There is something deep that unites us all. No, something even deeper than our universal love of Mexican food. It’s a common thread that runs through all of us, somehow binding each of us to something greater than ourselves, helping us see each other as more than just unrelated beings moving through unrelated space living out unrelated lives. It unites us and teaches us that we all somehow add to a story much greater than our own, a story that has been groaning toward completion long before us and will continue groaning long after we are gone. It’s the idea of story. Not just a story, but the story. I’ve heard it said that the story of each of us is the story of all of us. Personally, I believe that the story runs much deeper even than encompassing all of us. It runs deep into the very heart of who God is and how He works out His story in and through us all.

I don’t know how, but Andrew Peterson has apparently dug a deep well directly into the heart of the story and tapped it for all its majesty, beauty, and grace.

I’ve been following Peterson for a long time now. I was a big fan of his music (this may be a slight understatement) and I love to read (also an understatement), so I was understandably excited when I heard he was undertaking a new form of artistic expression in writing. I jumped at the chance to follow this amazing storyteller as he told a different kind of story in a different kind of way. So I pre-ordered his first novel, On the Edge of the Dark Sea of Darkness, and devoured it as soon as I got my hands on it. It was quirky, it was interesting, and it was extremely well-written for a freshman novel. But these qualities, awesome as they were, weren’t what hooked me. As I said, Peterson somehow discovered how to tap deeply into the story that unexpectedly united me to an unassuming farm boy on the edge of a redundantly dark sea, and there he found the hook that caught me and wouldn’t let go. As I read that first book in the Wingfeather Saga, I wasn’t just reading about the emotions that came along with the beautifully redemptive story being told. I was simultaneously living out those emotions in my own life. When those three children hurt, I hurt. When they laughed, I laughed. But most important, when they experienced that great wave of redemption that comes when the story turns and makes everything right again, I was right there with them. Peterson tapped me into something deeper than myself, and I wanted nothing more than to continue in it.

So, needless to say, I purchased the second and third books as soon as they were released (pre-released, in fact). The second book, North! Or Be Eaten, took my breath away. The story continued pressing on toward that completion that I longed for though I dreaded the path I knew it must take to get there. But again, I was hooked because I knew that in reading it I was somehow connected to those emotions that are so easily buried beneath our mundane sea of what we have convinced ourselves is life.

Then the third book, The Monster in the Hollows, came out. I didn’t think I could experience the story any deeper. I was wrong. As I followed the path that Peterson wove for Janner, Kalmar, and Leeli, I found myself running a gamut of emotions at a level I wasn’t sure even existed. This small microcosm of the one great story delved deeply into my soul and touched a part of me that had long been dormant. As I read, I experienced life, love, fear, turmoil, betrayal, and ultimately grace and redemption in a way that I expected no modern novel ever to have the ability to conjure. I experienced the story, and I can’t help but want more.

Peterson is, at his core, a storyteller. He knows how to weave a good tale. What I love about his book (and the series as a whole) is that he understands the rules of storytelling enough to know when to abide, when to bend, and when to break those rules in half. I am often disappointed by books, movies, and TV shows that allow you to pick out the bad guy early in the story simply by the way the author introduced him. Far too often you can tell where the story is going, and usually that means the reader (or viewer) loses some interest. That is not the case with Peterson, not because he knows and understands the unwritten rules of good storytelling. But because he understands how to manipulate those rules, torturing them until they relent, producing something surprisingly beautiful.

Would I recommend this book (and the Wingfeather Saga series)? I am ashamed that you even have to ask. I have personally purchased some 20 copies of the first book and have been responsible for introducing at least that many more people to the series. To state it plainly, ABSOLUTELY! If you are a fan of good storytelling, interesting lands and people, and/or all things yummy, you must read these books. Buy them for yourself. Buy them for your teenager who isn’t sure that reading is worth his time. Buy them for your parent who loves to read but already owns all the great books known to man. Buy them for the homeless guy on the corner (possibly bag them with a sandwich). Buy them for anyone you can. They too can tap into the great story of stories, and there they can find the redemption and grace that I found reading these books.

C.S. Lewis once wrote, “In life and art both, as it seems to me, we are always trying to catch in our net of successive moments something that is not successive. Whether in real life there is any doctor who can teach us how to do it, so that at last either the meshes will become fine enough to hold the bird, or we be so changed that we can throw our nets away and follow the bird to its own country, is not a question for this essay. But I think it is sometimes done – or very, very nearly done – in stories. I believe the effort to be well worth making.”

