What’s Next God?

I was listening to Chuck Swindoll today and he made reference to a story about two ways people deal with warning signs.

This is not verbatim but rather my interpretation of the story….

Your driving in your car and a flashing red light begins to flash on your dashboard indicating there’s a problem under the hood. There are two ways you can deal with this warning light.

A: You can pull over, get out of your car, look under the hood and identify the problem…and fix it before proceeding.

OR

B: You can carry a small hammer in your glove box and when those warning lights start flashing…smash them with a hammer.

Putting the light out with a hammer will obviously stop the warning sign, but left attended you end up with a blown engine.

Let’s be honest, we’ve all smashed our share of warning lights…ain’t it about time we take a look under the hood?

Currently pulled over on the side of the road…

-c

We all know pride comes before the fall, what most of us fail to realize is that pride hangs around after the fall to stomp your head into the mud and not let you up.

James 4:6

⁶But he gives us more grace. That is why Scripture says:
   “God opposes the proud
      but gives grace to the humble.”

Working on my pride…how ’bout you?

-c

…how about you?

  I was reading in Romans tonight and came across something that made go “Hmmm”.

There is a lot of debate out there about “What is worship?”. For most of us, our minds immediately go to some form of music, singing or other form of emotional expression.

  Romans 12:1-2 (NLT) says…

 ¹ And so, dear brothers and sisters, I plead with you to give your bodies to God because of all he has done for you. Let them be a living and holy sacrifice—the kind He will find acceptable. This is truly the way to worship him. ² Don’t copy the behavior and customs of this world, but let God transform you into a new person by changing the way you think. Then you will learn to know God’s will for you, which is good and pleasing and perfect.

  This caught my attention because our church is getting ready to do a gathering called “The Art of Worship is in the heART”.  We’re trying to break this concept that worship can only happen behind the church doors with music and songs.

After reading (and re-reading) this passage I think we may have the title wrong. Don’t get me wrong, I believe worship comes from the heart BUT the mind typically sets the direction for the heart. I believe this is why Paul said, “but let God transform you into a new person by changing the way you think”. I think this is why so many of us have such a hard time being able to truly worship God, we can’t ever get to the heart because there’s a road block in our minds.

My Pastor, Dr. Tim Cox, has quoted a phrase for just about as long as I’ve known him. He says, “Every spiritual battle is won or lost at the threshold of our minds”. My own personal paraphrase…garbage in, garbage out. Our bodies can only be “a living and holy sacrifice” if we’re willing to monitor what goes into them.

One last thing on this passage of scripture, he says, “the kind He will find acceptable”. I guess I just really don’t want my worship to be rejected by God….do you??

Trying to change the way I think….

-c

Last week I took our youth group on a mission to trip to Dyersburg Tennessee.

So what’s in Dyersburg you ask…Some very cool people doing an amazing job of being Christ to people who need to see Him.

   Greg and Cammie Beam (and their 3 kids, Maria, Leanne and David) are the camp directors at New Life Youth Camp in Dyersburg TN. This camp puts on 6 weeks of camp for at risk kids ranging from first grade through twelfth grade. When it’s not camp season they spend their time working at the Dyersburg Mission. I can’t say enough good things about the work Greg and his team are doing down there and how much they have sacrificed to be obedient Gods calling.

Greg’s Blog

  I took a group of 9 senior high youth and 7 adults to Dyersburg last week to be junior councilors at NLYC. We were there for the 3^rd and 4^th grade kids week. Just let me say it was AMAZING! I saw God move in so many cool ways, not only in the lives of the kids at camp but in the lives of our youth and adults…and even in my life.

I’m still trying to process all that we experienced last week, I had so many “AhhHaa!” moments that I had to start writing them down. One thing I know for certain is that God started a work in each of our lives that we carried back to Ohio with us and I don’t want to let those things go un-attended to.

  So once again I find myself asking the question “What’s Next God?” Don’t know yet but I’m excited to see where we go from here…

More about our mission trip coming soon…and a HUGE thanks to the adults that took a week off work to help me out last week! Jeff and Robin Golden, Duane and Robin Patrick, Tony Koehl and my wife Angel.

Thank You!!

-c 

  As part of my daily routine for work I spend a LOT of time sitting in my email corresponding with people.

One email that landed in my inbox this morning from a vendor had this tag line attached as part of the signature. “In the pursuit of excellence, there is no finish line.”

  Made me think about what we do on Sunday mornings as we try to put together entertaining, engaging and life changing services. There are a lot of people involved in that process who put a ton of work into it so that it all comes together on Sunday.

Hopefully, in the end creating an experience where people can encounter God.

Sometimes we may miss the mark, but the effort we put forth should not be anything less than the pursuit of excellence…if it is, then we’re cheating God…and I think we can all apply this truth at a personal level.

-c

  After reflecting on last night’s conversation for almost 24 hours now, I’m somewhat amazed at Gods patience with me. As I chatted with my friend, I was reminded of all the areas of my life where I do NOT make God a priority and how many times I fail him on a daily basis.

