getting off the couch (winds of change)

Friends,

Last Sunday morning in worship four of our youth carried in a couch and placed in the center of the Sanctuary stage to symbolize the tendency to stay 'comfortable' and play it safe rather than taking the appropriate risks God may be calling us to take.

I can remember thirteen plus years ago, a time when I was fulfilling a life long dream of working in the television industry, when God began to plant seeds of change within my heart.  Through conversations and nudging from a close friend and pastor, I began to see and understand God's true calling in my life.  I prayed and discerned and eventually a door was opened.  I decided to take a risk as I stepped aside from a career in broadcast media so that I could answer the call to student ministry and begin my tenure as a youth pastor.

Thirteen years.  It's been an amazing journey.

416 Sunday night Youth Focus meetings (give or take)
240 Thursday Bible Studies (give or take)
190 Girl Talk Bible Studies (give or take)
117 Leadership Team gatherings
90 'Sup discipleship meals
70 Football parkings
60 Breakfast Clubs
29 Winter Jam retreats (Junior High, Senior High, Post High)
14 weekend youth retreats (to Atwood, Punderson & Wanake)
12 CYF camps.
12 Mission Trips.
8 Sunrise services.
5 Ichthus or Alive Music Festivals
5 5th Quarter Parties
3 Maundy-Thursday services
Plus countless Pizza parties, Guys Nites of Awesome Manliness, Concerts, Gatherings, Revolutions, Overnighters, Swim parties, Video shoots, Game nights etc.

Lots of great memories.  Lots of great God moments.  Lots of great students.  I sincerely cherish and love every student who has ever sat on a couch in the youth lounge, shared a meal at our table, traveled the back roads to our fall retreat location, journeyed together to serve God in mission or has been a part of the Christ UMC Youth group in any other way, great or small.  I have so many fond memories.  I've spent the better part of my life hanging with teenagers, doing my best to be an example of Jesus to them all.  We've shared in our successes and failures - and I am so thankful that I answered that calling and took that risk.

I have no regrets.

About five years ago, my father passed away unexpectedly.  As much as I was mad at God for taking him away, I knew that God was with me.  As Psalm 30:5 says "weeping may remain for a night, but rejoicing comes in the morning."  Through that I began to sense that God had something else in store for me but I didn't know what.  I went through a period of deep soul searching and self discovery.  That lead to some great years of ministry for the CUMC youth, I believe.  As a leader I felt fresh and renewed, despite my wondering of what was to come, but through it all God was again planting seeds of change within my heart.

I've never been one to want to play it safe and have always thrived on newness and change, despite the nervousness and anxiety that comes with it.  After a strong period of renewal, I began to sense that God had another plan for me.  It was tough to even allow myself to be open and willing to discover that plan.  I know that God is in control and has plans for us all, but answering a new calling can be scary for anyone.

Over the past few months, I believe I began to understand what it was that God was leading me to.  The seeds of change were beginning to spout.  It was time for me to seek out my next step.  Even though I'm fully confident that God could use me to bring about his greater good as a youth pastor at Christ UMC, I realized that He had another plan.

This brings me to one of the most bittersweet moments in my life.  It's with sadness that I tell you that I will be leaving the Christ United Methodist Church community in July of this year but am nervously excited to be transitioning to a new position at the Wadsworth United Methodist Church, in Wadsworth, Ohio as their Director of Discipleship.  This a big risk for me.  It means uprooting my family from the community of Louisville, a community that I love and have called home for all but 11 years of my life.  It means stepping away from my passion for youth ministry and from the wonderful students that I humbly serve.  It means saying goodbye to a church family that has been a monumental part of my life and faith.  But I need to be faithful to God's calling.  I need to take this risk for Him because He has called me to do it.

This new opportunity is in front of me and with it I aim to help people navigate the discipleship process so that they may know and understand what it means to be a follower of Jesus; to help them discover their spiritual gifts, abilities and calling through practices and teachings that will help develop their spiritual formation and to compel them to go and be the hands and feet of Christ, through genuine service to the poor, the needy or anyone they may encounter in life.  I will also be given a chance to use my creative gifts and media background to help strengthen this new discipleship process for the people of Wadsworth.

