Fill Them With Christ
In one of his meetings, D.L. Moody was explaining to his audience the truth that we cannot bring about spiritual changes in our lives by our own strength. He demonstrated the principal like this: "Tell me," he said to his audience, "how can I get the air out of the tumbler I have in my hand?" One man said, "Suck it out with a pump." But Moody replied, "That would create a vacuum and shatter it." Finally after many suggestions, he picked up a pitcher and quietly filled the glass with water. "There," he said, "all the air is now removed." He then explained that victory for the child of God does not come by working hard to eliminate sinful habits, but rather by allowing Christ to take full possession.

All I've Got
Source: Mother Theresa
You'll never realize Jesus is all you need until Jesus is all you've got.

The Busy Preacher
Source: Jim Cymbala
It was Easter Sunday, and I was so tired at the end of the day that I just went to the edge of the platform, pulled down my tie and sat down and draped my feet over the edge. It was a wonderful service with many people coming forward. The counselors were talking with these people. As I was sitting there, I looked up the middle aisle, and there in about the third row was a man who looked about fifty, disheveled, filthy. He looked up at me rather sheepishly, as if saying, "Could I talk to you?" We have homeless people coming in all the time, asking for money or whatever. So as I sat there, I said to myself, though I am ashamed of it, "What a way to end a Sunday. I've had such a good time, preaching and ministering, and here's a fellow probably wanting some money for more wine."

He walked up. When he got within about five feet of me, I smelled a horrible smell like I'd never smelled in my life. It was so awful that when he got close, I would inhale by looking away, and then I'd talk to him, and then look away to inhale, because I couldn't inhale facing him. I asked him, "What's your name?" "David." "How long have you been on the street?" "Six years." "How old are you?" "Thirty-two." He looked fifty—hair matted, front teeth missing, wino, eyes slightly glazed. "Where did you sleep last night, David?" "Abandoned truck."

I keep in my back pocket a money clip that also holds some credit cards. I fumbled to pick one out, thinking, I'll give him some money. I won't even get a volunteer. They are all busy talking with others. Usually we don't give money to people. We take them to get something to eat. I took the money out. David pushed his finger in front of me. He said, "I don't want your money. I want this Jesus, the One you were talking about, because I'm not going to make it. I'm going to die on the street."

I completely forgot about David, and I started to weep for myself. I was going to give a couple of dollars to someone God had sent to me. See how easy it is? I could make the excuse I was tired. There is no excuse. I was not seeing him the way God sees him. I was not feeling what God feels. But oh, did that change! David just stood there. He didn't know what was happening. I pleaded with God, "God, forgive me! Forgive me! Please forgive me. I am so sorry to represent You this way. I'm so sorry. Here I am with my message and my points, and You send somebody, and I am not ready for it. Oh, God!"

Something came over me. Suddenly I started to weep deeper, and David began to weep. He fell against my chest as I was sitting there. He fell against my white shirt and tie, and I put my arms around him, and there we wept on each other. The smell of his person became a beautiful aroma. Here is what I thought the Lord made real to me: If you don't love this smell, I can't use you, because this is why I called you where you are. This is what you are about. You are about this smell.

Christ changed David's life. He started memorizing portions of Scripture that were incredible. We got him a place to live. We hired him in the church to do maintenance, and we got his teeth fixed. He was a handsome man when he came out of the hospital. They detoxed him in six days. He spent that Thanksgiving at my house. He also spent Christmas at my house. When we were exchanging presents, he pulled out a little thing and he said, "This is for you." It was a little white hankerchief. It was the only thing he could afford.

A year later, David got up and talked about his conversion to Christ. The minute he took the mic and began to speak, I said, "The man is a preacher." This past Easter, we ordained David. He is an associate minister of a church over in New Jersey. And I was so close to saying, "Here, take this; I'm a busy preacher." We can get so full of ourselves.

Community starts at home? Maybe that's not atomic enough, community starts with the individual.

Whaaat? How does that work? Community by it's very definition has to involve more than one person so how can it start with the individual?

The weekend just gone the Eldership of my church (which I am one of) went on retreat to pray, reflect and discuss God's direction for His church in the coming year. I think we all went in with some fairly clear ideas about what 2009 will look like but by the time we were done God had turned it all on it's head.

If you are a member of my church, you should probably skip the next couple of paragraphs, it contains spoilers for next year :)

God's agenda for our church seems centered around the statement "Being in community. Being of community" which is to say we are committing ourselves to growing our church in community with each other (as well as those who walk through our doors) as well as committing ourselves to growing in further outside of our church walls into the greater community.

The basis for all of this community building are small groups with the stated goal of "Being a church of small groups, not a church with small groups". That doesn't mean adopting a cell church model but rather seeking to make community a part of the DNA of our church. When someone new joins, the goal is to have them plugged in with a small group who will then become the primary mode of pastoral care and support.

