In today’s message we looked in Luke 5 at the story where Jesus called His first disciples.  He asked them to trust Him by faith, even though they were in their own time of uncertainty. They were fishermen who had caught no fish.  In their culture…no fish…meant they didn’t get paid that day.  Who could know if there would be fish tomorrow?  Could this have been a week with no fish?  Having been self-employed I know what it’s like to face the uncertainty of cash flow. Still, in the midst of their uncertainty, Jesus called them to their greatest show of obedience.  Because of their willingness to face the unknown and walk by faith, God used them in incredible ways to launch His Kingdom.

We considered 5 principles about times of uncertainty in our own life from this story. 

1. Times of uncertainty will come.  They are a part of life.

2. The fact that uncertainty causes you to question or be afraid doesn’t upset God.  God’s plan is not diverted because of our periods of doubt. 

3. Faith that is developed through uncertainty produces some of God’s greatest work.

4. In spite of uncertainty ultimately we need to have faith. 

5. Uncertainty is not a call to give up.  It’s a call to surrender more of ourselves to Christ. 

To hear this message, go to our podcast site and listen to: What To Do During Uncertain Times.

As a minister, I hear about fear a lot. I decided to compile my own list of the 5 greatest fears of “real” people. (This list includes people like me.) See if you share any of these fears.

Unknown- You don’t know what could happen next, so you fear not knowing.

Worst Case Scenario/What If’s – You can imagine all the bad things that could happen next, and if you let your mind do the wandering….the outcome is scary.

Failure – You are afraid your plan, a relationship, your life, etc. is not going to succeed.

Rejection – You fear being left alone, forgotten, or abandoned.

Insignificance/Not measuring up – You fear that you aren’t good enough and don’t have what it takes or that others don’t appreciate you for your value.

Did I hit yours? Which one of these (or another) is your greatest fear?

But Jesus immediately said to them: “Take courage! It is I. Don’t be afraid .” (Matthew 14:27

Today I had a humbling experience. I’ve learned that humility is an art.  Pride is easier to attain than humility. Throughout God’s Word He tells us how much He hates pride. 

I have worked all week on my message for today, just like every week I’m up to speak. It wasn’t a difficult message.  We have been mirroring our children’s ministry all summer, so the passage was already laid out for me.  Today’s story was the resurrection; a message I’ve preached many times before. I could probably tell you most aspects of the story without my Bible in hand. The challenge is to bring freshness to a story most people think they already know.  I decided to go simple; realizing that because of the newness of our church that there are many who aren’t familiar with the story. 

I put together a scripted, verse-by-verse account from Luke 23.  Yesterday I did my final edit. What normally takes me 3 or 4 hours on Saturday to edit my Sunday message took only about an hour. I left frustrated with myself thinking it was a horrible message, but frankly I didn’t know what else to do with it at that point.  I went out to eat with friends last night complaining to the guy who is also in the ministry that I didn’t want to do this message. It just wasn’t that good.  I woke up at 4 AM this morning ready to scrap the whole thing and start over, because I didn’t feel it had anything to offer people.  I made a few changes, but really walked into church thinking this would be the worst message I’ve ever done at Grace. It’s still summer, I thought, maybe I wouldn’t scare too many people off and we could rebuild next week.  I even shed a few tears of frustration before I went on stage. 

Within five minutes of beginning today I knew I was no longer in control.  I’m not saying I had a great message; it may have still truly stunk, but I left knowing God used it in someone’s life today.  That’s a humbling, incredible, wonderful feeling.

It reminds me of a story told years ago about a young pastor fresh out of seminary who showed up to preach his first sermon at his first church.   He was so confident, but his message simply bombed and he knew it.  He walked off the stage deflated. A senior deacon in the church gave him some great advice, “If you had went up on stage the way you came down, you’d have come down the way you went up.” 

That’s a good principle for me to remember every week. 

Thanks God for allowing me to work for you and thank you for humbling me today!

My mind started racing Sunday afternoon. I tried to take a nap, but I couldn’t get these thoughts out of my head.  I woke up with the same thoughts again this morning.  I’m trying to figure out how best to reach people in today’s culture.  These thoughts began with a game my family plays each Sunday after church.  Perhaps your family plays the game. It’s called “Name The Missing” and the object of the game is to list as many people as you can who you didn’t see at church that day.  I hate the game personally, but I seem to fall into it and actually win quite often.  If you can name the person and where they were you get extra points.  The most common response lately has revolved around dance competitions or sporting events.  I’m wondering now if there is a better game we should be playing. 

