Relationships Matter

I just spend an hour and a half deleting over 1200 Facebook friends. This probably doesn't sound like the perfect sentence to start off a blog titled "Relationships Matter". The point is, is that I have a lot of relationships, but I do not have a lot of meaningful relationships.

The last few months have been good with my wife. I have been spending meaningful time that with her that counts.

At church, I have realized that we have a lot of stuff to do and not enough people to do it. And all pastors said... "Amen".

I am thinking and praying through my life and focusing my time on relationships that I can build into. Anyone that knows me knows that I love people, but may also know that it is hard for me to go deep. I can go into deep conversations, but that is different than going into deep life together. I now have 301 friends. Maybe some more of those need to be deleted. My goal is to try invest well into people God has close to my life. I am not hating those I deleted, just trying to focus on people that are currently in my life to some degree.

God tells us to love Him and to love others well. I have been so spread thin, that neither have been done well. Hopefully through obedience and faith that will continue to change.

The Old School and New School Gospel.

I spoke at Student Venture, Chattanooga last night. I always enjoy being with that group of believers. The staff walk by faith and challenge the kids to share their faith and disciple them.

I compared our cultural gospels (which is really no gospel at all) to the true gospel of Christ. We talked about the Old School Gospel and the New School Gospel. Here is how I broke them down:

The Old School Gospel says" What You Do" gets you to heaven. Read your bible, pray, don't cuss, quit dipping, pull up your pants and go to church. This is a more legalistic or Pharisaical type "gospel". How good can you look and be, determines if you can go to heaven, and then they add Jesus. This is not the gospel, but a man made attempt to get to heaven and add Jesus name to it.

The New School Gospel says "How You Feel" gets you to heaven. You see this in our culture and many churches when you hear an alter call and someone says to you, "You don't really want hell do you?" Then the person says, "No, of course not" Then the preacher or whoever is getting ready to lead them into a man centered "gospel prayer" says ok repeat after me and then proceeds to lead the person in a felt need prayer that has a lot to do with the persons emotions and little to do with the King Jesus. They just Him on.

The Biblical gospel says that salvation has nothing to do with you. The Bible speaks that we are dead in our sins (Romans 3:21-23), but God has given a gift of life. He actually became our sin. It has nothing to do about what we do or how we feel, but who He is.

If you have lived or are living in the Old School or New School Gospel, I pray that you would leave it and turn to the true gospel. If you are a pastor, church planter or a spiritual leader, lets keep the gospel about Jesus and not what we can do.

Can You Play Poker at Church?

Top 10 list on why we can play poke at church:

10. To engage our community.
9. Wings!
8. Men need a time for healthy community.
7. Prizes are involved.
6. Change peoples mind's about church and God.
5. Wings!
4. Men have a competitive nature. Why not fulfill it with the gospel in mind.
3. I will beat down CaseyB in this tournament.
2. Church is not about preaching at people, but being real with them.
1. Men can finally tell their wives that they are going to church.

You are invited tonight to Awaken Community Church to play Texas Hold'em. No sign ups, just show up around 6:00pm. Those who place in the top 3 will win prizes. We have the cards, chips, prizes, drinks and food; you just show up.

Located at 8609 Walnut rd Hixson, TN 37343. email justin@awakencc.org for ?'s.

Community Now: "Show Some Love Week"

If you think about the American life and the American dream, they both have an "I" right in the middle of them. Your American dream is about you, your car, your house, your family, your money, your stuff. Most of us live life for us. It is just natural; I live for me. But what if a culture changed? What if a whole culture changed the way that they lived for something bigger than themselves? It is hard to imagine, because again, "I" would not be in the middle.

The gospel of Christ calls us to give up our lives because He gave up His life for us. As obedient believers in Christ we should Enjoy what God has done for us; given us grace, but we should also be extending His glory to the nations like He commanded. (Matthew 28:18-20)

Awaken Community Church is getting ready for a blitz in our community. We want to open our doors and also be out in the community to get to know people. November 14th -22nd we will have a week long community focus. The goal is to target people that may be sketchy about church and therefore they do not go. Here is the lineup:

Sunday the 14th - Community Wide Coupon class
Monday the 15th - Community Texas Hold 'em - There will be wings there!
Tuesday the 16th - Community Raking Leaves. We will rake your leaves. Just ask!
Wednesday the 17th - Craft Night.
Thursday the 18th - Community Open Mic Night - Show off your talent: song, poem, comedy..
Friday the 19th - Family Movie Night. Bring the kids to this one!! Big screen and food!
Saturday the 20th - Hungry? - Thanksgiving dinner for anyone in the community.
Sunday the 21st - Community Town Hall meeting. What do you want to see happen in the community?

