Buffet Pants Required

I always have thought the “Sans-a-Belt” pants were hilarious.  Those stylish “man-slacks” that don’t require a belt because they stretch.  They have hidden elastic in the waistband to stay snug around ones girth, while maintaining the comfort that one may need in the moment of buffet expansion. Eat more and more and still have plenty of room for expansion.  Churches seem to require buffet pants now days.

Churches have become so focused on expanding the believer that it has become the goal.  We have made information assimilation the mark of a good Christian as apposed to the biblical standard of love.  We take and eat and hold onto, instead of give, share, and hand out.

Remember when Jesus took the fish and bread and multiplied it?  What would have happened if the disciples would have just kept those heavy baskets of food to themselves.  What if they would have formed a nice little circle of 12 – while wearing buffet pants – and just eaten until they were full, fat, and obese?  Obviously, if Jesus was giving out good food then it was meant for those that were closest to him.  Those that sacrificed and studied, ya know, the Christians. [this is called sarcasm in case you missed it]

Of course Jesus multiplied the food not for the disciples but for the thousands of hungry people that had gathered.  So I guess the real question is how should we act?  What is the best response today?

Time and time again, the bible tells us that we should love enough to give the bread of life to those around us.  Not to horde and keep.  Not to only belly up to the buffet on Sunday morning and then keep returning for more and more.  Instead, it is for us to go to the buffet and return with a plate of ‘life’ to those not willing to come to the buffet.  Let them taste the love and grace from the buffet of God, wooing them to realize that God loves them just the way they are.

Wouldn’t it be a novel idea if the church as a whole would change their goal of mature Christian; actually flips it around?  Instead of Christians being graded and ranked by how much they know, why don’t we make the scale and rank based on how much love and God we can give away?

It Chaffs Me

Most marketers and sales people focus most of their attention on taking clients or customers from “the other guy.”  If you sell Mt. Dew then you try and win over the Pepsi drinker.  If you sell Chevy’s then you need to win over the Toyota fan….I think you get the idea.

One of the things that has always chaffed my behind is how that mentality has seeped into the church world.  We set up our churches in a way that wins people over from “the other guy.”  Who is that “other guy” in church world?  Well, he is the pastor that has been just down the road for years and loves God.  He serves his people, and introduces many to Jesus.  He has set up his church experience to the best of his ability and he loves his flock that God has blessed him with.  So then Johnny come lately sets up his church 3 blocks away and markets and tells everyone how his church is not like the other one but better.  Yea that chaff’s me for a couple of reasons.

The number one reason that it makes me scratch is because I thought we were supposed to be focused on the lost.  You know, that silly little scripture about how we should leave the 99 to find the one.  Remember?  But instead we have purposefully set up systems and structures that perpetuate feeding the 99 and not allowing the one to even come in.  I know we need to take care of the flock that has been blessed to us, but wouldn’t we be better stewards if instead of feeding them and molding them, we taught them how to feed themselves.  Wouldn’t it be better to follow the example of Jesus?  What Sunday school program did he set up for his disciples?  Remember?  Oh, he said, “Go!  Don’t take anything with you.  If you get kicked out of a place, shake it off, walk it off and move on.”  Yep, no training.  No 5 steps to inner complacency, just hard core, ‘stop your whining and go.’

The second reason it chaffs me is because we are supposed to be on the same team.  That church and this church, your church and my church are all on the same team!

My 5 year old plays T-Ball, and it is a hoot!  I often relate it to watching moths mate.  One kid hits the ball, then 11 boys chase the ball.  They tackle each other, hit each other and hurt each other, all to get the ball.  The entire time coaches are yelling to get off each other, the ump is laughing, and the hitter rounds the bases to the applause of parents.  Yup, that’s a perfect picture of the Kingdom of God.  We are all fighting over the ball while Satan gets to run the bases.  How easy it would be if the mighty church would realize who is on the team, hand the ball to the one best suited at that given moment to chuck it at the Devil and beam him in the head.  (Okay I know beaming the runner in the head is not baseball, but we are talking about Satan.  Let’s beam him in the head.)

