Essential Characteristic

I'm down in Mount Vernon for a few more hours and I'm helping my friend Stevie with a paper. She has to take a hymn and a contemporary praise chorus and compare and contrast them. Her contemporary song is Amazing Love, and her hymn is And Can it Be? As I'm reading the lyrics of of the hymn I saw something in verse two that caught my attention.

"He left His Father's throne above, so free, so infinite His grace! Emptied Himself of all but love, and bled for Adam's helpless race."

Emptied Himself of all but love, this phrase is so essential. 1 John 4.8, "The one who does not love does not know God, for God is love."

Philippians 2 tells us that He emptied Himself and took the form of a man, He became nothing, a servant, and died on a cross. He gave up Heaven, He set aside His heavenly form, He became a man, but He never gave up His essential characteristic, Love. He never gave up love because He couldn't. If He had, love would have ceased to exist.

Over the last year I've been through a lot, and as I look back I try and see what God was teaching me.

No matter how many times I break God's heart He will never stop loving me.
The goal and purpose of life is becoming like Christ and helping others become like Christ.
I need to Live in the Spirit, Preach the Gospel of Jesus, and Glorify the Father.
This is all about God, and everything comes back to love, which comes back to God.

I'm still learning and I have other thoughts, most likely I'll blog about them soon, but those three lessons have been transforming my life and ministry for the last year.

He emptied Himself all all but Love, He set aside everything but His most essential characteristic, and even when I go through junk, that essential characteristic never lets me go, never stops teaching me, never stops loving me.

Peace be with you

Did you know...?

I've been in the process of moving back to Ohio for about a month now, and last week I finally finished taking care of everything for my vehicle. During this process I learned something new. In order to obtain a new Ohio driver's license I was required to take a written exam! That thing that I took way back when I was 16 in order to get my license and that thing I haven't thought about since, yeah I had to retake that.

In case you're wondering, I did worse this time. The first time I took it I only missed two questions, this time I missed five, after the fourth one I began to think, "Wow, if I fail this, that's going to suck a lot." But in the end I passed, and I am once again a citizen of the great state of Ohio.

As I look at the questions I missed, most of them were about drunk driving and the legal alcohol limit, I started to go into pastor mode and think, "What can I use this for?"

As look at the questions I got right the answer came to me.

Romans 16.17-19, "Now I urge you, brethren, keep your eye on those who cause dissensions and hindrances contrary to the teaching which you learned, and turn away from them. For such men are slaves, not of our Lord Christ but of their own appetites; and by their smooth and flattering speech they deceive the hearts of the unsuspecting. For the report of your obedience has reached to all; therefore I am rejoicing over you, but I want you to be wise in what is good and innocent in what is evil."

The reason I missed the questions about drinking and driving is because it isn't something I'm concerned about or experienced with. I honestly don't care what the legal alcohol limit is for me to drive because I have no need to know that. The questions I got right, the ones about what street signs mean, what to do in certain driving situations involving school buses or bikers, I got those right because they are things I do all the time when I drive. I am wise in the things that are good for driving, knowing the laws, know what to do, but innocent in regards to something that can cause death to others while driving.

Now what about my God walk? If I had to take a written test of being a Christ follower I'd pass with flying colors, I've grown up around it and I know all the answers. But the written test doesn't matter. Anyone can pass the written test, just study a few things and you'll pass. What matters is life, being on the road. What matters is living out the answers to the test.

I'm a pastor, and it would suck a lot if I failed the God walk test. What about you?

Peace be with you

Chapter done

This week I moved back to Ohio, and now I'm waiting. There is definitely a restlessness to get back into ministry, but at the same time there isn't a desperation to have to be in the first church that calls me.

I look back at what I've learned and experienced, the good times and the rough times, and I know all of it has served to make me a better minister. While in Michigan I had the opportunity to meet some awesome people, to talk life and ministry with some incredible youth pastors, and to think through different aspects of ministry. These things have molded how I will do youth ministry in the next church and my experience as a staff member there has already begun to shape my plans for how to lead a church one day.