Church address is 8609 Middle Valley rd. I hope to see you there one night. Its about getting the focus off of us and reaching out to others.

reFocus: God and Your Job

For some reason it seems odd to hear a sermon about God and your job, but the reality is, is that your job consists, for most people 1/3 of your life. If you are an entrepreneurial or a stay at home mom, then even more time. There are many observations that you can have concerning God and your job, but we focused on three. They are:

1. Your job is not about your job, but God's glory. We exists to enjoy Gods grace and to extend His glory. This includes work. Work is not about the check, the promotion or any kind of status, but about the glory of God.
2. Your job is not about your job, but responsibility. Even before sin entered the world, we were required to be responsible with work (Genesis 1). Then we sinned (Genesis 3) Now work will be tough, but the responsibility is the same.
3. Your job is not about your job, but relationships. Consider the people you work with. Your buddy, the guy that gets on your nerves and the girl that joins you in conversation as you both make fun of the guy that gets on your nerves. All of these people matter to God and should matter to us, even if they are just our "co-workers".

God ultimately challenges us to carry our cross's for His glory even in work (and school). I hope this encourages you to reFocus your job.

No More Pressure

Well I wish this post was completely true, but is seems that there is always some kind of pressure in my life. I am the kind of guy that will put the world on his back and want to change everything. Trying to work out of this mind set will make you go insane, frustrated and very tired. I am reading "Radical" by David Platt and it is rocking my world. He writes the goal of Christianity in one simple phrase: Christianity is to "Enjoy His grace and extend His glory". Enjoy and Extend. Grace and glory. What that does for me is life changing. It says Christianity is simply about enjoying God's grace for me and as a result I will extend His glory. Its about God and not me. The pressure is off.

My life and church life is usually tied up in programs or preaching. Having the next biggest or best thing. Well, the Bible says that life does not have to be about any of that. No more Pressure. Its not about you and it is not about me. Its was and is about Jesus the whole time. Enjoy Gods grace today and extend his glory.

How are Your Relationships?

Life gets busy. As a pastor I have to continue to remember to be with my people. I have a deep desire to preach truth with passion, creativity and with excellence. I have a desire to make sure our church greets people with love as they enter the foyer. I want to go to the next conference and learn a lot and come back and unleash on my city. I want to change the world! I can have all of these things, but if I do not have love, I have nothing. If I do not love the people in my church, then all of this is in vein. If they are not sitting in my living room playing with my kids and eating off my table, then what am I doing?

I am in the middle of rethinking, reFocusing and reanalyzing my relationships. I am beginning to pour specifically into a few leaders at my church. My goal is that my family and I would love them, mentor them, equip them and lead them well. The goal is that they would do the same to the people serving under them. If this is a trickle effect, then I believe God will use this to change our city. The neat thing is I did not even come up with this idea. I read the Bible. This is how they set up church: The pastors (apostles, elders) prayed, preached and equipped a leadership team. The leadership served and took care of service needs in the church.

Who is in your life? Who is mentoring you? Who are you pouring into? Lets not get caught up in all of the "stuff" of ministry and forget the people. Invite someone over this week to eat with you.

Dancing in the Club

So, I was driving back from a conference today scanning through the stations. I found the beat. I do not know what it was, but it had "the" beat. My wife was dead asleep, I was cruising about 78mph and started the head nod. And then it hit me... I need to go to the club. What club? Its doesn't matter. I started to think of the social scene in a club and how everyone wants to stay fresh and act like they're somebody. I thought of grabbing my boy Joey and heading to the club one night. We could get some 80's clothes on and crash the party. It would be fun. Make some people laugh while the cool cats role their eyes. It would be a great way to build relationships and conversation. Bringing Jesus to the club in 80's fashion. What do ya think? Anyone want to go to the club? Will you be there? You know Amber will be.

