Reflect. Love. A blog about the church and life as a follower of Jesus.

I’ve been a pastor now for a little over 4 months.  It’s completely different than I expected it to be.  The pressure is different, the workload is different, the challenges I face are different, the decisions that have to make are different and the prayers I’m praying are all different.  This isn’t a bad thing.  It’s just different than I thought it would be.  I came across a blog post from a pastor named Shaun King that was very encouraging to me because I know that someone else is going through the same growth process that I am as a pastor.  Here is a link to his post: http://www.shauninthecity.com/2009/06/10-things-that-are-harder-than-i-expected.html

It makes me laugh and frustrates me at the same time when people that have never been in ministry seem to think it’s easy to grow a church.  Essentially at NorthBrook, we are starting a brand new church.  It’s just a different situation.  Most of the things in his list are the things that I think about daily.  How can we help people connect spiritually and take the next step spiritually?  How can we be creative with our worship and teaching?  How can we help people to connect in community?  How can we reach our community?  How can we better serve our community?  How can I raise up new leaders or any leaders at all for that matter?  How can I get people there?  How can I best lead our people??

God is teaching me that it’s all about leadership and leadership is all about him.  My first thoughts in this journey were that I could just DO all of these things that I’ve seen other churches or other people do and the church would just explode with growth!  It worked there, why not here?  But, quickly, I knew that wasn’t going to work.  Throughout a few experiences and a few wise people, God’s telling me that it’s about my heart.  The local church’s mission is to change lives, and I’ve got to see that as my purpose.

This week, I’m continuing a series called Redemption Stories.  We’ll be talking about David and Goliath.  David was never given a chance because he’s facing a man who’s literally two of him.  Goliath was the greatest champion in Philistine history.  David was a shepherd boy with a slingshot and a rock.  But this battle was won long before David had even heard of Goliath.  In 1 Samuel 16:7, God says to Samuel, “Do not look at his appearance or at the height of his stature, because I have rejected him; for God sees not as man sees, for man looks at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart.”  This is the moment when David was anointed by God to be king of Israel.  One day he would be the greatest king Israel had ever seen.  God knew that he would soon face Goliath, the biggest giant of his life.  But it wasn’t about how big the giant was.  It was about how big David’s heart was.

It’s something that I’m growing to understand.  I can look at numbers and get discouraged.  I can listen to others and get discouraged.  I can also look at the life change that is already occuring in the number of people that we have and be encouraged because that is what God’s called me to.  I can understand by God’s Word that he is looking at my heart, not the size of my church, and be encouraged.  It’s an idea that’s helping me to invest more in my relationship with the Father than the size of my church.  The last I checked, Jesus said, “I will build my church….”  Not Zane.

I’ve been reading through the Old Testament recently in The Message and as I finished Ruth, I was reading the introduction of 1 and 2 Samuel.  Eugene Peterson has done the translation for The Message and has written every introduction.  During this particular introduction, it completely speaks to how God is trying to teach me right now in this part of my walk with Him.  Instead of trying to sum it all up in a way that wouldn’t give it justice, I’m just going to give it to you straight from The Message.  Here it is:

Four lives dominate the two-volume narrative, First and Second Samuel: Hannah, Samuel, Saul, and David.  Chronologically, the stories are clustered around the year 1000 B.C., the millennial midpoint between the call of abraham, the father of Israel, nearly a thousand years earlier (about 1800 B.C.) and the birth of Jesus, the Christ, a thousand years later.

These four lives become seminal for us at the moment we realize that our ego-bound experience is too small a context in which to understand and experience what it means to believe in God and follow his ways.  For these are large lives- large because they live in the largeness of God.  Not one of them can be accounted for in terms of cultural conditions or psychological dynamics; God is the country in which they live.

Most of us need to be reminded that these stories are not exemplary in the sense that we stand back and admire them, like statues in a gallery, knowing all the while that we will never be able to live either that gloriously or tragically ourselves.  Rather they are immersions into the actual business of living itself: this is what it means to be human.  Reading and praying our way through these pages, we get it; gradually but most emphatically we recognize that what it means to be a woman, a man, mostly has to do with God.  These four stories do not show us how we should live but how in fact we do live, authenticating the reality of our daily experience as the stuff that God uses to work out his purposes of salvation in us and in the world.

