Why I Love Hotel Baptistries

When it comes to enjoying hotels I have two things working against me:

1) I'm a home-body. I like being in my own home, in my own room, in my own bed, etc.

2) I worked at a hotel for a little over two years and had about all I could take of a lifetime's worth of hotel experiences

But even I can admit that hotels can be nice from time to time. Especially when they have certain amenities. In most cases I like to have my ESPN. I prefer places that have FREE wireless internet access. Some of the nicest places I've stayed charge a fortune for using the internet. But I like the nicer places because they usually have quality mattresses and some of the best pillows I've ever allowed head to rest. But one of the amenities I have come to value the most, especially when it comes to youth trips, is a quality baptistry...or an indoor pool to most of you!

This weekend at Winterfest we were privileged to participate in another baptism. There is something so special and sacred about friends and family going into the waters together and surrounding the person who is about to be buried with Christ and raised to new life. Those who chose not to get into the pool gathered around its edges and witnessed the amazing transformation of choosing to live the Christ-life. In some ways it's the closest thing I've been able to experience that hints at what it must have been like for believers in Acts.

Maybe I'm bias to baptisms in pool contexts. After all I grew up in Florida and our mindset was... who needs baptistries when everyone's got a pool. I know it's not any less meaningful but somehow it doesn't proclaim the same message when we do it in the small "bathtub" baptistries. When everyone is in the water together there is beauty in the expression of community. It communicates on a whole other level that we as fellow believers are here to walk beside you, to share in your death, and to rejoice in your new life! It's hard really to even explain it adequately in words...but I believe it's a sacred moment that leaves God's fingerprints upon all our lives.

There weren't thousands of us, just 54. It wasn't Jerusalem at Pentecost, just the Ramada Inn at Winterfest. There wasn't a special formula or magical words on our part, but at least for those few moments...that hotel couldn't have been any more holy!

You Are What You Shampoo...

Winterfest really ended up being a wonderful weekend! Although often it doesn't feel wonderful to me. I think it is because the ultimate responsibility for 54 people falls on my shoulders. I find myself constantly concerned about various teens, about making sure people are in the right place (and not lost), about safety, about schedules, and about everyone's enjoyment of a weekend trip. I still am able to have fun but I'm a little on edge most of the weekend with a heightened sense of awareness and responsibility. I am grateful to both my chaperones (who were wonderful) and my teenagers (who are always respectful, responsible and well-behaved) for another memorable Wintefest!

Once we arrive home though I feel like I can finally breathe. I can feel the burden removing itself from my shoulders. Sara and I made sure everyone had a ride home from the building and then it was time to head over to the kennel to pick up Topaz. When we got him in the car it didn't take long to realize he smelled awful. So it was decided that as soon as we got home Topaz was receiving a bath.

We got him into the bathtub and began looking for the dog shampoo. It wasn't in its usual place on the back edge of the tub. We quickly found it though on the upper shelf in the shower. Hmm...odd place for it...we don't usually put it up there. Then we remembered that we had guests stay with us last week who were without power at their own house. Sara and I both burst out in guilty laughter. Turns out our friend Kevin mistook the dog shampoo for one typically best suited for humans. I thought I noticed him itching a little more the last couple days.

Needless to say it was a good way to release the stresses of a long weekend! And of course, when I saw Kevin yesterday, I made sure to bark a little! He was less than thrilled, but his bark is worse than his bite...

Be the Possum...

...and Die that You Might Live! Along with the help of a few short clips from the movie "Over the Hedge" that was the message of my sermon on Sunday. Here are a few of my favorite lines from it that impacted me...

"After all death isn't exactly something we typically look forward to. It’s hard to picture any of us longing to sit down and have a cup of coffee at Starbucks with the Grim Reaper…we often fear it, do all we can to avoid it, and rarely are we truly ready for it. Death often creates grief, sadness, despair, even loneliness. It doesn’t make the Travel Channel’s list of Top 10 vacation destinations yet it is exactly what Jesus calls us to…"

"...when we are buried with Christ we come up out of the waters with new garments on…the wardrobe of compassion, kindness, humility, discipline, peace, and love. They are clothes that may not compare to the latest trends or create considerable buzz in fashion circles, but they are Christ’s clothes and God longs to tailor us that these clothes might continue to fit as we grow."

"The ironic (even crazy) thing about it all is that we live in ways that allow our fear of death to shackle us, when all along Christ’s message of dying to self would truly bring us freedom!"

"Sometimes our dying to self is nothing more than a performance for others to see. However, the last thing we should want to do is make it about putting on a show for others because in the end it’s still about us. We haven’t really died to self. We haven’t fully done away with our old way of life. We can’t stand by and allow the world to run us over and flatten our witness!"


Dying to self is something I have to continually work on each and every day. It can be very difficult and painful but the life that follows the death is worth the struggle. I only hope that as God works on this piece of clay more and more, I too can share in Paul's words..."My old self has been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me."


May Christ's life be evident in mine as I continue to learn how to die!

