About Me: A Search for Identity

We’ve been covering quite the interesting and important topic recently…the question: Who are we?

Behind our favorite musicians, the type of clothes we wear, and our favorite colors, it is important for us to go deeper into understanding who we are and why we’re here. The way you answer this question will decide how you live.

Though it seems easy to fill out a bio on our Twitter or Instagram accounts, major identity issues are experienced by many around Jr. High and High School years. People often feel worthless, prideful, closed-off, bored, on their own, purpose-less, and confused. The world around you may offer you value or attention only if you fit into its box (wear the “in-style” clothes, have the “in-style” friends, talk about the “in-style” things, like the “in-style” bands, etc.), and many people buy into this and are hurt by it. God has a different story…

You are:

>God’s Masterpiece: You were created in God’s image as His masterpiece (Ephesians 2:10). Check out Genesis 1-2 to find out about the value that isn’t based on what you do/don’t do or what friends you have/don’t have. You have incredible value formed into your very skin! So, understand your value and live in light of it!

>Dependent Sinner: You turned away from God and are dependent on Him for help (1 John 1:8-9). Check out Genesis 3 to find out about how we have this tendency to turn away from God. Though we are His masterpieces, let’s admit we’ve got problems and turn to God for His help!

>Under Construction: You are a work in progress as God works with you and in you to shape you more and more into the image of Jesus (Philippians 1:6). Check out Philippians 3:12-15 to hear Paul write about the journey he is on with God. God doesn’t want to leave us in our problems, He wants us to follow Him on this exciting adventure of improving and becoming more and more like Jesus each day!

>A Piece of the Puzzle: You are a part of a much larger community, you are not alone (Ecclesiastes 4:9-12). Check out 1 Corinthians 12 to hear about “the body of Christ”, the community that must work together to function correctly. We were not designed to be alone, and the story is not all about us, we are one part of a bigger story and a bigger mission. Let’s live like it isn’t all about us, being sure to turn to others to build up and be built up!

>An Ambassador of the King: You have a mission that is so much bigger than you (Matthew 28:18-20). Check out 2 Corinthians 5:17-20 to hear about the incredible mission we have to help “reconcile” the world back to God. Following Jesus isn’t just about our own salvation, it is about sharing Jesus’ love all around the world. Let’s remember that our identity is not just who we are, but what incredible things God has for us to do for Him!

I hope we can continue to find our identity in God’s story, building a foundation that will hold no matter the storms ahead.

-Brandon

For all of you commenters out there, a couple questions:

1)   If you were to define yourself with a color, a type of food, and an animal, what would they be?

2)  Which one of these topics are you most excited about? Why?

Hullabaloo 2013! Disciple

“After this, Jesus went out and saw a tax collector named Levi sitting at the tax office, and He said to him, ‘Follow Me!’ So, leaving everything behind, Levi got up and began to follow him.” –Luke 5:27-28

Hey all!

I’m going to keep this short. Hullabaloo 2013 was incredible! We spent time in quiet with God, we asked for healing, we learned. Then, we jumped on trampolines, we took that next step, we followed Jesus in His call even though we didn’t fully understand why (like Levi the tax collector and Peter the fisherman). We stayed up most the night, and when we woke up on Saturday, we went out ready to impact Rancho. We cared for the elderly and the young, we taught, we listened, we hiked, we ate, we prayed, we shared Jesus with those around us. Then, we took it to our schools, the main battlefield where we spend most of our time. We prayed, we chatted, we drew, then we drove, prayed some more, made videos, and planned ways to bring a taste of heaven to the schools we are a part of through the power of Jesus.

I’ve got a question for you, students:

1)    How is that Jesus Revolution going at your schools? What steps have you made to make your school look a little more like heaven? Have they worked? What challenges are you facing?

2)    Have you met with your Hullabaloo crew at your school since Hullabaloo? If so, how?

And as you reflect back on this Hullabaloo goodness and have gotten some sleep, here’s one more question I’m super interested in hearing:

3)    What was the most fun moment of Hullabaloo? What was the most impactful moment of Hullabaloo?