Lewis, through his incredible storytelling, was just such a doctor as to push us to grasp something beyond our own stories. Peterson unquestionably follows in Lewis’ able footsteps, beckoning his readers to strive for the far country that is not their home. Read these books and see for yourself. You won’t regret it.

As we think about how this natural disaster has affected our region, it is possible for us as Christ-followers to take a few different approaches to responding to the overwhelming needs of so many people:

-        Total Indifference: This is a perfectly viable option that many have chosen. It is a ‘sucks for them but oh well’ attitude. If this is your approach to this disaster, I would encourage you to reconsider calling yourself a Christ-follower.

-        Functional Indifference: This is another option that is slightly easier on the conscience. Those taking this approach are simply overwhelmed with the weight of need. They really want to do something to help, but don’t really know what to do or just feel like their contribution would be so small or insignificant that it would be a single tear attempting to suppress a forest ablaze: utterly useless. So, they say they are praying for the state, they post a few thoughts on facebook, they add a #WeAreAlabama hashtag on twitter, but ultimately, they do nothing. This is simply a more palatable version of the previous response.

-        Action: This is the final (and best) response we can have as Christ-followers. This doesn’t necessarily mean that we should be blindly packing up the trucks and heading out the doors and up the interstate. But we should be doing something!

For many of us, we can’t take off a week of work to go north and help. But we can give money to help those who are going to help. We have disposable income, whether we want to admit it or not. So I challenge us to give. Give to the Red Cross or your respective denominational relief agency or to a church that is putting together a relief trip. Sacrifice a meal or two out on the town so that people in our very own backyard can eat a hot meal in what used to be their back yards. Sacrifice your entertainment budget for the month so that people can live. Put the lives of people in one hand and your own temporary pleasures in the other and ask God which he would have you to value more.

As a church, we at The Vineyard are going to practice loving people as ourselves. This Sunday, we are going to sacrifice for the good of others. We are a small church, and our impact will certainly be smaller than some other groups with greater resources, but our impact will not be missing. So here’s what we’re going to do:

Each week after the service, we go out to eat as a church. I’m guessing each person spends at least five or six dollars on a meal. This week, we are going to replace our after-service meal on the town with a much cheaper meal of Little Caesar’s pizza and bottled water at the Shack. I figure we can save at least two or three dollars a person. I am challenging us to use that money saved as a starting point for a special offering we will be taking up to give directly to disaster relief. Let me reiterate: we will be taking a special offering of money to give to disaster relief, and I want you to give at least that much to the offering. My hope is that you will be creative by sacrificially rearranging some other aspects of your life so that you can give above and beyond the $3 you’ll save on your meal. I hope you will be willing to sacrifice that new gadget you’ve been saving for or a new outfit you’ve had your eye on so that others can have their most basic needs met through the love of Christ.

So there you have it. This Sunday night, we’ll have a special offering for disaster relief. You have been warned. Bring your heavy hearts and your open wallets and let’s make an impact in this overwhelming sea of need in our own backyards.

One such lesson I’ve had the repeated opportunity to espouse to my often involuntary student base is the immensely important lesson of how not to begin a story. More times than I’d like to admit, I’ve heard people begin their stories with phrases like, “This is the funniest thing you’ve ever heard,” or, “The craziest thing happened to me today,” or even the seemingly innocent, “You’re not going to believe this.” The problem with opening a story with these or similar phrases is that it inevitably sets the storyteller up for failure. The reason is that he has unwittingly put his hearers in a position where they will almost always be disappointed by what follows. Unless he happens to have the absolute craziest or funniest story a person has ever heard, he is likely to disappoint. I can almost hear Uncle Ben teaching Pete the lesson: “With great recommendation comes great expectations.”  The higher you bill the story, the greater the expectations of your hearers. So I recommend people avoid any premature billing of a story at all. Just jump in and let people respond without coaxing. Ignore this advice, and you deserve the disappointed looks on the faces of your audience.

