Finding Value in my Grade

I'm not sure if you struggle with the same insecurities that I struggle with but you may struggle with this one.  See I struggle with finding value in my grade.  I didn't realize this until recently but it became extremely evident to me that when I get a bad grade in seminary, or school in general, I get frustrated.  This last summer I took a course called "God in Science and Scripture".  In that course I was asked to write a final paper.  Through a random series of events I found out that I got a "C" for the final grade of my course.  Now I could vent about the circumstances that lead to that grade but its in black ink already so its pointless.

After receiving the "C" letter grade I found out that I was super bummed on the grade.  I felt like I had put so much effort into the course but obviously didn't learn the requirements for passing the course with a better grade (random side note: a "C" is passing).  Last summer I learned that for so long in my life I have found my value in a grade.  I find my value in acceptance from others and that is a tough place to wrestle with.

Since getting that grade I have done my best to find my value in Christ.  I most of the verses; I have heard the sermons... shoot I have preached the sermons but God brought me to a place in life where I had to find my value in him and not in a prof that I will most likely not see again until heaven.

I want to leave you with two questions to ask yourself:

• What is there in your life, today, that is holding you back from finding your value in Christ?  
• What is getting in your way from really becoming the person that God is asking you to be?

Its Seminary; not Cemetery

Almost a month ago I made a pretty big slip.  We had taken a week long vacation to the East Coast to see our family.  We were driving down from Hershey, PA to North Beach, MD.  We were on highway 2 just south of Annapolis and as we were passing this Cemetery I pointed it out to Charity and said: "Look at that seminary!"

See so many times I have heard people relate "seminary" to a "cemetery".  Hearing that so many times, and the point of life I am at with seminary, I am starting to think the joke is not a joke.  I do not personally know anyone that has attended seminary and left the church but I have heard the stories.  I have heard the stories of people who were passionate about their faith and left seminary less than excited about the Gospel.

Being the competitive person that I am I love to try to break stats and not fall into the junk that I hear others fall into.  The sad thing about the point I am at in seminary right now is that I am starting to believe that seminary is more like a cemetery than a training ground that fans the fire of your passion for the Gospel.  This could be my personal journey with seminary (been working on it for over 5 years), the stage of life we are (two little kids who miss their daddy because he has to do homework), or the fact that I am just sick of sitting at my kitchen table late at night while my wife spends time alone.

Please don't hear me wrong

• I do not hate my seminary
• I am not against further education
• I don't think that we should just wing it life
• I do think that the Bible encourages us to grow in wisdom

The stage I am at in life has just brought this on.  I have heard seminary called cemetery so many times and the sad fact is that is what my mind equates it to now...

I need to figure out how to change that

Little Hands: Part One

When Sophie turned two years old I got her handprint because I wanted to get a tattoo of it.  I had been talking to my tattoo artist about getting both the girls handprints at their two year old birthday.  The plan was to get their handprints on my left side because I have a piece for Charity on my right side.

I wish I could remember when we started this piece but I can't.  I think we may have started it back in December but I am not sure (it may have been October).  Here is a picture after the third session.  First session was to do Sophie's handprint and the frame that surrounds it.  Once we did Sophie's handprint it became evident to me that I was not going to be able to wait until Leah turned two and needed to get her handprint quickly!  Session two of the tattoo was placing Leah's handprint above Sophie's in a frame that matched what we did for Sophie.  The picture defiantly shows the work we have done and how amazing this piece is looking!

For the third session we filled the girls hands in and began to color in the frame.  The color is hard to see but when it's finished the frame will be gold and have the girls birthstones near their hands.  I am super stoked on how this is turning out; honestly its about a hundred times better than I could have ever imagined it would look.

My girls will always have a place in my heart and their handprints will always be marked on my side.  They are my girls and it is my role to love them, protect them, love them some more, point them to God and father them well.

Senior Grad Night

Its almost June and that means that our seniors will be graduating from high school very shortly.  Last night we had our annual senior grad night.  The night is really a time to honor the students who are graduating, allow our adult leaders to share some funny stories and invite their parents to watch.  This event has morphed for us over the last six years, since I have been here, and I think last nights was the best we have had!

