Weird, but Wonderful

That’s how I would describe today. But before I tell you why let me catch you up on whats been going on with me…… Monday night I came home from the hospital with a new kidney! what a joy to be home, to sleep in my bed (with my beautiful wife), to shower, to sit on my couch all of these things were simply heavenly……….

But before they let you take your new kidney home from the hospital you must attend a class on how to care for that special gift, it covers everything from medication (I am taking like 25 pills twice a day), to diet (extra calcium and protein not to mention lots of water) and there was also a section on the first 4-6 weeks which apparantly is extremely crucial to the long term health of the new kidney. It talked about how important it is to avoid sickness while the immuno supressing drugs are highest…..what happens is if you get sick your immune system attacks the sickness (good) but at the same time will attack the kidney (bad)……so they are talking about places to avoid during this period……basically rooms full of people, movie theaters, restaurants, and……Church?……..now I am sure to most of my fellow transplant recipients this is no big deal but you see Church just so happens to be the place I spend most of my time…..you might even say it is my life!

So that brings me to today, for the last 16 Mothers Day’s I have been at Calvary Chapel Pomona Valley the first two as the assistant passing out the flowers, and the last 14 as the Pastor telling the Moms how much we love, and need them, and then of course doing that thing that I love sharing the Word…………But today I was at home it was a very weird feeling made even more so because I am completely capable of being there. However now is the time to place my long term health above my short term desire.

So what should I do? first I think lets take Karen to lunch…..what I cant be in a crowded restaurant, and we all know Moms day is the busiest day of the year for eating establishments. Think Jeff Think?…….Ok I got it….lets take a drive to take our walks (I am supposed to take a couple a day)and where better to go than our favorite place to be….the beach…so off we go, we get take out clam chowder, and smoked albacore from the fish market at our favorite restaurant the Crab Cooker in Newport Beach we drive it across the street to the beach and eat it in the car, then we let the kids go boogie boarding (no submersion for me for at least 6 weeks) and Karen and I walk along the beach just enjoying each other and the view

When the kids are done we decide to drive to Balboa for ice cream and then take the ferrie across to Balboa Island and on to PCH and home……..and as I am out today I think …..so this is what people do on sundays?…..and I also think……for all of the restrictions this was a wonderful day, and as Karen talks to her Mom on the cell I am thanking the Lord.

And then it hits me….All I could think about is what I couldn’t do and all the while there was this wonderful day waiting for me……how many times have I done this very same thing with the Lord and his Word? choosing to focus on (and be frustrated by) what I can not do, all the while missing the wonderful things that He has for me. How can I change this about me?……well the only way I
know of is to apply Hebrews 12:2 “fixing your eyes on Jesus who is the author and finisher of your faith”…….when I focus on Jesus and not on me, my frustrations or limitations I am blessed and encouraged……….you know it really is all about Jesus. so my encouragement to you is this……. Keep your eyes on Jesus He can turn your frustration into blessing………

Also here is a link to the story our local news did on Karen and I

……..as always thanks for reading

We have been moved!

ok so yesterday at like 4 in the afternoon Matt and I got calls from UCLA moving our surgery to TOMMOROW….wow! so we check in at 8am and matt goes in at 10:30 and I go at 12:30! so this is actually happening?!
I have been wondering today if anyone is ever prepared for something like this? and then I realized the only preperation that matters is Spiritual Preperation…..both to face something like this and to face Jesus….and in that way i can say I am prepared
I wanted to say thank you to all of you who are praying for Karen and I we are humbled by your love and support…..Blessings Jeff

It’s Official

Matt Monzon and I have a date for Kidney transplantation surgery…ThursdayMay 8th @UCLA, we spent yesterday with our lovley wives at UCLA meeting our coordinator Suzanne (she is the absolute best) we also met my surgeon Dr Vale (I am so lucky to have him)

We also met Enrique from the media department, he wants to pitch our story to the media?…..we also went to the hospital and were pre admitted so on the 8th we will not have to fill out any papers

