Breathe

I have been really excited about where God has been taking my small part of the ministry at Heartland Church over the last several months.  Our Mens' Bible Study continues to grow.  Even more importantly, the men in the study continue to grow!

Our Wednesday night class -- "The Truth Project" -- has been powerful and thought provoking.  (I can say that because it is a video series -- I am not bragging about anything I have done!).  All of us really need to understand what a "Christian world view" looks like, and Focus on the Family has done a great job explaining that in this series.

And, I am really excited that this Saturday we will be launching a new Women's Bible Study.  A number of ladies in the church have told me they are really looking forward to it, and I can't wait to see God use this study to impact women in a powerful way.

I also have to say, though, that as excited as I am there have been challenges lately too --  both internal and external.  Church work is often messy work.  Real people bring real problems, real challenges, real pain, and real joy.  I am not complaining mind you.  I am just saying that church work is not always as easy as it might look.

And, internally, I have been battling against a bad attitude about some things lately.  To my credit, I did confess it.  I asked for prayer.  I repented.  And, for good measure, my wife (Pam) and Sherry Ferris beat me up about it for about an hour and a half the other day (in the most loving way, of course!).

Oh, don't act so surprised.  We are all (hopefully) growing in Christ continually, and all of us need accountability and correction from time to time. 

What's interesting about this season for me is that even with all the good, the bad and the ugly mixed in, I am just anxious to keep moving forward.  It is such a great feeling to be in a place where I just can't wait to see what God is going to do next.  

Its not that I think all of the problems and challenges are going to somehow magically go away -- I know that they absolutely won't.  What is different right now is that rather than being worried about the next set of problems and challenges, I am ready to embrace them.  Actually that's not quite right.  Pam and I are ready to embrace them together. 

There is an incredible peace in knowing we are walking in God's will.  It's great to be able to let go of the wheel, let God drive for a while, and just breathe!

Obedience and surrender are difficult things.  We all struggle with them now and again.  I certainly do.  Its a faith thing.

I just pray that the next time I find myself in that struggle I will remember how much easier it is to trust Him than it is to try to do it all myself.

    

Numbers

I do not teach out of "Numbers" very often, and actually I am not going to say much about that book today.  (Okay, maybe a little at the end!)  But I do want to talk about the meaning of numbers today -- specifically the meaning of Heartland Church numbers.

Heartland is not a particularly big church compared to some.  In 2011, our average Sunday attendance was probably between 600 and 650 people.


If you have been attending HC for at least a year or two, though, you have almost certainly noticed that our numbers are growing.  Really, we have been growing fairly consistently since we moved from Irving to Carrollton a couple of years ago.  In fact, that's why we decided that we needed to go ahead and build the new parking lot earlier this year.


When we were planning the move to Carrollton, the "experts" told us that we would experience most of our growth in the first six months to a year after the move, and that attendance would then likely level off.  That has not turned out to be the case.  In fact, our greatest growth appears to have taken place in just the last couple of months.


To put things in a little perspective, in 2011 we had less than ten Sundays where our attendance eclipsed 700 people.   As I mentioned, our average attendance in 2011 was somewhere around 600 to 650.  Since the second week of last December, though, we have been over 700 nine times, including the last six Sundays in a row.  In the last nine Sundays, we have only been under 700 twice.  And, last Sunday our attendance was over 850 -- which was our biggest non-Easter Sunday in years!


As the Executive Pastor of Heartland Church, I am both excited and extremely thankful for our growth.  I love the energy I feel in our services, and on some level it is gratifying to know that the hard work and dedication of our volunteers and staff is paying off.  


But honestly, growth in and of itself really doesn't tell you all that much about a church. SIZE doesn't tell you all that much about a church.  I think that in our culture it is possible for churches to thrive for the wrong reasons.  I think that church growth can often be attributable to a good communicator, to slick production, to good organization and so forth.  But that is not how it should be.


