Month: February 2025

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Bringing up the Ones Who Come Behind You

This past weekend my family went to a Tobymac concert.

For those who don’t know, Tobymac is a Christian recording artist. At this point he’s been around for a long time; he initially gained fame as part of the Christian rock/rap group DC Talk, then began a solo career once they disbanded. He used to do a lot of high-energy songs that found their way into my workout playlist, and while he still does some of that, his style has evolved over time to include a pretty wide variety of music types.

When I was a kid I listened to a Christian singer named Steven Curtis Chapman. I wouldn’t say he was a country singer, but he definitely had a folksy twang as part of his sound. On one of his albums, he collaborated with a young Tobymac, who was part of DC Talk at the time, on a song called “Got To B Tru.” For this particular song, Steven Curtis Chapman (folksy twang) decided he was going to jump into the obnoxious rap scene popular in the early 90’s (the kind Tobymac was a part of). It was a fun crossover, and it helped raise Tobymac’s profile to have such a well-known artist as Steven Curtis Chapman work on a song with him.

I then started paying attention to Tobymac in the early 2000s when I heard a song of his make it onto some kind of rock compilation album I picked up somewhere. Then in 2007 or 2008 my young wife and I went to see him in concert for the first time as part of his “Portable Sounds” tour. As I’ve continued paying attention to his work, it’s become obvious that he was very grateful for the opportunity as a young artist to work with a headliner, and he’s done numerous collaborations with younger or less-well-known performers since gaining his own success.

This past weekend while our family waited for him to take the stage, four different acts came out and performed a set list of their own. Some of these singers I’ve never heard of, but in most cases I knew at least one of the songs they performed. Truth be told, Tobymac was the guy I came to see, and I would have been fine if I only saw his act. These other performers, though, benefit from being on tour with a more seasoned veteran.

Even though few, if any, members of the audience came to see these other acts, being on a tour like this provides them with valuable learning opportunities. They gain experience learning how to work the crowd. They learn a bit about how to craft their stage presence. They might discover things they should not attempt while on stage. These four acts were in various stages of development, and a couple of them could probably soon start to go on tours of their own. It might be a little much for them to scrape together enough startup cash to plan a tour of their own right now, but being in a positions where they can borrow a piece of equipment from someone else on the tour if a speaker’s on the fritz gives them more of a cushion and some experience dealing with unanticipated problems on the road that will benefit them later in their career.

I’m not going to pretend taking four warm-up acts on the road is totally out of the goodness of Tobymac’s heart; I’m sure there’s some kind of financial benefit involved for him. Even so, he likely had to go out of his way to convince a few folks to include more than two or three opening acts on the tour. Whoever those final additions to the tour were, I’m sure they benefitted from it.

In your life, is there someone you could take under your wing and help to get started, either in their career, their ministry, or in some other aspect of their life? I’m sure you’ve gained a lot of hard-fought lessons that only come from experience. While many younger folks out there may not care to benefit from it, there are probably others who would. Even though it might add a little inconvenience, would you consider helping them out as they try to get some direction or some momentum?

Lord, thank you so much for those who’ve come before me and lent me a hand, some good advice, or some encouragement along the way. Help me use the lessons I’ve learned to help others who aren’t as far along as I am. Amen.

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Ever Have Someone Else Facepalm on Your Behalf?

During my senior year in college, a buddy and I drove out west in February and did some winter camping in Utah’s Wasatch Mountains. This was quite the leap for me; prior to this, I think I had only slept outside in a tent in someone’s backyard once.

Our first day in Utah, we stopped to see some of the sights in Salt Lake City. It was probably 40 degrees and overcast as we walked around and explored a little bit. Soon after, we got back in the car and headed for the park where we’d planned to set up camp.

That area is kind of funny; it was warm and pleasant (for February) in the city, but as we drove just a few miles and gained some elevation, it started snowing. This was back in the dark ages before everybody had GPS, so we weren’t as confident about our location as it’s easy to be today. The roads got smaller and snowier, and we had to drive slower to be safe.

