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How is your spiritual health?

How are you doing? Chances are you are doing pretty well. After all, we are only fives days into a brand new year. That means most of us are probably still committed to the goals and resolutions we made for 2010. Personally, I feel great! I’m eating better, exercising daily, and sleeping more. I feel better physically, mentally and emotionally as a result. If I can only remember how terrific I feel now as the year progresses, then perhaps I can maintain this discipline. Honestly, discipline is not always easy, but the results are amazing!

This is not only true physically, it is also true spiritually. The Bible teaches us:

“Physical exercise has some value, but spiritual exercise is much more important, for it promises a reward in both this life and the next.” (1 Timothy 4:8 NLT)

Let me ask you again; how are you doing –SPIRITUALLY? Are you getting any spiritual exercise? Spiritual health does not happen automatically, it is the result of God responding to your investment of spiritual discipline. For me this means in addition to taking “The Sit-up” Challenge” (yes, my wife really challenged me to do 100 crunches per day and I really accepted) I am also taking the Bible Challenge. I also committed to spending more time in prayer in 2010. What about you? Which disciplines do you need to focus on?:

·      Praying passionately?

·      Reading (God’s word) regularly?

·      Giving Generously?

·      Attending church regularly?

·      Serving others?

·      Practicing fellowship (relationship with other Christians)?

·      Sharing (your faith) consistently?

 Discipline is tough because it involves pain (when we do what we would rather not) and sacrifice (when we do not do what we would rather do). However, we can remain disciplined if we shift our focus from the difficulty to the outcome:

“No discipline is enjoyable while it is happening—it is painful! But afterward there will be a quiet harvest of right living for those who are trained in this way.” (Hebrews 11:25 NLT)

My prayer is that 2010 will be a year of great spiritual discipline and, consequentially, spiritual health for us all!

What is the vision for your life?

"Where there is no vision, the people perish..." (Proverbs 29:18a NKJV)

Ironically, I shared that verse on "Vision Sunday" on a morning that was so foggy that I had to slow my car to a crawl just to safely drive onto the property where our church meets. I couldn't see a thing, which is sadly a good description of our lives at times. We desperately need a vision for our lives, our families, our church and every other area in life. The reason is fairly simple. Without vision, we just tend to drift through life. And the problem with drifting is that you rarely end up anywhere extraordinary or even anywhere that you would actually want to be. You just end up wherever life happens to take you.

This happens so easily. It takes no effort to get lost in the fog, and to allow life's gravitational pull to just drag you. That is why we need vision. Vision reminds us of WHERE we're going, WHAT we're doing and WHY we're doing it. And that better equips us to do the right thing instead of just the easy thing day to day.

On Sunday, we spoke of the vision for Calvary Fellowship, and if you missed it; I'd encourage you to Check It Out , but I'd also like us to apply these thoughts on a personal level. As we enter a new year and a new decade, I encourage and challenge you to pray, ponder and plan a vision for your life going forward.

What will your life look like in 2010? Your spirituality? Your job? Your education? Your relationships? Your marriage? Your parenting? Your finances? Your health & fitness? Your habits? Your recreation? Your__________? Once you get a mental picture (a vision) write it down in the form of a goal, a budget, or a plan to help you gain clarity and remain focused.

One of the Old Testament names for God is El Roi; "the God who sees." May we look to Him to gain a vision for our lives that we could never see with our own limited sight. My prayer for you is that you will take this time of natural reflection to pray hard, dream big and be intentional so that you can cut through the fog, stop drifting and start seeing and seizing the abundant life that God wants for you!

Getting into the Christmas spirit

Are you feeling the Christmas spirit yet? One of the challenges given in this past weekend’s message was for us to remember that Christmas is all about Jesus! As simple as that is to say, it is increasingly harder to do. I’ve often thought and heard people say that this would be much if Jesus would simply reveal Himself by coming to Earth right here and right now in our time. He’s already here…that’s where you and I come in.

As followers of Jesus the Bible teaches us that we are Jesus’ body and that His Spirit takes up residence inside of us guiding us, and empowering us, to be more like Him. Considering that let’s take the three aspects we looked at on Sunday of Jesus being a humble King and consider how we can apply these to ourselves in order to reveal God’s presence to the world this Christmas season:

Where He came –We talked about the lowly and dark places that Jesus came to when He condescended His form from God to a man and stepped into our world. In the same way, we should humbly be grateful for wherever God has placed us. In our families, our jobs, our communities, our state…wherever we are is a great place to serve God.  This begins when, even in our current surroundings, we stop complaining and start thanking God.  The difference between thanksgiving and complaint is not our circumstances, but our perspective.

What He became – Jesus lowered Himself to become a common person and then eventually revealed Himself to be God’s promised Messiah to save His people.  We too should follow Christ’s example and humble ourselves so that there is nobody that we are unwilling to associate with because we somehow feel above them. God places us around people every single day…let’s take a minute to notice them, talk to them, listen to them and encourage them.  On the flipside Jesus became the Messiah who will ultimately reign as King of all. While we are not the Messiah or kings and queens, as adopted children of God, we are royal princes and princesses. Let’s also take the time to focus inward and ask God to help us make any internal or external adjustments needed to help us think, act and look more and more like the King we represent.

