Basics…Shalom…

A few weeks ago i finished my series on Basics, and i closed it out with the thought of Shalom.

Shalom is a huge idea for the early followers of God. It was all about the never-failing presence of God in their every day lives.

Shalom was not just peace.

It is peace, health, well-being, prosperity, contentment, joy, and the never-failing love of God!

This is what every Hebrew family was looking for and praying for when they prayed for shalom to be upon their lives and the lives of those they loved.

The idea of Shalom was very important to the early followers of Christ also!

These followers of Jesus believed that ultimate shalom would be brought to earth by the messiah. God’s deliverer! And they believed that Jesus was the Christ…the anointed one of God.

Because Jesus was Christ, He poured out of Himself the Shalom of God onto all people.

And now…we are to take that Shalom and give it away!

The kingdom of Jesus is all about Him fulfilling all things. And that means that we are redeemed and we are now fulfilled by Him and in Him! And that means that we are to allow Him to live thru us!!!!

So…let’s get living! We are the ones that Shalom has been given…now we are to give it away!

peace! out!

Basics…..Suffering…

God has really been dealing with me personally about suffering for the last several weeks and months.

I believe that most Christians have no idea the purpose that suffering serves in our lives. I believe the church is mostly to blame for this ignorance. Most pastors teach a very narrow view of suffering, usually these views are not biblical.

one view that has been taught is that suffering is simply an attack from the enemy and the “good” Christian will recognize the attack and stand against it or “rebuke” it when it comes.

the other popular view that is taught is that Christians should not suffer…therefore, if you ARE suffering, it is most likely because of sin in your life or a lack of faith.

To a small degree, I can see where these teachings come from. The bible does teach that Satan will attack God’s children and that we should resist him. The bible also teaches that our sin brings with it consequence.

however, the greater weight of teaching in the bible about suffering, is that God is directly involved and will actually allow and bring suffering into our lives to teach us and mold us into His children.

the bible says that Jesus learned obedience THROUGH suffering! Wow! that is heavy! So this means God actually wants us to suffer!

the question we need to ask ourselves when (not if) we suffer is not “Why this?” but instead we should ask “What now?” What is God doing in me now? what is He teaching me now? Where is He taking me now?

Instead of stiff-arming suffering and trying to keep it out of our lives…we should embrace the suffering and learn from it!

peace.

Basics……….Singing.

i just started a small series at theedge called “Basics: singing/suffering/shalom.” i think we all need to get back to basics every now and then! it’s easy to forget the fundamental things that keep us focused. we can very quickly start making life about the small stuff instead of keeping the main thing the main thing.

so, with that in mind last week we talked about singing.

as you scan the Bible you notice there is a lot of singing going on with those who follow God. we sing with stuff is good, when stuff is bad, when we need deliverance, once we have freedom, when it is dark, when God provides, when i am happy, etc. etc.

but here are the basic reasons i think we are to sing or worship God…

.: Because His love is better than life!!!

“Because your love is better than life, my lips will glorify you.
I will praise you as long as I live, and in your name I will lift up my hands.
My soul will be satisfied as with the richest of foods; with singing lips my mouth will praise you.”
Psalm 63.3-5

His love is better than anything! Anything else i worship is an idol, and it cannot deliver what it claims it will deliver. it cannot comfort or satisfy me. only God can satisfy! This is why i cannot help but worship Him! Once i feel His love, i HAVE TO worship Him…i HAVE TO sing!

.: To bring HIM glory!!!

“Sing the glory of his name; make his praise glorious!” Psalm 66.2

the other reason we sing or worship God is to bring Him glory! Plain and simple. No glory should ever come to me. i worship so i will reflect any attention and glory off of myself ON to Him! We are created to praise Him, we are created to worship Him, we are created to give Him glory!

so, let’s get back to basics and sing!

Are you wasting soil?

As I am preaching thru the book of Luke at theedge, God is dealing with me every week! This week we read the parable of the fig tree. The tree had not produced fruit in 3 years. The vineyard owner is upset and tells the gardner to “cut it down, why should i use up the soil?” The gardner asks for just one more year and one more chance to get it producing. If it doesn’t produce by the end of the year, then he will cut it down.

I believe the vineyard owner and the gardner BOTH represent God. God is the judge, who can say “Cut it down!” and He is also the merciful gardner who says, “Give them one more chance!”

I know God has given me tons of chances! He is a forgiving, loving, merciful God. But i don’t want to take advantage of His love and forgiveness. I don’t want Him to look at me and see that i am taking up good soil!

I ask myself everyday, “Lord, am i doing YOUR will? Am i producing Kingdom fruit in the vineyard you have planted me in!?” We all need to ask ourselves these tough questions. So what about you? Are you producing what God wants you to produce? or are you wasting good soil?

