**update: i realize there were some problems with my calendar. that's been resolved. go ahead...read on, and let's do this!**

it’s summertime. and that means, for college students, every rhythm that has been established over the last nine months will be disrupted.

and that’s frustrating. i remember being so discouraged in college, feeling as though i was taking two steps backwards.

even now, in my own life, i feel out of whack. my equilibrium is off and everything suffers because of it.

including my relationship with God.

but, i feel the summertime can be an amazing season of intention spiritual growth and discipleship for all of us.

and, so, i want us to do this together. technology will help.

all you need is some time, an internet connection, and a webcam.

i am making myself available throughout this summer for what i am calling “coffee chats.” i want to meet with you for one hour, each week of the summer, for discipleship, encouragement, and accountability. i want to help you make a plan for your spiritual growth through these summer months. i want to pray with you. i want to hear about what God is doing in your life.

here is how we’ll do it:

find a time.
i have set up some blocks of time over the next week for you to sign-up for. simply go to my calendar and find a time that works for both of us. 

set it up.
on the calendar, click the button and write your name down. in the box that says “location” i would like for you write down which service we will use to meet. i can be found in the following spaces:

• Google Talk.
• Google+.
• Facebook Video Chat.
• Skype.
• Face Time.

show up.
you don’t have to bring a cup of coffee, but i will. we’ll share life-on-life, face-to-face.

so, please. head on over to the calendar and find a time that works for the both of us right now and sign-up. i’ve only listed my available times for the next week…so don’t wait.

i am not surprised that 'facebook free february' would make the list of my top 7 posts over the last two years. the movement seems to have really struck a chord.

you can read the post below, but i want to draw your attention to several related posts:

• i wrote several posts leading up to facebook free february.
• recently, i was asked to guest blog on our experiences of facebook free february over at faithoncampus.com. here is my article: "facebook free february; or, how to grow pineapples."
• my friend, hannah, was the inspiration behind facebook free february. she started by just giving up facebook for the month of january. then february. now, it's almost may and she hasn't gone back. read a few of her facebook free posts here and here.

here is the original post. enjoy.

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have you ever thought about giving something up...only to shudder in fear and trembling? 

perhaps the idea of giving up your morning coffee (or other caffeinated beverages) causes you to panic? you think to yourself, "i could never do that."

maybe you've entertained the idea of giving up your favorite, guitly-pleasure gossip or reality TV program. and you shake your head, conceding you don't think you can do it.

have you ever thought of down-grading your smart phone to a regular, old grandma-style flip phone? what was your reaction?

i think our reaction to these thoughts and ideas reveal what controls us. if you mutter under your breath that you "just can't give up __________," then it just may be a good indicator you need to give that thing up.

it's controlling you. it's dictating to you. it owns you.

and i'm convinved we shouldn't be owned by any thing. paul refers to getting drunk on wine in ephesians 5. he says we should be full of the Holy Spirit instead of wine. the implication here is that only one thing can control us at a time. 

so what controls you?

for those of us in the college context, i am convinced that facebook is in control.

it consumes so much of our time and energy. it's everywhere. it distracts us. it beckons to us. it butts its way into line ahead of studying, resting, community, and good, old-fashioned face-to-face relationships with three-dimensional people and with God.

and i'm tired of being its slave. and i'm tired of my students being its slave.

and so, in february...we are going to take our life back. allow me to introduce you to facebook free february.

there will be more details in future posts, but it seems pretty self-explanatory. starting february 1st and going through february 29th, i am going to be...and i challenge you to be...facebook free. 

(if you read that last paragraph and thought to yourself, "no way! no facebook for a month! i could never..." then you need to do this.)

but it's not enough just to give something up. if there is no purpose behind it, you're really just torturing yourself. after all, fasting for spiritual purposes is powerful; skipping meals with no purpose is just a crash diet. 

there will be more in the coming days, but here are a few purposes behind F3.

