Happy 30th, Epcot!

Today is the 30^th anniversary of EPCOT Center in Walt Disney World.  For those of you who have never experienced this place, it’s less like a theme park and more like the future.  There are attractions, rides, etc., but more importantly there is an ideal of what the future could look like through progress, technology, communication, and togetherness.  It really is a marvelous place!

The front half of the park is populated with pavilions that celebrate all of the things that make the world we now live in possible; things like innovation, energy, and imagination.  The back half of the park, known as World Showcase, has pavilions that give idealized versions of various countries and are staffed by people originally from those countries.  The place feels like a vacation to the future, and while much has changed over the last 30 years, there still remains the golden dream of what the future holds.

My favorite place in Epcot is Journey Into Imagination, a great pavilion originally populated by two characters that have meant a lot to me over the years, Dreamfinder and his dragon Figment.  I remember going to Epcot as a kid and taking home a Figment piggy bank, one that was used less as a holding tank for coinage and more for a reminder of the power of imagination in all that we do.  I still have a figment magnet in my office today.  One of the best things about my job is being able to combine creativity and imagination with the Word of God and the way we work as a team to minister to students.  God is a creative God, and I believe that as we look back through His Word we see a God that is pushing His followers onward to a great future.

 

There's a Great Big Beautiful Tomorrow

For many of my friends, the name of Robert Sherman doesn’t mean anything to you, but he passed away yesterday at the age of 86 and his legacy means something to me. He was a part of the Disney songwriting team known as the Sherman Brothers, and he and his brother Richard wrote many of the iconic Disney classics. From “Small World” to “Mary Poppins” these two created some of the greatest Disney songs of all time. If you would like to experience some of his work, this website has put several videos together: http://progresscityusa.com/2012/03/06/robert-sherman-1925-2012/


Every night, as we are putting our daughter to bed, we sing our favorite Sherman brothers song, “There’s a Great Big Beautiful Tomorrow.” This song talks about the power of progress, how our dreams can come true if we have the work ethic to make them so. And we like it before bed as a reminder that no matter how today was, there’s always a great big beautiful tomorrow shining at the end of every day.

As a Christian I know that death is not the end, there is something even greater and far more beautiful awaiting me. As I mourn the passing of a great star in the Disney universe, it reminds me that there are so many people who need to place their faith in Jesus Christ for salvation. If you have yet to make that commitment, there is no time like the present because we never know how much time we have. If you have given your heart to Jesus, understand that salvation is only the beginning of a life walking with Him and sharing His love with others. God has given us the mission of telling everyone who lives on this “small world” about how to go to heaven when they leave it behind.

Real or Imagined

There is this old attraction from Epcot called “Cranium Command.” It was one of my favorites of those that have gone the way of the dodo. You got to go inside the human brain and see how the body systems work through the eyes of a rookie brain pilot named Buzzy. At one point in the show, the general makes a statement about how sometimes we work ourselves up over nothing and it causes big internal problems. He says “real stress or imagined stress, it doesn’t mean beans to you body.”

Sometimes in life we experience miracles. And sometimes we experience what I call “imagined miracles.” I had one of those this week. I went to the bank to make a deposit, and the teller showed me our bank account, saying that this was the total after the deposit. Then I went home, and we looked at our bills and it seemed like we came up way short this month. My wife used the bank app to check the account again, and there was a lot more money in there. A whole paycheck worth.

What had happened, of course, is that the teller gave me the total before the deposit, not after. This wasn’t a miracle, it was simply a mistake. But when you are praying for God to provide for you and you don’t know how you’re going to be able to pay all your bills, that quote from the general of the Cranium Command comes to mind again in a new way. Real miracle or imagined miracle, it doesn’t mean beans to my faith in God. I prayed that God would make it so we had enough money, and He did. He did it through ordinary ways without bending any laws of physics, but He did exactly what I asked Him to do. It wasn’t a real miracle, but it was an opportunity to be reminded that my God always takes care of me.

Roller Coaster Life

There’s this ride at Walt Disney World called “Expedition Everest.” It’s one of the coolest roller coasters I’ve ever been on. Like any roller coaster it moves fast through winding track that rolls up and down, but this one (spoiler alert) also moves backwards at one point and even puts you face to face with a Yeti. It’s intense, and fun every time.

Now, I love roller coasters, but sometimes I feel like my life can be a lot like a roller coaster. I go through these emotional highs and lows, and it seems like lately they’ve been a lot more intense. Not just that, but sometimes I feel like for every step forward I take, I move a little bit backwards (or sometime like I move a whole lot backwards). Also, there seems to be a lot of Yeti’s in my life; people, things, situations, and attitudes that want to destroy my life and the dreams that God has placed there.

I know that no ones life is smooth sailing, and that Jesus promised that there would be ups and downs. In John 10:10, He promised life more abundant, and I can’t help but think that if everyone has those “ups and downs” then the abundant life seems to make the ups higher up and the downs a little lower. But I know that even if I seem to go backward, and even if things stand in my way, if I stay on the track that God has set before me in spite of all the obstacles, I will make it through to become the person He wants me to be.

