Happy 1st Birthday Alexis Grace


Milestones define most of our lives: The moment I met Ashley. The day we got married. The day she walked into my work to surprise Read more

Lent Recap


By a show of hands, how many of you knew that Lent was 47 days? Okay you can put your hand down now & Read more

When It's Your Turn


A few weeks ago I posted about: what is the hardest thing you have endured? A few days later we watched and prayed Read more

Be encouraged.


In Paul's first letter to the church in Thessaloniki , he offers some closing words in chapter 5. "For God chose to save us Read more

Creating Doubt


Lately I have been thinking a lot about . . . DOUBT. Do you think it is healthy for churches, pastors or Christians in Read more

Lent - Day 20


Well, we are halfway. 20 days in and 20 days to go. How has your fast for Lent been doing? I last wrote on Read more

••••••

The giant will never win.

Posted on 01/03/2011 by Benji Zimmerman Posted in Personal | 1 Comment

Lost in the abyss there lies a sleeping giant capable of more destruction than a chaotic heart has ever known. The sleeping giant can not be ignored but that is precisely what has happened. The sleeping giant is no longer asleep and he is growing restless. He is looking for a way out. No matter where the giant lurks he will only finds more darkness because giants like him were not meant to live in the light, only in the depth of the hidden soul. Clawing and gnawing the giant tries to break out of his dungeon. The more he shakes the depths of the darkness the more courage he has to break out of his cage. Shaking the dust off the walls the giant tries with all his might to break out of his defeated prison.

The giant will never see the light. The giant will never break out of his prison, out of his cage, or out of the darkness. The giant will never win.

If . . .

. . . the man chooses to search his soul.

. . . the man chooses to shine the light into the darkness.

. . . the man looks in the mirror and addresses his weaknesses.

. . . the man chooses to seek help for the demons that lie within.

. . . the man turns over his will and surrenders.

. . . only if.

The man will always win. The man will always live in freedom, uncaged and in the light because of surrender.

Without surrender their is no freedom.

2010 Quick Review

Posted on 01/02/2011 by Benji Zimmerman Posted in Personal | Leave a comment

At the end of most years and the beginning of the next most of us take a few minutes or hours or possibly days to dream, plan and evaluate. There is a great benefit from looking over the previous year and seeing the major themes that emerged as well as counting all the blessings you experienced throughout the 12 months that flew by faster than the year before. In 2006/2007 it was this very process that led me to a feeling that 2007 was going to be an incredible year and that God was going to do something unimaginable in my life. Just a few weeks later I met Ashley! A moment I will never forget. Life changed in a heartbeat.

Flash forward.

At this time last year I didn’t spend much time looking forward to 2010 because I knew it was going to be the best year of my life. I knew that in 2010 my wife was going to give birth to our first born, Alexis Grace. With four long months of anticipation, Lexi was born at the end of April and life has been amazing ever since. 8 months later Lexi is crawling, jabbering and stealing our hearts everyday. God has been so good to our family. We have been blessed beyond measure. Life has found a sweet spot and I am so thankful for the amazing year we have had. Without a doubt 2010 was the best year of my life so far. I am so much more in love my wife and my daughter than I have ever been. After an amazing chapter of my life, I am very eager to see what 2011 will bring. I have a feeling that it will be remarkable year and that God will move in unforgettable and spectacular ways.

How Do You Choose?

Posted on 11/08/2010 by Benji Zimmerman Posted in Honesty, Personal | Leave a comment

Maybe it is just the choices I make or maybe it is just the channels I tune into, but it seems like lately everywhere I turn there is something that needs my support, endorsement, finances, help, volunteering, or prayers. I am feeling overwhelmed: how do you choose?

Last night while my wife was at work, I watched the documentary called “The Cove” about the dolphin slaughter in Taiji Japan. I love watching shows and meeting people who have a deep conviction for social injustices, environmental plights and personal causes. Everyone has something that is near to their heart and they feel it is worth fighting for, Ric O’Barry is no different. Dolphin slaughter is an atrocious and terrible thing that deserves attention and needs to be made right. But the question I was left with after watching the movie was:

What deserves my attention? What are the atrocious and terrible things that I should be speaking up for and fighting for?

At one time in my life I may have drifted towards one cause or another, but now with a stable suburban life I am beginning to wonder what are the things that deserve my attention? Their seems to be a million worthy causes out there, but what if I can only choose 2 or 3. What if I can only choose 1? How do you choose what is worth fighting for?

ICSEX – Day 2: So Frustrating

Posted on 09/29/2010 by Benji Zimmerman Posted in Honesty, Personal, Spiritual | 1 Comment

I am a sponge for knowledge. I love to learn and I especially love to learn about things that maybe I have none or very little knowledge about. I generally want to be able to have a conversation with someone about any topic. Knowledge can be very powerful if leveraged for good. Knowledge can be terrible if all you become is a know-it-all. Unfortunately I tend to become the second rather than the first.

