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Rebuilding The Wall...

Quiet lives of desperation invested in a small story. On Sunday, Andy used those words to describe people who are living without a God sized vision. People muddling through their days while trying to ignore the nagging voice in the back of their heads. The voice that keeps insisting that God has something more for them, that they must have been placed on this earth to live a more courageous life.

Have you ever shut off the alarm and refused to leave your bed, not because you were sleepy, but because you simply didn't want to face the day? Because you were convinced that this day would be just another mundane repetition of the previous day? Because living a life with so little sense of purpose made you feel like you were dying inside?

I have.

In his book, Wide Awake, Erwin McManus makes the following observation:
"For years I woke up each day with a sadness I couldn't shake, and then more sadness met me the moment I crawled out of bed. Thankfully, it is not so today. My best dreams are no longer wasted on my sleep. I find myself closing my eyes each night, eagerly waiting for tomorrow to come. There is nothing like feeling fully alive and dreaming wide awake. I am living a life beyond my wildest dreams-and I had some wild dreams."

Erwin McManus made the transition from dreamer to liver of dreams by reaching for the vision that God had laid in front of him. How do you and I follow this same path? Andy said that you experience your God sized vision by connecting with God, discovering your significance and then utilizing this experience for an eternal impact.

So what about it? Are you living out your dreams or wallowing in a quiet life of desperation? Think about this question when the alarm clock rings tomorrow.

- Don

Boxed...

Pneuma. The Greek word literally means spirit or wind. The great sweeping wind that blows through your kitchen window on a spring day, scattering the mail and the kids’ school papers, while reducing your neatly ordered life to chaos. What a fitting metaphor for God’s presence.

The writer of the New Testament book of Acts seems to agree. He uses the word pneuma in chapter 2, verse 2 when he writes, “Suddenly a sound like the blowing of a violent wind came from heaven and filled the whole house where they were sitting.” Think about that image for a moment. After Jesus ascended into heaven, his followers gathered together in the upper room of a building and prayed for direction. As they sat trying to determine how to carryout the ministry Jesus had begun, a wind blew through the house, reaching into every dusty corner of their lives.

On Sunday, Andy Rainey talked about how we like to compartmentalize our lives into nice, neat boxes. Work goes in one box, social life another, and God in still another. Whether we act like this because of fear, or a need to be in control, the result is the same. We stifle God. You can’t box the wind.

Jesus said, “The wind blows wherever it pleases. You hear its sound, but you cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going. So it is with everyone born of the Spirit.” (John 3:8) Like the wind, the God who spoke the universe into being will not be relegated to a minor role in our lives. He wants to blow through the entirety of our existence, upsetting our neat piles and turning our thoughts towards him. But just as our God refuses to live in a box, he also refuses to force his way into our lives. The final decision resides with each of us.

Are you willing to open the window?

Feel the change...

What role does the Bible play in growing our faith?


So I had a friend of mine who was really struggling in a particular area of his life. He felt like for every step he took forward, he fell back another two. Even though he knew that what he was doing was wrong, he kept falling into the same old trap. One night he asked me, "Am I the only one who's ever felt like this?"

In answer I emailed this scripture from the book of Romans chapter 7 verses 18-19, "18 I know there is nothing good in my sinful nature. I want to do what is good, but I can't. 19 I don't do the good things I want to do. I keep on doing the evil things I don't want to do."

In this particular passage, the Apostle Paul is wrestling with his sinful nature and he expresses a common frustration. Who hasn't sat back after a particularly bad decision and wondered why we knowingly embraced a choice that led to death? All of us have been there.

Now the point of this story isn't to excuse my friend's behavior. What he did was wrong, no two ways about it. But by reading
about the struggle Paul endured two thousand years ago, my friend was able to gain some perspective, dust himself off, and try again. Paul also ends his painful deliberations on a victorious note. In verses 24-25, Paul says, "24 What a terrible failure I am! Who will save me from this sin that brings death to my body? 25 I give thanks to God. He will do it through Jesus Christ our Lord."

Often times we look at the writers of the Bible as superhuman beings whose every thought was whispered to them by God. But sometimes, in my darkest moments, I find comfort in the fact that the Bible is a collection of stories about people. People who sometimes succeeded in pleasing God and sometimes failed miserably. People who were just like me.

Pick up your Bible and read a couple of verses. You might be surprised at who you find staring back from the pages.


- Don

Pivotal Circumstance...

I knew it was coming, all the signs pointed to it and I had already looked at our budget and knew we would be OK for a little while, but as I was walking toward the meeting room I wondered if everything was really going to be OK. And as the words hung in the air I almost couldn't believe what I was hearing... "Due to the recent lack of sales company wide we are eliminating several of the Contractors and unfortunately you are one of them." I returned to my desk and quickly let my wife know that my days were numbered.

We can't always see our circumstances coming, but they often have the same affect. Whether it is a loss of a job, death of a friend, health problem, etc. the circumstances leave us dazed and disoriented for a moment before we realize we have a choice to make...

Do I trust God in-spite of what I am experiencing and feeling? Or do I start to question God's intentions and take matters into my own hands?

Well for me I found my prayer life elevate as I tried to seek God and see what He might be be doing... I wasn't at all happy about the situation I found myself in. I felt like that job was exactly where God wanted me to be for a season. Then I was relieved of my contract 5 months early and I found myself questioning the timing, but through it all I trusted and sought God.

My pivotal circumstance turned out to be one that altered the course of my life and now as I look back on it I wonder if I would be on this journey I now find myself in? I wonder if this is what it took for God to get me to leverage my life for His?

