Unofficial Everything

A New Season

Sat, 10 Dec 2011 06:55:11 -0600

Dear friends,

For the past seven years, I have had the honor and privilege of serving students and families at The Austin Stone Community Church. At the outset, I was tasked with building and shaping a student ministry that “when you look back on all the years, the only explanation to all that has happened is that God did something powerful.” God has indeed done something powerful. In our students, in our families, in our church, in me, and may He continue to do so in His grace and mercy.

As such, it is with great confidence in the future ahead, that I inform you all that I will be transitioning out of my role as Minister to High School Students. Hearing first from the Lord that my time in student ministry was coming to a close, I sought council, confirmation, and permission from my Elders, who graciously and prayerfully led me into the next phase of my life.

As to what I will be transitioning to, the Lord has opened up an opportunity at The Austin Stone in our Connections Ministry where I will be diverting my attention to ensuring that the multitudes of people that attend our church get “connected” and “plugged” into Missional Communities and thus set on mission to seek the lost in this city. Without a shadow of a doubt, I believe the Lord is calling me to this, and has also designed me for this role. I look forward to pastoring people as they seek and find depth and relationship at The Stone.

In terms of the future leadership of TeenRock High, I cannot express to you the joy that I have in my heart that the Lord has raised up a new Minister from within our midst in Scott Frazier.

Scott has been a regular fixture in our church for years and has been faithfully leading TeenRock services for the past semester. He is a dynamic communicator, a determined individual, and most importantly, a man in love with Jesus. He and his wife Chelsea will be an unbelievable addition to the TeenRock team. Along with John Murchison and Matthew Hanvey continuing to lead Children’s Ministry and Middle School Ministry respectively, the ministry to families at The Austin Stone is in good hands for a very long time.

On a personal note and without any ounce of flattery, I say that I cannot think of a better successor for me than Scott.

To close, while sentimentality and sadness begin to creep in on me, I am most overwhelmed by the grace of Jesus in all of this. The memories of the past seven years are indelible in my mind and I count it all as His rich mercy on me that He would call me to such a worthy calling. Our race continues.

Grace and Peace,
Tyson Joe

"No Such Thing as a Stupid Question"

Mon, 14 Nov 2011 17:33:03 -0600

“It is what it is.”

There was a period of time in my life when I absolutely grew to hate this response. It was the first year of my life after I got saved (in college), and now faced with the new reality of a brand new outlook on life, I heard this answer a lot in response to a host of questions I still had.

I wholeheartedly embraced Christ in my life now, but the chains of my skepticism in my past life still bound me - skepticism that instead of being pugnacious was now bathed in a healthy curiosity. I had basic practical questions and “it is what it is” was NOT a good enough answer.

“Can someone fall away from the faith?”

“Who decided what books go in the Bible?”

“What does ‘forever’ mean?”

“What’s the deal with angels and demons?”

“Where are dinosaurs in the Bible?”

The landing spot of my questions by default went to my new Christian community, who wisely and graciously taught me about self-feeding and studying Scripture.

So I studied….and studied…and studied.

What soon happened was my head became filled with information and facts, giving rise to a feeling of superiority and pride. It was as if I had a vendetta against someone for never telling me this stuff and now the world was going to hear about it, even if it meant hammering them in the head with it.

It was not until I started in vocational ministry when texture and the “pastoral” voice began to develop…out of sheer necessity…when I realized that most people were afraid to ask the same questions that I had when I first came to faith. Students especially.

It is with this motivation, in concert with the leading of the Holy Spirit, that beginning in January in TeenRock, we will be going through a new series titled, “No Such Thing as a Stupid Question,” where we address pressing questions on the hearts of our students.

Most important in the delivery of this series will be an emphasis on the Gospel and how the answers to questions must undergird and not replace a heart to see the lost redeemed.

This is going to get fun.

