Kingdom Day – Living Out the Gospel

I had an idea the other day, but now it has grown into a massive dream. What is it? I want to inspire student ministries all across the world to participate in the largest single day service project ever! Why? To live out the Gospel to our disconnected communities. Will this dream happen? I don’t know, that will require the body of Christ working together and being willing to unite under the banner of Christ, putting aside personal preferences, styles, denominations, number, and everything else that divides us in order to flesh out the faith we claim to follow. Here’s how this idea became a massive dream and where I would like to see it go…

I am a part of a local youth workers network that works together to promote and to host several annual activities and events for the students in our communities. One of the events we coordinate as a network is a city wide D-Now (Disciple Now) where each church coordinates a weekend of small groups that meet in homes and group activities with the students of their ministries. On Saturday evening of the D-Now all of the students who participate in the D-Now come to a central location to participate in a concert and a guest speaker. Basically it is a ‘feed me’ type atmosphere where students do no more than ‘come and watch’ a show. Our D-Now’s can bring in anywhere from 700-2,000 students depending on what band we bring in and who the speaker is, so I made a suggestion (the idea) that my buddy Shane was all about too because we have the same heart on a lot of issues…

Why don’t we (the network) capitalize on the opportunity we have on this weekend with these students to do more than ‘come and watch’ to mobilize them to ‘go and invest/serve’ in our community? 700-2,000 students from 30 + churches is an awesome time for the CHURCH to unite to make a difference in the life of those who live in our communities. So I have contacted the Mayor of Augusta to see if there is a park that needs renovating in a poor neighborhood, as well, we are looking at partnering with a local mission and/or community center to help repair, clean, and freshen up with paint and other services that can be accomplished by students. We have also discussed finding some elderly people, who are disabled or in need that needs work completed on their private homes. In one day, a whole community will feel and experience the impact of Christianity, under the banner of Jesus Christ, as represented by 30 + different churches.

So my idea blew up into a massive dream as I was taking a shower the other night. It was almost as if the Lord questioned me, “Why stop with 30 + churches and why focus locally….why not globally?” – And I personally was inspired and could not sleep, so I shot a few emails off to people who may can help get this ball rolling, if it is meant to be. My dream is this…I believe with the combination of bloggers and a few major networks of youth pastors this thing could become a reality. Each youth pastor who desires for their ministry to participate would partner with at least 1 other youth ministry and youth pastor in their area. Together these youth pastors would plan a major or a small project for their ministries to accomplish together on one day, while thousands of other ministries and students are doing the same in their communities, Saturday, April 25, 2009. In one day, youth ministries all across the globe would act out the single largest service project ever in the worlds history, all for the cause of Christ and to futher the Gospel through the example of our service.

The logo may change, some details may change, this is about 24 hours old, but my question is, why can’t it be done? I read in Ephesians 3:20 (NLT) today and it blew my mind…“Now all glory to God, who is able, through his mighty power at work within us, to accomplish “INFINITELY” more than we might ask or think.”

So, are you in? What can you do? What do we need to do? I need help!!! We have less than a year, but together it can be done. We may need a website, bloggers, logos, t-shirts?, I don’t know, but maybe you do. If you have ideas or want to join in and help push this forward email me HERE or leave a comment. Kingdom Day (name may change), Saturday, April 25, 2009 (Date is Firm :) )

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Conversations with a 5 Year Old

…about new sister and Jesus.

Gavin was in the bathtub at MeMaw’s house yesterday and here was their conversation (some of which is not exact word for word being that it was told to me, but was totally unaided and unprovoked…straight from a 5 year old’s brain & heart to his lips):

Gavin: “We need to go get Hailey a balloon and a blue balloon from the store.”

MeMaw: “Ok, we can go get Hailey a balloon, but why a blue one?”

Gavin: “The blue one is not for Hailey, its a thank you balloon for Jesus.” – “We can send it up to him to tell him thank you for giving us Hailey!”

I am so thankful that I have a 5 year old son who already has a heart to please Jesus. I was speachless when I heard the story, and as MeMaw told the balloon lady, she began to cry. Needless to say, I was blessed with a brand new Beautiful daughter this week, but I have already been blessed with two awesome sons, for which I cannot thank God enough for. We always hear how God will ‘open the windows of Heaven and pour us out a blessing’ and so many times people automatically think of financial blessings, but I know that it does not always come in the form of finances (that would make things a lot easier) but it comes at times like these conversations, becasue I would take a son with a heart for Jesus over all the riches in the world.

If the video comes out ok I will post it so you can see Gavin pray before he sends Jesus his ballloon.

Blessed,

Nick

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Did It Just Randomly Happen?

“…that I may know Him…”
(Philippians 3:10)

A saint is not to take the initiative towards self-realization, but toward knowing Jesus Christ. A spiritually vigorous saint never believes that his circumstances simply happen at random, nor does he ever think of his life as being divided into the secular and the sacred. He sees every situation in which he finds himself as the means to obtaining a greater knowledge of Jesus Christ, and he has an attitude of unrestrained abandon and total surrender about him.