I am paraphrasing, but in his book titled "Crazy Love," Francis Chan mourned the fact that we live in a world where a pastor can be wildly "successful" because he is an excellent communicator, despite the fact that he does not love people.  I wholeheartedly agree with that sentiment.


I pray that our growth at HC is for the right reasons.  I pray that we will be a church that always puts "first things first" -- that we love the Lord God with all of our heart, mind, soul and strength and that we love one another as ourselves.


I praise God for Pastor Dan -- because of his love for people.  I pray that we never become too caught up in the numbers, but that we always measure success God's way.  I pray that we always see success as souls won for Christ, as lives transformed, as marriages healed, as faith increasing, as deeper relationships with God, and as the heart of a congregation that loves each other -- and that even loves the unlovable.


So many great things have been happening at HC over the last several months that I cannot even begin to chronicle them here.  If you are an HC partner, I hope that you have been a part of some of those things.  I believe that God is really doing something special at the church right now, and that our numbers really tell very little of the story.


If you feel the same way I do, maybe this would be a good time for you to post a testimony about what God has done for you -- either here or on Facebook.  I am sure there are many people out there who will be encouraged by what you have to say.


Now, a quick word about Numbers.


On of the important ways that I personally measure the success of a church is when its partners (or members) are empowered and equipped to do the work of God.  In fact, Jesus calls "some to be apostles, some to be prophets, some to be evangelists, and some to be pastors and teachers" for the very purpose of preparing "God’s people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ."  Ephesians 4:11 - 13.  To put it bluntly, if you are not serving, our pastoral staff (me included) may not be doing its job!


It's funny, but people don't serve for a variety of reasons.  And, one of the most tragic reasons is that people sometimes don't feel worthy.  They find it hard enough to believe God really loves them -- much less that God would trust them enough to allow them to serve in any meaningful way.  I know.  I once felt that way myself.


In those times when I felt unqualified, in those times when I felt unworthy, in those times when I felt that surely God wanted someone other than me, Sherry Ferris would tell me that if God could use a donkey He could use me!  See Numbers Chapter 22.  Well, there are plenty of misfits and sinners that God used in powerful ways in the Bible (think Rehab the prostitute, David the adulterer, Paul the murderer, Peter the coward, ... you get the idea).  Maybe I should be offended that given all of those names Sherry still chose to compare me to a donkey.  I don't know.  But then again, her point remains valid.  If God can use a donkey, surely He can use me too.  And, if God can use me, then surely He can use you too!

Transformation

"Therefore, I urge you, brothers, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God—this is your spiritual act of worship.  Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will."  Romans 12:1-2 (NIV)

When I was growing up in Ohio my brothers and I were big into caterpillars and butterflies.  In the Spring we would take our nets out into the fields in search of whatever varieties of butterflies were missing from our collections.  (Can you imagine letting your 2nd or 3rd grader do that unsupervised today?)  For whatever reason, we were always interested in Swallowtails -- and particularly in Tigers and in the always elusive Zebra Swallowtail.  

 

I know, I know.  Some of you are saying to yourself "wow, I never would have thought that John was such a geek."  Others of you are probably not all that surprised.  Anyway, I gotta tell you that it was a lot cooler than it seems -- particularly for a little kid.

In fact, the best part really wasn't catching adult butterflies.  What was cool about this particular hobby was catching caterpillars, setting up habitats for them (which we fashioned out of cardboard boxes), and raising them to adulthood.

Watching the caterpillars hang from leaves and then encase themselves in chrysalises was really an amazing thing to witness.  But, the best part, of course, was watching the butterflies emerge.  (Just so you know, a butterfly emerges from a chrysalis, and a moth from a cocoon).  

We would check on the chrysalises frequently, and at some point they would begin to wiggle.  This, naturally, would tell us that the rebirth was near.  We got pretty good at gauging the speed of the process, and we often had the opportunity to pull a chrysalis off a leaf and watch the butterfly emerge, dry its wings and fly away -- all in the palms of our hands!   

