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Author Archive for Ryan

Baptism

Published
by
Ryan
on July 29, 2008
in Uncategorized
. 7 Comments

So this week Paul and the guys asked me to blog about baptism. At first I was unsure about what to write. I couldn’t find the words I needed to express the feelings I have. Then all of the sudden it hit me. This is what I came up with —>                         <— “But there are no words there? You didn’t come up with anything?” Exactly! There are no words great enough to describe the feeling I got when Paul and Jamie lifted me out of the water on April 1st, 2007. To say that it was “a great experience” or “A life changing decision” would be like saying air is pretty good for living. It just isn’t enough!

The best way I can tell you about baptism is by sharing with you, my experience, and my story. So here we go: I had a great, pretty traditional, upbringing in the catholic church. I went to church every Sunday with my family, was baptized as a baby, made my first communion, and was confirmed. Some people may see me coming to Relevant as leaving the catholic church. For me, it wasn’t like that at all. I believe that people should go to a church that they feel satisfies their spiritual hunger to the fullest. Relevant fills me up to the brim, while others may feel that way about other churches, and thats totally great. Coming to Relevant was just switching dinner tables! When I began to think about baptism, I realized that I had so many questions, doubts and fears about this issue.

Questions: “Why should I be baptized again, if I was baptized as a baby?” This one really confused me, even though I had somewhat of a grasp on the answer, I still did not fully understand the concept. I sat down with the staff guys here at church and had a great conversation with them about it. My parents decision to have me baptized as an infant was amazing. If they hadn’t decided to bring me to church every week, I guarantee that I would not be a believer today. By deciding to raise me in a church, they poured the concrete foundation for me to build my spiritual life upon. However, baptizing me as a baby was my parents decision, I wanted it to be my decision. I wanted to be the one to tell God that I loved him. I wanted to be the one to tell everybody that I have a personal relationship with Him, and by deciding on my own to get baptized, I was showing everybody that I could stand by myself on the concrete foundation that my parents poured for me. 

Doubts: A lot of people told me that getting baptized changed their lives. I NEVER BELIEVED THEM! I had so much doubt that doing something as silly as getting dunked in water would change my life. I thought, “I have been dunked and swam under water hundreds of times, what would make this time different?” I am going to be really honest, I had this doubt in my head even when I was walking out into the water, thirty seconds before I got baptized. This was an issue that talking to somebody about, would never solve. The only way to believe that it changes you, is to experience it. All I can say is that the feeling of coming up out of the water, and knowing what it means, is indescribable. It instantly killed any and all doubts I had previously had.

Fears: Before I began coming to Relevant I was attending a church that I like to refer to as “old school”. While they preached many truths that were great, they gave me a bad taste in my mouth about baptism. They saw baptism as salvation. I found myself starting to believe that God wouldn’t love me if I did not make the decision to be baptized, even if I had accepted him into my heart. To make matters worse, I had lost a relationship in my life that meant a lot to me, over the issue of not deciding to be baptized in this church. I left the church and decided to find something new, luckily for me I found Relevant, and realized that God did indeed still love me, even if I had not made the decision on my own to be baptized. The fear for me came when the issue of baptism arose. I feared that if I decided to get baptized, I would be conforming to the ideas that the old church put upon me. Here is the difference; Baptism is a celebration of your faith, not a mark of your salvation. You gain eternal life when you give God your heart, and you celebrate that by being baptized.

I want to end with something that is pretty personal to me. I wasn’t sure that I wanted to write this when Paul had asked me to. You see, my family still attends the catholic church back home, and I was always afraid that if I told them I had made the decision to be baptized, that they wouldn’t understand the difference from when I was baptized as a baby and would be upset with me. So I still have not told them. It has been over a year now. I don’t really know if they know or not, but I assume that they do not because the talk has never come up. I didn’t want to write this because I didn’t want to sound hypocritical in saying that baptism is a celebration of your faith. After writing this I’ve decided that I am going to tell my family, and share with them the excitement that I felt on that day, having full confidence that God will help me find the words to share my faith with them. I want to encourage everybody who is thinking about getting baptized to contact either me or one of the staff guys with any questions or doubts that you are having. I hope that my story can help anyone who is questioning, doubtful, and scared of making this decision. Remember…. In all your ways acknowledge him and he will make your paths straight. Proverbs 3:6……

You’re Dating God!