- Oswald Chambers

How many times has something gone crazy in our lives and we immediately start taking a self-inventory of the things we may have done wrong; the sins we may have committed to bring such pain, torment, and suffering upon ourselves? How much time do we spend sitting around thinking about what it is that ‘we’ can do to overcome the circumstances and the situations our lives are in? Each process is simply a step towards self-realization and a step away from a vigorous life of abandon to the cause of Christ.

So did that situation or that issue just happen at random in your life? Is that how we look at our present state of affairs? If you are like me, you start questioning the steps you took to get to where you currently are: ‘If I only would have ignored that email.’ ‘If I only would have turned right instead of left.’ ‘If I only would have…” Issue by issue we act as if it all happens by random chance. I am not speaking as if God brings every situation in our path. I truly believe that we do lead ourselves in many of the directions that our lives take. My thoughts are focusing on when we face these issues and circumstances whether God delivered or self caused is how do we view our journey while in the midst and what is our viewpoint on the backside when we have come through it.

Oswald Chambers proposes that a spiritually vigorous Christ Follower looks at the issues in his life not as a random occurrence, but as an opportunity to grow in our knowledge of the One we say we follow, Jesus Christ. This is a step away from self-realization and a step towards total reliance on Christ. This is not easy, in fact it is very difficult. However, any situation (whether self caused or God led) can serve as an opportunity to know Christ more.

“Lord, I was just lied to, betrayed, stabbed in the back, and wounded…reveal yourself to me!”
“Lord, my parents are going through a messy divorce…reveal yourself to me!”
“Lord, I lost my job and cannot pay my bills…reveal yourself to me!”
“Lord, my child has has abandoned you for the world…reveal yourself to me!”

Oh, how this is easier said than done. If it were up to us, we would remove every circumstance and issue that required faith on our part, we would settle for everything we could handle on our own and only for the things that we could provide an answer for. Christianity is a faith life and that faith leads us to rely on someone who is greater than we are when life is not the way we like it. This faith life is not for the prideful; surrender requires humility to understand that we are weak when standing on our own, but through the life of Christ that indwells us, we can make it to the other side. In the end, do we strive to make it on the other side to say ‘I beat an illness?’ Or to say ‘my marriage was restored?’ Or is our motive to say ‘Now I know Jesus a little more.’

I have recently experienced some things in my life that are rather confusing and I am asking Jesus, ‘how can I know you more through this?’ But also, with a new baby on the way and uncertainty in my ministry and career path, I want to get to the other side and be able to say, ‘I know my Jesus a little more now!’

Join the Conversation: What are you facing right now, that in the end will lead you to know Jesus even more?

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Blog Pirates

A Blog Pirate: Someone who tries to steal the spotlight from a more successful blog in order to make their blog noticed and to increase their traffic stats.

This is usually done by pointlessly criticizing posts in order to drive traffic to their blog. Most blog pirates surf the “What’s Hot” on the front page of blog hosts (I.E. WordPress.com) hunting their next victim. They also search through the tags pages to see what blogs have the most comments (thus a high level of traffic) and rips into the author of the blog and/or their content. If you have ever crossed a Blog Pirate you will see why they have to steal the spotlight, its usually because their content is not good enough to draw their own crowd and keep them.

Blog Pirates know that most authors will defend their content thus linking to the pirate and driving their readers (traffic) to the pirate’s site, they also know that when people search for key words pertaining to the victim’s blog in Google the searcher will be driven to the pirate’s blog as well, thus attracting extra traffic. Blog Pirates are interested in one thing, signing on to WordPress and immediately going to their daily stats and seeing how many hits they had that day…nothing more, nothing less.

Watch it! You may be hijacked by a Blog Pirate today :)

Join the Conversation! Have you ever been attacked by a Blog Pirate? Know anyone else that has? I’ve been attacked and I know others that have been attacked as well.

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Get Reel: Rambo (Sunday’s Message)

Thanks to all who prayed for me this past Sunday as I preached in an Adult service for the first time in 2 years. Yes, I was nervous. Yes, I was worried that I would go over my given time…All a perfect recipe for a disaster. So, who knows the outcome, except Christ and those who heard the message. I had some positive remarks, a few people who conveyed they needed the message at that exact time in their life, and then Chuck emailed me and reported HERE that we had two people mark their communication card that they received Christ in the service. So regardless of how I feel about the message, my main prayer is that the Lord used it in people’s lives.

I am posing the MP3 of the message HERE – the sound is not very good on the recording (Update: I’ve had a few people say it does not sound the same as it did live…its too loudplus some Firefox users have had some downloading issues). We are doing a Summer series called Get Reel where we are doing messages around Movie Blockbusters, I did my message from Rambo, here are a few things you may need to know:

#1 I opened with this clip, so you may want to view it before listening…it may put some of what I was saying into perspective:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E-3BgQOusD8]

#2 When I refer to a monopoly faith I was using these as a visual aid (my hot wife made them), sometimes I said some things and was pointing or referencing these so it may confuse you on those parts:

Finally the audio goes silent in one section, its because we showed this clip to close out the message:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UtJO6iZUddQ]

Get Reel: Rambo Message


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A Rap Worth Listening To

I watched this over at Pete’s blog yesterday and had to go back this morning to listen to it again. My favorite part is “Send Me I’ll Go” because that sums up where my heart is right now.

