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Confessions of a Pastor-Part 3

February 16, 2010 in Personal, Random Thoughts, Uncategorized with 1 Comment

I struggle with this whole idea that if people really knew me, they would not like me.  I think that if I allow people to see the real me, the one that has flaws, that doesn’t always know what he is suppose to do, the one who is living completely by faith because he doesn’t know what to do, that no one would want to follow.  I struggle with this a lot.  I am in completely unfamiliar territory being a lead pastor of a church.  I have been on staff at large churches, taught thousands of people but there has always been someone else who at the end of the day, the buck stopped with him.  Now the buck stops with me.  I want to be the best pastor, leader, friend, husband that I can be, but let me just confess, I DON’T KNOW WHAT I AM DOING.  I am walking more by faith now than I have at any other time in my life.  I am trusting God for direction, answers, provision, and help.  I try to walk around like I got it all together but the reality is that I don’t, I am just walking the faith walk, trusting that what I heard from God is God.  I wish that I could tell you I know all the answers and have it all figured out but unfortunately I am learning along the way as well.

Right now at Coastal Community Church we are in a series called UNWRITTEN, and in this series we are discovering the vision that God has for the different areas of our life.  I believe that it is going to be an incredible series of vision and revelation for people to discover what God still wants to do in their life.  One of the things that I have discovered in life is that God has a purpose for us, but there is a process to get to the purpose and the process is the point.

I am really enjoying the freedom that is coming from this confessions of a pastor series of blogs.  This is the process that God has me in to experience His freedom and presence.  I am falling in love with this verse in James 5:16

“Therefore confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed.  The prayer of a righteous man is powerful and effective.”

It seems like the more that I get things off my chest the easier it has been to communicate with God.  I can finally see why the prayer of a righteous man is powerful and effective.  That person is not trying to hide anything from God, isn’t dealing with the guilt of concealment, and does not feel the burden of their mistakes.  There is so much freedom in confession but yet we stray away from it, why?  Why would we want to live outside of God’s presence when we can live in it.


Prayer

January 13, 2010 in Uncategorized with 1 Comment

I was at our prayer meeting this morning and something really hit me hard.  While some would say that I am a professional Christian and this is something that I should be really good at, I am not.  I am really bad at this whole prayer thing.  It is not that I don’t believe in the power of prayer or even want to pray, I just find that it is typically my last resort to a situation to say, “I should pray about this.”  I don’t know why that is, it just is.

  • The reasons I don’t pray more:
  • It is easier to just complain about the situation
  • It is easier to talk to someone else about it
  • It is easier to just deal with the situation on my own
  • It is easier to deny the situation
  • It is easier to try to rely on myself rather than God
  • It is easier to stay in bed than get up early and pray

During this week of prayer and fasting God put on my heart that I need to wear out the carpet at the office in prayer.  When I pray I am one of those guys who paces back and forth, back and forth, back and forth.  I got a picture of that path of carpet being worn out by the end of this year because I committed myself in prayer for this community.

How do you feel about prayer?  Is it something that gets you all excited to go do or is it a chore for you at times as well?

I know that I will probably catch some slack for this post but while I might be a pastor, I am not perfect and don’t have it all figured out.  I am still working on my life and my relationship with God and a continually growing.

Letting Go

December 12, 2009 in Uncategorized with 0 Comments

This past week has been one of the most trying times in my walk with God. I know for my life it is really hard when you want something so bad, you give everything for it and it doesn’t work out. Whenever something dies, it is a painful process. It is never easy to let a dream die but I also know that if the seed from a tree does not die by detaching from the tree, it can never be multiplied to reproduce more trees.
I feel like in the past week that I have had to let go of a seed that I loved, cared for, hoped in and for, knowing that unless there is death of that seed, God cannot grow it into something greater. It is a hard but necessary process.
What is some dream, hope or goal that you have to let go of and let die in order for God to resurrect into something greater?

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

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