Several weeks ago I talked about not listening to the drips in your life. Don't listen to the individual voices of criticism that come into your life and try to do damage. Instead, listen to the beautiful rain of all the other voices of encouragement and support in your life.
But today, I want to encourage you to be a drip. What I mean is this: I often hear people say something along the lines of, "I'd like to do something about (fill in the blank), but I'm only one person. What can one person do? What difference can one person make?"
I confess, I feel this way sometimes, myself. Every year, when we go to Mexico at Christmas to give out blankets and supplies to people in need, I am encouraged by the great sacrifice people make to send blankets and go on the trip. I feel good about the fact that we are making a difference. But, inevitably, at some point in the trip, I am overcome by the immensity of the task. For all the people we are able to help, there are still thousands who we are unable to help.
I get that way when I think about the enormous task of taking the gospel to the ends of the earth. There are currently somewhere in the neighborhood of 2 billion people in the world who are in unreached people groups. An unreached people group (UPG) is a group of people who share the same language and culture and among whom there are less than 2 Christians for every hundred people. What that means is, for people in a UPG, there is a really good chance that they will live and die without ever even having heard about Jesus unless something changes to give them access to the gospel. With so many billions of people needing Christ, how can I, one person do anything to significantly impact the lostness of the world?
I was confronted with this feeling of being overwhelmed a couple of weeks ago when I learned about child slave trafficking related to chocolate production. I realized that I have responsibility for the purchases I make each day. I was talking to our youth about this and about our need to consider the purchases we make and how those purchases impact other people's lives. One of the kids was insistent that there is nothing we can do. We are not responsible for what happens to other people in other parts of the world and what difference would it really make whether I stopped buying chocolate or not.
But we can make a difference. One drip may not make that big a difference, but put a whole lot of drips together and they create floods that can move mountains, create rivers, generate electricity. Your single drip, when joined together with others can make a difference. Don't give up because you think your one voice cannot make a difference. Throughout the Bible, God's justice is pictured as a mighty water. We can be the rushing torrent of God's justice making a difference in the world.
On any given Sunday in America, there are more people attending church than attend all professional sporting events in a year's time. What would happen if that force were set free, turned loose for God? What would happen if we let "justice roll down like waters and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream" (Amos 5:24)? We have the ability to change the world, if we let our drips join together to form a flood of compassion and love and mercy and justice and righteousness.
What we think we can do and the difference we can make is often through the lenses of our own abilities and our own inabilities. But that has nothing to do with what God can do when we yield our lives to him. God doesn't ask us to make the difference. He just asks us to place our lives in his hands, at his disposal, and see what he can do with them.
One of my favorite stories in the New Testament is the story of Jesus feeding the five thousand. It's been a long day. Five thousand men plus women and children have been gathered listening to Jesus teach all day. They are beginning to get hungry, and the disciples come and point this out to Jesus (Like he didn't know!). So Jesus says, "You feed them!" Jesus knows he is about to do something miraculous. Jesus could have just conjured food out of thin air. But he doesn't. He tells the disciples to feed them. Why? Because he wants them involved. He wants the offering of their lives. He wants them passing the food out to the hungry and needy in the crowd. He is going to do the miracle, but they are going to be the channel through which it takes place.
The disciples say it can't be done. The task is just too big. How can they do anything to feed this many people? And yet...they come to Jesus with what they've got. "Jesus, here's a little boy with his spiderman lunch box, and he's got some sardines and a few crackers. Haha. But what good are they among so many? Haha."
So Jesus takes that little boy's lunch and with it he feeds the entire crowd so that there are twelve basketfuls of leftovers (one for each of the disciples?). The disciples offer up the little bit they can come up with, thinking it won't be near enough, and God does a miracle. One other thing I am always impressed by in this story. Jesus does something incredible, that no one there would ever forget, but one little boy had to offer up his lunch. He gave the little he had, and God did something unbelievable with it. He was a drip.
So, I encourage you to be a drip. Whatever it is that God is calling you to, whatever the big, massive, overwhelming task that he is asking you to take on that will change people's lives and impact the world and extend the kingdom, whatever the thing that seems so big that there is no way you can do it, do it! Take on the challenge! Offer up the little bit that you've got and just see what God can do with it.
Thursday, August 20, 2009
Monday, July 27, 2009
Don't Listen to the Drips
It's raining today in North Texas, just one of those slow, steady, all-day, beautiful rain showers. It is so incredibly relaxing listening to the rain as it falls to the ground outside my window where I am working.
I love the sound of a good summer rainstorm. But I hate the sound of a single drip. You know the sound. Like a leaky faucet with a steady drip that slowly pounds its way into your brain until the only sound you can hear is that drip....drip....drip...drip...drip. Somehow, the individual little drips drown out everything else. You cannot focus on anything other that the sound of the drips.
Funny how the individual drips can be so annoying, so aggravating, so contentious, while lots of drips together can be soothing, relaxing, and refreshing. It's all about focus. Do you focus on the sound of the single drip or the melody of all the drops of rain together.
The people in our lives, and the voices we allow to speak into our lives are often like those drips. The Bible says that a nagging wife annoys like a constant dripping (Prov. 19:13). Really, I think you can extend that verse to other voices of criticism in our lives. The critics, the naysayers, the discouragers, and complainers in our lives are like a constantly dripping faucet. They continue to hound us, continue to make their voice heard, continue to drip...drip...drip...drip...drip. They wear us down. They cause us to be distracted, discouraged, and frustrated. They demand our attention. And pretty soon, all we hear is the sound of the drips. Our focus gets off of other, more important things because we are so annoyed and overcome by the dripping.
But there are a lot of other voices in our lives. People who love us and encourage us and support us. People who speak words of love and affirmation into our lives. People who instruct us, challenge us, inspire us, pray for us. People whose drips do not annoy us, but who come together to form a beautiful symphony of raindrops that are relaxing, soothing, supportive, encouraging.
Really, we have a choice in life. Will we focus on the drips, the few individual voices that when heard alone, listened to in isolation, can annoy and even destroy us? Will we give more attention to the few voices of criticism? Or will we make the choice to listen to the beautiful symphony of raindrops God gives us in life? Will we choose to focus on the sound of applauding raindrops in our life?
I know I have been guilty of doing the former often in my life. In fact, it is one of my greatest weaknesses. I listen to the individual drops, focusing on the annoying voices of a couple of individuals, instead of listening to the crowd who cheers me on. But I would much rather listen to the rain. So that is what I am going to do. Focus on the beauty of the many instead of the sometimes annoyance of the few.
Don't listen to the drips in your life. Listen to the beautiful rain that God brings into our lives.
I love the sound of a good summer rainstorm. But I hate the sound of a single drip. You know the sound. Like a leaky faucet with a steady drip that slowly pounds its way into your brain until the only sound you can hear is that drip....drip....drip...drip...drip. Somehow, the individual little drips drown out everything else. You cannot focus on anything other that the sound of the drips.
Funny how the individual drips can be so annoying, so aggravating, so contentious, while lots of drips together can be soothing, relaxing, and refreshing. It's all about focus. Do you focus on the sound of the single drip or the melody of all the drops of rain together.
The people in our lives, and the voices we allow to speak into our lives are often like those drips. The Bible says that a nagging wife annoys like a constant dripping (Prov. 19:13). Really, I think you can extend that verse to other voices of criticism in our lives. The critics, the naysayers, the discouragers, and complainers in our lives are like a constantly dripping faucet. They continue to hound us, continue to make their voice heard, continue to drip...drip...drip...drip...drip. They wear us down. They cause us to be distracted, discouraged, and frustrated. They demand our attention. And pretty soon, all we hear is the sound of the drips. Our focus gets off of other, more important things because we are so annoyed and overcome by the dripping.
But there are a lot of other voices in our lives. People who love us and encourage us and support us. People who speak words of love and affirmation into our lives. People who instruct us, challenge us, inspire us, pray for us. People whose drips do not annoy us, but who come together to form a beautiful symphony of raindrops that are relaxing, soothing, supportive, encouraging.
Really, we have a choice in life. Will we focus on the drips, the few individual voices that when heard alone, listened to in isolation, can annoy and even destroy us? Will we give more attention to the few voices of criticism? Or will we make the choice to listen to the beautiful symphony of raindrops God gives us in life? Will we choose to focus on the sound of applauding raindrops in our life?
I know I have been guilty of doing the former often in my life. In fact, it is one of my greatest weaknesses. I listen to the individual drops, focusing on the annoying voices of a couple of individuals, instead of listening to the crowd who cheers me on. But I would much rather listen to the rain. So that is what I am going to do. Focus on the beauty of the many instead of the sometimes annoyance of the few.
Don't listen to the drips in your life. Listen to the beautiful rain that God brings into our lives.
Monday Morning Update
Yet another amazing weekend at The Crossroads. This is supposed to be the time of year when attendance dips, and church growth really is not substantial. People are gone on vacation, spending time at the lake, doing things with their family. It's hot, and people just like sleeping in during the summer months. So, typically, in church life, you just try to survive through the summer.
That seemed like it was going to be the pattern for us during the month of June. Attendance took a dip, and it was kind of discouraging. But something has happened during July. We kicked off a new message series called "God at the Movies" in which we are exploring blockbuster movies from this summer and seeing the greater story of God's love written in them. We have done a couple of block parties in the community and gave away helium balloons at the city's 4th of July celebration.
So, I don't know if those things are an explanation, but for some reason our attendance has taken off in July. In fact, it's the highest average attendance we've had for any month so far. We baptized four people this month, and have at least one more coming up next week. We are really excited, but this definitely represents a challenge for us. Looks like we will have to be moving into a new meeting space very soon. Please pray for us. This will represent a significant increase in our costs. We need at least ten people to commit to giving $200 a month to cover the cost of new facilities. We would love for you to partner with us in this way.
My wife did an awesome job with her Monday Morning Update, so I'm just going to modify it to give you the rest of the details on this weekend. Saturday we did another movie night/block party. This time we used Slater Creek Park, the local city park. It's new and a great location, but we had a very low attendance at this movie night. In our evaluation we came up with a few possibilities. 1. The park is not easily visible from the highway - no drive-by stoppers. 2. Have to do more marketing if we use the park - We advertised on a mailer that primarily focused on the sermon series. In communities, it is a lot easier to gather a crowd. Not so much so in the city park. In the future, if we do stuff in the park, we will be sure to get something in the newspaper. 3. It was one of the hottest days we have had in quite a while. However, we enjoyed meeting the people who turned out for the event and are already planning and looking forward to one more summer block party in August. We will be collecting school supplies to give away in a needy community at that block party.
Our Sunday worship celebration was really incredible. Robby and the band did a great job leading us. We had a new drummer sit in with us, and he did a really good job. We also had our bass player back with us this week. He's been out a lot this summer as he has been working at a church camp. It was great to have him back.
For the message, today's movie in "God at the Movies" was Terminator: Salvation. The movie is an illustration of sacrifice, and second chances. I talked about how to make your life count and pointed out that the answer to that question both in Terminator and in the Bible is sacrifice. The way to meaning in life is giving your life away for God and giving your life away for other people. The message will soon be online at www.welcometothecrossroads.com Be sure to download and listen to it soon.
We had several new families stop by to check us out. One of the coolest stories is that a lady who had never been to church - ever in her 41 years- came. And loved it.... wept through the whole service. A couple of our ladies got to spend some time sharing with her and praying for her after the service. It is so beautiful to see God at work. We also had the opportunity to pray over a new believer in our congregation who will be leaving tomorrow for basic training for the army. We have another baptism coming up August 2. I love this part of church planting - seeing God drastically and dramatically change people's lives.
Continue praying for a meeting place for us. We are in immediate need of space. We are now consistently running about 20 in children's church. We do not have space for them inside. Meeting outside with them works as long as it doesn't rain. When colder weather arrives, we will have to be in a larger space. Please pray for our workers. As we grow, we will have to pull in more workers and right now we are pretty maxed out on volunteers. Pray that those of us who volunteer will be very flexible during this time of growth. We need grace for the journey as we work with children who have not been to church before. We want to provide opportunities for them to hear about Jesus and learn how He can become their Savior. Pray that we will never lose sight of why we do what we do in children's.
Also pray that we will be able to increase Robby's salary. Our goal is to eventually bring him on as a full-time staff member. Every week many of you read about the incredible job he is doing with The Crossroads. What you may not be aware of is that he works a full time job in Dallas to support his family. We would love to be able to bring Robby on full time, but we need several more monthly sponsors in order to do that. If you are not currently giving, please pray about helping us meet this goal. Feel free to share this need with others in your congregations who are praying for us so that they will ask the God of the universe to meet this need abundantly.
That seemed like it was going to be the pattern for us during the month of June. Attendance took a dip, and it was kind of discouraging. But something has happened during July. We kicked off a new message series called "God at the Movies" in which we are exploring blockbuster movies from this summer and seeing the greater story of God's love written in them. We have done a couple of block parties in the community and gave away helium balloons at the city's 4th of July celebration.
So, I don't know if those things are an explanation, but for some reason our attendance has taken off in July. In fact, it's the highest average attendance we've had for any month so far. We baptized four people this month, and have at least one more coming up next week. We are really excited, but this definitely represents a challenge for us. Looks like we will have to be moving into a new meeting space very soon. Please pray for us. This will represent a significant increase in our costs. We need at least ten people to commit to giving $200 a month to cover the cost of new facilities. We would love for you to partner with us in this way.
My wife did an awesome job with her Monday Morning Update, so I'm just going to modify it to give you the rest of the details on this weekend. Saturday we did another movie night/block party. This time we used Slater Creek Park, the local city park. It's new and a great location, but we had a very low attendance at this movie night. In our evaluation we came up with a few possibilities. 1. The park is not easily visible from the highway - no drive-by stoppers. 2. Have to do more marketing if we use the park - We advertised on a mailer that primarily focused on the sermon series. In communities, it is a lot easier to gather a crowd. Not so much so in the city park. In the future, if we do stuff in the park, we will be sure to get something in the newspaper. 3. It was one of the hottest days we have had in quite a while. However, we enjoyed meeting the people who turned out for the event and are already planning and looking forward to one more summer block party in August. We will be collecting school supplies to give away in a needy community at that block party.
Our Sunday worship celebration was really incredible. Robby and the band did a great job leading us. We had a new drummer sit in with us, and he did a really good job. We also had our bass player back with us this week. He's been out a lot this summer as he has been working at a church camp. It was great to have him back.
For the message, today's movie in "God at the Movies" was Terminator: Salvation. The movie is an illustration of sacrifice, and second chances. I talked about how to make your life count and pointed out that the answer to that question both in Terminator and in the Bible is sacrifice. The way to meaning in life is giving your life away for God and giving your life away for other people. The message will soon be online at www.welcometothecrossroads.com Be sure to download and listen to it soon.
We had several new families stop by to check us out. One of the coolest stories is that a lady who had never been to church - ever in her 41 years- came. And loved it.... wept through the whole service. A couple of our ladies got to spend some time sharing with her and praying for her after the service. It is so beautiful to see God at work. We also had the opportunity to pray over a new believer in our congregation who will be leaving tomorrow for basic training for the army. We have another baptism coming up August 2. I love this part of church planting - seeing God drastically and dramatically change people's lives.
