Vacation

I apologize if there are any misspelled words in this post. I am writing it on my smart phone sitting in a coffee shop. It seems to me that whenever I get a chance to get away my mind and spirit take the opportunity to regroup and refocus. It is like a breath of fresh air. The most important things rise to the top of my priorities. It's like the story of Mary and Martha in the Bible. I can rush around and forget about the important. The most important thing is one thing. Like Curly in "City Stickers." The secret to life is one thing. That one thing is this....... Relationships. My relationship with God. My relationship with my wife. My relationship with my kids, family, friends, and others. My challenge for today is how can I improve every one of these relationships today?

To Be Honest

I am going to go out on a limb and be transparent. You have heard it said that honesty is the best policy so here goes.

Summers are frustrating to me as a pastor. We see numbers on Sunday mornings drop. We see attendance at the mid-week service jump off the cliff. We try to spend so much time trying to create momentum and excitement only to see it wane in the summers. Every fall we pull out all the stops to get people back attending church once again. It can be very discouraging. I see so many of my fellow pastors take a month off in the summer to refuel their own lives. Sometimes I wonder if it is because they don't want to have to look out into all those empty seats staring at them that just a few months before were full of people excited about what God was doing in their lives.

But then last night I came across this in a book I am reading called "Mad Church Disease."

".... It breaks my heart when I hear pastors of churches say, 'We only had seventy-five people today' or 'Only two hundred people showed up.' Only? I'm sorry. Are those seventy-five or two hundred people not enough for you?.... Numbers have become an addiction. We flaunt our numbers, despise our numbers, fret about our numbers. Our numbers validate us. But they shouldn't. We often don't know how God is using us. We only need to know that He is- and respond with grateful hearts. After hearing it over and over, leaders who aren't as 'successful' start believing the lies that maybe God just hasn't blessed them like He blesses other churches or leaders. And at that point, those leaders either shut down or begin to be driven for their need for affirmation. We have completely lost sight of the most important fact..... we are called."

I can get so caught up in numbers that I lose sight of lives. Yes, lives are numbers. But how many lives need to be affected through me in order for me to be "successful"? One, 10, 100, 200, how many until I am content and satisfied? I know this for myself. If I allow what I see to influence my life, I can easily become bitter and discontent. My job is to do the best with what God has given me and He will take care of the rest. Yes, I have goals and it is important to have something to shoot for. But I cannot let empty seats and people who don't follow through on their commitments to influence how I lead my life.

I am called by God to live for Him not to live for numbers.

Do What You Can

This morning I was reading and came across this statement:

"God never asks us to do what we cannot do. Neither does He tend to do for us what we can do ourselves. The Lord does for us what we cannot do; what we can do He expects us to do."

This is where the faith and works comes in to play in our lives. God has given us certain talents, abilities and influence. He expects us to not just sit back and wait for Him to move on our behalf. He expects us to do all we can with what he has given and blessed us with. A good friend of mine once said, "You work as if everything depends on you and you pray as if everything depends on God." It is good for us to be used by God. There is a rewarding satisfaction that comes when you know that you have done all you can and God met you and did the rest.

There are times for resting, but there are also times to move forward and do something, anything. Don't be passive, but be assertive. Play offense, go get this life before it passes you by!

Sunday

Just want to invite you to come Sunday morning to hear part two of the sermon Truly Free. Last week was on Freedom From and this week will be on Freedom To...

Podcast

Our first podcast went online yesterday. You can go to itunes and subscribe to it there. It is under Oasis weekly Message. We will try to get the most recent sermons online net week. It is a slower process than I would like, but that's OK. Hope you enjoy the podcast!