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I remember when …

I remember when:

* children sat in church with their parents and doodled on the tithe envelopes with a golf pencil found in the pew.

* pastors wore suit and ties, but when the preaching was really good, he would take off his coat and throw it to his wife on the front row.

* cutting edge Sunday school technology were felt boards.

* there was a little sign at the front of the church that told the attendance, offering and how many visitors we had at church.

* we had church Sunday mornings, Sunday nights and Wednesday nights and to miss any of the three meetings was next to heresy.

* the only instruments in the church were a piano and an organ. Guitars and drums were for the nightclubs and bars.

* favorite songs could be identified by the page number of the holy hymnal. My favorite was #267 or  “I’ll Fly Away”. For some reason, though, we never sang the third verse of any song.

* you could get in big trouble if you got your “church clothes” dirty before church started.

* it was considered a “great Sunday” when the preacher did not preach and people prayed at the altar instead.

* people who sang “specials” never sounded that special and always had to read the words of the song off the back of a cassette label. They would say “don’t listen to me, just listen to the words.”

* the church building always smelled like sheep actually lived there during the week.

What do you remember?

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Reflections on a Sunday Gathering

My soul is full from the gatherings at New Life this weekend. Rarely does a Sunday not provide amazing stories of people being changed by God, but this past Sunday was really special for many reasons.

1. During the song set, Jon Egan shared the story from scripture of Mary anointing Jesus with a vial of expensive perfume as an act of extravagant worship. He said we had a choice to either enjoy the aroma of someone else’s worship or we could pour out our own perfume. Worship should cost us something. It was a strong reminder that God wants all of our worship and all of our hearts, at all times.

2. Later, Pastor Aaron read from Colossians 1 about Christ being formed in us. He reminded us that the Gospel is not about going from bad to good, but from dead to alive.

3. I spoke on the two baptisms in Luke 3. Water baptism requires us to obey and humble ourselves which allows for the old person to be cut off and for us to enter the destiny that God has for us. The second baptism is simply welcoming the work of the Holy Spirit into our lives and receiving it as a free gift from the Father delivered to us by Jesus.

4. After the 11am gathering, I prayed for a young couple trying to save their marriage, another young couple who had been hurt by a former church and were trying to trust church leadership again, and a middle aged man who cried as he told me that he finally understood the baptism of the Holy Spirit after years of frustration.

5. 53 new families came to Guest Central looking for more info about being a part of New Life. There were some great conversations, lots of prayer and some discussion with yet another young couple who wanted to find out about pre-marriage mentoring.

6. 11 kids accepted Christ in the 5th and 6th grade class alone on Sunday and over 80 in the same class prayed for more of the Holy Spirit in their lives.

7. On Sunday night, we baptized over 140 people, most of them brand new believers, including 54 children. Entire families were baptized together. A man who was homeless a month ago was baptized.

God is the one who provides wind for our sails and moves us with momentum from heaven. It is not a result of incessant hype. Momentum is more than just growing crowds or full parking lots. Momentum comes from people deciding to follow Jesus and being healed of emotional and physical pain. It happens when orphans from Colorado and around the world are being set into forever families. It is a result of widows from our church and city being cared for every week.

The church that Jesus birthed 2000 years ago in Jerusalem is still resilient and fully alive all across the earth. New Life is becoming more and more a reflection of those ancient, yet still powerful ideals. My soul is full.

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Every Story Matters

What is your story? What has God done in your life lately? Would your story be encouraging to someone else if they heard about it? Would your story build someone’s faith and give them the courage to keep praying? Most likely.

A couple of Sundays ago, a man named Dale told his story to our entire church. He had been homeless and alone until he met a New Lifer while walking downtown one Saturday afternoon. They became friends and fast forward a few weeks, Dale accepts Christ, finds a place to stay, and makes New Life his new church family. He lost wife about a year ago, but she diligently prayed for Dale to follow Christ, even as she lay on her death bed.

