A walk in Eagle rock!

So I start my blogs with this all the time, but its been a while internet...have you missed me?

Tonight was probably one of the greatest nights I have had in a long time. My huddle (bible study) is reading this book called Blue like Jazz.. What a great book. I read it a while back so naturally i was like ..sweet I already read it.. so i can slack off and just skim over it. Skim over it turned into, reading it before and during huddle when we talked about it. Well one night we were talking about it, and we got to the section where Don Miller, the author of the book writes about how he and a buddy of his made a confessional booth and put it in the middle of their university's quad during the annual " october fest " type thing going on where there is lots of drinking and crazy partying going on. Well this was his approach to reaching out to the people on the campus…and how he went about it was, he sat in the confessional and when people came in, he confessed to the people for all of Christian history. He apologized and confessed for the crusades, and for all the wrongs Christians have done to the world. This in turn caused the people to ask him questions and in turn he got to be real with the people and put his faith out there in a practical way that was blessing others..

Well my huddle leader Aaron, asked the question to the group, “ would any of you guys have sat in the booth?” some answered yes and no..typical group discussion for a bible study. Then all of us got into this great discussion on how we now a days could do something like that.. the example that was used for that was going around and knocking on peoples doors asking them to pray. The conversation was good, and we had some great dialog but most of us just overlooked it later.

Well the next week, Aaron, he came to us with a new challenge. He had made a covenant with the other guy huddle leader about doing that very thing- going around the neighborhood and asking people if they want prayer. So this week huddle was cancelled for our special activity. Which was not mandatory and was highly optional, but our leaders had covenanted to do this with or with out us. We were all super scared of what was going to come. Something told me I don’t want to miss this. I find in my life, its when the risk is highest that He seems to do such an amazing work.. So naturally, I had to fight all the excuses not to go..

This meant for me, getting off work early, 5 pm..then coming home and putting all the other stuff of the day I was worried about to the side, and saying “ ok God…don’t know what your going to do here.. but I am willing and able…send me”


So scared out of my wits to do this, I partnered with Luke, and we set out. At first it was kind of weird, we were like “ well what do we say…” so we prayed. just gathered out thoughts.. and did it.. the first lady we talked to just flat out rejected us…the next guy we met had a giant gong in side his front door, and said he was not interested..

So we stepped back and analyzed the situation. what were we doing wrong…so we decided that instead of asking if we could pray for people, we would introduce ourselves tell where we were from, and then ask what we could pray for them about.. Surprisingly people started to respond. We met these two young guys working on their cars.. jarrod and chris, Jarrod actually was asked us to pray for his bills, and his parents.. but didn’t get specific.. so we walked and lifted them up…

The next guy we met as he was getting his mail, and he was more sincere, his name was David. His main request was for his “troubles” so we left it at that and walked on. A few more rejections followed. Then we saw Sean and Eli, so we stopped to talk to them. Apparently they had a different situation where they got chased away by some lady’s boyfriend…

So we continued on and went to this condo. A four door condo.. we knocked and the young guy about our age answers the door. “ hi I am Jon Mark and this is Luke, we are from Christian assembly down the street and are walking around asking people what we can pray for them about.. did you have anything we could pray for you about?”

This is was the best part of my week…he replied..” Actually I really could use some prayer, I go to Christian assembly too, but today I got some information that just set me over the top and I cried out to God for a sign or something.. and now here you guys are at my doorstep. Wow.. God is good.. Come on in”
So he goes on to tell us all about what’s going on in his life and lets us in on all the specifics. He opened right up!! So we got to pray with him right there and then, He even prayed as well after Luke and I were done, His prayer was so powerful!!! He made it clear that this was just what he needed. Before we came over, he had been writing about what he was dealing with on his computer, and we just showed up. It was clear…this was what this whole “experiment” was all about.. this was the whole reason for Luke and I being out there. This is what made it all worth it, to see the look and smile on this mans face, and know we were being used as vessels of God’s love in his life. What a great feeling.

It was so awesome to see how God can use two regular individuals who don’t have a clue how to go about “witnessing” and use us to bless someone and speak through us. Talk about a divine appointment. Man its been a long time since I have had one of those. But oh how I remember how awesome they are. God used Luke and I to speak to some in their life. And I think I made a new friend out of it all.

Man What can I Say God is good. Its funny how you can be going through something, and then all of a sudden God shows up and say’s “Hey..Stop worrying about this…but go and do that.. and let me use you to bless someone” IT was tough getting out of my comfort zone, but oh so necessary.

So that was my day. Figured I should write about it. Thanks A.L. for the reminder!!

Too tired

Wow...so its been four months now...kinda breaking my own worst record. A lot has happened in the last four months, tours, thanks giving, dates, christmas parties, really good christmas parties (shout out to my hosts in Van nuys), christmas with the folks, meeting up with old friends, maybe saying goodbye to my dog, then Hawaii!!! = best vacation ever. To read more about that go to my myspace.

Now its a new year, a new time, and new number for me to tell people when they ask how old i am. Dates are good, friends can be better, growing up can be difficult, but through it all you learn and can enjoy the journey. A friend of mine from high school came out here for the heck of it. Its weird because she was my neighbor back in northboro, now shes my neighbor in glendale.

I went sailing with the blair man last weekend, i am going paintballing tommorow, and have had birthay parties for the last three weekends in a row. This weeks being the lovly Azina. OH and officialy karaoke mondays now. I even sang for the first time.

And finally,I can almost call myself a surfer now, I went three times in the past two weeks. And i can almost catch a wave. well too tired to write more. night