Christmas Wish List

On behalf of this time of year that we are in I have created a Christmas wish list…

Now, some of these are only in my dreams But others, are fair-game as presents if you need someone to shop for.

Enjoy.

• Francis Chan’s “Forgotten God“
• 2010 Atlanta Falcons season tickets
• Mercedes G550
• Buckle Jeans…these or these will work And for a long shot…these or these…
• Heritage 1981 Shirts
• Nikon D90
• Itunes Gift Card
• A new Incase for my Iphone
• Flip Cam HD
• Any greatest hits cd from Boston, Prince, Billy Joel, Chicago, Keith Urban, Frank Sinatra or Dean Martin.
• A subscription to RELEVANT magazine
• Starbucks gift cards

I could probably keep going with this list but I will stop here

Just a few things I’m asking Santa for this year…

Merry Christmas!

Destiny

I sometimes think what it would be like to be God…

And then I realize that I have big issues…and so does every other person on the planet…and God deals with those issues…and suddenly I’m glad He is God and I am not.

And then I think about what God has called me to do with my life (my destiny) and I begin to try and steer it the way I want it to go.

For example…I pray prayers directed towards how I want “my” destiny to turn out. I pray for God to take me here, give me this, show me that, give me influence over there, lead this person to me…etc etc etc…

After thinking for some time about why I do this it hit me…

It’s so simple you’re going to think I’m an idiot…

My destiny is NOT MINE AT ALL…

My existence on this planet has NOTHING to do with Jake Dudley.

My destiny is Jesus.

My destiny is to love Him, teach about Him, live for Him, speak about Him, do things for Him, tweet about Him and ultimately try to be like Him!

Our destiny has NOTHING to do with us.

We are not owners of our destiny. Instead, we are merely managers entrusted to follow the call of the One who CREATED OUR DESTINY.

Amazing Grace

I don’t know if any of you that read this blog struggle with this but I know I often times find myself dealing with pride.

It’s sad really.

I sometimes tend to think very highly of myself…as if I am someone.

Mind you, I am someone THROUGH CHRIST.

But even then, what am I in Christ?

I am still a sinner who is in Christ and a sinner with Christ in me.

Interesting how that works….

I am just a sinner saved by the grace of God.

And if it weren’t for Christ being in me and I in Him then I would just be a sinner.

I know this is a simple thought but I had to remind myself that I would be NOONE if it were not for Christ choosing me.

That’s humbling.

No matter how big my ego might get….GOD IS BIGGER.

He can do more than I can do.

He is more than I will ever be.

He created more than I can even think about.

I am an amazing sinner saved by an amazing grace…

Simple.

Thank you Jesus for your blood that saved me…

Romans 6:11

National Youth Workers Convention Recap

Overall, this was a good conference. It had good things and bad things…

For the most part, the seminars were very similar to seminars that are at every other pastor/youth pastor conference.  There were a couple that I thought were challenging…

Here are some thoughts and quotes that I wrote down from the speakers I heard…

ANDY STANLEY

• When there is no uncertainty, there is no need for leadership.
• Every Bible hero surfaced as such during times of uncertainty.
• Plans change but vision remains the same.
• Marry your vision. Fool around with your plans.
• Always pray for wisdom.

FRANCIS CHAN

• You must have a love for the students you are speaking to.
• We too often try to be successful rather than Godly.
• The 12 disciples did not strategize how to create a movement of God…it just happened.

DONALD MILLER

• What if pastors began looking at their job like they are a director of stories?
• Actions tell a story…not words, dreams or intentions.
• Conflict is painful…but conflict is not bad.
• Joy doesn’t change people…pain changes people.

PERRY NOBLE

• You should just go watch his talk from UNLEASH and Orange conference and BAM!! you have your talk for NYWC. Same jokes and everything! I love Perry but c’mon…

REGGIE JOINER

• Oops!! I honestly did not stay to hear Reggie. I love Reggie and I think what he is doing is GREAT stuff BUT I have read his book and heard him talk at Orange so I decided to get some much needed rest…but you should still go read his book. Seriously…go check it out.

