#kyle olinger

[lazarusmachine]

Melody's best friend from Colorado asked us to "help" her with her homework. The Job? Make a movie about robbing banks or something.

We had to go off some script that..... was just terrible. With limited time, and limited passion, we put this together last Saturday after service.

-Kyle Olinger 

Special Note By Zach: Oh man! This is good! Never been more proud of "Lazarus Machine After Hours"! Way to come together to do some random girl in Colorado's homework!  Wish I could see the faces of her teacher and college classroom. Good work Kyle!

[lazarusmachine]

Zombies, and Spiders, and Girlfriends, Oh My!

Hey everybody! I've always been scared of things that normal humans are not afraid of. Like... not being able to grow a beard, no cell phone service, losing all my friends/family to zombies, afraid of my girlfriend having food or drinks around my computer, crashing cars, Parks and Recreation being cancelled, the Eagles losing to the Cowboys, 60 dollars for a video game, blu ray's, 3D, remakes, alien invasion, no more noodles, and spiders in my bed.

Maybe those things aren't so abnormal actually. But here is a real list of some things I'm afraid of:

Talking to people/public speaking

School

Anything having to do with the future

I can't think of anything else right now, but the point of this post is that I started school last Monday.

School scares the crap out of me. Especially the first couple of days. I guess a big problem for me is I think way too far into the future, instead of just living each day out. I had a hard time with that the past couple days until I came across this verse:

"The Lord will fulfill his purpose for me; your steadfast love, O Lord, endures forever. Do not forsake the work of your hands." Psalm 138:8

I read that, prayed a little and went to bed. 

I woke up fine, went to school, and haven't really been nervous about anything since. 

-Kyle Olinger

[lazarusmachine]

I drew the LM team!

Me and James, Kyle and Tasha, Zach and Josh.

-Melody Simnitt

[lazarusmachine]

God Topics

The other day at Party City (the place of my employment), something random happened:

I talked about God with a coworker.

Now it was only for about three or four very quick minutes, but it happened and I suppose that is what is important.

Thinking about it now I couldn't tell you why I brought it up. I can't even remember what we were talking about. I think it might have been evolution or something like that.

That's it! My response was that I believe in God, and then I somehow switched to the topic of Grace. I talked about what I had been learning since the beginning of The Lazarus Machine.

And as quick as it started, it had ended.

I've been wanting to invite this co-worker to the LM for awhile, but for whatever reason I just haven't. It's always been a hard thing for me to simply bring God up in a conversation. Heck, it's sometimes hard to talk about it with my friends who I know love and believe in God. It's something I know I need to work on and someday fix. I can't hold back the amazing-ness of God. I shouldn't keep it a secret from my friends, and as small as this little moment was, it was kind of big in my own world. I have no idea if she heard what I said or if it possibly planted the tiniest of tiny seeds in her brain.

I guess only time will tell, and next time I work with her I shall invite her to the LM.

-Kyle Olinger

[lazarusmachine]

Kyle, God, and The Connection Therein

I was sitting here trying to figure out what to write for my first blog when I had two realizations…

I don’t know how to write blogs

And

Why not just start with some sort of introduction?

Sooo, an introduction I will write. Let me see…well first let me give you some warnings:

This will probably be random at first.

I hope it makes sense.

Good luck.

 I’ll start with my name: Kyle Anthony Olinger. I’m 23 and blah, blah, etc.

I wasn’t raised in a Christian home. Not whatsoever. I don’t really know what kind of home I was raised in. I was raised in a good home I guess. I have a good mom. (A really awesome mom to be exact.) My dad has sort of never really been there. I saw him more regularly as a kid, but as the years went on I slowly started seeing less and less of him. I don’t know what kind of effect that had on me as kid growing up. I didn’t try out for sports. (Even though now, in the future, I wish I had.) I like sports. Football, basketball, I want to like hockey, but don’t know where to start, but now I'm rambling. 

Let us get back to the important stuff:

Most of my past is very hazy/foggy/hard to remember. I don’t know why that is. One of the strongest memories I have of my childhood is playing F-Zero on the Super Nintendo in the living room of our first house.

