Myrtle Beach

Hey...we are at MB, South Carolina...we hit the beach yesterday and I already got a little toasty. It is around 95 degrees down here. The 12 1/2 hour trip with my wife, brother and mother was quite the lesson in patience :)


Myrtle Beach is beautiful and I am so glad that I will be able to relax for this entire week! Talk at you later



SMYG.

My Jesus by Todd Agnew

Which Jesus do you follow?
Which Jesus do you serve?
If Ephesians says to imitate Christ
Then why do you look so much like the world?...


Blessed are the poor in spirit
Or do we pray to be blessed with the wealth of this land
Blessed are they that hunger and thirst for righteousness
Or do we ache for another taste of this world of shifting sand

Cause my Jesus bled and died for my sins
He spent His time with thieves and sluts and liars
He loved the poor and accosted the rich
So which one do you want to be?

Who is this that you follow
This picture of the American dream
If Jesus was here would you walk right by on the other side or fall down and worship at His holy feet

Pretty blue eyes and curly brown hair and a clear complexion
Is how you see Him as He dies for Your sins
But the Word says He was battered and scarred
Or did you miss that part
Sometimes I doubt we'd recognize Him

Cause my Jesus bled and died
He spent His time with thieves and the least of these
He loved the poor and accosted the comfortable
So which one do you want to be?

Cause my Jesus would never be accepted in my church
The blood and dirt on His feet would stain the carpet
But He reaches for the hurting and despised the proud
I think He'd prefer Beale St. to the stained glass crowd
And I know that He can hear me if I cry out loud

I want to be like my Jesus!
I want to be like my Jesus!

Not a posterchild for American prosperity, but like my Jesus
You see I'm tired of living for success and popularity
I want to be like my Jesus but I'm not sure what that means to be like You Jesus
Cause You said to live like You, love like You but then You died for me
Can I be like You Jesus?
I want to be like my Jesus

Artist:	Todd Agnew
Album:	Reflection Of Something
Song:	My Jesus

As I heard this song on the radio this week I had to question my thinking and relationship with Christ. The line that I bolded "Sometimes I doubt we'd recognize Him" really hit me. Do we have a vision of Jesus that is so dry, clean and pretty that if he were really in our church we would fail to recognize him? I wonder...we get so moved by the movie "The Passion of the Christ" to see all of the brutality and blood and pain that Jesus went through. Funny isn't it. We have candy-coated the real Jesus. The real Jesus didn't wasn't a carpenter. He wasn't as we see him working in a nice home and making tables for rich people. He was a handyman...doing odd jobs throughout his region. But being a Jewish Carpenter sounds a lot better than being a Jewish Handyman, doesn't it?

Next, over the past few weeks I have spent an enormous time thinking about Sarah and myselfs budget and financial situation. Worrying about money and thinking about how to get more. The American Dream...peace...prosperity...freedom...all things of this world. My mindset is wrong and has been wrong for a while. I want God to work in my ministry but for what reasons? Do I want to be able to tell fellow youth pastors or people that ask that we have such and such a number of teens every week...or to tell them the big things that we have planned because I want to be in the "In crowd" (of which I am definitely not in)? Over the past two years I have had the wrong attitude about district things and even things at Shiloh. I have felt slighted a few times because this happened or this didn't happen. Even over the past few months I have had a few of these feelings. I have been in search, in my heart and head (not verbally) for success and popularity and that has left me empty and dry spiritually. I have said all of that to say this...I need forgiveness...it has been all about me...not on purpose but it has slowly crept in. Enough for now but I am definitely not done talking about this...

SMYG.

Youth Pastor vs other Pastor

Hey, I was just wondering...do you think of youth pastors different from other Staff or Senior Pastors? It is interesting because most of the church calls Pastor John...Pastor John. While most of them call me Andy...it doesnt make a difference to me I was just wondering.


I know some people think of Youth Pastors as just doing that and getting some experience to become a "real pastor". I don't think of Youth ministry as a stepping stone to something else. It is where my heart is and I love every minute of it.


So what do you think?

SMYG