FAVORITE THING(S) ABOUT NATIONAL YOUTH WORKERS CONVENTION:

• Networking. I met some AMAZING people from all over the country. God is doing big stuff all over!
• The “Rethinking Traditional Youth Ministry Models” seminar alone was worth the price of the entire conference. If you guys have not heard of Mark Helsel then now is your chance…His approach to student ministry is EXACTLY what we are trying to model at Oak Leaf Students. He had some really good stuff to say.

LEAST FAVORITE THING ABOUT NATIONAL YOUTH WORKERS CONVENTION:

• The hype. Everything was all about name/status…Perry Noble, Andy Stanley, Steven Furtick, David Crowder, Casey Darnell, Lanny Donoho, Donald Miller, etc etc etc…I am not saying I don’t like any of those people or what they are doing BUT what I am saying is that none of those people are accessible to those of us who attend the conference. I love what God is doing in all of their ministries but what they are doing/saying is nothing I haven’t heard already. You should be attending a conference to learn directly from those that are teaching you…not just sit in a giant room with cool lights, cameras, smoke and 5,000 other people who are just “normal” youth pastors…something is not right with this picture. This is not how Jesus taught. Not being a hater…just something I have been thinking about.

I hope this explains my overall experience from the conference….I got this incredible opportunity to attend thanks to some of my INCREDIBLE volunteers. I am immensely thankful for them and am blessed beyond measure. THANK YOU!

Some of my blog posts to come will be after thoughts of different things I learned while attending NYWC so keep your ears….err…desktops open!

I wonder why…

I wonder why it takes someone we are close to getting sick to realize who God is…

I wonder why some Christians have spent more time talking about Twilight in the last 2 days than they have talking about Christ in the last 2 months…

I wonder why Christians continue to argue about meaningless things that have NO eternal value whatsoever…

I wonder why Christians are continuing to be known for the things we stand against than what we stand for… (Deadly Viper Controversy)

I wonder why Christians forget that God is bigger than ANY problem we can dream up… (Ephesians 3:20)

I wonder why…

What are some things you wonder about?

God is….

Earlier this week I found out that one my student leaders, Morgan Webster, was diagnosed with leukemia.

Leukemia.

That word has rocked my world this week.

Can I be honest for a second?

Thanks…

It pissed me off that “God did this.”

In the midst of my anger I began remembering what my job was as a student pastor…

I had to slap a smile on my face. Gather my thoughts. And go be with this student.

Leukemia.

Did I mention that word was ripping me to pieces???

Morgan Webster. A 16 year old, Junior from Woodland High School who loved Jesus and was one of my most dedicated student leaders was suddenly dealing with more than what some people deal with in a lifetime…

So what did I do?

I went to see her at Scottish Rite in Atlanta.

My life was changed from that point on…

I walked into room #218 expecting to see a hurting young lady that was desperate for answers.

Instead, who I encountered was a strong young woman who was thankful for where Jesus had her.

Inside my head I had questions running through my head…

• How is she this strong?
• Why Morgan?
• Can I trade places with her Lord?
• What am I going to say?

Morgan answered all of my questions without even knowing I had questions.

She knows what leukemia is. She knows what it can do.

She also know who God is. She knows what He can do.

And she reminded that God is…

Just that.

He. Is.

God is….

Morgan knows that God is a healer and protector.

What is He to you?

God is…

You finish this sentence….

Albums I’m Diggin’ At The Moment

Here are five incredible albums I’m really into right now…

I hope you guys don’t mind seeing an edition of Tuesday Tunes on one or two of these records in the coming weeks with a little more in depth review.

John Mayer’s “Battle Studies” (Not out yet…it leaked, what can I say?)  

Switchfoot’s “Hello Hurricane” Best record by Switchfoot since “Beautiful Letdown.”

Phil Wickham’s “Heaven And Earth” The acoustic versions are just as good as the record…

Dashboard Confessional’s “Alter The Ending” (Their Single, Belle of the Boulevard is amazing!)

Rob Thomas’ “Cradlesong” (This album is extremely underrated)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Gospel Does Not Matter

I have had various conversations with students, parents, pastors, church leaders, church goers and non church goers about the importance of the Gospel to the world.

