Dreaming Big

Have you even had a dream so big that you thought would never happen? A dream of going on a trip around the world or to Hawaii or Australia? That is a reality that can happen, but you have to plan don’t you? You have to save and sacrifice and scrimp. You go without now so that you can take that trip later. Nothing else matters. You do what you have to do to see that happen. In the church the same is true. We plan with the big picture in mind. The big picture being our ability to minister to the needs of others in a big way. It begins small and grows in increments. The point is, if we don’t dream, then we don’t grow. If we don’t grow, we die. Of yeah, I know that is a pretty pessimistic point of view, but it is truth never the less. Fortunately for me these moments of pessimism are brief and without any permanent damage.

Back to our dream? What do you believe that your dream for the church here on 81st and Douglas is all about? Does it involve seeing the pews filled with fellow worshippers? Does it involve honoring God above all? Does it have to do with leading people into a relationship with Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior? Does your dream have to do with continuing to help care for people, both physically and spiritually? Does your dream have to do with seeing our sanctuary filled with the holy presence of a Holy God? A sanctuary filled with others lifting up praise to their Heavenly Father? If so, then you’re on the right track! This is what we should be dreaming about. We shouldn’t be dreaming about just the next Sunday’s service but about the next year’s worth of services and the year after that!

Don’t limit your dream based on how much money it will cost or how much time we’ll have to invest. Dream with God’s ability in mind and His limitless resources available to us. When we trust in someone and something bigger than ourselves it motivates us to either put our fears behind us or to jump in with both feet. I’m all for jumping in who else is with me? I hope you are!

Another New Year!!

Something tells me that this new year is going to be an outstanding year. I am now 53 and think that some of the new year's that I've seen my fair share of not so good new year's. I'm thinking specifically of the year that my mom died, 18 years ago this October, that was a tough one. It wasn't that I thought mom would never die but that she would live way longer than she did. She was only 62 and I know it sounds selfish but I wasn't ready for her to go. But because God did take her it gave me a chance to get to know my dad better. We had always had something in common. We could always seem to find something mechanical to work on together or a project to work on that needed attention. I had 14 or 15 extra years with my dad
that gave me a new appreciation of what it meant to be a dad. I was able to glean from him what it truly meant to be a dad in ways that I might not have known had mom lived.

I love and miss them both very much. But as they say, life goes on. I can't stop living my life because their's comes to an end. And has it really ended anyway. I plan on seeing them again in heaven, not tomorrow but at God's appointed time for me I want to go to heaven and fellowship with Him and them. I look forward to it and trust that this year will be the year that we can move ahead with His joy and presence driving us deeper into a relationshiip with Him.

A SONG OF THE HEART

In the Gospel of Luke, Luke recorded there an event that took place just before Mary the mother of Jesus left the company of Elizabeth and Zechariah, Mary's cousin. Elizabeth was pregnant with a son as well, John the Baptist. At hearing the voice of Mary the mother of Jesus, he leapt in his mother's womb. In response to the visit Mary had with Elizabeth she declared to Elizabeth and Zechariah the joy she could no longer contain in her heart. Read it for yourself Luke 1:45-56 and you can feel the jouy ozzing from every fiber of her being.

Now how full of joy is your heart? A saying became popular a few years ago, "Jesus is the Reason for the Season". But why? so many people ask. Isn't the season about giving and receiving? Isn't Christmas as much about feeling good as it is in doing good things? What about those people who don't have anything to give? Can they find joy in the season?

In response to this I would first have to say that in the whole mix of things that without Jesus there is no real meaning in the season. It's really all about him. The celebration and anticipation should all be about Him. The sooner we learn that Christmas isn't about us and our wants or needs for the matter, the sooner we will be able to place Him in the highest place. Thanks to commercialism and selfish desires we have lowered Him to a place that is unacceptable. Let's elevate Him to the place that He belongs, to a place above all places.

Ever feel like a shepherd?