We originally started doing this event on a Friday night and inviting just the families of the graduates and their parents.  The night was good but I feel like we were missing something; the rest of our high school ministry.  After that we changed to doing the event on a Wednesday night at Explode.  This allowed our students to see how important graduation was and gave parents a snap shot of what their student experiences at our high school ministry.

We have bounced back and forth on feeding families and this year we choose to make the event a desert event and went with the theme "Dress for Success".  Here are some highlights of the night for me:

• Having Kurt Johnson (graduate from 2008) come and host the event
• The room set up that our student leadership (SL) team did
• Watching our leaders share about the investment they have made in the graduating class
• The video that we showed from some of our past graduates (scroll down to watch)

Grad night has always been a tough night for me and last night was no different.  The most difficult thing about high school ministry, for me, has been investing into students for four years and then watching them leave the nest.  Last night I looked at young men and women who have given their life to Christ in our high school ministry, been baptized at our church and serve here.  It was tough.  There are students I have known since I moved to Vegas and its been a huge blessing to watch them grow in their faith and reach out to their friends on their campus.

The line I left our graduates with last night is the same line I have used before:

"Just because you graduate from Explode does not mean you are graduating from my life"

I love you class of 2011 and I am so proud of you!


Explode Alumni Video from Neal Benson on Vimeo.

My first date with Leah

Yesterday was a special day for me.
Let me say that again; Yesterday was a very special in my life!

Yesterday Charity dropped Leah off at church and we (Leah and I) went on our first date!  I tried to ask Leah where she wanted to go but didn't get much of a response so I decided to chose the place (this is why she looks confused in the pic).  We went to the District and grabbed some stuff from Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf.  The date was so cool for me to get some alone time with Leah and just get to know her more.  I was able to hold her hand, hold her, laugh with her, smile with her and just spend some time for the two of us.

We got to the table, outside, and I envisioned what this date would look like in twelve years.  I envisioned what she would want to talk about.  I envisioned what she would be in to.  I envisioned what she would order and how her hair would look.  I got scared after that so I just came back to today and enjoyed the time that I was getting with my fourteen month old!

I'm not going to give all the details of the date but I do want to share some things that I learned about my youngest daughter:

• If Leah chooses milk to drink I will end up drinking it and she will drink my decaf coffee
• Leah loves treats!  (We ordered a 7 layer bar)
• Leah loves frozen yogurt; I made the mistake of walking by the frozen yogurt shop and Leah was very clear that she would have rather eaten there
• Leah loves to hold my hand
• Leah likes to dance on the grates on the ground

Yesterday was the first date, of many, that I plan of taking Leah on.  I left our date with a greater sense of responsibility as a dad and the role that I play in her life.  

Potty Training

We are currently in the middle of potty training Sophie.  To be honest it has been a long process.  We have gone through times where she wants to go in the toilet all day long and we have experienced times where she just isn't that excited about going in the toilet.  This last week though we have made some great progress.  When Sophie and I went for our weekly date she went twice at Krispy Kreme!  She actually made it the whole day without wet undies.  Then today, while at church, we got a text that Sophie had peed in her outfit....

I was bummed

See this post isn't really about potty training my daughter.  While I was thinking about the text, in church, it made me think about how my life is kinda like potty training.  I envision God as the nice dad who is patiently teaching me how to live life without "going" on myself.  I envision my life kinda like my daughter.  I am trying so hard to go in the toilet but every now and then I just can't hold it and mess up.

The great thing about God, in these situations, is that he doesn't blow up on us.  He isn't livid when I can't make it to the toilet.

I love how God cares about me so much
I love how God takes the time to teach me in life
I love how God encourages me to grow up
I love God is right there when I mess up to help me get clean

Life is pretty much like potty training.  We are all going to mess up (and make a mess).  Some of us are further along in the process of others.  Some of us get trained quicker than others.  Some of us still wet the bed at night.  Some of us can hold it all day and all night.  The thing to remember is that we serve a gracious God who is right there to help us as we venture through life and figure it out.  God wants to be there to help everyone of us grow in life the question is: "Will we accept the help?"

Small Group Saturday

I like to brag that I have the coolest small group.  Maybe its not a brag but just my opinion.  This Saturday my family was out of town and I needed to do something crazy so I invited my small group!  Not everyone was able to make it and we even had a few other guys show up but we did have fun.

