God's Dog

We have a very sweet yellow lab named Yvaine (from the movie Stardust) who is my wife's baby.  She was picked out when only one and a half weeks old and my wife eagerly anticipated her joining our family.  Since then Yvaine has been babied and spoiled to the point where she thinks she's a 61 pound lap dog.

One of the things we love is that she really wants to be with us.  She's content to curl up on the couch or bed next to us (well, mostly my wife), just being close.  When my wife leaves the room, she gets up and follows.  When we come home she jumps up an down, happy to see us whether we've been gone for an hour or a week.  It's really a very simple relationship.  She loves us (again, mostly my wife) so much and without reservation, and wants to be as close to us as possible.

Why does our relationship with God have to be complicated?  He desires nothing more than to be close to us, and wants us to be close to Him.  Yet we run away, resist, decide that we don't have time, and a million other excuses.  I think that a dog's relationship with their owner is a good example of what our relationship with God should be.  Like Yvaine with us, we should want to follow Him around, stay close to Him, and simply be in His presence.  It's not that hard to understand, yet few of us do it.

If you're a good dog owner, you completely care for them.  Our pets don't have to worry about food, shelter, medical care, or really anything.  God is certainly better than we are, so he will take care of us as well.

“Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothes? Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they?  Can any one of you by worrying add a single hour to your life?
    “And why do you worry about clothes? See how the flowers of the field grow. They do not labor or spin. Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these.  If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you—you of little faith?  So do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’  For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them.  But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.  (Matthew 6:25-33)


Let's take time to be with God.  Let's follow Him around, seek His presence, and let Him take care of us.  All he wants is our attention and love, and He will take care of us in return.  Pretty simple.

Geek Preachin'!

As a part of Fans For Christ I organize and lead church services at cons, usually giving the message.  The first time I did it I had a sermon that included some Star Wars references, but was that was not really my main focus.  In fact, I only used it because I had given the sermon in a traditional church once and had it handy. However, I realized the benefit of people being able to relate to the message illustrations.

Jesus and His Apostles (sounds like a boy-band, doesn't it?...no disrespect meant, Lord) used illustrations and analogies that their audiences could understand.  Look at the parables and stories in the Bible and you'll see that they mostly include references to farming, winemaking, soldiers, and athletics...all things that the people of that day and age understood and could relate to.  That's really my inspiration for my sermons.  I want to talk about the Bible in ways that makes sense to my audience, yet still is teaching God's Word.

Preachers do this all of the time in modern churches.  And what is one of the biggest topics for illustrations? Sports.  Football, basketball, baseball, hunting, fishing, and so on.  Personally I could care less about any of these things and my friends are often of a similar mindset.  When I go to places like Dragon*Con and ConNooga, the interests of the audience are even more shifted to Star Trek and Harry Potter and away from the Dallas Cowboys or deer season.  So why shouldn't I use those things in my sermons?

Want to see what this is like?  Fans For Christ now has a YouTube channel.  Some of the videos we've linked and are uploading are taken from services.  Others are me recreating messages that I've given in the past but didn't have recorded.  Take a look and see some geek preachin'!

Dragon*Con 2011

Wow.  God really blessed Fans For Christ this year.  Some amazing things happened at Dragon*Con, and it's all due to the Spirit of God working through people. 

Rather than repeating verbatim, here's a link to the events this year.  Dragon*Con 2011 Report

Setting Things In Motion

So it's another year and another Dragon*Con.  We just arrived today, met with many of our Fans For Christ members, and had a great time of prayer for the weekend to come.  This is our biggest event of the year, and we want Christ's presence to really shine.

Going to cons is an important ministry to me and my wife.  God has has graciously allowed us to use our hobbies and interests to serve Him.  Each time we come to a con we plant seeds, showing people how Christ can be a part of their lives and really central to their lives, yet they still can have fun and pursue their interests.  We can't make anyone change their hearts or their lives, but we can give them opportunities to learn about God and His grace.  Really we just set things in motion and let God do the rest.

So anyone reading this (both of you), pray for us this weekend, that we will be safe, have fun, and focus on God moving in people's lives.

Faith Precedes The Miracle

My family recently watched a fantasy movie, Voyage Of The Unicorn.  It was a fun, light-hearted family adventure that we tend to enjoy, involving faeries, elves, trolls, unicorns, dragons, and other fantastic creatures.  One of the points behind the movie was that believing is seeing.  You have to believe in something before you can really see it. 

Isn't that true with God?

One of the main lines repeated by one of the characters is "Faith precedes the miracle."  This is really a strong Biblical truth, isn't it?  If you look throughout the Bible you'll see that each time a miracle is performed, someone has to have faith and believe in it first.  From the parting of the Red Sea to Paul escaping from prison, the power of God requires a measure of faith before it can work.

Does this mean that God needs us in order for Him to work miracles?  No.  He can do it just fine without us and isn't beholden to any "power" we may seem to possess.  He wants to see whether or not we really believe in Him and His power.  Once we have faith, then we'll see His hand.

Remember that the next time you're looking for something special to happen in your life.  Have you had faith first?

Vanity, Thy Name Is Church

"Come to our church.  We have a beautiful building!"
"Oh, our praise band is great.  They really rock."
"You should hear how wonderfully our praise leader sings."
"We have Christmas trees all over the place during the holiday season."
"Yeah, our VBS is really cool this year."
"I just love the multimedia the pastor uses in his sermons.  The video clips are really neat."

How many times do we hear these things, or similar phrases?  How many times have we said them ourselves?  There is nothing wrong with being proud of our church, enjoying the praise and singing, and being engaged by the PowerPoint.  However, I think that many people get to focused on these things to the exclusion of God.

How many times do you hear things like, "Come to our church.  God is really moving there."  "The Holy Spirit really filled our church this week."  "Our praise group sings songs with a really Godly spirit."

We need to get away from the vanity of how our churches look and sound.  We need to get back to God!  Concentrating on whether or not God is working in the people of the church.  If we don't focus on Christ, and if we don't really pay attention as to whether or not He is present, it doesn't matter what the appearance of the building is.

Remembering Where God Is

Today was a really bad day.  For details see my other blog.  But in summary both of our cars went kaput within a couple of hours of each other for unrelated reasons.  This hit us pretty hard, and will end up with us having only one vehicle.  We also very much believe that this was no coincidence, but was Satan's attack.

All of this got me really down, as I struggled with the frustrations.  My wife, son and I prayed, seeking God's guidance and protection. Then my son brought in his Bible.  This week he had been in vacation Bible school, where the theme was Psalms 139.  He didn't remember all of it, so we read it aloud together.

It was pretty profound to me, and really showed me something about God.  No matter what we do, where we are, or what's going on, He knows and He's right there with us.  It's such a simple truth, but one that we often forget.  I've read this Psalm several times before, but hadn't remembered exactly which one it was.  Reading the words I became teary-eyed, realizing that through all of this God is there.  God was there before it happened and knew it was going to happen.  He knew about all of this before I was ever born!

When you need some encouragement, and need to remember where God is, read Psalms 139.