We are living in a culture where Sunday morning is not necessarily reserved for church. It used to be and we could wish it still were, but it’s not.  For years I have tried to figure out how to stop this cultural shift, but I’m beginning to wonder if that is the correct response.   I wonder if we should be considering how we interact with the present culture.  How do we reach people who no longer have the mindset that to find God they must free up their Sunday morning? 

Jesus said, in Mark 16:15 “Go into all the world and preach the good news to all creation.”  Does that command include the dance competitions and the baseball diamond, even if those places are occupied on Sunday morning?  What about the restaurant I passed on the way to church this morning?  Does the absence of a person from my organized time of service mean they have no interest in God or no desire for Him in their life? I’m not sure it does.  I’m wondering if we as the “church” need to rethink our strategy to include those absentees in our outreach. 

I’m not suggesting Tuesday night visitation.  I don’t want unannounced visitors at my house and I’m a paid professional.  I am, however, talking about finding ways to reach people within the schedule the culture is setting for them.  That could mean alternative scheduling of our services or it could mean alternative type of “services”.  I think it definitely means taking the message of God’s love and grace, which is only available through the person of Jesus Christ, (I added the Jesus qualifier just so someone doesn’t think I’m talking about a new “religion”) to them in a ways that intersect with where and how they have currently chosen to live their life, even if that is just through personal relationships.   I guess I’m also wondering if thinking through ways to accomplish this should be occupying my thoughts as much or close to as much as thoughts about how to improve Sunday mornings at my church. 

I don’t have all the answers. I’m just thinking.  I welcome your ideas. 

Did you hear the story of the guy who sold his soul to Hell?   He is said to have been pleased with the $3800 saying he didn’t have any use for it.  You can read the story here: http://tinyurl.com/4z9esp

As funny (strange) as this story may be, I wouldn’t recommend this man’s strategy to the rest of the world.  The soul of man has great worth, but only through a personal relationship with Jesus Christ. 

Moral to this story: Don’t sell your soul to anyone other than Jesus! 

This story also reminds me, however, that everyone is looking for something.  People are seeking meaning to life; answers to important questions, and a way to find peace in their hearts.  They will go to extreme measures to reach out and prove that point, but you can’t buy what they are seeking on a website. 

Every week we send first time visitors a questionnaire to tell us about the experience they had visiting.  We receive many wonderful comments, and a few suggestions, but the most repeated praise of what we do is the welcoming spirit of our people.  Your friendliness and love towards others is evident when they walk in our doors.  Sometimes it is humbling to know their greatest impression of us was not the music or the message, but the people they encountered, but honestly, I wouldn’t have it any other way.  Grace Community Church has grown mostly by people who cared enough to care for others.  If we ever lose that somehow I think we will lose our soul as a church. 

Will you do me a favor?  Will you help us do this even more? Sometimes we grow comfortable in our seats and fail to do what we need to do. (That statement is probably true about a lot of other areas in our life as well.)  This Sunday and every Sunday will you do two things?  1) Consider who you can invite to join you at Grace this week; and, 2) Introduce yourself to someone you don’t know and make the people around you feel welcome and at home.   

(As a side note from personal experience: Don’t assume it is their first visit, because they may have been there all along.  You just may not have met them yet.) 

Thanks for giving us a reputation as a friendly place where people are loved.  There is no better way to begin to introduce people to the love of Christ than to let them know they are loved by us.   

I read lots of business magazines and blogs.  I find it helps me with my own management skills.  I also believe the Bible teaches us some great leadership principles.  Unless you have lived under a rock then you know that today’s workplace is changing. The “new” generation of workers is more value-centered.  Through my conversation with business leaders, what I have read and what I have personally observed this new generation of workers love time at home more than time in the office.  They value a company that cares for the environment.  They want benefits as well as pay.  Fairness and honesty in the way they are treated is of utmost importance to them. They want immediate responsibility and authority in their area.  They want to dress comfortably and they don’t expect to do what they are doing forever.  Finally, they want to enjoy what they do and have a deep sense of purpose in their work.  It’s not that those values weren’t present 20 years ago, but today they are critical to finding and keeping good people. 

As I lead and help others do so I’m sometimes faced with a dilemma.  What is the balance between creating the “fun”; new values-centered workplace and the need to get a job done well?  When do I need to become the “bad guy” leader who pushes for excellence and for quantity of work as well as quality, without really being labeled the bad guy?  Because this generation will not work long or well for bad guys. 

