I absolutely loved this message by Craig Groeschel that we at New Passion opened our One Prayer series with this past Sunday. It’s called “Unstoppable Courage” and it hits home because I have some friends right now who are staring some Lions in the face and they are either going to have to decide to chase the Lion and kill it, or allow the Lion to destroy them. I pray they have their eyes opened to how big their God is:
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One of our core values at New Passion is to Embrace Faith that’s Bigger Than Ourselves. That statement would sound really cool, even if we chose not to live by it, but ever since I committed to following what I felt God was calling me to do in starting New Passion Church, that has been a motto of my life and our ministry. I believe that Christ has called us on a faith journey where we must always be reliant on him and his strength. I want New Passion to be the kind of church that has nothing to loose and everything to gain. I want us to be a church that is willing to take unimaginable risks, because without risk, there is no reward.
New Passion did not start as a “daughter” church of another church. No one came to me and said, “Nick. we desire to start a new church, would you be the planter for that church?” I only had what I knew to be God’s voice calling me out. We had no money, no equipment, nothing, but my family and a friend who agreed to be our CFO for legal reasons. A couple of months in we started asking some people to consider taking this journey with us and we had some agree, while others could not make the commitment. We were at a place where it would have been easy to declare that I was wrong and things were just not working out and I could have pulled the plug and looked for a staff position somewhere, but I held on. Some weeks later, I got a call from a friend who had planted a church a year earlier than us and he wanted to meet. When we sat down he said that his church, being small could not do a lot to help us, but they wanted to do anything they could, so they offered us a loan to help get things off the ground. I went and spoke to my CFO and my wife and a few people I trust (like my dad).
I’ve always heard DO NOT get a loan to start a church. Well, at the time, our sponsoring church did not know what they would do to help us financially and we did not have any other churches coming along side us. Here was one of my biggest crossroads as a new pastor. The loan was going to be interest free and we only had to pay back 10% of our offerings each month, with no deadline on paying the money off, but at the time, we were a small launch team with no guarantees even on a meeting place. This was my opportunity to embrace faith that was bigger than myself, or to look for a solution that I could wrap my arms around and see the outcome for. I don’t even think the few people on our team that was aware of the loan fully supported it, but I had to make the decision at this juncture of our church, and I signed the papers. Up to this point we’ve made two payments, until yesterday…
A couple of friends who own a business came to me and said that they made a commitment to see lives changed through their business, and once they got to a place where they could increase what they were already doing, they were going to find ways to impact the Kingdom. I got a call from one of them yesterday to see if I could meet them somewhere, so we decided to grab a quick lunch together. We sat down and they shared their heart with me about their desire to be used by God and then handed me an envelope. I held it and they shared some more and then asked me to open the envelope. I looked at them and they were smiling as big as a child on Christmas morning. They were so excited at the opportunity they had to make an impact in people’s lives. I looked at the check, and it was for the exact amount that we had borrowed from the local church. I was blown away and a little in shock!
There is NO way we would be where we are today as a church had we not taken a risk up front and embraced a faith that was huge at the time by taking that loan. I am excited to say that we are now debt free (as of next week when they get the final check) and 10% of our budget is freed up to do more ministry! But we are not going to get comfortable. That small risk was only to prepare us for bigger risks that I know lie ahead of us.
Join the Conversation…When have you had to take a risk in your life and saw how big God is through it?
Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen. Ephesians 3:20-21
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One of the biggest steps of faith I’ve ever taken was to start New Passion Church. Since last November when I knew this was the leading of the Lord and that if I did not follow I’d be disobedient, I am continually reminded that this church and this whole movement of Christ known as the church is so much bigger than I am.
