Seek.Grow.Serve

The Principle of the Path

2009-11-11T17:35:00.001-08:00

As we learned this weekend, the principle of the path is true whether we believe it to be or not. The life we get tomorrow, a year from now, or 5, 10, or 20 years from now will be the direct result of the decisions we make today. And that means that we need to be making wise decisions. But how do we do that? Where does wisdom come from? Proverbs 27:12 says, "The wise see danger and take refuge, but the fool keeps going and suffers for it."

What's the difference between the wise and the fool? It is not knowledge - the verse implies that they both saw the danger. It is action - the wise hide from danger, they change direction, they take different paths. But when a fool sees danger the just keep on going. And the result? Suffering.

What about you? When you see red flags, do you change direction or do you keep going?

How can GSM help you?

Delight

2009-02-18T08:30:00.000-08:00

Today again I was reading in Psalm 37. What an amazing passage. It brings me much hope and peace. Verse 4 says, "Delight yourself in the Lord and he will give you the desires of your heart." What does it mean to delight? According to the notes in my Bible it is "to experience great pleasure or joy in the presence of that person.

This got me thinking about the people in my life; who do I delight in? For sure my wife and my kids. The truth is that the first face that popped into my mind was that of my daughter Claire. Do I delight in God the way I do my family?

This morning in our staff prayer time our pastor said fill in the blank; God is... The first word that came to mind was Bigger and then the word Just came to mind. Does this mean I delight in Him? Here's the truth, I don't delight enough, but this morning I gave Him credit for the small things and said thanks.

So where do I/we go from here? Try to take pleasure and joy in God and who He is, not you/I want Him to be. He is Bigger and Just!

Words of Comfort

2009-02-17T08:51:00.001-08:00

It's been a crazy few weeks. A good friend has moved on to a different place of work, a bunch of negative comments have come my way and I'm internalizing way too much. I was reading a devotion from A.W. Tozer this morning about the differences between spiritual burdens and what he calls worry weights. These worry weights in the grand scheme of things are not that important and can often distract you/me from the important things, like the heart of God. There was a reference to Psalm 37, so I went back to read it and was pleasantly surprised by the words of comfort that I found there. Here's a sample:

1 Do not fret because of evil men
or be envious of those who do wrong;

2 for like the grass they will soon wither,
like green plants they will soon die away.

3 Trust in the LORD and do good;
dwell in the land and enjoy safe pasture.

4 Delight yourself in the LORD
and he will give you the desires of your heart.

5 Commit your way to the LORD;
trust in him and he will do this:

6 He will make your righteousness shine like the dawn,
the justice of your cause like the noonday sun.

7 Be still before the LORD and wait patiently for him;
do not fret when men succeed in their ways,
when they carry out their wicked schemes.

8 Refrain from anger and turn from wrath;
do not fret—it leads only to evil.

9 For evil men will be cut off,
but those who hope in the LORD will inherit the land.

10 A little while, and the wicked will be no more;
though you look for them, they will not be found.

11 But the meek will inherit the land
and enjoy great peace.

God help me to think more about you and things that are important to you than the petty things of this life that I get caught up in!

It's been a while

2009-02-12T10:05:00.000-08:00

So I've been a slacker. I haven't posted anything for too long. Here's what I've got today. This Sunday we will begin a series called Life Hurts, God Heals. This series was developed by Saddleback Church out in California. I believe that this has the potential to dramatically impact the lives of our students at The Gathering. Everyone has pain or has been hurt; some more deeply than others. For some reason when we're hurting we often isolate ourselves, we turn away from the very things that we need, God and true friendship. In this series we'll explore that we weren't meant to go it alone, we need God and we'll explore how G.O.D.H.E.A.L.S. us.

Here's a preview of the series:

Join us for the next four Sundays as we dig in together.

God blesses those who mourn, for they will be comforted. Matthew 5:4

Response to a question

2009-01-23T14:04:00.000-08:00

This was the response to a question that was asked on one of my homework assignments:

The question: The authors say that the book is "an invitation to climb a different kind of ladder." What do you think they mean by this?

In this world people are taken captive by the allure of money, power and fame, all the while viewing these as success, when in reality these often leads to isolation, destruction and pride. This reminds me of an old Caedomn’s Call song called “This World.” There is a line that says, “This world has nothing for me and this world has everything. All that I could want and nothing that I need.”

When I climb the ladder discussed in this book (The Ascent of a Leader) I am climbing the ladder of becoming uniquely who God has made me to be. This ladder leads me to “awaken and nurture the purposes God has for me and the people around me.” It’s realizing that my life is more than me. It’s my relationship with God and how I live that out with other people. It’s how I respond to the people and situations in which I find myself. It’s truth, justice, compassion, grace, mercy and authenticity. It’s the power of the resurrected Christ living in and through me to bring healing, reconciliation, redemption and love to a broken and hurting world.

