Writers Block

A lot of people think that having faith means never having fear. I politely say bo-lo-ney. Yes, I know I didn’t spell it right. I’ve heard the Oscar Meyer song, but I still call it bo-lo-ney not bologna. Maybe you would say hogwash or use a term that would get me in trouble if I wrote it, but you know what I mean.

I am full of faith, and boloney some would say, but having faith has never given me a get-out-of-jail-free card for not wanting certain things to happen. A great American leader once said we have nothing to fear but fear itself and though I like the sound of that speech, I have decided to just not be sacred of fear period.

Sometimes I get scared and I have to move forward anyway. The feeling of fear is in most cases just that, -a feeling. I don’t think courage or faith is advancement without fear near as much as I believe it’s probably more like moving forward in spite of fear.

Bump in the night

I’m not scared of spooks or the ghosts of Confederate solders but there is a recurring nightmare I have had at least a dozen times. In my dream I step up to the podium to a giant stadium full of thundering applause. When it all finally dies down, everyone waits for me to say something brilliant when suddenly I realize I can’t think of anything at all to say. It goes on for several agonizing minutes while a fumble through notes I can’t read and try and say things funny while no one is laughing. It’s terrible.

It might sound stupid to you but for a guy who is always in front of a crowd of listeners, I guess it makes sense there would be some part of me that would fear a loss of words. –Yeah, like that has ever happened in my loud mouth history.

So tonight I sit down to write this weeks confession from a highly caffeinated Christian and have come across a very rare but a little bit intimidating case of I’m-not-sure-what-to-say-itus. Right now I have that same feeling I had when I was kid and felt like something was under the bed. It’s yucky.

Scary Places

I completely understand it. I was in Mexico last week from Sunday night til late Friday night working on a new live worship album with my band. I did a huge concert, three hours of live TV on a Mexican station and spent the rest of the week in a studio. After 11 hours drive time I got back just in time for the big food outreach we do on Saturdays. We gave away over 15000 pounds of food to over 500 people here locally and even cooked hamburgers for the lot of them. It was so much fun. On Saturday night I had a meeting on leadership for a small group of church builders and went to bed after midnight. This morning we had our usual back to back services and I just got home from a baptism service where we baptized thirty seven brand new believers. This week my son graduates High School and my twins turn sixteen. It’s a marathon time for the Brewer.

So in the midst of all of my busy-ness I stop for just a moment and wonder if I am really keeping my priorities straight. Do I love God, my wife and my kids the way I’m supposed to? I think so. Yes I know I am. Am I grateful for the life I get to live even though I am often a little overwhelmed? Yes, more than ever, I believe.

In the quietness of my room the only thing I can hear is the typing of my fingers and the sound of the TV on the other side of the wall. The glow of my computer is the only light in my room and the ambiance causes me to think deep about all the faces and encounters I have had this last week. My life could be so different.

So if I didn’t have writers block I would sit down and write something worth reading. In spite of the fear of not having anything interesting or meaningful to say I would really like to type something that helps somebody love God or love their own life a little bit more.

Well who knows? Maybe I just did.

Our actions will show that we belong to the truth, so we will be confident when we stand before God. Even if we feel guilty, God is greater than our feelings, and he knows everything. 1 John 3:19-20 (NLT)

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The Last Thing You Need To Do Is Form A Committee (052109)

Define a non-Biblical hell for Troy Brewer and it would look something like a board meeting. A board which is supposed to be a noun is actually more of a verb to me and spelt bored. Really that’s a false statement because a verb implies action and church boards are not famous for having a sense of urgency.


I hate having to go through a committee. I just can’t stand boards and having to listen to people who love to hear themselves talk about things and hammer a little piece of wood on a table. Blah, blah, blah is all I hear over the twisting noise of grass growing outside as everyone makes sure they voice their opinion under rule of governing procedure. I start praying for the rapture and hoping the boards in America will be left behind.


There are things that make sense in a board room environment that don’t make sense anywhere else. Completely sane people will suddenly feel like a responsible move is not to move at all before they do a $20,000 study on a $500 project.

