My heart is killing me right now.  A lot of Penn State students come to Calvary, some stick around, some are in and out, some get involved, some I know well, some I never meet.  But few days go by where I am not thinking about or praying for the young men and women who come to Penn State.

Sarah (my oldest daughter) graduated from Penn State.  Many of my kids friends have attended or do attend Penn State.  I’ve met people from all over the world through the presence of Penn State.  Which means that God has given us (Calvary) an amazing opportunity to touch the world without even leaving home.

That’s why it hurts when we miss one…and lose one.  Miss an opportunity and lose a person.  It can happen in so many different ways for so many different reasons, but today I was reminded of misses and losses in a tragic way.  A young man chose to stop living.

I didn’t know him, but he attended Calvary at least a handful of times.  I don’t know if someone invited him, whether he was part of a campus ministry, or just happened to wander into Calvary. I do know that on one of the days that he sat in the crowd the words from the Bible that we focused on included,

Therefore since we are surrounded by such a huge crowd of witnesses to the life of faith, let us strip off every weight that slows us down, especially the sin that so easily hinders our progress. And let us run with endurance the race that God has set before us. Hebrews 12:1 (NLT)

and

Taste and see that the LORD is good; blessed is the one who takes refuge in him. Psalm 34:8 (NIV)

A Penn State education has so much to be desired.  But honestly, sometimes the Penn State lifestyle leaves much to be desired. Or at least the party hard, binge drinking, de-valued sex part leaves much to be desired. That lifestyle will never satisfy the thirsts of our hearts, but it will often leave us vulnerable to the pains and wounds of a broken heart.  Spencer experienced that vulnerability.

Spencer’s mother wrote a moving obituary for her son.  You can read the whole thing at Spencer, but here is a bit of what she wrote,

It seems early on Spencer felt he was not good enough. I don’t know why, but I do know it is something many young people feel today. How much teen and youth suicide do we have to endure? In 2007, suicide was the third leading cause of death for young people ages 15 to 24. There is despair among the young of our society that springs from a misapprehension of what it means to be human. 

Every human needs to feel special, to feel that he or she belongs as a valued member, to feel appreciated and honored by others. But so many of us don’t. In our huge anonymous schools and conformist youth culture, in our adult world of fame and wealth, social climbing and cool, competition and winning seem to be the only means of finding what we need. We have lost our way… 

…What Spencer really wanted, more than anything else, was closeness. 

…Drinking sabotaged all that: seductive, deadly alcohol. The drug that brings down the walls and helps us feel close – as long as we’re drunk. The drug that circles back and rakes out your heart. …Binge drinking at college has been a regular thing since freshman year. Why didn’t he get the proper help? Thursday night was one of those binge nights at the frat. He had a fight with his best friend. He said he was going to kill himself. He locked his door and did it. He did not leave a note. He did not look for help. Alcohol brought down those prefabricated walls, and all that was left was thoughtless pain. 

It was stupid and impulsive and he would not have done this thing if he had not been drunk. Spencer had plans and goals and family that loved him. He knew this. We talked about it -Spencer said he would never do such a thing. But he did. Because of alcohol. The drunken impulse in a moment of despair that can never be taken back.

Kids drink this way because they need to escape their own false personalities. They strive to be the best, to be cool, to be popular and successful. Underneath, it’s all about the same old human needs: to feel valued, to feel important and special, to belong, to be loved. 

I don’t know all that was going through Spencer’s heart, but I do agree with his mother. We have deep needs, God-created needs, to feel valued and special, to belong and to be loved, to have a purpose for living that goes beyond the weekend.

This isn’t a rant against drinking, or parties or sex.  I love a good glass of wine with a meal and I enjoy a good beer from Otto’s every now and then.  I’m no more against parties than I am against joy.  And as for sex, in the right context (marriage), there’s nothing like it. But none of those activities — even taken to the greatest of excesses — will satisfy our deepest longings.

I can’t tell you how many times in the last few weeks I’ve been annoyed by the resolve of PSU students to celebrate State Patty’s Day.  But it’s not good enough to be annoyed and it’s not good enough to ask the students to give up what is bringing them momentary relieve from a thirsty heart.

