Mad Church Disease - Blogging Through

By Christopher | Published: June 8, 2009

In the same style as Tribes, a group has formed together to blog over Mad Church Disease by Anne Jackson. Enjoy. :)

Day 1 - 6-8-09: Chapter 1 - Andy Darnell
Day 2 - 6-9-09: Chapter 2 - Santos Samayoa
Day 3 - 6-10-09: Chapter 3 - John Gruber
Day 4 - 6-11-09: Chapter 4 - Kevin Martineau
Day 5 - 6-12-09: Chapter 5 - Larry Johnson
Day 6 - 6-15-09: Chapter 6 - Adam Shields
Day 7 - 6-16-09: Chapter 7 - Below
Day 8 - 6-17-09: Chapter 8 - Dawn Carter
Day 9 - 6-18-09: Chapter 9 - Jenny Wilburn

In Chapter 7 Anne talks about getting your spiritual health back in order. There were many parts of this chapter that I found very timely. Firstly, the very opening quote caught my attention; it was a quote from Leo Tolstoy: “Everybody thinks of changing humanity and nobody thinks of changing himself.” This is a powerful statement and one that rings with a lot of truth. I think that a lot of leaders when they first start have this gung-ho fire that wants to change the world, that truly feels called by God to do something great and different, but there is never a time at the beginning of our ministry when we are yet ready to take on a challenge of that magnitude. We have so much more growing to do first, and the steps for those change are well laid out in this chapter.

The first concern presented to us is prayer, and the scripture here that caught my attention was Phlilppians 4:6, a verse I’ve heard and read many times but it really caught me here as I saw it in a new light. It says “Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God.” I think so often we pay attention to the fact that we don’t have to be anxious, but can go to God with anything that we completely forget that we’re supposed to bring our prayers and petitions forward in thanksgiving. Thanks that we can come before God with prayers and petitions and thanks that He will hear them. Anne furthers this point by discussing her experience where even when she felt she had no one else to talk to, she knew that God was still right there with her.

The second concern is the study of scripture. There is one statement in here that really grabbed me: “And in the seasons when I am lazy and neglect time in God’s Word, I realize how simple it is to justify sin in my life. I lose focus on truth.” I’ve been thinking on this one lately as I’ve been trying to get my own scripture reading on track. I’ve noticed so many times in my walk with Christ how just ten minutes in the morning spent in the Word will change the outcome of my entire day, and yet I find it so hard to do to make sure that that happens. “If our thoughts and hearts are focused outside of God’s plan for us, we’ll son lose sight of His work in our lives and in the world around us.”

Worship is next on our spiritual health list. As a worship leader I am constantly reminding my youth and having them practice the truth that worship is more than just music; it’s more than just a time set aside on a certain day to focus on God. I like what Anne describes worship as: “expressing our dependence on the Holy Spirit by reflecting on and celebrating all of the things God has done for us and is to us.” Worship truly should be about every aspect of God and every aspect of what He is and Has done, not just the one aspect or couple aspects that most people think it is. When worship becomes a single sided ritual repeated on certain days of the week, it becomes easy to lose the value that worship should contain in our lives and to God as we worship Him.

Service is also a concern for us. There are only two things I want to say about service. The first is that True Service is completely indiscriminate in who it serves; enemy, friend, loved ones, strangers, kings or peasants. “Self-righteous service is service out of our own will and out of our own strength. We will burn out in no time. However, true service - the kind that is inspired by the Holy Spirit working in our lives - requires us to depend on God’s strength.” Always check your strength source and whether that project your inspired about is God-inspired or just something you think would be fun to do.

Last and arguably most important on the list is submission. Are you submitted to God’s will and plan for your life? Are you submitted to His judgments and His love? “Submission is the enemy of our human will and the opposite of everything our hearts desire. We crave our rights. We demand our freedom.” Once again we look at the scripture in Mark to “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.” If you are not at the very least submitted to a relationship with God, then none of the other spiritual strengths will matter. You can know scriptures left, right, back and forwards, but if you’re not using them to glorify God and to uplift His people and if you’re not applying them to your life they won’t matter. We have to be submitted to Him or the enemy will cause confusion in our life. The enemy comes to steal kill and destroy, and as Anne wonderfully points out, the enemy loves to show up in that place where our personal desires runs into our spiritual desires, because that’s where he can do the most damage.

Where are you strong?
Where are you weak?
What are you willing to give up to become submitted?

God bless

In Faith
Christopher

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The Foundation

By Christopher | Published: May 19, 2009

*All scriptures taken from the Amplified Bible

1 Corinthians 3:11 says “For no other foundation can anyone lay than that which is [already] laid, which is Jesus Christ (the Messiah, the Anointed One).”

Ephesians 2:20 says “You are built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets with Christ Jesus Himself the chief Cornerstone.”

