Have you ever seen a dog chasing a car? What's your first thought? “IDIOT!” Right?

Well, this past weekend, I was mowing the yard and watched my parent's dog, Mackey, chase vehicles down the road over and over again. One after another, he enjoyed each one more than the last.

On and on for a few hours, Mackey chased away… and then it finally hit me, I don't blame him! Why would any dog want to sit on the porch all of his life and be a boring dog!? I don't blame him for wanting to live a little dangerous! I thought to myself, “We call him ‘bad dog' but he's actually doing what he enjoys, getting a thrill out of it. Seems smart to me!” Granted, it is quite dangerous but considering his ignorance, you get the point.

It made me think of those that we all know that never ‘get off the porch'. They live life working their lives away or have ‘paid their dues' and don't do anything worth remembering after that.

I don't want people at my funeral simply saying, “He sure did work hard all his life.” Yes, I do want to be remembered as a hard worker, as my parents instilled in me that ‘virtue' as one of the greatest characteristics of a man, but isn't life much more than working hard?

When I was a young boy, we had a dog named Parrot. Parrot was a riot! I can remember one morning as we rode off towards school in the truck, Parrot chased us down and leaped over the side of the bed into the back of the truck while in full stride at about 20+ mph. Now that's what I'm talking about! Parrot was not your ordinary dog; he was fast, could jump and used it dangerously in conjunction with his passion… being with his family. Those are the things that we remember best about our dogs, the stories that are worth telling, the extraordinary ones. Am I right?

Now, I know what some of you are thinking and I want to go ahead and negate your thoughts of me encouraging going out and doing ‘dangerous' or ‘stupid' things. That is far from what I'm saying here…. My whole point is that there is so much more than what we know. I'm encouraging you to ‘get off the porch', chase something you are passionate about (that doesn't reap direct benefits for yourself), have fun and live a life that's worth remembering, a life of a different value. Let's go to our graves knowing we lived our lives for a greater purpose, something so much bigger than ourselves, not wishing we had done ‘this' or ‘that'.

Now Jesus, he was a dude that grew up a carpenter's son. Jesus was a hard worker, he was a listener, a learner and a teacher… a good one at that. I'm sure he loved making things with his hands as all men do but he didn't go to the tomb with people talking about how great a carpenter he was. He lived for something greater than himself. He had a passion that was embedded in him from before the womb, and that was to ‘do as the Father does' (John 5:19). Jesus paved the way for all who have lived dangerous lives from that point on. Jesus, one heck of a carpenter, wasn't consumed in being the ‘best carpenter in his city', he was consumed with doing the will of the Father and bringing the Kingdom of God to earth and doing so by serving, loving on people and being a ‘bad dog' by doing things that people didn't approve of (because it was controversial and contrary to what they had always done and been taught). If you ask anyone, Jesus was a guy that ‘got off the porch'.

Following Jesus isn't safe. Let's get past the thought that it is and embrace the fact that the Truth isn't safe but it's good and life giving.

Some of you are carpenters, some teachers, some businessmen, and some of you are stay at home moms but don't let that limit you to not living a dangerous life. If anything, it should compel you all the more to ‘get off the porch' and dive into the lives of those that surround you every single day that haven't had a chance to meet face-to-face with Redemption himself… and above all, listen and actively respond.

Listening to Holy Spirit and responding with expectancy of power is removing ourselves from the ‘ordinary' and crashing into the adventure of the unknown as we pursue it. Choosing into the authority and empowerment that we have been given creates a culture of those who don't live in pursuit of being the “best so-and-so in the city” but those who change the course of history, simply by ‘getting off the porch' and operating in our passions and giftings given by the Father… as we serve.

Are we satisfied with living lives for ourselves? I have yet to meet a man who was. What if the satisfaction of life comes from living life unto a greater being like God, the ‘Father', as Jesus claimed? Would it be worth it then? Does a life of contentment come from serving God by being obedient to His mandate on our lives and chasing the passions for his Kingdom that we have with the gifts we have been given? Do you think this is what satisfies not only ourselves but God himself as well?

Have you ever eaten something that just tore you up inside? Yeah, you know that feeling, almost like you have a stomach full of pure ACID (no, not the good kind). Well, I feel like that sometimes. I feel like that often actually, and it doesn't even take food to do it. This is the feeling that I get when I see someone living under the age-old saying, “this is the way we've always done it” and haven't lived a life to anyone but themselves, whether knowingly or not. My stomach churns with agony and my heart hurts for someone who hasn't tangibly experienced the heart of God, a touch that changes all. Living dangerously is exactly what brings the tangible love of God to the untouchable.

My passion is with my people and my people are you. The gifts that I have been given may look like coaching, teaching, and leadership entangled with a mechanical mind but could it be that those were given to me not for my own good but for God's, to use towards you? I may not know exactly what my life is going to look like in twenty years and I may not be able to guarantee you that I will have ‘this amount of money' in a bank account but one thing I know, my life is not my own and I will remove myself from the porch and run towards the dangers of following Jesus, nearing my grave with joy.

If following Jesus is dangerous, then how dangerous is your life? Are you off the porch yet?

What is it about Jesus that drew people to him? Was it charisma? His knowledge? His appearance? Was it polished speech? Was it grace? Was it His ‘radical' teachings? What it because He asked people to do things unheard of? Was it because He performed miracles? Perhaps it was His relentlessness? Or was it because He simply saw to the heart of the people and actually loved them like crazy? Was that the look in His eyes that just ‘did it'?

