwed up list of rules and regs that probably made Jesus want to toss a few roundhouse kicks every time he walked into the temple. God’s plan and design is perfect. James 1:27 says so. We messed it up; it’s our fault. And we need to fix it.

I have this picture on my desk, a painting by Eric Samuel Timm. It’s pretty self-explanatory. “Repainting Jesus” is exactly what we need to do. We’ve given him a bad rep. And because I’m tired of the negative tone this post is starting to take, let me put it this way. WE HAVE A JOB TO DO, and IT’S ABOUT STINKING TIME WE START DOING IT! That’s how we’ll be able to “Repaint Jesus” in a better light. If we ever manage to get back to the heart of what God intended religion to be, you’d better believe this whole world will be turned upside down in a week.

When I die, I think I want to have James 1:27 etched on my gravestone, and I hope that people will remember me for being ridiculously religious.

So you tell me: where do we need to start to get back to the heart of “pure and faultless” religion, James 1:27 style?

Every couple of days for the next 2 weeks or so, I’m going to write a post about one of the songs from the CD that we’ll be releasing soon. I wrote all but one of the songs on the record, and I really hope you’ll be moved by them as much as I enjoyed writing them.

THIS IS HOME

When I was growing up, I was pretty tight with my great-grandma Hilda. She would watch me when I was pretty little. She and my great-grandpa lived in an apartment about 5 minutes from my house. I used to love to go there because she had some killer toys. She had this toy rotary phone that was see-through and I used to love to watch the gears crank inside it when I’d turn the numbers. I wonder what ever happened to that thing…

Anyway, besides the fact that I used to like hanging out at their place, she was also an incredible example of how to live a full life and how to be like Jesus. Even up to the very day she died, she was always excited about what she was learning in her Bible, or the book she was reading, or something new she heard.

Towards the end of her life, she lived in a nursing home about 15 minutes from my parents’ house. I was in school in NC at the time. My great-grandpa had died about a year-and-a-half before, and she was ready to go be with him and with Jesus. There was one time that she had a mild stroke, and they took her to the hospital. She was mad at them for treating her! She told them if it happened again to just let her go! She wasn’t afraid to die, and she was looking forward to her rest and reward.

Every time I came home from school I would go see her, and she never said “goodbye” to me. She’d say, “See you later.” She used to say, “It’s not goodbye, I’ll see you again.” But we all knew she was ready to go. She had pictures next to her bed on a bulletin board, and she would lay there and look at a picture of her with my great-grandpa for the longest time.

The last time I saw her, I was home for a short break from school. I went to see her as I always did, and we spent about an hour talking. She had the best sense of humor. I miss laughing with her. When the time came for me to go, I said, “See you later Grandma.” She looked at me and smiled and said, “I love you. Goodbye.” As I walked to my car, something in me knew that I wouldn’t see her again.

I went back to NC to school. Within a couple of weeks, I got a call from my dad. He told me she had passed away. She was finally where she wanted to be: home. The home she had dreamt of and waited for.

I drove home right away to be with family and be at the visiting hours and funeral. When I’m dealing with something, I’m not very good at expressing emotion other than by writing songs, so that’s what I did. I started to write two or three songs, but they were slow, sad, tearjerkers about how much I already missed her, but I knew that if I finished one of those songs, she would find a way to come down here and kick my butt.

So instead, I started writing a song about the home she was so excited to go to, and where I know she is now. Healthy, happy, complete. I wrote about what she used to talk about, all the things she looked forward to, and all the things that I know are waiting for me. I wrote about the hope, about the peace, about the happiness and fullness of being with God in the place He’s prepared.

What resulted is “This is Home,” the first single from the new Mercy Rising record. Listen to the complete song below, and leave a comment to let me know what you think. I hope it is a source of comfort to other people who are missing someone as well.

This morning, our services at FCC were cancelled, and I know a number of other churches in our area (and hundreds of churches all over the place) were cancelled as well. Hopefully even when that’s the case, you find a chance to spend a few minutes worshiping on your own or with family.

Here are some thoughts that will hopefully help inspire your worship today.

CONSUME ME
Usually when I write a song, it happens pretty quickly for the most part. One or two of the songs on this record were written basically top-to-bottom in under half an hour. “Consume Me” is a different story.

I wrote this song over a period of two years, from 2005-07. I was working as a waiter in 2005, and I got home from working a double one night and as my head hit my pillow to finally crash, I realized that I had fallen into this routine of every day doing the same things, seeing the same people, going to the same places. And as if He said it to my face, I could almost hear the voice of God prodding me that I hadn’t even considered including Him in my routine.

I went to church. At the time that seemed like enough. But for some reason, and for the first time in quite a while, I had this feeling somewhere deep inside to renew a passion that I had turned away from a long time before. Not just to know about Jesus, but to “do life” with Him.

I committed myself right at that moment to change my routine. Instead of waking up and spending the first half hour of my day hitting the snooze button, I would spend the first few minutes of my day for the next week reading my Bible. I figured that would give me enough of a chance to know if this was really God talking, or if I was just tired from a long day and cranky customers. That’s when this line came into my head:

“I wake up and my feet hit the floor, every day it’s all the same to me
But today I want to know You more so I’m asking you for just one thing”

I also wrote a b-section that night that I scrapped pretty soon after, and the chords changed seven or eight times before I finally settled on something similar to what’s been recorded for this album.

Five years later, and we have this tune that isn’t really lyrically complicated and doesn’t strike you as being full of some intensely profound pearls of wisdom or anything. It’s just a simple confession of a desire to know God more.

Here’s an audio clip of the song (if the clip doesn’t load below, you can download the clip by right-click (PC) or CTRL-click (MAC) and select “Save target as” or “Download linked file as”):

Consume Me – sample