Compassion, love, grace, mercy...the business of God

I hear a lot about churches being run like a business. This week alone I have had to give the church address as "business," not residential. I suppose I am okay with that. But I want to be a part of God's business, which, in reading about the prophets of the Old Testament, Jesus' ministry on earth, the saints in the New Testament, and looking at the hands of feet of God today...the business of God is compassion, love, grace, and mercy. All of that. That is where I want to be.

This past Sunday we saw a very "nooma" like video (in regards to production quality) where I taught on the road. Yes, I was not at Crosstalk, but I still gave the message.

We started looking at the prophets in our "The Bible Jesus Read" study. The prophet we looked at never recorded his teachings in a book, but I am sure that his servant Gehazi told everyone around what God was doing through him (like raising ax heads, feeding 100 people with 20 loaves, causing oil to last a long time) so that we now have the story of his ministry in the book of 2 Kings 1-8. I am of course talking about Elisha.

We focused in on one aspect of his ministry, his compassion on the women from Shunem. She was childless, yet still very nice, so God gave her a son. We see how the son dies, and Elisha brought him back to life. The jist of the teaching showed how God has compassion on people, and how Elisha walked around the earth with similar motives as Jesus. To show God's love.

How can we continue on the business of God today? How can we show compassion to the people around you? Can you buy someone a chocalate milk at school? Can you start a conversation with someone who looks lonely, or sad, or mad, or depressed, or happy, or whatever? Do it. Join Elisha, Jesus, and other people in being a part of God's business.

I will post the video later on so you can watch it in full.

much Love,
johnny

What we dwell on makes a difference

Growing up I read the entire Sherlock Holmes collection (by growing up I mean in college, it was a great mind vacation from school). In said collection, the great detective had a theory that you only have room in your brain for so much before you can't remember clearly all that you put in there. So he committed to only learning and remembering practical things. Like observation, and the skills of observation. (I really want to see the new Holmes by the way).

Now, I don't always agree with Sherlock. But I think that he is on to something here. When I backed up my prior research of reading about the greatest detective to come out of the UK with the very sophisticated "wikiAnswers" I found a similar reading. We can store stuff in our mind until it is displaced or removed.

How true it is with our heart and minds! Jesus tells us that whatever comes out of the mouth, is really from the heart (matt. 15). Potty humor, from a potty heart. Encouragement, from a loving heart. What we dwell on makes a difference.

On Wednesday night we are continuing our Chaotic Joy series through Philippians. Last night in Phil. 4:8 we are encouraged, no, entreated to dwell on things that matter to God.

Whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is of good repute, if there is any excellence and if anything worthy of praise, let your mind dwell on these things.

Let your mind dwell on these things. We can go through the list and see what we are dwelling on and putting in our hearts and minds. We won't be very proud of the things we see there. Here is how the early church dealt with this. They fixed their eyes on Jesus!

Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy set before Him endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. Consider him who endured such opposition from sinful men, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart. Hebrews 12:2-3

The early church fixed their eyes on Jesus! That is what they were committed to. What He taught, how He lived, how He obeyed, how He suffered, how He rose again. Shame on me for distracting people from Jesus. He addresses and answers nearly every problem we encounter! Let us fix our eyes on Him!

What are we dwelling on? Are we dwelling on our past? Our sufferings? Our anxiety? I pray that we put those behind us and continue to run the race with our eyes fastened on the prize. Let us run the race in a way that He will be proud, and say well done my good and faithful servant.

Are we putting mindless movie quotes in our heart? Are we focusing on the latest lyrics from your favorite band (unless it's dc talk, then its all good in the hood)? Or are we treasuring the word of God in our heart?

much Love,
johnny

Stopping the trend...

Can you look at your family history and see a trend? I can. And others can as well. Studies show that if your Grandpa was bald, and your dad was bald, the chances of you being bald are pretty good! Which is why I have started using this.

Studies also show that if your grandpa was an alcoholic, and your dad was an alcoholic, the chances of you becoming an alcoholic sky rocket! Same goes with college, divorce, abuse, and other various trends.

This past Sunday at CrossTalk we saw how a young King named Josiah broke a trend that haunted his past. Josiah's dad was one of the worst kings in Israel's history, promoting so many pagan gods that child sacrifices started to be the norm. This was a trend that was started way back in Solomon's day...400 years before! God ended Josiah's Dad's reign abruptly, and Josiah took over at the age of 8. Not very old to be king, but we see in his story (2 Kings 22-23) that he rose to the occasion. When Josiah was 26, he decided to clean up the temple of God, which had fallen into disrepair because no one was using it. When the high priest at the time reported that they found a book, Josiah read it. That book was the book of the Law that Moses had written 900 years earlier! It was just in the corner with junk piling up on it. That is how bad it had gotten with religion and Israel!

What happens next is really cool! Josiah reads the book, and it changed his life! He gathers all of the people together and they all read it together. The whole nation repents and renews the covenant with God. They tear down the temples to other Gods that have been built in the mountains, and start new with their relationship with the one true God.

Josiah couldn't have stopped the trend with out God's help. This is true in our lives as well. My parents are divorced. My wife's parents are divorced. My wife and I have decided that we want to honor God in our marriage by not getting a divorce. We can't do that on our own, we need His help.

