Disturbing Statistic
I was going through the MMI Blog and they had a blurb from this article about the pace of population growth vs the growth of the church. Disturbing.
Kevin
Do We Mean It?
At Journey yesterday. We sang a powerful song called “God of Justice“. We have sang this song before, but yesterday and today, it has really messed me up in a good way. I had to ask myself a hard question: Do I mean what I am singing? Do I care about the hurting, the afflicted, those who are far away from God? And if I can answer yes to that, what am I going to do about it? How am I going to do it? If I am doing it, how can I do it more effectively to reach even more?
I know, lot’s of questions but are you asking yourself these questions? If you are like most churchfolk, probably not. Churchfolk like to talk a lot, but they don’t like to be confronted by their own selfishness and mediocrity. They like to sound spiritual, but only if it brings them attention. They might feed a homeless person if it’s in front of people or so they can run and tell everyone about it.
It’s a condition of the heart. The problem is that there are a lot of people who think they are saved but their actions speak totally different thing. They talk about Jesus but they do not know Him! They do things in His name and don’t have His heart. They don’t hurt for those who are waiting to be saved from damnation’s door! They don’t mind hearing a challenging message as long as they aren’t held accountable for it. They judge others but don’t realize they have already been judged and found lacking.
Do we mean it? Do we want to feed the hungry? Do we want to reach hurting people? Do we want to act justly? Do we want to serve and not be served? Are we truly Christ-Followers?
Kevin
The Wilderness Cycle
Here are the notes from Friday Night Source Group. Enjoy.
Numbers 14 (English Standard Version)
28) Say to them, ‘As I live, declares the LORD, what you have said in my hearing I will do to you: 29) your dead bodies shall fall in this wilderness, and of all your number, listed in the census from twenty years old and upward, who have grumbled against me, 30) not one shall come into the land where I swore that I would make you dwell, except Caleb the son of Jephunneh and Joshua the son of Nun. 31) But your little ones, who you said would become a prey, I will bring in, and they shall know the land that you have rejected. 32) But as for you, your dead bodies shall fall in this wilderness. 33) And your children shall be shepherds in the wilderness forty years and shall suffer for your faithlessness, until the last of your dead bodies lies in the wilderness. 34) According to the number of the days in which you spied out the land, forty days, a year for each day, you shall bear your iniquity forty years, and you shall know my displeasure.’ 35) I, the LORD, have spoken. Surely this will I do to all this wicked congregation who are gathered together against me: in this wilderness they shall come to a full end, and there they shall die.”
You might read this and say “Dude, God was pretty harsh”. Here is a picture I get in my mind. Ok, you have all these young people standing around with their eye on the last person, the very last person that according to God is the reason they were not in the promise land to begin with! Thousands upon thousand of Israelites waiting and watching as the very last person of that wicked generation is gasping for their last breath! I wonder if for the Israelites they weren’t waiting with the party favors and streamers! The very last person, the last barrier, that stands between them and entering into the land that was promised to them 40 years ago! I know the death of anyone is a sad thing, but I can’t help but think there was an enormous celebration that day!
I want to share a principle with you that will hopefully change some mindsets you may have about our walk with God. These scriptures above are the foundation on which I will build.
There are times in everyone’s walk with God that we are more aware of what He is doing in our lives and even hear God more clearly and distinctly. These periods of time can last a quite a while. Sometimes they are brief. We can feel God drawing us into the Bible and prayer and these times are wonderful and “seem” very productive. Your purpose for why you are created is never more clear. Our worship is full of emotion and passion for Him and you can almost hear the angels singing with you! You have the faith to move mountains and there is no request too small for our God!
Then all of a sudden “WAM!” you are in the wilderness
During these periods of time, it can be hard to hear His voice. We are not always so sure what way we are supposed to go. Our Bible does not yield the once abundant revelation of who He is. You may be frustrated cause you think you are spinning your wheels and getting nowhere! Your worship seems to become a sernade for the ceiling tiles and the faith you had dwindles and you don’t even know if He gives a crap about you! Yes, this is a wilderness!
