Now is the time!

Now is the time.  It’s the week believers especially remember Jesus’ death and resurrection.  Now is the time to soberly evaluate our lives.  Am I living for eternity? Am I engaged in gratitude for all God has done for me? Am I conscious of the love of God and the purchase price of my redemption? Now is the time.  This week the highest court in the land is considering a decision as huge in magnitude as Roe v Wade in 1973 - some say the biggest political threat to religious freedom in the short history of these United States of America.  Now is the time. I believe with all my heart that God is calling us to pray.  When Jesus saw the masses he felt compassion in the pit of his stomach. Then he healed and taught them. He didn’t place his hope in religious or political leaders but in God. We shouldn’t either! Here is how Matthew records it:

“Jesus was going through all the cities & villages, teaching in their synagogues and proclaiming the gospel of the kingdom, and healing every kind of disease & every kind of sickness. Seeing the crowds, he felt compassion for them because they were distressed & dispirited like sheep without a shepherd. Then he said to his disciples, ‘The harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few. Therefore beg the Lord of the harvest to send out workers into His harvest.’” Matt9:35-38

Share Christ’s compassion.  Speak truth and share the hope of the gospel & of God’s kingdom. Plead with God for more kingdom workers. Jesus did not see people through the eyes of politics. He saw them as worn out by the cares of this world needing a Savior! He calls for ambassadors of hope.

Now is the time to pray:

1.         Like the tax collector:  ‘God be merciful to me a sinner.’ Meditate on John 6
2.      That the Supreme Court will support marriage between 1 man and 1 woman to honor  
       creation’s God and for the good of our country.
3.      That the Lord of the harvest will draw hearts: (a) to turn to Jesus. (b) to be kingdom
      workers praying, watching and sharing the message of grace.

Happy Easter!

A Big Moment

Twenty-five years and six ministries ago I told a young man in my youth group that God had His hand on his life and that I just knew that he was called to ministry. He said, ‘No, he didn’t think so’! But I saw his heart for people and his heart for God shining through his 16 year old personality.  He was always pointing kids to God and he was just plain bold about it. I think God wired his DNA that way. It was a ‘calling’ that was so obvious that even a young inexperienced youth pastor could see it.  This weekend I am participating in his ordination council and giving a charge at his ordination service on Sunday. I only have one thing to say - it’s about time!  Even though he still builds snowmen, Eric isn’t a kid anymore. He has a braided, gray goatee. Really! Eric graduated from Bible College years ago and then served as a youth pastor. A faithful husband and father of two, soon to be grandfather, foster parent and engaged leader in his church - the last 2 and a half decades have repeatedly and clearly shown God’s hand on his life. What a cool thing that his church wants to make it official & I get to participate.

It is a big moment for me and Kris - to bless and be blessed by Eric and Terri. We are looking forward to it. Eric wouldn’t have made it this far without Terri ministering at his side! (I believe we had a part in that too!) It’s also a big moment for the body of Christ. Ozark Mountain Community Church and Aspen Ridge Church have come together across two states to acknowledge how God has connected His body for His work.

It’s also a big moment (that makes a trinity of big moments!) for Ozark Mountain Community Church to recognize God at work in one of her own. God works through His organized church!  He calls us to serve together and recognize his gifting and leadership. Just like a good marriage is publicly recognized & celebrated, so a good church publicly honors her leaders!  What a privilege to be invited to participate in God’s work in the life of a church and the life of an individual God has graced me to touch.

2013 at Aspen Ridge

I’ve been preaching my vision for this year for a couple months now it seems.  I see Aspen Ridge Church as a group of people invading their world like a good virus - for Jesus Christ. Call it 'the long tail'. Call it 'the long arm'. Sunday services are for edification, worship, and encouraging one another.  I’m hope I’m not being too specific on my expectations but I’d love to see the halls, classrooms and worship center alive with interaction on Sunday mornings - discussions about seeds you've planted and conversations you've had during the week. I envision a church where we can’t wait to get to church to talk amongst ourselves of God’s faithfulness. I think 2013 is not about exciting new programs we’ve come up with or sermon series that bring people in off the streets. I think it’s about you and me being the church all week long.  Maybe this is too much to ask, but I don’t think so.  God is calling a people to himself who are committed to Him and the gospel in a shallow, self-centered, entertainment deadened generation.  He is still calling out a people for himself and He is using Aspen Ridge.  If not - no matter how big or small we are - we ought to close shop!  I refuse to look at size or money as the bottom line for success. Lets each one trust God to expand the tent poles of our lives and let God worry about expanding our church.   Meanwhile - ‘The Bible’ is the book of the month for March!  Let’s get at it!  It all starts this Sunday at church & Sunday night on the History Channel!

