Renewal
As I write this blog I have been out of the office for two weeks and have not taught at the Anchor for two Sundays. Where I love the Anchor and love teaching, it has been very refreshing to get away for bit. The first week was spent completing some needed tasks before leaving, hanging with family and packing my bags for Puerto Rico. The end of the 1st week and most of the 2nd week was in Puerto Rico. There I spent much of my time with Pastors and missionaries. The other part of my time there was just relaxing, spending time with Jesus and beginning a much needed renewal process. I returned on Wednesday on a flight that only God could orchestrate. The end of the week My family and I spent time with my parents and some new friends in central Georgia.
Spending time with various missionaries, Pastors and Jesus and His Word I have learned some very profound things. Namely, I have learned that ministry is exhausting. I know, when we do it all in the name of Jesus with right hearts and attitudes He will renew us and we can continue. Here is the other thing I have learned... We never stay spiritually perfect. We do things out of wrong motives and wrong passion. We are doing the right things, but a bit misguided.
There must be times when we get away with God and let me speak right to our hearts. And that is what I am doing. I will not be blogging every day, or on Facebook or twitter every day. I will be with my Father everyday!
Stay on the look out for new blogs!
Monday, February 15, 2010
Tuesday, February 9, 2010
Where in the World is Chuck? Part 6
Hope
Do you remember a few days ago I blogged about God giving me a passion, but then we did not see that for a while?
Here is the scary reason as to why...I was praying, I was doing all the things a Pastor should. Naturally I could have done better and could still do better today. But I was doing THINGS right. My passion had become my driving force. Not God! I was going through the motions everyday, giving God His pleasantries. However, my relationship with Him was falling apart.
Hey...stop right there. Do not judge me. If I guess right your thought was, "This is my Pastor...How can this be?" This can be...because I am a human just like everyone else.
My wife and I began to argue. Something that we have never done. I was short and impatient with my kids. Everyone...I mean everyone got on my last nerve!
I know, I am confessing way too much here. But you need to know that my passion to see people come to know Christ was overran by my own passion! I see this happen to people in our church and in my life on a regular basis. They think, as do I at times, that if I have a passion then I should pursue that with everything. AND, If I can add God to that it will be all the better! But here is where HOPE comes in. God does want me, He does want my passion but He wants me to want HIM! No matter how bad I fail at that, even it is the wrong reason, He is still here to catch me, love me and send me back to the battle field!
I have been hearing from God. I am not praying that I need to hear Him. I am praying that I will LISTEN to Him!
What is He saying...Let's talk about that tomorrow!
Do you remember a few days ago I blogged about God giving me a passion, but then we did not see that for a while?
Here is the scary reason as to why...I was praying, I was doing all the things a Pastor should. Naturally I could have done better and could still do better today. But I was doing THINGS right. My passion had become my driving force. Not God! I was going through the motions everyday, giving God His pleasantries. However, my relationship with Him was falling apart.
Hey...stop right there. Do not judge me. If I guess right your thought was, "This is my Pastor...How can this be?" This can be...because I am a human just like everyone else.
My wife and I began to argue. Something that we have never done. I was short and impatient with my kids. Everyone...I mean everyone got on my last nerve!
I know, I am confessing way too much here. But you need to know that my passion to see people come to know Christ was overran by my own passion! I see this happen to people in our church and in my life on a regular basis. They think, as do I at times, that if I have a passion then I should pursue that with everything. AND, If I can add God to that it will be all the better! But here is where HOPE comes in. God does want me, He does want my passion but He wants me to want HIM! No matter how bad I fail at that, even it is the wrong reason, He is still here to catch me, love me and send me back to the battle field!
I have been hearing from God. I am not praying that I need to hear Him. I am praying that I will LISTEN to Him!
What is He saying...Let's talk about that tomorrow!
Monday, February 8, 2010
Where in the World is Chuck? Part 5
God....where are you?
During the first year of our little church plant we witnessed an amazing amount of people confess Jesus as their Savior, their Lord. In the second year of our church we witnessed an amazing amount of people drop away from their journey with Christ at an amazing rate!
There were many days that I would cry out to God. (I guess saying the words "cry out" make me sound like David) I yelled at God and asked "God, where in the heck are you in all of this?" How in the world would God let so many people come to know Him, yet let them fall away?
I felt like my fellow church planting "Friends" (and I use that term very loosely) were looking at me like I am some failure because I am not lying about my church doing as well as theirs. But, in all seriousness, I really did feel like a failure...not to those guys, but to God. He has entrusted me with so much and let Him down. Week after week I would see young Christian families fall from our church. Week after week I would walk away feeling like such a failure.
