I wasn’t sure what it was going to be like and honestly, I was a little scared. I mean these are just kids, but they are kids who are doing things to where society has to lock them up. But as in everything God has led me to do, I knew I just needed to suck it up and let Him work.

We got there and got a speech mostly about what NOT to do. Don’t tell them your last name. Don’t give them anything, especially pencils or anything sharp. Don’t let them give you anything. Then they lead you into what is called a Pod. A Pod is a big room with a large guard platform in the middle. On either side are four picnic style tables and two levels of jail cells. The kids on one side generally don’t mingle with kids on the other.

They wear orange or yellow sweatshirts, blue sweat pants and slip off shoes. They have wrist bands with their picture on them and a barcode to identify them. The youngest one there tonight was I think about 14 and the oldest, 17. The 17 year old was clearly the old man of the group. Gang tattoos on his hands he already had several kids and was planning on getting married as soon as he got out. He admittedly had an alcohol abuse problem.

Another kid told me that it was pretty good in jail, better than living on the street. He had been here many times before and this time he was most likely going to do 6 to 8 months.

Yet despite these experiences, when you sit and talk to these kids, you see that they are still kids. They still tease each other like kids, and laugh at immature jokes. We had them all singing christmas carols and playing dumb games and it’s in those times that you realize that the vast majority of these kids aren’t hardened criminals. They’ve been raised in broken homes and mistreated and have fallen in with bad people and that’s why they are where they are. Now, I’m not naive, there’s some that are playing the system and simply know how to B.S. and they are very good at it. But there are many that have potential.

So for me, it was a sobering experience. On one hand it was just an opportunity for God to grow me a little more. Get me out of my comfort zone and continue to make me see that there are things I can do. On the other hand it was a great chance just to show some love to kids who haven’t been shown enough. You know, you can’t really change these kids. You can’t make them change their lives. But you can show them and tell them about Christ’s love. You can share some life experiences. And some day, when these kids hit their bottom, if that’s now or 20 years from now, they might just remember some stranger telling them that they could be better if they just reached out to God and had a little faith. And they will use that to start a new life.

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You know, I think the big hoopla on this issue is ridiculous and always has been. The problem I have always had with organized religion is it’s focus on traditions and rules and appearances instead of people’s hearts. Many times I think the things we do and standards we set do more to separate us and make use feel better about ourselves as Christians rather than to help people understand what Jesus is all about.

Let me tell you something; We celebrated Christmas in my house and I heard the Christmas story every single year for my entire childhood and when I got to adulthood I literally had no idea what the significance of Jesus’ life was. I could recite the story from memory but I had no clue why it should be important to me, and my life certainly reflected that. If anything, the story of Jesus had become just another fairy tale, a piece of folklore, and a gigantic marketing campaign to me, not much more. It had become so packaged and commercialized that it had lost it’s meaning. I think most people could say the same thing.

But now here we are boycotting companies because they are refusing to use God as their salesman and I’m shaking my head wondering why. For years we’ve wanted commercialism seperated from Christmas and now that’s exactly what’s happening. The mega corporations have left Christmas out and are now calling the celebration of gift giving a “Holiday”. And we’re all bowed up? We’re here lamenting that we’ve “lost” Christmas?

Look, Christ never told anyone to celebrate his birthday. He also didn’t setup a giant fire-sale at Jesus’ Goat Skin Superstore one day a year in December to promote God’s agenda. He affected people through direct interaction. He taught people. He served people. He showed compassion and love and took the time to hang with regular folks and tell them about God. He did this every single day.

If we’re “losing” Christmas it’s not because companies are using or not using the term in their sunday advertising. It’s because we’ve failed to do what Christ did for the other 364 days of year.

Well, this is my last post until… well, until I feel like posting again I suppose, but most likely until New Years, and then I’ll post my yearly round-up. I pray everyone has an awesome Christmas, takes time to enjoy loved ones, and most of all, reflect on the birth of Jesus and how significant that is.

