The Discipleship Experiment

Jesus’ lifestyle on earth exemplified the reality of the Kingdom of God. Because of his intimate relationship with the Father Jesus lived in freedom and set others free. He was confident in his identity and calling. He was moved with compassion for the afflicted and connected them to God’s healing touch. Under the leading and power of the Holy Spirit Jesus released the Kingdom of God on this earth. Jesus is the picture of humanity living in right relationship to God.

Jesus was recognized as a rabbi (master or teacher). Back in the day, a rabbi chose followers (disciples) who would sit under his teaching and learn from his ways with the expectation that one day his followers would do the same. Jesus chose twelve young ordinary men and spent three years teaching and demonstrating the Kingdom of God. In Matthew 28 Jesus instructed these first disciples to go and make more disciples. This was their mission and continues to be the mission of the Church today. When it comes to developing disciples, however, the American church is failing.

· The majority of evangelical churches report negative growth of 3%, meaning that we are losing more disciples than we are making.

· Sixty six percent of Christians after the age of 18 drop out of church because it no longer has an impact in their lives.

· According to the Rainer Institute, 90% of Christians die without leading one person to Jesus.

· Statistically speaking, it takes a church of 100 believers 365 days and $100,000 in resources to lead 1 person to the Lord.

· The divorce rate among church members is 2% higher than the rest of the population.

· According to Barna, 8 out of 10 Christians are biblically illiterate.

· Twenty percent of the church does eighty percent of the work.

Something is wrong. Something needs to change. We can do better.

If you are a devoted follower of Jesus, then you want to become more like him and you want to see our church succeed in developing mature disciples. We all desire to see people: living in freedom, experiencing intimacy with God, cultivating healthy relationships, impacting the lives of people around them, etc. The truth is, however, we are falling short. This is not to say that we aren’t seeing people touched. It’s just to say that we can do better in developing mature disciples.

What if we could provide a way for maturing disciples to grow in their understanding and experience of the Kingdom God… a place where there is a deeper level of teaching and a safe environment to learn how to “do the stuff” like hearing from God and praying for others… a place where we can be challenged and stretched and do it “together”?

The Discipleship Experiment:

Here’s something we are working on. How about a large group – small group experience? We would begin with a potluck meal (bring your favorite dish). Then we would move into a time of singing worship songs to the Lord. Who knows? Some nights we may just minister to the Lord or to one another if that is what he wants. We would normally then have a teaching moment to challenge and inspires us toward the kingdom lifestyle. Then we would break out into small groups for the rest of the evening dialing down to listen and respond to God.

Just a note about the small group dynamic… we will ask people to commit to a particular small group for a period of time so that closer relationships can be developed and people can receive care from one another within that group. Also, our hope is to identify people within our church community who have a “pastoral/shepherd’s” heart who will touch base with group members during the week.

One of the benefits of this process is that it can make things a little easier. Hopefully, this will help those new to our church community to enter a small group while giving others more time to hang out with friends as well as get to know more people. This will also build a sense of unity within our church family. We will be experiencing the same thing at the same time.

Below is some of the content that we will be exposed to:

Growing in an Intimate relationship with God -

- Grounded in his love

- Filled with His Spirit

- Learning how to hear and obey his voice

- Worshipping God

- Spending time with God in prayer and Bible reading

- Turning to God when tempted or having sinned

- Free from sins and unhealthy habits and mindsets

Developing Healthy Relationships with others –

- Loving other people

- Helping to foster a culture of honor

- Practice confrontation in a healthy manner

- Becoming self-controlled rather than controlling others

- Drawing the good out of others

- Reconciliation through confession and forgiveness

- Submission

Living with a sense of mission and purpose-

- Discovering role and gifts and ministry

- Inviting others into a relationship with Jesus

- Equipped and empowered to pray for the sick and oppressed and hurting

- Taking risks for the sake of the kingdom

- Helping the poor and disenfranchised

Living in Financial Freedom-

- Tithe 10%

- Save 10%

- Get out of debt

- Live on and give away what’s left

Someone Else's Blog Entry

Here's a blog entry by Jason Chatraw, a pretty good Vineyard dude, that I found helpful and believe that many others can relate. 