I never want SouthPoint to turn into an institution that is entirely focused on raising fat sheep who know every nook and cranny of the word, yet never leaving the stall to bring more in.  I have a dream, that it really is possible to establish a church, a movement that focuses on the un-churched and the de-churched in a powerfully life giving way.  Showing people that Jesus is loving and gracious, introduce them, and then send out those neophytes to bring in others.  When that happens we won’t have to strive for anybody to come, it will instead be a beautiful synergy that brings honor to God and the Kingdom.

One Prayer

This Sunday we begin One Prayer.  We are joining with over 600 other churches from all over the world and it is going to be extremely exciting!  The theme this year is “God is_________”.  This Sunday I will be filling in the blank with SURPRISE!  God is full of surprises.  You gotta come and be surprised by all that God has for us.

Along with One Prayer we want to serve.  Serving the commuity is part of the DNA of SouthPoint, and it goes well with us because we have so many amazing people and servants that it would be a waste to not do anything.  Watch this video from Dino Rizzo Healing Place Church and then comment HERE on some ways you would like to see us serve our community in the next few weeks.

Called not Counted

I read today in Romans chapter 9 where Paul wrote that God doesn’t count us but He calls us.  That might not seem like a big deal to you, but to me it’s great to know that God called me.  You have to know somebody’s name in order to call them.  You have to call their name. God knows my name!  He knows that my mom named me Craig.  I’m not just “pastor number 1,365,432”, He knows my name.  That helps me get through difficult times knowing that God knows who I am, and he knows my hurts, my pains, and my joys.  He called me, he doesn’t count me.

No matter what I’m going through today, which is actually more than I think I can handle sometimes, God knows where I am and he cares.  He genuinely knows where I am and how am doing, because he’s the one who called me, by name.  Nope, today I am more than a number.  I am more than just another person in the sea of humanity, my creator knows me by name.

Don’t you always feel good when you go some where and the person in charge or a bigwig calls you by name?  Wouldn’t it be cool if you went to like a Foo Fighters concert and in front of thousands of people the lead singer said, “I just wanna give a shout out to my good friend ____________ (place your name in the blank).”  Yea that would be awesome.

Well, I know that today the creator of all is calling us by name and saying, “Yea I wanna give a shout out to _______________ (Your name on the blank).  I know they are having a bad day and a rough time of it right now, but they are on my mind and on my heart and so I wanna just give them a shout out in front of all of creation and say that you are a champion!  Keep fighting.  Don’t stop!  The battle stinks but the victory is sweet!”

Prioritizing is Silly

If I call something stupid, then if you do that thing, you will be offended.  So instead of me calling it stupid, how about I back up and call it silly?  Now that we have that taken care of, let’s begin.

Making God your number one priority in life is stupid…wait I mean silly.  Yes.  Making God your number one priority in life is silly.  I know, I know, you just cringed.  Your ‘spirit’ just cried out “HERESY!”  Of course the truth of the matter is that’s not your ‘spirit,’ that’s years of religious conditioning.  So set that aside and let’s continue shall we?

We have been taught to prioritize God as number one.  Therefore we spend our devotional time with him first thing in the morning (because he is first priority).  Also, if we have a decision to make, we always put God first (because he is first priority), that just makes sense.  Now you are at ease because that’s what you have been taught.  That is how you process things and how it just makes sense.

I talked with several people who prioritize life by saying, “God is #1, Family is #2, Church/ministry is #3, and work is #4.”  And that just sounds nice and neat and comfortable.  Of course that’s stupid…I mean silly.

God is NOT a priority.  In fact the bible never once, in ANY translation calls God a priority.  To make him a priority makes him measurable.  God is NOT measurable.  God is not a line on a spreadsheet or an allotted time in your schedule.  By making him a priority we make him containable.  We spend our “God Time” in the morning and then we move on to work.  So God is not in your work?  What about in your family?  So when you are spending time with your family that means God is no longer important because you have now moved on to priority number two?

I can hear you screaming and arguing already, “That’s not what it means Craig!”  Well let me point you to a little verse in the Bible.  It Acts 17:28 it says that it is in God that we live and move and have our being.  Hate to burst your nice neat pyramid of prioritized living but God is life, he is not a part of our lives.  That’s like saying you prioritize breathing.  Which is more important, your pants, or breathing?  Hopefully you would say breathing, but I can guarantee you never see ‘breathing’ on any priority list, yet it is essential to life.  God is not a thing you can put on a list, he is life itself.