Photo

Thu, 27 Oct 2011 18:43:00 -0500

Photo

Thu, 27 Oct 2011 18:42:23 -0500

31 Random Thoughts and 1 to Grow On.

Tue, 11 Oct 2011 01:06:46 -0500

1. I love my friends.

2. As an exercise for my 21st birthday, someone challenged me to write out a 10 year plan. The items on that list will shock you and will have to be another blog post.

3. Courrier left today on a national tour with a big name band. I’m sad they can’t celebrate with me today but there’s no more fitting birthday present than seeing them “make it.”

4. The Manor experience may be coming to an end.

5. Psalm 31:14: “But I trust in You, Oh Lord. I say, ‘You are my God.’ My times are in Your hand.”

6. ”This is the year!” - John Paik says this to me every year, and this year, he’s never been more right.

7. In my lifetime, the Houston Astros have won 1 pennant. Their Win-Loss record in my lifetime is 2596 - 2471. They may never win another game again much less another pennant.

8. I moaned and groaned about taking piano lessons as a kid. All these years later, I don’t for one second regret those lessons.

9. However, I have yet to use calculus since high school. Sorry, it’s just true.

10. Speaking of calculus, remember TI-82’s? What do kids use these days?

11. The moments that I believe that I have things figured out are actually the moments where I actually have no idea what’s going on. Another blog…another time.

12. I have yet to comment on a YouTube video. I don’t ever intend to.

13. After all this time in ministry, I’ve finally landed on what environment I want for our team. Entertainment 720 (see Parks and Recreation). This is NOT a joke.

14. Irrational fears that I have yet to get over: Germs, Clowns, Saying the word “Rural.”

15. Irrational fears that I have gotten over: Heights, Flying, Dinosaurs.

16. In all my life, I have never been more bothered musically than by the Pit Bull Dr. Pepper Commercial. It even tops Lou Bega’s Mambo #5.

17. Looking over the past year of my blogs, the topic I’ve written about the most was: Rest.

18. The most played song on my iTunes playlist was “Background” by Lecrae. I would NOT have guessed that.

19. The second most played song was “All This Time” by OneRepublic. I would have guessed that.

20. The answer is yes, it’s probably from J. Crew.

21. I have read more books this year than I did all through college.

22. For the record, the internet site I visited the most this year was www.austinstone.org. I should also mention it’s my home page so maybe that’s why.

23. The Ray of Sunshine Theory is not a theory any more. It’s a law. (Ryan Cecil and Courrier are available for comment and clarification).

24. For every 4 stories that I tell, there’s one that I can’t for a variety of reasons. I actually did the math on this. This means that 25% of the moments in my life are probably only shared with 25% of the people I know, and with me becoming increasingly private these days, that number is probably dwindling.

25. Every day I thank God for surrounding me with a host of wise and Godly men.

26. I’m considering switching from a hockey stick to a baseball bat this year.

27. I’m absolutely infatuated with Downtown Austin. It’s like I never knew it existed before.

28. October is the greatest month of the year. End of statement.

29. I’m running out of thoughts. Not just for this list…but in general.

30. 2011 (as a 30 year old) was THE most cathartic year of my life. Search the blogroll…you’ll see.

31. The next year holds great promise.

32. Grace and Peace to you, from God our Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ.

"It’s just a season thing. It’s just this thing that seasons do…"

Sun, 02 Oct 2011 20:35:39 -0500

“It’s just a season thing. It’s just this thing that seasons do…”

- John Mayer “Wheel”

"And all that September stole October overcame."

Sat, 01 Oct 2011 01:30:59 -0500

“And all that September stole October overcame.”

- Philip Edsel “Tribute to October”

"As my understanding of my sin and of God’s holiness grows, something else grows: my..."

Thu, 29 Sep 2011 15:54:03 -0500

“As my understanding of my sin and of God’s holiness grows, something else grows: my appreciation and love for Jesus.”

"As I pursue my heavenly journey by thy grace let me be known as a man with no aim but that of a..."

