Last month though Katy and I attended a church planting conference in Cartersville.  Michael Lukaszewski (believe it or not – pronounces the way it looks) is the pastor of Oak Leaf Church in Cartersville and in session one of the church’s ‘Nuts and Bolts’ conference, he really challenged me.  He stepped before a group of hundreds of church planters seeking wisdom about church systems and strategies and addressed the deeper issue: spirituality.  Michael went through the story of Nehemiah, a book I had already been studying for leadership principles (posts coming soon) and mentioned how though Nehemiah had a passion and a vision, he was still patient and faithful in an extended time of waiting.  That time of waiting ultimately caused Nehemiah to be more prepared when his chance to carry out his God-given vision arose.

I’ve never been one to adapt a habit or system just to copy someone else, but after a very honest (and even heated) conversation with my wife on the way home, I determined that I needed to set aside forty days.  For the past month (and several more days) I have determined not to take any more steps toward church planting.  Rather than raising funds, making plans, and meeting with people, I have prayed.  Each morning during this time I have began the day by asking God what my prayer focus should be for the day, and then I have journaled what God has taught me throughout the days.

I have been lead to pray for things like purity, God’s favor, our marriage, and the less fortunate.  Most successful church plant stories include unexplained acts of God that will not come to a person or group that is pursuing their agenda and plan rather than God Himself.

So if any of you have wondered why you have not received any church planting updates from me lately, it’s because there simply is nothing to update you on.  My focus right now is not progress; it’s not movement.  My focus is God.  If I don’t make sure I have that right at this point, it will become more and more difficult to realign myself once things are in motion.  I’m taking the time now to make sure I don’t see the end as being another church in Chattanooga, but rather being in a place where I hear from God and am able to be used by Him.

Let’s say you are invited over to a family’s home for dinner.  You accept the invitation.  You sit at the meal table with the father, the mothers, the son, and the daughter.  Before beginning to eat, the father calls for all of the family’s attention and says,

Family, I don’t want any of you to make any decisions without my approval.  You are not to pick out any new clothes until you have cleared it with me.  No new friends until I have said ok.  When it comes to deciding on a college, a mate, a home, or a job, you are to do absolutely nothing until I have told you exactly what to do.  I will be the one who tells you precisely what to wear, specifically who to date, and the exact moment you are to move out.  You can and will do nothing until I have told you and then you will do exactly as I say.

You would think that father was nuts.  You would think he was a mean, power-hungry dictator. Yet, that is exactly how we view God when it comes to this issue of His will.  We make it about specifics such as places, times, and people rather than simply living in a way that pleases Him.  We use the term “God’s will” as an excuse to sit and do nothing until there is writing on the wall.

I heard Perry Noble once say that he gets mad when people say they are waiting on God.  “We don’t wait on God because He is not late” Perry said.  Living pursuing God’s will in my life, it is easy to point out the flaws in those who are not.  But it is perhaps looking back over my own struggles in this area that I realize how much time I wasted praying and waiting for God to just do it for me when in reality I had been called to action.

God’s will is not a time, a place, a school, a house, or a job.  It’s Him!  God’s will for us is God.  And if we are living with that as our focus and pursuing Him, it’s very interesting how things just tend to work out.  Now, that’s not to say that everything you do will be the “right” move, but it will become painfully obvious when you misstep and you will know to move again.

I figured God’s will to be detailed and illusive and be a combination of person, time, and place that if could easily have go by without knowing and having forever missed it.  The revelation for me came during an open forum in high school youth group.  Our youth pastor was having an “ask anything” session in which a student would pose a question and then the youth pastor, with the help of the entire group, would address it.

One student raised their hand and asked how they can know God’s will.  My heart sank yet my ears perked up because I had been asking that question for years.  Our youth pastor asked for a response from the audience and without realizing it, I raised my hand.  When called on, I said, “By the desires He puts in you.”  My youth pastor agreed and when on to comment but I tuned him out as I sat back and marveled over the wisdom that had just come out of my mouth.  Here, for years I had been mentally straining over learning the secret behind God’s will and now the best answer I had yet to hear just came from my own lips.

