In thinking about the evening I have been wondering how I should prepare my heart.  I believe there are three things we should all do in preparation for entering any worship environment:

Upon returning back to Grace Point and EPIC Student Ministries, I had the opportunity to share with our EPIC students and parents just a small sampling of what God was/is teaching me.  Included below are my notes along with a link to where you can listen to a recording of my talk.

One last thing:  Thanks Grace Pointers for allowing me this sabbatical!!!!

Town Hall Meeting (05062012)

Big Idea:  God is looking for authentic people, not perfect people

Text:  Matthew 23.25-28

• Sabbatical Thank You
  • Went into the sabbatical with a heavy focus on what God wants to do in EPIC, but the word that was constantly being spoken to me was the word, AUTHENTIC.
  • Started off with a week-long youth ministry conference in Louisville, KY with 3,000 other youth pastors.
  • Attended a day-long seminar at the beginning of the conference called Pause:  An experience to gain clarity for your life and work which was taught by Dan Webster, CEO of Authentic Leadership, Inc. and former Pastor of Student Ministries at Willow Creek Community Church outside of Chicago.
  • Dan is now a Life Coach out of Holland, MI.
  • Through this Pause seminar, there were four things I realized I needed to do concerning myself as a person and as a leader:
    • Listen to God (authenticity happens when I pause long enough to see how I am interacting with God).
    • Listen to the last year (authenticity happens when I pause long enough to reflect on the journey I have taken).
    • Listen to my leadership development (authenticity happens when I line up my leadership with the gifts and talents God has given me).
    • Listen to the challenges I must face (authenticity happens when I am bold enough to deal with obstacles in my life, may it be, mental, spiritual, emotional, or physical).
• As a result of this Pause seminar I struck a relationship with Dan that led to him mentoring me through my sabbatical and helping me discover who I really am.

• What does it mean to be Authentic?
  • Get Whiteboard to list synonyms of the words Authentic and Inauthentic.
  • After discussing the lists READ Matthew 23.25-28
  • Read Matthew 5.20
  • Pharisees– the scribes and the Pharisees were in fact, the most obedient and committed religious folks in first-century Jewish culture. In addition, the Pharisees were theologically correct in almost everything they believed and taught.  The problem is they hid behind the Law.
  • They were more concerned about what others thought of them and how they portrayed themselves as spiritual giants that they didn’t see the flaws in their life and in essence lost their authenticity.
  • They were holy.  They devoutly followed God, prayed to Him regularly, often “heard from God” about how things should be, BUT they led by guilt.
  • But that isn’t the kind of disciples God is looking for.
  • Read Matthew 9.9-12:  As Jesus was walking along, he saw a man named Matthew sitting at his tax collector’s booth. “Follow me and be my disciple,” Jesus said to him. So Matthew got up and followed him.  Later, Matthew invited Jesus and his disciples to his home as dinner guests, along with many tax collectors and other disreputable sinners. ¹¹ But when the Pharisees saw this, they asked his disciples, “Why does your teacher eat with such scum?^[d]”  When Jesus heard this, he said, “Healthy people don’t need a doctor—sick people do.”
  • The disciples God is looking for are the broken, authentic, and transparent, not the Pharisee.

• How does this apply to EPIC?
  • I am a Pharisee!
  • The problem:  Read Luke 6.40.
  • Counseling—Perceived Perfectionism—“You think you have to impress everyone with your talent or accomplishments to get them to like and accept you. You believe that your friends and colleagues won’t respect you if they discover that you’re flawed or vulnerable.” Burns, David D.
  • As a result EPIC has become more about spiritual appearance than raw, real authenticity.
  • As Erwin McManus puts it in his book, An Unstoppable Force, we are creating a museum of saints instead of a hospital for sinners.
  • A walk thru a Wax Museum.  Not the real person.
  • The church was not intended to be a place where we put on masks to hide our true identity but was designed to be a place where it is safe to remove the masks and be authentic self.

• How do we fix it?
  • Start with the leaders, both adult and student leaders.
  • This whole next year of leader training will focus on the theme of Authenticity.
  • Going through the workbook, The Real Deal, by Dan Webster.
  • We are going to start this summer with a Student Leader class that will meet on Saturday nights during the service and will be open to any student 6-12^th grades that are interested in plugging into an area of service in the church including EPIC.
  • Teaching series will focus on Authenticity:
    • Ethos—our identity, our culture, our character
    • Masks—A look at the different masks that we wear and how to remove them.
    • [You]nique—Discovering why you are here and what you have to offer the world.
    • I am EPIC—A look at EPIC characters in the Bible and how we can be EPIC as well.
    • Culture Shock—Being authentic in a non-authentic world.
    • iWorship—What does authentic worship look like.
    • AttiTUDE—Developing Godly attitudes instead of self-seeking attitudes.
    • Truth is—Five promises from God when life is difficult.
    • Discipline—Moving from desire to experience.
    • Doubt—What causes me to doubt and how can I overcome it.
• Catechism/Confirmation Class on Saturday Nights starting around the beginning of the school year.

