Can you imagine how boring life would be without dreams? Without a vision for the future? Without innovation? Without next steps?

As a very young kid I realized that I had a very active imagination. When I caught a glimpse of something fantastic in my mind’s eye I was convinced that it would become a reality. I wasn’t allowed to sit by the windows in school because my imagination would take me out that window and into places much better suited for me than dingy old classrooms.

My heart resonates with dreamers. The people who can see the potential of a situation or who can take the ordinary into the extraordinary gather high marks in my book.

A dreamer isn’t someone who has their head in the clouds. Make no mistake: A dreamer is deeply entrenched in the here and now. They are fully aware of their surroundings. They are just unable to survive in the status quo. They are willing to break out of the box to seek a better way.

Take Walt Disney for example. Earlier this week I read about Walt’s dreaming exercises. On day one of a new project he would set aside everything and allow himself the freedom to come up with the most audacious, fantastic plans. He was in dreamer mode. Nothing was off limits. Anything could and would be considered.

On day two he would become the realist. He would look at the plans and bring them into reality. There were some things that from a production standpoint just could not be rendered. He would table those ideas and seek out what was truly within grasp.

On day three he would play the critic. What would and would work? What was too fantastic? What would be a home run? What would foul out? What ever survived day three Walt would then make his singular focus.

Most people skip over a day one. Why waste time on things that might not ever come to fruition? “I don’t pay the bills with dreams,” some might say.

Yes you do.

Walt’s dreams paid off. Dreams pay off because they lead people to new places.

Another dreamer on my iBoard is Kermit the Frog. Whenever I’m asked which 5 people I would have to a fantasy dinner Kermit is always there.

In the Muppet Movie, Kermit embodies everything that I admire in dreamers.

He strikes out for a better life and on the way brings others along with him.

That is what dreamers do. They give hope and cast a vision to others often at a great expense to themselves.

Ministers are in the dreaming business whether they know it or not. It is our job to connect the longing of people’s hearts with the Ultimate Dreamer. It is our job to constantly put before them the vision of a new life. A life marked by grace. A life of hope not despair. Love not hate. Ministry is more than teaching about sin management. It is about living in the glory of God. It is about motivating people to experience the hope that one has in Christ.

“You who bring good news to Zion, go up on a high mountain. You who bring good news to Jerusalem, lift up your voice with a shout, lift it up, do not be afraid; say to the towns of Judah, “Here is your God!” See, the Sovereign LORD comes with power, and his arm rules for him. See, his reward is with him, and his recompense accompanies him. He tends his flock like a shepherd: He gathers the lambs in his arms and carries them close to his heart; he gently leads those that have young.”

“Why do you complain, Jacob? Why do you say, Israel, “My way is hidden from the LORD; my cause is disregarded by my God”? Do you not know? Have you not heard? The LORD is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth. He will not grow tired or weary, and his understanding no one can fathom. He gives strength to the weary and increases the power of the weak. Even youths grow tired and weary, and young men stumble and fall; but those who hope in the LORD will renew their strength. They will soar on wings like eagles; they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not be faint.” (Isaiah 40:9-11; 27-31)

I first saw this image on iLounge.com this morning. Much of the talk in the comment section had people jumping for joy that a new “widescreen” (think iPhone) iPod would be announced. While that very much could be the announcement my friend Scott sent me some info this afternoon that could ends months of speculation on my part.

According to Scott, the last sentance on the last statement issued by the Beatles ended with the phrase “the beat goes on.”

The statement issued on April 10, 1970 reads as follows:
Spring is here and Leeds play Chelsea tomorrow and Ringo and John and George and Paul are alive and well and full of hope. The world is still spinning and so are we and so are you… When the spinning stops—that’ll be the time to worry, not before. Until then, the Beatles are alive and well and the beat goes on, the beat goes on.

Yesterday the entire Ringo Starr catalog was added to the iTunes store. The drummer’s work was added alongside his bandmates, John Lennon and Sir Paul, who were added to the store over the summer. George is still MIA though.

Based on the info from the press release I could not be any more sure that the announcement on September 5th will be that the Beatles catalog will be added to the iTunes Store. Scott thinks that it will be a double announcement with the widescreen iPod and the Beatles. I’m only hoping for the latter.

If the announcement comes and goes without the Beatles being the added my guitar will surely gently weep. Who needs a widescreen iPod? I want my Fab Four.

My students went back to school today.

