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.

I have been thinking about this since our meeting on Tuesday. We discussed what Christian community looks like and refferred to Acts 2:42-47. Verse 44 says, "All believers were together and had everything in common."


If you look at this with a quick glance it kind of sounds like a clique you would experience in high school. Just a bunch of people exactly alike huddling around each other talking about how cool their "sameness" is.


So is it ok for Christians to have "cliques," or groups of people gathered with "everything in common"? I think it is unavoidable and designed that way by God. God designed each of us with different interests, passions, talents and abilities. He did this so we would each be able to accomplish something different for his kingdom. We, as humans, naturally gravitate towards those people that are similar to ourselves.


Here is the difference...


In high school we gravitated to those that were similar to ourselves, but we purposely excluded those that were different and chose not to accept them. As Christians this should look different. While we naturally gravitate to those people with similar interests and passions as us, we have learned to LOVE and accept those that are different than us. We do not turn away "outsiders" and we learn to accept each person for who they are in Christ.


We will always naturally gravitate to people like us, that isn't going to change. I'm not sure we are made to be "best friends" with every single person on earth. Where we become the Body of Christ is when my community unites with your different community and becomes one big community. It is ok to have a smaller group of friends that are like you. Where being a Christian come in is when we take our little community and engage with someone elses little community to form the Body of Christ.


Think about the United States of America for example. As Indiana we do our thing, Florida does theirs, Nebraska theirs and California theres. We are all cool and unique in our own state communities. However, we are stronger and become a "super power" when we combine ourselves to be the UNITED States of America. Christianity is no different.


What we have to remember is; even though we may have nothing of this world in common with that other person's community, we all have Christ in common. As strong as we may feel in our tight knit small communities, we have the strength of the Body of Christ when we unite all of our communities together and nothing can beat that.

Tonight we had our young adult discussion group at George's Neighborhood Grille off of 71st and Binford Boulevard. We were discussing Acts 2:42-47. While we were discussing that passage, I looked over to Acts 4:13 and saw an underlined passage in my Bible. Acts 4:13 is the passage where Luke describes how Peter and John were preaching the Word and performing miracles, and jailed because of it. When asked who's authority they do these things by Peter says,

"...It is by the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom YOU crucified but whom God raised from the dead, that this man stands before you healed. He is 'the stone YOU builders rejected which has become the capstone.' Salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to men by which we must be saved." Acts 4:12

When they saw the courage of Peter and John and realized that they were unschooled, ordinary men, they were astonished and they took note that these men had been with Jesus. Acts 4:13

Peter completely and directly calls out the Sanhedrin for crucifying and rejecting Christ. They were, of course, incredibly astonished by Peter's directness, boldness and courage. They couldn't believe an uneducated ORDINARY man could have the courage to say this to such high standing, educated members of society like themselves.

This has always been an empowering verse for me. I am someone that never did all that well in school, I was never the smartest or brightest in my class. This shows me that Jesus does not require book smarts or legal smarts to use someone. All Jesus requires is a heart and passion for Him and His people. If you honestly love Christ and love others, he will empower you, and use you, in ways you could never be used if you were just a 'smart' guy/girl.

I don't know who all is reading my blog these days but I would be interested in hearing about times when God used you in ways that you didn't expect him to, because maybe you didn't live up to the world's standards for "smart" or "successful."