God’s spirit confirmed in me that what He had lead me to say was true and I was able to accept that.  Never again have I questioned how to know what God’s desires for me are.  Now, when others come to me with concerns about finding their purpose in life, I respond by asking them, “well, what is it you want to do?”  I then stand back and watch as they look at me like I’m being incredibly unspiritual.

But it’s true!  The Bible says that God will give you the desires of YOUR heart.  This passage assumes you are walking with God, hearing from Him, and allowing Him to transform your life. When someone is growing in their spiritual walk and open to the hand of God, God works internally in the persons heart before He works externally in their circumstances.  So if someone has an open heart, God is going to be at work placing passions and desires within that person.  That way the person ends up walking with God and desiring something God wants for them anyway.  This results in us getting to do what we love and God getting glory because we are doing what He intended for us to do.

God speaks to us through our desires.

So….if you are like I was years ago, searching for that illusive will of God, determined it must be something painful, boring, or self-sacrificing, I have two questions for you:

1. Are you walking with God?
2. What is it you want to do?

The answers to those questions may be all you need to know when determining how God desires to use you.

• Vision
• Faith
• Leadership
• Purity

Salvation and Life Change

• The lost in Chattanooga
• Friends
• Family members
• Homeless
• Addicted
• Opportunities

The Church Plant

• God to grow it
• Relationships
• Finances
• The right place
• People
• Unity
• Launch/core team

My Marriage

• Sacrifice
• Love
• Purity
• Trust
• Partnership

My Relationship with God

• Clarity
• Wisdom
• Faith
• Power in prayer
• To hear from God
  • LISTEN!!!!

Those are the words to the chorus of a Derek Webb song titled, Wedding Dress.  Jeff, a friend of mine, played the song in our church once and much feedback followed.  The song quickly became referred to in our congregation as “that whore song.”  The audacity that someone would get on stage and sing a song with such offensive lyrics was appalling to many.

As I and some of the other staff members tried to downplay the negative comments I began to wonder, would anyone have been upset if the song had talked about us being so close to God that we are blessed richly by Him? You will get many “amen’s” in churches across America in preaching about us being sons and daughters of Christ and mentioning our great intimacy and inheritance with Christ.  Now, all of that is true, but if we really have that much of a close-connection relationship with God, then the lyrics of the song have to be true!

If the Bible refers to us as the bridge of Christ, the inherited children of God, or those He chose before the beginning of the world (and it does), then when we go out and sin against Him, whoring is EXACTLY what we are doing! When we choose to indulge or give in to temptation we are sinning against our Savior first.  Many times we then follow that up on the weekends by putting on our best face, attitude, and clothes to “run down the aisle” and claim our connection to Christ.

Being God’s children is a rather serious thing from either side; for the good or the bad.

Would you agree?

If you know my story, you know I went through a difficult time of emotional pain and material loss a few years ago when I was let go from a ministry position.  Though some may think I’m milking that situation for all I can get (by the way – book comes out this summer), I have thought about if the me now could go back to the me of August 2007, what might I say.  There I was, having lost my ministry, my income, having to move out of the church housing I had.  No family, little savings, still relatively new to town.  Here is what I think I would have told myself then:

Pray more, worry less

Your sitting alone fretting will do no good.  Take this trial as an opportunity to      grow faith.  If you’re going to be spending so much time by yourself, spend it before God rather than going through newspapers and websites thinking you have to figure it all out.

Allow people to help you

Swallow your pride and quit telling others and yourself you’re ok.  It’s not a sin to be in need and many are well-meaning and able when they offer their support.  Quit robbing them of the chance to be a blessing to someone in need.

Don’t spend money on anything that requires you to pay before you have the chance to start earning

You are going to get caught up and tempted with many “opportunities.”  don’t be ignorant and naïve and end up regretting blowing a lot of your money on things that are not what they appear to be and never pay you a dime.

