Greater Things with T.J. McCormick

I absolutely love the local church.  In fact I believe that the local church is the hope of the world.  I am passionate about the church being a place where people can come just as they are, experience the wonder and grace of our God and leave invigorated and ready for life.  It is the only place in the world thats mission is people.  The local church wants to bring the life-giving message of Jesus Christ to people so that they can find hope, life and salvation.

Being a pastor of a local church, Coastal Community Church, it is easy for me to think that our church is the best, most relevant and should be the place where everyone would want to go if they were to go to church.  The amazing thing is, there are probably better churches in our community, more relevant churches, churches with better preaching, teaching and that have a lot more people.  The amazing thing is that I am ok with that thought.  I am so thankful for so many great churches in our community and my prayer is that people that don’t have a church home would find one, whether at our church or another.  I have figured out that it is God’s church anyways and I am just leading this one.

I love to go to Starbucks in the morning after my quiet time with God for some quiet time with T.J.  I think that it is so important to take some time each day to look at yourself introspectively and to plan your day.  I like having time for myself where I can evaluate where I am in life, how my relationship with God is, how did I treat others yesterday and how can I do a better job today.  It is so important that I am healthy.  I want to lead my family from a healthy place.  It is hard to give and receive love when you don’t love yourself.  If you are not willing to invest in yourself, it is really hard to invest in others.  I find that when I give some of my day to God first and then to myself, I am so much more productive.  I also see people so much more differently, I don’t see them as a distraction or disturbance in my day but I see them for them.

The Bible talks a lot about seeking the Lord early, in fact King David said, “early will I seek you.”  I believe that when we seek the Lord early it establishes him as the first priority in life.  God wants to be first in all of our lives but so many times we give our first to other things and make those things rulers in our lives.  I like to establish right away that God is first in my life, but then I am second so that I can then give my best to others.  A person who does not love God and themselves will find it very difficult to love others.

Who or what are you putting first today?

Every Monday is my day off from work.  I struggle really bad with being a workaholic and need to figure out some sort of hobby to do on Mondays so I don’t spend the day working.  I know that there are a ton of things that different people do to let off the steam of a long work week and relax.  I would love some suggestions on ideas you might have for me.

I struggle pretty bad with my own insecurities.  I am not sure why I am so addicted to the approval of men but it is one of those things that always seems to come up over and over again.  Today at Coastal Community Church I talked about this very thing, fear of intimacy.  How this desire for approval from people will always lead to hurt and pain in our lives.  We will never measure up for everyone nor will everyone approve of and like us but yet we try.

I find myself each and every week seeking this out.  It is the thing that I am praying that God would help me in right now.  What is the thing your struggling with?  I would love to pray for you, that God would take that thing from your life.  Drop me a prayer request in the comment section and I would love to pray for you.

I cannot stand it when my wife is sick.  It is one of those things that just messes with all aspects of life.  I am reminded in these times how much my wife does.  When she is sick it seems like nothing gets done and that is probably because nothing does get done.  She does so much in life and is so good at the things she does that a lot of times I forget just how amazing she is.  The one thing that her being sick does for me, is it reminds me how wonderful of a wife I have.

Guys when is the last time you thought about all the things your wife does for you? If you think about it, it is amazing that they even like us or put up with us.  I can’t imagine not having Shayla in my life.  She is the best thing besides Christ that has ever happened in my life.  I guess I ought to tell her that more often.  I don’t think that she hears it enough from me or when she does, she probably doesn’t believe me.

So my question is, “What is the best way I can show my appreciation to my wife for how great, wonderful, caring, gentle, beautiful and amazing she truly is?”