I posted a blog some time ago asking the question “Who Am I?” In that post, I explained how I discovered my identity and came to grips with the person God created me to be. It didn’t really go into too much depth explaining who I am in terms of my character. Today I hope to rectify that a little bit by sharing with you the Eight Key Characteristics of John Dudden. These are eight facts about myself that anyone who has spent a significant amount of time around me would be able to tell you without having to think about it.
I could have gone a bit less serious like: I’m funny (or at least my kids think I am), I love to make up random lyrics to random songs, I’m a big NY Mets fan, I’m a sci-fi / fantasy nerd, I build Star Wars Lego sets whenever I need to calm my mind (an expensive hobby since I don’t like to take them apart when I’m done), I’m a bit of a Twi-Hard, I’ll read a good novel over and over again until it falls apart, and I’m as introverted as they come until I get comfortable around you…then watch out because they you’ll discover the real me!
But while all those fun facts are true, they don’t really show the core of who I am. I want to tell you more about me than just my quirks. I want you to get to know the person I am deep inside so you can know you can understand where I’m coming from in my blog posts.
So without further ado, I present to you the Eight Key Characteristics of John Dudden:
- I love God
This one should be a bit of a no-brainer for anyone who has read any of my previous posts. Every single one of them oozes faith! My love for and faith in God is the driving force for my life. It permeates every major decision in my life (or at least the intentional ones). It’s why I went to school in Florida, why I married my wife, why I moved to Ohio, and why I write. God is my life and joy, and I am happy to spread that joy wherever I go!
Now some of you may ask, “But John, how can you even know God’s real? How can you be sure He isn’t just some figment of your imagination??”
To that, I reply: Great questions! I’m sure I could spout some religious mumbo-jumbo about needing to have faith to believe or some such thing, but that is simply not me. The reason I know He’s real and not just the result of an overactive imagination is because we talk to each other…a LOT!
I speak with him through my prayers (either oral or internal), intentions, and actions. He speaks back to me in the deepest parts of my heart and mind using a vast variety of methods ranging everywhere from a soft internal voice to external stimuli. And He doesn’t just use His own voice to speak to me. He’ll speak to me through other people, through nature, through songs, even through TV and movies! (If you ever get a chance to speak to my wife, you should ask her how God speaks to her through Disney’s Frozen 2).
Communicating with God is easy enough to do. The key is simply learning to pay attention. Once this is mastered, anyone can train themselves to hear God’s voice.
- I love people! (even if they sometimes annoy me)
So this one should also be a no-brainer to anyone who has read my previous posts. If God is the driving force behind my decisions, then people are the reason. And not just some people. I want the absolute best for each and every person I meet. When I see someone, I want to see them succeed! If life is a competition, then I want everyone to win!
I especially have a soft spot in my heart for those who are beaten down, exploited, or ignored by society. I want to do whatever I can do to help them heal, recover, and learn how to thrive in life.
With that being said, I don’t believe for a second that helping people thrive is easy. If money was the only balm needed for a wounded and weary human soul, then government programs would have solved all of the world’s problems by now. If all that was needed was a simple prayer of salvation to fully, radically, and permanently turn a life around, then the Church would be filled to the brim with people who have no trauma or issues whatsoever, and it would be the most popular place on Earth!
But while things like generosity, government programs, and prayers are all good things, they are only the very first steps toward any person’s turnaround. I wish I had an easy button I could press, and POOF everyone is suddenly healthy and whole! But healing is a process, and it is MESSY! The human soul is massively complex, and so bringing healing and hope to people is a strenuous, life-long journey. It’s my goal to help as many people as possible on this journey.
- I love kids!
This one might not be as obvious to anyone who doesn’t go to church with me, but kids are a MAJOR part of my life! I’m not just talking about my own kids (I’ll talk more about them later), but ALL kids. I’ve been a leader and teacher in my church’s family ministries in some form or another for longer than my church has officially been alive. I helped found both the Youth and the Children’s Ministries at my church. Before that, I served in youth and children’s ministries in a number of different churches and states.
I’ve volunteered more hours of my life to kids than I could ever possibly count. Why? There are so many reasons!
First, everything in life and society starts with kids. If you want a healthy, thriving society, the building blocks are healthy, thriving kids who will then turn into healthy, thriving adults. When you have a child who learns who they truly are, embraces their God-given identity, and recognizes their immeasurable worth, you have a child who can shake off and heal from any trauma the world will inflict upon them. That child can literally change the world!
Second, children are also the most innocent of us all. They have the most faith. They have the best imaginations. They are natural explorers, and are eager to learn everything they can as they navigate the world.
Because of these reasons and many more, I will do everything I can to help as many children as possible discover God and His plans for their lives. My role is to teach them, guide them, heal them from the trauma the world has inflicted on them, do whatever I can to protect them from future trauma, and equip them to be able to deal with whatever trauma I couldn’t protect them from.
- I love my family!
Here’s another “duh!” one. My family means more to me than my own life. Aside from being sources of strength, joy, love, laughter, wisdom, and inspiration, my wife, son, and daughter teach me how to be a better man. If they had never been in my life, I would have become a much different person than I am today.
My dual roles of husband and father have been the most challenging and thrilling adventures of my life! They taught me how to love unconditionally, how to love beyond myself, and how to breathe life into both myself and others! They taught me how to grow in patience and let go of the insignificant things. At the same time, they taught me how to love the little things and delight in simplicity.
I love my family unconditionally. I’m proud of who they are and who they’re becoming. I take pride in calling them my own and calling myself theirs. They are truly the greatest gifts God has given me in this life!