We must show them that they were created for something more.  We must gain a greater resolve to help the young men and women in our region find community and a greater purpose for living, and yes God’s love… so that these broken hearts can be made whole.  We simply must pray more and care more.

We simply must.  One broken heart is far too many.

I was born in California, the land of the beach. We moved to South Dakota when I was only four, but having left all our relatives behind, California became our #1 vacation destination. So from the storage rooms of my mind I can still retrieve memories of going to the beach. The water and the waves were ok, but what excited me, perhaps like many children was all…that sand. Enough sand to fill a million little blue plastic shovels full of sand, which filled the buckets, which made the castles.

Sandcastles, almost everyone has at some time built a sandcastle on the beach. I suppose each sandcastle was different. Most of mine were fairly unoriginal, a bucket here and a bucket there, no architectural designs in my blood, but each sandcastle had one thing in common…a moat.  No moat.  No castle.  Of course without water, there was no moat, so before my sandcastle day was over, my number one goal and number one frustration was keeping that silly moat full of water. Bucket after bucket after bucket, I would pour into my moat, running from ocean to sandcastle and back again. When I was really fast, I could get back just in time to see the last bit of the last bucket disappear into the sand. Twenty feet away was an ocean full of water, but I couldn’t keep my little sand moat full.

Sometimes the more things change, the more they stay the same. We exchange our oceans for careers, or families, or popularity, or relationships, or possessions and then we spend our days running back and forth trying to fill up our lives. Trying to re-main full of life.  We get back from one activity just in time to see the satisfaction of the last activity draining out of our lives.

I wonder if busyness/hurry has become a defining quality of our culture.  Soren Kierkegaard wrote,

“…the press of busyness is like a charm…it’s power swells…it reaches out seeking always to lay hold of ever younger victims so that childhood or youth are scarcely allowed the quiet and retirment in which the Eternal may unfold a divine growth.”

An empty charm, because we have bought into the empty promise, that if we just live a bit fast, run a little harder, we can keep our moats full.  But at the end of the day, we find ourselves just tired.  The prophet Isaiah wrote,

A hungry person dreams of eating, but is still hungry. A thirsty person dreams of drinking but is still faint from thirst when morning comes. Isaiah 29:8 (NLT)

We wake up and it starts all over again.  Slow down for a moment and ask yourself some questions.  What activities bring me the most satisfaction?  What satisfactions last the longest?  If I keep finding a hunger within me that can’t be satisfied in this world, is it possible that I was made for another world?

The story is told that one day Jesus met a woman at a well, along a dusty, dry road.  He told the woman that he could give her living water that would quench her thirst in a way she had never before experienced.  Today, he still invites us, “Come Thirsty.”

Qideas is a group of people seeking to make the connection between culture and Christianity.  A week or so ago, Stephanie — she grew up at Calvary and now works for qideas — asked me if I would be willing to write a blogpost on what has been and is taking place in our community.  The piece focuses on God’s call to love our city, even marry our city.  You can find it by clicking Redemption.

At Calvary we are in the beginnings of a teaching series based on Isaiah 44:3, “For I will pour water on thirsty ground…”  How do we come thirsty to God?  This weekend we are looking at the act of repentance.

Repentance is one of those old-time biblical words, right?  When you hear it you may picture sandwich boards predicting the end of the world.  Perhaps you picture an old-time hell-fire and brimstone preacher. Seems that far too often the word repent is paired with some sort of cataclysmic horror…hell or the end of the world.  Repent or else.  A last ditch opportunity to save yourself.

But in the Bible, I wonder if it isn’t more often seen as a step in a journey to goodness. C. S. Lewis once said that repentance is not so much something God demands of you before he will take you back, as it is simply a description of what going back is like.

During an extended visit with Mother Teresa’s Missionaries of Charity, Dr. Mary Poplin discovered the journey of repentance. It happened while Dr. Poplin was trying to care for a five-month-old infant who was deformed, constantly sick, and often miserable. Dr. Poplin always found ways to avoid feeding this child, but one day it was unavoidable. She writes:

When feeding time was over, the babies were falling asleep in their bassinettes, and I was getting ready to go …. I glanced at the infants on my way out [the door] and noticed that undigested formula was dripping out of this child’s bassinette. He had thrown up what must have been the entire eight-ounce bottle. Looking around for someone to tell as I left [the room], I saw no one in the infant area, and the few adults in the room had their hands full with other children.

