Stir Up the Flame / A Few Things on My Mind

These words are a good reminder anytime…

II Tim. 1:6a “Therefore I remind you to stir up (fan into a flame) the gift of God which is in you…”

• Timothy had gotten off track.  So Paul puts his finger on the problem.  Timothy was focused on his fears.  He was getting intimidated.  He was weary.  Frustrated.  He was getting pushed around. He was exceptionally gifted, but his gift was parked in neutral.   He was not being everything God intended.  His flame was growing dim.

• So Timothy is encouraged about his tough situation.  He needed to do some personal stirring.

• We can have all the facts, but not the fire.

• Check the fire burning on the altar of our hearts. The fire needs to be stirred occasionally!

• Sometimes we need to be reminded like Timothy that, “Yea, its a hostile world out there… but continue in the face of difficulty… don’t just look at your personal challenges, look at what God has given you!”

• Sometimes we need to add fresh fuel to the fire of our hearts.

• Sometimes we need to shake off the ashes of the God given gift inside of us.

• Sometimes we need to make some changes.   Perhaps we need to stir up our devotional life?   Or fire up our personal prayer time with the Lord.  Or join a small group.  Or get intentional about building some relationships that will encourage us in our walk with Christ.

A Few Things on My Mind…

1.   “Taps” from Zimbabwe will be with us and leading worship. Taps is quite a remarkable young man.  He is an orphan and has never met his parents.  He does not know what tribe he is from in Africa.   We have adopted Taps into our church family, so please go out of your way to welcome him!

2.  Africa (Zimbabwe) Outreach Team is going in May, 2010.   We will be sending a team to work with orphanages, churches, leadership and the World Bible Society.   A video will be posted on the web soon.   Why not pray about going?

3.  Its not too late to invite a friend to RAWHIDE tomorrow! Its going to be a great time.  We will have live music with “Heaven Bound”, a great bluegrass banjo driven band.  We want everyone to come, even if things are tight.   See you tomorrow!

 

 

 

 

Sanctuary: A Biblical Church

Sanctuary is a church that aims to unpack biblical truth every week. The most important thing I do is communicate God’s thoughts in God’s word.   My aim every week is that we can hear the voice of God through the Word of God.  That it comes alive by God’s Spirit opening the eyes of our understanding.

Therefore, at Sanctuary church…

1.  We embrace the authority of scripture. We believe in the careful, prayerful study of the Bible… week by week, month by month, year after year.  Studying the bible is… hard work!   There are no shortcuts.  It takes time and energy.   There is no substitute for the study of scripture.

Sanctuary creates environments throughout the week in small groups were Scripture is opened and discussed and life application is made so we can live out its truth.

2.  The explaining (exposition) of scripture is central in our worship services. God speaks to us through His word!   (II Tim. 3:16) So we want to communicate the Word of God and see what God has to say to us every time we gather.

3.  We want to teach people how to think biblically. To throw every decision against the backdrop of scripture, to look to God’s word for guidance through life.  To walk in the light of His word in the midst of a culture whose values are at odds with the Kingdom of God.

4.  We want to let the Scripture have authority over our feelings. The ultimate test for living under the authority of scripture is asking the question, “What does the bible say?” and not “What do I feel like doing?”.

Will I submit my feelings to the authority of God’s word?   Will I forgive when I don’t feel like forgiving?   Will I hang onto my bitterness when I am not let the sun go down on my anger?

5.  We want to filter our lives through the scripture. Take every aspect of our lives and keep filtering our lives through the scripture – our marriages, our parenting, our finances, our relationships, our reactions, and the world of our heart.

Sunday Night Reflections

What a great day – I got to celebrate my birthday!

Kirstin and I went out to lunch at Macaroni Grill in Redlands. We had a great time and then headed home to… clean the garage!   “You are cleaning the garage on your birthday”.    It was a family event, and the boys got their hands dirty too.

Today I got to visit the student service after slipping out of the adult service. Our student ministry leaders are doing such a fantastic job.   They had a team of five leaders working today doing worship, teaching straight from the bible, answering questions, interacting with students, having a great time and finishing up by doing small groups.