As we passed signs confirming we were where we wanted to be, we started relaxing about being lost, but got a little intimidated by seeing white everywhere and knowing this was the environment we’d be sleeping in. We passed a little parking lot that said something about paying for a parking pass, but with all the stuff going on in our heads, we didn’t pay much attention to it, or figured we’d come back once we knew for sure we were in the right place. We got to the final parking lot before a locked gate barred any further vehicle passage, parked the car, and skied off into the forest for our winter camping adventure.

Fast forward a day or two, and we’d survived at least one frosty night in the snow. My buddy and I were back at the car in the parking lot, swapping out some gear or something. A park ranger was making the rounds in the parking lot. Seeing us, she came over with a big, bright smile, and we started chatting. The Winter Olympics were in town, which was why we had come. She wanted to hear about where we’d come from, what events we were going to see, and we swapped perspectives about some of the big news of the games so far. She was very personable, and thought what we were doing was really cool.

Eventually she took a look at the front of our car and didn’t see the parking pass that was supposed to be displayed on the dashboard. When she asked about it, we were forced to admit we hadn’t purchased one. She squinted her eyes shut and tossed her head back, as though she were saddened for us. “Oh, guys, come on!” She then performed her duty of writing us a citation, which I probably still have sitting around somewhere in the basement. I think she signed it Ranger Chen or something. She was perfectly willing to spend time being nice to us and chatting with us, but her cordiality didn’t supersede her authority and responsibility.

One of the conundrums non-Christians can fall victim to is some version of the idea that “if God’s all-knowing and knows my heart, he knows I’m a mostly good person, and even though I never ‘gave my heart to him’ or whatever, he must know that I would have if I had been presented with the choice.” I can see how that might make sense to them, but they’re looking at the picture without having all the information.

God is holiness personified. Holiness means “set apart.” He’s beholden to abide by the rules He Himself laid out. That means He can’t let unholiness exist in the glory of His presence. Someone who hasn’t accepted Christ as Savior does not have their sins blotted out, so their unholiness would be in danger of contaminating God’s holiness. Although God freely offers Christ’s righteousness to all, He can’t/won’t tolerate the unholiness of those who don’t accept it.

In His role of authority, God looks at those who don’t make the choice to follow Him and says “Guys, I love you, but you DO have to play by the rules. You ARE subject to the penalty associated with sin.” For every person who dies without accepting Christ, God hurts for their loss. I imagine He might toss His head back with eyes squinted shut, just like that park ranger, saying “Rrrrghh! Even after all the evidence I put in front of them!”

If you’re still breathing, you still have the opportunity to accept Christ as your savior. Don’t assume you’ll have time to think about it later, though. Every breath you take is a gift from the Lord, and you don’t know how many more you’ve got left. Take some time right now to consider what to do with the question of who Jesus Christ is.

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Sometimes You Just Need To Get Away From it all

After finishing college I moved back in with Mom and Dad for about a year and a half and worked in construction while I tried to figure out what to do with my life. During that time I helped out with the youth group in the church I’d attended since I was a kid.

One of the big events on the youth group’s calendar was a 4-day/3-night retreat over President’s Day weekend at a Christian conference center very close to the church. This particular retreat, dubbed “Winter Weekend,” was a popular one for the churches in our denomination’s district. Churches from Ohio, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and New York sent kids from their youth groups to attend the gathering. I went along to serve as one of the guys’ counselors for our church’s group.

It was a good retreat. There were sports tournaments to compete in, along with a number of Bible sessions featuring praise and worship, and some small group time with just our church’s group. A lot of kids had an emotional encounter with Christ, and a number of them accepted Him as lord and savior of their lives.

About midway through the weekend, the question of weather began to become an issue. All the different churches’ groups were scheduled to depart Monday morning, but a significant snowstorm was on track to hit our area Sunday night and into the wee hours of Monday morning.

It wasn’t quite this bad, thankfully!