What circumstance are you facing?
Do you trust God in-spite of what you are feeling or do you find yourself questioning God's intentions?
Will you allow God to leverage your circumstance for His glory?

I'd love to hear your thoughts...


- Rainey

Feel The Power!

“Give God the first minutes of your day.”

Normally this isn’t too much of a stretch for me. As an aspiring writer, my alarm clock starts chiming at 4:50 so I can spend time moving a chapter a little farther down the road, editing a magazine article, or tinkering with a short story before work. Until this week. Until I signed a little pledge card Sunday morning and dropped it in the offering plate. Until I spent Sunday and Monday nights coughing and Tuesday night staring at the ceiling while the digital clock on the nightstand next to me counted down the minutes until sunrise.

Funny how that works, isn’t it? Because when the alarm started beeping this morning, the question running through my head wasn’t “I’m so tired, how am I going to make it through the day?” or even “What am I worried about that I couldn’t sleep last night?” No, the question battering the inside of my skull at 4:50 this morning wasn’t so politically correct. It went something like this, “Why am I doing this? Do I really think God is going to show up?”

Wow. Amazing how your thoughts crystallize after three nights without sleeping. How about it LifePoint? Am I the only one struggling to get up this week, secretly wondering if God is really going to show up? Is anybody who agreed to start giving God their first dollars this month, now having second thoughts? Is anybody else wondering whether they will really hear from God if they fast a Starbucks latte?

Or am I the only one?

As I read this post, I start to think that maybe I’m asking the wrong question. When I wrote my name on that card Sunday morning, I don’t remember seeing a box for God to check or a line where he could sign. I don’t remember hearing him say that he was in on this deal at all. Because when we get right down to it, the question that I should be asking isn’t “God, are you really going to show up if I get out of bed?” but, “Don, are you really going to be obedient even if you don’t know whether or not God will show up?”

The author of the New Testament book of Hebrews says in Chapter 11 verse 1 that “faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see.” Sure enough to make decisions based on what we know God wants us to do even when we aren’t confident of the results. Faith isn’t something you stumble into, but it might require stumbling out of bed at 4:50 in the morning.

Is anybody with me?

- Don

Providential Relationships...

Bam! Bam! Bam! The door to my dorm room shuddered under the
determined blows. Rolling over on my bed, I glanced at my alarm clock.
Quarter after nine. Still plenty of time to make my 10:30 class-no
reason to getup. But I knew of only one person who would beat on
someone's door with the intensity of a jackhammer. And he wasn't going
to go away.

With a sign, I rolled out of bed and unlocked the door. A
moment later, the door burst open and Rich Jarvi exploded into my room
like a miniature tornado, oblivious to the pile of dirty laundry he had
to sidestep on his way to shake my hand.

"Hi, Don," he said, unnaturally chipper at such an ungodly hour
on a Monday morning, "just wanted to make sure that you'll be at Bible
study this afternoon."

"Yeah, Rich, I'll be there," I said, knowing all the while that
if I didn't show up I'd only get a repeat performance of this morning's
wakeup call. After a couple more minutes of small talk, Rich bustled
out of my room, undoubtedly off to wake up another unsuspecting college student.

Rich worked as a campus minister for The Navigators and he went
out of his way to pursue me during my college years. Though we attended a University designed to allow students to become lost in the crowd, Rich refused to let my friends and I fall by the wayside. He would come to check up on us several times a week, Bible in hand, and he somehow always knew whether or not we were really home. If we didn't answer right away, he'd stand in the hall, oblivious to the looks he got from other residents, and pound on our doors until we opened.

You see that year, my first year away from the steadying
influence of family and church, I felt spiritually adrift and didn't
particularly want anything to do with God. So He pursued me instead by
using Rich Jarvi, a middle aged, unassuming man who wasn't too proud to wade into the freshman dorms at The Ohio State University and drag some wayward kids back to God.

Andy said on Sunday that God uses human relationships to
influence faith and I bet if you took an honest look at your own faith
story, you'd find a Rich Jarvi waiting in the wings. In Revelations
3:20 Jesus tells the Apostle John, "Here I am! I stand at the door and
knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and
eat with him and he with me."

During those trying days in college, when I felt farthest from
God, my savior was still standing at the door and knocking. He just
looked a little like Rich Jarvi.

* So what about you? Are you willing to be a Rich Jarvi? This
week put yourself in an intentional relational environment and see what
happens. Blog about the experience.


Don

Trust

"I'm willing step out in Faith-I just want to know that's what you want
me to do."

I wrote that line in one of my prayer journals during a time
when I was intensely seeking God's plan for my life. I remember that
when I uttered that prayer to God the thought seemed perfectly logical,
noble even. Here I was, willingly telling my Father that I'd be happy
to follow his directions-if he'd just light the road ahead with a
burning bush or two.

You see a relationship with God, more so than any other
relationship, is based on trust. We can't see God, or feel him, and
most of the time when he speaks, he doesn't use an audible voice
accompanied by an earthquake or a celestial spotlight. But in order to
experience him, we have to make the intentional decision to trust our
lives to someone we've never physically met.

Which brings me back to the line from my prayer journal. On
Sunday, Andy said, "None of us will ever stumble into Faith. Faith
isn't going to just happen." Another pastor friend of mine expressed
similar sentiments when he said, "I think a lot of people look for God
to work first, then step out in Faith. Some of the dramatic works of
God in the Bible were like that...but by far the normal pattern is that
God's people make choices to serve him using wisdom they've gained from
the Bible, godly friends, mentors, and life experiences."

Both of these friends were trying to tell me that life with God
can only be lived through trust and that the decision to trust must be
made in Faith. Faith that God has a story for my life if I'll just
reach out and grab it.

