Bible Blog: Blank

12 07 2009

July 11th-12th, 2009

Mark 9:38-41

Sorry I didn’t post yesterday. It was a crazy evening. And plus, I didn’t really have much to say.

It’s not that I didn’t study yesterday. Actually, it’s quite the opposite. I studied really hard yesterday.

But I didn’t walk away with much.

Actually, I walked away kind of confused.

I read Mark 9:38-41 and was caught kind of off gaurd a little.

What got me was the whole backstory of this Scripture. See, the disciples tell Jesus that they saw a man casting out demons while they were traveling around after Jesus had sent them out. When they saw him, they told him to stop “because was not one of us” they told Jesus. By “us” they meant one of the 12 disciples. See, this man did in fact believe that Jesus was the Messiah. He believed the same things the disciples did. But because he wasn’t actually one of Jesus’ 12 disciples, they told him not to cast out demons any more.

Jesus goes on to tell them that they shouldn’t have done that. Jesus tells them that “no one who does a miracle in my name can in the next moment say anything bad about me’. In other words, if this man was really using my name to cast out demons, then he’s a true believer because he wouldn’t be able to cast them out in my name if he wasn’t a believer. But then Jesus says something, and this is what threw me off…

Jesus then tells the disciples, “for whoever is not against us is for us.”

That’s an incredibly interesting statement.

Just think about that for s second.

Whoever is not against us is for us.

What does that really mean?

Well, that’s the question I’ve been seeking an answer to for the past 2 days. That statement has been on my mind for the past nearly 48 hours now. I’ve read a lot of stuff about that passage, although there’s really not a lot out there about it. Maybe it’s because no one else has figured it out just yet. But as of yet, I’ve come up blank with what Jesus was saying there. I’ve read some little things about it, but none of them really seem to quite hit it on the ead to me. Other people have some good ideas, but it just seems like they’re missing something.

Anyways, that’s where I’ve been for the past 2 days. Trying to figure out what Jesus meant by, “for whoever is not against us is for us.” Please let me know if you’ve got anything on this. I’d love to hear your thoughts or what you’ve found.





Bible Blog: Greatness

10 07 2009

July 10th, 2009

Mark 9:33-37

“…they kept quiet because on the way they had argued about who was the greatest.” -Mark 9:34

Isn’t this me! I am probably the LEAST humble person I know. I want to be the best at everything I do. Now, there’s nothing wrong with that, but it can take me over sometimes. If I have a thought about something that I think is better than yours, I’ll let you know it. I’ve had to learn to just say nothing at all so I don’t myself in trouble.

But the point is we all have this desire to be the greatest, above everyone else. So what am I supposed to do with it? I need to turn it on its head.

“Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come!” 2 Corinthians 5:17

I know this verse, but it seriously tells me what I need to do. The old way of doing things was to be the best for myself, so I would get the glory, and reward, and recognition. But now I am a new creation. I have a new way of doing things. The new way of doing things is to be the best so God can get all the glory, and reward, and recognition. But that’s not to say that I’m never tempted to go back to the old way. There are certainly times when I do things hoping people will know it was me who did it. It’s hard, especially as a musician.

The reason I started playing guitar in the first place was to try to become famous one day. That was the whole pupose behind all the pratices, lessons, bloody fingers, sweat, and tears. It’s really difficult not to let that be my motivation now. I want to be the best so that people can worship God freely, without distraction, and to the sound of music they really enjoy. It becomes even harder when those people I’m leading in worship become the very ones who are telling me how “great” I am, because that’s what I really wanted when I started doing all this.

And sometimes it’s hard to fight feelings of giving up on my gifts, and calling, so I don’t rob God of His glroy. But I have to remember 2 Corinthians 5:17. That old way isn’t even actually in me any more. I might let it influence me at times, but it’s not even a part of me. It’s been replaced with a new part. Inside of me is actually the desire to give God all the glory. The old is completely gone, and the new is what now consumes my entire being.





Bible Blog 7/9/09

9 07 2009

July 9th, 2009

Mark 9:14-32

“After Jesus had gone indoors, his disciples asked him privately, ‘Why couldn’t we drive it out?’” -Mark 9:28

I can’t imagine how the disciples felt. It wasn’t all that long ago that they were all going around healing sick people and casting out demons on their own. All of a sudden then come across this one demon that at least 10 of them couldn’t do anything about. What were they doing wrong? What were they missing? Did thy use the wrong magic words or not wave their wand right? Ok, they did use magic words of wands, but something wasn’t working. What was it?

