“For the Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost.” -Luke 19:10

Grungy Deacon will first and foremost be about my jagged journey of faith as a Christian and how I’ve learned over time through my own brokenness, disobedience, failures, pride and struggle with sin, to love and worship God with everything I’ve got. Although God has fearfully and wonderfully knit each one of us together in our mother’s wombs (Psalm 139), the fact remains that life is difficult and painful. Investing in a spiritual relationship with someone I can’t visibly see and touch yet has its challenges, especially when you’re grouped together with other “so-called Christians” who are not living out their faith as true disciples and followers of Jesus, embodying love. I feel strongly that this fact alone (along with the turbulent history of the church) has hurt Christianity more than anything else and has led those who don’t believe yet to make rash judgment calls and reject Jesus as Lord before examining the mountain of historical evidence, ultimately forfeiting themselves the opportunity to experience the divine, healing, infinite and patient love of our Savior.

To God, lost means “missing and valuable” and that equals you and me. Our deepest desire as human beings is to be accepted and loved, seen and understood. One of the main ways God speaks to us is through His word, but if we don’t ever read it, we won’t ever know Him and/or anything about His truth. It’s been said that Christianity can be summed up as “one beggar telling another beggar where to find food” (D.T. Niles) and that truth itself is discovered, not invented. Sir Isaac Newton didn’t invent gravity, he discovered it! Truth is when an idea or thought matches up with reality (what we bump into in the dark) and exists independently of our knowledge of it. Therefore, we can only discover truth through analysis and investigation, rather than rationalizing it subjectively through our own experiences, feelings and/or opinions.

Jesus said to Pontius Pilate, “My kingdom is not of this world. I have come into the world to bear witness to the truth” (John 18:36-38). When I discovered that the word “sin” is a Greek archery term that means to “miss the mark”, it made me then wonder about the bullseye, which I concluded is Jesus! Although all human beings have been created in God’s image, we unfortunately are born lost. The Holy Spirit waits to reveal the truth about Christ to us as soon as we believe in our hearts that what the Bible says about Jesus is true. This is why we not only need church and community, but to inspire one another in the faith and have real conversations about what is eternal, what is righteous and what truths might exist about God and our purpose here on Earth. When I had conversations like these with people I esteemed and respected, I learned that the answer is always Jesus himself and by God’s infinite and immeasurable grace, I finally got to know Him.

Do you have doubts and questions, but not a safe place to ask them? Drop me a line! My sincere prayer is that Grungy Deacon will curiously excite you in a brand-new way, ignite your relationship with Jesus Christ and restore your faith in the Son of the living God (Matthew 16:16).

Grungy: shabby or dirty in character or condition; characteristic of grunge music or fashion. Other synonyms: bedraggled, befouled, begrimed, bemired, besmirched, black, blackened, cruddy, dingy, dirty, draggled, dusty, filthy, foul, grimy, grotty [British], grubby, mucky, muddy, nasty, smudged, smutty, soiled, sordid, stained, sullied, or unclean. (Merriam-Webster)

Deacon: from the Greek word “diakonos”, which means “helper”. A member of the lowest rank of the threefold Christian ministry (below the presbyter-priest and bishop) or, in various Protestant churches, a lay official, usually ordained, who shares in the ministry and sometimes in the governance of a congregation. In churches in which the diaconate exists there is a general continuity, at least in principle, with the early Christian pattern of deacons as a basic but subservient ministerial order and as helpers responsible for the practical and charitable functions of the Christian community. In summary, a deacon is first a disciple of Jesus Christ and in a practical sense, a servant of a church. (Wikipedia)