The Idea Camp is amazing because it brings together all these brilliant people who have years of knowledge and experience and  who are leveraging their knowledge for good. The people that show up for the idea camp are the ones who are being the change they want to see in the world, or are very close to stepping out and doing something. As Charles Lee said so well, “The collective knowledge of the room is so much greater than one individual.”

Scattered throughout the room during the Idea Camp were a handful of us that play no active role in any of the subjects presented and some of us who even have no knowledge about some of the issues presented. I am guilty as charged. I will admit that I know very little about sex trafficking and homosexuality.

Why?

I didn’t want to know. The things we want to know about we seek out knowledge. When it came to the topics of homosexuality and sex trafficking I choose not to learn about them because it made life easier and safer. I am tired of easy and I am tired of safe. The reality is that very few people in this world live in a safe and easy environment and those of us who think we do I just blind.  I don’t want to be blind anymore.

The very fact that I want to step out of my own self admitted ignorance and into the light of knowledge about these subjects is what really excited me about day 2 of the Idea Camp. The topic line-up seemed heavy on the conversation of trafficking and homosexuality among a few other topics.

<PUT BLOG POST ON HOLD>

Have you ever tried to accomplish something and everything went wrong? Ever wanted to be apart of something and things just kept preventing you from attending?

<RESUME BLOG POST>

From the afternoon break out on Monday with Andrew Marin from the Marin Foundation and throughout the day on Tuesday, every time a subject came up that I wanted to learn more about something would get in the way. You name it, it went wrong on Monday afternoon and Tuesday: lunch meetings, morning deliveries, warehouse issues, lost orders, unshipped orders, etc, etc. It was a bad idea to try and work and go to a conference at the same time. By the time I had left work on Tuesday to get home to my wife and daughter I had successfully been interrupted almost a dozen times throughout the latter part of Monday and all of Tuesday.

As a result of the interruptions I missed most of the second day of the idea camp and I definitely missed most of the conversations I really wanted to be apart of. Running into roadblock after roadblock was extremely frustrating and almost upsetting, but at the end of the day I realize that I was able to make the connection to the right channels to learn more about these conversations. I am sure that as my knowledge grows I will leave my thoughts on the table here. In the mean time I challenge all of you to take time to write down 2 or 3 subjects that maybe you have limited knowledge about. What are you doing to gain more knowledge? How do you plan to leverage that knowledge for good?

ICSEX – Sex & Marriage breakout with Angus Nelson

Posted on 09/28/2010 by Benji Zimmerman Posted in Honesty, Personal, Spiritual | 1 Comment

As I mentioned in my morning session recap, throughout the day yesterday I really began to wrestle with how do I take the amazing information being presented and live it out in the context of my life? How do I engage the subject matter on a day to day basis?

For me to be a model of grace and provide a community for the wounded I have to be willing to work on my own life and marriage. I must be the church I want to see in the world. I really do try to do this on a daily basis, but the are hundreds of topics and subjects to try and apply this principle too. I know that I have avoided dealing with the topic of sex in my own life and marriage because it made me to uncomfortable. But if I really want to engage the information and help people in their own woundedness, I must deal with my own sexuality on a deeper and more intimate level.

In the afternoon on Monday I decided to attend a breakout by Angus Nelson on Sex & Marriage. I don’t know if I really knew what to expect, but after five minutes in the room I knew it was right where I was supposed to be. Angus lead off with his own story and part of the journey he has been on, which in many ways is eerily similar to my story. After opening the room up for others to speak and engage I could begin to feel my heart race. I knew I needed to hear what was being said. I pondered for a brief moment about retreating out the door and running like I always do, but I knew that if I wanted to change I needed to stay put, so I did.

Without over exposing my own garbage or the journey my wife and I have been on, I want to hit on a major theme that came out of the breakout for me: safety. In order to engage in healthy sexual experiences with your spouse we need to provide a safe environment where sex and sexual expectations can be candidly talked about without fear of feeling unsafe. My experience with the topic of sex in the past was that it was never safe to talk about and so I never talked about it. Even now I have hard time typing about it, let alone having a conversation with a friend or a stranger about it. Safety is not a word I think of when I think about sex. The first word that comes to mind when I think about sex is fear.

Although there were only a handful of people in the breakout it was so overwhelming how much I needed to address the issue of fear in my life and begin to work to engage in the safe environment my wife has already created for us. Safety has been a generational issue that wasn’t available for my parents and so it wasn’t available for me when it came time to talk about sexuality. I want to make sure that I don’t pass that on to my daughter. If I truly want to engage the content of this conference and grow in my relationship with God and my wife. I must learn to step inside the safety of my own marriage and dispel the fears I have about sex. The only way I can help lead others in their woundedness is to address my own.