I'm going to go back there someday

This week I got to hear a new cover of an old song called “I’m going to go back there some day.” The song is not about Disney World, but for me it has come to represent that because it’s a place with such great importance to me. I now live much farther away than I used to, and so I spend much of my time wishing I could be planning a trip back there.

One song lyric that has impacted me and my love of Walt Disney World is the line “you can just visit, but I plan to stay.” This line has guided much of how I live and what I do when away from “home” because it has emphasized to me that even if I’m not in Disney World, I can still celebrate a place and a feeling that I love so much. I surround myself with things that bring up memories. I use technology to take me to a place I can’t be physically. And I use the things that make Walt Disney World great, the philosophies that make it so special to me, in my everyday life. But the most important thing is that while I can’t be there now, it’s helpful to know that I’m going to go back there someday. I don’t always know when (or how I’m going to afford it) but I do know that someday we will find our way back to our special place.

Our relationship with God works a little like that. We don’t always find ourselves overcome with deep love for Him. It can’t all be mountaintops. But we can know that if we faithfully serve Him in the valley, we’re going to go back there someday. And in the meantime, we can make each step of the journey about growing instead of getting to that final destination. It’s that same philosophy of “I plan to stay” that says “I’m going to make each day count, not just Sunday morning when the worship is good and the preacher hits a home run.” It means each day I make it a point to grow and learn and pray a little more than the day before so that I can make my faith a journey and not a destination.

If You Can Dream It, You Can Do It

As many of you know, I am obsessed with Walt Disney World in Orlando, Florida. Being a former Floridian, as well as someone who had the opportunity to go several times in my youth, I have many fond memories of that place.

In fact, the other day I spent a few minutes talking with my students about it, and I mentioned something that they did not know, the fact that Walt Disney died before its completion. In fact, the project had been called simply “Disney World” but after Walt died and his older brother Roy to over, he renamed the Florida project “Walt Disney World” to make sure that everyone knew that it was his brother’s dream.

We are talking about dreams on Wednesday night, and I will add more to this story there, but Walt Disney is someone I look to as a visionary and a dreamer. I have a quote here in the picture that goes with this post that says “All your dreams come true if you have the courage to pursue them.” I don’t know that there is any Scripture to back that up, but it sure is a nice thought. I think many of us have dreams, but no courage to take the big risk it takes to see them come to life. As a result, our dreams never come true because we don’t do the things necessary to make our dreams a reality. Always remember that God wants to use you for something big, and have the courage it takes to pursue your dream.

For more on dreaming big dreams (and for the end of the story) check out OASIS this Wednesday night at Calvary

Where in WDW?

I love Walt Disney World. I have since I can remember, and I’m still blown away by the magic of that place even as an adult. When we lived in Florida, we would go about once a month, and I never got tired of it. However, now that we live in Texas, we don’t get to go as often. But that doesn’t stop the obsession. I often tell people that Walt Disney World is my hobby, it just happens to be an expensive hobby. That is why when I can’t go to WDW, I talk about it, plan for it, research it, read about it, message board about it, blog about it, and now tweet about it.

I’ve started something that I call “Where in WDW?” I’m not the first to do this, in fact I was inspired by a podcast that I listen to and the official WDW blog where they have a similar kind of trivia. What I have been doing is tweeting (which links to my Facebook status) a simple question starting with the phrase “where in WDW”

These questions could ask where you would hear something and then it features a quote from an attraction. They could ask where you would find something, asking about perhaps something written or a particular location. I might ask where you would smell something or eat something, or where you would hear some musical lyric. This little trivia game gives all my Disneyphiles out there a chance to put their knowledge to the test, and gives me a chance to see if I can stump anyone. If you like WDW like I do, check out my Twitter/Facebook for “Where in WDW?”

Pining for Home

We all have that special place that we love to go to. For some of us it’s the lake, for others the beach. Some prefer the city, while others just love to get out to the county. Some people get to live at their special place, while others only get to visit every once in a while.

For me, that special place is Walt Disney World in Orlando, Florida. I grew up visiting as a kid, and I even lived in Florida for a few years and got to visit a lot. Now that I have a family, the desire to visit that special place grows even more. Lately, I’ve been feeling the bug harder and harder. Living so far away now, and with the expenses to get there, stay there, and play there so high, a visit seems far off. So in the meantime I watch movies, read books, and participate in internet sites that remind me of that special place.

The reality is, I’m not going to be there for some time, but I know that there are some little things that I can do to feel closer to that place. Maybe there’s a place out there that we’re not at, or maybe there’s a person we’d like to see that we can’t. Regardless of our particular circumstances, there’s probably something that we don’t have now that we wish we did. God is trying to teach me contentment, and one of the things that I’m learning is that I can’t always have what I want, but in this age of information and communication, I can often have little reminders that get me closer. I’ve seen how much technology has blessed our lives, and it allows me to be content here, even though I’d really rather be there.