I hope that I am up to the task. I hope that I can be true to who God has made me to BE.

Tough Decisions

2009-01-15T19:52:00.001-08:00

Right now there are a couple of tough decision that are weighing on me, but the one I'd like to focus on here is the decision of whether or not our middle school missions trip to Mexico will happen or not. I keep going back and forth about whether or not I'm ignoring roadblocks that God is putting up or if it is Satan trying to keep us from the work of the Kingdom of God. Err!!! So how do you determine whether or not your hearing from God? Well tomorrow I'll be fasting and praying as I seek the guidance of the Lord. I'll let you know what I hear!

Happy New Year

2009-01-06T19:27:00.001-08:00

So we're 6 days into the new year, and I'm slow about getting back into my blog, it happens.

I'm taking a class right now through Fuller Seminary and it's very, very interesting. The big idea behind the class is to look back over your life and see how God has been involved (whether you recognized it or not) in shaping your life and ministry. We've constructed a time line of our lives that reveal patterns and create deep insight to what God may have in store for my future as well.

God spoke to me today. There are several people in class who very much like me struggle with doing too much and not "being" enough. One activity that we had to do was take 30 minutes and be still before God. While we were being still we were to think on what we are called to "be."

It was a cool morning, but sunny and I choose to take a walk. As I walked through downtown Colorado Springs I was praying and asking God what I was called to be. Lots of things came to my head, but I know that it' was just me going through a list of ideas of what to do. Then as I kept asking God, what are you calling me to do, the song "Unashamed Love" popped into my head, specifically the part that says, "You're calling my to lay aside the worries of my day, to quite down my busy mind and find a hiding place, worthy, worthy, you are worthy." Looking back all I can think is duh! I tell my wife all too often that I'm too busy. God wants me to BE! Another image entered my head as well, it's the Rembrandt painting called the "Return of the Prodigal." The key thing about the painting is how the Father is embracing the son. It's like he's enveloped him, he's covering him, he's hiding him. That's what I'm hear from God. Slow down, let me hold you, BE with me. How???

John 15:1-5 has an idea for me and all people who are in need of some renewal.
Jesus said, 1"I am the true vine, and my Father is the gardener. 2He cuts off every branch in me that bears no fruit, while every branch that does bear fruit he prunes so that it will be even more fruitful. 3You are already clean because of the word I have spoken to you. 4Remain in me, and I will remain in you. No branch can bear fruit by itself; it must remain in the vine. Neither can you bear fruit unless you remain in me. 5"I am the vine; you are the branches. If a man remains in me and I in him, he will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing.

Right now I'm allowing God to reveal to me what needs to be pruned from my life. I just hope that I will be obedient to do what he shows me to do.

Merry Christmas

2008-12-25T20:26:00.000-08:00

What a day! It was good and I am a blessed man. A couple of weeks ago I blogged about a woman who had lost most of her family in the last twenty years. From happily married with five kids to one son left and he's headed to Afghanistan in January. Anyway, a couple of days ago a friend and I went to her house to give her a bed frame. She just had a box spring and a mattress that lay on the floor and she has MS; it's difficult for her to get in and out of bed. While there it came out that she would for the most part be alone for Christmas (no family). She then said something that floored me again... She said that this Christmas had special meaning to her because she felt like may be she understood how God felt a little better, you see, he gave his only son for the world and she is giving her only remaining son to the US to fight for freedom. I was in awe. I told her that here I am a pastor and her faith and strength causes me to recognize just how selfish I am and how blessed I am. To make a long story short, I invited her to Christmas dinner with our family and the others we had coming over, but she said that she was going to cook dinner for the people across the street who have no stove. Again she's a pretty amazing woman.

As for me and my house, it was a good day. We celebrated Jesus' birthday with the kids, we had my parents in town and invited a couple other couple who have no family in town over for lunch. God is good and I'm amazed at the favor he has lavished on me.

Weekend Service Review #2

2008-12-22T08:41:00.000-08:00

Weekend Teaching Series: My Christmas Gifts

Sermon in a Sentence: There is no reason or excuse to not give back to God right now as high school students; God is bigger and you've got the power!

Key Verse: “I tell you the truth, anyone who has faith in me will do what I have been doing. He will do even greater things than these, because I am going to the Father.” John 14:2

Weekend Scale of Difficulty: 1. This was a straightforward weekend.

Attendance: around 90

Service Length: 1 hour 15 minutes

Understandable Message:
God has given each of us abilities and as Christians was have the responsibility and the power to give back to God out of our thankfulness. The power comes from the resurrection of Jesus Christ. “I tell you the truth, anyone who has faith in me will do what I have been doing. He will do even greater things than these, because I am going to the Father.” John 14:2 Not everyone will be called to do huge things like begin a ministry at a young age, but the small things are important too. We introduced the beginning of our student leadership team in January as a way to give to God now.

