This week I announced to our church family and friends that my wife, Aimee, and I are moving to Austin, Texas to plant a new life-giving church. It will be a walk of adventure and faith, full of miracles, mistakes and memorable moments where we will witness first-hand the protection, provision and promotion that only comes from God.

One of the moments I will always remember is the process of naming the church and how agonizing it was. In general, naming something is a challenging process whether it’s naming a child, an event or an organization. Finding the right name for what you want to say, creating an identity and giving off an ethos are all part of starting something new. Most people experience a moment when the name finds them, when they realize “this is it.” For me, that happened several weeks ago during a daily Bible reading time. The reading for that day was John 17; the prayer of Jesus for his disciples.

Jesus Prays for All Believers

 ²⁰“My prayer is not for them alone. I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message, ²¹that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me. ²²I have given them the glory that you gave me, that they may be one as we are one: ²³I in them and you in me. May they be brought to complete unity to let the world know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me.

My wife had already proposed the name ONEchapel but I just wasn’t sure until I read these words of Jesus and it struck me that this is not John’s prayer or Peter’s prayer or even the prayer of the Apostle Paul who wrote two-thirds of the New Testament. This is the prayer of the Son of God just before he leaves his disciples. This is what is on his mind and heart that comes out in a prayer to his Heavenly Father during His last days on earth.

HE PRAYS FOR US…

Not only is Jesus mindful of his disciples and what they are going to go through over the ensuing years of their lives, Jesus is fully aware of the struggles and challenges for all of us who believe in him. Jesus is praying for you and me. He was praying for the next twenty-one plus centuries of believers—for all who will believe through the message He is leaving for his disciples. He does what he continues to do today; He is making intercession for you and me at the right hand of God the Father (Heb. 8:1).

THAT WE WOULD BE ONE…

But, what is his prayer for us? What is first on his list of things to pray for you and me? He asked the Father to make us ONE just as He and the Father are one. Jesus didn’t pray for strength. He didn’t pray for provision, deliverance or peace. He prayed for all believers to be one in the unifying message of the Father’s love and redemption. Jesus puts a priority on connectedness, unity and harmony, echoing his earlier statement in John 13:35 that the world will know we are his disciples by our love for one another. The Apostle Paul encourages the Philippians to be one in spirit and purpose (Phil. 2:2) which reminds us of David’s Psalm 133, “How good and pleasant it is when brothers live together in unity! …For there the Lord bestows his blessing, even life forevermore.” Regardless of our background, experience or church upbringing, becoming one with a community of believers is significant for Jesus, not only for spiritual blessing and power but also because the world will recognize us as His people and come to believe in Him.

MAY THEY BE IN US…

Jesus wanted the kind of interconnectedness among us as believers that He himself has with his Father. He asked for a unifying spirit to be in us, pulling us together, enveloping us in a kind of oneness that will be impenetrable to the enemy of our souls and the world around us. He then expounds on this idea by praying that He and the Father would be in us and that we would be in them. This is an identity making prayer and thus, we are defined by our oneness with Jesus and His Father. They are “in” us and we are “in” them. This prayer suggests that God is fully integrated into our lives and, like Jesus, we can become the full expression of God’s love for we are being transformed into the image of Christ by His overwhelming grace and love-filled process (2 Cor. 3:18).

SO THAT THE WORLD MAY BELIEVE…

The prayer that Jesus prays over us has a result, a reason and a resolution; it is for the world to believe. Our purpose is not ourselves. Unity is not an end in and of itself but something that results from our common purpose. As we share access to our lives with each other and with our Heavenly Father, the result is that the world sees a community of people to which they either want to belong or despise (they won’t all love us). The point is that God is illustrated for them in our love and care for each other. We cannot fight among ourselves as believers and expect the world to be attracted to our message. 1 John 4:12 says, ^“No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us.” This means that the only way others see God is through our love for each other!

ONEchapel – Father, make us one so that the world will see you, come to know you, and believe in Jesus!

This week I was out in San Francisco, CA appearing on a Church Communications Network simulcast sponsored by Integrity Music where Rod Arnold, vice-president of Live Events, and I were discussing worship and promoting the upcoming Worship Summit on March 7^th. It was good clean fun and a real swell time, but on the way back to the airport something really exciting happened. We realized that we might have time to stop and experience one of the greatest inventions to ever come out of California. Yes, I speak of the IN-N-OUT BURGER!

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Recently, I was asked a question by a fellow worship leader that really made me think. He essentially said, “How do you get up every Sunday morning and lead with consistency, joy and sensitivity?” I immediately responded with “I don’t.” But he was asking a quality question for all who lead worship and even for those who attend worship every week. (more…)

They burst through the door and said, “We have gun shots in the building!” Moments later I found myself running through the second story of our church’s children’s department hearing gun shots in the main hallway directly below me. It was a surreal moment charged with adrenalin as I fumbled to dial my oldest son’s cell phone number. He was in the main lobby of our church when the gunman walked through the doors at the other end and began to fire. (more…)

In the weeks leading up to our national elections I received several emergency prayer emails asking me to pray for the elections. All of them said something like, “This is the most important election in decades” and “please pray and fast each day leading up to the elections.” This struck me as an awkward theological problem at best and possibly an unscriptural request at worst. (more…)