Writer's Block

One of my New Year’s resolutions this year was to write a new blog post once a week. This was a good goal for me because it gave me a chance to express myself and the motivation to create content regularly. The only problem with committing to write a blog post every week? I have to write a blog post every week. And that can cause some problems sometimes.

For example, this week. I’ve been traveling the past few weeks, which has made it difficult to stay on top of my blogging schedule. I’ve put out some good ones the past couple of weeks, but this week I’m stuck. I have some ideas that are going to take some time, but I can’t think of anything that I can write today. The truth is that I’ve got writer’s block.

So as I was sitting here trying to think of a good topic for today’s blog post, watching the clock tick and my deadline approach, and then it hit me. Why not write about writer’s block? It’s something we all face from time to time. It’s certainly relevant to my life because I’m facing it right now. So here I am, with writer’s block, writing a blog post about writer’s block. Here are a few things I’m trying to keep in mind.

1. Don’t stress.

The first thing you need to know about writer’s block: It’s OK. It happens to everyone from time to time. Whether it’s a paper, a thank-you note, or (in my case) a blog post, each and every one of us will at some point in our lives sit down to write and realize we don’t have anything to say. It’s a totally normal phenomenon, and it isn’t something to worry about. In fact, worrying about it will only make it worse. Just breathe and realize that it happens to everyone, and you will get through it.

2. Take some time away from it.

When you’re facing writer’s block, you’ll probably be tempted to sit there and stare at the blank page until you come up with something. But that might not be the best course of action. If you have the luxury of some time, you should take some time to get away from the project for a while. Take a walk. Go work on something else. Spend some time with family or friends. Getting away from the writer’s block for a while will help you relax, and it will give your mind time enough to wander and maybe even come up with something good to write about. I can’t tell you how many times this strategy has helped me come up with a blog post topic that I was really happy with. It might work out for you, too.

3. You have to write something at some point.

While taking some time away from the project can be good for you, the deadline will eventually come. You can’t put off your paper or speech or blog post forever. At some point, you’ll have to write something. It may not be the greatest thing ever, but something is usually better than nothing. For example, it’s better for me to write a blog post about writer’s block than to miss a week and have to deal with the guilt and shame of breaking my resolution. Plus I know some of you out there eagerly await these blog posts on Tuesday evenings, and I don’t want to let you down.

So there you go. Those are my tips for when you’re facing writer’s block. I hope they were helpful. Check back next week for a (hopefully) more thought-out blog post. Have a great week, friends!

The Fault in Our Stars

Movie adaptations of young adult novels are really in right now, and I love it. After Harry Potter blew up, filmmakers realized that books geared toward younger audiences can make for great movies that appeal to general audiences. My favorite young adult novel/movie combos include The Perks of Being a Wallflower and It’s Kind of a Funny Story. These are books that really struck a cord with readers and transitioned successfully into full-length theatrical movies that stay true to the source material while drawing in readers and non-readers alike.

And now there’s a new book/movie combination to add to the list: The Fault in Our Stars. The book, written by John Green, is about two cancer patients who fall in love and navigate the sticky world of mortality and chaos together while trying to make some sort of sense out of it all. The book is heartfelt without being cliche, and it became wildly popular upon its release. It became so popular, in fact, that Fox decided to adapt it into a movie. I got a chance to see that movie last weekend, and I wanted to do a quick write-up on my thoughts about it.

I want to start with a warning: This movie is very sad. I’m sure most of you have heard this by now, but TFiOS is not a feel-good movie. However, it is not just a sad movie. It will warm your heart at some points. It will make you think a lot. It will help you relate to people with terminal illness in a way you probably haven’t before. But it’s not a movie you’ll walk away from feeling happy and care-free. Like many good movies, it makes you feel a range of emotions and will probably leave you emotionally exhausted. This is a good thing as long as you’re prepared for it.

The Fault in Our Stars is not your typical romance movie. John Green isn’t just Nicholas Sparks for teenagers. TFiOS is an honest look at what it’s like to be young, in love, and face-to-face with your own imminent death. That’s what really sets it apart. It doesn’t beat around the bush when it comes to the character’s illnesses or the effects they have on their lives. The characters are brutally honest about what they’re going through, and it makes the movie really compelling.

The acting in this film was just amazing. Shailene Woodley plays Hazel Grace, the main character of the movie, who has to constantly carry around an oxygen tank, an outward sign of the cancer that is killing her on the inside. Shailene did an amazing job, as usual, at portraying both the cynical side of Hazel and the part of her that just wants to live a normal teenage life. She is complemented by Ansel Elgort, who plays August Waters, the cocky former cancer patient who also carries a sign of his illness: a prosthetic leg. Both actors portray their characters really well. They’re true to the book while also letting their own talents shine, and they have an on-screen chemistry that nearly rivals that of Peter Park and Gwen Stacy.