Jesus has been so faithful to sustain me for this past year, when it was discovered that I was in end stage renal failure last May my kidney doctor said I had about 2-3 months before I would need dialysis and so we prayed and trusted the Lord that He would care for me!…and wow He certainly has

now we fast forward to now and it seems that His timing is so very perfect….literally my kidneys are failing, I am short of breath, in fairly severe pain, vomitting because of the pain, and super tired, I just feel like I am 100 years old!……now I just have to make it 2 weeks and even the 2 weeks untill surgery seem to have His perfect timing……Karen has her PET scan on Wed April 30th, and we have an appointment with the Oncologist Monday May 5th….at this appointment we will get the results of her PET scan…whether her cancer has grown, stayed the same, or shrunk

It has been such an amazing ride just trusting Jesus with our lives, our family, and our ministry…..and I know that He will continue to give us the grace to handle whatever is coming our way………Both of us feel a special connection with the words of Jesus to Paul in 2 corinthians “My grace is sufficient for you, for My strength is made perfect in weakness”……it has been very difficult but at the same time very wonderful to experience those words on a daily basis, thanks for reading……..Jeff

Sunday April 20th

Yesterday was wonderful and difficult! kind of a snapshot of what life has been for us lately
We had to get Hannah, and Grace to LAX at 6:30 for a flight to Washington DC with their 8th grade class! so predictably I was up till the wee hours finishing my study, and when I woke up, I had a very strange experience……i did not have full use of my limbs…..now this was quite scary……for those of you that do not know i am in end stage kidney failure…..my function is around 8%, which means that i have around 92% toxins in my blood….so back to yesterday I am making my way to the shower and realizing that I do not posses the full fuction…and in the shower I start making deals with God like “Lord I HAVE to get the girls to the airport, and I HAVE to do the services this morning, so if your letting me have a stroke could you please hold it off untill after 2nd service?”…….so it starts to improve a little (and I am not sure if I am just improving or if God has taken the deal?)

So we get the girls to the airport (they arrived safely) and come home to get ready to have church
now my kidneys begin to act up ….(I have polycystic kidney disease and my left kidney is probably 10-15 pounds)…..I begin the dry-heave routine, which starts the pain…and off to church we go!

Now at service I feel absolutely horrible, by far the worst I have ever felt at church. Worship was wonderful, I had a chance to set my mind on Jesus, which was exactly what I needed, the message went well (its posted on the website if you want to check)…..and second service was pretty much the same, wonderful worship and message went well…….after service Karen, Titus, and I got lunch and headed home……..I suddenly realize…hey I feel great

I feel a great connection with Hebrews 12:2 ” looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith, who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God”……….man what a day, I started it finishing up studying and ended it watching Expelled. and in between I had plenty of opportunities to look unto Jesus, and to endure….
oh and I also ended it thanking God for touching my body again…….. Jeff

Relationship

We always say it’s not Religion it’s a Relationship, sometimes I wonder what do we mean when we say this?
I have been thinking alot about this lately, and trying to compare my relationship with Karen to the one I have with Jesus. One of the things I have realized is that doing things for Jesus is often alot different than doing things for Karen, when I am doing thimgs for Jesus i feel like I am checking off a list, and yet with Karen I feel like I am doing something for someone I love?

I wonder where, or when did I lose the relational part of my relationship with Jesus?…..to serve Jesus sometimes feels like a chore, but to serve Karen (especially now) feels like an expression of love. To talk with Jesus sometimes seems forced or formulized, but to talk with Karen feels like a dip in a stream on a hot summer day. Sometimes if I am being honest I avoid sin because I dont want to lose my place, or reputation not to avoid sinning against the Lord….. “against you alone have I sinned o Lord”
however i avoid adultery because I love Karen and would never want to hurt her.

I think it is very easy for us as believers to substitute a list of rules, or an expected way of behavior for A Love for the Lord and a desire to know and be known by Him …….recently i read these words…”the predominate characteristic shared by humans is the insane need to compare themselves to each other”……not only do I believe that to be true, i also believe it is a big reason why we tend to overlook thr relational aspect of our Christianity

If I spend all of my time looking at me and how I stack up to everyone around guess what?…..I am not “looking unto Jesus”
What I want to do is to try and remember that I Love Jesus, and have the things that I do (and avoid doing) come from Love and not from duty. I want to live as if it really is all about a Relationship…….i am interseted in any thoughts you may have on this subject of relationship?

