A little more than year ago, I preached sermon on the thief on the cross. And after the service, someone who'd been coming to church for a few months came up to me and told me, and I quote, 'you should write that down somewhere.'

So I did.

The result is that I wrote a book. It's called Good People Don't Need Jesus, and it's basically my story of growing up in the church, learning to be a 'good person,' and eventually, finding that real faith in Jesus has little to nothing to do with being what we define as a 'good' or 'bad' person. If you've been going to ACC for the last three years or so, you'll recognize a few of the stories, but quite a bit of the material is unique and you've never read it from me before.

One thing that was incredibly important to me is this: I didn't do this to get my name out there or make money or be the next Francis Chan or Rob Bell or whoever. I did this for the same reason I write this blog: I love writing, I love Jesus, and I love people. So, since you've never paid for this blog, you don't have to pay for this book; it's available as a free PDF to anyone and everyone who wants it. And if you do happen to want a physical copy (which is around $8, which includes shipping), that cost is purely the cost of making the book and getting it to you; I'm not making a penny off of it.

So, do me a favor - download/buy the book, and tell your friends to do the same. Love it or hate it, if it makes you think about your relationship with God in a new way, I couldn't be happier.

Click here for a free download, or click here to make a purchase.

Thanks for reading!

2.1 innings pitched. 14 runs.

You may not know anything about baseball, or, you may hate it. So let's put it another way - the above pitching line is the equivalent of a baker trying to make a batch of cupcakes and instead, burning down an entire city block. It's akin to a police officer coming onto the scene of a traffic accident and deciding to shoot both parties involved. It's basically like a tattoo artist showing up to work, being asked to do a portrait of a beautiful young girl on someone's shoulder, and doing work that looks like this: 

 

In other words, Vin Mazzaro, a 24 year old relief pitcher for the Kansas City Royals, had a bad day at the office yesterday. And truthfully, that's much too mild for what type of performance he had; quite literally, it was the single worst game a pitcher has had in the Major Leagues in at least the last 80 years, and perhaps, the last 130.  

I don't bring this to your attention as a way to make fun of the Royals or Mazzaro, or even to make light of his horrible, horrific excuse for pitching. Truth be told, I feel for him. I know what it's like to try my best, only to fall flat on my face. I know what it's like to be criticized and mocked, and I know that it hurts even worse when the criticism and mockery is deserved. I know what it's like to feel like I've let people down, and I know how hard it can be to pick up the pieces and move on the next day.

But most of all, I know what keeps me going when I have days like Vin Mazzaro's.

Being a Christian isn't all unicorns and puppies and rainbows and pizza parties at Chuck-E-Cheese. To follow Christ is to willfully choose a life that is contrary to the values of the world around us, and it means trusting in someone that is either ridiculed or scorned by a large percentage of the general populace. It can mean associating yourself with people that frankly, you might not want anyone thinking you're like, and most poignantly, in many places in the world, it can mean the difference between life and death.

Despite the cries of those who want you to believe that Christianity is the 'moral majority,' this is the way life in the church has been for 2,000 years. Following Jesus has brought persecution, imprisonment, torture, and martrydom. And those are things that make even our worst days pale in comparison. And yet whether or not we'll ever be faced with death for believing what we do, we have the same hope that they did: the light of God.

As the Apostle Paul wrote to the beleagured, downtrodden congregation in ancient Corinth, it's this light - the love, grace and mercy that comes from an honest, real relationship with Jesus Christ - that is with us in good days and bad. It's in our hearts and souls whether we live or die, flourish or flounder. It's what we can hope and trust in even when everything else is lost.

Today may be your darkest day, and whether it's over something trivial (like a baseball game) or something much more serious, know this: if you're in Christ, you have something that literally nothing can take away from you. And that something will be with you, through thick or thin, in life and in death, if love and in loss.

And that light will lead you through whatever you're going through today. 

I am a success story.

I understand how pretentious that may sound. And I’m fully aware that there may be nothing more arrogant than labeling yourself a ‘success.’ But regardless of how it may come across, the truth is the truth, and the truth is, my life has been successful.