As the page turns now I don't know what will be written next, I don't know what the next weeks and months hold, but I do know this, "When it's all been said and done, there is just one thing that matters. Did I do my best to live for truth? Did I live my life for you?"

Peace be with you

Question from God

Recently God has been asking me a question, "Bill, what are the desires of your heart?" Every time He's asked my answer has been, "I don't know that I know." So right now that's what I'm trying to figure out.

Desire- (noun) strong conscious impulse to have, be or do something

Conscious- aware, intentional

Impulse- moving force

In Biblical language the heart is the center of the human spirit. It is the source of emotions, thoughts, motivations, courage, and action. It's the source of life. The desires of the the heart are the things that make us come alive. St. Irenaeus once said, "The glory of God is man fully alive." The glory of God is man living to the fullest, living life in a way that exercises our passions and creativity in a way pleasing and honoring to God. The desires of our heart are the things that drive us to do our best, the things that challenge us to be the best we can.

So the real question I'm facing is what makes me come alive? What am I driven to have, do and to be?

Have:

I want to have a family. I want to marry my best friend and spend my life living an adventure with her. I want to help her see how beautiful and captivating she is to me, but more importantly to God. With her I want to raise some incredible kids. Boys who are warriors for the Lord of Lords, girls who are princesses of the King of Kings.

I want land, somewhere I can escape into the wilderness and just hide from the rest of the world with my Daddy for a while. A place to escape to refuel the fire.

I want a canoe and a dog.

Do:

I want to travel, mostly to Israel, as much as I can. I want to spend Easter in Jerusalem walking through the last days of the life of Christ, going where He did, seeing what He saw, trying to understand it all.

I want to bike across America from San Francisco, California to Yorktown, VA with Jeremy.

I want to backpack in as many states as I can.

I want to climb Mount Everest.

Be:

I want to be the pastor of an incredible church. A church that would fall apart if the Spirit left. A church that if it disappeared the community would notice and be affected.

I want to be the leader of an incredible staff with a vision focused on building the Kingdom. The leader of a staff that is united as a team working together for the Kingdom.

I want to be a husband and a father.

I want to be a man who Lives in the Spirit, Preaches the Gospel of Jesus, and Glorifies the Father.

I want to be a man after God's own heart.

Ultimately, I want to be in a constant relationship with my Daddy. I want a new passion for Him daily. I want to daily become more like my Lord and Savior, and to help others become more like Him.

Live, Preach, Glorify

Peace be with you

It's so crucial

Over the last five years I have had the opportunity to serve, in some capacity of ministry, in five different churches. Some experiances were absolutely incredible and I honestly never wanted them to end, others I was relieved when they were over. But in all of them there are things to learn.

I have been called to a life of full time ministry, eventually as a senior pastor, and as I move towards that I take the things I have seen and experianced in these churches into account. I look at the positive things that worked, the things that seemed good but weren't fruitful, and the things that totally flooped. All of these were things to learn from.

I look at people, leadership and ministry styles, how they work with people, how the lead and empower people. What they do that works and what doesn't.

While I've learned a lot about how to pastor and how not to, and how to work with staff, and the congregation, I think leading a church all comes down to one thing, vision.

Vision is the most crucial thing, after being centered on Christ, to the survival of a church. Proverbs 29.18a, "Where there is no vision, the people are unrestrained" Where there is no vison there is no unity, and where there is no unity a kingdom can't survive. "Every kingdom divided against itself will be ruined, and every city or household divided against itself will not stand." Matthew 12.25b, even the Kingdom of God.

I look at the churches I've served in that have thrived, and it's because of vision that is gronded in Christ, and the leadership and congregation are united behind it.

I have come to realize just how crucial vision is to the survival of church.