In the gospels of Matthew and Luke both writers give us some of the detail of what took place on the night of Jesus's birth. The shepherds, as I mentioned in my message on Sunday, were the lowest of the low in society at the time. Hopefully you and I don't feel like the lowest of the low in our society but sometimes society can turn the tables on us rather quickly and we suddenly feel like we are the lowest on the food chain. Although many counselors and therapists will go to great lengths to encourage us that the only way this can happen is if we let it, I would have to take issue with that. We are all shaped by our upbringing and by those who influence us, however, that doesn't mean that we are defined by our upbringing. That's like saying because you were born in poverty don't ever expect to get out of poverty because it just won't happen. Fortunately we live in an enlightened age. At least more enlightened than they did in the days of Jesus. I suppose what I'm trying to say is that we shouldn't allow life apart from the influence of Christ to determine who we are and who we desire to become. Jesus's destiny was pre-determined by His Father. He wasn't bitter about this, rather He embraced His destiny and allowed God his Father to plan his life for Him. Are you allowing God the Father through Christ to direct your life. Are you and I willing to allow God to awaken in us what He desires for us to be passionate about? I trust that you can trust Him that much with yor life. I'll be praying that you will discover that He desires for you!

The Advent

Hello everyone! Sorry it's been several weeks since my last post. As I consider this time of year, I have a confession. It's not one of those earth shaking confessions fir most, but it is for me. Rita and I got married in the "good old days", 1977. She a lifelong lutheran and me a lifelong methodist. Even as short as my life had been, all of 21 years, I was not familiar with the custom and tradition of the Advent Season. Needless to say my formal education in church and church history was sorely waning. So soon after my wife and I married Christmas season came around and she suggested we buy an advent wreath or candle set to celebrate the season. Not wanting to feel foolish and let on like I had no idea what she was talking about, I said sure why not. Our first advent candle thing-a-ma-bobber was one that you light the candle weekly and as you light more candles the dealy thingy turns around until the candles burn out. The next year was a little leaner so we just bought a cardboard advent calendar and each day of advent season opens a new day for the season. At least I wasn't burning down the house! To make a long story short, we have done various things throughout the years for advent season. Some years we didn't do anything beyond the yearly christmas program at church and the annual choir christmas cantata.

What has impressed me most about the advent season is that it gets celebrated whether I participate or not. Jesus's coming to earth was impinged on whether or not I either believed or celebrated the advent season. I still as many others still, celebrate the birth of a Savior, our Savior, my Savior.

Will you do that regardless of the economy? Celebrate Jesus's birth as thought it has been a good year economically. Celebrate His birth as thought it were the first time you do so. With all the wonderment and joy or a 6 year old who still begs for the chance to sing Happy Birthday Jesus with their whole heart. For a while I was an old grinch, I thought that Christmas was only for the kids, but Jesus has taught me these many years that it's for my good that He came to, to be my Savior.

I'm a what? A sinner? I don't get it!

In the gospel of Luke in at least nine different places Luke talks about being saved. Now to the people of Israel this was a new, and I mean brand new concept. They weren't accustomed to the concept of being saved once and for all. What system was in place for them was the Old Testament system of the high priest going before God during the time of the passover and offering sacrifices for the sins of the people collectively not individually. Jesus was in the process of teaching them a new way to not only begin their spiritual life anew but a whole new way of life. But because they didn't see Jesus as their Savior, their Messiah, their Redeemer they couldn't grasp the important need for them take the first step by faith. Jesus gave them plenty of examples of what He could do. He chased out a legion of demons, healed the sick from terrible debilating diseases, gave sight to the blind and gave the deaf back their hearing. He turned water into wine and forgave countless people their sins. And yet they still needed proof of his divinity, that He indeed was the Son of Man, as Luke describes Him as. And they still refused to accept Him as the Messiah.

Getting back to Luke's description of getting saved. That word in the greek language is sozo with emphasis on the two o's. It means to be rescued or delivered. This was so people could find their way back into right relationship with their Heavenly Father. What's most important about this is that the Lord never, ever rejects someone who is longing to be made whole spiritually. He is afterall, the only one who can do that. We can be assured that the Lord always responds to those who eagerly seek Him.