ICSEX – Day 1 Morning Session Recap

Posted on 09/28/2010 by Benji Zimmerman Posted in Spiritual | 1 Comment

One of my co-workers posted this as their status update on Facebook late last night, “…information overload…” I couldn’t have said it better. My mind is mush from all the amazing and thought provoking talks and discussions I was apart of. And to think that I missed the last five hours of the conference on day 1!!! I can not even imagine how others would have felt by the end of the day. When I attended Catalyst West a few years back I felt the same way, I couldn’t keep up with the information that the speakers were communicating, Idea Camp day one was no different.

The day started with an amazing and uber-fast paced session with author Dr. Ted Roberts. Roberts although nothing close to what resembled a traditional rap star was spitting rhymes faster than anyone could lay the beats down for him. Roberts knows what he is talking about and he is wicked smart when it comes to all things related to pornography and the effects it has on individuals. He has worked helping others recover from addiction for over 20 years. Here are few bullet points that stood out from vast array of knowledge and brilliance that emanated from stage:

  • “Desire leads to behavior. You can’t stop it, good or bad, unless you alter the desires.”
  • “If you were wounded in community, you will need to be healed in community.”
  • “After a period of time and exposure to pornography, the limbic system in the brain looks the same as a coke addict.”
  • “Even if you stop the sexually addictive behavior, that doesn’t mean that you’ve taken away the pain.”
  • “It’s not the church’s responsibility to teach your kids about sexuality – it’s yours!”

Just a few of the statistics I found surprising about pornography:

  • Average age for first contact with pornography is 10 years old.
  • Average stay is not 5 minutes but 2-3 hours
  • Largest consumers of Internet porn are 12-17 year old
  • 40% of women are addicted to pornography

After Dr. Roberts spoke a panel of discussion was started where Crystal Renaud, Angus Nelson and Dan Rodriguez spoke on pornography in the context of three separate groups: women, men & families. It was moderated by Pastor Jud Wilhite. The panel had some great thoughts:

  • “Porn knows no creed or gender” – Crystal
  • “When you show yourself vulnerable you give others permission to do the same.” – Angus
  • “How important is it to you to live in freedom?” – Angus
  • “Secrets kill” – Dan
  • “So many of us treat the addiction but the real issue is core woundedness. Addiction is a symptom” – Crystal
  • “In the church we put on the happy-go-lucky face, but the truth is that most of us are miserable.” – Angus
  • “You can change your reality, grace gives us empowerment to do what we can not do alone.” – Angus
  • “The sooner we realize we’re jacked up – the sooner we can receive and give grace to others.” – Angus

At this point in the morning session, maybe an hour into the day my mind was already mush. I was on overload. I still feel overwhelmed with all the great stuff that was being communicated. With my mind starting to overload I could feel myself starting to check out mentally from the session. There was one more panel of ladies that came up to talk about gender roles within the church. Looking back over my notes they make no sense at all. I have a bunch of half quotes and partial thoughts. I look forward to looking at this portion online again some time in the very near future.

As the ladies discussed gender roles from stage I could feel my heart seizing up. What am I supposed to do with all this information? The mega-theme I felt from the morning session was that the church needs to be a community for wounded people. We all have wounds and garbage, and for hundreds of years the church has not a safe place to peel back the wounds and engage in healing. This has to change. But all of the brilliant thoughts and discussions left me wondering, how do I do that? How do I engage the subject and take it to a personal level?

The first breakout session gave me a great place to start . . .

Let’s Talk About Sex Baby

Posted on 09/26/2010 by Benji Zimmerman Posted in Honesty, Spiritual | Leave a comment

Ah yes, the old Salt N Pepa lyrics bring back a lot of memories of high school for me when my parents and I completely avoided conversations about sex, human sexuality and everything in between. I will admit it, the topic of sex scared me when I was in high school, let alone junior high. I wanted nothing to do with the subject and avoided it all costs.

I was not the only one avoiding the topic of sex. There is a religious institution called the CHRISTIAN CHURCH that seems to like to avoid the same subject. After working with churches, pastors and ministry workers for the last 15 years I have come to a couple logical assumptions: church leaders do not want to talk about sex and church attendees can’t stop talking about it. Sex scares everyone in church except the people who attend.

The most requested books I have in the store besides personal hang-ups and addictions are for books related to human sexuality and relationships. God hard wired us for relationships and sex is a big part of the intimacy that God designed for us. The subject of human sexuality needs to be addressed with in the safe and grace filled community like the church. Unfortunately this isn’t the environment that most churches extended on a regular basis, let alone related to the topic of sex.