We went out to Nelson's Landing which is on Lake Mojave and did some cliff jumping.  Normally I go out there later in the year and the water is warm and the days are hot.  This day was a little different... Ok, a lot different.  It was super windy when we got out there and no warmer than 80 degrees.  I think I was the first to jump in and it was COLD!  My buddy later told me that the water temp was around 60 degrees.  Some of the guys jumped a few times but most of us jumped once or twice.

We ended up leaving early because it was so cold but made a stop at some of the old mining caves on the way home.  Now I have gone in these caves a few times and they are pretty cool.  They are not caves that you have to crawl to get any where and there are some areas that are very open.  We took the guys down in the caves for a little while and did some exploring, rock throwing and trying to scare each other.  The day was not what I expected but was a great day to get the guys out of their house and just spend some time together!

Family Walk (and a little lion hunting)

That may sound weird for some people "family walk"

I am fully aware of that; but that is something that my family has chosen to do pretty much on a daily basis (granted the weather is favorable).  Most every day my family eats dinner and then we head out for a family walk around the complex.  On that walk we do a variety of things:

• Talk about our days
• Get the mail
• Try to catch lizards
• Pet the neighbors dogs
• Talk with our neighbors
• Laugh and connect as a family

See family walk gives me some time to really connect with my family and focus on them.  It gets us out of the house, away from the TV and outside with each other.  It is something the girls look forward to!  It allows them to run around, in the grass, get some fresh air and take out their cool toys (Leah rides the braught braught and sometimes Sophie rides her scooter).  When Sophie was younger she LOVED the braught braught and now she has passed that fun on to her sister!

Today family walk was missing Charity so I decided to film a little video of Sophie and how big she is getting!  She is getting pretty good at her scooter and maneuvering it all over the place on our walk.  Today she took a break from the scooter to go lion hunting also!

The Christian Mind: Book Review

Title: The Christian Mind: How should a Christian Think?

Author: Harry Blamires

Pages: 191

Publisher: Regent College Publishing (1963)

Favorite Quote: "If Christians cannot communicate as thinking beings, there are reduced to encountering one another only at the shallow level of gossip and small talk."


Review: To start out honestly this book bored me to death for the first forty pages!  I really thought that I would never finish this read.  Maybe it was due to taking a few day off of reading or just something else this book became alive to me!

I began to see, and understand, what Blamires is talking about in this book.  I started to understand the concepts he was presenting and how he continued to share that Christians do not know how to think like Christians.  At first I was a bit upset but as I continued reading I began to understand what he meant and came to the conclusion that he is right.

We have Christians in this world that are more concerned with thinking about politics than thinking like Christians.  There are people in this world who call themselves Christians that care more about being an American than being a Christian.  Being a Christian causes your life to be altered; it changes everything in you and about you.  You begin to think differently, act differently and engage the world differently when you surrender your life to Christ.  The sad thing it that far too many people are a Christian in their heart and not in their mind.

I am going to recommend this book to you if you want a challenge in your life.  If you want to read some words that are going to shake your thoughts in life than run to order this book today!  But if you want to just keep living how you are living then don't read this book.  This book will require you to think about how you interact with the world around you and how you can engage it as a Christian!

Heaven is for Real: Book Review

Title: Heaven is for Real

Author: Todd Burpo with Lynn Vincent

Pages: 162

Publisher: Thomas Nelson

Favorite Quote: "Yes, Mommy, I remember," he said. "Thats where the angels sang to me."

Heaven is for Real is a book that you will only want to read if you are ready to cry.  I think that crying is good for the soul for everyone (even though I struggle with it) and therefore I recommend this book to everyone!  If you have ever had a question in your mind about the existence of heaven I think this book will help you to find some compelling evidence from the mind of a young child.

The story is about a 3 year old boy who visited heaven while in surgery.  I don't want to give away the entire story about what the family endures while their son is in the hospital or they pain they experience but I think the read is worth it.  I understand that the thought of heaven can be a tough thing to speak of but I also think that we need to think towards heaven and not just about getting there ourselves.  I think we live in a society that needs the hope of Christ in their life!

On a personal note it really brought up some emotions inside me that struck deep when our daughter was in the hospital and the pain that Charity and I endured in that time in our lives.  The book brought tears to my eyes just thinking about my little girl sitting in the NICU and the pain from that.  I truly felt with the dad who was enduring this painful situation.