It doesn't take much imagination to see the parallels between the complete transformation of the butterfly -- from an egg, to a caterpillar, to a chrysalis, to a butterfly -- and the transformation that we go through when we truly allow Jesus to be Lord of our lives.   ... or does it?

Actually, for people who are outside of the faith (and for new believers) I think it is almost impossible to appreciate what can happen when Christians really surrender their lives to Christ.  And, I think there are at least two reasons for this.  The first one is that its hard to understand what you yourself have not experienced.  

When my sons were younger, and particularly when they were teenagers, it was nearly impossible at times for them to really "get" the benefit of my experience.  In fact, at times when they were thinking about making a bad decision (or, more often, when they had already made a bad decision) I had a little speech I would give them.  The speech was intended to be funny, but also to drive home this very point.  I would tell them that what they needed to understand was that they were "idiots", but the good news was that they were not alone; that all teenagers were idiots, and that someday they would look back and they would say "Dad was right, we were idiots!"  (By the way, both boys are in their twenties now, and each has at one time or another acknowledged that I was indeed right!)

I don't mean to suggest at all that nonbelievers and new believers are idiots -- to the contrary, there are some really intelligent atheists out there.  What I am saying is that faith is, in part, experiential.  I just don't think you can appreciate the life-changing power of a relationship with Christ unless you have seen it or experienced it for yourself.  This is why it is so important that we share our testimonies about what God has done for us.  Sometimes it is painful, and it requires a transparency to which the world is not accustomed.  But, it is so critical.

You can talk about the Gospel all you want -- until you are blue in the face -- and get nowhere.  But people have a much harder time rejecting a power that restores marriages, that breaks the bondage of addiction, that ends depression and sickness, that brings hope and purpose to life ....  People have a hard time arguing with actual transformation.

The second reason why I think it is so difficult for nonbelievers and new believers to appreciate the transformation that God can make in their lives is because, sadly, it is sometimes hard to find.  What I mean is that the "Christians" the world sees all too often do not appear to have been transformed at all.  Their lives look no different than their neighbors.  All too often, their only distinguishing characteristic seems to be their ability to speak in Christian-ease.

If you spend enough time with the Bible, though, what you will see is that transformation is not only possible through Christ, but that true faith always results in transformation.  I hope I said that plainly enough.  Think about that.  Time and time again the Bible talks about rebirth, about the fruit of the Spirit, about how to identify people of faith ... about transformation.  And here is what is really cool -- the transformation process never ends!

I have undergone some pretty radical transformation in the last ten years -- just ask my wife.  But something funny happened just a few weeks ago.  I mentioned to my Wednesday night class that a lady had approached me a couple of Sundays earlier, and had commented on how much I had changed in the last six months!  When she said this I was completely taken aback.  I had no idea what she was talking about.  Even more surprising, the entire Wednesday night class agreed with her!

I am not mentioning this to pat myself on the back.  How could I even think of taking credit for something of which I was completely unaware?  I am still not exactly sure what those people were talking about.  But, they are all my friends -- they know me.  Whatever it is I accept it.  More than that, I praise God for it.

Have you been transformed?  If not, maybe now is the time to get serious about your faith.

Why The Law? (Musings from the Elliptical Machine)

If you are an HC partner I hope you were here last Sunday for Pastor Dusty's message.  The message took a hard look at a core aspect of the Gospel message -- there is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus!  Romans 8:1.  If you did not make the service (or don't attend HC) I highly recommend that you listen to it on the web or on the HC App.

Maybe because of that message, the other night when I was at the gym on the elliptical machine I began to think about why God gave the Israelites the law.  It's a question that I get from time to time, and it usually is phrased something like this: "why would God give the Israelites the law when He knew from the beginning that they would not be able to keep it?"

Without a doubt one of the dominant themes of the Old Testament is the inability of the Israelites, time and time again, to obey the law. And, it is also true that God knew this would be the case.  So, maybe the better question is "why didn't God just start with grace?"  