Why He came –Jesus came “not to be served, but to be serve.”  Let me ask you an honest and difficult question. Has your life become all about you? Your convenience, your preferences, your ambitions, your agendas? If so, it is time to repent and ask God to help you become more God-centered and others-centered. I have to do this on a regular basis. Jesus came to serve and to give His life so that many would be saved. As servants of our King, we should be willing to do no less. Our purpose on this Earth is to serve our King and point others to Him through our actions and our words. We have to continually be intentional about this or our lives will naturally drift towards serving ourselves.

If we will do these things then we truly experience the “Christmas spirit” in a way that eggnog and Santa Clause just can't deliver!

Safety

Is the will of God safe? This was the topic John B. (a man of international intrigue) explored this morning at Calvary Fellowship in his message "Safety."

To hear the sermon you can click here to download the podcast from iTunes or click here to download it or listen online from our church website.

My thoughts about the Conard move

Yesterday (after a long period of blood, sweat, tears and prayers) Calvary Fellowship held our first service at Conard High School. My head is still spinning a little, but here are some of my thoughts in the aftermath:

• We have an amazing staff and dedicated group of volunteers that worked diligently and selflessly to make everything happen...it is great to work with such high-caliber people!
• Also, the staff at Conard has been a HUGE help in making everything run smoothly for us (love ya, Carlos!)
• Despite several last-minute challenges up to the 11th hour, everything came together (and nobody was even aware of some of the issues we faced)!
• While we came up with a bunch of little things to fix, they were all LITTLE things. No BIG problems (this is huge considering how many details went into everything).
• After our staff meeting we came up with a list of things that we can do this week (via our own observations and some helpful feedback from church members) to make next week even better.
• Being at Conard felt completely different; it's bigger and badder and it feels like we're in a whole new church league as we launch Calvary 5.0!
• I think everyone felt a little strange as we all adjust to our new digs (it took 1/2 of my message before I felt like I was connecting with everyone)
• Roping off the seats and having everyone sit towards the front helped to create a smaller feel in a BIG auditorium.
• Having lots of new empty seats motivates me to work harder to fill them! (And I think it communicates to everyone that we are on the move and not willing to be complacently comfortable in our mission)
• The music was awesome! We still have some sound issues to tweak, but all fixable stuff.
• It felt a little weird preaching...the whole environment feels very professional; it kind of makes me feel pressured to write better messages. :) (Love my new podium!)
• The kids' environments looked inviting, energetic and well put together (we had to get creative with the space for some areas, but it worked out great!)
• I love the new courtyard extension area outside of the cafeteria for food/fellowship time; perfect for perfect weather like we experienced yesterday (plus I like the new Starbuck's coffee!!!)
• It was really cool to see the enthusiasm and excitement on the faces of our church body as they walked in and checked out our new church home. (Everyone has prayed, given, served and done so much to make this happen...it felt good to experience and celebrate the payoff of those efforts with everyone)
• I am more excited than ever about what God wants to do with this church. I am honored to be the pastor of such a great group of people in this really cool Christ-community that God is forming and expanding!

Coming Home

I intended to blog each day about the rich insights and revelations I was learning at the PDC gathering and...you know what they say about intentions.

Anyway, it was a tremendous conference rich with insight and I'm motivated to be a world-changer! But first, I can't wait to get home and see my girls!

Checking in from the West Coast

Day 1 of the Purpose Driven Community Gathering was fantastic!

I have so many notes, and there are so many things that God is impressing upon me personally and as a church leader. I can't share it all, but let me share one quote that I loved from Rick:

"You only believe the parts of the bible you do."

Simple, but a profound question that you can spend a lot of self-reflection time on. I really wish I had heard this a week ago, because this would have been perfect to steal for my message this past Sunday!

Off to day 2 of the conference...

Picking your battles

At Calvary Fellowship, we have chosen to remain an apolitical organization. While we encourage individuals to prayerfully and even passionately engage in the political process, we as a church refuse to get organizationally involved. It's simply a distraction from our mission because its not what the church has been called to do. Having said that, this is one fight I will not join:
http://elections.foxnews.com/2008/05/09/pastors-urged-to-preach-about-politics-in-hopes-of-toppling-irs-ban/

Diploma or GED required...

A friend took this test and his blog came up with an Elementary reading level. I thought mine might be at the preschool level, but it turns out you need at least a high school education to keep up around here. Hmmm...does that mean I should tighten up or dumb it down?!?

I'm thankful for...

During this weekend's message I issued a challenge to help us learn to be content. It was based on the idea that (contrary to most marketing) it is not accumulation (of things we think we want or need), but appreciation (for what we already have) that leads to contentment. The challenge was for each of us to put our wishlists (things we desire and tend to focus on) on hold and create a new list this week; a "gratitude list."

Here is the start of my list of things I'm thankful for:

• God (who always seems to have a more abundant supply of grace and mercy than my plentiful supply of sin & stupidity)
• My wife Rebecca (She is far more than I deserve; I recommend that you marry someone above your class too if at all possible)
• My daughters Emily and Lily (they make me laugh daily and teach me so much)
• My new daughter who I will meet on March 13th (or around that time)
• The people in our church (I know every pastor says they have the best congregation, but they're all wrong apparently...)
• My extended family (wish I could see you more!)
• My friends (got to see this one and this one in NYC at a conference last week)
• My job (I LOVE what I do!)
• The home warranty we signed up for 2 months ago (2 nights ago  a pipe burst that flooded our kitchen and sent potato peels overflowing out of our bathroom upstairs...the warranty covered a repair that would have cost 3-years of payments for the warranty!)

I could go on and on...but what are you thankful for?!?