About a month ago West Ridge, our mother church, did spontaneous baptisms at the end of their services. it was powerful to watch. There were 131 people baptized. Check out this article that my boss wrote about it:

Spontaneous Baptisms

Planting a church is a trying time. Some weeks I feel like I’m walking on top of the world, and others I feel lower than any other time in my life. In a very real sense its like experiencing spiritual warfare on the front line, feeling the high of every blow to the enemy and being knocked back each time he retaliates.

Because of the spiritual nature of all of this there are many times when I just feel like God is silent. These are the times that we have all had; we cry out but feel that our prayer is muffled at best. We pray but feel that the words hardly leave our lips, so how can they ever get to the heart of God? These are the times that St. John of the cross called “the dark night of the soul.” A time when God is silent and we feel helpless.

But, there is more hope than we can possibly imagine. In Prayer, Richard Foster writes:

If we could make the Creator of heaven and earth instantly appear at our beck and call, we would not be in communion with the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. We do that with objects, with things, with idols. But God, the great iconoclast, is constantly smashing our false images of who he is and what he is like.

Can you see how our very sense of the absence of God is, therefore, an unsuspected grace? In the very act of hiddenness God is slowly weaning us of fashioning him in our own image. Like Aslan, the Christ figure in The Chronicles of Narnia, God is wild and free and comes at will. Be refusing to be a puppet on our string or a genie in our bottle, God frees us from our false, idolatrous images.

I thank God that He comes at will and in power. I thank God that He loves me enough to wean me of my tendency to take Him for granted. I thank God that He loves me enough to bring me through every trial.

The last two days I have really been reminded about how giving in to small temptations and conceding in small areas will ultimately make you lose the war. Sunday we were studying Nehemiah 13 and it is shocking how far the nation of Israel was able to fall away from God in such a short amount of time. Over a short span of years they went from respecting the Sabbath so much that they wouldn’t buy anything on it to working on the Sabbath themselves. They went from cleansing themselves of foreign (ungodly) influences in the beginning of the chapter to embracing those influences near the end of the chapter. The shift is remarkable.

As I was teaching this I was reminded and convicted about how we need to guard what we value and doggedly fight against anyone or anything that tries to get us to make small concessions. In the church planting world this is called being mean about the vision, where you are willing to fight and defend the vision that God has given you. Sometimes that means having difficult conversations, sometimes that means stepping on people’s toes. But, guarding the vision that you value so dearly is worth paying those small prices so that later it will yield the great dividends that God has in store.

If you think about it, we need to hold everything we really value in this way. We need to doggedly guard our families by guarding our time, our attitude, and even our outside relationships with friends. We need to guard our faith and relationship with Jesus by being in His word and spending time with him. We need to guard our health and not make concessions for every desert that makes goo goo eyes at us.

I am convinced that each and every one of us must know what we hold most dear and fight for it daily, making sure that we give nothing away, and that we don’t lose a single moment to wasted time and opportunity.

Just a thought… any thoughts from you?

If you haven’t seen this video of Louie Giglio talking about Laminin, it is worth taking the time to see. Amazing!

This Tuesday our Home Gathering was studying Nehemiah 12 and I was struck by the corporate worship in this section. Basically, the worship starts in the city when Nehemiah appoints two choirs. Then the choirs walk along the walls of the city, through every neighborhood worshiping, and end up in the house of God.

What struck me about this scene is that the worship didn’t start in the house of God, and might not have ended there either. But when the two choirs came together as one the worship crescendoed (increased in volume and intensity).

I think this is the best picture of what corporate worship should be that I have ever seen. When we come together to worship, the worship doesn’t start there, but rather it is the time that my personal worship joins with the worship of other believers and gains volume and intensity. It crescendos. Then, as we separate from corporate worship and go our own separate ways, the worship doesn’t stop, it just fades back to my personal worship.

One of our core team members, Scott England, described worship as a great symphony. Sometimes our worship is soft and low key, with lots of silence and prayer before the Lord. Then, sometimes we come together and the symphony of our worship crescendos into a great and loud song of praise. Later if fades back down to our attitude of worship and our love toward God. The worship symphony never stops, it just ebbs and flows getting louder and softer, more intense and more delicate. It is a continuous work of art, given continuously to a great God.

Ok, I’m getting back to real life again. Last week my entire family was sick, my wife and I are still fighting some junk off, we traveled out of town for a wedding, and today I’m back and trying to wrap my head around everything I have to do.

While I was out of town I was fortunate enough to stumble across the Karate Kid on TV. I was also fortunate enough to not have anyone tell me that it is a stupid movie and to change the channel. So, what did I do? Oh yeah, I watched the Karate Kid, and loved it! And, “surprisingly” I was reminded of a few things:

• Karate Kid Lesson 1: sometimes menial tasks prepare us for far more important things.
  The Karate Kid had to sand the deck, paint the fence, wash the car and do other menial things. He thought that he wasn’t learning anything, but later realized that the physical motion of doing those things was the same motion to block a punch, kick, and so on. I think life is a lot like this.

  Sometimes God has us in places that seem totally pointless. But, there is a point, a lesson, a task, and a calling in even the little things. Sometimes we just need to look under the surface.

• Karate Kid Lesson 2: learn balance first and the rest follows.
  The Karate Kid had to learn to balance and defend before he was taught to punch and kick.

  Balance first, in life and in Karate. Too often I go running after something without first being balanced in my thinking and in my spirit. I am continually learning that I must balance the things in my life so that I’m not controlled by things, but so that I can be led by the Spirit.

• Karate Kid Lesson 3: the enemy always plays dirty and to win.
  The bad dudes in the movie were dirty, no playing by the rules for them, only playing to win by any means possible.

  Our enemy fights just as dirty, and worse. We have to constantly be on the look out for his sucker punch.

Have you ever had times that you have questioned the leadership role that God has placed you in? Or, have you had times that other people have questioned your leadership ability and your call to lead? Ever questioned yourself and felt totally inept to do what you know you must do?

I’m thinking this is likely what Aaron was feeling in Numbers 17 when the people were rebelling against authority. Previously they had questioned his actions, his ability to lead, and his call from God. I’ve been there, and in many ways am still there, fighting to lead people into the place that God has called us to go.

Its during these times that I have a tendency to look for a sign, for some kind of reassurance that everything is going to be ok and that I will still be able to feed my family and stand up strait when all is said and done. I don’t think the need for reassurance is bad or that it is testing God. Its just who we are and how we operate.

Well, Aaron got his sign. God told Moses to take the staff of the head of every family (twelve) and to put them in the tent of meeting, and the staff that sprouted would be the chosen spiritual leader. The next day when Moses went in, Aaron’s staff had sprouted, blossomed, and produced ripe almonds.

Maybe God got carried away on this miracle. Or, maybe there was great purpose in this. God could have just made Aaron’s staff spout with little flower buds and nothing more, but instead God chose to make it sprout, blossom, and produce food. There was no room for doubt, Aaron was God’s choice.

I have had many seasons like Aaron’s when I will doubt, and God will answer my prayers in a huge way, far above what I could ever hope or imagine. In the last year my cane has blossomed more times than I can count and I am constantly thankful for God’s little reminders of my calling all along the way. Here are a few of the things that He has blessed us with since we accepted His leading to plant a church.

• A free mini-van to drive
• A condo to live in rent free
• Various forms of financial help amounting to around $1,400
• A free computer (not new, but still a lot nicer than the one I had)
• My membership to a gym in Decatur paid for
• My web design business is growing, very slowly, but growing

I am continually thankful for these sprouts of blessing that we have had all along the way. And, I’m sure that many of you have similar stories. Please share them…