What are you training for?

(...) train yourself for godliness; 8 for while bodily training is of some value, godliness is of value in every way, as it holds promise for the present life and also for the life to come.

1 Timothy 4:8

I've been reflecting on this passage sporadically the last few weeks and every time it comes to ind, I am convicted by the Holy Spirit. How often do we train ourselves for something that only has value in this current life, only to neglect training in something that will have value both now and after death: godliness. 

For me personally, I'm convicted because I think about how religiously I go to the gym during the week. And if an engagement or work comes up during my usual MWF workout times, I just shift my schedule around so that I can go to the gym at some other times during that day. Then I look at my devotional habits and I am appalled to see that I do not spend regular time in the Word nor do I "fight" for that time like I would with my workouts. Working out is not a bad thing, but its value is only for this life. Is it not better to train for that which is valuable both now and in the future?

What about you? What do you find yourself training for at the expense of training in godliness? You might be working hard to be a great computer programmer, or you might be training yourself, by going to conferences, to be a better leader, or you might be looking to improve as a parent by reading all the parenting books that you can. 

While these are not bad, Paul commands us to train ourselves in godliness. Godliness has value in everything and in every way. Let us strive for godliness, let us train for godliness and let us not neglect it for other pursuits.

Newspring Leadership Conference

Last Thursday I was in Anderson, SC attending the Newspring Leadership Conference and it was absolutely a great time of learning and of conviction by the Holy Spirit.

Pastor Steven Furtick from Elevation church in Charlotte, NC, made some observations about gratefulness and talked how we as a church, we need to be grateful. 

Gratitude begins where my sense of entitlement ends. We can't be grateful for something that you feel entitled to. Thus, when our sense of entitlement is high, then our sense of gratitude is low. When our gratitude is high, our sense of entitlement is low. IF we can impart this to our churches, people will have the attitude of "get to" instead of "got to."  Church services will be a place where people come for worship out of the gratitude of our hearts for what Christ has done for them, as opposed to a place where people come to get something for themselves (a new spiritual high, that ego boost, the good feelings that we're suppose to have all the time because we decided to become christians, etc).  We need to fight a sense of entitlement in our lives. For me, God has blessed me so much, but have I been grateful? Looking back on my life, my attitudes and everything, I can find so many speckles of entitles littered throughout my life. I feel entitled to: love from my family, thaving a laptop, being at seminary, having enough to eat, etc. Is there areas/times of gratefulness? Yes. Is there still areas of selfishness and entitlement? Absolutely...which brings up the next point. 

Gratefulness needs to be said and shown, but I have I shown it as much to others? We sometimes think that we don't need to mention or show our gratefulness because people should know that we are grateful in our hearts...BUT people don't know our hearts. People are not mind-readers nor are they heart-knowers. We need to be say it and show it! Of course, we have to be real and when there needs to be tough love, we need to have confrontations, but we will never be in danger of too much gratitude. We should be expressing and showing our gratefulness to those around us, instead of hiding it.

Oh God, make us a grateful people, who are thankful for everything that is given to us and who shows our gratitude, instead of assuming people know!

The New Trend in the Church

It seems like a growing trend in the church is learning from the blogs of leaders and pastors. If you are someone who is starting to get into that trend, I would highly recommend subscribing to Perry Noble's blog (http://www.perrynoble.com/). He is the senior pastor of one of the fastest growing churches in the southeast, NewSpring Church. It seems like every time I read his blog, I come away with either the feeling of "wow, they're having a revival every weekend!" or "wow, that's some good truths/principles that I need to apply to my life!"

If you want to get a glimpse of what kind of pastor he is, or what kind of church New Spring is, check out these two videos.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wt-Z0OhCW9w

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pThFOsTd2CE

Every year, for Mother's Day, they pick out one of the single mothers from the congregation and do something special for her. I won't ruin the surprise for when you watch the video, but its safe to say that what they did in 2008 brought me to tears. Thank goodness I was watching this in the library when there wasn't too many people around!

So watch the video, subscribe to the blog and hold on to your seats! Its some good stuff...

PS. His latest blog has video of what they did for another mother, also in 2008 (perhaps they do it for a single mother at each of their satellite churches?). Its really cool too!

Food for thought

I was talking to my internship advisor the other day and he brought up a great thought concerning God's will. He said that sometimes, we overrate planning and underrate preparation.

What he meant was this: we can get so caught up in the "What is God's will for my life?" question, that we fail to answer the question of "how am I growing as a Christian so that I can be used by God for wherever he calls me to?" The secret to success in life, he said, is being ready for when His opportunity comes along.

Although I don't have bible verses off the top of my head to support this, I feel like God talks a lot less in the Bible of what he has planned for us, and more about how we ought to "prepare ourselves" or rather, grow and mature. For the growing and maturing aspects, there are verses such as in John 15:4 (abide in me and I will abide in you), 1 Thess 4:3 (It is God's will that you be sanctified), Romans 12:2 (Do not be conformed to the patterns of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind), etc.

I know for me, I've struggled with wanting to know what God has planned for me. I want to know who I will marry, to whom will I pastor to, will I ever go abroad as a missionary, how long will I be in such and such a place during this stage of my life, etc when instead, I should be concentrating on growing in Christ.

