2nd Annual Christian Skater’s Conference

I’m so blessed that the Father let me live another year to attend this event. (Or so i hope, there’s still an 18 hour drive ahead of me before Huntington beach on monday. haha.)

I get to go with my brothers, Mark, Derrick, and Uriel. We’ll be shredding skateparks along the way and slaying some In-N-Out whenever possible!

road trips are so fun= uninterrupted worship sessions for hours, or listening parties for entire albums, or peaceful quiet times while everyone sleeps and you drive…

any way i look at it, i’m overjoyed to go!

my bday present was the registration fee for the conference, so i got some new skate shoes today with my gift card to Zumiez, so i might have just also bought my 3rd pair of white jeans…

I leave in a few hours so pray for me until saturday when i return to do a demo in Pueblo!

Godspeed to me, and Godsteeze to you!

(Philwickham.com has a free download of an entire live album that is Spunktunctious! jjheller.com has a folky free album at jjheller.com too! YAY for you!)

Porn n Pancakes recap:

This is the email update i recieved from Tara Chavarria about PnP from last Saturday…

I was recently back home in California visiting my Dad and when I was explaining Porn n Pancakes and what we are doing in Steamboat when he asked me:

“why don’t you just mind your own business and let people just do what they want?”

It struck me as an odd question and it stumped me for a couple of days, I really had to think about it. Maybe we are too pushy, maybe people want to be left alone, maybe we just imagine all the problems around us…..lame questions to have right before we are hosting a community wide event to address a very hard topic!

This weekend God has given me a couple of confirming thoughts and situations to show me that He does not want us to just mind our own business and there are people that don’t know where to turn, that live with incredibly HUGE secrets and that just experience life as a constant chaotic, damaging struggle!

Saturday morning Sk8 Church hosted, with local churches sponsoring, Craig Gross from xxxchurch for an event called porn n pancakes. We had over 120 men show up to learn about or get help for pornography. We had 9 different churches (Holy Name Catholic, Church of Christ, Steamboat Christian Center, Euzoa Bible Church, Evangelical Free, Anchor Way Baptist, St Paul Episcopal, Sk8 Church, & Concordian Lutheran) bring people from their congregations and the feedback we got was awesome! Guys were stoked to be at an event that was addressing a really sensitive issue. It was so cool to see believers from all different churches fellowshipping together to support each other. It definitely was more church crowd than we expected, but that is where the statistics say there is the biggest struggle so it was good! Craig Gross is a great speaker that talks so openly about not hiding our addictions. He had a friend there that shared his story.

His friend was an elder and regular church goer for years but secretly caught up in pornography and sexual addiction. It tore his life and family apart for years and he told of all the heartache and struggle he put his family through. Then his 13 year old son got up and told about what it was like to go through all that and what it was like to have a dad that was into porn and adultery. It was so powerful! With the help of Jesus the family is back together, the dad is free from addiction AND he and his wife counsel couples that are struggling with porn and adultery! God is so AMAZING!! It made me realize that anyone of us could be that caught up in addiction and if we all minded our own business it just stays secret and festering.

Galatians 6:1-2 “Brothers, if someone is caught up in a sin, you who are spiritual should restore him gently. But watch yourself, or you may also be tempted. Carry each other’s burdens, and in this way you will fulfill the law of Christ.”

Another close friend of ours spoke about his long struggle with pornography. We had no idea that such a good friend lived with that secret! His testimony was incredible and he also attested to the fact that without Christ he would not be free from his addiction! So powerful!!

There is nothing in the Bible that says: mind your own business, fence you and your family in, keep to yourselves, No it tells us to love our neighbors, carry each other burdens, restore our brothers, confront in love! This weekend I saw the relief and the gratitude on the men’s faces when they could talk, laugh, pray about and just be together talking about the tough stuff. It has bolstered my resolve to follow Christ’s example of loving others more than myself. Of not worrying about my comfort, but reaching out to those who have no comforter! It strongly goes against our society, but I do not want anything to do with the standards our twisted world has set! They suck!

Buck did the rest of the speaking and I might be a little biased but I thought he was the best!! I realized what it is that makes him so special: He cares more about other people then he does his own life and his own comfort and it motivates him to want to reach as many people as he can with the restoration and hope of Jesus Christ! When we meet a kid and start working with them we often find ourselves involved with the whole family. There are probably a lot of times when they would rather be left alone, but we are persistent and keep loving them. I wish there would have been someone that didn’t mind their own business when I was growing up.

My parents struggled with drugs and alcohol, pornography was (and still is) very accepted, my brother is serving a 20 year prison sentence, my sister had her first child at 15, and most of you know my own road has not been easy. I always wonder if there had been a ministry/family that just converged on my whole family and dealt with the rejection, pushed through it, and loved us and walked with us no matter what, maybe things could have been different. Most of you know I had an adoptive family do that with me, and that is why I am here today, but the rest of my family still struggles.