Recording Link:  http://www.gracepoint.cc/index.cfm?i=8595&mid=18&g=41599

2 Corinthians 12:9-10 (NIV)
⁹ But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me.
¹⁰ That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong.

So there are three things I have learned so far through this fasting journey:

1. I am incredibly blessed!!  Seriously, I don’t even consider how readily food is available to me.  I CANNOT complain about God’s grace and mercy on my–EVER!!!
2. I get grumpy when I don’t eat.  Just saying!!
3. The farther down this journey I go the more sensitive I become to the groanings of this world.  I cannot even imagine what God must feel as He looks down on His creation and sees us in such turmoil, despair, and chaos and yet unwilling to to turn to Him.

I pray I will seek to see this world and my own life through God’s eyes.

My job for the evening was to guide us in a time of Lectio Divina.  Lectio Divina is a an ancient practice of Scripture reading which helps the reader pull the most out of God’s Word.  You can do this with any passage but we used Psalm 34.7-9:

⁷ The angel of the LORD encamps around those who fear him,
   and he delivers them.

⁸ Taste and see that the LORD is good;
   blessed is the one who takes refuge in him.
⁹ Fear the LORD, you his holy people,
   for those who fear him lack nothing.

These are the three questions we had people reflect on and journal:

1.  Listen to the Holy Spirit minister God’s Word to you. What one word or phrase especially touches your heart?

2.  Enter the passage. What emotions do you have? What personal struggle or longing in your life today is God speaking into? (Be specific.)

3.  Reading: Receive what Christ has for you today. What is your personal invitation from the Lord? What do you sense God might be saying to you?

Once again, you can choose any passage.  I would highly recommend that you start with Psalm 34 and breakdown the passage in 3-4 verse segments and do this exercise everyday this week.  It will both eye-opening and rewarding.

On another note:  After the service we send home baggies with packets of salt, pepper, sugar, and mustard.  We encouraged the participants to find a quite place at home and to taste each of the spice packets and answer this question, “how is tasting God like salt?” etc.

One of the best examples is David.  Read Psalm 42.

Psalm 42:1-11 (NIV)
¹ As the deer pants for streams of water, so my soul pants for you, O God.
² My soul thirsts for God, for the living God. When can I go and meet with God?
³ My tears have been my food day and night, while men say to me all day long, “Where is your God?”
⁴ These things I remember as I pour out my soul: how I used to go with the multitude, leading the procession to the house of God, with shouts of joy and thanksgiving among the festive throng.
⁵ Why are you downcast, O my soul? Why so disturbed within me? Put your hope in God, for I will yet praise him, my Savior and
⁶ my God. My soul is downcast within me; therefore I will remember you from the land of the Jordan, the heights of Hermon–from Mount Mizar.
⁷ Deep calls to deep in the roar of your waterfalls; all your waves and breakers have swept over me.
⁸ By day the LORD directs his love, at night his song is with me– a prayer to the God of my life.
⁹ I say to God my Rock, “Why have you forgotten me? Why must I go about mourning, oppressed by the enemy?”
¹⁰ My bones suffer mortal agony as my foes taunt me, saying to me all day long, “Where is your God?”
¹¹ Why are you downcast, O my soul? Why so disturbed within me? Put your hope in God, for I will yet praise him, my Savior and my God.

Though it is discouraging that David felt this way, I am thankful to know that he struggled like most of us.

This year, God has placed this passage on my heart,

Philippians 4:11-12 (NIV)
¹¹I have learned to be content whatever the circumstances.
¹² I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty. I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want.

In a world and culture that is so materialistic-driven, I would love to find my contentment in God and who I am in Him instead of stuff I have or don’t have.

God, my prayer to you is that I find myself being satisfied in you and only you!  Amen.