My reward? HIS Glory!

I’ve been listening to the Jesus Culture CD called “Consumed” for the last couple of weeks. It’s pretty darn good stuff. there is one song on there that has grabbed my attention and my heart.
It’s an old song that has been around forever, but it’s hitting me for the first time. In the bridge the words are,

“And when I am doing well, Help me to never seek a crown…For my reward is bringing Glory to Your Name!”

That’s an awesome statement!

Can I say that it is true in my life???? Is my reward that HE gets the credit and the glory? Or, am I too selfish? There are times I struggle with wanting the credit and the accolades! What I am realizing is that I – WE- have been made to bring HIM glory! That’s it! Nothing else.

That line…those words…are piercing! My prayer this week, this day, this hour is that my reward will be when I reflect the attention off of me and on to my Lord and Savior!

I hate church…

Ok…here’s the deal.

my frustration level with the institution that is called the church is at an all-time high!
i just can’t believe that Jesus came to earth and died for what we call “church.” I think Jesus would be very sad at the condition of the church, especially the westernized, individualized version we have in america.

when i look around the “church world” or the “christian” landscape, all i see is hypocritical, judgmental, self-promoting people. we live in a church culture that may have started out with the best of intent, but we have slowly and consistently fallen into an organization that only creates the worst of outcomes.

instead of being about relationship and care and love…most “churches” have become institutions of fear and guilt! we guilt people into acting a certain way. in fact, most “churches” actually reward people for “proper” behavior and will beat the crap out of those who display “bad” behavior.

we have become an institution that rails against sinners. we are doing our best to keep the sinners out! we are extremely vocal about what is acceptable. we are constantly at war with our culture. we are constantly reminding everyone around us how they don’t measure up, how they don’t fit in, how they are less than perfect!

what the hell are we doing!!!!!!??????!!!!!!

how can we read the gospels and blow right past the fact that we are acting JUST like the religious leaders of Jesus day!? How can we be so blind to the massive log in our own eyes, but instead focus with such laser-like hatred on everyone else’s splinters!?

instead of BEING the Church, we have traded that in to build man-made institutions called church. this is where we live by the religious rules and duties put on us by our modern day “teachers of the law.”

but it feels so good doesn’t it? it feels good to judge. why? because it feeds our souls! it’s much easier to point out all the crap that is in someone else’s life than it is to deal with mine!!! after all, if i deal with my own soul, i might have to die to MYself and take up MY cross and actually FOLLOW Christ. and that’s just not as fun and keeping all the sinners out! i mean, i’d much rather drag an adulteress out into the middle of the town square and stone her to death, wouldn’t you?!

i’m just really tired of the institution of church. i’m really tired of all the hate, the back biting, the judging, the gossip, the fake friendships, the sin pointing.

i want to BE the church! i want to be around people who will LIVE in the LOVE of God, and allow that love to kill our flesh every day. I want to be in real relationships where i don’t judge you and you don’t judge me with some arbitrary, man-made, religious law. i want to know that i would die for you and you would die for me….and that we would both die to follow Christ!!!!!!

it’s getting harder, and harder to say that i am a christian and even harder to say that i am a pastor of a church. where is the real church?! not the man-made institution! the real thing!

Groups and Such……

So, a few posts ago you may notice that i wrote about “hating” small groups.
well, i don’t hate small groups, i have just been frustrated about the WAY small groups are treated in the local church around America.

So, now, here’s the rub.

As theedge church is growing larger, we are looking for ways to “become smaller.” we realize that our people are not connecting as easily as they did before. it’s taking longer for families to connect and make friends at theedge, because we are not a small group anymore.

with that as our dilemma, we are looking for ways to help people connect and get to know others in the church. and what’s the best way to do that? you guessed it…smaller groups!

i have been studying small groups like crazy for the past few weeks. what works? what doesn’t? what’s the best for theedge? closed? open?

we are just in the process of getting started, so if there is anyone out there who would like to contribute to the discussion please reply and let me know what you think? i could use all the help you got!

peace.out.

Easter on the Edge…

This past weekend was a great weekend.

We had wonderful weather for our egg hunt and picnic on Saturday! Kathryn and Stacie (our eKids directors) did an unbelievable job with that! It was a ton of fun.

And, in typical Oklahoma fashion, i got sunburned on Saturday and then froze on Sunday! Oh well…it was still a great Easter sunday.

and just like last year, i won’t talk about numbers and salvations and stuff like that…but i will say it was a great day!

we talked about dog parks, poop, and prostitues…you know, the typical, traditional Easter stuff that you always hear! haha!

hope everyone out there had a great Easter weekend. now if we can just get through “black sunday.”

live out loud!
love.love.serve.

Getting ready for the Easters…

This is it! Sunday is coming! The reason we live… the reason we are… the reason for everything…
is Easter!

