Gethsemane Says Grace- A Call to Action

One of the personal joys I recieve from spear heading Gethsemane Says Grace is that I learn.  Sometimes through conversion, sometimes through observance, always at the most unexpected times and places.

Last week, a representative from MCEF (Mechanicsville Church Emergency Fund) stopped by to deliver some names she had of people who could use the Thanksgiving meal from Gethsemane Says Grace.  This lady was quite a character, loud, and really not afraid or hesitant to say things like they are.  It was evident she didn’t march to the beat of another person’s drum, and so it was fun talking to her.  What was unexpected and surprising was our conversation on church.  She said that in the middle ages, churches were actually responsible for the well fare of all families within their certain geographic location.  In other words, reguardless of these families involvement in the church, it was the churches job to take care of their community.  Now, I’m not sure how valid or true this little fact is, but it diffinitely sounds true.  (I’d love any reader in the know to validate this!)  And, if for some reason it’s not true, why can’t it be true today?  I think this is a timely though right now as election results poor in tonight and flood our tv sets.  What if we didn’t have to rely on the government to create safety net programs to take care of the poor.  What if the church took it upon themselves to do it?  The church shares a divine call to spread the kingdom of God on earth.  For citizens of this kingdom, to serve the poor and needy is to literally serve the king himself.  (Matthew 25:31-46.)  Maybe more people would be open to the gospel that frees us from sin if they saw the church doing something they could get behind, freeing people from poverty.  Where no one cares, the church should care.  Where no one will go out of their way to help, it should be natural for the church to help.

My young family ventured into Wal Mart last night.  Not to big of a deal until you realize it was the first of the month, and our local Walmart also happens to be the closest Walmart to several housing projects in Richmond.  This place was packed like interstate bumper to bumper, accept it was cart to cart.  It was full of low income folks who had just recieved their government assistence, and were overloading their carts with groceries for the month.  The check out lines were so packed that Christina and I devised a scheme.  We split up our groceries into two seperate carts so that we could skip to the speedy check out lane, and wait in a shorter line.  Jesus calls us to be shrewd as snakes right?  Anyways, with all the people, all the overflowing carts, all the bad language and weird looks, it was quite an awkward night of grocery shopping.

But this all reminded me of something.  There’s a lot of people in need, and this is not a pretty picture.  We can’t shove under the rug the needs of the community, and call ourselves compassionate followers of Christ.  The world is a dark place, full of desperate and needy people, and God has commissioned his church to give this dark world hope.

To feed 75 needy families sounds like an outrageous goal, but we can’t ignore the outrageous need.  God, for whatever reason, has allowed us to have so much.  Maybe that blessing also comes with great responsibility.  We can bless so many on Tuesday, November 23.  Will you join me?

Of all things, my faith renewed at a school assembly!

For those who may be reading this blog from other parts of the country, our community experienced a tragedy back in October.  While at the local Tractor Supply Store, one local high school student, after feeling bullied and threatened, grabbed an axe and went for this bully’s head.  He chopped off a large piece of his cheek.  This caused a week of negative reactions; students chosing sides and threatening one another, students spreading rumors of bomb threats on Facebook, you name it, it happened.  To top it off, in my humble opinion, many parents weren’t responsible with the incident either.  Hateful emails circulated, including one graphic email that included an image of the injured student with his chin stitched back on.

Trying to find a proper response that would motivate the student body to change, Lee Davis High School landed on a school assembly called “Rachel’s Choice,” and I don’t think they could have chose anything better!  This was an absolutely incredible program that told the inspirational story of Rachel Scott’s life, and some inspiritional stories of how her life changed other people for the better.

Rachel was the first student shot in the Columbine High School Massacre back in ’99.  Rachel was an amazing teenager, who I believe had an incredible relationship with God.  Hearing her story renewed and refreshed my faith in God in so many ways.

The reason we know so much about Rachel’s life is because she literally let her soul song every day in her journals.  Many people would think that that with me being a youth minister, the biggest thing that might have touched me would have been how Rachel put her faith into action.  She loved the students around her with absolute intensity, and she was outspoken about the importance of compassion.  But what really renewed my faith is the clear evidence that God’s sovereign hand was guiding her life.   Through her, God truly took a horrific incident and has done amazing things through it.  (Romans 8:28.)

After she died, something amazing was found on the back side of her dresser.  When she was 13, she had traced her hands.  Over one of the hands, she predicted that her “hands” would one day impact millions.