  THANKFULLY, our God has incredible patience, and why wouldn’t he? He loves his children more than anything we can imaging and wants only the best for us.

So much so that he sacrificed his Son for us…now there’s a phrase that we hear over and over again in the religious realm but sometimes I wonder just how much we comprehend the magnitude of that statement. It’s become almost a passing phrase, used to woo unbelievers into salvation. I got to believe that if we really really believed and grasp the connotations of that statement we would fall on faces daily before God and beg forgiveness for being so nonchalant with this incredible gift he has giving us.

  Sometimes it feels like faith can become somewhat mythical, what mean by that is it can become something that is just out there and intangible. Something we say we believe and maybe even live life by a certain set of rules according to our faith.

I am guilty of letting my faith become part of an everyday routine instead new exciting adventure every day.

  One thing that has helped me has been a series of messages being delivered every Sunday by our pastor Dr. Tim Cox. The series is called “Txt Messages” and focuses on breaking down scripture and setting a time line from beginning to end.

  Tim has a way of really bringing the text to life (thanks tim) and it’s helped me be to able to engage the bible in a different way. I’ll be honest, I struggle sometimes to focus or concentrate when I reading scripture. If you’re like me, then this series would be very beneficial. If you’re interested, we’ve recordered the entire series and you can find them on this site. http://media.miamivalley.org.

I’d encourage everyone to check it out…

-c

  I had a meeting tonight with one of my closest friends.  As we sat down and started to talk, the first words out of his mouth were “Do you trust me?” Without blinking an eye or skipping and breathe I immediately answered Yes.

 You see my friend had observed something in my life that was cause for concern and decided he needed to share it with me. His concern was the pace at which I have been running and the amount irons I have in the fire.

Although all things I’m involved in are all good things they can be detrimental if they are outside of what God has called me to be passionate about. What He wants me to poor my life into.

We talked for two and a half hours about this and other topics, we’re both passionate about ministry and shared with each other what we want to accomplish in ministry and bounced ideas off each other.

It was a great conversation, and good to just sit and chat with a friend.

There are so many lessons I walked away from that meeting with. I won’t go into all of them (more on these later) but for now two thoughts I want to share with you that resonated into this evening with me.

1: I’m glad I have people in my life that care enough to have hard conversations with me and keep me in check.

2: And this is the one that’s bugging me…I didn’t flinch in answering his question “Do you trust me?” I’ve been through the best and the worst with this guy and I know he cares and has my best interest at heart and I’m thankful for that. BUT I can’t help but be reminded of how many times God has ask me that exact same question…and I hesitate to answer.

Seems I have to ponder it, evaluate it and water it down to make sure it all makes since in my little pea sized brain…this is insane! The God of the universe, my creator and savior say’s I love you and I have the best possible plan for your life…that should be enough.

So where are you at? How quickly will you respond the next time God ask…”Do you trust me?”

-c 

In my last post I mentioned I work with the youth at our church, did I mention they are awesome?!?!

Anyway, this past week some of them performed the song “On my Own” by Barlow Girl.

Great Job Erin, Abby, Kody and Devin!

Here’s the video…(once playing you can double click the video to show it full screen).

-c

For those of you that may not know, I have the awesome privilege of leading the youth every week at my church. (we have an pretty amazing bunch of teens).

This week we had a great discussion and as we parted I challenged the youth to spend some time daily reflecting on James 5:13-20. (The Message)

If you’re not familiar with it I encourage you to look it up.

It’s in these verses that I believe defines a lot of what we as follower of Christ are to be about. The challenge to the youth (to all of us) is to find where this scripture intersects our lives daily. There is always opportunity to forgive or be forgiven, pray for someone or be prayed for, to heal or help someone heal.

This is great stuff right…..WRONG!!!! Not two days after issuing this challenge to our youth, it hit me directly where I live. Isn’t that just like God to challenge me to “Practice what I preach”?

Well, I don’t like it one bit. The issue that has flared up in my personal life is the last thing in the world that I want to deal with…it’s hard and very painful. It is forcing me down a healing and forgiveness path that I ABSOLUTLEY REFUSE to go down.

So “Whats next?”…I honestly don’t know. I’d like to say I’ll be obedient to what Gods asking of me, but right now I don’t see it happening.

Disobedience = SIN, simple enough…but how do we move past fear, anger and pain to that self-forsaking place where we can be and do what Gods ask of us?

Not sure yet…but I believe a HUGE part of it starts with community, I have a few people in my life that I trust completely.

My pastor (one of my closest friends)

My brother (without whom I would have self destructed a long time ago)

My Life Group (you guys are awesome)

And my Wife (Gods personal gift to me)

I can’t imagine doing life without these people, and I’m sure they will all play a role in this part of my journey.

I hope you have similar people in your life that you can do life with…if you don’t, you really don’t know what you’re missing.

-trying to figure it out…

-c