What Are We Afraid Of?

I went to a Calvary Chapel yesterday for a concert and message, it was a great evening the music was really good and the Gospel was presented which was great. However during the presentation of the Gospel something was said that I have been hearing more and more

a very general condemnation of the “Emerging Church” as unbiblical and very, very, dangerous. We in Calvary Chapel talk about the Emerging Church as if it is a denomination with a clearly defined statement of faith, the problem is as far as I know there is not one. Now I am not saying that everything said by someone considered Emerging is biblically sound, in fact I would go so far as to say that I am sure there are a few heretics involved

But what bothers me is the broad brushing and the generalizations that are so flippantly thrown around. Why cant we examine people on an individual basis?….What are we so afraid of?….that maybe people will like these emerging churches better than they like ours?……that to me sounds an awful lot like what the evangelical community did when Calvary Chapel was reaching out to hippies!

Please if you know tell me what is the Emerging Church? and I want qoutes not memorized party lines…… how do we decide who is emerging?……and is it bad?……shouldnt every church be emerging? and seeker sensitive?……just because people are doing things that are weird to us does that mean that they are non biblical and dangerous?…and btw I think painting or sculpting on stage during worship is weird! I just dont think its my duty to warn people against it.

Recently i have heard that Donald Miller and Phil Wickham are Emergent…….now concerning Donald Miller his book “Searching for God knows what” is one of the best books i have read in quite a while. He speaks about the relationship Jesus wants to have with us in wonderful ways that stir my heart, so if that book is Emerging then so am I……btw it has been a very long time since a book by a Calvary author has had any effect on me whatsoever?……now on to Phil I happen to know Phil personally and he is as annointed and Christlike as anyone I have ever had the pleasure to be around!

Now in closing i want to address the question posed in the title What are we afraid of?……I absolutely believe it is losing people, we have always been taught that if we teach the Word people will be healthy and reproduce, but all of a sudden if any church comes along that is attracting more people than we are……we attack!……so whats the answer?…..here it is we need to have something “real” to offer the people who come through our doors namely Jesus not talks about Jesus but Jesus in reality.
and I think sadly in many places we (calvary guys) have become so focused on the Ministry specifically the teaching that we have lost touch with the Lord…..we have sadly become the pharisees whom Jesus said search the scriptures and yet miss Him.

Please know that these things are submitted humbly and with responses desired as always thanks for reading…Jeff

Today was a great day

Man, what a day….. Today was Sunday February 3rd and we just got back from an awesome missions trip. We have two services on Sundays and they were both amazing, the Worship was Spirit led, which is not unusual but still very cool………… we had three people share about the trip at each service and that was very encouraging.

The text this morning was Romans 3……now I am not sure if either was a good Bible study but what I am sure of is that the Lord moved and spoke to people at each service, I am also pretty sure that these services were very different (we put both services on our church website) calvarypv.org

I have been really plagued by the desire to be full of the Spirit, full of Jesus, to be led by Him……this one thought has been in my head……”that when people come in contact with something that is real they will respond” and the coresponding desire to have something real that people can come in contact with. and today I really believe that I did have Jesus to give to people

oh and the Giants upset the Patriots, with Eli Manning leading the winning drive in the last minuets of the game, and the Lakers traded for Pau Gasol while I was on the trip…..man what a great day.

Mission Trip

Tommorow at 4:30 am Karen, Titus, and I are heading to Vizcaino Mexico with 24 others from our fellowship. we will drive about 16 hours. And when we arrive we will be reunited with some great missionaries Tacho, and his Family, Gary and Kerry Goo, Mark, and of course our very own Gabriel, and Johnny.