I hope for the best for the 'Alien Uth' of CUMC.  I will do my best to help make for a smooth transition to whomever else may lead the youth group.  I wholeheartedly believe that God has someone else in mind to take the group to the next level.

I love and appreciate all of you who have taken the time to be a part of the youth ministry of CUMC:  past, present and future; the awesome students and dedicated adult volunteers, the prayer warriors and faithful supporters.  You all mean the world to me.  God has used you to shape my soul as much as I hope he has allowed me to shape yours.  Jen and I both have been truly blessed.

I hope and pray that you will come to know and understand the calling God has placed upon your life.  I trust and pray that you might continue to follow Jesus and his teachings.  I hope you might be compelled to live out your faith and to share your stories with the world - so that God's kingdom might be made greater as you share with others the love of Jesus.

Thanks again.  Much love to all of you.

Humbled and thankful,


Tim Beck

Imagine.Love

imagine. love. from Tim Beck on Vimeo.

this video was played at the end of a reading of the following text:

http://fantasticdistraction.blogspot.com/2009/02/world-without-selfishness.html

as part of a worship service dealing with serving the least of these.

imagine... a world without selfishness would be a world of... love.

a world without selfishness...

would be a world without:

greed
theft
murders
drama queens
steroids in baseball
wars
and terrorism
wall street tycoons with 120 million dollar bonuses
plots of deception
drug addiction
unwanted pregnancies
and abortions
western consumerism
carjacking
ransacked businesses robbed of everything in the middle of the night
fraud
the love of money
overindulgence
1,500 calorie fast food burgers
and clogged arteries
empire building
bombs over bagdad
drug smuggling
the suppression of women in 3rd world cultures
shantytowns
and poverty
bloated bellies
a lack of AIDS medicines in Africa
debt
unemployment
mortgage crisis
stock market crashes
crumbling economies
400 billion dollar profits from oil companies
covetousness
wanting more and more and more
and thinking i have a right to it
pompous behavior
puffed up status
vandalism
divorce
lust
neglected relationships
unforgiveness
so-called christians following political parties over following Jesus
inward church communities expecting 'the lost' to wander in to their sanctuaries
exile
hungry children
homeless men sleeping on park benches
as much guilt
as much pain
as much suffering
injustice
disharmony
this blog post


---

i could go on... and frankly, you could probably add to the list, too.






i'm not striving to be like Jesus enough. i must strive towards humility and grace... and stop wanting so much.

change

Change Your Life
But there's also this, it's not too late—
God's personal Message!—
"Come back to me and really mean it!
Come fasting and weeping, sorry for your sins!"

Change your life, not just your clothes.
Come back to God, your God.
And here's why: God is kind and merciful.
He takes a deep breath, puts up with a lot,
This most patient God, extravagant in love,
always ready to cancel catastrophe.
Who knows? Maybe he'll do it now,
maybe he'll turn around and show pity.
Maybe, when all's said and done,
there'll be blessings full and robust for your God!

Joel 2:12-14




post#401

it's all about perspective

They asked him, "John's disciples are well-known for keeping fasts and saying prayers. Also the Pharisees. But you seem to spend most of your time at parties. Why?"

Jesus said, "When you're celebrating a wedding, you don't skimp on the cake and wine. You feast. Later you may need to pull in your belt, but this isn't the time. As long as the bride and groom are with you, you have a good time. When the groom is gone, the fasting can begin. No one throws cold water on a friendly bonfire. This is Kingdom Come!

