Author Archives: Justin

About Justin

I believe that in the end love will win out.

On Community

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I think I’ve realized that I thrive being in community…in work, play, and life in general. When I don’t spend time processing with other people, getting feedback, sharing ideas and frustrations, and being around others I start to misfire. I just feel funky and out of sorts.

Even going days with a lot on my mind, a lot to do, and future pressures in my head without a context to process them makes me feel like I’m taking crazy pills.

I don’t know what it is about today, but today is one of those days where I just feel off. I feel on edge, angry, and selfish…I don’t know if it’s mounting pressure from something going on inside or something I ate, but I hope that I can shake this off without causing any more damage.

Is God a Helpless Parent?

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Maisie has been really sick the past few days, and thankfully she’s feeling better now. Two nights ago we had one of the most difficult nights that we’ve had as parents. She had a high fever, headache, and was throwing up…all symptoms that parents don’t like for their little ones to have. We called our doctor and began giving her what he said to give her. It just wasn’t helping instantly like I wanted it to.

But as the night went on she wasn’t getting any better, and I was worrying more and more. We have heard lots of stories lately of kids getting meningitis and Maisie had a few of the symptoms. Not only did we feel a bit helpless about not knowing what to do, there is also the element of us living in a different country and dealing with the reality that we may not even know how to do what we would want to do.

This all added up to one strong feeling that I don’t like having: helplessness.

I mean, I’m supposed to be a father. A protector. And I felt helpless. I just stood there by the bed, probably with my mouth open a bit in confusion and my eyes as big as pancakes, wondering what to do.

It was in this moment that I had the inspiration to write this post.

I wondered, “God, do you ever feel confused like this when looking at your creation when it is in trouble?”

And I realized that I was making one of the most common mistakes that we as people do in the way we related with God. I was projecting my humanity…my broken humanity in this case…onto God. We often have a tendency to think of God as being like a human on one of our best days. But the reality is that God is other-than, and not human. Scripture says that God’s ways are higher than our ways…His thoughts are higher than our thoughts.

To say it another way: we, as humans created in the image of God, have many of the same attributes of God. The ability to create, to love, to forgive, to judge, to discern, to feel sorrow, etc. I heard someone once say: “What God can do infinitely, we can do finitely.” (And I would add…because of our brokenness.)

But the point is that God is not a human. And humans, no matter great we are or may become, are not God. The mystery of the good news of Jesus is that God invites us to join Him in re-creating the world despite the fact that we also carry the potential to harm this world. It is only because of the Spirit of God working in and through us, that our efforts that our good ends up lasting eternally. I know that may sound a bit depressing, or maybe even offensive to some, but I can’t imagine us being able to re-create the world according to God’s ways without God as our sole conductor. An orchestra where each musician tries to play it’s own piece isn’t a beautiful sound. Even if each musician is playing a beautiful piece. The musicians need to look to a conductor in order to stay in harmony with one another.

This post has become classically tangential…

So, what I’m wanting to say, hopeful briefly, is that God doesn’t stand by the bedside of our problems like a young father wondering what to do. God is both before our worries and after our victories. We can draw peace and confidence from Him. He is both other than and near. And invites us to learn from him so our lives can find harmony…both with Him and the world around us that he invites us to restore with Him.

Wes White on Shalom at our Leadership Summit

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Dr. Wes White is a friend and fellow church planter in Glasgow, Scotland. This is the end of his talk for the Missional Theology track at our Leadership Summit. I greatly appreciate Wes’ heart for people, his ability to articulate big truths, explanation of what means to live out shalom, and his patience for people like me who don’t understand all of the scholarly words! (His unpacking of the parallel between Isaiah 65 and Revelation 21 is alone worth watching the video)

And thanks to Jeff Shaffer for putting the video online.


Freeing Jesus

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So, I actually have a minute to sit and write on my blog.

I want to write in part because I don’t want to start on the 80+ emails in my inbox and party because I just want to prove to all 3 of you out there that I can still write on my blog.

Last week we had got the chance to go to Madrid and to a conference just outside of the city for 4 days. Along with another CA friend, we drove the 6-7 hours through the north of Spain to get there. I was happy to take the long way because in the 2.5 years we lived in France, we barely saw anything outside of Paris. And, to my delight, the drive was beautiful: mountains, mesas, castles, villages, snow, cherry trees, fields, canyons, Montserrat…Spain is a diverse place.

While in Madrid I went out with a few CA guys to a burger place (obsession) in Malasaña (a really cool neighborhood where our friends the Krulls live). That night we got into a pretty significant and lengthy conversation with two girls about Jesus, the church, and their experience growing up in a catholic environment. While Spain might be diverse geographically, the story of a control, shame, and guilt heavy religion is all too common. There is a lot more to the story, but in the end we were able to communicate that following Jesus isn’t about following a tradition or a set of laws that put you either in or out of the group going to heaven. It was an honor to being able to say to them that following Jesus is about waking up everyday, doing our best to hear God’s voice, to follow Jesus, and to live the way He would if he were alive today (aka Jesus living through us). I hope a light bulb went on for them…I hope that in some way the shame, guilt, and oppression of their past experience with Church went away and they could be freed to see Jesus for who He is…and to no longer see him as a dying man hanging on a crucifix who started a religion that made them feel bad about themselves.