I mentioned her journal.  This was kind of erie in some senses.  Her last year of school, she started writing beautiful, yet uncharacteristic and somewhat dark poetry, dark in that it talked of death, and uncharacteristic in that she was so full of life, yet she started to predict that she would die young.

On the front of her journal, she had wrote in bold letters, “I will not be labeled as average.”  When her dad was finally able to get her bookbag back from the investigators who had taken it as evidence, he pulled out this journal.  Write under where she had wrote this, a large chuck of the journal cover was missing because of one of the several bullets that shot her.  But this wasn’t the most interesting thing in the journal.

Several days before hand, Rachel’s dad had received a call from a complete stranger, who lived almost 1,000 miles away.  He said he was a very rational man, yet he had this vision in a dream he couldn’t shake.  He saw a beautiful young girl in the sky shedding tears, and from her tears, life was coming out of the ground.  He asked Rachel’s dad if that dream meant anything to him, and he said no.

As he flipped through Rachel’s journal, with a hunger to learn what her last thoughts and insights were before she died, he stumbled upon a strange picture.  In the left hand upper corner of the page, Rachel had portrayed herself crying.  On the bottom right hand side of the page, we see her tears turning into blood, as a flower grows out of the blood tears.

The predictions that she would die young in her poetry, the strange yet beautiful picture dipicting her giving people life through her suffering, and the fact that some strange guy on the other side of the country who doesn’t believe in miracles or strange things like that had the same vision in a dream, clearly show me the divine in this situation.  Go ahead and tell me that this is all coincidence, and that the killers just happened to shot this sweet girl by chance, and you’d sound silly, because not many people are as distinctly inspirational as Rachel, and who just randomly has dreams of a young girl crying tears that bring flowers to life?

I see a beautiful picture of God working a plan through her.  I believe that through journaling and prayer, she had built a relationship with God that was so strong that she was willing to do anything for him.  I believe God blessed her and allowing her yielded life to impact people all around America, and the world.  And I believe people will be saved through her message.  She suffered, so that many others may live.

Many of us Christians have a very non-scriptural understanding of prayer.  We believe prayer is about showering God with a bunch of our personal wants and desires, and watching to see how many of those personal wants and desires come true.  I think, and Rachel’s life proves this, that we’re called to pray for a much deeper outcome.  We’re called to pray because prayer yields ourselves to God’s will.  It is very clear in scripture that God calls all of his followers to suffer.  (1 Peter 4:12)  When we suffer, we put ourselves into a position where God can take our life, and use it to have a great impact on others.  Sometimes, we won’t even see the positive results of our suffering in our lifetime, (Hebrews 11) but we can be assured that in the end, amazing things can happen when we’re willing to forfeit anything for him, even our lives!

Thank you Rachel Scott, for shinning your light so bright years after you died, all across our country!

And they claim to follow Christ…

Some things I’ve seen trouble me, while other things excite me.

I was troubled when I heard that a man that represents conservative Christianity to many in America, Pat Robertson, blamed the devestation in Haiti on the not so clear fact that 200 years ago, Haitians sold themselves to the devil so that the devil would drive out the French.

I was excited when I saw former lead singer of Audio Adrenaline, Mark Stewart, on CNN talking about his Hands and Feet project, which is an orphanage for Haitian children.

In light of such tragedy, the world needs to see Christians like Mark Stewart on CNN, cuddling Haitian orphans, and Pat Robertson quite frankly should think before he speaks.

I was troubled when I heard a racist comment yesterday.  He seemed to be frusterated that all the cement truck drivers were taking a holiday in celebration of MLK’s birthday.  Ironically, he was in our office collecting a check to help pay for a construction project at church.

I was excited back in June when Leon greeted us.  He was to be our new next door nieghbor. He was the first person to talk to us outside of our newly inherited Gethsemane church family.   He is a wonderful conversationalist, and ever since we’ve been here in Virginia, he’s took interest in our lives, and has even kept an eye on our property when we travel.  I couldn’t ask for a better nieghbor.  I’m sure he celebrated MLK too.  He’s a church going African American.

I was troubled by a call I received a few months ago at the church office from a guy who claimed that the Christian church was in competion with denominational churches, and that if I claimed people could have an authentic relationship with Christ outside of the Christian church, I was ignorant to believe that.  I tried to explain to him that whether someone is led to be baptized or not, if someone makes an authentic decision to follow Christ, you can’t argue that.  He ended the conversation by saying I needed to read my bible more.  Last time I checked my bible I saw Galatians 5:6.  It says, “The only thing that counts is faith expressing itself through love.”