Confessions of a Recovering Hypocrite

Appearances are difficult to keep up. Day after day, wearing a mask becomes a burden too much to bear for even the most determined of hypocrites. I know all this because I was one.

Though I resisted exposure, freedom came when I quit pretending. I wish I could say that I came up with the idea to quit faking it until I made it, but the truth is I got exposed. Despite my best efforts to keep things hidden, my sinful nature consistently removed my mask like a villain masquerading in a horror film. My flaws were openly displayed for my wife. The pretending was over.

Instead of going into denial, I decided to embrace my flaws. That is not to say I ignored them, but being honest about the state of affairs in my heart gave me the freedom to address them in the context of loving relationships.

Brokenness keeps us from experiencing the fullness of life God intended for us to have. And coming to terms with our brokenness through our relationship with Christ is what brings us to wholeness.

Jesus was quite clear about the dangers of allowing sin to fester in our lives, especially to the point where it causes others to stumble:

If your hand or your foot causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away. It is better for you to enter life maimed or crippled than to have two hands or two feet and be thrown into eternal fire. And if your eye causes you to sin, gouge it out and throw it away. It is better for you to enter life with one eye than to have two eyes and be thrown into the fire of hell. – Matthew 18:8-9

But do we really live like we believe those words?

Far too often, we allow those broken parts of our lives to envelope the whole. What is good becomes diminished by the darkness in our hearts. Instead of giving permission to the Holy Spirit to extricate these things, we allow them to live beneath the surface, hoping no one will discover them. Slowly but surely, life begins to get drained from us. The life we could experience in the here and now is sucked dry by the sin in our lives that remains. Instead of dealing with it, we foolishly hope it will disappear.

I want to enter into life, that place where everything is in harmony, that place where our relationships with others and our relationship with God all seem to be singing the same tune of openness and transparency. When we experience life in this manner, our brokenness begins to heal. Instead of acting out in anger, we demonstrate compassion and kindness and patience. Instead of tearing others down, we become bastions of encouragement. Instead of acting selfish, we demonstrate the selfless nature of Christ.

Put down your masks and you’ll discover the fullness of what God intended. You’re not perfect—and we all know it. So, why keep pretending?

Act. Identify two areas in your life that you know need to be addressed and ask someone close to you to pray with you about them.

Pray. Father, help me to be more transparent and open in my relationships, unafraid to admit my flaws to others. Use my brokenness to continue the work of wholeness that you desire to do in me.

Doubting Thomas

This coming Sunday I am going to preach from John 20 and focus on Thomas' experience. Whether you are familiar with Scripture or not, most people have heard the expression, "Doubting Thomas". This term is used to describe someone who refuses to believe something without hard proof... a skeptic. Most of the time, this term has a negative connotation. 

I have been listening to sermons and doing a little study on my own and have concluded that Thomas has gotten a bum rap. I am still putting things together for my message so a I don't have a fully developed perspective, but I will say that as I continue to study the Scripture and even reflect on my own life experience I realize that I am very much like Thomas. 

And the thing that Thomas wanted and longed for is the very thing I want and long for... to encounter the Living Son of God.

Excerpt from Last Week's Sermon

The fact that women were the first to receive the announcement of the resurrection is significant when you think about the prevailing attitude toward women in that day. It was a male dominated society. Women really did not have a voice. As a matter of fact, in a court of law, the testimony of a woman was invalid. What they had to say did not matter. 

But, the angel (at the tomb of Jesus) tells Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James and Salome: “Go tell the others” what you have seen and what you have heard. You are the witnesses to what God has done. 

This is amazing to me. It reveals something about God’s character and nature. He gives the responsibility of communicating the most important and most shocking news in the world to those whom society overlooked. And it was their testimony that shocked the world in that day and ignited a movement that became an unstoppable force. This testimony, backed by the Holy Spirit, has spread from nation to nation and from generation to generation like ripples across the water… and it has reached us here in our day.

The content of their testimony is the very reason that we have gathered here.

Mark 16

 

Resurrection

The message of the resurrection is that this world matters! That the injustices and pains of this present world must no be addressed with the news that healing, justice and love have won...

If Easter means Jesus Christ is only raised in a spiritual sense - then it is only about me, and finding a new dimension in my personal spiritual life. But if Jesus Christ is truly risen from the dead, Christianity becomes good news for the whole world - news which warms our hearts precisely because it isn't just about warming hearts. 

