Not of this World

I have randomly seen like 12 of these stickers on cars the last few days and I recently found out from Jess what they mean....Not of This World. Hmm..... I guess this is another corny phrase that some Christians are using these days. It got me thinking....How am I not of this world?

Well here's a list. Cause I live by lists! Don't believe me, just look in my office!

• Jess and I gave away 3 boxes of donuts to high schoolers this morning at 7:30 am. And do this every Monday morning. Just something to get to know kids where they are and help brighten their Monday.
• Jess and I went to a high school girls basketball game last week, and are going again tonight. We are doing this to get to know students on the team and support them. That's not of this world if you know what I'm saying :) It was fun though, and Prescott is really good. Go watch them!
• I gave away 5 bucks to homeless guy last week, but I don't know if that counts. He had a crazy story though which was great to listen to.
• Jess and I are supporting Haiti through our local church, PCC.
• I sledded with summer staffers and little kids all afternoon last Friday. I dunno if that counts either, but it was fun.

Anyways, this is by no means a list of how good Jarred is. If anything it is disappointing to look at and think of how little I am actually doing. Guess I have a lot more to work on.

What have you done lately that is Not of this World?

Balance

Ok, for starters, this picture cracks me up because I have no idea what they made these figures out of, but it is weird. It still get the point across though.

Over the past few months, I have been thinking a lot about balance. Balance for me individually in areas such as marriage, friends, Young Life, man-time, working out, and recreation. But even more specifically, I have been thinking about balancing my faith in God. Now let me explain, so you immediately write me off as an emergent spiritual crazy person...

I keep thinking about balance as I try to define my theology or stance on what it means to believe and have faith in God. And what I mean by balance is that I struggle taking sides. There are a lot of theologies out there that draw hard lines and take firm stands on some highly debated biblical truths. For instance, Calvinism opposed to Open Theism. Calvinists are on one end of the spectrum with the beliefs such as total depravity, unconditional election or predestination, limited atonement (Jesus died only for the elect), irresistible grace (you cannot resist God's call if he chooses you), and finally the highly used phrase "once saved always saved." The most infamous belief the Calvinist's stand by is centered around that God's will is central and you don't choose God, He chooses you. At the other end of the spectrum, or teeter totter, are Open Theists who basically believe that God knows every possibility that each person has in life, but He doesn't choose for us. In essence, God gives you a choice about everything.

Now here's my take on issues such as these. I am so tired of getting stuck in these conversations. In the middle of these conversations or debates, I just want to hold up my picture of the weird teeter totter and say, "hey, you guys are like a bunch of little kids playing on a teeter totter during recess." You are more concerned about playing the Jesus game and winning, then living out the Gospel of Jesus.

Here's what I think. If you like to take sides in your theology, then eventually you are going to get shot off the teeter totter. The theology that I like to think about has everything to do with balance. I'm tired of trying to choose sides, because I honestly believe that both sides (mentioned earlier) are both right and wrong. They each have holes, and they don't seem to make since in all circumstances. So when someone invents a theology of balance, then count me in, because that seems to be a lot more Jesus-centered than the divisiveness of theology today.

Anyways, I'm gonna shoot for some balance in my life this year. Me, Jess, and my friend Will Heck starting working out this morning, and I look forward to the balance of working out 3 days a week at the local YMCA. I'm also doing a lot of other things to balance things out in my life, so you can look forward to at least one new blog each week for the future. I apologize for not being consistent in the past.

Until next time,
Jarred

ps...keep balancing

The One with Jess and the Wolf

Hey everyone! Here is a one of Jessica's latest greatest pictures. I love my wife because she makes me laugh constantly. I would be way to serious without her in my life!

On another note, Jess is trying to begin Student Staff for Young Life in Prescott this December. If you would be interested in supporting her (or if you know anyone who would) please let us know. Her email is tweed.medlin@gmail.com.

A New Perspective

On monday, a co-worker (Chris Holohan) and I left for Barnes and Noble to buy a book that had caught Chris's attention. Chris had seen this book online and watched several interviews of Ed Dobson to see what this book was all about. Since we were so interested, we decided to each buy one and see what we could learn from it.

Next summer, our middle school camps at United Christian Youth Camp will be taking a close look at the life of Jesus. The hope is that students would have a real, true, and authentic picture of who Jesus is, how he lived, why he died, and what that means for us.

Dobson's book has already began to challenge us and show us new things about the life of Jesus. In this book, Ed Dobson, a longtime pastor of Calvary Bible in Grand Rapids, Michigan, talks about an experiment he recently embarked upon. Dobson was diagnosed with Lou Gehrig's Disease several years ago, and this led him to a journey of trying to live like Jesus for an entire year. Some of things he does is amazing to read about. A super-conservative pastor is challenged to break down many barriers and love people as Jesus did.

This is a great book so far, and maybe it will even challenge you! I know it has for me. Because of a challenge from this book, Chris and I will be reading the Gospels all the way through every week from now until summer. It is already a huge challenge. And it is only week 1. My biggest prayer is that it would not become a prideful, shallow, or meaningless homework assignment. My prayer is that God would renew my mind through reading about Jesus every day.

Incarnational Ministry

The first part of John 1: 14 says this, "The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us."

