Chase the Setting Sun...

It has been a crazy spring season so far. It seems that life has hit light speed and shows no signs of stopping. As difficult and crazy as that makes it, I have to say I am loving it.


Some background...


In January of this year I took over the reigns for Castleton United Methodist's contemporary/blended service on Sunday mornings at 11:00am (in addition to my fulltime job at Garrison Law Firm). My charge was to turn it from a "blended" service into a full blown "contemporary" service in terms of music. At the beginning of March my wife (@courtgarr) and I closed on our first house. We began looking for a home in early January and found a great house in Fishers. Soon after that our church began a capital campaign to retire the debt associated with building our current sanctuary. On the same day that was started, Matt Lipan (@mattlipan) and I were given the green light to start a brand new Saturday Night Contemporary service on our Castleton campus. Immediately we went to work on advertising for musicians, interviewing worship leaders and developing the service. All the while participating in hours of meetings regarding the capital campaign and all of the tasks involved in making that a successful venture for our church.


On May 14th Court and I took possession (finally) of our house. Immediately began the work of packing to move along with preparing our new home for our arrival. We spent the following week painting, cleaning, replacing things, adding new things until the house was ready for us to move in this last weekend.


On top of all that we started a new discussion group on Tuesday night at George's Neighborhood Grill for the '20 somethings' group in our area.


With all the craziness that has gone along with all of the things I've been involved in and doing lately I have to say that I haven't had this much fun in a long time. It has been a blast searching for, buying, and moving into a new home with my wife. Starting this new service (even though it technically hasn't started) has been a great experience and a lot of fun as I've put together a completely new band with new faces and talents. Even the capital campaign, as boring as that may sound, has had it's moments.


I am completely looking forward to the following months and years as I continue to lead some great bands and services and get to finally live in our new home and experience life as a home owner.


Although at times I may complain...It has been a great few months and promises to only get better.

This weekend we began packing to move...again. Since my wife and I entered college it has become an almost annual tradition to pack up and move in May. In college we packed up our dorm rooms at Butler and Taylor in May and moved home, only to pack up and go back to school in August. After we got married I moved out to Oxford, OH in July, only to pack up an move the following May back to Indianapolis, IN.

Tonight I spent three heavenly hours in a meeting for leaders of our church's capital campaign. Ok, maybe all three hours weren't heavenly. Nonetheless, it was beneficial in some ways. Just some background. A few years ago our church built a new sanctuary. It was long overdue and completely necessary in my opinion. Of course there are only two ways to pay for a new building like this 1) pay in cash and 2) go into debt. It is now our task to pay off the debt.


A phrase that our campaign coordinator brought up a lot was "sacrificial giving." His challenge to everyone in our meeting, as well as the church as a whole, was to "give sacrificially." I got to thinking, what does it mean to give sacrificially? Is it different for everyone, or does it mean the same thing? C.S. Lewis came to mind...


In Chapter 3 of his book Mere Christianity, C.S. Lewis says this,

"I'm afraid the only safe rule is to give more than we can spare. In other words, if our expenditure on comforts, luxuries, amusements etc., is up to the standard common among those with the same income as our own, we are probably giving away way too little. If our charities do not at all pinch or hamper us, I should say they are too small. There ought to be things we should like to do and cannot do because our charities expenditure excludes them."

This to me is what it means to give sacrificially. As human beings we are particularly driven by our own status in society. What car do we drive? How big is our house? What kind of clothes do we wear? How many followers do we have on Twitter? We want to at least match if not exceed those in our income bracket in our possessions.


C.S. Lewis says that we should take a look at what everyone else in our income bracket has and make sure that we have less. He doesn't say that we should give away 90% of our income, but we should see how others are living comfortably (or more than comfortably) and give a little more. Our giving should make us a little uncomfortable.


The church talks a lot about tithing. Personally, my wife and I do tithe our 10% each month. However, I'm not sure that formula works for everyone. For some people, 10% is outrageous and would bankrupt them to just all of the sudden start forking over 10% of their income. For others, 10% is a drop in the bucket and they would have to go up to maybe 20-30% before they feel the impact.


I think giving sacrificially means the same thing for a person making $20,000/yr and someone making $1,000,000/yr. It is the specific numbers that are different. Give until it makes us a little uncomfortable.


So I am challenged to try take another look at our finances over the next couple of months before the giving phase of the campaign starts and see if we can sacrifice a little more. To be honest the 10% we do give right now feels like it hurts enough, but maybe God can help us find a way to squeeze out a few more percent to try and pay down some debt.


How is God challenging you to give sacrificially?

I was reading Romans 3 this morning and came across this line in verse 4, "Let God be true, and every man a liar."


As I was thinking about that verse it made me think of the argument so many non-Christians have against Christians. We always here them say, "Well I've seen all of these 'Christians' doing this, that, or the other. Doesn't that contradict what your 'God' would say/do?"


What I want to say is, "What does that have to do with God?" We can't put mans' sins on God. We have nothing to do with God, God has everything to do with us. What we do, does not affect who God is in ANY way. We cannot change or manipulate God by our actions or words. I think a lot of non-Christians believe that God is just the sum of those who follow him. Sometimes maybe even Christians think the same thing.


On the contrary, God has everything to do with us. Who God is affects us on a daily basis. Now, that does not mean that we somehow become perfect. We are human beings, we are going to mess up. The fact that God doesn't change based on our actions or words means that we always have that rock solid example to come back to.


A lot of times our response to these questions is to defend Christians. In all honesty, it might work better to show that no matter how dumb, stupid or ridiculous Christians may act on this earth, God never changes. He remains the same God he was yesterday, last week, and a million years ago. Maybe we should start throwing ourselves "under the bus" for the sake of Christ. When someone asks us these questions maybe we should just say, "You know what, you are right, I/we do a lot of dumb stuff, but who I am doesn't change who God is and will be."


Let God be true and EVERY man a liar.