I passed by the brand new high school this morning to see a stream of cars and buses hurriedly trying to get kids to the building. I thought of all the emotions that go into a day like the first day of school.

I sent my students a text message last night encouraging them to read 1 Tim 6:11-16:

“But you, man of God, flee from all this, and pursue righteousness, godliness, faith, love, endurance and gentleness. Fight the good fight of the faith. Take hold of the eternal life to which you were called when you made your good confession in the presence of many witnesses. In the sight of God, who gives life to everything, and of Christ Jesus, who while testifying before Pontius Pilate made the good confession, I charge you to keep this command without spot or blame until the appearing of our Lord Jesus Christ, which God will bring about in his own time—God, the blessed and only Ruler, the King of kings and Lord of lords, who alone is immortal and who lives in unapproachable light, whom no one has seen or can see. To him be honor and might forever. Amen.”

The first day of school is just as good as New Year’s day. It is a fresh start; a new beginning. I challenged my students to pursue God from day one this school year. My prayer is that they will.

For me today is a fall cleaning day. My office glorified closet should be declared a disaster zone. Seriously. I’m thinking about filing for federal disaster relief. When you’re gone to camp things pile up. When you leave for a mission trip the pile gets a little higher. By the time you are gone for the third week in a row you don’t recognize anything.

I spent a full week working from the sound booth in the auditorium because I was afraid to be in my office.

This has gone on long enough. A clean office: It will be a fresh start; a new beginning.

Photo Documentation:

Last night I sort of awoke at about 2:15am from a very deep sleep. Apparently I was sleeping so hard and so deeply that I had become dehydrated because I stumbled into the kitchen and downed an entire bottle of VitaminWater. After about the third gulp I was fully awake and amazed at my new found ability to guzzle.

It has been a long since I had felt that thirsty.

When I got back into bed, my wife sprung to her feet and announced that she needed some water too. Apparently dehydration is contagious.

Religiously Illiterate that is.

This week I have been reading Stephen Prothero’s masterwork Religious Literacy: What Every American Needs to Know- And Doesn’t. Prothero’s “radical” idea that religion should be taught in public schools got a little play earlier this year when his ideas were featured in the April 2nd issue of TIME. In the article The Case for Teaching the Bible author David Van Biema quotes some staggering statistics from Prothero’s book.

According to Religious Literacy, polls show that nearly two-thirds of Americans believe the Bible holds the answers to “all or most of life’s basic questions,” but pollster George Gallup has dubbed us “a nation of biblical illiterates.” Only half of U.S. adults know the title of even one Gospel. Most can’t name the Bible’s first book. The trend extends even to Evangelicals, only 44% of whose teens could identify a particular quote as coming from the Sermon on the Mount.

As a minister I know that these statistics are sadly the rules and not the exceptions. I get frustrated very quickly when I find that I cannot lead a Bible class or a religious discussion very far or deep because students (and adults) have a very, very limited working knowledge of Scripture.

At the outset of the book, Prothero provides the reader with a copy of a Religious Literacy Quiz that he gave to his university students in the Spring of 2006.

I took Prothero’s quiz and scored a 45 out of 50.

Are you interested in how you would fare in this basic exam? Many of you that read this blog grew up in a conservative background where you were at church if the doors were open and many of you were leaders in youth group and at school and you have continued to lead in the workplace. I know that you take your faith seriously. I think that many of you can pass this quiz with flying colors.

I have provided the quiz below and I will post the answers in the comment section. I am interested in how well you fared taking the quiz so leave a comment with your score or with comments on what you think about the quiz or teaching religion in schools. Good luck.

Religious Literacy Quiz
1) Name the four Gospels. List as many as you can.
2) Name a sacred text of Hinduism.
3) What is the name of the holy book of Islam?
4) Where according to the Bible was Jesus born?
5) Pres. George W. Bush spoke in his first inaugural address of the Jericho road. What Bible story was he invoking?
6) What are the first five books of the Hebrew Bible or the Christian Old Testament?
7) What is the Golden Rule?
8) “God helps those who help themselves”: Is this in the Bible? If so, where?
9) “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of God”: Does this appear in the Bible? If so, where?
10) Name the Ten Commandments. List as many as you can.
11) Name the four Noble Truths of Buddhism.
12) What are the seven sacraments of Catholicism? List as many as you can.
13) The First Amendment says two things about religion, each with its own “clause.” What are the two religion clauses of the First Amendment?
14) What is Ramadan? In what religion is it celebrated?
15) Match the Bible characters with the stories in which they appear. Some characters may be matched with more than one story or vise versa.