I’ve blogged before how it would be nice at times to have a flashlight so I could simply see what lies ahead of me. How will we get the money to afford this project? How will we have enough people to serve in this environment? Will people even show up? I type in the context of New Passion Church because it’s the most recent BIG faith act I’ve embraced, so everyday I’m living in the reality of that act. There have been times my personal life that my questions consist of ‘how are we going to pay for this bill?’ or ‘will this relationship ever be mended?’ – I believe that God always calls us to a faith that’s bigger than ourselves. I truly believe if we can wrap our arms around it or if we can control it, the journey that we are on or the decision that we are making is not of God. That’s why the E in our HEART is that we value Embracing Faith Bigger than Ourselves.
We looked at the story of Samuel, Saul, and Jonathan from 1 Samuel chapters 9-14 yesterday and from the scripture we saw how God always calls us to a Faith that #1 is Bigger than Ourselves #2 that Requires our complete Reliance on God and #3 that always completes God’s plan. – The Christian journey is a faith life, it is full of uncertainty. You cannot have faith without uncertainty…that’s why we don’t get the flashlight. Instead he gives us a blindfold.
Last week, we talked about how Religion allows us to set obtainable goals that we can reach on our own, therefore making us feel spiritual. If we can reach it on our own, we have no need for faith or a reliance on Jesus. Hebrews 11:6 say’s it is “impossible to please God without faith.”
Join the Conversation…Are you trying to control the outcome of your situation? Or Are you reaching out and embracing a faith that’s bigger than yourself?
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I often want to have all of the answers. Its not always fun walking by this thing we call faith. The more I walk in faith the more I realize that it is by walking in faith that it increases and I learn how to live in it more regularly. It still doesn’t make it easy. I posted about my desire at times for a flashlight HERE last week. Without faith to fully trust God, I wonder how deep our Christianity really goes? Today, I was reading some more of Oswald Chambers and was really inspired by what he wrote…
Getting There
June 13“. . . come, follow Me” Luke 18:22
Where our individual desire dies and sanctified surrender lives. One of the greatest hindrances in coming to Jesus is the excuse of our own individual temperament. We make our temperament and our natural desires barriers to coming to Jesus. Yet the first thing we realize when we do come to Jesus is that He pays no attention whatsoever to our natural desires. We have the idea that we can dedicate our gifts to God. However, you cannot dedicate what is not yours. There is actually only one thing you can dedicate to God, and that is your right to yourself (see Romans 12:1). If you will give God your right to yourself, He will make a holy experiment out of you- and His experiments always succeed. The one true mark of a saint of God is the inner creativity that flows from being totally surrendered to Jesus Christ. In the life of a saint there is this amazing Well, which is a continual Source of original life. The Spirit of God is a Well of water springing up perpetually fresh. A saint realizes that it is God who engineers his circumstances; consequently there are no complaints, only unrestrained surrender to Jesus. Never try to make your experience a principle for others, but allow God to be as creative and original with others as He is with you.
If you abandon everything to Jesus, and come when He says, “Come,” then He will continue to say, “Come,” through you. You will go out into the world reproducing the echo of Christ’s “Come.” That is the result in every soul who has abandoned all and come to Jesus.
Have I come to Him? Will I come now?
Two things stood out to me on this devotional:
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I read this devotion from Oswald Chambers the other night…I thought it defined my journey as a church planter pretty accurately. Sometimes I wish I just had a flashlight to see some of the things lying before me. At times I think a flashlight would make things easier. When I talk to people about joining our team…honestly, I understand their squirminess. Church planting is tough. I can say that with integrity now. It requires total reliance on God. Some people are not willing to do that. We absolutely will not take a step unless we can see what it is that’s lying in the grass ahead of us…what Oswald talks about is a scary, dangerous life of reckless abandon:
“Yes-But…!”
“Lord, I will follow You, but…” (Luke 9:61)
Suppose God tells you to do something that is an enormous test of your common sense, totally going against it. What will you do? Will you hold back? If you get into the habit of doing something physically, you will do it every time you are tested until you break the habit through sheer determination. And the same is true spiritually. Again and again you will come right up to what Jesus wants, but every time you will turn back at the true point of testing, until you are determined to abandon yourself to God in total surrender. Yet we tend to say, “Yes, but-suppose I do obey God in this matter, what about…?” Or we say, “Yes, I will obey God if what he asks of me doesn’t go against my common sense, but don’t ask me to take a step in the dark.”