I need to be learning what it means to find my identity in Christ...to know what it means to have a relationship with an invisible, but all-powerful God...to grow my spiritual muscles in learning how to say no to sensual temptations, to see lies from Satan for what they are, to be able to have grace in encouraging others, etc. Thats what I need to be doing...not trying to look into a crystal ball called God and trying to figure out what the future holds for me.

I should note that I do think it is admirable that, as Christians, we want to know what God's will for our lives are. I think for many of us, its a sign that we love God and want to do whatever it is that He has planned for us. We're just like curious children who just gotta know! However, if we are not careful, we can take it to the extreme and it can become a form of fortune-telling or divination, which is explicitly forbidden in the OT (Lev 19:26, Deut 18). Just something to think about...

The question of "what is God's will for my life" seems to be a prevalent question for today...therefore, may God give us the wisdom, as we search his Word, to know how we ought to live!

On a lighter note, if you have not seen it yet, you need to watch "Sunday Morning." Its a self-deprecating video on megachurches, created by the media team of a megachurch, North Point in Atlanta, GA! Funny stuff!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pzqaITA3IO0

Willow Creek Leadership Summit Day 1

Went to Willow Creek's Leadership Summit at a satellite site today and it was great. It was held at LCBC, another big church in lancaster. We actually had time to tour the building during one of the breaks and it was freaking awesome to see that they had a freakin slide going from the main level down to the kids wing. Freaking awesome!


All in all, it was pretty good and I would highly recommend it to anyone, even if you aren't a Christian. They have some great leaders who bring ideas to the table that aren't coming from a Christian background. For example:

Jim Collins (business thinker)
Daniel Pink (business thinker and ex-White House speech writer)
Terri Kelly (president and CEO of W.L. Gore & Associates)
Tony Dungy (football coach)
Jack Welch (famous CEO)

For highlights from Tony Dungy and Adam Hamilton, go to highlight vid #3 at the link
http://www.willowcreek.com/events/leadership/2010/highlights2010.asp

Anyways, here are some takeaways from today:



Bill Hybel-pastor at Willow Creek church

1. Leaders move people from here to there
2. You need fantastic people
3. Celebrate mile markers!
4. Listen for whispers from God

Jim Collins-writer and nationally acclaimed business thinker

Good is the enemy of Great
5 stages of decline
1. Hubris born of success
2. Undisciplined pursuit of More
3. Denial of risk and peril
4. Grasping for Salvation
5. Capitulation
We need to setup BHAGs (Big hairy audacious goals)
Never, ever give up on your core ideas/values

Andy Stanley-pastor of North Point church

Myth- If you're a great leader, you'll solve all your tensions and all your problems
Truth- great organizations have tensions that are never resolved and problems never solved. The leaders learn how to leverage them in a way to create progress

Whatever it is, its not a problem to solve or a tension to resolve, its something to manage
-in church, there's a tension between letting the Holy Spirit lead the pastor to speak till the Holy Spirit is "done" and finishing the message on time so the children workers can go home!
-there's a tension between attracting seekers to the church and developing believers

Adam Hamilton-pastor of Church of the Resurrection

The final word of the church must not be a word of judgment but a word of grace.
We serve a Lord who is a friend of drunkards, prostitutes, and sinners
No one is beyond redemption, for God is the God of the second chance

I was looking for a spot in the Walmart parking lot today when I saw a police car coming toward me. As I get closer, the police car starts to swerve before straighting out and as I got closer, I see that policewoman had her cell phone to her ear, talking to someone. My initial thought was, "that's ironic that even the police, who are suppose to be models of the law and of being safe, can engage in unsafe things." Granted, talking on a cell phone isn't illegal in PA and I myself have done it, but I just find it ironic that a police officer would be doing that.

It made me think of how that is similar to us as Christians. Do we do things that cause people who aren't Christians pause and think," huh, that's ironic!"? It probably doesn't have to be an illegal activity, just something that goes against the stereotype or the expectations placed upon Christians. Could it be drinking? Maybe going partying? Maybe its gaming or having nice cars (cuz Christians are suppose to give all their money to the poor and live like the poor?), etc...

I don't know if there's a definite application or moral to apply, but it was just something that I was considering today.

Summer 2010

This past semester has been really challenging as the classes i have gotten harder. I took both Systematic Theology 1 and 2, Old Testament theology, Hermeneutics and Greek 2. Praise God that despite taking more classes and despite them being harder, that I actually did better grade-wise!

Now that the busy semester is done, I can focus on my busy summer! This summer I'll be working part-time at Ambassadors for Christ, where I will be organizing the youth program for a family conference among other things, and I will be interning at Calvary Church. While at Calvary, I will have the opportunity to teach, lead bible studies and go on missions trips to learn how to lead them! And then, on top of all of that, I am trying to review my Greek and start reading for the fall!

This summer will definitely be a test of my organization and ability to focus on many areas!

Hopefully, I'll do a better job of keeping you up to date on this blog than I've done in the past!

**EDIT**

I forgot to mention a huge PRAISE! This past year, I had a relative pledge to support me $500 each semester that I was in seminary. They came to visit recently and passed a folded check to me. After they left, I looked at it and it was a check for $1000...for my fall semester!!! How crazy is that? And How amazing is God? Praise God for his goodness...tho, a good follow-up question would be, "If I get close to the deadline for my tuiton and I am still short financially, will I still praise God?" That might be the question we all need to ask ourselves..."will I praise God in the bad times, just like I do in the good times?"