Easter means that in a world where injustice, violence and degradation are endemic, God is not prepared to tolerate such things-and that we will work and plan, with all the energy of God, to implement victory of Jesus over them all. 

Take away Easter and Karl Marx was probably right to accuse Christianity of ignoring problems of the material world. Take it away and Freud was probably right to say Christianity is wish-fulfillment. Take it away and Nietzsche probably was right to say it was for wimps. 

N.T. Wright, Simply Christian (Harper 2006), p. 110.

God is Faithful

As I journey through this Holy Week, I think about the people who followed and believed in Jesus during his ministry and what they might have thought when they saw him nailed to the cross and dying right before their eyes. 

Besides feeling deep sorrow and grief at seeing a loved one dying a tortuous death, they must have been filled with profound confusion. They must have been asking, "How can this be happening? What about the promises about the kingdom? Where did we go wrong?" 

They were so certain that Jesus was the Messiah. They trusted him. They dedicated their lives to him. But in that moment, their Messiah had been defeated. It looked as if it was all over. 

When Jesus was on the cross, the crowds saw defeat. They saw weakness. They saw pain. They saw ugliness. It looked as if the oppressors won again. 

Do you ever feel defeated? Maybe there are circumstances that challenge your perception of God. Maybe you see only pain or weakness. You look in the mirror and see ugliness. Maybe "things" just don't seem to be working out. You ask questions like, "How can this be happening? What about God's promises? Where is God in all of this?" 

Through the cross, God personally entered into our personal experience. He was identifying with the pain and heartache that comes from living in this fallen world. He chose to identify with the weak and the oppressed. Through the cross, Jesus not only suffered for us but suffers with us. 

John Stott writes, "I could never myself believe in God if it were not for the Cross. In the real world of pain, how could one worship a God who was immune to it? 

Take heart. Even when things are at their darkest, remember, God has not changed. He is faithful. Even though it may look as if everything is falling apart and hope seems to be vanishing away. God has not changed. He is faithful. 

He never promised a life without of pain or disappointment. As a matter of fact, he told us to count on it. But he did promise that he would never leave us alone. He will give strength. He will continue to be faithful even when things get a little confusing.

Seeing the Real Jesus

From the Lenten Devotional, Sacred Space.

Jesus excited curiosity so that people like Zacchaeus and Greek visitors to the festival wanted to see him, to know what he looked like.

But Jesus had other ideas, confronting and revolutionary ideas. To "see" him was to enter totally into his way of thinking, to understand why he had to suffer and die and rise again. Like the grain of wheat, Jesus has to let go of everything, including his own life, in order to bring life. This is the "emptying", the kenosis, that the Letter to the Philippians speaks about. In the process, Jesus and we will be transformed, just as the grain of wheat, apparently annihilated, becomes something altogether greater and enriching for others.

Are we ready for that? Are we afraid to let everything go? Is Jesus asking too much? Lead us to see and accept this as the core of Jesus' life, so that we really see him.

The Sense of God's Love

This week's Lenten thought from Sacred Space.

"Then he came to his senses." This deceptively simple statement about the prodigal son poses a profound challenge to us all. None of us can claim to be without sin. "We all fall short of the glory of God." Lent can be that moment in which we come to our senses, face facts about ourselves, and make the appropriate adjustments.

After a brief romantic affair with threatened to destroy his marriage and alienate his family and friends, John came to his senses. Before matters got worse, he had the courage to face his fault, admit his sin, and turn back. He was fortunate to receive his wife's understanding, love and forgiveness.

During Lent we turn back to God and entrust ourselves once again to his immense mercy. We allow the Father to embrace us in our sinfulness and sorrow. In being forgiven much, we discover the depths of God's love.

The Lord's Prayer

Our church is really focusing on the meaning of Lent. Its a time to evaluate our lives and be reminded of our dependence on God for everything.

This past Sunday I preached a sermon about what is commonly known as, The Lord's Prayer. I guess it could also be known as The Disciple's Prayer because it was a prayer that Jesus used to instruct his followers to pray. One of the things that I wanted to stress is that this prayer wasn't given as a formula just to recite over and over, but it was given to influence the content of prayer.

