“Comfort and power can become great enemies of true spirituality and true humanity, which explains why we often say that the prophets come not only comfort the afflicted but also to afflict the comfortable.” -Brian McLaren-

This book is rocking my existence right now. I hope you pick up and allow it to do the same to you.

This past week I started reading the first book in a series of new books called The Ancient Practices Series that I want to share some quotes from as I read. The first book is by Brian McLaren and is entitled Finding Our Way Again. The idea was inspired from a great friend and writer that you can read here. Thanks Julie. Today I will share from Chapter One called Searching For An Everyday Sacredness:

“Why are books on Buddhism so popular, and books on Christianity?”….He replied,”I think it’s because Buddhism presents itself as a way of life, and Christianity presents itself as a system of belief. So I would want to get Christian ministers thinking about how to rediscover their own faith as a way of life, because that’s what people are searching for today. That’s what they need most.” -Dr. Peter Senge-

For the most part my little girls Ella sleeps quite well at night. However, she does sleep walk and never remembers it. This very incident happend about two weeks ago. I was gonna write about it then, but I have been marinating on it every since. So here it goes:

2:30am I hear the door to our bedroom open and see four year old shadowy figure pitter patter across our floor to the other side of the bed. I hear a little voice say, “mommy I had a bad dream.” I hear another voice that sounds remarkably like my wife…if she were drunk say, “it is ok, just go back to bed.” Surprisingly the little four year old shadowy figure took that as enough and scampered back out of the room and shut the door. End of situation and sleep was again being had. Now fast forward to dinner the next night.

We are sitting at the table eating our five star meal of KRAFT macaronni and cheese with cut up hot dogs (a true delicacy in our house) and I asked Ella if she remembered coming into our room the night before. She looked at me and shook her head no. I asked her if she remembered the bad dream she had and she looked at me and said “of course I do daddy, it was about lizard bugs.” I immediately thought that she had some sort of personality disorder and we were going to need to get her some serious counceling. I then asked her how she got back to sleep so quickly. This is what has been rocking my world for the past week or so. She looked me right in the eye and said,(with a Jesus voice that was lower than her actual voice) “Jesus told me that he was going to take care of me and to go back to sleep.” WHAT!!!?  JESUS TALKED TO MY FOUR YEAR OLD AND SHE KNEW IT WAS HIM!!!? I asked her if he whispered in her ear. She said, “uh…no daddy…he told me in my mind.” I asked her if she had just thought she heard Jesus tell her that and she looked at me again except this time a little more like that little girl from the exorcist movie and yelled “NO DADDY!!! HE TOLD ME!!! HE TALKED TO ME!!!” What an incredible moment.

I have to admit a couple of things for you to understand the magnitude of this…in case this is not enough to blow your mind. My wife and I talk about spiritual things with our kids. We read scripture with our kids. We try really hard to live out our faith in front of our kids. However, we have never really talked about hearing Gods voice with our kids. In fact being a minister I have always really wanted my children to find their own faith in God. Not live out my faith or my wife’s faith, but their own.

The crazy thing to me is that I have found myself jealous of my little girl the past week or so. That she has acutally heard the voice of God. I am saddened a little too, because there are people that let so many things get in the way of them hearing God speak and yet my little girl who is four…heard the voice of God. How and have you heard the voice of God and what does that look like for you?

One of my favorite times of the day is when my wife and I get the opportunity to share in a time of spurring one another on spiritually. Right now we are going through the devotion book that goes along with Dallas Willard’s book Renovation Of The Heart. Last night we were reading and answering questions about hearing God speak to us and what that looks like. Side note here: my wife hears the voice of God on a regular basis. I am jealous of that and long to hear his voice more…I love that she is the woman that God has blessed me with for life…Back to the story:
Laura had this moment where she was almost distraught and frustrated by how she hears God. She was frustrated by the point that in the moments that she tries to get still and really focus on hearing she can’t. She even went as far to be say that she felt like the harder she tried to get still, the less she heard God. However, she said that when there was complete chaos around and it made no sense for God to speak and she really was not asking or listening for him to speak…well…that is when he speaks. She looked and my with a tear in her eye and said she felt as if that was un-biblical. I asked her why she thought that is was not biblical. She proceeded to tell me that every sermon or teaching she has ever heard about hearing the voice of God has said that if you do not get still and quiet, then you cannot hear God. It was at this moment that I laughed out loud…
Her first reaction was “why are you laughing at me?” I was not laughing at her I was laughing at what we as the church have done to the voice of God. How pompous and arrogant of us to think that the only way that we can hear the voice of God is if we are simply still. I do agree that God wants our undivided attention but does not need it to speak to us. I looked at my wife’s frustration and told her that if anything I think the way she hears God is very biblical. Don’t believe me…think about this…

