Last week as our student ministry focused on desires and I began to think a lot about discerning what the “right” desires are. I began to think about that fact that we hear all kinds of voices everyday and it’s important that we, as followers of Jesus are able to discern between the good, the bad and the best.

This conversation is often about what the Church has called “discerning the spirits.”

Discerning the spirits is an important part of the Christian life. We all want to be dialed into the Spirit of God but we know that there are other spirits we must deal with as well, whether those spirits stem from our own sinful consciousness or are the spirits of this world that the scripture talks about. Part of our journey as Christians is figuring out how to discern the voice of God in the midst of all the other “voices” or spirits that we run into.

There are a few basic things you need to know about discerning the spirits.

#1. Be in prayer. The more we pray, the more we get to know the voice of God. It’s true with anybody, right? The closer you are to a person, the more distinguishable their voice is to you. The same is true in our relationship with God.

#2. Participate in community. Community is important in our efforts of discernment. God has created for us to live in community, and I’m positive part of the reason is so that we can help each other discern the voice and will of God in our lives.

#3. Study God’s Word. I think much of “God’s will” has already been given to us in the pages of scripture, so when we pray “Thy will be done,” we are doing much more than throwing our hands up in the air saying “whatever you want God” and doing nothing ourselves. We are praying a prayer of commission to go into the world and live and do the will of God as we learn it in the pages of scripture and in our hours of prayer.

#4. Find a spiritual director or mentor who will pray with you and guide you deeper into the will of God and into clarity when it comes to discerning the spirits.

#5. Read. Here is some reading material to take you a bit deeper in the conversation of discerning the spirits.

.:: For Students
Enjoy the Silence
What Does God Want From Me
Devotion: A raw truth journal on following Jesus

.:: Go Even Deeper (stuff that’s kinda hard to read)
The Discernment of Spirits: An Ignatian Guide for Everyday Living
Discerning the Will of God: An Ignatian Guide to Christian Decision Making

Just to be honest last week was a failure. I got busy, I got distracted and totally got out of my Lenten rhythms. I FAILED!
We are also at about the half-way point in our Lenten journey.
For both of these reasons it’s the perfect time to post this little ditty. This is the appendix in our Lenten devotional guide and a great reminder that doing things perfectly isn’t really the point anyway. I hope it encourages you and i hope you will join me in getting back on track with your Lenten disciplines.

.:: Factoring In Failure

Maybe you’re not like me. Maybe you are extremely self-disciplined and whenever you set your mind to do something, you do it flawlessly!  AWESOME! You probably have some other things you need to work out with the Lord, but definitely not the same things I do. You see, me—I’m a failure! I regularly fail at things I say I’m going to do… waking up in the morning to pray, reading my Bible every day, not doing this or that… FAIL, FAIL and #FAIL once again! (hash tag for public emphasis—only Twitter peeps will understand!)
Lent is a time of self-denial, of extra spiritual focus and discipline… BUT if you do it all perfectly and fail to be engaged in your humanity and this journey toward the cross, well, you have failed! It’s not about failing on purpose, but it’s about realizing that if you do mess up, slip up or eat up one day because you just didn’t think about it, or because you just HAD to see that show, or because you couldn’t go one more moment without a smoke or a drink (coffee or otherwise)… IT’S LENT! Maybe in your failure, you can “get it” even more, in an even deeper kind of way.

So, I don’t plan for failure; I don’t put an X on my Lent calendar to mark the day I will fail, but I pretty much factor in the fact that I will fail—there will be a day I utterly fall on my face, whether it is with my Lenten discipline or in some other area of my life. And in that moment, I stop, pray and remember that I am nothing but DUST! I know that I journey in the desert of temptation with the only person who has ever done it perfectly. Jesus is my only hope! I continue to follow Him through the desert to the cross and ultimately participate with Him in the resurrection!

Factor in some failure this Lent! Be ready for it so that when it happens, you’re ready to pray, think and continue on!