I also got to see what was happening in our children’s ministry. I had the opportunity to see our various classrooms up close and personal, and we are working very hard to serve our children to give them the best hour of the week.

As I observed the army of Sanctuary volunteers, I am reminded that…

• The nature of ministry is service.

• The motive of ministry is love.

• The cost of ministry is sacrifice.

• The power of ministry is the Holy Spirit.

• The example for all ministry is Jesus Christ.

I was inspired and encouraged to see so much ministry happening on campus today.   A big “thank you” to everyone making a difference by sowing your life in service.

G’nite!

Churches Moving in the Right Direction

1.   Jesus’ servants must be willing to be inconvenienced as He was when He washed the disciples feet.  He was willing to appear as less than He was for the sake of getting low and serving them.   Are we derailed out of God’s will just because its difficult at times?

2.  Throw every decision against the backdrop of scripture. What does God think?  (II Tim. 3:16)

3.  The church needs to play to win. We cannot play trying not to lose.   Be proactive.  Aggressive.  Not reactive or passive.   (Romans 12:1-2)

4.  The Church is about Jesus and His Kingdom, not the pastor or “building a great church” or fulfilling a man’s vision.   It is about the Great Commission and “go ye therefore into all the world”.

5.  The church is to have a big heart for the community surrounding it.

6.  The church needs to view success in terms of fulfilling God’s purpose, not maintaining the status quo to keep everybody happy.

7.  The church needs to teach the truth. The whole truth.  And nothing but the truth.

8.  The church always needs servant leaders to rise up and assume some weight of responsibility.  Don’t let what people think ever hold you back!

9.  The church church needs flawed leaders who are not afraid to take spirit led risks in order to reach those we thought were unreachable.

10.  The church needs to pray and ask God to direct our future for His glory.

 

Sunday Night Reflections

After six months in the gospel of John, we launched our new series entitled, “Walking in the Light”. If you missed the message, you need to listen to it online.   Ridge did a fantastic job.

My prayer is that we will take an honest look at our personal lives and how we are living in the light or living in spiritual darkness.   Are we seeking God to live in the light of His word and all that He desires to teach us?   Do we have convictions about living in the light?

Do we spend more time reading blogs than reading the bible?

Communion today lead by our students was perhaps the most moving and powerful communion I have ever experienced.   My eyes welled up with tears as I sat in the front row and drank it all that he students were sharing about the reality of Jesus in their lives.

I have no question that the best days of our church are ahead of us! I see leaders stepping up, volunteers stepping up, students getting serious about walking with God, and people responding to His word with heartfelt honesty.

From my heart to your heart… I love serving at Sanctuary!   I told someone today that I believe we should have a “People Appreciation Month” and not just a pastor appreciation month.  I am the one who appreciates the opportunity to serve you.

That’s it.  I am going to bed.  G’nite!

 

 

Top 10 Thoughts on Serving and Leadership

Here are my top 10 lessons on serving and leadership…

1.  BE FAITHFUL IN THE SMALL THINGS (small things make a BIG difference)

• Zech 4:10  ”Who despises the day of small things?” WE DO!!!

• How often does God start off small? When He brings the plan of redemption, how does He do it?  Rip heaven wide open and  send 10 million angels and leap out in majestic glory?  Or send a little helpless baby born to a poor teenage girl?

• And the redemption of the world, and the defeat of Satan’s Kingdom is laying there in a manger!

• Deut. 7:22 “And the Lord will drive out your enemies little by little”

• You never know how much potential is wrapped up in the little things of your life.  Give them over to God and be faithful in the little things.

2.  ATTITUDE IS EVERYTHING (have an attitude of gratitude)

• I Thes. 5:16 “No matter what happens, always be thankful, for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you”.

• Ever take an inventory and make a list of why you should be thankful?

• Heb. 12:28 “Since we have a Kingdom that cannot be shaken, let us be thankful…”

3.  GOD LOOKS AT OUR HEARTS

• II Chron. 16:9  “The eyes of the Lord run to and fro throughout the whole earth to strengthen those whose hearts are fully committed to Him”.

