It’s the (second) most wonderful time of the year

I, like many people, love spring.  I love the cool mornings, the nice afternoons, the trees and flowers blooming and I can deal with the allergies.  But what’s better than the changing of the season is the 11 days that will pass in the world of sports that began yesterday and will run through next Sunday.

Yesterday was opening day for most major league baseball teams.  My wife was thrilled with her Braves as they won 2-0 to start off their season.  1 down, 161 to go.  This weekend, the Final Four will be played in Houston, TX and a National Champion will be crowned on Monday.  Next week, the official (at least in my world) start of the golf season is here with the Masters tournament, the first official major of the year.  The winner will slip on the green jacket next Sunday and close an unbelievable 11 days in sports.

And oh, by the way, the single most important person in my life celebrates her birthday on April 7th.

And while the cool, crisp air in fall, with the turning color of the leaves and football in the air is my favorite time of year, this next week is a pretty close second.

So what’s your favorite time of year?

Church update

After a recent comment on my last post, I realized that I failed to draw a close to our search for a new church home.  Not long after I took a hiatus from posting, Mary and I found our new church home at First Baptist Church, Hendersonville.  We joined the church in August and God has confirmed our decision over and over.  There’s a strong sense that God is moving in our church and while it is big, even bigger things are on the horizon.

FBC offers a great place to come and be feed as believers.  But the one thing that we hear constantly is that as Christians, we don’t come to a building to “do” church.  The programs and the events are nice and serve a purpose, but our role as a community of believers is to equip and encourage each other to make a difference for God in our community and beyond.  I’m actually going with a group led by Mark Satterfield in June to Honduras on a medical mission trip.  Don’t ask me why I’m going on a medical mission trip, I just felt God urging me to go, Mark asked, so here we go!

I’m very thankful that we’ve found a place that we can worship, learn, grow and fellowship in an accepting atmosphere.  I’m thankful for our leaders and the people that are making a positive difference for my family and others like us.  I’m excited to see what God has in store for us as we continue to learn and work together.

What about you?  What’s going in your church that you’re excited about?

 

A book, really?

Why did we write a book?  About a year ago it seemed like everywhere we looked, couples that were close to us were splitting and ending their marriage.  Divorce had always been a reality, but it became overwhelming when fellow church members, close friends and family members where calling it quits.

It was heartbreaking to see people we loved and people that we thought loved each other ending their relationships.  So it led us to ask, what’s the common denominator?  Was there a link to all of these broken relationships that we could somehow tie together?  We felt compelled to do something about it, but what did God want us to do?

After some time and discussion, the answer became obvious and was quite simple- the divorces that we were witnessing could be attributed directly to the absence of a growing relationship with God by one or both people involved in the relationship.

Sure, there were many “reasons” for divorce like money, work, friends and infidelity, but the common tie to all of the broken relationships we were witnessing was the neglect in placing God at the center of the marriage.

Now, we’ll be quick to tell you we’re far from experts on the subject matter.  We’ve had our share of bumps in the road and we know there will be challenges for us ahead.  We simply felt led to provide married couples with a tool that would encourage them to seek God’s direction for their marriage.  Marriage is tough.  We all go through peaks and valleys.  Our goal in writing “Just (Stay) Married” was to help married couples prepare for the challenges this life will bring their way.

Our book encourages the reader to get into the Word with their spouse.  We wanted to provide questions that can spark discussion to open and grow the lines of communication between husband and wife.  The goal of this book is to get married couples to spend time together with each other and with God and to work on the most important relationship we’ll have on earth and for eternity.

If you decide to read it, we pray God will begin to move in your life and in your marriage.  God loves marriage and He wants to use it to bring positive attention to Him.  We’re passionate about helping other couples improve their marriage and we hope “Just (Stay) Married” will be a tool you can use to make the most out of your relationship with your spouse.

