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.

What I’ve been up to lately…

I’ve been hard at work generating the paintings for my new presentation Story: Parables of Jesus. These will be displayed in conjunction with the live paintings I do every night. I am excited to say I will be rolling out the extended presentation of Story as a revival/spiritual renewal series from tomorrow through Wednesday night at Mohrsville Church of the Brethren in Mohrsville, PA and the one hour version next Sunday at St. Thomas Independent Church of the Brethren in Mount Pleasant Mills, PA next Sunday. If you’re in PA. I’d love to see you there. Otherwise I’d love to bring it to you.

Head Full of Doubt

This is one of the most amazing things I have ever seen. I’ve done animated painting videos before but this is a “whole nutha’ level.”

The song is great, the video is brilliant, this is the total package!

The vimeo page for the video had this to say…
“Head Full of Doubt/Road Full of Promise” by the Avett Brothers. Animation by Jason Mitcham. The video was created by thousands of slight alterations on a single painting.
jasonmitcham.com

Sometimes I just like to share these things to inspire you.
Jason Mitcham, you are a genius!

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!

What do you want from me???

Hi everyone,
I am trying to make AMOKArts the best resource possible for creatives in the church. I want to create resources that people will use, and spread. So I was wondering what do you want from me? What kinds of resources would be helpful?

Also I am thinking of podcasting and/or a newsletter in addition to this blog. The question is, what would you find more helpful…

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.

Start. Dealing With Fear

I just started reading Jon Acuff’s new book called Start. The basic concept is to move from average to awesome. The first step is very simple. You need to Start.

The first step is to overcome fear. One of the big things is dealing with the “voices in your head” and what they tell you, the way they discourage you, etc. Don’t worry, I haven’t gone crazy and other than “the still small voice” I don’t hear actual voices, but there are those things we tell ourselves and inner voices that keep us from trying to succeed. My confession is fear kicks me around a lot.

He suggests you write down what the voices of fear and doubt tell you and he suggests you share them (actually he tells us to punch fear in the face). Well since I have a blog, I thought I would share them here.

Here’s what I hear. I hear that I’m a loser. That my ideas will never work. From there it can go into a downward spiral. And every mistake I make will somehow ruin me. The truth is all those things are absurd. I am a child of God, I am working toward my dream and the Lord is using the gifts He has placed in me to do some good in the world. These are all the things I need to remember and maybe you do too.

The bottom line from the Bible that we all need to remember is we were not given a spirit of fear but a Spirit of Sonship. The spirit of fear is a lying spirit. You can do great things, you might even be able to be awesome. The first step is putting fear in its place.

If You’ve Ever Been Blessed by My Ministry…

If you’ve ever been blessed by my ministry, you need to know it almost didn’t happen. You need to know there was a time when I was nearly destroyed, a time when I was in danger of losing everything, my wife, my family, everything and I was so blind I couldn’t even see it. What makes it even worse is why I was about to lose it. The wedge that was being driven between me and everything good in my life was my art. Now I know that may seem strange. Today art is a tool I use to preach the gospel all over the place but at that point it was my idol. I always reasoned that one day, when I “made it” (whatever that means) my family would have it all. What they really wanted was me but I was blind.

If you’ve ever been blessed by my ministry, you should praise God for October 4, 1997 because that’s the day it all turned around. Some guys from the church were going to Washington, DC to a Promise Keepers Event called Stand in the Gap and reluctantly I went.

That day it felt like God got a million men together from all over the world to talk to me. (I’ve talked to several others who felt the same way.) Each speaker in the above video seemed to know exactly all that I was doing wrong and hammered it. If you saw the man that asked us to take a picture out of our wallets as we prayed, that was the breaking point. The picture was to be of someone we had wronged. I had two pictures, my wife and my sons. He had us pray face down in the dirt asking God to forgive us and help us to fix the relationship. By the end of the day I had a major change. I took my wife and kids off the altar to my art and put my art on the altar of God. I laid art down and told God I would never pick it up again unless I was doing it for Him. I got my call to ministry that day and about six months later God gave me my art back as a tool to spread the Gospel.

If you’ve ever been blessed by my ministry, now you know how it happened and why it exists.

If you’re in a place where things are out of balance, take a look at your life. Are the right things on the right altar in your life or does something need to be laid down? Is there something in you that needs to change? Maybe today is the day to let God change your life.

Near the end of the day that day, Tony Evans made a statement that I will never forget. He said basically,

If you want a better world, composed of better nations, inhabited by better states, filled with better counties, made up of better cities, comprised of better neighborhoods, illuminated by better churches, populated by better families, then you have to start by becoming a better person!

Changing the world might just start by changing you.

Amazing Street Painting

Check it out!

Testing… Testing…

A friend of mine posted this meme on Facebook.

I beg to differ.
You may think this has nothing to do with arts and ministry…
Again, I beg to differ

You see posts like this show what we’re up against as we take the Gospel to the world around us. People see absurdities like this one and want to agree. I call it an absurdity very simply because it is. Consider this:

The person quoted assumes that the only way prayer works, the only way God can be God is if he demonstrates Himself to us, as if God is our lap dog, waiting to obey our every command.

The thing is if God can only be God if he does what we say, when and exactly how we say it, He’s not really God is He? I mean if God has to do what you say to be your God, doesn’t that make you god? The only time God invites us to test him is when He asks for the tithe, and in the New Testament during Jesus’ temptation, he declares, quoting Deuteronomy 6:16, “Do not put the Lord your God to the test.”

Now I know that the Bible talks of casting lots and Gideon (thanks Tania) put out the fleece and I know that there are times where we ask God for a sign, however, in these times it’s not about testing God, it’s about discerning His will trying to be more faithful.

There is a huge difference.