Reggie Review

Reggie Dabbs's life changed when in the second grade he realized his parents were not his real parents, and that his birth was the result of a twenty-dollar deal his sixteen year old unwed mother made to secure the food she needed for her three other children. Dabbs went through his pre-teen and adolescent years wrestling with this news while growing up in a home where despite his background, he was in the care of two people that would provide for him as they would to their own flesh and blood, and where Reggie would learn that value of being unconditionally loved. Now, Dabbs spreads this unconditional love to each venue he visits to speak, trying, to the best of his abilities, to speak into the hearts of every single person that can hear his voice. 

Truth be told, I had never heard of Reggie Dabbs before finding his book on BookSneeze.com. After reading the description and learning more about him, I was interested in learning about this man who has spoken world wide in front of thousands and tens of thousands, spreading a message of hope, inspiration and most of all, love. Spread throughout the pages of his book are inspirational and insightful stories during his life that impacted him and altered his perspective on where he was going to take his life. Many of his stories are successfully related to stories found the Bible, provided with perfect clarity a message of redemption and of hope. It is hard to not to feed off this man's charisma and be engaged in the stories he tells and the points that he drives home. 

If there is anything that I did not like about the book, it is the amount of "filled in" story Dabbs provides for several of the stories he tells from the Bible. They are just filled with some fluff that I did not particularly care for, and for people who may read this without knowing the stories, some facts could get a little mixed up. The points made are the same, but the finer details provided somewhat dilute what we may or may not know. While he added to stories when retelling them, some with humorous twists, he by no means declares the account he is retelling to be factual or definitive. It is just that he sometimes went into a lot of details that we otherwise do not have. A pretty minor point, and by far the worst "offense" of this inspirational book. 

This is an excellent book for all teenagers and for adults that may not realize they possess the potential to break out of the chains of their past. On a personal note, it did not bring any more clarity to my walk with God than I already know, but what I do know is that I would have benefited greatly from this man's wisdom and message of love during my teen years, when the woes of every day drama were heavy on my mind while I took for granted the kind of home I grew up in. 

Every Single Man's Battle Review

I read this book month's before I was getting married so the read was meant for the sole purpose of obtaing an new book to review. I thought that this was a pretty good read. The only issue I had was that it was the work book. I didn't have the other book to use, so I was a bit lost. I liked the fact that this was aimed at single guys. Not many books out there are aimed to help single guys stay pure. Its a hard thing for any guy, but I believe its especially hard for single guys. Married guys are able to release sexual pressure with their wives, but a single guys has no way of releasing with out compremizing his purity. I thought that this  book was great bcause it shows the reader that he is not alone in his struggle and that he can get through it and all from a biblical perspective.

If We are the Body....

Hey Folks! This is the first commentary like post of the summer! I'm pretty stoked! Are you? I hope so! 

Ok lets get started. 

So something that's been on my mind is the Body of Christ. What does that actually mean?

What is it?

Is it a physical body?

What makes up the actual body?

Paul tells us in 1 Corinthians 12 that WE in fact are the body. We're all different but together we are one. Its quite insane to think about really. Just the thought that I am a part of the same body as someone in London, England just tickles me pink! (I have this strange facination with England...not quite sure why but I'm convinced that I am actually British...LONG LIVE THE QUEEN!)  One way that is so very symobolic of Christ's people being one body is when we take Communion. Think about it. Jesus said the bread was his body and the cup was his blood. When we partake in communion together we are in a sense, joining his body. So when the people of Christ all do something that joins to something, they join together becoming...you guessed it one body. Pretty cool right?

Now, heres the kicker. Just because we're all one body doesn't mean that we all have to be the same. Take your own body for example. There is not one thing on your body that looks or acts the same as another part. Yet your body still FUNCTIONS perfectly (depending on how you treat it of course...put down that fatty snack...thats right. Go gfet a glass of water...).  Its the same way with the body of Christ. Paul in 1 Corinthians 12 puts it perfectly:

[12] For just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ. [13] For in one Spirit we were all baptized into one body—Jews or Greeks, slaves or free—and all were made to drink of one Spirit.