Leaders from the various groups collectively conferred with the conference center’s staff to figure out options, and each group decided what was best for their situation. A few of them made the difficult decision to leave early so they could beat the weather. Our group and a few others, on the other hand, decided to stay and ride out the storm, overstaying the scheduled end to the retreat in the process. Since the same storm that was about to hit us would also hit our home school district, we knew the local schools would be shut down for a bit. Our youth leader passed word to all the parents of the retreat’s attendees from our church, and let them know they could pick up their kids directly from the retreat as originally scheduled if they wanted, but otherwise we’d delay our return to the church by about 24 hours.

We went to bed Sunday night, and woke up to some heavy snow the next morning. The staff dug us out with snowblowers and plows, and the township and county began working to clear the local roads. One of my fellow counselors, who had attended Winter Weekend for years as a camper, talked excitedly about how it seemed like a dream come true…having a snowstorm strand us all together a little bit longer during a spiritual high. The cooks managed to cobble together three unplanned meals for us, the conference center managed to scrape up some staff to keep stuff open for a bunch of restless, hungry teens, and the various youth leaders and worship leaders called audibles for some unanticipated programming. It ended up being a very sweet time of togetherness, worship, and focus on the Lord.

I don’t know if I’d go so far as to say this was a once-in-a-lifetime experience, but opportunities to extend a shared spiritual high don’t come along very often. It seems much more common to be hanging on for dear life as the world’s troubles relentlessly assail you, leaving you bruised and battered.

That’s what makes it all the more important to get a break in routine. Maybe you can’t manage a week-long, or even a weekend-long retreat, but it might be worth investigating anyway. There’s something about putting the normal distractions of life on hold while someone else pours into you spiritually. Does your church have a men’s or women’s retreat coming up? Maybe there’s an opportunity for you to do something along those lines this summer. Consider taking a closer look at those kinds of opportunities, because getting away from the normal routines and daily responsibilities for awhile can be incredibly revitalizing.

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When You Make the Easy Stuff Difficult

I was fortunate one summer during college to get a job working in the field of residential construction despite not having any experience. It was interesting work and taught me stuff I still use years later.

When you’re an entry-level guy on a construction crew, it’s no surprise that you get a lot of the jobs nobody else wants. Grunt work: carrying heavy stuff, doing the sweaty work out in the sun while everyone else is in the shade or air conditioning, etc. You get the idea.

One of the not-so-bad new guy chores was going on coffee runs. The first construction crew I worked on had a coffee break every morning, so whoever went on a coffee run would take coffee orders and pick up a box of donuts or something at a gas station in town.

There was only one problem. I didn’t (and still don’t) drink coffee, and it’s not a good idea to send a non-coffee drinker on coffee runs unless they know what they’re doing. And man, I did NOT know what I was doing.

The size of our crew varied, but in general there were anywhere from three to eight workers giving orders to the coffee runner. The only thing I could reliably deliver was the box of donuts.

“Yeah, get me a large coffee, light and sweet.” Okay, so that means cream and sugar. But how much cream and how much sugar? Is that like, half coffee and half milk? (That’s what “half and half” means, right?) I can get you a black coffee and grab the number of sugar packets you tell me to, but if I have to just dump in sugar, you might not like what I bring you. Powdered creamer…what the heck is that? Does that take the place of cream and sugar?

It wasn’t long before someone else started doing the coffee runs.

Admittedly, I could have done better with this task. “Hospitality” is not one of my gifts, but that doesn’t mean I shouldn’t have tried harder. I think one thing that makes God smile is when you’re willing to take on a kingdom role totally outside your normal skillset. While it’s important to use the gifts God’s given you, it’s also important to be humble and reliant on Him. After all, successful use of your spiritual gifts could bring a degree of success that makes it easy for you to get a little too big for your britches. Floundering in something you’re a little less cut out for every now and then helps you keep some of that humility.

So use your spiritual gifts, and use them as best you can for God’s glory; just don’t limit yourself to the things you’re good at. Sometimes all God wants from you is a willing heart, regardless of how good (or bad) you might be at what He’s giving you to do.