• regain control of your time.
• regain focus on things that matter; not whose relationship status changed or who had a ham sandwich for lunch.
• use your new found "free" time to build face-to-face relationships.
• use your new found "free" time to read God's word, pray, and grow your relationship with Him.
• read a book. any book. (just not facebook.)
• and lots more...

i am highlighting the most popular posts on this blog since making the move to posterous, nearly two years ago. see #7 here.

the 6th most popular post contained no text. only this picture. and we still couldn't be more excited!

nearly two years ago, i made the jump from wordpress to posterous for my blog. now, posterous has been bought by twitter and i fear posterous will ride off into the sunset. and so, i am in the process of jumping back to wordpress. i hope to go live over there again in the next few weeks.

in the meantime, i thought i would take the lazy blogger approach and share with you the top posts from my time at posterous. it's not really lazy, actually. it's a great way for us to re-ignite some great conversations.

and so, here is the 7th most popular post from the last 22 months called lazy activism.

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it's october, which is a big month for sports fans. baseball has hit the post-season and football is in full swing. no doubt, if you tuned in to any NFL game last weekend, you noticed that all the teams changed their colors to pink and pink.

how's that for an attention grabbing title?

while it's true i am not pregnant with a human baby inside of my body (although my wife is!), i do have something growing inside of me. it was conceived a few months ago. it has been developing and taking shape and growing legs and hands and a heart.

today i am uncomfortable, as though in the final weeks of pregnancy. soon it will be the time for labor. it will not be a quick and painless delivery. i expect lots of tears and screaming and salty language. i expect to want to quit. i expect to blame someone. i expect it to hurt.

and when it's all said and done, i expect to hold this little bundle with joy. and share it with you.

on april 1, 2013 i will release my first book. in conjunction with the genius Ben Arment and Dream Year Books, this unnamed baby will make its entrance.

and i need your help. the process of creating, whether its a book or a baby, was never meant to be navigated alone. even God created within the context of community.

i will need your input.
i will need your encouragement.
i will need your financial help.
i will need your influence.
i will need you.

stay on the look out in the next few weeks for an announcement about my kickstarter campaign. i also hope to share some juicy tidbits from the book and insights in the process of bringing it into the world.

looking forward to doing this with you.

a few days ago, i wrote about 3 observations i made about the "great work" God has for each of us. these observations were one of two great massive takeaways i had while on a personal retreat last december. today's post records the second main takeaway from my time away.

i never knew this, but apparently, the sap in a grapevine is what makes the grapes ripe and sweet. and the sap will find its way into all the part of the grapevine; not just the grapes, but also the leaves and branches and dead stuff on the plant.

and this poses a problem.

the sap is the good stuff. and the good stuff can be wasted on things that bear no fruit. if the sap goes to a leaf, it's not going to the grapes. in a sense, it's being wasted on that which is not fruitful. this is why vinedressers will cut away seemingly healthy parts of the grapevine, along with the dead parts; they want the good stuff to not be wasted on the fruitless and instead be re-directed to making the grapes their best.

i realized that my life is very full of good things. and those things require my good stuff. the problem is that my good stuff gets spread out so thin that my life does not bear the best fruit that it should. by trimming away not only the dead stuff, but also the good stuff, my resources can be used to produce my best stuff.

this is hard. it seems counter-intuitive, but the reality is that we all have limited resources. this is not a matter of how you spend your "sap," but how you invest it.

a few thoughts:

• to determine where to invest your resources, we must determine our great work.
• we must relentlessly trim away good things to bear the best fruit. Jesus says that a vine bearing fruit is pruned so that it bears even more fruit. it might be a little painful, but the end result is sweeter.
• i believe it's in our nature to bear fruit. a grapevine knows it's supposed to grow grapes. the vinedresser simply encourages it by creating an incredible environment in which to grow the best grapes. in the same, we are designed to bear fruit. we simply need to create the best environment to produce the best stuff.

i'm very excited. tonight is a big night. for my birthday, my lovely wife purchased us tickets to see Lady Antebellum in KC for this evening. and while i don't have a cowboy hat or boots, i am very excited. 

and so...for your friday, check out this video. it's one of my favorite songs and if i don't hear it live tonight i will be sorely disappointed. the video makes me cry every. single. time.

