Bucket List - Check Up and Additions

1. Go to a concert - not check yet, but in progress. I am going to see the Civil Wars in Germantown in January with some great friends, the best kind.

2. Be a mentor - yes and no.  I have sought out to do this intentionally a couple of times, but not really succeeded.  I have realized though there are some kids right under my nose at church that I am going to invest in hardcore in the next couple of months...these boys have awesome hearts and I can't wait to help them to become more mature followers of Christ.

3. Find a mentor.  Fail. Epically.  I know it wouldn't be hard if I would just go do it, but opening myself up to someone older and wiser scares me.  I have no problem telling my friends about what a screw up I am, but a real life adult is a different story.  I know God is leading me to do this through prayer and scripture reading so if I don't it will just be disobedience.  So, here is to sucking it up and going for it.

4. Read.  I have read some pretty great books for school and I am working on some on my new Kindle Touch! I am pumped about this thing!  Three must reads from school last semester - Made To Stick, The Ragamuffin Gospel, and The Next Christians....great books!

5. Again, take more pictures is an epic fail.  Commitment starts now though, for sure. I promise.

6. Preach! Yes, I get opportunity at Collide and at church which has been a huge blessing.  Taking more time to prepare and fine tune my sermons is my new goal, which I am going to have to fight myself on, but here it goes!

7. Go to Moni's more. Well, my phone autocorrected something I typed in to Moni's the other day, but I do want to have more fun with my friends this last go round.  Fun, that's what this one represents - school is school and I will get it done, but I need to focus on having a good time with my family I have created in the past three and a half years.

8. and 9. Run and work out.  Fail, but I have already made a commitment and scheduled time for next semester, I think I might actually succeed this time.

10. Budget.  I have a good start to my savings, not great, but I am making a plan to add to it this semester, for sure.

11. Watch more movies.  I have seen a couple of new ones this year and plan to continue.  Taking more time to do this with friends is a big priority!

12. Journal and follow a Bible Reading Plan - new one.  I found an acrostic I am going to use in my journal (http://www.gcfw.org/c---g---s/grow/soap-journaling.html).  I am also going to start using You Version reading plans (http://www.youversion.com/) which are smaller and help me to measure and maintain success a little bit easier.  Not that bigger plans are wrong, I just want to see where I am head more clearly, I think.

Well, if I think of anymore anytime soon I will add them, but until then I am super excited about the last semester of my college career.  I am going to miss it, I know, but I plan on taking it one step at a time and watching God show me an awesome plan for the future.

Procrastination.

I have always been a procrastinator to some extent.  I get it done, no matter what.  It is just sometimes at the last minute.  This semester, I have been horrible.  I have waited till the last minute to do a project for the capstone class for my major, I sit here now needing to work on a project due for a final tomorrow.  I don't know what is wrong with me.

Tonight, I left my room to go to McDonald's just to get a change of scenery and I talked to God while on the drive.  I think he was showing me, Will, it is time to move on.  I think that is why procrastination has been so bad this semester.  I am not scared of leaving I am just comfortable where I am.  I have the BEST friends in the entire world, I have an INCREDIBLE church family, and I call Williams HOME and could for the rest of my life.  That is not how it works though.  I have to realize that finishing strong is just as important as the beginning and the end.  This senioritis junk is just an excuse.  I still have to work hard and do well.  Because that is what is important to me.  God has big plans for me else where.  I am pumped about the possibility of going to Truett Seminary.  I am ecstatic about serving at camp this summer. But, in the mean time, there is a job to be done here.  I have a group of great kids that need to have the gospel shared with them, that need to be discipled.  I know freshman that need someone to invest in them and people who are just craving for someone to talk to.  I have friends that I will never again live across campus from and we have memories left to make.  I need to do what I am suppose to right now and stop thinking about the future and think about what is on my list for today.

And on my list before I can go to bed is a Producing the School Play project AND going over some Greek flash cards.  So, I will go do that now.

Ambiguity

I have grown up hearing a lot of things are wrong.  You shouldn't do them and Jesus doesn't like them.  I am not going to list them here because that is not what this post is about.  It is about the fact that I think so badly of people who are closed minded and believe tradition almost more than they believe the Word and yet I do the same thing.  I can't reconcile why.  I mean and even reading certain scripture and thinking it means one particular thing I have been taught and not ever looking at in depth just to make sure.  Because there is nothing wrong with making sure.  Nothing at all.  And I am afraid that so many people worry, including myself, that if we question something we are sinning.  God wants us to seek out truth.  And sometimes we are confused about what truth is.  Sometimes truth isn't as absolute as we think it is, or more correctly isn't the absolute we thought it was.  And you know what in the end we might find out that we still believe what we have believed all along.  And that is fine, but at least we believe because we were led by the Spirit rather than letting tradition and our raising make us that way.  It happens.  I hope this made since, and I hope no one finds me a heretic. Thanks for listening.

Christ, Be the center of my life.

I just spent the last three days with some amazing people at the Williams Baptist College Ministry Team Leadership Retreat.  Now, this is going to be my third year to serve on the team and I know the ropes you could say.  This year is different in a lot of ways thought.  First of all, we have a new leader.  His name is still Josh, but he is a new Josh.  There was not a time in the last three days that I didn't think, "Wow God has really provided with sending us an awesome leader!"  He connects so well with us and has a passion for doing ministry alongside of all of us.  I am beyond excited.  This team is also different because I am not best friends with all of them.  Not that I don't like them, but every other team I have been on has been full of my closest friends in the world.  This one still has a number of those, but a lot of new people I don't know as well.  This also turned out to be awesome!  I loved it! I am excited to serve with so many passionate and God-seeking people.