Continue praying for a meeting place for us. We are in immediate need of space. We are now consistently running about 20 in children's church. We do not have space for them inside. Meeting outside with them works as long as it doesn't rain. When colder weather arrives, we will have to be in a larger space. Please pray for our workers. As we grow, we will have to pull in more workers and right now we are pretty maxed out on volunteers. Pray that those of us who volunteer will be very flexible during this time of growth. We need grace for the journey as we work with children who have not been to church before. We want to provide opportunities for them to hear about Jesus and learn how He can become their Savior. Pray that we will never lose sight of why we do what we do in children's.
Also pray that we will be able to increase Robby's salary. Our goal is to eventually bring him on as a full-time staff member. Every week many of you read about the incredible job he is doing with The Crossroads. What you may not be aware of is that he works a full time job in Dallas to support his family. We would love to be able to bring Robby on full time, but we need several more monthly sponsors in order to do that. If you are not currently giving, please pray about helping us meet this goal. Feel free to share this need with others in your congregations who are praying for us so that they will ask the God of the universe to meet this need abundantly.
Monday, July 20, 2009
Apollo 11 and My iPhone - Potential
So, yesterday was the 40th anniversary of the Apollo 11 lunar landing, an amazing moment in the history of the United States, marking the fulfillment of one of JFK's promises in his inaugural address and a significant statement about U.S. progress as opposed to the Soviet Union. Not to mention, it was an incredible feat of human daring do and ingenuity.
Something I heard on the radio about the landing caught my attention. Apparently the computers inside most of our cell phones today are more powerful than the computer used to send Apollo 11 to the moon. Seriously? And what do I use my phone for? Playing Star Wars the Force Unleashed? Checking my Facebook? Updating my Twitter status? Certainly nothing near as incredible as sending men to the moon.
Now, don't get me wrong. My iPhone is an important tool in my life and my ministry. Some of the significant things I am able to do in fulfilling my God-given mission in life happen because of that phone. I keep track of my schedule, my to do lists, organizing events, making contact with guests, setting up appointments. All of my contacts' phone numbers, addresses, and emails are in that phone. I use it to give me directions to places I need to go. I use it to keep connected with friends, family, and people in my community. I keep people posted about things that are happening in my life so they feel connected to their pastor. I use it for studying for my sermons while I am on the go, having my quiet time with my wife in the mornings, and keeping track of ideas that God is giving me for the church, my blog, messages, etc. All of those are important tasks, and my iPhone really is a tool that I use for ministry.
But sending someone to the moon? Not hardly. Locked inside that little iPhone in my hand is the potential to send someone to the moon. I think I hardly ever really put it to the limits of what it is capable of doing. I have found the same thing to be true about my life all so often. Locked inside of me is the potential to do some incredible things, to unleash the power of God's Spirit in my life and the lives of the people around me, to truly make a difference in the world, to boldly go where no one has gone before. But too often my life is consumed with the ordinary. I'm messing with apps on my iPhone, watching some pointless television show, figuring out how I can keep up with the Joneses (and I live in Texas, so the Joneses have a lot to keep up with), or a host of other things that really aren't spending my life to its fullest potential.
You see, God says that his goal for every Christ-follower is for us to become just like his son (Rom. 8:28). Jesus even said, "I tell you the truth, anyone who has faith in me will do what I have been doing. He will do even greater things than these, because I am going to the Father" (Jn. 14:12). Seriously? I honestly cannot think of a time in my life where I have done anything even remotely close to the things Jesus did. Apparently I have within me somewhere the potential to do the things that Jesus did and even more. Now think about that for just a minute. What did Jesus do? He healed the sick, gave sight to the blind, caused the lame to walk, raised the dead, walked on water, fed crowds of thousands with a can of sardines and some crackers, walked on water, calmed storms, cast out demons, loved the unlovely, comforted the afflicted and afflicted the comfortable, hung out with the worst sorts of sinners, died on a cross for the sins of the world, came back from the dead defeating death and the grave and kicking the devil in the nuts in the process, and he did all that by the time he was in his mid-thirties. "He will do even greater things than these." Really?
It's like Jesus is the Apollo 11 lunar lander and I am the iPhone. I don't know that in this life I will ever live up to my potential, but I'd like to live a little closer to it. Here's the trick. It's not about me trying harder, striving more. The potential is already there inside of me. And that potential is the power of Christ living through me. The only way I can even come close to approaching my potential is as I allow Christ to live in and through me. And I want to do a better job of that. I want more of the power that raised Christ from the dead living through me and less of the power that put a Facebook app on the iPhone living through me.
Something I heard on the radio about the landing caught my attention. Apparently the computers inside most of our cell phones today are more powerful than the computer used to send Apollo 11 to the moon. Seriously? And what do I use my phone for? Playing Star Wars the Force Unleashed? Checking my Facebook? Updating my Twitter status? Certainly nothing near as incredible as sending men to the moon.
Now, don't get me wrong. My iPhone is an important tool in my life and my ministry. Some of the significant things I am able to do in fulfilling my God-given mission in life happen because of that phone. I keep track of my schedule, my to do lists, organizing events, making contact with guests, setting up appointments. All of my contacts' phone numbers, addresses, and emails are in that phone. I use it to give me directions to places I need to go. I use it to keep connected with friends, family, and people in my community. I keep people posted about things that are happening in my life so they feel connected to their pastor. I use it for studying for my sermons while I am on the go, having my quiet time with my wife in the mornings, and keeping track of ideas that God is giving me for the church, my blog, messages, etc. All of those are important tasks, and my iPhone really is a tool that I use for ministry.
But sending someone to the moon? Not hardly. Locked inside that little iPhone in my hand is the potential to send someone to the moon. I think I hardly ever really put it to the limits of what it is capable of doing. I have found the same thing to be true about my life all so often. Locked inside of me is the potential to do some incredible things, to unleash the power of God's Spirit in my life and the lives of the people around me, to truly make a difference in the world, to boldly go where no one has gone before. But too often my life is consumed with the ordinary. I'm messing with apps on my iPhone, watching some pointless television show, figuring out how I can keep up with the Joneses (and I live in Texas, so the Joneses have a lot to keep up with), or a host of other things that really aren't spending my life to its fullest potential.
You see, God says that his goal for every Christ-follower is for us to become just like his son (Rom. 8:28). Jesus even said, "I tell you the truth, anyone who has faith in me will do what I have been doing. He will do even greater things than these, because I am going to the Father" (Jn. 14:12). Seriously? I honestly cannot think of a time in my life where I have done anything even remotely close to the things Jesus did. Apparently I have within me somewhere the potential to do the things that Jesus did and even more. Now think about that for just a minute. What did Jesus do? He healed the sick, gave sight to the blind, caused the lame to walk, raised the dead, walked on water, fed crowds of thousands with a can of sardines and some crackers, walked on water, calmed storms, cast out demons, loved the unlovely, comforted the afflicted and afflicted the comfortable, hung out with the worst sorts of sinners, died on a cross for the sins of the world, came back from the dead defeating death and the grave and kicking the devil in the nuts in the process, and he did all that by the time he was in his mid-thirties. "He will do even greater things than these." Really?
It's like Jesus is the Apollo 11 lunar lander and I am the iPhone. I don't know that in this life I will ever live up to my potential, but I'd like to live a little closer to it. Here's the trick. It's not about me trying harder, striving more. The potential is already there inside of me. And that potential is the power of Christ living through me. The only way I can even come close to approaching my potential is as I allow Christ to live in and through me. And I want to do a better job of that. I want more of the power that raised Christ from the dead living through me and less of the power that put a Facebook app on the iPhone living through me.
Monday Morning Update
Maybe I should change the name of this column to "Whenever I Happen to Get around to Getting It Done Update." Seems like I never can get around to actually getting this thing out on Monday morning.
Oh well, yesterday was another incredible day at The Crossroads. We went in on Saturday evening this week to get the truck unloaded in hopes that not having the doors to the cheer gym open on Sunday morning would help with cooling. No such luck. It was still HOT by the time we got through.
The amazing thing is that now that we are in the peak of summer heat, our attendance has hit all time highs. We had 77 people in attendance this weekend. We are growing to the point that we requested one of our sponsor churches to buy us some new chairs this week. Continue to pray for God to provide us with a new meeting place before we outgrow our current meeting space.
We started a new message series this week called "God at the Movies" in which we are exploring the greatest story, the story of God's purpose and plan, as it is reflected in some of the biggest blockbuster movies this summer. This week we started with Star Trek and talked about fulfilling your destiny. It was a tough message to preach. The notion that we have a destiny, that there are certain things that are determined in our lives, particularly that our relationship with Christ comes from God's predestination of certain people to salvation is not especially popular. I tried to introduce the subject in a manner that was easily understandable and just began to open the subject for people. It's really important for people to grasp that life is not an accident, and that God is working out his purpose in our lives for his glory.
During the service, we presented a check for $5,000 to another church plant to use for purchasing a truck for moving their equipment. It is our commitment to be involved in helping plant at least one church a year. This is the first time that we have done this. We are excited that in our first year as a church plant, we are already involved in spreading the kingdom by helping to plant another church.
Robby and the band did an incredible job this week. We had been without our guitarist for the last two weeks. Having him back really gave us that extra something. Our people were really engaged in worship. Another high from the service was that one person made a decision for Christ, and another one rededicated their life to Christ. It was an awesome service.
Then, in the evening, LaRissa and I got to go with three friends to see Terminator:Salvation again. This is the movie that we will be looking at next week, and I wanted to see it again so I could have a better understanding of some of the storyline. We were blessed to have a really good friend watch all of our kids so we could go. I look forward to talking about how to make your life count.
Oh well, yesterday was another incredible day at The Crossroads. We went in on Saturday evening this week to get the truck unloaded in hopes that not having the doors to the cheer gym open on Sunday morning would help with cooling. No such luck. It was still HOT by the time we got through.
The amazing thing is that now that we are in the peak of summer heat, our attendance has hit all time highs. We had 77 people in attendance this weekend. We are growing to the point that we requested one of our sponsor churches to buy us some new chairs this week. Continue to pray for God to provide us with a new meeting place before we outgrow our current meeting space.
We started a new message series this week called "God at the Movies" in which we are exploring the greatest story, the story of God's purpose and plan, as it is reflected in some of the biggest blockbuster movies this summer. This week we started with Star Trek and talked about fulfilling your destiny. It was a tough message to preach. The notion that we have a destiny, that there are certain things that are determined in our lives, particularly that our relationship with Christ comes from God's predestination of certain people to salvation is not especially popular. I tried to introduce the subject in a manner that was easily understandable and just began to open the subject for people. It's really important for people to grasp that life is not an accident, and that God is working out his purpose in our lives for his glory.
During the service, we presented a check for $5,000 to another church plant to use for purchasing a truck for moving their equipment. It is our commitment to be involved in helping plant at least one church a year. This is the first time that we have done this. We are excited that in our first year as a church plant, we are already involved in spreading the kingdom by helping to plant another church.
Robby and the band did an incredible job this week. We had been without our guitarist for the last two weeks. Having him back really gave us that extra something. Our people were really engaged in worship. Another high from the service was that one person made a decision for Christ, and another one rededicated their life to Christ. It was an awesome service.
Then, in the evening, LaRissa and I got to go with three friends to see Terminator:Salvation again. This is the movie that we will be looking at next week, and I wanted to see it again so I could have a better understanding of some of the storyline. We were blessed to have a really good friend watch all of our kids so we could go. I look forward to talking about how to make your life count.
Wednesday, July 15, 2009
God's Travel Agent
On Monday, LaRissa and I, along with our friends Mark and Bridgette, had an exciting meeting that represents a significant next step toward the vision of The Crossroads. We met with God's Travel Agent, Tiffany Smith. Okay, that's not really her title. Officially, she is "Missions Mobilization Associate" for the Southern Baptists of Texas Convention. Her responsibilities encompass learning about missions efforts around the world, identifying needs, connecting with missionaries, and mobilizing mission teams from within the state of Texas to go all over the world to carry out the Great Commission. Tiffany is also passionate about what she does, and she has an infectious joy that spills over to others. Our wonderful, mission-minded, team of believers at The Crossroads have fallen in love with Tiffany and affectionately gave her the nickname "God's Travel Agent" because that really is what she does.
One of the central elements of the vision of The Crossroads is a passion for taking the gospel to the ends of the earth, for significantly impacting the world for the kingdom, and for seeing the fulfilment of the Great Commission in our lifetime. One of the pieces of that is identifying an unreached or unengaged people group (UPG or UEG) and adopting them as our own as a church. Now, for definitions. An unreached people group is a people group (group of people who share the same culture and same language) in which less than 2% of the population is Christian. An unengaged people group is a people group in which there are no Christians. For most of these people groups, they do not have the bible in their language and do not have a sustainable Christian movement. To make it easier to understand, if you live in one of these people groups, there is a great likelihood that you will be born, live your life, and die without ever even hearing the name of Jesus Christ. The task of fulfilling the Great Commission is really about penetrating these groups with the gospel.
So, the missions strategy for The Crossroads involves more than just taking sporadic mission trips to different parts of the world and feeling good about doing something. We want to be much more strategic. Our vision is to identify and adopt an unreached people group that we will do everything we can to reach that people group with the gospel and be a part of creating a sustainable church planting movement within that people group.
Our meeting with Tiffany was the first step in that process. We met with Tiffany to learn about how we can discover UPGs and UEGs, learn more about them, and begin the process of identifying which people group we will adopt as our own. We also talked to her about what adopting a people group would actually mean in terms of what we do, how to connect with a missionary who is trying to reach a UPG or UEG, and how we financially support people who are willing to go on mission.
This is just the beginning of the process, but it is an exciting start. We are so thankful for a great resource like Tiffany and for a church with a passion for reaching the world for Christ. We are truly blessed as a church because we are already light years ahead of where most churches are at this point.
One of the central elements of the vision of The Crossroads is a passion for taking the gospel to the ends of the earth, for significantly impacting the world for the kingdom, and for seeing the fulfilment of the Great Commission in our lifetime. One of the pieces of that is identifying an unreached or unengaged people group (UPG or UEG) and adopting them as our own as a church. Now, for definitions. An unreached people group is a people group (group of people who share the same culture and same language) in which less than 2% of the population is Christian. An unengaged people group is a people group in which there are no Christians. For most of these people groups, they do not have the bible in their language and do not have a sustainable Christian movement. To make it easier to understand, if you live in one of these people groups, there is a great likelihood that you will be born, live your life, and die without ever even hearing the name of Jesus Christ. The task of fulfilling the Great Commission is really about penetrating these groups with the gospel.
So, the missions strategy for The Crossroads involves more than just taking sporadic mission trips to different parts of the world and feeling good about doing something. We want to be much more strategic. Our vision is to identify and adopt an unreached people group that we will do everything we can to reach that people group with the gospel and be a part of creating a sustainable church planting movement within that people group.
Our meeting with Tiffany was the first step in that process. We met with Tiffany to learn about how we can discover UPGs and UEGs, learn more about them, and begin the process of identifying which people group we will adopt as our own. We also talked to her about what adopting a people group would actually mean in terms of what we do, how to connect with a missionary who is trying to reach a UPG or UEG, and how we financially support people who are willing to go on mission.
This is just the beginning of the process, but it is an exciting start. We are so thankful for a great resource like Tiffany and for a church with a passion for reaching the world for Christ. We are truly blessed as a church because we are already light years ahead of where most churches are at this point.
