Freeing My Mind

I’m baaaaaack! Hopefully.

Hey everyone, I have received your concerns, criticisms, and pleas for help. Have no fear, we at the Freeing My Mind headquarters have no intention of ending the blog. Life has been crazy, thus the recent hiatus. For instance:

I moved across the country two weeks ago. Lori, Cash, Whole-Grain and I sold our cars, packed everything we own into a moving truck and drove from North Carolina to San Francisco. We were homeless for a few days, but we got an amazing place right on the beach. The day after we moved in, we headed up to Alberta for a few days. I really love the people up there. I think it was my 7 or 8 time at that particular church. I think they keep inviting me back for their own entertainment, just to see what zany idea I’ll come up with next.

So, yeah, we actually did feel homeless for a few days. I think the first day we were here I called about 40 different apartment ads. We sat in the moving truck in front of a coffee shop and leeched off their internet. Of course, the place we ended up getting, was a simple God-ordained instance of driving by and calling a number. Going from a two-bedroom house to a two-room apartment is turning out to be more of an adjustment than I originally thought. Lori’s coming up with some creative ways to save space, but it hasn’t been easy.

We got an iPad, or rather we received an iPad. Our friends Shane and Jess gave us one before we left. Yes, you do need friends like that. I’m having a hard time going back to my laptop at all. It’s just so pretty.

I watched dolphins from my living room the other day.

Lori is still pregnant.

Cash is trying to get used to living in the city. He has only pooped on the sidewalk once. Good thing we were carrying groceries. The bags do a great job at picking up the poop so the nice Chinese man didn’t have to step in it.

I didn’t realize until I got out here and settled in, just how lifeless I had been feeling in North Carolina. Sometimes you don’t realize your having trouble breathing until you inhale fresh air. That’s what it feels like.

So, I’ve got two focuses for the immediate future. For one, the main edit is done on my book. I still have to go through it myself, but that shouldn’t take long. I’m still being wishy-washy on deciding the title. It’ll come to me though. I’m also focusing on getting our team out here. I think sometimes I take for granted how spontaneous Lori and I are. For most people it’s not easy to drop everything and move to California. Some would say it’s our incredible faith, I would say it’s our lack of thinking mixed with God’s grace.

I saw Christopher Nolan’s new movie yesterday. Inception. It really is a must see. I had heard some comparisons to The Matrix. I understand where the comparisons are coming from, but I would go into it without any preconceived ideas. Oh and set aside some time. It’s pretty long.

Ok, so my return to blogging is a little jagged and jumbled, but hopefully your’re up to speed. I’ll be back soon. Let me leave you with one question, what does it mean?

I was hoping to get a more proper blog out before I leave for Brazil, but as I sit in Newark, NJ waiting to board our plane, it looks like a short snippet from my iPhone is all you get.

Although tired from already being on the road for a week already, I’m so stoked about Brazil. I did the same event in December last year, and it was my favorite place I went all year.

1) Crazy passionate young people.
2) Wobbly Mary. A Brazilian dessert something akin to flan with a heavy dose of coconut.
3) Brazillian steakhouse. I can pronounce the term, but attempting to spell it would bring down my “world traveler” respect points.
4) Futbol chants during the conference.
5) Summer.

I wish I has time, and a better keyboard, so that I could share what all God has been doing in Lori and I. I remember writing a post entitled “Growing Pains”. In it I described the feeling of my external life having trouble keeping up with accelerated change inside of me. It looks like my life and ministry are beginning to catch up.

I’ve been contemplating various pioneers throughout history. Whether it be Jesus, Martin Luther (original and King Jr. version), Chris Columbus, or Leonardo Davinci, I’m beginning to see various similarities about their lives. While I currently merely aspire to be like these men, I’m beginning to understand my thought process a little more.

A long time ago, the Lord spoke to me. He said, “More than a minister, Craig, I want you to see yourself as an inventor. You might make 10,000 mistakes, but if you keep seeking to do what has never been done, eventually you will create something that changes the world.” It’s easy to think about being that way, but frustrating to actually live that way. I’m finding myself in a time where my hypothesis has yet to be completely proven, but I’m seeing good signs. I know, still vague.

On a side note, I need some accountability with a goal that I’m setting. I’ve got about three books inthe works. Varying in their state of completion from simply an outline to about 100 pages written. (Although that particular book is somewhat dated in my heart.) I’ve decided to commit to having one of them finished by February first.