Volunteer/Student Involvement: Peter Spaulding helped with the announcements. Alyssa Varney sang Silent in German!

Element of Fun/Positive Environment:
It was Yanina’s birthday and we sang her happy birthday. I just happened to have an extra itunes gift card so I gave it to her. I wore my ugly sweater while I spoke. (comments were that it was very distracting!)

Music Playlist:

Favorite Moment:
This Sunday, the band was excellent (Jerry put together a guest band of mostly college aged kids) worshipping together was my favorite part! The band: Jason Jenkins – acoustic and vocals, Amanda Gregory – keyboard and vocals, Sean Reily - electric and vocals, Andrew Vezey - drums, Mark ??? – bass.

My Utmost For His Highest

2008-12-17T08:35:00.000-08:00

The following post comes from Oswald Chambers "My Utmost For His Highest." I read it this morning and thought that it goes hand in hand with yesterday's visit to the Springs Rescue Mission and the passage (Galatians 5) that we read at our staff prayer time this morning. If you like what you read here, check out the website for "My Utmost For His Highest." http://www.rbc.org/utmost/index.php

Redemption— Creating the Need it Satisfies

The natural man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him . . . —1 Corinthians 2:14

The gospel of God creates the sense of need for the gospel. Is the gospel hidden to those who are servants already? No, Paul said, "But even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing, whose minds the god of this age has blinded, who do not believe . . ." ( 2 Corinthians 4:3-4 ). The majority of people think of themselves as being completely moral, and have no sense of need for the gospel. It is God who creates this sense of need in a human being, but that person remains totally unaware of his need until God makes Himself evident. Jesus said, "Ask, and it will be given to you . . ." (Matthew 7:7 ). But God cannot give until a man asks. It is not that He wants to withhold something from us, but that is the plan He has established for the way of redemption. Through our asking, God puts His process in motion, creating something in us that was nonexistent until we asked. The inner reality of redemption is that it creates all the time. And as redemption creates the life of God in us, it also creates the things which belong to that life. The only thing that can possibly satisfy the need is what created the need. This is the meaning of redemption— it creates and it satisfies.

Jesus said, "And I, if I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all peoples to Myself" ( John 12:32 ). When we preach our own experiences, people may be interested, but it awakens no real sense of need. But once Jesus Christ is "lifted up," the Spirit of God creates an awareness of the need for Him. The creative power of the redemption of God works in the souls of men only through the preaching of the gospel. It is never the sharing of personal experiences that saves people, but the truth of redemption. "The words that I speak to you are spirit, and they are life" ( John 6:63 ).

Rescue

2008-12-16T19:02:00.000-08:00

Today I attended the yearly Christmas luncheon for the Springs Rescue Mission - New Life Program. The New Life Program is for men who have gone down the wrong path and have found themselves at the end of their rope. It is a one year intense Discipleship program in which they disciple men and help them to get back on track through schooling and AA type programs.

There was a man named Ron who told his story today and it was an amazing testimony of the power of God to change a life. The short version is that at an early age he got addicted to alcohol, he was abused and he became violent. One of the things that he said was that whenever he'd get sent to jail he would read the bible b/c it was there. Every time he was in jail, there was the bible. He said "I began to ask the question, God are you gonna keep sending me to jail so that I'll read the bible." Ron got involved in the New Life Program and in his time there he has not only been sober for nine months, but he has completed his GED and started taking college classes as well. He has received A's in those classes so far. He give God all the credit.

Mike, our pastor, reminded the men not to be ashamed of their story because God is not finished with it yet.

It was awesome to hear stories of changed lives and to be with those men for a while. I hope to get our students connected with the ministry somehow.

Jeremiah 17:7-8 "But blessed is the man who trusts in the LORD, whose confidence is in him. He will be like a tree planted by the water that sends out its roots by the stream. It does not fear when heat comes; its leaves are always green. It has no worries in a year of drought and never fails to bear fruit."

Weekend Service Review

2008-12-15T22:16:00.000-08:00

Weekend Teaching Series: My Christmas Gifts – Week 2

Sermon in a Sentence: If you can determine what you were created by God to do, you will truly find a life you will love living. – Blaine Bartels

Key Verse: “. . . Each one has his own gift from God; one has this gift, another has that.”1 Corinthians 7:7

Weekend Scale of Difficulty: 7. It was tough to juggle the interview and story of Matt Gaw and give the SHAPE Inventory in the same service.

Attendance: 93 people. It was an extremely cold Sunday. The high was may be 15 degrees and there were slick roads.