“He(Jesus) replied, ‘This kind can come out only by prayer. ‘” -Mark 9:28

There were missing prayer! Apparently the disciples had become so used to using their own words to cast out demons that when they came across this demon, prayer did even cross their mind.

But what about me? Don’t I do that same thing? When I find myself in a situation that I can’t fix, my reaction is not to pray. Actually I’ll usually get angry if I can’t fix it myself! If I get a flat tire driving down the freeway, but I realize I don’t have a jack to change the tire, what do I do? Pray? No. I get ticked of kick the tire, storm back to the trunk, throw the tire iron in the trunk, slam the trunk shut, stomp to the driver side door, swing it open, slam my hand down on the cell phone, call Desi huffing while it rings, yell the entire conversation with her, tell, not ask, to bring me a jack, get off the phone, throw it back in the car, stomp around the car cussing under my breath until she gets there, and then…

This also goes back to what God showed me yesterday about continually focusing on Him throughout the day. If I would’ve focused on God when my tire went flat, I wouldn’t have broken my cell phone, and I wouldn’t have upset Desi either. If would’ve been focused on God, I probably would’ve stopped and prayed for patience. I wouldn’t have reacted so poorly in my anger.

I need to stay focused on God throughout the day, and I need to make prayer a tool I regularly use to keep my focus on God. Prayer is a powerful tool that has been given to us. It would be an incredible waste not to use it.





Bible Blog 7/8/09

8 07 2009

July 8th, 09

Mark 9:2-13

“This is my Son, whom I love. Listen to him!” -Mark 9:7

I love the exclamation point. “Listen to him!” Bam! In your face! It was said so emphatically that ending it with a mere period just wouldn’t do. It was said with such force that nothing would get the emotion across better than an exclamation point. So we know God really meant what He said. Now we should realize how important it is for us to do. I mean, anything God says is pretty important, but when He adds an exclamation point to it, we should really pay attention.

So listen to him! Listen to Jesus. Hear his words. Read his teaching. Do as he does. Say as he says. Live as he lives. Listen to him!

Am I listening? Am I hearing? In 1 Kings 19:11-13 it talks about Elijah waiting for God to pass by. How did God come? As a whisper. A soft voice. God’s word for Elijah to listen to. Am I taking time to listen quietly to the whisper of God’s voice? Some. But not enough.

I sit here morning after morning, reading, studying, praying, and journaling. Yes, I take this time to wait quietly for The Lord to speak. But what happens when I get up from here? I lose focus. Heck, sometimes I even forget everything I studied just a couple hours later. The problem is that I think that these few minutes in the morning is all I need to get through an entire day in the world. What am I thinking? I usually spend 45 minutes each morning doing this. Then I spend my other 16 hours and 45 minutes of my waking day out in the world. Which one do you think I listen to more? Which one influences me more? Which one is actually more important to me? That’s one thing Islam  got right. Stopping all throughout the day to pray is brilliant. You constantly take time to focus back on God. Just about the time you start to forget, “Dong, dong!” from the temple, and you’re reminded.

I need to up with ways to remind myself to listen to God throughout the day. Tie a string around my finger or something…

//

So that’s what I wrote this morning, straight out of my journal. As I was driving down the road this evening, I was listening to Charlie Hall’s new cd. He has a song called “Scenes” on there that talks about seeing God in all the different scenes of his life. Work, church, war, and family. The chorus goes like this:

I see you in every scene.

I bet You are thinking about me.

I have such a short memory, but You keep reminding me of You.

That couldn’t have been a better song for me to hear on the way home today. It reminded me of God, which I guess is the point. If you get a chance, you should definitely check it out.





Bible Blog 7/7/09

7 07 2009

That’s what I’m going to call this daily thing, “Bible Blog”.

Anyways, let’s kick this thing off!