A First Time for Everything

This afternoon I was provided with a unique opportunity. I had the pleasure of witnessing a baptism. Just the three of us. Although that wasn't the unique part. The unique aspect involved who the person was...we'll call him Johnny. I'm not certain how old Johnny is but if I had to guess I might say somewhere in his sixties. He is a resident at a local nursing home. This morning we received a call from someone who works with Johnny on a regular basis who informed us that after several conversations between the two of them over a period of time, Johnny had made up his mind to be baptized. So this afternoon the two of them made their way up here to the church and together we ushered Johnny into new life with Christ.

It was a sweet moment really. See, Johnny has some limitations. He is mostly confined to a wheelchair because of problems with his legs. We had to struggle to help him up the stairs to access the baptistry. His friend Will playfully joked that it could be his therapy for the day! We got him to the top only to attempt the descent down into the waters. We made it halfway down the stairs into the baptistry when Johnny turned them into a water slide and slipped the rest of the way in. It was hard for him to manipulate his body in the ways needed to fulfill his heart's desire. But by the time he made it in you could see the excitement in his face. He went under an older, broken, physically limited man but came up a new creation with the joy of the LORD as his new strength.

Beautiful. Sacred. Intimate. And I was allowed the privilege to participate in the moment. When I first heard about it earlier in the day I was a little taken aback. I had never been asked to witness a baptism under these circumstances. But by the time we finished sharing the God-moment together...it was worth feeling uncomfortable and awkward...because here was a man who despite his age, despite his limitations, despite his lot in life...understood the simplicity of dying to self in order to be raised to life!

Special. Powerful. Humbling.

God be praised for another first!

The Tempting Pull of Perfection

Genuine. My grandma was a pretty genuine person. In most cases she was the person everyone saw her to be. She was straightforward to the point of blunt, a little rough around the edges but she had a beautiful caring heart for people. Whether it was received positively or negatively she wasn’t afraid to speak her mind, but in all of it she was honest. Honest about herself and about others. She didn’t seem preoccupied with what others thought of her. She wasn’t perfect, she made her share of mistakes but…she was pretty authentic.

I try to be authentic. But it’s not always as easy as you think it would be. Expectations get in the way. Selfishness interferes. Pride surfaces. Fear creeps out from behind the corner. Sometimes I’m tempted to be real only to the point that it becomes uncomfortable. Then I retreat a little bit back into the shadows of the mystery, back to the place where I feel safe because fewer people know my faults and weaknesses. I don’t think we set out to be fake but I wonder if it’s kind of like convincing ourselves that we’re not lying when we strategically withhold part of the story. Why do you think we feel the need to do that?

Who are some of the most genuine or authentic people you know? When I think about those people I start envisioning how I might be more like them. Being around genuine people is infectious. The way they live invites you to cross over into the authentic side. Authenticity isn’t simply being an open book, but knowing the appropriate time to share a few deeper paragraphs. The more genuine people I know embrace both their strengths and their weaknesses in ways that bring honor and glory to God. They are authentic because they live in the freedom to walk beside me through this life as together we share in the peaks and the valleys and the journey back and forth between the two. They are real because they know life is not about what they can do but about what God can do through them.

The authentic are not perfect, they simply seem to recognize the tempting pull of perfection as she softly beckons us to live as hypocrites…and they turn a deaf ear. Sure at times they may listen, but more often than not they walk forward in faith trusting the One whose love for all of us defines authentic!

Yoga-ing Break for Education's Sake

The only Yoga I knew growing up in school was the furry friend of BooBoo, who enjoyed swiping "pic-i-nic baskets" and "terrorizing" park rangers. But today is a new day and apparently there is a push for some in the school system in other parts of the country to begin to incorporate yoga into the class schedule. The reasoning? Student's lives are so busy that a daily dose of yoga could do wonders to help students better cope with the stresses of their hectic lifestyles. The hope is that this meditative outlet will not only foster greater learning opportunities because students can be more rested and focused, but that it will also help students become more balanced and disciplined people along the way.

Now, Yoga may be a helpful tool to combat the extreme busyness that plagues both young people and their families, I don't know. I'm not trying to say that yoga is a bad thing here. But what strikes me as ironic about this whole conversation is that our society is so caught up in the routine of busy lifestyles, that even when we talk about ways to address feeling overwhelmed and fatigued we don't talk about removing activities from our lives but adding one more thing to help us deal with it all! Are you kidding me? I'm afraid that as a people we are fooling ourselves into thinking we can control this "runaway freight train" lifestyle which says the more you can fit in to a day, a week, a month...the more productive or successful you are. I think it's a false truth...one that ultimately will lead us to crash and burn in a pile of physically and emotionally exhausted rubble.

What's more is that I'm not sure we as Christians do a great job of dispelling the lie either. Our lives are just as full, our schedules just as busy as those around us. The irony for us is that even though we read and know the words of Jesus we fail to believe them, let alone live by them...