Wed, 28 Sep 2011 10:40:16 -0500

“As I pursue my heavenly journey by thy grace let me be known as a man with no aim but that of a burning desire for thee, and the good and salvation of my fellow men.”

- Valley of Vision “Divine Support”

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Sun, 25 Sep 2011 22:33:43 -0500

My Breaking Point

Fri, 09 Sep 2011 12:12:00 -0500

This entry was written on April 19, 2011 and it’s been saved for quite some time in my queue. The timing of the posting of this blog is significant only in that I read it back tonight and felt it was time to go ahead and post one of the most vulnerable and honest moments of my life. So here goes:

“Trial isn’t evidence that God has left you but rather that He has a hold on you.” Words preached by Matt Carter on April 17, 2011, a day that I am not likely to forget for a long time.

What happened?

The Sunday morning started out normal. I stopped into the St. John building to pick up something before I headed off to the Austin High School site, when a couple of people stopped me.

“Are you ok?”

“I’m fine. No big deal. I’ll rally.” I said.

As the morning went on though, none of these statements would come true.

In the midst of teaching in our Junior High TeenRock program, I started feeling dizzy. My hands started shaking and I started to see spots. My breaths shortened and I looked over to one of my interns, who noticed something was wrong. He grabbed me and dismissed the students into small groups and sent me upstairs to find Kevin, our lead pastor.

Kevin was in the service at the time and so I went to the back entrance near the stage and waited. As the service let out, I watched people walk by, and simply avoided eye contact. I was on the brink of tears.

Soon, Kevin emerged, and very normally began, “Hey man, what’s…”

He looked into my eyes and knew something was wrong.

As he instructed me to sit down, I collapsed into a heap and started shaking and crying uncontrollably. I was having a nervous breakdown.

The rest of our conversation was a blur but I do remember Kevin pastoring me, and putting his arm around me and saying, “I’m sorry. I’m for you. We’re going to get through this.”

Brewing

Even as I write this, my inner core trembles. My very fiber is very evidently fractured and I sit here, a broken man.

Finally.

The truth is, I haven’t been in a fight like this in a long time. Battles with significant sin have been relatively infrequent and stability in my moral fiber has been extremely good.

However, what I know now is that sentences like the last one and bold proclamations of personal victory can lead to disaster or in my case, breakdowns of this magnitude.

I had gone from the guy who could face any situation to the guy who for the next 24 hours was crying out to friends, “WHY DO I FEEL THIS WAY?!” ”I DON’T CARE ANYMORE!”

The Root

For years, I’ve been the funny guy. It dates back to elementary school and high school and by college, I had turned “class clowning” into an art form / science. I knew every room. I knew what every room needed. Most importantly to me, I knew how to get the room to like me or at least a VERSION of me.

As I entered ministry, I parlayed that “me” into a job working for a fast-paced, exciting, dynamic, Christ-centered church in the Austin Stone. Here I set the pace for myself and raised my own bar of expectation and charged full speed not knowing that I was proliferating a personal trend of performance based salvation. I would know every kid. I would know what every kid needed to hear, and I would know exactly how I could get them to like me. As the years went by, the ministry grew. Did I care about the ministry, the Gospel, and discipleship? Absolutely. The calling into ministry was and is still absolutely genuine but it doesn’t negate the fact that a significant predisposition to sin was hiding beneath the surface ready to strike.

Then recently, things began to change.

In the past few months plans to hire a Pastor specifically for our Junior High Students were underway. Personally, I was ecstatic about this decision and it’s fair to say that I came alive during the interview process. After all, here I was, hiring a replacement! This was going to free me up to do other things as well as be a significant step forward for our entire student ministry. Right?

As the days went by, and the process went on, my anxiety level began to rise. The first signs of this were that I started getting panicky and nervous about the littlest things. Soon I realized that I was tired all of the time, yet for some reason I could NOT fall asleep at night. Large crowds of people made me nervous especially when a significant percentage of the crowd knew who I was. For the first time in my life, anonymity was a desire and “celebrity” was a drain.

