October 21, 2009- Do you remember the things that you now consider to be "Old School"? I do. Things like parachute pants, Members Only jackets, the polo and oxford combo? Maybe you can take old school further back than that. Either way, we can get so caught up in doing things in the now, that we forget the really cool old school things. For example, what about faith? Is our faith an area that we continue to get more and more relevant to the world? Is that really effective, or is it dangerous? Or is it both? I have found in my life, that the more culturally relevant that I try to become, the harder it is to work out my salvation. I think in some areas that the church has tried so hard to become a cool place for people far from Christ, that it becomes hard for the world to tell the difference. That is a problem. How can we touch the world if the world can't tell us apart? We truly need to get back to some good ole fashioned "Old School Faith". So tonight in our youth ministry service, that's what we are going to talk about. Taking it back old school. Go back to where the Lord found you, and think on how cool those parachute pants were after all.
October 16, 2009- What is it that you are attempting today? Has God placed a vision inside you that seems too big to accomplish? That is perfect! If it seems too big for you, then it is probably His purpose. The thing is, we are so easily discouraged when things don't pan out to our blueprint of it. We think we see how it could work and we try. But I think we miss an important principle when that happens. When it comes to doing what God places on our hearts, there is only one way to do it, and try is NOT in the equation. One of the wisest lines I ever heard came from the movie, "The Empire Strikes Back". And the famous quote came from no other than, Yep, Yoda! Here it is. "Do or Do not, there is no try". Awesome! When God gives you a vision, no matter how big it is, Do it or don't do it, but there is no try. Have a great day!
October 12, 2009- Isn't it funny that one of the greatest men of the Bible has so little written about him. Genesis 5:24 says, "Enoch walked with God, then he was no more, for the Lord took him away". One would say that not many people in scripture had the privilege of being taken away by the Lord. The only other time is with the prophet Elijah. Why? They walked with the Lord! But isn't that what we all look forward to? Aren't we waiting on the Lord to come and take us? Yes. So, how is your walk with Him? Earlier I was reading a paper by a lady named Pamela Kirkpatrick and came upon some wonderful insight in the matter. We must learn to walk with the Lord. In much the same way as we learn to walk as a child. The problem however is that we apply the principles of childhood learning to our Christian walk, when there is a huge contrast. Think of this. When we raise up our children, our goal is to teach them to walk by themselves. To stand on their own two feet. We teach them to feed themselves, to ultimately grow independent, because we won't be around forever. Right? Well, to grow as a spiritual child, things are rather different. While in the natural, we want them to get more and more independent, God wants us to grow more and more dependent on Him.
So, as we learn to walk with God, instead of trying to eventually walk on our own, we should lean more towards Him with each step of the way. Then, and only then will we truly walk with God.
October 6, 2009- One of my biggest frustrations in ministry is that people start out in a serving role and then do not follow through with what they started. We go through hours of work and prayer to get somebody plugged in where they are most gifted and effective, only to have them not follow through with the commitment. But I guess the reason I'm so frustrated by this is I'm just as guilty in certain areas of my life. So, why is it like this? Why is the church so bogged down with the minors that we can't focus on the majors? I think it all boils down to commitment. The same way marriages fail, we make a decision to do something, but we never truly make a commitment. We teach people to make a decision to accept Christ into their life, but we don't follow the teaching with the importance of Commitment. So we have many people who accept Jesus into their hearts, but not into their lives. We must teach and encourage people to accept Jesus into their hearts, but then we need to tell them, "pick up your cross, and follow Him"
October 1, 2009- Last night I spoke to our youth @The City Church.
We had a great time with this discussion. The church seems to use the format of a football game when it wasn't designed that way. You find that there are 22 players on the field, and 80,000 in the stands, watching the show. The Church was not formed that way. We ALL should be on the field, in the game. Here are 3 types we find in the church, when we should only find 1.
- The spectator- This is the majority of church people. They dress the part, they talk the talk, but when the rubber meets the road, they are just consumers. They are here for the show. This is how we all come at first, but the sad truth is many people have gone to church for years, and all they have done is gone to church for years.
- The referee- Now this is an interesting character. The referee never runs the ball, never shoots a shot. He has no true experience with the win or the loss. All the ref does is run from one end of the field, to the other, blowing his whistle, and pointing his finger. The ref is the worst of the 3. In his defense, we do need feedback. But the ref usually says, "you guys need to change that", not "hey, we should really look at this change". Notice the contrast? The ref just needs to put up his whistle, and get in the game.
- There is no need to label the last person. We should all be in the game. We all have a part to play and we need to get out of the rut of consumer church. Let's get back to what we were called to. The ministry of reconciliation.