All that to say that Porn n Pancakes was awesome and I am so thankful that we don’t mind our own business! God is going to use it to do great healing in a lot of lives! That is about all the detail I can say without comprimising the anonimity of the event! Thank you for your prayers and for supporting us! Go into your neighborhoods, small groups, work places, starbucks, schools where ever and ask the hard questions, ask about marriages, kids, porn, sex, work etc etc be specific and don’t be afraid of rejection-there is no level of rejection that should stop us from loving our neighbors, carrying each others burdens-asking the tough questions. More often than not we don’t have the answer, but we always have prayer and we can always listen! Thank you again for walking with us-we couldn’t do this without you.

We will have an update and some photos of the speakers (not the people there) on our website soon! www.christforlifeskatechurch.com

In Christ,

Tara Chavarria
Christ for Life Sk8 Church
“Reaching the Youth; Stretching the Church”
www.christforlifeskatechurch.com

I can honestly say that it was worth almost swerving into oncoming traffic at 750am because of tiredness… and almost dying countless times while being completely exhausted on the way home at 4pm…

the testimonies impacted me the most… hearing a 12yr old young MAN explain what it’s like to be in a 7 yr long divorce because of his daddy’s issue- woah.

I never want to do that to my family.

IF…you…Can…Be…a…man.

IF you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you;
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or, being lied about, don’t deal in lies,
Or, being hated, don’t give way to hating,
And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise;

If you can dream – and not make dreams your master;
If you can think – and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with triumph and disaster
And treat those two imposters just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to broken,
And stoop and build ‘em up with wornout tools;

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breath a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: “Hold on”;

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with kings – nor lose the common touch;
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you;
If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run -
Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,
And – which is more – you’ll be a Man my son!

-Rudyard Kipling

Road Trip with me?

Today i was going to pueblo with Uriel and Riley… we’re going to take our ramps and do demos for a back to school event somewhere in Pueblo. I love pueblo… it’s not super far of a drive, there are TONS of spots down there that are rad for filming skating and I just plain love exploring new cities. The kids down there love talking/skating with visitors too. We were gonna skate and then preach… BUT the area we were gonna skate at is flooded right now, so it will be rescheduled for later!

LIFE UPDATES:

1. My ipod just died after 2 faithful years of service… Pillow the Penguin needs repair or replacement… Sad day.
2. Casey and I Have been talking lots and skating and it’s been nice to spend more time around each other. Highschool was great because we were always up to something. Last night we went to Denver skatepark and played full throttle ultimate death TAG. We only ran into a few other people on accident, and otherwise, that is my favorite way to tire myself out!
3. JJ Heller Just gave away her new album for free today!!!

Ladies especially will love this album, and I have already admitted to loving chick-flicks and chocolate… so i love it unashamedly.

SO INSTEAD OF GOING TO PUEBLO, who wants to road trip with me to Steamboat Springs for the Porn and Pancakes Breakfast?

My friend Buck Chavarria and his wife Tara run a skate church up there and have seen God change an entire community through their faithful commitment to love the youth of Steamboat.

So seeing that the community is enveloped in a culture of drugs, alchohol and abuse, Buck decided to have XXXchurch.com come to town and educate the community on the serious issues of porn! YAY.

$8 pays for the porn pastor and the pancakes… if you carpool with me we can save $$$ on Gas. Any takers call me or myspace me before 445am saturday.

Our God Is an Awesome God- He reigns from Heaven Above, with wisdom, power and love.

A few weeks ago i wrote about going down to 16th street and ministering to a few people.

Today after skating with a friend, I was going down 16th street’s mall towards the Denver Skatepark and i ran into Marcus again. He is a cynical man in his 50’s who finds joy and purpose and hope in playing his guitar and singin his guts out to the passersby or even the security guards at the bank that he frequently peddles outside of.

Instantly my heart sunk when i saw his cardboard sign…

“Guitar Broken, need money to fix it Please HELP”

 

 

 

 

 

I sat with marcus for 45 minutes and talked with him. He didn’t know how the neck of his guitar had cracked and then broken off, but he did know that he could not play and earn money ALL DAY.

It always seems as though being forbidden or prohibited from doing something that you love gives you all the more reason to relish in it and sing, play, skate, speak, or work all the more passionately. 

Marcus could not play today and when I got to him i told him to cry. Let it out. Not to bottle it up. 

As over 100 people walked by without a second thought, he sobbed. 

His Life is hard. Not hard as in “my ipod car radio transmitter got slammed in the door of my new car and now i can’t listen to my new CD on the way to meet my friends who all have money-Hard” 

That’s all Marcus has. He has a dark past, a dirt poor present, and no hope of a future other than maybe a new song to sing tomorrow.

I handed him my ipod Shuffle

(not my big ipod, just the one i use when I’m skating…how rich i am…)

-handed him the headphones and he listened to a few acoustic songs by Thrice and Jars of Clay, and then I remembered that he used to go to church in the 90’s so i skipped ahead to Hillsong’s “Awesome God”

Tears in his eyes, not knowing what to do with his hands, Marcus started to rock his noggin and lift his hands in praise to the God that he felt had abandoned him that morning. He started singing and didn’t even realize or care that some people walking by were getting a full volume/half drunk version of an outdated Christian song. He found an escape that brought him to remember who’s hands he was in.

He listened to it over again and shook my hand as he said for the sixth time in an hour, “What’s your name? I’m Marcus. Oh, Evan? Thanks brother.”