What Is a Hero?

I’ve spent a lot of time over the course of the last year looking at stories and how to live a better story. I saw a wonderful example of this on the news this morning. In the wake of the terrible tornado in Oklahoma, there have been some amazing stories. Today I saw a young teacher lying in a hospital bed being interviewed. It seems when the school she was teaching at was hit, she shielded several of the students from the falling debris with her own body. The last words from the reporter were that this young woman “does not consider herself a hero.” If that’s the case her definition of a hero must be insanely high. Forgive me ma’am but you ARE a hero. Jesus said “Greater love has no one than this, that he lays down his life for his friends.” All throughout the interview one could hear her love for the ones that were saved and even more for the ones who she couldn’t shield. By Jesus’ own definition, what makes a hero is love.

I hope you never get the opportunity to make the supreme sacrifice to save someone. I pray your life is much easier than that, but we don’t need to die to lay down your life. Sometimes it’s as simple as dying to ourselves, and putting others first. We need to love sacrificially, see a need and meet it or just plain help someone.

This teacher is a hero, but it doesnt take a tragedy to be a hero, it just takes a willingness to love and put others first.

What is School For? Brilliant Thoughts from Seth Godin on Art, Creativity and Education

This is an amazingly challenging video from one of the great minds of our day, Seth Godin. If you’re at all interested in art, creativity and/or education, you must watch this video.

The Dangers of Religion

I often say I am not a big fan of religion and when a minister says something like that people give me strange looks as if I am being cute or playing word games. That is not the case.

I’ll give you an example using one of my favorite examples, the Amish. Now let me first state that I believe the Amish love Jesus and we could all use a lot more simplicity in out lives, but yesterday my wife and I were heading through Lancaster county Pennsylvania when we got behind the people in this photo. You may or may not know this but the Amish are not allowed to have rubber tires except in certain circumstances. This tractor had huge rubber tires, (many Amish folks will replace them with steel wheels) An Amish farmer and two small children were in the cab while an older man and an Amish child were riding in the wagon with steel wheels. It is so confusing. For the most part they avoid vehicles in favor of buggies, they also often use horse drawn farm equipment. Further they ride bicycles and scooters with rubber tires. Why can certain things have tires, other things can’t? Why can some have tractors but not cars and why can they not have cars, but they can let other people drive them around? Why s it wrong to have a phone in your house but okay to have one in your barn? It’s all so confusing but then so is religion.

The Bible has nothing to say about rubber tires, of course. Rubber was still just tree sap when the canon was closed. Where did they get the idea that rubber was wrong, but in some cases permissible and in other cases forbidden. It’s pretty simple really. It started as tradition, likely when the first cars showed up and people decided they didn’t like it so they started making rules.

Before you think I am picking on the Amish alone, it goes far beyond the Amish. I love creativity, and I think the church needs to embrace creativity so much more than we do, but we can’t get creative with the rules and the Word. The Bible is our guide book (among other things) it needs to be followed without taking anything away or, and this is important, adding anything to it. The answer to society’s problems is not tacking more onto God’s law. The Pharisees did that and it didn’t go well. That’s because law can’t save. The answer to society’s problems is what it’s always been.

Jesus.
We don’t need more religion or more laws, we need Jesus.

Create ways to share His truth and trust that He will bring the changes we need.

Just Cause I Love This…

I know I have shared this before, but it bears repeating.

How would you introduce Jesus?
‘Cause that is a big part of what we’re called to do, thanks Steve Harvey!

Don’t Forget to Check Out BewareofArtists.org

I’d love for you to check out my other site BewareofArtists.org. It’s all about art and creativity. Make Something Monday, Technique Tuesday, Wild Card Wednesday, Thought of the Day Thursday, Philanthropic Friday and “One Liners” seven days a week. If you want to build your skills and creativity, this is the site for you. Watch the video and then go check it out.

FTC Challenge… Are You In?

My friend, Artist’s Suitcase Founder, Kent Sanders posted what I consider to be a very worthwhile challenge: The FTC (Fit to Create) Challenge. It’s not a diet plan or anything like that, it’s encouragement to meet your fitness goals which should give you more energy to create. As a person who has always struggled with weight and who has used the excuse that I am too busy working to exercise, this is something I really need, so I am signing up. My total goal is to lose 50 pounds. This is only a 40 day challenge so I know I won’t lose over a pound a day without doing something crazy or stupid, but for the term of the challenge I am setting the goal of losing 15 pounds. That might be aggressive but that’s what I’m working toward.