• God beyond everything else is searching to strengthen some willing hearts.

4.  YOUR CORE IDENTITY = SERVANT

• I Cor. 4:1 “Let a man so consider us, as servants of Christ, and stewards of the mysteries of God.

• “servants” refers to a “UNDER-ROWER” or the lowest of galley slaves.  The one rowing on the bottom tier of the ship.  They were the most menial, unenvied, and despised of slaves.  Many were chained to their lower deck oars in the sweat box of the lower deck.

• Paul did not see himself as a captain or deck hand enjoying the good life while telling the sailors what to do. He considered that all ministers were like the lowest rank of galley slaves.  They had the hardest labor, cruelest punishment, and least appreciation.    Cannot wait to sign up?

5.  WE WERE CREATED FOR COMMUNITY

• Acts 2:42 “They devoted themselves to… the fellowship”.  ( a commonness, a participation)

• God wired us for community to crave it and enjoy it.

6.  IT IS ESSENTIAL TO BE REAL – AUTHENTIC

7.  FAILURE IS NECESSARY

8.  GOD’S WAY IS BETTER THAN MY WAY (And God is going to have His way!)

9.  ALL MINISTRY IS DONE THROUGH TEAMS WITH A LEADER

• Protect our teams from burn out
• Make decisions that benefit those serving

10.  WHEN YOU TRY TO PLEASE EVERYBODY, YOU END UP PLEASING NOBODY.

• We cannot do it all.
• Have a sustained focus.

Singles @ Sanctuary

In 2010 we are kicking off Singles @ Sanctuary.

Singleness is sometimes viewed as a setback, like something went south and needs to turned north asap.   Singleness is a season to be embraced.  Singleness is an opportunity to maximize the window of time to be all that Jesus wants you to be while you are free of relational distractions.

Single guys often need help. They need to understand that women who love Jesus are attracted to men, not boys.   They want a guy with some gutsy convictions.   A guy who leads out spiritually.

Unless singles are armed with truth, you become easy prey. (Eph. 6:10-18)  Singles can protect themselves against the ocean of delusional traps waiting to ensnare them at every turn.  But you have get the truth inside you to fight the good fight.

Remember a guy named Joseph? The dude was hot.  He was handsome.  He was on the cover of all the social magazines of the day.  He was young.  Smart.  He was living in the lap of luxury.  He was all alone in the palace one day…  except for the King’s wife.  And  she was hot for Big Joe.

And his hormones were going wild.

So what does Joe do when he has an opportunity to throw away his purity in a moment?

He runs away!  ”Can’t sin against God” he says.  (Gen. 39:8-9)

Go to the slammer Joe for a couple years for keeping your purity and being full of integrity!  Nice reward, really nice reward.

In the end, Joseph came out on top because He did the right thing when no one was looking.

Singles will have the opportunity to build a solid foundation for the future starting in Jan. of 2010.

More to come!

Sunday Night Recap

We had an incredibly smooth transition to the new building at Mesa View. People have said things like, “its ten times better than the old building!”.   We still have some minor things to tweak, but overall its been an amazingly good transition.

God has brought us so far and blessed us with a fantastic brand new location. We could not have dreamed for anything that would better meet our needs as a church.

I am very excited about our future – this is a great door of opportunity to impact our surrounding communities.  Sanctuary is participating in a local Harvest Festival next week.

The message today from John 21 was a bit hard hitting. Its one of those messages that when I am driving home, I am wondering… “Lord, will anybody come back next week?  I think I emptied out the church out today”. I feel this way about every other month.   Usually by about Wed. I am feeling like somebody might show up on Sunday.

Other things on my mind…

• Rawhide is coming up Nov. 15′th   Its a great time to invite a friend. We will have some great music and a chili cook off, caped off with a great BBQ.

• Jesus did a fish BBQ for his “D-Group” after he came back from the dead. Jesus’ commissioning them was done around  hospitality, friendship and experiencing community.   So Sanctuary is big on small groups, community and forging relationship.

• My small group for men has about 15 guys that are regular attenders. We unpack the scriptures every week and talk through the verses and wrestle with personal application.