The interesting thing, however (if I may be more honest and candid than I’ve ever been in this space before) is that 99% of the time, I feel like anything BUT a success. In fact, the vast majority of the time, I feel utterly helpless, insignificant, and unimportant. I don’t feel like my life has amounted to much in the grand scheme of things, and I do feel like most people care very little to not at all about what goes on in the ministry I’m a part of. This isn’t false modesty or a cry for attention or even fishing for compliments from those who disagree with my feelings; it’s just that, again, the truth is the truth, and the truth is that I don’t feel like my life has been successful.

And yet, feelings aside, my mere existence in Ashland, Missouri and my gainful employment at Ashland Christian Church makes my story a successful one. A few months ago, I ran across this article that, frankly, is a bit depressing. In it, a pastor cites several alarming statistics about what it means to be in ministry in America in 2011. The most stunning one is this: 80% of those who graduate from seminary or bible college are completely out of the ministry within five years. As it turns out, as of this month, I have been in full time ministry for five years, meaning that I’m part of the surviving 20% that have made it this far. So, like it or not, the facts cannot be skewed – by doing what I’ve done since May of 2006, relatively speaking, I am a success.

The truth is that despite my often low self-esteem (a trait I share with, apparently, 70% of my colleagues), I have been incredibly blessed at Ashland Christian Church. Despite all the ups and downs and all the people who have been in and out of our fold, we’re still here, being used by God in amazing ways. And the most amazing way God has used us is in this: since I’ve been a full-time employee here, this ministry has had the opportunity to lead 91 people to faith and baptism in Christ (yes, that’s an exact number. A number, I might add, that has helped keep me going more than I’d like to admit). That fact can’t be denied, no matter how I might feel at any given moment.

I don’t bring this to your attention to simply pat myself on the back (though, I’d be lying if I didn’t admit that I enjoy writing the words ‘five,’ ‘years,’ and ‘91’); it’s to illustrate the point that sometimes, our feelings lie. And one of the greatest lies that our feelings tell us is that we’re not successful when the opposite is absolutely true. So often in the church, we think of ‘success’ in worldly terms, and measure it by attendance and finances and programs and our reputation. And as Christians, we typically think of success as coming from our knowledge or our service or our obedience or our image.

But the truth is, if you’re a Christian, you ARE a success, no matter what. As the Apostle Paul wrote to the ancient church at Colossae, everything we’ve ever needed came to pass when we gave our lives to Jesus. At that point in time, He changed us from the inside out, gave us a new future (and present), and made us spiritually perfect, completely holy, pure, and set apart in God’s kingdom. THAT is the truth, regardless of how you may be feeling at any given moment.

I may not feel like much most of the time, but frankly, at the end of the day, my feelings don’t matter all that much. Only God’s feelings do, and according to Him, not even five years in ministry have made my life a success in His eyes. Only trusting in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus has done that for me, and that is, as well, what will make your life a success.

And that’s the truth, no matter how you may feel.

If I understand how the internet works, there's roughly an 85% chance that right now, you're reading this while you're supposed to be working at your job. After all, Al Gore's creation is the universe's greatest time waster, and therefore, most of our internet surfing goes on while we're procrastinating at work. And if I understand human beings correctly, there's roughly the same chance that right now you'd rather be anywhere but at your job, reading this paragraph.

The truth is that most people have a love/hate relationship with their professions. Sure, we love the paycheck we get each pay period, and we've all experienced that satisfied feeling of a job well done at the end of a busy day. But the truth is, if we had our druthers, we'd spend the 40-60 hours a week normally taken up by working doing just about anything else. Unfortunately, things like 'living in a home' and 'eating food' are fairly important, so, depsite our druthers, to work we go each day.

Unfortunately, since we spend so much time selling cars or teaching school or practicing nuclear physics or whatever it is we do when we clock in, it can be difficult to separate our identities from our professions. Think about it - what's one of the first things someone ALWAYS asks when you first meet them?

'What do you do?'

It doesn't matter what you answer - from that moment forward, you're labeled by what your job is. You're a government employee or a dental hygeinist or a magician or something much less cool than a magician. But you're whatever you fill in the blank when you say, 'I work at ______.' And as my friends in ministry are aware of, this is especially true when it comes to the church. Preachers and youth ministers and music ministers don't really have 'work hours' and 'down time'; we're just 'ministers,' 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. But the truth is that no matter what you do - whether you get paid to live out your dream or you dread waking up each day because your job is so terrible - if you believe that you're simply the sum total of your job, you're believing a lie.