Churches throughout America are ruined by elder boards and tend to be more deacon possessed than full of the Spirit. The Brewer begins to rage out at people that love process and title more than achieving victory or accomplishing vision.

Get A Move On
The word for a pack of lions is called a pride and I think this word fits a lot of church governments. Pride goes before the fall and if you want a major downgrade in effectiveness, turn it over to most church boards. There you will find a prideful group with a religious reason why you shouldn’t reach the world for Jesus.

Do you know what you call a pack of buzzards? - A committee. I am not making that up and it’s a perfect illustration of what happens to most ministries. A group of old buzzards hang over something that died along time ago when they ought to be making something else happen.

Somebody once asked me if running ministries through a church board was Biblical. I said yes. There is an excellent example in the book of Numbers chapter 13 where Moses formed a committee of twelve to spy out the Promised Land. True to form, they came back with a long list of reasons why they couldn’t do what God had told them to do. So God sent them all into a desert instead of his promises until they weeded out all of the board members. What should have taken a week, ended up taking forty years – typical church board decision and you can find it in the bible.

The I in Team Work
Instead of having boards ruled by procedure, power and title, what we need are TEAMS of people held accountable for action and results. John Maxwell says, “One is too small a number to achieve greatness.” He is exactly right.

We need teams of advancing people who have initiative and won’t even let paint dry on their watch.

Never let bean counters run a ministry! That’s why so many churches are all about money and not about people because the governing board feels like their first responsibility is financial. Feeding the poor, taking care of widows, loving on old people and doing youth ministry is in fact a money pit and there is no financial reason to do such things. It’s not about the money, it’s about Kingdom Purpose.

Obviously there are some church board members and leaders who believe this but we need to confront and weed out left lane leaders. People who have been put into position to accelerate but drive so slow none of the rest of us can pass. If your leaders do not have initiative then the angry peasants in the congregation should rise up with challenging pitchforks and encouraging torches. Sometimes we need leadership to sound less like Charlton Heston and more like Larry the Cable Guy. “Get ‘er done!”

Get the Led Out
When it comes to taking initiative, there are really only four kinds of people:

1. People who do the right thing without being told.
2. People who do the right thing when they are told.
3. People who do the right thing when told more than once.
4. People who never do the right thing, no matter what.

Anyone who wants to be a world changer needs to become the first kind of person.

Believe it or not, you don’t need mass approval to live your dream. Get up and take on hell with a water pistol. Your ability to accomplish vision and to get things done whether it’s an evangelical mission or a marketplace pursuit is entirely up to your own personal character. God has given you the grace to go forward. Focus on the benefits of completing a task and trash whatever it is that is holding you back. Quit putting things off. Procrastination is the fertilizer that makes difficulties grow. Make up your mind and make a difference or get the heck out of the fast lane so the rest of us can go.

Proverbs 13:12
Hope deferred makes the heart sick, but when the desire is fulfilled, it is a tree of life.

Contact the Brewer at www.FreshFromTheBrewer.com

Tassels Are Turning

A few weeks ago I told you about the amazing miracle that happened for those people we reach out to in the trash dumps of Mattamoros Mexico. If you missed it, you can read all my archives on the world-wide-waist-of-time at www.freshfromthebrewer.com.

This week I want to tell you about another miracle just as amazing. It’s not a blind eye seeing or a resurrection from the dead although it’s just as miraculous. My son Benjamin is graduating high school.

Now Ben, or Bean as we call him, is as sharp as a tack but he’s not famous for self motivation. That brother could sit and watch grass grow or paint dry for entertainment. Like his old man when I was his age, he seems to be content doing nothing until the very last minute. So all of us were shocked when he really manned up and started doing extra homework to get his grades where they should be. Bean, doing extra homework? Yes, there is a God and his glorious presence will be manifest next week when the bean dawns his cap and gown for his graduation ceremony.

The big deal about Ben’s graduation is that this is not just his victory, it’s our victory. This week’s confession from a highly caffeinated Christian comes brewing with proud papa accolades.

School of hard knocks

Let me detour into something God taught me about raising my boys. The place I learned this was not in an air conditioned room with a professor; it was behind the sixteen foot walls of a terrible prison. I have spent a lot of time in prisons throughout the state. Not because I committed crimes, but because I wanted to reach people who have.