Awaken's One Year Anniversary

We just celebrated our one year anniversary yesterday from when we launched Awaken. It went well. We had many people from our community come and had a record attendance of 80 people come out. It was also just our third meeting in our Middle Valley building.

Church planting can be a love/hate relationship. At times you wonder if this thing is really going to work even at one year in. At other times you cant believe what God is doing and the relationships that you have built. Yesterday was a good day. So excited to see what God wants to do. We know that we are in this thing for the long haul.

reFocus

Do you ever get tired of your life and how you are living? If you are living away from God, you probably are because ultimately, He is the only thing that can fulfill your soul. If you are living half for God, you are probably feeling the same thing.

For God to love the world and for the world to hate God is pretty ironic, but in reality, it is who we are. Let us be honest, if we are not walking with God, then we are enemies of God. The Bible speaks of the true followers of God are on a narrow path (because it takes giving up everything) and those who are not His are on a wide path. So many tend to make up a middle path. This is the path of justification, deception, trickery and lies. This is the path that says do what you want in life as long as you prayed a prayer and asked Jesus to help you go to Heaven. This path does not exist. It is a false religion that says I can just acknowledge that Jesus is real and I go to Heaven. It's a mirage leading many to death. I have seen too many on this path. This path is just another mirage from the wide path, it just has a "Jesus" twist to it.

It is time for Christ followers to reFocus every part of their lives around, in and through the gospel of Christ. We have lived in crap called "Christianity" that breaks the heart of God. Its not Christianity. Let's us refocus, read the Bible and do what it says.

reThink

I am going throughout my life with my faith family, Awaken, I am being challenged to give my life completely up to follow Jesus. It is weird saying that because I thought that I did that when I became a Christian, but as I continue to read the Bible, I am finding that my life looks less and less biblical. I guess in my discipleship, no one really told me or more importantly showed me what that looked like. I saw good things happen, but for some reason still hanging on to the things of me. As I was thinking through what it looked like, it meant that I had to take every area in my life and reThink on how to live it out. Here are several areas that I have been picking apart and thinking through in my life and will be teaching on over the next several weeks at Awaken. We will be rethinking through our thoughts, time, treasures, relationships and school and work.

I want to invite you to come to Awaken and visit our faith family and become apart of what we are doing. I want to invite you to give up your life and take up your cross and follow Jesus with us. www.awakencc.org

Our New Location.... Middle Valley.

Mid September will be the one year anniversary for Awaken Community Church. God has given us a little present as we turn one; a building.

I look forward to see what God will do in the lives of people in Middle Valley. I am challenging our church to meet people in the area, get gas in the area, eat at restaurants in the area and yes even move to the area. Why? Because if we really want to see the gospel of Jesus spread in our city, then we should start in the areas where we live. Many of the people in our church live five minutes or less from the new building. Jesus said to the apostles before he ascended into Heaven, "Go make disciples... into Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria and the utter most parts of the world". Middle Valley is our Jerusalem. Many of us are already gathering creative ideas to influence and help our community.

I would like to invite you to our service on Sunday morning at 10:30 am. There are many ways to get involved; Sunday morning, small groups or serving. We would love to meet you, be a part of your life and encourage you to give up everything to follow Jesus. Our website is www.awakencc.org

The Shocking News of Ananias

So, in Acts 5 a man and his wife are struck dead by God in front of other believers. The Bible sometimes speaks of things that I do not want to hear. Sometimes its tough for me to hear that God in His power would do something like this. As I grab a text like this and study more in depth I can see more into the heart of God. God is often in the details.

Here is what happened. Ananias and his wife were "together" in mind and in heart. But this was a different mind and heart that Luke speaks of in just verses prior (Acts 4:32) of believers being together for the common good. This husband and wife were out for their own common good of their reputation, self-trust and selfishness. They were anything but honest.

As many other believers were sacrificing all that hey had, Ananias and Sapphira pretended to do the same, but lied about giving a certain amount of money. Peter called them out on it, God killed them and the men carried them off to be buried.