The twisted thing that our minds cannot get wrapped around is the fact that the wilderness times in our lives are ordained by God! There are many who think that we go through these times in our lives because we have sinned. This can be true (not usually) but this is not what I am talking about. Wilderness times are potentially a time of great growth or a time of great decline in our walk with God. It’s easier not to sin when it feels like our heavenly Father is standing over our shoulder but when He seems so far away, this is the time our true character is revealed! Look at the example of the Israelites, their selfishness, their rebellious spirit, and what God they truly served was revealed! This is what happens when we go through these wilderness times. The things that we hide deep in our hearts, those things we don’t want people to know about are revealed and brought to the surface to be seen so they can be dealt with.
Here is the crux of the matter. We have a choice on how we react to these times of testing, drought, despair. Most Christians do not use these times to draw closer to Him. Actually the reaction is quite the opposite in most cases. Because we don’t understand that He is trying to build our character, we rebel against what He is doing. We stop praying, we stop reading the Word, and we definately don’t worship Him! Think about that! How selfish does that sound? I understand when all hell is breaking loose the last thing we want to do sometimes is to pray or worship, but guess what? That is exactly what He wants! He wants us to be like Jesus! He wants us to die! He wants our attitudes and rebellion to die! He wants our selfishness to die! He wants us to reflect His Christ-like character!
The sad part is we will go through the same ole junk over and over and over again until we are willing to bow our knee and submit to His correction and surrender those areas in our lives that need to be brought under His Lordship.
This is HUGE! What I did many times was give up. I stopped praying. I stopped reading. And you know what? God wanted just the opposite!
He wanted me to read in the dry times so that no matter what I faced, I would have His Word in my heart and it would direct my decisions . He wanted me to pray cause even when I did not pray, He was speaking to me. It shows faithfulness and devotion. He wants us to cry out and bear our heart to Him. Check out Psalms sometime. David was extremely passionate about God but there are Psalms when he is crying out to God and it seems like He doesn’t hear. You are not the first or last to experience this.
I say this with the greatest conviction of ANYTHING you ever hear me say: DO NOT STOP!! DO NOT STOP! DO NOT STOP!! I say this from the experience of a man who did this over, and over, over again! I was angry with God cause He wasn’t doing what I wanted Him to! I acted like a spoiled brat! I never realized that He wanted HIS will for my life! Not mine! I plead with you! DO NOT STOP! You too will wander in the desert of your stubborness and pride until you die to your flesh and your pride and your stiff neck! You will never enter into what God has for you until you bow your knee to His Lordship in your life!
This is a little heavier than most of what we talk about in Source Group but necessary. Hope this speaks to someone out here in the great WWW. God is good.
Kevin
Less Blogging, More Family Time
As I’m sure you noticed, I haven’t been posting too much lately. I have been spending less time posting and more time focusing on my family and my kids. I will be posting here, just not as much right now. God has given me more responsibilities at church but He has also been on my butt about spending time with my family. My schedule is a little tighter, therefore, I need to take the time I have and use it wisely.
I am very passionate about writing and I’m sure that God will have me write a book one of these days, but right now I am being challenged to spend more time with my family. This is a great challenge! This is a challenge I am more than willing to accept cause I love my wife and kids so much! There are times you have to evaluate the things you are doing and see if they are bearing fruit. Right now, blogging is not, and that’s ok.
I use this blog to write my notes for the things I share in our Source Group. I will continue to share these notes on my blog. I want to write more about family type things in the future and I will. We will see where God guides me. I want to please Him in everything I do. I think that everyone needs to evaluate what they are doing, both those in ministry and not in ministry, to make sure they are doing what God wants them to. Try it. You may be surprised at the results.
I will be posting my notes from Friday Night Source Group probably Saturday! Stay tuned!
The Best is yet to Come!
Kevin
Are You Leading or Maintaining?
This is for all you Christian leaders out there.
Are you leading or maintaining? Here are a couple of questions for you:
1) Are trying to hold on to people or are you bringing new people into your area of influence?
2) Are you believing and praying for God to do things outside of your ability? Or are you hovering in your “comfortable place”
3) Are you reading anything that is challenging you? Are you reading your Bible?
4) Are you harboring any bitterness, jealousy, resentment, toward anyone?