So here is the point....I have had a extremely lazy summer.  Now, I have been busy with work, but in personal reflection, time with God, and general discipline I have sucked it up.  But, the truth is I haven't been around people like that to share and engage in life with.  Sure, I have a great church family, but they don't really know me for who I am.  I am a minister at their church.  I know their stories inside and out.  I know how they got pregnant at 16, lost a baby in the eight month, left a legalistic culture, went through the divorce of their parents, etc.  But, do they know my life and do I share it with them?  I lacked a lot of motivation this summer because I fear I was extremely superficial.  This week I felt like I had nothing to hold back really.  I could worship freely, be myself (mostly) and not feel like I had to up hold an agenda or an image.  I need to feel the family and community I get every time I spend time with people from Williams.  I need to be able to sit up til 4 in the morning talking to my best friend in the world about how screwed up we both are.  I need to be able to do that.  With them and with other people.  Williams is not the church.  If it were I don't think I could ever leave it.  But, the church and myself could learn a lot about community and family and life from good ole, WBC.  So, my first confession and goal is to be more real.

Then there is the whole thing about Jesus.  You know him.  Though I wasn't sharing my life with my friends as much this summer I wasn't allowing Him to take over my life either.  You know, friends are great and I have some really great ones, but if I go to Grace with a problem before I ever talk to God about it there is an issue.  If I am more transparent with Jon about my sin than I am with God who am I kidding.  If I am more happy and excited to spend time with Sam and Jill than to spend time with my Savior, I am making idols.  If I care more about seeing how Patrick is doing than actually praying for him I have missed the point.  And lastly, if I talk to Stephanie, Lori, Chrissy, Jake, and Mark more about church than I do praying for the church to the God who is suppose to be at the center of it, why am I wasting my breathe.

Now, don't get me wrong all of those things are important.  Transparency and friendship are wonderful things.  But, like anything else I can never let them replace the God I am supposed to be serving.

"O Christ, be the center of our lives.
Be the place we fix our eyes.
Be the center of our lives."

Summer, Where Did You Go? AND Were you you Productive?

As I sit here resting after a very productive day I can't help but think to myself were this kind of productivity has been all summer.  I had a list of books I wanted to read, Greek homework to do, intense praying to do about my future, and a battle to wage against sin and junk I had been letting consume my life.  Then again, I know I did things this summer. I was pretty busy.  I hope I impacted some kids and God used me to at least spark some interest in him in some kids.  I have realized I love my church.  And honestly I didn't think I would, at least not as much as I do initially.  But, I know there was a lot of other stuff that got pulled to the wayside.  This is my last year in college.  A time in my life that has changed me to my core.  The people I have met, experiences I have had, and the tears I've cried will change me forever, but they aren't over.  And to make a better future after I leave I have to enjoy the time I have left and be extremely productive in it.  So, 2011-2012 school year, here is to good memories, great friends, and lots of productivity.

Self Control - Get rid of it!

I recently was reading the story of Josiah in my Bible. Josiah inherited a pretty bad deal. A bunch of kings before him had messed up a lot. They continued in they ways of their fathers and sought after idols and worshipped false gods. Josiah comes on the scene and the story is a completely different one. He follows after the ways of David and walks with the Lord. The Law is found in the temple and he reads it and is convicted. Josiah tears down all the high places and places of false worship because he knows he needs to get rid of it. Josiah wanted the people to have no temptation to revert back to the worship of those gods, so he removed the whole lot of them.

What would that kind of self control look like in your life? In my life? I mean, if we really got rid of the things that we knew tempted us to sin, even though we don't want to. My now former (that's hard to say) campus minister, Josh Goza preached a sermon last fall about self control. In it he told a story about a student who had brought Josh his computer and told him he didn't want it any more. He was removing it from his life because he couldn't handle the temptation it brought him. Now, its not the right thing for every male in America to get rid of their computer. You cannot put some legalistic sanction of it and call it biblical. What is biblical however is to get rid of what ensnares you.

Here is my advice, and this is a recent development in my thinking. Think about what you need to get rid of or guidelines you need to set in place on what you can and cannot watch, when you can or cannot use a computer, when you can or cannot do this, or that. I don't know what ensnares you and you don't know what ensnares me. But, friends, why do we keep talking about accountability this and that. Find someone get real with them and say I have prayed and I am getting rid of these things and I need to make sure you help me stick to it. I plan to do it. Do you?

Bucket List

So, as much as I don't want to think about it senior year is approaching. Its the end of what so far has really been the best time of my life. I love college. I love the friends college has brought me. I love the church family God has sent me to, honestly besides the homework I don't really see how life could get much better. BUT regardless accepting the inevitable is the first step. So, I decided to make a bucket list of a couple things I want to do between know and May 2012.

1. Go to a concert. Or two or three or you know. I haven't been to enough of these in my college career and I am vowing to go to at least a couple senior year.

2. Be a mentor. I want to mentor someone younger than me for the next year and invest in them.

3. Find a mentor. I have lost two of my college mentors one last year and one this year so I really need someone who can invest in me in the next year.

4. Read. I know its hard to do during college but I want to read more outside of class to gain a better knowledge base.

5. Take more pictures. I love pictures and I certainly don't take enough of them. I need to do so and document senior year well.

6. Preach. I took my first preaching class last semester and I want to get more experience.

7. Go to Moni's more. This is random, I know but me and my friends have decided we need to eat at this "cultural gem" more often.

8. Work out, but seriously this time. I am going to some how figure out how to do so.

9. Run. Again, really this time. I am going to run regularly at least three times a week.

10. Budget. So, I am going to be semi-launching into the real world in a year and its scary. I am poor. So, budgeting and creating a savings base are definitely on the list.

11. Watch more movies. It seems random but there are a lot of big movies I have never seen.

I know these might be random and assorted and I hope to add a couple if they come to my mind. For now though, here it is.