Last night I drove by my watershed moment.

It happened 5 years ago this week.

Driving from Anaheim to Salem (a 14 hour trip usually) with my then girlfriend, I was 30 minutes from home at 4am when I fell asleep behind the wheel.

I woke up driving through a construction zone hitting pylon after pylon of orange road barriers, only to swerve back onto the road missing a cement guard rail by a couple feet.

Those couple feet saved my life.

Little did I know how much my life would change immediately after that event. It served as a quick reminder that my life was beyond fragile and I was wasting it.

I was wasting it in a horrible relationship where I had made tons of mistakes. It was the kind of relationship that I conveniently leave out of my story quite often.

We broke up 2 weeks later and soon after that I started hanging out with the girl who would become my wife.

I never knew it standing on the side of I-5 cussing up a storm over the wrecked car before the sun had come up in late August of 2005, but God had thrust himself into my story.

Instead of hitting the cement guardrail, I was given a second chance, and those aren’t worth giving up.

—

I listened to this song as I drove by that watershed spot (Exit 238 on I-5 North, just north of Albany, Oregon) last night. It was one of those divine moments when it all clicked about what had truly happened back in 2005.

(come watch the video here RSS readers)

Here’s the chorus that struck me last night:

All this time like a vagabond
A homeless stranger, I’ve been wandering
All my life You’ve been calling me to a home
You know I’ve been needing, I’m a broken stone
So lay me in the house You’re building

I think what truly happened that morning in 2005 was more than me just getting out of a bad relationship, it was about God calling me into what He wanted to do.

I only wished I would have listened more closely to Him so I could have avoided the freak car crash.

Yes, it is that time again. Fantasy football time. Our new national past time. Yes I made that up.

As of right now there are 7 spots left, but I could expand the league beyond that if there are enough people who want in on the action.

We do fantasy football the whole way with individual defensive players and more players on offense than the standard league.

If you want to join, have a Yahoo account then go here.

After you register for a team, join a private league.

League ID#: 519654

Password: footballtime

The draft is Sunday night, September 5th at 7pm PST.

Of course, you should know, I draft all Vikings. It is my secret to success every year.

And yes, I am the defending the champion.

(Isn’t that picture above just awesome, I thought so too)

8 weeks. Portland. No rain. Looks like the beautiful run might come to an end Sunday though.

My in laws are in town this weekend for my father in law’s 40 year HS reunion. This time he and his old touring band are getting back together for a trip down memory lane. Read this newspaper story from Corvallis all about it.

It’s a banner week of links, lots of great stuff I read this week.

Blogs

1. This was funny and true from Adam on the phases of writing. I find myself at stage 3 quite often.
2. As someone who grew up in a pastor’s home and now works at a church, this post broke my heart because it is so true. “Death by Ministry” from Eugene Cho.
3. Great summary of the evangelical landscape we find ourselves in.
4. 3 cultural trends impacting church leadership.
5. First I read this great piece on the Ground Zero “Mosque” and appreciated its fact checking.
6. Then I read this piece on the same subject from a college prof and appreciated his thoroughness.
7. Then I saw this piece on the same subject and laughed.

News

• It is interesting how politics can meet sports sometimes.
• This year’s freshman class in college is a great example of how our younger generations are moving away from email because it is too slow.
• This was the sunset I watched on my run earlier this week. It was amazing.
• Great example of how we often think the worst of others in social media.
• Sure, Rex Ryan is a great NFL coach, but the guy is a disaster when it comes to doing things the right way.

Feel free to comment with thoughts on any of the links.

Have a great weekend.

This week the most popular article on The New York Times website is a long piece written about the changing lifestyle for 20-somethings in our culture.

I’m sure to some, the changes that have taken place in the recent past are a shock, but to me it was just a piece on the reality of life I see so many of my friends sifting through.

It is a long article. It took me about 25 minutes to read, but it is well worth it if you have any desire to understand people who are in their 20s.