Family Vacation: Jersey Shore

Back in December Charity and I planned a family vacation back to the east coast to visit our sisters who both live back there.  The first night we landed at BWI airport and headed straight to the Jersey Shore and stayed at this little cabin for two nights.  We got in pretty late Friday night and were hoping that our girls would sleep longer because of the time change but that was a joke!

We got up early on Saturday morning and headed over to the boardwalk.  I have never been on the east coast (except Florida) and this was cool.  We went to one of those typical boardwalk adventure parks.  It was super fun to take Sophie on the rides and then to watch her ride them on her own.  I just keep thinking how quickly my little girls are growing up.

Here is Sophie, Leah and their cousin Blaze riding one of the boat rides that they had their.  It brings back cool memories for me because I have seen a picture of me riding in a very similar ride when I was younger.  Going on this vacation was cool to spend some time with our family and get to let our girls connect with their Aunts and Uncles.

Coming back and looking on vacation I can see a couple immediate things that I want to adjust in my life:
1) Remember how blessed I am to have the family I have
2) Enjoy my family more
3) Take a regular vacation (I come back rejuvenated)

The Walls We Share

I've recently caught myself saying something when in conversations with people.  It goes something like this: "I just can't believe that I get to share a wall with him."

See I currently "share a wall" with Pastor Chris Lyons.  Now that name may be mean nothing to you but to me it means something to me.  I have worked with Pastor Chris for just over six years now and for the last two years Chris has been extremely helpful to me as a pastoral leader.  Now you may not know but Chris has been in ministry for over 55 years now!  He has served at only four churches during his time in ministry.

He started out his pastoral leadership in a church called West Church which is located in Peabody Massachusetts where he served for 15 years.  After growing that church he took a year off and then was asked to lead Wheaton Bible Church (yep, you read that right).  Pastor Chris lead that church for 15 years also.  From there he went to the Bay Area and lead a church called Redwood Chapel for 15 years.

After completing his leadership at Redwood Chapel Pastor Chris came out to South Hills to help our church feel more like a church and less like a youth group on steroids.  Pastor Chris was on staff prior to my invitation to join the team here and I am very thankful for his leadership.

Most days in the office I spend about 15-30 minutes (sometimes longer) with Pastor Chris talking about ministry, leadership, counseling situations and life.  I am so thankful to have a leader like Pastor Chris that I get to work alongside.  The question I leave you with is: "Who do you share a wall with and what can you learn from them?"  Maybe you are on the side of the wall like Pastor Chris is and you have some rad stuff to teach the younger generation.  We need that!  We need to have more seasoned leaders teaching us, training us and helping us as we follow God and seek to lead the lost to Christ.

Like Dad, Like Daughter

Yesterday we were blessed to have the day off after a long Easter Weekend.  We decided to take the girls to one of their favorite places in Vegas.  This place is great!  You can look at fish, ducks, moose, lions, giraffes and even sharks.  Sounds like the zoo but better huh!

Well while were at the Bass Pro Shop located in the Silverton Casino (giving you insight into our life in Vegas) Leah found some toys that she liked!  This little girl is going to be our outgoing little girl.  First she found the quad.  This is her "determined" to get on this thing picture.  She climbed up on the quad and then tried to climb up on the seat to sit!  She stood on the foot pegs for a while trying to figure out how she was going to drive this thing.  I wish I had the picture of her smiling (it was too blurry) and the look she had.

After we checked out the quads she went over the ride the boats.  Did I say ride the boats?  I meant to say drive the boats!  This was the best picture I have of her driving the boat.  The first picture she had a look on her face of "can I really do this?"  While Leah was driving the boat, Sophie was taking a nap on the seat.

I just love watching Leah grow up in the little girl that she is and her exploring and how she acts!  She is such an amazing little girl.  I hope that she loves the cold and will start to snowboard with me in a few years!

Healing Care, Healing Prayer: Book Review

Book: Healing Care, Healing Prayer: Helping the Broken Find Wholeness in Christ

Author: Terry Wardle

Pages: 233

Publisher: Leafwood

Favorite Quote: God wants to meet the caregiver at the place of his own deepest pain.

This is the final book that was a required reading for my spring course at Tozer Seminary called: Suffering and Healing.  This book has some great wisdom found it in about spiritual healing that the believer needs to engage in.

