Being an adult is a miserable experience - you spend the vast majority of your time doing things you don't particularly want to do, and yet, you have to. And if you choose to rebel and simply avoid doing what you're supposed to, the consequences can be dire. So I find that it helps to have certain things that bring joy to your day. Even if it's silly, and even if it's senseless, choosing to distract yourself with something is always helpful. And for the last decade or so, one man has brought me perhaps more inanely joyful distractions than anyone else:

The Sports Guy.

If you like sports, Bill Simmons is a must read and listen. Seriously. Do yourself a favor and check him out. One of his longest lasting schticks has been his mailbags - people send in random questions and comments, and he provides commentary. It's simple, and it's always hilariously entertaining. In today's mailbag, Simmons ended with the follow e-mail from one of his fans:

Q: So I'm in the grocery store the other night buying ramen noodles 'cause that's literally the only thing I can afford to eat. Right after I had put the fourth huge case into my cart, a really cute girl approaches me and says, "Wow, that's a lot of ramen." For whatever reason, my immediate response is, "Yeah, I'm buying it for a local food drive for the homeless." Wouldn't you know it, but the girl finds this extremely sexy for some reason, and we continue to talk for a few minutes. Eventually, I ask her out, and we decide she will come to my place for dinner and a movie later on this week. What in the hell am I supposed to do? I have no money and a kitchen full of ramen noodles that are supposed to be for some mysterious food drive. Your thoughts?
--Shane, Baltimore

Simmons didn't have much to say on the matter, and I certainly don't want to turn this into a chance to bash poor Shane from Baltimore. After all, I promise you, he got all he deserved once his date found out the truth. But I do think there's a simple lesson that is always appropriate to mention. After all, Jesus talked about it, and it was something you undoubtedly learned in Kindergarten:

Honesty is ALWAYS the best policy.

It's time to face facts: my office is not just my office. My office now, officially, doubles as home sweet home to a diseased rodent. It's true. I've been finding his 'presents' for awhile now, and I even found evidence of where it had been making its dwelling, but still - I've been holding out hope that my office is but a stop on its many mouse travels through Ashland Christian Church. But alas; despite the expert mouse extermination by a particularly skilled huntress here at ACC, the 'presents' have continued. And it's time I admitted the truth: I have a mouse living in my office.

This is, of course, unsurprising, what with living in Missouri a quarter mile outside of town and all. But I've often wondered where in the world this mouse came from. I mean, I keep my office doors locked, and mice aren't good at using doorknobs anyway. And while I probably could afford to eat a little less (or take the trash out a little more) at my desk, I see no reason why a mouse would be attracted to my printer, which apparently doubles as a mouse bathroom. So, the question remains - where did my rodent friend come from?

Technically speaking, of course, I've known where mice come from for quite some time. After all, when I was younger, I was taught all about the 'Mickeys' and 'Minnies' - when a mommy and a daddy mouse love each other very much, a stork comes with a baby for them. Or something like that. However the details work, this much I know - a baby mouse only shows up when there are two other mice involved. You cannot get a baby mouse, from, say, a napkin or an empty Mountain Dew bottle. Life simply doesn't work that way. Instead, life always -unequivocally, undeniably, inarguably, and scientifically - comes from life. It's simply the way our world, and biology works.

This, unfortunately, presents reasonably minded people with a problem. If life can only come from life (which I'm quite confident is true), then where did life come from originally? I mean, our scientific laws tell us that in this world, life has to have pre-existing life to come into existence. But if you take that principle to its logical conclusion, you have to reasonably conclude that, at least once, something else happened.

That 'something' is a matter of no small amount of debate in this world of ours. The common, academic explanation revolves around billions of years with non-organic primordial ooze that created simple, single cell life forms. In other words, the common, academic explanation simply says that one time everything we know was backwards, and life spontaneously and randomly came from a non-living, inorganic pool of stuff. The 'something' that was different then, than now, is time, conditions no one knows existed, and the breaking of testable and demonstrable scientific laws.

There is, of course, a second option. And while, for one reason or another, I couldn't bring this up in our school system, it seems entirely plausible and reasonable that 'something' else exists outside of the confines of what we see as time, space, and matter. And that 'something' is the initial cause of both life on earth, but a self-perpetuating system that cannot exist on its own. You can call this 'something' whatever you want, but I prefer to call it 'God.' And sure, to many this makes me a religious nutjob, but at the very least, I'm in good company - for nearly the entirety of recorded human history, people recognized that the concept of life is one that cannot be accounted for through natural, earthly means. In other words, until, say, a couple hundred years ago, the reasonable, academic viewpoint was that something beyond ourselves exists, accounting for the things that we, as people cannot explain.