I mean, think about it.  What a great time we live in relatively speaking!  The Israelites had to spend their days trying meticulously to comply with hundreds of laws in the hope of pleasing God.  But, because of Jesus, our salvation comes by the Grace of God as a result of our faith in Him.  Its tempting, isn't it, to think that if God had started with grace life could have been a lot easier for all those people over all of those centuries who tried -- sometimes with great conviction (think the Pharisees) -- to strictly adhere to the law. 

But, I don't think that is actually true.  You see, I think if the Israelites had been offered God's grace without the law they would not have accepted it.  They wouldn't have accepted it because they would not have  known that they needed it.

Think of it this way.  Without the law, we would not even know what sin is.  The law both gives definition to sin and, indeed, was added so that trespass might increase. See Romans 5:12 - 20.  And, if we don't know what sin is, we can't know that we need grace!

In fact, this is the very problem that non-believers face.  I often hear non-believers make the argument that it should be enough to be good people.  They argue that they just can't get behind a God who (1) would condemn "good people;" and (2) has such an ego that salvation is all about Him.  What they are really saying is that they just don't think they should need God's grace.

This, of course, is precisely the point. The Israelites went through "hell" (so to speak) time and time again to show us that sinful man cannot adhere fully to the law.  It is a history of a people that shows us that no matter how hard we try we will never be able to save ourselves.  We will never be good enough to be able to claim a righteousness sufficient to spend eternity in the presence of a just God.  It is a history that shows us that we desperately need the gift of grace. 

You see, what the Israelites went through is a great gift to the generations that followed.  If we understood their history early enough in our individual lives it would save us a lot of heartache.  Of course, most of us need to learn the hard way!

It's funny, but even the world knows that those who ignore history are doomed to repeat it. And, therein lies part of the value of the Old Testament. Thank God that we are without condemnation!

The Truth Project

“‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind’; and, ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’”


Luke 10:27 (NIV)



Next Wednesday night (at 7:30) we will be starting a video series created by Focus on the Family called "The Truth Project."  This series is an attempt to teach in a comprehensive and systematic way what the world looks like from a Christian perspective -- what we call a "Christian World View."  It is a subject that is essential for new believers, and I believe that this teaching will bless our "old-timers" as well.  I believe it will deepen your faith, give you even greater confidence in the truth of the Bible and strengthen your ability to defend the veracity of the Gospel to an increasingly skeptical world.


As the creator of The Truth Project states:  "You and I are engaged in a cosmic battle -- a battle that is raging for the hearts and minds of people the world over, putting the truth claims of God against the lies of the world, the flesh and the devil.  It is a battle over what you truly believe."


I am extremely excited about where HC is as a church.  I am convinced that the Spirit of God is moving in a powerful way.  I am excited to see so many of our partners hungry for the things of God, hungry for the Word, and crying out to get closer to Him.


And, while I am excited about where the "heart" of Heartland Church is for God at this time and in this season, I am also mindful that God is not satisfied even if He gets all of our heart.  No.  God wants us to be "all in" with everything we have.  To be specific, he wants us to love Him with all of our heart, all of our soul, all of our strength, and all of our mind.


There is, indeed, a battle raging.  At stake is eternity for billions of people all over the world.  And, there is nowhere on earth where the battle is being fought harder than right here in the United States.


We live in a land where even many of the poor are rich by the standards of the world -- and with wealth comes deceit.  We can be deceived by what we can buy and what we can accomplish.  We live in a land where science, technology and even the American Dream have overtaken God as the object of our worship.  We live in a land where people have convinced themselves that mankind itself, and not God, has the answers to all of the problems of the world.  Increasingly, the truth of the Bible is dismissed in our schools -- our children inundated with a worldview where God is unknown.


I hope that you will join me for The Truth Project.  It is my prayer that this will be a time when we can come together to renew our minds, to build our faith and to strengthen our testimony.


The Truth is coming!  
Starting at 7:30 p.m., Wednesday February 8, 2012.