(1 Corinthians 12:12-13 ESV)

So with that in mind, knowing that we are all one body, and knowing that we are all different, why do we try and act like we're not a part of the same body? Why do we pretend that because someone someone is a part of a different sect of our lifestyle called Christianity, that they are somehow wrong in that particular sect and therefore are actually not a Christian.  Or they are the wrong  kind of Christian.  Protestants hate the rigid Catholics, and Pentecostals are really big on tounges, the Catholics think they're both idiots, and everybody thinks the Emergents are completely off. We take what makes us different, and reject those whose differences don't line up with ours (does that make sense?)

When we do this we break a part the body, and ultimaly the Church, because the church is not a building, the Church is not four walls. It is not a place we GO to. The Church are the people who are gathered together which is reason the building exists. So if I'm an Alliance Kid (We're Protestant with a touch of Nondenominational) and I meet a fellow who's Eastern Orthodox, 

Or Lutheran

Or Presbyterian

Or Pentecostal

Or Baptist, Weslyan, Catholic, or even a self proclaimed Emergent,

We should be able to sit down with one another and recognize that we belong to the same body.

In his book Becoming the Answer to our Prayers: Prayer for Ordinary Radicals, Shane Claiborne says this

Many Christians are concerned about the breakdown of nuclear families (and rightly so), but we often just accept the breakdown of God’s family. We live like teenagers in a high school cafeteria-some of us eating at one table (our table), while others at another table (quite often, the soup kitchen’s table). What we miss is the gift of God’s new economy.  And with it, our brothers and sisters on “the other side.” (Claiborne 39)

Claiborne reminds us that in our family structure, excluding others is not an option.  We cannot keep others from eating with us of because their doctrine is different from ours; it goes against the very base of our creation. We were not created to exclude; we were created to include.

When we allow ourselves to separate and break apart the body, the result is often catastrophic. We spend all of our time fighting with each other and we forget what we are actually called to do on this earth as the body, and that is to:

Go into the world

Making disciples of ALL NATIONS(ooo hurts doesn't it)

Baptize them in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit (Matthew 28:18-19)

...Are we doing that? Seriously when you look at the Church today is that what is truly being done on a daily basis? Or are we too busy calling each other heretics and watching Fox News (My amazing soon to be wife just pointed out that I am doing the exact same thing in this blog post...I don't deny it one bit, I am takling to myself too...remember this blog is just me getting out my thoughts...) 

In the song If We are the Body by the band Casting Crowns, the chorus goes like this;

But if we are the Body
Why aren't His arms reaching
Why aren't His hands healing
Why aren't His words teaching
And if we are the Body
Why aren't His feet going
Why is His love not showing them there is a way 

Church, this is what we need to ask ourselves. Why are we not being the physical body that is replacing Jesus? We need to step up, put our differences aside and join together as the church,

as the body

as the bloodline of Christ

and go to all the nations proclaiming the Gospel, healing the sick and show the world, that the body of Christ is not millions of different people, with millions of different styles and thoughts, but we are a people that are here to finish the work that Christ started and to bring as many people to the kingdom as brothers and sisters as we can. 

"Churched" Book Review

          Churched follows the spiritual journey (or lack there of) of Matthew Turner. Matthew’s family goes from being United Methodists into the world of the Fundamentalist Baptists. Turner depicts life as a church boy. Stuck in Sunday School and Other services with a Pastor who preached a colorful view of Hell, Fire, and Brimstone. As turner goes through life his head is filled with things to think as a Christian. He grows up thinking about what it means to be a Christian and is ready to go toe to toe with anyone who thinks differently. As he grows turner begins to ask more and more questions, and realizes eventually that Christianity is not a head game. There is no perfect formula to being a follower of Jesus.

          I found this book to be excellent. Growing up a church boy it was easy to relate with. I myself had to do some growing and questioning and I’m still doing the same. Through out the whole book, I was hoping that Matthew eventually made it out of IBBC alive. What I found most comforting is this. God, no matter what, shows his glory. No mater how much people try and twist and squish and falsify who he is, God lets his children know he loves them and in a truthful way. In Matthew’s case it took God taking him out of a situation that not only screwed him up, but  had he stayed would have eventually led to him screwing up the lives of many others.