[vodpod id=ExternalVideo.620792&w=425&h=350&fv=]

What are your thoughts? Join the Conversation!

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Small Steps to Making Huge Impacts

My new blog friend Brad Ruggles had this post and this post on his blog for the past couple of days. The conversations have been great, a little rough at times, but honest and interesting to say the least.

I want to continue to conversation here…

My friend Neely McQueen is the PDYM Community Guru. She keeps all of the state mentors in line and coordinates our state wide network lunches. Her husband Josh is a Student Minister in Washington (the state).

They are adopting a little girl (Little Girl McQueen) from overseas and I am asking you to help them. This is one more way that we can take a small step to make a huge impact. With your coffee purchase, 40% of the proceeds go directly towards helping bring Little Girl McQueen home to the US. Most of you out there love coffee, you buy it for your house, you buy it for the office, so why not continue doing what you always do, but make an impact in the life of a little girl and an entire family?

Click Here to purchase through Neely and Josh’s Affiliate Number so they get credit. Remember, birthday’s, anniversaries, Christimas, and Just Becauses are always great time to buy your family members or friends a great fresh bag of coffee. You will love it! Thank you for being Jesus by drinking coffee! You must order from the Affiliate Link for credit. Spread the word, I’m keeping a permanent link on my right hand sidebar to make re-orders easy for you, I’m all about customer service! :)

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Does God Promise Protection?

I was reading the entry for My Utmost for His Highest this morning and was a little torn. Here is the section that brings me to this blog post:

. . . I am with you to deliver you,’ says the Lord —Jeremiah 1:8

God promised Jeremiah that He would deliver him personally— “. . . your life shall be as a prize to you . . .” (Jeremiah 39:18 ). That is all God promises His children. Wherever God sends us, He will guard our lives.

Now, I am fairly new at reading Oswald Chambers’ stuff. There are times that I read it and I can hear some of his influence or at least an identical influence in some of the people who have helped form my thinking. One of those people, once again today, is Louie Giglio. Yesterday, as I piggy backed on Pete Wilson’s blog, I posted an audio message from Louie called “Prayer-a-Remix” where Louie points out how unbiblical many of our cliche’ American prayers are. [Download the Full Message Here - Requires Quick Time]

In the message Louie talks about how one of the typical things that we pray is “Lord Protect Me!” – However, in the post Cross/Resurrection teaching of the Gospel, we are never promised protection or safety. Louie points out that in the Old Testament all the heroes (David, Daniel, Noah, Etc.) were victorious and lived, but in the post Cross/Resurrection portion of the New Testament all the heroes suffered and died (Jesus, Peter, Paul, Etc.) – The bottom line is that sure we can pray for protection, and trust me I pray for protection for my family daily, but in reality, if you are living totally abandoned to Christ and truly mean that He can use your life to further His mission no matter what, then I believe there is no promise of protection, because sometimes His mission is greater than our lives!

**You have got to listen to the audio message about Louie’s example of Graham Stains – It puts this into perfect perspective – I admit I have used the illustration numerous times now!**

Join the Conversation, What Do You Think?

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Do We Even Understand God?

I was wondering what I should blog about today, but after reading Pete Wilson’s post (God Bless America?) and watching the video he linked to, there is nothing more I need to say. I encourage you to go read the post and watch the video of a young boy who’s family had to give up their custody to the government because they could no longer afford to keep him. Pete’s post reminded me of a message that I heard in 2005 at the PDYM Conference by Louie Giglio called “Prayer-a-Remix” You can download the entire message for Free HERE

Warning: After listening to this message your prayer life will be totally messed up, so do not listen to it if you are comfortable praying the average cliche’ Americanized Chritian prayers and living the typical self-serving Americanized Christian life…I warned you!

Here is an excerpt from Pete, be sure to go check out the rest of his post HERE and watch the video:

I saw this bumper sticker the other day when I was walking into Blockbuster. It says, “My Pastor Says God Bless America.” Since seeing the bumper sticker I’ve discovered it’s linked to a political movement.

I want to be clear that I’m neither condemning nor endorsing this organization. I know nothing about it, but this bumper sticker just prompted the following thoughts.

I’m tired of praying “God Bless America.” Now, before you try to stone me at the county courthouse, let me clearly state, “I’m proud of our country.” I’m indebted to people who have served her to give me the freedoms I have. So we’re cool. I shoot fireworks off on the 4th and everything.

Join the Conversation, What’s Your Thoughts?

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Atheism (Updated)

I removed the picture that I posted about Atheism. Apparently those who are atheist said the picture was inaccuarate to their actual beliefs, so although I do not share the views of an atheist I am removing the picture out of respect for them. After thinking about it, I could see how the picture could be viewed as devisive and that is not the intent of this blog. I desire to share the love of Christ and that is not done by being divisive or rude. I stand firm on what I believe, but felt that it was best to remove the picture so I do not portray the wrong attitude.

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