So what about you? Do you trust Him or are you still just
stumbling along? Imagine what your life could look like if you'd just
muster the courage to take that first step. Join me-let's experience
this together.

- Don

* Andy said that the story of the Bible is a story of trust. How
does trust play into your relationship with God?
* Can you think of a time when God did something amazing in your
life once you decided to trust him? Share it.

Play to win...

"Come, follow me and I will make you fishers of men." Matthew 4:19.

If you're like me, then you'd probably rather sit through a root
canal then purposefully share your faith with someone. The thought of
going up to a friend, or even worse a stranger, and attempting to
distill the entire Bible into a thirty second conversation centered
around sin, the four spiritual laws, some kind of bridge, and maybe the
Roman Road leaves me feeling a queasy. And maybe it should.

If you read the account of Jesus calling his first disciples in
the Gospel of Matthew 4:19, you'll see that he approaches things a
little differently. When Jesus invited two brothers, Peter and Andrew,
to join his ministry, he made it abundantly clear that they would be
leaving their old lives behind. But at the same time, Jesus couched his
invitation in terms that they would understand. He could just as easily
have invited them to become healers of men, or shepherds of men, or
teachers of men, but he didn't. Jesus told the brothers that he would
teach them to become fishers of men. Why? Because Peter and Andrew
were fishermen and Jesus knew that they would instantly understand his
message.

So how does that apply to us? Pastor and evangelist Tony Evans
once explained the process of sharing your faith by comparing the action
to a Dallas Cowboys fan talking about football. Tony stated that a
Cowboys fan doesn't have to try to work the subject of football into a
conversation. Since the fan is already passionate about football, he
talks about the Cowboys naturally without worrying about what he'll say
or how he'll say it. Tony's point is that if we are truly passionate
about something, talking about it will come easily.

Just like the fisherman who first related to Christ through
their life experiences, I've found that I share my faith most
effectively when I focus less on New Testament theology and more on what
God has done in my life. When I think of how good my Father has been to
me, I naturally want to share this story with others. Not as a
theologian or Biblical scholar, but as a simple, passionate fan who
can't wait to tell his friends the Good News.

So what about it? Are you ready to follow and fish or are you
still standing on the beach? Hurting people, desperate to hear a
positive story, surround you. Tell them yours.

- Don
* Tony Evans talked about sharing your passions with friends with
the expectation that your relationship with Christ will be one of those
passions. What if it's not? On Sunday, Andy said that God wants to
replace your indifference with passion. Will you let him? Tell me
about it.

* In the same teaching I referenced above, Tony Evans suggested
praying this prayer every morning: "God, I ask you to give me the
opportunity to share my faith with someone today, the wisdom to
recognize that opportunity when it comes, and the courage to act on it."
Pray that prayer for the next week and tell me what happens when you do.

The Church...

"You go to church, right? What's that like?"

Who hasn't fielded this question from a co-worker or friend?
When someone asks me about church, I normally reply by giving them
Wyandott's location, the time our Celebration starts, and a quick
endorsement of Brandon's singing or Andy's teaching. But does this
response really answer their question?

In the Gospel of Luke chapter ten, verses one through four, we
find Jesus in the middle of forming the church. He's on the eve of his
crucifixion and has even told his disciples that he's about to be
betrayed, but they don't understand him. You'd think that this would be
the part of the Bible where Jesus tells his followers how to conduct
church after he's gone. You know, the answers to important questions
like: How long should the service last? Do we take communion with wine
or grape juice? Which translation of the Bible do we use?

But if you read those verses in Luke, you'll see that Jesus
didn't waste any of the precious time he had left on earth talking about
a building or detailing the format of a Sunday morning service.
Instead, he turned the focus of his followers outward. He paired them
up, pointed them toward the surrounding towns, and said, "Go, tell them
about me." That's it.

So maybe the next time I get a church question, I should answer
by talking about my wife's missions trip to Mexico, my awesome Reset
group, the Friday morning men's breakfast, or Tim Anderson's latest
Outreach. Because those are the activities that define us as a
church-not where we gather on Sundays.

* Share your church story with someone this week and post the
results of your conversation to our blog. I dare you.

* Is your church story only about a building and an hour on Sunday
mornings? Step out of your comfort zone and tell me what happens next.




Don Bentley

Prayer...

I think Mc Hammer said it best... "You've got to pray just to make it today".

In all seriousness I'm learning that prayer is the anchor of our faith. If I'm honest I can also say in the same breath I have much growing to do in this area. What I mean by that is my life doesn't reflect the truth I just made. My life doesn't reflect the truth of prayer anchoring my faith. I believe it to be true, my story is full of times where prayer has not only influenced me but also completely changed an aspect of my life. Without prayer I know I wouldn't be where I am today... Yet my life doesn't reflect this truth.

Let me clarify... I don't have a "dynamic" prayer life, I don't discipline myself enough to spend X number of minutes/hours with God, I don't find myself on my knees crying out to God. But I should...

For the past few months I feel like God is calling me to Him. I feel like God wants my prayer life to be "dynamic". I feel as if my relationship with God could be so much more than it is and I'm the one that is missing out.

I'm not saying I don't pray... I'm saying I don't make it a point to spend time with just God. I'm not talking about while I'm in the car or right before bed... I'm talking about time with God with no distractions...

What about you? How does your life stand up to the truth of prayer being an anchor of our faith? What does your prayer life look like?

What might you be missing out on?

I'd love to hear your thoughts...

Andy

Love

John 3:18 "Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does
not believe stands condemned already because he has not believed in
the name of God's one and only son."