Lesson 2 I learned from planting a church

Church is more than a building you go to on Sunday.  If you’ve spent much time in church, you’ve probably heard this one.  Thankfully, because of my time at Peace Community Church, I was able to witness this firsthand.  I hear so many of us (churchgoers) today wrapped up in music/worship styles, what the preacher wears and who was there and who was not that we’re missing the point of what church really is.

Church isn’t about a building that we go to.  Sure that’s what we call it, but it’s so much more than that.  The purpose of the church is to provide a place for a community of believers to come together to worship then to go out together to serve and teach the community and beyond about the love of God through His Son, Jesus.  That means both through our words and our actions.  Sure, the programs are great.  And the music is nice.  And it’s helpful to hear a message that resonates with us through the week.  But more important than all of that, our church should be a place where we come together with other believers that we can do life with.  We should support each other as we team up to reach the people around us that don’t know the joy of a true relationship with our Creator.  That might sound simple, but if we spend time looking at God’s church in the New Testament, it’s pretty simple there too.

Mary and I have had several talks about what church we will end up calling home.  Our discussions have led us to a couple of conclusions.  First, there are going to be a lot of things that we like about most any church that we’d be interested in visiting.  We have some criteria that our next church home must meet including solid Bible teaching, a focus outward (not worried about internal programs and numbers) and a solid, consistent place for our children to learn, play and grow.  Living in Hendersonville, TN, there are plenty of options out there that will meet those simple requirements.

Second, we know that there will also be some things about all churches we could attend that rub us the wrong way.  We realize that no church is perfect and if we spend our time and energy on judging and criticizing the shortcomings of every church option we have, we will certainly miss out on opportunities to work with God.  The truth is that all churches are made up of imperfect people with deficiencies that need a Savior and a Leader.  Our goal is to find a church that acknowledges that truth and to join them in the pursuit to become more like the example that God gave us in His Son and to be obedient to His Leadership.

Sooner rather than later, we will find a church that we can call home.  It’s important to us to find a place that we can partner with other Christians to show and share the love of God with our community and the world beyond.  Without our experience with PCC, it would be very easy for us to be caught up in the glitz, glamor, programs and events that we could use to compare and contrast our worship options.  But God used our time there to help us see what church is really all about and I’m thankful to have that perspective as our search continues.

Lessons learned from planting a church

So much for posting every week, right?  Many of you that read this blog regularly (can I really say that if I have had a post in more than 3 months?) know that a little less than 4 years ago, Mary and I followed God’s lead to help her brother, Michael, start a church in Hendersonville, TN.  At the time, I was about the last person you would expect to help get a church started.  Recently, after much discussion and prayer, we decided as a church to take the next step in faith and stop meeting as a formal church.  This was certainly not our plan from the beginning, but that’s the most important of many lessons I’ve learned since following God’s lead 4 years ago.

When we started Peace Community Church we all had grand plans of what it could become.  Our goal was to reach out to our community and offer a place that anyone could come and learn what it means to be a true follower of Christ.  We all knew people that for some reason or another weren’t involved in a growing relationship with Christ and that passion motivated us to start and grow our church.  We certainly didn’t expect to cease to exist as a church in less than five years!  But that’s where God showed us who was really in charge all along.  He has shown us through this that despite our best efforts and motives, we can’t fully know or comprehend what to expect when we surrender to Him and obey His calling. The more time I spend thinking about PCC and what I can take away from that experience, the more I realize that God has us all in certain places for a period of time  for HIS purposes, not our own.

I told Michael recently that if I were standing before God today and where held accountable for my involvement with PCC, I could be confident that we pursued His will, taught His Word and focused on showing and sharing His love to our community and around the world.  That’s not just psychological speak to make myself feel better or justification for why an endeavor ultimately failed.  I’ve learned through this that God has us in places and around people for seasons in life and it’s up to us to make the most out of those opportunities until we’re called on to the next task.  When we started this church, it wasn’t guaranteed to us that we’d be around forever.  Most of us grew up in churches that had been around for generations.  I believe that we took that for granted and expected our church to do the same.  After all, we were following God’s lead and were obedient to where and what He called us to do, wouldn’t He bless our works in return?  Maybe so, but longevity was never a part of that deal and I can sit here today and look back and see how much God was able to accomplish through a small group of committed believers.

