The Creative Life
I was recently sent this video… I had trouble listening to it simply because of the low production quality.
However, if you look beyond those problems. What is your response. My response is similar to Lee Strobel… but I’m not interesting in what I think. What do you think.
A week from Saturday – I will have the pleasure of attending the wedding of the year.
I wanted to give everybody a preview of the ceremony.
Amy and Kyle! Love you guys… really looking forward to August 1st!
This is an amazing series that is going on youtube right now…
Can somebody hook me up with some Auto Tune software? I want to auto tune Jason preaching.
I think the Catalyst people need to autotune Andy Stanley and Craig Groeschel.
Its hard to believe that so much time has flown by since June 10th, 2008. That day I stepped aboard a plane bound to the Laguardia airport. Little did I know what was about to happen.
I had 3 new friends with me. I had just recently met them at a short briefing in Gatlinburg, Tennessee.
We got on board the Delta flight to LGA from Raleigh Durham. Little did we know what significance that flight would mean.
On board the plane there were two ladies sitting in the row behind us. They were very nicely dressed in outfits with plenty of pink touches to their wardrobe. I noticed one of the women had shorter hair. My mom is a breast cancer survivor, so I take notice anytime somebody is wearing pink attire or ribbons.
We were so focused on the adventure ahead of us we quickly began settling in. My main focus was capturing the moments before my new friend Sarah Sugg’s very first flight. I was thoroughly documenting the exciting occasion. I had just recently discovered the amazing world of twitter and wanted to have video blogs of the experience to keep my supporters updated at home.
During the flight the ladies struck up conversation with two of my friends Sarah and Katie. They were having polite conversation about the girls shoes… One of the ladies particularly liked the girl’s Chacos. (I have no clue about girls shoes… Chacos, Chicos, Amigos?)
During this conversation the four of us began to realize who the pair was…
It turned out that pair was no other then Kay Yow and her assistant on their way to New York City for media work with Comcast sports!
It was pretty exciting at the time. After we got off the plane Sarah (an attendee of NC States Campus Crusade for Christ) quickly got on the phone to tell her friends that she and the coach had been on the same flight to NYC!
But then the real adventure began…
I can simply not sum up in this blog post everything that encompasses living in New York City to work as laborers for Christ.
However in January of this year the experience on the plane quickly rushed back into my memory.
When Kay Yow passed away earlier the year my mind was really opened to the character of this fine lady. I knew she was a great person. Everybody on ESPN and every single network acknowledged her greatness.
However – Little did I know until I started watching You Tube videos and reading about her what a woman of God she was.
What is so amazing about her is how she recognized open door opportunities to share her faith. She never screamed her faith at people… she didn’t bang people over the heads with a bible… she didn’t abuse her place as a great leader that people would listen to… she just watched for open door opportunities to share her faith.
From her ESPY speech when she accepted the award “most of all to the glory of God, her Lord and savior” to the 25 minute video that was played at her funeral when she explained that “it’s been a wonderful journey, especially since the time I accepted Jesus as my lord and savior”
How appropriate… At the time that I boarded that plane for NYC I never would have guessed that God would have appropriately placed us on the plane with one of his faithful servants who also in her own special way shared Christ to people in places that the majority of people in the bible belt never would venture.
Yesterday several of my friends from ECU embarked on the same adventure that my crew did last year. Keep them in your prayers as they get out of their comfort zones and share Christ with one amazing city.
Sometimes we get into a rut and life just seems empty. It’s time to start living. It’s time to escape.
Week 1 – Escape Death
Week 2 – Escape Bad Habits
Week 3 – Escape Religion
Week 4 – Escape Doubt
Escape – Week 4 – Jason Ebeling from Discovery Church on Vimeo.
I hope I don’t sound too insensitive with this post… but to help contextualize my insensitivity – I must inform you that I have had at least 10 kids from my high school get killed or die either while I was attending or after. I don’t know what it is, but I have kind of got partially desensitized from the shock of having somebody I know -who is my age- die. From vehicle accidents to having a kid drop dead in the middle of marching band… I have experienced a lot of death situations with students.
It has been a blessing that I have been taught the hard way that I am not promised tomorrow. So often I get caught up in the “today” – I loose sight of the big picture.
James 4:14 has really been helping me contextualize life. It is so true!