So here are a few pre-Easter thoughts i have for anyone who would like to know (and i’m not stupid enough to think that a lot of people out there care at ALL what i think), but here goes…

Why is Easter such a big deal? I mean, why do we in “church world” get all worked up into a religious tizzy over Easter? Sure, i get it! I mean, I understand that Jesus is alive, i understand that he rose from the dead, and if he had not, then there would be no such thing as Christianity.

But, here’s the rub…at least for me. Shouldn’t we celebrate Jesus and His completed work EVERY DAY! I mean, doesn’t Jesus Himself say that we should take up our cross………daily!
Easter, if i’m not mistaken, is about the cross. or, you could say the cross event. Which means we should be consciously aware, every day of our lives, of Jesus and his work on the cross for humanity.

I just get a little tired of churches doing stuff on Easter that they never do any other Sunday of the year. what does that say to our people? what does that say to our guests? if i didn’t know any better i would think christians aren’t “smokin’ what they’re sellin’.”

it just seems disingenuous to live a certain way the whole year and then come to Easter and turn it to something else.

just some thoughts. i’m sure this has been really helpful.

my moral of the story….ummm….let’s try to live like Easter every day!!!!!

peace.out.

two days of why?

Our church just finished hosting the first Small Church Conference. we had Craig Groeschel, Toby Slough, and Dave Workman in as keynote speakers. We also had other speakers in that were incredible and they really helped us a lot! i wanted to share in this post some things that got me thinking over those 2 days.

Dave Workman (from Cincinnati Vineyard) spoke on being an Outward Focused church and leader. It was great! The thing that he said that has been seared into my soul is, “What if the church were known less for what it was against, and more for what we DO?”
Holy smoke!
What a question! It’s so true. if you ask most people – non church people – what church or Christians are about, they would most likely tell you all the things churches and christians are AGAINST!

churches are very good to tell you what is wrong and what NOT to do. but very rarely are we actually living lives of love and serve in the world. It got me thinking…what if someone asked a random guy in Edmond what theedge church was about? What would that guy say? What if someone asked a teacher, a business owner, the mayor about theedge church? What would they say? Would they know who we are? would they care? would they be positive, negative, indifferent? Would they say what we are against? or would they say, “those edge people really know how to do ___________________ (fill in the blank.”

I want to be a church that does! Who cares what we are against! People in need do not need to know what we are against…they need to know that we are a church that cares and does!!!

Craig (from lifechurch.tv) came in on wednesday and really challenged all of us. there were tons of good things that he said that i could share here, but the thing that pierced me was when he said, “what got you here, cannot get you there.”

again…holy smoke!!!!

what a simple, but incredibly profound thought.
Just because something worked 5 years, 1 year, 6 months ago…does not mean it still works or it will work at this point! So many times we as church leaders will keep doing the same dang thing over and over and over just because it really worked the first time! But how many times do we find ourselves “manufacturing energy” (as Andy Stanely says) on some dead ministry or program, just because it worked before!
what got us to 100 doesn’t mean it will get us to 150. What helped disciple women last year, might fail miserably this year. What fired up youth about missions last summer, may be completely irrelevant to them next summer.
it really got me thinking! What am i spending time, energy and resources on at theedge that is a total waste of time. in fact, my wife came home that night and told me she was going to cancel a women’s deal she has been doing and do something completely different from now on! She heard Craig speak on wednesday and she had killed the program by wednesday night!!!! awesome!

the last session was Toby Slough (from Cross Timbers Community Church). it was amazing!

he shared about his 90 day sabbatical that he took last summer and what God had shown him during that time. he said there were many things, but 2 of the words that stood out were “identity” and “rhythm.”
he spoke about identity. he said too many pastors get their identity wrapped up in what we DO, instead of Jesus being enough.

Toby made a statement in his talk…”If i’m not a pastor, then who am i?”

Wow! That hit me hard!

I started to think about that. What if i couldn’t tell people what i do? What if i took 3 months and just committed to not telling anyone that i am a pastor…i could say anything as long as it was not what i actually do for a job. How would that impact me? I started to wonder how much my title means to my self worth. Could i really get to a place where my identity is rooted in Jesus? Is Jesus really enough?

so, this week was a great week! i met a lot of guys and girls in ministry. i hope we will stay connected and work together. I can’t wait for the next SCC event. And i am so thankful for guys like Craig, Dave, and Toby who are REAL! These are real guys, with real hearts, and they really do care about Jesus and the Body!

So why is this post called “2 days of why?” great question!

because, the questions we should be asking are not “what” or “how”, but “why” questions!
Not, “how do you do that,” but “why do you do that?” Not, “What am i going to do in ministry?” but, “Why am i going to do that?”
hope that helps.

now………go……and figure out “WHY?”

peace.