So, the first lesson I’ve learned through my experience is that God is ultimately in control.  While it’s true that I’ve seen evidence of this in my life on several other occasions, this experience has been singularly significant.    I made goals and had dreams for God and about God without completely including God.  I made assumptions along the way and with God you can’t assume because He is omnipotent.  God had us at Peace Community Church for a purpose and maybe part of that I won’t know this side of eternity.  Finally, I’m at peace with that and I’m moving on to the next lesson.

Why do bad things happen to good people?

This is a question we all struggle with and I’ve had that question posed to me several times in the last 2 weeks.  We’re updated daily with the tragedy of the earthquake in Haiti and the increasing number of lives lost and innocent people seriously injured.  But why do terrible things like this happen?

I certainly don’t pretend to have all the answers, but I’ll try my hand at this one.  I don’t hide the fact that I’m a Christian and believe what the Bible teaches.  I also try to live my life according to the truth that I read in God’s Word.  So when I’m asked, “if God’s such a loving God, then why do so many people have to suffer and so many have to lose their lives?” I try to seek the answer in the Bible.

The passage of scripture that I hold on to in times like these is found in Romans, chapter 8 verses 28-29.  It reads:

“²⁸ And we know that God causes everything to work together^[a] for the good of those who love God and are called according to his purpose for them. ²⁹ For God knew his people in advance, and he chose them to become like his Son…”

What this means to me is that when we face difficult times like this, the question to ask isn’t “Why God?” but “What God?”  We need to understand what God is trying to teach us in situations like this instead of understand why it’s happening.  Thankfully, God gave us the freedom of choice.  But, with those choices come consequences both good and bad.  Unfortunately, our actions can impact the people around us and sometimes our poor decisions can negatively impact innocent people.  The Bible says that if we love God (if we’ve committed to follow Him and accept His Son as our Lord and Savior) He will use everything to work together for good.  We might not see or understand what’s good about it at that given moment, but if we trust God, in time we will.  Additionally, the Bible also says that He will use these circumstances to make us more like Christ.  These are character development opportunities for us.

I know it’s easier to write and read this than it is to put it into action, but the next time life throw’s you a curve ball, I urge you to ask “What?” instead of “Why?”

I pray that the people of Haiti will feel God’s love as so much help is poured out on their country.  I hope that in time we can look back on this and appreciate the way that our world came together to unite and support those affected by this terrible disaster.  I pray that somehow in the midst of this tragedy, God’s love will be revealed and He will be glorified in spite of these horrible circumstances.

What has God taught you in the midst of difficult circumstances?

Just Stay Married

You can find this week’s post(s), yes there will be 2, at www.juststaymarried.com.  This is our new website for PCC where we will be developing several resources for people that are married, about to be married, want to be married or have been married.  The first resource is a blog and I’m a guest writer this week.  Look for another post there on Wednesday and please add it to your favorites as I promise there will be more to come in the future.  Enjoy!

Being instead of doing

It’s funny, in the last week I’ve heard several different people mention the brevity of our lives here on Earth.  I was listening to Andy Stanley talk about New Year’s resolutions and he referenced Stephen Covey’s 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, because in the book, Covey encourages us to begin with the end in mind.  He asks the reader to think about your own funeral (as morbid as that sounds) and what you would want the people that are closest to you to say about you.  Later in the week, I was flipping stations on the way home and I heard Carrie Underwood’s latest release, Temporary Home.  She makes several references to people in different circumstances who have a greater and higher calling than their current situation.  The song ends with an older man telling his family not to mourn his passing as he’s sure he’ll see them again as this is only his Temporary Home.