July 7th, 2009

Mark 8:31-9:1

“If anyone is ashamed of me and my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, the Son of Man will be ashamed of him when he comes in his Father’s glory with the holy angels.” -Mark 8:38

Wow! Talk about getting my butt kicked by God; I’m in ICU right now! This is harsh. It makes me think. Makes me wonder. Makes me question. Makes me hope. Makes scared as hail!!! Seriously, this is a terrifying standard to hold up to my life! If I am ashamed of Christ, he’ll be ashamed of me. Like when you dad says, “I’m not angry; I’m jusr dissappointed.” AGGGHHHHH! That is so much worse then him being angry. It always feel worse to dissappoint than to anger someone.

I can’t even imagine standing in front of the Trinity as they look down at the floor, shake their collective head, and say, “We’re just so dissappointed in you, Travis.” Ouch.

Seriously though. This statement from Jesus makes me think of all the times I had a chance to really be bold but backed down because I was nervous, doubted, or was afraid of what someone might think. How many people are still searching for God? How many wrong decisions have I made? How may times has God been ashamed of me? All because I was ashamed(embarrassed, nervous, scared) of Christ.

I’m a pretty loud and straight-forward person, but I lack boldness. Very few times have I really been bold on Christ’s behalf. So now I ask for boldness. I ask that as I grow, so would my courage. I pray that as I become a stronger man of God, I would become a mightier warrior for His Kingdom. A man with courage. A warrior without fear.

“From the days of John the Baptist until now, the kingdom of Heaven has been forcefully advancing, and forceful men lay hold of it.” -Matthe 11:12





I’m Back!!!

7 07 2009

You may have noticed my slight absence on NoisemakersUnited.com, well I have a good reason.

Seriously, I really do.

I needed a break.

God has been speaking to me a lot about resting.

So I decided to take a rest from a couple of things. Some of them were easier to stay away from than others, such as this blog in case you hadn’t noticed.

But alas!

I am back!

During my time away, I thought a lot about this blog and its purpose. I talk about a bunch of different stuff on here. The good, the bad, and the ugly. But a lot of things are changing in my life, so I figured this blog should too. You may notice that there are now only 2 pages on the website now: “Home”, and “About”. This makes things a lot easier for me becaues I have to update each page individually when I post a new blog. So that cuts down on the time I have to spend on here. I’m also holding off on a couple other things I was doing for the blog because they were taking up way too much of my time.

I’ve also had a little heart to heart with myself on the content of this blog. Like I said, I write about a lot of stuff. But I feel like there is one thing that is more important than anything else I could say.

My personal relationship with God.

There is nothing as important in this life than my relationship with the Trinity. So that’s what I”m going to spend most of my time writing about.

So I’ve decided to do something I’ve never seen anyone do before, and I’m excited that you get to be a part of it.

Starting today, I am going to post my journal entry EVERY day the same day I write it.

Let me explain how this works…

I try my best to spend time every day reading a specific Scripture, studying it, applying it to my life, praying about it, and writing it all in my journal as I go along. So I’m going to post right here in the blog my journal entries every day. Right now, I’m in the middle of studying through the Gospel of Mark, so you get to join me.

And guess what else…

If I don’t study any Scripture that day, you’re going to know it!

There won’t be any post that day, or I’ll have to shamefully admit to all of you that I had 0% focus on God that day. So you get to be my accountibility in this too.

I’ll also post from time to time my other normal stuff that you usually see on here.

Get Ready!

I’ll be starting this new thing TONIGHT!

See you then!





3 Keys

6 06 2009

“Take nothing for the journey except a staff – no bread, no bag, no money in you belt, Wear sandals but not an extra tunic. Whenever you enter a house, stay there until you leave that town. And if any place will not welcome you or listen to you, shake the dust off your feet when you leave as a testimony against them.” Mark 6:8-11

We all want to be used by God in a powerful way like the disciples were. I mean come on, who doesn’t want to be able to drive out demons and heal the sick, and teach thousands of people, and be used to see thousands of people give their lives to Christ? We all want to know what the “secret” is. I certainly don’t claim to know any sort of “secret” formula to be used by God in a powerful way. But I do think this bit of Scripture gives us some aspects that certainly set us up to be used powerfully.

This passage shows us 3 big things about the disciples and their relationship with God that I think are key to be used in a powerful way.

Obedience

The first thing I notice about the disciples is their obedience. Jesus tells them to go on a journey. Which I’d imagine they gladly do. But then he tells them to only take a staff with them, no food, money, no suitcase, no extra clothes. And they did that too! Can you imagine how flat out stupid they looked going from town to town, probably on foot, without food, money, clothes, or bags! The people probably thought they had lost their minds. I mean who goes on a “journey” and doesn’t take that stuff? They may have looked stupid. But the truth is, they were obedient.