Monday, July 13, 2009
Monday Morning Update
Wow, another incredible weekend at The Crossroads. On Friday evening, several of us got together and canvassed a neighborhood passing out fliers about our family movie night coming up on Saturday.
The movie night is something we discovered last summer as a fun and successful outreach to families in Anna. Some of the needs we have heard expressed from people about Anna are: there isn't really a sense of community, people don't know their neighbors, and there's nothing for families to do. So, we found that putting on a movie for families is a great way to meet these needs.
We have a twelve foot, inflatable movie screen that we set up outdoors. We also serve popcorn, drinks, and movie candy, and we set up a bounce house for the kids to play in, all this under the stars on a hot Texas evening. People really dig getting out with their families to watch the movie. This time, my awesome, beautiful, and super intelligent wife came up with the idea of showing "The Wizard of Oz." It was perfect. Many of the parents are the right age to remember when The Wizard of Oz came on television once a year, and families gathered to watch it. Many of their children, in turn, have never seen it. So, with one movie, we got children, parents, and grandparents out to watch a movie. We had about 100 people turn out for the event, and had a really amazing time.
Our team did an awesome job, as always, meeting people and serving the community.
Then, on Sunday, we geared up for another hot Sunday in the cheer gym. Middle of the summer, and we had almost 75 people in attendance. Awesome! This week, in lieu of the typical Sunday sermon, I did a thing called "The Hot Seat." I sat on a stool, and people submitted questions about life, God, and the Bible. They could ask questions vocally, by writing them out, or by twittering questions to us. We posted each of these on the screen, and I answered them as they came in. It's always fun for me, and people really tend to enjoy it.
I did discover, however, that this exercise is a little more difficult now that I am in a new church plant reaching people who haven't been plugged in to church. My answers had to be a little bit longer because I could not automatically assume that people knew the Bible stories. I'm not sure I was entirely successful with that. I will have to work on that a little more in the future. On the other hand, it is a good way to expose people to an awful lot of bible teaching/doctrine/scripture in one setting.
This was a different experience, too, from when I have done it in the past because of the nature of the questions. In traditional church, the questions often tended to focus on matters of Bible trivia, minutiae of biblical knowledge, or apologetic (defending the faith) types of questions. In the church plant setting, however, the questions tended more toward questions about dealing with life and struggles with faith and being a Christian. I thought that was very cool. It shows we really are impacting people right where they are living. Anyhow, it was a lot of fun, and made for a great service. The podcast will be up at www.welcometothecrossroads.com later this week.
Then, on Sunday afternoon, we went to the Collin County Adventure Camp and baptized four people, two husbands and their wives. One of them was a guy who is in our men's group and decided it was time to go public with his decision to follow Christ. His wife was baptized as a child, but wanted to be baptized together with her husband to reaffirm her faith in Christ and in support of her husband's decision. The other couple was a guy who is getting ready to go into active duty in the army and his wife. They came to our church for the first time just last week. She committed her life to Christ in the service and the two of them wanted to be baptized. Awesome! Afterwards, we went over to one of the couples' home to have a cookout and celebrate. Great way to cap off an incredible weekend.
Next week we kick off our new message series "God at the Movies." We are going to be looking at some of the biblical themes that run through some of this summer's biggest blockbusters. I hope to see you there.
The movie night is something we discovered last summer as a fun and successful outreach to families in Anna. Some of the needs we have heard expressed from people about Anna are: there isn't really a sense of community, people don't know their neighbors, and there's nothing for families to do. So, we found that putting on a movie for families is a great way to meet these needs.
We have a twelve foot, inflatable movie screen that we set up outdoors. We also serve popcorn, drinks, and movie candy, and we set up a bounce house for the kids to play in, all this under the stars on a hot Texas evening. People really dig getting out with their families to watch the movie. This time, my awesome, beautiful, and super intelligent wife came up with the idea of showing "The Wizard of Oz." It was perfect. Many of the parents are the right age to remember when The Wizard of Oz came on television once a year, and families gathered to watch it. Many of their children, in turn, have never seen it. So, with one movie, we got children, parents, and grandparents out to watch a movie. We had about 100 people turn out for the event, and had a really amazing time.
Our team did an awesome job, as always, meeting people and serving the community.
Then, on Sunday, we geared up for another hot Sunday in the cheer gym. Middle of the summer, and we had almost 75 people in attendance. Awesome! This week, in lieu of the typical Sunday sermon, I did a thing called "The Hot Seat." I sat on a stool, and people submitted questions about life, God, and the Bible. They could ask questions vocally, by writing them out, or by twittering questions to us. We posted each of these on the screen, and I answered them as they came in. It's always fun for me, and people really tend to enjoy it.
I did discover, however, that this exercise is a little more difficult now that I am in a new church plant reaching people who haven't been plugged in to church. My answers had to be a little bit longer because I could not automatically assume that people knew the Bible stories. I'm not sure I was entirely successful with that. I will have to work on that a little more in the future. On the other hand, it is a good way to expose people to an awful lot of bible teaching/doctrine/scripture in one setting.
This was a different experience, too, from when I have done it in the past because of the nature of the questions. In traditional church, the questions often tended to focus on matters of Bible trivia, minutiae of biblical knowledge, or apologetic (defending the faith) types of questions. In the church plant setting, however, the questions tended more toward questions about dealing with life and struggles with faith and being a Christian. I thought that was very cool. It shows we really are impacting people right where they are living. Anyhow, it was a lot of fun, and made for a great service. The podcast will be up at www.welcometothecrossroads.com later this week.
Then, on Sunday afternoon, we went to the Collin County Adventure Camp and baptized four people, two husbands and their wives. One of them was a guy who is in our men's group and decided it was time to go public with his decision to follow Christ. His wife was baptized as a child, but wanted to be baptized together with her husband to reaffirm her faith in Christ and in support of her husband's decision. The other couple was a guy who is getting ready to go into active duty in the army and his wife. They came to our church for the first time just last week. She committed her life to Christ in the service and the two of them wanted to be baptized. Awesome! Afterwards, we went over to one of the couples' home to have a cookout and celebrate. Great way to cap off an incredible weekend.
Next week we kick off our new message series "God at the Movies." We are going to be looking at some of the biblical themes that run through some of this summer's biggest blockbusters. I hope to see you there.
Wednesday, July 8, 2009
Monday Morning Update
Okay, I know, it's nowhere near Monday, but we left town Sunday afternoon to go to my parents' house, and this is the first time I've had opportunity to sit down and write about the weekend.
We really had an incredible weekend at The Crossroads. It actually started Saturday as we celebrated the 4th of July. Several of us went to the home of some Crossroadies and ate brisket and played Guitar Hero World Tour together. We had a great time, laughed a lot, and just enjoyed being around each other. I thank God for the incredible people he has brought together at The Crossroads.
Afterwards, we went to the Anna High School football field to watch the Anna Fireworks display. A couple of friends of mine are responsible for putting on the show, and they did an incredible job. As people were arriving for the event, we gave out helium balloons to all the kids with The Crossroads' logo and website URL on them. Just another great way for us to make connection with the community and show God's love to them.
Sunday morning broke with heavy rain showers. This made for cooler temperatures, which was wonderful since we meet in a cheer gym that has questionable air conditioning at best. However, rainy days usually don't make for the best church attendance, especially when you are a new church plant reaching people who haven't been to church in years or who have never been to church. Couple that with the fact that it was the 4th of July weekend, and we just weren't expecting to see a lot of people. In fact, five minutes before the service started, it looked like it was just going to be our really committed people there.
But, God loves to surprise us. We had a group of old friends join to worship with us, and two new families also came. The service was great. Our team that went to Mexico shared about their experiences there. It's so awesome to see the passion for mission that we are already developing in this church that is less than a year old. They shared about how going to Mexico changed their view of things (That's why I love taking people on an international mission trip. It changes their view of the world and gives them a greater passion for the Great Commission.) and some of the awesome thinngs God did while we were there. At the end, I used a witnessing bracelet that we used with the kids in Mexico to explain the simple message of the gospel.
After the service was over, I looked through our decision cards and found that two of our guests had given their lives to Christ. One of those and another of our guests said they wanted to get baptized. So, on a rainy Sunday morning on a major holiday weekend when I really wasn't preaching, two people gave their lives to Christ. Amazing!
This weekend, we will be showing a movie in one of the neighborhoods in Anna and we will have a baptism on Sunday evening. Great times and really cool things are happening at The Crossroads.
We really had an incredible weekend at The Crossroads. It actually started Saturday as we celebrated the 4th of July. Several of us went to the home of some Crossroadies and ate brisket and played Guitar Hero World Tour together. We had a great time, laughed a lot, and just enjoyed being around each other. I thank God for the incredible people he has brought together at The Crossroads.
Afterwards, we went to the Anna High School football field to watch the Anna Fireworks display. A couple of friends of mine are responsible for putting on the show, and they did an incredible job. As people were arriving for the event, we gave out helium balloons to all the kids with The Crossroads' logo and website URL on them. Just another great way for us to make connection with the community and show God's love to them.
Sunday morning broke with heavy rain showers. This made for cooler temperatures, which was wonderful since we meet in a cheer gym that has questionable air conditioning at best. However, rainy days usually don't make for the best church attendance, especially when you are a new church plant reaching people who haven't been to church in years or who have never been to church. Couple that with the fact that it was the 4th of July weekend, and we just weren't expecting to see a lot of people. In fact, five minutes before the service started, it looked like it was just going to be our really committed people there.
But, God loves to surprise us. We had a group of old friends join to worship with us, and two new families also came. The service was great. Our team that went to Mexico shared about their experiences there. It's so awesome to see the passion for mission that we are already developing in this church that is less than a year old. They shared about how going to Mexico changed their view of things (That's why I love taking people on an international mission trip. It changes their view of the world and gives them a greater passion for the Great Commission.) and some of the awesome thinngs God did while we were there. At the end, I used a witnessing bracelet that we used with the kids in Mexico to explain the simple message of the gospel.
After the service was over, I looked through our decision cards and found that two of our guests had given their lives to Christ. One of those and another of our guests said they wanted to get baptized. So, on a rainy Sunday morning on a major holiday weekend when I really wasn't preaching, two people gave their lives to Christ. Amazing!
This weekend, we will be showing a movie in one of the neighborhoods in Anna and we will have a baptism on Sunday evening. Great times and really cool things are happening at The Crossroads.
Saturday, July 4, 2009
Men vs. Women at the Movies
Last night, a group of ladies from The Crossroads had a "Girls Night Out." They went out to eat at Chic-Fil-A, went to the movies, then went to Starbucks afterwards. From all reports, they had an incredible time. I am so excited to see how our women are really connecting with each other, forming a family, and reaching out to other women in the process.
But what interested me the most was the choice of movie. The ladies went to see My Sister's Keeper. As I understand it, the movie is about a mother who has a daughter with a rare form of leukemia. Her life revolves around meeting her daughter's every need in her battle against cancer. In pursuing treatment for her daughter, she and her husband take the radical step of having another daughter genetically engineered to be the perfect donor for their ailing daughter. There's more to it, but you get the jist of it. Now, I have not seen the movie, and really don't plan to, but from what I can tell, it's what my dad would call a "tear jerker." Several of our ladies confirmed there was a lot of crying throughout the movie.
Now, contrast that with some of the "Guys' Movie Nights" I've been to so far this summer. We have seen Taken (father kicks butt rescuing his daughter from prostitution ring), Star Trek (space battles, fistfights, adventure), Wolverine (guy with claws that extend from his fist and an indestructible skeleton takes on lots of bad guys), Terminator Salvation (John Connor battles in the future to rescue humanity from control of machines), Transformers (super cool cars turn into robots to battle evil robots who are trying to take over the world). We are also eagerly waiting for G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra (elite fighting force takes on superterrorists).
So, huge difference in the choice of movies between guys and girls. But the choice of movies is really insightful when it comes to understanding men and women. Our ladies went to see a movie that was high on emotional content and emphasized the value of relationships, two things that are integral to who women are and what they are about. Women tend to be much more connected to their emotions than men. Women have a much greater understanding of emotional expression and enjoy exploring the subtle nuances of emotion. But it is not just raw emotion that is important. It is emotion as it relates to relationships: mothers and daughters, husbands and wives, close friends. Men, if you are going to understand women, you have to understand this emotion/relationship component of who women are.
Now, let's contrast that with men. I can never imagine a group of men going to see a movie that is going to make them cry, that is heavy on emotional content, or that explores the emotional connections within a relationship. Men go see movies where there is fighting, where things blow up, where there is cool technology, where there is high suspense. Now, a lot of people (women, be careful here) will make light of men's choice in movies. But to do so is to miss in a fundamental way the incredible heart of a man. What are the common factors in the movies men like? Courage, valor, sacrifice, adventure, integrity, conviction, defending the innocent, pursuing your destiny, fighting for what is right, loyalty (that's a relationship issue, btw) and a host of other similar things. Now, what is common to all these things? They are all issues of character. If women connect to emotion and have a greater capacity for grasping emotion in the context of relationship, men connect with issues of character.
For men, emotion is not the important factor in our decisions and our actions. It is character that counts. What kind of man are you? How are you living from the reality of who you are deep down? What are your core convictions about life? Ladies, if you miss this, if you make light of this, you will fail to grasp what is at the heart of men.
Now, the truth is, we need each other. Men, we need women to help us gain understanding into relationship issues and connecting with the emotion that God has given to us. Women, you need men whose leadership, decision-making, and ability to stand up for his family and what is right are built on a strong sense of character. It's not that either of us are right or wrong about the movies we go see. Movies are simply a reflection of what is really important to us, and understanding what is central to those movies will help you gain access to what is really important to the men or women in your life.
But what interested me the most was the choice of movie. The ladies went to see My Sister's Keeper. As I understand it, the movie is about a mother who has a daughter with a rare form of leukemia. Her life revolves around meeting her daughter's every need in her battle against cancer. In pursuing treatment for her daughter, she and her husband take the radical step of having another daughter genetically engineered to be the perfect donor for their ailing daughter. There's more to it, but you get the jist of it. Now, I have not seen the movie, and really don't plan to, but from what I can tell, it's what my dad would call a "tear jerker." Several of our ladies confirmed there was a lot of crying throughout the movie.
Now, contrast that with some of the "Guys' Movie Nights" I've been to so far this summer. We have seen Taken (father kicks butt rescuing his daughter from prostitution ring), Star Trek (space battles, fistfights, adventure), Wolverine (guy with claws that extend from his fist and an indestructible skeleton takes on lots of bad guys), Terminator Salvation (John Connor battles in the future to rescue humanity from control of machines), Transformers (super cool cars turn into robots to battle evil robots who are trying to take over the world). We are also eagerly waiting for G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra (elite fighting force takes on superterrorists).
So, huge difference in the choice of movies between guys and girls. But the choice of movies is really insightful when it comes to understanding men and women. Our ladies went to see a movie that was high on emotional content and emphasized the value of relationships, two things that are integral to who women are and what they are about. Women tend to be much more connected to their emotions than men. Women have a much greater understanding of emotional expression and enjoy exploring the subtle nuances of emotion. But it is not just raw emotion that is important. It is emotion as it relates to relationships: mothers and daughters, husbands and wives, close friends. Men, if you are going to understand women, you have to understand this emotion/relationship component of who women are.
