// the theo-economy of dating: why hot and holy isn’t enough //

“i have a serious question for you,” she said. 

the look in her eyes betrayed raw nerves, weariness, and a hint of something that i tried to convince myself i was only mistaking for masked anger. 

“i need your advice. i went to coffee with a girlfriend this week, and she was telling me all about this wonderful guy she’s talking to, and she was so excited about it. 

the next day i went to coffee with another girlfriend, and we had almost the exact same conversation. and then i realized.

they were both talking about the same guy.” 

turns out i wasn’t mistaken at all. this friend of mine was downright furious. here’s the kicker though. she wasn’t just mad at some creep, the guy in question is a well respected member of our community and is even in some leadership roles at a local church. 

and the thing that gets me is that this isn’t the first time i’ve had someone come to me with heartbreak, headache, or frustration over this guy and guys like him. not even close. there seems to be a culture of “open-mindedness” that borders on irreverence when it comes to dating within the church, and i think it needs to be addressed.

 so i’ve decided to put my pen to paper, or my fingers to keyboard about this issue. 

the culture:

a couple months ago i was able to make it to a college age group one night and as it would happen, the topic was dating. 

now, the speaker that night was a man i have a lot of respect for, and have been very blessed by his teachings in the past, i want to affirm that right now. but that night 

i heard a teaching that, without clarification, could be dangerous. we were told that in the church, we have the tendency to take dating too seriously. he encouraged guys to take the leap and ask girls out. and he encouraged girls that saying “yes” to a date didn’t mean that you were going to get married, it just meant that you were going on a date. 

now, there are guys i know, great guys, that are so afraid of rejection they can’t bring themselves to ask out a girl that they know and admire and respect and really want to pursue a relationship with. in that case, i one-hundred percent agree. ask her out. 

likewise, there are girls i know, great girls, that have been so pushed away from dating by the hoards of recreational daters and just plain no-good-guys around, that when a godly, respectably guy comes along that knows her, respects her, and wants to pursue her, she freaks out. 

or

there are other girls i know, great girls, that have been so inundated with the prince charming // hollywood hunk image in our society that when a godly, respectable guy comes along that knows her, respects her, and wants to pursue her, but he doesn’t have brad pitt’s side abs or zack effron’s hair or doesn’t look anything like david beckham, she shuts him down faster than ____. in these cases, i agree. if this guy is a good guy that knows and respects, and wants to pursue you, and you find him attractive, it’s not going to kill you to say yes to a date.

but here’s the problem with that. 

for every guy that needs to hear “go for it,” there are a handful of guys that need to hear “you better think twice.” 

and for every girl that needs to hear “give him a chance,” there are a handful of girls that need to hear “make sure you know what you’re saying yes to.” 

while it may sound nice to say that dating should be just two people getting to know each other, not so much about emotional attachment and planning ahead, we don’t live in that ideal of a world.

we live in a world with emotions and anticipations and hopes. 

when you ask a girl on a date you are communicating that you are interested in her. and after a few dates, if you tell her “hey i respect you a lot and think you’re great, but i just don’t see it working out between us. you understand right?” ….you might be thinking that that is what dating is, how dating should work…. but what you are communicating to her is that you were interested in her until you got to know her, and then you got to know her and are no longer interested. 

it doesn’t take a genius to see the effect that is most likely going to come from that. 

and so i’ve had several friends that are amazing girls bring this to my attention. they feel like they’ve been weighed and found wanting. and now they’re examining themselves to see why they don’t measure up, what is wrong with themselves.

multiply that by a church body full of single, godly, beautiful girls, and factor in a culture of guys that think the way dating works is: hey she’s hot, she’s holy, i’m going to ask her to coffee. 

and you can see the problem.

we are creating a culture of disappointments // frustrations at the very least, and heartbreak // self doubt on the more serious end. and i can’t help but think that this approach to dating and relationships is not in line with God’s heart for shalom, for wholeness, for unity. individually as well as corporately. 