and, a friend just introduced me to the band Brother Clyde. it features billy ray cyrus! this song, "Lately," is very good. it ain't "Achy Breaky Heart," that's for sure. enjoy!

for short sermons:

• the record of the most famous sermon ever, the one on the mount, can be read out loud in less than 15 minutes.
• peggy noonan (ronald reagan's speechwriter) says that no speech should last longer than 20 minutes. she implies that if you can't say what you need to say in 20 minutes or less, you aren't ready to say it. (ht: mark taylor)
• the gettysburg address was about 3 minutes long.
• many folks think we have been conditioned to be still for 13 minute segments, thanks to the sitcom. we'll be engaged for 13 minutes and then we need a break to use the potty and get a snack.
• seth godin tells us few will ever complain if something runs short.

for long sermons:

• the apostle paul apparently preached longer sermons. in acts 20, he preaches into the night and into the next day. (of course, poor eutychus fell asleep and out of a window while paul preached...so maybe i shouldn't hang my hat here.)
• stand-up comedians can hold the attention of their audience for hours. and make no points. and turn a huge profit doing so. i don't think attention span is our problem. i think engagement is.
• mark driscoll (the lead pastor at mars hill church) and matt chandler (the lead pastor at the village church) both regularly teach for 50 minutes or more. and their churches run in the thousands.
• even my own college students tell me they are fine with a longer sermon as long as it's engaging and high quality. i regularly teach for 50+ minutes as well. (although, admittedly, i wonder if the length of my messages has been a roadblock for some students we have lost along the way).

so, what say you? how long do you preach? do you feel there is a "better" sermon length? what role does culture play in our sermon length? i'd love to hear your thoughts.

a couple months ago, i got away from everything for a week and did a personal retreat at a benedictine monastary in nowhere, missouri. (and by nowhere, missouri i actually mean just 20 minutes away from my house).

the goal of my retreat was to simply keep from burning out. i was on the verge. i'll share the warning signs of burnout to watch for in another post, but suffice it to say that i was close. too close.

on my retreat i did three things:

1. i slept. a lot.
2. i read my Bible and not much else.
3. i prayed. sometimes alone and sometimes with the monks.

and while this doesn't sound like much, it was very hard work. it's incredible to me the work God longs to do in us if we'll simply give Him the space and time.

and so i came out of that week having learned two major lessons that have shaped my last four months in campus ministry.

the first lesson is this: we must not be distracted from our great work.

i wear lots of hats. i am a director, preacher, counselor, visionary, office manager, public relations guy, and landlord. some of these roles i enjoy performing more than others. and some times i can get bogged down in the minutiae of the smaller roles. and this is unhealthy.

as i was reading nehemiah on my retreat, i noticed (again) that he would not be distracted from his task. he was leading the charge on a building project and some mean nasties came and tried to convince nehemiah to take a break from his work and meet with them. in actuality, they were aspiring to kill him. and i love nehemiah's response:

"i am doing a great work and i cannot come down." (nehemiah 6:3)

here are a few observations:

1. nehemiah knew what his work was.
he knew the task before him. he knew what was required of him. he knew what God had placed before him to accomplish.

during my retreat i wrote down all of my roles and then prayerfully asked God what work He had placed before me. i landed on two things: preaching/teaching and discipleship. this was where He wanted me to spend my time. this was the work He had given me to accomplish.

2. nehemiah knew his work was great.
whatever God has called us to is sacred. it's not second-class work or stuff reserved for the B team. whether it's building a wall, preaching a sermon, investing in your children, getting a degree, or managing your home, the work God has placed before you in a great work. nehemiah knew this. we must, too.