My dad always raised me to be tough, fight it out, stick in their till the end. So, every week I would dig deeper and fight harder. Only to figure out that the volunteers, the servants of our church I was pushing away because I was fighting so hard. (to those of you this has happened to...I really do love you and I really do apologize!)
Every week, Every week I would yell at God...What are you doing, where are you, why is this happening?
Check in with me tomorrow and I'll give you some of those answers!
During the first year of our little church plant we witnessed an amazing amount of people confess Jesus as their Savior, their Lord. In the second year of our church we witnessed an amazing amount of people drop away from their journey with Christ at an amazing rate!
There were many days that I would cry out to God. (I guess saying the words "cry out" make me sound like David) I yelled at God and asked "God, where in the heck are you in all of this?" How in the world would God let so many people come to know Him, yet let them fall away?
I felt like my fellow church planting "Friends" (and I use that term very loosely) were looking at me like I am some failure because I am not lying about my church doing as well as theirs. But, in all seriousness, I really did feel like a failure...not to those guys, but to God. He has entrusted me with so much and let Him down. Week after week I would see young Christian families fall from our church. Week after week I would walk away feeling like such a failure.
My dad always raised me to be tough, fight it out, stick in their till the end. So, every week I would dig deeper and fight harder. Only to figure out that the volunteers, the servants of our church I was pushing away because I was fighting so hard. (to those of you this has happened to...I really do love you and I really do apologize!)
Every week, Every week I would yell at God...What are you doing, where are you, why is this happening?
Check in with me tomorrow and I'll give you some of those answers!
Friday, February 5, 2010
where in the World is Chuck? part 4
Failure
We all know that everyone runs in a few circles of friends and acquaintances. One of the circles that I run (ran) in was church planting Pastors. The other circle I ran in was the people in my church. The church planter guys were mostly all liers and my church family was mostly all authentic.
The church planters guys would gloat about how great their church was. About how fast their church was growing. About how God was sending the right people at the right time
My church family...they were all struggling with something. Their struggles were porn addictions, alcohol, drugs, alternative lifestyles, massive debt, raising children....and the list goes on!
When I would try and match those two groups up the only logical answer I could find was failure. Then, I realized something. Actually, I realized a lot! One of the things that I realized was that the people in my church was just like the people in the other churches. I realized once again in my journey that people are people and they will always act like people because, you guessed it...they are people.
Hey Anchor peeps...If you are reading this it probably means that you are not one of the people I mentioned...yes, you are the perfect one!
Oh yes....Has any noticed that it all started with burden from God and a passion for Him. And that I have not mentioned that lately.
We will talk more about that in upcoming blogs!
We all know that everyone runs in a few circles of friends and acquaintances. One of the circles that I run (ran) in was church planting Pastors. The other circle I ran in was the people in my church. The church planter guys were mostly all liers and my church family was mostly all authentic.
The church planters guys would gloat about how great their church was. About how fast their church was growing. About how God was sending the right people at the right time
My church family...they were all struggling with something. Their struggles were porn addictions, alcohol, drugs, alternative lifestyles, massive debt, raising children....and the list goes on!
When I would try and match those two groups up the only logical answer I could find was failure. Then, I realized something. Actually, I realized a lot! One of the things that I realized was that the people in my church was just like the people in the other churches. I realized once again in my journey that people are people and they will always act like people because, you guessed it...they are people.
Hey Anchor peeps...If you are reading this it probably means that you are not one of the people I mentioned...yes, you are the perfect one!
Oh yes....Has any noticed that it all started with burden from God and a passion for Him. And that I have not mentioned that lately.
We will talk more about that in upcoming blogs!
Thursday, February 4, 2010
Where in the World is Chuck? part 3
Why would anyone beg God to release them from their ministry?
Any church planter, or pastor, would love to have been a part of our 1st year. It was truly a honeymoon...a match made in Heaven. I was allowed to really express my creative side! Things were wild! Things were wild and I loved it! I said so many times "I never knew ministry could be so fun!"
Remember, I grew up in the typical old boring church where everything had to fit neatly and everyone had the look of perfection. We had shattered all of that! We were reaching people that would never come to church. Even more, a lot of these people would never be allowed in most churches.
Our auditorium was full every week of brand new Christians. Our parking lot was full of cars with bumper stickers that made even me blush. Yes, we had outgrown everything in the first year. WOW...everything was exciting. Even the challenges of growth was exciting. I mean, if your gonna have problems...and you will, you might as well have growth problems! Right?
So, to over come the growth issues we began to look for a new space!
But there was massive problems.
1. We were broke! That's right, we were just barley keeping the lights on. Salaries became a thing of hope...not assurance! There was not enough funds coming in to build or buy land or both. If we did not move it was going to hurt our growth. We couldn't move because we did not have enough money.
