Waking The Dead Could Rock Your World

There are books that are fun to read.  Some books have amazing, intricate plots.  Some books leave you feeling good about life.

John Eldredge’s Waking the Dead rocked my world.

This book has been sitting on my bookshelf for at least five years.  Having thoroughly enjoyed Wild At Heart, I jumped into Waking the Dead about five years ago expecting the same gung-ho he-man testosterone-laden spiritual slugfest that Wild at Heart had brought on a year prior.  At the time, that’s what I wanted… and Waking the Dead failed to deliver… then.

That was then, this is now.

The last several months have been very graying.  Not in hair-color, but in vibrancy of life and passion for ministry.  I’d really  been questioning and doubting my effectiveness in my roles in our church and in our town.  My life… in fact my very existence… had grayed into anything but the purposeful adventure that I knew it should be.

The spark began to light again as I studied Second Timothy, not because I wanted to, but because I had to for my pastor job.  The themes of purpose, rescue, battle, soldiers, and focus began to stir something inside me.  That’s where God had lead my heart to when I picked up that dusty copy of Waking the Dead.  God used His Word to prime my heart for what He wanted to say to me through Waking the Dead.

I’m not going to give details or write an in-depth review, but I will say that book has caused me think about life, ministry, and the basics of why God did what he did for me in a way that no other book has.  This book is not gender-specific like Wild at Heart was… the Scriptural truths Eldredge presents speak to all of us.  As a result, I’ve seriously questioned some of the “fundamentals” I’ve been taught and that I’ve preached to my congregation… in a very good way.

You may be ready for it, you may not.  If you are, Waking the Dead could rock your world in an epic way.

Simple Pleasures

Being the net-cruising, blog-writing, website-building, geek that I am, I find that the moments in life that I enjoy the most are the simple pleasures that have nothing to do with high tech gadgets or anything I do while I’m sitting at my computer.

Don’t get me wrong, I love my computer.  Built her myself (yes, it’s a “she”) part by hand-picked part.  Although my computer is an awesome tool, the substance of life is found in the simple pleasures of real life.  Here are some of the simple pleasures that grabbed my attention today:

0.  Losing my cell phone in the console of our fancy-schmancy car. Okay, this wasn’t fun at all, but I managed somehow let my cell phone slide under the fancy-shmancy retractable cover of our car console.  Guess what… you can’t remove the center console or its cover.  No screws to even mess with.  Just wonderfully molded plastic.  It was time upgrade the phone anyway, right?

That’s how the day started.  It got better.  Way better.

1.  Playing baseball and duck-duck-goose with my boys in the school gym. It’s been windy and cold for the past several weeks, so playing outside is pretty much out of the question.  Fortunately, I have keys to the school, so Brody, Brock and I can go run ’til we’re all tired (me more than them) in the school gym.

2.  Watching my boys as I turned on the Christmas tree lights. All three gave oohs and aahhs.

3.  Cutting Wood. I took my pups and my Husky chainsaw out to restock the family heat supply.  The brisk wind, my two wolf-dogs, the whirr of the chainsaw, sawdust flying everywhere, and a full pickup load of wood will make any guy glad to be alive.

4.  “Mommy, let’s do that right now.” I got home kinda late from cutting wood expecting to be in mid-level trouble with my wife… but instead she was glowing.  It turns out she and Brody were reading a book about the birth of Jesus.  Brody started asking questions about the other books advertised on the back cover when Jodi felt prompted to ask him a few questions.

Jodi: Brody, have you ever asked Jesus into your heart?

Brody: No.  Mommy let’s do that right now.

As a Jesus-follower, I can’t ask for anything more than to see my four-and-a-half year old son want to have Jesus in his life.  Sure, there’s a lot for him to learn.  There’s tons he doesn’t understand and won’t for a while.  The amazingly simple truth is that his journey has begun.

White Water Rafting, Rock Climbing, and Lost Keys – Part 3

Finally, here’s part 3 of the Camping Adventure Trip Saga.  It’s the part you’ve all been waiting for… the story of the lost keys.