That is where The Idea Camp comes in:

The Idea Camp is a collaborative movement of idea-makers who facilitate hybrid conferences and develop resources for people who desire to move ideas towards implementation. Facilitated by a growing collective of innovative thinkers and practitioners from numerous disciplines, participants gather around topics of interest to encourage & inspire one another, share practical wisdom from the field, and develop viable networks for idea-making.

I am excited to say that for the next two days Central Christian Church is the host site for The Idea Camp on all things Sex. I won’t be able to attend all of the sessions and breakouts but I am excited to be apart of the conversation as much as possible. Their are some amazing people attending to discuss topics like: homosexuality and the church, pornography, abuse, prostitution, slavery, trafficking and many more important subjects that get overlooked within the church.

The general sessions will be live online for those who want to tune in and check it out:

Live Broadcast
Mobile Broadcast

Or if you are on Twitter you can use #ICSEX or #THEIDEACAMP to follow the conversation and ask questions.

The Stress of Being Cool

Posted on 08/25/2010 by Benji Zimmerman Posted in Personal | Leave a comment

I always wanted to be the coolest kid on the block, but it never really played out that way for me. No matter how hard I tried I was never the coolest guy. Even if lots of people liked me and I was popular there were still others who were more liked and more popular.

Whatever they cool kids had I had to have too. Back in my day it was Starter jackets and Nike clothing. The more jackets you had the cooler you were. I could only afford one. I had to work hard to pay for it, which meant I didn’t have as much time to show off in my cool jacket. Coolness came with a price. Coolness meant that I would have to work hard to make the money to buy the things to keep up with the other cool kids. Maybe one day I would be able to buy something before all of the other cool kids and then I would be the king of cool.

Never happened.

Why? The art of being cool took so much work and effort that eventually I got stressed out and gave up trying. Cool just wasn’t worth the effort. Changing trends, cost of goods, fleeting satisfaction and burnout from trying to beat out the Joneses led me to a place that might be a lot less cool, but it was also a lot less stressful.

Fast forward a couple decades and here I am in the middle of the coolest city in America. Forbes Magazine announced at the beginning of August that Las Vegas is the coolest city in America to live in. Pull out the fireworks and lets have a party! Wait. Skip it. What else does Forbes Magazine have to say about Las Vegas? Just a few weeks after the coolest city study came out, the list of the top ten most stressful cities in America came out. Who is number one? Las Vegas.

Are you surprised?

A bad economy, lack of access to health care, and an insecurity about the future are all things that have created an unstable environment for people to live. I wouldn’t argue a single point made, but I would add that I also believe that Las Vegas is the most stressful city in America because of the stress of being cool. Casinos, restaurants, hotel chains are chasing after cool. They continue to renovate, morph and change to compete with the one next door. This competition for cool trickles down to the employees and families all over the valley. The endless pursuit of cool leads many down a very stressful road that ultimately no one will win. Cool comes with a price and in Las Vegas I believe it is causing havoc in many peoples lives.

The stress of being cool was a waste of time in High School and it is an even bigger waste of time now that I am older. How much time are you spending on trying to be the cool kid? (church? pastor? business?)

I’m Not Afraid

Posted on 08/24/2010 by Benji Zimmerman Posted in Other | Leave a comment

I will admit when I saw the line-up of songs we would be preforming at Central Christian Church over the weekend of August 21 & 22, 2010 I was a little shocked to see the song, Not Afraid by Eminem listed as the special solo song before the sermon. I saw the song, remembered the lyrics and thought to myself, “maybe we are pushing the envelope to appeal to those people in the Las Vegas Valley just a little too much.”

I was surprised on Saturday night when I dropped into service to listen to Gary, aka G-blest performing this song. Gary took the words and re-wrote the lyrics to tell the story of his life, a life from pain and heartache to love and grace. The song is amazing and he is a powerful testimony to what God can do to help change your life. No matter what circumstances you find yourself in and no matter where your journey started, God is bigger than all of it and he can change your life, all you have to do is take a stand!

Check out this video performance of the weekend service from G-Blest:

All of us need to take a stand and change something in our lives, learn from Gary’s life and example and you make a stand in your life today!

Don’t Push Send

Posted on 08/23/2010 by Benji Zimmerman Posted in Personal | Leave a comment

There is a simple principle that is often overlooked when typing an email:

Don’t push send until you have calmed down.

You can’t take back the snarky or the sarcastic. It will take quite a few emails to clean up the mess you will make when you respond out of emotional frustration.

Note to self: don’t push send on an email until you have calmed down.

Last  week I was guilty of sending on of these emails, hasn’t happened in a few months, but I thought I would post a friendly reminder for all of you so you can learn from my mistakes.

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