“THE GOAL OF LENT is not to make a plan for change and follow it to the letter. Rather, the goal is to make a change that sinks deeply into life, drawing us closer to self, others, and God. Lent is about intentionally opening ourselves, preparing to receive God’s goodness.”
— From A Clearing Season: Reflections for Lent by Sarah Parsons

Make sure to check out www.LentWebGuide.com for more Lenten reading and reflection.

On Mondays, every once in awhile I drop some music!
I cleverly call this “Music Monday’s” and well today is a Music Monday!

Over at www.LentWebGuide.com I gave this Lenten album a shout out (specifically on this day if you car to see it).

The album is entitle LENT by a band called The Brilliance.
I don’t think they call themselves The Brilliance but they are conceded and think they are brilliant but probably more so because they are a “sort of” a Christian worship band and believe that God is brilliant, i would agree.  But would also say they too are brilliant, or at least this Lenten album they have produced is.

Here is a great song entitled Dust We Are and Shall Return, probably my favorite of the album and such a great Lenten tune! Enjoy…

Well i hope you will go onto iTunes or Amazon and pick up this album to accompany through your Lenten journey.
I might remind you, we are half way there. Half way to resurrection so hang in their and remember that God in Christ is present, even in the desert and He desires you more than you desire anything. And that is the most important thing.

Grace, peace and mercy
erik

Last week my church hosted the Anglican 1000 conference, a gathering of current and future Anglican church planters in North America. It was a great time of vision and training for the ACNA and their church planting initiatives.

Being a future church planter myself (at least I think I will be) it’s always great to be around innovative church planting leaders. It’s inspiring and motivating! Church planting is a hard work—they often say the hardest work—and also the most rewarding. I’ve always sensed this and therefore have embraced what I believe to be a call to church planting with fear and trembling, along with patience and prayer. We shall see when God opens the door and leads the way for my family and me to enter into this venture. For now I will just hang around church planters, glean good ideas and be inspired by their faith and determination.

Being the host of a conference was a very different experience. My church was busy and the staff I work with had a lot of duties as well as name tags that you would have thought said, “Ask me anything, I have the answers.” Which was awkward for the new guy, only having worked at Christ Church for 5 months now, because there were a lot of questions I didn’t have a clue how to answer. Luckily I know people who know the answer, which is half the battle, right?

One of my duties, which I rather enjoyed, was to be a chauffeur. I was able to drive around a few of the speakers—you can listen to their talks here. I would recommend any of Scot McKnight’s talks and also David Taylor’s talk was amazing. Really, they were all pretty good, Fr. David Roseberry, Mike Breen… all of them!  But my primary assignment was driving around Sir Scot McKnight. I was excited about this because the word on the street was that Scot is also a pretzel, a Freeport pretzel. This was my high school mascot; everybody gets a chuckle out of that.  And sure enough, Scot McKnight was also a Freeport pretzel. Gave us a lot of good conversation, talking about good old Freeport.

Scot was great! I enjoyed talking with him and picking his brain a bit about blogging, writing, traveling and speaking, as well as theology and ecclesiology kinds of stuff. Always fun to chat with fellows who are far smarter, well read and well traveled than yourself. Scot was very gracious and I really enjoyed chatting with him.

One thing we talked about was blogging. Scot blogs about three times a day and plans out much of his blogging at least one week in advance. WOW! I struggle blogging once a week. But aspiring to write and speak more in the future, I realize how valuable a blogging platform can be. So once again I’m inspired to do a bit more blogging. I know I say this and blog about blogging once every 6-8 months, so here it is again—my hope to blog a bit more. I have about two pages of blog ideas, now I just need to write them and schedule them out.

Here’s to blogging and inspiration.

Thought i would share what i’m reading this Lent. And i would love to know what your into!

So every year i pick one book during Lent that will help me reflect on the season as well as the things i’ve given up and taken on. Last year i dove into N.T. Wright’s book Reflecting The Glory. And it was great! This year i’ve picked up Alexander Schmemann’s book entitled Great Lent: Journey to Pascha. I read bits of this last year but i decided to make it on as my Lenten book this year… and so far it’s amazing!