Jesus Christ demands the same unrestrained, adventerous spirit in those who have placed their trust in Him that the natural man exhibits. If a person is ever going to do anything worthwhile, there will be time when he must risk everything by his leap in the dark. In the spiritual realm, Jesus Christ demands that you risk everything you hold on to or believe through common sense, and leap by faith into what He says. Once you obey, you will immediately find what He says is as solidly consistent as common sense.
By the test of common sense, Jesus Christ’s statements may seem mad, but when you test them by the trial of faith, your findings will fill your spirit with the awesome fact that they are the very words of God. Trust completely in God, and when He brings you to a new opportunity of adventure, offering it to you, see that you take it. We act like pagans in a crisis-only one out of an entire crowd is daring enough to invest his faith in the character of God.
When God gives you a challenge. Do you wait for Him to give you a flashlight? Or are you daring enough to invest your faith in the character of God and taking a leap into the dark?
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I have a battle that wars within me constantly. Its a battle between desiring to be the Christian that Christ wants me to be and to do Christianity the way I was taught to do it.
I believe football has more conditioning and training drills than any other sport. I’ve played all of the major sports in school; football, basketball, baseball, and soccer. I missed out on underwater basket weaving. Football has so many positions and each position has a different function depending on the play, so the training is extensive. If you are an offensive lineman, one play may call for you to run block while the next requires a pass block, then an entire new play may require that you perform a pull block to open a bigger hole for your running back. This process of training is often referred to as “Conditioning.”
When I got out of High School, I held several jobs. One of my greatest closing lines when interviewing was to assure the company that I had the skills to perform the job, but because I had never worked in the specific position or for a competitor, I would do the job exactly the way they trained me to do it, unlike career employees, I was not conditioned in any other method of doing the job, basically I was a blank slate. I was communicating that I had not been programmed to do it any other way, rather I would perform the job only in the manner that they conditioned me or trained me to do it in.
I struggle with this in Christianity. I grew up being programmed that a lot of Christianity was a duty instead of a relationship. Even though I know better, I find myself reverting back to this approach in my faith walk. Don’t get me wrong, some of my Christian conditioning was good for me, and I use the skills all the time, but then there are some areas that are toxic to my relationship with Christ. I don’t want to do Christianity, I don’t want to have a checklist to make sure I am not making God mad. I fight against some of the opinions that were taught to me as ‘fact’ and as ‘the Gospel’. I’m left questioning a lot, is this (particular issue) a non-negotiable or is it a mere opinion of a righteous individual? In the end, I guess God uses this struggle to keep me reliant on him during the times I have this war raging within me. Join the Conversation: Have you been conditioned?
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Let me clarify up front…I am a Gator Hater!!! I am an unashamed, proud Georgia Bulldog’s fan and under normal circumstances would pull for any team that played our border foes, however on Thursday night, things changed for me. We’ve all most likely heard the promise made at the press conference, if you haven’t I embedded the video here…
Tebow is passionate about football and about winning, but he is more passionate about Jesus! On Thursday night, I found myself pulling for, not the Gaytors, but Tim Tebow. I found it amazing that the game announcers could not even talk about Tebow without talking about his faith and his off the field missions work. There was no seperating Tebow from his faith. Now I know there are groups of Christians who act like Christianity should almost be on the down low, as if we were living out a covert faith life. I do understand the desire not to be identified with the cheesy Christian-ease that some enjoy, but I believe the early Christians would take issue with the idea that we should live out Christian principles but only talk about Christ if someone gives us the opportunity. Their lives were all about Christ and they preached the Gospel to everyone they had the opportunity to do so with. I see that with Tebow, he is all about Christ. Some people would not pull for a player just because he is a believer, however when someone will put all of his or her fame and reputation on the line to live their life absent of self and for God’s honor, it makes me want to pull for them.
