Following Jesus / Serving Churches
You may not have all you want.
I pray you have all you need.
You may not be where you want.
I pray Christ can be all in you.
You may not feel like giving thanks.
I pray the Spirit guides you.
Give thanks, My Friends.
For we are blessed.
Let them give thanks to the Lord for His faithful love and His wonderful works for all humanity. Psalm 107:8
Here is a partial screenshoot of our newly redesigned church website. We'd love you to come visit the new southviewbaptist.org. Still developing & adding content, we desire our site to be simple, clean, & informative.
As an added bonus of our new site, iTunes users can now subscribe to my sermon podcast, here.
Much thanks to my talented friend, Chris De Jabet. If you need tech or web help, Chris is a joy to work with. He can translate Techese to us regular folks & is an expert in all things Apple. You can visit his site, the aptly named techese.net, to learn more & contact him about freelance work as you need.
Photo props for our amazing staff pix to Miss Myra McCracken. If you live in Lincoln & need a talented photographer, Myra has quite an eye. She even made us look good. Find out more our her Facebook page.
For the graphic design work of our banner, we have Andria Cogley to thank. Contact me diretly to be connected with Andria. Thanks to the web she can assist you no matter where you live. Her ability to take an idea & turn it into awesome is amazing.
These great folks, my Brother & Sisters in Christ - different parts of the Body of Christ working together with their tech, photo, & design skills - made this happen.
Thanks to them for giving their talents.
Thanks to God for giving us them.
October 23, 2005. My first Sunday as Senior Pastor of Southview Baptist Church in Lincoln, Nebraska.
October 24, 2011. My first Monday of the seventh year as Pastor with Southview.
Six years. Plus one day.
Starting my seventh year. I love these dear people. My church family. It is my daily joy to serve. It is my privilege to be so close to God at work. It is heartbreaking when I realize I have failed them. It is crushing to walk through life's valley's with them. I count it all joy. Trusting our sovereign, loving Father. And I pray I can be more like Christ & do more for his Kingdom in this seventh year than the last six.
Four lessons. For number seven.
Loving. My wife must know, my children must know, my family must know, my church family must know, my friends must know, & everyone I meet must know that I love them. The otherish love we share is God powered, other centered, & self sacrificing. We love because Jesus first loved us. We love as he commands. We love not because of what others can do for us, but because of what Jesus has done for us.
Leading. My home needs a leader. My church needs a leader. My peers need a leader. Our world needs leaders. Christ following, Bible believing, courageously obeying, selflessly serving leaders. Where my family has faltered, I am at fault. Where my church has struggled, I have been lax. Where your business has bungled, you are to blame. Learn from it. Move forward better. If I am the leader, if you the leader in your family or workplace or church, then we must have a simple motto like this: I am the leader; I must lead.
Listening. In order to love well, I must listen. In order to lead well, I must listen. We're all different - personalities, experiences, habits, maturity - yet we are all wired to want to be focused on. We want to know others are listening. We want their eyes. Their body language. Their questions & comments to show that they are with us. And, when I assert my own ideas to quickly or am distracted by other things, I devalue the other person created in God's image & I cut off communication that mirrors that union. When I do not listen well, I damage more than communication.
Learning. Your organization will be limited by your ability to learn. Family, church, business. When you stop learning, you stop moving forward. Whether you are "the" leader or "a" leader - or even if you don't consider yourself a leader at all - you must continue to learn. Come humbly. A learning posture not only admits not knowing it all, but freely admits that it doesn't know much. This learning posture admits the need for others. Our learning posture honors the Christ's church as a body with every member needing one another.
I have falied when I have not lived these four Ls well.
I will continue to fail if I do not live them well.
Learn from me. That humble posture might be the beginning for you.
Loving. Leading. Listening. Learning.
Laying it all down for Christ. And those he gives us to serve.
I am weary. Yet joyful.
I am trusting. And joyful.