Now, let's contrast that with men. I can never imagine a group of men going to see a movie that is going to make them cry, that is heavy on emotional content, or that explores the emotional connections within a relationship. Men go see movies where there is fighting, where things blow up, where there is cool technology, where there is high suspense. Now, a lot of people (women, be careful here) will make light of men's choice in movies. But to do so is to miss in a fundamental way the incredible heart of a man. What are the common factors in the movies men like? Courage, valor, sacrifice, adventure, integrity, conviction, defending the innocent, pursuing your destiny, fighting for what is right, loyalty (that's a relationship issue, btw) and a host of other similar things. Now, what is common to all these things? They are all issues of character. If women connect to emotion and have a greater capacity for grasping emotion in the context of relationship, men connect with issues of character.
For men, emotion is not the important factor in our decisions and our actions. It is character that counts. What kind of man are you? How are you living from the reality of who you are deep down? What are your core convictions about life? Ladies, if you miss this, if you make light of this, you will fail to grasp what is at the heart of men.
Now, the truth is, we need each other. Men, we need women to help us gain understanding into relationship issues and connecting with the emotion that God has given to us. Women, you need men whose leadership, decision-making, and ability to stand up for his family and what is right are built on a strong sense of character. It's not that either of us are right or wrong about the movies we go see. Movies are simply a reflection of what is really important to us, and understanding what is central to those movies will help you gain access to what is really important to the men or women in your life.
Tuesday, June 30, 2009
GOD on Your iPOD: "If Today Was Your Last Day" by Nickelback
Well, I know, some of you think Nickelback is cheesy. I have to admit, I like their stuff, and this one is a really good one. It sounds some of the same notes as in "It's Not My Time" by Three Doors Down, so I won't rehash all the themes I pointed out in that one. If you want to hear the audio from that message, you can listen to the podcast here.
"If Today Was Your Last Day" is simply a song about making the most of the time you have here on earth. That is certainly a biblical concept. The Bible tells us repeatedly that our lives are short that they are determined and that we must make the most of every opportunity for doing God's work while we are here on earth.
I really like some of the stuff happening at the end of the video as people take opportunity to do some things to make a difference. I hope we as the church will start doing more things like this.
"If Today Was Your Last Day" is simply a song about making the most of the time you have here on earth. That is certainly a biblical concept. The Bible tells us repeatedly that our lives are short that they are determined and that we must make the most of every opportunity for doing God's work while we are here on earth.
I really like some of the stuff happening at the end of the video as people take opportunity to do some things to make a difference. I hope we as the church will start doing more things like this.
Monday Morning Update
Okay, I know it's not Monday morning, but I'm still jetlagged from our mission trip last week. And that's the first thing to report on. Last week nine of us from The Crossroads traveled along with friends from Fairview Church and Joshua's Crossing Church to Las Higuerillas, Mexico. Las Higuerillas is a small fishing village on the Gulf Coast about 50 miles southeast of Matomoros. We distributed beans, rice, and hygiene items along with gospel tracts, gospels of John, and Bibles, did Bible Schools in different areas of the village, and showed an evangelistic video. It was an amazing trip, and we saw the face of Jesus in so many ways. My wife kept a daily log of our time on the trip, so if you'd like to know more details and see the incredible ways God moved, you can read it at her blog. Our team will also be sharing in our service this week, so come hear from them about their experience of being on mission.
The thing that really excited me about this trip is that it represents our second international mission trip in the life of our church, and we aren't even a year old yet. We are intentionally building mission into the DNA of The Crossroads. We are even considering having new members fill out a passport application during the new members' class so they understand the importance of being ready and available to go whenever God gives the opportunity. Our next step is identifying an unreached people group that we will target as a church and begin to develop strategies for our church to be involved in reaching that people group for Christ. We'd love to have others involved, so please contact me if you want to join us in reaching the world for Christ.
Our services this weekend were really great. I love what Robby, our worship pastor, and the band do each week. They really get what it means to bring people into God's presence. We finished out our message series "HOME" this week by talking about how to live for Christ in the workplace. You can listen to the podcast here.
I was a little discouraged that our attendance was down some this week. We still had visitors, as we do each week, but our attendance was down from what it has been. The summer slump seems to be hitting us. Also, the temperature in the cheer gym where we meet was close to unbearable. We are working on a solution with our landlord, so please be in prayer that we get something to happen ASAP.
We are continuing to pursue some other options in terms of our meeting place. Please be in prayer for that also. I'll give you more details as I have them.
Finally, Sunday night we gathered together with Pin Oaks Christian Fellowship in Anna for a OnePrayer service. Pin Oaks' pastor is Phil Morgan, a great guy and a good friend with a heart for our city. We got together to simply worship and pray for the world and for our city. Our worship band, Chasing Lions, led us and did a super job. Praying together as the body of Christ with other believers in our city was a special experience, and I hope we are able to do it more often in the future.
The thing that really excited me about this trip is that it represents our second international mission trip in the life of our church, and we aren't even a year old yet. We are intentionally building mission into the DNA of The Crossroads. We are even considering having new members fill out a passport application during the new members' class so they understand the importance of being ready and available to go whenever God gives the opportunity. Our next step is identifying an unreached people group that we will target as a church and begin to develop strategies for our church to be involved in reaching that people group for Christ. We'd love to have others involved, so please contact me if you want to join us in reaching the world for Christ.
Our services this weekend were really great. I love what Robby, our worship pastor, and the band do each week. They really get what it means to bring people into God's presence. We finished out our message series "HOME" this week by talking about how to live for Christ in the workplace. You can listen to the podcast here.
I was a little discouraged that our attendance was down some this week. We still had visitors, as we do each week, but our attendance was down from what it has been. The summer slump seems to be hitting us. Also, the temperature in the cheer gym where we meet was close to unbearable. We are working on a solution with our landlord, so please be in prayer that we get something to happen ASAP.
We are continuing to pursue some other options in terms of our meeting place. Please be in prayer for that also. I'll give you more details as I have them.
Finally, Sunday night we gathered together with Pin Oaks Christian Fellowship in Anna for a OnePrayer service. Pin Oaks' pastor is Phil Morgan, a great guy and a good friend with a heart for our city. We got together to simply worship and pray for the world and for our city. Our worship band, Chasing Lions, led us and did a super job. Praying together as the body of Christ with other believers in our city was a special experience, and I hope we are able to do it more often in the future.
Tuesday, June 16, 2009
My Favorite New Commercial
It's politically incorrect and a little bit corny, but it makes me laugh every time I see it.
Monday, June 15, 2009
GOD on Your iPOD: "Know Your Enemy" by Green Day
The newest offering by California-based punk rock band Green Day is 21st Century Breakdown. "Know Your Enemy," the first single released from the album came out in April of this year.
The repeated tagline of the song is "Do you know the enemy? Do you know your enemy? Well, gotta know the enemy, wah hey." The song is actually about anarchy, common fodder for the antiestablisment tendencies of punk. Other lines in the song that further the anarchic theme are: "Violence is an energy against the enemy," "Revolt against the honor to obey," "Overthrow the effigy, the vast majority," "Silence is the enemy against your urgency, so rally up the demons in your soul."
So, seen through the lenses of punk, the song sounds a common call to rise against the status quo, against the control of restrictive government or any other system that seeks conformity.
But, if you look with God lenses, there's much more that can be gleaned. The basic question is a vital one: "Do you know the enemy?" Let's make this simple. Far too few people really understand who the enemy is in life. We spend our days fighting with other people, fighting with traffic, fighting with our government, fighting with our finances, fighting with worries and stresses. And as a result, we lose sight of the real enemy, Satan.
And the refusal to acknowledge his reality, his activity, and his presence, is exactly what he wants. If we do not recognize him, we get caught up in things that don't matter. We make other people, people created in God's image, the object of our hatred and anger. We get frustrated over things that we aren't supposed to try to handle in the first place. We allow little goadings by the devil to "spur us on to hate and evil deeds." We spend our time on things that don't matter. We listen to lies that he tells us to discourage us, to keep us silent, to keep us from taking action, to keep us from following our God-given dreams.
It is vitally important that we know our enemy. Who is he? A few things the Bible tells us about him. He is the father of lies and everything that comes from his mouth is a lie. He is the accuser of the saints, standing before God always making accusations against God's people. He is a deceiver. He makes evil look attractive. He is a serpent and a dragon, but he masquerades in resplendent beauty as an angel of light. He has set himself against God and God's people and seeks to devour us like a lion on the prowl.
From the punk rock standpoint, the anarchy encouraged in the song is certainly a tool that our enemy loves to use. But, I think you can probably make something else out of the song, turning it on it's head entirely if you see Satan as the real enemy instead of an ordered society. I'll leave it to you to make the rest of the applications from the song. Let me know what you get.
Sunday, June 14, 2009
Monday Morning Update
Okay, I stole the title from the same column on my wife's blog. She does an awesome job of keeping a lot of you posted on what goes on at The Crossroads each week. She has a beautiful heart and a wonderful perspective, and God often shows her some incredible things each week.
But I thought it would be beneficial if you heard from me each week as well. (And, it's an easy way for me to keep something going on my blog.)
This week was a great week at The Crossroads. Of course, having said that, every week truly is phenomenal at The Crossroads. I cannot wait to see what God is going to do.
We are currently in our second week of a message series called "HOME" in which we are talking about how to make your house more than just a hotel where people crash each night and eat a couple of meals. Making your house a home is about the relationships that exist between the people that live there. Alright, enough of that. I don't want to preach the sermon to you.
Our attendance has been down a little for the summer, but we continue to see new faces each week, and this week was no different. We had four first time visitors and a number of guests who are beginning to plug in and get more involved at The Crossroads. One of our guests even made a decision for Christ today.
Our music today was incredible. Our worship pastor has such a gift for bringing us into God's presence and being sensitive to the leadership of the Holy Spirit. For more on the worship set, you can check out LaRissa's blog. The song that God really seemed to use today was "Lead Me to the Cross." It's the first time that we've done this one, and worshipdude passed off leading this one to one of our female vocalists. Got to say, she really hit this one out of the park, and the song is so incredibly beautiful anyway. We literally had people standing with hands raised, sitting with heads bowed, falling on the floor kneeling and weeping. Beautiful moment. I really love the incredible people we get to work with each week at The Crossroads.
The message today was about honoring your father and mother. I am just amazed and humbled at how God moved in such an incredible way through a service focused on honoring your parents. The message wasn't anything radical. Just respect, obey, care for, and forgive your parents; yet, people were moved and lives were changed. We had some technical issues with capturing the audio, so no podcast this week, but you can download the manuscript at our website. Overall, just an incredible day!
On another note, a couple of things for you to pray for this week: I have an incredibly important meeting tomorrow afternoon that could have a significant impact on the future for The Crossroads. It is one possible opportunity for us for a new meeting place. Pray that God gives us incredible wisdom and direction as far as this opportunity is concerned. Also pray that God grants us immense favor with the man who owns the space we are looking at. We really need God to come through in a big way on this one.
Also, pray for a group of us from The Crossroads who will be traveling to Las Higuerillas, Mexico, next week. Las Higuerillas is a small fishing village on the Gulf Coast where there has been little missions activity. We will be distributing school supplies, Bibles, and showing the Jesus video in Spanish. Pray for safe travel and for God to be at work in an incredible way.
But I thought it would be beneficial if you heard from me each week as well. (And, it's an easy way for me to keep something going on my blog.)
This week was a great week at The Crossroads. Of course, having said that, every week truly is phenomenal at The Crossroads. I cannot wait to see what God is going to do.
We are currently in our second week of a message series called "HOME" in which we are talking about how to make your house more than just a hotel where people crash each night and eat a couple of meals. Making your house a home is about the relationships that exist between the people that live there. Alright, enough of that. I don't want to preach the sermon to you.
Our attendance has been down a little for the summer, but we continue to see new faces each week, and this week was no different. We had four first time visitors and a number of guests who are beginning to plug in and get more involved at The Crossroads. One of our guests even made a decision for Christ today.
Our music today was incredible. Our worship pastor has such a gift for bringing us into God's presence and being sensitive to the leadership of the Holy Spirit. For more on the worship set, you can check out LaRissa's blog. The song that God really seemed to use today was "Lead Me to the Cross." It's the first time that we've done this one, and worshipdude passed off leading this one to one of our female vocalists. Got to say, she really hit this one out of the park, and the song is so incredibly beautiful anyway. We literally had people standing with hands raised, sitting with heads bowed, falling on the floor kneeling and weeping. Beautiful moment. I really love the incredible people we get to work with each week at The Crossroads.
The message today was about honoring your father and mother. I am just amazed and humbled at how God moved in such an incredible way through a service focused on honoring your parents. The message wasn't anything radical. Just respect, obey, care for, and forgive your parents; yet, people were moved and lives were changed. We had some technical issues with capturing the audio, so no podcast this week, but you can download the manuscript at our website. Overall, just an incredible day!
On another note, a couple of things for you to pray for this week: I have an incredibly important meeting tomorrow afternoon that could have a significant impact on the future for The Crossroads. It is one possible opportunity for us for a new meeting place. Pray that God gives us incredible wisdom and direction as far as this opportunity is concerned. Also pray that God grants us immense favor with the man who owns the space we are looking at. We really need God to come through in a big way on this one.
Also, pray for a group of us from The Crossroads who will be traveling to Las Higuerillas, Mexico, next week. Las Higuerillas is a small fishing village on the Gulf Coast where there has been little missions activity. We will be distributing school supplies, Bibles, and showing the Jesus video in Spanish. Pray for safe travel and for God to be at work in an incredible way.
Wednesday, June 10, 2009
GOD on Your iPOD: "Lifeline" by Papa Roach
Wow, it's been a reeeallly long time since I blogged about anything, but I got an idea for a new feature on the blog.
In May, we finished up a message series at The Crossroads called "GOD on your iPOD" in which we looked at the message of God's love that is written into so many of the songs that connect with us and that we listen to each week. Now, a little more explanation, I'm not talking about explicitly "Christian" songs. In fact, that was one of the requirements. The songs had to be from artists that did not exclusively bill themselves as Christian artists, although some of the artists may have been Christ followers. The songs also had to have charted well in some area within the last year. Beyond that, we were just looking for songs that showed that God speaks through and to people through music. If you'd like to hear more, you can listen to all of them on The Crossroads' podcast at http://www.welcometothecrossroads.com/.
I had more fun with this message series than any I have ever done before. We already have committed to doing a message series like this each year. I was really sad to see the series come to an end, and there were still so many songs that could have been a part of this series.
So, I've decided to just keep you posted on some of the music out there that peaks my interest, that causes me to think, and that connects me with the greater story of God's love as I encounter them. Maybe I'm the only one that will see the message in some of them, but I hope it will start some discussion and keep you listening to music with a discerning ear and listening for the still, small voice of God as he sings his love songs over us.
Alright, well, the first song I want to introduce you to is by the punk/hard rock band Papa Roach. The song is called "Lifeline." I first heard the song a month or so ago and immediately was captured by it. It talks about someone who has had some really big struggles in life and wants someone to throw them a lifeline. Listen and let me know what you think.