Trust

Because they were obedient to Jesus, they also had to trust God to provide for them. Think about it… Because they obeyed Jesus in not bringing food or money, they had to trust God to provide it for them while on their journey. They also didn’t have any extra clothes. I can’t imagine what traveling in the desert did to their clothes. They probably didn’t last too long. But they had no way of buying new clothes themselves. They had to trust God to provide clothing for them. And then they had to think about a place to sleep. They just randomly went from town to town. They didn’t know where they would sleep until they got there. Wow, the disciples sue did place a whole lot of trust in God!

Perseverance

Mark 6:12 and 13 says the disciples went out, preached, cast out demons, and healed many people. But it doesn’t say they always had a full meal and a warm bed. There were times they didn’t eat for days and slept outside on dirt and rocks, if they were even able to sleep at all. They probably walked around naked for a day or so because their clothes were torn and they didn’t have any money to get new ones. But they never quit. They never said, “I can get 3 full meals a day, have a warm bed to sleep in every night, and never have to walk around naked if I would just go home.” Well, they may have said it, but they never did. They persevered through all the stuff that would probably be the end of me.

The most important thing to note about their perseverance is that they never stopped teaching. Jesus said that if they come to place that didn’t welcome them or didn’t listen to what they had to say, they should just leave and move on. I can only imagine how many times they left a town without even getting a single word in. I’m sure they got frustrated and thought things like, “This isn’t working. That’s 5 towns in a row that have kicked us out before we even said or did anything!” But they didn’t give up. I’m sure there were times when they were peacefully asked to leave, and times when they were physically, and brutally forced to leave. Some times there were happy to leave; other times it broke their heart. Some ties there was salvation; other times they found only hate. But they never gave up. And they continued to persevere.

I need to improve these 3 areas of life big time! I want to be used by God in a powerful way, but I’m lacking in these 3 extremely important areas of my relationship with God.

God, help me to become fully obedient, fully trusting, and fully persevering, so that I can be fully used by You!





Oh Crap!

3 06 2009

I tweeted this picture ealier…

Photo 40

Please allow me to explain the pink gloves and angry face…

Today is my one day a week I’m actually in the office at Crossroads, and Desi came with me so she could go to lunch with her friend for herbirthday. That meant that Riley would be in our room for a while, and someone would need to take her out. No problem, there’s always someone here to take her out, and they’re always cool about it.

Well, I called the house just after lunch, and my mom answered. I asked her if someone could take Riley out for us. She said she would or she would ask someone to. I told her thank you and hung up the phone.

The Desi and I got home around 6.

The was crap every where!

And I don’t mean normal poop, I mean extremely nasty poop I would never wish on anyone.

And it was literally every where. On the carpet, on the rug, on Riley’s blanket. It was so bad we had to throw away the rug and blanket. Obviously there’s no throwing away the carpet that easily, or we probably would have done that too. Apparently my mom forgot to take her out.

So we decided that it would probably be a good idea to clean it up, considering it smelled awful, and we had to sleep in there. So we got some foam carpet cleaner and go to work. Thus the pink gloves. I really didn’t want Riley’s nasty poop all over my hands so I got the gloves for protection.

After a couple of trys with that we decided it would be a better idea to get some sort of machine. Desi took off to Publix, which by the way is a great place to rent a cheaper carpet cleaner, and picked up a steam cleaner. I took about 5 passes over each spot before it was really clean. Another little tip, you should probably get a very strong spot cleaner first, then use a steam cleaner. Lesson learned.

So it was an awful even I never want to experience again for the rest of my life. At least now it’s clean, and we can sleep poop odor free.

Oh, do any of you have any dog poop cleaning tips you want to share with the rest of us?





Simple Changes

2 06 2009

So I’ve made a couple of changes to NoisemakersUnited.com you should know about.

First off, and most importantly, I realized I had jacked up the subscriptions links! Ahh! Actually I only messed up the email subscription link. If you’re signed up for the RSS feed, then you’re fine, and you probably would’ve realized that you weren’t if it hadn’t been right a long time ago. So if you have been subscribing through email, you need to go in and subscribe again. You’ve probably noticed that you’ve never actually gotten a single email update and have been curious why. That would be why. But both are correct now, so no worries.

