Happy New Year!

My last fact of 2010: I had more blog posts than David John Heffren.

But on a serious note, 2010 was a great year! Here is my quick list of my review of 2010

- I went to New York City at the beginning of the year. I went to a broadway show, saw the Empire State Building, ate New York pizza, and shook Mike Ditka's hand.

- I graduated from College in May. I was the first Landis to graduate from College!!

- I took an internship in southern Indiana. I still have 5 more months left, and I'm pumped to see God move in the Jr. high and high school students.

- I met an amazing girl named Christine

- Walked into a girl's bathroom.

- Got my passport.

- I went to Atlanta for Catalyst, a conference for church leaders. It was a blast!

Basically what I'm trying to say is that God has blessed beyond anything I could ever imagine. There will be a lot in store in 2011, and I can't wait! Next year, I'll be going to Kenya, finding a full-time ministry, and who knows what else 2011 has in store. I love you guys and have a great new year!

A year of Constipation

It takes Food seven minutes to get from your mouth to your stomach.

Too bad food doesn't travel that fast from my stomach to my colon to the toilet...for me anyways. I know a lot of people who have very regular bowel movements. I am about to announce to the blogging world something I have kept hidden from you guys for so long...I have constipation from time to time.

On a brighter note...it was just New Years in the Midwest for you central timers! Enjoy your sparkling grape juice.

Number Forty-Two

This next Fact is dedicated to my brother Jim. Since a very young age, my little brother has detested feet. If you are feeling a little daring, I dare you to try and put your feet on him.

Anyways...did you know that a pair of human feet contain 250,000 sweat glands? Me neither. So the next time you think about your feet just think, "Wow. I'm standing on a lot of sweat glands."

7 Minutes until New Years on the East coast!

Post #41

David said that he was going to beat me in blog posts for 2011...He has 43 and I only have forty. So be prepared for 3 more blogs before Midnight.

So because these next couple posts will be pretty shallow, I will drop a serious bomb shell on you guys....Donald Duck was first banned in Finland because he doesn't wear pants.

Since I'm in Idaho New Years doesn't come here for another 2 1/2 hours...so for those of you on the east coast, Happy New Years in just 30 minutes!!!

What do you get when you put an alzheimer's patient, a colonel, and gothic girl together? The World's Longest Blog Title...and Charlie's Life

Since I haven’t been blogging as much lately, I have quite a few stories I could share. I have never really seen myself as a good storyteller, but here recently I have had several people tell me that I am pretty good at telling stories. This is really encouraging for me, because I think people love to hear stories. Stories are what give me fuel to do what I do in student ministry. To really know if I’m helping make an impact in a student’s life, I want to hear a story. Stories are what drive millions of people to spend a ridiculous amount of money at a movie theater. People love to hear stories.

Right now I have so many stories I could tell you about. I could tell you about how I went to an old folks home with a couple of other college-age students and sang Christmas carols. While we were singing in the Alzheimer’s wing, one of the ladies stood up right in front of us. I honestly thought she was just going to walk out (because 100% of the guys that went were tone-deaf…myself included…I am a guy. I promise) because it was so horrible. Instead she just stared at us for a couple of minutes.

I could tell you all about my flight home from Indiana to Kansas for Christmas. I was pretty scared to fly by myself for the first time. Also, I barely made my flight in Atlanta by three minutes because my first flight from Louisville was 30 minutes delayed. When I finally got on the plane, I sat next to a retired colonel. We talked the entire flight to Kansas City. Turns out he has two grandchildren who play competitive baseball for a team that I used to play against when I was their age. I hated that team, but I didn’t tell him that. We also talked about family and my upcoming trip to Kenya. During our whole conversation I could see an affair brewing in the seats in front of us. There was a lady who was talking to some guy she just met on the plane. She was talking about how on the weekends she goes out and has fun while her husband just stays at home. You could tell the guy she was talking to really wanted something to come out of this conversation on the plane. Maybe it was how he was listening so intently or how he grabbed her and sat her right down on his lap while she was getting up to go the bathroom. I’m not sure what gave away his intentions. Maybe it was him yelling “lap dance.” I’ll never know for sure what those two were thinking or planning to do, but I’m sure her boring husband who patiently waits at home for his wife to come home wouldn’t like it.

Another story I could share with you could be about a gothic girl named Kendra. I met Kendra a long time ago in middle school. She always wore black with a dog-like collar around her neck. She was in my science class in 8th grade, and I had decided to start talking to her about Jesus. I remember one time, we were making marshmallow castles for some reason in class, and she named her castle, “Satan’s Fortress.” Kendra was something else. Slowly, I would start bringing up Jesus in conversation, and she would quickly talked about how she hated Him and that she was an atheist. I can distinctly remember one time when we were talking about God, and she lashed out on me. She said, “If you ever bring up God again, I will scratch your eyeballs out.” So I pulled an Elijah, and ran away. I don’t know where she went to high school, but I never saw her again after middle school. …until yesterday. My mom and I were at the grocery store getting stuff for our Christmas dinner, and we stopped by the coffee shack that was inside the store. I asked for a hot chocolate, and guess who is there to make my hot chocolate…Santa Claus…not really. It was Kendra. She was dressed normal. No dog collar or black eye shadow. As I am writing this, I’m ashamed to say that I didn’t ask her how she was doing. I didn’t really say anything to her besides, “Please” and “thank you.” But I didn’t bring up God, and I didn’t get my eyeballs scratched out.

I could tell you all of these stories, because people love to hear stories. The question is, “Are you living a good story?” If you don’t have any good stories to tell, get out and make one! If you have to go fly on an airplane to make a good story, go do it (but I’m not paying for your ticket)!

I love all you guys and have a great Christmas with family and friends!

No Urinals No Love

Last week I attempted to eat a blazin' wing from Buffalo Wild Wings. You see, Blazin' is the hottest sauce B Dubs has to offer. One of the campus pastors ordered 12 Blazin' wings, and he asked if I would try one. Soon the entire staff was urging me to eat one...and since I usually don't give into peer pressure, I ate one. It was one of the hottest things I had ever eaten. My eyes started to water, my lips were on fire, and my throat closed up for a second. I thought I was going to die, but I survived the Blazin' wing. A couple minutes later, I realized I had to go the bathroom, so I got up from the table and made my way to the men's restroom. As soon as I opened the door to the bathroom, I noticed that there were two women washing there hands at the sink. Also, there were no urinals in the bathroom. Because I was still messed-up from the stupid hot wing, I stood there in the doorway for a couple seconds until it hit me. I was in the ladies bathroom. One woman actually had to say, "This is the women's restroom," before I moved. Oops. I blame the wing.

I have finally recovered from the bathroom debacle and have vowed to never eat a Blazin' wing again, but in the meantime I'll continue to live life on the edge.

The past couple of weeks has been kind of crazy. I have been able to preach to the Middle school students on Sunday mornings, and I have been given more responsibility with the whole middle school program. Also, my girlfriend's grandfather passed away. His name was Tom Alvey, and he lived a long, fulfilling life. There were several things that stuck out to me about Tom. First, he must have had a lot of patience because he had 6 daughters and 1 son....SIX daughters! I've been able to get to know all of his daughters (Christine's mama and aunts) and they are awesome ladies. I've never been around a family that has so much fun. Second thing I learned about Tom was that he LOVED his wife, Kitty. I only had a couple of conversations with him, but every time he brought up how much he loved his wife. They had been married for 61 years, and it was just so encouraging and refreshing to see how much they loved each other. Tom would often make jokes about how Nana (Kitty) had to put up with him, but you could tell that wasn't the case. Tom had open heart surgery about 8 or 9 weeks ago, and he never really recovered from it. He spent his last 2 months in the hospital. He wasn't always conscious, but the family was always there at the hospital.

Right after his surgery, he didn't wake up for a little while because the amount of anesthesia they used with a combination of his age. But one time when he wasn't really responding to anyone, Nana gave him a kiss on the cheek and his heart rate went up. It was just really cool to see how much he loved his family and how much they loved him back. It's really neat to see love at work.

Unfortunately, not everyone experiences this kind of love. Two weeks ago at our High school youth group, Cody had a time where students could come up and share what God was doing in their lives. There were some encouraging stories of students who have decided to start following God despite their pasts and how God is giving them strength. Then a girl named Haley stood up and shared her heart...or her broken heart is more like it. Her dad and mom divorced when she was younger, so she has always split time between the two. Just that week she went over to her dad's house, and he looked her straight in the eyes and said, "I don't love you. I haven't loved you for the past 7 years." When she said that, my heart broke for her. I can't imagine whats it like to go through life knowing someone who you care deeply about doesn't care if you were to take another breath.

Why does this happen to a great girl like Haley? I don't know. In the Bible, there is a book called Ecclesiastes. Its all about how Solomon goes through life trying to find fulfillment in wisdom, work, pleasures and riches. However, none of these things can fulfill Solomon. He finds that nothing in this world can fully satisfy the cravings of the human heart. What is interesting is that the very next book in the Bible is Song of Solomon. This entire book is about love between a man and a woman. This entire book talks about love and how much it satisfies him, and it is written by the same person who wrote Ecclesiastes, Solomon.

In Scripture, the love between God and humanity is depicted as a love between a husband and wife. Ephesians 5:25 says, "Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her..." So I think it is safe to say that Love is the answer to Solomon's quest in Ecclesiastes. Love is the only thing that can truly satisfy the human heart...pure, unadulterated love.