In May, we finished up a message series at The Crossroads called "GOD on your iPOD" in which we looked at the message of God's love that is written into so many of the songs that connect with us and that we listen to each week. Now, a little more explanation, I'm not talking about explicitly "Christian" songs. In fact, that was one of the requirements. The songs had to be from artists that did not exclusively bill themselves as Christian artists, although some of the artists may have been Christ followers. The songs also had to have charted well in some area within the last year. Beyond that, we were just looking for songs that showed that God speaks through and to people through music. If you'd like to hear more, you can listen to all of them on The Crossroads' podcast at http://www.welcometothecrossroads.com/.
I had more fun with this message series than any I have ever done before. We already have committed to doing a message series like this each year. I was really sad to see the series come to an end, and there were still so many songs that could have been a part of this series.
So, I've decided to just keep you posted on some of the music out there that peaks my interest, that causes me to think, and that connects me with the greater story of God's love as I encounter them. Maybe I'm the only one that will see the message in some of them, but I hope it will start some discussion and keep you listening to music with a discerning ear and listening for the still, small voice of God as he sings his love songs over us.
Alright, well, the first song I want to introduce you to is by the punk/hard rock band Papa Roach. The song is called "Lifeline." I first heard the song a month or so ago and immediately was captured by it. It talks about someone who has had some really big struggles in life and wants someone to throw them a lifeline. Listen and let me know what you think.
Monday, March 23, 2009
Why Social Media Matters
If you are still wondering about the importance and value of social media, here's a rundown of my day and how my networks allowed some really cool opportunities.
I started the day having breakfast with a Facebook, pastor friend. We talked about different ways of connecting with people in our congregations. By the time breakfast was over, I had convinced him that he really needed to give Twitter a try. I hope to be able to connect with him there soon.
Next, I spent some time on Facebook connecting with some old friends from high school and college. One of them contacted me within an hour of my connecting with him to share some pretty heavy stuff. I was able to offer some encouragement and prayer and share some of the struggles from my own life. I really hope I am able to continue to redevelop this friendship with a really cool guy who has faced some tough times.
Then, I sent out a couple of tweets based on Sunday's message that were picked up by a couple of other guys in the Twittersphere and passed along to their network. Pastors, if you aren't using social networking for getting one more touch with people during the week and to reinforce what you taught on Sunday, you are missing out. It's neat to see the message you poured your heart and soul into the week before having more of an impact than just a few minutes on Sunday morning.
I also added a new app for Facebook called Seesmic that sends feed from your friends' Facebook status updates to your desktop. Very cool and makes staying connected with people faster and easier.
After lunch, I had to go to Jo-Ann's Fabrics to pick up some Spandex to use as a screen for our projector in worship. I tweeted about this, which sparked an ongoing conversation between friends and church members (one of them hundreds of miles away) on both Twitter and Facebook, very cool.
Then, a DJ from a local classic rock station contacted me via Twitter to ask if he could get an invitation to come visit our church sometime. That is so cool that it almost made me burst, that a guy out of the blue just contacts me via Twitter because he has been following me and heard about our church and wants to know if he can come. If you don't see the value of social networking, THERE IT IS! Don't know if this guy knows Christ, but he may get to know him BECAUSE OF TWITTER, PEOPLE! Oh, yeah, and I told the guy we'd love for him to come check us out.
Finally, on Facebook I got reconnected with one of my cousins who I haven't seen in a couple of years.
Totally awesome day on social networking.
I started the day having breakfast with a Facebook, pastor friend. We talked about different ways of connecting with people in our congregations. By the time breakfast was over, I had convinced him that he really needed to give Twitter a try. I hope to be able to connect with him there soon.
Next, I spent some time on Facebook connecting with some old friends from high school and college. One of them contacted me within an hour of my connecting with him to share some pretty heavy stuff. I was able to offer some encouragement and prayer and share some of the struggles from my own life. I really hope I am able to continue to redevelop this friendship with a really cool guy who has faced some tough times.
Then, I sent out a couple of tweets based on Sunday's message that were picked up by a couple of other guys in the Twittersphere and passed along to their network. Pastors, if you aren't using social networking for getting one more touch with people during the week and to reinforce what you taught on Sunday, you are missing out. It's neat to see the message you poured your heart and soul into the week before having more of an impact than just a few minutes on Sunday morning.
I also added a new app for Facebook called Seesmic that sends feed from your friends' Facebook status updates to your desktop. Very cool and makes staying connected with people faster and easier.
After lunch, I had to go to Jo-Ann's Fabrics to pick up some Spandex to use as a screen for our projector in worship. I tweeted about this, which sparked an ongoing conversation between friends and church members (one of them hundreds of miles away) on both Twitter and Facebook, very cool.
Then, a DJ from a local classic rock station contacted me via Twitter to ask if he could get an invitation to come visit our church sometime. That is so cool that it almost made me burst, that a guy out of the blue just contacts me via Twitter because he has been following me and heard about our church and wants to know if he can come. If you don't see the value of social networking, THERE IT IS! Don't know if this guy knows Christ, but he may get to know him BECAUSE OF TWITTER, PEOPLE! Oh, yeah, and I told the guy we'd love for him to come check us out.
Finally, on Facebook I got reconnected with one of my cousins who I haven't seen in a couple of years.
Totally awesome day on social networking.
Tuesday, March 17, 2009
How to Handle a Financial Crisis
The audio for How to Handle a Financial Crisis is now up at www.welcometothecrossroads.com. The overarching principle is, get your focus off of money.
Monday, March 16, 2009
The Kings and I
Last night I was pleasantly surprised by NBC's new series Kings. I had heard about the show earlier in the week, and was anxious to see it, although I did not expect much from it.
If you didn't catch it (I really encourage you to go check it out at NBC.com), here's a synopsis. The show is a modern retelling of the biblical stories of Saul and David. The first episode begins with King Silas (Saul) of the Kingdom of Gilboa celebrating the inauguration of the newly rebuilt capital city of Shiloh. The setting looks very much like a shiny new version of a 21st Century American City.
Silas has been waiting for Reverend Samuels (the prophet Samuel), his spiritual advisor, to appear to pray an invocation over the ceremony. Reverend Samuels does not appear, so Silas begins the ceremony without him. He recounts to the gathered multitude how he, a former soldier, had been chosen by God to be the king of the newly formed kingdom. The sign of God's choice of him as king was a flock of butterflies that flew around him and settled on his head like a crown. The crowd goes wild.
In the meantime, Rev. Samuels has been delayed because he is having car trouble. He stops at a rural farm house belonging to a woman named Jesse Shepherd. She lives with her seven sons. Her husband had died fighting in the war of unification (the war in which Silas rose to power). Her youngest son David helps repair the Rev. Samuels's car. Samuels wipes a smudge from David's forehead (anointing?) and gives him his broken gold watch. He calls David the boy who can fix anything.
Two years later, the kingdom is engaged in a war with the kingdom of Gath along the northern border. David and his brothers are soldiers in the army. The Gittites(?) have a technological and firepower advantage with massive tanks known as (you guessed it) Goliaths. Two Gilboans are being held hostage, and David risks life and limb to cross enemy lines and rescue the hostages. In the process, he stands up against and miraculously destroys a Goliath tank. One of the hostages rescued by David happens to be Prince Jack (Jonathan), son of King Silas. Okay, so you kind of get the picture. Silas rewards David with a post in his administration and he rises to prominence.
Now, to my evaluation. The first thing I was delighted and surprised to see was the faithfulness to the main points of the biblical story line. There are a few artistic liberties, and many of these simply relate to converting a three thousand year old story into a 21st century setting. The role of God in the story is not overlooked. In fact, it is even highlighted. Silas clearly believes God has placed him in the position as king, although he certainly takes liberty with that election (Wow, don't we all do that!). Reverend Samuels clearly represents the voice of God. In a line almost directly from Scripture, Samuels tells Silas, "The Lord has rejected you as king. He is going to take your kingdom from you and give it to a man after his own heart." David appears as a young man liked by all who is discovering God's calling for his life.
I also loved the character analysis of King Silas in the program. Silas appears as a man drunk on power who also has delusions related to God's choice of him as king. He has old war wounds that plague him (Saul's headaches?), and a brother-in-law who has a measure of control over him that causes him to make poor decisions and puts tremendous pressure on him (Is this the spirit from the Lord sent to torment Saul?). He has a lover in another town and an illegitimate son by her (possibly the Ishbosheth ("man of shame") who becomes king after Saul and Jonathan's deaths). He sees David as an asset politically, but is enraged by David's relationship with his daughter Michelle (Michal).
There was really only one point in the story that I thought took some liberties with the biblical story, and that is the character of Jack (Jonathan). The program presents Jack as a womanizing, partying, loose cannon who also is a valiant, risk, taking soldier desperately trying to please his father. I'm not sure this is necessarily an accurate portrayal of the biblical Jonathan. However, after rereading the Scripture, I think you could certainly make a case for the fact that Jonathan appears to be an adventurous, independent, young man, perhaps with some sense of entitlement, who shows incredible, albeit, sometimes risky bravery. And maybe that kind of character would also produce a wild lifestyle.
The aspect of Jack's character that is more troubling is that it appears that his womanizing tendencies are actually a cover for the fact that he is a homosexual. Silas berates Jack at one point telling him he knows about what he does with young boys at night and that if he is going to one day be king he will have to learn to control his desires. I do not think the Scripture portrays Jonathan as a homosexual, or the relationship between Jonathan and David as anything other than a deep friendship. I am troubled with what the show may do with the relationship between Jonathan and David. However, I think we need to be honest, the language that the Bible uses for the relationship between Jonathan and David is the most intense languge the Bible ever uses for describing the relationship between two men. I think we should at least be willing to enter into this conversation, to wrestle with the nature of the relationship between Jonathan and David, to be willing to discuss it with people who have questions, and to demonstrate through our relationships with other men what healthy, biblical friendship is all about. You can have a Bromance without it being anything other than deep friendship. So, we'll see where this aspect of the show goes.
If nothing else, Kings has inspired me to study the biblical story of Saul and David with more intensity. I hope that it does the same for other people and gives opportunity for discussions with others about the whole story of God's redemption.
If you didn't catch it (I really encourage you to go check it out at NBC.com), here's a synopsis. The show is a modern retelling of the biblical stories of Saul and David. The first episode begins with King Silas (Saul) of the Kingdom of Gilboa celebrating the inauguration of the newly rebuilt capital city of Shiloh. The setting looks very much like a shiny new version of a 21st Century American City.
Silas has been waiting for Reverend Samuels (the prophet Samuel), his spiritual advisor, to appear to pray an invocation over the ceremony. Reverend Samuels does not appear, so Silas begins the ceremony without him. He recounts to the gathered multitude how he, a former soldier, had been chosen by God to be the king of the newly formed kingdom. The sign of God's choice of him as king was a flock of butterflies that flew around him and settled on his head like a crown. The crowd goes wild.
In the meantime, Rev. Samuels has been delayed because he is having car trouble. He stops at a rural farm house belonging to a woman named Jesse Shepherd. She lives with her seven sons. Her husband had died fighting in the war of unification (the war in which Silas rose to power). Her youngest son David helps repair the Rev. Samuels's car. Samuels wipes a smudge from David's forehead (anointing?) and gives him his broken gold watch. He calls David the boy who can fix anything.
Two years later, the kingdom is engaged in a war with the kingdom of Gath along the northern border. David and his brothers are soldiers in the army. The Gittites(?) have a technological and firepower advantage with massive tanks known as (you guessed it) Goliaths. Two Gilboans are being held hostage, and David risks life and limb to cross enemy lines and rescue the hostages. In the process, he stands up against and miraculously destroys a Goliath tank. One of the hostages rescued by David happens to be Prince Jack (Jonathan), son of King Silas. Okay, so you kind of get the picture. Silas rewards David with a post in his administration and he rises to prominence.
Now, to my evaluation. The first thing I was delighted and surprised to see was the faithfulness to the main points of the biblical story line. There are a few artistic liberties, and many of these simply relate to converting a three thousand year old story into a 21st century setting. The role of God in the story is not overlooked. In fact, it is even highlighted. Silas clearly believes God has placed him in the position as king, although he certainly takes liberty with that election (Wow, don't we all do that!). Reverend Samuels clearly represents the voice of God. In a line almost directly from Scripture, Samuels tells Silas, "The Lord has rejected you as king. He is going to take your kingdom from you and give it to a man after his own heart." David appears as a young man liked by all who is discovering God's calling for his life.
I also loved the character analysis of King Silas in the program. Silas appears as a man drunk on power who also has delusions related to God's choice of him as king. He has old war wounds that plague him (Saul's headaches?), and a brother-in-law who has a measure of control over him that causes him to make poor decisions and puts tremendous pressure on him (Is this the spirit from the Lord sent to torment Saul?). He has a lover in another town and an illegitimate son by her (possibly the Ishbosheth ("man of shame") who becomes king after Saul and Jonathan's deaths). He sees David as an asset politically, but is enraged by David's relationship with his daughter Michelle (Michal).
There was really only one point in the story that I thought took some liberties with the biblical story, and that is the character of Jack (Jonathan). The program presents Jack as a womanizing, partying, loose cannon who also is a valiant, risk, taking soldier desperately trying to please his father. I'm not sure this is necessarily an accurate portrayal of the biblical Jonathan. However, after rereading the Scripture, I think you could certainly make a case for the fact that Jonathan appears to be an adventurous, independent, young man, perhaps with some sense of entitlement, who shows incredible, albeit, sometimes risky bravery. And maybe that kind of character would also produce a wild lifestyle.
The aspect of Jack's character that is more troubling is that it appears that his womanizing tendencies are actually a cover for the fact that he is a homosexual. Silas berates Jack at one point telling him he knows about what he does with young boys at night and that if he is going to one day be king he will have to learn to control his desires. I do not think the Scripture portrays Jonathan as a homosexual, or the relationship between Jonathan and David as anything other than a deep friendship. I am troubled with what the show may do with the relationship between Jonathan and David. However, I think we need to be honest, the language that the Bible uses for the relationship between Jonathan and David is the most intense languge the Bible ever uses for describing the relationship between two men. I think we should at least be willing to enter into this conversation, to wrestle with the nature of the relationship between Jonathan and David, to be willing to discuss it with people who have questions, and to demonstrate through our relationships with other men what healthy, biblical friendship is all about. You can have a Bromance without it being anything other than deep friendship. So, we'll see where this aspect of the show goes.
If nothing else, Kings has inspired me to study the biblical story of Saul and David with more intensity. I hope that it does the same for other people and gives opportunity for discussions with others about the whole story of God's redemption.
Saturday, March 14, 2009
Beautiful and Truly Amazing
Il Divo performs Amazing Grace in the Colisseum in Rome. As you watch this, just consider the fact that they are performing it in the place where hundreds, maybe thousands, of Christians gave their lives in obedience to and love for their Lord.
Wednesday, March 11, 2009
I Hate Church Signs 2
I think I have just about talked myself out of the billboard idea. Every person I have talked to says effective billboards have to be up for at least six months. That's six months of the same message. What happens if your design idea happens to be one that doesn't really draw people in? Then you are stuck with it for six months.
For the same price, we could do six direct mail pieces utilizing different themes and designs. Additionally, we are doing a movie themed series this summer. I think sending out a direct mail piece with a movie ticket theme would work better anyway.
We still may consider the billboard sometime in the future. For now, we are looking at other marketing ideas as well. Please, let me know what you have seen as the most effective marketing tools in your area.
For the same price, we could do six direct mail pieces utilizing different themes and designs. Additionally, we are doing a movie themed series this summer. I think sending out a direct mail piece with a movie ticket theme would work better anyway.
