Full Circle

I was talking to a dear and trusted friend about some of the great things that are happening in my ministry right now, especially related to A Night AMOK. I said, most sincerely that I am having fun. She challenged me on that a little bit, thinking fun might be “trivializing” it a bit (my word not hers). Because she is such a trusted friend, I took her comment to heart and began trying to redefine it by explaining how I am feeling.

I’ve expressed before on this blog how when I am doing things like A Night AMOK, I feel like I am doing what I was created to do. It’s one of the most exhilarating things I’ve ever done. I described the feeling I get as I am doing these paintings as an almost child-like joy and that’s when it hit me. At 48 I am doing what I dreamed of doing as a small child.

I remember being a child and making art, writing and telling stories and acting things out. I dreamed of making movies though that was outside the realm of possibility for a little kid in the early seventies. My school years were pretty terrible and most of that was driven from me or beaten out of me by my peers. I spent a lot of years wandering around trying to figure out who I was. When I look at A Night AMOK and a lot of the other things I’m doing now, I realize the Lord has restored my childhood dream to me. Thing about it. I am painting large pictures, using them to tell stories combined with “movies” I’ve made. I’m even acting. God had given me back what the enemy has stolen and with His help I will use it to His glory for the rest of my life or until He tells me to stop. My life has come full circle.

My friend was right, fun is too trivial for what is happening to me right now, but I really am enjoying every moment.

God is good!

Why I Sometimes Hate Facebook…

Okay that may have been a little extreme. Facebook has been a pretty powerful ministry tool for me that has allowed me to connect with a lot of people. It’s also been the source of considerable pain lately.

You see one of the things it also does is allow me to see glimpses into the lives of people I really care about, people I’ve invested a tremendous amount of my life in. Being able to keep up is great, but sometimes I see them going in a direction that really breaks my heart.

I see them getting plastered, I hear they’ve walked away from the faith I tried so hard to teach them and I wonder if I in some way failed them. It’s really hard and it hurts.

But here’s the thing. If I sit and wallow and blame myself for their decisions, it’s as bad as if I claimed credit for their accomplishments. Instead I have to do what I’ve always done, love them, pray for them and do what I can to help. From there I have to trust them to the God who loves them more than I do.

The best way to be defeated is to feel defeated. Trust God and do the next right thing. Hating Facebook is a waste of time. Instead I should be grateful. At least through it, I know how to pray…

And if you’re reading this and you think you might be part of the reason I posted this, know that I still love you and I care about you and I will no matter what and that my love for you pales in comparison to the God who put me into your life.

A Night AMOK

My new presentation, A Night AMOK: Pix of JC is now available for booking. This evangelistic presentation is an evening of art,music and ministry. In the program, I paint a variety of pictures live, accompanied by videos, music, story telling and the Word of God. It’s all designed to paint a picture of Jesus, a true, scriptural, real picture of His amazing love on people’s hearts and minds. Check it out.
For more information on A Night AMOK:Pix of JC, click here and if you’d like to bring me in to do A Night AMOK, you may contact me at amokarts@aol.com.

Below is a sample:

Joyism

Okay I’ll be the first one to admit, I didn’t have a lot of time to think this out, I woke up with it and acted on it. I just had a dream. I don’t claim it to be prophetic and I pray it wasn’t. In my dream I was at a mall when a message came over the loud speakers to evacuate the mall. I began to move for the exits when they announced that a germ had been released into the mall, I was running, then walking, then I wanted to run but couldn’t, I started to panic, then everything went black and I woke up. Not a great dream, but it birthed a great dream.

As I woke up, I started to pray. I started to ask God to protect us and keep that kind of stuff from happening, to overcome these kinds of threats in our world and these thoughts started to flow. I started to think what is terrorism. Sometimes they are large acts that hurt a lot of people, but sometimes they are relatively small acts (in scope) that make a lot of people afraid. I started to think of the beltway shooters from a couple of years ago. If you know one of their victims, your loss was great and I don’t mean to minimize it at all, but they shot a very small percentage of the people who drove those roads. The larger effect was they made everyone afraid to drive in the area. A relatively small act created massive chaos. That’s what terrorism does, it spread terror. It makes us afraid.

The next thoughts were how do we combat that? At first I thought of great acts of heroism, and I’d like to hope if there was ever a time when I needed to be heroic, that God would give me the grace to step up and do it. On my own I’m not that brave. Then I had a different thought. Heroism is hard and we all (or at least most of us)have doubts whether we would have the courage to be heroic, but if small acts of terror make a lot of people afraid, what would small acts dedicated to bringing joy do. Would joy spread like terror spreads? I think it would. The thought of the word Joyism came to mind. I din’t know if that’s copyrighted, and I hope it’s nothing dirty if it is, but what if we did that. What if we devoted ourselves to doing one thing each day that? I know people have often talked about random acts of kindness, I know this is nothing new, I don’t claim any originality in this, and any glory to come of it goes straight to God. The challenge is simple, do something that will bring someone joy and maybe, just maybe, joy will spread and the more people to do it the more joyful we will be. After all the Scriptures say perfect love drives out fear and as a small speck of light turns back the darkness, so small acts of love can turn back our fears.

We all talk about changing the world and we usually get intimidated because that seems too big. A lot of times this makes us do nothing, so pray for and look for an opportunity to do something small to make someone’s day better and then keep doing it. And whatever you do, do it with great love to the glory of God. Spread the Word about Joyism. Small things done with great love WILL make a huge difference. Share your comments and stories here.