“Why, you do not even know what will happen tomorrow. What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes!”
The message rings true to our inner wants to have our moment shining in the sun when it interprets part of the verse
“You’re nothing but a wisp of fog, catching a brief bit of sun before disappearing”
I think we have lost sight of death in simple phrases – cliches – and religion.
We relish in the thoughts of good people in heaven. We honor peoples quest for enlightenment. We reflect on the person’s acts of kindness and positive qualities.
This at the same time when we take such joy in our daily life. Our focus is on our popularity among friends. In the college world we so often get caught up in meaningless academic discourse. We love our hypothesis and evaluations. We fit in sharing certain philosophies and view points.
There is nothing wrong with any of this. Yet, if you step back and just take in the big picture… its just meaningless.
I don’t mean to be so harsh – but tonight I’m looking at the myspace page of somebody who can’t update it anymore. This guy had it all… he loved motorcycles, he was the class clown, he pithily had selected hindu as religion, he had tons of friends, he didn’t smoke…
Yet I look at that and feel empty. Everything is meaningless…
One thing people keep talking about whenever somebody gets killed… Religion.
We begin talking about the after life all of a sudden. We take comfort in the fact that there has to be something after death. Death can’t be the end. Even by dropping an R.I.P. we acknowledge there has to be some sort of peace or rest after death.
Yet I look at this and feel empty. Everything is meaningless…
Religion IS meaningless… it is where everybody searches to find their meaning. We try so hard to find our enlightenment. We work and read the rules to becoming a better person. We follow the steps. We are good people. We attend the meetings. We join our clubs. We memorize our mantras and quote our phrases… We associate with churches or organizations. We pay our dues… We are eternally set.
Yet I look at this and feel empty. Religion is meaningless…
My heart is broken and I have finally realized something…
I suck. I am not good enough. I do not deserve any sort of peace after death. I can not do enough to ever become enlightened. I can not be good enough to make the judgement scales tip in my direction. I have not followed enough of the rules for me to get into heaven. God is not going to look at my life and see all the good stuff I have done and let me into heaven with the angels.
All I deserve is for death to be the end. I am messed up and I deserve punishment for all of the stuff I have done. I have not met the standard of perfection. I deserve eternal separation from God. I deserve to not go to heaven.
Fortunately, about two years ago I learned all this. I found out that I need to be rescued. I found out that I needed somebody to save me. The only person that could rescue me was God himself.
I found God… not in religion or in church membership – but I found God because he found me.
God actually found me by sending me his son as a savior. He didn’t do this so I could join a religion. God looks at religion as something that is meaningless – good works are nothing more then dirty rags. However – God wanted to know me personally. He didn’t want me to only have knowledge about him – he wanted to actually know me and have a relationship with me.
This relationship with God is not like our relationships and friendships we have now. Our relationship goes beyond memorial wall post on our myspaces. God is eternal – and our relationship last forever. God is the antonym of death. He is life. In our relationship with him we gain life on God’s terms. God’s terms are forever.
I just hope that we can all begin by stopping. We must start realizing that life now is only momentary. Sickness is momentary. Abuse is momentary. Hate is momentary. Existence is momentary.
We have got to start looking at life with a larger perspective. We can’t get caught up in this brief time. We need to look at the bigger picture. There is so much more to see.
Escape – Week 1 – Jason Ebeling from Discovery Church on Vimeo.
Catch up with the Escape series. You can also watch on our vimeo channel.
Egg Hunt 2009 from Discovery Church on Vimeo.
My news report for East Carolina University about the Egg Hunt. Thanks to Matt Stephens for coming out and being a photog for the event.
This weekend was absolutely amazing.
Over 1000 people were in attendance at Greenville’s Largest Egg Hunt. We kicked off a new series at Discovery. The set looked amazing. Jason brought it. Music was great.
We also showed a video today. I think the message is true. The local church is the sole hope for change in our community…
Escape Service Opener – Easter 2009 from Discovery Church on Vimeo.
The entire Open Door series is now available online. I have really enjoyed this series. Our pastor Jason Ebeling totally threw me a curve ball on week four and really encouraged me to start looking at how others may be seeing me living my life. Check out the entire series on our vimeo channel.
Open Door – Weeks 5 – Jason Ebeling from Discovery Church on Vimeo.
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