Absolute, gut-wrenching terror. That's what I felt as I looked around
our empty family room, searching for my mom and brother. The
furniture and other familiar objects surrounding me loomed ominously
to my eleven-year-old eyes, and my heart thundered against my chest.
Our church had been showing a graphic movie series depicting the lives
of people left behind after Jesus' second coming. Once again, I'd
convinced myself that the absence of my family signified that I'd
missed the rapture. I knew that I'd become a Christ follower during a
Sunday night service years earlier, but the memory of cheating on the
previous day's math assignment weighed heavily on my conscience. Had
I waited too long to ask God's forgiveness for that sin? Was I now
destined to spend the next seven years trying to stay one step ahead
of the antichrist's soldiers?

The comforting echo of my mother's footsteps as she climbed the stairs
from our basement put my fears to rest. For now. Flush with relief,
I ran to my room, confessed my sin and prayed the sinner's prayer yet
again. For a couple of days I felt all right, secure in my knowledge
that God still loved me. But I knew that sooner or later I'd say or
do something I shouldn't and experience a fresh wave of terror at the
sight of an empty room.

This cycle went on for years. Every time I'd mess up, I was certain
that this time God would refuse to take me back. This time, he'd draw
the line and say, "Son, I think I've been about as patient as anyone
could expect a father to be. We had a good run, you and me, but this
time, you're on your own."

My version of God consisted of an old man dressed in white robes who
kept a clipboard at his side, always ready to mark down my latest
infraction. If I could remember my sins in time, and beg his
forgiveness, he'd scratch out my mistake and I'd be ok. At least for
a while. But I knew in my heart that God always stood ready to add
another transgression to my ever-growing list.

Was my caricature of God accurate? According to the Gospel of John,
absolutely not. You see, John 3:18 reads, "Whoever believes in him
(Jesus) is not condemned, but whoever does not believe in him stands
condemned already because he has not believed in the name of God's one
and only son."

According to that verse, even though I would continue to mess up,
because I believed in Jesus, and had surrendered my life to him, I
could no longer be condemned. Period. End of story. For the longest
time, my human mind couldn't process that simple truth. Who really
loves that way? Who can honestly look someone in the eye and say, "No
matter how you hurt me, no matter how your actions embarrass me, no
matter what you say about me, I will still love you. In me, there is
no condemnation."

Think I'm making this up? Check out what the Apostle Paul had to say
in Romans 8:1 "Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who
are in Christ Jesus because through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit
of life set me free from the law of sin and death."

Kind of Resets your definition of love, doesn't it?

- Don

* Andy said that sometimes this truth is hard for us to accept
because we don't always see this type of absurd love modeled in our
families. Have you ever seen someone in your family model absurd
love? Tell me about it.

* In the Robb Bell video we watched Sunday, Robb said that the son
thinks, "I'm found out. I'm guilty." All the while, the Father is
saying, "There's nothing you could ever do that would make me love you
less." That may be one of the hardest truths in scripture to
understand. Have you ever had to come to terms with this truth in
your life? How?

Surrneder...

Luke 5:11 "So they pulled their boats up on shore, left everything and
followed him."

What's your net? Are you willing to leave it behind? Those are
the questions that every Christ follower has to answer. To put it
simply, are you gutsy enough to exchange your safe, comfortable life for
His bigger story?

This choice is illustrated for us in the New Testament book of
Luke chapter five, verses one through eleven. In this passage of
scripture, Jesus calls his first disciples by inviting them to throw
down their nets and become fishers of men. Sounds simple, doesn't it?
Maybe not.

In his book, Velvet Elvis, Robb Bell goes a little deeper into
the context behind this story. You see in Jesus' time, Jewish boys all
aspired to become Rabbis. Boys began their religious training quite
young, progressing through successively harder levels of schooling until
they reached the point where they would be tested and apprenticed to a
Rabbi. Those who were smart enough, and could master the complexities
of Jewish law, became followers of a teacher or Rabbi. Those who
couldn't survive the rigorous selection process had to opt for other
vocations. They became fisherman.

So when Jesus invited Peter, James and John to throw down their
nets and follow him, he was basically saying, "Look, I know you've been
told before you weren't good enough, but I think differently. Throw
away the comfortable, safe lives you've built for yourselves and take a
chance on me."

Doesn't sound quite as easy now, does it? But the story gets
deeper.

If you notice, Jesus caught up with his would be disciples after
they'd experienced one of their worst nights of fishing. Simon (Peter)
tells Jesus as much when he says in verse five, "Master, we've worked
hard all night and haven't caught anything. But because you say so, I
will let down the nets."

And then a miracle occurs. The men cast their nets back into the
Lake of Gennersaret, catching so many fish that their boats begin to
sink. In the space of a moment, the fishermen's worst day on the job
transforms into their best.

This is where the story twists. While the men are enjoying the
greatest success of their lives, Jesus invites them to leave their nets
behind and follow him.

Wow. When times are tough at work, it's pretty easy for me to
imagine selling everything and moving to Mexico to work with orphans.
Funny how I don't seem to feel the same way after a big promotion. If
you study the New Testament, you'll see that many other people faced
this same choice. The rich young ruler came to Jesus at the height of
his power only to be told that, to become a Christ follower, he had to
sell everything he had. Levi, a tax collector, walked away from his
lucrative job in order to follow Jesus.

So what about you? What are the nets that are preventing you
from completely following our Savior? Is it your career, your past,
your finances, or maybe the sense of control that you would have to
surrender to a God you've never seen?

