How to get lucky, healed, and generous

I'm not sure that I ever saw this stuff quite so clearly. Proverbs 3 really helps me see it.

Like, How to live a lucky life, favored by 'the gods', where things sort of lean you way and you get more than your share of breaks. Proverbs 3:3 spells it out. Luck ("favor") is not about circumstances that just happen. It actually comes from two character qualities- loyalty and kindness. If you are a person who has become loyal, and deeply kind, luck starts happening your way. I can become lucky on purpose!

That really helps me.

And I have been in those places after a deep hurt where I felt I would never be whole again. I have often been tempted to think that all I needed to heal, was time. But I was wrong- and many times time only deepened the hurt! But vs. 5 and 7 give me clear (if not always easy) steps for how to find my way back to emotional health when someone or some devil tried to steal it away. "Trust in the Lord with ALL your heart, ...distrust everyone else, even your own self!" (My paraphrase)

In Proverbs 3, I found how to get enough money to share, how to feel loved by God, and how to get respect. It shows me specific steps so that I can diagnose and fix what is missing so far in my journey to change the world in a good direction! I am no longer waiting for good things to just happen in their own good time. I can make them happen!

All of these things are things I NEED to accomplish the vision that God put on my heat for 09. I am eager to get started...

slow learning

I like consensus leadership. I like sitting with peers and 'talkin' shop' and finding things we agree on and doing them together.

But I keep discovering that my style there is often not the best leadership. Its often better, I am learning, to lay out a well ordered plan, and then ask for people to contribute, rather than discussing the entire thing together from the very start.

God help me have the courage to develop and lay out the plan, the humility to let people then tear it apart until it fits them, and the wisdom to know what to give away and what to keep.

The Dreaming God's Dream wave

"Dreaming God's Dream" turned out to be more than I expected. God did things in people's hearts, especially in the area of creating vision in us again.

Since Sunday, I have heard from quite a few people who wrote, called, or stopped by to say that they are flowing in vision again. I have heard about several dreams, breakthrough ideas for a couple of businesses, and a couple of parents finding courage to parent through tough times again.

"Vision lift" seems to be happening. This is what I would call the syndrome when we feed off each other in the area of vision, and we help each other focus on the future more than hurt about the past.

It all feels very, very powerful. God is up to stuff, and I get to see it and watch it unfold. We are all going to have some cool stories to tell about what He did, I think.

This weekend; Dreaming God's Dream!

This weekend is the scariest, most powerful, most community changing sermon material I have been given by the Holy Spirit in a long time. Maybe ever.

Because it is one thing to preach a subject well. It's quite another to live it.

2 days ago, I was almost hyper-ventilating with the scope of what God has instructed us to do this year. I love that He asked us, but sometimes, I confess, I wonder about His judgement in asking ME to have anything to do with it.

Not that I don't trust the power of God. It's that I don't trust my flesh. God is so powerful, huge, and well able to do this stuff without me. The part that scares me is my penchant for messing things up, and forcing Him to do stuff without me. You know, like if He can't trust me to stay the course, or to hang on when life gets scary.

SO here we go- Dreaming God's Dream. I get the feeling that this could be the best ever.

God, help me not mess up what you want to do. 

John Wega, US Christian Commission

I asked John Wega of the US Christian Commission to come and be interviewed for my "Developing Outreach and Discipleship Programs" class tonight. (Thanks Tom Rees for this fantastic class idea).

John, a member of Bethel Assembly in Littlestown,  is doing some amazing outreach to tourists in Gettysburg. A few years ago he (A medical biologist) discovered that there were thousands of virtually untold stories of how believers ministered to the soldiers who fought and died at Gettysburg, and brought thousands of them to Christ.

John has become an dominant historian, documenting and collecting these stories of Christian work around and through the Civil War battles. He has re-constituted the US Christian Commission, and is again using it as a platform for reaching people with eternal life. He builds and conducts tireless period-perfect chapels on the battlefields and in the town of Gettysburg, challenging listeners with the gospel of Jesus Christ. He owns and operates a museum, conducts "living histry' exhibits that really honor both the history and Jesus, and conducts tours that honor the men and women who worked so hard to help hurting soldiers, and make an eternal difference.

I have often been deeply frustrated with how little I or we do to reach the millions of tourists who visit Gettysburg. John really encouraged me with the work that he is doing, and the affect that it is having. He is a man of real vision, courage, and positive action for God.

Way to go John!

Gotta be a God thing

If this is gonna happen- if we are going to be able to plant 10 churches in partnership with other churches in the community, well, it is going to HAVE to be a God thing.

I am more and more aware of how difficult it can be for churches to work together closely on a project such as this. I am not amazed that it doesn't happen more.

I guess the bottom line is, we are asking churches to trust us that we will make this a win for them, and will do everything we can to make it something that will cause their churches to grow, even while they plant another one.

We are trusting in God to make that happen. Not because it's our idea (planting churches). It's His. And He will do it -build His church- with or without us.

I want it to be with.