The Return of Music Monday: Song of the Week

Hey everybody! It's been awhile, but it's Music Monday time. This week we are going to have a song of the week. After thinking about it for quite some time, I decided to start this off with something a little out of the box.
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Song: "We Are Broken"
Artist: Paramore
Album: Riot!
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This song's meaning is one that is not lost on teenagers. So often we find ourselves broken and beat down, but we are reminded of how God towers over us. We want to know what we need to do inorder to get back on track. That's what this song is about, so enjoy!
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Love Never Fails (Post 7): Love in 3D

Hey everybody! Hope you have had a great week! I just got back from Cedar Point, so you know that I've had a good one! We wrapped up our mini series called "The Complex Infrastructure Known As Love" last week, and if you haven't read those yet, then I hope you will go back and check those out. This week we will continue talking about love, and more specifically, love in 3D.
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For the most part when you think of 3D you think about amazing clarity, beautiful images, and it grabs your attention. It adds to the overall experience of going to the movies. Just as love should add to the overall experience of life. People should have their attention grabbed by the amazing love that we show them, and that God shows them. Whether it is you giving them a compliment, helping them out, or just the beauty and love that God shows through His creation. It's stunning when you see it, and sadly we don't see it enough. We pass by people, animals, trees, and moutains without noticing the beauty and love that God is showing through them. We don't realize how stunning it all is, and we don't stun people with our love either. What if we made an effort to show people, that we may not even know, how much we love them. Or what if we showed people that we didn't like how much we love them. That's right, I said it...well actually Jesus did. Matthew 5:44 says, "But I tell you: Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you."
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If we can show God's love in such a vivid way as He does, then we will be the example that we are supposed to be. There are many people that you walk by everyday that NEED to be shown love. So, as christians, why aren't we usually taht person. You don't have to do anything big or elaborate, but we should do something! We are called to. We should help make God's love 3D. How could you do that? Let me know in the comments.
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Thanks for reading! If this is your first time, then thank you for giving this blog a chance and please check out the the archives. To those who are my regular readers, thank you for all the support!

Also, big thanks to Warped Tour for rocking! I had a blast!

Finally, I am bringing back Music Monday, but with a new twist. Each week will either feature somebody talking about a song that means alot to you (email me at whocanstopus@gmail.com if you want to participate) or it will feature a song of the week that I pick out. So, get excited! Have a great weekend!

Love Never Fails (Post 6): Summary...In Lyrical Form

Hey everybody...Happy 4th of July! I know it's Sunday and I never post on Sundays, but I found something super cool. If you have never heard of Brandon Heath then you should get aquainted. He is an up and coming christian artist, and his song "Give Me Your Eyes" was one of the most played songs on Christian Radio in 2009. On his most recent album called What If We he has an awesome song called, of all things, "Love Never Fails." So, I hope you enjoy it!
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Song: "Love Never Fails"
Artist: Brandon Heath
Album: What If We
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Have a great week!

Love Never Fails (Post 5): The Complex Infrastructure Known As Love Part Quatre

Hey everybody! It's finally time for a brand new (and the last part of the Complex Infrastructure series in a series) post! I'm happy to be back at it, and ready to get going with the rest of this series. If you haven't read the other posts in this series (or have forgotten them because of my lack of activity) then please check them out before reading this one. So, far we have talked about what love is, what it isn't, and even how it is supposed to look. This week will some it all up with the perfect description of love.
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I Corinthians 13:4-7
"Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres."
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I Corinthians 13:4-7 is without doubt the perfect explanation of love. It is heard at weddings, in cards, and is one of the most popular verses in the Bible. However, the most important part, and a part that is often left out, is at the beginning of verse 8 where it says..."Love never fails." It is such a simple statement, but it has been so overlooked recently that it has become irrelevent to people that are "in love." As teenagers we fall into this trap alot. I know I did. We meet somebody and they just seem like the perfect person. Everything about them is "everything that you have ever dreamed." Everything seems so sweet and romantic, and it all jsut seems perfect. Then, everything just seems to fall apart, you break up, and it seems like love is a lie. I've been there and done that. What we haven't realized is that while everything may seem perfect, and while everything in those first 4 verses is true, it is the little fact that love never fails that we need to remember. TRUE LOVE NEVER FAILS. True love is something that is rarely experienced. We often think that we have it, but do we really? How do we know?
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"I love you." Those are the words that we often say to eachother. Teenage girls dream of a guy saying that to them, and teenage guys get scared as they let them go. They are magical words that mean you really like eachother, and that you will always be together. I'm going to be straight up with you, it rarely happens. I dated the same girl from 8th grade until the end of my senior year, and whenever anybody said that, I said they were lying. It's not that I think dating is wrong, because it is somewhat necessary to growing up, but you have to be aware that most of these teenage relationships have an expiration date. My parents were lucky to find eachother in high school, and the same goes for several of your parents and some of the readers. However, it's a rare thing. I graduated with 120 people, and there were probably about 20 couples in the class. 1 of those is still together. It seems as if we date a few months then we are required to say I love you, but I have an idea. If love never fails, and we can't really know it until marriage, why do we say it? The idea of not saying I love you until marriage isn't my original idea. I have heard it tossed around, and one of my best friends is actually doing it. It seems hard, but how special would it be to hear those words for the first time as that guy proposes to you, or at your wedding? The reason we can do this is because Love is more than a word, it's a feeling, it's an experience, it's something that doesn't even need to be said if it's for real. In I John 3:18 it says, "Dear children, let us not love with words or tongue but with actions and in truth." It's always great to hear somebody to say it, but it shouldn't be needed. I'm not saying that it's good for everybody, but it's something to think about. Right?
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What this all boils down to is that TRUE love never fails. As I said, it's something that we rarely experience. Some people even feel that they don't have love from anybody, but that's not true at all. From the moment that you were born, actually before that even, until you die, and even after that...there is ONE love that has never and will never fail you. That is Christ's love. 1 John 3:16 says, "This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us..." We are loved so much, and so unconditionally, that Christ took all of our sins, pain, and suffering upon himself. He DIED for us. You can't get much greater love than that.
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So what do you think? Let me know in the comments! Also, I here's some extra reading on love:
-Proverbs 17:9, 17:17
-John 15:13
-I Corinthians 13:13
-Colassians 3:14
-I Peter 4:8
-I John 4:8
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Thanks for reading and bearing with me for the last month! If this is your first time reading, I hope you will go back and search through the archives. As always, feel free to comment on this post and any other post that you would like to comment on. We start a new part of the Love Never Fails series next week, so get pumped! Big thanks to the Reds for playing some great baseball, and to David Crowder* Band for being extremely awesome! See you next week!