An unfortunate tragedy occurs when a storyteller experiences this kind of disappointment in his audience at little or no fault of his own. I believe The Charlatan’s Boy, by Jonathan Rogers is just such an example. I am usually one to trust a friend’s recommendation in life. Be it restaurants, movies, or 80′s thrash metal bands, I usually trust a friend’s approval to the point of at least trying it. I believe a great fault of my own is that I often take those recommendations by my friends and equate the item recommended to my feelings toward my friend. Basically, my thought process goes like this: “I like Bob a lot, and Bob likes this band a lot, so I must like this band a lot too.” The unfortunate result is that I unwittingly break my own rule and set myself up for disappointment.

This book came highly recommended by the brothers Peterson, two authors I treasure. Andrew Peterson, in addition to being my favorite recording artist of all time, has authored two books (On the Edge of the Dark Sea of Darkness and North! Or Be Eaten) that quickly became my favorite books of modern times (which I highly recommend despite my previous rule, knowing you won’t be disappointed). And A.S. Peterson, Andrew’s brother, caught my attention with his first work, The Fiddler’s Gun, and won my heart with his masterful second book, Fiddler’s Green. So, when I saw that these two guys were throwing their weight behind endorsing The Charlatan’s Boy, I was pretty excited to read it for myself. I equated the Petersons’ works with what I expected from Rogers, and I apparently expected too much.

Please understand me on this: I enjoyed The Charlatan’s Boy. I really did. I just didn’t enjoy it nearly as much as I thought I would. Here’s a breakdown of some of the good, the bad, and the ugly:

The Good:

The work was quirky. Rogers’ whimsical style was refreshingly entertaining and relatively unique. I can honestly say I’ve not read anyone whose style I can really equate with him. The closest I can do is agree with the back cover and compare him to the matter of fact, down home storytelling of Mark Twain. But even that isn’t a great parallel. In terms of unique style, Rogers scores high marks.

Another pro was Rogers’ amusing use of paradox. A reader can’t help but love a world where ugliness is revered, even longed for. Props to him for creating a world in which even I could excel.

I also enjoyed mentally traipsing through a fantasy world that was creative enough to keep me interested but close enough to my own world not to require heavy explanatory paragraphs in order to purvey a decent mental picture. The lack of emphasis needed to explain setting should have allowed for a much heavier leaning toward character development. This is where the bad comes in:

The Bad:

Character development was slow. I think this was largely due to the fact that there was very little serious conflict throughout the book. Grady never really encounters anything that made me really fear for him. Because of this lack of serious conflict, it was difficult to connect with him emotionally. Grady never really overcame any impossible odds to catapult him beyond the realm of normalcy and into the realm of a deeply developed character.

There was also a lack of ‘hook’ moments throughout the book. Usually, a reader wants to read on from one chapter to the next because of some new twist or revelation near the end of each chapter. These twists and revelations hook the reader into investing in what happens next. For the most part, Rogers’ ‘hooks’ were weak, or altogether missing. The lack of ‘hooks’ made for a difficult read.

All that being said, I still enjoyed the book. Because of the high recommendations and subsequent lofty expectations, I think it would have been very difficult for me to really enjoy the book. But if you are a fan of quirky fiction, then you will probably enjoy reading it. Just try not to let my recommendation ruin your ability to really enjoy it. I would hate to set you up for failure or disappointment.

[Disclosure of Material Connection: I received this book for free from WaterBrook Multnomah Publishing Group for this review. I have not received any compensation for writing this post. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255 : “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.”]

I recently received a pretty interesting birthday present from my friend, Dave. For my birthday, Dave got me the month away from the pulpit. He surprised me by asking several of his friends to fill in for me over the entirety of February. So I’ve been stewing and chewing on some stuff over the past month without any worries about what the next great sermon topic was going to be. As usually happens, my thoughts were very heavily focused on our church: our past year as a new church plant, our present state, and where we’re supposed to go from here.