This is the time of the year when it seems to be easy to love people. Everyone is happy because of Christmas, time off of school, or maybe they are getting a Christmas bonus. But just remember that there are some Haleys out there...What can you do to love on someone this Christmas season?

Thanksgiving

News Flash: They lip sync at the Macey's Thanksgiving Day Parade. This information could be life altering, so be careful with who you share this information. I remember when I first found out that Santa Claus wasn't real. It was right before Christmas, but I HAD to know. So I went up to my mom while she saw doing laundry (I still remember this very vividly), and I told her that I needed to know whether or not Santa Claus was real. She dropped the bomb shell, and life was never the same. Luckily, Santa still comes to the Landis household. Every Christmas Eve, we go to sleep with our stockings empty, and the next morning they are filled to the brim with little goodies! Also, Santa comes in the night and drops off presents wrapped in all red wrapping paper with special hand writing. So am I upset about the lip syncing going on at the parade today? Not really. Am I upset about Santa still coming to visit even though I'm 22-years-old and can grow chest hair? Never.

I just wanted to write a quick blog about different things I'm thankful for. It is nothing to elaborate...just a quick list.

THE REASON FOR THANKS IN THANKSGIVING
- My internship at Southeast Christian Church

- The Lincks (my family away from home)

- Q-Tips

- Christine, I'm berry thankful for you

- Friends who help me strive to become a more mature follower of Christ

- My brothers who I love hanging out with. I can't wait to celebrate future thanksgiving with all of our families...its going to be so fun

- My mom and dad who have never stop supporting and caring for me.

- And most of all, the blood of Jesus!

I love you guys, and I hope you are all having a good thanksgiving day with your family and friends. And tomorrow you will now be allowed to listen to Christmas music. Yay!

Drowning in Jeans and a Sweater

Right now I'm typing in an environment that is hectic. There are bullets flying, claymores are being planted, and AC-130's are in the air. You might think I'm on the front line of a battlefield, but I'm actually in my basement. I'm playing Modern Warfare with my brothers at my house in Topeka! Yesterday I left southern Indiana at 5:30 in the morning to drive about 9 hours to good ole Kansas to hangout with my family for Thanksgiving. I'm so excited to be around family! Even though I got up early and drove 9 hours, I was re-energized when I hung out with my brothers. I ended up staying up until about 2 in the morning just playing x-box and talking with Jim and Sam. Its good to be back in Kansas.

Often when I tell people that I'm from Kansas, the person will quickly say, "I hate driving through that state." Usually, I apologize for the boring-ness of my state's geography and quickly bring up the fact that Wizard of Oz was set in Kansas to try and leave a positive thought about Kansas in the person's mind. But no matter how flat and boring it might be to drive through it, I will always love Kansas!

In my previous post I said that I carried my Driver's License with me where ever I go, and I said I would discuss this in a later post. Well, here is the later post. My girlfriend, God bless her, has a very morbid outlook on life. After typing that I feel like I picture Christine as some kind of girl who dresses in black all the time and mopes around contemplating death all the time. This is not Christine at all. She always smiles and is one of the most optimistic people I know, but she does think about death a little more than the average homo sapien...which isn't a bad thing.

On one occasion she told me her three tops ways NOT to die. Personally, I just think about how I don't want to die, but Christine likes to take it a little farther. (Drum Roll Please) Christine's #3 way not to die is......Suffocation! Honestly, I think this would be a horrible way to kick the can. Number 2 "Way-Not-To-Die" for her is being caught on fire. Death by fire kind of makes me sweat just thinking about it. And her number one way not to die is the exact opposite from death by fire. Christine would hate more than anything in the world to die by falling into a large body of water and drowning. But that isn't it...she has told me that she would hate to drown while wearing a sweater and jeans. Why? I have no clue, but Christine is terrified to go out that way.

But that is not all. One time we were getting ready to go somewhere, and Christine said, "Hey...hold on. I need to go get my I.D." As she was getting out of my car, I realized I was driving and she had no reason to have her I.D. with her. When she got back in the car, I questioned her about my observation and she quickly replied, "I need my I.D. so that in case I die, they can identify my body." Who thinks of that? My beautiful girlfriend.

But on a serious note, even though I make fun of her for her heightened sense of death, I think Christine is on to something. When I brought up this whole thing to her she gave a very insightful answer. She said, "I think life is precious. I just know I am not guaranteed a certain amount of time, and I need to be ready." Life is so precious! God of the universe has decided to breath life into these bodies that came from dust, so why not be careful and realize how good we have it? Now I like to make fun of Christine about this whole death thing, but I agree with her. We really do not know how much time we have on this earth.

Christine might sound a little morbid (but she isn't!) but in the New Testament, James calls us mist. James 4:14 says, "What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes." James says our lives are very short and we can't take it for granted, because we might not be here tomorrow. So I guess what I'm trying to say is that my girlfriend and the half-brother of Jesus agree on that life is very short and that we shouldn't take it for granted. So just remember that you are mist...and be happy about it!

Also, I just realized I used 8 hyphens in this post. If I don't watch out, I'll turn into the Message.

What If...

A scholar of culture once said, "Mo money Mo Problems." I have to agree with Notorious B.I.G. on this one. I'm currently in a stage of my life where I am making money, and I don't have to pay bills or rent. Unfortunately, like Biggie Smalls says, the bigger my bank account becomes, the bigger my problems. About 2 months ago, my 2001 Grand Am needed a new fuel pump. That one cost me almost $600. This past weekend, I wrote my friend a $470 check to repay him for an airplane ticket he bought me. And for some reason, my ignition switch decided to quit working. There goes another $350. Now please don't mistake this for complaining...I'm simply stating facts. To be honest, the only things I'm really spending money on is gas, grub, and girlfriend. But I actually think all three of those things are worth every penny! Gas gets me to where I need to go. Grub gives me energy...and well the Girlfriend is just awesome! I was thinking the other day about all the ways in which Christine has improved my life. This list is in no way exhaustive but it will do the job (I don't think she even knows these things).

1) I now put a napkin on my lap when I eat.
2) I have started to wash my hands more frequently
3) She helps me pray better
4) I now carry my I.D. with me every where I go (more about this in a later post)
5) I eat more Mexican food
6) I always leave a "way out" with my car when stopping at stop lights

So I guess I tell you all of this because the "mo money" the "mo problems," but if you get a girlfriend *cough..David...cough*, your problems won't seem to bad.

But on a serious note, this past week I was able to hang out with the student ministry team over at the main campus in Louisville. We were able to just kind of take a breath and relax, and I had my first ever cinna-crunch bagel from Panera that morning. After doing some casual chatting and bagel-eating, Matt Reagan (the Lead guy over the student ministry department) sat us all down and said, "What if..." He went on to explain how sometimes we get so caught up with how things are currently going that we never take the time to just say, "What if." So we broke up into groups of about 4 people and we all asked ourselves that question. During the meeting I couldn't think of any "what if's" for myself, but after doing some thinking I think i have a couple.

What if I started to get to know students on a more intentional level. Instead of just the casual "hello" or "whats up," what if I got to know their stories?

What if I decided to memorize the book of James?

What if followed Jesus everyday instead of following Him when it is comfortable for me?

What if I depended more heavily on the Holy Spirit?

What if I started exercising?

What if I would have taken a ministry out of college instead of this internship?

What if God was one of us? (Sorry...I had to)

What if my family was not as loving and as encouraging as they are?

What if something terrible happened to me? Would I keep my hope in Jesus my main focus or would I focus on the bad?


I want to encourage you to come up with your own "What If..." list. The good thing about this list is that I can take away the "what if" on some of them and make them a reality. Someone once said, "A man aiming at nothing always hits his target." I think we all need to have goals in order for us to strive towards something...and I think a "What If..." list is perfect for this. If you do go ahead and make a list, please let me know what you thought of it. I thought this exercise was very healthy and encouraging!

It ain't easy being a Polygamist

There is an epidemic sweeping across America...or atleast Utah. Polygamy is a form of marriage in which a person has more than one spouse at the same time, as opposed to monogamy in which a person has only one spouse at a time. Typically in polygamist marriages, the man usually has multiple wives. I can't imagine living with more than one wife. I've lived without one for about 22 years and counting, but the idea just confuses me why any man would ever do that.

The reason I bring this up is because recently I was watching a show on TV called Sister Wives. It follows around a guy named Kody Brown who has three wives...scratch that. He just married his fourth wife, Robyn. As I was watching this show with my lovely girlfriend (that is singular, not plural), I began to wonder...Could I ever thrive in the plurality lifestyle? The answer came very very quickly. Yes. Just playing! Of course I could not live in a polygamist marriage. But then I began to think of reasons why plurality is not for me. I was able to quickly think of 5 reasons. And just remember that this is in no way a comprehensive list. Just something to start with.

5 Reasons Why Polygamy Ain't for Me

(For the sake of this list lets say I'm married to Rachel McAdams, Jennifer Aniston, Scarlett Johansson, and Anna Kornikova)

1) Lets say I'm hanging out with Rachel one night. Jennifer, Scarlett, and Anna will all become jealous because I'm with Rachel. This jealousy does not foster healthy relationships. Of course, all 4 ladies want to be with me, but scientists have not perfected cloning yet. So jealousy is sure to ensue during the marriage(s).