During the latter part of my preaching of this sermon I led the congregation in praying through this prayer. As I was doing this I began to be gripped by the power of what I was praying and I became very emotional. It was very hard to contain myself and I am sure I was quite the spectacle, but it didn't matter to me. In that moment I just wanted the congregation to sense how great our Heavenly Father is and how transformational his love and forgiveness can be in our lives.

Knowing him impacts everything. It impacts our values and decisions. It impacts the way we receive from him and the way we relate to others. I will never read or pray this prayer the same way again.

You can listen if you wanna. Go to PRAYER.

Prayer for Essentials RED

For: The Institute of Contemporary and Emerging Worship Studies, St. Stephens University, Essentials Red Online Worship History Course with Dan Wilt.

Prayer, for me, is wonderfully frustrating. There are times when it seems easy and I feel connected to God while at other times I feel like I am wading through peanut butter. I have been a Christian for a while, so you would think that I have a handle on prayer, right? More than that, I am a pastor, a professional. This should be easy. Wrong. Sometimes prayer is hard work. At least it is for me.

One of the things that I have learned about myself is that I need some sort of structure. Some time ago I looked at how our early church fathers and mothers handled prayer. It seems as if they needed some structure, too. They scheduled prayer into their days. So, I have done this myself. As I schedule my days, I try to schedule a time for prayer. I use a devotional book, The Little Book of Hours, from the Benedictine monks. It has helped me immensely by helping me to become focused. My mind tends to wander.

I am very grateful for this structure. I try not to just go through the motions. I try to keep my focus on God’s presence in my life and envision him listening and watching me. I am seeking his face.

This has got be to thinking about prayer as it relates to our worshiping community. In our services, we are relying a little more on written prayers that we pray out loud together. I love this because it reminds me that I not only have a “personal” prayer life, but I also have a communal pray life, too.

Also related to prayer and our church community, I am tinkering around with the idea of a midweek prayer time during the lunch hour. It would be short (30 min) where some of us could meet up and be led through some readings and prayer. Just a thought. Haven’t talked to anyone, yet. We’ll see.

Below is one of my favorite “written prayers” by St. Patrick. I love it.

“Christ beside me, Christ before me;
Christ behind me, Christ within me;
Christ beneath me, Christ above me;
Christ to right of me, Christ to left of me;
Christ in my lying, my sitting, my rising;
Christ in heart of all who know me,
Christ on tongue of all who meet me,
Christ in eye of all who see me,
Christ in ear of all who hear me.

For to the Lord belongs salvation,
And to the Lord belongs salvation
And to Christ belongs Salvation.

May your salvation, Lord, be with us always.

Time and Space for Essentials RED

For: The Institute of Contemporary and Emerging Worship Studies, St. Stephens University, Essentials Red Online Worship History Course with Dan Wilt.

One of the ideas that we have been asked to focus on during this section of learning is "remember" as it relates to time and space. I believe this is one of the most important things we can do as followers and worshipers of Jesus. The reason it is so important is that we have a tendency to forget what God has done and is going to do. People in our culture seem to be driven by the question 'What have you done for me lately?' Sadly, church folks seem to ask God this question, too. When life gets difficult or we don't 'feel' God's presence or things aren't as easy as we like there is the temptation to doubt God... to doubt his love or care. There is the temptation to believe that he is distant or tending to more important things.

So, we need to remember. We need to remember what God has already done. We need to remember the new life he has given us through the death and resurrection of Jesus. We need to remember he has placed his Spirit in us and has provided for us a new family. We need to remember that he has promised to never leave us or forsake us. We need to remember.

This is one of the reasons that our church community receives the Eucharist every week during our worship gathering. Because we live in a culture with fleeting and flaky desires and a tendency to forget, I want our church community to be reminded what God has done. I want us to know that in a world that is constantly shifting that we can count on this one thing: God is the same yesterday, today and tomorrow. Jesus has been and will always be there for us no matter what.

I very much look forward to our church community experiencing the season of Lent together. My hope is that we can learn how we can be intentional with time and space as a means by which we can grow in our sense of need for God and recognize areas in our lives that need changing. I hope it will be a season that we can look back upon and remember.