And make no mistake: if you choose to not believe in God, there is NO reasonable, scientific explanation for the origins of life. This is not a question of the Big Bang or Evolution or anything else that people like to argue about. This is the simple matter of admitting that organic matter cannot spontaneously generate without previously existing organic matter. And because of that, regardless of what you might learn from the Discovery Channel, I'm going to choose to believe that something else is out there that doesn't have play by our rules. If you want to believe in time, ooze, and nature randomly breaking of scientific laws, then that's certainly your choice - but know, going in, that looking at life reasonably goes for religious and non-religious people alike.

In the meantime, I've got some presents to clean up. And do me a favor - if you've got a cat I can borrow for a day or two, let me know.

Well, it finally happened. I've lived in this house, in this town now for nearly four years, and for the first time this morning, I was paid a visit by everyone's favorite religious folk: the Jehovah's Witnesses.

Now, I don't mean this to be rude or judgemental towards people of that particular faith. Do I agree with how they feel about God/Jesus/the Bible/life in general? No. Does that mean we can't be friends and it's my job to pronounce eternal damnation on them? Absolutely not. And especially not with these people. Truth be told, they couldn't have been nicer. There were three of them: a young mother not much older than me, her cute as a button toddler, and a matronly and more than friendly middle aged woman who looked a whole lot like a librarian. Honestly, I couldn't have asked for a better introduction to the Watchtower than that.

But I can't help but think, honestly - what do they think they're accomplishing? Maybe randomly going door to door to strangers works. I don't know - they had to get 7 million members from somewhere. But for everyone I know, this morning's escapade was nothing if not annoying. I mean, here I am - unwashed, undressed, and just trying to wake up and decide if the terrible pain in my forehead is allergies or if I'm catching a cold - and then the doorbell rang. Before ten in the morning. And both of my dogs went absolutely insane (as they always do when the doorbell rings). By the time I got the dogs shut away in a room and put pants on, it had been probably a solid two minutes of them just standing on my front porch waiting for the commotion inside to end and for me to open the door. And for what? To, 'share a word from the Bible' with me.

I'm not trying to be mean, but here's a fact: we live in Missouri. It's the Bible belt. If I wanted a word from the Bible, there are a million ways for me to get that word at the time and place of my choosing, from people that I'm comfortable sharing that part of my life with. And as nice as these three women seemed, they didn't quite fit the bill for what I was looking for.

At Ashland Christian Church, we certainly encourage sharing your faith with your friends and loved ones - heck, our mantra is 'Connect.Call.Cultivate,' which makes a full third of what we do trying to get new people. But as we reach out and share Christ with others, it's important to think about how THEY feel, not just how you feel. After all, if your reaction to the Jehovah's Witnesses is to hide, how do you think non Christians react to you when you're on the war path for Jesus?

It is our mission to make disciples, and we're called to always be prepared to share our faith. But there's absolutely no reason we can't put ourselves in the shoes of others, be respectful, and consider what may or may not make someone comfortable. Sharing Christ because we genuinely want to see people saved in great, but if we want to genuinely see people saved, we have to understand that it's not going to happen through annoying people into faith. It CAN happen, though, when we temper our evangelism with grace, compassion, love, and most importantly, understanding and wisdom.

And that, friends, takes much more than just ringing someone's doorbell.

It's a humbling thing to realize that you're getting old. And I know what you're thinking right now - 'Drew, shut up. You're 25. Seriously. Don't talk about being old.' But you know what? At this moment, 'old' is exactly how I feel.

Truth be told, I never thought I'd be writing a post like this. After all, growing up in Indiana, I thought I'd be playing basketball forever. As a kid, it was all there was to do - you woke up, grabbed a ball, and played pick up games all day. And even if there were no games going, you were still playing. Nearly every driveway or back yard had its own ten foot rim, and at any given moment, countless children were working on their 15 foot jumper. Even the kids who were terrible (read: me) could shoot. It was Indiana - they didn't name the movie 'Hoosiers' for nothing.

But then I moved to Missouri. And while I tried to play here and there in college, for the most part, due to college/responsibility/life in general, I stopped doing something I absolutely loved to do. But all that changed last night. I was babysitting for one of the coolest families in the history of the world, and sure enough, in their driveway, they have a basketball goal. And better yet, they have a junior high kid with an insatiable appetite for shooting. Put two and two together, and you get roughly four hours of doing nothing but shooting. I played more games of 'around the world' than I had in a decade, and I'm not going to lie - it was an absolute blast! I felt like a kid again, experiencing the pure joy of the ball going through the nets and the pure agony of the clank off the rim. It was truly fantastic.

And then this morning came. I awoke with pain everywhere - my back, my ankles, my calves, my shoulders, my arms - absolutely everywhere. And still - I felt fantastic. Sure, it hurt. But it was a good hurt.

