In a return to my home state, I have enjoyed an amazing experience.  Working with the men of BTD #28 was absolutely amazing!  To witness leaders move more fully into who they have been called and gifted to be is always humbling.  The love and grace of God are remarkable, life transforming gifts.  I am always renewed by the way His love moves others to serve and share. 

Being here has allowed me to be with my daughter and grand baby as well as visiting my parents.  A great visit with my family.  Hearing the stories of painful church experiences here hurts my heart, but renews my resolve to continue working towards a life giving church built on the word of God that loves on people. 

I am listening to and studying the trends that continue occurring all around us in regards to loving people without feeding the frenzy of it doesn't matter how we live.  So many want to offer "love" to those away from Christ, but not help them find Christ.  If Jesus truly is the way, our love originates in Him and has to be revealing of Him.  Such a fine line to walk in regards to the culture, but so critically important. 

I am continuing to pray my favorite prayer.... "Lord, I have heard of your fame:  I stand in awe of your deeds, Lord.  Repeat them in our day, in our time make them known; in wrath remember mercy."  Habakkuk 3:2....  

Join me! Will you?

So many good things happening but also a great many difficult things.  Walking with people through troubled marriages, addictions, pursuing faith, bitterness, and other difficulties, it doesn't allow a lot of time for writing, much less sharing what I'm learning as I experience life along side others.  There are days when it is truly overwhelming.  As those days press in, I find peace in being reminded that God is at work and I am just walking the journey He has for me.  It is a humbling reminder that as we love others,  He shines brightly and faithfully. 

I mentioned good things happening.  I'm studying and preaching a series with my good friend Pastor Cary Duckett of the Church on Cypress.  We are encouraging each other and have invited our faith families to pray over each church.  What a great way to inspire unity and be more aware of the Kingdom work of our friends from "down the hill".

In March, we are hosting a Seder Meal.  My friend Mike Maher will be coming from Alabama to lead our Passover feast and give instruction on the beauty of such a meal.  It will be a great time of worship, learning, welcoming, sharing, remembering, and serving. 

Not to jump ahead to much, but May will be incredible.  Margaret Feinberg, an incredible communicator, writer, disciple and woman of God will be speaking on Sunday May 5th.  She is in town participating in a conference Thursday and Friday and has graciously agreed to come share with GCC!  Among other things she has written, my two favorites are WONDERSTRUCK and SCOUTING THE DIVINE! 

So for now, we fix our eyes on Jesus!  He authored and perfected the faith we profess and pursue.  He endured the evil of mankind and overcame the cross and the grave.  He is sitting next to the Father, speaking on our behalf.  Whew....  I believe I can keep on going!

making disciples

I went to a Pastor's breakfast this morning with several hundred others to hear Francis Chan.  The host church is of the largest in the area.  I will start by saying I'm not opposed to large.  I have been there and was blessed in so many ways.  The opportunity to hear Chan address this type of crowd had my interest.  The morning was good and the host church was gracious.

As has become his style, he quickly confessed the problem with popularity and the impact it has on a person.  As he shared, the heart of his message zeroed in on discipleship.  That topic is often alluded to, but not so often lived.  It was a direct, honest, to the point message that gave me hope.  Here's why.

Too often the pursuit is in how big can we make it.  How much can we do, spend, get away with as well as how cool and cutting edge can we market it as has become the norm in church world marketing.  Chan's message was don't try and build the mega, just be faithful in making disciples.  Disciples make disciples is the true key.  We have to talk it, model it, invest in it, re-invest, ....  I think you get the point.

Too many want to go to the best show in town and leave inspired to come back the next week rather than challenged to go make disciples.  It isn't about our education, it is about our pursuit of the divine healer who came as a baby and left as a risen King.  It is about modeling his life.  It is about the next conversation with the next person.  It is about continuing to invest the lives of people.  It is about living out the truth of God's word as we walk this life with others.  It is about discipleship.

I did get a chuckle this morning as he was wrapping up his talk.  As I said, we were in an amazing facility with all the modern trimmings, and he point blank said "this won't last".  This isn't it. This can't be sustained.  He wasn't poor mouthing, but just speaking about the reality that the financial, physical, emotional pressure to maintain the big is wearing people out.  "Simplify"!  If he said it once he said it a bunch.  "Go and make disciples"... Jesus words, our command, pretty simple!  Let's do it!

weird the new normal

Getting ready for the third week in our new series, "weird the new normal".  Yesterday was a difficult day.  This past week was a difficult week of preparing to speak.  Preparing to speak involves so much more than reading bible, books, articles, etc....  It involves asking yourself tough questions about your own life.  It involves difficult introspection.  It involves confession of failure, repentance and accountability to move to a better place and it involves the willingness to be vulnerable with the people you are sharing life with.

As we discussed getting in to a healthy rhythm in our lives yesterday, I could see in Jennifer's eyes that look of love.  She knows it is my struggle to work too fast, too long, too....  But she loves me...  She has a kind and firm way of calling me back to a healthy rhythm.  She doesn't manipulate or demand, but rather out of her own love for God and desire for things to be in rhythm and healthy her way draws me back. 