Luke 6:46-49 says: “46Why do you call Me, Lord, Lord, and do not [practice] what I tell you? 47For everyone who comes to Me and listens to My words [in order to heed their teaching] and does them, I will show you what he is like: 48He is like a man building a house, who dug and went down deep and laid a foundation upon the rock; and when a flood arose, the torrent broke against that house and could not shake or move it, because it had been securely built or [ag]founded on a rock. 49But he who merely hears and does not practice doing My words is like a man who built a house on the ground without a foundation, against which the torrent burst, and immediately it collapsed and fell, and the breaking  and ruin of that house was great.”

The foundation for most residential (and some commercial) structures is nothing more than a flat slab of concrete, giving the builders a flat, smooth, solid surface upon which to build. When the foundation cracks, part of the house starts to shift with the dirt beneath it, causing strain and tension on the house and causing cracks in the wall. When this happens a foundation repair company will come and install piers beneath the foundation. These piers are solid concrete columns that go from the base of the foundation all the way down to the bedrock. The bedrock is a layer of rock that is unyielding and varies in depth. In one structure you could have piers that are 3 feet deep and on the other side piers that are 20 feet deep.

In larger structures, they automatically drill piers before even laying the foundation, so as to make sure that the foundation will hold the weight of the structure. Engineers today are capable of calculating the weight of the materials that will be used in a structure so closely that they will intentionally build a structure higher than they want it because they know that when they’re done the weight will cause the building to settle at the exact height it was designed to be. (I have to admit, I thought that was pretty cool.)

foundation-balance

So let’s say that the box lying across the top is your faith, and the box on bottom is your foundation.  Of the three, only the first one would stand as they are right now, and the other two would certainly overbalance and fall.  On the other hand, all it would take is a little bit of pressure and the first one would overbalance as well. So let’s say that we added a second support to any one of these.

foundation-2

The second one can clearly still be overbalanced, and the first one, with a hard enough blow to the middle or enough weight placed on top of it would crack and collapse inward upon itself. It would require having three piers (in this example) to properly support the upper block. foundation-final

Our foundation is built by bible study, prayer, time with and seeking God, and participating in a personal relationship with Him. If you aren’t doing one of these, then somewhere, your foundation is weak and can be tipped.

Are you building a foundation strong enough to support the faith that you one day hope to have, or are you trying to build a mature faith on an immature foundation?

God bless

In Faith
Christopher

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The Cornerstone

By Christopher | Published: May 13, 2009

*Scriptures taken from Amplified Bible

Psalm 118:22 says “The stone which the builders rejected has become the chief cornerstone.”

Isaiah 28:16 says “Therefore thus says the Lord God, Behold, I am laying in Zion for a foundation a Stone, a tested Stone, a precious Cornerstone of sure foundation; he who believes (trusts in, relies on, and adheres to that Stone) will not be ashamed or give way or hasten away [in sudden panic].”

Ephesians 2:20 says “You are built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets with Christ Jesus Himself the chief Cornerstone.”

The Cornerstone serves several purposes in structures (or at least it did in the days of Jesus). First and foremost, it was the first stone in the foundation, being the largest and strongest. The weight of the entire building gets funneled back to this one stone. Importance that it be firm: 100%

The Cornerstone also served to make sure that the building was in line since all the rest of the building came off of this one stone. A difference of one inch off at the cornerstone could mean a difference of 30 feet off by the end of the first wall. Importance that it be placed correctly: 100%

We see in Ephesians that Christ is our Cornerstone. Have you made sure that He had the room to correctly place Himself in your life, or did you only allow Him access to a small part?

Is your faith in Christ set so that an entire structure, your temple of faith, can be built upon it, or was your commitment only half-hearted?

Check your cornerstone; that’s where every temple begins.

God bless,

In Faith
Christopher

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When It Catches Up

By Christopher | Published: May 13, 2009

People always talk about what happens when the past catches up with us, and about how it always will. I’m having one of those experiences.

3 and a half years ago, in December of ‘05, my best friend Kyle from high school died. The police ruled it as a suicide, but I’m not going into all that. This past Monday I get a call from a friend of mine asking if we can postpone hanging out because she had just found out that a friend of hers had committed suicide. Suddenly, issues I thought past were coming back to life. See, I never dealt with my pain when it happened. I made myself be the strong one that everyone else could lean on and in doing so, never allowed myself to grieve (please feel free to read “Am I So Strong” to read more). Now, since roughly 12 30 on Monday, I’ve been unable to think about anything else.

So now the questions that float through my mind are these:

How do I grieve so many years later?

Do I really know what the bible says about suicide? (I’ve heard convincing arguments on both sides of the fence)

Have I allowed that hole to begin to mend where something was ripped forcibly from me?

Kyle was the one person who truly always pushed back at me when I would slam his religion back at him. He never took my crap and always tried to get me into a conversation about his faith. He was always wanting to share with me how awesome his God was. He never got to see me accept Christ and begin the process of growing in my faith. I would ask if I have started to be OK with this, but even as I write I can feel the pain coming back.