We have a great week planned, sunday morning we will be at Calvary Chapel Vizcaino, and we will have a fish taco lunch with the church that afternoon, that night we will host a marraige class………on Monday we will work and pass out invitations to our outreach on wednesday (it is always a blessing to share the Gospel as we pass out invites)…….Tuesday, we are going to a new place for us Punta Abreojos it is a small fishing village on the Pacific Ocean……….. Wednesday we have our big outreach in Vizcaino usually several hundred attend this outreach……Thursday is our free day, San Ignacio+Whales=one great day!
Friday is one of our favorite days this is the day we go to a work camp, we are trying to get permission to go inside a new camp

I will blog about the trip when we get back take care and see you in February….Jeff

Teaching the Bible

this one is for Ryan

Recently I have been giving considerable thought to this thing called Bible Teaching. Since it is what I do I am always interested to hear others teach the Word, and everytime I do I come away challenged either by the Word that was taught , or by the way it was taught…………………………………… This brings me to my current thoughts, in my opinion good Bible teaching is always very easy to recognize, and unfortunately so is not so good Bible teaching. I have been teaching the Bible at least weekly for 19 years to high schoolers, and adults primarily. In that time I have delivered some really bad study’s maybe if you know me you have one, or two in mind………………………………….. but I have also improved greatly as a communicator over that time span. I would like to share with you some of the things I think everyone should know when they are teaching the Bible. They are in no particular order of importance so here goes

1.TEACH YOUR TEXT>references are fine as references, dont teach them, or have everyone flipping all over the Bible, it may impress some but it is HUGELY ineffective

2. STUDY YOUR TEXT BUT PRAYERFULLY CONSIDER YOUR APPLICATION> this is a common mistake, to spend all of the alloted time dispensing information and never telling people what it means to them. We must be more than a breathing reference book, I personally believe that this is a primary way the Spirit desires to use the New Testament gift of prophecy 1 Corinthians 14:3 ” he who prophesies speaks edification and exhortation and comfort to men”

3.YOU CANT TELL THEM EVERYTHING YOU KNOW IN ONE STUDY> and if you can you probably shouldnt be teaching the Bible you should be learning it. This is common to teachers starting out, you want to be very dilligent (which is good) however you will end up losing, or boring people , or worse……………Both

4.BE ABLE TO CLOSE> and to move on to your next point. I am always shocked at how many teachers can not do this…………. Its a good thing to leave people wanting more…….. they might want to come back, or even read the Bible themselves

5. KNOW WHERE YOUR GOING AND HOW YOUR GOING TO GET THERE> this to me seems self evident, but sadly often its not. If I as the teacher do not know where I am going then chances are my audience wont, even when I get there………….I am appaled at the number of times I have been in studys without knowing whats going on. ( and I am a Bible teacher)

6. AVOID MAKING STATEMENTS> this one is difficult for me to articulate. What I mean is when a teacher is constantly making statements intended to impress the audience, what we do is not merely motivational speaking, its teaching the Living Word (Hebrews 4:12) if we allow it to the Word will make plenty of statements without our help.

7. WHEN ITS OVER> be honest about whether or not you connected with the audience. If you did not connect nothing else may matter…

I would appreciate ANY feedback from anyone…………. thanks for reading > JEFF <

My Best Christmas

this is another one from Myspace as requested by Sam!

Christmas this year(2007) was by far my best. For me Christmas has always been just so-so…….now dont get me wrong having kids and getting to see them open presents has always been amazing!…….but I have never really been “into” Christmas….maybe its having a December 19th birthday. I think as a kid you kind of develop a resentment towards Christmas, you know all your birthday gifts are wrapped in Santa wrapping…..so I just over the years kind of disliked the music, the decorations, and all the cheer.

But this year I LOVE IT ALL! I even loved getting a couple of Birthday gifts with Christmas Wrap……I mean what a great time of the year the music, the lights, and all that cheer!……Man am I gonna miss Christmas i mean i have been totally converted

Now what do I attribute this radical change to?…….honestly I think it is realizing that it very well could be the last one I get to spend with my Family. Most ( if not all) reading this know of our health concerns, and along with all the terrible things that Cancer and Kidney Failure bring there are some wonderful things as well!

one is the perspective that comes with realizing that you really dont know how anything is going to turn out….it is a frightening and wonderful realization (well for those of us who believe in Jesus) another one is the one you always hear….. taking advantage of every day as if it could be your last. and you know the funny thing is…..it really does change everything:)……….you know if Jesus sees fit to grant me another wonderful Christmas with my Wonderful family i might even get a Chritmas sweater…….. you know the stupid kind