• Moses was not looking to hear God’s voice in the wilderness, but God spoke through a bush
• Saul was on his way to persecute followers of the Way. He was not looking to get quiet and hear God’s voice…he was trying to shut it up. God blinded him and spoke amidst the chaos
• The disciples were in a storm in the middle of the sea. They were not sitting in a circle in the middle the boat having a quiet time. Jesus shows up walking on water and speaks to them.
• After Jesus death, Peter goes back to fishing. He is in the middle of the lake fishing and going back to his business. Not in the still and quiet, but back to work…Jesus shows up and speaks to Peter.

The way that I see it, God shows up a lot to speak to us in the midst of chaos. Why would God always show up when it is convienient to us. I finally looked at my wife and said, “maybe God is telling you to stop trying so hard. Just listen when I speak and revel in the fact that I do speak to you and you hear me.” She smiled and had a peace about hearing the voice of God.

Something that struck me was that she had always been taught that you cannot hear God unless you are still. Here is why I think people teach that: (caviat here is that I do believe that it is important to get still and quiet before God)

1. The person or people teaching have taken things like “Be still and know that I am God” and made them THE model for hearing God. Obviously we need to make time to be still and listen for God. However, we negate a lot of scripture and alienate a lot people from ever hearing the voice of God because they feel that when they get still they hear nothing.

1. I have heard a lot of guys that teach about hearing the voice of God tell me that they themselves have never actually heard the voice of God. That is like me giving you directions around a foreign country that I have never been to. I have never been there so how can I get you around the area. I cannot take you to a place that I have never been. I can show you how to get there and give you a map, but unless I have been there I cannot actually take you to the sites and down the streets.

Just a few thoughts. With that said, I hope that admist the chaos of your day that you will BE CHAOTIC AND KNOW THAT HE IS GOD!!!

My good friend and ministry partner Blaine Hogan produced this video for Mars Hill Graduate School in Seattle. More than promoting a great school I think it asks a great question and I would love to hear your answer to “what if you believed that the gospel could change the world?”

mhgs what if no. 1 from blaine hogan on Vimeo.

Last night we had our second community outreach event for the area we are about to launch our fourth multi-site campus. Our event was one that we have been planning for the past month. We brought in an incredible band that plays Beatles music bluegrass style called Beatlegras. We also booked our good friend and worship leader’s band The Robert Gotcher Band. All the wheels were in motion. We had sound, light and staging lined up and ready to go. We rented the public pool for the community to use and set the concert up outside of. However, this past week we had all sorts of hurdles to get over. On Tuesday the city almost tried to shut down our event…well…one guy from the city tried to shut down our event. For whatever reason he did not. We were fearful that he was going to come out last night and shut us down. We prayed all week and all day for that not to happen. Turns out he was not even working last night and the guy that was wanted to come watch the bands. God answers prayer #1!!!
The event started and Beatlegras started their set. Somewhere around 150 people were on the lawn and in the pool. These guys were incredible. People were singing along and cheering loud after every song. Throughout the week we had been praying for people to show up. We had no idea how many if any would show up. God answers prayer #2

Over the course of the last couple of weeks we had been praying that our outreach would reach someone and they would want to take the journey with us in our new campus. We prayed hard for this. Our fear was that we have an event and not really reach anyone. We thought that if even one would commit to doing life with us it would be worth every penny. Over the course of the night we had at least 8 families that we know of that pursued us and are now committed to being apart of our church. They all said they were going to be there the day we launch.  There was a guy that walked four miles because he heard the music and is now going to come. There was a single mom with her daughter that really wants to come. There was a couple that just moved here that asked what they had to do to be apart of the journey with us. There was a local couple that asked where they need to sign up to be apart of this thing with us. There was a guy that was blown away that we were not asking for anything and said he wanted to be apart of something like that. The stories go on and on. God answers prayer #3