Are you tired? Worn out? Burned out on religion? Come to me. Get away with me and you'll recover your life. I'll show you how to take a real rest. Walk with me and work with me--watch how I do it. Learn the unforced rhythms of grace. I won't lay anything heavy or ill-fitting on you. Keep company with me and you'll learn to live freely and lightly.

Matthew 11:28-30 (The Message)

Life can already get pretty hectic for me and I don't even have kids yet. I don't know how that variable will add to the busyness equation for me one day. But it seems like this is one area that must make us distinguishable from the world. Even the life of God was lived out in the appropriate ebb and flow between work and rest. We have good news to offer people...it's a real possibility for our lives to dwell in the rhythm of God's rest!

Yet somehow I don't think yoga is exactly what God had in mind...

Holey, Wholly, Holy

I wrote this piece for our church bulletin as we concluded our theme of holiness for the year 2006...

Holiness. I remember as a young boy hearing people talk about holiness. I found it hard to understand even then. I could not wrap my little mind around the concept. Why would someone desire to be covered in holes? At the time all I knew was that mom was not very happy with me when I came home with another hole in my jeans but these folks seemed excited by such an outcome.

Of course as time passed I realized holiness had less to do with the current state of my clothing than I initially thought it did. Instead, holiness had more to do with my current standing before God. I would read the verse, “be holy as I am holy” and be left with an overwhelming sense of impossibility. Be holy like God? How could I ever be holy like God? After all, I knew what kind of person I was. I mean I was not a terrible person but I told lies and cheated. I was not always the kindest person to others around me. I did not always make the best decisions and I certainly could have been more respectful toward my parents. How could I ever obtain holiness?

Probably not until some point in college did I realize I was onto something as a bewildered five-year-old with torn jeans. It was then I came to understand that holiness had more to do with the holes in Jesus’ hands than the holes I would dig for myself because of my choices in life. It is easy to think that I have to do certain things in order to achieve holiness status, but the beautiful mystery is that through the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, God declares us holy…his holy nation, his royal priesthood, his holy people! While I do have a part in choosing to live a holy life, ultimately it is not about the work I do but about the work God has done in Christ.

As this year comes to a close, we also conclude our theme of holiness. Although you may not have heard the term holiness week in and week out we have attempted to allow the theme of holiness permeate everything we have done. While on the one hand holiness happens in an instant because God declares us holy, it also takes place over time as we commit to lives of holiness. This year has hopefully been our own process of learning more and more about what holiness entails for those who follow Christ, and although our theme of holiness is coming to an end, our journey toward transformation continues on.

If I could leave you with one thing as we launch into a new year it would be this: “Choose to be what God has already made you!” God makes us holy, but to join him in a life of holiness we must wholly submit our lives to him and allow his Spirit to form us more and more into the image of Jesus. May you live such holy lives that all those around you might give praise and glory to your Father in heaven and when people encounter the holes in your jeans, may they only see Jesus!

More Pictures

Here's some more pictures of our fun travels...



This was a bluff overlooking Haystack Rock on the Pacific Coast at Cannon Beach.








We saw our share of waterfalls...





Sara and I in front of Multnomah Falls outside Portland.


















Up close and personal with Sea Lions at the Astoria Pier.

Creative Beauty

Vacation can be a beautiful thing. But even better than vacation itself is the beauty of the place where you spend it. So far the Northwest lives up to its billing as a beautiful place and we haven't even left Oregon yet. God is such an amazing artist and it is a blessing to be in the midst of another part of his beautiful creation. Here is one of his creative portraits we have witnessed to this point...
Here we hiked down a cliff to get to the edge overlooking the Pacific Ocean. The result was breathtaking!

I'll post some more pictures later...

Re-envision the Redemptive Possibilities...

Our culture attempts to sell us on something daily. We are told that we are inadequate without certain life-altering products. The underlying message is that we too could be more complete, popular, thin, beautiful, respected or admired if only we used our resources to pursue a particular way of living in this world. So we easily get caught up in the rat race toward "perfection" by attempting to be someone or something we are not. Thus, the challenge for all of us becomes finding ways to be real (with ourselves and with each other) in a facade-driven world.

The superbowl is an example of one night in which the onslaught of much that runs counter to living the Christ-life finds its way into our living rooms. Yet I believe we do not have to give in to cynicism because God is at work in and all around us. At least one commercial could help us re-envision the redemptive possibilities of encouraging people to live as they have been created.

Campaign for Real Beauty

I realize at the end of the day this is still a company hoping to sell beauty products, but I can appreciate a company encouraging people to be real in the midst of a society that many times persuades us to be anything but ourselves. Often we find ourselves caught in a trap when we realize all the voices that have been calling us forth into the "limelight" have really only led to an empty darkness. We have been called to be redemptive vessels who break forth like the dawn from a facade-driven world. We have a message of hope that isn't based on what we can create of ourselves but on the promise that we have already been created in the image of a God who loves us and continues to transform us into what is ultimately real beauty.

That is a message I hope could not only penetrate our living rooms, but also our hearts.