Service Length: 1 hour 15 Minutes

Understandable Message: Each one of us has been SHAPEd to serve God. When we discover how we are SHAPEd, then we will live the full life that God has intended for us to live. SHAPE stands for Spiritual gifts, Heart, Abilities, Personality and Experiences.

Volunteer/Student Involvement:
Justin Little and Amber Florea did the welcome and announcements.
Matt Gaw was interviewed about how he is SHAPEd for the missions field in the Ukraine.
Charlie Hillman did sound, David Sutton ran the computer & lights.
Katelyn Larson and Amber were in the worship team.

Element of Fun/Positive Environment:
Kellie Prophet, Michelle Michalk, Justin Little & Jason Jenkins did an improv version of Little Drummer Boy.
Father Christmas clip from Narnia’s “The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe.”

Music Playlist:
No One Like You, All We Need, All Because of Jesus, All I need is You, Love Song

Favorite Moment:
Collecting the questions for our upcoming series “Life’s Toughest Questions.”

Notes:
We had too many announcements and I need to work with our students who did the announcements to smooth it out and help it flow.

Amazing Story

2008-12-12T14:43:00.000-08:00

So I am not really a crier. I don't do it much, but this had me tearing up pretty good. After watching this I feel like I make soo many excuses and these people are truly an inspiration.

Check out this link http://www.runnersworld.com/article/0,7120,s6-243-408--12368-0,00.html

Read, watch, cry and run!

A Few Minutes

2008-12-10T21:32:00.000-08:00

I'm in between papers. I have just finished a paper reflecting on portions of a book fro my pastoral counseling class. I think the book left me with more questions than answers. One of the greatest quotes that I've seen on leadership was the author Will Willimon quoting Mark Twain. Twain says, “Two things seemed pretty apparent to me. One was, that in order to be a pilot man had got to learn more than any one man ought to know; and the other was, that he must learn it all over again in a different way every twenty-four hours.”

How true, how true. I sometimes feel like this. To be a pastor I have to know more than I can know and just when I think I know something, things change. I have said before, the more I learn, the less I feel like I know. Whoa. It's late and I need to start working on my next paper, it's all about my family history and relationships, warts and all and how that will affect my ministry. Until next time...

"The LORD bless you and keep you; the LORD make his face shine upon you and be gracious to you; the LORD turn his face toward you and give you peace." Deut. 6:24-26

Advent Consipracy

2008-12-03T10:27:00.000-08:00

Advent Conspiracy is a pretty cool thought. After my wife and I watched the video, we did our annual Christmas gift giving to them in honor of our family members who have everything. If you have people like that in your life, check this out and give the gift of clean water where it's needed most!

December 2nd

2008-12-02T14:07:00.000-08:00

Thanksgiving has come and gone!!! It's hard to believe. My wife and my son were sick over the holiday and then I had a really long weekend with a MX missions trip fundraiser. Sunday was unbelievable. It snowed all day and it was supposed to be mid-forties and sunny. This helped to make our fundraiser a bust. We planned for 300 and if we served 150, that would be a generous estimate. We stayed in the black, but it wasn't a very good fundraiser. Oh well, we're gonna try to get the food down to the rescue mission and bless them. Our students worked hard and had a good time.

He gives and He takes away...

2008-11-26T20:06:00.000-08:00

Today I took my small group to help a lady who has MS. We painted her kitchen and her bathroom and did a little yard work. While we were there I had the opportunity to talk and listen to her and hear her story. The long and short of it is that she feels as she is a blessed woman and that amazes me.

In 1986 she was diagnosed with some sort of heart complication and only given a couple of years to live. The medication that she was taking to battle this condition caused her to develop cancer. She obviously beat both of these conditions! Since that time, her family of 7 has shrunk to a family of 2. Her oldest son died of an addiction to Meth last February, one of her daughters was killed in a car wreck and her husband and her two remaining daughters were killed when He had an aneurysm while driving with them in the car. It is now Cindy and her son Kent; Kent is a US Marine. He will be going to Afghanistan in January and his job is to locate and disarm IED's.

After hearing her story, I said all I could think to say, WOW you've had a rough go of things. She said to me I've been blessed and the way I see it is that God has a plan and when it's your time to go, you go home.

When we were done, we gathered around and prayed for her and then she told us something like this, "Don't ever stop serving other people no matter how rich you get. I used to be able to help and serve and I can't do that any more. You know that helping other people will fulfill you more than any amount of money."

Acts 20:35 says, "It is more blessed to give than to receive." How true! But I wonder today if she gave me more than we gave her.

Just a Test

2008-11-25T10:13:00.000-08:00

Hey all! I just wanted to test this blog thing out. As always, we're attempting to do all we can to get the info about our ministry and more importantly the message of Hope into the homes, computers and minds of our peeps here at The Gathering. So here goes, a simple question:

What are you thankful for this Thanksgving season?