Jeremy Davidson

      I had a great weekend with our Student Ministry at Breaking Free. We went down to CrossTimbers outside of McAlester. Andy Tilly and the Jeff Capps Band led the weekend and the leadership team did an amazing job. I am going to take a nap because I am bushed.

       This afternoon I sat down and watched Ordinary People with Mary Tyler Moore, Donald Sutherland, and Timothy Hutton. As the movie begins you know that something tragic has happened in the life of young Conrad that is keeping him from sleeping. Robert Redford directed this movie that won four Academy Awards in 1981 including Best Director, Best Picture, Best Writing, and Best Actor in a Supporting Role for Timothy Hutton, which seemed strange to me because I would have put Timothy Hutton as the lead in this picture, but he never would have beat out Robert DeNiro that year who won for Raging Bull, but I also would have made him share the award with his fellow nominee Judd Hirsh who plays Hutton’s therapist.

     First of all, this was an amazing movie. It has all of the drama that Noah Baumbach is going for is his recent pictures, without all of the raunchy interludes. There are several shots within this picture between Hutton and Hirsh that prove to be the precursors for Matt Damon and Ben Affleck’s Good Will Hunting. Hutton’s character of Conrad is going through a difficult period in his life to say the least and has a lot of people speaking into his life on their own terms and for their own benefit. What I enjoyed about the progression of Conrad’s character was that he was able to find his own voice. He learned how to express his feelings and be heard.

     What was interesting for me to see in this movie was the opening establishing shots which were underscored with the school choir singing Canon in D Major with its chorus of Hallelujahs. I finished reading Dan Kimball’s They Like Jesus But Not The Church, which I will blog about in another post, and within the last chapters of the book he talked about the new gap that we have placed between people and God. Kimball states that we are telling people that in many ways they must conform to the Christian subculture before they can even get to the place where they must deal with their sin and the gap that separates them from God. You can get a better picture of this in John Burke’s No Perfect People Allowed. Conrad’s mother seemed unwilling and even embarrassed by what was happening within this family and would rather leave than work it out. This has made me think about how far are we willing to travel down the road with someone walking on their way to becoming a Christ-follower. The church wants people to change in an instance, but that rarely happens. Discipleship and sanctification is a process and we must allow imperfect people into our fellowship so that they can see how more mature followers of Christ handle life. Discipleship is not just what you know, but it is also about how you live your life and how you react to life as it happens. I think that this has a lot to do with the lack of intimacy that has overtaken the church. When we are afraid to share life together we unable to become a body.

• How far are you willing to walk with someone on their journey?
• Are you quick to give up on someone or are you willing to travel with them?
• Think about the farthest you have traveled with someone. Can you go farther?
• Are you relationships suffering because you are afraid to open up?

    I saw this over on Ragamuffin’s blog and thought I would share it with you guys. It is a Christian version of Guitar Hero for your computer call Guitar Praise. There are 52 songs on this game by some of your favorite P&W bands. P&W? HaHa. It has onscreen lyrics so you could use this as your presentation software as well. Maybe Mike will let me have a special song next month and we can sing along to one of the tracks while I play.

Can anyone explain to me exactly what the ABC’s "new kind of family" is?  Give me your best definition.

      I had the privilege to go to eat lunch today at the 5 and Diner off of Memorial and 169 with Dennis Lindemann. It is classic 50s cuisine and man was it good. We meet with a group of guys who are in some kind of car club or anti-social club. I never quite figured out which. They were pretty cool and having a blast hanging out. If you have never eaten at 5 and Diner you have to go. I highly recommend the onion straws and chicken fried steak. Yummy.

     I don’t know if you have been following what is happening at Elevation Church, but I just have to share it.  Pastor Steve and the church recently had two weeks of spontaneous baptisms where they baptized more than 1,000 people in two weeks! Check out Steve’s post about this on his blog at http://www.stevenfurtick.com/uncategorized/1000-2/. The Sunday following these two weeks of spontaneous baptism they kicked off their new series called The Gospel and had 600 people accept Jesus Christ during the weekend. 420 of these were adults. Elevation is a Baptist church in North Carolina, about 3 years old and had more than 4800 people in attendance last Sunday. They don’t even own a building. They are really showing us that Baptist churches can still reach people, but they have to change. One of Steve’s current reads is the book What Got You Here, Won’t Get You There by Marshall Goldsmith. I think that many church leaders are afraid to change, because they fear backlash and have experienced failure at some point. I think that people will follow the vision of a leader who is sold out to the vision himself and have seen failure happen in many cases because leaders were afraid to take the steps necessary to make the vision a success. Steve embodies the Go Big or Go Home mentality. After listening to Steve and his church I have started meditating on this, "How much do you want to see lives changed? How much do you want it?" If my heart doesn’t hurt or bleed with this question then I will lack the passion I need to see it happen. So pray that God will give me the passion to go at it with everything that I have. Pray that God would put people in my path. Pray that God would push me out and into the paths of people.

     As I was driving home today I noticed a guy skating behind the local movie theater. I turned around and pulled into the parking lot to talk with him and give him an invitation to Skate Church. I am telling you this not to say, "Hey look at me and how spiritual I can be," but to encourage you to pray that God would continue to give me the boldness and favor with the community so that I can share the Gospel with them. I was tired and hungry and ready to get home to watch television, but I felt the conviction that I had to turn the car around and go talk to this kid. I pray that God would give you this same conviction and passion about that I am finding.

I look forward to sharing more about this in future posts.

What is God doing in your life right now?

      I got the new Charlie Hall album The Bright Sadness last week. The album is really good. I especially like Scenes, You Are God and Bloom Again.

     What new music are you guys listening to and what do you think about the new Charlie Hall album?

     It has been a very busy copy of days for me. We had a big outreach event on Sunday and I have been getting the new web site ready for launch. We went live with the site last night and I stayed up most of the night checking things out and adding content. I normally don’t get very tired, but I have been sleepy all day.

     I went to Dark Side skate shop this afternoon to pick out a skateboard to give away at our September 9th Launch party for Skate Church Broken Arrow. It is going to be a killer time and the board is amazing. It is a Bachinsky deck with Venture trucks, Pig bearings, and Hubba wheels. I love going to the skateshop and putting a board together. Highlight of my day. Well, that and the white chocolate and macadamia nut cookies I ate. The students are going to freak over this new board.

     Currently watching The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly. Clint Eastwood is crawling around the desert and looking like a burnt raisin.

     Kim and Phillip came over and hung out at the house with us tonight. They are relatively new to the church. They both love to watch movie, listen to music, and go to concerts. Great people. Phillip helped me move the skate ramp I built over the weekend to the church.

Battery is running low and so am I. Chat at you later taters.

     Congrats to Luke Rountree for being the winner of a copy of Mark Batterson’s new book Wild Goose Chase. The book is on its way to your house.

     To decide the winner I took all of the coins out of my pocket and assigned everyone to a coin. I then dropped the coin on the floor in my office. If your coin landed on heads then you got to continue in the competition. I did this until Luke won. Flynt, you were the first one out, in case you wanted to know. I felt like I was casting lots.