Before long, the anxiety was creeping into other facets of my life and I found myself not trusting people, being paranoid of the closest people in my life, and assuming the worst in EVERYONE. Suddenly, I was obsessed with the approval of people so much so that when I was unsure about how someone felt about me, I freaked out - not like Sunday - but close.

I was a ticking time bomb.

Countdown to Identity Crisis!

I had built a ministry on my personality. I had strived all of my life to be the BEST TYSON JOE that I could be, and now that I was replacing myself, I was faced with a new line of questioning. Is hiring a new guy to do a part of my job a concession or a sign of defeat? What if he does a great job immediately? Will his success magnify my failures?

The crumbling reality that I was (and still am) facing was that I had failed or I was in the process of failing at being ME. As a result, I became desperate to fill a new and massive void with validation from man. ”You’re doing a great job.” ”No one could have done a better job,” “You mean the world to me,” These phrases and phrases like them were my drugs and I was addicted.

I began to overperform. I began to overreach. All for the cheap thrill of getting an extra hit of affirmation.

And when it didn’t come or it didn’t fulfill. Panic. Anxiety. Fear.

Boom!

The Idol

I have a mutant approval idol. It’s remarkable how long I worshipped it without knowing.

My “act” revolved around yielding a specific response. The idol promised that in return for my performance, it would give me praise, adoration, and fulfillment.

It became a “barter system.”

“I’ll give you these jokes or this much love if in return I get laughs, and twice as much love.”

The problem is there is NO ultimate trade-off. Man is never satisfied.

Except…

“I am poor and needy and my heart is stricken within me. I am gone like a shadow at evening; I am shaken off like a locust.” (Psalm 109:22)

David understood idols or at least, he knew his tendency to drift towards them because he was so helpless.

Psalm 109:22 is so profound because here we see David looking to God to fulfill him - to complete him - to heal him.

God is the promise of life. God is the promise of hope.

We are more wretched than we can ever imagine. But we have a Savior who is greater than we can ever hope for.

Nothing can fill and complete a man except the love and power of Christ. Nothing. Not all the laughs in the world. Not all the friends in the world. Not all the money in the world.

Anxiety - the agent of change

God used my anxiety to reveal this deficiency in me and remind me that I belong to Him. There was no blessed assurance in my ability to perform on my own merit.

I had taken my election and salvation for granted and I needed reminding that ultimately even if I lose everything worldly including this perception that “Tyson Joe is a great guy,” not only will I be ok but there is joy to be had on the other side.

My prayer today isn’t that God remove anxiety from my life but rather that He make me willing and ready to use the anxious moments in my life to bring glory to Him and remind myself of my need for Him.

All I can hope to do is breathe in the Truth and exhale repentance - repentance that means asking forgiveness and for the Holy Spirit to run me in the opposite direction of sin.

I’m still a fractured man and the healing that is taking place is not based on what I can do to be healed but how still and quiet I can remain as He heals me. No more striving to be the best me. The truth is, I don’t even come close on my best day.

As for today, my sin is ever before me and I pray and I wait for the worship to come out of me that says, “Blessed be His name.” It will come. I know it.

Why did I have to experience the valley? Good question.

The next 48 hours were interesting. The morning after my breakdown I was faced with the temptation of calling everyone and saying, “Hey, nobody worry. That freak-out yesterday…no big deal.”

Thankfully a friend called me in time to keep me from making that call, and I realized how desperate I was even in my supposed “recovery” to appear strong to my fellow man.

And so here I lay, wounded in battle, but surrounded by a strong support system of believers speaking into me and challenging me not just on the manifestations of my sin but the sin itself.

More than that, I have been given a vision.

