Relax

What I'm trying to do here is to get you to relax, to not be so preoccupied with getting, so you can respond to God's giving. Matthew 6, the Message

I am a control freak. That's a confession I suppose, but really its something that everyone who knows me already knows. There are times when being in control is a good thing - it allows me to oversee large events, lead teams, organize our home. Used properly, leadership / administration is a gift given by God. However, there are times when its used improperly - like right now.

We are in the middle of the process of buying our first home. For the person looking on it relatively simple, you pick a house, make an offer, meet the conditions, close the sale. For me, not so simple. I want the perfect home for my family, I want the perfect home for our ministry and I want all of the conditions met easily, oh and I don't want to wait. As a person who likes to be in control, waiting on details is a difficult task.

Enter Matthew 6. This morning when I woke early to ready scripture at the start of the day I felt prompted to turn here. The whole passage talks about not worrying about things. The verse at the top of this post, reminded me that the reason not to worry is that I need to stop spending so much time focused on 'getting a house' and relax. I need to trust God and allow him to 'give us a home.' The result may be the same, but the process is different.

Fantastic Leaders!

Often I find in my own busyness that I take the people around me for granted. I'm a vision / task oriented person at heart and I'm trying hard to learn to not only value people but to express that I value them. That said, I was this weekend again reminded of how thankful I am for the people at my church.

On Friday night we held a youth group [solid rock youth] overnighter. I tend to hate these events, to be honest. Nothing against the students, only that I am a morning person and not a night person and these events are so much night experiences. At the event one of the leaders planned / executed a fun new game with foam swords and blindfolds [I'll leave further explanation to your imagination]. Another leader who wasn't even staying overnight brought in special leaders only food that she made [yum!] and hid it in the kitchen. The two female leaders who stayed overnight made memories by attacking the girls as they were falling asleep with silly string. In all, it was a great event, thanks everyone!

Sunday morning in our children's ministry, several leaders were missing because of sickness and poor roads / weather. No one complained at all and everyone banded together to cover all the bases. It was a great morning, not without technical glitches, but relationally fantastic! In our preschool department we usually have at least 3 leaders / helpers at any given moment. However, with two people out, one leader and her husband took over the whole department for our second service. Thanks, Paula & Ed!

This morning I received an email from our Sunday morning Jr. High small group leader telling me about the developments in her group. Rather than simply [lol!] being the 'teacher' as she has for many years, she has recognized the leadership abilities in so many of our students. After allowing one of them to teach part of a class more and more of them want to lead. She now has offers from Jr. High students who want to teach the Bible to their peers and who want to bake their snacks. Its fantastic to see a leader who is so much more comfortable preparing her own lessons take the bold and sometimes scary step to put leadership in the hands of 12-14 year olds and become a mentor / coach. Pam, I am so glad to serve students alongside you!

God has given me the privilege of leading a fantastic team at an amazing church. Often I take for granted just how blessed I / we are. As you're all reading this, know that I am so very proud of you, knowing the impact that you are having on the lives of the children & students who are a part of the ministries at New Minas Baptist Church!

Storyline

At our church we are currently in the midst of a series called Storyline, a journey through the Old Testament highlighting how the life stories of the folks in there point the way to Jesus. Personally, I believe that not just the people point at Jesus, but even the details of their lives.  Its amazing to see God work through history.  The concept of meta narrative - an overarching story that links all the life stories and events together - is amazing to me.  Helping people see it [and growing to see it more and more myself] is something that I'm passionate about.

This weekend I had the privilege of speaking about Joshua [mp3 here].  So much about his life points at Jesus that its amazing.  The big theme of Joshua's life [and the biblical book] is found in verse 1.6 - the word inherit.  Joshua was called by God to lead the Israelite nation to inherit the promised land.  The theme obviously points to Christ and our inheritance of son-ship and Heaven through Him.

To start the series we covered Abraham.  God promised that through Abraham he would create a people that belonged to Him.  This is the first time in scripture where we see that God will have a people that are set apart for / by Him.  The story prepares us to understand that we can be his people.

We continued the series with Joseph where we learn of God's plan.  Joseph's life had absurd ups and downs in it.  I believe that his story mirrors history and the ups and downs of God's people on their journey to the fulfillment of God's plan of salvation.  The key to the story is the fact that despite how cocky and self righteous Joseph is at the beginning and despite his being placed in slavery, jail, etc - God still used Joesph to lead the people of Israel to be in Egypt - the place where they were incubated and protected as they developed into a nation.  In history, despite the absurd ups and downs of the Israelite people, God still used them [despite them!] to prepare the way for Jesus.  

The third story was Moses of course, who through the Exodus taught us about Freedom, and through the commandments given by God taught about Sin.  We understand those two concepts first through Moses life.

The promise of a people, the fulfillment of the plan, and the concept of freedom all come to fruition in the story of Joshua who led the people into the promised land.  I had a great time telling the story on Sunday.

[Thanks to YouthSpecialties for the images from their 2007 National Youth Workers Convention which we've used for the backgrounds for the series.  Thanks as well to Mark Pearce to created our series intro video.]