The Jesus Inquest Review

     

The Case For and Against the Resurrection of the Christ An interesting take on the debate among different sides of the resurrection faction. Litigated by two opposing players, X and Y, author Charles Foster seems to nail down some of the most difficult issues that seem to present themselves on both sides of the aisle. This book is highly detailed with many sources being used in an extensive list of end notes and bibliography. Foster really did his homework when composing this masterpiece. Full of information, sometimes diving very deep into theology and thought, The Jesus Inquest is reference tool for someone looking to investigate apologetics in regards to the resurrection of Jesus Christ. Not a weekend read, because of the heady material, but worth a read for those who have been interested in Lee Strobel's "The Case For..." series. Booksneeze gave me the book for review in exchange for my unbiased review.

UPDATE!

Hello all!

Well its been a while...ok fine its been for like, ever. Well I'm back, alive and KICKIN! Update on Ty's life. School year started, and I was determined to do a whole lot of things which really ended up to be very few things. I started officially interning at church which has has changed a couple of times but its all good. I got engaged to a BEAUTIFUL girl that I can't stop talking about (I won't so don't ask me too). Her name is Mariah, and she said she'd marry me, and we're getting married on July 23, 2011. I'm pumped. School and I haven't been friends really, but when the second semester started, we got mad tight. My internship at church has finally taken flight and its awesome. I love love love it. I'm switching my major...again. I'm doing Interdisaplinary Studies with a concentration in Pastoral Ministry, and Intercultural Studies. I've also rediscovered my passion for reading so I've joined a couple Blogging for Books websites and I'll occasionally throw up a review or two, but for the most part, I'll just try and chew through books that I got for Christmas or picked up here or there. Ok thats all for now. Let me organize my thoughts and I'll be back soon!

Trust Exrecise

So I'm taking a break from my bible posts for a bit to jot down some thoughts about what God's trying so desperately to get through my brain (those of you who know me know that depending on what kind of mood in just how difficult that can be.)

2010 so far (so far HA! We only have a 4 months left in the year) has been a complete transformation for me. I've learned a ton! I've learned what it really means to be not just a man, but a Godly man. The kind of man that loves God first, others second and himself third. I've learned that to be a Christian you can't just go on what others tell you, no matter how legit it may be. To be a Christian you have to seek out Jesus for yourself, because its not all academic. You can know, that you know, that you know, everything the bible says, all the stories and verses and people, but with out a true relationship, you aren't reaping the full benefits of being a follower of Christ. I've learned that, and a ton of other things that I can't think of at the moment and its taken all of that to realize that God is no where near done with me yet.

This summer I feel that God's been teaching me a lot about trust. I've always trusted him, but in a tentative way. Something about giving somebody with so much power over me that kind of trust just scares the crap out of me. What person who loves driving so much sits in the passenger seat quietly? I don't necessarily shout things as a passenger, but I think it all! I'm a backseat thinker. So giving God the keys and sitting down and shutting up isn't the easiest thing for me.

God started early this summer. I enjoyed my first year of college a little too much...I neglect the school factor of...well...school and landed myself into a bad spot. My GPA was low enough that Nyack would have been perfectly justified in saying "thanks but no thanks, try RCC". I was freaking out. Here I was finally in a place where I could grow.  I had friends that had become more than friends, family in fact. I had found a girl that I loved and that loved me in ways that I had never knew existed, and it was all about to be ripped away because I stupidly decided to ignore all things academic. Normally in these situations I would talk to Mariah or Art, because the two of them know me better than anyone and I can talk to them and bounce thoughts and ideas off of them and they can tell me what they're thinking and its awesome. But they were gone for the summer, so I was kind of on my own in a sense. It was really eating at me. I started thinking. Now its a great thing...the human mind, but for some reason mine always goes on overdrive so I tend to think the worst case scenario first...I often say that its a bad thing when I start to think...I'm an act then think kind of guy. I went down to the river to try and process it all, and for the first time I brought my iPod. I started playing worship music just to get some form of piece and on the shuffle came Delirious?'s My Glorious. The chorus is "God is bigger than the air I breathe, the world we'll leave. God will save the day and all will say 'My glorious'" I immediately got this overwhelming sense of peace. It was as if God was saying "Dude I've got your back in everything. If you end up at Nyack its because I want you there, and if you end up at RCC its because I want you there. I'm not going to put you in a situation or give you something you can't handle. Just trust me dude, I got this." I felt like I didn't need to worry about anything because I wasn't the one who controlled anything. The end of the story is that I ended up on Academic Probation. God had my back.