Published
by
Ryan
on February 24, 2008
in Sex Challenge
. 0 Comments

So I just got back from morning service (which was amazing by the way) and I was thinking about how the challenge may be tough for a single person who is not in a relationship and not dating anyone. I was thinking that they may be discouraged sitting through a service that is all about, A. Married people improving their relationship with their spouse, and B. singles abstaining to gain a deeper understanding of who the person they are dating truly is. I thought they might disconnect a little bit from the series . Then I realized that everything I am learning to do from abstaining can totally be applied to my relationship with God. The challenge is teaching me that by putting sex aside, I can learn more about the person I am dating and in turn, have a healthier, more meaningful relationship. Single people who are not dating can also practice all these things that the challenge is teaching us to do. By cutting out lustful thoughts, and working to improve other daily struggles, non-dating singles can have more time to focus on God and be able to come to a deeper understanding of who he truly is.  Here it is: If you think you are single and not dating anyone, feeling a little lonely and left out of the challenge, guess again. You’re totally dating God. Pack your bags and hop on the “30 day sex challenge” train because you are just weeks away from having a deeper more meaningful relationship with a very important person —->JESUS. 

Loving, Saving, and Abstaining

Published
by
Ryan
on February 22, 2008
in Taking The Challenge
. 6 Comments

Over the past six days I have been blown away by the amount of attention the “30 day sex challenge” has been getting. I’ve been keeping up with my media, reading the newspaper article, watching the news reports on T.V., and reading others’ blogs on the internet. As I’ve been doing all this I have noticed that most people just want to talk about the married couples challenge of having sex for 30 days straight, but what about the singles challenge of abstaining from sex for 30 days? Nobody seems to want to talk about this, and when they do it is to say, “but shouldn’t a church teach to abstain until marriage?” I believe they are, and being a single younger guy, I’d really like to talk about it. 

Loving. Jesus tells us to love, all throughout the bible. “Love thy neighbor”, “God is Love”, “this is a sign of my Love.” Love, love, love, its everywhere! When I was asked to take the “30 day sex challenge” and abstain from any kind of sexual activity, I may or may not have been doing, I didn’t hear, “Hey Ryan, we don’t want you to have any sexual activity for 30 days because we as a church are telling you not to,” but rather, “hey Ryan, do you Love God enough to hear and listen to what he has to say? We want you to take this challenge because we know God loves you and he wants to help you with issues in your life that may be challenging.” Love is a big part of the challenge. In the six days that it has been going on I’ve totally seen God’s love shining through in my life in so many different ways. 

Saving. Obviously we all know that when we accept God into our hearts he saves us from an eternity of suffering, but we can use the word “save” in so many more ways on top of being “saved”. First, the challenge is teaching me that I should “save” myself for marriage. Why would I want to do that? Maybe you’re wondering if I have had sex before, or if I’ve managed to stay abstinent my entire life….but does it really make any difference? I’ve learned so far through taking the challenge that leaving sex out of a relationship gives me the opportunity to focus more deeply on the kind of person that the girl I am dating is. It gives me chances to get to know her likes and dislikes, what makes her smile when she is mad, how to cheer her up if she is sad, and how to encourage her and be a leader for her when things are not going according to plan in her life. These are things that I feel I would miss if I was focused on having sex with her rather than learning to rain love down on her. Second, the challenge has taught me that everyone needs to be “saved” and deserves an infinite amount of chances in life to make that happen. I say this because I was contacted by someone who was against our challenge. He said that we can’t preach abstinence for just 30 days and that it will just lead to failure and pretty much babies out of wedlock. He told me that he was in the process of excommunicating an 18 year old girl from his church for having two kids and not being married. This hurt my heart to the core. Would Jesus have left her in the desert all alone with her babies because she said she wouldn’t marry? Absolutely not. I believe he would be persistent. He would lift all three of them up, put them on his shoulders, carry them home and say, “I love you,” to which one day, and maybe not right away she would say, “I love you too.” Relevant, through the 30 day sex challenge, has also taught me to be relentless and never give up on anybody. Without the challenge I never would have heard that story and never would have come to that realization. I really hope that 18 year old girl reads this blog and knows that she is loved and that we would never “leave her alone in the desert.” Wow, all of this from a sex challenge? God is good.

Finally, abstaining. I choose to abstain because I feel like it is what is going to be best for me in the long run that is my life. For me it’s all about my future. The challenge is teaching me that abstaining will give me a more meaningful relationship with my future spouse. On, top of that I’m learning that that is what God wants for me in my life. I’m starting to think that this challenge is a win win opportunity. Developing an amazing relationship, while honoring God…honestly, who wouldn’t want to take this challenge?

God is Love.