Revolutionary thoughts

The new digs!

The new blog is up!!!   CHECK IT OUT! It's really freaken cool!

Revolutionary Thoughts // the new look

So yea, check out that new link and tell me how you like the new digs!

I will be posting the same, the same stuff... on both blogs for the next week or so before i cut ties with my typepad account forever. I am excited to be gaining $15 bones a months, straight cash homey... but i will also miss my typepad days. Typepad had been good to me but Wordpress is FREE!!!

ALSO! if you have a link to my blog on your bloggroll or on your website, i know there are a handful of you out there... if you could change that link that would be great!!!

You can change it to...
www.erikwillitsblog.com
(the new forwarding of this domain name might take a day or so but if you just use this URL it will work.)
OR
www.erikwillits.com/wordpress
(this is the offical URL of my new blog)

So yea, the new blog is still under a bit of construction but it's up and i am posting! 

Grace and peace
Erik

A prayer...

Almighty God, look upon my life and cause all darkness and doubt to vanish beneath your gaze. Look upon my ministry and banish all barriers to effectiveness and faithfulness. Fill my life adn ministry with your Holy Spirit to the end that i may this day be led into paths of fruitful service. Through Jesus Christ, Amen.

I prayer i pray often that seemed very fresh today. Thought would share!

Shalom

Dreaming…

I have decided that no matter what I am going to dream and I am going to follow Jesus into the future he is stirring in my dreams.

This past ministry trip I took back to the mid-west I had a hand full of meetings and was speaking at a camp but one of the things that really stood out to me about this trip was the two little kids I sat next to on my plane rides. A young boy to Kansas City and a young girl on my way home from Kansas City.  Both were around the age of 12 and both were full of the kind of imagination that only a little kid can be full of.

The little girl, Kimberly was an artist. In her words “I’m really good at drawing, you want me to draw you something.” She is dreaming of a life as an artist some day and she drew for me a suburb little elephant.

Then there was Tyler, he wants to be a baseball player and he’s sure he will play for the Yankees someday and drive expensive cars! Yes the Yankees, despite the fact he was wearing a Red Sox hat. The Red Sox were his other favorite team. Tyler’s dream of being a baseball player was the first thing he shared with me. He’s a dreamer!

These two kids were dreamers…

I think we let things steal our dreams all to often.

Not to long ago I was able to sit in on an interview with Erwin McManus and also chat with him a bit. He made a statement that I found absolutely intriguing and I have been thinking about every since. He said that God dreams…

I’m not sure what he meant but I think I believe it. And since I am called to be like God, made in his image, I think I to am created to dream as well.

Dreaming
Erik

Wedding pictures... finally!

Well i finally uploaded A TON of wedding pictures to my flickr account. It has taken me forever, i know i know... but when you have like 2500 pictures to sift through it's hard. Get off my back  ;-) 

But i set up 3 little album deals;

#1. Wedding action: these are my 200 or so of my favorite pictures. We got a ton of sweet shot, really captured our big day!

#2. Wedding action: (more // tweaked): These are like 100 pictures that our photographer (Josh Reeder // he did a great job!) edited for us. Some are the same as the other album, some are different. But they are all looking their best!

#3. The Boys: These are all the pictures of me and my guys. I had 9 groomsmen so yea there were a lot of us! But we got some great pictures. My men in black!!! Good times.

I think that's about it. Now that i got the pictures up it's time to start on the thank you notes!  :-/

Enjoy
Erik

Reflections from a camp…

It’s the week after camp and I am still thinking and reflecting. In the middle of what has been a couple of the hardest months of my life there was a camp, and that camp was amazing. I pretty sure God knew my circumstances and understood my heart and mind and because of many of these things I think God gave me some great affirmation that I am going the right way.

Usually camp is fun, I can usually even sense God moving and working. And most of the time I even get to see him working, via alter calls and response times or conversations with campers and counselors. But because of my roll as the speaker guy I don’t get to fully experience a lot of the praying with campers, listening to them share their experiences and commitments. Counselors usually give me some updates here and there about kids who have decided to follow Jesus for the first or have made recommitments to do the same but really getting to see and hear the fruit of God’s work during the week is experienced much more by counselors and camp staff. But not this week…  This week of camp was awesome! I had so many counselors approach me sharing with me their students commitments and then on Thursday night I just really felt lead to give students needing to make a first time commitment to follow Jesus some space to do just that. I’m not the kind of speaker guy to pressures people down front, who sing just as I am until every student is kneeling in the front. I have an understanding that the work God is doing at camp is more healthily teased out in conversations and one on one time with those building relationships with the students. But I really felt lead to open up this time for students needing to make first time commitments and after doing so I saw why. We had quite a few students (I don’t count) come forward and pray with their counselors who were available at the sides of our meeting space. Many more kids just came down front and prayed. Then once we opened it up for everybody it was extremely obvious that God was working! It was amazing!

There wasn’t a day during the week when I didn’t hear about a camper making a commitment to follow Jesus for the first time. I’m sure all this wasn’t for me but it sure did help to affirm recent decisions I have made and the calling I feel like God has placed on my life.  It really was a great camp!

Beside all the amazing spiritual things that took place camp was also, like normal a great time! Ton of fun! Here are some pictures to prove!
(I have some great pictures of my own but my camera cable is still in California, crap! So thanks Chris, these are some of yours!)

Enjoy

Grace and peace

 

The age old debate // Read or listen…

Maybe not age old but my friend (Brad Goode // check out his blog) Brad and I have this debate, it goes like this;

Question: if you listen to an audio book can you say, “I read that book”?