2) As stated in reason #1, one of my wives would get jealous, and they would ask me to send one of my other better halves (or better fifths) away. For example, pretend Jennifer bears me 3 children and Scarlett only has one child with me. My relationship with Scarlett is a lot better than the one I have with Jennifer, so Scarlett secretly asks me to get rid of Jennifer because she is just so jealous that she can give birth to more children. This would be a major dilemma for me and would not be kosher. (this example is not far fetched by the way...its biblical. Check out Genesis 16)

3) There is a saying that goes like this, "Hell hath no furry than a woman scorn." Basically, when a woman is mad...she is really mad! I cannot imagine having 4 women mad at me at the same time.

4) Its against the law. Instead of having 4 wives, in prison I'd have four....ah...nevermind.

5) I would always mix up my wives' names. When talking to Rachel, I would call her Anna. Then once again, reason number one would occur.


I know all of this far fetched, but I feel like its important to know why you believe something is right or wrong. I've tried to lay out my reasons. What are some reasons you would or would not be a polygamist? This is something every person is going to struggle with during some point in their life, so I just thought I'd help to get the ball rolling.

Charcoal is better than Propane

Lately I have been told by a lot of people that I look really tired. Now I learned from a very young age that you should never tell a girl that she looks tired. I guess it makes them feel ugly or something. But I guess I have been kind of tired the past couple weeks. I have constantly been on the go. Whether its a retreat, an over-nighter or preparing and giving a message, I feel like I have not been able to get enough rest. Now please don't understand this and think I'm complaining. I love what I'm doing! And I know you guys out there are can get tired too!

Like I said earlier, I have been able to preach a little at LIFT (the jr. high program at our campus), and I know those Jr. highers are tired. I don't know if it is because my non-engaging lesson or that they just don't get enough sleep the night before, but there is bound to be some middle school student snoozing during my sermon. I've spoken 3 times at LIFT and the first time I spoke one little guy actually started to lay down across some of the chairs to get more comfortable for his mid-morning nap. So I did what any responsible youth minister would do...I called him out in front of everyone and told him to wake up! But this got me thinking. I know there will be a few sleepers at every sermon, but did someone fall asleep during any of Jesus' sermons? There is that instance in the garden where the disciples fall asleep while Jesus is praying alone, but that is not a sermon. So during Jesus' sermon on the mount, was it possible that while Jesus is saying, "You have heard that it was said, 'You shall (and Jesus definitely used the term 'shall') not commit adultery'..." that little Bartholomew (not the disciple b/c he only falls asleep during prayers) started dozing off? I think it is likely. Heck, someone even fell asleep during a sermon given by one of the Christians ever, the Apostle Paul! If you don't know the story, a man named Eutychus fell asleep while Paul was preaching late into the night. You know what happened to him? He fell out of a third story window and died. So what is the moral of the story? Don't fall asleep during a sermon or else you'll die! Now the story goes on to say that Paul raised poor young Eutychus from the dead, but I'm no Paul so I can't raise you from the dead...just don't sleep during my sermons!!!

But on a serious note (I haven't used that segue in a long time), this past Sunday we finished up our series on grace called, "Friday Night Lights." The tag line for it was, "What if a moment could change everything," and it dealt with this whole idea of grace. First of all grace is really hard to teach to middle school students. Their brain hasn't fully grasped abstract thinking, so it is really hard for them to understand the concept of grace because it isn't very concrete. But the final week of this series discussed Peter's denial and his reinstatement.

If you don't know the story, let me give a quick rundown. Jesus has been arrested and now all of his disciples are on the run. They are all scared and confused because their teacher and intimate friend had just been taken away to be executed. In John 18, Jesus is taken to different political and religious leaders for questioning. During these trials, Peter and another disciple ventured into the courtyard to see what would happen to Jesus. While standing there, a servant girl asked Peter if he was a disciple of Jesus, and Peter replied, "I am not." This was the first of three times Peter denied knowing Christ. What is unusual about this first denial is that after Peter denies knowing Jesus, John adds verse 18. Out of no where John adds, "It was cold, and the servants and officials stood around a fare they had made to keep warm. Peter also was standing with them, warming himself." Now why would he add that verse?

You see, John uses specific words in his Gospel for a certain purpose. For instance, John uses the Greek word logos to describe Jesus as the word. In John 13 when Jesus is washing the disciples feet, John says that Jesus "took off " his outer clothing so he could wash the feet of his disciples. The Greek word for "take off" is theologically jam-packed! The word by itself is ordinary. It means, "lays aside," but John only uses this word 3 times in the entire Gospel. The first time he uses it in conjunction with Jesus' first miracle with turning water into wine. The second instance is very important when dealing with John 13. John 10:11 says, "I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd LAYS DOWN his life for the sheep." John uses the same word to describe Jesus laying down his life in order to cleanse the world as he uses for Jesus laying down his garments in order to cleanse the disciples. Why does this matter? Well, John specifically uses LAY DOWN in John 13 to foreshadow Jesus' ultimate cleansing on the cross just by using a certain word.

I tell you all of this just to say that John uses certain words for a specific purpose, and I think that is what he is doing in John 18:18 with fire. The Greek word John uses for fire is anthrakia. Not Anthrax. Anthrakia. This word means a charcoal fire, and he only uses this word twice in his Gospel. First here in John 18 where Peter is warming himself by a charcoal fire after he denies knowing Christ for the first time. The second time the Disciple whom Jesus loved (this is the title John gives himself in his gospel) uses anthrakia is in John 21. Lets take a look...

Jesus has been crucified and buried in a tomb. Evil was rejoicing, but then came Sunday. The tomb had been rolled away and Jesus' body was no longer there! When the disciples heard this, Peter and John ran to the tomb and saw for themselves the truth of the empty tomb. Then the resurrected Jesus appears to the women and then later to all of the disciples, but there is no interacting between Jesus and Peter. Here is where John 21:15 picks up. Peter and six other disciples are fishing, but they catch nothing. However, Jesus appears to them (the disciples do not recognize him) and tells them to throw their nets to the other side. The disciples listen and catch 153 fish! Then John realizes who it is standing on the shore talking to them and says, "It is the Lord!" Peter then does what Peter does best...he gets out of the boat. He swims to Jesus and he sees an anthrakia...a charcoal fire.

I think Jesus used a charcoal fire on purpose. Have you ever been around a charcoal fire? They have a particular smell. It is said that smell is the best trigger for memories, and I can just imagine Peter walking up to Jesus. He is dripping wet from jumping out of the boat to swim to His Savior, and he has a big smile on his face, excited to see Jesus. Then a strange smell comes to his nose. A charcoal fire. Instantly his mind jumps to that cold night where he cowardly denied his Lord. His smile quickly fades and excitement turns into embarrassment. The rest of the passage is great. Jesus asks Peter three times "do you love me?" just like Peter denied Jesus three times. It is simply beautiful how Christ tells Peter, "I forgive you, but now its time to get to work."

Jesus reminded Peter of his past by using that fire. He did not allow Peter to forget about what had happened, but he used his past as a conduit to catapult him toward his future. I think it is important for all of us to realize this simple truth of not forgetting our past...even if it is ugly. We have all been formed by our past, and God wants to use it for his glory. I'm not saying we need to go around boasting about our sinful pasts, but we must not forget it. Just like a fire reminded Peter of his failings, we need to be reminded of where we have come from so God can use us for His future. Love you all!

Water Fountain Evangelism

For some reason here at the Southeast Indiana Campus, I have become known as a good story teller. I am not exactly sure how this came about. I told a couple stories involving poop and me kissing my dad, and then I became the next Dr. Seuss. This past Sunday I had the great opportunity to talk to our middle school students about grace. Right before I came up to speak, Cody (the youth pastor) said, "You guys get the great privilege of hearing Charlie speak to us today. If you know anything about Charlie, you know he always has great stories for us." As I was walking up to speak, it hit me. I had no stories in my sermon...

Talk about not fulfilling expectations. But I thought the sermon went over pretty well besides talking too fast and burping into my mic. I always tend to downplay my ability to communicate. I get really nervous about speaking in front of students, but I think it is pretty healthy. Handling God's word is a pretty hefty task considering it has eternal ramifications for the listeners, and I realize I'm not as gifted in the area of speaking as some people. But I tend to use that as an excuse.

As I said before, I was able to preach at the middle school worship service yesterday. I was given the text in John 4 where Jesus encounters the Samaritan woman. There are several angles you can preach the text, but I was to talk about how the Samaritan woman went back to her hometown and told everyone about Jesus. I remember going to a session during CIY with my good friend David Heffren (I swear I mention this guy in every other post...so if you are a single lady reading this, get the picture. This guy is cool. Date him.) that talked about evangelizing in your schools. The guy talks about the Samaritan lady in John 4 and how Jesus asked her for a drink at the well, and he made this joke that we should just start standing by the water fountain at school. When someone would go to get a drink from the water fountain, we were to say, "Can I have a drink?" Let me just save you the trouble and let you know that this strategy of bringing people to Christ does not work. You'll only receive weird looks and people just start using the water fountain on the other side of the hall...trust me.