That's something that I have learned as I've gotten older. Sometimes the most painful things in life are the ones that bring us the most joy. Whether it's physical, emotional, or spiritual pain, almost every time we go through trials in this life, we come out the other end better for them. This, of course, is not a novel concept - it's been known for thousands of years. Consider the words of James in the New Testament:

Consider it a sheer gift, friends, when tests and challenges come at you from all sides. You know that under pressure, your faith-life is forced into the open and shows its true colors. So don't try to get out of anything prematurely. Let it do its work so you become mature and well-developed, not deficient in any way. - James 1:2-4 (The Message)

Life is FILLED with pain. Some of it is silly (like soreness after not playing basketball for a long time), and most of it is soberingly serious. But no matter what, if you're in pain, no matter what kind, there's hope. At the end, the fact is that you'll be molded into a better person - the person God wants you to be.

And that, friends, comes right along with the humbling feeling of getting old.

I don't usually got to sites on the internet that deal with sports for heavy reading. Instead, when I think about sports, that's when my brain should shut off. After all, sports are a diversion from real life, only useful when they're put in their proper perspective. So you can imagine that I was none too happy to come across this article, which mixed sports with serious issues that me think.

The piece details a growing problem in South Africa called 'corrective rape.' The concept is both simple and grotesque: since homosexuality is morally offensive to society, men rape lesbians to 'cure' their orientation. And if you watch the video in the link above, you'll see the sobering reality that behind this heinous act is Christianity and the church.

Truthfully, I can't imagine how horrifying it must be to be a gay or lesbian in a culture in which their persecution is not only part of every day life, but encouraged by those who profess faith in Jesus. But as terrible as corrective rape is, in and of itself, unfortunately, it's not all that far removed from an attitude that many Christians I've met have suffered from.

For the sake of argument, let's assume that the the position of the South African persecutors is true: you can, through violent sexual immorality, 'cure' what you believe to be sexual immorality in the life of another person. And let's say that the church encourages corrective rape to 'fix' homosexuals. Even if all of that were possible and true, there's still a problem:

'Fixing' homosexuals in no way, shape, or form, affects their spiritual state. That's because as Christians, the basis of our faith (the New Testament) explicitly states that salvation and spiritual peace comes only through faith in Jesus. In other words, you can 'fix' all the homosexuals on the planet, and that does nothing to affect the kingdom of God that Jesus himself instituted when he was on earth!

This past Wednesday night, we had Bible study at ACC. And during that class, we learned a profound truth: two comes before three. In the book of Colossians, the apostle Paul makes it clear that there is a distinct morality that God has set forth for his people to follow. A simple summation of that morality, in both what we should and should not do, can be found in Colossians chapter three. However, chapter TWO exists first, and in chapter two, we learn that Jesus has set Christians apart spiritually, taken away all guilt from their sins, made their lives complete, and, most importantly, caused them to be dead to the world and alive spiritually. So, the expectation of morality comes AFTER Jesus changes a person from the inside out! The promises of chapter two are first, and then comes the instruction of chapter three.

Unfortunately, many Christians want chapter three to come first. The expectation is for people to clean up their own lives before they're welcome in church. 'Help yourself!' is the charge, and then God will help you. Get your own stuff together, and then accept Christ.

Of course, not only is this backwards, but it leads to atrocities like what we see in South Africa today. When we force morality with people without offering them the hope of Jesus, not only do we change the gospel of Christ itself, but we create a people that is constantly paranoid, judgmental, and hypocritical.

But when we understand chapter two before chapter three, we understand that we are only 'good' because of what Jesus has done. We are only where we are because we weren't good enough, and God loved us anyway. And when we understand that? THEN, we can offer real hope to the world around us, no matter what ails them.

People are capable of terrible, terrible things, and we're no different than the people in South Africa. And that's why we constantly have to check our ego at the door, and remember that the only reason we're where we're at is what Jesus did on our behalf. And that should motivate us to share the same hope to everyone else, good news that trumps all other good news in the history of mankind:

Chapter two comes before chapter three. 

It's amazing to discover what's really important to us.

Today for lunch, I enjoyed one of my favorite meals in the world: steak tacos from Chipotle. I used to get the steak burrito, but I'm not fond of green things in my food, and Chipotle uses some type of green garnish in their rice that offends me greatly. So I switched to rice-less tacos a while back, and have never regretted that decision in the least. Every order is the same: you start with the soft shells, and add, in order, black beans, steak, hot salsa, and as much cheese as the employees are allowed to put on the tacos.

