Over the past few months I have said that I would be sharing some exciting stuff regarding our efforts in planting a church, and today is one of those days!
As we begin to plan and prepare for the year ahead, we’ve already been working on many items necessary to plant a new church. One of those items? A church name. And as we considered naming options, there were a few things that went into the decision-making process, such as:
Do more good than bad, don’t make him angry, become a better person before you approach him.
That’s how many people view God, and most of us have at some point in our lives. And what is there to be grateful about a God you always have to appease?
Prominent Welsh pastor of the 20th century, D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones, once asked his congregation what they would do if while they were away from home one day, a friend who as at the home visiting paid an overdue bill for them. If it were a small bill, unpaid postage on a letter, you’d pat them on the back and say “thanks.”
Every few weeks I send an update to those that are supporting for and praying for me as I go through my church planting residency program as we prepare to plant a new church. As we begin the new year, I sent out a short video recapping some of the things I have been able to do so far.
I thought I would share this with everyone who may also be interested in what I’ve been up to.
As I mentioned in the video, we do invite anyone to join us this coming Tuesday night, you can also let is know if you are interested in coming by clicking here.
I’m excited for what’s ahead on this journey and look forward to sharing more soon!
Thanks to everyone who has spent time reading any of my posts. My prayer is that you have found them helpful in some way. Below are my most read posts of the past year.
It is one thing to struggle in the area of sexual purity, it is another thing altogether to regard it as unimportant.
Many people have an opinion of what Jesus was like and what it means to live like him. But many miss one major thing that Jesus did a lot of.
A follow up to the post on how to save thousands of dollars, this gets into the practical details of how to actually do it. It’s also easy to follow and implement!
My struggle with doing the exact thing I know I shouldn’t be.
This year a childhood friend of mine passed away by taking their own life. Here are some words for those in pain for any reason at all.
What if I told you that there was a way you could save thousands of dollars this year, and the chances are that you aren’t doing it? Best of all, I’m being completely serious!
One weekend earlier this year it was just me and Finley for the first time. I documented the whole experience on Twitter. Certainly my funniest post of the year!
Marriage exposes a lot about you, many things of which you can hide from everyone else but your spouse. So much so that I have occasionally thought I would be a better person if I weren’t married. But is that really true?
This is actually a post from 2014, but continues to resonate with many people. It’s my story of dealing with depression and what I learned from it.
This fall I began my church planting residency. Here is where I shared what I would be doing and how you can be a part.
The Christmas season is the time of year where we celebrate that the hope of the world has come to shine light into the darkness.
But for many, this season can bring the exact opposite of joy. Whether it’s a reminder of loved ones no longer with us, or the capping off to really difficult year, there are many reasons why this time of year can be particularly difficult.
And yet, this time of year is a reminder of a very important truth. That you are loved and cared for, regardless of how you may feel. Christmas is a reminder of something that we cannot afford to miss. That God cares for you.
Here is how one of my favorite pastors/authors Tim Keller puts it when it comes to not knowing why God allows so much suffering in this life. He says there is one thing we can know:
In every other religion of the world, if you do the right things, then God will love you, or forgive you, or give you what you want, etc. At it’s core, it’s basically about improving yourself in order to appease God or some other sort of Supreme Being or Thing.
This is the standard from which we all tend to operate. If you do good you deserve good, and if you do bad, you deserve bad. So it makes perfect sense that religions would teach this in some form.
Imagine if this is how I viewed my relationship with my daughter. That if she would be good then I would love her.
So if she holds in all her poops until her mom gets home (been trying to train her to do this for quite some time, still hoping it will work), sleeps through the night, takes good naps, and doesn’t cry during Duke games then I would love her.
In my last post I shared a dream of mine. A dream of reaching a lot of people with the love of Christ. A dream that can only happen if God does what only God can do.
Most of the time when God moves, he does it through ordinary people. The Bible is full of stories of people God did big things through. Surprisingly, other than Noah in the Old Testament who God said was a righteous man (Genesis 6:9), we have no reason to believe God chose to use the people he used other than his undeserved grace.
People like Abraham, Moses, and Joseph. In the New Testament we look at Jesus’ disciples, and if you were around that day, you would ask yourself why? Why did Jesus choose them?
Last week I spent some time in Chicago at a NewThing Network gathering. NewThing is a network of churches and church leaders who desire to plant more churches and reach more people for Jesus.
On the plane ride back I spent some time journaling about my new dream. It is a bit to intimidating to share this, but if it gets others excited it’s probably worth it right? Here is what I wrote:
I have been frustrated lately because I’ve felt a lack of direction. I have known planting a church was what I was working towards and what I felt God calling me to do, but it seemed like I was spinning my wheels a little bit. One morning during the first main session at the NewThing event when they were talking about writing your dream on a napkin, I felt myself slipping back into thinking something like this.
“Well, I know I want to plant a church that reaches people, and of course I want to raise up other leaders to do the same. But not because I am special in any way or because I can “do church” better, but for the simple fact that we need more healthy churches to reach more people. Especially in an area like Raleigh that is growing so quickly. And I’m willing, I’m willing to do something about it.”
Yes there are certain ways I want to do things and plans and specific passions I have, but it’s driven by the fact that we need more churches where people can live in community with one another. Not because I can do anything better than anyone else.
And this is when I felt the Lord say, “that’s not good enough.”
C.S. Lewis famously gave us this idea that Jesus is either a lunatic, a liar, or Lord.
“I am trying here to prevent anyone saying the really foolish thing that people often say about Him: “I’m ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher, but I don’t accept His claim to be God.” That is the one thing we must not say. A man who said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic —on a level with the man who says he is a poached egg— or else he would be the Devil of Hell.
You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God: or else a madman or something worse. You can shut Him up for a fool, you can spit at Him and kill Him as a demon; or you can fall at His feet and call Him Lord and God. But let us not come with any patronizing nonsense about His being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to.”
The point is that either Jesus is who he said he is, or he isn’t. And if he isn’t who he claimed to be, why listen to anything he had to say at all?
A few months ago I watched a video about professing Christians who essentially wanted people to know that they didn’t hold the stereotypically negative Christian beliefs. Basically, the point of the video was that not all Christians are like those Christians, i.e. the “crazy” ones.
Though the video did seem to insinuate that Christians who believe the Bible is authoritative in their lives should be included in those ‘crazy’ Christians.
Anyway, after those in the video said what they didn’t want to be labeled as thinking or believing, they then shared some things they did believe and/or were. And there is one statement that I found really interesting and remember thinking, why?
Here is what that person said:
“I believe in monogamy before sex.”
This was my initial thought: Why? That isn’t a Biblical concept.