I have recently been hearing a lot about this new term, incarnational ministry. And John describes its meaning better than anyone. Jesus (the Word) made his dwelling with us. The word dwell literally means...to live, to make ones home, to inhabit, reside, or make residence. Jesus dwelt among us. He came from his home to live with us. Not just for a visist, but to live as one of us. That is what I call incarnational. God became man and dwelt among us. And durring this time Jesus carried his ministry everywhere he went. The ministry of Jesus was founded as God coming to man. He inhabited a family, a job (carpenter), friends, the temple, and everything else people in his time dealt with. He inhabited our broken world, and yet was perfect.

So here's what I have been thinking about regarding incarnation ministry lately. Why does the ministry of the common church look so different? In more specific words, Why does the common church expect lost, hurting, sick, outcast, hungry, orlonely people to dwell in the church. Why does the church have expectations for people to come to it, instead of the church going to the people?

Now please don't read into these questions as me having a negative view of the church. There are many churches out there that don't fit into this category. I believe that the church is the bride of Christ. And I also believe that God is purifying His bride. This simply means that the church always has somehting to work on. And setting the ministry of the common church up to the life of Jesus will show us some faults and areas to improve on.

What would the church look like if it was founded upon the incarnational ministry of Jesus? I think buildings, crosses, bilboards, giant flags, and multi-million dollar landscaping projects would fade away. I think that people (which really are the church) would have something bigger to look forward to than just a Sunday morning service.

It is my hope that pastors would pastor their people. Youth pastors would get out from behind their desks and go to lunch at the high school or rant and rave at the Friday night football game. Offerings would overwhelmingly be spent on meeting the needs of people around the community, in the area, and in other parts of the world. The people who show up on Sunday morning would show up with the same intentions of living out holiness at work each day of the week. That the church would make its dwelling among the people. And get over the fear that they might be dissapointed, laughed at, or God forbid take a cut in the weekly offering.

I realize this idea is tough, raw, and aggressive, but I think that was reflected in Jesus. He wasn't an in the box, straight cut kind of guy. He was so revolutionary that we still talk about him today (2,009 years later). So I hope that we can each (as members of the church) consider how we are living lives based upon the incarnational ministry demonstrated by Jesus.

YoungLife

I first learned about YoungLife around 3 years ago. Jess on the other hand, has a long history with YoungLife. Up until about 1 year ago, I considered YoungLife as the enemy (I was kidding...mostly). YoungLife embodied all the crazy people who went to ridiculously awesome camps and were always out of control. YoungLife was the unknown, unstructured, and chaotic ministry that I had no room for in my life.

Today, much has changed. I have been leading YoungLife for just over a year now in Prescott, and it has been one of the best parts of my life. Jess and the rest of my family convinced me to join the "dark side" and begin leading at Prescott High School. Now, most of you don't know what a YoungLife leader is. In short, a YoungLife leader is a volunteer who is intentional about reaching into the lives of students in local schools. Our intentions include discipleship, friendship, fun, camp, and mostly just meeting students where they are in life.

At first, the newness and unconventional elements of YoungLife were hard to get used to. Unfortunately I live inside of a box, from which God is constantly pulling me out from. YoungLife is full of loud secular music, dancing, ridiculous games, food, football games, crazy camps, and late nights. These things always have seemed fun, but not what I used to put in the category of ministry. But YoungLife does not stop with the craziness. YoungLife is full of passionate Christ followers, deeper bible studies, genuine prayer, loving community, and focused discipleship.

What I am finding through being in YoungLife, are lots of students who are crying on the inside for someone to relate with. Someone to care. Someone to understand. Someone to teach them about who Jesus really is without all the religious garbage. What I have found is a life that I think Jesus has asked us all to live.

Now, it has been challenging to put aside my past views of ministry and teaching. Many people in my life would tell me that it would be unwise to surround yourself in worldly situations. What I am learning now is that worldly situations is exactly what Jesus put himself in the middle of. He came because the love of our father couldn't simply be written in law, but had to be shown through life. He lived among us. In the middle of our failures. In the midst of our mistakes. And he has shown us a better way to live. This to me is YoungLife. To reflect the life of the man who put himself in our shoes.

Thanks to everyone who has helped bring YoungLife to thousands of young people throughout the world!

God will Provide

Over the weekend, I spent some time listening to some good ol' stories from the bible that are becoming more and more relevant in my life. I used to think, how am I supposed to relate with a 99 year old farmer, but there are things about Abraham, God's friend, that completely blow me away!

Here's a very specific example. You know the part in the story where God asks him to sacrifice his only son, Isaac. I can't imagine what that would have been like to hear God ask something like that. Here's my response, "You mean Isaac? My only son? My son who you promised my wife and me? My son who is my joy and laughter? You have to be kidding me! This can't be God!

I think many times while following God we assume that He only speaks what we want. Such as, God wouldn't ask me to kill my son, leave my home, sell my possessions, get uncomfortable, or take a what seems to be a RIDICULOUS risk. We translate the voice of God to fit our own language of life. So my question is...Do I know God's voice?

I believe that Abraham knew the voice of God. How else could you explain what he did? What kind of man in his right mind gets up the next day to hike up a mountain and offer his son as a sacrifice? The only way you can explain this is to trust that Abraham knew who had asked him this.

Later on in the story, Isaac asks Abraham why they are hiking up a mountain for a sacrifice with no animal to kill. Talk about a punch in the stomach to a father! And how does Abraham respond? "God will provide." Only a man who knew the voice of God could answer like that! And then Abraham's faith carried him to the limit, and God provided.

Will our faith in the voice of our father carry us to the limit? Will we allow God to provide?

Thanks to John Irwin (for your inspiration) and all the YoungLife staff for an amazing weekend!