I mentioned in part 2 of the saga that we awoke on morning number 2 to the sound of my car alarm.  No one wanted to go through that again, so in my infinite wisdom, I decided to give my keys to the camp early bird, Bethany.  This way she could wake up as early as she wanted and the rest of us could sleep in.  My plan worked beautifully… sort of.

Bethany was not the only one to wake up early that next morning.  Vanessa got up early to make crepes for breakfast.  “Crepes on a camping trip?” you may be thinking.  So was I, but they were awesome.  Huge kudos to Vanessa for hitting a home run with the crepes.  It was pretty civilized fare for our outfit.

After breakfast we began to pack up camp.  As usual, the girls totally outdid the guys and had their stuff ready to go while us guys were still scratching our bellies and yawning (we were in a crepe coma).  As the guys got their stuff together, Vanessa and Sarah packed their car, said their goodbyes, and hit the road.  They had a date with a west coast road trip and were motivated to move.  After they left, the students and I packed up our SUV, tied tons of stuff to the top so we would all fit, got in the car, buckled our seat belts, then I said…

“Alright.  Behtany, hand me the keys.”

Bethany didn’t have the keys.  Neither did I or anyone else in the SUV.  As it turns out, she had given the keys to Vanessa so she could prepare breakfast.  At that moment, Vanessa was already an hour down the road on her way to Denver.  No problem… I could call her on my cell phone.

Oh wait, we were in a deep valley between two 14,000 feet tall peaks with no cell reception!  And my cell phone was dead.  No problem, I have a car charger… oh wait, a car charger only works when a car is turned on!  Arrrrgggghhhh!

Luckily, the camp host had a good old fashioned land based phone line.  I connected with Jodi in Branson and asked her to get a hold of Vanessa any way she could.  Cell phone, text message, smoke signal, carrier pigeon… whatever it took.

Not knowing if and when Vanessa would get our message, I decided to make the students hoof it to our next destination: a hot springs pool about three miles down the road.  They grabbed their swimming gear and their towels and we began our trek.  We kicked and tossed pine cones, stopped for a roadside nature break, sang songs, and spoke in silly accents on our hike down the hill. About halfway there, clouds began to roll in and rain began to sprinkle when I made the executive decision to hitchhike to the pool if we could.  How bad could it be, right?

After Zack and Stephen tried to run down several vehicles, one Isuzu Rodeo came to our rescue.  Our chauffeurs were two college-aged guys (one of them had a huge red afro – it was awesome) who gladly dropped us off at the hot springs. The students went in to swim and I was able to trade my gold teeth for use of the resort’s phone.  I quickly found out that Jodi eventually got in touch with Vanessa, who had nearly reached Denver.  Vanessa and Sarah had turned around and would reach us in a little over an hour.  Whew.  It was safe to breathe now.

The students and I had a great time at the hot springs (Mt. Princeton Hot Springs if you’re interested) playing Marco Polo, making up zany races, and just plain goofing off.  It was a great way to wind up the week.  Vanessa and Sarah did show up… what a sight for sore eyes.  Vanessa said she was driving like an “L.A. woman” to get there as quickly as she did.  As soon as they arrived, we changed into our dry clothes and got on the road.

The trip back to Branson was pretty uneventful, which was okay at that point.

We had an awesome week.  The planned adventures rocked.  The best lessons for me were learned in the midst of the unplanned… but isn’t that the way it always seems to happen?  I wouldn’t have it any other way.

Thanks for reading.   –Brad

13 Adventures In 15 Days

Today I got to thinking about how awesome life here in Branson is. The awesome part comes as I stay open to Jesus and go through doors of adventure he presents. Here the 13 adventures I’ve had over the last 15 days.

1. Hiked to a Mountain Lion’s Kitchen Table a Second Time. Yep, the dogs and I found a place with a recently gnawed bone and a big pile of fresh big cat scat right next to it. I didn’t stay there very long. As if once wasn’t enough, the second time around I took my sister, a good friend, and 2 girls I was trying to convince to be our female sponsors for our adventure camping trip along. No one was eaten.