Over the course of my month of soul searching, the Lord kept bringing me back to a phrase that really nagged at my heart for our church. I was very happy as I remembered the incredible year that God has given us as a church. We’ve seen him move in such amazing ways, and I can’t describe how proud I am of our budding church in the ways that we have grown. But as I looked to the future, I questioned where we were going from here. While I can point to clear, unquestionable spiritual growth among the community of people called The Vineyard, I have difficulty seeing much intentional, numeric growth in the Kingdom. As I survey the present state of our church, I see a degree of comfort creeping in that really makes me worry for us. I see genuine, loving community among the members of our group. I see love and a desire to grow together in the Lord among the members of our group. I see a deep-seated desire to worship wholeheartedly and genuinely among the members of our group. But I don’t see a desire to intentionally add to the members of our group. I feel like we’ve become quite comfortable in getting together on Sundays for worship and during the week for small groups without any desire to expand beyond that. I see a great level of comfort within a group of friends that are closer than family. But I don’t see a desire to disrupt the status quo by the addition of new people. I feel like, if we never did anything to shake things up and change things around to position ourselves to intentionally reach out, we’d be sadly okay with that. We could continue to coast along with no general direction at all, as long as we’re coasting together. As long as we have our weekly gatherings, as long as we could hang out through the week, and as long as our kids can grow up together, we could be happy. But I say to you, if there is never any change in us, then I don’t really want to be a part of it. This is why the Lord kept bringing me back to a single, nagging phrase over the course of my sabbatical. In looking to the future direction of our church, God kept reminding me that…

If something doesn’t change, then nothing is ever going to change.

Seems logical. It seems almost idiotic for me to state such an obvious fact. Right now, you’re probably thanking me for taking you on that lovely trip down Logic Lane. But the truth is there: if nothing changes in us, then what makes us think that we will all of a sudden start to reach people or change our city? I feel like, a year ago as a church plant, we launched out into the middle of the ocean with great fervor, and incredible enthusiasm to be different and to change our city and to reach people that no one else was reaching. We launched out into the great wide ocean in our little row boat hoping to do something big for the Lord. But somewhere along the way, we became comfortable in our present spiritual state and decided to throw away the oars and just soak up the sun. I feel like, as a church, we are adrift at sea. We’re at the mercy of the ocean. As long as we have our preferences, our friends, and our comfort, we’re okay just sitting back and letting the ocean take us wherever it pleases. What I see is a lack of intentionality on our part, and I tell you this: I am not okay with that.

When it comes to growth, I measure growth in two ways. Growth is measured by spiritual growth (change in individuals who already know the Lord). I’ve seen this kind of growth in abundance in our church. But growth is also measured by numeric growth in the Kingdom (people who don’t know the Lord starting a relationship with him). I haven’t seen this in abundance in our church, even though we claim that to be one of our core reasons for existing. I haven’t seen us be intentional about growing the Kingdom of God. I see intentionality in growing our relationships with each other. I see intentionality about growing our individual relationships with the Lord. But I see little intentionality about growing our relationships with others for the purpose of grafting them into the Kingdom of God. I see genuine love amongst our group, but I see little effort to grow that love outward. And I tell you this: if something doesn’t change, we never will see outward growth. The Lord has continually brought me back to this idea that, if we don’t change something, then we are going to continue to just be adrift: a boat going nowhere in the wide spiritual sea. And I say again, I’m not okay with that.

With God bringing me continually back to this concept, I kept asking myself and God the question, “What, then, do we need to change?” I don’t question the desire of any person who is a part of The Vineyard. I believe our hearts’ desire is to genuinely seek the Lord and to genuinely see his Kingdom impacted by us. I don’t believe it’s our desires that need to change. I think what we need is a fundamental shift in our priorities as a church.

Now I know that when I challenge you to question your priorities, you instantly think of a hundred sermons that challenge us to put God first, allow him on the throne of our lives, yada yada yada, you’ve heard this speech before. But when I talk about priorities, I am not talking about individual life priorities. I’m talking about fundamental, methodological church-wide priorities that determine the direction of our congregation’s efforts in the Lord. I want us to look at the Word and examine where our priorities should fall as a church, as a body of believers united under some main purpose. Where should our priorities lead us as a church? With that question in mind, I turn our hearts now to the Scriptures in…

Luke 12:31-34

31 But seek His kingdom, and these things will be provided for you. 32 Don’t be afraid, little flock, because your Father delights to give you the kingdom. 33 Sell your possessions and give to the poor. Make money-bags for yourselves that won’t grow old, an inexhaustible treasure in heaven, where no thief comes near and no moth destroys. 34 For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.