3. nehemiah absolutely would not be distracted from his great work.
once i determined that my great work is to preach/teach and disciple, i had to make a holy resolution to radically re-orient my days around these tasks. i now spend 80-85% of my time on these two things. that means other important (and even good) things will be put on the backburner. i will not apologize or feel guilty about this. nehemiah didn't.

and so...do you know what your great work is? are you giving yourself whole-heartedly to that great work? or are you distracted? what changed need to be made?

tomorrow, 17 students and myself head on out to nashville, tennessee for our annual spring break mission trip.

the fact that college students will give up their spring break, pay money, and go somewhere to work amazes me every year.

this year's trip is a bit different, however. early in the fall, we sensed the Lord changing the direction of our trip's focus. instead of our mission being to build a house, or tear one down, or serve the homeless...we felt like the mission of our mission trip was to be international students.

international students usually spend their spring break sightseeing, since it's usually too far to go home. and so we designed a sightseeing trip for them. we wanted to show them a big town with some american culture. what is more american than country music?

we want to use our time on this trip to start, grow, and strengthen our relationships with these international students and, ultimately, earn the opportunity to share the gospel with them in both our actions and our words.

we have five international students joining us.

our four days in nashville will be split between sightseeing (the country music hall of fame, the hermitage) and serving (harvest hands, local churches). we are busy, but not too busy. after all, the point of the trip isn't to do; it's to be. on the way home, we will hit a casting crowns concert.

would you like to keep up with us over the week? peek in on all of our journeys? there are several ways:

CCHMissions.com -- our blog. updated each night.
twitter.com/cchmissions -- our twitter feed will be blowing up.
facebook.com/cchmissions -- our facebook page. should be hopping.

every once in awhile, this space is used to help me process and vocalize some of the thoughts running through my head. it makes me feel better to think out loud.

today is one of those days.

the attendance at our gatherings at the Christian Campus House right now are low. and that's got me feeling...well, you guessed it...pretty low.

it's frustrating. it's disheartening. it's confusing.

• and it's hard not to wonder if it's me.
• and it's hard not to think we must be doing something wrong.
• and it's hard not to compare our ministry to other ministries on campus.
• and it's hard not to feel inferior.
• and it's hard to remember that we are more than the sum of our parts.
• and it's hard to keep perspective.
• and it's hard not to be jealous of what i see going on in other campus ministries.
• and it's hard to remember that Jesus changed the world with only 12. and even 1 of those guys bailed.

and i feel crappy for feeling crappy.

because there are some amazing things going on at the campus house.

• most of our students are completing a 21 Days of Prayer challenge.
• most of our students are headed to nashville this weekend for our spring break mission trip.
• most of our students are connected to a communitas group.
• most of our students are going to haiti in may to love on and serve the least of these.
• there are five or six students connected to the campus house who are genuinely searching for Christ and the life he offers.
• five international students are going to nashville with us. (the mission of the mission trip is to build relationships with, and invest in, international students in hopes of sharing the gospel.)
• two students were baptized into Christ a few weeks ago.

but those aren't the things i wake up thinking about on wednesday mornings.

why is it so hard to maintain a healthy perspective?
why am i so quick to remember numbers and not so quick to remember impact?
why can't i transfer what i know in my head to what i know in my heart?

just keeping it real. what are you struggling with today?

introducing: the dollar shave club.

for christmas, i finally got a big boy razor. i had been using the cheap, disposable razors for years. and the hack job on my face and neck proved it. my sweet wife bought me an entire new repetoire of shaving accesories. my face has been happy ever since. and my wife is happy, too.

more shaving = more kisses = more marital happiness

only one problem: the razors are freakin' expensive.

enter: the dollar shave club.

for as little as $1 per month, the DSC will send their quality razors to your door. i ponied up for the $6 per month razors, because i'm a big spender (i'm a campus minister. i got into this field for the money). 4 cartridges a month for 6 bucks. are you kidding me?

if you don't sign up for the club, at least watch their hilarious video.

WARNING: some implied salty language ensues.

this was my first real experience mountain biking. i've had my bike (affectionately named "space ghost") for a little less than two years. i've put lots of miles on her, just not on a trail.

we rode 10 miles and it was great therapy. oftentimes, when your expectations are as lofty as mine were, you are disappointed. but you go anyway in hopes that maybe, just maybe, the experience will be all you had hoped it would be.

this experience was all i had hoped...and a bit more.

as we rode, i got to thinking about some great lessons i need to learn from riding.