When most college students are partying and wasting their spring breaks away, Tebow is taking the free time he has to share Christ with a disconnected people across the ocean. Tebow made me think of the first Christians on Thursday night when the announcers could not seperate the faith from the man. Francis Chan talks about in Crazy Love…The early Christians never called themselves “Christians” – it was people outside the faith that first called them “Christians” because their lives reflected Christ. As you can see in the video, Tim Tebow is on a mission to be successful and to win at the game of football, but I know that he is more interested in being on a mission to see lives changed through the Gospel of Christ.
There are thousands of Christians in college football, but I have seen none who are as vocal or as passionate about Jesus as Tebow. I believe God allows people to rise to certain levels on a national stage, not because they have followed the principles in Your Best Life Now, but because God knows He can trust them to use it and not abuse it. You will never see Tebow in his game gear without a scripture under his eyes or a praise for his Savior from his lips, and as long as he is surrendering his spotlight to allow Jesus to shine, I believe He’ll continue to be given the opportunity to excel in what he does. His life reflects what Psalm 115:1 says, “Not to us, O Lord, not to us, but to your name goes all the glory for your unfailing love and faithfulness.” I believe it is people like Tebow who can spark a passion for Christ in an entire generation! So, Thursday night this Gator Hater, cringed and celebrated a man sold out to Christ hoist a National Chapionship and a MVP trophy in victory in hopes my Bulldogs can allow him to demonstrate overcoming defeat next season 
Join the Conversation: Thoughts?
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I had the priviledge of seeing Voddie Baucham for the first time at North Point Church in Alphretta, Georgia. At first I was a little upset that Andy Stanley was not going to be speaking, however after Voddie got finished I was excited I was introduced to this pastor. My dad and brother showed this video to me over the weekend. Watch the brief clip where Voddie flips the script on the philosophy of “If God is so powerful and so good, why do bad things happen?” Join the Conversation – Thoughts?
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I must confess, I have an issue with the so-called prosperity preachers and Christians. Don’t get me wrong, I am not trying to set myself up as a “judge and jury” against anyone, but my view of Christianity is a life of giving away and serving others rather than a life of obtaining and prospering. Jesus himself said, He did not come to be served, rather He came to earth to serve.
I really feel like Christmas came early this year. Nicki and I are not getting each other anything for Christmas. Honestly, we don’t need anything, and if we did there is a good chance we will get it as we need it throughout the year. However, our church did something different last month, I know some other churches that have done a similar project, but there are none in our area that I have heard of. During our “Bling” series we started the “Bless Back Campaign” where our church handed out free money to everyone in the congregation. The church took the equivilant amount to what we receive in a week in tithes and they divvied it up in envelopes, some people got $5, $10, $20, $50, $100, and even $500. Now I have heard of churches that did a similar project, but the goal was for people to multiply the money and bring it back to the church for a building campaign or similar, but our goal at TCAG is to redefine church, so we simply gave it to people and asked them to bless someone else. Someone could simply take a single mom for coffee or help buy someone groceries, the ideas were totally left up to the individuals. (You can read the stories HERE under the “Celebrate” section). (Keep Reading its worth it…)
Our Community Group put our money together. It ended up being around $700 total. My mother-in-law knows a lady that fosters kids, and the one’s that she currently has have never had a Christmas. The lady picked up a second job just to try and earn enough to buy them some presents. So yesterday, the ladies in our group took the lady the $700 in cash and in a gift card plus a Wii and controllers that another family wanted to pitch in to help. That made my Christmas. These kids have had horrible lives up until their current Foster Home. A 6 year old girl has cigarette burns down her neck and back (Shane wants to adopt her and is trying to convince Diana to pursue it), a 7 year old boy is considered “un-adoptable” because he has to take 5 insulin shots a day (His name is Tristan and I want to adopt him…I never thought I would say I want to adopt a child so soon after Hailey, but how can you say someone is un-adoptable? Plus he would be a great playmate for Gavin), that’s just 2 of the 12 children in this home. Sure $700 won’t go real far with 12 kids, but at least they will have more of a Christmas than they would have. Just to hear the stories from our wives when they got home got me more excited than opening a gift for myself this Christmas. All day, I felt like I had experienced Christmas…and…Christianity for what it really is…giving away, not obtaining and not prospering because I named something and claimed it. (Keep going just a little more…)
