Marriage? On Easter?

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Why would we want to be talking about a topic like marriage on Easter Sunday? Shouldn’t we just focus on the resurrection of Jesus? Well, I say that is a great question… So let me answer that with another question: Did you ever wonder why so many people just show up to church on Christmas and Easter, and zero other times during the year? Why is that?

Here is what I think. We are great at talking about the birth and the resurrection of Jesus in terms of our “eternal salvation.” Jesus was raised on the third day for your eternal soul. Thank God! I am so glad that is the case! Unfortunately, most people don’t think about their eternal soul much. It’s sort of like your life insurance. You want to get it taken care of, then just make your regular payments and hope it all works out in the end… Right? So why would the average person be in church and around other believers more than once or twice a year? That seems to be the acceptable minimum to keep up your life insurance! Set it and forget it.

The great news is that the resurrection is not only for your eternal salvation… But also for us to experience “abundant life” (John 10:10) while here! He died and was raised to redeem everything about us! In fact, marriage itself is a beautiful picture of what God is doing in us! (Ephesians 5:31-32) So, God is deeply interested in my marriage. He’s interested in your’s, too. His desire is to transform it and all the other broken pieces of our lives into something complete and beautiful. (Romans 12:2)

Maybe if we talk about the resurrection in terms of our EVERYDAY LIVES, in addition to our eternal lives, (like Jesus did) then just maybe we will win the right to have more influence on those around us for the sake of the Kingdom! How can we not talk about all of the results of the resurrection in our lives?

I really hope you will invest yourself into praying and inviting people around you to this series. I think it will be relationship-changing.

Baptized.

Yesterday’s worship service was just one of my favorites.

Great Group!
It was awesome to have such a big crowd on Sunday morning… The room felt really full with all the friends and families that had come to see their loved ones baptized, and it is always good to see those curtains pushed back a little bit.

Great Baptism!
Seriously… You just can’t beat that. We saw 12 people get baptized on our very first Sunday morning baptism! What an incredible picture of what God is doing in people’s lives.

Great Sound!
After two weeks of sound board stress, I feel like we finally have the bugs worked out. Thanks, Paul and John!

Great Word!
Ephesians 2 is just one of my favorite chapters in Scripture. If you missed it, you can download the podcast right here.

Less Really Is More

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Yesterday, our team returned from the awesome Velocity Conference at Mountain Lake Church. I think it’s my 4th conference with them. It always provides a great leadership boost, right when I seem to always need it.

Often, my favorite parts of these conferences are the small-group breakout sessions… They provide some of the most practical, useable takeaways for me and our ministry.

It was one of these breakouts where I met Matt Evans, the pastor and founder of Rockbridge Church in Dalton. He led the breakout session “Small Town, Big Impact.” Not only did I learn a lot, but Matt became my friend, and in many ways a mentor of mine. (I’m excited to have lunch with him next week!) He has spoken into my life and into this church in lots of ways.

Here is what I learned at this year’s conference… If you are leading a breakout session, PLEASE DO NOT spend the hour reading off your list of “10 laws of leadership,” or “7 ways to cast vision,” or “21 ways to plant reproducing churches.” What happens is that we get a really scant overview of stuff that feels really stale and doesn’t impact anyone. Most of it feels like a retread of something else that we already know, and it causes the listeners to leave a little frustrated, wondering what they missed in the other breakouts going on at the same time.

Instead, give me your list on paper, or (even better) on a web page. As you talk, give me some overview… But spend the bulk of the hour sharing your heart about ONE or TWO of your 21 points. Pour out your heart about how God has really impressed THIS PARTICULAR TRUTH into your life, and tell me the story of what you have seen as a result of applying this particular principle. I want to hear YOU… Not your list.

I promise… If you INSPIRE me with just one of your principles, presenting it to me in a compelling way that makes me really want to implement it in my own life and ministry… I will trip over myself to buy your book with the rest of your principles in it! Think of the exponentially larger impact you will have on my ministry, and of the number of books you could sell!

It’s really a great lesson for me as a speaker, also. Rattling off countless good points does little good. Each message should ultimately point to ONE TRUTH, which should be easily transferrable into someone’s life. All the facts and figures in the world don’t matter if they don’t compellingly lead someone into life transformation.