A Word on Unity

I posted this video before a long time ago but I think it bears repeating. Jesus said they will know you are my disciples by the way you love one another. This painting video shows the value of unity in Christ. Not the false unity of forced tolerance, but the true unity that happens when we submit our wills to Jesus and let the love the conquers all, conquer our differences.

I’m a Christian and I’m a pastor and I serve this amazing God who says in His Word that He is love. The problem is when I look at His followers, the Church, I see a lot of disunity. Jesus prayed that we would be united. How can we get past our divisions and unite so people see His love instead of our prideful division? How can we live so people see Jesus?

A Black Friday Reminder…

I made this video last year but I think it bears repeating…

I go out every year to shop on Black Friday. I love being out among the throngs of people, but it’s clear every time that some people are missing the point. Nearly every year I hear on the news of someone being trampled to death for the opportunity to save a few bucks on a gift. Please don’t get it wrong. The gifts are to remind us of THE gift, so don’t stress yourself out or spend yourself into oblivion or make yourself miserable. Instead remember who you are, a child of God, remember why you are a child of God, (because of Jesus) and what we celebrate (God giving Jesus to us!) This celebration is all about the ultimate blessing. We who are Christians have already received the greatest gift. Conduct yourselves accordingly and be a bringer of joy!

Video of the Day: The Video That Started it All

Today I am taking you back all the way to the beginning. My very first art video, You Can’t Kill Love. It holds a very simple message, God loves you with a love that nothing and no one can overcome. I kind of think maybe someone needs to hear that today so here it is.

How can you use your gift to share God’s love?

Occupied: The Danger In Using Your Gift to Vent

I posted the above cartoon to my Facebook page yesterday and in hindsight it may have been a mistake. Once again it seemed to offend which really wasn’t my intent. I saw yet another report on the Occupy demonstrations, it worked on my nerves and I began to wonder once again how these people have time to wave signs all day and if their lot in life might be improved if they laid down their signs and started to actually do something about their lot in life. Yes I know massive over-simplification, but I have always had a visceral reaction to any movement that involves chanting and waving signs. Yes I know Dr. King proved me wrong on this decades ago, but I still kind of see the civil rights movement as a rare exception to my “no sign waving policy.” (That policy is a personal one, I am not advocating censoring anyone else’s free speech.)

In defense of my own position on the occupy movement, the photos of the young man defecating on the flag and another attempting to do it on a police car and numerous other reports of indecent behavior and violence have not helped them in my eyes at all. Yes I know a couple bad apples don’t spoil the whole bunch but I also know I’ve often felt like as a minister, I’ve been lumped with every fallen priest and televangelist and that’s not fair either, but I digress. Venting with your gift is sometimes a bad idea.

My original intent was to post that cartoon, with the one below, but for some strange reason I waited to create the second until this morning. The point of the two cartoons is this: You have a right to protest but is there a better way to do what needs to be done? There’s a lot of talk about the one percent versus the 99 percent but this condition will always exist. We live in a fallen world. Even if we took back all the income and gave everyone the exact same amount, making everyone financially equal, it would take about a day and a half for the process to begin again. Greed will not be beaten by making everyone equal. Anyone who remembers the cold war and communism knows that to be true. Karl Marx’s “panacea” had to be maintained by guns and secret police and it still didn’t work. Greed is powerful and it manifests everywhere.

When will we stop trying to make heaven on earth? Wait, that’s the wrong question. When will we realize that lives don’t get closer to heaven by gaining more stuff? In the middle of the Lord’s prayer it talks about “on earth as it is in heaven…” On earth as it is in heaven involves submitting our wills to God. We don’t take to the streets screaming for life to be fair, we take what we have, give thanks and share it. The best way to defeat greed is not taking from the greedy, (because they will make a point of getting it back) it’s living a life of generosity. It’s helping the less fortunate. It’s living to make a difference. We need to stop depending on government and politics and corporations and money to do this for us. These things are the idols of the age and if we look to them, for solutions we are looking in the wrong direction. I’m convinced that the best way to affect change is to follow Jesus and share and LIVE the gospel. There is a heaven and this ain’t it. The closest we can get to heaven on earth is to OCCUPY ourselves with helping and loving others. Some day God will make everything right, that was His promise and, in time, He will deliver. In the mean time, we who love Him are supposed to be found faithful helping others, loving others and living for Him, on earth as it is in heaven.

IllustrationFriday.com Challenge: Influence

The IllustrationFriday.com challenge for the week is the word influence. When I think of that word I think of poles, you can be either a good influence or a bad influence. To create this I took the best person ever Christ, and while people could argue people are worthy of this title, I picked Hitler to depict the worst. Each of us is somewhere on this continuum and my prayer is that we are all moving toward Christ and that as He influences us we can be better and better influences. My continuum shows the greatest love versus the greatest evil and asks us to choose sides. How’s your influence?

Responding to Controversial Art Part 2

A few days ago I posted what I thought our response should be to controversial art. This video is the story of a young pastor who lived it out. It”s a little long but watching it til the end will give you a real blessing. Please check this out and spread it around. This is a true image of what it means to speak the truth in love and the impact it can have in a world where love can be hard to find. It’s not my own work so I can ask this without hesitation or fear of self promotion… Please, please, please take this video viral.

We often talk about how to deal with people with whom we disagree. While others protested and attacked, this guy shared the Gospel and it made all the difference.