"No one cuts up a fine silk scarf to patch old work clothes; you want fabrics that match. And you don't put wine in old, cracked bottles; you get strong, clean bottles for your fresh vintage wine. And no one who has ever tasted fine aged wine prefers unaged wine." (Luke 5:33-39)

----------------

Mary knew what it meant to be in the presence of the Messiah. Levi knew it. He walked away from the lucrative business of tax collecting. Simon Peter knew it. Him and the others dropped their fishing nets (apparently overflowing with a fresh catch of fish) on the beach and followed Christ. His mother Mary knew it (as referenced in a previous post) when she pleaded that Jesus to 'keep the party going.'

it's all about perspective... point of view. glass half full or half empty? do you visit the Grand Canyon and complain about the dirt on your shoes? do you watch the sun setting on the shores of Lake Erie and focus on the sand between your toes? the big picture reveals greatness, and the big picture of Christ's invitation to a changed life is to be celebrated.

being in His presence brings about change. if we don't want to change - do we really want to be in the presence of Jesus? why resist the party?

open your eyes. there is something more.

----------------

Make a wish on a silver sun
a day like this can't be wasted
make a wish don't tell anyone
Cool this temper with laughter

Daylight comes crashing in
Time is of short supply
The wind streams through
broken rooms
Underneath darkness lies
From this fear there may come light
Stretch me out over this divide
Make a wish on a silver sun
when it comes, it comes

Make a wish on a silver sun
a day like this can't be wasted
make a wish don't tell anyone
Cool this temper with laughter

Daylight comes crashing in
Time is of short supply
The wind streams through
broken rooms
Underneath darkness lies

From this fear there may come light
Stretch me out over this divide
Make a wish on a silver sun
when it comes, it comes.

----------------
Now playing: South - Silver Sun
via FoxyTunes

Life is What Happens...

We are standing on a road,
on a road to nowhere
There's a place for all of this
They don't care
We don't care
You can't break us down*

they say that life is what happens when your making other plans. i say life is what happens when other plans make you. In this past two weeks we've seen 22,000 die in Mayanmar after a deadly cyclone, 12,000 are now dead after a massive earthquake rocked China and 30+ died after a series of twisters hit areas throughout the midwest. Add to that the chaos of life that ensued after I learned that my very own mom would need an entire hysterectomy to remove a mass the size of a baseball that had been discovered in or around her ovaries. My grandmother, whom died 5 years before I was born, passed away from Ovarian cancer, on May 8th, 1969. My mom was scheduled for surgery on May 8th, 2008.

After surgery, Doctor Hopkins met with me and one of my sisters and some pastor friends of the family. He disclosed that they had removed the tumor - but that it was throughout her fallopian tubes. It was a very rare form of cancer... some 3.6 out of 1 million woman have been diagnosed with fallopian tubal cancer. It is believed that this kind of cancer is genetically linked to those who had a parent with ovarian cancer. Thankfully, there was no cancer in the surrounding tissue, which is good, but she will need to undergo chemotherapy. My mom's cancer is stage one.

This all came as quite a shock. I was prepared for the surgery and the things that come with that - but i had not begun to think about the possibility of cancer. And so other plans have now made us... much like the many others throughout the world today who have been stuck with disaster... big and small.

And yet i can't stop thinking about what good friend and pastor Carl Kandel said to me as he left the waiting room last Thursday... "God's going to reveal himself in a big way. You watch and see."

that is hard to think about when we realize how much our 'plans' for this summer may change as a result of my mom's treatments. The selfish person inside of me can't help but think how my life will be changed... what about my mothers? our realm of perspective is narrow when disaster strikes. I am having trouble seeing the big picture. I see the thread - but he shows the tapestry... "God's going to reveal himself in a big way. You watch and see." I see the dirt, but he sees the field of flowers... "God's going to reveal himself in a big way. You watch and see." I hear the word - but he speaks the sonnet. "God's going to reveal himself in a big way. You watch and see." I see the tree - but God shows me the forest and the life that dwells within it. "God's going to reveal himself in a big way. You watch and see." I see the ray of light - but he gives me the beautiful sun setting in the distance.

I am learning to trust again... trusting that his canvas is larger than mine... his brush is showing me what Monet never dreamed of. I have to trust that God will provide and will not take away that which has been given to expand the kingdom. In his time.



*The Appleseed Cast - Here We Are (Family in the Hallways)