So I decided, with no little struggle, to stay and clean up the mess. I put on my apron again, lifted the baby out of his bassinette and helped him on my shoulder as I began to gather the dirty sheets together and use them to wipe up the mess. As I was cleaning, I heard a muffled sound from the infant in my arms. Tears were pouring out of his eyes, and the only sound he could make was a convulsive sob.

As I looked at him, I saw in myself what Jeremiah called “the desperate wickedness of the heart.” I realized I had approached this task with a spirit of resistance and impatience. I had thought very little, if at all, about this child and his needs, other than to be clean. As I threw the sheets into the laundry pile, I began to bathe his little misshapen body and change his clothes. Afterward I held him to me tightly as I … looked at him, rocked him, and prayed …. In a short time, he was asleep ….

I must tell you that the moment I saw him weeping and realized the wretchedness in my heart, I knew it was sin. There was no doubt in my mind that this is what Christ meant when he said, “Out of the heart come evil thoughts.” I asked Christ to forgive and change me. In those moments as I rocked the baby, I could feel Christ’s work inside my spirit just as surely as if he were sitting next to me.

That’s repentance, a realization that something in my heart needs to change and a willingness to change it.  Without repentance we don’t come thirsty to God.  If we don’t come thirsty to God…why come at all?

Over the course of the last few months, it has seemed like everyone in State College has a personal Coach Paterno story.  My interactions with him during the last 17 years were limited and superficial.  But I’ve come to know a number of the people whose lives he impacted, mostly football players who attended Calvary, coaches who were a part of the staff, and a few Penn State leaders who worked with him.

The legacy he left was in the lives he impacted far more than in the games he won.  As a leader who tries to learn from those around me, the topic of interest for me regarding Coach Paterno is this: “What does it take for us to leave that kind of legacy, live that kind of life?” What are the lessons people have learned from the school of Paterno?

One of the lessons that I gleaned from all the stories that I’ve heard — including those shared during the memorial service — has to do with the value of having “a long commitment in one place.”  I think we understand the value of a long commitment.  We can rarely accomplish all we imagine in a short period of time, but can often accomplish far more than we can imagine over a long period of time.

But Coach Paterno had more than a long commitment to a family, to a career, or even to a way of life.  He had a long commitment to a way of life in one place.  Yes it is rare for a man to coach for so long, but it’s unheard of that a coach would stay in one place for so long.  One home.  One team.  One city.  One place.

The ethos of America celebrates the pioneer.  I do as well.  Pioneers make an impact of a particular kind, but we need not allow the value of pioneers to diminish the value of the settlers.  Coach Paterno would often say, “You don’t have to leave State College to make an impact on the world.”  We can have the impact of a pioneer while embracing the heart of a settler.

I think American Christians have a weak theology of place.  We follow the career.  We move for adventure or just to get a fresh start in life.  But from God’s perspective, place is not incidental to our calling to impact the world.  In fact I could make a good theological argument that when it comes to calling, place is even more important than career. God calls us to love the city to which He calls us and it is within our community that we live out that calling.

In the last few months, it has been interesting to note the difference in responses to articles about Paterno, between those in the community and those outside the community. (And to be clear Coach Paterno’s community includes the alumni of Penn State and all those who live in the Centre Region.)  Those outside the community simply cannot understand the protective nature of the responses coming from those within the community.

But it really isn’t that difficult to understand.  For the students he was a grandfather, for the players he was a coach/mentor, for those in College Heights he was a neighbor, for the community he was a man committed to his city/university.  A long-time commitment to doing good, lived out in one place, will bring that kind of response.

The church might take note.

It goes by many different names; spiritual rut, dark night of the soul, hitting the wall, bored with the Lord, and spiritually dry to just name a few.  