the community: 

it’s not my goal here to point the finger, to say shame on you, guys. neither is it my goal to paint the image of girls as these helpless victims. i know that we live in a fallen world, and i will be the first to admit that much of the conviction in this essay is from personal experiences and mistakes. 

and i know that girls are often just as responsible for baring their hearts too early, too often, too much. 

and i’m not communicating that dating is evil. 

trust me, i’ve wrestled with these issues. a lot.

trying to fit biblical principles into the context of our modern times and approach to relationships. let’s face it, arranged marriages are out. thirty to forty year old men marrying fourteen year old girls is out. 

our culture is just different from ones in biblical times. but our God is the same. and his heart for his people is the same. he desires grace and peace. shalom. wholeness. relationships centered around him and his glory. unity. building one another up, pushing each other along on our walks, our journeys toward God. coming alongside each other on our mission to partner in the kingdom, both coming and here already. 

in that light, it is imperative that we examine our interactions with one another. 

especially when it comes to this issue of dating.

are we contributing to shalom?

or are we contributing to frustration, heart break, self doubt.

are we building each other up?

or are we tearing each other down?

are we pushing each other towards God?

or are we distracting and side-tracking each other?

are we seeking after God’s heart for pursuing relationships?

or are we seeking after a “hot, holy” girl // guy?

God created human beings for community. he himself exists in community. with the Son and the Holy Spirit. we are created to need community, to crave it, to thrive in it. 

so why do we give in to the hollywood idea of “you and me against the world?” 

how do godly guys i know consistently ask girls out on dates, not knowing these girls very well, not knowing their families, not being friends with them, not being in community with them? 

and then once they get to know these girls a little bit, they move on, having not found what they were looking for. leaving behind them a trail of confusion, disappointment, and doubt. and on to the next. 

i’m sorry guys, hot and holy is not enough.

stop asking girls out. stop texting them. stop telling them they look beautiful. instead, be their friend. be in their community. 

they don’t have a community? let them be a part of yours. not with selfish, ulterior motives, but because that is what God desires: unity. wholeness. love for one another. we should be embracing each other and showing love to each other whether or not we find a person attractive, whether we are interested them as dating potential or not. obviously, i’m talking about doing this in an appropriate way. 

you don’t have a community? well my friend, you need to pray about how God desires to change your relational mindset. it’s his desire for us to be in community. communities take work. they take patience. but God created us for them. both community with him, and with one another. 

before i get too tangental here, lets bring it back down to earth. 

guys. girls are your sisters before they are anything else. treat them that way. don’t communicate to them that you like them or are interested in them before you know them. before you know you want to pursue them. can’t do that? then back away. because the last thing our community needs is impatient, selfish men that lack self control. what it needs is men who are willing to die to themselves in order to create shalom, to let their sisters know that they are loved, cherished, valued, worthy of our respect and admiration. regardless of if we want to date them or just be their friend. men who are willing to set an example for other men in purity, in self control, in godliness. 

men who are working for shalom. 

God showed us an example of what living in community should look like. Jesus left the presence of his father to be with us. the Father sacrificed his son to give us a way to himself. the Spirit is here on earth in our hearts putting up with our fallenness, bearing with us in patience. 

sacrifice. humility. putting others before yourself. that is what community is about. 

and that is God’s desire for us. 

so.

how can we contribute to a better community?

how can we be conduits of grace and peace?

how can we build each other up?

how can we work for shalom in our personal lives, in the lives of those around us, in our communities, and in our city?

i know that we have a long way to go on these issues, but i also know that while grace and peace are something that we strive for, they are also something that have been given to us already. 

let us be known as a people of grace. a people of peace. a people of shalom.

let the world look at us in wonder of how much respect we have for each other, in how we as men treat our sisters, in how our sisters respond and react to their brothers. 

let us be a people that seek first his kingdom. 

grace and peace,

ip

// i <3 lovers//

i choose hope. i choose respect. i choose to believe in good, to believe that the world can be a better place. 
do you? or are you cynical, criticizing and mocking those that do? 
why do we love haters? 
i love lovers. 
it’s not uncool. it’s the way of true Life.