2. Mountain Biking at Night. I didn’t blog about this one, but I did talk about it in a recent sermon (listen to it or download it here ). Downhill, no visibility, rocky road, oak brush…. nuff said.

3. Worship Under the Stars. The night before we rafted, we were invited to join a college group for some music and worship around their campfire. It was breathtaking.

4. Whitewater Rafting. Blogged about this here.

5. Camping 15 feet from a raging river. Ditto on the last post.

6. Rock Climbing. Blogged about it here.

7. Hitch Hiking. I’m working on that blog right now. That whole day was crazy.

8. Hot Springs Swimming. Warm, fun, waiting for lost keys to show up…. oh no, I’m giving away details on the upcoming blog!

9. Horseback Riding. I helped gather a pasture of cows and calves with 2 of my favorite people on the planet: my cousin Dan and my Grandad Tanky.

10. Swashbuckling. I was Pirate Bones (the comic relief) and the game guy for our pirate-themed VBS, which was this past week. Talking in a pirate voice for 3 straight days will leave your throat trashed. It was awesome. Here’s a highlight video.

11. Standing next to 2 Kodiak Bears. They were dead. I got to visit a homestead where a friend had grown up. His father was a serious big game hunter and had an incredible trophy room. 2 Kodiak bears, a polar bear, a moose, several caribou, lots of antelope, a bull elk, and lots of knickknacks from traveling the world. That room had volumes of adventure stories to tell.

12. Wild Grass Fire Fighting. I just blogged about this here.

13. Cliff Diving. Today I made my first trip to Trinchera Falls: the local swimming hole and possible greatest kept secret on the planet. The swimming was phenomenal. There is an archaeological dig just up the creek if you want to see some ancient cave drawings. Oh yeah, and I jumped off a 25 foot cliff into the water.

Coming up in the next month: a 50-mile bike ride and adding a third little boy to the mix (in that order).

So who wants to move to Branson?

But really, location doesn’t matter if you’re open to adventures the Lord puts in your path. There will always be details to take care of and bills to pay. Take advantage of open doors and let God weave some wonderful memories for you. It’s quite a ride.

10 Cool Things About Wild Grass Fires

I spent this afternoon fighting a wild grass fire in a pasture several mile northwest of Branson. This wasn’t the huge 40,000 acre blaze that’s been in the news lately (which is about 30 miles from here), but it was plenty big enough to roast all the marshmallows you could possible want. Here are 10 observations from today.

10. Park your vehicle on black grass, not brown grass. Black grass has been burned up, so flames won’t come back to where there is no fuel for the fire. If you park on not-yet-burned grass, the fire line could engulf your car. No, I didn’t learn this the hard way, but someone today almost did… twice (they’ll remain nameless… for now).

9. Bring a shovel to fight a grass fire. Yep, I forgot my shovel and was pretty much useless until I found one I could borrow. Why a shovel, you ask? You can beat small flames out if the wind is calm enough. But…

8. The shovel beat-down might spread the flame. The downward stroke of the shovel may push the flames out farther. Not a dangerous thing, but really frustrating.

7. The fire line is really hot, even when the wind is blowing it away from you. There were several times today that I had to step back because the heat was so intense. It commanded instant respect.

6. Wild grass fires in small communities are like funerals: you’d rather not have to be there, but everyone shows up and it becomes a fun social time. Only a handful (3 if I’m correct) of people there today owned land or cattle that were threatened by the fire. Most of the people – and there were a bunch – were just being good neighbors. That’s one of the special strengths of our community.

5. Water sprayer backpacks work way better than shovels. When I finally connected with the Branson Volunteer Fire Department, I was given a firefighting backpack, which holds 7 or 8 gallons of water and has a really cool sprayer. That beats down flames way better than a shovel.

4. Brush fire trucks work way better than water sprayer backpacks. A brush fire truck is a F350-sized rig with a 400 gallon water tank and several big hoses on the back, sprayers on the front, and heat shields underneath. That rig rocks.

