A Letter to the Perverts
I want to use words in this post that would not be appropriate for this venue. They may not be typed out, but they are being screamed out from this side of the computer screen. You’re disgusting, you’re perverted, and if I met you right now I’d want to hurt you in many ways. I know that you do it because you’ve been so badly hurt, I know that there are probably reasons for your perversions, for your twisted view of pleasure and what is normal. But right now I’m just furious and don’t want to think about the fact that God loves you, Jesus died for you, and all that wonderfully true stuff.
In many ways it is my fault. We are in the process of backing up all our home photos on Flickr. And it turns out I wasn’t paying good attention as I was uploading the first 5000 photos. I uploaded some of my kids naked. You know, bathtub pictures, diaper changing pictures, etc. As it turns out any picture that had any form of my naked children has received numerous views. And by “any form” I mean even upper thigh, naked baby butt, and hospital newborn photos. It sickens me to think of the perverts looking at the naked pictures of my children, but I’ve done everything I can (deleted them from the account) to prevent it from happening any more. Part of what sickens me too is that some of “those” people have been in my family. I’ve eaten Thanksgiving lunch with “those” people. And many of “those” people live in these neighborhoods that we will be planting a church in.
Sick.
I know Jesus loves you…
But you’re sick.
May God one day redeem you from your perversion.
In general “we” is a good term to use. I like to think that my general thought patterns happen in a “we” context. I value community, I believe it’s core to how God has created us to live and breathe…but I’ve created a problem, and it is not of noble origins.
Apparently, there are many times where I say “we” when I should be saying “me”. I’ve heard this from my wife today which reminded me of when I heard it from a friend a while back Apparently I say things like “yeah we really suck at that” when in reality I’m no good and I’m just including that person with me. Other times I say “we’ve really got to get better about picking up after ourseves (you can insert any chore here)” what has happened with my wife is that me saying that ends up communicating to her that SHE needs to start picking up after herself. Because I wouldn’t include her in the mix unless I was thinking that she was needing to do it. I guess that most people speak about themselves, “I need to start taking out the trash every day” or “I’m really terrible at this game!” I’d like to think that I do this because of my intense love of community…but the sad reality is that probably deep down it makes me feel better to be miserable with someone else. Not too noble eh?
I guess we’ll all need to work on this.
Orlando
Well, I’m off to beautiful sunny Orlando, Florida in about two hours! The last time I was in Orlando it was to go to Disneyworld. I was an acne covered, scrawny, and somewhat handsome fifteen year old.
This time around, however, there will be no six foot mice greeting me. Instead I’m on my way to the Exponential Conference to hear some of the greatest speakers in church planting from around the globe (speaking of globes, I really wanted to buy one at Goodwill the other day). I’m looking for any and every way that I can grow myself into a better leader and a more healthy church planter.
Pray for the trip, but most of all please pray for Jess as she’s going to be home with both kids, babysitting another, dog sitting, speaking at church, hosting our home community, going to math class 5 days a week, and saving the world all while I’m gone! Jess and I work as partners, as a team in nearly everything we do, so it’s hard to go to such an exciting event without her. It just doesn’t seem right.
I’ll try to update often while I’m there. Peace out friends.