Some argue there is no importance of the Gospel to the world. Others say it is of the upmost importance.

I would agree with the latter.

Culture says that we need more. More knowledge. More information. More status. More followers. More money. More time. More stuff.

The gospel says we need more love.

That’s it.

LOVE.

We don’t need more friends on facebook. We don’t need more followers on twitter. We don’t need the latest fashion. We don’t even need the latest, most cutting edge Bible translation.

We need to love Jesus.

Love involves relationship. Relationship involves time. Time involves sacrifice. The Gospel IS sacrifice.

We must sacrifice who we are and what we do to love people the way God loves us! Isn’t that the Gospel?

The Gospel is of the UTMOST importance.

The second we as Christians think that what we have to offer (Jesus) is not as important as a football game, the lake, movies, magazines etc is the second we should stop following Jesus.

THE DAY WE SAY WHAT THE WORLD HAS TO OFFER IS BETTER THAN WHAT WE OFFER IS THE DAY WE ARE SAYING THE GOSPEL DOES NOT MATTER.

Why don’t we stop trying to find ways to make the Gospel “more cutting edge.”

It’s the Gospel for Pete’s sake.

Let’s learn to be just as concerned about having the Gospel in our hearts the way we are concerned about our phones being right beside us all the time!

The Gospel says to love the way Christ loves us.

THAT’S IT!

If you can’t accept that then you think the gospel does not matter.

Just sayin’

THOUGHTS?

GLOW Recap

This last Wednesday night we had our final Oak Leaf Student event of the fall before kicking off FUEL weekly in January.

It was an incredible night filled with tons of glowsticks, blacklights and changed lives.

• 3 people made the decision to follow Jesus!!! 2 others rededicated their lives to Him! GLORY TO GOD!!!
• It was Marcus’ first time ever leading worship and he did an incredible job. Looking forward to him being THE Oak Leaf Student Ministry Worship Leader. Watch for big stuff…
• We had the largest crowd for any student ministry event we have ever had. We had 170 students there and over 200 total including the adult volunteers.
• I seriously have the greatest student leaders on the planet! They continue to keep the bar raised high. Student serving whole heartedly and giving up their free time to make a difference is real student ministry. Way to go student leaders! Keep it up!
• GLOW was the coolest thing this church has ever seen this student ministry do. Period. Can’t wait for more events like this in the future.

Keep your eyes and ears open at what these students are going to do for this community. Students won’t make the decision to not come to Jesus because they didn’t get to hear about Him. These students will turn this community upside down…WATCH!

Check out these pics from Wednesday night!

How To Reach Men

I’ve had several conversation over the last few days with quite a few different people about why men don’t want to go to church.

Some of the reasons were crazy…some of them were legit.

All of them, though, are fixable.

Let me explain.

WHEN PASTORS AND WORSHIP LEADERS BEGIN TO PREACH AND SING WITH THE AUTHORITY OF THE GOSPEL, PEOPLE WILL RESPOND…INCLUDING MEN.

That’s it. There is no magic formula.

Now don’t get me wrong…my church uses different methods and strategies that are geared towards men (and I think those things are good) but I think we spend too much time worrying and arguing about it. It is important. It is an issue. But let’s just preach the gospel and let the Holy Spirit do His thing.

Church leaders criticize the pastors who wear designer jeans and the worship leader with the skinny jeans but WHAT WE WEAR DOESN’T SUPERCEDE WHO WE WEAR.

Jake, are you crazy…we are supposed to WEAR Jesus?

Yup…check it:

• Romans 13:14 “Cloathe yourself with the Lord Jesus Christ…”
• Ephesians 6:13 “Therefore, put on the full armor of God…”

When we preach with the authority of the Gospel that was given to us through the redemption of the cross, that’s when people, INCLUDING MEN, will start paying attention to what God is doing in your church.

When we put on Jesus and He is the ultimate authority of our life, we can then use that authority to preach Jesus’ death and resurrection.

Let’s quit debating.

Let’s quit arguing.

Just live out what Jesus says in scripture.

Teach what Jesus says in scripture.

Then watch what the Holy Spirit does.

THOUGHTS?