God is a redeeming God.  It is one of the most important concepts for a Christians to understand, in and throughout every oz of their being.  So often we Christians worry way too much about what we are against, rather than what we are for.  What we should be about is reclaiming every good thing for God’s glory.  Even “taboos” must give way to their redemptive value.  Check out what Spurgeon has to say about smoking to the glory of God (careful it may be the best or worst thing you ever read; let me know):

To the Editor of the Daily Telegraph.

SIR,

YOU cannot regret more than I do the occasion which produced the unpremeditated remarks to which you refer. I would, however, remind you that I am not responsible for the accuracy of newspaper reports, nor do I admit that they are a full and fair representation of what I said. I am described as rising with a twinkling eye, and this at once suggested that I spoke flippantly; but indeed, I did nothing of the kind. I was rather too much in earnest than too little.

I demur altogether and most positively to the statement that to smoke tobacco is in itself a sin. It may become so, as any other indifferent action may, but as an action it is no sin.

Together with hundreds of thousands of my fellow-Christians I have smoked, and, with them, I am under the condemnation of living in habitual sin, if certain accusers are to be believed. As I would not knowingly live even in the smallest violation of the law of God, and sin in the transgression of the law, I will not own to sin when I am not conscious of it.

There is growing up in society a Pharisaic system which adds to the commands of God the precepts of men; to that system I will not yield for an hour. The preservation of my liberty may bring upon me the upbraidings of many good men, and the sneers of the self-righteous; but I shall endure both with serenity so long as I feel clear in my conscience before God.

The expression “smoking to the glory of God” standing alone has an ill sound, and I do not justify it; but in the sense in which I employed it I still stand to it. No Christian should do anything in which he cannot glorify God; and this may be done, according to Scripture, in eating and drinking and the common actions of life.

When I have found intense pain relieved, a weary brain soothed, and calm, refreshing sleep obtained by a cigar, I have felt grateful to God, and have blessed His name; this is what I meant, and by no means did I use sacred words triflingly.

If through smoking I had wasted an hour of my time—if I had stinted my gifts to the poor—if I had rendered my mind less vigorous—I trust I should see my fault and turn from it; but he who charges me with these things shall have no answer but my forgiveness.

I am told that my open avowal will lessen my influence, and my reply is that if I have gained any influence through being thought different from what I am, I have no wish to retain it. I will do nothing upon the sly, and nothing about which I have a doubt.

I am most sorry that prominence has been given to what seems to me so small a matter—and the last thing in my thoughts would have been the mention of it from the pulpit; but I was placed in such a position that I must either by my silence plead guilty to living in sin, or else bring down upon my unfortunate self the fierce rebukes of the anti-tobacco advocates by speaking out honestly. I chose the latter; and although I am now the target for these worthy brethren, I would sooner endure their severest censures than sneakingly do what I could not justify, and earn immunity from their criticism by tamely submitting to be charged with sin in an action which my conscience allows.

Yours truly,

C. H. SPURGEON.

I love being where God has told me to be.  But, I’m not going to lie; I’m dying to go out and get a “real job.”  However, it’s undeniable that God has me where I am, and he’s blessing it—sometimes I wish that I could ignore that.

But here’s the twist—God’s provision is amazing.  (I’m trying to break my exclamation habit, otherwise I would have put one there.)  Every time we get close to the edge, living with this budget of an accountant’s nightmare, God’s provision shows up exactly when he intended it to.  Today we received an anonymous cash gift from someone at Origin, as well as a check from a church that I played at that was three times bigger than I told them I needed, and a substantial gift from another church to pay for some school bills that I wasn’t going to be able to pay.  My mind is blown.  My gas tank is full.  (I really want an exclamation).

God knows our exact needs.  I have so little faith, but he is so good to his children.  The lilies of the fields don’t fret; why do we?

I am totally lying if I say it is comfortable, but I am telling the absolute truth that there is nowhere else that we want to be than right here.  ”For a day in your courts is better than a thousand elsewhere. I would rather be a doorkeeper in the house of my God than dwell in the tents of wickedness” (Psalms 84:10).

Family Fun-4.jpg, originally uploaded by Elijah Stephen.

Celest and I are teens again. That includes taking cute-silly-fun photos. I’m thinking about getting braces. Does anybody else have an irrepressible desire to TP something?