A modern parable

Once upon a time there was a business called ‘Blockbusters’.  It majored in renting blockbuster movies to the public - the bigger the better. One day little red boxes started popping up. Netflix followed. Many of the movies they listed weren’t well known. They had discovered a simple fact - there was more money to be made from lots of lesser known films that appealed to smaller segments of the public than from Blockbusters.  They were more efficient too in their nooks & crannies and by the US mail! Blockbusters soon went out of business.  Big hits & big names were the head but it had a very long tail of lesser stars that won the day. Imagine a dragon. The church is a lot like Blockbusters. We try to attract the public to come to us. Our big programs and great preaching is the head.  But stadiums don’t fill to hear George Beverly Shay sing and a gaggle of big name stars share their stories, and Billy Graham preach a sermon. Not any more. The world isn’t interested at best, and downright antagonistic at worst, toward the gospel nowadays or so it seems. Do we circle the wagons and hunker down for the siege? Or do we become ‘the long tail’ of evangelism where each one of us takes the gospel into our world as we listen and help people talk their way into the kingdom.  We are not ashamed of the gospel. We respect it most highly, highly enough not to present it for ridicule. We will boldly pray, serve and question our way into a person’s heart with the love that we carry into a hurting world.  A survey of 10,000 people found: 80% of new people came to church because you invited them - only 6% because they like the pastor; only 5% because they like the Bible study teacher; only 3% because of programs.  You see, we are most like Jesus when we are being the church not going to church!  You are the long arm of Aspen Ridge Church or is that ‘the long tail’?  You are God’s means to spread His love around in the nooks and crannies of life.

Cardiograms and God

I was having a ‘cardiogram’ (it’s a long story, I’m fine).  The cardiologist and I watched my heart on the monitor as it methodically and energetically thumped away. I was like a child in a candy store. ‘What’s that?’  Why is that bouncing like that? She patiently explained.  We both agreed that the heart is a wonderful, powerful piece of work.  I just laid it out, ‘Wow! I gotta say that I’m in God’s camp on this,’ I said.  ‘So am I.’ she responded. A little later I was chattering about the human genome - how they used to say that it was 85% evolutionary waste but now they have found that as far as they can tell, at least 65% of our DNA has a functioning role.  ‘One more evidence that our bodies were designed, I state triumphantly’.  I discovered that her book club had read ‘HeLa’ too and recommended ‘Unbroken’ for their enjoyment. “Unbroken” is not only a story of courage but of a man who finds Jesus Christ as his ultimate reason for living (written by a biographer who simply records the facts)! Just planting seeds - bringing God into the conversation wherever I go.  The long arm of Aspen Ridge Church.

An inconvenient adventure

My son and I were on our way to a hunting expedition.   We were stopped at a small town gas station in Illinois, in the middle of the night.  The trailor had blown a fuse and we had lost our tail lights.  As he went through the fuses looking for the bad apple he talked out loud. ‘It’s not this one,’ he said as he peered over a flashlight. As we neared the end of the fuses in the fuse box he spoke again, ‘God, I could use some help finding this fuse,’ he said.   Almost immediately a man and his son walked out of the shadows. After engaging in small talk the man said, ‘Have you thought of looking under the hood? There is often a fuse box there as well.’  Up went the hood and a new fuse box with the offending fuse was immediately discovered, and replaced.   As we went on our way down the road, toward a successful :)hunt, I found myself in wonder at how God had responded to a simple prayer and met the need of the moment. This is indeed a God-drenched world.  He is everywhere up to good. Haven't you seen it too?

A work of art

The ‘Pickers’ got a call from their old friend Joe who saw a ‘Von Dutch’    motorcycle that might be the XANW. The XANW was a custom motorcycle built by the legendary Kenny Howard himself in 1966.  If Elvis was the King of rock and roll, Kenny was the king of pin stripers.  The XANW had a Volkswagen motor, a Honda 450 gas tank and was built on a 1942 Harley XA frame.  It was a one of a kind. Joe thought he’d seen it, the original.  When the ‘Pickers’ tracked down their leads, they found a Von Dutch motorcycle in a shed, on a farm, in North Carolina.  Sure enough, it had the Von Dutch name etched by hand on the motor.  They paid $21,000 for a bike with flat tires that didn’t run. They commented that when all the lines lit up - they’d found a treasure. 

Made me think about how God is the master craftsman who is working his grand strategy in this world. He is drawing people to himself and each one of us has a bit part. It is his work not ours! We humbly and happily persist, even though we don't know how God is going to use what we have to offer! We offer a smile, encourage with a word or a gift, help where we can. When it all comes together - the grid lights up like a Christmas tree. Each one does his part but God is crafting a work of art.  Read about it in I Corinthians 3:7!