3. The fire was so big, I didn’t know that my family was also there. This fire burned about 50 to 80 acres. As it turned out, my sister, my cousin, and several friends were on one end of the fire that I didn’t get to. I didn’t know they were there at all until I was chatting with the land owner when the fire was contained and he mentioned them. We were so involved in our own jobs that we were not even aware of each other’s presence. We were fighting the same battle, but on different fronts. There are tons of spiritual applications with this one. Hmmmmm…

2. The best thing to do when the wind picks up is sit back and enjoy the show. You can deal with wind or fire, but not both. God made nature an incredible thing. At one point I was about 30 yards away from a small twister that was right on the fire line. Heat from the flames seemed to intensify the twister: hot air rose in the middle of the twister, which drew more cold air (which was fuel) into the fire. That twister lasted at least 10 minutes, and all I could do was do stand on some black grass and watch. Trying to spray it down (even with a big rig) would have been futile and dangerous. It was awesome.

1. Pray for rain. There hasn’t been a decent rain around here for weeks. The grass that is there is extremely dry. Right now I’m preaching through Psalm 107, which is all about God rescuing people. Verse 35 reads “He turns a desert into a pool of water, dry land into springs of water.” We need God to rescue our land in a very physical and real way. Please pray for rain for our area.

White Water Rafting, Rock Climbing, and Lost Keys – Part 2

Day #3: The Waterfall and Rock Climbing

On the morning of Day 3, I woke up to one of the most wonderful sounds of nature – my car alarm. Apparently the camp earlybird (Bethany) tried to get out the cooler of food we had locked in the car the night before. That set of the car alarm, which sent me into a scramble to find the keys and hope that the remote would turn the alarm off without me having to get out of my tent. It did. Lucky me.

The Waterfall

By the time the guys and I finally got up, Abby, Bethany, and Mariah had gone on a hike to scout out the waterfall we could see from our campsite. The boys and Vanessa and Sarah somehow stumbled out of bed and had breakfast while out fearless outdoorswomen were busy exploring the great outdoors.

The explorers returned and we all went on a hike to the waterfall. All of us, that is, except Vanessa, who decided to stay at camp and read and try to nap on a tree that hung over the “creek.” The waterfallers hiked up to the waterfall in short order to find that the waterfall was much larger than it looked from our campsite. Everyone but me took off their shoes and climbed onto a cool rock while I took some a few awesome pictures and video. After that, Zach and myself climbed up to the base of the waterfall, took off our shirts, and took an icy shower. We returned from our hike with just enough time to have lunch and head to Granite, CO for some rock climbing.

Video of the Amazing Waterfall

There’s Nobody Here…

As we began our drive to the rock climbing outfitter, I quickly realized that I didn’t have directions. Not a problem… I just called the place and was told to look for a place a few miles outside of Buena Vista on the left side of the road with a sign and several buses. As I turned into the parking lot with lots of Arkansas Valley Adventure busses, we all began to feel like we were in the middle of an old western. No one was there. There were several buildings, a few cabins with dogs tied up on the porch (I’m not kidding), lots of adventure gear (rafts, climbing stuff, mountain bikes) but no people. I called the outfitter again and told them that no one was there. After a few more minutes in the adventure ghost town, a car drove up and told us we were at the gear storage location… the main offices were another quarter mile up the road.

Time to Climb

Once we were at the right place, we got fitted with rock climbing gear. We all got helmets (which were way cool), harnesses (which looked very funny), and rock climbing shoes (which fit way tighter than normal shoes). Our climbing guides Cheyenne (a guy) and Jamie (a girl – you gotta love gender neutral names) taught us the finer points of climbing and belaying and let us have some fun on a 40 foot high slab of granite with 3 different climbing routes. Several of us even took up our guides offer to let us “free fall”… the guides gave us about 10 feet of slack in our lines as we jumped backwards away from the rock. That was a rush. (those crazy jumps are in the second video below).

