Joel Young Blog.com

You’ve all heard of VH1’s Behind the Music haven’t you? Well, this is my own version, and I call it behind the tweet. This will be a way for me to expand my own thought beyond 140 characters. So, here goes.

Original Tweet: “Trying to make an informed decision can often lead to indecision. Act when the time is right.”

In our quest to find the perfect house, my wife Jenna and I have struggled with indecision. When one of us actually likes a house, the other doesn’t. Just when we think we know what we’re looking for, it changes. It’s all created a fair amount of frustration for both of us. Our real goal is to make the most informed decision that we can possibly make. We’ve owned two houses before, but we still realize the depth of the commitment we are on the verge of making.

The only problem is that over the past year of looking and becoming “better informed” we have really become better at being indecisive. The more options we see the more discontented we become with what’s in front of us. We are constantly asking ourselves the question, “Is there something better just around the corner that we haven’t seen yet?” If you haven’t experienced this feeling before let me be the first to tell you that it can drive you crazy. It’s all very stressful, but the end result in our case is that we simply have to stay in our nice and adequate apartment for a few more months (not too big a deal at all), but what if we were talking about major life decisions?

What things in your life have you put off or delayed in efforts to become “better informed”? Has that lead you to a stagnant life/faith plagued by indecision?

My point is, we have to find the right timing for every decision. Act too early and it will be impulsive. Act too late and you could miss out. Seek God for a season and them make a Spirit lead decision because trying to make an informed decision can often lead to indecision.

I’m more than just a little excited that we are starting a new series this Sunday at Horizon called 1 & 2 Timothy. This series will be an extended look at these two letters that are filled with wisdom on leadership, life, and love. We’ll be learning from the wisdom of Paul, who was one of the first men to plant churches for Jesus Christ’s Gospel. He was a pioneer of what we are doing RIGHT NOW. How cool is that?

As a preacher there is nothing that excites me more than getting an opportunity to preach the Bible straight up. No frills, no cute titles, no wishy washy parallels. Just letting scripture speak straight to the hearts of God’s people. If I can give people the truth of scripture and get out of the way then hearts and lives will be changed. I hope you’ll join us for the entirety of this series. It’s going to be great!

Sunday morning at 11am.
Get directions

No matter what I’m doing I always seem to struggle with my process, eventually. How I do things is just as important as the things I do, and therefore my process is very important. As a preacher it’s very hard to keep the weekly responsibility of sermon writing fresh. There are always distractions that can pull your focus away, and inevitably there are going to be those sermons that just don’t fire you up as easily as others. But, by the end of the week they need to be setting your life and perspective on fire or they won’t be affective.

So, the week after vacation I find myself staring writer’s block and distractions square in the face once again. What’s a guys to do? How ’bout changing the process?

Normally, I sit in a local wifi hotspot on my MacBook and type out my outlines as I research and brainstorm for ideas. To change things dramatically I went out and purchased a two dollar notebook and took my creativity on the road. Armed only with my Bible, a good pen, and my new notebook I visited several different locations over the past few days. Each location brought a new perspective and some fresh ideas. It really helped me to disconnect from my crutch, the computer, and reconnect God’s word on a more simplistic level so that each sermon will truly be an outpouring of what He is doing in and through my life.

What’s your process for creating? Does you need to change it up a bit? If you want to keep things fresh then you need to be able to change your process every now and again.

REMEMBER: Your process can change, but your purpose can’t.

Today marks four years of wedded bliss for me and my wife Jenna. When I said those very words to her last night she joking replied, “Oh, is that what you call this?” That’s why I love her. She’s always able to put a smile on my face. For the life of me I can’t figure out how or why she gets me and all my quarks, but she does. The card she gave me this morning reminded me that she is hoping for 74 more years just like the four we have already celebrated (we’ll both be 100 in 74 years). I guess I need to quit eating fast food if I’m going to make it 74 more years! Our first four years have brought one child, four moves, four church homes, five cars, and many more changes than I could ever recall. It seems like the only constant in either of our lives is the God we serve together and the love he has given us for each other. And if you ask me, that’s all we need.

Last night was family movie night in the Young household. Most of the time Jenna and I will wait until the Reedmister goes to bed before we start a movie, but he’s growing up and is really starting to like movies. He loves to watch movies with animals in them. His first movie to watch entirely was “Happy Feet,” and he laughed through the whole thing. He just has this absolutely wonderful and contagious laugh that will cause you to laugh whether the movie is funny or not. So, we usually try to pick a movie that will make him laugh, and last night we ended up watching Disney’s “Bedtime Stories” with that intention. I was skeptical at first, but it really was a great family movie. We all enjoyed it, but as you’ll hear Reed enjoyed it the most. FYI – This was his response to the DVD menu. The movie had not even started at this point.