I was reminded of this truth a few weeks ago on my ill-fated trip to watch my beloved Cincinnati Reds lose to two terrible teams on back to back nights. Most of the baseball part of the trip was a bust, but while I was at the gift shop, I ran across the single coolest piece of memorabilia I've ever seen. It was a game used baseball cap by Reds outfielder Chris Heisey, and when I picked it up, I noticed there was something written on the inside of the bill:

In case you can't quite read what it says, it's a quotation from the book of Luke. Heisey, who was drafted by the Reds out of Bible College, is a committed Christian, and this was, apparently, a personal reminder to himself to live his faith even when he's at work. 

It may sound strange to think of professional athletes as 'going to work,' but it's the truth - for Chris Heisey and a few thousand others in America, clocking in at work is going to the ballpark every day for nine months out of the year or so. And while he gets paid to have fun playing a game (not to mention the fact that he gets paid at least the league minimum salary, which is over $400,000 a season in the Major Leagues), the truth is that it's still just a job for him.

That's what makes this particular cap so cool to me. Chris Heisey may have one of the best jobs in the world, but he's not just a 'baseball player'; he's a Christian whose job is playing baseball. His faith is what defines who he is; his job is just what he gets paid to do.

In the same way, I'm not just a minister; I'm a Christian whose job is to do ministry. And you're not just your job. You are defined by God (whose opinion of you ultimately is the only one that matters), at the end of the day, by who you are spiritually, whatever that happens to be or not be. Your job is just what you get paid to do.

You may love what you do for a living, or you may hate it. But make no mistake: when all is said and done, your job is just what you get paid to do. The most important question is much bigger than a paycheck or a profession, whether you're a preacher or a baseball player or anything else. What you decide about God and Jesus defines you, and that's truly what is most significant, both in this life and beyond.

Now, for the 85% of you procrastinating - get back to work. Your boss isn't paying you to read this blog.

One of the most enlightening parts of social media in this day and age is the unfiltered access into the emotions of people. It seems like no matter what happens, as soon as it does people rush to their computers to tell the world what they think. As it turns out, though, when we're all reacting to the same major event, it's amazing how similar our thoughts are.

I don't need to tell you what President Obama announced around 9:30 Missouri time last night. You know. And if you're like 98% of the American populace (i.e. the 2% who didn't take this as an opportunity to once again propagate their impossible to prove conspiracy theories), you celebrated. You praised God. You chanted 'U-S-A' like, America had just won gold in the Olympics over the Soviets during the Cold War. You were thankful to our current president or our last president or our troops or all of the above.

And if you're like the vast majority of my Christian friends, this morning, you woke up feeling a little more conflicted. Yes, on a cognitive level, we understand justice; but to many, this seems like a victory we should hesitate to celebrate.

As I write this, the debate is still going on - as Christians, shouldn't we mourn death, no matter who suffers it? Isn't that how God reacts, especially in the case of the unrighteous?

But come on - this is the guy who perpetrated the greatest terrorist attack on American soil... ever. The guy whose actions set off a chain reaction that included two wars over ten years. A guy who, more than just about anyone else, the world benefits from not having around... right? Why NOT celebrate, as God's people have done in the past?

As usual, I don't have a real answer, and seemingly opposing (and definitely out of context) bible verses don't particularly help. Both elation and sorrow are normal human emotions in a time like this, and truth be told, I'd imagine that most of us feel a mixture of both: happiness in our gut reaction, sorrow in the reminder that one man's death will not and cannot bring closure to ten years of tragedies. And that's okay - we're people, and as people, we have emotions that are not only out of our control, but sometimes unexplainably conflicting.

The truth is that if you're a Christian, this world isn't your real home, and the American flag isn't a sign of the Kingdom you belong to eternally. That Kingdom - the one Jesus instituted - is different than any that this world has to offer. And when we're citizens of Jesus' kingdom, we're ALWAYS going to find tension between our world and theirs. It's a natural result of a being in a kingdom that is not of this world; it's what happens when we have one foot in the temporal and one foot in the eternal.

No matter how you feel today, don't feel bad; you're just a flawed person in a broken world reacting to news that is rooted in a tragic situation. But also realize that at the end of the day, this broken world is not all there is, and what you decide about Jesus' kingdom is ultimately what matters in the long run.

And that decision should be celebrated without hesitating at all.