Merry Christmas everyone.

It was an awesome weekend though. Friday we went to my company Christmas party and had a good time as usual. I am fortunate to work with an incredibly diverse, yet pleasant group of people, and we had a good time eating, drinking and being merry.

Saturday and Sunday were spent at church, rippin some drummage for our church’s bring a friend weekend. It was a fantastic service that featured our awesome pastor Steve Davidson explain the reason for Christmas in only the way he can.  It also contained some really incredible performances by our worship and arts team.

I gotta say that I feel incredibly blessed to be able to serve on this team. It’s one thing to play in bands and do some pretty good sized shows and stuff. It’s entirely different to be part of something that is so diverse, and complex and beautiful; where everyone is there doing these amazing things, simply out of the love for God and the desire to serve.

This weekend we had a full band do our normal rock thing, but we also had 5 singers join us and did a variety of musical styles, from rock, to ballads, to a little bit of funky christmas carolly things. Then we got to do an accoustic set with 3 accoustic guitars and me on the cajon. That was so cool and I really, really enjoyed getting out from behind the kit and doing something different. We also got to hear Aron and Jill do a song in Italian which was absolutely phenomenal and blew me away each of the three times I got to hear it. And then we finished with a big fat rock song featuring a group of gals doing some modern dance. This is one of the reasons I love this church so much. It’s just an interesting place to be.

So it was a great weekend and nice finish to the busy Christmas season. This week is going to be a lot mellower as I finish up a few days at work and share Christmas at home with the family. Oh, Clovis Hills is having a special Christmas eve candle light service, on Wednesday, so check it out. [CLICK HERE]

We took some video this year, and Luke Mundy was kind enough to let me use one of his songs over the second half, which you can download at his website. I hope you enjoy this little video, and I wish everyone a Merry Christmas.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Now Christmas is obviously a big deal in his neighborhood because almost every house on his street was decked to the nines. Larry holds his own as well and honestly, Christmas Tree Lane doesn’t have much on this street. It was pretty impressive. But every year, Larry sets up a P.A. system, builds a “set” in the front part of the garage for Santa to sit in, and it’s like a block party. People bring their kids to sit on Santa’s lap, there’s singing and hot chocolate and the whole nine yards. It’s really cool.

So a bunch of us from the band joined in this year and did an accoustic set. It was fun because I got to play the cajon while one of our other drummers jammed on the kit, and his son tore it up on my djembe. Very neat having three percussionists jamming together. I don’t get to do that very often. Larry also arranged for a really, really, good quartet made up of four women come and sing and that was pretty amazing.

It was just an all around good time and really has kind of gotten me in the Christmas spirit. Which is good because it’s going to be a busy season. I have two corporate parties to attend, the band is playing at a party for the Emergency Family Shelter, and we have a pretty involved outreach weekend coming up at church that I’m playing in.

‘Tis the season to be super busy, but it’s going to be a blast.

It was a little different for me this year though and I think it just has to do with the Africa trip coming up and some of the training I’ve been through for that. At our team building meeting the speaker took some time to talk about the importance of just loving people. As Americans we are always so focused on tasks and results that often we forget about just being with people. I mean physically just sitting and interacting with folks. So it was interesting that I had several people come up to me last night and ask what they could do, or if they could have brought something extra or given some more money or whatever. And suddenly a light went on. I was seeing first hand what this guy was talking about.

So I had to stop and explain that just showing up, just being there and talking to these people, singing along with them, eating with them, sharing stories about the kids and enjoying Santa’s corny jokes together… that’s the greatest “task” each of us was given. If there’s one thing I’ve learned about people who are struggling, it’s that they are outcasts in our performance driven society, and they want nothing more than to feel included, to feel “normal”.

So next time you get involved with some form of social work or charity and you want to do something… remember that often just showing up is what’s most needed .

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You have to admit, I exude some seriously hot elf-ness.

Don’t hate, yo.