While we prepare...

It’s a simple sign posted outside the worship center doors at Fellowship Church. It lets people know that while they wait, work is being done to prepare for them. But in reality, this sign is so much more—it is a sign of intentionality, direction and purpose.

Yesterday, as a staff, we were challenged by our pastors Ed and Lisa Young to think hard about what we are doing and who we are reaching. That challenge has reawakened me to the reason I do what I do….and it has forced me to ask myself the hard questions.

As I passed this sign this morning (for the one-gazillionth time in the last 9 years), I saw it for the first time in a new light. It is a microcosm of the challenge that was laid down yesterday.

This sign isn’t just about what is happening minutes or even hours before Fellowship Church’s experience times. This sign is a reminder to each of us that every moment of every day, we are preparing for people to meet with Jesus Christ face-to-face.

No matter what you are doing (and you may not be part of a church staff), you must be preparing for someone to meet Jesus. Every action, every word, every thought must be intentional, direct and purposeful.

While we prepare…
our hearts.
our minds.
our homes.
our families.
our neighbors.
our friends.
our lives…

People are waiting. Are you prepared?

Isaiah 53

Who has believed our message and to whom has the arm of the LORD been revealed? 

He grew up before him like a tender shoot, and like a root out of dry ground.

He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to him, nothing in his appearance that we should desire him. 

He was despised and rejected by mankind, a man of suffering, and familiar with pain.

Like one from whom people hide their faces he was despised, and we held him in low esteem. 

Surely he took up our pain and bore our suffering, yet we considered him punished by God, stricken by him, and afflicted. 

But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was on him,

and by his wounds we are healed. 

We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to our own way; and the LORD has laid on him the iniquity of us all. 

He was oppressed and afflicted, yet he did not open his mouth;

he was led like a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before its shearers is silent, so he did not open his mouth. By oppression and judgment he was taken away.

Yet who of his generation protested? For he was cut off from the land of the living; for the transgression of my people he was punished.

He was assigned a grave with the wicked, ad with the rich in his death, though he had done no violence, nor was any deceit in his mouth.
Yet it was the LORD’s will to crush him and cause him to suffer, and though the LORD makes his life an offering for sin, he will see his offspring and prolong his days, and the will of the LORD will prosper in his hand. 

After he has suffered, he will see the light of life and be satisfied; by his knowledge my righteous servant will justify many, and he will bear their iniquities. 

Therefore I will give him a portion among the great, and he will divide the spoils with the strong, because he poured out his life unto death, and was numbered with the transgressors.

For he bore the sin of many, and made intercession for the transgressors.

Brutal Transparency

Just a few hours ago, I drove off of the campus of my church having experienced two and a half days of the most powerful, profound, spiritually-awakening days of my life. For nearly 72 hours, C3 2011 welcomed leaders from around the world, creative geniuses from nearly every continent and pastors from more churches than I know.

I have the amazing opportunity to serve on staff at the church that hosts this world-shaking conference. I have for nearly 9 years. And during that time, I have had the humbling opportunity to witness firsthand the leadership, direction, and vision of my pastors Ed and Lisa Young, along with so many others, to open up the veins of our church and welcome in these leaders to see what church truly can be and do.

I cannot put into adequate words the influence it all has on my life. There’s no formula of letters and punctuation that would suffice. But in a moment of honest reflection, I have to be brutally transparent before my God and myself.

I don’t know how to process what just happened.

How do you process the power of an anointing, the overwhelming presence of the Holy Spirit? How do you process the prevailing sense of God’s hand on a place and a people? How do you process weeping tears of repentance and joy knowing that the God of the universe is right there, looking at you eye-to-eye, willing to walk into tomorrow with you.

See, I’m an answer guy. I like to seek out the answer, research the answer, put the answer down in a neat little outline with three main points, each with 2 corresponding subpoints. I’m a linear thinker (that is not to say I’m not creative; I’m just different creative). And standing on this point of my little line, I want to know what lies four, five or six stops ahead. I want to address the questions and get the answers.

And then something like C3 happens. And the answers are so insanely overwhelming that I cannot even begin to fathom their depth and height and width. There are no lines around something like that. There’s no way to define it, no way to truly explain it, no way to…process it.

For me, it was a time of spiritual empowerment. But it was not something I will be able to process in the next week, the next year or even the next decade. I believe what God did over the last two and a half days will take a lifetime to embrace, and an eternity to visualize.

But I do know this. I don’t have to process it. I don’t have to have all the answers. I simply have to stand in awe of the God who is here, standing by me. And I have to obediently and willingly follow him as he continues to enlighten me and empower me on every step of my line.



I Want to Be Me. Only Different.

Sometimes I want to be someone else. Wait. That’s not exactly right. Sometimes I want to be me…only different. Yeah. That’s more along the lines of what I mean.

There are times that I take a look at my life and think about the things that I wish would change.

I wish I was better at __________.
I would love to do more ____________.
Maybe I could have more ____________.

You know…I’d still be me. Just, different.

But here are some questions I have to ask myself.

If I really want __________, am I willing to do what it takes to get there?
Am I willing to put in the work to achieve it?
Am I willing to make the sacrifices necessary to elevate that aspect of my life?
Or am I just wishfully hoping that God will somehow magically get me there…no work involved on my part?

See, the danger I face in hoping I was instantaneously ___________ is that if I don’t put in the work, take the time, or make the sacrifices it takes, I won’t be me when I get there. Not really.

I am a result of all my experiences. And if I don’t do my part in getting somewhere or achieving something, then I’m cheating myself out of opportunity to grow, stretch and become.

So here’s the challenge. If I want to change, I need to go about doing the work of changing. It does no good to hope for something I am unwilling to work for.

Yes, I must follow God’s lead in my life. I must rely on Him to reveal the path before me. But it comes down to my willingness to then take the steps to get to where He wants me to go.

Because otherwise, I may arrive somewhere I was hoping to go, only to realize that I left my true self way back at the beginning.