Boston Night of Worship

This past Friday I attended the Boston Night of Worship at the Aganis Arena at BU. I wish I had taken pictures but the place was so big and full of people that I felt I couldn’t capture the whole experience in one picture; it would take multiple images strung together. But I did walk away with many reactions, the most prominent one being awe. Imagine walking into a giant arena packed with people, so loud the sound literally hits you, that’s no joke I could feel the sound of the music and cheering. It was an amazing experience that unfortunately is not that common, to be honest, in my own life I don’t get excited about the Gospel like I should. When you sit down and think about it, the Gospel is amazing; to think that God came down to earth to suffer in our place to make us right with Him, that really is something to cheer about. Another part of that awe is that this place was packed with people from all over New England; it didn’t matter if you were Catholic or Protestant, rich or poor, democrat of republican, all that mattered was you were a believer and you were there. I felt that being there was what God really desires from the church, not a place based on regulations and denominations but a house of worship where people of all backgrounds can gather together with one common purpose, to praise God. It was a great experience and I highly recommend going next year.

Nice or Good?

In a small group in my church we’ve been reading Wild at Heart by John Eldridge. It’s a pretty good book, it’s about what it means to be a godly man, but one thing that really made me think is when Eldridge talks about Jesus. Nowadays we have this image of Jesus as a “nice guy”, a gentle easy going person who just wants to be nice to everybody. A main theme of the book is that as men we don’t want to be “nice guys” we want to be “dangerous”. Now the first thought that enters your head might be “Hey what’s wrong with wanting to be nice to people?” Well, there is a difference between being a nice guy and a good man, and Jesus was the latter. Looking at the Gospels Jesus was definitely good, there is no question about that, but He wasn’t exactly nice, I mean, He openly accused the Pharisees of their evil ways – that doesn’t sound nice to me. C.S. Lewis wrote of God “Safe, of course He isn’t safe, but He is good.” Jesus is not safe, He stands up for what is right at all times and let’s His voice be heard. That, I believe, is how we should act. I would much rather be described as good over nice, nice implies conceding, fear, and walking on eggshells, good implies strength, honesty, purity, and justice. In our culture people tend to shun the church as thinking it’s a boring place full of nice people, but really God is dangerous; the same God that made sunsets and flowers made lightening and wild animals, looking at this world there is no way we can say it is a safe place, but it is good. I guess my point is this, Christianity is not boring, the Jesus of the Bible was a loud, fearless, passionate guy, but the Jesus we portray to the world is a solemn, quiet, nice, person.

Updates

First off I am sorry for the lack of posting this month; the workload and stress load lately have been nearly unbearable, but things should resume back to normal by December- just in time for posts about Christmas! But for now I’ve been thinking lately about how amazing our world is, I was up at 6:00 this morning and looked up into the dark sky and saw several stars, more than I thought I could see in my area, and just now I was looking at a “micro photo contest” and saw the intricate aspects of things that are microscopic and how though they are small they are just as complex as anything else. It really takes you back to look at the world and think about how complex it is, and how there is no way it all could be random. As for what I’m reading, I’m reading the book of Job (lots of great stuff) and Rumors of another World by Philip Yancey. I write a ton about C.S. Lewis but Yancey is another favorite so I’ll definitely post about this book. It’s funny, before I started questioning and searching for faith I never found much material on it, but since last summer it seems that book after book fall into my lap and take me one step further; it makes me wonder where God is going to take me next.