I am eternally impressed with Killer Whales—thank you documentaries.  The question is which you think would win a fight: a Great White or a Killer Whale.  The show went on to prove that it is indisputably the Killer Whale.  Shock and awe right?  How could Shamu take out the King of the Sea?  (Hmm… I just did a google search and apparently the term “king of the sea” is reserved for Tuna and King Triton from Little Mermaid—thank you Google image—my bad).

Anyway!  What really fascinated me was not the sheer coolness of the big black and white fish; it was the genius that is behind the way that they go about their attacks.

To kill a shark, the Orca has learned that it merely has to flip the shark on it back.  Once flipped, the Shark is paralyzed and can’t correct because a thing called tonic immobility kicks in—game over!  This actually got captured on video in the waters near San Francisco during one of the largest gathering of Great Whites on the California Coast

The most amazing thing about the event is that every one of the Great Whites in the area vanished the same day. One of the Sharks had a tracker on, and it headed straight to the continental shelf and dove 1500 feet and toward Hawaii.  Total panick!

I love that!  Doesn’t that feel like justice has been served?  I think that surfers should take up the Killer Whale as their official mascot.  It blows my mind how we continually come to know new and fascinating things about the creation around us, and the amazingness of its creatures.  It’s a beautiful thing.

Alright… I’m back… Taking a quick breath from all that stuff.  I mentioned my wife’s surprise party in the fog of a blog that I posted last Thursday.  Easily the highlight of my month!  And hers too!  She loves surprises and this one worked out pretty well.

Imagine the clever people you know.  If the clever people that you know are actually clever then go ahead and lump Celestial right into that category.  (Congrats!  Now you guys are friends and stuff.  You know each other.)  This is a problem though.  Clever people are not easy to surprise.  Extra work was going to have to go into the fooling effort since this was an extra special b-day, being the big Three O.

I needed a running start at this so I began talking to my buddy Nathan about the idea for this party back in April.  We decided on some of the gist of it back then, including making it a potluck party with the theme of, “Stuff  With Cheese On It” (Celestial’s expressed favorite dish).  But since we had budget issues we had to quickly rule out the surprise trip to Paris where all her friends would be waiting at a hotel with a private show from U2.

Keeping that in the back pocket for the 40^th though.

I’m not much of a detail guy—at all—so I stuck to the fun part, which was planning how I was going to surprise her and left the party details to her best friend Jamie (she was amazing).  Jamie threw an incredible party.  My sister Amanda and her Husband Troy made a sweet journey of Celest’s life via slide show.  My friend Adam Dj’d.  He’s one cool Puerto Rican.  And all her friends did her the wonderful honor of showing up—pretty much the most important part.  And my only responsibility was getting the birthday girl there.  I totally almost choked.

Concealing the secret was the first step.  Celest never has her phone on her but she does have mine.  BECAUSE SHE STEELS IT FREQUENTLY!!!  Yeah, in addition to being able to see all the calls and texts, my emails all show up there too.  Makes secret planning a little tough.  But we designated a separate email that Jamie and I would plan from and correspond with the guests and that worked great.

We decided that the party location would be the clubhouse at my apartment complex for 3 reasons:  It is Free.  Free.  & Free.  (ok… a fourth reason being that it was the nicest free place that we could get… don’t forget my budget).  But how would I get her to casually stroll into the clubhouse on a Sunday afternoon?  We never go to the clubhouse?  Let alone on Sunday afternoons when all we want to do is nap!

But!  2 facts about Celestial:  She loves getting packages in the mail and she rarely has her phone on (oh did I mention the phone part already?).  Perfect!

This was my “IN”!

The day before the party I would call the apartment office and ask them to call Celestial’s cell phone and leave a voice message that she had a package waiting for her.  She wouldn’t get the message until the next day after I charged her phone for her and when she did she wouldn’t be able to resist waiting an extra minute to get the package which would take her right through the door way to the party.  It was perfect!

But it got complicated.

2 weeks before the party I sent out an email to let everyone know that the party plans were going great and to remind anyone who hadn’t rsvpd to get on it.  Well, much to my freaking horror, Celestial got that email!  I was sitting on the couch next to her, I looked at her computer screen and there was my email in her inbox.  I was so stinkn sad because I really wanted everything to be perfect.  She loves to be surprised and this was totally sucking it up.  If there was anything positive about it, it was that the email was completely general and the only info that she got from it was that there was a party somewhere and sometime in the future.

No worries at all!  Because I had a plan!