I was excited to hear my friend Chris’ stories today.  He just took an impromptu trip to Florida with several strangers, yet brothers in Christ, to deliver relief supplies to a mission organization that serves Haiti.  He told me about the hanger in Florida where they delivered supplies, and how amazing it was to see people from all sorts of denominational groups coming in out, doing what they can to help participate in the Haitian relief efforts.  He was touched by the like mindedness and the unity there seemed to be between the different denominational groups, as they worked to serve the Savior they love.  And they were serving Jesus, for Jesus taught, “whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me.’ (Matthew 25:40).

These observations I think represent some battles that have been going on in my thoughts and in my heart.  I think my conclusion it is that its no small thing to say you’re a follower of Christ.  It’s nothing to take lightly.  To call yourself a Christian should be just as sacred as a monogamous marriage, or as serious respecting someone in the light of their death.  I say this because the impact you make on someone with your actions may actually make or break someone else’s eternity.  The world is watching, and hoping to see a reflection of who Jesus really was through us.

I need Jesus just as much as I did when I was first baptized

Wow blogging world, it’s been a while.  I apologize for the silence.  I seriously feel prompted to write like several times a week, but usually sacrifice the blog for watching tv or some other insignificant activity.  Anyways, as much as I hate New Year’s Resolutions, I would go to my grave preaching the importance of setting goals.  So one goal I set this new year was to fully utilize my blog to ultimately and hopefully better influence those around me for Christ.  That doesn’t mean to expect a bunch of deep theological ramblings from this site, but rather blog posts that represent someone who is authentically trying to live everyday surrendered to Christ.  It’s not easy, but it’s a beautiful adventure that I hope to capture.

While we’re on the subject of the new year and goals and such, I realized something tonight through some quiet reading and prayer.

I’m argumentative by nature.  Like, sometimes I think would have been just as destructive to struggle with over compulsive disorder.  Over the past year, I’ve noticed myself as a minister, constantly trying to challenge people with different view points.  It makes me feel noble, but if I were to be honest, sometimes I think I do it just because I like debate and maybe just being different than other people.  This can be a positive trait if I truly am challenging people to grow in their faith by doing this, but this trait could be very destructive if I’m really just throughing different veiwpoints out there because I’m nauturally argumentative.  If I were to be honest, I’m sure this argumentative nature has lead me into sin many times, but at least I can be honest about it.  It’s a struggle, and I must depend of the Holy Spirit to keep it under control.

I also found that I’m still bringing some of the same sin struggles to God that I did in High School.  I know I’ve grown and matured in my faith since my freshman year of high school, but yet these certain things still get me.  I think to myself, if it hasn’t stopped now, will it ever stop?  It might always be lurking at my door.  This simply tells me that I’m in need.  I’d be foolish to act like I have it altogether just because I’m a Christian or a minister.  I’m still in need of forgiveness, and I always will be.

Lastly, I simply reflected on the fact that life never seems ideal.  There’s always the situation you’d like to be in, versus the situation you’re really in.  There’s always what you think family should be like, and then how family really acts.  There’s always what you’d assume sanctified, reborn church people would be like, and then the honest truth about how some of us really act.  I don’t think we really inherited the world God intended for us, I think Adam and Eve inherited it and lost it do to their sin, and it’s evident to me that I’m living in that same world Adam and Eve were cursed to for their disobedience.

What I’m trying to say is that we all need a Savior.  We don’t just need Him when we’re at our lowest low, or just at that moment when we realize we need to be born again and immersed in baptism.  We need him all the time!  Everyday, every second!  We’re lost without Him!  I am so thankful Jesus is in my life, and that he cares for me.   He cares for all of us, he died for all of us, he reigns in Heaven to give hope to all of us.  I am so thankful for Him!

God used a stranger to speak to me today

Today I had the honor of enjoying lunch with Mike, the student pastor at Atlee Community Church.  I was struck and refreshed by his passion for student ministry, and he gave me a lot of insight that will help my own ministry at Gethsemane.