The other change is a very small one that really doesn’t affect you much if even at all. I’ve decided that on my pages where I have posted posts in a certain category, such as “Crossroads Church”, “Songwriting”, and “Worship”, to only list the 10 most recent posts. This makes it easier on me because I have to manually add them to each page. And it cuts down on the size of each page so you don’t go on scrolling for hours only to find nothing of any real value for you.

And that’s literally it. That’s all the changes I’ve made.

If these help you out, then great!

If not, well that’s fine too.





Crossroads 5 and 5: #5

1 06 2009

Here’s what went down at Crossroads Church on May 31, 2009

5 Things We Did Well

1) New Production Team Volunteers – This past weekend was chucked full of new volunteers. Desi, my wife, volunteered to run Computer Graphics for the first time. We also had 2 people hang out in the production booth so they could get a feel for what area they might like to serve. It’s always exciting to see new faces around the booth.

2) Creativity – This weekend was probably the most creative I’ve seen the Crossroads team get. Every thing from start to finish was great. First we messed with people by playing an “opening” song before the service actually started. It was John Mayer’s arrangement of “Free fallin’”. Some people weren’t real sure what to do with that. During the whole service a woman was painting a beautiful scene of a river and the trees and plants around it. The message was about the fall of man, so at the end, Justin Craig, who was speaking, went to the painting the lady had been working on all service and smeared black paint all over it signifying what man did to God’s creation. People let out audible gasps when he did it. And the ending song was perfect. The series we’re in is called “Epic”, and it’s about joining in God’s epic story. So the ending song said stuff like, “Forever, You are the God of my story. Write every line for Your glory”. Like I said, it was great.

3) New Volunteers – This past weekend we had a couple of people hang out in the production booth during rehearsal and the service so they could get a feel for what area they might like to serve in. It’s great that they have all done at least some part of what we do on a weekend. It’s gonna be great adding these know-how people to the team!

4) New Worship Leader – This weekend was insane as far as worship leaders go. They guy we had scheduled last minute, so we did the unthinkable… We scheduled someone we had NEVER heard before! It was scary, but it worked out really well. We had this guy, Jeffrey Box lead. We heard from a few people he was good, so we took a chance. He did a really good job with it. Obviously there were some little things as far as him just not really knowing how we do things at Crossroads, but that’s to be expected, it was his first time here after all. But I’m glad to say that he will be back this coming weekend too!

5) Last Minute Bassist – Literally last minute, as in I email Jon on Thursday, and he was there and ready to go Sunday. Our scheduled bassist was closing on his new house last Friday and only had the weekend to move in. It was an unavoidable situation that worked out fine. It’s great to have musicians who are so flexible and willing to work at the last minute. Then again, they are musicians!

5 Things We Need to Improve

1) Talking in the Production Booth – This is a bad habit that needs to stop. I’m so glad our volunteers like each other and get along so well. We just need to do a better job of communicating to the the importance of not talking in the middle of the service.

2) Last Minute Media – And by last minute, I mean Sunday morning at 7am. We started a new series this weekend, and we had a guy speaking who very rarely does. So the artwork and video wasn’t done until Friday, so we weren’t able to get them loaded until Sunday morning. And we’re so used to getting a full word-for-word outline from out pastor, but we didn’t have that this week. That threw us off a little bit, but no big deal

3) Training on Sunday Mornings – In the middle of rehearsal, during a service, or right before the service is NOT the optimal time to train people. Unfortunately some of that went on this past weekend. Actually it went on while people were walking into the worship center. Again, not a great time to train people for more than 1 reason.

4) Letting People make Mistakes – Myself, as a leader, and the volunteer leaders at Crossroads really need to get better at allowing people to learn through failing. This doesn’t mean that it’s ok to fail, but it’s ok for people to learn from failing. It’s hard not just grab the reigns myself sometimes and do things for other people. And really, until I get better at it, the volunteer leaders won’t either.

5) Optimizing Computer Performance – We use ProPresenter to run backgrounds, videos, lyrics, and graphics during our services. We really need to work on that computer’s performance. There are some lag issues that have caused some issues. I’m gonna try to get on that this week.

So there you have it my friends. The “Crossroads 5 and 5″ for May 31, 2009. Learn from our mistakes, build on our successes.