Wildness lies in wait

"The real trouble with this world of ours is not
that it is an unreasonable world, nor
even that it is a reasonable one.
The commonest kind of trouble is that it is
nearly reasonable, but not quite.
Life is not an illogicality, yet
it is a trap for logicians.
It looks just a little more mathematical
and regular than it is; its'
exactitude is obvious; but
its' inexactitude is hidden;
its' wildness lies in wait."

- GK Chesterton

This quote captured my heart again today as I am reading Leading in a Culture of Change by Michael Fullan for a second time.

The times of our lives are filled with complexity. They are filled with wildness as we lie in wait. I want to live a life with a community of people that desire to embrace the wildness and seek out the hidden inexactitudes!

I will make you fishers of men

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

I have been thinking about these words this week and the results the book of Acts records of the first disciples whose focus wasn't on creating a church, but rather on following Jesus. There is no doubt, the early disciples were fishers of men!

Acts 2:41 "There were added that day about three thousand souls."

Acts 4:4 "The number of the men came to be about five thousand.

Acts 5:14 "All the more believers in the Lord, multitudes of men and women, were constantly added to their number."

Acts 6:1 "At this time . . . the disciples were increasing in number."

Acts 6:7 "The word of God kept on spreading; and the number of the disciples continued to increase greatly."

Acts 9:31 "The church throughout all Judea and Galilee and Samaria enjoyed peace . . . [and] continued to increase."

Acts 12:24 "The word of the Lord continued to grow and to be multiplied."

Acts 16:5 "So the churches were being strengthened in the faith, and were increasing in number daily."

My hope and prayer for our church is that we would all seek to follow Jesus and trust God for the results.

Do you?

This quote from John Piper will start off our Senior Sneak this weekend in Breckenridge. I am praying that our seniors will let these words soak into their souls!

Do You…

Do you love the thought that you exist to make God look glorious?

Do you love the thought that all creation exists to display the glory of God?

Do you love the truth that all of history is designed by God to one day be a completed canvas that displays in the best way possible the greatness and beauty of God?

Do you love the fact that Jesus Christ came into the world to vindicate the righteousness of God and repair the injury that we had done to the reputation of the glory of God?

Do you love the truth you personally exist to make God look like what he really is—glorious?

I ask again: Do you love the fact that your salvation is meant to put the glory of God’s grace on display?

Do you love seeing and showing the glory of God?

Spiritual Community

"I want, for myself and others, an experience of spiritual community...where divine life could be poured back and forth through all the confusion and complexity of developing relational intimacy with preglorified saints, where we would actually become more like Christ in our attitudes and choices and motives because of our time together." - Larry Crabb, Real Church

God is making His appeal through us

2 Corinthians 5:17-20 "17Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come! 18All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation: 19that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting men's sins against them. And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation. 20We are therefore Christ's ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us. We implore you on Christ's behalf: Be reconciled to God."

It's my goal every time I encounter a student in my ministry this fall to be filled with humility as I consider the truths in these verses: God is a God of reconciliation; I am Christ's ambassador; God is making His appeal through me.

Is Christ being clearly portrayed in your student ministry?

Galatians 3:1-3 "1You foolish Galatians! Who has bewitched you? Before your very eyes Jesus Christ was clearly portrayed as crucified. 2I would like to learn just one thing from you: Did you receive the Spirit by observing the law, or by believing what you heard? 3Are you so foolish? After beginning with the Spirit, are you now trying to attain your goal by human effort?"

While there are many things to say about these verses, the one thing that grabbed my attention this week is, "Before your very eyes Jesus Christ was clearly portrayed as crucified."

At the end of May in 2010, could you say this to your students? What are you going to clearly portray to your students throughout this school year?

Prayer of Trust

“Abba, into your hands I entrust my body, mind, and spirit and this entire day – morning, afternoon, evening, and night. Whatever you want of me, I want of me, falling into you and trusting in you in the midst of my life. Into your heart I trust my heart, feeble, distracted, insecure, uncertain. Abba, unto you I abandon myself in Jesus our Lord. Amen.” - Brennan Manning from Ruthless Trust

I am envisioning a student ministry in the next few years where more students are praying this prayer and then living it? Can you see it? But then it hit me, if I am not praying this prayer and then living it I can't expect to see in our students.

The Need for Jesus

My ministry needs what I need first - Jesus. Therefore, I am praying this prayer this fall from the Valley of Vision.

Lord Jesus,
I am blind, be thou my light,
ignorant, be thou my wisdom,
self-willed, be thou my mind.

Open my ear to grasp quickly thy Spirit’s voice,
and delightfully run after his beckoning hand;
Melt my conscience that no hardness remain,
make it alive to evil’s slightest touch;
When Satan approaches may I flee to thy wounds,
and there cease to tremble at all alarms.

Be my good shepherd to lead me into the green pastures of thy Word,
and cause me to lie down beside the rivers of its comforts.

Fill me with peace, that no disquieting worldly gales
may ruffle the calm surfaces of my soul.

Thy cross was upraised to be my refuge,
Thy blood streamed forth to wash me clean,
Thy death occurred to give me a surety,
Thy name is my property to save me,
By thee all heaven is poured into my heart,
but it is too narrow to comprehend thy love.

I was a stranger, an outcast, a slave, a rebel,
but they cross has brought me near,
has softened my heart,
has made me thy Fathers’ child,
has admitted me to thy family,
has made me joint-heir with thyself.

O that I may love thee as thou lovest me,
that I may walk worthy of thee, my Lord,
that I may reflect the image of heaven’s first-born.

May I always see thy beauty with the clear eye of faith,
and feel the power of thy Spirit in my heart,
for unless he move mightily in me
no inward fire will be kindled.

Looking for danger in your youth ministry

"Looking for Jesus is an undertaking fraught with danger… The closer you get to finding him, the higher the stakes become. He is no mere passive object to be circled and appraised like a piece of sculpture. You look at him and he looks back. You may begin the search for Jesus with your own agenda, but be warned, he has one too. As the disciples discovered, you pay a price for finding Jesus. He may in fact, one day turn to you, as he did to those weak first-century followers, and ask, ―But you. – who do you say that I am?" (Virginia S Owens, Looking For Jesus, pg. 256)

It's an unbelievable privilege to get the chance to walk alongside students as a companion on their journey to find Christ which is fraught with danger. Too often our students see those around them as dangerous, but Owens forces us to think about the dangerous One. Is my youth ministry fraught with this dangerous picture of Jesus? On Wednesdays? On Sundays? Wait, maybe the first question I need to ask is, "Is my journey to find Christ more intimately in my life fraught with danger? Am I following the dangerous one?"

Clean - Romans 8

I am so excited to be starting our fall series this morning with our students. We are going to be studying through the transforming promises of Romans 8!