Why? The reason why is because this couple had wicked hearts and were in the midst of what God was doing. If God worked in the same way in today's church, we would have more gravediggers. We live in a generation and a culture that is all out "getting ours" just like Ananias and Sapphira. God is not for the proud, selfish, self seeking. Scripture says that God opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble.

I wonder how many pastors would be dead right now if God acted in the same way today. I wonder how many church folks would be six feet under. This powerful text should call us to humility before the cross of Christ and empty us of any pride, so we can be honest before one another and God. God help me. Help my generation and guard and protect us of such pride.

Second Year, New Building?

Awaken is approaching its second year. God has done so much in the life of our church. It is amazing to read in Acts and see how they started the church out of nothing. We are starting our second year as a church reaching a dechurched/searching generation in Hixson, TN.

We have an opportunity that has come our way to rent a building at a stupid, cheap price. It is interesting to see what God has done in my life, my wife's life and through Awakens life even in the last few months to build character and responsibility in pruning us to get us ready for a building. It will take more leadership, giving, responsibility, faith to enter the building and hopefully will produce more dechurched people coming back to Jesus and finding hope, the lost having a Savior and our faith family being excited that we have a building where the urinal does not pee on you (our current building has some issues).

A lot of times in considering a new place, it becomes about the "New Place". I am trying to lead our church in our thinking that this New place is not the end of our vision, but just the next step in fulfilling our vision. I have heard horror stories of body of believers getting the building and then things start to go down hill.

"God, be our vision and lead us to build believers in Christ and reach a community far from You, for your glory". Amen

Giving up on Life?

Last July was the worst month of my life. I was going through a lot in my marriage and family. This post was saved as a draft since then. It was saved in my drafts and am now posting it. I hope you may find truth and healing from what I went through and my thought process through it all... It seems that we are less eager to accept grace and mercy when we are strong, but when we are weak, well, that is a different story. When a man, or woman, has been stripped of everything that they have, they will become utterly dependent on one of two things. They will either pursue themselves and their selfish desire to deal and heal their pain, which ultimately will never truly heal their hurt or their pain. The second is they can turn to God, which is hard to do as well. When you feel that no one loves you or wants or can know the real you, then the only thing to naturally turn to is yourself. When you turn to yourself, however, you will turn to a humans perspective on life, which will lead to some sort of destruction. When you turn to God, if you can turn to God, you will see life, truth, freedom and light. The reason that I say "if you can turn to God:, is because our pride can still be strong in our weakness. That is why it takes one more ounce of faith to believe God can heal. That is why you must muster up any hope and trust that may lye somewhere inside you. Freedom: Although it may not seem clear at first, following God's path is the only path that will lead to anything beneficial for your life. While on this path as you deal with yourself, your struggles and life, make sure you pray. Pray to God and confess out loud the things that are bringing you down, then confess what is true about you in the eyes of God; how you are loved, adopted by God, a child, a saint and all other phrases that scripture speaks about those who are Gods children. Then quote the scriptures so you can hear, walk and live by truth instead of lies. I hope this blog of weaknesses that I have experienced in my life and how I dealt with them may help someone out there who may happen to scroll by my page.

9 Months After Launch

Well, we have finished up our eighth month and heading into month nine into our church plant. In this blog, I would like to catch family, friends and supporters up on whats happened and also encourage and maybe throw some ideas our for other church planters.

Here is my blog for month 5 of the plant and I will just pick up from there.

We have leaders set up in each of the following areas:

Creative Arts - Brad Bennett
Connections - Brenda Haustein
Community Involvement - Dana Wyatt
Finance - JJ Jackson
Children - Brandi Jackson
Community Groups - Tony Holland

Tony, Awaken's Executive Pastor, oversees all of those groups and meets with each leader monthly. We are also start a bi-monthly meeting soon where all leaders meet together to evaluate church structure and systems.

It has been a great 9 months and especially the last few. We have had so many people stepping up and taking on roles, so that we, as a church, can fulfill the vision that God has given us; to change the Hixson/Soddy Daisy area because God is working radically through us. Each leader in the areas above are over a team and are in the process of working out systems and strategies to ultimately lead others closer to Christ.

We expect to have over 100 people meeting weekly in the Fall. With all of the relationships being built and the community that is happening, we are preparing and getting ready for the Holy Spirit to work in and through us.