When was the last time you eagerly sought after Him. Yesterday as I finished my morning devotions and I was closing that time with the Lord in prayer, I sensed God's presence in a wonderful, nearly overwhelming way. I began to cry and I let the tears flow freely as I desired to receive all that God had prepared for me that morning. He spoke words of encouragement, discipline and love. As I finished my prayer time I realized that it all started so many years ago when I realized that I would need to get saved, sozo, rescued from my sins, that had condemned me to a eternity forever separated from my Heavenly Father. Thank you Lord for those moments of care and for filling me up to overflowing with your presence. Amen

A non-transformation/non-multiplying church

Good afternoon everyone. I trust that you have all had a good week and that the Lord is bringing blessing into your life. Today I want to share with you what it is like to be a non-transformational church. Keep in mind and compare to last weeks blog what the transformational church is doing right and where the other goes off track.

1. The church is dis unified or shares a casual commonality. I'm not even sure that "dis unified" is a word but anyway, the author is trying to point out that in a church more of the obvious things to outsiders is how unified the church is and how well they are able to assimilate into the lives of their congregation.

2. The people of the church have a fondness or appreciation for each other and others. In other words they/we could do a better job of demonstrating of love for one another in the family of God.

3. When it comes to sharing their faith people find it hard to do. It's difficult to love, share or give to others.

4. A transformation church practices the one anothers of scripture. A non-transformational church practices some of the one anothers. IE., love one another, forgive one another, be kind to one another. I think you get the idea. To truly become a transformational church we need to put those one another sayings of scripture to work as quickly as is possible.

5. They/we are characterized as being a civil and/or friendly and polite community.
This alone is not anything bad, however when we can't move beyond this is when we get into trouble. The people who visit our church are looking for transparency and authenticity. Are we that?

6. The inside ministry is what looks to be the most important and is promoted as the most important. In others words, what others see as important to us is that we take care of our own first and everyone else second.

7. When we gather for prayer or pray for others we do so by "targeting" them. IE., we tell them that we will be praying for them rather than praying with them that very moment. If someone has come to you with a need that they needed prayer, more than likely they won't want to "wait" for someone to pray for them but to pray "with" them.

8. Generally we have been taught that in order to have a time of prayer it must take place in an appropriate place at an appropriate time. Prayer is planned. Often times needs cannot wait to be prayed for, they must be prayed for then.

9. I'm guilty of this, spending a lot of time with the prayer requests, gathering them, talking about them, explaining them. And then in reality little time is spent praying about those needs.

10. The leader's of the church are primarily focused on the church. I'm sure you're asking yourself what's wrong with that? Isn't that what the leader's are supposed to be doing? Well the answer is somewhat ambiguous. Yes they should be focused on the church. However, they should be more engaged in the church and bringing others into it.

11. The leaders of the church seem to be doing their own thing, individually, and working independent of the overall vision of the church.

12. For many years the church had one function, to serve as the place where people gathered together for worship. For many congregations today, their "church" building is used primarily for church and outside groups aren't necessarily allowed to use the facility for anything else.

13. In a non-transformational church Bible Study is stressed. Nothing really wrong with Bible study per say, but acquiring knowledge and information isn't the point with the Bible. The point is to put into practice what the Bible teaches.

14. Our passion is the highest for our vision or program.

15. Few people can answer the question, "Who are we reaching?"

16. In a non-transformational church "Faith" activity is rare.

17. When it comes to ministry only a few people are included in significant ministry.

18. Generally speaking, academic based training teaches the "how to think and do".

19. Obedience is a means to an end.

20. Preaching and teaching is correct but tends to be cliche, manipulative or uninspired.

Okay, there you have it. I would suggest you print off both pages and then do a comparison of what you believe that our Church is doing. Are we a transformational or non-transformational church? You may ask yourself if it makes any difference? I believe it does. You might also say that all this stuff on here is the job of the pastor. That's what we pay him to do. Oh but it isn't just the pastor's job, the church is for all of us. And the call He has placed on our life is one that can help us place our trust and faith in Him and trust His guidance. James 1:22 tells us not to be listeners only but doers as well. What do you say? I say let's do something!