So when preparing my message, I strayed away from "water fountain evangelism," but I did find something that I had never noticed before. After the woman goes back to her hometown to tell everyone about this Jesus guy, everyone comes out to hear Jesus for themselves. Then we are told that everyone living in the Samaritan town of Sychar believed in Jesus because of the woman's testimony and Jesus' words. When I read that information I didn't think much of it, but then I continued to read the next section just to get an idea of the context. The very next section deals with Jesus going to His own home area in Galilee, and they have a completely different reaction to Jesus than that of the Samaritan people. They wanted Jesus to perform these great miracles in order for them to believe in what He had to offer. Jesus even says in John 4:48, "Unless you people see miraculous signs and wonders, you will never believe."

After I read this it hit me. The Samaritans (who were considered "half breeds" by the Jewish people because they inter-married with Pagans) believed in Jesus because of his words. They did not need great miraculous signs and wonders; they wanted to hear the truth. The true blue Jews in Galilee needed something big and grand to have faith. This just blew me away because so often I feel like I need to have a great illustration or an emotionally driven story that makes everyone cry in order for them to respond to the Gospel. I feel like I need to have the perfect outline and all these fireworks to go with my message to make it effective. But after seeing the Samaritans' response to Jesus' WORDS and the woman's testimony, I realized that I just need to just tell the students about the Truth and the Holy Spirit will work in the students' hearts.

I have seen this play out in the past couple weeks. I am by no means a great speaker. I speak, so I guess that makes me a speaker, but the last two weeks I spoke to the Jr. Highers about grace and yesterday 3 students came forward afterward to say that they wanted to be baptized! I'm taking absolutely zero credit for their response to the Gospel, because all I did was relay the grace I have been given to these students.

So the next time you have a platform to tell someone about Jesus, don't worry about putting on a big show with awesome sermon bumpers and artwork (even though this stuff is cool!). Just speak the truth and let the Spirit do what it does best...work in the hearts of men and women!

Bowls

Its been a while since I last posted, but I've been pretty busy lately. I was actually going to write a new blog about prayer a couple days ago, but as soon as I logged in to write, I saw that my good friend David Heffren had just blogged about the same thing. So I decided not to look like I plagiarized him and didn't write anything. But I'm here now and David didn't steal my new idea.

I want to bring something to your attention if you haven't noticed yet. There are two tragedies going on in the United States right now. These things are slowly killing and eating away at what it truly means to be an American. Yep, you guessed it....Music Greeting Cards and Redbox.

I'm not going to say anything about those music greeting cards, but Redbox is really starting to singe my hair, boil my plasma, and mess with my medulla oblongata. It is nice to be able to pay for a rental movie at a decent price, but I would rather get a movie I went. The selection at Redbox is horrible, and it is killing movie rental stores. Now the death of Blockbuster is sad, but folks...its okay. There is hope. There is Netflix.

Even though these days have been filled with gloom and despair because of the popularity of Redbox and the annoying tunes coming from greeting cards, I did have a great time Thursday and Friday. I was able to spend some time in the ATL (I can legitimately call it the "ATL" because I've been to Atlanta now) at the Catalyst Conference. I heard some GREAT speakers, and I was blessed to be a part of some amazing worship.

Andy Stanley spoke the first session on Thursday morning, and it was a great message. He simply conveyed the story of Jacob and Esau in Genesis 25 where Esau sells his birthright for a bowl of stew. Andy explained how as humans we have many appetites (food, sex, popularity, etc.), and the only word our appetites know is more. So when Esau was hungry, he sold away his entire future to be satisfied until the next meal. When it all comes down to it, we cannot sell our future away for a temporary pleasure or else we could lose out on so much. He then asked us the question, "What is your bowl."

Personally, I have no idea what God is going to do through me, my children, and my grand children. I don't want to sell all of that away to fulfill an appetite for a short time only to be left feeling empty and wanting more. I know what my bowl is....what is your bowl?

Seasons

What is the first thing that comes to mind when I say, "Catch Phrase?" Studies show that 86.3% of people's minds will go straight to the ever-popular game titled Catch Phrase, but my mind drifts to another answer: Seasons. Since I am no longer a college student, I can now use Wikipedia in my writing (for some reason professors thought a website that could be edited by anybody in the entire world was not a legitimate source...weirdos). Wikipedia says that a catch phrase is a “phrase or expression recognized by its repeated utterance.”

Here is a list the ten most over-used Movie Catch Phrases that I found

10) "You had me at hello." - Jerry Maguire

9) "I'm the king of the world." - Titanic

8) "Say hello to my little friend." - Scarface

7) "Run, Forest. Run!" - Forest Gump

6) "Show me the money." - Jerry Maguire

5) "You can't handle the truth!" - A Few Good Men

4) "May the force be with you." - Star Wars

3) "Houston, we have a problem." - Apollo 13

2) "...Bond. James Bond." - James Bond

1) "I'll be back." - Terminator

I don't know what is more disturbing: the fact that I cried in three of those movies or that Tom Cruise appears more than once in this list. But anyways back to catch phrases. Lately I have been hearing the catch phrase SEASONS around Southeast. I guess it is more like a catch word, but nonetheless I have heard people describing the life of a Christian as going through different seasons. And since the Fall Equinox begins tonight around 11:00 (the beginning of the Fall/Autumn season), I thought it would only be fitting to tell you guys about the season i am in right now.

I'm currently 1/3 the way through my year long internship with Southeast Student ministry under Cody Walker. It just blows my mind to think about how fast the time has gone by these past four months. A couple weeks ago, Cody asked me if I felt like I could lead a youth ministry.
Rather hesitantly, I squeaked out, "Um...I think so." In this season of my life, I feel like I struggle with so many things, but the biggest struggle is my sense of confidence. I really don't know why I am in this constant battle of thinking I won't be able to measure up . After speaking or interacting with students, people tell me that I do a great job. But I don't think accolades from people is what is going to cure my lack of confidence. Because when it comes down to it, I am not trying to please those people. I'm trying my best to glorify God in the way I lead students, and that scares me.

To be honest, I had no idea what I was going to write about in this post. I knew it had something to do with seasons, but this whole post is me thinking (or typing) out loud. When it comes to my confidence, I guess I've never realized why I lack so much of it until now. I know it cannot be because I can't get the job done, because I know I can. I have so many people in my life (Jim and Christine lift me up so much!) that tell me that I am doing a great thing, but I still come up short in feeling like I can accomplish what God has called me to do. Why is this? Because I fall into the temptation that a perfect God will not use an imperfect man like myself. Oh how wrong I am. Scripture is bursting with example after example of God using messed up people to fulfill His purpose. Lets count real quick how many imperfect people God used in the Bible. One, two, three...wait a minute. Everyone in the Bible except for one man (Bartholomew...oops. I meant Jesus) were unholy, not able to live up to God's standards.

So I guess what I'm trying to say is that sometimes I feel like God can't use me to bring Him glory because of my many (may I stress MANY) imperfections...and this is why I have low confidence sometimes in my ability to do student ministry. But I need to understand that God can and will continue to use the weaknesses of man to show His strength and glory. And I'm so thankful to be one of countless people God is using.

Oh, and as we are talking about seasons. What is your favorite season? Is Fall the greatest season? It is the only season that can go by two different names. Just something to ponder.

Jesus: the Seven Star General

There is a certain phrase you will hear most Christians say sometime in their lifetime. I'm not talking about the occasional, "amen!" or the spur-of-the-moment "Hallelujah." I'm talking about, of course, the phrase, "This is my favorite worship song." Now people can have all kind of favorites. My favorite ice cream is Cookies-And-Cream. My favorite season is Spring (with Fall coming in a close second). And my favorite Spice Girl is Ginger Spice. I'm sure all of you have different kinds of favorites out there, but can someone really have a favorite worship song? If I'm not mistaken, the whole purpose of worship is to give glory to God...not to bring us enjoyment because of a song's lyrics or rad bass line. Now I know this really is not a big deal, but every time someone says something about how a certain song being their favorite worship song it just makes me think. Maybe a certain song can be someone's favorite way to express to God their feelings and thoughts to Him, but I think we should be hesitant to say a certain song is our favorite. And I am not excluded from this. For those of you that know me personally, I LOVE Hillsong's With Everything. It is a very powerful worship song, but I don't think I should elevate that about any other worship song, because in the end the song is for God, not me.

The reason I bring this up is because the other day we had a high school gathering at The Block (Southeast's crazy youth building). Ryan Post and Matt Bayless led worship for everyone and they played my favo...I mean a great worship song called With Everything. As we were walking out, I heard one of the students say, "Man, they didn't play my favorite worship song!" I then went on to ask which song he was talking about, and he told me it was Mighty to Save. I nodded my head and went away thinking, "He is just so confused. He doesn't know what he is talking about. His favorite song should be Mighty to Save." Okay. Okay. I made up that last part, but the student was literally frustrated because they didn't play his favorite worship song!

That same night, Mark Moore spoke and he paralleled the life of a Christian in school to the battle front for a soldier. He went on to explain the importance of the Phalanx the Romans used to conquer much of the known world. Basically, the Roman soldiers would march in a rectangular formation into battle instead of the lining up like they did in the movie Braveheart. This was the perfect fighting formation because if the first line of soldiers died, there would be someone right behind them to kill the enemy. Mark's whole point was that we as Christians need to fight for our school in Phalanx where we have each other's backs.

This whole idea of Christianity and military reminded me of something one of my professors once discussed in class. He talked about how awesome of a military leader Jesus would be, so I thought I would kind of expand on that. In John 6:15, Jesus has just fed the 5,000 people with just 5 loaves of bread and 2 fish, and then is says that Jesus knew the people intended to make him King so that He would overthrow the Roman rule. Now, if you think about it, these people are smart because Jesus would be an excellent General. The following are statements that point to that very truth.

