Ezekiel = God Strengthens

Since I started this blog, I have been going through a valley in my
own spiritual and personal life.

There are some things that God has called me to do... and I need to
get them done over the next few days. They are not pretty and matter-
of-fact, it is confronting some people on sin and calling them to
repentance and go over a path to reconciliation & restoration
spiritually, emotionally, physically and relationally.

Over the next few days, I will detaching a bit from the world while I
do this... this is something that is new to me... but some thing that
I must do. Sometimes, following God... and His calling on your life
is not fun, pretty... etc.

In preparation for this, God has had me hanging out and studying
through Ezekiel. In many ways, Ezekiel was a heretic to many. He went against the flow of things and challenged the status-quo.

Which is quite adequate since Ezekiel actually does mean "God's
strength".

I just ask you if God puts me and my family on your heart over the
next couple days to say a prayer for us.

I look forward to being back and even blogging about some of this
after the weekend is over with.

We need broken leaders

Boy has it been a week.

Have you ever gotten to point emotionally and spiritually where you
can't take anymore?

That was me this last weekend and Monday. For those of you that know
me, knows I have been in a spiritual battle for a time in my life.
That is why in part my family moved back to Ohio.

This last weekend and Monday many things came to a head... Spiritually
I was at the end of my rope and emotionally I was fried... It was even
starting to effect me physically. I was struggling... I needed a
release, something to break . So I did.

It started at church Sunday... Then as things continued Sunday and
Monday morning... I just sat and weeped. I hurt.

I think that as Christ followers that are trying to make a difference
we are going to have times like this. When you put everything you
have into following and serving Christ... And love God with everything
that we are... Then we are left vulnerable in this sinful world.

I'm today's world of church and church leadership... Some may think
that this blog post is something that should not be shared. But I
think that leaders in churches today need to be transparent and
authentic... When we struggle... Be honest about it.

I watch a ton of church leaders and the ones that I respect the most
are the ones that are honest and transparent about their issues.

To connect... Minister with people today... It is going to require
church leaders to go to a whole new level of honest... Transparent...
Open relationships with the churches that we lead. The people in our
churches need to know that we don't have it all together and that we
are not "super Christians" with a cape and a cross on our chest.

I realize more and more that churches need more pastors that can admit
they are on a journey and don't have it all together instead of more
degrees and more titles.

What about you?

Our churches are full of broken people that need Jesus... I like the
saying... How can we lead somebody on this journey of following Christ
if we have not? How can we encourage the broken of our church if we
have not been broken ourselves? Will we lead the broken on this
journey... Can we lead them if we have not let God break us lately?

This is a call to drop our pride and dependence on ourselves and to
let God have it... This is a call to myself as much as it is to
anybody else!

Spiritual disciplines/ formation Pt. 2

May be you are a lot like me, in that I struggle at giving Jesus the time I need to become more like him? I mean real, devoted, honest, unobstructed time for me to pray, listen, read and meditate/ think on scripture? How do I make the most of this time? When I only give him part of my attention, or part of my focus, then I rarely get that much out of it. Do you struggle with getting everything you can out of scripture when you read it? Do you struggle with prayer time? May be you are asking yourself if this is really helping?

Yesterday was a really good day for me. I spent a ton of time in the morning praying through and meditating on Galatians 5:16- 26.

I want to take you through the different portions of this scripture... to show you how I used this passage of scripture as part of my spiritual disciplines to help mold me and make me more like Jesus. Here is the first part of the scripture: Galatians 5:16- 18.

"So I say, live by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the sinful nature. For the sinful nature desires what is contrary to the Spirit, and the Spirit what is contrary to the sinful nature. They are in conflict with each other, so that you do not do what you want. But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under law."

As you I read through the scripture, it got me to thinking about the ways that I try to gratify my own sinful nature... my sinful desires. It forced me to think and reflect on any sin that may be in my life. It helped me to realize that my own personal desires wants what is contrary to the Spirit. When doing this time of scripture meditation, we have to realize, understand and deal with the fact that we do have a sinful nature. Anytime that we want what is different than scripture... this is our sinful nature. Our sinful nature wants what is different than the Holy Spirit desires for us and it is a conflict that is inside all Christ followers. The battle between us doing right and the conflict between us doing wrong. I don't know about you, but I know the battle that I have at times whether it be as a husband, as a dad, as a pastor, as a human being been caught in this war between my own desires and the desires of the Holy Spirit living in me.

This type of internalized thinking about our sinful nature and desires shows how we are to take scripture and apply it to our own lives. If we try to get ourselves to think and believe that we do not have a sinful nature, then we are fooling and lying to ourselves. This excercise, forces us to filter our own lives through scripture and it may be hard... but we need to look at our own lives through the lens of a microscope [aka scripture] for us to see where we need to grow.

You see, by taking a scripture and unpacking it like this, this forces us to pray to God for revelation, it forces us to listen to God for Him to speak to us [whether through scripture or that small still voice]... it forces us to meditate and think about the scripture in the light [or darkness] of our own lives. Through these spiritual disciplines, it forms us and pushes us closer to Christ. It pushes us closer to understand that we need grace. It pushes us to become more like Jesus.

In my next part of this blog post, I am going to breakdown Galatians 5:19- 21.