We read the stories of intimate encounters with God’s presence and inspiring encounters of God’s power and we wonder if we are missing something.  We listen to Jesus’ words about abundant life overflowing and we remember when our lives were at least a little bit more like that.  But the way back…or forward seems at best unknown and at worst daunting.

I think the metaphor that connects with me best is “desert days.”  Have you ever felt spiritually dehydrated?  Dryness of the heart, hard, cracked, arid, dehydrated hearts that feel barren of God.  Maybe you notice it most in your prayer life?  Maybe the dryness has spread to your relationships, a little quicker to get angry, etc.  Or perhaps you rarely get anything out of the Bible when you read it.  One of the first places I tend to notice spiritual dryness is in a passion-drain of my heart.

We would never even think of trying to survive without water, but we will try to go for days and days without God. Maybe a sip here or there, a taste on the weekend, but what if there is more?  What if God wants to pour the life-giving, thirst-quenching water of His Spirit on your soul?

In Isaiah 44:3 – our theme verse for 2012 – God says, “For I will pour water on the thirsty land, and streams on the dry ground.  I will pour my Spirit on your offspring and my blessings on your descendants.” For those of us who have dry-souls, it’s important to note who does what.  The “what” God does is to pour water.  The “what” we do is to simply come thirsty.

For the next eleven weeks – February through April 15^th – we (at Calvary) are going to ponder those words and look at the ways that we can come thirsty to a life-giving God. From worship to generosity, from forgiveness to repentance, from rest to community, our ultimate goal will be to come thirsty and let God pour His stuff into our lives.  Invite a friend…and come thirsty.

I’ve lived in State College for almost 18 years.  I didn’t come to State College as a Penn State football fan.  My first significant introduction came in the 1986 season, mostly through the national championship game against Miami.  I was cheering for Penn State, but primarily because I hated Miami, not because I loved Penn State.  But as a former linebacker and at that time current college football coach, what wasn’t too love about Shane Conlan and Coach Paterno.

When I interviewed for the job of lead pastor at Calvary, part of the interview was public q&a with Calvary folk.  I remember someone asking the question of title, “Dan what do  you like to be called?”  My response — without thinking — was, “If I could choose, my preference would be for everyone to call me coach, as coaching is my favorite model for leadership and ministry.”  Bob McClaughlin, a long-time member and former pastor, was the first to respond.  “Good luck.  In State College, there is only one coach.”

It seems like most everyone in State College has a Paterno story.  The last few days we have heard many of them.  Some of them have given us a peek behind the curtain.  Some have simply confirmed what we thought we knew.  Some of them have challenged us.  Some have caused us to laugh.  Many have in some way inspired us to look inside and ponder how we can make an impact in our world.

My Paterno stories are few and superficial.  In the first year or two that I was here a Calvary member invited me to a Penn State Quarterback’s Club luncheon.  That was probably the closest I got to Joe for any length of time.  I spoke at a football chapel or two, but he wasn’t in the room when I spoke.  I never shook his hand or spoke directly to him.  In the almost 18 years that I’ve been here, other than when I sat in the stands, I’ve seen Joe in person, just a few times.

But I think, better than a few momentary interactions, I’ve gotten to know a number of the people whose lives he impacted, mostly football players who attended Calvary, coaches who were a part of the staff, and a few Penn State leaders who worked with him.  As speaker after speaker, at the memorial on Thursday, reminded us… the legacy he left was in the lives he impacted far more than in the games he won.

That’s what has grabbed my attention the last few days, the legacy of influencing people for the good.  What does it take for us to leave that kind of legacy, live that kind of life?  You can’t live in State College for 18 years and be unaware of the impact of his life, but as his son Jay said it’s only in the evening that the full magnitude of the day can be evaluated.

As a coach, as a pastor, and as a leader I try to learn from those around me.  So as I was listening to the speakers at the memorial service, it was natural for my mind to be catching the lessons these men learned from the school of Paterno.  Perhaps some of you who read this blog and knew him far better than I will have far more lessons…but for the next few blogs I’m going to unpack a few of the lessons that I gleaned from those who went through the school of Paterno.