In all of the prison ministry I have done, I have never seen one that wasn’t divided ethnically. There’s always a White section, a Black section and a Hispanic or Asian section. The one section I can’t ever find in a prison is the Jewish section. Although according to Wikipedia there are over six and a half million practicing Jews in the United States, there is a not a significant population in prisons. I wanted to know why there are so many high percentages of other ethnicities filling up our state prison systems but not Jews. Here’s what I found.

Practicing Jews have a culture where the fathers bless the sons. They publicly and privately value blessing and affirmation on young men as they are growing up. It’s a part of their heritage. Whether it’s through a Bar-Mitzvah or just through how they deal with their kids. Jewish sons have the verbalized approval of their dads and in most cases it keeps those boys from going crazy. Their father figure is a stable and loving, responsible man, not a running buddy, not the baby daddy. He’s a father and the sons are expected to grow into men who contribute and pass down their blessing to their own sons -so they do.

I might be a gentile Texan but I want to pass down a blessing to my own sons and in so doing, my sons will bless me.

School’s out

Next week, my son Benjamin Allen Brewer with thousands of other sons and daughters here locally will have accomplished what he set out to do twelve years ago. He’s a good boy and fine young man and I yes, I am so proud of him. Just two months later he will be leaving for a two year internship at Teen Mania’s Honor Academy (http://www.honoracademy.com) in East Texas and the iWwar School of Worship (http://iwarschool.com) in Vacaville, California. I can’t imagine what life is going to be like without my Bean around here, but off he goes to seek out his own destiny. He’s free to do it because he’s blessed and what a big difference that makes.

Thank you Ben for being you. You’re Mama and I both love you more than you can imagine. You were an amazing kid and I know you will be an amazing man. You are a blessing to all who know you Bean. I am so happy to publicly say it’s great to be your dad.

…Then as Jesus prayed, the sky opened up, and the Holy Spirit came down upon him in the form of a dove. A voice from heaven said, "You are my own dear Son, and I am pleased with you.

Luke 3:21,22 (CEV)

Contact the Brewer at www.FreshFromTheBrewer.com

LOOSE CHANGE

Are you old enough to remember Edith Bunker? She was the 1970’s sitcom mom on "All in the Family" played by Jean Stapleton. Faithful wife of Archie Bunker, mother of Gloria Bunker-Stivic, mother-in-law of Michael "Meathead" Stivic, and grandmother of baby Joey.

One of the things Edith brought to the table of national culture was the taboo subject of menopause. It seems silly now in this day of never ending erectile dysfunction commercials, but it was not very long ago that the subject of menopause would peg everybody’s cringe meter. So on national television they didn’t call it menopause, I don’t even think they said the “M” word.

They called it the change of life.

After a visit to the doctor, Gloria explained to Archie he needed to be sensitive to the fact that Edith was going through her ordeal. Later on in the episode, a frustrated Archie yells at Edith, "When I had the hernia I didn't make you wear the truss. Now if you're gonna have a change of life, you gotta do it right now. I'm gonna give you 30 seconds!"

The change of life

There’s a lot of change going on these days. In fact it’s a completely different day then just ten years ago. Most folks getting married are meeting on line and divorcing through legal websites. There are more honor students in India than there are kids in America. The Top Ten in demand jobs in 2010 did not even exist in 2004. There are more than 540,000 words in the English language which is 5 times more than Shakespeare had in his day and China is about to be the largest English speaking country in the world .

So if you are somebody who is really afraid of change, you had better get over it or get you some heavy doses of Zanex. As much as I hate to see so many good things go, I have decided that since there is nothing I can do to stop it, change for me means transition and upgrade.

I am a sixth-generation Texan having been raised in rural Johnson County. My grandfather is my hero and I used to ride bulls. I think our world war two generation is Americans greatest generation and there are lots of things about today I don’t understand. With that said, if I want to be successful, and relevant I have to be willing to change. I can’t set around and pout because Andy Griffith isn’t on TV anymore.