SO, here is where you come into play. I would like my faithful blog readers to help give me a much needed kick in the butt when I need it. I would really like some of you to commit to praying for me. Mostly for creative grace and time. Also, every now and then either leave a comment on the blog or leave me a swift kick in the butt via facebook. Something to the effect of, “Craig, I really hope your working on your book right now. I’ve decided to go on a hunger strike until you finish it. I have also forced my young children to participate in my strike. Oh, and I have suspended my African child sponsorship until the book is printed.” That should help. But really, leave a comment.

Forgive any spelling errors, this actually was a long post for an iPhone keyboard.

Let my hero inspire you:

There was a time when I saw sitting in an office chair surrounded by a desk on two sides while listening to the noise of life being lived on the streets outside my office window to be nothing more than a waste of time. That’s why my feeling of joy and comfort while doing just that today has a sort of ironic tone to it. Amidst the busyness of my life over the past few weeks, I’ve missed being able to wake up and enclose myself in a small room with the sole purpose of praying, thinking and collaborating with God on the next few years of my life. If you’ve been a frequent reader of my less than frequent blog over the past couple of months, then you’ll know that Freeing My Mind has been an outlet for me to express the season of change that I, as well as my wife and our entire team, have been experiencing. The past couple of weeks have been especially difficult. I’ve successfully fought off a rather nasty sinus infection, while at the same time growing ever more frustrated at the medical problems of my twin sister and 5 yr old brother. When you’ve witnessed so many miracles, it makes it difficult when the need for those same miracles knocks on your front door. The emotional roller coaster that this season of change has taken me on, it seems, is finally coming to a head. The questions that have been the fuel for my internal change seem to have finally led me to some answers. What’s most interesting is that the answers that God has given are starting to come from some of the most unlikely of places.

In my attempt to keep the writing here as open and transparent as I can, I believe it’s time that I let you in on some of the most difficult and exciting change that has come about. If I had the time and if you had the patience I could begin 7 years ago when God wrecked my life for anything normal and set me on the path to my destiny. That’s when all this really began: Laying on the concrete pavement of a church parking lot in Pensacola, Florida. But, I’ll save us the time and simply say that in August of this year I conceived. Of course, not a natural child, that would be weird. Remember Arnold Schwarzenegger and Danny Devito in “Junior”? What God placed inside of me or maybe just awakened inside of me, was a desire to actually take all of my ideas of reformation and love and to put them to action, a grass-roots movement from scratch that would begin within existing sub-cultures of people within an urban environment. To put it simply: To move to a new city, gather people and to begin creating a community and culture conducive to seeing God’s kingdom thrive in a way that I have yet to see.

A couple of weeks ago I was on a plane to Eugene, Oregon via San Fransisco. More than speaking just one Sunday morning at the Vineyard Christian Fellowship in Albany, I was going to spend some much needed time with friends and to hopefully talk through the decisions that Lori and I are beginning to make. While sitting in my comfy first class seat (sometimes it pays to fly a lot) I was having a conversation with the Lord. My question was simple: How do we take a message, one that isn’t based around a building or a man, and create a community and culture from it in a brand new place? God simply said, “Look to the magazine in the seat pocket in front of you.” As I scrolled through the various reading materials I was hoping that my answer was not found in either the Sky Mall magazine or the emergency preparedness literature. I figured my only choice was the United Airlines monthly magazine, “Hemispheres”. As I slowly flipped through the periodical waiting for something to catch my eye, I was surprised when that thing was a 26 year old French photographer.

Besides a few close friends, no one knows the real name of this artist, only by his moniker, JR. As my eyes scrolled the pages of JR’s art, I noticed a few things before even reading the article. Of course, I noticed the size of his canvas. His pictures were pasted onto the sides of buildings, across entire links of train cars, and in the midst of both luxury and poverty. My second thought was concerning the pictures themselves. They were not about the artist, but rather about the person in the picture. Whatever this person was trying to say, it had nothing to do with himself. I would encourage you to read the entire article, but let me give you a snippet.

Back in his Paris studio, JR stands before his newest project: a stack of 40 large box speakers glued and screwed together to form a 10-foot tall oval, which is currently blasting the bass-heavy loop of a heartbeat. He sips an espresso and scratches the top of his forehead, which is hidden beneath a straw fedora. Behind his sunglasses, he squints. A large black-and-white picture of an older woman’s face is pasted over the speakers. Her eyes bug out and her lips are pursed, and as the speakers throb, sections of her eyes, nose, mouth and forehead move with the heartbeat. JR is pleased.