Are you in?
You can sign up at http://www.artistssuitcase.com/are-you-ready-for-the-ftc-challenge/

By the way, you should really check out Kent’s site. He is doing some great stuff and his podcast is really well done. http://www.artistssuitcase.com/

How to Get a Free Painting…

No it’s not a contest but it is very cool. I had such a good week this week. I preached my last revival/spiritual renewal service at Mohrsville Church of the Brethren last night. This was a great thing for me. You see it was at a revival meeting at Mohrsville Church of the Brethren in 1986 that I came to Christ. I also got my call to ministry there, preached my first sermon there and it was there that the first “seeds” of AMOKArts were planted. It was like coming full circle. It was really nice to connect with old friends and make new ones. I had a really great time.
What was even better was a little boy asked me to pray with him to receive Jesus Christ as His Lord and Savior, which is always awesome. Pray for him as He begins his journey.

IN each of these meetings, I did a live painting based on the parable I was preaching, but I also set up several paintings on smaller easels that I painted in advance. I used all these paintings to illustrate the message and it worked pretty well. Last night as I was greeting the people as they left One couple came up to me and told me about their son. Evidently he set up his easel in their kitchen after the meeting the night before. He also took several of their kitchen chairs and set them up around the easel, with other drawings he did clipped to them. (He didn’t notice that I put tarps on the floor, so it seems like mom had a pretty substantial cleanup but she was smiling, so I’m guessing it was okay). A young boy was trying to emulate what I do. Needless to say, that put a huge smile on my face. Who knows? Maybe he will be the next generation of art ministry. I can’t say for sure, only God knows his path, but I do know this,

I gave him last nights painting. What a blessing!

The Parable of the Talents or “Don’t Be Skippy!”

I know I have been a little lax in posting these last few days. I have a pretty good excuse, I’ve been running A.M.O.K. at my first home church. I’ve been preaching a series of messages based on the parables of Jesus called Story: Parables of Jesus. It’s been going really well and I’m also compiling them into a presentation by the same name. It’s been a lot of fun. Tonight’s message is based on what is probably my favorite of all the parables, the parable of the talents.

You know it, right (if not it’s found in Matthew 25:14-30) A master gives portions of money to his servants to invest while he goes off on journey. It says he gave these talents to them, “each according to his ability.” In other words he knows what they are capable of doing and gives them an amount he knows they can handle, kind of like God does with us and our talents. He doesn’t compare us with others, he knows what we’re capable of (how He made us) and entrusts accordingly.

The first two guys, take their sums and invest them, doubling the investment while the third (the one who received the least) buries his in the dirt. When the master returns he settles accounts he’s very pleased with the first two, tells them well done and essentially invites them to a party. He then turns to the servant who buried his talent (we’ll call him Skippy) and to me this is where it gets interesting. The first thing this servant does is blame the master for his own disobedience. He then goes on to impune the master’s character.

You know what I see in this third servant, Skippy? I see fear, essentially fear of failure. The other two guys go to work at once, investing the master’s money. They take a risk. There was the possibility they could have lost. Skippy decided not to take the risk but instead to play it safe, after all it wasn’t his money. What if he loses? What if the master gets angry? What if? What if? What if? Skippy gets so caught up in his fear that he makes the master a villain in his mind and buries his gift. Do you do that?

The difference between the first two servants and Skippy, I believe is trust. The first two guys trust that the master will be good if they fail and so they get to work at once. In the process they obey their master. Skippy’s fear turns into disobedience and wasted opportunities.

The point is this. Your talents represent God’s investment in you. He wants you to put them to work to build His Kingdom. If you do that, win or lose (in the eyes of the world) the Lord will be pleased. He’s only really displeased when we don’t place our trust in Him and bury our talents.

Don’t be Skippy!
To bring Story: Parables of Jesus to your church, contact Dave Weiss.

Some Words of Wisdom from Todd Henry and the Accidental Creative

I have a few podcasts I listen to every single week. One of the true highlights of my week is The Accidental Creative and this week’s post is particularly helpful. I knew I had to share it.

http://www.accidentalcreative.com/podcasts/ac/ac-podcast-selective-ignorance-of-feedback/

One of the big things about being a creative is knowing who you are and who you are called to reach.
If you try to please everyone, you’ll wind up pleasing no one, including (especially) yourself!

Take seven minutes and listen to the above podcast. You won’t be sorry!

Start. Escaping Average

I’m working my way through Jon Acuff’s great new book Start. and I’ve come to the part about escaping average. There’s not a lot of time to write today. I am on two massive deadlines so I’ll have to be succinct and add more later.

Right now, some days I am feeling pretty average, if not a little below. Pretty much the only time I escape this is when I am out there Running A.M.O.K. But here’s the thing, nothing in me wants to be average. I don’t want to be an average husband, father, artist, speaker or an average anything for that matter. I want to invest my best efforts in my best gifts and do something truly remarkable. I want to live a remarkable life that brings remarkable glory to a remarkable God. God is far above average and I want to be like Him.

Who’s with me?

Make this song your anthem today.