Sitting in the crowd that Sunday was a young Air Force airman whose wife was praying for him to make the same decision. At the end of the talk, he came down to the front and prayed with one our team. After the gathering, he found me outside and told me when heard Dale’s story, he knew he needed to change his life. It was a story, not a well crafted sermon, that made the difference.

In the age of Twitter and Facebook, we seem to talk about ourselves too much already, but I do believe an inspiring and authentic story can still change people. When God does something in our lives, we should tell others when we get the opportunity.

At New Life, we are working harder at telling all the amazing stories we hear each week. So don’t be surprised if someone holds a camera in front of you because we all need to hear it. Stories really do matter and your story can change lives.

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Awe, Adventure and Advocacy

On Sunday I talked about three words that will define our path at New Life in 2011 and beyond. These are more than just words that start with the same letter, these words are a map and compass for the way we will pray, the way we will make decisions and the way we will use our time and resources.

1. Awe

New Life has always been a fellowship that welcomes the presence of God in worship. The songs that have been birthed from this place are sung around the world, but the awe I am talking about is not just about songs or a set of musical charts. Awe literally means “fearful expectation” or an awareness that God desires to invade our natural worlds with His supernatural strength. I believe the gatherings at New Life this year will be filled with the awe of thousands of people who really hunger for God to be with us and to change us.

2. Adventure

Adventure does not happen in the safe bubbles of life in which most of us live. Adventure is for those who have surrendered themselves to live a life that is full of mystery and sometimes, great risk. God is calling us out of our comfortable places and into the uncomfortable realms of faith. God does want to encourage and comfort us, but He seldom allows us to remain static. God will nudge all of us this year to take some risks, to maybe fail, but for sure, to move forward.

3. Advocacy

God is a father to the fatherless, a defender of widows, and sets the lonely in families. (Psalm 68:5-6). In other words, God is an advocate. God sent Jesus to be our advocate, to provide us something that we had no ability to provide for ourselves. Therefore, our story should be one of advocacy for those around us who cannot help or defend themselves. The widows, the orphans, and the poor need the church to stand alongside them, to defend them if necessary and to provide for them when able.

This is our clarion call as a fellowship of people at New Life. Join us on the journey and let awe, adventure and advocacy lead us forward.

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Anticipation for 2011

Hope is the anticipation of something good happening and I’m full of hope for the upcoming 365 days of 2011. I am sure there will be plenty of surprises, challenges, dark moments and belly laughs along the way, but one thing is certain, time will march on and we will be along for the journey. Here are some things I am anticipating as I look ahead to the new year.

1. The first Dream Center will open and will provide free medical care for women in our city who cannot afford basic services.

2. My first book, Fear No Evil, releases in April with Zondervan. The proceeds from the book will help fund the Dream Centers.

3. Abram will turn 13.

4. We will pay off more of the debt on our property at New Life.

5. Hundreds will be saved and baptized during the Thorn performances.

6. Thousands will surrender to live the vow at the summer Desperation Conferences.

7. Hundreds of New Lifers will go on mission’s trips and have their worldview rocked.

8. I will spend some time in Wales and Kenya, connecting with leaders.

9. Pam and I are taking the kids to San Diego for LegoLand and the zoo.

10. I will celebrate 22 years of marriage to my best friend.

I really believe hope and joy are fanned into flame when we can look forward to something and anticipate God’s work in our future. What are you looking forward to in 2011?

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The Lonely Place of Prayer

“Yet the news about him spread all the more, so that crowds of people came to hear him and to be healed of their sickness. But Jesus often withdrew to lonely places and prayed.” Luke 5:15-16

What was Jesus thinking? Crowds of people were anxious to hear him teach and there were throngs of sick people who needed healing, yet Jesus took a break to be alone and pray. It seems that would stop his momentum and suffocate the growth of his following. The buzz was at full strength and Jesus did something counterintuitive to most modern church leaders. He stopped, found an isolated, lonely place and prayed. And he did this often because it was a discipline, a part of his lifestyle.