I had been wanting to do a fake surprise party for a while, back when I first kicked around the idea with Nathan in April.  Who doesn’t expect a surprise party on big birthdays like this?  What better way to extinguish the suspicion than to throw them a dud surprise party first.  And we succeeded at that!  I put the plans together fast and she walked into the restaurant and there was 6 people and our kids with some balloons and a present; that was her 30^th.  We made up some pretty great excuses about why everyone else couldn’t come, ate some pasta, and then we went home.  She was totally sweet about it and tried to pretend like she had fun.

The next day was her party and it totally ended up amazing.  She got the call from the office just like we planned.  And, just like I told you, she insisted on getting the package immediately.  She practically drug me to her own surprise.  Effortless!  She was so surprised and loved it all.  Oh, and after she got totally rocked by everybody’s surprise for her, we ended the party by giving her a 3 night trip for her and me and no kids that a bunch of people at the party contributed to as their gift to her.  We ended up doing a photography road trip from Tahoe to Idaho to Oregon and back down through Shasta and then home.  Totally good times!  The whole thing came together way better than I could have imagined it.  She totally loved it.

So there it is.  Now it’s to you.  Tell us about your best surprise memory.  We’d love to hear it.

I love Flickr Explore.  I posted my favorite four from last week on Tuesday so, as I was browsing Explore, I had to find some excuse to get them on this blog, so that’s it.  Pictures that are creative and awesome are just such a sweet reminder of God’s common grace.  Even though our world is spinning in sin, he allows his attribute of creativity and beauty to still flourish in our world.  That’s common grace.  Think of his awesomeness when you encounter awesome things.  Favorite?   The fighting one is hilarious and brilliant in my opinion.

Can I just take a second to brag about my friends?  Ok, I will.  Car trouble has obviously been nuts for us the last few months and, as of this week, both of my cars are dead.  Dead.  Dead.  Dead. (You’ve seen one of them still sitting in the Nugget parking lot for the last week, and I apologize, I will take care of that soon).  Celestial and I are currently sharing my mom’s car—Thanks mom!

Now, some friends of ours came over the other night and totally totally blessed us (I don’t think they want us to mention their names, so I will have to leave them being know affectionately as “Some Friends”). 

How did they bless us?  Well, knowing that we are poor artists supported by ministry, and being moved by the Spirit of God (who also knows that we are poor artists supported by ministry) they offered us a bunch of money to put toward getting a new car or (if possible) fixing both cars up to good running condition again.  Is that awesome or what?!  And it was that same day that Celestial and I had realized that we had no solution.  We simply reminded each other that God has always taken care of us and that he will continue to do just that.  The Lord is Amazing! 

Now, here’s what I love the most.  This is the best picture of Acts 2:44-45 that I have personally seen in a long time.  They were in community together, living lives closely enough that needs were obvious.  And they gave up whatever they could to help those in need. 

This is so cool.  This is the love that Jesus was talking about that would set Christians apart from the world.  It was the believers in need that the Christians were giving to.  Acts 2:47.  After it describes all the giving that the believers had going on amongst each other it says, “And each day the Lord added to their group those who were being saved.”  As we live together and genuinely love each other like this, that’s when the offensiveness of the gospel becomes attractive—it calls us sinners; it says that it’s the only way; it tells us to give up everything, but then look how beautiful it is when it is lived out!

Thanks for letting me brag about my friends.  I think they get it and how awesome would the Church be if the rest of us lived more like that—me and you.  I am totally humbled.  So, what’s your story?  Have you seen the gospel being lived like that lately?  

Tonight was crazy!  When was the last time your church didn’t have a time of worship because the worship pastor didn’t show up?  Yeah… I can’t remember the last time I heard of that happening either. 

I told you that my 97 Camry is ghetto but, as of tonight’s events, it’s official.  I was on my way to Calvary Auburn at 6:00 to play their 7:00 service and I stopped at Peet’s Coffee to get a little caffeine.  Now, I always know that whenever I turn off my car it may take 10 minutes to start backup—Why?—Because my Camry’s Ghetto!  But I was hoping I would get lucky. 

I didn’t!

Coming back to my car, I turned the key.  Nothing!  But this happens all the time, so no worries.  I simply wait a few minutes and then it’s ready to start.  (I wish it were like the movies where you hit the dashboard and it fires right up).

Just then my drummer buddy Serge happened by Peet’s.  He let me out of my car and I decided to kill 10 minutes with him while my car thought about starting—He had to let me out of my car because my inside handle is broken and when the car wont start, the window doesn’t roll down for me to stick my hand outside and open it myself.  Why? Ghetto!!!