The stories do not do this by talking about God, for there is surprisingly little explicit God talk here- whole pages sometimes without the name of God appearing.  But as the narrative develops we realize that God is the commanding and accompanying presence that provides both plot and texture to every sentence.  This cluster of interlocking stories trains us in perceptions of ourselves, our sheer and irreducible humanity, that cannot be reduced to personal feelings or ideas or circumstances.  If we want a lie other than mere biology, we must deal with God.  There is no alternate way.

One of many welcome consequences in learning to “read” our lives in the lives of Hannah, Samuel, Saul, and David is a sense of affirmation and freedom:  we don’t have to fit into prefabricated moral or mental or religious boxes before we are admitted into the company of God- we are taken seriously just as we are and given a place in his story, for it is, after all, his story; none of us is the leading character in the story of our life.

For the biblical way is not so much to present us with a moral code and tell us “Live up to this”; nor is it to set out a system of doctrine and say, “Think like this and you will live well.”  The biblical way is to tell a story and invite us, “Live into this.  This is what it looks like to be human; this is what is involved in entering and maturing as human beings.”  We do violence to the biblical revelation when we “use” it for what we can get out of it or what we think will provide color and spice to our otherwise bland lives.  That results in a kind of “boutique spirituality”- God as decoration, God as enhancement.  The Samuel narrative will not allow that.  In the reading, as we submit our lives to what we read, we find that we are not being led to see God in our stories but to see our stories in God’s.  God is the larger context and plot in which our stories find themselves.

I couldn’t think of any better way to say it.  God is the context and plot in which our stories find themselves.

Reflect Jesus.  Love the world.

This is a link of a blog that I’ve been keeping up with lately.  They have a great post on something that God has been challenging me about as a pastor.  I’ll let you read it first:

http://churchrelevance.com/a-toolbox-with-all-hammers/

I don’t know if it’s ego or what that focuses so much on the number of people that are coming, but God has led me to several places in scripture recently that reminds me that he’s about life change.  I want the most people possible to experience life change through Jesus, not the most people possible just to fill the seats.  The ego trip has to go away.  John 3:30 has got to become my mantra as a pastor: “He must increase and I must decrease.”

Craig Groschel really nailed it with his quote.  He said, In order to reach people that no one is reaching, you will have to do things that no one is doing. But in order to do things that no one is doing, you can’t do what everyone else is doing.”

I’m learning that by being in a community in which I didn’t grow up in, there are areas that I’m going to have to grow as a leader.  Things are completely different in the Fulton community than they were in the Halls community.  We will have to do things differently as a church than other churches do in their communities.  That means we’re going to have to be constantly asking God how he wants us to reach his people.  How can we tell them the story in a way that they will listen and hear?  How can we connect with them and create community with them?

God is not going to grow NorthBrook like he’s grown other churches.  His plans for us are unique.  We serve different people so we have to learn how to serve them as a church body.

So read that article, and if you’re a part of NorthBrook, pray about how God wants us to reach his city.  When God’s called us to be the church that serves our community, we don’t want to become something else because we think we’ll be successful.  We want to follow him in reaching his people, in growing our church, in teaching and making disciples, and in creating community with those around us.

There’s not a day that goes by that I don’t think: how can we do this???  So what are your thoughts??  How can we do it?

“And take not the word of truth utterly out of my mouth for my hope is in your rules.”- Psalm 119:43

When I think about what gives me hope, rules certainly aren’t the first idea that pops into my head.  I wonder sometimes if I were to lose the word of God, what would my life be like?  If it were taken from me, would I miss it?  Would I be like the Psalmist who can’t live without it?  I believe that I would.  I think of all of the times that I’ve needed to hear from God and I’ve opened up His Word to find truth and it gives me hope for my situation, my future, or whatever I’m going through.  So, it’s really true!  God’s Word does give hope more than anything else!