Three days from now, this installation will occupy a wall in Paris’ esteemed Emmanuel Perrotin Gallery, as part of “Stages,” an art exhibition organized by Lance Armstrong to coincide with the Tour de France. The piece is a departure for JR, a 26-year-old Paris native, mostly because it is neither illegally displayed nor four stories tall and affixed to the side of a building, which is his preferred canvas. (Other canvases of choice include rooftops, swimming pools, buses, trains, crumbling brick, broken doorways.) You get the picture: JR doesn’t do galleries. His last project, the 2007 series “28 Millimetres: Women,” was more typical. Depicting women surviving in difficult circumstances, it led JR from Kenya to India to Brazil to take close-up photos of women’s faces and blow them up to superhuman size before pasting them all over various cities. “JR is able to use art to confront people with a point of view about society without it being political or malicious,” says Marc Schiller, cofounder of international street art blog the Wooster Collective. “Instead, it’s life-affirming.”

“The media only gives us one angle, and it’s usually from a helicopter circling a riot or war,” JR says, motioning up in the air with a pen made from a bullet casing he found in Rio. “You only see the guns and violence. I’m hoping to give people another angle.”

The walls of his studio are lined with more giant vignettes of faces and eyes, each belonging to the Brazilian, Cambodian, Indian and African women who lined up to have their picture taken. This October, during fashion week no less, Parisians will see these faces on their bridges, banks and city buildings when JR wraps up his project with exhibitions around the city and the release of his book, Women Are Heroes.

But for now, he needs to find two more speakers to even out the left side of the woman’s pulsating face.

JR’s theory is simple. Through the media he finds places that have experienced tragedy through war, disease, poverty, destruction, rioting, etc. He goes into these places and begins to befriend the people affected by those traumatic events. Eventually he finds acceptance among the people and receives their blessing to photograph them. With the help of not only his small team, but many volunteers from the community, he blows up the images to gigantic sizes and pastes them throughout the community under the cover of night. Once the local media gets word of the large pieces of art, JR is no where to be found. Only the people. I want to give you one more snippet of the article. I find his process of befriending the people very interesting.

“The kids always show up first,” JR says as he opens a photo on his laptop of five Brazilian boys from Morro da Providência, the oldest and most dangerous favela in Rio. Leaning up against one another, laughing with arms crossed, the boys hold sheets of newspaper that they’ve twisted and folded into the shape of guns. Trust takes time in the favelas, which are notoriously hostile to outsiders, and JR relies on the curiosity of its youngest residents to gain access.
In another photo, the boys have returned, and instead of guns, they’re carrying newly constructed newspaper cameras, turning the tables on JR’s crew. This is a good sign. Gaining the adoration of the favela children means the women—the mothers, aunts and sisters—will follow suit. And if the women trust JR, the men—the fathers, uncles and brothers, who are also the drug traffickers and street enforcers—will give him the space to work and even spare his life if a “situation” arises. The process is the same in every country he’s visited, hotspots like Kenya, Liberia, Sudan, Sierra Leone, Cambodia and India.

“He takes risks without a safety net,” says Marco Berrebi, his longtime friend and collaborator. “But by going in with no protection, he’s relating to people on a human level.”

So, what does all this mean? How does JR’s art and methods tie into God speaking to me concerning reaching a city and creating a culture? While I believe God is still slowly revealing the strategy to me, I think the concept is quite simple. For one, it’s not about the organization, but rather about the people. In fact, when JR and his team leave, all that remains is the people and the message. It’s interesting that we don’t even know JR’s real name. Simply his work.

Young people dictate any society. It is their influence that creates trends, media, fashion, vocabulary and even laws. This does not happen directly, but indirectly.

Messages that are created in hiddeness, allow the message to speak for itself. The message of Jesus Christ has become too crowded by the persona of the messengers. If the focus becomes firstly Jesus and secondly the people that we are attempting to influence, the message stands on its own, without the need to glorify the messenger.

So that’s the plan. Where? I don’t know for sure, yet. We have some things in the works and are more praying than planning, but I believe our strategy is coming together. As I was reading the article my thoughts began to drift to urban propaganda that I often seen on lamp posts, boardwalks and on the side of buildings. Stickers, graffiti and the like. The images don’t speak to everyone, but for the insider they say volumes. Just recently, I received word about groups of young Christians in various cities that gather together spontaneously in coffee shops and bars through text messaging and twitter. We’re going to check that out. Seems like things are coming together.

my inspiration

I need to vent today. I knew once I started the blog this day would come. Maybe it’s the rain. I loathe rain. It was a difficult weekend, nothing in particular, just my internal wrestling. Before I begin and for all future reference, let me say that I know how I “should” be thinking and the truth pertaining to my life and ministry, but my point here is not to talk about what I should be doing or feeling, but to express what is actually going on in my head. My hope is that by hearing my inward processes that you would be better able to understand your own inward process. I find then when I go back and read the writings of past Christian leaders, it’s not their teaching that most influences me, but their journals and memoirs about the internal workings of their heart.