We still may consider the billboard sometime in the future. For now, we are looking at other marketing ideas as well. Please, let me know what you have seen as the most effective marketing tools in your area.
Tuesday, March 10, 2009
God Wants You to Have Great Sex
God gets great glory when we take absolute delight in our sexual lives. That's the premise behind our message series "pillowtalk." The audio for all four weeks of "pillowtalk" are now available for download at www.welcometothecrossroads.com.
This has been an awesome message series that I have really enjoyed. And, the homework is great!
This has been an awesome message series that I have really enjoyed. And, the homework is great!
I Hate Church Signs
What is the most effective means of getting people to know about your church? Obviously the best advertisement for your church is a satisfied customer, when someone from your church takes the time to tell a friend about their church and invites them to come experience your church.
But what else? One of my pet peeves is church signs, the kind that have cutesy little sayings on them that only really make sense to people who have been in the church for twenty plus years. "Seven days without prayer makes one weak." "What's missing from this ch__ch? UR." Or, my personal favorite, "Hope wishes. Faith omniscies." I have two theology degrees and a couple of years toward a Ph.D. and I'm not sure I understand that one. All that to say, I'm generally opposed to those kinds of church signs. No, I hate them. They are rarely understandable to unchurched people, sometimes are offensive, and often only further the stereotypes that the unchurched have about us.
Yet, today, I found myself considering the possibility of a church sign. Not the cutesy, slogan, cliched type. Just a sign advertising an upcoming message series and channeling people to our website. Since we are a mobile church, we don't have a "presence" that people see throughout the week. A billboard is available in our town, which got me to thinking about the possibility. Still thinking about it.
But, I'm wondering, what is the most effective marketing tool for churches? As I have asked other guys, it seems that direct mail is still the predominant means of getting people at large to know about our churches. We have done several of these at The Crossroads and plan to continue to use them. But even the most effective direct mail pieces get a return of about 1%. That means, if you send out a 5,000 piece mailer, you can expect about 50 people to visit sometime within the next year. Not bad, but certainly not a terribly efficient marketing tool.
It would seem that effectiveness and use among church planters falls off after that with things like billboards, radio, newspaper, and television. All of which are impersonal means of connecting with people.
I spoke with the sales manager from a major car dealership in the DFW Metroplex this afternoon about marketing. He told me that they have had great success with direct mail, followed by billboards. He also said they have used Facebook advertising with some effectiveness.
The golden nugget in this conversation, however, was that they are now discovering that the most effective means of marketing is currently text messaging. Wow! Here's a totally free marketing tool that uses the personal touch of you people and gets the word out in a rapid manner. I'm thinking we can apply this to Facebook and Twitter as well. The most effective marketing tool is one most of your people have in their hands every Sunday morning, their phone. I know I plan to encourage our people this Sunday morning, as soon as church is over, to send out a text to a friend telling about The Crossroads.
But what else? One of my pet peeves is church signs, the kind that have cutesy little sayings on them that only really make sense to people who have been in the church for twenty plus years. "Seven days without prayer makes one weak." "What's missing from this ch__ch? UR." Or, my personal favorite, "Hope wishes. Faith omniscies." I have two theology degrees and a couple of years toward a Ph.D. and I'm not sure I understand that one. All that to say, I'm generally opposed to those kinds of church signs. No, I hate them. They are rarely understandable to unchurched people, sometimes are offensive, and often only further the stereotypes that the unchurched have about us.
Yet, today, I found myself considering the possibility of a church sign. Not the cutesy, slogan, cliched type. Just a sign advertising an upcoming message series and channeling people to our website. Since we are a mobile church, we don't have a "presence" that people see throughout the week. A billboard is available in our town, which got me to thinking about the possibility. Still thinking about it.
But, I'm wondering, what is the most effective marketing tool for churches? As I have asked other guys, it seems that direct mail is still the predominant means of getting people at large to know about our churches. We have done several of these at The Crossroads and plan to continue to use them. But even the most effective direct mail pieces get a return of about 1%. That means, if you send out a 5,000 piece mailer, you can expect about 50 people to visit sometime within the next year. Not bad, but certainly not a terribly efficient marketing tool.
It would seem that effectiveness and use among church planters falls off after that with things like billboards, radio, newspaper, and television. All of which are impersonal means of connecting with people.
I spoke with the sales manager from a major car dealership in the DFW Metroplex this afternoon about marketing. He told me that they have had great success with direct mail, followed by billboards. He also said they have used Facebook advertising with some effectiveness.
The golden nugget in this conversation, however, was that they are now discovering that the most effective means of marketing is currently text messaging. Wow! Here's a totally free marketing tool that uses the personal touch of you people and gets the word out in a rapid manner. I'm thinking we can apply this to Facebook and Twitter as well. The most effective marketing tool is one most of your people have in their hands every Sunday morning, their phone. I know I plan to encourage our people this Sunday morning, as soon as church is over, to send out a text to a friend telling about The Crossroads.
Wednesday, February 25, 2009
Was Jesus Ever Bored?
I'm currently reading The Gospel According to Starbucks by Len Sweet. The book, in a nutshell, is about how much of what we love in the Corporate Java Giant represents the kind of life Jesus expects of his followers. (Okay, that's a vast oversimplification, and Len might not be too happy with that synopsis, but it's the best I got after a day of teaching fourth graders.)
So, there's one line that grabbed me and just keeps coming back to me: "Do you think Jesus ever got bored?" My loud answer is "NO! Of course Jesus never got bored." But what bothers me is what that says about my life. Why do I at times find myself bored? Maybe it's because I don't have the clarity of purpose and personal life mission that Jesus did. Maybe it's because I get myself involved with stuff that isn't worth my time. Maybe I don't always have a razor sharp focus on what my life is about. Maybe I don't listen as carefully to the promptings of the Holy Spirit as Jesus did.
The hardest answer, and maybe the most truthful, is that sometimes I am going through the motions. I am doing all the things I am supposed to be doing. I am working hard, being there for my wife and kids, showing love to other people, but I'm on autopilot, cruise control. And when I fall into that slump, I get bored. No more autopilot, cruise control faith for me. From now on, boredom is a warning signal, a sign that I need to refocus on what God has put me here for. From now on, boredom is a sin for me, and I don't intend to wallow in it for very long.
So, there's one line that grabbed me and just keeps coming back to me: "Do you think Jesus ever got bored?" My loud answer is "NO! Of course Jesus never got bored." But what bothers me is what that says about my life. Why do I at times find myself bored? Maybe it's because I don't have the clarity of purpose and personal life mission that Jesus did. Maybe it's because I get myself involved with stuff that isn't worth my time. Maybe I don't always have a razor sharp focus on what my life is about. Maybe I don't listen as carefully to the promptings of the Holy Spirit as Jesus did.
The hardest answer, and maybe the most truthful, is that sometimes I am going through the motions. I am doing all the things I am supposed to be doing. I am working hard, being there for my wife and kids, showing love to other people, but I'm on autopilot, cruise control. And when I fall into that slump, I get bored. No more autopilot, cruise control faith for me. From now on, boredom is a warning signal, a sign that I need to refocus on what God has put me here for. From now on, boredom is a sin for me, and I don't intend to wallow in it for very long.
Thursday, February 19, 2009
Speaking the Truth in Fun
One of the core values at The Crossroads Community Church is fun. Alright, officially, it is, "Do everything with joy." We believe being a follower of Jesus Christ means having "unspeakable joy" and it should be expressed in everything we do. So we have a really good time with each other and in our relationship with God and in serving him and in our weekly worship.
So, I got to thinking about the value of communicating God's message with joy. There are lots of different styles of preaching. There's loud, red in the face, fire and brimstone preaching. There's somber, liturgical, appeals to the reason type of preaching. There's impassioned, vision-casting, challenge people to commit type of preaching. There's emotion filled, broken-hearted style preaching. There's all kinds of preaching, and there is certainly value to many of them.
But the one I'm really digging is fun in preaching. I guess I thought about it because of the message series we are involved in right now. Pillow Talk is about how to have the satisfying, fulfilling, amazing sex life that God wants you to have. And we are having lots of fun with it. We are dealing with a pretty sensitive subject, and touching on lots of sensitive issues in the midst of it, stuff like sexual dysfunction, sexual tension in a marriage, bad sex, what's appropriate when it comes to sex, sexual addiction, sexual sin, the burdens of a sexual past, getting through all of this stuff to a satisfying sex life in marriage. It's pretty heavy stuff.
But we are injecting a good deal of humor and fun and lightheartedness in the midst of the heavy stuff. Don't get me wrong, we are in no way making light of the beauty and the sacredness of sex or of the seriousness of sexual sin. We just soften some of the blows by balancing serious stuff with humor.
And what I am finding is that humor opens the door into people's hearts so that they let some of the more serious stuff in. For example, this week, I addressed the men in the audience. I talked to them about how, as men, we often bring a lot of pride to the issue of sex within our marriages. We feel like we are sexual gods and if there is something wrong with our sex lives, it must mean there is something wrong with our wives. We feel like men are just supposed to know about sex. As a result, many a wife goes around extremely dissatisfied, and maybe even resentful of her sexual relationship. Pretty heavy stuff. But we used humor to approach the subject, and as a result, the men went away delighted with the message.
The men took away two principles from the message: #1 I need to love, honor, and cherish my wife 24/7 if I want her to take delight in our sex life. #2 I have to become the expert at knowing what pleases my wife. Awesome principles that they were incredibly receptive to because we had fun.
The Bible says "A cheerful heart is good medicine" (Prov. 17:22), or in the words of Mary Poppins, "A spoonful of sugar makes the medicine go down." The truth of God's word is the medicine that many sick souls needs. If we at times present that truth with joy, fun, energy, and excitement, it may be just the opportunity for the seeker to open their heart to the incredible message of life and hope found in Jesus Christ.
So, I got to thinking about the value of communicating God's message with joy. There are lots of different styles of preaching. There's loud, red in the face, fire and brimstone preaching. There's somber, liturgical, appeals to the reason type of preaching. There's impassioned, vision-casting, challenge people to commit type of preaching. There's emotion filled, broken-hearted style preaching. There's all kinds of preaching, and there is certainly value to many of them.
But the one I'm really digging is fun in preaching. I guess I thought about it because of the message series we are involved in right now. Pillow Talk is about how to have the satisfying, fulfilling, amazing sex life that God wants you to have. And we are having lots of fun with it. We are dealing with a pretty sensitive subject, and touching on lots of sensitive issues in the midst of it, stuff like sexual dysfunction, sexual tension in a marriage, bad sex, what's appropriate when it comes to sex, sexual addiction, sexual sin, the burdens of a sexual past, getting through all of this stuff to a satisfying sex life in marriage. It's pretty heavy stuff.
But we are injecting a good deal of humor and fun and lightheartedness in the midst of the heavy stuff. Don't get me wrong, we are in no way making light of the beauty and the sacredness of sex or of the seriousness of sexual sin. We just soften some of the blows by balancing serious stuff with humor.
And what I am finding is that humor opens the door into people's hearts so that they let some of the more serious stuff in. For example, this week, I addressed the men in the audience. I talked to them about how, as men, we often bring a lot of pride to the issue of sex within our marriages. We feel like we are sexual gods and if there is something wrong with our sex lives, it must mean there is something wrong with our wives. We feel like men are just supposed to know about sex. As a result, many a wife goes around extremely dissatisfied, and maybe even resentful of her sexual relationship. Pretty heavy stuff. But we used humor to approach the subject, and as a result, the men went away delighted with the message.
The men took away two principles from the message: #1 I need to love, honor, and cherish my wife 24/7 if I want her to take delight in our sex life. #2 I have to become the expert at knowing what pleases my wife. Awesome principles that they were incredibly receptive to because we had fun.
The Bible says "A cheerful heart is good medicine" (Prov. 17:22), or in the words of Mary Poppins, "A spoonful of sugar makes the medicine go down." The truth of God's word is the medicine that many sick souls needs. If we at times present that truth with joy, fun, energy, and excitement, it may be just the opportunity for the seeker to open their heart to the incredible message of life and hope found in Jesus Christ.
Last.fm
I've been checking out Last.fm over the last couple of days, and so should you. Basically, it lets you build a radio station that is totally customized exactly to your tastes. You end up with a radio station that only plays the music you like. In addition, it recommends new stuff to you based on your previous musical preferences and constantly updates based on new stuff you are adding to your library. It is totally cool, totally free, and totally tubular, dude! You should get online and spend a few minutes playing around on it.
Pillow Thoughts
How do you have the amazing, incredible, fulfilling sex life that God wants you to have? That's what my new message series, "Pillow Talk", seeks to address. (You can access the audio for the series here.) This week, the first message in the series was "God Loves Sex" in which I talked about God's plan for sex.
There were two passages of Scripture that I pointed to as foundational for our understanding of sexuality and God's design for sex, both of which come from the first chapter of the Bible. First, Genesis 1:27-28: “So God created humans in his image. In the image of God he created them. He created them male and female. God blessed them and said, ‘Be fertile, increase in number, fill the earth, and be its master.’” Three important priniples from that verse alone: Sex is designed by God. God created man in his image as male and female. Second, in some way, our sexuality is a reflection of the image of God. Sex is a spiritual issue. Third, sex is commanded by God. In fact, it is the first commandment in the Bible, "be fruitful". Yes, I know, it's a command to have children, but where, I ask, do children come from? Sex. Listen to the audio to learn more.
The second foundational Scripture is Genesis 1:24: “Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife: and they shall be one flesh.” It's God's design for sex in one verse: leaving, cleaving, and becoming one flesh. Separating from our past life and past allegiances, separating ourselves in devotion to our spouse, and physically uniting in the beauty of sex.
Okay, so all of that is in the message. Here's what I thought about since then. Both of these passages of Scripture come in the first chapter of the Bible. Both of them precede the Fall. Sex between a husband and wife is one of the most beautiful, purest expressions of our humanity as created in the image of God. Our sexuality is intimately tied to our humanity, to our personality, to our being bearers of the divine image.
So, maybe that's why sexual sin is so destructive to our personhood. Maybe it is why Satan tries so hard to distort the incredible beauty that is sexuality. Maybe that is why impure sex is one of Satan's number one temptations. Maybe that's why God's instruction for dealing with sexual sin is to run away from it. Maybe that is why humans tend to worship sex.
Tuesday, February 17, 2009
Unspeakable
Being silent is hard for me. Really hard. I am a people person. I like to connect with new people. I am a church planter, so talking to other people is a pretty vital part of my job. So going for three weeks without speaking at all was a huge blow to me.
Here's the story. In June of last year, I began to experience some hoarseness in my voice. I do speak for a half hour to forty-five minutes every week, so, being hoarse is not something out of the ordinary. However, I put my voice under some additonal strain by doing some singing and preaching. I was also under the stress of getting ready to start planting The Crossroads. Stress causes tightness in the throat, so that created more strain.
I didn't worry about it at first, but a week turned into a month turned into three months. I began to suspect that I probably had a cyst on one of my vocal cords. The same thing had happened four years earlier, and I was pretty sure it felt the same. The solution the previous time had been surgery to remove the cyst, but I was not too anxious to have another surgery. The surgery is quick (like 10 minutes) and simple (if there is such a thing when it comes to surgery), but there is a risk with surgery that I would be left permanently hoarse (not good).