In America, we are desperate for hope right now.  We’re desperate for a future and we’re desperate to see the light at the end of the tunnel.  I’m praying that this is a time that people turn to God with their families because their is no other hope, but hope in Him.  Even the word “hope” just lifts my spirits when I hear it.  To me, hope is about a new future.  It’s about taking away the old and bringing in something that’s great and something that I don’t deserve but I get it regardless.  To me, hope is about grace.  It’s about getting something that we don’t deserve for free.  We can put ourselves in some bad situations and then can’t find a way out, but somehow, God offers us hope in the midst of our pain.

This isn’t the first time that we’ve lived in a bad economy.  Just read scripture!  Heck, at one time, God wiped the face of the earth clean with a flood and saved 1 family.  ONE family, and a male and female of each animal on the planet.  What kind of economy was THAT?  It will get better.  The sun will rise again as it did for Noah and his family.  It may look bleak now, but God’s Word offers hope.  We have a future in Him.

Reflect Jesus.  Love the World.

“Keep steady my steps according to your promise, and let no iniquity get dominion over me”- Psalm 119:133

As we’ve walked through this amazing chapter in God’s Word, I’ve tried to give you reasons of why you should focus on it and why it should be a daily part of your life.  This verse is another one of those reasons why staying in the word is of utmost importance to our walk with Christ.  Nothing else can speak truth into our lives that will keep us from sin, other than His Word.  I immediately think of Jesus in the desert for 40 days.  How did he combat Satan’s advances on Him?  With scripture.  There is scripture that will speak to every area of our lives and teach us how to live.  There is nothing else that will keep our steps steady and guard us from sin like His Word in our hearts.

When we have no truth speaking into our lives, it’s so easy to allow sin to dominate our lives.  Sometimes I slip into thinking, “oh, it’s just small.  Nobody’s hurt.  It’s not a big deal.”  That’s when it begins to get a foothold on our lives.  At that point, we turn to scripture to see how it speaks to us.

I’m reminded of Paul who says in Romans 6:11, “So you must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus.” Also in Romans 7:15-18, 22-23, Paul says, “I do not understand my own actions.  For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate.  Now if I do what I do not want, I agree with the law, that it is good.  So now it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me.  For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh.  For I have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out. . . For I delight in the law of God, in my inner being, but I see in my members another law waging war against the law of my mind and making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members.”

Paul confesses that when he tries to do what he wants to do (follow Christ), there is a war waging within him with sin.  It speaks to every one of us.  The truth of that passage is in verse 18.  It says that we have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out.  Intention gets us nowhere.  Only the path we are on will lead us to our destination and if the path we are on does not include God’s Word speaking truth into our lives, then our destination will be one where sin has dominion over our hearts.

So today, meditate on that idea.  We have nothing speaking truth into our lives when we don’t have God’s Word.  There is nothing to keep our steps steady but His Word.

I’m so thankful, just as Paul that there is no “no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.”

Reflect Jesus.  Love the World.

“Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path” – Psalm 119:105

I think the #1 prayer that God hears daily is probably the prayer for us to know His will.  We ask and wait….and wait…..and wait…and this whole time we wait, God may be trying to speak through scripture, if we would only open it up and invest some time with Him there.  Without studying scripture, we have no guidance.