Some of you might be unaware of my story. I’ll give you a very brief synopsis, as it is imperative to understand where I have been to understand where I am. I was raised in suburban Mississippi by amazing parents. My twin sister and older brother were part of the Southern Baptist church since birth. As a young teenager, I was fully entrenched in the Baptist church and even considered a leader in our youth ministry. I attempted to both live and understand the Christian lifestyle that I was taught to abide by. At about 15 years old, I began to question the relationship between what I was always taught about God and what I actually experienced in my life. Case in point: I was taught that Jesus is the Prince of Peace, yet I didn’t experience any more peace in my life than my “unchurched” peers. After wrestling with this for quite some time, I made a decision. I was done with church and I was done with God. Not done in the sense that I didn’t believe in Him or even believe in who Jesus is, but I was done with following the prescribed set of rules and regulations. This wasn’t really a process of time, but an actual decision that I made. I told God one day, “I don’t see You. I don’t feel You. I don’t understand You, even though I have done everything I that I’ve known to do. I’m walking away, God. If you want me, You know where to find me.”

For the next 5 years, I fully entrenched myself into the world. Accumulating, eventually, into a drug habit that began to run my life and a family, as well as future wife, who’s lives were being negatively affected by my all that I did. After a near death experience coupled with a drug overdose, I began to look for answers. One night, after dropping out of college and losing most friends in my life, I said a simple prayer under my breath. “God, it’s been a while. Remember how I said if You want me You know where to find me? Well, I’m still here.” Over the next few months, I decided that I wouldn’t begin to attend church again, but I would began a search within my soul to find God. One summer week I was on vacation with Lori’s family. We were staying in a condo in Orange Beach, Alabama. The night before we were to leave, my future sister-in-law, told us a story about a church in Pensacola, Fl that at one time had people lining up at 8am to get into a church service than began at 7pm. This intrigued me and I decided to find the church, call them and show up at their door that night. This is exactly what we did. We went to a prayer meeting that night. To give you all the details would take up too much time and I’ve already taken up too much space. Suffice it to say, a lady prayed for me in the parking lot of the church around 11pm. I feel to the ground of the parking lot, feeling a power I had never felt. While on the ground I had a vision, although I didn’t know what it was at the time. The Lord spoke to me in the vision and told me that I was, “one of many who will help raise up one of the greatest generations to ever live.”

That night I was changed. I can’t stress the word, changed, enough. It was the most incredible moment of my entire life. In an instant I literally became another man. Over the next few months I began to pray and seek God in a manner that I had never even heard of. For up to 8 hours a day, I would pray, read scripture and spend time in the presence of God. I grew in the spirit very quickly. During this time I also developed a “gift’. (Although at times it doesn’t seem so much like a “gift”.) I was able to clearly see deep-rooted issues within the Church. It became quite a burden to me, as at times it still is. I was surrounded by a religious system that denied the supernatural reality of God. Therefore I positioned my life to promote that reality and to advance the belief in miracles, signs and wonders. This place that God had taken me served me well. Not only did I grow very quickly and experience unexplainable things, but I also was quickly placed into positions of leadership and authority. Soon after Lori and I were married and not soon after that, we moved to Abbotsford, British Columbia to travel extensively with a revivalist named Todd Bentley. After traveling literally all over the world for six months, Awake International was birthed. I was given incredible favor and began, myself, traveling all over the world. During this time, I was still doing what I had always done since my re-birth: teaching on the miraculous realm, hearing the voice of God, and the current reality of heaven on earth. It was an incredible time.

Two years into this season of my life I noticed God beginning to take me through a change. For one, I began to feel discontent with everything around me. I was seeing amazing wonders all around me and favor everywhere that I went, but something inside me was changing. The same feeling I had at the beginning, the feeling of constantly seeing the need for change all around me, returned. Only this time it was different. I didn’t just see the problems, but I began to see the solutions to those problems. I began to seek God and say, “Lord, I know things are changing, but I feel like I’m changing and it scares me. I feel disconnected and seperated. Who am I, God?”  Without warning, He said to me, “You thought I called you to revive, but I’ve called you to reform.” Suddenly, it all made sense. The way I was. The way I thought. Everything that had happened since my first encounter with God. I saw, in an abstract sense, who God had created me to be. A reformer. An agent of change.

I loved it. When I saw it, I embraced it. It was exhilarating to finally understand why I thought the way I thought and saw the way I saw. It was all for a purpose. It wasn’t a problem with me, it was part of my created nature. I did love it, and still do, at least most of the time.