“Scientists at (RPI) Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute have found that when just 10 percent of the population holds an unshakable belief, their belief will always be adopted by the majority of the society.”  RPI is a reputable university, top 50 in the country, often compared to the ivy league schools. The scientists, who are members of the Social Cognitive Networks Academic Research Center (SCNARC) at Rensselaer, used computational and analytical methods to discover the tipping point where a minority belief becomes the majority opinion.

Take a look through history and you will see that the culture of the normalized 90% is often shaped by the passion of the radicalized 10%. I guess that’s one thing we should make clear, for the 10% to make a difference, they must be passionately committed to an unshakable belief.

We see it in American politics.  From the tolerance agenda of a relatively small group of activists to the Tea Party, small groups of fully committed believers can change the culture of the majority.  We can see it in the closed culture uprisings in the Middle East.  For centuries no change, but then a small group of committed believers comes along and change begins.
We see it in the after-effects of two significant spiritual revivals in our own country.

And of course we see it in the book of Acts as we watch a tiny handful of mostly Jewish believers start a world changing gospel movement in less than 30 years without Facebook, twitter, texting, websites, or mass transportation.

How does a movement begin? With a radically committed 10%.

Now think about this. There are about 140,000 people in our ministry region — mostly Centre County, but a bit beyond that. What would it take to change the culture of 135,000 people. A fully committed 10%. Wow, that seems like a lot, but according to the Association of Religious Data Archives there are about 10,000 evangelicals in our ministry region. All we need to do is borrow 4000 from the mainline and Catholic congregations and we are there no problem.

But the obvious problem is that those 14,000 are not all radically committed to Christ and the gospel. So how do we get the 14,000 radicalized? We need 10%. That’s 1400. There are close to 1400 people in our region who call Calvary their church home. No problem.

But there is a problem. I know Calvary well enough to say that our whole congregation is not radically sold out for Christ and the gospel. So how do we radicalize 1400 people? We need 10%. 140 people. And to make sure we can get 140 people radically committed to Christ and the gospel, we can just start with 14. 10% of 14 is a bit more than one.

Maybe we should start there?

“When the number of committed opinion holders is below 10 percent, there is no visible progress in the spread of ideas. It would literally take the amount of time comparable to the age of the universe for this size group to reach the majority,” said RPI professor Boleslaw Szymanski, “Once that number grows above 10 percent, the idea spreads like flame.”

The great revivalist Gypsy Smith was once asked by a young pastor how he could start a revival at his church. The evangelist simply told him to go home, draw a circle on the floor with a piece of chalk, and kneel within that circle. He then instructed him to pray for revival for everyone on the inside of that circle and, after that, he would start to see revival on the outside of that circle.

After I draw my circle, I’ll loan you my chalk.

You’ve heard that phrase right?  Maybe even used it.  Someone does a good deed for you and as they walk away, you say the words, “I owe you one.” It’s not so much said from a sense of obligation as it is a sense of gratitude.  “Wow, thank you! I owe you one.”

Can you imagine God ever saying those words to you?  The words thunder from heaven, “Wow.  Thanks Dan.  I owe you one.”

I don’t know about you but that’s hard for me to imagine.  God has given me so much, blessed me so much.  If he never gave me anything other than Jesus, the blessing is so huge that I can’t imagine God ever feeling like he owes me.

A year or so ago, I ran across a verse in Proverbs, chapter 19 verse 17. It caught my attention, because I have always believed — that when it comes to my stuff — that I am a steward, not an owner. I try to operate from the perspective that everything I have belongs to God. It all belongs to God, everything I have is a gift from God.

That’s why Proverbs 19:17 caught my attention.  It’s details the only way — to my knowledge — of hearing God say, “I owe you one.” Here is what is written,

If you help the poor, you are lending to the Lord and he will repay you!

Help the poor and God sees it as an obligation to repay you.  When we feed the poor, give water to those who are thirsty, serve those in need, sponsor a child in Myanmar, Rwanda, or the Dominican Republic, God says, “Wow.  Thanks.  I owe you one.”

So let’s think about this for a moment.

1. Everything I have belongs to God. But when I use what belongs to God, to serve those in need, God so identified with those in need that he views my gift as a kindness to him that He wants to repay.  God says, “Wow.  Thank you for taking care of me.  I owe you one.”