1) Jesus could feed Hungry Soldiers.

When his army would be surrounded by the enemy, they would cut off all food supplies. The soldiers would not know what to do because they would soon run out of food. However, if you have Jesus as your leader, there is no need to worry. He could take the last couple crumbs of bread and wave His hand over them and voila...Texas Roadhouse bread appears with a side of honey butter! And you know soldiers can get kind of low in their spirits because fighting can be a little depressing...so what would leader Jesus do? He would turn the water into wine to cheer up his fighting men!

2) Jesus could maneuver natural barriers.

Ever heard of the saying "Faith can move mountain"? Well, you are just in luck if your commander-in-chief is the Savior of the World. We are told by Paul in the book of Romans that we must have faith in Jesus Christ. And who has more faith in Jesus than Jesus himself? So lets say that your army is chasing a foe and comes to a Huge mountain, but it would take days to travel around the mountain giving your enemy days to run away. But Jesus just moves the mountain on pure faith and then you are right on their tail! Or maybe you need to forge a river or stream, because your enemy is on the other side. Forget about trying to take days to find a part of the river where it is able to be crossed. Jesus just walks along water building a make-shift bridge as he goes! Jesus would be the ultimate General when it came to natural barriers. Yet there one more skill of Jesus that would be especially helpful for a military leader.

3) Jesus could bring dead soldiers back to life.

Have you ever played Halo or Call of Duty on x-box or playstation? If you have not, let me fill you in. Basically, you play as one person and you try to go through the story line the game has plotted out for you. If you die, you get a chance to start all over. It is not like if you die, you can't play ever again. Now think about if this was real life! As soon as a soldier peels over dead, Jesus walks up behind them and they rise back up to fight some more. This would be worse than any massive zombie attack. Zombies do seem relentless, but you can cut off there head. If you cut off the head of one of Jesus' men, he just sticks it back on, and then you have one mad soldier coming at you. And if someone loses an ear...just ask Peter.

4) Jesus has twelve legions of Angels on stand-by.

I'm not going to spend too much time on this point. Jesus says in Matthew 26 that he could have twelve whole legions of Angels at the snap of his fingers. Just to put that in persepective, a Roman legion probably had about 4,000 soldiers an 300 soldiers on horseback. So that is roughly 52,000 angels. Now if we look back to Isaiah 37:36, we see that only one angel of the Lord killed 185,000 Assyrians. So that means Jesus would have 52,000 heavenly soldiers who could kill around 9,620,000,000 men! That is the entire population of the earth plus about 3 billion people. So forget Alexander the Great, Genghis Khan, or Caesar...Give me Jesus!

I have now laid out the reasons Jesus would make a great king or army general. So it makes so much sense why the people in John 6 would want to make Jesus king. He would be unstoppable! But we all know that Jesus did nothing of the sort while he was on earth. He told his followers to turn the other cheek and to not be served but to serve others. Jesus sacrificially died on the cross for us so that we would not have to endure the four things I just listed out. Because at the end of time, Jesus will totally wipe out everything evil and that includes that lying dragon we call Satan. So I can't wait to see Jesus, the seven star general, totally demolish every evil at the final battle!

I'm Changing my Last Name

Can I be transparent with you? I love money. The reason I know I love it is because every time I have to depart from it, it makes me cringe. Okay, I'm a little prone to hyperbole, but to some extent I think this love of money is true for a lot of people. Those little slips of paper and small coins determine whether or not we will have our next meal, a shelter over our head, or a fuel pump and fuel filter for you 2001 Pontiac Grand Am. You see, this past Sunday my car decided to quit working in the parking lot of the Meijer Grocery Store. I tried to start my car after buying some food for a 6th grade swim party, and it just wouldn't work. So come to find out $400 later, I need a new fuel pump and fuel filter. Oh Money...you little root of evil...I feel like we are always going to be departing, so I guess I'll just have to get used to you leaving me. *sigh*

*sigh* again for dramatic effect

Believe it or not, I have had a great week. Last week I had the great pleasure of listening to a man named Dann Spader on Wednesday for about 7 hours. He is the president of an organization called Global Youth Initiative (GYI). GYI is an alliance of organizations and strategic leaders around the globe who are passionate about seeing this next generation reached and mobilized for the cause of Christ and the fulfillment of the Great Commission. This vision statement for GYI flows from Dann's DNA and his philosophy of disciple making. I took about 10 pages of notes so I am going to give you some quick bulleted points that Dann said.

• "A real disciple is one who makes disciples."

• Dann bases his ministry philosophy after the way Jesus made disciples, specifically his interactions with the Twelve.

• He calls his ministry philosophy/strategy "Movements of Multiplying Disciples." It is a 5-phase process that closesly lines up with Jesus' 3 to 3 1/2 years of ministry on earth.

• "It is wrong to compare Jesus to us. He was more like Adam before he sinned. We are sinful. He is sinless." -- Dann discussing the Phase #1 and Jesus' 30 years of preparation.

• He gave new insight into Matthew 28:18-20. There are three verbs (going, baptizing and teaching) and two imperatives. I was always told there was only one imperative (Make Disciples), but the Greek word for "Surely" actually means something like, "keep your eyes on me." So as we are making disciples, we need to keep our eyes on Jesus...we need to see how he made disciples if we want to make biblical disciples

• Jesus only performed 2 miracles in his first year and half of ministry (Water into wine and one healing). Most of this part of his ministry was spent in the wilderness with not that great of a following.

• "Jesus was focused on reproducing reproducers."

• "When Jesus said make disciples, he did not separate evangelism and discipleship."

• If you do not have a system to help your students share the Gospel, you are not making biblical disciples (Philemon 6)

• In Luke 10:21, we see that "Jesus was FULL of joy." This is the only time Jesus was said to be full of joy. In the context, Jesus had just sended out the 72 disciples, and was so joyful because he was making disciples who were making disciples.

• We are are not involved in discipleship, we are invovled in disciple-making. Basically, a real disciple is one who will make disciples out of others. There is an input and an output. Discipleship can tend to be inward focused.

When everything was over around 4:00, my mind processing so much information. Everything Dann had to say was so rich. There was nothing exciting about the way he presented the information; he was just full of Jesus and wisdom. He changed the way I look at youth ministry. I guess all along I knew it was about making disciples who make disciples, but I did not emphasize it as much. So according to Dann, a way to gauge your youth ministry's healthiness is to see if your students are bringing people to Christ. Is your ministry healthy?

Dann Spader had some great insight. He dug real deep, I am so thankful for his words and insight. But thinking back on the whole meeting, I shouldn't have expected anything less. I should have known he was going to Dig deep...he last name is Spader. So his last name literally means, "One who digs." Weird. I think I am going to change my name to Charlie Moneymaker.

The Clearance Rack and Zombies

Last October I wrote a blog about never seeing a shooting star. I can officially say that my drought of 22 years of never seeing a shooting star is now over! Last night I went out in the backyard about 12:15 a.m., laid down, and watched the Perseid Meteor Shower. They say the best time to watch the Meteor Shower was between midnight and dawn, so I stayed up to catch my first shooting star! Apparently, you are allowed one wish every time you see a shooting star. So I wished for...sorry, I can't tell you because then it wouldn't come true.

Besides picking up astronomy, I have been doing some thinking on women and shopping. (IMPORTANT: MEN ONLY BEYOND THIS POINT)

Well men, I have some insightful information for you. If you are of the female persuasion, please stop reading.....I mean it. Go stalk someone on facebook or go surf the internet for nice aprons or cooking utensils.

Alright guys here is a secret I have luckily tripped upon while hanging out with Christine. Have you ever been shopping with your lady friend? It is nice to be with her, and you are glad you are able to spend time with her....but...she takes 20 minutes just to look at the first rack she sees. Then as soon as you think you are going to leave the store, she says, "ooohhhh....look at that." Then like a zombie who sees a weak human and in a trance walks over to him or her to devour it, the girl goes to check out the clearance rack.

Well, I have found a solution to our shopping problems. You make sure you guys go shopping during a time for a meal. You tell them you will get something to eat while you are out...but you pick her up late. Then she will say she is hungry and wants to go shopping afterward. However, you tell her that you really want to go shopping first. Then as you are going through the stores, you begin to notice that she is spending less and less time looking for good deals, because she begins to hear her stomach grumble. Then finally, you are the hear those blissful words, "I'm done." And as the angels in heaven sing an immaculate chorus, you leave the store to go eat.

Guys, this is not always a guarantee. Actually, she will probably begin to catch on to your antics about the 2nd time, but I think it is well worth the try. Please let me know of your success. And we all know women cannot say "No" to food. I mean, look at the first woman. She couldn't say no to an apple. Now we have great things like Chocolate and P.F. Changs. Good luck men.

Thus Far...

2 months and 1 week.

This is not the duration of time since the Royals last won a baseball game, even though that would be a good guess. This is actually how long I have been on my internship. I am about 1/6 the way done, and it is flying by. I just wanted to take some time to write out some things that I have learned for the first time and other things that I have been reminded of while working at Southeast. This list is not exclusive...it is just what I can remember on a Monday morning.