Also on amazing is a free kindle version of a Lent devotional by Alexander Schmemann entitled Great Lent (with a lengthly subtitle). This looks like it’s a shorter devotional version of the book i’m reading but i’m sure it’s awesome and it’s FREE! So get it!

I’m also reading a couple little devotional guides this Lent.

The 1st is my book LENT: A Journey of Discovery by Addition, Subtraction and Introspection. My youth group as well a some friends of mine that are pastors are using this book as a resource to lead their students through this time of Lent. Excited to see what God does with these words i’ve put to paper. My hope is that it’s a helpful guide on this Lenten journey.

My Church also put together a little Lenten devotional guide that uses Psalm 119 as a lighted path for the Lenten journey. You can check that out  (free PDF) if you’d like.

I hope your Lent has started off well and that you are pondering your mortality and your need for a savior, hoping and looking forward to a resurrection but willing to take the hard, long joinery to get there.

Grace, peace and mercy
Erik

I really love the prayer that’s in the video below, i think you will too.  And as we start our Lenten journey i think it’s especially fitting.

The book i put together this Lent has a little web guide, you can find it here— www.LentWebGuide.com
I will be posting things on that site that are connected to the Lent Book you can get but even if you don’t have the book i think they might be helpful and thought provoking during this Lenten season.

Enjoy this prayer and may God disrupt your life this Lenten season!

Grace and peace

“Where do they get all those ashes?”

I always wondered where they got all those ashes on Ash Wednesday. A couple of years ago, someone finally told me that they burn the palm branches from the previous year’s Palm Sunday service.

Maybe I’m not the sharpest knife in the drawer, but I didn’t know that. The palm branches from the previous year’s Palm Sunday service are burned, made into ashes and smeared on the foreheads of those needing to remember “from dust you have come and to dust you will return.”

A pastor friend of mine posted a YouTube video of his church burning the palm branches.

I guess now the question is, “Where do all those Midwesterners get palm tree branches?”

I pray that this Ash Wednesday is deep and meaningful start to your Lenten experience.

Grace and peace

The day before Ash Wednesday is known as Fat Tuesday or, if you grew up across the pond, Shrove Tuesday—and it’s a day to INDULGE!

Most people know about Fat Tuesday or Mardi Gras, but what you may not know is that historically there has been a purpose behind this party, despite the lack of purpose that this day seems to currently possess.

The purpose of this day is to indulge a bit in all the things you are planning on giving up. Eat some extra candy, drink all the coffee you can, watch all the TV your mind can handle and most importantly, party with your friends! (I might add, in a way that doesn’t break any commandments! We are Christians, after all!)

IT’S FAT TUESDAY!

Until a couple of years ago, I had never heard of Shrove Tuesday or its traditions. While I lived in Nashville, however, I was fortunate to be in a community group with a great family from across the pond, and they introduced me to Shrove Tuesday and some of these crazy traditions.

The deal is that traditionally all the families would bring their flour, sweets and other goodies that might not keep over Lent and eat it all! During Lent, they wanted to refrain from foods they enjoyed and that gave them the most pleasure as a way to embrace the season of Lent. It’s my understanding that because the typical things they brought to purge themselves of—butter, flour, sugar, etc.—were mostly the goods to make pancakes, that’s what they made … and that’s what they played!

As you can see in the video above, we practiced some pancake games ourselves. It was such an amazing time of fun and fellowship. I miss my Nashville community group and will be looking to have some fun tonight in Texas!

Here’s is what i ate for lunch… Let the Pancake festivas begin!

I would encourage you to start a tradition with your community. Flip some cakes, have a party, do something fun because Lent is coming.

So yea, INDULGE!

What are you giving up this year?

Eat up, drink up, make it count!

Grace and peace

Erik

So it’s true, i wrote and self-published a little book. The book is a little devotional piece on Lent, which if your not familiar is the 40 days leading up to Easter. So essentially it’s a devotional book that leads and prepares the reader for Easter Sunday, the resurrection of Jesus.