During his message on Sunday, Andy made the statement that
"before someone can make a radical decision to follow something, they
first have to make a radical decision to let something go." So which is
it my friend? Are you the follower of a Rabbi or a fisherman?

* Feeling gutsy? Try praying this prayer, "Ok, God. Not my will,
but yours be done." Feeling really gutsy? Post a response and tell me
what happened after you prayed.
* Andy said, "all of us carry nets that can entangle us." Tell me
about yours.

- Don

Fair...

Mine. I want it. I had it first. I didn’t do it. But he started it. You may think I am replaying a conversation that took place this morning with my 3 year old son. And you are right. But even more revealing (and embarrassing) is my admittance that it is also the same conversation I have had countless times with God. I admit it. I am quick to find someone to blame when I have been wronged. To take it one step further, I quickly become an expert at justifying my actions when I have been the one doing the ‘wronging’.

When I was in younger, my parents and I would argue about how they were choosing to parent one of my siblings. You see, she chose a different path for her life – one that most anyone would agree was selfish and destructive. On the other hand I was doing my best to please my parents by excelling in school, holding a job and trying to learn responsibility. Don’t misread me here, I made more than my far share of bad decisions and certainly took many opportunities to show my rebellious side – but that is a different story for a different day. I was no angel child, but compared to her, I looked pretty darn good. No matter how good I was, or how ‘bad’ she was, we were still offered the same privileges it seemed. I got a car to drive to school and work, but you know what, so did she. Didn’t they know she rarely made it to school and didn’t even have a job? Strike 1. She would hit them up for some cash for who knows what, and I had to explain what I intended to do with every cent I was given. Strike 2. You can see where this is going. I would get so angry because it appeared that if I would choose to make poor choices I would be afforded the same luxuries, or perhaps even more. They were always dealing with her latest ordeal and I was just expected to “stay out of trouble” and “don’t cause us any more problems because we already have our hands full with your sister”. It seemed the spotlight was always on her.

I had never drawn the parallels of this story to that of the Prodigal Son, but today they were made very clear. My parents were extending the same grace to her as they were me. Why should I expect them to parent me any different? It wasn’t up to me. I wasted so much time being angry and wondering why I wasn’t being applauded for my efforts.

I am sure many of us have similar stories – but that is just it – the story doesn’t really matter. What matters is who you are in the story. Are you the rebellious son, lost and far from God? Are you the self-righteous one, no longer capable of rejoicing when a sinner returns to God? Maybe you've hit rock-bottom, come to your senses and decided to run to God's open arms of compassion and mercy? Or are you one of the servants in the household, rejoicing with the father when a lost son finds his way home? No matter what, God is standing there ready and willing to accept you regardless of who you believe yourself to be or what you have done. For me, I just need to accept grace for what it is – an amazing, unexplainable gift from my Heavenly Father.

Dee

Assumptions...

Mr. Rogers with a beard. Sheppard dude. Longhaired, halo
wearing peacenik. White robed, soft-spoken pushover. Helpless,
broken man hanging on a cross.

Say the word Jesus and see what pictures pop into your head. Do
the images resemble any of the descriptive phrases I've listed above?
Probably. But does that make them true?

The new series we're undergoing as a church, Reset, challenges
us to abandon our assumptions and discover who Jesus really is all over
again. How about these phrases:

Divider.
Activist.
Revolutionary.
Crusader for social justice.

Are we still talking about the same guy?

That's just it, isn't it? If we were really honest with
ourselves, then we'd have to admit that each of us harbors a unique
version of Jesus built from a combination of cultural assumptions,
intellect, and past experiences. Our own, personal, Jesus.
Would the real Jesus please stand up?

Fortunately, we've got something more than just stained glass
pictures or cheesy movies to introduce us to our savior. Read the New
Testament book of Luke, join a Reset group, and have the guts to check
your assumptions at the door. Come with us as we discover Jesus all
over again.

- Don

* Picture Jesus and his disciples standing together. Do you see a
bunch of construction workers on a coffee break, or a theology professor
and his grad students sitting in the faculty lounge? Why?

* Would you agree that most iconic images of Jesus feature some
version of an effeminate man surrounded by lambs or children? Does that
sound like the guy who trampled on the social taboos of his day while
insulting the members of the cultural elite? How do you reconcile those
images?

* I can sum up my preconceived notions of Jesus with one
word-boring. But how do you think a person as nonthreatening and bland
as we've made Jesus could convince twelve men to leave their livelihoods
and families to follow him to their deaths?

The DARE Challenge!!!

This isn't the stick your tongue against a frozen pole type of Dare. This is a Dare for each of us to step out of our comfort zone and serve someone.

Each day you will receive a dare that you agree to fulfill that day and then post your experience, the good, the bad and the ugly in the comment section below.

Imagine what would happen if we all decided to take the Dare Challenge...

Don't just imagine it... Do it!

I Dare you too!

* To sign up for the Dare Challenge please email us @ news@lifepointvineyard.com

Thanks!

He called us his Three Horsemen. BP, Kelsey and I were three of his five Troop Commanders, great friends, and brothers in arms. Our Squadron Commander knew that he could count on us to together accomplish any mission that we couldn’t complete individually. Our relationship made the Squadron stronger, but more than that, our friendship made each of us stronger.

Like anyone deployed away from his family and loved ones for a year, I endured some dark times in Afghanistan. But the friendship and trust I placed in my fellow Horsemen helped see me through those moments. On countless days existing on little sleep while spending long hours in the cockpit, the sound of my friends’ voices checking in over the radio often brought a smile to my face. Knowing that they were in the air with me provided a feeling of security during uncertain times.