Volunteers can make or break a youth ministry. I called my brother, Jim, the other day just to catch up, and this subject came up. During his internship in Oklahoma, he also was confronted with this truth. Here are some qualities that make up great youth leaders:

• They are selfless. They are not in the ministry to for themselves but for the students. A lot of people begin to help out with a ministry with an agenda, but it is so great to have a person who serves for the purpose of giving glory to God and not for themselves.
• They work hard. When I think about how I get paid to serve God, it blows my mind how fantastic youth leaders are when they serve for the soul purpose of serving God. I'm not in the ministry to make money, if so I'm in the wrong profession. But volunteers who work hard are great assets to the ministry.
• They are good people. It is never fun to work with people who you don't like. When you are able to recruit leaders who are good at working with students and love Jesus PLUS they are good friendly people, your ministry will just take off. Jesus said that unity is the pathway that leads to evangelism in John 17:21, so when the students see the unity and closeness of the youth ministry team it leads to a healthier ministry where evangelism can occur.

I pray for guts to live like Jesus. This might sound a little odd. I am not literally praying for the bowels and entrails of God's Son, but having the fortitude to live my life the way Jesus lived His life on earth. He did not give into the ways and temptations of this world, but he was focused on completing the will of God. I am reminded daily the need to live like a man of God in a world corrupted by sin, and I cannot do this by myself. I need God's Spirit and strength the have the guts to live like Jesus.

Be Me. I am working with so many gifted people here at Southeast Christian Church. I work with a guy named Cody Walker who is one of the most relational guys I have ever met. He can walk up to a complete stranger and strike up a conversation. Matt Reagan has a lot of confidence in what he does, yet he is one of the most humble guys I know. Jon McCallon is so creative. He is bursting at the seams with creativity. I look at all of these guys, and I envy all of them. They are doing great things for God in the field of youth ministry, but they all do ministry differently yet they are all successful. I just need to be reminded to by myself when it comes to serving God in youth ministry. I can't pretend to be Matt Reagan or Cody Walker; I just need to be Charlie Landis.

Definition of Success. The youth minister I'm working under gave me a great definition of success. He said, "Success is living faithfully to God." I know I could easily get caught up in the numbers in my ministry or the amount of pats on the back, but the true test of success is to see how faithful you are being to God in your ministry. What does this success look like? I think it looks different for different ministries. So I think it is important to always be asking the question, "Is our ministry successful?"

Deflect Glory to God. I love working with little kids! I was actually going to go into children ministry before I decided at the end of my sophomore year to go into student ministry. I have been working in the nursery the past two weekends, and I had about four people come up to me and tell me how great I am with kids. There are other situations where people tell me that I am good at this or good at that, and it is such a huge temptation to get a big head. But I've learned to start deflecting the glory to God, because everything I do should be to His glory...not my own. I still struggle with this whole not-hogging-the-glory-thing. I can be so selfish, but I've learned that I could not even do ministry if it wasn't for God's sustaining power and love.

Importance of Leadership. I have always that leadership was not the big of a deal, especially in ministry. I actually had to take a class at Ozark called Leadership in Ministry, and I paid no attention at all in that class because I did not see how it was relevant for me. I really did not see myself ever becoming the head pastor at a church, so I didn't think it was important for me to be a leader. Oh, how I was greatly mistaken. Leadership is an essential to a successful youth ministry. A youth minister needs to be able to lead his youth sponsors and the students in a direction towards Christ. If there is no leadership in the ministry, it is just a bunch of programs and dollars wasted. I have tried to become more educated on this whole idea of leadership, so I have started to read some blogs and books. A guy named Tony Morgan has a great blog on leadership, and I have found it to be very helpful.

Stay tuned for my next post. If you are a man, you will definitely want to tune in. I will be discussing a method us men can begin to use to decrease women's desire to shop. Until then, live easy...and die hard.

Derbies and Shake-Ups and Carnies, Oh my!

Yesterday I experienced my first county fair. To be more precise, I attended the longest running country fair in the state of Indiana! Here is a list of my accomplishments (and yes, I'm calling them accomplishments) for the night:

1) Rode ghetto carnival rides. I went with Christine, and she was telling me about how usually she sees duct tape on the rides. This year there was no duct tape, so I decided to "man-up" and go on three rides. She wouldn't let me go on the dinosaur ride though...probably because I would intimidate all the little kids on it. But I did ride two rides that went really fast in a circle and a Ferris Wheel.

2) Drank a Lemon Shake-Up. Do you like lemon when you order water at restaurants? Well, I do not. However, it seems that most of the time when I order a water, the waiter/waitress shows up to the table with a lemon in my drink. Last night though, I tried this drink where they shake up freshly squeezed lemon with some water and sugar. It tasted more like lemonade than lemon water, and it was really refreshing!

3) Watched a Demolition Car Derby. Nothing can really beat bumper cars...except bumper cars with no bumpers! I never thought I could get so excited about seeing cars run into each other time and time again until their car quits working. There were people above me that were having so much fun that four policemen had to come settle them down.

4) Watched People. Okay, I know this sounds a tad creepy, but everyone does it! People watching is America's 2nd Pastime (next to Baseball, of course). I'm going to try and not sound mean...but there were some interesting people out at the fair! There were three categories of "The Fair People": 1) People who live for the Fair; 2) People who live and go to the Fair; 3) People who make a living at the Fair (a.k.a. carnies). My personal favorite group of people to watch is group number one. These people wait all year long in anticipation for the week-long festivities. As Christine pointed out, these people probably pick out their outfit for the night in the dark with their eyes closed. I would like to think i fit into group number two. Now I would like to point out that there is no hierarchy of "The Fair People." So just because I am in group number two, it does not make me better than #1 or #3 people. With that said, I can move onto the last group...The Carnies. There was a vast array of people working at the fair. For instance, there was a cranky old man who was in charge of the Ferris Wheel. He almost bit off Christine's head because she was being to "slow" getting into her seat. There was another man sitting at a booth that was selling swords that lit up. He kept yelling at people to move away from his tent because they were blocking his customers...I didn't see one person buy one of the swords all night. Then there was the skee-ball man, who unfortunately, had a microphone. He would try to encourage people to try his game so that they could win a prize, but his voice was a little different. The best I can describe it is the voice of Jim Varney, who played Ernest (i.e. Ernest Scared Stupid, Ernest Goes to Camp), but in a higher pitched voice. All in all, the people watching was stupendous

5) Watching a Lawn Mower Derby. Earlier i said that there is nothing better than bumper cars without bumpers. Well, I would like to recant my earlier statement and replace it with watching guys in a lawn mower demolition derby is the best. And by guys, I actually mean girl, because the lone female entry in the derby won! Basically, the point of the derby was to disengage people off of their lawn mower, and the last person standing (I mean sitting) wins! One lawn mower even caught on fire, and a bunch of firemen rushed into the arena and put it out. It was amazing!


So as you can see, Going to the fair is probably one of the smartest decisions I have ever made. And if you have never been to a county fair, I strongly suggest you get up out of your seat and drive to the nearest fair. It is that awesome.

Hooray for Louse Day!

There was a day in my childhood that I looked forward to going to school. When i was in elementary school, I actually hated to go to school. I don't know if it was because I wasn't as good as the other kids at reading or because I loved being at home, but whatever the reason, I would do anything to stay home from school. However, there was one day of the year that I looked forward to with great anticipation. I would jump out of bed with a smile on my face, shove 2 brown sugar cinnamon toasterstrudels down my throat, run to the bus stop, and wait not-so-patiently for bus number 46 to take me to McEachron Elementary.

So what could possibly get 8-year-old Charlie so excited to go to school? It wasn't the annual Halloween parade where all the students would parade throughout the school showing off their costume (I'm pretty sure I was a vampire 3 out of my 5 years there). Nor was it the school carnival, talent show, pancake feed, or a field trip to the Topeka History Museum. It was...Lice Check Day.

There are three things I love in this world unconditionally: Jesus, Mom (this includes her homemade chocolate chip cookies...and the rest of my family), and Lice day. Let me take you through the Lice-checking process. First of all, Lice (or the singular version, louse) are small wingless insects that are scavengers of human skin and other debris found on the body. There are three different types of lice that live on humans, and the one they check for in school is head lice. So back to the process of checking lice at school. The school nurse would dismiss each class one at a time, and they would line up right outside her office for his or her turn to be checked. I can remember sitting in my classroom watching students walk down the hall to the nurse's office and being very jealous and anxious for my turn. Finally, it would be my class's turn, and I, of course, would run to the front of the line to lead my classmates.

As I stepped in the nurse's room, I would sit down on a stool and wait for the magic to begin. With gloves on her hands, the nurse would grab something that looked like a baton a conductor would use to lead a symphony. And I can almost swear that I heard beautiful music playing as she gently began to orchestrate with her baton a search through my scalp looking for any disgusting louse (remember...this is singular for lice). It was a moment of ecstasy that was over as soon as it began, as I hear her say, "He's clean. Next." I'm proud to say that during my entire elementary career, those were the only words I ever heard on Lice Day, but i think i secretly wanted her to say, "Uh oh. We got a code red." Then for the next hour she would have to just go through my scalp with her baton looking for lice...that would feel so good. But that isn't probably how it would go, so I'm grateful I was lice-free.

Looking back on Lice Day, I remember looking forward for something that wasn't going to last long. So here is the moral of the story: We all need to build time machines so we can go back into time once a week and do Lice Day.

Oh, and I here is a great sermon by Kyle Idleman on sexual temptaion...listen to it!