What are you holding onto from your past that you need to let go?
Maybe it’s time to move on.

God bless

In Faith
Christopher

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TRIBES - The Blogging Adventure

By Christopher | Published: April 13, 2009

Hey everyone, the Tribes blogging project has started. So that you can keep up with the discussion and see what people are saying I’m going to post the links to all the blog pages by day in the order that they occur. For those of you that don’t know, a group of 28 people are going to do a group blog on the book Tribes by Seth Godin. Each day a person will post a blog on his section of pages and then the others will comment on it and create discussions; mine will be posted on the 24th. I hope you all enjoy it as much as we do! God bless

Day 1 - April 13th: John Saddington: Pages 1-5
Day 2 - April 14th: Billy Johnson: Pages 6-12
Day 3 - April 15th: Eric Murrell: Pages 12-16
Day 4 - April 16th: Give Love Coffee: Pages 16-20
Day 5 - April 17th: Norm Tumlinson: Pages 21-26
Day 6 - April 18th: Paul Steinbrueck: Pages 26-30
Day 7 - April 20th: Kevin Martineau: Pages 30-35M
Day 8 - April 21st: Dawn Baldwin: Pages 35-39
Day 9 - April 22nd: Dawn Carter: Pages 40-45
Day 10 - April 23rd: Jathaniel Cordova: Pages 45-51
Day 11 - April 24th: me: Pages 51-55: Scroll down
Day 12 - April 25th: David Norman: Pages 55-59
Day 13 - April 27th: Larry: Pages 60-64
Day 14 - April 28th: Phillip Gibb: Pages 65-70
Day 15 - April 29th: Phil Cunningham: Pages 70-76
Day 16 - April 30th: Bobby Shirley: Pages 76-81
Day 17 - May 1st: Susan Stewart: Pages 82-86
Day 18 - May 2nd: Brad Singleton: Pages 86-91
Day 19 - May 4th: Mike Henry: Pages 91-96
Day 20 - May 5th: Andy Darnell: Pages 96-101
Day 21 & 22 - May 7th: Luke DeMoss: Pages 101-110
Day 23 - May 8th: Kevin Gilbert: Pages 110-117
Day 24 - May 9th: Jason Jeong: Pages 117-120
Day 25 - May 11th: Adam Herod: Pages 121-125
Day 26 - May 12th: Gavin Baker: Pages 125-131
Day 27 - May 13th: Cleve Persinger: Pages 131-135
Day 28 - May 14th: Adam Shields: Pages 135-140
Day 29 - May 15th: John Gruber: Pages 140-147

She doesn’t lead the way other people lead. And that’s fine, because there isn’t a right technique, a proven tactic, a right way and a wrong way. Deciding to lead, not manage, is the critical choice. Meghan connects and inspires. She doesn’t manage.

In our roles as leaders, are we making this choice? If we are making it, are we making it consciously or subconsciously?

If we can intentionally make that choice to lead not manage, then we are able to make sure that we apply that to every aspect of our leadership. It is natural that in some areas of leadership we excel while in others we may lack behind, but if we can purposefully make the decision to apply leadership and not management in these areas then is it possible that it will create a difference?

The first thing a leader can focus on is the act of tightening the tribe.

As a staff, the youth leadership knew that when our youth group was no more than a handful of people and was getting ready to grow that it was essential that we have a core. In every organization, every tribe, there is always a core, a group of people that have been there since day one that know the rules and lead the way within that tribe and those are the people that new tribe members look to. This “core,” if you will, are also the people who get the others pumped and excited about things that are up and coming. One of the most essential aspects to this though, is making sure that your core have strong relationships with each other as well as with the tribal leader. No group can experience growth without a foundation; does your organization have a tight-knit foundation that can support growth?

If the ideas are great, they’ll spread. The spread of these ideas can attract a tribe…

…the members of the tribe can talk back-and to each other. Discussions take place, ideas are shared, decisions are made-quickly.

If we have great ideas and are willing to put the out there, then they will spread and we will garner a tribe; however, communication is essential to a tribe. Are we making it easy for the members of our tribe to talk to each other, to communicate, and to share with each other the information and ideas that they possess? What are we doing to encourage and facilitate discussions between tribe members that will keep them focused on the tribe?

When you identify the discomfort, you’ve found the place where a leader is needed. If you’re not uncomfortable in your work as a leader, it’s almost certain you’re not reaching your potential as a leader.

Where are you uncomfortable (are you comfortable identifying this?) and what are you doing within that realm? Are you dedicated enough to your tribe that you’re willing to stay uncomfortable to help support it? Is reaching new levels of potential as a leader and person worthwhile enough to you that you’re willing to put your comfort zone aside? Are you willing to step out of the boat to do something that no one has done before?

God bless

In Faith
Christopher

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