2. Spiritual War! What? Yes, spiritual warfare was far greater than anything I could have ever anticipated. I know that Satan has a job description, and that job description is to kill and destroy. But for some reason I just thought that Jesus would shelter us from all of that.
3. Failure! I know, tons of people coming to church, tons of people giving their life to Christ and tons of people baptized...How can you even use the word failure?
Catch up with me tomorrow and I'll explain failure!
Any church planter, or pastor, would love to have been a part of our 1st year. It was truly a honeymoon...a match made in Heaven. I was allowed to really express my creative side! Things were wild! Things were wild and I loved it! I said so many times "I never knew ministry could be so fun!"
Remember, I grew up in the typical old boring church where everything had to fit neatly and everyone had the look of perfection. We had shattered all of that! We were reaching people that would never come to church. Even more, a lot of these people would never be allowed in most churches.
Our auditorium was full every week of brand new Christians. Our parking lot was full of cars with bumper stickers that made even me blush. Yes, we had outgrown everything in the first year. WOW...everything was exciting. Even the challenges of growth was exciting. I mean, if your gonna have problems...and you will, you might as well have growth problems! Right?
So, to over come the growth issues we began to look for a new space!
But there was massive problems.
1. We were broke! That's right, we were just barley keeping the lights on. Salaries became a thing of hope...not assurance! There was not enough funds coming in to build or buy land or both. If we did not move it was going to hurt our growth. We couldn't move because we did not have enough money.
2. Spiritual War! What? Yes, spiritual warfare was far greater than anything I could have ever anticipated. I know that Satan has a job description, and that job description is to kill and destroy. But for some reason I just thought that Jesus would shelter us from all of that.
3. Failure! I know, tons of people coming to church, tons of people giving their life to Christ and tons of people baptized...How can you even use the word failure?
Catch up with me tomorrow and I'll explain failure!
Wednesday, February 3, 2010
Where in the World is Chuck?
The Journey....
The journey actually began long ago. Not to bore you with all those details, so here is a little recap.
I have been in church for as long as I can remember. To be honest, I don't think I was ever in a church that really got it right until we found this small church over in Rincon, GA. "Grace Community Church" The people were authentic, the music was great and the preaching was right to the heart of life.
It was there that I accepted a call to ministry...then I went to cemetery...I mean seminary. During that time I worked with a few churches that were full of great people. But the truth of the matter was...the churches sucked!
So out of that...God called my family and I to something. But what? God called me to be a missionary to Locust Grove, Ga and surrounding area of South Atlanta. Out of this calling I really felt like God was calling us to start a church...with not people, with no money, with no resources and no location to start in!
Once I knew the direction God was calling us I hit the ground running. And I hit it hard. Within a year we had started meeting in a small group atmosphere, then to worship. Then, we did it...we had our 1st service trying to build a larger launch team. Shortly after that we found a building, renovated it and kicked off our 1st REAL church service and the church was launched.
I remember Leigh and I laughing and crying and full of excitement every SUnday. New people would come while others that were visiting became regulars. In that 1st year we saw a ton of people came to know Christ and baptized a majority of them. We were doing it....we were actually fulfilling the vision that God had given us!
So....why is it that I found myself with my face in the floor begging God to release me from this, all of this?
The journey actually began long ago. Not to bore you with all those details, so here is a little recap.
I have been in church for as long as I can remember. To be honest, I don't think I was ever in a church that really got it right until we found this small church over in Rincon, GA. "Grace Community Church" The people were authentic, the music was great and the preaching was right to the heart of life.
It was there that I accepted a call to ministry...then I went to cemetery...I mean seminary. During that time I worked with a few churches that were full of great people. But the truth of the matter was...the churches sucked!
So out of that...God called my family and I to something. But what? God called me to be a missionary to Locust Grove, Ga and surrounding area of South Atlanta. Out of this calling I really felt like God was calling us to start a church...with not people, with no money, with no resources and no location to start in!
Once I knew the direction God was calling us I hit the ground running. And I hit it hard. Within a year we had started meeting in a small group atmosphere, then to worship. Then, we did it...we had our 1st service trying to build a larger launch team. Shortly after that we found a building, renovated it and kicked off our 1st REAL church service and the church was launched.
I remember Leigh and I laughing and crying and full of excitement every SUnday. New people would come while others that were visiting became regulars. In that 1st year we saw a ton of people came to know Christ and baptized a majority of them. We were doing it....we were actually fulfilling the vision that God had given us!
So....why is it that I found myself with my face in the floor begging God to release me from this, all of this?
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