The Holy Spirit was quite convicting when this vision took form in front of us, out of my own mouth I heard the challenge to us as a leadership to be practicing this form of community that we had been discussing for the rest of the church because if we were not able to practice and demonstrate it how could we expect the rest of our congregation too?

So why does community start with the individual, because the individual must make a conscious decision to open their life up to those around them even if those openings may invite pain or conviction. (Although in my experience it has always brought more joy than anything).

Community is not something that can be tough, it can only be shown. In fact we have the greatest example of community in God. As a Trinitarian being he is in constant community with himself and at his very nature he is love.

If we want to grow a God-like community, a royal priesthood of believers than we can do no better than taking a leaf out of God's book on this on.

On the train this morning I was listening to a lecture by Pastor Mark Driscoll about Spiritual Warfare. It's a touchy subject for most people. I have met those who have come from a church torn apart by it (the church subsequently closed it's doors) and were burned heavily by it.

There seems to be two types of responses to spiritual warfare, either we deny it's real (taking the cessationist route) or we see demons behind every action, misstep and misdeed that confronts our lives.

Both seem to be equally dangerous to people, when we deny the reality of the supernatural we begin to cut out the heart of God and His ability to change hearts and lives. When we embrace it too fully we begin to abdicate our response to the all of the natural struggles of life to the work of Satan.

I met one of the latter people early on in my Christian walk. A friend produced a Book of Mormon in a bible study as a discussion point, the persons first reaction was to get the book out of the house because "familiar spirits were attached to it". If only it were that easy to tie us Satan and his followers.

Let's look at some facts:

• The bible says that when Satan fell 1/3 of the angels rebelled with him, it also says that the heavenly creatures do not marry or are given in marriage (and consequently reproduce) so there are a fixed number of them out there.
• When these angels became demons they did not gain omnipotence, omnipresence or any other aspects of God. They are not everywhere and can not see everything you do but they have been studying mankind for a long time and have a pretty good bead on people.
• God and Satan are not equals. God created Satan as an angel. The bible suggests he had a pride of place in heaven which eventually led to his downfall but to use a boxing term, he doesn't have the reach to land a blow on God.

Let's get past this stuff in our churches and start to look at the real effects of spiritual warfare in the lives of people. The real consequence of all of this is that are hearts are not renewed by Holy Spirit, that we accept a false teaching of Christ or follow our hearts elsewhere. Satan battles to have us turn our hearts from God and he doesn't do that by camping in books.

In my last post I mentioned that I was a very busy boy last weekend. We had a Christmas in July where a lot of people from the soup kitchen we run came along.

We were blessed to have many of them visit with us the next Sunday morning, this happend to be a day that I was preaching.

It was a great privellege to have these people who have never darkend the door of a church before to come come and hear me speak about God and the wonderful gift of life he has for us all, and as promised I have published the text of the sermon on the website for you to read and critique.

The message is The Holy Spirit, God within us.

My prayer for it was that it would be words of hope and words of life for those who need it.

Appreciate your feedback.

Sunday and Tuesday night I brushed off ye olde electric guitar and was involved in a very intimate worship experience with my church.

It happened quite by accident, all the night service crew (except for one) who were rostered on had to bail at the last minute so the drummer (the only original), another worship leader and I just sat on some stools and bashed it out. The drummer was playing a large bongo and the other worship leader and I were playing guitar and singing.

That Sunday night I really felt the presence of God in the worship time, at the end of a couple of songs I engaged in some "free worship" and it was a blessed time with the Word, communion and ministry afterwards.

The three of us were asked to lead worship on Tuesday night during our monthly prayer gathering and we readily agreed, everything was about the same but I just didn't feel it.

So it begs the question, what was different, God or me? And what can I learn from this?

One of the most frustrating issues in ministry is waiting at the well for people to drink and drink deeply. As the old saying goes, you can lead a horse to water but you can't make it drink.

Ministry is about leading horses, I mean people, to the water and waiting patiently as they discover that they need to drink the water to be sustained.

When a Samaritan woman came to draw water, Jesus said to her, "Will you give me a drink?" The Samaritan woman said to him, "You are a Jew and I am a Samaritan woman. How can you ask me for a drink?" (For Jews do not associate with Samaritans.) Jesus answered her, "If you knew the gift of God and who it is that asks you for a drink, you would have asked him and he would have given you living water." "Sir," the woman said, "you have nothing to draw with and the well is deep. Where can you get this living water?"  Jesus answered, "Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks the water I give him will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life." (John 4:7-14 slightly abridged)

In ministry there seems to be a great deal of waiting at the well with people. We speak to people about the water, try and sell them on it's benefits, tell them how the water has sustained us in all times but ultimately we are required to wait patiently as they make the decision to drink for themselves.

It's just painfull to see people...