- I love my church
Okay, so for this one, if this had been any church before Oasis City Church, I would have said this out of duty and not necessarily out of sincerity. For many years, church had been only a duty for me. Then twelve years ago I heard about these four people who were moving from Pittsburg, PA to Westerville, OH for the sole purpose of planting a church. For some reason I couldn’t get them out of my mind, and before I knew it, I was visiting them in their living room just so I could see what they were all about. Before I left their house, I knew for a fact that God had called them to Central Ohio, and had called me to assist them. And so I obeyed God and helped them plant Oasis City Church, and I’ve been with them ever since.
I look back on that decision every now and then and rejoice that God cared enough about me and my family to bring us here. This church saved my marriage on multiple occasions (more on that in a later blog). Without them, my daughter likely never would have been born. Without them, I never would have realized who I am in Christ. Without them, I never would have discovered I suffered from chronic anxiety. Without them, I never would have found peace in my own soul. Without them, I never would have broken the lies I believed about myself or gained the confidence in myself I now have. Without them, I would have dropped out of family ministry ages ago. And without them, I never would have had the courage to pursue my writing dreams.
I owe them so much more than I can ever repay them! But that is how it goes when you finally find the right church. The wrong church can beat you up, tear you down, teach you terrible doctrine, and leave you as a busted out shell of a human. The right church can partner you with the Holy Spirit and completely revolutionize everything you thought you knew about yourself!
If you have a church that builds you up into a healthy person and teaches you how to pursue God, hold onto that! Devote yourself to them. Volunteer for them. And help them grow just as they are helping you grow. If you don’t have a church like that, then I encourage you to find one. And if you don’t know where to start, well, Oasis City Church in Westerville, Ohio may be a great place for you to get started.
- I’m not a fan of being called religious
This one may come as a surprise based on how God is my whole life and I just spent four paragraphs talking about how I love my church, but there is a very important distinction between loving God and being religious. Loving God is about passionately building a relationship with Him. When you do this, your entire perspective on everything changes. It’s no longer about trying to be good enough or trying to please God. It’s about simply being with Him. Resting in His presence. Letting Him talk to you about who He believes you to be, and letting Him shape you into the person He created you to be.
Being religious is about following a set of rules. It’s about forcing yourself to be a better person, but ultimately being powerless to make any real change in yourself. A religious spirit will beat you down when you fail to match up to its standards. It will constantly tell you you’re worthless while it sets up an impenetrable barrier between you and God. The religious spirit is all about what you can do to try to force God to love you.
It may surprise you to know that religion was one of the biggest obstacles Jesus had to face during his ministry. The religious leaders of that day had God in their presence, but they were so hung up on the rules and regulations they established that they didn’t even recognize Him. Eventually, rather than embrace the relationship with God that He offered them, they chose to kill Him.
When we promote religion over a genuine relationship with our Creator, we become just as blind as the religious leaders in Jesus’ day. But when we embrace a true relationship with God as His adopted children, that is when life truly becomes worth living!
- I hate lies and manipulation
In case I wasn’t clear earlier, I truly love people! I want every person to live with freedom and hope. I want every person to succeed. Because of that, I simply cannot condone lies and the manipulation of the truth.
Lies and manipulation are weapons used to gain control of other people’s lives. They are the primary tools of Satan himself. They bind people into a slavery of hopelessness and despair. They force people to willingly give up their own freedom. They cause otherwise sane, intelligent, and good people to make horrific decisions. Lies and manipulation have destroyed literally billions of lives!
The destructive power lies and manipulation have on people’s lives is the reason I have a strong distrust of politics and the media (as well as any other entity that relies on these tools to maintain control). I want to see people live truly free lives, so I fight against any lies and manipulation that will bind them up.
- I have a long-term perspective–like, REALLY long-term
If you’ve gotten this far in this blog post, it should be a no-brainer that I believe in hope. So long as there is life, there is hope. If you’re dealing with hopelessness in your life right now, I encourage you to reach out to God and ask Him to bring you hope. Build a relationship with Him that will give you a fruitful life.
I want to see everyone live a fulfilling, happy, and successful life. But here’s the catch: Life doesn’t end with death!
So often we look at death as this horrifically tragic thing. And it certainly can be! The evil in this world made sure of that! But if the Bible is to be believed, then our lives are little more than a breath in the grand scheme of both history and eternity.
At the end of our lives, the gateway to eternity is opened up to us, either to eternal life with the King, or eternal death in hell. The way I imagine it, our lives are the foyer to the immeasurable mansion of heaven. One day, at the end of our lives, the Master of the house will open the door and call our names one by one to either welcome us into His home, or to send us packing back out of His gates to an eternity without Him.
This may sound incredibly harsh for those who don’t believe in hell, or for those who think hell is simply a fear tactic the religious use to get people to live right; kind of like an overly zealous and hateful “coal in the stocking” tactic. But the Bible is crystal clear on the matter of heaven and hell. It’s also clear that God’s intended and desired destination for us is heaven, but ultimately we get to make the choice of where we go.
Despite the bleakness of hell, the promise of heaven should be enough to bring joy to everyone who trusts in God. What this means is that, when we die, no matter how tragic the circumstance, our lives are just beginning!
Does this mean I don’t care about whether I live or die? To the contrary, I plan on living my life for as long as humanly possible, both for the sake of my children and for the sake of all the people God may bring into my life. But when the time ultimately comes, and it will come, I will close my eyes to this life and open them to gaze upon my Savior and King! When that day arrives, however near or far away it may be, I plan on running into Jesus’ arms, grabbing him by the hands, and dancing with Him to celebrate our victory over death!
What happens from there? I have no clue! But I know I will be with my God! And I trust Him to see me through all of eternity!
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