So what’s the big deal?  The big deal is that when we prioritize God it makes for a nice excuse to get out of things.  We blame situations and how we spend out time on a flimsy priority list as apposed to recognizing that God is LIFE!  He is the essence of what we do he is not a thing that we do.  God is not a time etched out in our busy day, he IS our day.  He IS our very next breath.

Great Weekend! Great Peeps!

What a whirlwind of a week.  Patti and I went to the ARC conference in North Carolina and that was simply awesome.  I know it’s true but it always surprises me how filling, and encouraging it is to get around like minded pastors who are struggling in like minded ways, and also kicking the Devil’s butt in a like minded fashion.  Yea I was encouraged.  Pastoring can be tough.

But I don’t say that as a complaint, not at all.  I absolutely love what I do and I couldn’t think of another thing that I would want to do, and I guess that’s what is so invigorating is getting to do what I want to do, and working alongside people that I amazingly love.  SouthPoint has the greatest team ever!  I’m sure people from other churches that are reading this right now are thinking, “no my church does!” Well, since this is my blog, let me just say, that you are unequivocally wrong!  Southpoint Church has a team that will rock your face off!

This Sunday we added more amazing people to our already astounding team.  I am so amazed at what God is doing at SouthPoint.  It’s one thing to add people to the team, but to add high level, quality God-lovers, is another creature all together.  Thank you God for allowing me to be a part of this amazing group of people!

The Resistance

I had a question hit me the other day, and it made me think. So now I’ll throw that question at you. When did the movement of Jesus Christ become great? Did it become great while Jesus was on earth, or did it find its growth and greatness after that? When Jesus was here he was the seed of God that was planted, but that plant, the Kingdom, did not become great until that movement, that cause, was brought nose to nose with lions. The worldwide spread of the Good News didn’t happen until people’s faith was considered a crime. It was not until people of faith were met with resistance. Isn’t it interesting that historically we see the church growing modestly while Jesus had it in the launch phase? Obviously this is no reflection on the leadership skills of Christ since, after all, he is the Son of God and the greatest leader of all time. However, it does show that when Jesus said he was going away so that greater things could happen, he understood what he was meant to do, and he understood what was going to happen. The resistance that the early church met actually fueled their passion. It fueled it to the point of a blazing fire of information and inspiration, which quickly spread across the entire map. If it wasn’t for the resistance, I don’t believe the church would have grown like it did. Of course that is interesting enough, but then I have to wonder why we try so hard to run from resistance. Isn’t it amazing that when we meet resistance we think it’s not God’s will. We do everything in our power to sidestep or run or avoid resistance. Could it be that the very thing we are avoiding is the very thing that would make us successful in our field of life? Would David had risen in popularity as fast, if he would not have had a Goliath? Think about it. You can find in the Bible where David fought all his battles with the sword of Goliath. A sword that was logistically way to large for his frame, but he carried it to remind himself, and everybody else, that he was able to overcome and fight through the resistance. Hmmmm. I wonder what’s in your life right now that is resistance and you’re trying to avoid it. You are doing everything you can to get out of its way. Hmmmmm. I wonder if pushing through that resistance is what you need to do to be molded, and shaped, into the leader that you are wanting to become. Leaders become leaders not because of training, but by pushing through the resistance that life throws at them.

Prayer? Really?

We get bored with prayer.
Now that’s a bold statement right?  Now days we have so many other means to achieve what we need or want, that prayer seems to have dropped in its ranking of priorities.  Years ago prayer was always first.  Prayer was the path or road to grasping what one needed, today it is seems to be a time filler when we are really bored, or a segue in church world to move from one element to the next.

One of my good family friends was healed of cervical cancer this week.  It was amazing.  If you don’t believe in stuff like that – sorry you’re really missing out.  Her healing did not come about by a program or a new product or drug.  It appeared because God heard the prayers, and was moved by the prayers of His people.