We learn through our mistakes.  At the end of the day, I still believe I am better off because of what I went through and the direction it has brought my life.  Though the above may reveal a few mistakes I made in that past situation, I’m proud of myself that I did seize the opportunity to make a fresh start with new friends, new habits, and a new church.  I’m also glad that I did not rush back into ministry before I was ready and hurt even more people because of that.

I fully believe that God deals with us in the present.  When we mess up, He does not point His finger and tell us we blew it.  Rather He sees where we got off track, and He deals with us from there.  We may not be able to call out to ourselves from 5 years into the future, but if we will realize our opportunities and practice faith and patience, I do believe we can live without regrets.

The Bible commands us to take initiative in doing good and to be aware of the needs around us.  – Romans 12

I was first introduced to Gary by a man in our church who when finding out I liked Perry Noble, told me to check out Gary’s church and blog.  “Gary is even more blunt, open, and in your face than Perry” he told me.  Well it had been May since I last looked at Gary’s blog, and it apparently was right after that time that Gary was asked to resign from his church on account of having had an affair.

Since hearing this I returned to Gary’s blog and at one point spent almost an hour intently reading the copy of his resignation letter as well as the more recent thoughts he has posted on there.  As I read, my heart hurt for this man.  I don’t know him personally and never really became a fan or follower of his, but he was living the life I want as a successful church planter, and now I was reading his words, feeling the pain of what he was now having to admit.

You can read the blog yourself if you care to, but as I read it, it hit me – I do the same thing.  I constantly struggle in areas of lust and pride.  God is just as rejected by my sins as He is Gary’s affair.  It would be foolish of me to go in to church planting by looking at Gary’s story and saying that could never be me.  It most certainly could be and in a lot of ways it probably is me now!

Not only must our guard always be up, but our first focus and love must be Jesus Christ.  We must be so in love with Him that we shudder to think of trading that in for anything less.  May we go beyond simply avoiding sin to actually pursuing righteousness, at all times!  As my heart hurts for Gary and cheers for him as he fights to work things out in his life, may my heart long for Jesus and a pure pursuit of Him that is free of pride or lust.

God fulfills His promises and His plans.  The Old Testament prophesies must have been confusing when they spoke of Jesus being born in one city, yet to live in a different one, and be titled by yet another.  This could have been taken as contradictions or confusing but then we see all the circumstances Joseph and Mary went through and how the direction of god led them to different places.  It almost seems as a natural list of events or story yet it fulfilled some wild and seemingly opposing prophecies.  I need to trust that God is going to do that in my life.

When expressing my struggles about what to do regarding ministry, finances, and my living situations, (my former pastor) Charlie Bridges reminded me to let the peace of God rule in my heart and be my guide.  The peace of God will never contradict the will or Word of God.  He told me to think back to a time when I knew that I was in the middle of God’s will and remember what that felt like and then look for that feeling.  No matter how difficult, scary, or out of my comfort zone something may appear, may my deciding factor be that I am following the peace of God.

I’m not looking to create a mood or be competition for already existing religious groups.  I want to try hard to be the exact opposite of those things and strip all the glitter and role play until there is just us and this God who we struggle to understand.  I feel called to pour out, to lead, and to be a tool for life-change.  A prayer has been answered in that direction as since its beginnings months ago, I have desired for our Bible study to not be held on church property or someone’s home.  Thankfully there were two friends willing to be the locations of our study until a more ideal place appeared.  Such has been done now and because of this I feel extreme confidence in challenging the believer and nonbeliever, devout and skeptic, religious and heathen to come be a part of what we are doing.  I think we may find the God we are studying to be a lot less like we image Him to be.

So here are the new details on being a part of our community Bible study:

Time: every Sunday night from 6pm – 8pm

Place: 2^nd floor of the Book Nook (located downtown at 229 N. Hamilton Street)

The dress and attitude is casual.  Any age, background, and belief is welcome.

Please leave your presuppositions and “Daddy said so doctrine” at the door.