1. Adam and Eve
2. Paul
3. Moses
4. Noah
5. Jesus
6. Abraham
7. Serpent

a. Exodus
b. Binding of Isaac
c. Olive Branch
d. Garden of Eden
e. Parting of the Red Sea
f. Road to Damascus
g. Garden of Gethsemane

Pssst. Wanna know a secret?

I’m a big Elivs fan.

As a kid I wore out my Live in Hawaii cassette tape and I had a handful of my mother’s 45s that I played so much on my Fisher Price turntable that a permanent groove appeared on their surfaces. My dad is from Memphis so growing up we did the whole Graceland tour and we always watched the Elvis marathons on tv. I’m not a fan of most of his movies but I am a sucker for Viva Las Vegas.

Getting this off my chest feels good.

Today marks the 30th anniversary of the death of Elvis Presley. Of all the great memories I have of listening to Elvis or curling my lip or mimicking his voice and singing along with the oldies station as kid there is one memory that has left the biggest impression on me.

In college, we were living only 2hrs from Memphis. On a particularly boring Saturday morning I turned to my wife and said, “Wanna go to Graceland?” To my surprise she was more than willing to make the trek. We jumped in the car and headed across the Mississippi River toward our destination.

If you’ve never been to Graceland the ticket counters and the giftshops are across the boulevard from the house. You wait in line after choosing which tour package you want and then you take a shuttle across the street. When the tour is over you hop back onto a shuttle and ride to the giftshops.

After walking through the house (which looks like your house just with green shag carpet and and people buried in the backyard by the pool) we rode the shuttle to the giftshops to purchase a reminder of our impulsive trip to Memphis. While Sandy looked at the magnets and other knickknacks I headed to the CDs.

We went the weekend before the Elvis #1 compilation was released to the public and they were selling it there at the giftshop. I was waiting in line waiting to pay and admiring the 8 or 9 big screen tvs playing the Hawaii concert in all its glory when something caught my eye.

There was a young woman sitting on the floor in front of the tvs. At first I thought nothing of it. However, as I watched closely I noticed the she was crying. Again, if you’ve been to Graceland you’ve seen people crying. Then I realized exactly what she was doing.

She was praying to Elvis. She was on her knees rocking back and forth in the middle of the giftshop with a prayer candle (unlit), tear stained cheeks, and open palms facing the screens where a dead pop star was singing “Love Me Tender.” You can’t make that up. I would post a picutre of the event as proof that it actually happened but my wife gave me “the look” when I went to snap a photo. I knew that it would be a no-go. you’ll just have to take my word for it.

That is the image I have now when I see news coverage of vigils outside of Graceland marking Elvis’ birth and death.

I don’t think I’ll ever forget that young woman. It truly was a bizarre sight. As a minister I’ve given the old “Who or what are some false gods that people serve today?” lesson. The pat answers are always money, popularity, and relationships but no one has ever said Elvis.

So the next time your sitting in one of those “Who or what are some false gods that people serve today?” lessons I am begging you to offer up the dead king of rock ‘n roll. Begging you.

Now, I’m going to listen to Suspicious Minds and crank up the volume to 11 because I’m the only one in the office.

Have a great day.

“Theology and Religious Studies… are two very different things. As different as Art and Art History.”

-Stephen Prothero

Even though it’s Monday you can still get your groove on.

Davey Dance Blog - 28 - NYC MTA - The Sunshine Underground - “Put You In Your Place” from Pheasant Plucker and Vimeo.

Can you imagine being there when Jesus asked his disciples the question, “Who do the crowds say I am?” If it was anything like the scenes in our classrooms there might have been a few seconds of awkward silence before one of them offered up, “Some say John the Baptist.”

“Well others say Elijah.”

“And some of them say that you are one of the prophets.”

I imagine Peter to be a bit like me. I lived for class discussion because it usually kept us from doing busy work. I was never one to offer up the first comment but I was always prepared to make my opinion known.

I can see Peter listening but staring at the ground. He hears that his friends are giving the easy answers to the easy question. He wants to answer but that question leaves him wanting. Let’s be honest, Jesus served them a softball pitch that first question and Peter was never interested playing softball. Jesus brings the heat with his next question:

“Who do you say I am?”

In essence Jesus is saying, “No hiding behind what others say. This isn’t about them it’s about you. This is where the rubber meets the road. Who do you say I am?”