Finally, this movie is deep. As I said before, TFiOS doesn’t sugar coat the fact that the main characters in the movie have cancer. It’s talked about honestly and often, and everyone in the film has to deal with the implications of Hazel’s illness. They have to answer some tough questions. Should a teenager with a short life expectancy allow someone else to become emotionally attached to her? How does she deal with knowing that when she does inevitably lose her battle with cancer, she’s going to hurt a lot of people? How does one find meaning in the midst of a seemingly chaotic and certainly unfair world? The movie offers some hints of answers, but you’ll have to watch it to see exactly how it all plays out.

The Fault in Our Stars is in theaters now. It’s a great movie that I think most people would benefit from seeing. There is some strong language, though, and the film deals with some pretty heavy topics, so it’s probably not best for young children. If you bring your kids, you’ll probably want to have a discussion with them before and after about the film and what it means. TFiOS is great as a standalone film and as a book adaptation, so you can see it whether you’ve read the book or not (although you should definitely read the book at some point). Go watch The Fault in Our Stars, and let me know what you think about it! Thanks for reading, and I’ll see you on Tuesday.

Mission-Mindedness

I’ve been on a lot of mission trips in my life. Tennessee, Alabama, Mexico, my home state of Arkansas, and even my own hometown have been sites of mission trips I’ve taken part of. And as I’m leaving this week to go on a mission trip to Hillsdale Free Will Baptist College in Moore, OK, I can’t help but think about my past experiences with mission trips and what it really means to me to be mission-minded.

I’ll be the first to admit that I’ve gone on trips in the past with the wrong attitude. And I’m not even sure that the way I view mission trips now will be the same as I do in a year, two years, or ten years from now. What I do know is that I love mission work, and I want to make the most of it. I want to do mission work the way God wants me to. I want to be mission-minded.

I’m happy to say I’ve never been on a boring mission trip. It’s always exciting to go to a new place and meet new people, or to go to a familiar place and see old friends. Mission trips are filled with engaging events that are meant to help you have fun and connect with others. I think that’s really awesome. Anyone who’s been on a mission trip can probably tell you stories about fun stuff that’s happened to them one of these kinds of trips.

But it shouldn’t all be about fun. I’ve been on mission trips where the focus was more on fun than on making any significant contribution to the people we were visiting, and though that may make for some great stories, it’s not nearly as meaningful and enjoyable as when you really put your heart and soul into making someone’s life better and showing them God’s love. Mission trips are called mission trips because you go there with a mission, a goal. And if that goal is simply fun, then you may was well call it a vacation.

The truth is that mission work does and should require sacrifice. People have to take off work and maybe even sacrifice time with their families to pay money to travel somewhere and do work for someone else. That’s a lot to give up. Not to mention the emotional and spiritual investments you make in the people you minister once you’re there. Mission-mindedness requires willingness to give a part of yourself in order to share God’s love with someone else. I think that’s a beautiful thing, and I think that’s the center of the way God desires for us to view mission work.

We can invest all the money we want. We can send as many people as we want. We can build things and paint things and cook things and donate things, and that’s all great. Every mission trip should have some of that. But ultimately, what people need is just for someone to sit with them, look them in the eye, and make them feel loved. Mission-mindedness is about showing God’s love to others by giving them our love. If you can do that, then your mission trip is an automatic success.

I love my church because it’s filled with mission-minded people. Not only when it comes to our annual mission trip, but even in the way we approach our local community. We try to meet people’s needs in order to show them God’s love through our service. That’s what mission-mindedness is about, whether you’re serving people at home or halfway across the world. It’s not about fun. It’s not about statistics. It’s not about anything more than spreading God’s love to people who desperately need it. I’m praying that I’ll be mission-minded this week at Hillsdale, and that I’ll take that mission-mindedness home with me and continue to show others just how much God loves them.

Thank you guys for reading this. Please be praying for our mission team at Hillsdale, and check back for more blog posts in the future!

React Series

If you’re plugged into the YouTube community in any way, you’ve probably heard of The Fine Bros. Benny and Rafi Fine are two brothers who create tons of regular, high-quality content for their YouTube channel, TheFineBros. They’re responsible for their hilarious Spoilers series, the first transmedia sitcom MyMusic, Last Moments of Relationships, and more. Today, I want to feature the first Fine Bros series I ever came across and their claim to fame, the React series.

