Blog.

Last weekend, I attended a men’s retreat with the guys from my church, where I had the opportunity to play in the worship band, and to get to know many people that I had only briefly met before. The weekend was wholesome, relaxed, and a lot of fun. It was held at a resort in northwestern Maryland, if you’re wondering where the pictures are from…

The theme for the weekend was Discipleship. Real Discipleship. A term that the Western church has tamed, watered down, and a concept that is mostly ignored in practice. We talk about it, but we have lost the passion and devotion to carry out perhaps one of the most important commandments Jesus ever gave. The typical church today tends to “bring in” people, make sure they are saved, Baptize them, and then forget about them. Most new Christ followers are left eating baby food, hungering for substance, with no one to feed them.

To grasp the magnitude of the Great Commission, there must be some understanding of what a disciple is. A disciple is so much more than a student. A student just wants to know what the teacher knows. A Talmid, or disciple, wants to be “what the teacher IS“. If a believer in Christ just wants to know what God knows, or just wants to know what Jesus says about certain subjects, he / she is just a student. If that believer says “I want more than anything in the world to be JUST LIKE JESUS“, then he / she is a disciple. (see Ray Vander Laan Downloads for more on this) It is so much more than church on Sunday or a Bible study on Tuesday night; Being a disciple demands a passionate seeking to know everything possible about the life of Jesus, and a radical change of lifestyle where every breath taken is an effort to emulate the Savior.

So where do you stand? Are you a believer? A student? Or a disciple? Are you actively pouring your life into someone else, teaching them what it means to be a disciple of Christ? Do you have someone that’s pouring their life into you?

I haven’t written in almost two weeks, but there really hasn’t been much to write about. It’s the same old story day after day. Work, eat, practice music, sleep. Repeat. We haven’t taken any photos lately, but I hope that will change soon.

Yesterday, Heather and I went to see “Bodies… The Exhibition” in DC. In short, it is a museum about the human body, and the exhibits are genuine cadavers that have been preserved and presented in a masterful way. Although it sounds a bit disturbing and creepy, we were amazed and completely entranced in the complexity of God’s finest creation. There were skeletons, muscles, bones, skin (probably the strangest thing we saw), abnormalities (lungs with emphysema, cancer, pneumonia, tumors, etc), a section where they showed the development of a fetus from conception to almost birth (complete with how the bones develop during those 9 months), and probably the most amazing section: the circulatory system. They invented a way to preserve the veins and arteries within a body, while removing all other parts, creating a beautiful network of the blood transport system. Parts of it strongly resembled a fine coral reef. You can view a couple videos of the exhibit here. (Click “About the Exhibition” => “video”)

The exhibit really caused me to wonder how someone could view the incredible “machine” that is the human body and not believe in a creator. National Geographic is starting a new series called the “Incredible Human Machine” where it will showcase the complexity of the human body. I don’t receive the National Geographic channel, but if you do, check it out and let me know how it is.

On a separate note, I uploaded a talk by Gregg Matte that he presented at a worship conference in 2003. If you have anything to do with worship planning in any way, I highly recommend this talk. Find it here, or check out the downloads tab at the top of the page.

I added a new page to the site that will feature downloads that I think you should download. I will be adding to this section in time…

Currently, I have posted a series of talks by Ray Vander Laan, a teacher who spent considerable time (measured in years) living in Isreal studying in the traditional Rabbinic schools, learning what it was like to live as a Jew. Currently, His ministry is to teach people how to think “Eastern” (listen to first talk for an explanation), how to approach the Bible from a Jewish context, and to explore a facet of Christ often ignored in Western culture (aka, the United States), Jesus the Rabbi. You can find his website here: Follow The Rabbi. The talks can be found by following the downloads tab at the top of the page, or clicking here.