Which brings me to today. I don’t love it today. It’s hard. At times it’s very lonely. I feel like the moments where people actually “get” what I’m attempting to do is so few and far between. If you’ve been reading this blog since the beginning, then you know that I’ve recently gone through an intense internal change. The problem is that it seems that outside of me, things are the same. That’s the life of a reformer. What you see in your heart is always ahead of what actually is. You promote a message, because the living reality of that message is yet to be. You attempt to release a new wine, when the new wineskin is yet to be. You attempt to create a new wineskin when the materials to make the new wineskin are seemingly unavailable. It was so easy when there were so many others doing what I was doing. When my message rested on the principles of the supernatural, it became much more widely accepted. That was fun. Now that my message is one that promotes the supernatural, but not for the sake of the supernatural and not as the core of the message, it’s not as fun yet. Do I ever again get to see the reality of that which I preach or will it be my children?  As much as I want to just stop, to give up, I can’t. As much as I want to say, “Who am I? I don’t have any answers.” I can’t, because I know it to be untrue.

It gives me strength to think about the life of Jesus. The greatest reformer that ever lived. His task was to reform a culture who had no foundation for the message that He brought. Even those closest to Him, had a difficult time grasping His ideas. Was He lonely? I’m sure, at times, He was, but His constant communion with the Father and His belief in what He was sent to do kept Him going. His love. His passion for the people. It made it all worth it. I know it’s worth it. I know my heart is right. I know I’m doing the right thing, it’s just hard. That’s the reality.

And now my inspiration for today. And, yes, I like Taylor Swift.

So, I’m starting a blog. I’ve gone through some drastic changes in my life as of late. Most of you reading this will know that I’m, for lack of better words, a speaker/minister. I have been for about 5 years now. I’d have to say that I’m pretty good at. In fact, I know I’m good at it. Although, over the past while (vagueness intended), I have grown increasingly frustrated with my where we are as a ministry. You see, my desire isn’t the same as many of my counterparts. I don’t want just a big ministry that does what every other ministry has done, but my passion is that which has never been. Something different. Therefore, frustration is a part of my life. Although, that frustration also is what keeps me moving forward.

Now, back to the drastic change. So, about 3 weeks ago I was in Alberta, Canada. Over a period of about 24 hours I began to feel a change inside me. I can’t really explain it. In the past, during drastic changes in my life, I was able to explain just exactly what happened. This wasn’t like that. I still can’t tell you exactly what happened, but something did. One night, during this process, I was watching the UFC on my computer just before bed. If you don’t know what the UFC is, it’s a mixed martial arts organization that has grown in popularity 10 times over in the past few years. Anyway, when I was about 15 years old I started watching the UFC. At this time there were a few fighters who were completely dominate. They never lost and seemingly couldn’t lose. Many of these fighters are back fighting now. During this one particular fight a fighter by the name of BJ Penn was being discussed by the commentators. BJ was one of these dominate fighters during the early days of the UFC. In fact, they nicknamed him, “The Prodigy”. He was good, really good and the thiing about BJ Penn was that he didn’t really train. He didn’t have to, hence the name “Prodigy”. Anyway, during this particular fight, Joe Rogan commented that BJ was having to train now. The fighters around him had caught up to his natural talent and he found himself having to put in hard work in order to keep up with the growing talent within MMA as a sport. As soon as I heard this comment, I also heard the voice of the Lord. He simply said, “Craig, that’s you.” Those words hit me hard. I knew it was true.  You see, I’m good at what I do. I’m talented. I’m gifted. Many people would even say that it isn’t “fair’. Although, what is “fair”? But, I have never had to put effort into it. What God was saying is, “If you add hard work and effort to your natural abilities, nothing could stop you.”

The next morning I woke up different. Changed. Completely. I felt as if I had been born again, again. Certainly, drastic change. I came home more focused than ever. It’s not that I just decided to change. It was as if God’s voice change me. Just His words, they created something new within me. I imagine our whole team is thankful. I have had more fun in the past few weeks brainstorming, creating and changing with our whole Awake “family”. I’ve never had so much vision and belief in what is in my heart. I think we’ve got more projects in our heart that we can even keep up with. The good thing is that, now, we are trying to keep up with them.  I’ve said all of that to say, here’s my blog. A part of that change. I’ve committed myself to writing more. I’ve got more formal writing projects in the works, but I want to use this as an avenue to express my day to day  thought process. At times it should be somewhat insightful and at other times it might simply be random thoughts and goings-on within my life.  Seriously, thanks for taking the time to read. Feel free to comment. much love