I can recall one mission in particular that went terribly wrong. While lost in the maelstrom of chaos that poets call the fog of war, the one stalwart I clung to was the conviction that if I too were shot down, Kelsey would come for me. I knew this without Kelsey ever voicing this sentiment, because if the situation were reversed, I knew that I would come for him.

The bond between the three of us didn’t develop in Afghanistan—we were a community before we deployed. Our wives were friends, our children played together and we ate dinner at each other’s houses. We’d invested the time and effort to develop our community prior to Afghanistan, so that when I needed friends the most, I already had a family to support me.

So what about you? Do you have a community that supports you? If not, do you ask God why he hasn’t sent anyone into your life? Maybe you should be asking him to point you towards someone who needs your time and energy in their life. Sooner or later all of us will face a trial like Afghanistan.

Don’t face yours alone. Take a step towards someone today.

-Don

• Is your small group a band of brothers or just a bible study? What can you do to grow authentic community in your small group?
• Andy said, “Christian life is designed to be a team sport.” Are you part of a team? Why not?
• React to this statement: Our faith in God is personal but never private. Who have you invited to share in your personal relationship with God?

Intimacy

Merriam-Webster defines the word intimate as to communicate directly and delicately. I don’t know about you, but that is certainly a characteristic I would like the relationships in my life to have. I am a wife and a mother so intimacy takes on many forms in my household. Intimacy isn’t the first word that comes to mind when thinking about parent-child relationships, but when I look at the definition above, it is one I want to strive for. I certainly communicate directly to my children, but how delicate am I? Too often intimacy is mistaken as simply a physical attribute of a relationship when it really it is so much more.
My husband, Bryson, and I were talking Sunday afternoon about Andy’s message. You see, Bryson’s story was similar to the story that was shared. He grew up going in a very religious household regulated by rules. It wasn’t that his parents didn’t have a personal relationship with Jesus Christ – they did – but they also felt it brutally important to live by certain rules. To quote Bryson, “I grew up with so many rules, that when I went to college and didn’t have any, I went wild.” Lucky for both of us, Bryson never lost sight of what was most important.

Our conversation didn’t stop there – what really got me was how Bryson related his ability – or lack thereof - to be intimate with God with his level of intimacy with his own father. Because his father hadn’t shown him what it meant to have a close, delicate, relationship, my husband was sailing uncharted waters when it came to experiencing God. I hadn’t thought about it that way, but for someone whose family life may have lacked intimacy it may be extremely difficult to be intimate with anyone else. Intimacy may not be something that is always taught, but it certainly is modeled.

After hearing my husband relate his struggles with being intimate back to his relationship with his father, I thought back to how the 3 points Andy outlined on how to cultivate intimacy with God can really apply in many interpersonal relationships.

1) Give the relationship your time. This one may be the easiest of the 3 --still difficult for many, but pretty self explanatory.

2) Be transparent. This is hard for most of us – possibly even harder with someone important to us versus with God.

3) Submission. Ugh. There is that word again. But, undoubtedly the most powerful of the 3. If you submit to God, your life will be forever changed.

So I challenge you this week to look for opportunities to be more intimate with the God that made you. Personally, I am going to start with the R-rated prayers. Sure, He knows everything about you, but do you know everything about Him???

Disturbed?

Are you disturbed?

I'm not talking about the kind of disturbed that occurs when your satellite reception has gone out and your kids have been without the cartoon network for two days. Or the kind of disturbed you get when you realize that the drive thru barista at Starbucks forgot to swap skim milk for soy in your latté. I'm talking about the kind of disturbed that keeps you up at night thinking and pushes you towards action instead of just talk.

My cousin, Michelle, is a thirty-three year old housewife. She's a mother to four kids, spanning the ages of two to ten, and a wife to the senior pastor of a small congregation in Pennsylvania. And she's also convinced that she can help end the sex trade of children in Cambodia. She's been to Cambodia twice in the last year to check on the freshwater village wells that she helped build, talked the band Ten Shekel Shirt into putting on a concert in her town to raise money for child slavery survivors via the group Love146, and has been diligently educating her church and friends on this dynamic social cause.

She's disturbed.

Really, she's no different than you or me except that when I take stock of the blessings in my life and respond with a simple "thank you, God", Michelle takes things one-step further. She asks why. As in Why was I born in America? Why have you blessed me with resources that ninety percent of the world will work for all their lives and never attain? Why are my kids able to go the school of my choice when children in Cambodia live with the risk of being forced into a life of slavery as a child prostitute?

And she doesn't stop there. She asks the second question that all of us hear whispered in the back of our minds but refuse to face. She asks, what can I do to help, God? And then she acts. With great power comes great responsibility. That's my favorite quote from the movie Spiderman, but before Michelle, I'd never realized that sentiment applied to ordinary people. You see, Michelle isn't a superhero, she doesn't have much money, and she didn't go to Berkley to learn how to become a social activist. But she's disturbed and disturbed people make things happen. Disturbed people refuse to acknowledge the resources God has given them with just a thank you.

Disturbed people act.

What if we had a bunch of people like Michelle? A gathering full of disturbed people who challenged the status quo and refused to believe that the problems confronting their community were unsolvable. What would we call this group of disturbed people?

How about a church?

- Don

· What disturbs you? We've all marveled at our good fortune to be born in this country, but have you ever asked God why? Better yet, are you brave enough to ask him "what do you want me to do?"

1 What would happen if the doors of Lifepoint Vineyard closed tomorrow for good? What would change for the worse in our community? In our world? If you can't answer to these questions, does it disturb you? It should.
2 Which of these two bullets reflect how you talk to God and what does that tell you about yourself?
· "God help me. God bless me. God protect me."
1 "God send me. God use me. God spend me."