Much like Abraham as he was about to sacrifice his son Isaac to the Lord, I was faced with “my world” being taken from me. Such is my imagination that I pictured a world where everything I had “worked for” or “earned” could be very much removed. By God’s mercy, I also caught a glimpse of a reality that even if these things were removed from me, I was safe in His hands. Would there be wailing and gnashing of teeth? Probably, but as quickly as I would attempt to release my hold on Jesus, He would never let go of me.

I Wanna Quit the Gym!

Mon, 29 Aug 2011 20:17:22 -0500

I’ve been doing Crossfit for three weeks now and I’m 100% committed to it. Best workout around. Fastest results I’ve ever seen. One hang-up though. I still have a gym membership.

It should come as little shock that it’s extremely difficult to cancel a gym membership. What I’ve learned in the past day or so as I’ve been navigating through cancelling mine is that there should be at the very basic level, a financial obligation to working out at a gym since “they’re already taking your money.” However, now that I’ve found an alternative, that motivation is gone. What I have now is better. What they offer doesn’t compare. LET ME GO!

So step 1. Get someone on the phone. This step is more difficult than it sounds because being honest and saying, “I wanna talk about my membership,” is code for, “I want to quit.” Very quickly the “Everyone is busy and all the sales associates / specialists are with other members” alarm goes off. Be persistent.

Step 2. Sales Associate #1. Sales Associate #1 is easy to get around. He is going to go through great lengths to find your ACTUAL contract (the one you ACTUALLY signed) to ensure that he can accurately pinpoint the terms of your contract as they OFTEN change. Truth be told, it’s all on his computer screen. You can HEAR him clicking his keyboard when he said he is looking for an actual file. Be prepared here…have your copy in front of you. Inevitably this ends with, “Ok, lemme get a verification from a shift manager and we’ll get you on with the rest of your life.”

Step 3. Manager. This is your guilt guy. This is the one you have to grit your teeth on because you’re about to get a character / fitness / pattern of life analysis over the phone. ”Have you thought about this?” ”Have you thought about that?” ”Do you realize you’re going to miss out on this?” ”Why would you want to miss out on that?” Stay strong because this won’t last long. He’ll either get you to back down quickly or quickly kick you up to…

Step 4. The Closer. Few people reach the Closer. The Closer has NO CONSCIENCE when it comes to your gym membership. ACTUAL QUOTES from “The Closer.”

“You realize that you need us more than we need you.”

“Mr. Joe, this isn’t a financial issue, it’s really a discipline issue.”

“Fitness requires some buy-in, and all I’m hearing is selling out.”

“Your body is gonna suffer because of your mind.”

Listen attentively. Don’t get riled up. Respond respectfully and don’t try to out-talk this guy. It’ll all be over soon.

Ironically, The Closer, when he’s done huffing and puffing should kick you back to Step 1 or 2 and you SHOULD be done.

I leave you with this: (there’s VERY little NOT true about this situation)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C_ESeEZD_OY

Harold Creek Blooper Reel

Sun, 07 Aug 2011 05:56:16 -0500

Harold Creek Blooper Reel

David NOT Harold on the worksites at SWITCH

Wed, 27 Jul 2011 18:05:07 -0500

David NOT Harold on the worksites at SWITCH

Photo

Fri, 22 Jul 2011 08:44:57 -0500

Harold Creek Goes to Sea World

Fri, 22 Jul 2011 03:34:52 -0500

Harold Creek Goes to Sea World

Conformitron Teaser Video 2011

Sat, 09 Jul 2011 10:51:04 -0500

Conformitron Teaser Video 2011

Switch Promo Video featuring Harold Creek

Fri, 08 Jul 2011 15:21:30 -0500

Switch Promo Video featuring Harold Creek

Meet Harold Creek

Sat, 02 Jul 2011 10:09:21 -0500

Meet Harold Creek

"In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the..."

Sat, 02 Jul 2011 08:30:24 -0500

“In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace, which he lavished upon us, in all wisdom and insight making known to us the mystery of his will, according to his purpose, which he set forth in Christ as a plan for the fullness of time, to unite all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth.”

- Ephesians 1:7-10