The Least of These

This past week's sermon was from Mat 25. Jesus speaks of judgment day when he will return and divide people as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. The sheep, the righteous ones, inherit the kingdom of God while the goats are sent to the eternal fire. The difference between the two outcomes has to do with what they did or did not do. The sheep cared for the "least of these my brothers and sisters" while the goats did not. Jesus expressed that by caring for his brothers and sisters in need is the same as caring for him.

To me, this passage communicates how important it is to Jesus that we take care of our fellow brothers and sisters, especially the ones who have the greatest needs. One of the ways we serve Jesus is by serving one another.

Beck and I were discussing some of these things and she shared some of the thoughts that came to her mind as she listened to the passage being read. She told me about how she believes the Lord takes delight in seeing his people take care of his children. A parent may be grateful for receiving help or care for themselves. However, when someone helps their child it means something even more. A loving parent is more concerned about the well-being of their children than they are about themselves. If the child is sick or hurt, how grateful and thankful the parent is to the one who helped the child. Serving the child, helping the child is like serving the parent.

Jesus expresses to us that the we way we treat others is connected to the way he feels treated. The way we love and serve our brothers and sisters is linked to how we love and serve him.

This Jesus

The Jesus of the Gospels amazes me. For the past 5 weeks our church community has been looking at various parables Jesus told about the Kingdom of God. The people of Jesus’ day had certain expectations about the Kingdom and what it would look like when God would send his Messiah-Deliverer. God did send the Deliverer, but he came in a very different package than what they expected and he preached about a different kind of Kingdom. To help the people understand the nature of this Kingdom, Jesus used parables, i.e., short stories using metaphor to make a point.

One of the things I tried to focus on during the sermon series was the historical context of these stories. How did the people in that day hear and understand what Jesus was saying? How does this affect our understanding of who Jesus is and what he was communicating about his Kingdom? Catholic author, Gary Wills, writes in What Jesus Meant:

To read the gospels in the spirit with which they were written, it is not enough to ask what Jesus did or said. We must ask what Jesus meant by his strange deeds and words. He intended to reveal the Father to us, and to show us that he is the only-begotten Son of that Father. What he signified is always more challenging that we expect, outrageous, more egregious. That is why the Catholic novelist Fancois Mauriac calls him “of all the great characters history places before us, the least logical.” Dostoyevsky’s Grand Inquisitor knew this when he reproached Christ for puzzling men by being “exceptional, vague and enigmatic.”

The more I study and think about Jesus’ actions and the words he said, the greater the appreciation I have for who he was and is. How he responded to both religious and irreligious people astounds me. This Jesus of the Gospels revealed God’s love for insiders and outsiders. He honors a woman identified as someone with “questionable morals” making her out to be a hero right in front of those who saw her as a disgrace. He invited God’s chosen people to embrace what God was doing in their midst knowing full well that they were going to reject him. He graciously opened the doors wide open to the least and lost of that society making sure they knew there was a place at his table for them. This Jesus challenges and convicts me. This Jesus, I love. I want to be more like him.

Immature vs. Mature Christian Faith

What is mature Christian faith? Below are some thoughts presented by the late John Wimber, founder of the Vineyard movement.


We can measure disciples by the way they think. Following Jesus should affect our thought patterns. Are the people you’re training thinking in disciplese? The fundamentals of the gospel become more important to a committed disciple’s spiritual life as the heart and lungs are to this physical body. The following statements sketch the differences in those who have an immature faith, and those who have a mature Christian faith.

IMMATURE FAITH
Good Christians don’t have pain or disappointment.
MATURE FAITH
God uses our pain and disappointment to make us better Christians.

IMMATURE FAITH
The closer we get to God, the more perfect we become.
MATURE FAITH
The closer we get to God, the more we become aware of our own sinfulness.

IMMATURE FAITH
God helps those who help themselves.
MATURE FAITH
God helps those who admit their own helplessness.

IMMATURE FAITH
God wants to make us happy.
MATURE FAITH
God wants to make us into the image of Jesus.

IMMATURE FAITH
Faith will help us always explain what God is doing.
MATURE FAITH
Faith helps us stand under God’s sovereignty even when we have no idea what God is doing.

IMMATURE FAITH
Mature Christians have answers.
MATURE FAITH
Mature Christians can wrestle honestly with tough questions because we trust that God has the answers.