If you have a family history that you want to stop...then decide today to commit your life to Christ and His way. With out Him, you will end up continuing the trend. With Him, you start a new trend for generations to come.

much Love,
Johnny

Student Led Connections!

We are in our "Chaotic Joy" series, studying Philippians. It is going great! Last night we had our student leaders lead every aspect of our program. What a chaotic joy!

Each component was led amazingly! God was worshiped last night my friends. The students did a great job moving us along after dinner into a very fun mixer. We had a four team relay. The funny part was that they had to run around with garbage cans on top of their heads! There were a lot of near misses and some good collisions. I wish I got a picture...

The worship was led by students, and after a shaky practice (it happens) God totally used them to lead us in some amazing worship. What a joyful noise.

The message was led by students, and after a shaky practice (it happens) God totally used them to deliver His word. Thank you to Aundi Ragan, Ariella Woods, and Stefan Siqueland who put lots of time and effort to share with us how to to have Joy through overcoming Anxiety. (Phil. 4:4-7).

Even the small groups were led by students! Seriously, they did AWESOME stepping out of their comfort zone for a very smooth Connections.

much Love,
johnny

Sunday ReCap, experience God:Prayer

This past Sunday was experience God. Let me tell you, I have grown to like experience God Sundays. I like that the younger kids get to see the older kids step out. I like how the older kids are great models for the younger kids. And I like how the younger kids speak out after seeing the older kids speak out. I like saying the same things over again, but in different ways.

But all kidding aside, I think it was a good Sunday. Prayer is something that many believers don't know how to do very well, simply because they go to God with three requests. "Help!", "Thanks!", and "Sorry!". But we see that prayer can be so much more than that!

Sunday the kids did a couple of simple prayer activities. We didn't teach them A.C.T.S., but we showed them the Ignatius of Loyola prayer method, and a little bit of Lecto Divina. Aren't you impressed?

I was! To see the kids sit in a big circle, meditating on God and phrases from God's word was really really neat. To hear what the kids picked up out of it was also encouraging for them to be honest and open about where they are in life. To see them apply what they just learned through taking a psalm and praying through that was also very cool.

If you missed Experience God, don't worry. We still have two left. And they are already planned. :)

much Love,
johnny

A heart breaking weekend...

Last weekend was a nation wide 30 hour famine. Our church partnered with other churches in the area to raise money for World Vision, and raise our awareness to how hard some people have it in the world.

We raised our awareness in many different ways, but keeping the focus on kids in developing countries. We did this through fasting for 30 hours. This was the obvious hard part, but every hunger pang that we felt was an opportunity to remember what children go through everyday, thus giving us a reminder to pray for them.

We had activities throughout the weekend to keep us focused. We watched a documentary called "invisable children" to give us a glimpse of what life is like for children in Sudan. We set up a "fam cam" in a cardboard booth to share with each other through video about what we are learning and how it will affect our lives. We wrote prayers and scripture on pieces of cardboard to put in our rooms to remind us of the kids.





And that night (friday) we built a cardboard city and slept in the "shacks" to give us a glimpse of sleeping with out a proper shelter.



After tearing down our box city the next morning, we all built 300 little crosses out of popsicle sticks. We spent some time in prayer, and then pushed our crosses into the dirt. After looking at all of them for a moment we learned that in the 15 minutes it took for us build 300 crosses and push them in the ground, 300 children had died. A cross for each child...



We spent all of Saturday doing service projects...on an empty stomach. We helped move the NW Furniture Bank into a new warehouse, then split off half way through the day to help eldery people with yard work.





We finally made it back to Chapel Hill to break our fast with Communion and dinner.

We are still raising money, so I will let you know the totals that come in. I can tell you this though...I am so proud of all the kids at Believers who came out to show that they care about more than just themselves.

much Love,
Johnny

Chaotic Joy

Last night we had another night of looking into Philippians to find a chaotic joy in our life.

It
was
a
hard
night.

What made it hard you ask? I wish you could have been there. The passage in Philippians was 3:12-14.

Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already been made perfect, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me. Brothers, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.

This is an innocent sounding paragraph. But the great thing about the Word of God is that it is simple to understand, but has so many applications!

When Paul says our goal is to press on, he gives two ingredients to do that.

Step One: Forget the past
Step Two: Strain forward toward the goal

Sounds simple. But in order to "forget the past," we have to deal with it. This, just, got, hard.

Dealing with our past can be hard. We all struggle with confidence, depression, the way we look, anxiety. That can be hard, and when you throw in the stuff that we have been through personally (addictions, cutting, abuse, suicidal thoughts, divorce, loss of family) it can be very hard to deal with that.

Our small groups last night started that process! I have heard great things (don't worry, no details) about how open a lot of people were about their past and how they need to deal with it.

The reason we need to work through step one (deal with the past) is because it can hinder step two (grow in God). So many times we feel that we are not becoming more like Christ because we are still hurting about our past.

Guess what? We have an amazing God who is the Remedy for broken-ness, pain, hurt, loss, (insert your past situation here).

When are you going to forget the past? What steps have you taken to deal with the past? What is keeping you from forgetting the past?

much Love,
johnny

p.s.- I am still trying to forget this part of my past!