All this made me think about my life and what little time I have to make a real difference.  Too often I get wrapped up in the things that in the end don’t really matter.  I get frustrated with situations at work or I get caught up in the next big purchase when what really matters are the relationships.  The successes, accomplishments, awards and material things are great and they certainly make me feel good about myself, but in the end, I want the relationships that I have made here on Earth to be rich, fruitful relationships.  I want the people that I’m closest to confident that I love them and that I spent my life trying to make a positive difference in their lives.

This last week I’ve taken a step back and instead of thinking about what I want to do, I’ve tried to answer the question: Who do you want to be?  January is all about new beginnings, new aspirations, new goals and new things to accomplish.  But my experience has been that even when I remain disciplined enough to see those goals through to completion, there’s still no real since of fulfillment.  This year, in addition to goals that I’ve set out to do, I have some specific goals for who I want to be.  My guess is that it will take beyond 2010 to accomplish most of the “being” goals, but my focus is to take steps gradually and end the year different (hopefully for the better) than I started it.

I’m BACK!

2009 is winding down and as so many people do, I’m thinking about what I can do better in 2010.  First, I’m going to stop procrastinating- the main reason why it’s been more than a month since my last post.  If you’re making any resolutions or changes to your life, I would encourage you to first think about what’s most important to you.  Resolutions are meaningless unless you’re fully committed (believe me, I’ve had my share of failed attempts) and I don’t think you can be fully committed unless that change is inspired by someone or something that you’re really passionate about.  I have re-posted my first entry below to remind me about what’s important as I think about a new year and the opportunities it will bring.  I also hope that it might help you as you make your plans as well.

Be sure to check back weekly, because one of my resolutions is to blog at least once a week.  You can keep me accountable to that!  Happy New Year!

Priorities

Earlier this year I had shoulder replacement surgery and with that (in addition to lots of pain medicine) come both lots of sitting around and lots of time to think.  I thought a lot about my life, what it stood for and what my priorities are.  I realized quickly a dilemma that I imagine is quite common: what I said my priorities were was one thing, and what my actions said my priorities were was another.

I had been taught all my life to put God before everything else, so naturally when I was asked to list my priorities it usually looked something like this:  My relationship with God, my relationship with Mary and my kids, providing for my family, having fun with friends, etc.  That sounds noble, but after analyzing what my life and my actions said about my priorities, I realized that basically I did what I wanted to do, when I wanted to do it, with the effort I chose to apply to it.  My mouth said I was unselfish and Christ focused, but my actions and my motivation were entirely self-centered.

People on the outside, including those closest to me may have never really picked up on it.  You see, the actions were there, but the motivation was not – I was acting out of obligation more than love and joy.  It’s crazy, because these are the people who matter most to me, yet I was more concerned about what was easiest and best for me than taking care of the needs of my family.  My rationale was that I woke up early, worked all day and I deserved some time to myself.  I wanted to put my feet up and relax when I got home, instead of helping Mary around the house or taking the kids outside to play.  When I did act on my responsibilities, it was more often out of a sense of obligation, rather than love.

I was also spending too much time on mindless activities.  I’ve always said that a priority for me is to continue to grow physically, mentally and spiritually, but that growth was sacrificed for my desire to enjoy the moment by watching TV, playing video games, etc.  There’s nothing inherently wrong with TV or video games; believe me, I’m not sure I’ll ever completely give up either of them. Where things go wrong however, is when I give too much time to those activities and  my selfishness gets in the way of the people who need to be a priority in my life.