The reason I am writing is because we had a real interesting experience.  It’s amazing how God sometimes works!  We got to really talking about our shared passion for student ministry, and as we’re in the heat of conversation, the guy at the table next to us is getting up to by the bill, but makes it a point to interupt us first.  It was one of those, “I couldn’t help but hear your conversation…”

He preceded to explain that he had just been to a funeral, and that he wanted to let us know that if we ever did funerals to remember that there’s more to someone’s life than their involvement at church.  He then said, “Isn’t a funeral suppose to be a celebration of life?”

Believe it or not, Mike was about to perform his first funeral in a few days, and actually had had an appointment the day before with the family he was doing the funeral for; the guy who interupted us would have had no idea about that.  Who’s to say that this guy was even a Christian, I didn’t know the man or what his theological stance was, but I believe God used him to speak to us.

Mike and I both thanked the man for insight, and told the man that his little interuption was welcome.

Because of how the man spoke, like I said, I don’t know him, but I think it’s likely that he wasn’t a Christian.  I always find insightful to hear insight from someone who is not a Christian.  After all, as ministers, those are the people we’re called to reach!  This man had noticed a falicy I almost wanted to apologize for on the behalf of all ministers.  The falicy is that sometimes we ministers use the wrong opportunities as platforms.

Yes, I believe every chance you have to speak to group of people is a chance to share the gospel, but how we choose to portray the gospel will effect whether people will listen to what we have to say.  It’s like the street preacher at the concert, assuming everyone walking by is not a Christian, and shouting at them telling them they’ll go to Hell if they don’t repent.  The content is great, and for the non-believer, 100% true, but will people hear the message in that format?

At a funeral, the best way to share to gospel is to emphasize that our God is a God of comfort as Paul explains in his second letter to the Corinthians.  It’s important to share God’s promises, and how we can lean on them and find a peace that surpasses all understanding.  And most of all, it’s important to celebrate the passed persons life, for this was a precious soul made in the image of God.  Whether he had accepted God’s truth or not is besides the point.  We definitely shouldn’t lie to the family, saying that someone is in heaven if it was never evident that they had made a decision to follow Christ, but we can comfort them by reminding them that we are not the almighty judge of man, only God is.  And fortunate for us, our ultimate judge has freely offered us ultimate grace.

I guess what I’m saying is we need to be sensitive.  Jesus said that the greatest commandment is to love God and love people.  Paul wrote that it’s the kindness of God that leads to repentence.  If we really want people to be open to responding to the gospel, they must be assured they’re loved by us first.  Afterall, while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

Let’s use our platforms wisely.  Every time we have the chance to speak, may we seek God’s guidence and wisdom as far as the best way to portray the message of the cross to our hearers.

Moose call 911! and a filed compliant with “Secret Life.”

Every Monday, I luagh, cry, and get slightly nastalgic about my high school days by the tv glow.  I am admitting that I’ve been a fan of “Secret Life of the American Teenager” and I don’t think I’ve missed an episode.  (Thanks to DVR.)  Though I’ve enjoyed following the show, I have a few compliants.  If you haven’t watched the show, you may be lost in this post simply because I don’t feel like taking the time to catch you up on background information.

Well, let me cut to the chase.  The show is sponsored by stayteen.org.  Stayteen is an organization dedicated to promoting safe sexual practices among teens and preventing teen pregnancy.  Every episode, during a commercial break, one of the actors form the show encourages both parents and teens to talk about sex, in hopes that it will prevent teen pregnancy.  When the show first started, they seemed to be promoting an ideal that sex is best saved for marriage.  Now, it’s very clear that ideal is more that teens are just two young to be having sex.  My problem and compliant is that really, anymore, they are promoting a mixed message.

Whether the promoters of the show are trying to send the message that teens should be tuaght to that sex should wait for marriage (like me), or just a mature relationship beyond high school, isn’t it sending a mixed message if, in the season finale of “Secret Life,” two parents and a therapist encourage young teenagers to have sex in an attempt to solve their problems?  I don’t know, a show that seemed to once promote a real positive message about the dangers of teen sex seems to be doing nothing lately but promote their characters having sex.

The shift in this message was made really clear on the finale tonight when one of the characters was trying to get his Christian girlfriend to have sex with him.  This guy also considers himself a Christian.  He says something along the lines of “Don’t all religious systems promote the idea of not having sex before marriage?  I think even athiests say you shouldn’t have sex before marriage.”  In context, he’s saying most people say they believe sex is best within marraige, but most people are simply going to have sex anyway…despite what they believe, or what their church says.  To further emphasize this viewpoint, this girl’s mom, who apparently is a strong Christian, is dating a Jewish guy and having sex with him.