Still staring at the ground I see Peter say, “You are the Messiah.” He looks up right into the face of Jesus, clears his throat, and purposefully repeats his answer.

“You… are the Messiah.”

Andrew had told him years ago that they had found the Promised One and now Peter believes that it is so. He is ready to make the leap from seeing Jesus as a good teacher to the Son of God.

In the book Jesus-Centered Youth Ministry, author Rick Lawrence recounts a time in his life where he was wrestling with this very question. He implores the reader to step back to this scene and answer this question for themselves.

I took a page from the book and I led a discussion with my teens asking them the following question:

Which word comes closest to describing the way you see Jesus- nice, fierce, or mysterious?

Not surprisingly many of them wanted to answer nice. Frankly that’s because we have made Jesus nice. We gloss over the Jesus who was so passionate about true worship that he overturned tables with one hand and wielded a home-made whip with the other. We downplay the Jesus who was so outraged at the religious leaders that he told them they we tombs filled with dead bodies. That Jesus is anything but nice.

Our discussion that night was one the best we’ve ever had. After they argued and discussed whether Jesus was nice, fierce, or mysterious I broke them into groups and challenged them to come up with a description that they felt captured Jesus better. They opened their Bibles and dove head first. They came up with Almighty, Passionate, and (my favorite) Hardcore. It seemed that for the first time in a long time we were all challenged to answer the question anew.

I’m not sure that I will ever have the “right” for this question. My answer is as messy as my own life. I just know that I want to spend the rest of my life connecting and serving and worshiping the one who asked it.

Who Do I Say You Are Jesus?

You are the Christ. The Son of the Most High God. You are a Lion and a Lamb. You desire mercy and pure heart. You take away the sins from your children. You take away my sins. You call me from a small life of fishing in the sea to a grand life of fishing for men. You are the Beginning and the End. You conquered death. You are nice, fierce, mysterious, passionate, hardcore, and almighty. You are my first love. You are who I want to serve. You are the Christ.

Who do you say Jesus is?

Every person on the planet deals with three basic questions:

• Who am I?
• Do I Matter?
• Am I loved?

In youth ministry I see students trying to answer these questions everyday. I see it in the way they behave, what activities they pursue, the way the dress, and the way they interact with one another. However most adults still wrestle with these questions too.

To be completely honest we never stop trying to answer these questions. It isn’t as though one day we wake up at 27 and we no longer have acne and suddenly have all the answers to life’s journey. The acne still crops up every once in a while and these queries still stare us in the face every single day.

The problem with these three questions is that they rely on us to answer them by ourselves. It is up to you and I to indiviualy answer these questions under our own power. I have a hard time making a decision at the gas pump whether or not I want a receipt after my transaction. I cannot even begin to answer these life-defining questions on my own. I’m limited.

I have been working through Rick Lawrence’s newest ministry book Jesus-Centered Youth Ministry and Lawrence reframes these three questions in a way that turns the focus away from ourselves and send us running to Jesus for the answers.

Here are the questions I am now asking:

• Who Do I Say Jesus Is?
• Who Does Jesus Say I Am?
• Who Do I Say I Am?

I have been working through these questions for the last few weeks. Tomorrow we will look at the first one: Who Do I Say Jesus Is? I hope that you can join in on the conversation. See you tomorrow.

It was a scary couple of days. I couldn’t figure out what had happened to my blog and then once it came back up I was missing 12 weeks worth of posts. Thankfully everything is back to normal. I even had a chance to tweak a couple of minor things on the site as well.

It has been a wild summer. I have barely had a moment to breathe or to sit and reflect on everything that has happened. I think that has been the only negative aspect of my hectic summer. Next year I might have to build in reflection days to my summer schedule.

We just returned from a few days in Chicago. We had a wonderful time in the Windy City. I got a chance to take my wife, my sister-in-law, and her husband to see Wicked. I had seen it on Broadway last year but none of them had been able to see it. It was superb! I thought the singing was even better than what I had seen in New York. Kudos to the Chicago cast for a terrific job.

When we arrived home I had a box from Amazon waiting on our doorstep. It contained two of my fall reading books: Jesus Mean and Wild and Questions to All Your Answers. I will start them here in the next few weeks. If anyone wants to read along with me let me know.

Tomorrow is our anniversary. We have been married for 6 years. I can hardly believe it but it is true. Hopefully we can hang on at least another 6 years. It won’t be so hard for me- I’m married to a saint. She has her hands full though.

Have a great weekend.