I am trying to "Let Go My Eg(g)o"

Well I have been pretty apathetic when it comes to writing a new blog in the past week. I have literally opened up a window to write a new blog about 3 times, but I have never actually written anything. So here is my feeble attempt to get something written.

The name of the dad at the house I am staying with this year is Pat. He is quite a guy. He leads his family by example, and he will be the first to tell you that it wasn't always that way. When he first met his wife, his heart was hard towards God and refused to live for Him. However, Jesus grabbed a hold of his heart (and wife did a little tugging herself) and Pat is a completely different man now who loves his God.

Every Sunday night, Pat plays basketball in his backyard with a couple of his buddies. He has been doing this for about 30 years! He calls it his "mission field." You see, the types of guys that come out to play are just like the kind of guy Pat used to be thirty years ago. These guys cheat on their wives, they live for worldly pleasure, and Pat still loves them. Of course, there is the occasional "That wasn't a foul!" or "Your foot was on the line," but Pat still shows them Christ's love through conversation. He is always asking them how their families are doing or what is going on in their lives. And there is only one rule..."No Cussing." However, that rule is not always followed to the "T".

The first guy that always shows up is a man named Mike. He is about 58 years old, and he can straight up play basketball. He actually played for Coach Rupp at Kentucky University, and he went on to have a short career with the Indiana Pacers. The county prosecutor also shows up to play some basketball. There is a sixty-year-old guy who is nicknamed "Shake." I still don't know what his real name is...There is a man named Gary, who is deaf. He is not actually allowed to play any more, because he was playing too physical. So now he just comes for the community and watches everyone play. There are other guys who come to play too. There is Don, Steve, Wes, and still others.

I just thought I'd share with you guys what I do on a Sunday night. Its pretty simple and good exercise. Most of the guys that play are older and pretty good at basketball, so I guess you could say my ego gets a good dosage of humility every Sunday night on the court.

Listening to Christian Music out of Guilt

(This is a Blog post I just submitted to Stuff Christians Like Blog)

Christian music from the 60's and 70's was...okay. Nothing can beat great hits like Larry Norman's "I wished We'd All Been Ready" and Petra's "Judas' Kiss", right? Wrong. The secular music industry with The Temptations and The Beatles were sitting atop the throne of music during that era. Living almost two generations later, I can see that nothing has changed. The Christian music industry is still chasing behind those darn secular musical groups.

I bring this up because Christians love to secretly listen to secular music, and then out of guilt switching the station to the local K-Love. I have a co-worker who is a great Christian lady, but she loves secular music. She just doesn't enjoy listening to Christian music, and I judge her from time to time. I yell things at her like "Pagan" or "Heathen," but she knows it is all in good fun. This lady feels no guilt. Unfortunately, I cannot live life the same way. Every time I get done listening (and dancing...another Christian faux pas) to Black Eyed Peas or Justin Timberlake, this overwhelming guilt looms over me and urges me to listen something Spiritual and Christian.

I have a friend, who as a little child, who experienced this very thing. She had a small radio in her room, and she would listen to Britney Spears and The Back Street Boys. Her mom would come into her room and reprimand her for listening to ungodly music and make her turn the radio to a Christian station. After a little bit, my friend began to understand the system. She would be dancing (its okay...she has been saved since then) to the "bad" music until she heard her mother's footsteps. Quickly she would change her radio to the Christian station, and sit down in front of the radio just bobbing her head with the music.

What my friend learned when she was younger, I have failed to learn at the ripe age of twenty-two. The location is not my room but my car. When I am by myself in the car, I listen to the secular radio station, and I usually remember to change my radio to the Christian station before I get out of the car to make it appear I'm holy in my music listening. However, I forget from time to time and I get some weird looks, and I know what they are thinking in their heads..."you, Pagan" or "This guy is a Heathen."

I know guilt should not be the sole reason for listening to Christian music, but it is great motivation. Forget Katy Perry, Eminem, and Lady Gaga and bring on David Crowder and Chris Tomlin...at least until there is no one around.

And just to let everyone know...I am listening to Hillsong right now as I write this.

A Collision into Collide

Today, my good friend Cody Walker shared with me some important information. As we were watching The A-Team in the theater, he leaned over to me and showed me what someone had tweeted. The tweet read, "In 'Back to the Future,' Doc sets the clock in the DeLorean to a day 25 years in the future. Today is that day." Interesting? Oh yea. Besides learning about Back to the Future, I received some revelation after watching The A-Team. If the bad guys would just learn to aim when they were shooting, theatrical productions would only last about 5 minutes. But I thought the movie was pretty interesting, so I'm glad Liam Neeson and Rampage Jackson seemed to dodge the bad guy's bullets with ease.

I just got off the phone with my good buddy, David Heffren. He is spending the summer in Corvalis, Oregon. From what he has told me, it sounds like he is having a great time in the Northwest. The other day I was reading his blog, and I noticed that he had changed up the background of his blog, so I decided to do the same. I might not envy his curly hair, glasses or guitar playing skills, but I do covet his writing ability. He doesn't know this yet, but I am writing the foreword to his first and fourth books he is going to write. So check out his blog...it is worth it.

But on a Serious Note, I love God and the way He moves in students' lives. I just got back from CIY's Move conference in Holland, Michigan. It was blast getting to know the 29 high school students and six leaders I was able to minister alongside. The week was full of 12 inch ice cream cones, sunburns from the beach, sore arms from playing Red Rover on the beach, learning God's word, and lots of laughs.

You can learn somethings about a person by hanging out with them once a week, but it is something totally different when you spend an entire week with that person from 8 in the morning until 10:30 that night. There is just something to laughing and crying with someone that really accelerates the process of friendship. And this week past was full of crying and laughing. The high school group at Southeast is called Collide. I have only been at the church for about four weeks, so I have not had the chance to get to know these students that well. So I guess you could say that I had a collision with the Collide group this week.

I had the blessing to hangout with high school students for the week, and I met some awesome students. I met a kid named Nick who would not quit trying to take me down with some wrestling move. The first day of the trip, we went to Cedar Point, a huge roller coaster park in Ohio. I'm proud to say that I actually rode 4 different roller coasters! But the day was kind of sad because it rained off and on all day, and because of the rain, puddles accumulated on the walking paths. During the afternoon, Nick asked if he could have a drink of my pink lemonade, and I handed him my cup thinking I was doing something very nice for this young guy I barely knew. As soon as I handed him my cup, he throws the lemonade all over me. He thought this was pretty humorous, but I found it to be a little uncomfortable. So i thought I would make him feel uncomfortable, and I picked him up and threw him into a puddle. Its been a blossoming friendship ever since.

I also was able to get to know another guy that was in my small group throughout the week. His name is Shane, and he reminds me a lot of myself when I was his age. He is pretty athletic and all the ladies like him. Okay, the only thing we have in common is that we are athletic. But Shane's honest heart was very refreshing this week. We were able to talk throughout the week, and I had so much fun hanging out with him. He knows he tends to let his pride get in the way of his relationship with Christ, and he wants to be able become less so Christ might become more in his life. At the end of the week, he came up to me, and he asked if I would mentor him this next year. This blew me away!!! I am humbled to be asked to mentor Shane, and I cannot wait to see how Christ works through me to mold this young man's life.

There were so many other great students I got to know on this trip, but there is not enough time to tell them all to you. There was Jabriel, a.k.a. Mr. Alright; Emile, who shared the most insightful and genuine comments all week; and Nicolette who wouldn't quit smiling even when she threw up :( Like I said, I love all of the students I met, and I'm sure I will be posting more stories about these guys the more I get to know them. I love my Collide Family!

Kisses and Losses

Last post I told you about how I'm a tid bit awkward. Well, I have had friends tell me that I need to share more awkward stories with you guys because my serious posts are boring. So here is my feeble attempt to increase my readership.

No one was harmed in the making of the story. The only thing that was harmed was my pride. My senior year of high school was altogether a little weird. I tore my ACL, so I couldn't play football. I won "Most Dreamed About" for the senior class.....a mystery still to this day, and I gained 40 pounds because I couldn't run or play sports for the first semester because of my bum leg. However, I was able to play baseball in the Spring. I was hardly at 100% though. I hadn't fully recovered from my ACL repair. After limping through the entire season with a measely .230 batting average (150 points lowers than my junior year!!!), it came time for senior night.


This special night that commemorates senior baseball playes was like any other night, but before the game they had every senior baseball player walk out into the middle of the field with their parents. When they called my name, I leaned over and gave my mom a hug and a kiss. Everything was fine up to this point, but awkwardness was soon going to smack me in the face...more like smack me in the lips. After I hugged and kissed my mom, I turned to my dad to give him a hug, but somehow I did not stop their. I preceded to give him a big wet one right on the lips....in front of everyone. Now there is nothing wrong with a little boy giving his dad a goodnight kiss, but it is totally different when a 18 year old gives his dad a kiss whle standing on the pitcher's mound in front of a crowd of his peers.

Now I am probably making more of this than it really is, but I have recovered from the "awkward kiss." I am now a single 22 year-old living near Louisville, Kentucky sitting in my cubicle looking at picture of a small puppy that is saying, "Yes, your bum looks fat in that."

Quick little fact about my baseball career in high school. I accomplished a feat that no other player had ever done in the history of Topeka West Baseball. I lost two games in one day my sophomore year. I pitched for Junior Varsity team and picthed 6 innings and got the loss. Then I came up to the Varsity team, and came in to pitch relief in extra innings and gave up the winning run. Sadly, I didn't get to see much time on varsity my sophomore year after that incident.