Extra Innings

Now time for the random event of the day which was actually yesterday, but I did not have time to post so it will be posted today. Yesterday I played in the 100 Inning Baseball Game, which was first played in 2004 and has been played annually since. It is a charity game that donates money to the ALS foundation which helps patients with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, commonly called Lou Gehrig’s disease after the great Lou Gehrig. Little is known about ALS aside from that it generally affects older people around the age of 50 and results in a loss of muscle strength and coordination. So back to the game, the 100 Inning Baseball Game is a 100 inning long game, roughly 30 hours and is taking place this weekend. I played in 26 innings yesterday (22-48) which took 8 hours. It was a lot of fun and I raised a good amount of money along the way. It was also very challenging, a lot of the players there were in some of the top Boston leagues and looked like they currently or formerly played for some top college teams; needless to say I was overmatched. But I stuck through it and did my best working a walk in one at bat and grounding out to move a runner to third in another. I also got to play all around the outfield which was fun. Another challenge was the endurance, after about 15 innings I started to lose it in my legs and definitely in my feet but I managed to stay active and take the field almost every inning. The last challenge was on a personal level, being one of the youngest and probably least skillful players on my team it was tough to talk to the other guys there, but after a while I became more comfortable and struck up many conversations in the game. I guess I could look at all these challenges and say “Wow why would I ever do that, it’s too much work!” But really at the end of the day it doesn’t matter how well I did, how many hits I got, or how many catches I made, all that matters is that I played baseball, something I used to do for myself, for charity, I did something that I like to do to benefit others, and although I was cold, sore, and couldn’t really get a hit, I had a blast and will definitely do it again.

I Believe!

Here is yet again another post about faith and doubt. I have often considered when I will be “finally” done with posting about faith and I feel that I never will. Faith is one of those things that is essential to the Christian life yet misunderstood and I feel that I will always be finding out new things. However Paul rates faith along with hope below love on the scale of importance so perhaps I should be writing about love more often. Back to the post, one prayer I would pray in my “search for faith” (among other things) came from Mark 9:24 “I do believe; help me overcome my unbelief.” I’ve said a lot about what C.S. Lewis says and St. Augustine say about faith, but here is the principle straight from the Bible. Time for some background, basically what happened is a man had a very sick son and was desperate after the disciples couldn’t heal him, so he came to Jesus and said “If you can do anything, take pity on us and help us.” If you can? Imagine what Jesus’ response could have been “If I can? Do you know who I am?” But let’s see what His response was “If you can? Everything is possible for him who believes.” So basically Jesus is saying “Hey I can do it…if you’ll believe it.” Now on to the nature of the man’s reply, I believe but help me overcome my unbelief. That is, I think, the best response to doubt. He didn’t give up thinking ‘Oh this’ll never work’ instead he brought it out into the open and sought help, not certainty. The man didn’t ask Jesus to make him certain that He could heal his son, he asked Jesus to help him overcome his doubts, to take a leap of faith. Everyone has doubts, but the key to faith is not to get rid of them, but to overcome them; to say that although they exist they won’t get in the way of my belief. This man was standing before Jesus and he had doubts, but instead of running away he asked for faith, and the perseverance to overcome his unbelief.

Top 10 of the 2010 Red Sox Season

Here’s my top 10 list for the 2010 Red Sox

1) Opening Day, from Pedro Martinez and Joshua Sacco to the dramatic come from behind win, it was a great way to start the season.
2) Darnell MacDonald’s game tying and winning homerun and double respectively.
3) Daniel Nava’s first pitch grand slam, he made history and gave Disney a movie idea.
4) Buchholz and Lester going to the All Star Game.
5) Ortiz winning the Home Run Derby – that’ll show ‘em!
6) Beltre’s all around amazing season.
7) Coming back from Belize to hear that the Sox were 4.5 games out of first.
8) Ortiz hitting his 30th homerun.
9) “Thanks Mike Night” and his single off the Monster, unfortunately only Ted Williams can hit homeruns in his last at bat – still Lowell’s was crushed.
10) The last game of the season, it may be the last time we see some great (and not so great) players in a Red Sox uniform.

Well that’s my top 10, feel free to add some of your own.

That's All Folks

Today’s win over the Yankees concludes the 2010 Red Sox series and in a way is the epitome of the “lost season.” The Red Sox won 8-4, Lackey produced a stellar start, the Paw Sox played behind him, Lowrie hit 2 homeruns, and Papelbon threw 28 pitches and gave up 1 run in the ninth. It is fitting that the Sox went out this way; that once again they managed to win and beat the Yankees, once again they reminded us that they still had it in them and if there were one more month in the season they could win it all. This was supposed to be the “dream season”, MLB Network had the Sox winning 100 games and being the team to beat the Yankees. After the first game it seemed that way, heck, after the first half it seemed that way, but as with all things in baseball, nothing is certain. Despite what many say this was a good season, they had a great team, lost some players, but grinded it out to the end and never gave up hope. All I can say now is that I can’t wait ‘till April.