No need to call Calvary and tell them that there is a problem because there is none; this sort of thing has been a part of my daily routine for the last couple of months.  So, Serge and I kill a few minutes talking about music and stuff and then he goes on his way and I go back to my car with nothing but positive expectations.  I turn the key.  Nothing! Turned it again.  Nothing!!  Turned it again—you get the point.  Fervent prayers ensue!!!  

Now, I totally need to call Calvary.  A little sadness, a little panic.  I have no phone number but Greg’s—he’s the senior pastor who is out of town at a pastor’s conference.  So, I do the only logical thing: I post up a Twitter & FB status update to several hundred people to see if anyone is in the area who can give me a lift to the service that starts in 35 minutes.  Alas!  Twitter is down at the moment.  I try reposting 3 times.  It’s getting no better.  And I can’t even call the church to let them no about the situation.   

But! (Commence cue card for audience to sigh in huge relief) I called my friend Nathan.  I said: “DUDE. MY CAR. HELP!!!”  He said he was on his way and he was there within 10 minutes.  (for anybody who doesn’t live in suburb Rocklin and thinks I could have just called a cab… I laugh at you).  We got to the church 5 minutes before 7:00 and all was well at Calvary Auburn that night.  My car, on the other hand, not so well. 

The moral of the story is:  Thank you Jesus!  And, also, when it comes to cars, buy Camrys (they’re good cars), but if they become as Ghetto as mine (after 200,000 mi) then …make sure you have friends.

So, Wednesday night, what were you doing?  Where were you when I needed you?  

Trying something new.  Here We Go!  Derek Webb, a while back, did a tour of “House Shows” (shows in someone’s home with a limited amount of guests) and so my brother and I thought that we would do something like that too.  Only 100 tickets will be sold.  It should be cool and I’m looking forward to it.     

Details:

6/24/2009 7:00 PM at (HOME SHOW!) Studio 21 w/ Josiah James, Push Push Pull, If A Tree Falls, & Mildrid.
4175 Cincinnati Ave. Suite 200, Rocklin, California 95765
Cost: $10 Pre-Sale $12 @the door (if not sold out).  Tickets are available HERE on Josiah’s page. 

Chaddick-

Hi Again!  Where has the time gone since my last post?!  I hope you all had a good Memorial Day weekend.  Mine was pretty great—fun times with family and friends with a little tasty food and drink mixed in.  I am kinda swamped with stuff right now.  I have put some school stuff on the back burner and—apparently—now it’s burning me a little. 

It’s cool though; it’s coming along.  The recent addition of the Calvary Chapel Auburn Wednesday night service has been a nice mid-week addition to my worship leading schedule—good, God worshiping, Jesus loving people out there. 

I have been listening to a bunch of Reality LA messages, by Pastor Tim Chaddick via Podcast.  He yells a lot and teaches the Gospel in pretty much every breath—It’s awesome (similar to Mark South).  I am just about finished with all the messages that he has preached in the last 3 years.  I will write a summary if you would like—just kidding!  Actually I could summarize right now.  Every message is something to the extent of:

          You suck!  But Jesus is Awesome!!  You’ve De-Godded God, but he loves you anyway!  Can I please preach for 3 hours!  Quit worshiping stuff!!  It’s not about You!  It’s about Jesus!!!  Martin Loyd Jones says “…(insert really great quote here)”!  The Gospel!!!  Grace!!!  …But Stop Sinning!!!  REPENT!!!  Worship Jesus!!!  England, and preachers from England are Awesome!  Pray like Crazy!  Live a Gospel centered life by the Spirit.  (Sick of these !!! sorry, you can’t quote Chaddick without an exclamation after every line)  Transubstantiation… seriously!?!  Jesus died once for all time!  I suck and I know it!  But my wife is hot!!  Preach the WORD!!!  Get rid of your moralizm and live for Jesus!  World War II analogies are the best!  Get a Job, get married, and enjoy her naked!  Live a Spirit lead life… and do it while you’re washing the dishes too!!!  Don’t find time for your neighbor!  Make Time!  Did I mention You suck and need Jesus!!!

Yeah, that’s pretty much the idea.  If I were summarizing a typical pastor it would go something like: I love email forwards.  Email forwards are great.  God wants you to be happy.  

…And I’m sure I wouldn’t bother.  But like I mentioned, I have gotten a wee bit behind on some homework, so I’m going to get to that.  I hope that things are going well for you.  I will be posting more regularly this week so stay posted.  What did you do for Memorial Day?