Sermon Cloud

An Ezekiel Project:

Welcome to the Rock.

You’ve met us at a very strange time in our lives. At the tail end of last semester, we bought a building… with the significant help of Stonebrook Comm. Church… we bought a building! Right now it’s not much to look at. We’ve been gutting the building so we can remodel it into something great.

So we’ve been doing demo, got more to do. And as soon as the city of Ames will let us, we’re going to rebuild this place into a full scale coffee house and a community center. So in due time, the Rock will have its own place to call home and do what we do.

Let me also add, that we have honestly seen the hand of God make this place possible. Sometime I’ll have to tell you about the time when I was standing right here and was handcuffed to a briefcase filled with over $10,000 in cash!

We’re calling this whole effort the Ezekiel Project and you can grab a magnet commemorating the project at the info center.

My Story:

If you’re wondering what’s a campus group doing buying a building, I have an answer for you. I really love the Rock and want to go public with it. And I’d like to tell you why.

It all goes back to when I was a kid….

Born: Decorah Iowa

Childhood: Good ol’ American farm boy (never meaning no harm), we ran a dairy operation so I grew up milking cows every morning and night all through high school. Because of that (and because I never had any money to speak of), I never really got into much trouble.

Not that I never got into trouble, mind you. Drinking incident and how my parents handled it.

So I came to Iowa State wanting to do the things that I never got to do at home. Get a job that pays and get myself a woman.

My shame:

I had never spent more than a few days away from home in my life so coming to ISU for the best 4 or 5 or 6 years of my life was a bit stressful. Like anyone I wanted to make friends and my roommate and the guys on my floor seemed like the place to start.

Well, these guys saw it as their mission to break me of my good ol’ farm boy image and proceeded to get me plastered over a game of quarters. The experience of being drunk wasn’t new to me, but where things went after that was.

You see, that night my roommate took advantage of my inebriated state and sexually molested me. It was the worst night of my life. If there was anything I could go back in time and change that would be it. There is no changing the past.

I remember getting up early in the morning and just started running. I had what I can only describe as a verbal fist fight with God. Over and over in my head I said, “God, why did this happen to me? Why didn’t you stop it?” My questions went unanswered which kinda fit my idea of God at the time. He’s there, but he doesn’t care… at least not enough to involve himself in my life.

And so life goes on with my skeleton in the closet or as the Daily editorial staff put it in their welcome to freshmen, “welcome to the world of secret shame”. But there is only one reason why I can stand before you today and tell you about this. I found a world without shame.

My commitment:

You see, I had also met a guy on my floor who was different. This guy, Bob, was fun to hang out with, he didn’t try to manipulate me, he really seemed to have a peace about him that was compelling.

He was with this group that’s now called the Rock. I never thought I’d ever find myself hanging out with a bunch of Christians, but there I was nonetheless. I had always thought that Jesus and Christians are so squeaky clean that they could never relate to the mistakes I’ve made in my life. They would obviously not accept me if they knew what had happened to me. Or so I thought.

As I got more involved with the Rock, I made friends with people who were not afraid to admit their sins and struggles with each other. It freaked me out! They really cared for one another. At different meetings they had, I saw them listen, weep, comfort, and encourage each other. And as I ventured to come clean about what happened to me, I found the same love and acceptance that I saw them showing to each other. It was so cool!

So what I want to tell you is that even though I never got an answer to the why that happened to me, I believe God gave me something better. He gave me His family. He gave me the right to become a child of God. He adopted me and gave me his name.

And that’s why I love the Rock so much. It’s not just some Christian group to me; it’s the family of God where I saw the heart of God, the love of God, and experienced the forgiveness of God. And that’s the best thing that’s ever happened to me. And I want the whole world to know about it.

I know that all of us have done things or had things done to us that we’re ashamed of. There’s a way out of hiding all the time, a way to get rid of the feeling like your damaged goods and this semester we want to point people to the place where they can be shameless. As Nick said once, “It’ll be a rockin’ good time.”