Final story: Our worship leader Rob that I was telling you about above has a little girl named Nicole. She is four and has become my little girl Ella’s best friend. Right before Rob and his band took the stage last night they had to take Nicole to the ER for stomach pains she has been having off and on for a couple of days. His wife took off with her and Rob stayed behind. All of us were more than willing to have him leave and cancel the second half of the show. We gathered around Rob and prayed for his little girl. We prayed expectantly that God would hear and answer our prayer of healing. Half way through Robs set I got a text message from his wife saying that all was good, Nicole just had gas. Their set was phenomenal!!! When he got the news he played John Mayer’s song “Daughters”. I was incredible. GOD ANSWERS PRAYER #4!!!

We are so thankful for what God has already done and cannot wait to see what is going to happen next. Please pray for us and know that God answers prayer. Hope to see you all at our site on Sept. 7th and if you don’t live near here. Pray for what is to come. Thanks in advance for your prayers.

Wearing the Hearts Of Others On My Sleeve!!!

So today I was reading this blog and he was talking about this site that tells you what words you use the most in your blog. So I went and typed in my RSS feed and this is what popped up. I am encouraged by what we talk about here.

Here is a portion of the letter that I wrote to our launch team of our new multi-site location that opens in 6 weeks. Isaiah 58 really rocked my world. So did 57 and I will share more of that later, but I would love to hear your thoughts on 58. Please read and enjoy:

I want to share with you some thoughts from the Word of God. If you would turn in your bibles to Isaiah 58(I am such a preacher at times). No really, open your bibles right now. If you don’t have it in front of you read it when you get home. Ok, here we go.
There are a couple of things I want to share with you in regards to this passage of scripture. One of the very first things that sticks out is in verse two where he says, “yet they act so pious! They come to the temple every day and seem delighted to hear my laws. You would almost think this was a righteous nation that would never abandon its God.” I read that and my initial thought was that I did not want God to look at me or our team and say that you would almost think of us as righteous. Or that we seem delighted to hear his laws. I want God to look at us and know that we are delighted and the we are a righteous people longing to reach the masses of lost people with the hope of Christ. Then in verse five he talks about how we humble ourselves by going through the motions of penance. He says that they are fasting and praying but it is simply going through the motions. There is no heart in it. Today I am convicted that we need to fast and pray for the next six weeks. We need to all hit our knees hard and pray for the harvest of the Roanoke area. We need not just go through the motions, we need to labor and toil over those that do not yet know the true life of living Christ.
Now there is a lot between verse five and the end of the chapter, but I want to focus finally on the verses that we are deeming our theme verses for Roanoke for the next few months. Verses 10-12 read like this, “Feed the hungry and help those in trouble. Then your light will shine out from the darkness, and the darkness around you will be as bright as day. The Lord will guide you continually, watering your life when you are dry and keeping you healthy too. You will be like a well-watered garden, like an ever-flowing spring. Your children will rebuild the deserted ruins of your cities. Then you will be known as the people who rebuild their walls and cities.” I read that and my heart begins to leap with joy. We have the opportunity to shine in darkness. We have the opportunity to be God’s ever-flowing spring. I love that last part the most. I believe that we are those children that have the opportunity to rebuild the ruins of this city. That we get to rebuild the city with the foundation of Christ.
This is where it is time to re-ante. If we have lost our desire or heart for what we are doing I hope that the Word of God has re-awakened our desire for this city. We have not just been sent here, we have been called here. From this day forward we will not take our calling lightly. This is not for the faint of heart or the selfish. This is for those that are not content sitting still in the Kingdom. This is for those that will do anything short of sin for others to know him. My question today again for the first time is this, “WHO IS REALLY IN?” “WHO WANTS TO REBUILD A CITY WITH THE FOUNDATION OF CHRIST?” I ask myself those questions first and you second.
My prayer is that we are all ready to answer as Isaiah did 52 chapters earlier, “Here I am Lord, SEND ME!!!” I love you all and cannot wait to see what God is going to do in the months to come. Don’t lose sight of the goal. We are almost to the beginning and then the fun really begins.