Sweet! Comment away, I’m super interested to hear your thoughts!

For Him,
-Brandon

The Kingdom of God...what exactly is it?

“Jesus came to Galilee proclaiming the gospel, saying, ‘The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near; repent, and believe in the good news.’” –Mark 1:15

Have you ever been going about your day and have been stopped by something amazing happening? Maybe it is a gorgeous sunset that seems fake. Maybe it is a puppy so happy and joyful it seems out of place. Maybe it is a person running up to someone that dropped money out of their pocket to hand it to them. Maybe it is that super cool kid at school hanging out with that student who has special needs.

These things seem wonderful, beautiful, yet strange to us, I think because they represent something that is other than what this world normally offers. Nothing we make can look as beautiful as a sunset. Puppies are able to be so carefree from all of the worries of the world. People normally would keep the money for themselves. That cool kid could hang out with so many different people, why choose that student?

Jesus came and proclaimed the GOOD NEWS (what the word “gospel” means) about this thing called the Kingdom of God. Though I always thought this meant the place I’ll go after I die (heaven), the Bible seems to point to more than that. Check out what Jesus says in

Luke 17:20-21:

Once, having been asked by the Pharisees when the Kingdom of God would come, Jesus replied, “The Kingdom of God does not come with your careful observation. You won’t be able to say, ‘Here it is!’ or ‘It’s over there!’ For the Kingdom of God is already among you.”

So, if it is “already among you,” that means it isn’t just the place you go after you die! If you’ve been at Rewired or Infuse over the past few weeks, you’ll know where I’m going with this. You see, the Kingdom of God is a revolution against the broken, sick, dark things of this world, all started with Jesus. Those moments that we see something beautifully different that seems against the ways of this world (selfishness, sickness, brokenness, loneliness, boredom, etc.), I think are moments we see God’s Kingdom transforming this world. These are moments where this world starts looking more like heaven!

The revolution is still going on, and Jesus asked you to be a part of it. When he taught his disciples to pray, he added a pretty cool line you may recognize: “Your Kingdom come and Your will be done on Earth as it is in Heaven.” Pretty rad, right? Let’s keep thinking about this over the next few weeks as we look at all that Jesus said and did.

See you all soon!

-Brandon

For you blog posters out there, here are a couple questions:

1)   What is something crazy awesome you experienced this week that seemed like a bit of Heaven here on Earth? (something you saw, ate, did, heard, etc.)

2)   If you could change one thing in this world with a snap, what would that be?

3)   How can you continue Jesus’ revolution in a real way?

Looking Back

“Not that I have already reached the goal or am already fully perfected, but I make every effort to take hold of it because I also have been taken hold of by Christ Jesus…forgetting what is behind and reaching forward to what is ahead, I pursue as my goal the prize promised by God’s heavenly call in Christ Jesus.”

-The Apostle Paul (Philippians 3:12-14)

Hey friends!

The Infuse party last night was SO EXCELLENT! I hope you all had as good of a time as I did. If you weren’t able to make it, ask one of your friends that did to hear all about it. It was such a good time celebrating the love God showed us and the love we could show each other. Good times! Remember: If you want a FREE copy of the DVD showed last night, please join us on Wednesday in the Family Center from 7-8:30PM for the Rewired Christmas Special!

This has been an exciting few months already! For you 7^th graders, you have now made it officially one semester into your Junior High life. For you 8^th graders, you now only have one semester left before you continue your grand journey into High School! With all of these changes, though Christmastime is a great time to celebrate with friends and family, it is also a great time to take a breath, slow down, and reflect on the year thus far! It has been an eventful few months, and I thought it’d be good to look back on them to see what we’ve learned from them and how God has acted through them.

I put together this picture with a bunch of the slides of events or series since the summer. Please look over them and try to remember one excellent moment, one thing you learned, or anything that is burned into your memory.

To all the commenters, 1) What is the funniest memory you have so far this year since the summer? 2) What event did you totally forget about until you saw the slide for it? 3) If you had to sum up ONE MAJOR THING you’ve learned so far this year, what would it be?