I guess my point is that this particular philosophy gets people no where, especially teenagers, who with the influence of raging harmones can’t be expected to make great judgments in the first place.  I mean, this thought is very true.  There does seem to be a ton of people out there who are going to have sex anyways, despite what they say their values are, but this view point gives no clarity or direction.  It only highlights a truth of human nature- that many times sin takes us captive.

I simply feel the show would give teenagers more clarity if it went beyond the whole “well teens are going to have sex anyways so let’s make sure they are safe” and take a strong stand one way or the other.  Either teenagers should have sex, or they shouldn’t.  And if they shouldn’t, don’t have trusted adult characters encourage the teenage characters three times in the season finale to have sex.  That doesn’t make a whole lot of sense!

Guitar by the Youtube glow

Having the opportunity to jam out on some nice guitars have given me a newfound confidence in my ability not only to play, but to even learn more.

Christina went to bed early Friday, so I got out the nice Takemene acoustic guitar I’ve been borrowing from Doug Talley, and brought YouTube up on my internet browser.  Definitely a great formula for enjoying some time to myself and staying up late.  Let me just say, Youtube did me well that night.  I learned how to play Violet Hill by Coldplay, and I relearned how to play “Crash” by Dave Mathews.  Disclaimer- saying I learned or relearned how to play something doesn’t mean I’ve mastered it!  After the free guitar lessons, I found myself lost in searches for other music videos, witch is something I’ve absolutely loved to do on Youtube.  I know a lot of folks could spend all day on the site finding random, silly and halirious videos, but for some reason, I can’t get past digging up videos of awesome live music performances.

Anyways, I guess my point is this:  I am amazed at the amazing free resource we have in youtube!  Of course, you have to be discerning; there’s a lot of people on youtube who think they’re good at guitar, and want to impart their abilities on the world but really aren’t that good.  But really, has there ever been a time in music history where one could by puzzled by how to play something while sitting in his or her pajamas late one night, and all they had to do was push a button, type a few words and next thing they know they could have a quick tutorial on how to play that song right in their living room?  These are truly amazing times!  Thank you to the two random people, that I will probably never meet, that further sparked my flame to learn more guitar!  Maybe I’ll pull up the tube and takle the classic “Stairway to Heaven” tonight.  (Yes, I actually don’t know how to play that!)

Upcoming Oxygen Lesson series

August 2- Elisha gets made fun of for being bald (2 Kings 2:23-25)

August 16- Eutycus gets bored during Paul’s sermon and dozes off  (Acts 20:7-12)

September 6-  The incident in the bathroom that saved the tribes of Israel (Judges 3:12-20)

Random Stories that might end up in a sermon somewhere…so I guess this is a spoiler

The best way to describe it might be that I’m feeling like winter in the middle of summer.  I’ve come down with a funky cold.  It’s not one of those things that keep you from going to work, but just makes you feel really annoyed and just kind of yucky all day.  So, I’d love to make some great spiritual connections to these stories that have popped up in the last week of my life, but my head might be too stuffed up to think straight.

So, one day these might teach, but for now they offer you a few moments of entertainment.

I’m filing a compliant with the squirrels in my backyard.  We have a cornhole set back there that my brother made, and that we used at the luau.  Our landlord mows our yard, and last time he mowed he moved both cornhole boards close together.  This afternoon, Christina texts me and says, “6 squirrels are playing outside and eating the cornhole bags.”  I come home for dinner.  The squirrels are jumping in and out of the holes in the cornhole boards, which is really cute, but then there were the bean bags.  They were laying all over the yard, and each one had several holes chewed through them, and they had all been emptied of the beans that filled them.  Cute squirrels, but like my two year old, great cuteness usually has the ability to make a great mess.

Like two months ago I thought God had performed a miracle.  I had put my bible on top of my Toyota Highlander as I was getting Carter in the car to go to church.  In my typical, scatter-brained fashion, I forgot about the bible, got in the car, and started on our trip to church.  It wasn’t till I got to church that I realized I had done this.  It also seemed I had experienced a miracle as I found the bible, still sitting on top of the Highlander, with nothing but a few pages folded over.  I was so excited about my miracle!  God had given me a sign that he was there.