There are so many amazing spiritual tie-ins with rock climbing, and most of them revolve around trust. Solo rock climbing is pretty dumb in that it’s one of the most dangerous activities I can imagine (swimming with hungry sharks has to take the cake), but climbing with a partner, proper gear, and using basic safety techniques makes rock climbing safer than crossing the street in Branson. Even with the boatloads of safety, there is an element of fear involved, and facing that fear is a bigger challenge for most new climbers than the physical challenge. As we follow Jesus, the most amazing parts of the journey involve risk, overcoming fear, and trusting Jesus. I could go on and on about how amazing climbing is, but tons of books have already been written about it. So here are a couple of video clips of our afternoon.

Rock Climbing Highlights – Part 1 (about 10 minutes long)

Rock Climbing Highlights – Part 2 (about 4 minutes long)

Don’t worry, the story about the lost keys is coming in Part 3 of this post in a few days.

Whitewater Rafting, Rock Climbing, and Lost Keys – Part 1

The 2008 Summer Adventure Camping Trip is in the history books.

Yes, you read the title right, there were lost keys involved in our mega-adventure trip. But for those details, you’ll just have to wait until the end of this write-up! Nothing like keeping your audience waiting.

Night #1: The Arrival

With about an hour of sunlight left, we arrived at the Noah’s Ark Rafting base camp in Buena Vista, Colorado (actually, Noah’s Ark base camp is located in the tiny town of Nathrop). We hustled to get tents up and some food in our bellies. Then I began to wonder about building a fire and I realized that I forgot newspaper! How do you start a fire without newspaper?!? How would we survive? Before I finished even thinking those thoughts and trying to figure out which dumpster to pilfer for some newspaper, I looked behind and Mariah and Abby had the fire started! They used weeds and pine needles as kindling and saved the evening. They are awesome outdoorswomen.

Later that evening, we were invited to join a college Young Life group from Phoenix for some fireside worship. It was awesome for our teens to see some college kids enjoying God and sharing their lives with one another.

Day # 2: Whitewater Rafting

I awoke to find everyone else already up and at ’em (a pattern that would hold true for the rest of the trip). Abby, Bethany and Mariah had the morning fire raging. After a breakfast of eggs (scrambled inside of ziploc baggies – a trick I learned from my nephew), we packed up camp and headed up to get on our penguin suits, um I mean rafting gear.

We all had wetsuits on, so there was no room for anyone to feel silly by themselves… we all looked ridiculous. (Oh yeah, I forgot my digital camera for the trip… there are relatively few pictures… tons of video, but only a few pictures. Mariah, Sarah, and Vanessa had cameras, so hopefully they email me pictures soon!)

The Arkansas River was awesome! Water levels were at record highs. In fact, several other sections of the river had been closed by the State of Colorado because they were too dangerous. In the 10 mile section we rafted, the water ran high, fast and cold. Zack, Stephen, Vanessa and Sarah were in one raft and Abby, Bethany, Mariah, and myself were in another raft. The people seated in the front of each raft got soaked, and the people sitting in the back got seriously bumped around. I was so grateful we had our penguin wetsuits.

These pictures were taken in the “Zoom Flume”, one of the best rapids on the trip. “The Seven Steps” was another favorite rapid.

At one calm point in the trip, we were told we could go swimming if we wanted. For some insane reason known only to God himself, Mariah, Bethany, Zack, Stephen, and I all decided to willingly jump into the 42-degree water (yes, that’s only 10 degrees above freezing). It was amazing to see how quickly everyone got back into their rafts.

The only casualty of the rafting trip was Stephen’s hat. We all took a moment of silence to commemorate his loss.

After the rafting, we somehow squeezed out of our penguin suits and headed up to the Chalk Creek Campground in the San Isabel National Forest, our basecamp home for the next two days. This campground was right on Chalk Creek (which was the biggest “creek” I’ve ever seen) was nestled right between Mt. Princeton (go Tigers!) and Mt. Antero, two 14,000 foot mountains. The roar of the creek was wonderful music to fall asleep to (much better than the train whistles in Branson).

Day 3# will be continued in part 2 of this post.

