REAL LIFE!

This morning I had a thought that has been running through my mind for a while now, so I had to go do some study/research.
In John 10:10 Jesus said that He had come so that "we might have life..." and in Mathew 7:13-14 He said, "enter through the narrow gate.... the wide road leads to destruction.... but the small gate and the narrow road leads to life."
Jesus reaches into the Greek language both times for the meaning of this word life and He uses the same word in each verse. It means breath and vitality. In neither case is what Jesus talking about referring to an afterlife but He's talking about the kind of life He has created for us here and now.
Here's the hard part: In Matthew He says that "few will find it." Man, I want to be one of the few. Here's my thinking:
Most people walk a long way down a road seeking life, only to wake up and realize that they are on a road that leads to destruction. When we "wake up" we have a choice:
Do we keep walking because it has become easy and comfortable or do we enact and "emergency plan" to rescue ourselves and get back on the narrow road that leads to life?
One more thought that I will unpack later. Jesus said, "I am the life."
There is no life apart from Jesus, but does simply knowing about Jesus mean we have life?

Tuesday Morning Meditation

This morning as I sat outside and watched the birds and felt the breeze I was mediating on the goodness of God. I found myself reading Paul's words in Galatians. "I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me." Galatians 2:20
Here's a few thoughts and questions I have:
What does it mean to "no longer live"?
What does it look like for "Christ to live in me"?
This is a big struggle I think for those of us who consider ourselves "followers of Christ". We spend much of our life trying to imitate Christ and quite frankly we ain't gonna get it done. (that's my GA slang coming out)
How can we imitate Christ? I've spent much of my life acting as if I was trying but I come up a bit short every day.
What I need in my life is less acting like Christ and more allowing Christ to live His life in me. The rest of this week I intend to ponder how I can stop doing and start being. Being one with Christ and allowing His life to take total control of what I think is my life.

Summer Slow Down

Summer is officially here! I guess it actually has been for a few weeks now, but we are well into the "summer slow down". I know that this means a lot of different things for all of us:
1) We don't have to get up as early to get the kids ready for school.
2) We may stay up later but our evenings are not filled with homework and projects to work on.
3) Vacation!
Summer is a unique time of year and we should take advantage of the gifts it brings to us. During the year we get so busy and focused that at times we loose sight of the things that matter most. As you vacation this summer take notice of the things you share as a family and identify ways you can implement some of those things throughout the rest of the year. Even after school starts back!
Take advantage of the opportunities you have to reconnect as a family and make a decision to not let it get so out of balance in the future.

STILL PROCESSING

After a week long trip through Illinois and Indiana I am still trying to land some of my thoughts. During my time hanging out with some other church leaders I was able to not only land some thoughts but also allow some other thoughts to take off.
It's good to find environments where we can think and not have it all figured out. Real growth in life comes, not when we look for our beliefs to be validated but when we have discussions from an open perspective.
So now I begin the journey of trying to process what is swirling around in my brain. For the next week or so I will be traveling on summer vacation with my family and this should afford me some still time and think time.
We will be camping in the North GA mountains. Nothing like a cool mountain stream or a big rock back in the woods to sit and ponder. For me that is some of the best places to connect with God.
I intend to journal my thoughts for about a week and then see where God takes me.
I am so glad that I don't have everything figured out! I am so glad that I don't have all the answers! I am so glad that I am part of a church that allows people to explore, grow, think and seek and that trusts God to lead people where only He can.
Wait! I hear the birds chirping and I see the sun coming up. Got to go!
Happy Camping!

Life Altering Experiences

We've all had those times in our lives when we knew that we had just experienced something that would alter the entire course of our lives. That is how I would describe the last 2 1/2 days for me. Almost four months ago I began a journey with a group of people through several texts that have really stretched my thinking. Each week we worked through a series of writings and lectures and spent time posting our comments to each other. It all came together this week as we met in Indiana for a few days of conversation and bringing our thoughts to some conclusion. At least that is what we had hoped to do. In reality what we have done is to just introduce ourselves to an entirely new set of questions. We didn't really answer anything but we started asking many more and new questions. I am learning more and more each day that who I become will be directly related to the questions I ask. We live in a culture, especially in the church, where people are more concerned with answering questions than asking them. If we are going to be who God wants us to be in the days ahead we have to be willing to ask different and better questions, even if there is no clear answer.

Jimmy John's

I just ate an amazing sandwich at a place called Jimmy John's in Michigan City, Indiana. What was even more amazing than the food was the service. From the time we walked in the door to the time a specialty sandwich was in my hands may have been 4 minutes, and that's because it took me
3 1/2 minutes to decide what I wanted. Here was my thought; "they get the service thing."
The service really blew me away. So here's my question to self;
Do I get the service thing?
Do I understand that my life is to be emptied out in service of others?
The truth of the matter is that most of my life I have looked to be served. I want others to serve me and meet my needs. I want the church to serve me and meet my needs.
Here's a question to consider;
How can I empty myself of my need to be served and live a life that focuses on others?

DECONSTRUCTION

Now that's an odd title for a post from me. My background, before I stepped in the world of church planting, was construction. (I can hear the thoughts, "how in the world did you make that leap?") We'll save that for another post. The major dialog, among the guys I'm hanging in Indiana with, today was about deconstruction within the church. For the last several months a group of us have worked through many books and one of them was John Caputo's, "What would Jesus Deconstruct?" Now there's a question for you to ponder. When I read the title a few months back my first thought was, "Everything we have constructed..." That may be a little bold or even hard but I wonder how much of what we do in our churches causes Jesus to scratch his head in wonder. We had some great conversation and I wouldn't even begin to try and unwrap very much of it here but two things I know for sure.
1) Deconstruction is HARD WORK!
2) We MUST do it anyway!
For those of you who are part of the family we call LifePoint you may not like some of the hard conversations we have in the days ahead but we have to begin to ask the questions.
Are we really who God has called us to be?
Are we really doing the things He has called us to do?
For those of you not a part of LifePoint, you may want to ask those questions in your world.
Tomorrow promises to be another challenging day as we continue our discussions here near "Touchdown Jesus" (that's South Bend Indiana) but I embrace the dialog and will post again after the day is over.