// and now from the view of a descendent of the great sir francis drake//

self awareness is only valid in the context of societal awareness, the awareness of those around oneself, because each one exists in that context. any knowledge of yourself you may posses is intrinsically dependent upon your knowledge of your context. 

with man everything is relative. only with God is there any kind of absolute standard. 

the past year has been one of more uncertainty and unfamiliarity than ever before, and consequently also one of more pointed self examination than ever before. [and that’s saying something]. through all of these changes, something i’ve been realizing with increasing clarity is this: any truth i might discover or discern about myself is relative to the community or environment i am in. e.g. i am good at guitar. well, maybe in my living room with a few friends that is true, but enter into that living room another musician, and my talent, in comparison, has more than likely just diminished or even dwindled.  

but… not only is the truth relative, the significance or consequence of that truth is also relative. e.g. to community a, my musical ability might be the quality that makes me a huge hit, where as to community b, my musical ability might have no value whatsoever. 

now substitue musical ability in those examples for personality traits, personal interests, future goals, and—especially—morals….. and you now have some serious disparities in the works. 

so for someone like me, someone who strives to be conscious of his role and place in a given community, someone who puts a good amount of effort into monitoring himself and his community, and just as much effort into maintaining a good standing in that context, but also someone who consistently finds himself in several contexts in which differing standards and differing significances to those standards exist, it is not hard to see why one might start to look at oneself and feel a little bit…. lost. 

it’s a little bit more clear now why, at times this year, i’ve felt a little bit like a dingy in the middle of a giant ocean, being tossed around by the waves.

in the old days, without a north star, sailors would have no way to find their bearings at night. and sometimes, it’s tempting to feel that way myself. 

thankfully though, i have a north star in the night time. i have an anchor in the storm. whatever contexts or communities i might exist in in my daily life, there is one in which i exist that defines and penetrates them all. and that’s the context of God and his reality. and in this context, there are absolutes. without an absolute being, there can only be relativity. with an absolute being, relativity is redeemed. my pointed self examination is no longer an endless spiral of relativity, i have an absolute standard with which to compare myself. and the best part? according to that absolute standard, i am good enough. i am accepted. i am loved. not because of anything i did, but because of the standard that i have received through the gift of God’s grace. there is nothing that i or anyone else can do that will change my standing in His community. that is simply amazing. 

so now the challenge is to place more of my value in this one context, and remove it further from the other contexts. not that it’s not good to exist in those other contexts, it’s just important that the one be my anchor, my north star, the one i go to for my fulfillment. because when it comes down to it, it’s the only one that really matters. 

and i encourage you to do the same. think about it this week, and try to figure out what it would look like for you to take steps in that direction. 

and my favorite part…. with an anchor, with a north star, you should never be afraid to gather up your sails, push off of the familiar, and let the winds of adventure take hold of you. 

// directicipation //

God works in mysterious ways. that’s a slogan i’ve heard tossed around christian school classrooms and dual purpose women’s tea/sunday school rooms throughout the majority of my childhood.  

well today i’m praying for clarity.

over a year ago i set out on a journey without any particular destination. i guess you could say the journey was the destination, as cliche as that may sound. i wanted to experience more of life. the thought of waking up one day in in a house in escondido-or even somewhere in orange county-with grandkids running all over the place and no stories to tell them of my youth was enough to persuade my (already) wanderlusting heart to cut what ties i had and set my sails in hopes that God’s inspirational breath would catch them and carry me aloft into that ever elusive great adventure. 

i did what many young men had done before me, and what i’m sure countless will do after me- i went “north, to alaska.” half a year later i found myself in portland oregon, on the doorstep of a church by the name of solid rock. now, almost a year later, i find myself a different person than the one that first passed through those doors, jobless, friendless, hopeful, yet clueless. 