IMMATURE FAITH
Good Christians are always strong.
MATURE FAITH
Our strength is admitting our weakness.

IMMATURE FAITH
We go to church because our friends are there,we have great leaders, and we get something out of it.
MATTURE FAITH
We go to church because we belong to the body of Christ.


We want to engender a deep spirituality in our disciples that rejects a facile triumphalism. Disciples realize there will be hard times ahead. The journey we’re on is fraught with pain, difficulties, and the onslaughts of the enemy. Mature Christian’s also learn we can benefit from trials. From my reading of the Bible (and church history), Christianity doesn’t guarantee heaven here on earth. We’re going to Heaven- But we may go through hell here on this earth!

Maturity doesn’t not automatically come with the passage of years; some of the people we work with may be spiritually much younger than their chronological age. A prayer I pray often is: “Lord, let me grow up, before I grow old.”

Staying Humble

by C.J. Mahaney

1. Follow the truth wherever it leads…even if it leads to “you were wrong.”
2. Invite and pursue correction and counsel.
• We are blind to ourselves…allow others speak truth your life
• Allow others to confront you with the truth about yourself
• Seek wise counsel
3. Learn from everyone…even our critics
• Even if the source of our criticism is bad, there is still something to learn
4. REPENT quickly and thoroughly
• Don’t make others force you into repentance
• Say, “I am sorry”
5. Seek and celebrate God’s grace in other Christians
• Praise and encourage others even if you don’t “feel like it”
6. Cultivate a spirit of thankfulness
7. Listen to Scripture more than yourself
8. Exalt the Name of Jesus in all you do
• Do what makes Jesus look good
9. Laugh
• Proud people have no sense of humor…they can’t laugh at themselves
• The truth is that we are all “ridiculous”…we provide so much good material
10. Sleep
• Proud people don’t sleep well…they are focused on how they look to others

Hope

Taken from ESPN the magazine:

They played the oddest game in high school football history last month down in Grapevine, Texas.

It was Grapevine Faith vs. Gainesville State School and everything about it was upside down. For instance, when Gainesville came out to take the field, the Faith fans made a 40-yard spirit line for them to run through. Did you hear that? The other team's fans?

They even made a banner for players to crash through at the end. It said, "Go Tornadoes!" Which is also weird, because Faith is the Lions.

It was rivers running uphill and cats petting dogs. More than 200 Faith fans sat on the Gainesville side and kept cheering the Gainesville players on—by name.
"I never in my life thought I'd hear people cheering for us to hit their kids," recalls Gainesville's QB and middle linebacker, Isaiah. "I wouldn't expect another parent to tell somebody to hit their kids. But they wanted us to!"

And even though Faith walloped them 33-14, the Gainesville kids were so happy that after the game they gave head coach Mark Williams a sideline squirt-bottle shower like he'd just won state. Gotta be the first Gatorade bath in history for an 0-9 coach.

But then you saw the 12 uniformed officers escorting the 14 Gainesville players off the field and two and two started to make four. They lined the players up in groups of five—handcuffs ready in their back pockets—and marched them to the team bus. That's because Gainesville is a maximum-security correctional facility 75 miles north of Dallas. Every game it plays is on the road.

This all started when Faith's head coach, Kris Hogan, wanted to do something kind for the Gainesville team. Faith had never played Gainesville, but he already knew the score. After all, Faith was 7-2 going into the game, Gainesville 0-8 with 2 TDs all year. Faith has 70 kids, 11 coaches, the latest equipment and involved parents. Gainesville has a lot of kids with convictions for drugs, assault and robbery—many of whose families had disowned them—wearing seven-year-old shoulder pads and ancient helmets.

So Hogan had this idea. What if half of our fans — for one night only — cheered for the other team? He sent out an email asking the Faithful to do just that. "Here's the message I want you to send:" Hogan wrote. "You are just as valuable as any other person on planet Earth."

Some people were naturally confused. One Faith player walked into Hogan's office and asked, "Coach, why are we doing this?"

And Hogan said, "Imagine if you didn't have a home life. Imagine if everybody had pretty much given up on you. Now imagine what it would mean for hundreds of people to suddenly believe in you."