Spiritual disciplines/ formation

Ok... I know this is later than I wanted, sorry.

I wanted to think this whole thing more. The idea of how we as Christ followers become more like Jesus. Typically this is called some thing like discipleship, spiritual formation, mentoring, etc. There are tons of different ways to become more like Jesus. I have had to learn how to become a self feeder. I personally had to find ways to feed myself spiritually and not depend or rely on a Sunday school class, a small group, a cell group or some other group to provide for me pathways to spiritual growth. Now don't get me wrong, I love these things... but I personally love them more from the fellowship aspect than I do the spiritual formation aspect. I do like taking say a topic like the fruits of the spirit and discussing it in the group setting... but personally I have gotten more from my own personal quiet time from my own personal study of the scripture, from my own personal time of meditation on God's Word.

If you have not read Richard Foster's book... Celebration of Discipline: The Path to Spiritual Growth then you need to. He takes the time and unpacks the whole idea of and why spiritual disciplines are so important to all of us. This book has quickly become for me a staple in my own personally relationship with Jesus Christ. As being in full time ministry, my schedule at times can become crazy, way too fast. This book, has helped to show me new and exciting ways to spiritually feed myself... especially during times when I need it the most.

I personally find the use of spiritual disciplines, much more effective in my personal discipleship/ spiritual formation than any other small group or Sunday school class. But here is the kicker that I struggle with and may be you do as well... it takes time! I am not talking about some 5 minute prayer time that we just unload all of our daily burdens on God. I am talking about taking some serious time and intentionally spending that time focusing on God. It is time, where focusing on prayer... silence, listening for that small, still voice from God... and scripture meditation.

This has been a key reason why, I have become what some would call a heretic. I have come to realize through these avenues... that Jesus was a heretic of his time. He was revolutionary. He was different than the rest of the world.

I would challenge all of us to spend more time with God during the first 30 days of the new year. I would challenge all of us to get out bed early or to take some thing out of our schedule [i.e. TV, video games or dare I say Internet!] and spend at least an hour with a combination of prayer, silence before God, reading & meditating on scripture. In my next blog post today, I am going to go through Galatians 5:16- 26 for an example of how to do this.

New Christmas Traditions?

Here it is Christmas Eve... as I look through my Twitter and Facebook friends, I see many of them talking about traditions, doing stockings this evening, going to church, etc. Some times, I wish my family had more traditions like that. This year, has been kind of crazy for our family with the Christmas season. As we are moving to Central Ohio on 12/26 & 27. So we are living out of boxes right now.

Anyways... traditions are a good thing. I was a Navy brat growing up and I remember, even if Dad was out to sea for Christmas, my mom had certain traditions that we did as well. Things like on Christmas morning, before we would open Christmas presents mom would make a HUGE platter of sausage biscuits for us to eat while opening our presents. Or my brother and I would get to open our stockings and the presents that we got each other [this was just a formality, we had already told each other what we got one another :-)]. Even to this day, my mom makes sausage biscuits if we are at their house! I really miss some of the traditions.

As I am sitting here this morning, I am wondering what are some new Christmas traditions that we need to start? What are some new Christmas traditions, that are completely radical that people would call you and your family heretics? What are some traditions that our churches do that need to be replaced with new traditions?

What about some things like adopting under-resourced families for Christmas... that attend our churches... BUT also never go to churches? How about including some of them in our own family traditions? How about starting a new Christmas tradition for our youth groups to go and do something extravagant for the homeless, for the elderly, for the poor, for those that are working on Christmas morning?

There has got to be more to this Christian life during the Christmas season. I mean family is important... celebrating the life of Jesus Christ is the most important... but are we celebrating the way Jesus would have? What new traditions do we need to start?

Welcome to Christ following heretics...

Welcome to Christ following heretics...

This is a blog that is for those of us that are uncomfortable.

A blog that is really more of a tribe of Christ followers that are tired of the status- quo.

A tribe for those of that no longer wants the bride of Christ to be status- quo, but to be the beautiful, radiant, world changing church that Jesus wanted her to be!

This is a blog where we will talk about, think about and put into practice... our call to be a missional church. This is a tribe, where we will stand the church worldwide on it's ear. A tribe that wants to turn church leadership, upside down on it's ear... we want to challenge the status- quo of church leadership. We are going to be a tribe that challenges the religious right & left, challenges the church and it's social justice programs, it challenges the way we have always done church. Challenge it with scripture... combined with cultural relevancy that the church many times is missing.

This blog is going to make some of you mad. You will probably call us heretics. GOOD!

According to Seth Godin's book, Tribes: We Need You to Lead Us... that is exactly what we are. Guess what church... we are here, and it is time to listen and deal with us. It is time to dialogue and not just accept everything that we have been spoon fed for years. Now... is the time. Now is the time for this tribe of heretics to respectfully, honestly and passionately challenge the way things have always been done. Why? Why is it time to challenge these things? Because... quit spinning the numbers church leaders... the churches & denominations in the United States are losing ground. The church of the United States is irrelevant to today's culture and world.

So I ask you to start following this blog... join this tribe of heretics that want the Bride of Christ to become a beautiful, radiant bride that our Saviour deserves. Join us!