• Any guys out there – this bible study is open - so come have grab breakfast and Fuel Up your inner man.  See you at Bob’s Big Boy conf. room Fridays from 6:30-7:30A.

• This Friday is our final Shaped 4 Serving meeting –  our last meeting of the year. Its a great time to be encouraged, challenged, and equipped for His service.  Come and check it out if you have never been.  I am talking on “My Top Ten Serving / Leadership Thoughts”.  We will have a light meal and some great worship too.

• Tonight the Collins’ family went out for pizza and had a fun time shopping at Target. I may not share their passion for shopping, but I like to tag along…

That’s it – I am ready for bed…

G’nite!

Developing a Culture of Trust

At Sanctuary church, we are developing a healthy church culture.  There are many faces of a healthy church culture, but at the top would be a trusting culture.

• It is murder trying to work in a church culture that is untrusting, always questioning, doubting and second guessing. When we started Sanctuary, I felt strongly that the Lord was leading us to develop a strong culture of trust, where people would be entrusted with ministry responsibility.

• Developing a culture of trust is essential to the overall health of a church. We are announcing the message of trust that, “I believe that you are capable of knowing what to do… and if you fumble, you will be honest and tell me and get on the solution side of the fumble”.

• If a leader or pastor does not release trust and refuses to trust people, they feel it. They KNOW they are not being trusted, and it undermines their serving.  One of my favorite things to say with people serving at Sanctuary is, “You decide.  I trust you”.

• The tough thing about trusting is that you will NEVER know who you can trust until you trust them. Trusting is risky because failure is a very real possibility.   I would rather stick my neck out 100% of the time and risk trusting people.   Will they fail on occasion?  YES!   But how much better is risking failure than never trusting and end up with a culture of mistrust.

• “Trusting is risky.  Refusing to trust is more risky”.   -Andy Stanley

• Developing a culture of trust begins with leadership.  Leaders telegraph both trust and suspicion and its painful to be on the receiving end of a non trusting leader.

• Yet when a leader expresses trust, it has a way of instilling confidence and fans the flame of encouragement to step out and serve God courageously.

WAYS TO BUILD TRUST IN OUR RELATIONSHIPS:

1.  When I now that I cannot deliver on an expectation, I need to come to you and talk to you about it BEFORE time and I have let you down.

2.  I something happens that may undermine trust, I need to come to you and talk about it and NOT let it go underground and fester and eat away at the relationship.

3.  To develop a culture of trust, leaders must be trustworthy. I need to talk about why I have messed up when someone placed their trust in me and I fumbled the ball.   I need to explain the GAP I created in the potential loss of trust.

4.  I must make a decision that trust place my trust in you.

5.  We need to be truthful and not make excuses when we fail expectation of trust.

My Mark or His Mark?

Most people want to leave some kind of  ”mark” on the world. In church world, most Christ followers also want to leave a mark.  We can live wondering what kind of mark we are going to leave behind.

When we fully surrender our lives to the Lord, its no longer about leaving my “mark”.  It is about His mark.

When God does His greatest work through you, you may have little or no idea what happened. And you may not know the significance of what you have done until long after it happened.

I remember once meeting with my high school discipleship group of four guys.  We meet for a couple years about weekly.  I thought that at our reunion meeting about five years later they would at least mention all the cool bible studies I taught them.  Never happened.

What did they talk about five years later? They talked about going out for burgers, hanging out and having fun.  Stuff like  going to Fiesta Village and spilling a coke in my lap and how it got all over my pants.   Really spiritual stuff.

Two of my guys became pastors, one served as a missionary and another worked full time for the C.S. Lewis Foundation. I never thought much would happen when they did crazy things like spill a coke in my lap.   We often will not know the significance of what we have done until long after it happens.

Living to leave my mark is not worthy of my life.  Living to be used of God to leave His mark through me is worthy of my life.

Living to position myself to be in a place where God can work through me is something worthy of my life.

We are all going to leave a mark of some kind on someone, some where.   The great question we must ask ourselves is, “My mark or His mark?”.

Whose mark are you going to leave?