Best thing I’ve seen this week!

Brilliant…

Simply brilliant!

Conversations: Wesley on Worship

Just read this account of John Wesley at a meeting:

“Mr. Smyth read prayers, and gave out hymns which were sung by fifteen or twenty fine singers; the rest of the congregation listening with much attention and as much devotion as they would have done to an opera.  But is this Christian worship?  Or ought it ever to be suffered in a Christian church?”

So the question is…

What should Christian worship in the church setting look like?

I’m Praying…

It’s still dark outside, but it’s morning.

Sometimes I wonder if days start like this because of what I ate.  Or is it because God is trying to tell me something?  I don’t know for sure.  All I know is this…I’m excited about what God is doing in my heart and I’m praying the expectations and dreams I have in my sleep are those given to me by God.

I’m praying…

What are you praying for?

“Love your family, not (fill in the blank)”

When I heard Andy Stanley say that his greatest leadership decision was to realize that God has called him to love his family and not the church, it was both uncomfortable and freeing.  For so long I’ve watched pastors and peers in ministry say they keep their marriage is their first priority, but do things like ignore their wives phone calls or say they keep their family #1 and cheat on family time for ministry time.

I knew that something was wrong with that picture, but I didn’t see a model of anything otherwise.  So what did I do?  I followed it. I followed it all the way to the point hurting me and my family.  I was so busy building God’s church that I wasn’t doing a good job building and leading my family.  That was until I was challenged by a mentor to find out what God’s priorities for my life are.  That’s how my wife and I came up with this.

Then I came to Maple Grove Evangelical Free Church.

I witnessed a Senior pastor who – no matter who he was talking to – would stop the conversation if his wife was calling and gave me the permission to do the same!  I was loved by an elder board who were constantly checking to see if my family and I were doing well.  I had an executive pastor who was always challenging me to watch my hours and not to forget to keep the priority of my family.  He would actually ask me on a regular basis, “How is your wife feeling?”

Then my senior pastor gave me a DVD with Andy Stanley talking about his greatest leadership decision and Wayne Cordeiro speaking on the topic of living leadership out of spiritual, emotional, and physical health – to not be a “Dead Leader Running.”

Andy Stanley made a statement that basically said that God asked him to love his wife, not the church.  He said that when he realized that it was his job to love his family and that God would build the church, it was freeing to him.

I think this is true for anyone – even if you aren’t working in ministry.  I think that too often we get caught up in our careers that we forget that our #1 job is being a father or being a wife.

What if it is true?

What if concentrating on loving and leading your family would be the key to having success in your workplace?

What if loving and leading your family is the real solution to finding the joy you’re looking for in your career?

What if loving and leading your family is the thing that God is waiting for you to do, so HE can be the God supplies your needs?

What if?

Book Review: A Million Miles in a Thousand Years by Donald Miller

It’s not very often I pick up a book and read from cover to cover in one sitting.  This time I did.  All 255 pages of it. ok…I guess I did stop to make myself some ramen noodle soup, but other than that I was completely overwhelmed by Donald Miller’s new book.

The truth is that I have a copy of his older book, Blue Like Jazz, but have never finished it.  It wasn’t that it wasn’t good, it just didn’t overwhelmed me to finish it.   I think I’m going to back and finish reading that book too.

I guess it wouldn’t be too much to say that Donald Miller is probably one of the best story tellers I’ve come across in a while.  I haven’t been this mesmerized by an authors ability to pain pictures with words since I read Wilson Rawls’ Where the Red Fern Grows as a child.  Why?  Simply put, he tells a good story.

In the opening of his book, Donald writes this:

“…if what we choose to do with our lives doesn’t make a story meaningful, it won’t make a life meaningful either.”

This book basically is set on explaining this principle.  From sharing stories of how he when through the painstaking process of rewriting his life for a movie, to falling for a girl with a cute nose during a grueling trek through the mountains to Machu Picchu, he somehow inspires you to live for something more.  And subtly yet profoundly her establishes that this is best understood in living the life of biblical faith.

So what would I say about this book?  Probably what Max Lucado said when asked to submit a review of the book… “I already want to re-read this book.”