I hope you all have an absolutely wonderful Christmas filled with celebration, good times, family, friends, and a time set aside to thank God not only for all of these things, but also for His son, Jesus, who gave us freedom from sin and brokenness!

Merry Christmas!

-Brandon

Weird!

“Enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it. But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it.”- Jesus (Matthew 7:13-14)

I’m sick of being normal, aren’t you? People look the same, talk the same, walk the same, think the same groups of people are cool, dress the same way, follow the same fashions, hold to all the same trends, like all the same popular music, and often, end up carrying the same hurts, wounds, failures, frenemies (friend/enemies), broken friendships, and guilt because of these “normal” choices.

Jesus does a radical thing: he calls us to be different…like majorly different. See, there’s a type of weird that looks weird to the outside world because it is so different than the way everyone else does things. It is so different because although it is easier in the long run, it sometimes takes that little bit of extra thought, prayer, and wisdom up front. This is what Romans 12:2 is all about!

So, during the next few weeks, let’s commit to being weird in all kinds of ways. You’re Junior Highers, you could teach the rest of us adults how to do that better! By the time we finish this series, let’s stand out at our schools and among our friends by how we treat others, let’s stand out by the words we do and don’t use, let’s stand out by the things we get stoked on, let’s stand out because of the stances we take, let’s stand out as if we are followers of the One, True God! Yeah?

I’m pretty excited about this. I hope you are, too!

For Him,

-Brandon

PS: Two questions for you commenters. 1) What is the weirdest thing you’ve seen/done/eaten. 2) What is a way you can stand out in your school this week?

The Most Basic Fear...defeated

“For none of us lives to themselves, and no one dies to themselves. If we life, we live to the Lord; and if we die, we die to the Lord. Therefore, whether we live or die, we belong to the Lord.”-Romans 14:7-9

Start by picturing in your head something that you are afraid of.

I’m pretty sure that whatever it is you pictured in your head, it probably goes back to the most basic fear: the fear of death, which is what we’re dealing with this final week of this series “No Fear”.

We have all been confronted at some point or another with this fear (whether we know it or not). It may have been before getting on an airplane, when you see a spider scurry across the floor, when you almost get in a car accident, or when you hear about something horrible that has happened on the news. Though we don’t like to talk about it much, I think we’re all pretty scared of death. It weirds us out, it feels just not right, and we just don’t really know what to do with it!

And there’s a reason why! See, God didn’t design us humans for death…death isn’t supposed to happen! The beginning of the story of Genesis has Adam and Eve chilling with God with no boundaries between them, complete community and friendship with the creator of the universe, pretty sweet. If you read Genesis 3, you’ll see what happens…Adam and Eve decide connection with God isn’t enough, instead, they want power like God. The result is disastrous.

This is the point death entered the world. What many think to be the first sacrifice, God uses the skins of an animal to cover up Adam and Eve, who were shamed when they realized they were so busy being cool with God, they forgot they were naked…bummer that they lost that level of being stoked on others and started being afraid and worrying about themselves and what they looked like.

Here, God took His first step toward helping us not be afraid of death. Even though we were now prone to something we weren’t originally designed for because of our rejection of Him, God jumped in to redirect some of that impact. This is why the Old Testament is filled with animal sacrifices, because these represented the death we were supposed to have by rejecting God.

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But, as usual, God wouldn’t just leave it there. We don’t have to be afraid of death because Jesus defeated it! Check this out…Jesus, who was God in flesh, was the source of all creation, the source of all life (John 1)! If the source of all life is killed, what happens? I’ll tell you what happens, life wins! After being killed on a cross by people who, like Adam and Eve (and like us) wanted power instead of connection with God, Jesus rose from the dead and defeated death! Crazy awesome! This is why we celebrate like crazy on Easter.