Next thing you know, the Gainesville Tornadoes were turning around on their bench to see something they never had before. Hundreds of fans. And actual cheerleaders!
"I thought maybe they were confused," said Alex, a Gainesville lineman (only first names are released by the prison). "They started yelling 'DEE-fense!' when their team had the ball. I said, 'What? Why they cheerin' for us?'"

It was a strange experience for boys who most people cross the street to avoid. "We can tell people are a little afraid of us when we come to the games," says Gerald, a lineman who will wind up doing more than three years. "You can see it in their eyes. They're lookin' at us like we're criminals. But these people, they were yellin' for us! By our names!"

Maybe it figures that Gainesville played better than it had all season, scoring the game's last two touchdowns. Of course, this might be because Hogan put his third-string nose guard at safety and his third-string cornerback at defensive end. Still.
After the game, both teams gathered in the middle of the field to pray and that's when Isaiah surprised everybody by asking to lead. "We had no idea what the kid was going to say," remembers Coach Hogan. But Isaiah said this: "Lord, I don't know how this happened, so I don't know how to say thank You, but I never would've known there was so many people in the world that cared about us."

And it was a good thing everybody's heads were bowed because they might've seen Hogan wiping away tears.

As the Tornadoes walked back to their bus under guard, they each were handed a bag for the ride home—a burger, some fries, a soda, some candy, a Bible and an encouraging letter from a Faith player.

The Gainesville coach saw Hogan, grabbed him hard by the shoulders and said, "You'll never know what your people did for these kids tonight. You'll never, ever know."
And as the bus pulled away, all the Gainesville players crammed to one side and pressed their hands to the window, staring at these people they'd never met before, watching their waves and smiles disappearing into the night.

Anyway, with the economy six feet under and Christmas running on about three and a half reindeer, it's nice to know that one of the best presents you can give is still absolutely free. Hope.

The Prodigal

I preached from Luke 15 about the Prodigal this past Sunday. For me, this is one of the most powerful stories Jesus told. I tried to focus on the lostness of the elder brother because it is many times overlooked.

I obtained the following entry from a friend and member of our church. I believe we can all relate.


In December I was punched in the gut by a friend’s blog about the prodigal son. For weeks I’ve been trying to figure out what my deal is. To provide some context, let me share a few things about myself.

1. I hold the value of stewardship in the highest regard.

2. My personal mantras include: Life isn’t fair. Choices have consequences (read “you reap what you sow”). You have to take responsibility for your own s#!+ (am I allowed to print that in the bulletin?). If you don’t like your life then change it.

3. I have an exaggerated sense of fairness and “right-ness.”

My “tough love” approach to life sadly doesn’t allow much room for error; nor does it make up for my lack of compassion for poor judgment or even simple mistakes. (Somebody make me a “Little Miss Merciful” t-shirt.)

I’ve always completely identified with the older brother in Jesus’ parable of the prodigal son. I mean, his kid brother cashed out early, left home to see the world, partied like a rock star, and got to come back to a brilliant reception like he hadn’t just flushed his inheritance down the toilet or sullied the family name. (And the fact that this kid wasted what his father had worked so hard for makes me see red.)

So I’ve been thinking really, really hard about my attitude. I’ve started seeing the younger son in a new light. The shame he must’ve suffered makes my heart heavy. And imagining the guilt and grief he felt when his father welcomed him without question or judgment nearly makes me cry. And the picture of him in my mind, flushed with embarrassment when he can read his brother’s mind . . . and I am that brother. God, forgive.

Not to be trite, but this younger brother seems to follow my same life philosophy. He realized that his poor choices had negative consequences, but those consequences were not irrevocable. He took responsibility for his actions and changed his life. And he found out that sometimes life is not fair. And isn’t that wonderful?

Family Christmas Card

Becky and I sent this pic out as our Christmas card this year. No...the kids aren't ours. We were having our picture taken at our church's Ugly Xmas Sweater party (which was awesomely fun !!) and decided that we would snatch a couple of innocent kids who were playing nearby. Thanks to Allie and Elias for being good sports. The truth is that we were holding them against their will.

Funny thing...after receiving our card, a number of people that we haven't seen in a while contacted us or my mother asking about our kids. I wonder what I will do for a Christmas card next year?