That’s so amazing that I’m not sure I really get it.  Sounds too good to be true, but that’s just the Old Testament version.  It gets better.  In the New Testament, God sweetens the deal.  In Luke 6:38 Jesus says,

Give, and you will receive. Your gift will return to you in full–pressed down, shaken together to make room for more, running over, and poured into your lap. The amount you give will determine the amount you get back.

So when we give, we lend to God.  He doesn’t just repay us.  He overpays us.  Perhaps the reason why, we — the American people — have so much debt is because we are trying to hang on to what we have rather than doing something that would cause a generous God to say, “Wow.  Thanks for coming through for me. I owe you one.”

Throughout the Christmas season, we (Calvary) are challenging each other to give ONE% of our annual income to serve kids in need around the world.  If you haven’t had a chance to read this year’s ONE% booklet, click ONE% and read a few stories of hope.  Our primary focus this year is on sponsoring children at a variety of orphanages in Myanmar, Rwanda and the Dominican Republic.

If you would like to sponsor or support a child ($40/month) go to Calvary Global Kids for more info.

Joy is not a very cool word. It’s only three letters. It doesn’t make the top 100 baby names. The only time you hear it in a song is at Christmas. But the Bible talks a lot about joy.  In fact it would be easy to argue from the Bible that joy is at the heart of God’s plan for humanity.  Scriptures like the following are all over the place in God’s Words to us.

Psalm 16:11 You will show me the way of life, granting me the joy of your presence and the pleasures of living with you forever.

Psalm 19:8 The commandments of the Lord are right, bringing joy to the heart.

John 15:11 I have told you these things so that you will be filled with my joy. Yes, your joy will overflow!

Tim Hansel tells the story of an 82 year old man who felt that his freedom to choose joy had been taken from him. He had served as a pastor for over 50 years. But in the last handful of years had struggled with skin cancer — a survivor of 15 operations. Besides suffering from pain, he was so embarresed about how the cancer had scarred his appearance that he never went out in public.

One day he was given the book You Gotta Keep Dancing. And he read the story of Tim Hansel’s long struggle with the chronic, intense pain he received from a near-fatal climbing accident. Hansel told of the day he realized that this pain would be with him forever. At that moment he made a pivotal decision, he knew that it was up to him to choose how he responded to it.  So he chose joy.

The elderly pastor put the book down, thinking He’s crazy.  I can’t choose joy.” Then later he was reading John 15:11 where Jesus says that joy is a gift. “I want to give you my joy”, Jesus said, “so that your joy may be complete.” He didn’t know what to do, so he got down on his knees.  He didn’t know what to say, so he said, “Well then Lord, give it to me.”

And suddenly, as he described it, this incredible hunk of joy came from heaven and landed on him. “I was overwhelmed,” he wrote.  “It was like the joy talked about in Peter, joy unspeakable and full of glory. I didn’t know what to say, so I said, `Turn it on, Lord, turn it on.'”

Before he knew it he was dancing around the house. 82 and he was so filled with joy he just had to get out, too much joy to keep cooped up. So he went to the local fastfood restaurant to get a burger. A lady saw how happy he was and asked, “How are you doing?”

He said, “I’m wonderful.”

“Is it your birthday,” she asked.

“No honey, it’s better than that.”

“Your anniversary?”

“Better than that.”

“Well what is it?” she asked with growing excitement.

“It’s the joy of Jesus. Do you know what I’m talking about?”

The lady shrugged, kind of deflated, and answered, “No, I have to work on Sundays.”

Joy. Can you find joy if you have to work on Sundays? Can joy be a part of my life, if my life is filled with pain? Can joy be a part of my Christmas, when Christmas falls short of hopes and expectations? The very first Christmas, the angel’s announced, “Don’t be afraid.  I bring good news of great joy for all people.”  That’s where it starts.  It’s a gift given in spite of circumstances.

Joy is our theme this Christmas Eve at Calvary.  You are welcome to join us at 3pm, 5pm, 7pm, or 9pm at 1250 University Drive, State College.