You can click on the following link to visit the new Retread Scribbles blog.  We are still working through some minor technical issues, but for the most part it’s up and working fine.  Please leave me a comment and let me know if you like the new look and let me know if you find something that’s not working correctly.  This blog will be going away, so don’t forget to bookmark the new site.

I’m looking forward to seeing you over at the new site!

Retread Scribbles Blog

It really does!  Love will always be more powerful than hate.  Love will always win in the end, because of the ultimate love Jesus  showed us from the cross.  He could have given up, but he didn’t.  He remained on the cross and died for us, so that we might live.

I’ve wanted to get a tattoo for over a year now and I actually went twice to get it and was stood up both times by the tattoo artist.  I’m actually happy that I ended up waiting, because what you see in the picture is my new tattoo and yes it says Love Wins.  I love it, I’m happy with it, and I think the artist I finally chose, did a great job.

So why?  Why “Love Wins?”  Because I often find myself impatient and frustrated with people.  I don’t show them the kind of love that God expects his people to show towards each other.  I even struggle with showing enough love to my family.  You would think love would come naturally, but because of the broken, sinful, and selfish nature we are born with, love is something that takes work and practice and effort.

I really want my scribbled life to be a reflection of Christ’s love to others.  Will a tattoo that says “Love Wins” on my wrist mean that loving others will be easier?  No!  But maybe, just maybe, it will be a small opportunity to testify about my need for Christ’s redeeming love in my life.  Maybe it will pave the way for a future conversation with someone about how I struggle with loving others and the only way I can successfully love people is through the grace of God and because of his love for all of his creation.

Do you wrestle with the ability to love others more than you love yourself?

Retread Blog Sneak Peak

I’m very excited to announce a new design for the Retread blog.  Over the past couple of weeks I’ve been working with a designer to develop a professional and great looking site that will be a new extension to the Retread website.  Coming on Tuesday of this week, you’ll see some very cool changes.  A great design, a great look, an easier way to maneuver the site, and hopefully great, challenging, content that will continue to not only reshape my life, but the lives of the people who read this blog.

Now that I’ve stepped up to make this a site where people will be proud to stop by, I have to ask YOU to step up and take a risk too.  It’s time to start leaving a comment or two and give me a chance to respond to those comments in a positive and encouraging way.  It will do me good to interact with you in this way and hopefully it will give you an opportunity to vent as well.

On Tuesday you’ll find a new link on this blog page to follow to the new site.  Once you get there, please book mark this site, and please come back often!  I will be doing my best to write interesting and thought provoking articles that come from my heart and straight from the scribbled life I live.

Don’t forget to check back on Tuesday for a great new start!

“The name Keziah is a Hebrew word.  It describes a tree that has aromatic bark or berries.  This “spice” tree produces berries that have a sweet smell.  Birds often pick these pure berries for a delicious treat.

Keziah Design can be summed up in three words – fresh, relevant and creative.

What I do and how I am different!
Anyone can make a logo or design, but not everyone can make creativity relevant to your specific needs.  Simply stated, it takes a partnership and collaborative, creative thinking.  I bring ideas that are unexpected and fresh.“

Hey everyone, I just wanted to highlight a little design company I’ve been working with for over a year now.  My good friend Dave Butler is the owner of Keziah Design and he has helped Retread with all of our branding.  He’s currently working with us to develop a logo and membership card for our Jubilee Kids Club and he’s also helping me with the design and branding for the personal photography business I’ve started.

The reason I continue to go back to Keziah Design when I need something designed is because of the personal hands on relationship that’s formed between Dave and any person he’s working with.  He cares about what you want and will work with you until YOU are satisfied!  So, go over and check out their website today!

Especially his illustrations!  If you’re looking for someone to illustrate the children’s book you just wrote, Dave’s your guy!!!

The whole reason for the untold story yesterday in the parable of the sower was because of a conversation I had with a co-worker.  During our conversation I was being cynical and pessimistic and complaining about people who go to church, listen to the word, and then do nothing.  I complained about how the church is producing these types of people left and right, but not producing people who are going out and producing a harvest beyond their wildest dreams.  Of course he is very optimistic and shared with me, that even the seed eaten by the birds eventually could be deposited onto the good soil.  Hummm!  Hope?  Grace?  Redemption?  Second chances?  Never give up on people?  These were all thoughts that have continued to flow through my mind over the past two days as I’ve been convicted about my negative attitude.

If you watched the little video clip above, from the movie The Bucket List, you got to see one of my favorite parts in the movie.  It’s funny and raw, but I think it’s a wonderful story, the story about the Kopi Luwak coffee bean.  If you’ve seen the movie you’ll remember how Morgan Freeman’s character shares this story with Jack Nicholson’s character by having him read it out loud.  Of course, Nicholson’s character is not too pleased to find out his favorite and extremely expensive coffee is the bi-product of a tree cat.  It’s the combination of the bean and the gastric juices of the tree cat that gives the coffee its unique flavor and aroma.