Now and Then...

There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love. 1 John 4:18

It has been said that there are really only 2 human emotions – fear and love. That means all other emotions have their roots in either fear or love. With that in mind, it’s not too difficult to figure out where worry comes from, is it? When I think about worry really being fear, I have a much harder time owning that emotion. Don’t misread me here, I am a full-fledged worrier in every sense of the word – just ask my husband. But when I am forced to admit that worry is in fact fear, I find ways to twist words in order to justify how I am feeling. “I’m not worrying about it, I am just concerned that…..” “I’m not worried, I am just feeling a little anxious about..…”

If I am being totally honest here, I’d have to tell you that I was worried sick about writing this blog. Would I know what to say? Would it sound remedial? Would anyone read it? But what is that really – fear. Fear of not being good enough. Fear that my writing couldn’t compare to Don Bentley’s. Fear that I don’t have what it takes. But deep in my heart, I know that my loving God is sufficient and has given me more than I could ever imagine and I had to trust that He would give me the words.

A few things really struck me this week listening to Andy’s message. The first happened when he was talking with Sue and she admitted that much of her tendency to worry was passed down to her through her family. Being a worrier myself, I immediately thought of my own children. Do I really want them to walk through life worrying about all the things I find my mind occupied with? Isn’t having no responsibility part of the beauty of being a child? My child’s biggest fear in a given day centers around whether or not I remembered to buy him more orange juice. I don’t know about you, but I don’t want to take that away from him. So, how do we create an environment that still fosters safety but doesn’t bleed worry?

I don’t know the answer here, but I know it HAS to start with faith. To paraphrase what Sue said, “Faith and fear cannot exist simultaneously.” (That’s going on an index card taped to my mirror).

Another statement Andy made that really rings true is that worry is the pre-occupation with the uncertainty of today. The concept sounds profound, but is really simple when you think about it. (Sorry Andy, not to say you aren’t profound!). We worry because we don’t know what might happen tomorrow, but in our cynical minds, we automatically assume that whatever is going to happen will be bad. My spouse might lose their job, my child might be involved in an accident etc. etc. etc. But how come our thought process doesn’t go the other way? Why don’t we think that our spouse might get a raise today or that our children might get accepted into the college of their choice? It seems that so many of us lack the innate ability to see things in a positive light.

We all have countless stories we could share about great things that have happened to us and our families -- specific instances where God truly intervened. Sure, maybe you didn’t win the lottery, but you didn’t suffer any damage in the hurricane that tore through Cincinnati. Doesn’t this show that God is still looking out for you? It REALLY is the little things sometimes. How quickly we forget that just yesterday God did something amazing in our life. Like Andy said, worry is often a shout, but God is sometimes just a whisper. So maybe we all just need turn the volume down on the worry in our life just enough to hear the whisper in our ear…..

• What has God been whispering to you lately?
• What’s an amazing thing that God has done for you in the last week that you’ve already forgotten?
• What can you do to better remember the things God has done for you next time you’re tempted to worry?

Dee

Seek first His Kingdom...

“But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.” Matthew 6:33-34

“Don? There’s been an accident. Faith fell off the trampoline—I think she broke her arm. I’m on the way to the hospital. Call me when you get this.”

That’s the voicemail I found waiting for me one afternoon after returning to my desk from a routine meeting on a routine day. In the space of a single heartbeat, my concern shifted from the inventory sales numbers I’d gone over in my meeting to my little four-year-old on the way to the hospital with a broken arm.

Amazing how a ten second voicemail from your wife can reorder your priorities, isn’t it? My trip to the hospital was a blur of images, each more horrible than the last, as I conjured up all the terrible things Faith could be going through. My pulse raced as I alternated between heart wrenching concern for my daughter and fist clenching fury that I could do nothing to help her.

Some of our more mundane worries can also manifest this same surge of emotions, can’t they? Who hasn’t sat around wondering if this is the winter our car is going to give out, or whether the downsizing this year would affect our job? But these worries are often compounded by a sense of helplessness that causes our stomachs to churn while moving us no closer to the problem’s solution.

Because sometimes we just can’t solve the problem. Sometimes, we’ve done all that we can do and we have to rest in the knowledge that our heavenly father who loves us and understands our needs has the universe under his control.

But other times our sense of angst comes from focusing too much on this world and not devoting enough of our attention to our father’s business. When Jesus was talking to his disciples about worrying, he told them to seek their heavenly father’s kingdom and righteousness first. Only then did he promise to take care of everything else.

I want to be a writer—a novelist to be exact. After years of practicing by writing short stories, I completed my first novel and landed an agent. She wasn’t able to sell the manuscript to a publishing house, but I just knew that my hard work was about to pay off and I wrote a second novel. A second novel that no agent wanted to represent. I remember sitting in my car, the latest rejection letter in my hand, staring at the brown envelope containing my manuscript. My quest to find an agent was consuming me. I kept Ang up at night ranting about how I’d invested money into writing classes and time into writing with no discernable results.

I remember looking at the envelope and thinking, “God, what are you doing here? I’ve got the chops to make it as I writer—I’ve been told this by other writers I respect. I’ve done the hard work, but this is still going nowhere. What is going on?”

Wait. That’s the answer I got, wait. After spending six years working with little to show for my efforts, I thought I probably had the waiting thing pegged. But with nothing else to do, I wrapped up my manuscript, shoved it in a drawer, and took an honest look at how I was prioritizing my life. I continued to write, but I no longer allowed the worrying to consume me. Now when Ang and I stayed up late, we talked about our church, about our family, about what God was doing in our lives, and about how we could better invest ourselves in his kingdom.