1// we need a guide.
my friend joel is a seasoned mountain biker. he is the guy who infected me with the bug. he graciously has given me some equipment, gone with me to the bike shop a few times, and shown me many ropes. he led the way on the trail. i'm pretty convinced he was going a bit slower than he usually would, on my behalf.

but i noticed a few things.

what joel did, i did. if he was pedaling through a section of trail, i pedaled. when he cruised, i cruised. if he went over a log crossing, so did i. i figured joel knew what he was doing and i didn't. so i mimicked.

i don't mean to simplify the life of a Christ follower, but is this not what we are called to? when Jesus pedals, we pedal. when He cruises, so do we. when He leads us over a log crossing, we bear down and jump.

also, there were times joel got pretty far ahead of me. i felt isolated on the trail, but i wasn't left alone. joel was challenging me. he let me know i had what it takes.

i think this is important. Jesus never gets too far ahead of us. but i sometimes wonder if He speeds up His pace deliberately not just so we have to hustle and keep up, but so that we might also know He feels we have what it takes.

2. where you set your sights is where you go.
if you see that ginormous rock in your path...and you focus on it...and you think to yourself, "i hope i don't clip that thing and wipe out, tagging that massive tree next to it," guess what you'll do. you'll clip that thing and wipe out and tag that massive tree next to it.

however, if you keep your eyes further down the path...where you want to go...that's where you'll head.

Jesus said, "no one who puts his hand to the plow and looks back is fit for the Kingdom of God" (luke 9:62). to plow straight rows, the farmer looked ahead of him at a distance. looking backwards only messed his rows up. the same concept applies for the Kingdom: where you set your vision is where you go.

3. the easiest stuff is often the hardest.
i am proud to say that i only wiped out once while riding the trail. more on that in a second. but that's not to say i didn't spill multiple times. allow me to explain.

serious bikers wear special shoes that clip on to their pedals. getting in and out of the clips can be a challenge. when you are accustomed to simply taking your feet off the pedals to balance yourself, you are set up for some awkward moments.

getting off my bike should be the simplest of chores. but with those clips, it was tough. i fell. several times. and laughed a lot because of it.

often times the simplest things are our greatest challenge. prayer. love. sacrifice. simplicity. you name it.

4. just when you start to get comfortable, you wipe out.
i had found my groove on the trail. she and i were in rhythm. i was confident. i was having fun. and then it happened.

i hit sand. not just a bit of sand. like, 4" of sand. i was full speed ahead when i hit the sandtrap, and i was not ready for it. my bike simply stalled out underneath me. i panicked and pedaled, but i only spun my tires and threw sand. then i tipped over like a cow at the hands of some bored rural teenagers.

the point: you never know what to expect. when you think you've arrived, you'll hit sand. don't get too comfortable.

5. you need to shed a little blood.
i wanted to leave some blood on the trail. not because i like pain, but i felt it was some sort of initiation. i wanted the experience to cost me something.

why are we often afraid of the cost? the best things we gain in life come with a price tag. this might be why Jesus paid with His life and calls us to do the same.

my friend hannah has something of an obsession with mustaches. last night, she came to a meeting we had with a sweatshirt on she had made that featured a mustache. she makes mustache cookies and is planning a mustache party for our ministry. i think she should get a mustache tattoo.

although not on the same level as hannah, i find the mustache very fascinating. as a general rule, if you are under 40, you can't pull the mustache off. only more, ahem, distinguished gentlemen (read: older) can wear a mustache well. which is too bad, because i think i'd like to have one.

here are a few interesting mustache things to think about:

• march has often been referred to as "mustache march." this works well after facial hair february.
• speaking of march, did you know that the american mustache institute is planning a "million mustache march" in washington d.c. on april 1st? they are rallying support for a tax cut for men with mustaches. true story.
• here are 51 photos of the best mustaches in hollywood. i love these.
• you also need to view the photos from the "world beard and mustache championships."

what say you? are you a fan of the mustache? can you pull one off?

this is a "just for fun" post for a friday.

i think space is important. creative space inspires creative work. fun space inspires fun work. collaborative space inspires collaborative work. you get the idea.

well, google has been changing the game for quite some time now. here's a look inside their new york offices. very cool to get a glimpse at the environment where ideas are born.