I would consider this book the most helpful, in my opinion, of the required texts I read.  I am not saying that the other books are unworthy but I am saying that this book tends to speak my language.  I enjoy having a plan and being able to think through steps to achieve that plan.  Wardle lays out some steps for healing that he has used in his ministry so you know the plan is something that has been tried and tested.

If you have some wounds in your past, like we all do, Warlde lays out the coping model that helps to see how we handle pain in our life.  Here is a quick snapshot of it:

Core Needs- Safety, Worth, Uniqueness, Love, Nurture, Appreciation and God

Pain Layer- Our personal reaction to stolen pain

Protection Layer- Strategies we employ to keep our pain in check

Provision Layer- Trying to meet the unmet need in a new way

Punishment Layer- Pain often births an anger that drives a person to strike back at the one who has perpetuated the injury

This model took me a while to understand but has helped me as I am dealing with unmet core needs from my childhood.  If you are seeking healing from the pain and suffering in your life then I would recommend this book!

Soul Surfer: Movie Review

About three weeks ago a man stopped by my office and gave me some promo material for the new movie that was coming out called: "Soul Surfer".  To be honest, I am not one who is typically interested in Christian movies.  I tend to think the cinematography can be cheesy.

I heard that this movie was going to be different and I decided that I needed to go see it and have some students come with.  Last night I went and saw this movie with a few students and a few leaders and I have to say that I was amazed at how good this movie was!  Now I have to share that the story touched home for me and there were times that I couldn't help but think: "What if something like that happened to one of my little girls?"

The movie has the theme that I love to see: Don't quit!

Hopefully you have heard Bethany's story and how she was bit by a shark and lost her arm.  I am so impressed at this girl and how she continues to battle in life without quitting because most people would have.  Bethany looses her arm and continues to surf.  The movie does well at portraying the pain that she would have to endure with the loss of her love of surfing and how to get that back.

I appreciate how they show that Bethany questioned her faith, and God, in this movie.  I think its more normal than not to question your faith in a situation like this one and I appreciate that the producer added this into the movie.  Every single one of us is going to have pain and suffering in our life; the question is what will you do with that pain?  Bethany chose to not quit surfing and now she is a pro!  I would definitely recommend that you go see this movie and her Bethany's story.

People of the Lie: Book Review

Book: People of the Lie

Author: M. Scott Peck, M.D.

Pages: 269

Publisher: Touchstone 1983

Favorite Quote: “If we seriously think about it, it probably makes more sense to assume this is a naturally evil world that has somehow been mysteriously “contaminated” by goodness, rather then the other way around.”

People of the Lie is another required text for the course I am currently completing for seminary titled: "Suffering and Healing".  Now the course has rocked me and this book really hit me hard in a few places. Peck became a Christian later in life but has been a counselor for most of his professional career.  Peck shares some of the cases that he has encountered in his years of counseling and I have to say that some of them are difficult to read.

Essentially Peck outlines how we live in a world that has been effected with evil and because of that it is so important for us, Christians, to live out our faith.  Peck shares stories about how people are partners in evil.  There is an account of parents who treat their child in a manipulative way.  There is a female who has multiple issues that lead her to have inappropriate thoughts toward Peck and the list goes on.

If you have some time and you want to be stretched in your thinking then I totally recommend this book. If you can be sensitive to the pain that we encounter in life and that is tough for you to handle then I would encourage you to read this book and face that pain head on.  The book will stretch your thinking but hopefully make you aware to what you encounter and the evil that lies behind that.

Guest Host for Announcements: Barak Obama

This week in our High School Ministry we brought in a guest to share what is going on.  Now most people may be thinking: "How did you afford to get the president to come help out?  Wasn't that expensive?"

To be honest in our ministry we live by the principle: "Nothing is too costly when you have a message to communicate" and that is why we asked Barak Obama to come share the weekly announcements:



Now with all joking aside it was fairly easy to make this happen but it took a few keys things to do it:

1) An intern who can make people laugh (if you don't have an intern you can always ask a student)

2) A video that we jacked from youtube using keepvid

3) Once the video is downloaded to your machine we simply dropped it into iMovie and used the voice recorded in there to communicate what we needed to say

4) Now take a break, play some video games, and export it to a quicktime file and you are ready to roll!