Please continue to pray for us daily that we may submit our lives to Christ and follow the great commission in our city. Pray for a new building. We are growing out of our current one. Pray for the believers here to deepen their walk and commitment to the gospel, and pray that we would relentlessly take the gospel to our city and to the nations.

Stuck, with the Gospel.

I feel like I am stuck with the gospel. What I mean is that I live in a very traditional and religious city and when I talk with church people about the gospel, I get a half-hearted smile and head nod as if they have known it their whole life. Yet there is no movement or passion in their eyes, much less their lives. Then I have the world that is hurting, yet many seem like they know they are hurting and open to truth, but are not ready to get over their lives to take on His life and His cross.

I think there are some stuck like me. Here is my encouragement to us. Be real, honest and open to the church people and the lost. Maybe by our lives and the genuine relationship with Christ in us, they might be moved. And two... live by faith. Going to church is not faith, its habit. Meeting someone and knowing their name and sharing hope is faith. Trusting in God that He would use you to change someones life for Him, is faith. Let's not walk by sight because it can be very disheartening in our city, but walk by a different life and different calling, a calling from up above. Make a difference before you die and do not let your life pass you by without having God moving radically through it. On our knees praying, soaking up God words to us and walking by faith. Lets do it.

The Role of the Holy Spirit

It is amazing all of the views that people have of the role Holy Spirit. Some people do not know much about the Holy Spirit simply because their church does not teach on the subject and they do not read God's word to seek to see what it says. Others take on a role and view of the Holy Spirit and start "making" the Holy Spirit do things that in reality it is what they want to do. You see this in a lot of churches or tv that abuses the role of speaking in tongues. How about this one: Have you ever heard someone say that "God told me to do ____". That is a statement that I would encourage people to rarely or never say. God tells us what He wants us to do through His Word.

We live in such a prideful and self seeking society, that we could do things and say it was the Holy Spirit. That is very dangerous for us to do what we want to do and call it God or place His stamp on it.

God clearly gives us the Bible to read and study it so we can grow in our faith and seek to know Him more. In doing that, we can get to know different parts and different things about God, including the act and the role of the Holy Spirit.

Read John 14-17 and read through Acts to start a study. John and Luke write these books and describes the role of the Holy Spirit. There are other passages, but this is a good start. Think clearly and think biblically and see what God wants to do through your life through the role of the Holy Spirit.

The Move

We finally moved to Hixson. It feels good to follow where God leads. I honestly thought if God called me to do something great, then it would be to raise a bunch of money to go to Africa or some far away country, but He didn't. He called me to go back to where I grew up to start Awaken Community Church.

We sold our house in 10 days and found an apartment in the area. We had family and many people from our church come and help us move. We have already met some neighbors in the neighborhood and around the complex and have had premarital counseling with two couples in our new living room. God is already at work in the new place.

We have laid our lives open before God to do what He wants us to do. We look forward to see what and whose lives He has in mind for us to be apart of.

God called me to plant a church. What has He called you to be apart of? May be you need to move on. Maybe its away from something or to something. Follow God, it may be tough, but follow the vision that He has placed on your life; it will be worth it and more fulfilling than anything that you will ever do in your life.

What Makes You Come Alive?

It is interesting how all people are created differently. All of us have a different fingerprint and a different tongue. Although some similar, we all have different personalities and temperaments. We also have things that will set us off and things that will make us come alive. Unfortunately we forsake time on the things that make us come alive and spend a lot of our lives on things that waste our time. God has given us all a God given passion that makes us come alive. Two of my passions are relationships and preaching. Food and ping pong are a close behind.

God called me to start Awaken Community Church which launched this past September. I have had to get people around me to help the church function in all different areas. The two things that I am good at and must focus on are preaching and building relationships. I find that when I spend time focusing on all of the other details and do not spend quality time developing those areas, I get weak and burned out, however when I am meeting new people, disciple, share my faith or just have a guys night at my house, I come alive, because I was meant to develop relationships and influence people. Same with preaching. When I spend a lot of time praying, reading, watching other preachers, reading commentaries, doing observation through a text of scripture, studying the culture and the context of a book or a chapter and I preach it, I feel so alive. I expect lives to change on Sundays through the preaching, so I better focus on the pouring time into preaching and not into my personality.