Taking My Hands out of My Pockets

About a year ago, I wrote a post about how I am Awkward.

Much of this post encompassed the friendly gesture of hugging. I am proud to announce to the blogging world that I am still pretty bad at giving hugs, but they are becoming less awkward! Here in Indiana, there are a couple of people who love to hug, so I guess you could say I have been practicing, and I am getting better! So watch out world...the only difference between Brad Pitt and Charlie Landis is that Brad can hug slightly better...but not for long.

(Insert transitional statement here).

Today is Father's Day! I have always felt bad for people who can't celebrate father's day because they don't have a dad in their life. If you think about it, Luke Skywalker couldn't celebrate this holiday. There is Luke, 20-something, and he is fighting some bad guy who has asthma to the max. When all of a sudden, Vader drops the news, "Luke, I am your Father." I can't even imagine what goes on in Luke's fragile mind. But I know he was still bitter about spending all those Father's Days all by himself. And when he finally finds out who is father way, the guy dies.

Now my dad doesn't have asthma or masquerade in a black helmet with a cape. My dad is an ordinary guy who loves steak and college football, but he is an extraordinary father. I cannot recall the many lessons he taught and the examples he set as a strong, caring, loving man of God. I am just so thankful and blessed to have Tim Landis as my dad. In Joshua 24:15, we see Joshua renewing the covenant between God and man, and he makes this exclamation, "As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord!" My dad has tried to do this the best that he can, but he will even be the first person to tell you that he isn't perfect. But he is the perfect dad for me.

Last night at the Post, the college age service at Southeast, Kyle Idleman preached over Genesis 3. He discussed how we always tend to blame women for bringing sin into the world. Many believe the first sin of mankind was disobedience (Eve took a bite from the fruit from the tree they were forbidden to eat from), but the first sin was most likely Passivity. You see, Genesis 3:6 says, "When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom, she took some and ate it. She also gave some to her husband,who was with her, and he ate it. Adam was the responsible person for keeping God's law. It was in Genesis 2 where God first tells Adam not to eat fruit from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil...Eve was not ever around yet. It was Adam's responsibility, and apathetically said, "Sure, I'll have a bite."

There were so many good points Kyle made last night, but one quote I had to write down. Talking about masculinity, Kyle said that men love battles. We love blood, and we love action. Kyle said, "Most men love action, but they love watching it from the coach." What man does not love Gladiator or 300? We love watching guys on a football field get hit so hard they are literally knocked out, but when it comes to leading on the spiritual battlefield, we somehow lose our go-get-'em attitude. We become like Adam, and shrug our shoulders and say, "Sure. Whatever." We need to take our hands out of our pockets and lead that way God made us to lead. We cannot afford to be passive in our relationships. This includes our relationship with our wife, girlfriend, and even our God.

Being a single guy, it took me sometime understand how I shouldn't be passive in my life because Kyle talked about being passive in our romantic relationships. Of course, I'm totally going to take this information and use it in my future relationship, but what does it look like for me today? And the best I could come up with is that I need to be violently in love with My God. I need to be actively pursuing a relationship with my Maker.

I'm going to start taking my hands out of my pockets when it comes to following my God and my Savior. Will you join me???

Beware the ME Monster

I hate my pride.

There are times in life when you do something pretty dumb or stupid, and you can just shrug it off. For instance, you might see a pretty girl in the cafeteria that you have never talked to before. You have enough courage to sit at the same table as her and her friends, but you keep silent for the most part, only making conversation with your buddy who is there for support. As everyone is done eating their roast and mashed potatoes, the girl stands up to put up her tray, and you cunningly follow her to do the same. You want to talk to her really bad just so you can hear that sweet voice of hers. You quickly try to think about something to say to her, but the only thing that comes to mind is how good the dinner was that night at the cafe; so you blurt out, "Yum. Those taters were good." She tries to force a smile and nods her head. After throwing away your leftovers along with your pride and confidence, you walk back to your dorm and thinking to yourself, "Taters? Really, that's the best you could come up with?"

Now if this story was true...I'm sure you would just feel stupid for a little bit. Unless you have horrible friends who bring that story up every chance they get, you'll be fine. But there are other times, when I do something dumb that is harder for me to shrug off. When I allow the pride I try so hard to suppress loose, there is nothing more humiliating and shameful. Brian Regan calls this the "Me-Monster." Regan makes light of the pride some people struggle with, but in reality, it is no laughing matter.

In Middle School, I was a proud pimply faced boy who played sports and chased the girls. I would do or say anything to make myself look better; even if that meant putting down my friends in front of girls just to show them how awesome I was. I look back at how I was in middle school, and I am embarrassed at the way I treated other people and my high view of myself. Now there is nothing wrong with thinking highly of yourself, but if you look down on other people because you believe you are somehow better, pride is showing its tremendously ugly face. C.S. Lewis has a great quote on pride. He says,

"A proud man is always looking down on things and people; and, of course, as long as you're looking down, you can't see something that's above you.”

In our pride, we become the greatest being in our world. No longer is God Lord of Lords and King of Kings in those moments. This is exactly how the devil became the devil. In his book Mere Christianity, C.S. Lewis says that is through pride that all other sin stems from. He says that pride, "is the complete anti-God state of mind."

The reason I say all of this is because that I am in a constant struggle with pride. The other day I was talking with a student about Jesus' crucifixion, and he said Jesus was completely naked. And I told him that could have been the case, but they didn't always crucify people nude. Sometimes they had a small loincloth on too, and during that time, people considered the person to be nude when they only had their undergarments on (And I was probably wrong anyways). The high school student then said, "Have you even studied crucifixion? You probably just watched Passion of the Christ." After he said that, I quickly released the Me-Monster. I just looked at him and said, "Are you serious?" Then I looked over to one of my buddies and said, "This kid just asked me if I knew anything about crucifixion!" I wanted to tell him that I did a couple of research papers on crucifixion and how I attended Bible College for 4 years, but I didn't. I just looked at him like he was stupid.

Right away, I knew what I had done and couldn't me more disappointed with myself. This was a couple days ago, but I still get a knot in my stomach when I think about it. I look at that situation and I can't help but feel embarrassed and full of shame. No matter how much it seems I try to keep the Me-Monster inside and caged, it always comes out roaring like a lion. Pride is something we are going to have to struggle with for our entire lives. We have to continually pray for humility and pick up our cross daily. I hope that we can all echo Paul's words in Galatians 6:14,

May I never boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, through which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world.

Follow Me as I follow Barbie??

I can't believe I am watching a soccer game. The USA/england soccer game is getting ready to begin. NOthing is more boring than watching a soccer game than watching an hour long pre-game show about a soccer game. There better be 20 goals in this game, but I highly doubt it

Yesterday was a tough day. First, I woke up at 12:20, and I slept for a total of 12 hours. Second, I went swimming for about an hour and then jumped in the hot tub. I ended the day by taking second in a poker tournament...Man, yesterday was tough. Do you feel sorry for me yet?

(England just scored a goal)

Friday and Saturday are my days off from the office, and I took full advantage of it yesterday! I had a great day just relaxing. So far my time in southern Indiana has been very good. This upcoming week is going to be a little tougher, because I have to get all the materials ready for our CIY trip, and finish planning a Jr. High Over Nighter. I'm pretty excited to get going with everything....and the guy I am working with is going to be gone all next week, so I get the office all to myself!!!

Lately Jesus has been everywhere for me. You might be saying to yourself, "Well, he is omnipresent...duh!" But I am talking about the idea of us allowing Him to be the center of our lives. He needs to be everything to us, so that we might be able to be something for Him. This whole idea of Jesus being everything to us is imperative for us to be light in a dark world. If we want to be true disciples of Jesus, we must emulate who he is. Our main purpose on this is earth is to bring God glory, and we can best do this by making disciples of all nations (Mt. 28:18-20).

So I guess it all comes down to discipleship. There are a lot of books out their on how to disciple young Christians, but I think the best (and shortest) advice is by the Apostle Paul in 1 Corinthians 11:1 which says, "Follow my example, as I follow the example of Christ." A lot of people idolize other people. When I was young, I wanted to be super strong like Popeye, so I decided to try spinach for dinner one night. My mom told me i wouldn't like it but I insisted. It was one of the most disgusting things I had ever tasted, and I came to the realization that I would be weak the rest of my days. Heidi Montag, who was made famous by The Hills idolizes the Barbie Doll. She is going to go through x-amount of surgeries so she can somehow replicate Barbie's appearance. People will do crazy things just to become someone or something.

I think it all comes down to this? If we are supposed to bring glory to God by evangelizing the world and making disciples, what are your disciples emulating? Its not a question whether or not you have disciples, because most everyone has someone they are pouring into. If you are in a leadership position, there is no question that you are discipling other people. If you are not radically following Jesus, the Lion of Judah, then you are greatly doing the people you are pouring into a disservice. And I am not just speaking to you guys, because I am talking to myself more than anyone. I need to start following Christ in every aspect of my life, so that I am not giving students a watered-down Savior. I do not want to be giving a declawed version of Narnia's Aslan to people, so I need to get to know the Jesus of the New Testament ad the Messiah of the entire World!

(USA just scored a goal!)

Well, it is pretty hot outside, so I think I am going to go jump in the pool! Poor me.