About that time Andy asked me to lead a strategic planning team for Lifepoint. As part of an icebreaker for our first team meeting, I mentioned that I was a wannabe novelist. That off-the-cuff comment led to a conversation with another team member who told me about a writers conference that hosted agents and editors and offered a writing contest to cover tuition. A writing contest that I won, so that I could attend the conference and sit next to another author who wrote my kind of fiction. An author who introduced me to a fantastic agent who loved my manuscript and is now trying to sell it.

And all of these things happened courtesy of my worrying, right?

Of course not. These incredible things happened when I finally got to the point where I’d realized that I’d done everything that I could do. I decided to release my dreams back to the loving father who’d planted them within me in the first place and to spend more time pursuing his kingdom.

Cinderella story? Not quite. My agent still hasn’t sold my novel. Maybe he won’t, but I’m determined not to waste my life worrying about it. You see, at its core, worrying really comes down to a question of trust. Are you going to trust in yourself, confident that you can resolve life’s problems on your own, or are you going to trust that an all powerful God will meet your needs while you chase after his kingdom?

It’s your life and your decision.

Don

“Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly father feeds them. Are you not more valuable than they? Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life?” Matthew 6:26-27

Worry? Who, me? I’m not a worrier. At least not at this exact moment in time.

All right, I lied. I’m worrying as we speak. I’m pretty much a consummate worrier. Except that I don’t call it worrying. I call it being a thorough planner. I can probably do a better job than most at rationalizing my chronic worrying. I spent a year of my adult life as a Scout Platoon Leader in the Army. As Scout Platoon Leader, my job was to fly the lead aircraft for my Troop. In other words, on a two-hour flight, eight helicopters were depending on me to get them where they needed to go and to arrive at our destination within thirty seconds of our assigned time.

Can you see why I’m such a thorough planner? I’d study the map for hours before a mission, visualizing the route and picturing the terrain in my mind. I got good enough at my job, that I started flying lead for the entire Squadron. Now, instead of just eight helicopters relying on me, I had twenty-four.

Stressed yet?

I was. I remember sitting in the cockpit before each mission, a map balanced on one knee and a sheet of paper listing times and map coordinates Velcroed to the other, looking at two stopwatches while calculating distance, time and airspeed in my head. I used to pray that the mission would get canceled, or that the commander would pick someone else to fly lead. I worried constantly.

Sounds like fun, huh? So imagine how I felt when I listened to Andy this morning as he read the verse from Mathew where Jesus promises that if our heavenly father will take care of the birds of the air, the Ravens, that he’ll take care of us as well.

Seems counterintuitive, doesn’t it?

Now some of you really aren’t worriers. In fact some of you point to this verse and say, “See, I don’t need to do anything with my life because God will take care of me.” But I don’t think that’s what Jesus was saying. Have you ever watched birds? They’re busy from sunup to sundown, looking for worms, building their nests, doing whatever it is that birds do. I’ve never seen a bird that just sat in its nest and waited for God to drop some seeds in its mouth. Birds give one hundred percent each day of their lives and then go to sleep at night content in the knowledge that they’ve done all that they could do.

I think that our Christian life should mimic this attitude. If we’re honestly trying to discover what God has in store for us, we have to get out of our nests each day, and hit the ground running. We have to exhaust every avenue open to us, and then and only then, can we rest in the knowledge that our heavenly father will provide for us.

In his book, The Barbarian Way, Erwin McManus makes the following observation about Rhinos:

You see, Rhinos can run at thirty miles an hour…but Rhinos can only see thirty feet in front of them. You would think that they would be far too timid to pick up full steam, that their inability to see far enough ahead would paralyze them to immobility. But with that horn pointing the way, Rhinos run full steam ahead without apprehension. (McManus, Erwin Raphael. The Barbarian Way. Nashville: Thomas Nelson, Inc. 2005, p. 137-38)

Erwin goes on to say that Rhinos exemplify what our walk with Christ should look like. That while chasing after God’s will, we can rarely see more than thirty feet ahead of us even though we’re still running at thirty miles an hour. Think I’m making this up? Check out Acts 16:6-10. This scripture tells the story of Paul, the author of most of the New Testament, and how he’s struggling to find out where God wants him to preach the gospel. Paul passes in or around six different regions before he finally realizes that God wants him to teach in Macedonia. In one point during his journey, verse seven says, “When they came to the border of Mysia, they tried to enter Bithynia, but the Spirit of Jesus would not allow them to.”

Wow. And you thought you had obstacles in your life. Do you think Paul worried at all during this process? You see, while Rhinos run at thirty miles an hour, sometimes they hit trees and fall to the ground. And while the Ravens, or birds of the air, work all day at finding food, sometimes they still go to their nests at night hungry.

I’ve been trying to apply this concept to my own life over past year. I’m coming to the end of my current job at GE and have started the process of looking for a new one. I’m diligently seeking God’s will, but I’m also following up every job lead that I think I’d be good at. In the process of writing this blog I got an email that the job I really wanted had just been given to someone else.

Talk about hitting a tree.

But you see it really didn’t hurt at much as I thought that it would. In fact, it’s almost exciting. Like the Rhino, I’m chasing after God’s will at thirty miles an hour even though I can only see thirty feet in front of me. Like the Raven, I’m out of my nest and working from sunup to sundown even if I don’t always get that worm. But at the end of the day, I can rest at night knowing that I’ve done all that I can and that the remainder is in the hands of my God. The same God who tells me not to worry because he promises to feed me just like he does the birds of the air.

Keep running friends—I’d love to hear your stories.

Don