What is your passion, talent and love for life? What makes you come alive? Try to focus your time and dedication to those few things so you feel alive and accomplish what you were meant to accomplish. Maye you should focus more time on being the best mom, organizer, planner, encourager, leader or giver. What makes you come alive? What are you passionate about? Allow God to use that gift that He has given you.

Connecting with Jesus

Life can get so busy that we forget about our purpose and reason for living. I love looking at the life of Jesus, because as I observe the way he lived, I notice that He always had time with His Father. He had to, it was a priority and a necessity. Jesus was fully God, but also fully man, so He had temptation to do thing on His own strength. He never did, because His focus was always on what God had for Him to do each day and each hour.

I have noticed that in the midst of school, work, family and all of the business of life, it is easy for us to crowd out God with our stuff. He becomes a mere option rather than a necessity. That is a dangerous road that many of us go down daily and the road has become all too familiar to many of us. Followers of Christ need to repent and realize that Jesus really is our life, not our Sunday satisfaction. Jesus didn't die to be an option in our life, but to be the center our life.

I encourage you to make Jesus more real to you and spend time seeking Him daily and hourly. Change your schedule, priorities and your mind. This life was not meant to live alone. Connect with Jesus.

Summary: Song of Solomon Chapter 2

Chapter 2 of Song of Solomon is made up of two main conversational pieces: Connection and Conflict. Those are two necessities to make any relationship work well.

Connection: You can tell that this couple is deeply in love with each other. (2:4) "his banner over me was love". Banner was a military term. When soldiers were on the battlefield and all scattered out, one of the men would raise a banner so all of the soldiers could come together and meet under the banner. It represented safety, security, unity and hope. The men would fight there way to get back to the banner. Men, are you man enough to be the banner for your marriage? If you can't keep a job, clean your room or have any gas money, then you are not ready for a wife... not even a pet. Allow God to take you through life and produce character in you to prepare you for marriage. Instead of strong banners we have deflated balloons out there. Application men, connect to a good church, get a job and repent of your sins. Women, don't settle, connect with a real man, a real leader and get a good banner.

Conflict: (2:15)"...catch the foxes, the little foxes that spoil our vineyards". I remember my first year of marriage lying on the hardwood kitchen floor crying my eyes out and feeling numb. It was so bad that I was even drooling on the floor. What happened? The little foxes destroyed my marriage. It was the first and only time that divorce was heavily considered. In the day of Solomon they would spend a lot of time cultivating their vineyards. After hours, days, weeks and even months, foxes would get in and jack the whole thing up by stealing the fruit and destroying the vineyards. Make sure that in your relationships that you have open, clear communication. Confess your weaknesses and sins. Walk upright and never lie to your spouse.

There much more to unpack in Chapter 2, I thought that I would throw out a few highlights. We are starting chapter 3 at Awaken this Sunday at 10:30 at the YMCA in Hixson. I Hope this was helpful and you could benefit from Song of Solomon.

New Series: Bringing Sexy Back

This week at Awaken we are starting a new series entitled "Bringing Sexy Back". As far as I know Stephen Furtick was the first to start this series at Elevation Church in Charlotte, NC. I like being original in ministry and do my own thing, but this was one series title that I had to steal.

Basically, Tony and I thought through what direction that our church needed to go as far as teaching and we thought that there was nothing better than SEX that would attract a church with an average age of 24. This is a great series to start especially as we had a record crowd of 70 last week. We are at a time where people are coming back to church and finding freedom in Christ and His followers and figured we would teach a sexually active culture and generation what God says about SEX.

I would like to invite you to join us for the rest of February as we teach our new Series "Bringing Sexy Back". We still meet at the YMCA in Hixson at 10:30am.