So, I was reluctant to go to the doctor, as in I didn't go to the doctor until December. The doctor confirmed my suspicions and gave me two options: repeat the surgery with the aforementioned risk or go on complete vocal rest for three weeks. I reluctantly chose option B. My enforced silence started the week after Christmas and went halfway through the month of January.
Tough, really tough, and frustrating. Tough trying to communicate everything imperfectly through hand signals, grunts, facial expressions, and writing on a marker board. Tough not being able to join in conversations. Tough not being able to give instruction and direction (being a type A personality). Tough and frustrating being misunderstood, misinterpreted, and "misquoted" even by people who love and care for you. It was so refreshing when someone "got" what I was trying to say and so frustrating when I just had to give up trying to communicate because the conversation had already moved on before I could get out what I was wanting to say or because other people simply could not understand me.
I have been asked by a lot of people what God told me during that time, and here's what I got. One of the weeks of my silence covered a week when we were on a mission trip to Mexico delivering blankets, stuffed animals, and Spanish gospels. Being in a vanload of your friends for a twelve hour drive, going into Mexico as one of the few Spanish speakers, and not being able to talk, that was sheer misery.
The trip was phenomenal, as it always is. The first day in Mexico, I did what I always do. I cried. We took about 700 blankets into a little fishing village on the Gulf Coast. As we distributed them, I came face to face with the reality that always hits me: "It's not enough!" There are so many millions of people who need to know about Christ. There are so many hurting, hungry, cold, impoverished people. We as Americans are so blessed. And it's not enough. For the 700 people whose lives we blessed and with whom we were able to share something of Christ's message, there are millions more who need to feel his love and hear his message. It's just not enough.
Okay, okay. So, here's what I learned. The church is the body of Christ, and the vocal cords are getting strained. For too long we have relied on "career missionaries" to get the job done. We send them money every once in a while, we pray for them, we may send them cards and letters. But we have placed the full responsibility of taking the gospel to the ends of the earth on a tiny segment of the church. As a result, the voice of the church is often silenced, and maybe it has even become sick.
How can you see this? USAmerica is now the third largest mission field in the world. Our voice has been silenced even on our "home court." Our voice is no longer being heard. We do not have the strength to proclaim to the world, much less our own nation, the message of Jesus Christ. Why? In part because we have relied almost exclusively on the vocal cords of the church (missionaries, pastors, evangelists) to communicate the message. And that's not the way God designed the body.
You see, there is far more to communication than just the vocal cords. I learned from my doctor that I have to take better care of my voice by doing more than just pushing my vocal cords harder. Effective speach requires much more of the body. Good projection depends on the abdominal muscles, the lungs, lung capacity, breathing techniques, the mouth, the tongue, even what you eat or drink and when you eat or drink. Effective communication also requires more than just the voice. Facial expressions, eye contact, hand gestures, tone of voice, choice of words, all of these things are vital for effective communication. In short, the whole body must be involved to effectively communicate.
We need the whole body of Christ to be involved in sharing the message of Christ if we ever hope to "do enough" to reach the world for Christ. We need everyone to be involved at home and around the world in loving people, touching people, and sharing God's message with other people. I wonder if God sometimes feels frustrated that he has the most incredible message in the world for the world, but his voice is weak because his people are not carrying that message to all the world.
In Christ, we have been given "unspeakable joy" (1 Pet. 3:8), but that doesn't mean we don't speak about it.
Here's the story. In June of last year, I began to experience some hoarseness in my voice. I do speak for a half hour to forty-five minutes every week, so, being hoarse is not something out of the ordinary. However, I put my voice under some additonal strain by doing some singing and preaching. I was also under the stress of getting ready to start planting The Crossroads. Stress causes tightness in the throat, so that created more strain.
I didn't worry about it at first, but a week turned into a month turned into three months. I began to suspect that I probably had a cyst on one of my vocal cords. The same thing had happened four years earlier, and I was pretty sure it felt the same. The solution the previous time had been surgery to remove the cyst, but I was not too anxious to have another surgery. The surgery is quick (like 10 minutes) and simple (if there is such a thing when it comes to surgery), but there is a risk with surgery that I would be left permanently hoarse (not good).
So, I was reluctant to go to the doctor, as in I didn't go to the doctor until December. The doctor confirmed my suspicions and gave me two options: repeat the surgery with the aforementioned risk or go on complete vocal rest for three weeks. I reluctantly chose option B. My enforced silence started the week after Christmas and went halfway through the month of January.
Tough, really tough, and frustrating. Tough trying to communicate everything imperfectly through hand signals, grunts, facial expressions, and writing on a marker board. Tough not being able to join in conversations. Tough not being able to give instruction and direction (being a type A personality). Tough and frustrating being misunderstood, misinterpreted, and "misquoted" even by people who love and care for you. It was so refreshing when someone "got" what I was trying to say and so frustrating when I just had to give up trying to communicate because the conversation had already moved on before I could get out what I was wanting to say or because other people simply could not understand me.
I have been asked by a lot of people what God told me during that time, and here's what I got. One of the weeks of my silence covered a week when we were on a mission trip to Mexico delivering blankets, stuffed animals, and Spanish gospels. Being in a vanload of your friends for a twelve hour drive, going into Mexico as one of the few Spanish speakers, and not being able to talk, that was sheer misery.
The trip was phenomenal, as it always is. The first day in Mexico, I did what I always do. I cried. We took about 700 blankets into a little fishing village on the Gulf Coast. As we distributed them, I came face to face with the reality that always hits me: "It's not enough!" There are so many millions of people who need to know about Christ. There are so many hurting, hungry, cold, impoverished people. We as Americans are so blessed. And it's not enough. For the 700 people whose lives we blessed and with whom we were able to share something of Christ's message, there are millions more who need to feel his love and hear his message. It's just not enough.
Okay, okay. So, here's what I learned. The church is the body of Christ, and the vocal cords are getting strained. For too long we have relied on "career missionaries" to get the job done. We send them money every once in a while, we pray for them, we may send them cards and letters. But we have placed the full responsibility of taking the gospel to the ends of the earth on a tiny segment of the church. As a result, the voice of the church is often silenced, and maybe it has even become sick.
How can you see this? USAmerica is now the third largest mission field in the world. Our voice has been silenced even on our "home court." Our voice is no longer being heard. We do not have the strength to proclaim to the world, much less our own nation, the message of Jesus Christ. Why? In part because we have relied almost exclusively on the vocal cords of the church (missionaries, pastors, evangelists) to communicate the message. And that's not the way God designed the body.
You see, there is far more to communication than just the vocal cords. I learned from my doctor that I have to take better care of my voice by doing more than just pushing my vocal cords harder. Effective speach requires much more of the body. Good projection depends on the abdominal muscles, the lungs, lung capacity, breathing techniques, the mouth, the tongue, even what you eat or drink and when you eat or drink. Effective communication also requires more than just the voice. Facial expressions, eye contact, hand gestures, tone of voice, choice of words, all of these things are vital for effective communication. In short, the whole body must be involved to effectively communicate.
We need the whole body of Christ to be involved in sharing the message of Christ if we ever hope to "do enough" to reach the world for Christ. We need everyone to be involved at home and around the world in loving people, touching people, and sharing God's message with other people. I wonder if God sometimes feels frustrated that he has the most incredible message in the world for the world, but his voice is weak because his people are not carrying that message to all the world.
In Christ, we have been given "unspeakable joy" (1 Pet. 3:8), but that doesn't mean we don't speak about it.
The Crossroads Messages on Website
Audio for messages from The Crossroads Community Church are now available at http://www.welcometothecrossroads.com/content.cfm?id=213. Check out our current message series "Pillow Talk."
Thursday, February 12, 2009
Faith on the Football Field
I've posted a link to Rick Reilly's column about the football game between the Grapevine Faith Christian School and the Gainesville State School. Now, here's the video. Get your tissues ready. This is what it means to be salt and light.
Monday, February 2, 2009
How to Have the Time of Your Life
If I asked you what you would like to have more of in your life, what would you say? One of the things we did and are continuing to do as we start The Crossroads is we are doing surveys throughout the community asking people four questions: What are your top three favorite radio stations? What do you think are the three greatest needs of the community of Anna? Why do you think most people don’t attend church? And if you were looking for a church for you and you’re your family to attend, what three things would you be looking for? And question number three, why do you think most people don’t attend church, what do you think is the number one answer we have received for that question? Time. They don’t have enough time.
You know, time is a non-renewable resource. Once you’ve used it up, it’s gone. Every one of us, from the moment we are born, have a certain amount of time on earth, and you can’t get any more of it. And so, one of the most important things you can do with your life is figure out how to make the most of your time. Did you know, if you are the average person, you will spend two years of your life trying to return phone calls to people who aren’t there? You will spend six moths waiting for the traffic light to turn green, eight months reading junk mail, and five months tying your shoes. You will spend three years waiting for somebody, five years getting dressed, and six years eating. You will spend twenty years working, twenty years sleeping, and nearly eighteen years in front of a television set. Your time is your life, and however you spend your time is how you spend your life.
Let me ask you this, if somebody told you that at the beginning of each day, they were going to give you $86,400, but at the end of the day, whatever you didn’t spend was going to be taken away from you, what would you do? You’d try pretty hard to spend that money, right? Well, each of us, at the beginning of each day, are given 86,400 seconds, and when the day is over, they’re gone, and you don’t get them back. So, one of the most important things you can do is figure out how to use the time in your life. Read with me Ephesians 5:15-16: “Be very careful, then, how you live--not as unwise but as wise, making the most of every opportunity, because the days are evil.” God doesn’t want you to waste your time. He wants to use you to make a difference, to impact other people, to fulfill his purposes for your life.
But there are a thousand different things that war for control of your time. Getting to work, getting the laundry done, getting the kids to school, washing the car, mowing the yard, shopping for groceries. One of the greatest tools that Satan has that he uses against you is busyness. Because if he can keep you busy, if he can use up all your time, then you don't have time left to do the things that God wants you to do. So, I want to offer you today five biblical principles for how you can have the time of your life.
The first one is pray. You will multiply the time you have in your life if you dedicate time to prayer. Martin Luther, the leader of the Protestant Reformation, once said, “I have so many things to do today that I have to spend an extra hour in prayer just to get them all done.” Now, that’s contrary to the way a lot of people think. A lot of people say, “I don’t have time for prayer, I don’t have time for a quiet time, I don’t have time to spend with God, I don’t have time for church because I have too many things going on in my life.” Luther understood that he had no hope of getting all the things done in his life without God’s help.
Maybe the reason so much of the time we don’t get things done and we don’t have time in our life for God is because we are trying to live our lives without God. And as a result, we have to work harder and struggle more to get things done.
I’m pretty sure Jesus had the most important responsibilities that any human being has ever had. He had three and a half years to take a group of teenage fishermen, a tax collector, a former terrorist, and turn them into a force that would change the world and start the church. He had sick people to heal, give sight to the blind, cause the lame to walk, and raise people from the dead. And he had to give his life on the cross for the sins of man. But, I want you to look at what Jesus did at the height of his popularity. Luke 5:15-16: “Yet the news about him spread all the more, so that crowds of people came to hear him and to be healed of their sicknesses. But Jesus often withdrew to lonely places and prayed.” The more the crowds were demanding his time, the more time Jesus spent getting away to pray.
So, how does prayer, spending more time in prayer, give you more time in your life? Spending time in prayer gives you two things. It gives you power. If you devote your schedule to God and you ask for God’s blessing on the things you have to do today, suddenly you aren’t trying to do everything in your own strength. You have the power of God to do the things in your day. When you ask God to bless your day, suddenly problems that you couldn’t work out just seem to work themselves out, people who were wasting your time now become helpers in getting things done, computers that weren’t working right run fine, traffic goes your way. Prayer opens up the power of God in your life to get things done. It’s like my weedeater. When I was a kid, my dad trimmed the yard with a little pair of metal shears, and it took him forever. But w/ my weedeater, I can do all the trimming in our yard in about 30 minutes. Greater power gets things done faster.
Then prayer also provides clarity. It helps me to look at the things on my to do list and understand what really needs doing. Look at Ephesians 5 again, and look at the next verse, verse seventeen. “Act like people with good sense and not like fools. These are evil times, so make every minute count. Don't be stupid. Instead, find out what the Lord wants you to do” (Eph. 5:15-17). How do you find out what the Lord wants you to do? You pray. Prayer helps you to figure out what the Lord wants you to do. A lot of the reason why we don’t have the time of our lives is we are trying to do things that God never intended for us to do. Prayer helps you figure out what you are supposed to do.
The second way to have the time of your life is prioritize. You need to be able to look at your life and your schedule and figure out what’s really important, because not all things are of equal value. Some things are more important than others. Look at Philippians 1:10: “I want you to understand what really matters, so that you may live pure and blameless lives until Christ returns.” What really matters? One of my most important responsibilities as pastor is helping you to figure out what really matters in life.
Now, I’ll just tip my hand to you, the most important thing in life is your relationship with God and living for his purposes in your life. Jesus said, “Your heavenly Father already knows all your needs, and he will give you all you need from day to day if you live for him and make the Kingdom of God your primary concern” (Mt. 6:32-33). If you will orient your life around God and his purposes for your life, then everything else will make a whole lot more sense. Did you ever play with a Rubick’s cube? Did you ever throw one against the wall? I am told that the secret to solving a Rubick's cube is in knowing that the center squares never move, and every other piece has to be oriented to the center. And that’s true with life. You put Christ at the center, and all the other things in your life will make a whole lot more sense.
So, let me give you a very quick and basic list of biblical priorities for life. #1 God and your relationship with him, #2 your family, spouse then kids then parents. #3 God’s purposes for your life, celebrating God’s presence in worship, connecting with God’s family in fellowship, growing as God’s people in discipleship, showing God’s love in ministry, and sharing God’s message in evangelism. And really, the first three should prioritize everything else in your life. After that comes work and getting the house clean and making it to soccer practice and all the other stuff in life. Now, the truth of the matter is, for most of us, myself included, the things that take the most of our time are things that come lower on the list. The trick is, to be used by God, to give priority to the things that come high on the list.
So, you’ve got to prioritize. And you’ve got to prioritize in two ways. Prioritize life as a whole, and prioritize your schedule for each day.
And that really leads to the third thing which is plan. You’ve got to have a plan for what you are going to do with life. What do you want to accomplish? What do you want to see happen? How are you going to make that happen? The Bible uses the example of ants, Proverbs 6:6-8: “Go to the ant, you sluggard consider its ways and be wise! It has no commander, no overseer or ruler, yet it stores its provisions in summer and gathers its food at harvest.” In other words, to get things done, you have to have foresight. You have to be able to look ahead, make a plan and follow through on it. Look at Proverbs 21:5: “Good planning and hard work lead to prosperity, but hasty shortcuts lead to poverty.” You need to plan. There’s a popular saying: If you fail to plan, you are planning to fail.
Now, what does planning mean. It just means you look at what you want to accomplish and you figure out, what are the things that need to happen for me to accomplish that? So, you need to plan for your year, your month, your week, and especially your day. What do I want to get done today? Now, how am I going to get those things done.
