Tim Weston

While at Creation Festival this summer, I picked up Bob Lenz’s book Grace: For Those Who Think They Don’t Measure Up, and, after catching up with other books ahead of it in my reading queue, I finally got around to reading it.

At 227 pages, Grace is a fairly quick read, but it contains lots of great information about God’s wonderful gift of grace.  The most important concept of the entire book is that grace is a gift, not a paycheck.  Grace, unlike a paycheck, is not earned through works; instead, it is given to us at no personal expense.

Paul’s Letter to the Romans contains some good passages about grace:

Romans 3:21-24

²¹But now a righteousness from God, apart from law, has been made known, to which the Law and the Prophets testify. ²²This righteousness from God comes through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe. There is no difference, ²³for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, ²⁴and are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus.

Romans 6:22-23

²²But now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves to God, the benefit you reap leads to holiness, and the result is eternal life. ²³For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Another thing that jumped out at me in this books are two acronyms: PRIDE and GRACE.  PRIDE stands for People Relying In Doing Enough, while GRACE stands for God’s Riches At Christ’s Expense.  These are excellent, easy to remember reminders of how grace is a gift and not a paycheck.

If you’re just starting your walk with Christ, or if you’re thinking about becoming a Christian, I highly recommend you read this book, as it does a superb job discussing a topic at the foundation of the Christian faith.

I was checking out my site’s admin panel today to see if any plugins had updates and I realized it has been quite some time since my last post. Here’s a summary of what I’ve been up to.

– Passed the baton to another volunteer to lead my church’s youth ministry. I’m still involved with the ministry, but I’m thinking about exploring some other options.
– Participated in a 40 Days of Community small group at my church.
– Traveled to a few places (old and new), most importantly Walt Disney World with my family.
– Helped out at my church’s second annual Halloween Safe Stop where we passed out bags of candy to 400 kids.
– Posted like crazy on Twitter.
– Spent time dreaming about the future.

That’s about it. I’ll see what I can do about posting more often, but I won’t make any promises.

While traveling a couple weekends ago, I came across a small, locally-owned bookstore.  I decided to stop in to see what the place was like, as such stores usually offer books that big-box stores don’t (plus, their employees are typically very well read and make wonderful suggestions).

Upon entering the store, the first display I saw was for Michael Gates Gill’s How Starbucks Saved My Life: A Son of Privilege Learns to Live Like Everyone Else.  For some reason, the book really caught my attention; thinking back, I’m not entirely sure why, but I’m guessing it was a combination of the title and the display.  I picked up a copy, skimmed the back cover and decided this was the book for me, so I headed to the cashier (I try to limit myself to one book per trip to a bookstore, because I already have a stack of over a dozen books I have to read).

Two days later I started reading and three days after that I’d finished the memoir.  I don’t often finish books so quickly because I have lots of other things going on, but I found myself picking up the book every free minute I had.  Most mornings I usually watch EPSN, but for three days I opted to skip the latest sports news so I could continue with the amazing memoir.

I was truly fascinated by the author’s re-telling of his firing from one of the United States’ most prestigious advertising firms to taking a job as a Starbucks Partner (their name for employees) in Manhattan, suddenly finding himself in the minority.  Through the process, Gill learns what it means to truly live well and respect others.

If you’re at all interested in non-fiction, particularly memoirs, you should add this book to your wish list.  The book is an amazingly quick read and I have a feeling I’ll find myself going back to this book anytime I need a dose of reality.

At a youth workers conference earlier this year, I picked up a number of books that were on sale for only a few dollars. I recently finished one of those books, Matthew Paul Turner’s Provocative Faith.

The book is a fairly quick read (less than 200 pages) and turned out to be pretty decent.  As usual, I took several notes while reading; here are some of the things that stood out to me.

• Freedom and faith come when we accept Jesus into our hearts.
• Even when situations seem messed up, we must trust Jesus to know what is best.
• “Although” faith, not “if” faith, allows us to endure despite the situation (e.g. “Although I am sick, I have faith” not “If I get well, I’ll have faith”).
• Just because God doesn’t perform the miracles we want when we want them doesn’t mean He’s not actively involved in our life.
• If you love people with all of your heart, you’ll be loving Jesus; if you love Jesus with all of your heart, you’ll be loving people.
• We aren’t truly living until God pushes us outside of our comfort zones.

If you’re at all interested in Christian non-fiction, this book is worth a read.  In fact, you can pick up my copy on PaperBackSwap.

Today, my church’s youth group was scheduled to volunteer at a local soup kitchen called Elijah’s Bowl.  Earlier this week, I called the kids (and received lots of answering machine recordings) asking them to let me know if they were planning on attending.  I didn’t receive any responses, so I called the woman who organizes volunteers for the soup kitchen to let her know we’d only have a few people, so if she could get a few extra backups, that would be great.

On Thursday night, I was told that two of the youth and one of their parents would be joining me for the service project.  While it wasn’t as many people as I was hoping for, it would be a decent amount and it meant that we met our conference’s Safe Sanctuary requirements (two non-related adults when working with children).  It turned out, however, that only one of the kids came.

Knowing I was in a tough spot with our requirements, I spoke with my pastor (who was at a worship design meeting at the church) about adults who might be available.  We weren’t able to come up with any names, so we decided I would bring the lone child home and would go to the soup kitchen alone.

The four hours at Elijah’s Bowl went by very quickly.  There were seven of us, which seemed to be the perfect amount: enough people to do the work but not too many that we were in the way of each other.  I’m sure we could have used a few extra volunteers, but we weren’t in such bad shape that we couldn’t get the work done.

Though I didn’t count the number of people who came, I would guess we served around 80 people, probably more.  The pour economy is hitting the town (Sunbury) rather hard, as we weren’t able to provide take-out meals for people to bring home for later in the day/week.  I’m very glad I was able to help out because the experience shed a new light on how difficult things are right now.

For the few people who read my blog, if you’re able (and I’m guessing you are if you are fortunate enough to have access to the Internet), please donate food to your local soup kitchens (or grocery store gift cards so they can buy what they need when they need it and not be stuck with a hundred cans of creamed corn).  Additionally, and equally important, try to find time to help prepare and serve meals, whether it be once a quarter or once a month.  Those running soup kitchens rarely have enough staff, so I’m sure they’d love the help.