There are actually multiple React series now. It all started with a series of videos called Kids React where the Fine brothers would show popular YouTube videos to children and record their reactions. The series found huge success and has now spun off into four different series: Kids React, Teens React, Elders React, and YouTubers React. Each series releases a new episode every two weeks, with Kids React and Teens React alternating on Sundays and Elders React and YouTubers React alternating on Thursdays. All of these videos are up to view on the Fine Bros YouTube channel.

Like I said before, the first Fine Bros video I ever saw was a Kids React video. I’m not exactly sure which one it was, but I remember that I appreciated its humor and honesty. The Fine Bros don’t coach or censor the people they interview. They simply show them something they find noteworthy and record their reactions. The result is hilarious, real, and sometimes touching, and it brings people back week after week.

The subject matter of the videos has begun to vary with time. Originally, the Fine Bros just showed popular YouTube videos like Nyan Cat and recorded reactions. Now, they show movie trailers, popular web trends like The Harlem Shake, major news stories, and more. There are a couple episodes of Kids React where kids are shown old technology and asked their thoughts on it. Every once in a while, the Fine Bros make a React video concerning an important modern issue to expose their viewers to different views on them, and those videos are their most popular.

It’s also cool to see the same interviewees week after week. Some of the original Kids React cast members have grown up and been promoted to Teens React. One even moved up to YouTubers React! You only get brief glimpses into these people’s lives, but it’s fun to see what they think about different things and to decide whether you agree or disagree with them. It’s a really great concept, and the Fine Bros have found huge success with it.

The React Series is actually expanding off of YouTube. The Fine Bros will continue with their usual React schedule online, but they will also be creating a new TV show for Nickelodeon called React to That. It will be similar to Kids React, but it will have some new twists thrown in. I’m excited to see the Fine Bros get some well-deserved mainstream recognition online and elsewhere, and I’m looking forward to see how the new show turns out.

The Fine Bros have been making React videos for a long time, and there are a ton to check out on YouTube. Give them a look and let me know what you think of them. Come back next week for my review of The Fault in Our Stars!

The Good Kind of Tired

Back in January, I wrote a blog post about being tired and how to deal with it. That blog post was about the bad kind of tired. You know, when you’re not taking care of yourself as well as you should or you’re stressed out about something, and it’s just draining you. The kind of tired I was when I wrote that blog post. I still agree with everything I wrote in that post, but I recently realized that it didn’t really tell the whole story.

Lately, I’ve been tired. At the end of the day, I’m completely exhausted. I just don’t have any energy left. But it’s not because I’m stressed or not taking care of myself. It’s quite the opposite, actually. I’m less stressed and more healthy than I’ve been in a long time. This tiredness comes from something completely different, and I consider it to be a good thing. Today, I want to talk to you about what I call the good kind of tired.

At first, that probably sounds like a strange phrase. Isn’t being tired a bad thing? It can be, but it doesn’t have to be. Think about some of the best and most exciting times in your life. They were probably also some of the most tiring. I’m not saying that we shouldn’t get plenty of sleep and take care of ourselves, and I’m certainly not saying that having plenty of energy is bad. I’m just saying that being tired isn’t necessarily a bad thing in and of itself.

Like I said before, I’ve been tired lately. Not all the time. I start my days with a good deal of energy. I have enough energy to run in the mornings and start my work day off alert and prepared. But by the time I leave at 5:00, my energy level is basically zero. It’s not because I spend my day stressing out or pushing myself too hard. It’s because I spend my day doing something I love and putting everything I have into it. That is the good kind of tired.

To me, there are very few better feelings than the feeling of accomplishment I get after a long, hard day of doing the Lord’s work. When I know for a fact that I’ve put my all into what I’ve done, and I can be proud of it. I love the physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual release I feel when I look back at the end of the day and say, “I’m happy with what I’ve done today.” In the words of a tweet I posted last week, “I am the best kind of exhausted.”

I like to think that each of us has something or even multiple somethings that make us feel this way. It could be a job, spending time with your loved ones, a particular sport, your relationship with Christ, or any other number of things. But we all have something that makes us feel alive. Something makes us feel more whole even as we put more of ourselves into it. Something that takes all that we have but ultimately makes us who we are. Something that makes us the good kind of tired.

If you have something like that in your life, enjoy it! And share it. I would love to hear about it. If you don’t, find it! God has made us all with different passions, and maybe you just haven’t found yours yet. I’m so thankful that I found mine at such an early age, and that I’ve stuck with it all these years. We all need something that makes us feel alive. Let’s enjoy those somethings today and thank God for them.