Lately, God has been strategically moving me to places that are uncomfortable, allowing me to feel things that ‘normal' people don't often feel. This is humbly empowering and befitting as a follower of Jesus.

Last Thursday, a man I know showed up at my doorstep in relapse from a serious, somewhat life-long addiction. He warned me before showing up of what condition he was in but I told him to come anyways. It didn't take long before he was in complete tears telling me, “You know why I come here? You're different from all of the other Christians that I know. You aren't so serious and condemning of me. … There's something about you that is unlike anything I've seen before, something I want, man! I want it so bad! You know and see what I want deep down; I feel like you actually love me.” Talk about humbling. I felt uncomfortably in the right place. As an evening of absolute Holy Spirit movement unfolded, I pondered, “Is this how Jesus felt?”

I love relationships. Craving them, I keep in contact with people all over the world on a consistent basis and I not only enjoy these relationships to the n^th degree but know it's key to the Gospel being the Gospel, passionately seeing to the heart of people and surfacing the Kingdom within them.

While in Africa last year, I met a man named Domingos Temane who, along with his wife and children that they have lost, has HIV & AIDS. Last time I talked to him, he was getting much worse, yet hopeful.

There's this love that I have for Domingos, a stranger if you really look at it, that is unbearingly confusing but accurately fitting. Domingos contacts me often and this morning, I woke to this text message:

Knowing Domingos' heart and how he is a man of such honor and valiant character, it eats me up with even more crazy love for him as a brother and child of God.

I can't imagine how Jesus feels on that one….

In Luke 7, Jesus saw the mother of a child who had just died, weeping. Scripture says, “He had compassion on her” telling her “Do not weep” and stopped at the casket, doing the unthinkable, speaking to the dead, “Young man, I say to you, arise.” He sat up and Jesus gave him to his mother!

Often, we picture Jesus as this unanimated, emotionless character, one who does what He came to do and goes about His business. Could we be wrong?

How does Jesus feel about His neighbor? How does He feel about the one that drove the nails? How does He feel when He sees the hungry? The cripple? The poor? The lonely? What emotions does Jesus have when encountering a ‘royal screw up'? How does He feel about those dying of HIV & AIDS? … How does He feel about you?

The answer is uncomfortably befitting…. He is pained with a burning, compassionate love that compels his actions to move on behalf of the Father and His Kingdom.

… What are you feeling?

(What you are about to read contains information that had to be changed or left out such as names and places to keep confidentiality)

Not a Word, Not a Look, Not a Movement

It was a day that began like most. I woke early, clothed myself, got ready, made breakfast and walked out the door. Only this morning was different. I was going on a ride… a ride that I will never forget.

Shortly, I found myself about 3 hours from home picking up an older gentleman. We had a couple quick stops to make, one at a local restaurant and another to drop off a package and before we knew it, we were headed down the thicket-lined highways back towards home.

As we were riding, his personality was nowhere to be found and all I was left with was 3 hours of East Texas road and no one to talk to. He never said a word, he never looked me in the eyes, and in fact, he never even moved. We jammed to the musical arts of Ozzy Osborne, The Toadies, a few East Texas country radio stations and even some Tejano for about an hour. During the course of this time, I thought to myself, “I bet he has NEVER accomplished all this in one ride before!”

It was just that thought that got me thinking…

EURO AFRICAN BAPTIST YOUTH CHOIR

"I Want to Follow Jesus"

If you followed me on the Race, you may remember this…

In November of 2010, a group of World Racers entered Zomba, Malawi. They went with the sole purpose of unleashing the Kingdom of God. Among all, one thing left them in tears. That was the sound of the Euro African Baptist Youth Choir. As they stomped and sang their way in the back door, the hair on the necks of every foreigner in that place stood straight up! By the end of the first song, they were ALL sobbing. It made no sense to them as to why they were crying at the sound of a youth choir but what they did understand was that it was ultimately the most beautiful sound that had ever hit their ears….

 

NEW CD COVER - "I Want to Follow Jesus"                        EURO AFRICAN BAPTIST YOUTH CHOIR

Well, I was one of those foreigners in that little church in the nook of a mountain in Zomba, Malawi. As I learned about a week into our stay that the church only had enough funds to feed the children once a day, I began to pray for those children, the church and the surrounding community. I was broken for the people there. After I had been praying for about a week, the Lord told me to gather the youth choir and produce a CD of some of their best songs. The Holy Spirit told me to tell their story, get their music out and help them raise funds to feed the children in the orphanage/choir by taking donations for the CD. Soon after, I asked Pastor Gama how much it would be to feed the children all month and he said $106. I, at first, assumed that this meant 3 times a day but evidently, Malawians don't always eat 3 meals a day like Americans do, so the $106 goes to feed all 15 orphans TWICE a day for one month!

As you can probably guess, we produced the CD. On November 13, 2010 after about 4 hours and 17 songs, at about 6pm, we finished recording and the choir called a day. The finished CD, "I Want to Follow Jesus" has 19 tracks (17 songs and 2 short interviews) and it is an a cappella CD filled with a lot of heart, heart simply giving thanks and worshiping God!

EABYC Promo Video