So then to add to all that thought provoking mumbo-jumbo, I get up this morning and begin reading in Luke 18, where Jesus tells every one a story about a widow who would not stop badgering the king.  The king was godless, yet he honored her request because she continued to berate him with her request.  The king answered just to get her off his back.  So the moral of the story is:  How much more will our kind loving heavenly father meet our needs?

Okay so you knew all that already right?  Fine, I kinda did too.  But what made me smile is what happens at the end of the Luke 18.  At the beginning Jesus taught and told a story, and then at the end of the chapter he allows them to see a real life example of it, persistence in action.

The last few verses of Luke 18 is where the blind man finds out that Jesus is walking by and begins shouting, “Son of David, have mercy on me!”  The crowd told him to shut up.  The people, the followers of Jesus, who just heard the story about the persistent widow tell him to shut up.  Ah, we can learn so much from dumb, hardheaded people can’t we?  But the man never stops shouting, until Jesus comes over and says, “What can I do for you?”

Are you shouting loud enough?  Are you still persistently calling out to God, or have you turned to your own resources to find help?  Are you still trusting God to bring the answer, or is he just taking too long for your liking, so you’ve begun seeking your own answers?

When you are persistent and patient the answer from the king is always more amazing than any answer we could conjure up on our own.

Pray brings amazing results.
Digging through our box of resources and experiences, only yields us the same things we’ve always gotten before.

Recalibrating in Tough Times

Have you noticed that everybody seems to be a bit unnerved about our economy?  From the president to the dishwasher, everybody is talking about the economy.  People are praying hard to keep their jobs, or find a job.  It seems like no matter who you talk to, the economy and comes up.  It shows what’s on our hearts, and the worry that we carry.  Let’s see if we can throw some things out there that might help us just a bit:

The first thing is don’t panic.  In Jeremiah 10:10 it says to not freak out about the times we live in.  We have a propensity to sit and watch the news and take in things from the media and then step outside and lose our ever-luv’n minds!  Again, don’t panic.  Panic never solves anything, nor are you set up to fix our national crisis, so think and pray.  Notice, freaking out is not on the list of things for you to do today.  So just don’t.

The second thing is to stream line your life.  Anything that is in your life that is not facilitating you living your life’s mission; cut it out.  Remove it.  Find things and areas that you can cut back on or remove.  Usually we have so many luxuries in our lives that we really can do without, we just don’t take the time to think about it.  A happy, healthy life, can be sustained and lived without many of the luxuries we have today.  I guess that’s why they call them luxuries.

Thirdly, connect with friends and family.  These are the relationships that keep us going and encourage us in tough times.  Isn’t it interesting that during the great depression and other tight times in our country, you saw families come together.  Entertainment was sitting around with family and friends laughing and playing games.  Now entertainment usually involves money, and time away from family and friends.  Difficult times need to drive us back to those that matter the most.

Next, be a voice of hope wherever you go.  Not can you, how can you.  You can, no matter how bad it gets, be a voice of hope to somebody.  Remember, etch it on your heart, we are to be a voice of hope in the community.  This is what we have been called to.  It is a higher calling but a good one.  You will meet someone today that needs hope, be ready to point them in the right direction.

Finally, take more time to listen to God.  Difficult times are when time with God becomes paramount.  Every moment we spend with God recalibrates us.  It’s as if the world gets us off course a wee-bit, but time with God recalibrates our compass and returns us to the rock solid course that we used to be on.  It’s a course of hope and life.

Sunday to Wednesday

Snow closed church!  It was the first time in 2 1/2 years that we were unable to do church at SouthPoint.  DRAT!  It was also the last message in our Shack series that I was so looking forward to giving, DOUBLE DRAT!!  Then I remembered that this Wednesday is First Wednesday, YEAH!  Then I realized I could indeed give the final message on the Shack.  DOUBLE YEAH!!  To top it off, I realized that the band had already prepared music for Sunday and they could do that on Wednesday night as well, TRIPLE YEAH!!!  So it’s official, this Wednesday night we will be having a kicking First Wednesday.  You don’t want to miss it, and you wanna bring somebody with you, I know you do!  Directions and info are on our website, or just click here.