Though I have a lot of my plate right now, EPIC, Grad class, family, etc., I have been reading, just for personal development, the book, Discipleship Counseling by Neil Anderson.  I have been a student of Dr. Anderson for quite some time and have always enjoyed his biblical approach to the counseling process.  In this recent book a quote caught my attention om relation to how we, in the church, often use secular reasoning to deal with spiritual issues,

Have we taken into account the reality of the spiritual world?  In other words, do we have a biblical worldview?   Are our struggles against flesh and blood?  Are we trying to accomplish God’s will without the power and guidance of the Holy Spirit?  Is the person mentally ill, or is there a spiritual battle going on for this individual’s mind?  Do we us the same message and methods with believers as we do with non-believers? Are we trying to help people establish their identities, find purpose and meaning in life, and see to meet their needs without Christ?  Isn’t that what the devil is doing?  Sobering!

I have had a lot of opportunities to meet with students and parents recently over a number of different issues and yet, almost every time, I find myself reverting to secular practices to deal with spiritual issues.  I have tried so hard to make my psychological schooling match my spiritual needs.   This is not going to work.  Though I see to help others, there is no one outside of the Holy Spirit, that can change their life–no one!!!  Not even me!  I am not, nor can I be, anyone’s Savior.  All I can do is point that person to Jesus Christ and help encourage them to be open to the Holy Spirit.  I am thankful for this reminder.  My desire is that this would continue to be at the forefront of my mind.

I am a passionate person.  Very little people see it, but I am definitely a passionate person.  When I am happy, I am passionately happy.  When I am contemplative, I am passionately contemplative.  When I am generous, I am passionately generous.  When I am angry, I am passionately angry.  It is that last part I get most nervous about.  When I get angry, I have this passion come over me to right the wrong.  As a result, I have often said something I regret and didn’t mean or did something that was selfish and inappropriate.

Then I read Isaiah 34.  I see that God gets angry as well.  And though, for a second I may feel justified with my anger, I notice some differences between God’s anger and my own anger.

1.  God’s anger is a righteous anger.  God is angry about a lack of respect for Him and His people.  My anger is mostly centered on my own pride and how I feel hurt.

2.  God’s anger is just.  He is angry only toward those who deserve His anger.  He doesn’t just “fly off the handle.”  He is calculated and fair.  I, on the other hand, take it out on everyone, if they deserve it or not.

3.  God’s anger is complete.  After reading Isaiah 34 I sit in silence at how extravagant God’s anger is.  He says in verse 10 that it will span generations.  Sounds extreme, but God’s anger is complete.

After reading Isaiah 34, in anticipation I look forward to reading the next chapter and see that in the end, it is with that vengeance that He comes to save those He loves (35.4).

I must remind myself that my anger is is never appropriate if it isn’t a righteous anger, an anger directed at direct disobedience of God.  I must also remind myself that vengeance is never mind to give.

I am the kind of person that loves to hear only the good things about life and really don’t enjoy hearing any thing negative and yet I am reminded that a loving parent will discipline their child.  God, who is a more loving parent than I am, will therefore show His love sometimes by disciplining me when I step out of line.  My reaction?  Well my reaction is normally to push away, much like a child who pushes away from their parent during discipline.  Isaiah 30.9-11, records God’s frustration when we only accept that which is pleasing and ignore that which is needed:

Isaiah 30:9-11 (NIV)
⁹ These are rebellious people, deceitful children, children unwilling to listen to the LORD’s instruction.
¹⁰ They say to the seers, “See no more visions!” and to the prophets, “Give us no more visions of what is right! Tell us pleasant things, prophesy illusions.
¹¹ Leave this way, get off this path, and stop confronting us with the Holy One of Israel!”

May I not be afraid to be confronted by a loving Heavenly Father, knowing that His love will often bring discipline to this often wayward child!

This morning, as I was reading in Isaiah, I came across to poignant verses concerning God’s ever watchful eye:

1.  God sees past our words and peers into our heart (Isaiah 29.13)

The Lord says: “These people come near to me with their mouth and honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me. Their worship of me is made up only of rules taught by men.

2.  There is NOTHING we can hide from God (Isaiah 29.15-16)

Woe to those who go to great depths to hide their plans from the LORD, who do their work in darkness and think, “Who sees us? Who will know?”
You turn things upside down, as if the potter were thought to be like the clay! Shall what is formed say to him who formed it, “He did not make me”? Can the pot say of the potter, “He knows nothing”?

God, may I be reminded that I can never fool you are hide anything from you.  May I be reminded that though I may look and sound good to others on the outside, You KNOW my heart.  Cleanse me O Lord.  May what you find in me be pleasing in your sight!!!!!