I had another conversation a couple of weeks ago with a Catalan guy and after I told him what I am doing here, he immediately said, “You have a very hard job.”

He’s right. We do have a hard job, but it’s not an impossible one. There is a hunger for spirituality here and there are people that are open to Jesus when we free Him from stereotypes, painful religion, oppressive human control, and the non-relevant traditions of men. It is the Jesus who has been resurrected into life, defeating sin and shame, empowering us with wisdom, grace, and truth that I want to follow. I want to follow a man who has been freed so that I can be free. I think many others in Spain want the same thing….


God isn’t a white man?

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Insert sarcasm here: What? God’s not a white bearded guy? Thankfully, the band Gungor, turned to the pages of the Bible to see what God has to say for himself.

Thanks @mikegoldsworthy for this video


Smoking Ban in Spain

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So, it’s has actually happened. Smoking has been banned from inside of most restaurants in Spain. (Also from playgrounds in outdoor areas as well). I had heard that the ban was going to take place, but I was skeptical because the 2006 legislature didn’t really seem to be effective.

Most of the press I’ve read about the ban seem to be expressing that the ban will not be good for the bars and restaurants in Spain. Saying that they will lose customers and business. I wanted to take a second to offer some thoughts on why this ban is good for Spain and the economy here…beyond the fact that smoking kills people.
1. Smoking is an expensive habit. As a nail-biter, I take pride in that fact that my bad habit is free. However, smoking is really expensive. A pack of cigarettes in Spain is around 3-4€. So let’s say that a person smokes a 3 packs per week (which I know might be low because a lot of people smoke a pack a day). At 3€ per pack, this is 1008€ per year. Let’s say that because of the ban a person decides to quit smoking because they don’t want to stand outside or a restaurant and smoke anymore. That’s 1008€ that will go somewhere else in the economy. If 100,000 people stop smoking because of the ban, then that’s 100.8 million more into a different sector of the economy. Maybe travel, maybe, buying homes. But at least the money isn’t going up in smoke…
2. Because Spain is a socialist country, the entire economy would benefit by people being more healthy. So, the more people that quit or the less people smoke, the better.
3. Restaurants will now be more attractive to families who, before, would not go out to a smokey restaurant with kids. I know that our family will be more likely to go to a number of restaurants that we wouldn’t have gone to before because it was so smokey inside. Even today I was talking with a restaurant owner and he was so glad that the ban has started…he was thankful because it does change the dynamic of a place…not to mention that the employees of restaurants will probably be able to breath while working. And speaking from experience, I know that a family of four costs more to eat out that just two.
So, I’m thankful that there is no smoking in bars anymore…And I don’t think that this will be the downfall of the Spanish economy.


Gift of Remembering

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On Christmas Eve I went out for a walk and stopped into the cathedral in our neighborhood. I sat in the front row and looked up at the statues of Mary holding Jesus as a baby. I’ll be honest, normally I struggle with the fanfare around Mary. But in this moment I feel like I was able to imagine her as she was: young, obedient, humble, risky, and trusting. The nobility that so many people put upon her (crowns, robes, etc) was taken away and I was able to see something new. She was unmarried, engaged to a carpenter, soon to be on the run to Egypt where her ancestors we’re once enslaved…

These young girl’s arms mothered God in the flesh…in very difficult times. Her journey to Egypt and back makes our inter-continental flights with kids look like an hour massage. It’s not just she mothered Jesus as a baby, but it seems as though Joseph may have widowed her before Jesus was 30 (no mention of him in Jesus’ later life).

I’ve been thinking a lot about the character of God in the past week. To be honest, with the difficulties that we’ve had (relative to our lives of course) there have been times when I haven’t seen God as being for me the way that I once felt. I think that this is more about me and than God (imagine that…not so stunning of a conclusion).

But this season I’ve been drawn to remembering that it is God’s very nature to be for His creation. If there is anything that helps this argument it is this: God became one of us…not to teach himself anything about what it was like to be a human, but to teach us that he is willing to be a human to reach out to us. There are some things that I can get my head around, this is not one of them. If God is truly unimaginable, which I believe He is, then it is hard to fathom him choosing to become so tangible. If anything to become knowable in a new way.

So this season, my greatest gift was/is the gift of remembering (again). Remembering that God is for me(us). Remembering that God wants to know me(us). And that this creative force wants me(us) to continually know him in new ways.

ps…I wonder if to truly know is to fully trust…maybe for another post.