what has changed? well, yes, i have a job. and yes, i’ve made some friends. hopeful? still. clueless? not as much. i guess despite all the growth i’ve seen God work in me over the course of this past year, perhaps the most important change is that i’ve realized (or started to realize) the importance of the balance between direction and participation. 

up until this point, i’ve either been so focused on my goals that i missed the life that was going on around me, or the other way around. but over the course of this year, God has started to open my metaphorical eyes to His leading and direction for my future. He has begun to teach me how to be passionately involved in what’s going on around me while still passionately pursuing forward movement in my life. 

and so I’ve had a bit of a breakthrough over the past couple days. i believe i’m starting to hear the direction for which i’ve been praying and waiting almost a year. 

but i want to be sure. so i’m praying for clarity today. and i invite you to join me. 

join me in prayer today… pray for wisdom and for discernment. and direction. and a humble and willing spirit to follow that direction. 

With a humble and willing spirit, God’s whisper can be enough inspirational breath to catch my sails and put my ship into motion. With a hard heart or prideful spirit, it might take a hurricane. 

ip

// words of wisdom from wes//

the secret, i don’t know… i guess you’ve just gotta find something you love to do, and then… do it for the rest of your life. for me, it’s going to rushmore. 

- max fischer 

// globular thinking//

fighting against a culture of glorified complacency, satisfied mediocrity, and ubiquitous apathy is a never-ending battle. and it’s one that shouldn’t be fought alone.

there’s a handful of people in my life that really inspire me. these are the people i cling to with a vengeance. because i know how seductive and simple it is to slide down a slope that leads to nowhere but self-satisfaction. and that’s somewhere i don’t ever want to be. 

maybe that’s why the girl at work last night told me i was more different from her than anyone she’d ever met in her life. maybe that’s why i can’t seem to find the same fulfillment in the vacuous lifestyle of so many of my peers. i have been given life and a passion to live it for something much bigger than the quenching of my hedonistic desires. 

but as i said, it’s a fight; a battle. the thing is, with this battle, the struggle is just as often in my own mind, with my own flesh, as it is against this culture of complacency. because, you see, i am a part of this culture, whether i like it or not. this is what i was born into, it’s my natural habitat. my snow-globe, if you will. no matter how hard i shake the globe, when i stop shaking, the snow all settles back to the same place it started. 

so that’s where i am right now. realizing that i’ve been shaking that glass paperweight by myself for a while now, wondering why every time i stop shaking the snow settles. what i need is to place myself back up against some other movers and shakers (sorry, i couldn’t resist) so that when i begin to slide down that slope, when my shaking arms get tired, they’re still there, stirring me on, agitating my waters. 

sometimes it’s the agitating ones that get through to you best. (ahem cablablah). 

// <3 (love?)//

“what is love?”

it’s not just a song blasting from a boombox held over the head of doug butabi in the final scene of 1998’s a night at the roxbury. it’s not just the premise of the 2009 flick paper heart. it’s a question that plagues the thoughts and commands the dreams (both conscious and subconscious) of our society. 

but when our answer to that question— what is love? … when the source of that answer is found primarily in movies and fairy tales with formulaic plots and what people in the romance business call H.E.A. (happily ever after) endings, it’s no surprise that our society has a skewed and shallow definition of the most true, deep thing in the universe. 

i’m not about to jump into an exposition on love, just wanted to raise a question. i’m trying to ask questions more and answer unasked questions less.

so what is love?

we’re all looking for it, right?

but do we know what we’re looking for? are we looking in the right places? with an over 50% divorce rate in our country, i’d say the answer to both of these questions is most likely a “no.”  

take a minute today to think about your definition of love, and whether or not you have an idea of what love really, truly, actually is. 

after all, in the immortal words of jason derulo, “everybody’s looking for love. aint that the reason you’re at this club?” 