Thank you Obama for caring about our country and sharing the weekly announcements; our students loved it!

The Wounded Healer: Book Review

Book: The Wounded Healer

Author: Henri Nouwen

Pages: 109

Publisher: Image Doubleday

Favorite Quote: It is a painful fact indeed to realize how poorly prepared most Christian leaders prove to be when they are invited to be spiritual leaders in the true sense.

The Wounded Healer is a book that I recently read for Tozer Seminary.  I had heard great things about Nouwen prior to reading this book and am able to confirm what I have heard.  Nouwen is a brilliant man!

The overall subject of the book can be summarized in this quote from the book on page 78: "Who can take away suffering without entering it?"  In this book Nouwen encourages the reader to be a "Wounded Healer" meaning that we understand that we are not perfect people.  In fact I think it would be the opposite; that we are all wounded but some of us have chosen to initiate healing in our lives while others haven't.  Those who desire healing need to be wounded healers that are mending their own wounds while being aware of where God would like them to help heal others at the same time.

The book brings up some great examples, and illustrations, that can help those of us who desire to see life change happen in others.  I am going to recommend this book to others to read but I have to give you a waring.  If you read this book you are going to be stretched in your thinking and challenged in how you live your life from this point on.

9th Annual Student Ministry Garage Sale

Last weekend we had our 9th annual student ministry garage sale.
This was the 7th garage sale that I have been involved in at our church.  When I was first informed about the garage sale I was a bit skeptical and curious about how this would work.  The basic concept is that we ask members in the church, and people in the community, to donate their gently used items to our garage sale.  We get a place to store these items for about four weeks prior to the sale.  The week of the sale is just all garage sale; picking up large donations, setting up the sale, selling items and then cleaning up our church.

This year was a tough year for me in the garage sale.  To be honest; garage sales are not my "thing" but I know the value of this sale and how much we can make for camp (last year we made just around $12,000).  See every penny that we raise from the garage sale helps to send our students to summer camp and that is important for our ministry.  This year I was discouraged for two reasons:
1) I felt like we had less "high ticket items"
2) I knew we were going to make less than the previous year

When it was all said and done we have made over $7500 to help sends students to camp so far!  I may have times that I get discouraged but I need to remember that God knows all our needs.  I have to trust, and pray, that God will bring in all the money for students to go to camp.  I also get encouraged because I was able to spend hours with students selling stuff, picking up items and cleaning up the church.  I had extra time to spend with our team and hang out with new people from our church.  I also get to see this amazing family in our church (Kevin and Nancy Rock) do what they love and help lead this sale!

I may have had a discouragement about some of the sale but overall I am thankful for the amount of money we raised and how much time I was able to spend with students.

Empowering Students to Lead

Not just letting them lead...
Empowering Students to Lead!

There is a verse in the Bible that I was taught as a young Christian.  In  Bible college I learned that my role as a pastor is to NOT do all the ministry on my own.  Don't beleive me?  Then read this:

"Now these are the gifts Christ gave to the church: the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, and the pastors and teachers. Their responsibility is to equip God’s people to do his work and build up the church, the body of Christ."  Ephesians 4:11-12 (NLT)

Here are some thoughts I have learned from empowering students:

* It tends to be better when students lead
Don't get me wrong, we have failed by letting students lead but when we empower students to lead it tends to turn out better!  A junior in high school: organized this dance, got the team together to learn the dance, had the team there on time to run through the dance and they preformed it as an opener to our ministry night.  I love empowering students to lead!  Honestly the only thing I did for the dance was ask her to lead it and then check in with her, weekly, before the dance.

* Students feel more buy in
We currently have an amazing student leadership team in our high school ministry and on that team we have a young lady who loves to dance!  Now, not only does she love to dance she is really good at dancing.  A few months ago I asked her if she could choreograph a dance to open up our ministry night and she killed it!  We decided to do it again and this time we filmed it (Watch it here).  There is some huge buy in when you empower students to lead.

* More students are involved
For this particular instance we had a few students involved who may not have found another way to get involved in the weekly program (other than inviting a friend).  This gave them a cool way to invite their friends to watch them dance/sing.  I love it when we get more students involved and help them to have more investment in the ministry.

How are you empowering students to lead?