Growing up nowhere near God was interesting. I don’t really know if I ever knew he existed as a kid, but somewhere along the line I figured out about him. As I got older I would say:

“I believe in God, but I don’t believe in church.”

I don’t know why I believed in God, I didn’t really know who he was. But I knew I should believe him I guess… and I knew I didn’t like church. We can blame Hollywood for that.

I grew up watching lots of movies. I love movies, they are a huge passion of mine. And everyone can agree that Hollywood doesn’t always present God and Church in the best way. The movies are always full of those mean Christians who believe if you do one wrong thing you go to Hell. The ones that are always judging you for the naughty things everybody does. One movie that keeps coming to mind is “The Mist”. Stuff like that.

We can’t place the blame solely on Hollywood though. Some of the people who exist in those movies do unfortunately exist in real life. I can’t say I’ve encountered a whole bunch of these people in my past, but the few times I ever did would be enough to turn any “non God knowing boy” away from the idea of going to church and learning to know God.

I guess the main point of this part of the story is;

I now knew God existed, but I didn’t want any part of the church life.

Knowing God exists and saying you “believe” in him is way different than knowing God exists and believing in him. See what I did there? I put quotations around the word “believe” the first time because back way before all of this I used to say:

“I believe in God, but I don’t believe in church.”  Remember?

I’m going to be honest with myself. I didn’t believe in God back then. I didn’t even know who He was. I don’t know why I claimed such a thing.

I believed in whatever is going to happen is going to happen.

After I graduated from high school I preceded to not do anything for a couple years of my life.  I originally put the word “waste” in place of “not do anything” because it sounded more kind. To say I wasted those years would mean I got nothing out of those years, when really I got so much. I hung out with a group of friend’s everyday for about 2-3 years. We did nothing but hang out, do random things, and drink when we could. I did this up until the day I randomly decided I didn’t want to do this anymore. (I like to call it an epiphany. It sounds much cooler.) I was done. I didn’t want to drink the way I was drinking anymore. I didn’t want to do the same thing everyday. I didn’t want the thing I looked forward to on Monday to be the parties that happened on the weekends. I was just done with that life. Sooo, I left it. I stopped hanging out. I stopped talking to them. I just quit.

Quick note: The friends I mentioned above are all awesome nice people. They weren’t low lives or anything like that. A couple of them I now talk to on a semi-regular basis. I never stopped hanging out with them because of hate or anything like that. I simply wanted nothing more than to leave that life behind.

Maybe you’re asking “why Kyle? Why did you all of a sudden want to leave that life behind?”

Answer: I met my two best friends, which eventually helped me finally meet God.

You know when you meet cool new people you really want to be friends with and you sort of do whatever they do just so you can hang around them some more?

Well that is what I did.

James and Melody. They went to church. So, I went to church.

And I enjoyed it. (For the most part)

The pastor was an amazing man who was really nice who took the time to notice me, which was very cool. I didn’t attend this church for long and when it came time to leave for the Lazarus Machine he was one of the reasons I didn’t want to leave.

There were a lot of random ice breaker type games that I didn’t like at first because I’m super shy, but as time went on they weren’t so bad.

Worship was always long… and they made you stand. Don’t get me wrong. I love worship. I just hate standing, and I love hearing the message more. I love reading out of the Bible. That was always my favorite part.

I met some very cool people from this church. People I wish I could still see today. Everybody there was super nice. In the end, this church showed me that maybe I was totally wrong with my thoughts on how church actually was… A seed had been planted. My interest grew and my faith was sort of born during this time.

And that was only the beginning.

Melody and James were kind of the gateway drug. Through them I met Zach. Through them I was able to become part of the Lazarus Machine. Through them I was able to be around more people who were into God. Long story short: through them I was able to change my life.

If it weren’t for James, Melody, Zach, Josh, Tasha, Arica and so many more people, who knows what today would be like. I know for sure I wouldn’t be writing a blog for some church that I’m a part of.

I’m not going to lie. I’m still not perfect. I mess up a lot. I still learn something new everyday, but the whole point of this blog is to say that I now have God to help me through everything I do.

And one day I will be as consistent as He is with me.

-Kyle Olinger