Posted | Saturday, January 08, 2005 | by Ron
Disneyland and Crazyworld are not far apart.

When I youth pastored there was a young man who attended our mid week meetings from time to time ... sometimes all the time. He stood up one night during the testimonies ... kids talking about their experience with God ... Just after one of the girls from the group did a nice job of laying some serious religious flava on the table, he stood up and said "this is Disneyland" ...

Doug ... some knew him later as John ... and I talked honestly for hours on the topic of Disneyland. He didn't drop names but he made me aware of the parties that were going on ... what happened at those parties ... and that basically, a hand full of my "Christian Leaders" were all over it. He had only one word for it. Disneyland.

Doug died a few years ago. I learned much from his honest living. He called me one night ... told me he wanted things to be "right with God". We hooked up the next day. What an honor it was to get to know God with him in those days ... back in the day.

Anymore Crazyland is the winner though. If Doug were still around, we would have the "Crazyland" discussion. It's the anti smoking campaign you see in many magazines these days.

I think what we're talking about is the complete denial of the truth ... when the truth is so loud we can't hear it ... when what we do exposes who we are so much that what we say is no more than flava ... my word of choice. Flava.

I've got a speaking engagement is a few weekends. Some kids in Wooster Oh. Many of which really are sold out on the idea of "being right with God". My hope is that my words will free of flava ... that the truth will encourage someone to deal with the reality of God ... I hope I'm one of them.