I am broken. Yet joyful.
I am thankful. And joyful.
I am hurting. Yet joyful.
I am prayerful. And joyful.
There is joy.
There really is a joy that transcends circumstances. A joy that - in the midst of tragedy - takes root. Near unexplainable and completely palpable. A joy that grows deep & spreads wide. Fills the empty places in a grieving heart full of questions.
We buried the body of the heavenborn child of dear friends today. Friends grown dearer through this shared experience. It was hard. So hard. It hurts. So deep.
But at the same time there is joy.
Joy, hearing the unashamed, unassailable faith of this young couple.
Joy, witnessing their incredible, supernatural strength.
Joy, trusting the providence of our Loving Father.
Joy, knowing that this dear child is already living in Glory.
Joy, anticipating a heavenly reunion with this heavenborn friend.
Joy, observing the loving boldness of those ministering.
Joy, bubbling up from the streams of living water within.
Joy, feeling the prayers & support of so many dear ones.
Joy, experiencing love as a verb in countless actions & words.
Joy, walking this tragic path with inspiring Christ followers.
If I could trade this joy for that precious boy, you know I would. But - trusting God's providence & receiving His grace - I'll accept this joy as a gift. My gift. One among so many from this child, our heavenborn friend. He has changed us. Forever.
He has shown me real, uncircumstantial, divinely given joy.
You know those calls you wish never came? The ones you can't prepare for. The doctor with test results. The family member with a tragedy. The friend with an unknown illness. The neighbor with a catastrophe. You know the call.
Monday night during supper - I must confess - I did not take a call because I didn’t know the number & we were in the middle of the meal. Voicemail would catch it. Not even a minute later the same number called our home phone. Then we knew it must be serious. Melanie answered.
An emergency call from our children’s camp director. A dear brother - an adult sponsor for our church kids - was just taken via ambulance to ER. My heart sank in concern as my mind swam with possibilities. I knew what I should do. Who else would be available? In the next few hours with completion of testing and doctor's consultation, confirmation arrived that I should go. He and his wife - our other adult sponsor - needed to return home for further tests.
Wanting our girls to have a replacement sponsor as well, I called a sister from church. Did she have any plans? For the next four days? Would she be willing to be the girl’s sponsor? She said yes.
Short on sleep, but ready to serve, we made the three hour drive and arrived for our kid camper’s breakfast Tuesday morning. We shared hugs, prayers, and tears, then settled into the week.
It’s Tuesday afternoon as I write. I am sitting here at camp. In my cabin with no A/C. Sweltering. Yet I sit in joy. The cacophony of children playing in the pool floating through my screened window. The laughter of boys below tumbling up the steep staircase. The assurance our kids have been reassured. The knowledge our brother will get the best medical care from doctors who know him.
I do not write in order to make myself the hero. Please do not read that. I am just the pinch hitter. I write because this could be you.
Maybe you have been the one in crisis. Maybe you have been the one to respond. Maybe that crisis is now.
You know what the answer is? The answer to make it through the crisis? Love.
Love is a verb.
Love serves. Love gives. Love sweats. Love laughs. Love cries. Love hurts. Love listens. Love prays.
Love is parents willing to entrust their precious ones to others for a week that those children might learn more of the things of God.
Love is children leaving home with a little fear to find a lifetime full of faith.
Love is volunteers with more concerns than you know giving their week to a bunch of sweaty kids.
Love is a sister who had other plans this week out in the pool playing with kids right now.
Love is a child taking the hand of another who is homesick and walking the dirt path together.
Love is a brother laughing out loud as he throws ice water on children in the middle of a silly camp game on a hot afternoon.
This is love from children’s camp. But love is so much more than this.
What is love in your life? How have you given it? When have you received it?
Call it out. Write it down. Pray it deep. Live it out.
And - just in case - you are not loving or feeling loved, please join in. Your life will never be the same when you do.
Love’s not easy.
But it’s worth it.