12 Ways you can serve in 2012

We serve God by serving others, right? And with the new year upon us, people are looking for new ways to be used by God in others’ lives. Here are just 12 ways you can serve God by serving in the church in the new year.

1. Bring supplies for children’s crafts on Sun   
2. Join the Sunday Setup crew
3. Volunteer 1x mo in Kidmo or Lil’ K
4. Join the worship team (we need instrumentalists!)
5. Seamless Summer
6. Join the Hospitality team to serve coffee, greet, and smile.
7. Deliver clothes to schools with BRANCH Ministry
8. Join our Tech Team
9. Be a Disciple Now host home in March
10. Give regularly
11. Sponsor a kid for Camp
12.  Special event volunteer: Easter, Christmas, etc.

Choosing to Cheat

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Who are you cheating?

You love your family. You love the challenges of your job. But there’s not enough of you to go around. Somebody isn’t getting as much of your attention as they want or deserve.

This little book presents a strategic plan for resolving the tension between work and home—reversing the destructive pattern of giving to your company and career what belongs to your family.

But be forewarned…you will have to cheat.

Making Space

You might have noticed that it’s been nearly two months since my last blog entry… Been really busy the last little while. You know how it goes, right? I just tend to get caught up in too much stuff sometimes.
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It’s kind of an ironic situation… MAKING SPACE is what our Christmas series is all about. Sherry told me this afternoon that “this series seems like it is for you as much as it is for anyone else.” She’s right. To be honest, this wasn’t the original series at all. In fact, I had been so overloaded lately, that I had intended to preach through a book about a different topic during these three weeks to reduce the load on my personal schedule. But God very clearly led me in a different direction. This is definitely a series about a topic that I haven’t fully worked out in my own life, and I suspect there are many others out there that struggle with the same issue. I hope this series is a blessing to you this season. You can
get the series right here.

Shift your prayer life

For this morning’s message in Ephesians, we’re looking at how Paul the apostle prayed for the church. I thought it would be helpful to link back to an older message on the basics of prayer, so here it is!

SHIFT: Prayer

Blessings Delivered in Christ!

Isn’t it great to know that God has already delivered to us EVERY spiritual blessing?? IN CHRIST, we have been given ALL that we ever will need.

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Ephesians 1 describes these blessings very nicely… Among them, we are chosen, graced, redeemed, reconciled, destined, and sealed! I love the fact that in HIM, we have been given all we need, and in Him, we lack nothing.

It’s not like we have to hope or wish or pray or somehow earn every spiritual blessing. We HAVE BEEN GIVEN them ALL! Many Christians think that growing in Christ means earning more and more of these blessings over the course of their life. Nothing could be farther from the truth! Maturing as a Christian means GROWING INTO the blessings that I ALREADY HAVE in CHRIST!

Colossians 1:11-14 tells us that I have already been qualified, already been delivered, already been transferred, already been redeemed, and I’ve already been forgiven!

God doesn’t withhold his blessings for us. ALL are delivered freely in Christ.

Reading Ahead

If you’re reading ahead for this weekend’s service, we’re covering Ephesians 1:3-14. There is a LOT of information there… Some really deep theology. BUT don’t let that scare you. We’ll spend the next few weeks looking at this passage and we’ll look carefully at what God says to us there.

One of the things that strikes me about this next section is verse 13… “And when you believed in Christ, he identified you as his own by giving you the Holy Spirit, whom he promised long ago.”

sealed

The words here literally say that “he put his seal on you” by giving you the Holy Spirit. I love the image here! A seal signified the ownership of the king. Anything bearing the king’s seal would carry all of the power and authority of the king himself. Also, anything bearing that seal would come under the full protection of all of the king’s resources. Whoever bore this seal was acting as the king’s representative on behalf of the king himself.

Verse 14 goes on to say that this same Holy Spirit that seals you and me promises that “he will give us the inheritance he promised and that he has purchased us to be his own people.” We can rest assured that we are “marked…” We are “sealed” by God in Jesus Christ by the Holy Spirit! That seal forever binds US to HIM!