Then, on the way home Sunday from Kentucky, we stopped at a Wendy’s outside of Charleston (about 5 hours away from Mechanicsville.)  I changed Carter’s diaper in the car, and put the dirty diaper on top of the Highlander.  The rest of the trip included driving through steep mountain grades at 70 MPH, through storms and heavy rain.  When we got home at 1:35 in the morning, and I’m hurrying to get all our stuff inside so I can go to bed, as you probably guessed, I find the diaper on top of the Highlander, completely in tact, just saturated from all the rain.

So, the bible thing was a proposed miracle, but I’m not sure why or for what purpose God would preserve a diaper for five hours full of pee-pee!  He definitely has a sense of humor!

I’m at Cracker Barrell, on a date with Carter because Christina is out with some friends.  The people behind me ask if I’m the new youth minister at Gethsemane, and we get to talking.  As we talk, the guy sitting across from us taps me on the shoulder and says, “Your son is in the pepper.”  Carter is definitely playing with the pepper, but definitely not making a mess.  I take the pepper away from him, and give him the peg game to play with.  I sit down and look at the menu.  Carter usually loves the peg game, but today, all he wants to do is through the pegs across the table.  As I’m trying to clean the pegs, my buddy Chris calls.  I take the call, expecting to talk for only five minutes or so.  As I’m talking, the same guy that made the comment on the pepper taps me on the shoulder again and says, “You need to take better care of your son if you’re going to take him out.”  Wow…I promptly end my phone conversation, ready to confront this guy for his rudeness.   He disappears.  I’m left embarrassed, especially considering the fact that a family from our church is sitting right behind us.

Ok, so that story wasn’t funny, but conflict is entertaining as well.  And I’m definitely sure God can use that story  to teach some point, I’m just not sure what yet.  I’m sure he’s trying to teach me something as well.

The Reality TV rant I’ve always wanted to do on “The Bachelor”/”Bachelorette”

First off, a tiny but important disclaimer- I only watch The Bachelorette because my wife watches it.  If it was fully up to me, I’d simply be blissfully ignorant!

Anyways, now that I have a blog, I want to rant a little about reality tv.  I think the Bachelorette is one big set up for failure.  I think it is entertainment at the cost of major emotional distress for those involved in the show.  I think the show is about ratings, dollars, and stardom, rather than ABC trying to help some poor bachelorette find her perfect match.

I was disappointed last night in Julian.  The week before, she had the opportunity to spend the night in the fantasy sweet each night with a different guy, and each night she refused, saying she wasn’t ready and that it would confuse her feelings.  I was thinking, wow, it’s about time someone figured out that having “relations” with four different guys, four different nights in a row is not the ideal way to choose a spouse.  Then, last night, she apparently changed her mind.

It’s just interesting that when we’re entertained, we usually don’t think about the implications of what were entertained by.  In watching the Bachelorette, we are watching a woman choose to sleep with three different men, three nights in a row.  In real life, that would be considered dirty, but on tv, it’s just all part of finding a perfect match.

Here’s the point I’m trying to make.  And by the way, I’m really trying to be considerate of my audience.  I really hope I’m not overstepping my bounds in talking about sexuality on tv.  But anyways, the point:  I think we’re silly to think that the bachelorette system will actually work.  (Most couples on the show don’t get married!)  Here’s a few reasons why.

1.  The whole show is a fantasy!  Real life dates don’t involve staying in spain, or flying over Hawaii in a helicopter.  Real life is finding time after work and other responsibilities to do something together.   The show doesn’t give the bachelorette a chance to see what a guy is like when he comes home stressed from work, or how he might handle a problem that she might be going through.  Life is not a three month vacation with all expenses paid to the most beautiful places in the world.  It’s good to go through a few tough situations and a relational conflict or two before you decide to marry someone.

2.  The show creates unnecesary baggage.  Can you imagine being proposed to literally like a day after you broke up with a boyfriend (or girlfriend) that you had been extremely intimate with both physically and emotionally?  I mean, this is what Julian will do in a few weeks.  After going through three serious relationships at the same time, she narrows it down to one.  In real life, usually there’s some recovery time after a serious relationship is broken up.  Julian might be happy with her choice, but she carries into her engagement major emotional baggage, maybe even some hurt, from two other serious relationships.  That stuff usually has to be dealt with before you move forward on a commitment like engagement.

The solution:

A few things might make the show have a better success rate.  First off, no overnight dates!!!!  Second off, do some dates in the midst of work and real life.  Last, no making out, just hand holding and friendly kisses.  This would yield a more aunthentic result, and save the stars of the show from emotional baggage, but would this type of show really entertain us?  Prolly not.