Our capacity to embrace life and have dominion doesn’t come from things remaining the same but through our understanding and participation in transition. I think we have to partner with God through transition and learn how to enjoy changing. Our journey though life is supposed to be progressive and God blesses pursuit.

Some people are so resistant to change and locked in on the past, they use days gone by as a filter for everything. I fight this and sometimes win but I figure since I’m not a historian, paleontologist, archaeologist or psycho-analyst I had better deal with my fascination of the past. The paleontologist in me knows that what you learn from dinosaurs is if you can’t change, you become extinct.

The art of adaptation

Several thousand years ago there was a Chinese warrior who wrote a book called The Art of War. His name was Sun Tzu. It has widely been respected for thousands of years as strategies transferable to the marketplace and other areas.

On page 19, he basically says we should watch our generals carefully and make sure they understand the principles of adaptation. If they try and fight in the mountains the same way they fought in the plains, get rid of them of them because they will kill your army. I say that is a valuable principle for today.

Change is here to stay so we need to get well versed in the art of adaptation. If we try and do things today the way we did 50 years ago, we won’t make it.

To have an edge, you need to do more than just be open to change. You need to pursue change – and you need to do it a little bit more than other people around you. Partner with God through Transition and watch Him make you victorious in this new landscape. Anticipate change, adapt quickly, enjoy change and notice the little changes so you are better prepared for the big change that might be coming. Don’t be pessimistic about anything. Be ready to change quickly, again and again and learn to love your life through the power of the Holy Spirit. Have hope and have confidence.

God is not afraid of this day so you shouldn’t be either. We are more than conquerors in all these things.

When its cold outside you wear a coat, you have adapted to the cold. You just learned the art of adaptation. Just as the weather changes, so do things in our life; change is a must, and God is in the changing business if we are willing.

Revelation 21:5
And he that sat upon the throne said, Behold, I make all things new. And he said unto me, Write: for these words are true and faithful.

Contact the Brewer @ www.FreshFromTheBrewer.com

Aint Skeerd

1966 was a banner year. Yes, it was the year we lost Walt Disney but it was also the year we gained me. My glorious entrance as a sixth generation Texan fell upon the 66^th year of the twentieth century but there was probably some other news too.

We learned a lot in ‘66. We learned we had the right to remain silent as the Miranda Law was passed. We learned to fill out forms when Medicare kicked in. Frank Sinatra informed us he did it his way and won the Grammy. We learned women’s lib would go way too far when The Sound of Music got the Oscar.

Speaking of movies, one of the worlds cinematic wonders of achievement was released in that same year. You will remember it well and the impact it made on your life. It was called,” The Ghost and Mr. Chicken” starring Don Knotts.

Ok, maybe it didn’t do much for you, and no, it was not a biography on Bo Pilgrim’s Christian journey. But I loved it and looked for the elusive rerun in those pre-VCR dark ages.

I was somewhat of a chicken myself. Scared of the dark, my great grandfather had told me of a creature he called raw head and bloody bones that lived out there somewhere. I could hear him on my heels every time I ran down to my Papa’s house. The other big scare I had was really two things. One of which was heights. I loved to climb trees but after getting just a few feet up I would become paralyzed and start screaming for my rescue. “Help!” I would cry in my five year old hillbilly accent. “I’m a long ways from down!”

The other really big scare I had was not of spooks or the discontented souls of dead Confederate soldiers - I was scared of God. Totally terrified that one day I would run around a corner and see God face-to-face. I kinda felt like He was always watching me and I figured I would be in big trouble if He ever caught up with me.

While I never got over my terrible fear of heights I did get over my fear of God.

Today I look for him in every situation I am involved in. His presence is the highlight of my mornings and the fuel of my day. I no longer hope He doesn’t show up. I pray He does and I am not satisfied with his omnipresence, I am looking for His manifest presence. As a Christian, I believe one of these days I will see him eye-to-eye and face-to-face. After he picks me up from off the floor, I’ve get the biggest bear hug imaginable coming to me.

I think God is the most wonderful person in the universe. Conquering my fear of Him and overcoming the lie that He is out to get me is the one of the most revolutionary achievements of my life.