The cheese is really what makes the meal; a normal amount of cheese gives you 'B+' tacos. Extra cheese can raise the grade to an 'A-,' but an obcene amount of cheese? Enough cheese to get the worker in trouble with their manager? Enough cheese to cause spontaneous lactose intolerance? THAT, friends, is the key to 'A+' tacos. And today, thanks to the fine folks at the Jefferson City Chipotle, I ate A+ tacos.

When I returned to Ashland and stopped at the gas station to pick up a Typhoon Mountain Dew to complete my perfect lunch, I discovered something was missing: my wallet. After looking everywhere in my car, I realized the sobering truth: my wallet, with my driver's license, insurance card, debit card and basically every other important piece of documentation that one would ever need, was at the Chipotle in Jefferson City. In my fervor to concoct the world's greatest tacos, I had ignored the fact that my wallet was sitting on the counter next to the cash register. In my mind, the amount of cheese on my lunch was important enough to allow God knows who access to my bank account.

And that, friends, is why I'm a moron. But my stupidity is a perfect illustration of why so many people get irritated with religion. In my experience as a Christian and a minister, people get hung up on insignificant details - theological issues like speaking in tongues, communion, and women in ministry; musical styles and instrumentation; what people look like/sound like while at church, or what the church building itself looks/sounds like; the political leanings or other opinions of the preacher; etc, etc, etc - that the most important thing goes unnoticed. We care so much about stupid, mundane things that we completely lose sight of what's actually important and vital to our lives. 

The apostle Paul talked to just this issue in his letter to the Colossians. In first century Colossae, there were a whole lot of things that the church could be upset and complain about. And yet, in his view, the fact that they focused on Jesus was what was actually important. He talked about a mystery that had been hidden for generations but was now revealed, writing,

The mystery in a nutshell is just this: Christ is in you, so therefore you can look forward to sharing in God's glory. It's that simple. That is the substance of our Message. We preach Christ, warning people not to add to the Message. We teach in a spirit of profound common sense so that we can bring each person to maturity. To be mature is to be basic. Christ! No more, no less. - Colossians 1:28-29 (The Message)

In other words, the ONLY thing they needed to worry about was Jesus. No more, no less - just Jesus. They didn't need to worry about other details (like cheese on tacos) so long as they had what was important (like their wallets). As long as they had Jesus, and they focused on him, everything was fine.

Today, it can be tempting to get discouraged about a million things. But as long as you have Jesus, you have the most important thing, the only thing that will last beyond this world and life. You have what you NEED, even if you don't have everything you want.

And that, friends, is comforting, even if your lunch only gets a B+.

p.s. - a big shout out is due Rodney Davis, for helping the lost to be found and my bank account to be secure. Rod, you're the man.

I finally got around to watching 2012 last night. If you haven't yet seen the film, allow me to summarize it for you: the world is ending in 2012, and order to survive you must do one of the following:

1.) Purchase a ticket to a massive boat in China for a billion Euros, or

2.) Hang out with John Cusack, who is clearly the luckiest man in the history of the world of the earth.

There. I saved you two and a half hours of your life. Strangely, though, even though the movie predictably had little to no plot, I have to admit I enjoyed it. I have no idea why, but I'm a sucker for movies depicting the end of the world. I don't care if the cause is zombies or nuclear holocaust or a natural disaster predicted by the Mayans, a good rule of thumb is that if it includes an Apocalypse, I'm in. And I don't think I'm alone. There's a reason these movies keep being made: they make money.

Christianity is no different. There's a reason people speculate about the Rapture and Millennium, a reason people want to study the book of Revelation, a reason the Left Behind Series has sold nearly as many copies as the Bible itself. And there's a reason this guy's been in business for forty years. People love to speculate about the end of the world.

For you and me, as followers of Jesus, we do have a responsibility when it comes to the end. Unfortunately for some, it's not nearly as exciting and page turning as doomsday prophecies and Bible codes. As the Apostle John put it,

And now, children, stay with Christ. Live deeply in Christ. Then we'll be ready for him when he appears, ready to receive him with open arms, with no cause for red-faced guilt or lame excuses when he arrives. - 1 John 2:28 (The Message)

In other words, no matter how the end does eventually come, our responsibility is to live each and every day as if we're ready for it to all be over. And how do we do that? Live deeply in Christ. When we live each day as if it's our last, with the urgency to stay true to our faith and share our hope with those who need to hear it, then whenever the end DOES come, we can welcome our savior gladly. For us, as God's children, we shouldn't fear the end, but instead, should trust that whatever happens next will work out for the best.

The fact is that no one knows when the world will end. But more importantly than pinning an expiration date on the earth or describing the exact events that will accompany the last moments of this planet, you CAN be ready for whatever happens, whenever it happens. And when you are, and Jesus shows up one of these days, there won't be anyone else you'd rather see.

Not even John Cusack.