new home

THIS IS MY LAST POST FROM BLOGSPOT!!!!!!

i have officially set up shop at wordpress. i’ll be blogging from here for the foreseeable future. much love. thanks for trying to keep up with my strange, strange life and musings…

shameless plug

hey guys, a good friend of mine, tyler lyle, just put out a new ep entitled "bare." if you are into singer/songwriter stuff, you should really check it out! the new record is on noise trade right now available for preview/purchase. noisetrade.com is a super cool site that allows you to decide how much you want to pay for a record before you buy it. check it out.

much love. thanks for letting me shamelessly plug an incredible artist!

torn

i am torn between all of the blogging sites. it seems that none of them are exactly what i want. it is as if they all get together and have conversations about how they can each offer a lot of things, but one site cannot offer everything i want. it's kind of weird to write a blog to complain about blogging websites. oh well.

discontent

i stayed up too late last night, but i'm pretty ok with that. a few axis leaders and i got into a 4 hour conversation about some discontents that we have about life/church. it was incredible to see the passion and desire in this group to become (more and more) true worshippers of Jesus. i am really thankful to be a part of a community that is not ok with the status quo and wants to push the envelope of how can we better follow Christ and bring others to Him.

what is your discontent right now? what are you doing about it?

grace

last night in my small group, we were going through the last chapter of paul's second letter to timothy, and we got into a conversation about grace. chris brought up the fact that almost every epistle in the new testament begins and/or ends with some form of the phrase, "grace be with you." as we discussed this, i realized that paul and i had something in common.

paul grew up in a jewish culture where it was all about what you did. the pharisees had great influence in this. it was all about rules. to a much lesser degree, i grew up (as the son of a baptist pastor) in a rules based religious structure. *this "rules based" religious system was not constructed by my parents, but by the people of the church creating a fish bowl in which i was to live and move and breathe. for much of my middle school and high school spiritual life, i acted out of fear of how i would be judged (by church-members) more than out of genuine love for JESUS... so, i understand why paul talks about grace so much, beginning and ending almost every letter with an affirmation of the grace we have in Christ.

i have to CONTINUALLY remind myself of this grace that changes things. everything. i want to live a life full of grace. i want to live a life that oozes grace to people i don't get along with, to my family, to my friends, to my co-workers.

rest assured in the overwhelming grace of God. give it/show it/live it to others.

"The Lord be with your spirit. Grace be with you." (2 timothy 4:22)

rise:stl

yesterday, we got back from a week-long mission trip to inner-city st. louis. we took about 30 high-school students and 10 adult leaders from our ministry. it was a great experience! we saw so much poverty. we saw so much need.

however, the most impactful thing that i saw this week was the passion and work ethic of our students. i was so impressed at how hard our students worked to further the work of a couple of churches in the city. they exhibited unbelievably positive attitudes no matter what work was put in front of them.

i've been on a lot of mission trips, as a student and leader, and i have never seen such good attitudes for the entirety of a trip.

it was really a blessing to be a part of.

folk music

i have been writing a ridiculous amount of songs this past week. most of these songs are written in the folk vein. weird. i didn't really listen to much folk music before a couple of months ago. my good friend tyler lyle is an excellent songwriter living in carrollton, ga (at the moment). a month or two ago, tyler exposed me to the beautiful music of josh ritter. since then, i've been hooked on the folk stuff. there's just a rawness/authenticity to it that i can't get enough of.

word to your mother.