Now I know the Good Book talks about the fear of the Lord being healthy. The book of Proverbs says that the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, but it’s not talking about being terrified of relationship. The Biblical expression here really means proper alignment. In other words, to love what God loves and to hate what God hates - literally to get with His program.

You tap into the fear of the Lord because you are blown away at His majesty and nature.

Graham Cooke says His majesty is how He rules and his nature is how He acts. To me, it’s a lot like a magnified version of how you look at Niagara Falls or Grand Canyon, only this one actually made the universe and wants to personally speak with you, and actually sit down and eat with you.

As C.S. Lewis describes it, the Biblical term fear of the Lord means to be “…filled with awe, in which you "feel wonder and a certain shrinking". In Johnson County terms he means it’s a right perspective of how awesome God is.

So may we all get a healthy dose of God’s greatness and in so doing see how small our issues, burdens and needs really are. When was the last time you’ve been slack-jawed or tapped into the fear of the Lord? As the ranch hand on the Wolf Brand Chili commercials used to say…’Well neighbor, that’s too long.’

“Happy the soul that has been awed by a view of God's majesty, that has had a vision of God's awful greatness, His ineffable holiness, His perfect righteousness, His irresistible power, His sovereign grace...” A.W. Pink

Contact the Brewer @ www.FreshFromTheBrewer.com

FREE AT LAST

My sixteen year old is sadly addicted to dramatic love stories. She is the Chick Flick Queen of the Brewer household and quite often I get pulled into two gut wrenching hours of her theatrical showground. It all starts with her saying “Daddy, you have to watch a movie with me tonight”, and before I know it I have set through 120 minutes of love lost, romantic tears and passionate pursuit.

It always ends up with us talking about what’s real and how selfishness makes a five minute story into a two hour drama but it’s her night and I don’t want to ruin it. In just a few years from now she won’t be in my arms any more and I want to redeem the time I still have with her as my little girl.

But know this, through the entire duration I quietly pray the Lord Jesus would send just one healthy hand grenade into the movie. I privately envision John Rambo swinging onto the set of The Way We Were or even John Bulishi yelling “food fight!” right in the middle of Terms of Endearment. Instead of female banter I hear Lucky Ned Pepper say, “Well Rooster will you give us the road?’ and John Wayne replies, “I aim to kill you in one minute, Ned, or hang you at Judge Parkers convenience, which will it be?”

NICE SURPRISES

However, sometimes I am really surprised. In fact every so often a DVD goes into my collection instead of back to the rental place. I hate to admit it but I have learned there are some chick-flicks that are in fact great movies. Legends of the Fall, Father of the Bride, Always and P.S. I Love You, are some of my favorites.

It just makes my day when I think I am going to hate a movie and end up loving it.

I really enjoy surprises in life, especially when it relates to better things. Unexpected blessings always get my attention.

As a Christian, I get to be ridiculously optimistic all the time. I mean when you follow, and are in filled with the Spirit of a guy that slapped death in the face, it’s hard not to have confidence. The magnitude of attitude can’t be underestimated but I am often stunned and caught off guard with things way better than what I thought they would be.

What happened last week takes the cake.

TREASURE IN THE TRASH

For more than ten years my ministry team has been committed to reaching the families who work in the dumps of Matamoros, Mexico. Most of them victims of outrageous interest rates and loan scams, they are forced to mine mountains of filth for any form of value.

The dump was controlled by the Mexican Mafia or Cartel and the only choice these families had was to pay the money they didn’t have, prostitute the women to border brothels or work everyday as a group in the worst environment imaginable. Slavery did not end when Lincoln was President.

Over the years we have actually bought whole families, redeeming them and setting them free. In more than eighty trips, we have seen the farthest extremes of both victory and defeat. 12 years ago I looked down and saw what I thought was a doll and was shocked to see it was a newborn baby boy only hours old. He barely survived but lives today as a happy kid in the orphanage we support down there. The brother of the Pastor we support who works there everyday was shot in the head and murdered in that dump. There have been a lot of blood sweat and tears invested there because we love those people so much and have a desperate hatred for their slavery. More than 1500 people, less than ten miles from Texas, with no hope to ever leave such a terrible place.