If it’s been a while since you have thought about these things I strongly recommend you do. I have had to. They will help you greatly
Are You Using the Fuel in Your Tank?
Romans 12:3
For by the grace given to me I say to everyone among you not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think, but to think with sober judgment, each according to the measure of faith that God has assigned.
Ephesians 4:4-7
4) There is one body and one Spirit—just as you were called to the one hope that belongs to your call— 5) one Lord, one faith, one baptism, 6) one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all. 7) But grace was given to each one of us according to the measure of Christ’s gift.
I was recently challenged by God a couple of days ago. He told me how He wanted to great things in my life, but He asked me why I still try to play things safe. Why don’t I pray dangerous prayers? Why don’t I dream bigger? Why don’t I set my aspirations higher?
The reason I have come to is that I am leaving fuel in my tank. I am not utilizing everything God has given me to it’s fullest! God has given us a measure of grace and faith, but I am not tapping into the deep well that God wants to do in me and through me.
I wonder how many of us do what we know we can do, rather than going beyond what our human reasoning says and venture out into the unknown and see what happens! I feel like I have missed some opportunities. I’m sure there are those out there that have as well. The question now is what are you and I going to do about it?
Well, I know what I am going to do. I don’t think I will ever find the bottom of the tank. I believe as we draw on more faith and His grace, He will just keep pushing us further and expanding our capacity. So don’t be afraid to push it to the edge. Don’t play it safe. Listen to His voice when He tells you to do something that seems a little beyond your ability. His grace is sufficient and He has given you the faith you need to do what seems out of the realm of possibility.
Kevin
God Wants You to Change!
It’s funny how when we get a revelation from God, we can take that revelation and develop a whole new way of doing church. There was a great movement to holiness. People got the revelation that God wanted us to be holy and ran with it. You know where it ran? Right into the ground! People took something that God wanted to teach them, and took it to such a degree that people who weren’t perfect couldn’t go to church!
Well, the pendulum has swung the other way now. We have become seeker friendly, which isn’t bad, to a degree. We have made church a place that is a lot more appealing to more people. That isn’t bad either. What is wrong is when we don’t preach a “balanced gospel”. When we preach that “God loves you” and “He accepts you where you are in your life”, these are very truthful statements. The problem is when we don’t tell people that He wants you to change! We do an injustice to His holy scriptures when we don’t point out the fallen, degenerate, state of humanity without Christ. We degrade the saving power of His blood that was shed, when we say that Jesus died for our sins and all we have to do is accept it and we have a “mansion in the sky waiting for us!”
How many of you have watched these celebrities thank God for winning an award for an album that promotes promescuity, drug and alcohol abuse, and violence? How many have thanked God for winning a championship and turn around and get arrested for beating their wife? This is an example of powerless, watered-down gospel. A gospel that has cost these people nothing. A gospel that brought no life-change! A gospel that will not save their souls! I would not want to be the pastor, preacher, or communicator that preached the gospel to them.
The bible term for this change is called sanctification. It is a process of being changed by the Spirit of Christ that comes to reside within us when we repented, turned away from our sin and made a decision to follow Christ and accepted and believed in His sacrifice.
Mark 1:14 )Now after John was arrested, Jesus came into Galilee, proclaiming the gospel of God, 15) and saying, “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe in the gospel.”
The bottom line is that God wants you to change! He loves you and accepts you, but He wants you to change! He wants something greater for you than anything you could do in your own ability and strength. He wants us to turn away from the things that we do that hinder our relationship with Him and show us that there is true freedom in His way of doing things. We free to choose to follow Him! We are no longer slaves to sin, but we are made alive and free in Him!
Romans 6:17) But thanks be to God, that you who were once slaves of sin have become obedient from the heart to the standard of teaching to which you were committed, 18 ) and, having been set free from sin, have become slaves of righteousness. 19) I am speaking in human terms, because of your natural limitations. For just as you once presented your members as slaves to impurity and to lawlessness leading to more lawlessness, so now present your members as slaves to righteousness leading to sanctification.
Kevin
What Source Group Is And What It Isn’t
Here are the notes from source group. We had a great source group Friday night! It was great to see old and new faces. 2009 is going to be incredible!