I decided I needed a change, so I committed to live my life according to my priorities.  Today I spend time alone reading and meditating on God’s word in an effort to deepen my relationship with Him.  I came to the conclusion that 15 minutes a day at best on my relationship with God wasn’t enough to be considered the top priority in my life.  Really, how much sense does that make?  If something is considered the number one priority in your life, doesn’t it deserve a little more than 15 minutes a day devoted to it?  So, I’ve committed to not just spend time every day reading the Bible, but I look for other ways to grow closer in my relationship with Him. Now, instead of music or Mike and Mike, I listen to messages by Andy Stanley, Francis Chan and others that I download to my iPod while I work out.  I spend a lot of time in my car, and that’s another opportunity I have to allow God to speak to me, so I will think about scripture that I’ve read or listen to another message on my iPod.  The point is, I’m consciously making decisions to spend more time on my top priority.

I’m also now committed to do things for Mary and my kids, not just when it’s convenient or when I feel like emptying the dishwasher or pushing Lucy in the swing, but to do them because they’re important to me.  Luke loves playing Madden, so I can get my video game time in and have a blast playing with him. I try to make sure that I spend quality time with both of them each night when I get home and talk about their day and fun things they did at school or with Mary.  I wasn’t a bad parent or a bad husband before, I’m just more intentional now about how I spend my time and how that relates to what’s important to me.  I’m more fully committed to putting the needs of others before my own.

What about you? Do your actions and your motives match your words?  What do you say your priorities are and what do your calendar and checkbook say?  Will you join me in putting first things first and make the time for what matters most?

Matthew 6:33 “But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.”

Religion or Relationship?

Religion or relationship?  If you’re a Christian, that’s a question that I bet you battle like I do.  I grew up in church with traditions and beliefs that helped give me the values that I live my life by today.  Thankfully, I was also taught that Christianity, unlike any other religion, provides us the opportunity for and encourages a relationship with our God, the Creator of the universe.  That’s really the base of what we believe.  We believe that Jesus came to Earth and died a brutal death so that we would not have to spend eternity separated from God because of our sin.  And, because of the price Jesus paid, we can enter into a relationship with God and spend eternity with him in Heaven.

That’s pretty awesome if you think about it.  I take that for granted, because I’ve heard it all my life.  But really, how incredible is it that the Creator of everything we see and can’t see loves us enough to send his son to be crucified on a cross, just so we can have an eternal relationship with him?  Awesome really can’t begin to describe it.  In fact, you can’t put together enough adverbs and adjectives to do it justice.

If that’s the case, then why won’t everyone accept what God has offered us and unashamedly pursue a deeper relationship with Him?  My bet is, that “those people” don’t accept it, because they’ve never seen someone who has really experienced it.  I’m afraid that the Christian church today is becoming to well known for what we stand against rather than the amazing things that we stand for.  I’m afraid that those on the outside looking in view Christians as judgmental and rigid instead of happy and thankful of the opportunities they have everyday.  I’m afraid that while we say we’re all about the love of Christ our actions say that we’re more concerned about tradition and doctrine, buildings and programs, comfort and routines.

I’m not pointing fingers because I’m just as guilty as the next person.  I like routine and I like being comfortable.  I enjoy the people I go to church with and it’s fun to watch our families grow together.  It feels good to be at a place where people know me and really care about me.  And while those things are exactly what give a church the potential to make a difference in so many lives, it can also be the deterrent for reaching outside the walls and sharing God’s love with people that really need it.

I’m concerned about what non-Christians believe and perceive about the church today.  So the question is, what will we do about it?  I’m committed to building a church that’s focused on showing and sharing the love of God through Jesus to people in my community and beyond.  I’m focused on tearing down the walls of religion to reveal the truth about what Christianity is really about, and that’s a relationship with God.  I’m committed to stepping outside of the boundaries of “the norm” for the Church, to reach out to people and show them what a love relationship is all about.  I challenge you to think about what you do, why you do it and what it all means in the light of eternity.

In the words of the great Jerry Maguire, “Who’s comin’ with me?”

Please also check out Matthew 7.  Here’s a link if you don’t have a Bible handy: http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=matthew%207&version=TNIV