But let me give you this warning. The Bible is very clear that you have to include God in your planning and that if you don’t you are asking for disaster. Jesus tells a story about a rich man who has his life all planned out and has his retirement accounts in order and plenty of money and security, and he says to himself, "I've got it made. I can sit back and enjoy all my wealth and security." And God says to him, "You fool. This night your life is required of you. And God takes his life. You have to consider God's plan in your planning. Proverbs 16:3: “Commit to the LORD whatever you do, and your plans will succeed.” So, this goes back to the first one. You plan with prayer. You seek God’s plans for your life. Planning is not about saying, “This is what I want to do.” It’s about saying, “God what do you want me to do and how do you want me to do it.”
And here’s how planning helps your time. You plan with a schedule. You devote certain segments of time to certain tasks. So, you plan.
Now, the next one is one I’m bad at, and that is don’t procrastinate. Procrastination will kill your time, because stuff starts backing up on you. I learned this in college. If you don’t get started on papers when they are assigned, they all come due at the same time, and you are swamped. If you are a procrastinator, let me give you a verse, Ecclesiastes 11:4: “If you wait for perfect conditions, you will never get anything done.” Don’t put things off, don’t wait for perfect conditions. Now, do you know what kinds of things we tend to put off doing? Things that we don’t like doing or that are going to be uncomfortable, distasteful, or unpleasant. Now, let me let you in on a life secret: The things that we put off doing because they are unpleasant will not be more pleasant a week from now. In fact, they will probably be more unpleasant. Case in point: cleaning the refrigerator. What happens the longer you put off cleaning the refrigerator? It grows more mold and requires more work and more time.
There is a direct proportionality to the things we put off doing and how long it takes to do them. In other words, the longer you put something off, the longer it will take to do it. Whatever needs doing, don’t wait for perfect conditions, don’t wait until you feel like it. Do it now. Proverbs 6:10-11 says, “A little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the hands to rest-- and poverty will come on you like a bandit and scarcity like an armed man.” Procrastination is a robber. It robs you of time, it robs your of spending time with your family, it robs you of finances, it robs you of peace of mind. Don’t procrastinate.
If you want to have the time of your life, pray, prioritize, plan, don’t procrastinate, and then this is the fun one, play. Play. Now this one seems counterintuitive. If you want to have the time of your life and make the most of your time, how can you take time to play. But it’s true. You need some margin in your life. You don’t need every minute scheduled with things to do. And I can demonstrate this biblically. God commands you to take one day out of seven where you don’t work, where you stop what you are doing. It’s called a Sabbath, and Sabbath literally means to stop. God is so serious about you having some margin in your life that he commands that you take a day off for worship and for rest. Now, I want to focus on the rest part. Three things you need from a good day of rest: relaxation, relationships, and recreation. Relaxation. You need time to rest. It's okay to take a nap on Sunday afternoon. In fact, for some of you, the most spiritual thing you could do right now is take a nap. You need to be rested to be used by God. Relationships. You need to spend time with other people. Recreation. Have fun. Play. Enjoy yourself.
You see, here’s the thing, God wants to use you to do incredible things in life. God wants you to use your time to make a difference and change the world and live out his purposes for your life and he wants you to have fun doing it. God doesn’t intend for you to live your life so stressed out that you can’t enjoy it. 1 Timothy 6:17: “Their trust should be in the living God, who richly gives us all we need for our enjoyment.” The Bible says two incredible things. God has created all things for his glory, and he has given all things for our enjoyment. The two are not mutually exclusive. God receives glory when we take delight in the the things he has created. You need to intentionally schedule margin in your life, schedule fun, schedule recreation. And I have discovered that you have to be intentional about it or other things will eat up your down time. Look at what Jesus said in Jn. 10:10: “My purpose is to give life in all its fullness.” Now, Jesus did not mean a full schedule. Jesus wants you to experience a fulfilling, meaningful, blessed life. He wants you to experience life the way he designed for you to have it.
I heard about a man one time who computed how many Saturdays he had left in his life. He had about 1,000. So, he went to the store and bought 1,000 marbles and put them in a jar. And every Saturday he would take out a marble as a reminder to him not to waste the Saturdays that he had left in his life. So, let me ask you, what are you doing with the marbles you have left in life? Jesus said, “As long as it is day, we must do the work of him who sent me. Night is coming, when no one can work” (Jn. 9:4). Time is limited. Jesus is coming back soon. So, what are you giving your life for? What are you using your time for? Are you using your time in the best possible way?
You know, time is a non-renewable resource. Once you’ve used it up, it’s gone. Every one of us, from the moment we are born, have a certain amount of time on earth, and you can’t get any more of it. And so, one of the most important things you can do with your life is figure out how to make the most of your time. Did you know, if you are the average person, you will spend two years of your life trying to return phone calls to people who aren’t there? You will spend six moths waiting for the traffic light to turn green, eight months reading junk mail, and five months tying your shoes. You will spend three years waiting for somebody, five years getting dressed, and six years eating. You will spend twenty years working, twenty years sleeping, and nearly eighteen years in front of a television set. Your time is your life, and however you spend your time is how you spend your life.
Let me ask you this, if somebody told you that at the beginning of each day, they were going to give you $86,400, but at the end of the day, whatever you didn’t spend was going to be taken away from you, what would you do? You’d try pretty hard to spend that money, right? Well, each of us, at the beginning of each day, are given 86,400 seconds, and when the day is over, they’re gone, and you don’t get them back. So, one of the most important things you can do is figure out how to use the time in your life. Read with me Ephesians 5:15-16: “Be very careful, then, how you live--not as unwise but as wise, making the most of every opportunity, because the days are evil.” God doesn’t want you to waste your time. He wants to use you to make a difference, to impact other people, to fulfill his purposes for your life.
But there are a thousand different things that war for control of your time. Getting to work, getting the laundry done, getting the kids to school, washing the car, mowing the yard, shopping for groceries. One of the greatest tools that Satan has that he uses against you is busyness. Because if he can keep you busy, if he can use up all your time, then you don't have time left to do the things that God wants you to do. So, I want to offer you today five biblical principles for how you can have the time of your life.
The first one is pray. You will multiply the time you have in your life if you dedicate time to prayer. Martin Luther, the leader of the Protestant Reformation, once said, “I have so many things to do today that I have to spend an extra hour in prayer just to get them all done.” Now, that’s contrary to the way a lot of people think. A lot of people say, “I don’t have time for prayer, I don’t have time for a quiet time, I don’t have time to spend with God, I don’t have time for church because I have too many things going on in my life.” Luther understood that he had no hope of getting all the things done in his life without God’s help.
Maybe the reason so much of the time we don’t get things done and we don’t have time in our life for God is because we are trying to live our lives without God. And as a result, we have to work harder and struggle more to get things done.
I’m pretty sure Jesus had the most important responsibilities that any human being has ever had. He had three and a half years to take a group of teenage fishermen, a tax collector, a former terrorist, and turn them into a force that would change the world and start the church. He had sick people to heal, give sight to the blind, cause the lame to walk, and raise people from the dead. And he had to give his life on the cross for the sins of man. But, I want you to look at what Jesus did at the height of his popularity. Luke 5:15-16: “Yet the news about him spread all the more, so that crowds of people came to hear him and to be healed of their sicknesses. But Jesus often withdrew to lonely places and prayed.” The more the crowds were demanding his time, the more time Jesus spent getting away to pray.
So, how does prayer, spending more time in prayer, give you more time in your life? Spending time in prayer gives you two things. It gives you power. If you devote your schedule to God and you ask for God’s blessing on the things you have to do today, suddenly you aren’t trying to do everything in your own strength. You have the power of God to do the things in your day. When you ask God to bless your day, suddenly problems that you couldn’t work out just seem to work themselves out, people who were wasting your time now become helpers in getting things done, computers that weren’t working right run fine, traffic goes your way. Prayer opens up the power of God in your life to get things done. It’s like my weedeater. When I was a kid, my dad trimmed the yard with a little pair of metal shears, and it took him forever. But w/ my weedeater, I can do all the trimming in our yard in about 30 minutes. Greater power gets things done faster.
Then prayer also provides clarity. It helps me to look at the things on my to do list and understand what really needs doing. Look at Ephesians 5 again, and look at the next verse, verse seventeen. “Act like people with good sense and not like fools. These are evil times, so make every minute count. Don't be stupid. Instead, find out what the Lord wants you to do” (Eph. 5:15-17). How do you find out what the Lord wants you to do? You pray. Prayer helps you to figure out what the Lord wants you to do. A lot of the reason why we don’t have the time of our lives is we are trying to do things that God never intended for us to do. Prayer helps you figure out what you are supposed to do.
The second way to have the time of your life is prioritize. You need to be able to look at your life and your schedule and figure out what’s really important, because not all things are of equal value. Some things are more important than others. Look at Philippians 1:10: “I want you to understand what really matters, so that you may live pure and blameless lives until Christ returns.” What really matters? One of my most important responsibilities as pastor is helping you to figure out what really matters in life.
Now, I’ll just tip my hand to you, the most important thing in life is your relationship with God and living for his purposes in your life. Jesus said, “Your heavenly Father already knows all your needs, and he will give you all you need from day to day if you live for him and make the Kingdom of God your primary concern” (Mt. 6:32-33). If you will orient your life around God and his purposes for your life, then everything else will make a whole lot more sense. Did you ever play with a Rubick’s cube? Did you ever throw one against the wall? I am told that the secret to solving a Rubick's cube is in knowing that the center squares never move, and every other piece has to be oriented to the center. And that’s true with life. You put Christ at the center, and all the other things in your life will make a whole lot more sense.
So, let me give you a very quick and basic list of biblical priorities for life. #1 God and your relationship with him, #2 your family, spouse then kids then parents. #3 God’s purposes for your life, celebrating God’s presence in worship, connecting with God’s family in fellowship, growing as God’s people in discipleship, showing God’s love in ministry, and sharing God’s message in evangelism. And really, the first three should prioritize everything else in your life. After that comes work and getting the house clean and making it to soccer practice and all the other stuff in life. Now, the truth of the matter is, for most of us, myself included, the things that take the most of our time are things that come lower on the list. The trick is, to be used by God, to give priority to the things that come high on the list.
So, you’ve got to prioritize. And you’ve got to prioritize in two ways. Prioritize life as a whole, and prioritize your schedule for each day.
And that really leads to the third thing which is plan. You’ve got to have a plan for what you are going to do with life. What do you want to accomplish? What do you want to see happen? How are you going to make that happen? The Bible uses the example of ants, Proverbs 6:6-8: “Go to the ant, you sluggard consider its ways and be wise! It has no commander, no overseer or ruler, yet it stores its provisions in summer and gathers its food at harvest.” In other words, to get things done, you have to have foresight. You have to be able to look ahead, make a plan and follow through on it. Look at Proverbs 21:5: “Good planning and hard work lead to prosperity, but hasty shortcuts lead to poverty.” You need to plan. There’s a popular saying: If you fail to plan, you are planning to fail.
Now, what does planning mean. It just means you look at what you want to accomplish and you figure out, what are the things that need to happen for me to accomplish that? So, you need to plan for your year, your month, your week, and especially your day. What do I want to get done today? Now, how am I going to get those things done.
But let me give you this warning. The Bible is very clear that you have to include God in your planning and that if you don’t you are asking for disaster. Jesus tells a story about a rich man who has his life all planned out and has his retirement accounts in order and plenty of money and security, and he says to himself, "I've got it made. I can sit back and enjoy all my wealth and security." And God says to him, "You fool. This night your life is required of you. And God takes his life. You have to consider God's plan in your planning. Proverbs 16:3: “Commit to the LORD whatever you do, and your plans will succeed.” So, this goes back to the first one. You plan with prayer. You seek God’s plans for your life. Planning is not about saying, “This is what I want to do.” It’s about saying, “God what do you want me to do and how do you want me to do it.”
And here’s how planning helps your time. You plan with a schedule. You devote certain segments of time to certain tasks. So, you plan.
Now, the next one is one I’m bad at, and that is don’t procrastinate. Procrastination will kill your time, because stuff starts backing up on you. I learned this in college. If you don’t get started on papers when they are assigned, they all come due at the same time, and you are swamped. If you are a procrastinator, let me give you a verse, Ecclesiastes 11:4: “If you wait for perfect conditions, you will never get anything done.” Don’t put things off, don’t wait for perfect conditions. Now, do you know what kinds of things we tend to put off doing? Things that we don’t like doing or that are going to be uncomfortable, distasteful, or unpleasant. Now, let me let you in on a life secret: The things that we put off doing because they are unpleasant will not be more pleasant a week from now. In fact, they will probably be more unpleasant. Case in point: cleaning the refrigerator. What happens the longer you put off cleaning the refrigerator? It grows more mold and requires more work and more time.
There is a direct proportionality to the things we put off doing and how long it takes to do them. In other words, the longer you put something off, the longer it will take to do it. Whatever needs doing, don’t wait for perfect conditions, don’t wait until you feel like it. Do it now. Proverbs 6:10-11 says, “A little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the hands to rest-- and poverty will come on you like a bandit and scarcity like an armed man.” Procrastination is a robber. It robs you of time, it robs your of spending time with your family, it robs you of finances, it robs you of peace of mind. Don’t procrastinate.
If you want to have the time of your life, pray, prioritize, plan, don’t procrastinate, and then this is the fun one, play. Play. Now this one seems counterintuitive. If you want to have the time of your life and make the most of your time, how can you take time to play. But it’s true. You need some margin in your life. You don’t need every minute scheduled with things to do. And I can demonstrate this biblically. God commands you to take one day out of seven where you don’t work, where you stop what you are doing. It’s called a Sabbath, and Sabbath literally means to stop. God is so serious about you having some margin in your life that he commands that you take a day off for worship and for rest. Now, I want to focus on the rest part. Three things you need from a good day of rest: relaxation, relationships, and recreation. Relaxation. You need time to rest. It's okay to take a nap on Sunday afternoon. In fact, for some of you, the most spiritual thing you could do right now is take a nap. You need to be rested to be used by God. Relationships. You need to spend time with other people. Recreation. Have fun. Play. Enjoy yourself.
You see, here’s the thing, God wants to use you to do incredible things in life. God wants you to use your time to make a difference and change the world and live out his purposes for your life and he wants you to have fun doing it. God doesn’t intend for you to live your life so stressed out that you can’t enjoy it. 1 Timothy 6:17: “Their trust should be in the living God, who richly gives us all we need for our enjoyment.” The Bible says two incredible things. God has created all things for his glory, and he has given all things for our enjoyment. The two are not mutually exclusive. God receives glory when we take delight in the the things he has created. You need to intentionally schedule margin in your life, schedule fun, schedule recreation. And I have discovered that you have to be intentional about it or other things will eat up your down time. Look at what Jesus said in Jn. 10:10: “My purpose is to give life in all its fullness.” Now, Jesus did not mean a full schedule. Jesus wants you to experience a fulfilling, meaningful, blessed life. He wants you to experience life the way he designed for you to have it.
I heard about a man one time who computed how many Saturdays he had left in his life. He had about 1,000. So, he went to the store and bought 1,000 marbles and put them in a jar. And every Saturday he would take out a marble as a reminder to him not to waste the Saturdays that he had left in his life. So, let me ask you, what are you doing with the marbles you have left in life? Jesus said, “As long as it is day, we must do the work of him who sent me. Night is coming, when no one can work” (Jn. 9:4). Time is limited. Jesus is coming back soon. So, what are you giving your life for? What are you using your time for? Are you using your time in the best possible way?
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