It seems to me that learning where the lines are, hiring the right people in the first place (of course), and operating with a great Jesus principle of grace and truth, is going to be a key to leading this next generation.  If we want to obtain the energy and creative minds of youth then we must learn to manage them well. 

I’m praying that I will grow in those skills so I can help others do likewise and I’m once again reminded how much I can learn from Jesus!

Have you ever read something and wish you hadn’t?  That just happened to me.  While researching for message prep I stumbled on this blog post.  It’s not “new” information, just compiled in a way I haven’t seen; all in one neat, tidy, sobering place.  What to make of it?  Not sure yet.  I’m still processing it all. 

Check out what stirred my thoughts this morning at: http://faithwalk.wordpress.com/startling-statistics/

Today at Starbucks I encountered someone having a very bad day.  As I sat outside with my friend Rog for our every Thursday morning meeting, listening to the birds chirp as we talked about life, the struggles of ministry and God; there was a very angry and disappointed person working around us.  Apparently someone failed to put a trash liner in the trash can.  People had been throwing coffee cups, most of them with some remaining coffee in them, into this unlined container.  She had to clean up someone else’s mess.  It was obvious to us that she was having a very stressful day. 

My first thought was to criticize her.  How dare she ruin our time of leisure; our time we have reserved to talk about ”God things”!  Why get so upset about spilled coffee?  We were sharing stories of ministry; important stuff!  If she wanted to see stress; I could show her stress. 

Then something seemed to whisper in my ear.  This lady was having a stressful day.  From her perspective, with what she had planned to do today, this was an interuption.  It was unnecessary and stress-producing.  From her perspective this was huge.  I decided rather than think bad thoughts of her that I would pray for God to comfort her and turn her day for good. 

As I pulled away from Starbucks this morning that whisper appeared again.  Maybe my staff feels that way at times. Perhaps the volunteers sometimes get stressed with their responsibilities.  I may look at them and think, “What’s the big deal?”  To me it may seem like trivial stress, but to them it may be major stress.  It’s all a matter of perspective.

Maybe I need to take a lesson in leadership from Jesus.  He could recognize the seemingly little stress times; like running out of wine at a wedding ceremony; and the big stress times, like when a dear friend was facing execution.  He even handled his own stress with confidence; like when an entire ministry held in the balance of His very next move.  Regardless of the size of the stress moment Jesus brought comfort not chaos and handled the situation with a calm assurance; understanding that stress in all of our lives is always a matter of perspective. 

I’ve had the privilege of speaking with numerous young people and couples who are possibly experiencing a call to full-time, vocational missions and ministry. Talking with people at this stage of life is one of my favorite things to do. It fuels me in ministry to help others process their call. Having wrestled through these with two teenage sons experiencing what they believe is the “call” makes this something very personal to me.  Obviously I have personal experience in this area of wrestling.

The counsel I gave my boys came to me rather suddenly one day. I’m not pretending it was inspired, but it certainly is a product of my experiences and time spent with God struggling through this issue for myself. I’ve used this teaching many times since then.

Basically I like to help people understand that the “call”, in my understanding, is not a call to a group of people or a geographic location as much as it is to a person; the person of Jesus Christ. That’s important, because a lot of times people begin to sense a calling after a mission trip to a certain area and feel as if that is the place they must go to serve God. That may be the place, but it could be that God just wants their availability and the place may be elsewhere. With that as a basis, it makes the decision of where to serve Him much easier to make. I’m not saying He doesn’t send people to specific places or groups of people, but I do believe He reserves the right to change that at any time, because ultimately a person is called into a relationship with God.

Then I share these principles, which help a person think through this calling. (Similar to my blog yesterday, these all begin with the same letter “I”.) The person who is sensing a call can usually immediately begin to discern that this IS the call based on the way they respond to these four words.

The call of God on a person’s life is:

Irresistible:

You can’t refuse this kind of call and still live at peace. Something will always eat at you until you surrender to this type of call.

Irreplaceable:

Nothing else will satisfy a person like this call, because it is God’s greatest desire for a person’s life on whom He places the “call”.

Irrevocable:

God doesn’t take this call away from a person once He has placed it on their life.

Immediate:

The call of God on a person’s life begins at the moment of the call. Often people want to get the right degree or start drawing a paycheck before they live out the call God has placed on their life. I don’t believe that’s the call. The call is to “Go” and the time is NOW.  That doesn’t mean the person shouldn’t gain education, experience, or even a paycheck, but if a person has received a call from God on their life the time to get started doing something towards that call is now!

For a Biblical example of this, read Jonah’s story again.

Have you wrestled or are you wrestling through a vocational call to ministry?

What was your experience?