Even if you are the most committed coffee drinker you have to be asking yourself, how can tree cat crap make coffee taste that good?  Not sure I’d want to find out.  But, it does paint a beautiful picture of how something that sounds disgusting can become something loved and desired by others.

For me, the untold story is full of hope and redemption.  The bird may represent the evil one, but even the evil one does not have power over the redeeming grace of God.  The seed passing through the digestive system represents the Hell so many of us allow ourselves to be in by not listening to God’s word, but hope lies is in the fact that the digestive system (Hell) doesn’t have to be the end.  Soon we may find ourselves deposited onto good soil where God can use us to produce a crop beyond our wildest dreams.  God is redeeming and restoring everything so we should never give up and never lose hope.

The Parable of the Sower

(From The Message)

^3-8“What do you make of this? A farmer planted seed. As he scattered the seed, some of it fell on the road, and birds ate it. Some fell in the gravel; it sprouted quickly but didn’t put down roots, so when the sun came up it withered just as quickly. Some fell in the weeds; as it came up, it was strangled by the weeds. Some fell on good earth, and produced a harvest beyond his wildest dreams.

18-19“Study this story of the farmer planting seed. When anyone hears news of the kingdom and doesn’t take it in, it just remains on the surface, and so the Evil One comes along and plucks it right out of that person’s heart. This is the seed the farmer scatters on the road.

 ^20-21“The seed cast in the gravel—this is the person who hears and instantly responds with enthusiasm. But there is no soil of character, and so when the emotions wear off and some difficulty arrives, there is nothing to show for it.

 ²²“The seed cast in the weeds is the person who hears the kingdom news, but weeds of worry and illusions about getting more and wanting everything under the sun strangle what was heard, and nothing comes of it.

 ²³“The seed cast on good earth is the person who hears and takes in the News, and then produces a harvest beyond his wildest dreams.”

The Untold Story

After the birds ate the seed from the road, the seed traveled through their digestive system.  A business man walking along the road frightened the birds and they scattered over the field, crapping the seed onto the good earth, where the seed eventually took root right along side the seed originally cast there by the farmer.

Think about it and then tell me what you think this story means?

I’ve been putting off going to the zoo with my family for years, because it’s just not one of my favorite things to do.  I grew up on a farm so I got to see plenty of animals and smell plenty of crap, so why would I want to go to the zoo?  Last Friday during spring break I finally gave in and took off work to take my wife and son along with my brother and his family to the Fort Worth zoo.  It was a really great time and I walked away with a clasic picture.  Definitely worth the day!

Today you get to help me have a little fun.

Caption Please….

Taken Friday, March 20, at Fort Worth Zoo Copywrite by Kyle Stickens/Urban Eye Studio

Come on now it’s only fun if you leave a comment!

…Up Down, Up Down, Up Down, Up Down, Yeah…..because it will get hard, remember life’s like a jump rope!

I woke up humming this song in my head this morning and I’ve still not been able to stop humming it.  It’s on the new album that came out on Tuesday, Approaching Normal, by Blue October.  When I heard it the first time I thought, “my gosh this song should be the theme song for Retread and it should be playing in the back ground when you pull up our website.”   Check out some of the lyrics in this song.

Remember how you used to say
“you couldn’t wait till tomorrow for a brand new day”
no fuss when ya had to ride the bus
you could add a little blush
just to paralyze your school crush

now your older and the weight upon your shoulder
makes the world a little colder
no more hidin in the old days
be strong
don’t give up hope
it will get hard
cause life’s like a jump rope

…up down, up down, up down, up down….yeah….because it will get hard, remember life’s like a jump rope!

there’ll be a bump there will be a bruise
there’ll be alarms and there will be a snooze
there’ll be a path that you will get to choose
there’ll be a win and there will be a lose

you have to hold your head up high and
watch all the negative go by
don’t you ever be ashamed to cry
YOU                GO                  AHEAD…
cuz life’s like a jump rope!

I want to tell you that everything will be okay
That everything will eventually turn itself to gold
Keep pushin through it all
Don’t follow, lead the way
Don’t lose yourself or your hope

Remember life’s like a jump rope!

I’m giving some big huge props to the band Blue October today for the incredible lyrics of Jump Rope.  Amazing to see people who some would consider outside the “Christian” world, write and sing such beautiful and inspiring lyrics.  It makes you realize, even if just a little, that everything is spiritual and God has connected all of in a way we may not ever fully understand until His kingdom is fully restored.  Until then I’ll continue to support people like Blue October and realize there are myriad of ways to find God and see all he has created.

sub-ur-ban-ar-y

[suh-bur-buh n-er-ee]

-adjective

1.    a person who is sent on a mission to the suburbs of a city or town.

