Archive - November, 2009

This weekend

November 25, 2009 in Church with 0 Comments

I love coming to Starbucks to study for the weekend message at Coastal Community Church.  I love coming to grab a cup of coffee, sitting with my laptop writing and checking out with the headphones in the ears.  For some reason I get so much done when there is activity happening around me.  When everything is quite and there are no visual elements around I am completely distracted.  Weird that it would be that way but that is how I work.

I am jacked up about this weekend because I am sharing a principle that has guided our life throughout the years.  I believe that this weekend can revolutionize where you are going in life and how you are getting there.  I know that God has a purpose and plan for your life.  I also truly believe that God wants you to know that vision more than you or I want to know what that vision is for our life.  I am believing that all of you would get a picture of where God wants to take you.  I can’t wait to share, so be ready for God to show up and do something BIG in your life.

HOPE

November 20, 2009 in Uncategorized with 0 Comments

I was studying today for our upcoming Christmas series called HOPE.  I am so excited about this series because while the holidays for a lot of people are a time to rejoice and have fun with family, for a lot of people they are desperate and hopeless times.  It is the time of year, for a lot of people, where they feel the most lost, lonely and un-loved.  In the midst of what people call the most wonderful time of the year, a lot of people would consider this the worst time of the year.

In the midst of all this the Bible talks about how we can be hopeful, even in the midst of our circumstances.

Psalm 16:9 Therefore my heart is glad, and my glory rejoices; My flesh also will rest in hope.

How do you and I find rest in stressful and hard times-we find it in hope.  Hope is this security, this assurance of even though it looks like hell is breaking loose and everything is collapsing around me, I am ok.  We only find that in the security of knowing God, that He is there and that He is in control.

What are you trying to control right now?  What in your life seems like it is falling a part because your in the command seat?

Lets you and I make the choice to put our security, our hope in Christ and find rest during the busy times of life.

What’s your Story?

November 12, 2009 in Uncategorized with 0 Comments

I am supper excited about this weekend.  I cannot wait to see how God continues to reveal His plan for peoples personal lives in our church.  We are in a series called Discovering God’s Will and it is incredible. I am pumped to see people discover the purpose and plans that God has for their lives and have those AH HA moments where the light goes on and they see how God is talking to them today.  God is in the middle of their story in life, no matter where they find themselves in it.  He wants to do something so amazing and so different that they cannot even imagine it right now in their present circumstance.  I love what John Ortberg says…

“We live in the pain between the way things are now and the way they are supposed to be. Jesus didn’t teach us to pray, ‘God get us out of this story. This is a bad story. Take us out of here.’  He taught us to pray, ‘Let Thy Kingdom come!  On earth as it is in Heaven. In my body. In my family. In our church. In every dark place on the planet.’”

Check out this video on the Lord’s Prayer, it is very moving

The Divine Commodity

November 12, 2009 in Uncategorized with 0 Comments

I have the best group of people on the planet to work with at Coastal Community Church.  They are an amazing, eclectic mix of individuals who bring differing voices and thoughts to the table.  I love serving together with them as we make Jesus famous in Ft. Lauderdale.

As a staff we are reading a book by Skye Jethani called The Divine Commodity.  The book is about discovering our faith beyond being consumer Christians.  We are just in chapter one but there are some great and thought provoking quotes that I thought I would share.

“Problems cannot be solved with the same consciousness that created them.” Albert Einstein

“Questions of implementation are of no consequence until the vision can be imagined.  The imagination must come before implementation.  Our culture is competent to implement almost anything and imagine almost nothing.”

“The fertile land of imagination is a terrain we pass through, not a field we cultivate.”

“Jesus’ adult followers suffered from a chronic lack of imagination.  Their minds were shackled by conventionality.”

“Art should do more than present reality; it should represent reality by uncovering the truth that is not apparent to the naked eye.”  Vincent Van Gogh

“He didn’t merely present the world as it is; he represented it as one full of God’s presence and love.  But to see this world a person needs more than eyes.  He or she needs a ray from on high, an imagination awakened and illuminated by God.”

“If your imagination of God is starved then when you come up against difficulties, you have not power, you can only endure darkness.”  Oswald Chambers

and the most convicting statement

“The contemporary American church is so largely enculturated to the American ethos of consumerism that it has little power to believe or to act.”

Consumerism

November 7, 2009 in Uncategorized with 0 Comments

I was listening recently to Matt Chandler, pastor of The Village Church in Texas.  He said something that really caught my attention and it was this:

“If you Believe & Support but don’t Belong then you’re a consumer.”

So many times people come to church, believe in the message and even support the message and the church but they don’t want to belong.  They don’t want to make the commitment that determines whether you belong or not.  Today commitment has become a bad word.  If you commit to something then it is seen as a requirement rather than a relationship.  It is like my marriage to Shayla, dating was great.  We had a lot of fun but I didn’t get all the benefits to the relationship until I made a commitment by putting a ring on her finger.

We are a consumeristic society today.  We want all the benefits without the commitment that goes along with those benefits.  Why are we afraid of really being a part of something today?  Why are we all about ourselves?  When we are all about ourselves we limit our ability to impact people, but when we commit to being a part of something larger than ourselves we can achieve the extraordinary in life.

What are you committed to in life?

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