// all aboard //

to choose long boarding as a means of transportation is akin to choosing love as a philosophy of life. 

and i am in no way bashing love. 

a year and a half ago i bought (with my own money, that is), my first set of wheels. they were orange. and atop them sat a bamboo core sandwiched by epoxy and tri-axle fiberglass: a loaded dervish long board. beautiful. i knew a guy who knew a guy so i walked down wilshire to the beverly hills factory and handed some guy a wad of cash and rode home on my new board at a considerable discount. undoubtedly not the first time an underhanded cash transaction happened on those streets, and assuredly not the last. 

not long after that i ordered my second set of wheels online on the recommendation of an acquaintance in florida. never consult a girl from florida before buying a longboard. it was a piece of rubbish. the whole point of buying a second board was to take friends out with me. as it happens, most friends that i have taken out are absolute beginners, and me being a big softy, i just can’t put someone who’s skills as well as opinion of the sport are in a stage of fluid fragility on such a horrible piece of junk. so i end up riding the piece of flotsam on wheels around while they enjoy my baby. and them being beginners, my baby has taken it’s fare share of abuse. 

so short story long, i’m setting out in a few minutes on a a perfectly well-advised late night craig’s list rendezvous to acquire a replacement: my fourth set of wheels. (oh, yea, i bought a car somewhere in there too… i guess that’s somewhat notable as well)

but this board isn’t just another set of wheels. it’s an exciting investment in my future. who knows where this board will take me, who it will bring alongside me on my ride through life. i woke up on the first day of this year with the just-right-amount-of-whelming notion that twenty eleven is going to be pivotal, big, the biggest year of my life so far. the board i’m buying tonight could very well direct my future. i could end up riding it into traffic, get hit by a truck and die. it could end up being the thing that makes me fall in love with the girl i’m going to spend the rest of my life with. or it could just be a hell of a fun toy. who knows? 

my future is still unwritten, but (stealing a line from the brother’s bloom), i want to live as if i’m writing the best story ever told. and that means following the plotline. so here we go, i’m sticking both feet on this board and riding it where it will take me. 

// sail away//

have you ever stared at something so long your eyes start to go out of focus? 

i remember walking through the mall as a kid when those magic-eye things were just starting to get popular and stopping in front of a store that had a bunch of them in the window. i picked one out and my parents told me to keep staring at it till the sail boat or dolphin or whatever it was magically appeared. that was before i learned the technique, but that tactic worked… eventually i saw that thang.  

so it’s been a long time since i’ve written about love, since i’ve even thought about writing about love. 2 years, actually. but i think i’m about to write about love. 

yes, the metaphor. 

they say love is blind; i say it’s more like this magic eye thing. at first, you stare at something so long it kinda goes out of focus. “out of focus” is probably a lot more accurate than “blind.” when i was falling in love everything was a blur. sometimes it was like one of those pictures you see where the subjects stand still in the middle and the shutter is left open long enough so that everything else is blurred out. sometimes it was like we were the ones passing the world by, the background stayed the same and we were the blur across the photo. it was that feeling where a hundred times a day you suddenly remember the person you’re falling in love with and think: “o my goodness i’m with her!” and you find yourself randomly grinning like an idiot all day long. and you can’t really remember how you called it “life” before. 

i love that stage. we all do.

but really, that’s just the stage where my little self is standing there in the mall, gazing intently at the window display, waiting for that pirate ship to pop out at me. 

cause you see, the real good stuff comes later. one minute you’re staring at a beautiful and hypnotizing mess of color and patterns, the next  a definite shape emerges, taking form before your eyes. and you feel special cause your’e seeing and appreciating things normal people don’t. 

that’s what i love about love. the point where the sailboat pops out at you and you realize that you’ve just seen that thang. for reals. 

it’s been a long time since i’ve felt that way, but i know that someday i will again. someday, a painting will come into my life, and i’ll stare at it till that sailboat pops into view. and when that happens, rest assured…. that’ll be the day that i start sailing.