The article does get into why 20-somethings are taking longer to get careers, jobs, spouses…essentially answer the question of why they are taking so long to grow up. In my experience people my age are “growing up” differently or later because of several reasons:

• A college education barely gets you interview, much less a solid career type job. Just about everyone gets a bachelors degree now. Almost all of my friends from college and high school are doing nothing related to their field of study in college.
• People aren’t going to college to get married, so they marry much, much later than 22. Obviously I’m not a great example of that. However, of all my close friends in high school and college, only 1 is married. Marriage forces you to grow up or get divorced.
• Because of articles like this, it is now socially acceptable to be have nothing going at the age of 25 or even later. Lack of expectations and accountability to strive for something more, something deeper, plays a big part in this.

Here’s 2 quotes from 2 separate people in their mid-20s from the article:

“It’s somewhat terrifying,” writes a 25-year-old named Jennifer, “to  think about all the things I’m supposed to be doing in order to ‘get  somewhere’ successful: ‘Follow your passions, live your dreams, take  risks, network with the right people, find mentors, be financially  responsible, volunteer, work, think about or go to grad school, fall in  love and maintain personal well-being, mental health and nutrition.’  When is there time to just be and enjoy?”

Adds a 24-year-old from  Virginia: “There is pressure to make decisions that will form the  foundation for the rest of your life in your 20s. It’s almost as if  having a range of limited options would be easier.”

People debate whether this funk 20-somethings in today’s culture find themselves in is really a new life stage that has developed or whether they just need to have some more motivation for life. But the reality is that this is where people like me and my friends find ourselves: searching for the marrow of life.

The implications for the church are many, but the biggest is that the traditional church approach to have a college ministry that leads into a marriage ministry no longer applies. In fact, I don’t think we have fully realized how to effectively minister to people in their 20s who find themselves going through this struggle.

I can tell you this, it takes more than a one hour service on a Sunday morning.

Last week The Wall Street Journal ran a story that was an excerpt from Brett McCracken’s book Hipster Christianity that just came out. Brett has an awesome blog, and I think a great perspective on what hipster Christianity is and looks like. As someone from Portland surrounded by hipsters my age, I think he’s nailed it.

We’re suckers for the silver bullet of how to reach young people in church. The popularity of this story in the WSJ is an example of that.

We’re also suckers for a critique of Christianity. The popularity of this story in the WSJ is partly because it critiques “the emerging church.”

The problem with all this is that Brett makes an overarching point that gets overlooked because we read into the excerpt from his book looking for the silver bullet and loving the critique.

What is this overarching theme that is overlooked?

We should be teaching what people need to hear not what they want to hear.

We attend conferences, read books and blogs, often looking for the silver bullet of what connects with people, especially young people. I’m as guilty as you. Brett said:

If we are interested in Christianity in any sort of serious way, it is not because it’s easy or trendy or popular. It’s because Jesus himself is appealing, and what he says rings true. It’s because the world we inhabit is utterly phony, ephemeral, narcissistic, image-obsessed and sex-drenched—and we want an alternative. It’s not because we want more of the same.

Part of the mega-church, seeker service movement became about giving people what they wanted, at the expense of what they needed. The result is a Biblically illiterate church that believes that the church exists to meet their needs. As someone in church ministry, that last sentence is beyond scary to me.

Brett’s point was easily overlooked but it is spot on.

Reaching hipsters, or really anyone for that matter, should never become all about what they want but about what they need.

One thing I find interesting about Christianity is the strong emphasis on study and knowledge. I, more than most, come to experience this emphasis in my seminary classes and studies.

Over the past few weeks I’ve enjoyed reading a modern classic, The Knowledge of the Holy, by A.W. Tozer. It was written in 1961 but has much relevance to today. This was my favorite part:

“Knowledge of a Being cannot be gained by study alone. It comes by a wisdom the natural man knows nothing of, neither can know, because it is spiritually discerned. To know God is at once the easiest and the most difficult thing in the world. It is easy because knowledge is not won by hard mental toil, but is something freely given. As sunlight falls free on the open field, so the knowledge of the holy God is a free gift to men who are open to receive it. But this knowledge is difficult because there are conditions to be met and the obstinate nature of fallen man does not take kindly to them” (page 115).

Yep, he nailed it.

I find it interesting that most churches spend a good majority of time on Biblical teaching, but really what people need is an encounter with God. That encounter must come before any teaching or preaching can really take root.

Maybe we’re focusing on the wrong thing.

[Image: Scroll Publishing]