Trust is a tough things for humans. In my mind at least. We come into the world as babies and trust everybody because we don't really have another choice. We're born trusting, and somewhere between toddlerism and adulthood we see what the world really is, and our trust gene gets warped and twisted and demented and we rarely trust anything. We lose trust in our families, our friends, our church, our government, our finances, ourselves. Now often this is brought on by what we see and hear. We'll hear a story from a friend about a promise that was made by their parent, and they didn't follow through for the hundredth time. We'll see friendships fail because of betrayal. We see humans treating each other like crap. All these things are burned in our minds, in our souls, and they teach us to keep our guards up. To protect ourselves because nothing can be trusted. After all of that who would trust God? I mean we can't even physically see him, and that just sets up red flags all over. We pray to him and ask him for things we want and He doesn't come through! How's that make Him any different from the world we live in? I want you to stop and reread the last two sentences. We ask him for the things WE want. Thats another thing this world has taught us. Look out for YOURSELF. Worry about YOURSELF. Protect YOURSELF. Look out for your "star playa" as the comedian Katt Williams puts it. We spend all of this time only trusting ourselves because nobody knows us better than we do, it becomes a habit one that is forged over a life time, and trusting God just makes no sense what so ever. But we forget, that its not about what we want. Its what He wants. When God's in the driver seat, asking him over and over and over again for things we want makes us backseat drivers...nobody likes a backseat driver. I personally lash out irrationally occasionally at backseat drivers.  God doesn't need some one to tell him where to go. We have to just sit back and go along for the ride, and thats not easy to do.

I got my next lesson in trust later on this summer. I've been worrying a lot about the future. In the department of where, when and how marriage comes into he picture. Like I said earlier, I'm an act first think later kind of person, and I would like nothing more that to marry the cheese to my macaroni right now. But I started thinking, and at one point every thought imaginable was clouding my brain until I could think of nothing else. God again stepped in my path and said..."Dude, trust me. I'm here for that reason. I'm here because believe it or not, I know whats going on. Remember that...I got this" I realized that I had been thinking all the time and discussing things with the right people but leaving out one important individual...the one who knew what was going on better than anyone.

Thats another thing I think we do. We talk to everyone about everything, Yet we forget to talk to the One who knows better than ANYBODY about whats going to happen. I know it sounds crazy, but I think that often when we do talk to God about our things, we do so as a formality rather than because we trust him. We need to drop the formality. The Cookie Cutter Christian way of doing things is that when we don't know about something we "Dear Jesus", pull out our bibles and read a verse, because its all we know. I'm not saying these are the wrong things to do, but what I am saying is that its pointless to do if your going to just go back and start worrying all over again. When you run to jump off of a mountain into a net, you can't keep stopping before you hit the edge because your not fully sure....you won't have enough speed to get far enough out to hit the net. When you talk to God about your junk, let it go and trust that he's got it.

My most recent lesson is going on right now. God is teaching me to trust him in ministry. I think because God gave me such an overactive imagination I tend to get all kinds of ideas, and I think that they make perfect sense and I often can't figure out why people don't see the same thing. I sometimes forget that I'm not the one running the show. I frequently need to be reminded to bring it to Him, and actually LEAVE it there. I want to do so many things, and they all feel right. I feel really good about them. But I have to remember not to dwell on them, because if they aren't from God then they aren't meant to be. I have to be ok with that, because ultimately what he wants is so much better than anything my imagination can cook up. Who knows? Maybe my ideas are really God's ideas. I just have to remember to trust that he's got everything under control.

Proverbs 3:5-6 says:

[5] Trust in the LORD with all your heart,
and do not lean on your own understanding. [6] In all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make straight your paths. (Proverbs 3:5-6 ESV)

We have to trust God with all of us. We can't just know it in our minds and in our hearts not trust him. Trust is something that many of us (myself included) need to retrain ourselves to do. We need to have the ability to trust people again. I'm not saying that we need to trust everyone automatically. But we can't not trust people first thing. Because if everybody did that, well the world would be worse than it is. Trust God first and foremost. He really knows what he's doing. Think about it...what's God's trust exercise for you? What's your trust fall?