I wish you could see what has happened in our church within the last 2 months. Our students did a 2 weeks of sacrifice and raised enough money (along with matching gifts) to buy right at 6 clean water wells with Blood Water Mission. Our church committed to purchasing 25 of 61 meals for Christmas through a local ministry center, our people bought over 40 of the 61 meals needed, and to cap it off, we adopted 4 families in our county who would not have a Christmas with gifts unless someone were to help them, and our church stepped up to the plate big time providing gifts for each family member plus enough food for a Christmas dinner. Here’s what gets me though, two of the families we helped lived in a city that is growing by the thousands, Grovetown, GA. God is going to be doing some awesome stuff in Grovetown in the coming months, but…One of those families was living right next door to a church. These people live in what was described to me as “filth.” They are just dirt poor, yet a church who claims to follow Christ, has done nothing to assist this family, and probably any of the other families around them. It just leaves me to wonder, what kind of Christianity is this? Am I saying that every church has to do a Bless Back Campaign like our church did? No, but can God even trust us or trust our churches to do what Hes already told us to do? Some churches may look at what we as a church did and say its extreme, but I would say, its really just us doing what we’ve been called to do, but American Christianity has become so shallow it makes genuine obedience look “extreme.”
So, Join the Conversation, Can God really trust us or trust our churches to live life trying to serve and to give rather than to obtain and prosper? What are your thoughts?
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I always find myself taking things in life for granted, or overlooking how blessed I am because of minor issues that I allow to be bigger than what they really are. I think when we start looking at things in their proper perspectives, we are able to see the truth of how blessed and how good many of us have it.
For instance, this morning I am standing in the kitchen drinking a glass of tea (the kind with no sugar in it) and taking my array of daily pills. We live in a small home (especially with 5 people) so the only place we can fit our cereal boxes are on top of the refrigerator. I just happened to look at them and think, “Wow, we have a lot of cereal!” But to really put things into perspective, we probably have more food just in cereal than many children do in a year in third world countries. Yet, my children will complain if they don’t get the cereal they like, or if we are out of their favorite kind. I wonder how excited the kids who barely have anything to eat would be to get just 1 box of cereal? I then got a little downtime (finally) today to go visit some other blogs, and I was given another perspective on my life…
The reason I have not had time to visit other blogs is because our stupid website hosting company (no names, 1&1) sent my wife’s domain name to be deleted instead of for transfer to another company, I guess that’s their way of saying, “We’ll show you to leave our company!” I spent a week and a half with their tech support, whom you cannot understand ( I think they are a mix of arabic and chinese) trying to get the domain name restored and transferred to the new company. Once that was complete, I have been trying to rebuild the site for her to get her business back up and running. My bed times this week have been, 1:30 am, 2:30 am, 3:40 am, and 3:50 am before getting up between 6:30 and 7:00ish to go to work. I thought my last couple of weeks were pretty bad, but then I was reminded of what my friends Dan and Stephanie Gould deal with constantly with one of their children, Jackson. They’ve been in the hospital 5 times since September due to a cesure condition their son has. Personally, I would take a crashed website and early mornings trying to fix it, than having to see my son helplessly deal with the issues Jackson does, and to have him subjexcted to the tests and the probes from the Hospitals. Dan and Stephanie are much stronger than me, and their story helps me realize that my life is not as bad as it may seem…it could always be worst! (I’m not saying they have a bad life, just that they are having to endure more than my situation with the website).
Join the Conversation: What helps you keep your life in proper perspective? How could the world be different if we all had the right focus?
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