Rhythm is key to being in balance.  It is not always easy to choose balance, but it is essential.  Let's keep moving our lives toward the rhythm of God's drum beat in our lives.  Walking in step with His Spirit and leading is always the right pace, the right direction, the right way.  What beat are you walking to?

Exploring what it means to be weird versus normal.  Of course normal is a loaded term.  Different people have different definitions and understanding of what normal is.  For some, normal is chaos and pain, while others have a normal of peace and health.  Obviously normal can and does change as seasons of life change. 

For Jesus, normal was being misunderstood, sought out for his power, threatened, challenged, accused, approached, avoided, and everything in between.  The disciples went from a normal of fishing, tax collecting, working to walking behind, being amazed, confused, dazed, bewildered, scared, to bold, focused, and on and on... 

What used to be weird i snow normal and the old normal is now weird.  But then again, that's the way it has always been.  Jesus didn't come so life could/ would be boring.  He came to give a better life, which in many ways is a difficult life, but better nonetheless.  Normal was for the first to be last, the greatest to be least, to take up a cross daily, deny oneself, serve and love others and find ways to help those in need.  That normal is really weird, but in a good way.  So we should be weird and let that be our new normal. 

I'm not referring to odd, quirky, out of touch weird.  But the kind of weird that goes against the flow and stands out rather than just fitting in.  Hmmm... this is going to be a weird sermon series...

Leadership

There is never a shortage of decisions to be made in Leadership.  Being part of a life giving, relational ministry allows for those decisions to be made in connection with other leaders.  I am thankful our model isn't a top down, one man show.  It is "easier" in the short run, but more problematic in the long run. 

Most of those decisions have to do with people.  Good people wanting to do things, needing help with things, having made bad decisions.... on and on it goes.  In the midst of it, I have to keep asking God to rule in my heart and mind.  Those in authority have to be under authority.  In doing so, leaders are in a right frame to lead by following. 

Too many want to appoint themselves as leaders and take up positional authority.  They promote themselves and their ideas and their ability to teach.  They are constantly seeking an audience to listen to them so they can fill their own need.  Positional authority has great limits.  Relational authority on the other hand, shows our greatest influence isn't self promotion, but rather self-less service. 

Look around and see the relationships your leaders are developing.  Are they self-serving?  Are they protecting themselves from others having relational authority in their life?  Are those who are clamoring for leadership always the ones who have to be heard?  Leaders set the pace by serving, loving, caring, developing, sacrificing, and leading!

Friends that bless Friends

Timeout!  Three weeks between posts that includes non stop parental, pastoral, and personal events.  I am catching my breath in this timeout but also giving thanks for friends that bless friends.  We had a wonderful Thanksgiving Celebration, entered into Advent and non stop chaos. 

By "friends that bless friends" I mean those in my life from before California that have traveled west to bless the new friends we have here.  We like to maintain all the friends we can and we have certainly been blessed by many.  So many of our friends have been rescued by God and empowered to share their hurt, pain, joy, education and life with others.  In the past couple of weeks a few of those friends have come alongside our ministry and shared hope in a profound way. 

Two weeks ago, my good friend Craig Smith came to visit.  He and I along with my fellow Pastor Mike Bivins went up on the mountain to open up our hearts and lives to each other as we shared life together.  Great food, conversation, amazing scenery in spite of the rain, openness, vulnerability, and the embrace of the Spirit of God made for an incredible time.  On Sunday morning at GCC, Craig Smith opened up his skeleton closet and shared his journey with our church.  It is a hard story.  It is a hard story to hear again because we lived it again in our hearts.  But this time, knowing the place God has brought him, my tears were grateful tears. 

His skeleton closet has death and life, sin and forgiveness, deceit and truth, division and reconciliation.  There is grief and hope, there is loss and recovery.  He freely shared about his mat and his condition, but also how God is transforming.  My new friends were incredibly blessed by my old friend.  Me too!

This past weekend two of the most dear  people to me came and joined us.  Joe and Alice Beam gave up their weekend to travel west.  I pleaded with Joe for almost a year to come and lead a marriage weekend.  Wow!  His open, thoughtful, direct, scholarly, and Spirit filled words were just what we all needed.  All weekend I have heard from individuals and couples that were filled with words of grace.  Marriages that are in trouble have some new direction and insight.  Marriages that are good are on the way to better.  People were able to understand the differences and find answers to questions they didn't know how to articulate.

Alice, in her sweet spirited way, was there as evidence of grace.  Her ability to forgive and trust and reconnect were so profound for those who haven't seen that as a possibility.  Her words of encouragement to ladies and men alike were like balm to troubled hearts.  Alice being here with her husband was such an amazing God touch.  Joe was powerful, Joe and Alice were incredibly powerful!

I haven't even talked yet of Sunday morning.  Joe's walking through Ephesians 5 and 6 and the call to Stand was point blank.  The call back to the reality we have an enemy and he has no flesh and blood was spot on.  I have heard from others how my friend blessed their lives.  I love it when friends bless friends.  I was so blessed by both sides of my friends!!!