The deal is, because of Jesus, we don’t need to be afraid of death anymore! Now, we’ll still die at some point, but instead of ending in separation from God (something to definitely be afraid of!), we know that we’ll still be in God’s hands and in community with Him and others. To Paul, who wrote the verse at the top of the page, this was a good enough truth to not worry then about every little thing!

With this crazy, awesome truth presented, there are a couple things I need to make clear:

1)     This crazy awesome truth is for those that think being friends with God is better than doing it on our own, seeking after power. Jesus has provided the way for that to happen, but you’ve gotta decide to follow Jesus, otherwise, that original consequence of choosing away from God will be just as applied. See, since Jesus defeated the results of death, it is only THROUGH Him that we can escape it!

2)   This doesn’t mean we get to be not super smart with our lives. Being afraid of death is different than not caring about life. When someone loses a loved one, you’ll still miss them for the rest of your 70 or 80 years or so here. We should still be careful about how we live, not making bad judgments that put our life in major danger.

With that said, though, we have the opportunity to live a life free of paralyzing fear, because if we aren’t afraid of the results of death, if we know that we know that we’ll be in God’s hands no matter what, then what could possibly scare us! As you go to school in the next couple weeks, how could you be afraid of how you are viewed by someone else if you aren’t even afraid of death because you know you’re in God’s hands!? God’s got your back, there is NO reason to fear!

“Death has been swallowed up in victory. O death, where is your victory? O Death, where is your sting?...But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ! SO, my dear brothers and sisters, be strong and immovable.” – 1 Corinthians 15:54-58

Loneliness Stinks.

Loneliness Stinks.

Maybe you’ve experienced that feeling that you get when you walk into a room and don’t recognize ANYONE! Panic, awkwardness, and fear. What if someone sees me just wandering around alone? What if I don’t see anyone I know? What if I just show up and leave without anyone talking to me?

It seems like we have a fear of being left alone, left out, excluded and isolated. I think we fear this loneliness because it makes us feel like something is wrong with us or with everyone else…or both!

Yesterday, we talked at Rewired about how this fear of finding friends impacts:

• ·        What clothes we wear
• ·        How we act the way we do
• ·        Why we care so much about how we look to others
• ·        Why commercials that tell us “everyone else is getting this” has such an impact on us…

…we don’t want to be left out.

The deal is, though, that our wants for friendship and community come out of a desire for good things! In Genesis 2:18, at the start of our story, God decided that it was “not good for the man to be alone” (matching the community that goes on even in God’s very nature of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit!), and made Eve, bringing community to humanity!

We know that this community didn’t last forever, though, as Cain (Adam and Eve’s son) killed Abel (their other son), and so, made the first person that was ever alone and isolated, Cain. From here, the rivalry and exclusion between people started. We started gossiping, being jealous, being greedy, being selfish, etc. towards others, and started isolating them.

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BUT, as usual, God stepped in to do something about it. He gave us the law and the prophets (the Old Testament), which all point towards two commands: 1) Love God, 2) Love Other People.  As 1 John 3:10-14 states, if you are really someone who loves God, you’ll love those around you.

Beyond that, Jesus, even while suffering and dying on a piece of wood outside of the city, saw out of the corner of his eye his mom and one of his followers, John. Both people, because of Jesus’ death, would have been left alone, but showing the type of care he has for those people excluded and alone, Jesus says with one of his last statements, “Woman, here is your son,” and then to John, “Here is your mother.” SO cool, right!?

Besides the fact that if there is anyone at your school or your church event or your sports team that is fully following Jesus, you can be confident you won’t always be left alone (how cool that no matter where you go across this world, there will likely be a church of Christians that will invite you in and be like your family?!), besides this, Jesus also tells you something personally. He tells us this in the last words of the book of Matthew:

“And remember, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.”

Now THAT is a promise that can help us put away our fears!

For all you commenters out there, let me know: 1) What is the strangest conversation-starter you can use to include someone who is hanging out alone? 2) What would an ice chunk say to the glacier it broke off of as it floats away? 3) How can you/did you practice community and friendship at the Amazing Race on Wednesday?

Thanks all, have a splendid week!

For Him,
-Brandon