Saturday, September 25, 2010

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.

Tuesday, September 21, 2010

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.

Friday, September 17, 2010

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.

Monday, September 13, 2010

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.

Wednesday, September 8, 2010

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.

Friday, September 3, 2010

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