If you take the Dictionary.com definition for suburb and missionary and combine them to form the new word “suburbanary” you get the following definition in it’s simplest form;  a person who is sent on a mission to the suburbs of a city or town.  But what we tend to find in most American churches are foreign missionaries, because churches tend to see more need in foreign countries than they do right in their own back yard.  However, this leaves me wondering why churches in many “foreign” countries seem to be so alive and on fire, when our own churches seem so dead, stagnant, and irrelevant.  Is it just because of the hunger these people have for God or does it have something to do with the missionaries we send?

Do you feel if the church would embrace my new definition of the word “suburbanary” and start focusing on the people and relationships in the neighborhoods where their members live, instead of creating more “programs”, that the identity of the church could change and people who have been so disenchanted with the church would once again regain an understanding of its importance? 

I read an article last week by someone who was predicting the coming evangelical collapse.  In fact the first sentence boldly predicted a major collapse of evangelical Christianity within the next 10 years.  I’m not really sure I fully agree with this prediction or if I even care about an “evangelical” collapse, but I will agree the church in America is probably headed for some tough times.  You don’t have to look very hard to see that our country is struggling economically, so why would it be so difficult to imagine or predict that our churches would not follow the same path.  Besides, evangelical is such a turn off term to me and so many people I know, I’d be happy if that label died and could be reborn in a new more positive light.  Where I do have a problem with this article and prediction is in its negative, cynical, and pessimistic tone.  Why do people who criticize the church always have to be so negative?  It’s easy to point out all the things that are wrong with the church and maybe I’m like this sometimes too, but I have to think that if we’d start being a little more positive about what God can do, we’d have a little more hope in His ability to change our current situation.

I guess if you are in a church that is struggling with the conflict between past and future, you might tend to be on the side of a coming collapse.  But if you are part of a church that is moving forward into the future and you are involved and embracing ministry in new and refreshing ways, then you’d agree with me that there is hope and excitement for the future growth and revitalization of the church.  I’m very pleased and happy with my current church setting and I’m excited about the ministry opportunities we will have this year.  I’m excited that we have no building payment, no major overhead expenses, and that 80% of all our tithes will be going back into local and foreign ministries.  I’m happy to call myself a “suburbanary” and I’m excited about building real and lasting relationships with my neighbors, because in spite of what some may think, people in the suburbs need Jesus too.  You can simply walk across the street in your neighborhood and find hurting and lonely people.  It doesn’t require long trips to a foreign country to find poverty and those who are in need of emotional healing.

Thank God there are people who are anxious to see the church change and to start fulfilling the two greatest commandments of loving God and neighbors.  I’m ready for churches to dare to dream big dreams, to envision a bright and exciting future, and embrace the people who are hurting right across the street.  There is hope and excitement for the church and its future and we should all start thinking of a way to get involved.

It’s an amazing and revealing feeling when the switch finally gets flipped and you realize why you’ve struggled to feel, to write, and to even sense a love for others.  I’ve had trouble thinking of what I can write about and how to even put into words the way I’ve been feeling.  A little empty would probably describe it the best, but I’ve not had any reason to feel that way.  Life is good and God is blessing me more right now than he has at any other time in my life.  But something has certainly been missing and I’ve been praying and asking God to just speak to me. 

Yesterday, while listening to an interview pod-cast with Jamie Tworkowski, founder of TWLOHA (To Write Love On Her Arms) I believe God pointed out what my problem is.  I’M COMFORTABLE!  I could sense it in Jamie’s voice and in his sincere answers.  He’s such a genuine and honest guy and he continually finds himself surrounded by hurting, depressed, and broken people.  His organization is doing an unbelievably good job at raising awareness and pointing out how so many people deal with addictions, depression, and severe disorders that leave them feeling lost and alone.

I’m feeling comfortable because when I look around at the people in my life I don’t see very many who are oppressed.  For the most part, the people in my circle are doing pretty well.  Sure there are problems and issues that we’ve dealt with, but compared to the man living on the street in Dallas, I’d say we’re all doing pretty well.

I’m finally to a point where I have to stop and ask “am I getting my hands dirty?”  What am I doing that is really helping people who are oppressed escape from their oppression and find the life that God wants us to all freely live?  What am I doing that puts myself right in the middle of the battlefield where I might be able to help someone?

I think part of the reason I feel so comfortable is from a lack of challenge in my life.  Most of that is my fault, because I’ve failed to read, seek out, and listen for those opportunities.  I’ve not been pushing myself to find the areas that need the most help and I find myself settling for the status quo.

Understand, I’m not being unreasonably hard on myself.  I am doing some really good things and helping children who are impoverished, but I do feel I have to stop and ask, how much I’m really making a difference.  It’s easy to send the money, the shoes, or the food, but when we’re required to really get our hands dirty, it’s often a different story.

Where I go from here and what my next step should be is the hard question, but as I prayed this morning I felt an overwhelming sense that God was saying “meet your neighbors, ask them what you can pray about for them, and maybe you’ll find oppression you didn’t know was there!”  Maybe if I will listen, trust in God, and do what I feel he’s asking me to do, my life won’t feel so complacent.