What it is:
A safe place to share life and to connect with people
What it is not:
A place to focus on your needs and desires
What it is:
A place to learn about the vision of the church
What it is not:
A place to share on how you think the church should be run
What it is:
A place to be challenged in your faith and grow in your walk with Christ.
What it isn’t:
A place where you will be stroked and coddled and allowed to stay the same.
What it is:
A place to help you find your gifts and abilities and how to use them in the local church.
What it is not:
A place to springboard your own ministry.
What it is:
A place to learn more about the Word od God and how it applies to your life
What it is not:
A place to debate doctrine
What it is:
A safe place to build relationships
What it is not:
A place to gossip about others.
As Source Group Leaders we are :
Committed to the spiritual well-being of those who attend and a resource to help you to grow in your walk with God.
Here to challenge you in your walk with God
Here to provide a safe enviornment for you to share your heart.
We are not :
Here to entertain you
We are not here to listen to you complain about other leaders in the church. We will be glad to answer questions about why we do what we do, but not to bad mouth anyone or anything.
Just Some Questions
I just want to ask you some questions:
When you feel like God is convicting you, do you just feel bad, or does that sorrow bring you to a point of change?
When someone comes to you with a problem, or does it bring you to a point of action or do stand idle and watch?
When you are asked to do something at church, is it like being stuck in the eye with a pitchfork?
When you have an opportunity to spend time with people that want to help and nuture your walk with God, would you rather do something else?
Do you feel the need to lie to people about the things you are doing cause you don’t want people to know about some things that you are doing?
Do you listen to the sermon on Sunday and think about all the people that need to hear it or do you say “GOD CHANGE ME!
If you couldn’t answer these positively, what are you going to do about it?
Kevin
Who Needs God?
I had an interesting conversation with a co worker a few days ago. They practice a different religion which always leads to some interesting discussion.
We were talking about prayer, and this person revealed to me that their prayers are usually one-sided. Meaning they talk to God but God doesn’t speak to them. They continued on to say how they don’t believe that God answers prayer and that it is up to the individual to make things happen for themselves.
At this point I asked this person: “Doesn’t this kinda make you your own God?” Silence. Finally a response: ” Well, God gives us the ability to do what we need to do to take care of ourselves.” So I replied” Ok, I can agree with that to a degree, but what about those situations that you can’t get yourself of?” Work didn’t provide the time for an answer to that question.
The question is this: “Who needs God?” Why does the ordinary, everyday person need God? Why would someone who is successful in both their careers and family have any need of God whatsoever? These are tough questions to tackle for most Christ-Followers who are trying to share Jesus with folks.
I honestly believe that most people believe in God. It’s more of a perception of what degree God is involved in our lives than if He exists. Athiests make up only a small degree of a population of people. Although, thanks to fruitcake Christians that misrepresent the gospel of Christ, those numbers are growing.
In my next post, let’s look at some distance markers that will help gauge to what degree you need God. If at all.
Kevin
Sunday Recap
It was an incredible Sunday both in church and outside of church!
On a sad note, we had our last Illuminate group meeting. It has been a huge year of personal growth for me. I learned a lot from Pastor Michael and it meant a lot to me that he poured out his leadership wisdom and knowledge to us. I am applying the things he taught and it has really helped me as a leader at Journey Church.
The Word and worship during the Sunday service was incredible! You could feel His prescense so powerfully and God was moving in people’s lives in an incredible way! God is bringing new families into our church and we couldn’t be more excited about the opportunity to share the love of Christ with them!
Our source group ramp-up is in full swing! We have had many come and express interest in getting plugged into a source group. Source groups are one of 3 things that we are committed to doing well at Journey Church. We want source groups to be a time of connection with each other and with God. We have seen lives changed through source groups and we can’t wait to see what God does this year!
Later in the day, we had a Superbowl bash at our house. A buddy of mine brought a projector and we watched the Superbowl on a 7 foot by 9 foot screen! It took the already good game to a whole nutha level! It was awesome! We had some serious food and fellowship. It was a really good time!
Thank you God for an incredible day!
Kevin