Imagine my shock when I drove into the dump last Friday and no one was there.

The Mexican Military is at war with the drug Cartels right now and through several gun battles, actually killed the main overlords of the trash dump. The rest of them have either fled to Texas or are in hiding somewhere in Mexico. In an unprecedented act of Jubilee, everyone who owed money was actually set free and sent home to where they lived before coming to the border.

We found about sixty people living in the village because their homes are there but not slaving as they had before. They told us what had happened and we just stood there and wept. Its one of the greatest miracles I have ever seen. I never thought I would see it happen in my life time but I saw it last Friday with my own two eyes.

People being set free from tyrannical hopelessness and despair. Free to live life more abundantly and to dream again. It reminds of a story I heard about this man named Jesus and what He did for everyone who believes in Him.

John 8:36
So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed.

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CLEAR DEFINITION

Topics of interest are like coins on the ground to me. I just can’t pass one over without having to pick it up. You would too if you had a newspaper column to write every week, two sermons and guidance teachings mixed with funerals and weddings, corporate leadership training and conferences. Not that I am complaining, it’s just something I have to be intentional about. In fact, what would be a drag to a lot of people turns out to be life to me. Jesus said that His food was to do the will of the father and so it is when people tap into their destiny -which is what God designed us for. When you are doing what you are designed to do, what burns out everybody else keeps your pistons turning in fifth gear. It’s a Kingdom principle of destiny.

Consequently I love being a sponge for both useless and life changing information. I get a big kick out of funny things tied to profound wisdom and even explanation for things that we tend to take for granted.

Saved by the Bell

For instance, you heard the term saved by the bell and probably think it belongs entirely to boxing. However, in 18th century England it is said they started running out of places to bury people. Consequently, people would dig up coffins and take the bones to a “bone-house” and reuse the grave. When reopening these coffins, they found a certain percentage of those coffins would have scratch marks on the inside and they realized they had been burying people alive. Nobody ever said these guys were the smartest in the world. The plague from a hundred years earlier had caused quick burials and sometimes way too quick. So the clergy decreed that they should tie a string on the wrist of the corpse, lead it through the coffin and up through the ground and tie it to a bell.

Someone would have to sit out in the graveyard all night long, still known today as the graveyard shift, to listen for the bell. Thus, someone could be 'saved by the bell' Also they could be a 'dead ringer.'

But as fun as it is to bring explanation to even silly things, I also think it is just as fun to not be able to explain some things. I find revelation that defies explanation absolutely irresistible. I love a life that can’t be defined in every way.

An Unexplainable life

While I am no celebrity I am in the public eye so it makes since that I would get letters and emails challenging me on theological issues. I get what I call “grate mail” sometimes, demanding an explanation for what they think are biblical inconsistencies or historical errors. Lots of them are Da Vinci code fans who don’t understand Dan Brown’s novel is a work of fiction. Others are really smart people who want to get into a Biblical spitting contest with me, mostly because in all of their wisdom they are not smart enough to do their own ministry so they spend their days criticizing others.

The bottom line is that the Brewer does not feel like I need to explain everything. I’ll be happy to explain why I have so much hope. The Bible says I’m supposed to this so I am loaded for bear when it comes to issues of hope. I’ll be thrilled to explain why I love life so much. I would love to tell you testimonies of healings and lives radically changed but when it comes to a logical explanation for everything, I just don’t have it. Nor do I feel like I need to waste my time with it.

There are things going on in my life right now I can’t articulate. There are things that have happened which defy explanation. There are things I am doing right now, I can’t really tell you why except that it is a God thing. Living a progressive walk in Christ and loving life passionately will constantly have you in unexplainable areas. So while I am determined its ok to have some of those areas, I also feel like its ok not to apologize for it. You should too.

Just get out there and get into it. You can figure it all out after the experience is over.

True revelation does not precede encounter. The God kind of knowing comes from personal encounter not black ink on a white page. I think if the only walk you have with God is a cerebral walk, I can guarantee it’s a shallow one.

The Lord directs our steps, so why try to understand everything along the way?

Proverbs 20:24 NLT