WARNING: Go to the bathroom before you listen to this.

Wow. It’s been a long time since I’ve had a chance to blog about anything, but it’s been a good time for me. I have enjoyed a time of rest and relaxation for the first time since the launch of Horizon. Jenna and I visited the city of St. Louis with some friends while Reed hung out with the G-parents. It was a bit nerve wracking for me, but I prayed through my first Sunday away from Horizon, and God took care of everything, with the help of my very capable team members.

I also took a vacation from email, and all computer related activities. I turned off most of the features on the iPhone, and left my computers at home. This technology downtime was good for me and everyone around me. But, now things are back to normal and I am more ready to go then ever before. Look out world.

I have been processing a lot of things inside my own head lately. I feel like I am finally getting what it means to let God do the leading, both in my life and in my work, and it has caused me to spend more time listening than I ever have before. During this season of listening I have come to some humbling realizations about myself, but none have been more real than what God gave me through Jenna, my wife, last week.

Sunday was one of the best worship experiences EVER at Horizon and we were trying to process it all as we came down from cloud nine that afternoon. If you know me, you know that I process out loud and therefore say everything that I’m thinking. On this particular Sunday I was elated with the response to the sermon God has laid on my heart. It was really one of those weeks where I had to pray ALL WEEK that God would say something through me because I felt so inadequate and unable to articulate His message, and boy did He. The Word rocked everyone there and caused many people to honor my delivery of that Word like never before.

Selfishly, here’s what I was thinking, and what I said to my wife. “When did these people begin to respect me, and the Word that God has put inside me, so much? It’s not like they didn’t before, but today I really felt the weight of their respect for me as God’s instrument to lead His church like never before. Why/how did that happen so suddenly?” As carefully as she could my wife articulated to me what was crystal clear to her. She answered, “Because now you believe you can lead this church.”

WHAT?!?! At first I was taken back, and a little angry. How dare she question my confidence in following God’s leading. I seriously thought to myself, “She just doesn’t get it. She doesn’t know what she’s talking about.” I mean, confidence has never been something that I have lacked before.

Then, after a few minutes of silence I came to this humbling realization: SHE WAS ABSOLUTELY RIGHT! I had been leading this church and trying to follow God’s prompting for over a year, but up until a month ago I really didn’t have confidence that God could do the job through ME. I don’t know what I was thinking, but the way I lead was telling people that I had doubts about God’s ability to use ME.

It’s a humbling thing when you realize that the only thing standing in the way of God radically blessing His calling on your life is YOU.

Here are some nuggets from a day with my son.

• “Wow, what’s that?” total = 87. I’m not kidding. He said that 87 times yesterday.
• We went to Best Buy to return something and buy mommy a CD and as we walked the isles the video game demos caught our eye. So, I hesitantly allowed Reed to play a game of Rock Band. He rocked the drums, of course, and I played guitar. The results were phenomenal. Not only did he make it through the entire song without being retired (on easy), but when the song was over there was no meltdown. I just said, “Alright, it’s over.” Reed proceeded to sit down the drum sticks and wave goodbye to the drum set saying, “Ba ta da.” (that’s how he says goodbye). It was a proud moment for me on both parts.
• My son flirts with every waitress at every restaurant we go to. I wonder if he’ll grow out of that?
• It might seem backward, but the times I see myself in Reed the most are the times when he is quietly dozing off to sleep in the back of the car. Good stuff.
• No nap for Reed = one cranky daddy.

All in all it was another great day, but as always we both love it when mommy comes home.

Yesterday at Horizon was one of those Sundays that was awesome beyond words. God showed up and he rocked our world. Here are some of my unfiltered thoughts after what could possibly be described as my most encouraging day of ministry ever.

• I LOVE PREACHING!
• I love it when people come to church for the first time, and are so affected by it that they are bringing friends the following week. That’s God at work in their life.
• When a sermon affects the preacher, it will affect the church.
• Planning for God’s power and expecting Him to show up is BEYOND EXCITING!
• Most people don’t care about where you are, they care about where you’re going.
• Seeing bits and pieces from the sermon posted in people’s facebook statuses gets me PUMPED UP!
• The aforementioned fact does not excite me because people are quoting me, but because GOD’S WORD IS AFFECTING PEOPLE’S LIVES!
• When I get excited I use ALL CAPS and EXCLAMATION POINTS!!!!!!
• I love the people I serve with at Horizon.