When I was a kid, my friends and I would walk through our neighborhood and cross over into the neighborhood next to us walking to a creek where we would go fishing during the day (where we never caught anything for years), ride the four wheeler, and shoot BB guns at whatever we could find.  Sometimes each other.  There was a narrow path that led you right by the creek from one open area to another.  It was pretty winding and if you couldn’t see, you could either get lost in the woods, or fall into the creek.  Once you walked to the other side, there was only one way back and that was through the woods and on the path back to the place where you started.  One day in the fall we had been playing over there and it had started to get dark.  We rode our bikes there and once it started to get dark, I had thought I’d better go home before mom and dad came looking for me.  I knew I would get the whipping of my life if that happened!  It became dark faster than I thought it would and I found myself riding my bike on that path in the pitch black.  So I stopped and decided that I would push my bike through this path until I got back to where I could see some light.  This path was probably every bit of 200 yards, but it felt like a mile, mostly because I was terrified the whole time.  I walked as slow as I could and I remember just watching my feet in front of me, scared that I would fall into the creek and no one would hear me, scared that I would get lost, or scared of who knows what that comes out at night to terrorize kids pushing their bikes through the woods at dark.  I finally made it out of the woods, jumped on my bike and rode as fast as I could home.  I wasn’t in trouble or anything, but I was a nervous wreck the whole time I was pushing that bike.  I’d probably been there 100 times, but everything felt so unfamiliar as I tried to get back home.  During the day, I’d flown down that path on my bike, but when the light was gone, it was so much more difficult to ride it at all.

I assume that you’re getting the direction that I’m heading.  When we’ve got God’s Word in our lives and in our hearts, the path in front of us seems so much brighter.  If I had a lantern or flashlight or anything that night, I would have made it home easier, and I wouldn’t have been scared.  If I would have had a light, it would have made for a much smoother trip altogether.  The same goes for God’s truth in scripture.  So many people are asking for God to speak into their lives when He’s already spoken!  It’s His Word!  We would easily know our next steps if we would simply shine the light in front of us.

Studying the Bible just opens the door for God to speak truth into our lives.  Perry Noble says, “Nobody has ever screwed up their life by living according to God’s Word.”  That’s the truth and I can’t say it any better than that.  Are you looking for direction?  God may have already spoken.  Open up His Word to find out.

Reflect Jesus, Love the World.

Wow what a busy week this has been.  As I am learning how to pastor a church by the seat of my pants, I’m learning so much about time management.  It’s something that I’ve got to get better at.  Today I felt incredibly off of my game.  I wasn’t nearly prepared enough and as a result of that, I talked way too much.  I feel like I left so much to say and instead, I was saying so much useless information.  The good news is: I have next week to redeem myself and to prepare and to teach the things that God has placed on my heart to teach!

However, the good news is this:  we are going through Psalm 119 as a church this week.   Here is the challenge: Read Psalm 119 every day, Monday through Friday.  Follow me on my blog this week to comment on how God is teaching you through this chapter.  I PROMISE you that God will speak to you through this chapter.  It’s his word!  He’s already spoken!

Here’s a question:  how are you investing in your relationship with the Father right now?  How is your prayer life?  How about worship?  Are you dying to self?  Are you in God’s Word?  Are you allowing it to speak its truth into your life?  This is something that I’ve got to continually challenge myself with.  I am learning that if I’m not investing in my own personal relationship with the Father, how can I possibly lead His church?

There are several other ways that I’m trying to invest in my leadership capabilities as well.  Each day I read a leadership book after my own devotion time.  I’m also constantly studying books, blogs, articles, etc. on how to be better at what I do.  I’m always trying to ask others who have been there and done that what I can do to better improve my leadership ability.  However, there is NO substitute for the voice of God speaking into my heart.  I know for a fact that my prayer life has got to get better.  My study habits have to get better.  I’ve got to learn to die to myself most often.

So how are you investing into your relationship with the Father NOW?  How do you plan on starting?  What things are you doing to make yourself a closer follower of Jesus or even a better manager of what you do daily?

Here are a few things worth reading from some of the blogs that I follow:

Craig Groschel wrote this blog about sacrifice.  It’s definitely something that I’m learning as I continue to follow Jesus in leading Northbrook Church.

Here is a really funny comedy sketch for those of you who were on AOL in the early days.

Pretty much anything from Perry Noble is great.  I suggest you read his blog.  www.perrynoble.com

I just signed Northbrook Church up for One Prayer 2009 and I’m really pumped about it.  I experienced it last year and it was amazing.  If you aren’t familiar with One Prayer, then check it out at www.oneprayer.com.  The website will answer all of your questions.  I can’t wait to see how God will work through this series in our own city and throughout the church worldwide!