Growing weary

I have been doing concerts about every week at the Palace Bar and it seems as if I am coming up dry from doing them.  I guess I have grown tired of doing the mundane things here...the things that I do every week because I feel obligated to do them.  For those that know me know that I hate doing things out of obligation.  Maybe God is telling me it's time to look for another place to play.  I still want to maintain a good relationship with the people at the Palace Bar, but I believe it's time to branch out a little and try for some new places.

A Cool European Haircut

For those of you that have been to Europe and have ever gone to the hair salon to get a haircut, you guys know that you can request whatever you want at the place.  Regardless of what you request most of the time, the hair stylist does whatever he wants to your hair.  However, this time, I went to a different place than I usually go to because I wanted to try to get the famous European Fauxhawk.

Many of you may be asking this question "What is a fauxhawk?"  Well I am glad you asked that question because I will gladly answer with words and pictures.  A fauxhawk is like a mohawk, except on the sides, it is not bald, but rather just a lot shorter compared to the hair movement down the middle.

I have to say that I rather enjoy this style of haircut and will probably get it from now on or as long as it is popular here in Europe.  Here's the pictures for proof if you need something like that.  Until next time...

I have realized that my last couple of blogs have been on the attack about things in the church or things in American Society.  This blog however is going to be one of confession. A confession to things that I have done when I was in the States:

- I confess that I have lived a life of double dutch missions as I call it.  I stand on the outside, wait for the opportunity, get in, do my job and get out and think "that was fun."  However, the problem is that I have treated it like a job and haven't really invested in any individuals that I've come in contact with on these trips.  I have been full of broken promises to people that I promised to e-mail and still be a part of their life journey.  Because of that, I don't know where they are in their walk with Christ.

- I realized that I have not consistently taken the light into the dark areas of the community around me.  I have been content in my Christian bubble with a fear of lostness contamination.  I've let fear of being influenced by the world overcome my fear of the Lord in my life.

- I confess that I have read and memorized scripture my whole life, but not applied every word of it that I have ever memorized.

- I confess that I have not lived a life where I am that encourages community with those around me and have depended so much on my independence, that I forget the gospel is about being around people and sharing Him with those that don't know Him.

- I confess that I have picked and chosen in the past who I want to share the gospel with instead of just being open as to who God brings my way. 

- I confess that in my past, I made stances against certain movies or books instead of taking stances against things that really matter.

- I confess that I have spent money on selfish desires that will come and go instead of really investing it in things that will make the world a better place for everyone.

More to come...

   The longer I am away from the United States, the longer I realize there's some things I don't understand the things that our nation and God's bride, the church does and supports.

   For the life of me, I don't understand how we went into a nation to rid this nation of a dictator that was killing his own people.  Yet why don't we don't go into countries like Sudan, Chad and Kenya to help bring peace to those countries and let diplomacy rule in those countries?  I know that probably the ultimate answer to that statement is that there's no benefit for us, but why should we base what country we help on what we get out of it?  Why do we as the United States do anything solely based on what we can gain from it?

  One of the things that troubles me about the church I've experienced back home is that we seem to be partial about sharing the gospel with certain people.  We pick and choose who should come to know Christ, when Christ came so that all might live.  I remember we would go to a certain neighborhood in my town and share the gospel in the low cost residential areas in our neighborhood once a week.  While that is good to do, why isn't there someone doing that throughout the year?  What are we afraid of?

  Another thing with the church is the thing we stand against.  We try to boycott movies and controversial books.  Maybe we need to read these books and watch these movies and put them in relation to God's word and what the bible says.  Don't you think avoiding things like this further puts us out of touch with the world around us and keeps us from being missional like we are suppose to be?  I'm so tired of boycotting stupid things like movies and books.  I would rather boycott industries that support sweat shops in third world countries or buy fair trade coffee than do something that does nothing but separate me from the world and puts me out of touch with those around me.  

The life I live here is pretty simple to understand, but not so easy to live and not so safe.  God brought me here to live my life as a believer in front of my friends.  I also do language exchanges with them as well as assist bringing interns over for them to study Spanish as well as Catalan and Spanish culture.  I also do a little bit of music in my spare time.  It sounds like the perfect kind of job, right?  One that's easy and comfortable since I live in Western Europe.

However, I want to make clear a couple of things that have been on my mind as of lately.  People tend to glamorize or make me out to be a hero in the life I live and what I do here or even the fact that I live in Western Europe.  Now for one thing, I've never viewed what I do as to be held up to a position of heroism.  I'm just a man that was willing to go where God called me to be.  I have to be honest and say that this view of what I do really frustrates me because it seems that by saying that, people place a blanket between themselves and a call to this kind of work so they don't have to answer it.  I'm not saying that everyone's called to do this kind of work.  Rather, I am asking that nobody raise me to a hero status.  I am just an ordinary man that was obedient, that's all.

Another thing that some people may think is that it's easy to do what I do here.  While I do have access to many things here like I would in the United States, I would say that this place is one of the most spiritually dry and dark places I've ever been to on this planet.  There seems to be a real hardness to the gospel here.  There's also a great deal of spiritual danger where I am because the society I live in is so open to so many things.  It's easy to live in the States, where you have your church bubble and go on trips into the "danger zone" to share the joy that you have.  I'll admit that I'm guilty of doing this in my past and now I look back on it and wished I'd really invested myself in the cultures around me.  I would go on trips for a week, a month or even three months and then come back and share the pictures.  I'll admit that I don't even keep in contact with hardly any of them.  I regret the fact that I haven't kept up with them and been there along their journey.

That being said, I absolutely love being here and to be able to do what I do is a blessing.  I will confess to you that the thought of going back into the Christian subculture in a way intimidates me to no end.  Don't get me wrong in that I want to be surrounded by believers, but at the same time I don't want to lose sight of the calling that God has placed on every believer's life... to go and make disciples of all nations, to love your neighbor as yourself and to love God with all my heart, mind, soul and strength.

Despite these deep moments of thought, things here have been going well.  I have been traveling a good bit as I have been to England and Germany in the past month.  We had a strategy forum here in Barcelona last week, where people that work for the company all over Europe got together to discuss new strategies and such.  It was a blessing to meet many of my co-workers and to be able to connect with teachers in the States.  However, I was glad it was over because I feel like I've been going non-stop for this whole past month.  I'm just ready to be back to hanging out with my friends here and not busy doing busy work and such.