Five Months of Church Planting

Today I realized how much I love my job. We launched Awaken Community Church five months ago and it is going strong. We had one of the highest attendances this week (around 65) and at least ten new visitors. The two main groups we are trying to reach are the non Christians and the de-churched. These are people who grew up in church and for whatever reason, they were done. Here is what I have been learning to do lately:

1. Delegate and follow up with those who are taking on new responsibilities.
2. Always cast vision and actively do the things it takes to fulfill it.
3. Meet with leadership weekly.
4. Ask everyone committed their gifts and get them plugged in.
5. Make sure your main leaders are not getting burnt out.
6. Meet with people in your church weekly.
7. Always try to have a visitor over to your house to get to know them.
8. Focus on your strengths and fill your weakness when people come to fulfill them.
9. Be in the community meeting people and challenge your church too as well.
10. Develop leaders that develop leaders.

... And Their Wives Left

One guy was stuck on porn and his wife finally found out his grueling secret. He was so addicted that it meant more to him than she did. After eight months of battle she left.

Seeing it from his father, Jim bullied his wife; cutting her down in front of his friends and so on. She cried at night while he slept beside her. After 12 years, she left.

Everything looked fine in public, but behind the scenes he really did not care. She cooked. She cleaned. She got the kids ready. She taught the kids. She paid the bills. She even changed the oil. Once all five of the kids were out of the house, she left after 32 years.

Bars, beer and the night life filled his life. It was like that before they got married, but she thought it would change after they were married. It didn't. After 3 short months, she left.

The divorce rate in America sucks. It seems and looks as if no one knows about commitment, love, loyalty, sacrifice and selflessness anymore. A lot of them never had a role model, mentor or even a clue. Around the country though, things are starting to change. There are men of God and churches of God leading healthy marriages, because they are reading and living what the Bible says.

We will talk about the roles of the husband and wife in their roles at Awaken January 24th and 31st. We meet at the YMCA in Hixson and are currently at once service that starts at 10:30am. www.awakencc.org

Wake Up Christians

Acts is my favorite book of the Bible. I like it so much because it is so action packed. Think of all of the action packed movies that we all like: Braveheart, Gladiator and Lord of the Rings just to name a few. All of these movies made a lot of money and are famous for being action packed and great war scenes. Many of us, especially men, cannot get enough of these kind of movies because we love action, adventure, passion and challenge.

This is a lot like the book of Acts. There was a lot of action, adventure, passion and challenge. In Chapter 2 and 3 over 5,000 people give their entire lives over to something that will out live them. They gave their lives over to a higher calling and purpose in life. They gave their lives to God. Take 5-6 minutes and read Acts chapter 2-3.

Christianity today in my city looks absolutely nothing like Acts... and that is a problem. One of the main reasons is because we are all distracted. We are distracted by our pride, selfishness, money, family, hobbies etc.. When will we wake up and realize this life is not about us? I need some men to join beside me to become a church like Acts 2-3. We should wake up and lead ourselves, our families and our community to the feet of Jesus. It is not about the tradition and programs in our churches, but about the blood of Christ and the depravity of humanity. We have a huge mission. What day and hour will we wake up? Will we ever wake up? I am challenging you to wake up now and come with me to seek God and change a city. We are going into war.

I am sending this out to some men that are on my heart. Send me a message or leave a comment below. It doesn't matter where you are at in life at this point, it just matters that you act now and let God do the rest. I would like to meet with many men in our city in the next few weeks. Send me an e-mail to justin@awakencc.org. Thanks for your time and lets Let God be the God of our city.

Cute Little Christians

If you have grown up in the Christian life, you may not realize it, but many of us have grown up with a cute little Christian life. We listen to our Christian music and wear our Christian T-Shirt while driving in our car with our Christian bumper stickers. Pretty cute huh? "Not really" says the world. What is Christian about that. The world needs and wants to interact with real people. People who cuss and cut. People who struggle with their marriages and their money. In our "cute" little lives it can come across like we are perfect inside and out. The world see's us as phonies. So what do we do?

Try this: Be real. Get help where you need it, because even though you may be seen as perfect, you know that you are far from it and have so many areas where you need to be fixed. Interact with people. Get out of you comfort zone and go talk to people who may not look, smell, dress or act like you.

Notice Jesus. He was anything but a cute little Christian. He was a man, a radical, associated with sinners, prostitutes and scum of His day. And what do we do? We go to church.... are you kidding?? Seek Jesus, not tradition and change Christian. If you are not a Chritsian, I would like to appoligize for my life and the lives of many Christians or "Christians". I hope I would change and start to be more real and honest with God, myself and you.