Brad // YES! Whether you have heard the words or looked at the words makes no difference. If someone asks, “Have you read that book?” you can say yes.

Erik // NO! If someone asks “have you read that book?” and you have not actually read it you have to say, “no, I have not read that book but I did LISTEN to it.”

So there is the debate, what do you think? What is your philosophical opinion on this life or death question? ;-)

I ask & think about this question because yesterday I began to LISTEN to the Chronicles of Narnia via audio book. My in-laws got the whole Chronicles for me as a birthday present.

My first listen was The Magicians Nephew. Not actually the first book written but chronologically it’s the first book in the series. I thoroughly enjoyed it and am looking forward to LISTENING to the read the series by C.S. Lewis.

So yea, what do you think… can you listen and still say that you have read this or that book? I am interested in your take, do tell!

Peace
Erik

Erwin Raphael McManus // Wide Awake

Well last week I was able to go up to LA with my wife. Andrea (that’s my wife) works for a magazine, Outreach Magazine, and she is the best editor / writer on the block! But she was assigned an deal-e-O where she got to interview Erwin McManus about his new book coming out, Wide Awake. I was lucky enough to get to tag along and hang out for the afternoon. It was a couple hours of a photo shoot for the magazine cover, we got to each lunch with Erwin and his publicist and then the interview.

Overall Erwin is a rock star! He was dressed in Diesel form head to toe, wore a cool hat, and rocker glasses for the photo shoot. But beyond the wardrobe (which was really cool but WAY to expensive for my conscience) I was super impressed with Erwin. He seemed to be a extremely cool, down to earth guy. And in talking to him you just realize he has a great perspective on a life lived after Jesus. At least that was my perspective after getting to hangout with him for a few.

The interview was really good. I was told (by my wife / outreach editor) that I can’t really say much about that because the content belongs to the magazine. So yea, be looking out for the Outreach mag with Erwin on the cover. My wife is so cool!!!  She did an amazing job with the interview and my guess is that the article will be stellar!

But yea, it was cool and I would highly recommend the new book coming out, Wide Awake. Erwin has a great perspective and is super encouraging. I think we would all benefit to be as hopeful, as innovative, and as much of a dreamer as he is.

Check it out!

You can pre-order the book here!

And you can see some of the DVD action that is gonna be put out with the book here (youtube) (also below).
I was able to watch some of the video and it’s really good.

A new blog...

Well i have been talking about it for awhile now and we are finally getting close, i am moving "Revolutionary Thoughts" -- that's the title of my blog in case you were wondering, as you read my blog? -- i am moving her to wordpress. I have been talking about this for months upon months and it is finally getting close. I just needed to find someone who could make it happen and i finally have!!!  I am waiting for some last minute touches on my blog design and then my friend Robbie (who i have never met but seems cool enough) is going to code it and toss in up on my server, via. Genius!!!

I pay for typepad (the platform i am currently using) and have been wanting to get away from that for awhile now. The time has come.

SO...  if you have a link to my blog on your blogroll or website, or really anywhere else  you might want to change the link.
Many you have my typepad URL as your link, well if you change it to www.erikwillitsblog.com URL then when my page does finally change so will your link. That is probably the easiest solution.

I will remind you all a couple more time before it actually happens, this is just a preemptive warning. Things are about to be changen!!!

Here is a sneak peak at the new blog design... still a few things to tweak, and we are still open for suggestions!

Peace

Rob Bell // Some of his thoughts...

Here is a little video clip.
Now i know Rob Bell is popular and it's not cool to like who everybody else likes but i have to say, i really like Rob Bell. I ran across this video and he says a lot of things you have probably heard him say before (if your a fan) but i thought it was cool. I liked it so i thought i would share!

Shalom

The waters of life...

In the scriptures water represents chaos from the very beginning of our story and then throughout the story when water breaks back in the chaos resumes. It’s the hand and breadth of God that seemingly keeps the chaos at bay. But it seems that sometime it breaks in anyways…

These days I live a few blocks from the Ocean, the biggest body of water we can fathom. And when I look at that water I see power, I see an expanse that I can’t really even get my mind around. It seems that every time I look into the water I picture this great wave sweeping in from the horizon and just wiping out everything I know. Morbid I know, but I can’t help but to think about the power and potential for unabated destruction every time I look out at the ocean.

In one moment I sit and play, even swim out a ways as if I was in control. But I realize she could turn the wrong way, suck me in and end my insignificant little life at any moment. Chaos is always a drop away when you look into and play with the ocean.

The interesting thing is if you were to sail into the ocean, so far that you couldn’t see land in any direction, you just kept sailing straight, into the abyss, into the chaos, eventually you would wind up on the other side, you would hit dry land once again.

This is something I need to remember these days as I find myself stuck in the chaos of life, consumed, water all around me, no dry land to be found. If I keep my course, follow the right light there will be land on the other side. This is promised to me in the pages of scripture. Right?

You see we all play in chaos everyday. We put our feet in the water, some of us even go surfing and get a rush from our adventure into the chaos, into that which we really can’t control but can only quasi predict from time to time. We get an adrenalin rush when we find ourselves playing in the chaos. And maybe it’s a good thing, even a necessary thing to play in the water from time to time. But sometimes we can get sucked in, the rip tide pulls us into the deep water, the chaos gets so thick we can’t even see dry land. It’s in these times, REMEMBER, keep your eyes on the right light, stay your course and you will wide up on dry land once again.

Words I need to remember.

Swimming
Erik