So...What's Been Going On?

Hey people! Long time no see. I truly am sorry that there has not been a single post, comment, or bit of useful info to come out of this blog in exactly a month. So why is that?
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The easy answer would be that I'm busy. I have been a counselor at camp, worked as an artist liaison at the Ichthus Festival, and been out of town for work. I could quite honestly leave it at that, and most people would accept it. However, when I began this blog I commited to being entirely open and honest with you. So, that's what I'm going to do.
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When one country goes to war with another country a country is typically united. They are all working towards the same goal, believe in what they are fighting for, and they can't be broken apart. However, when a country is plagued with a civil war...everything falls apart. There's no common direction, the nation is divided, and families are fighting against eachother. The easy answer is that I was busy, but the hard answer is that I was fighting with myself. Before the beginning of the 4 week "hiatus" I had begun to doubt myself. I was finding it hard to get people to do music monday (which I fully intend on bringing back as well), I was having a hard time making the posts seem intriguing and insightful to myself, and I thought that there was little point in me continuing. I wondered why anybody cared about what I put here, and I wasn't as excited with the posts. So, I decided I would take a week off, pray, and then come back to it. Well, that obviously didn't happen. I began doing the other things that I mentioned before, and slowly figured that everybody had forgotten about it. Things began to change though. Before leaving for Ichthus I opened my internet, and my 5 typical home tabs opened up. Facebook, insight webmail, gmail, Kentucky Sports Radio (Go Cats!), and finally this webpage. I quickly exited out of everything that wasn't facebook, but The Rebellion page kept popping up. I finally just got off the computer and left for Ichthus. Ichthus was a flurry of stress, fun, and work. I was running around daily and sweating to no end. However, I was able to get to the Galleria stage on Saturday afternoon and evening to see Aaron Gillespie do 2 acoustic sets. I'll talk more about Ichthus later, but I wanted to bring that up because something special happened. I went hoping to hear songs by The Almost and maybe an acoustic version of some Underoath songs. However, Aaron Gillespie played about 30 minutes of worship following a few of the songs I was hoping to hear. Soon I was wrapped up in every word, singing along, and for the first time being completely consumed in praising God. It was something I hadn't experienced in a long time. Then finally I went to camp to be a counselor and (my original drive for going) to play guitar in the worship band. Honestly, I was dreading it. I focus on issues that teens face, and I had no clue how to relate to 4th, 5th and 6th graders. So, I went into it thinking this would be a terrible week. As it turns out, it was exactly what I needed. I got to see kids come to Christ, sing along to some of my favorite worship songs, and realize that the childlike wonder I once had in my faith was gone. I had let myself get distracted from what God had led me to do, and distracted from the plan he had for me. So, tonight I decided I would write this, and hope that somebody still wanted to read it. Luckily, I received a facebook wall post from Courtney Lemay asking what had taken so long, and I realized that it was time. So, lets start fresh.
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If we are going to get a new start over I'm going to need your help. Rather that just means praying for me, calling me out when I miss a week, telling people about the blog, helping me out with a Music Monday post, or even just commenting on some posts. If I'm going to do this, I want to do it right and not let other things get in the way. Once again, I am sorry...and I hope you guys will hang with me for the last post on the Complex Infrastructure series inside of a series. Thanks again to all the people that have been reading and supporting. Thanks to Aaron Gillespie, thanks to the kids, and thanks to internet explorer for malfunctioning. Let's get this going...nobody can stop us.