Here’s what the back of the book says;

This isn’t just another devotional book. This is a guide to a 40-day journey to resurrection.

Maybe you don’t even know what Lent is. Maybe you’re thinking it’s that stuff you pick out of the depths of your pants pockets. Maybe when you hear Lent, you think it’s something only Catholics do.

Even if you’re not familiar with Lent or have a negative association with it, I think we would all agree that Easter is essential to the life of the Church. It’s the time of year when we are intentional about retelling and rehearing the story of Jesus’ death and resurrection.

And because Christ invites His followers to not just hear about resurrection but to participate in it, we have historically taken the 40 days leading up to Easter to prepare our hearts and minds to enter into the story of Christ.

This little book is a guide, a help, a companion on that 40-day journey of prayer and Christian practice known as Lent. On this journey, we will practice the disciplines of addition, subtraction and introspection so that we may more fully participate in the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

We call this journey Lent.

And we take this journey because we all need a resurrection.

==========================================

I would love to offer this little devotional book to you as you as you make your way to Easter Sunday.

If you order the book by this Friday at noon i can guarantee it’s arrival by Wednesday the 22nd, which is when this Lenten journey will start for most of us.

At my church we are using this book to guide our middle school and senior high students on a Lenten journey. There are a handful of other churches that are using this resource to help their students as well.

There are themes for every week of the journey which we will all be using as preaching topics during this next 7 weeks. And if you interested, some of us are going to join a conversation to help each other as we craft messages and services for our students during this time. That conversation will mostly happen via email and i would love to include in that as well.

You can get the book here and checkout the Web Guide (an online resource to supplement the book) here.

My prayer is that this resource would help you and your ministry as you make your way through the desert of Lent to the brilliance of resurrection!

Would love to have you on this journey with us!

Grace and peace
erik

And here is the book cover if you want to see / read it all!
(thanks to Aaron VanStrien for his skills, which he donated to this project!)

How do you think of a good message or series for students? There’s the argument of “topical” or “expositional”. Or maybe you just get a good idea, find some bible verses and your ready to preach. Maybe you think your students need to hear about a particular topic so you craft some messages to fit. Maybe you preach the lectionary or some other version of predetermined passages.

How do you think of a good message or series messages for students?

I probably do a mix of all the above. Some methods are better than others but none is right or wrong, in my opinion.

The current series we are doing, Never Too Early was a mix. I really wanted to dive into some scripture with my students and 1 Timothy kept coming to mind. My initial thought was to walk verse by verse through it. But then i started reading through the Old Testament as a new years resolutions and some of those stories really began to pop. So instead of just looking at Timothy as a young leaders i thought, let’s look at the life of a handful of young people in the bible who God used to accomplish his purposes. Almost immediately after this was the route i decided to go i ran across this video at church, PERFECT!

That’s was how this one came together and so far so good. 
We focused the first message on the disciples in general and how most of them were probably teenagers and the very core of Jesus’ movement to change the world.
The second week we took a look at David. He’s a no brainer. The older brothers overlooked because, as the scripture says, “humans look at the outward appearance (things like age and experience) but God looks at the heart.” And then we talked about David taking off the armor given him to face the giant because he realized the only way he would win the battle was by faith in his God, not by trying to be someone else and living in someone else’s armor or shadow.

Next week we will look at Timothy and focuses on the verse “Do not let anyone look down on you because you are young but set an example…” This will be followed by Samuel and then a wrap up message to the series.

Doing this gig has it’s challenges. One of them is coming up stellar content that really connects with students… EVERY WEEK! The advantage i had in my previous gig was that i spend a couple months crafting messages and was then able to deliver them multiple times over a few months. And if a message was REALLY good i could keep in the rotation for up to a year. 

Things are a bit different now but i’m excited about how it’s stretching me and i look forward to working with other youth pastors like myself to collaborate in providing high quality biblical content to students and their families.

If you up for some collaboration let me know!

Grace and peace
erik