Prepping for Adventure

Four days from now, I will be going on a rafting and rock climbing adventure with 4 teenagers and two other sponsors. Call me crazy.

There are lots of details to check off the list between now and then. Borrowing camping and cooking gear, printing out tons of permission slips, and of course… making sure we have marshmallow and bug spray. I’ve got 4 Bible studies/devotionals/discussions to plan for our campers. I need to prepare to preach this Sunday and after we get back next Sunday. Oh yeah, and we have some great friends with two beautiful little girls coming to visit us before we leave too. It is definitely game time.

Proverbs 13:4 says “The slacker craves, yet has nothing, but the diligent is fully satisfied.” Now is the time to be diligent.

It may sound zany and crazy, but I wouldn’t have it any other way. Game time is where its at. This is where the rubber meets the road. If I don’t surrender it all to God and completely engage with the tasks at hand, none of it will happen. It has to be a God thing, because if its left up to me, it ainta gonna work.

Isn’t it funny how pressure works. Pressure can force us down one of two paths. As a human, pressure can mold us into the Git-R-Done, it all rests on my shoulders, I’d better buck up mentality that keeps us awake at night, sipping on coffee as we get progressively cranky with the people we love (not that I ever respond that way…). That’s path number 1. Personally, I like path number 2. As a believer, we have the opportunity to surrender to the person of Jesus and let him work and move through us. The things that need to get done will get done. We must continue to be diligent, but we recognize and acknowledge that it’s Jesus gittin’ R done.

I just hope I don’t spend too much time on path number 1 before I’m reminded that I need to be on path number 2.

Creek Beds, Dirt Slides, and Four Little Boys

This is the last week of school.

It’s a busy week.  Our last youth group of the school year is tonight… and you have to finish strong.  I’m putting together the senior slideshow for graduation… and its gonna look extra sharp.  There are school board meetings and community functions happening this week that I need to be a part of.  All of that’s fine, but it is not the most important thing right now.

We have some very special friends visiting right now, and we took the morning and went to play in the creek near my grandparents’ home.  This is the creek that I spent countless summer days in with my sisters and cousins.  Today was the day to introduce my boys and our buddies to the creek.

The creek cuts through a hill made mostly of shale.  As the creek winds through the shale, the  water warms up and is just the right temperature for playing in.  There aren’t any deep spots, so it’s pretty safe.  The shale hillside make for a great climbing up and sliding down.

Our two little buddies from Denver had a blast once they figured out it was okay (even encouraged by Uncle Brad) to get muddy and messy.  We all built a dam, which made a perfect sitting pool for Brock.  We had a wonderful picnic of PB&J sandwiches, baby carrots and apple slices.  It was perfect.

There will always be things to get done.  There will always be battles to fight, jobs to do, sermons to write, lessons to plan….  There won’t always be 4 little boys and memories to be made at the creek.  The day had to be seized, and it was.

Hopefully as we look back at this week as a family years from now, this day is what we’ll remember.

What do you want to remember about your day today?  Go out and make that memory.

Breathtaking Fear

I really love the adventure of living here.

Today I found the most breathtaking place in our area. It took about an hour to hike up the side of a mesa, but I found it. A wide meadow. A quiet pond. Tall pines. Huge cedars. Gigantic boulders. Towering cliffs. Mountain lion dining area. All in about an area the size of a football field.

Yeah, it had to be home to at least one mountain lion. I had my 2 dogs with me, as always. They chased a few animals that were just out of my sight. One was large enough to make that scary “there’s-something-big-crashing-through-the-brush” sound.

Shortly after that I found where a few boulders created a small overhang. My dogs were hesitant to go in (I should have taken that as a warning). I peeked in and saw a fairly fresh leg bone of something and some mountain lion scat (I saw tons of bear scat on the way up there, and this was totally different). The hair stood stiff on the back of my neck.

Being in the midst of God’s beautiful, frightening, adventurous creation was almost as cool as when when my boys both tackle me at the same time.

That’s the great stuff of life. That’s the stuff that lets you know you’re really alive.