It would seem every leader would follow the habits of Christ and schedule time to be away from the crowds, away from the pulpit and it’s teaching responsibilities and even away from the pressing needs of people. There are a few reasons why we don’t make this a part of our personal discipline.

1. We feel guilty

Pastors love people and want to help people. Regardless of the size church we lead, there are always people who want to meet with us, need us to come pray for them or would like us to teach more often. We know we need to rest, but the guilty feelings drive us to an impossible schedule. After all, how can a real shepherd leave his sheep? Truthfully, we are doing our sheep more harm than good if we do not rest. In the end, we will burn out and then the sheep have no shepherd at all.

2. We fear people

What will the people think if I am not at every meeting or attending to every hospital, funeral or wedding request? Will they leave the church and attend somewhere else? Worse yet, will they stay at the church just to remind me of why others left. 🙂 Proverbs 29:25 says “Fearing people is a dangerous trap …” When we are caught in this trap, we are ensnared in a perpetual cycle of performance and insecurity.

3. We like the attention more than rest

Ouch! Just writing that brought me conviction. No matter how much humility we may have, it is still a temptation to love the adoring stares of the crowd more than a private pursuit of God. Our primary motivation for solitude and rest is to make sure our personal fascination with the nature of God has not waned and to calibrate our primary motivations for ministry. In the end, we are to make Jesus known and not make ourselves famous.

For this reason, I am going to spend some time alone this week. No crowds, no email, no social media, some football 🙂 and very few phone calls. I will be back at New Life for Celebration Sunday on January 2nd and for the week of worship and prayer January 3-7. Until then, may we all withdraw to a lonely place and pray.

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The Lady who Kept Praying

“Then Jesus told them a parable to show them that they should always pray and not give up.” Luke 18:1

I believe God can immediately heal people. He did in the stories of Scripture and I have witnessed and experienced immediate healing many times. However, many prayers are answered after months or years of persevering and not giving up.

Such is the story of Jefferie, a sweet lady who attends New Life with her husband Kent. I first met them after a Sunday morning gathering when she asked me to pray for her. She was smiling and had obvious joy, but she also had advanced cancer in multiple places in her body.

We prayed that day and I told her to keep asking for prayer. Sure enough the next Sunday, I spotted her waiting for me again with the same smile and the same joy. This scene repeated itself for almost a year every Sunday after the 9am service. In fact, I begin to look forward to that special prayer time each week.

This past week, she got a late phone call from her doctor who told her she was 99% cancer free. He could not believe the cancer had disappeared so quickly. Her voice is still weak, but she whispered the story and the good news to me on Sunday. It was the highlight of my day for sure.

What are you praying for today? Have you prayed a long time and become discouraged that the answer has not arrived? Keep praying for healing, for the prodigals to come home or for your marriage to be restored. Don’t give up and keep praying. Jefferie did and so can we.

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Three Years Later, Reflections on a Tragedy

December 9th marked the three-year anniversary of the tragic shooting at our church that took the lives of Rachel and Stephanie Works. Three others were wounded and the young gunman took his life in the children’s hallway after being wounded. It was the darkest day in the life of our church.

Some days, the events of that Sunday afternoon seem distant and some days the emotions are still raw like it happened just last week. God has brought healing to many of us while others still wrestle with the realities of a senseless act of violence that robbed us of three young people.

I walk that hallway all the time and tell people the story. I show them the one bullet hole we did not repair and walk them outside to the memorial in our parking lot. Two Blue Spruce trees tower over a pair of benches with each of the girl’s names inscribed. I sit on those benches and remember how a normal Sunday afternoon turned dark with the crackle of gunfire.

The predictable rhythms of life have returned to our church, but we will never be the same group of people we were before the shooting. We are more grateful now and maybe more cautious. We are not fearful, but we are painfully aware that the world is not at peace. We cherish each other, love one another more sincerely and I believe we are more honest about our hurts and scars than ever before.

