A friend asked me to put together my testimony and talk about One Love Skate for a book he is writing.
This is what I sent him.
Josh: One Love Skate Messenger in Maui, Hawaii
I grew up as a frustrated Pastor’s kid in a conservative
church. I was judgmental, and I could not understand how people who supposedly
loved a real God were fake.
Since I was a four-year old kid, I have always loved
skateboarding. Skating has been something consistent in my life even as I have moved
to and lived in different states.
Having a disillusioned attitude toward God and His church as
I grew up, my friends who skated helped fuel my frustration toward God and
encouraged me to pursue destructive habits that pushed me further from the life
God created me to live.
However, God shattered the walls of bitterness in my life toward
church when I saw Christians who really loved God and loved others. I worked
with these Christians at a church camp after my 10th grade year of
High School, and they impacted me because they were secure enough in their love relationship with God to love me
without caring if I loved and respected them in return.
God used these people who lived out a real love for Him to
show me that looking only at imperfect
people is stupid! God showed me a truth that I have strived to live by ever
since: “Keep your eyes on the perfect God
instead of imperfect people.”
When I started learning about the perfect God through His
perfect Word, He started to show me His heart for the world. He called me to help
the world see Jesus in and through my life. In college, my Youth Pastor in
North Carolina and I began a ministry to skaters we called “One Love Skate”
based on 1 John 4:9.
“This is how God
showed his LOVE among us: He sent
his ONE and only Son into the
world that we might live through him.”
–
1 John 4:9
One Love Skate has evolved through the years from a slab of
cement at our church in NC that we invited skaters to come and enjoy, to a
vision for letting Jesus transform the places where skateboarders already are
(i.e. public skate spots and skateparks).
In college, I met my wife Nicole, who was born and raised in
Maui, HI. God sovereignly orchestrated for us to live on Maui, and I was amazed
to see ways that He was preparing to use One Love Skate more in Hawaii than He
had used it in North Carolina. This message of “One Love” burned strong in my
heart, and after breaking my foot during a freak wakeboarding accident, God
showed me to rely more on His strength and His plan. This is when He began
doing some cool things with One Love Skate across the boundaries of individual
churches and denominations that I could not have done in my own strength.
The Maui County Baptist Association adopted us as one of
their ministries, and they started providing some funds for us to buy
skateboards, t-shirts, and tracts to give away. We wrote a Gospel tract with
five questions on one side and a Gospel message on the other (
tract can be downloaded free on the web). These questions became a thermometer for the
culture:
1.
What comes to
your mind when you think of ONE LOVE?
2.
What’s the
purpose of life?
3.
Who is God?
4.
What do you believe
will happen to you when you die?
5.
Who is Jesus
Christ to you?
Tragically, we started to see that many people lived without
any purpose and without a relationship with Jesus. Since then, we started using
skateboard giveaways, free stickers, service projects, and other fun relational
methods to lead people to experience God’s One Love in Jesus Christ.
We strive to live out Jesus’ love at public skateparks on
Maui by regularly giving away skateboard decks to build relationships. This
helps plant seeds for relationships that let us use tracts, stickers, and
t-shirts in order to share that the one,
real love is Jesus Christ.
We also regularly do #SeekTheMostHigh Bible studies at
4:20p.m. on Maui to help skaters connect with God and realize that: “There’s no
high like the Most High.”
It’s only by God’s grace that we know Jesus as our Savior,
and we pray that God will bring more people to Him. Your prayers are important
to this mission! Please pray for a trail
of discipleship groups because of One Love Skate.
One Love Skate is all
about living Jesus’ love to help others focus on God’s perfect love instead of
imperfect people.
One Love (1 John 4:9),
Josh Marburger
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Summer 2013
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One Love Skate at a skatepark in Florida
Summer 2013
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My wife, Nicole, and son, Caleb, and me after giving away a One Love Skate deck in Oregon.
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