We will not have a public memorial gathering on December 9th, but I will gather with a few families who were most affected, including the Works family, and we will pray, cry and possibly laugh at one of David’s jokes. We will probably walk through that long hallway and end up outside at the memorial, each of us telling our stories of God’s grace on that fateful day. There will be no bitterness, regret, or anger and that alone is a true miracle, given what happened.

Our joy has never left us and our strength to move forward has finally returned. We have walked through the valley of the shadow of death and now, we pause and look back. None of us want to repeat the journey, but each of us are so thankful for what we have learned about God, ourselves and each other along the way.

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The Big Ideas of Fear No Evil

I spent some time this week with the folks at Zondervan finalizing the details of my first book, Fear No Evil, which releases in April 2011. The manuscript is all but done, the cover design is nearly finished and all of us seem ready to go public in a few short months. For over a year, I have worked on this project, prayed over this project and sometimes fretted over this project. Honestly, I don’t want to write a book for the sake of writing and selling books. I want this to be helpful to people.

Here are the big takeaways from this work that I hope are helpful to the people who choose to read it.

1. Bad things may happen to us, but God is with us even when everything seems dark. He is near us and He is for us.

2. Life may never be the same as before, but life on the other side of the dark valley can be magnificent if we follow the law of the farm. You will have to read chapter 10 for more insight.

3. No one wants to repeat the trip that took us through the dark valley, but what we learn about God, ourselves and our friends is worth the journey.

Fear No Evil is dedicated to the tribe of people called New Lifers who are the most courageous and faithful people I have ever met. Together we have worshipped and prayed our way through dark days and nights and now we stand on the other side, reflective of the journey and thankful for what we have learned.

Pray with me that many others will find the same hope in their journey and find the courage to take one more step out of the valley of the shadow of death. We do not have to fear evil, but we do have to face it. May the miracle story of New Life give them the strength to do just that.

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Do you take notes?

Do you take notes when someone is teaching you the scriptures? If you do, chances are you retain more than those who do not. In fact, I believe 90% of people who do not take notes on Sunday morning forget everything they have heard by Wednesday morning. If my calculations are correct, Sunday morning was mostly a waste of time for those who did not bother to write something down.

Jesus told us this would happen in Luke 8 when he described the four types of soil that represent the common conditions of the human heart.  The path, the rock, the thorns and the good soil are all mentioned. The seeds that fell on the good soil are the only ones that produced a lasting harvest. Notice what is said in verse 15.

“But the seed on good soil stands for those with a noble and good heart, who hear the word, retain it, and by persevering produce a good crop.”

Luke did not underline the two words above, but they certainly jumped off the page at me recently. The Message Bible says “who seize the word and hold on no matter what.” I have heard some amazing insight that I have not written down and I am certain I have forgotten most of it. Good seed had been sown, but I did not seize it and hold on no matter what.  What can we all do to make sure the seeds that are being sown fall on the good soil of our hearts and produce a crop?

1. Write down two or three big ideas from every teaching you hear and have a conversation with someone about them within 48 hours.

2. If you use your iphone to take notes, like I sometimes do, don’t check your email or text someone during the talk. Take notes only and do not play paper toss. 🙂

3. If you are speaking and the big ideas are not evident, then use simpler language and better illustrations to make them clear to everyone.

4. If you have access to decent AV equipment, put the big ideas on the screen long enough for everyone to write them down.

5. Hand out notes to people before the talk and have pens or pencils available. Even if you hand out blank sheets of paper, you are encouraging people to take notes.

The word disciple means “learner” and learners take notes. Even if we do not agree with what is said, at least the talk will spark some interesting conversation that might lead us to deeper truth. Let’s not sit in the crowd with our arms folded assuming that we will remember everything that is being said. Let’s hear the word, retain the word and by persevering produce a good crop.

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