I have been pretty familiar with the truth of this passage for a long time, but I am much more familiar with that truth from the version of this sermon that is found in Matthew 6 during the Sermon on the Mount. Whether this is just Luke’s telling of the same sermon or a different time entirely when Jesus taught the same principle to a different group of people (not that a preacher would ever use the same sermon twice), the fact is that Jesus is sharing a truth that he spoke about often: the Kingdom of God should be our top priority in life. Because I was so familiar with the version of this truth from Matthew, I was most taken aback by the two statements in Luke that aren’t found in the Matthew account. First, Jesus follows up the earth shaking command to seek the Kingdom above all else with a statement about the Kingdom: God delights to give it to us. Luke shares with us something that Matthew leaves out: God’s desire is not only for us to seek his Kingdom first, but also to give us that Kingdom. This is one of those ideas that we know, believe, and understand, but often miss the magnitude and weight of such a statement. God wants us to experience his Kingdom. He finds pleasure and delight in giving us his Kingdom. That’s pretty stinking cool.

But once I have drifted back from my existential bliss at the thought of such a truth, my logical mind asks me what that’s supposed to look like. Enter statement number 2 that Luke includes where Matthew focuses elsewhere: Sell your possessions and give to the poor. After this statement, he launches back into familiar territory with the idea of storing up treasures in heaven (though Matthew reverses the order of these statements), but I can’t help but believe there is a reason Luke includes this statement where he does. I think he is trying to illustrate what Jesus meant when he told his followers to seek the Kingdom above all else. He is trying to show us what seeking the Kingdom first would actually look like. And surprisingly, he doesn’t offer the suggestions we might expect.

He doesn’t tell us to read our Bibles more. He does not say to strengthen our prayer lives. He doesn’t tell us to worship more fervently or even to show up to church more often. What he says is, Sell everything and give it away. I am not in any way downplaying the importance of the stuff I just mentioned. I think Bible study should be incredibly important in your life. I think prayer is a necessity when it comes to living a genuine Christian existence. I think both corporate and individual worship are essential in gaining the strength necessary to live for the Lord and serve as the only appropriate response to who God is. However, these things weren’t listed by Jesus when illustrating seeking the Kingdom first.

This is where that whole issue of priorities comes in. I think, somewhere along the line, we have convinced ourselves that seeking the Kingdom of God is all about a person’s individual relationship with God being strengthened and improved in some way or another. We have convinced ourselves that to seek the Kingdom means better Bible study, more ardent worship, deeper prayers, and improvement in any number of other spiritual disciplines practiced by the individual to grow closer to God. But, despite the fact the Jesus had all these great spiritual disciplines in his belt of illustrations, ready to be dispersed at a moment’s notice, he chose something entirely different to show us what seeking the Kingdom should look like.

He told us to sell everything and give it away to someone in need. This kind of brings a new light to what he was teaching prior to this passage: material needs are not as important as eternal needs. When he told his followers not to worry about food or clothing or shelter, but rather to spend their time, effort, and resources seeking his Kingdom first, I doubt they had something quite so radical in mind. It’s one thing to seek God’s Kingdom, as long as we are aptly provided for. It’s another thing to seek his Kingdom whether our needs are met or not. And here, Jesus drove home the biting truth that isn’t easy to swallow: we’re supposed to be more concerned with other people’s eternal spiritual needs than we are with our temporary material needs.

It blows my mind to think that the best illustration Jesus would give of seeking the Kingdom had very little directly to do with my spiritual disciplines in my relationship with the Lord. It had far more to do with me impacting the eternity of others through my relationship with them. Could this be what Jesus meant when he told us to store up treasures in heaven?

As I contemplate what kinds of things I will be able to take with me into eternity, I really can only think of two answers. First, I can take with me my relationship with the Lord. I can show up to heaven and stand before the Lord as a person who looks a lot more like Christ at the beginning of my eternity than I could have had I not sought him as fervently as I chose to throughout my time on earth. I can show up with a relationship that illustrates how deeply I was devoted to being like Christ in my character during my few short years on this earth. I believe this is very important, as we are told to carry inside us the attitude of Christ. But for some reason, I don’t think Christ-like character is enough to fulfill this command.

Before you get the gallows ready to hang me as a heretic, allow me to explain. The reason I find this possible answer to what Jesus meant insufficient is because I believe that Christ-like character should ultimately result in Christ-like actions. This is the idea from 1 John 2:6, that whoever claims to live in him should walk as Jesus did. And when Jesus was here on this earth in the flesh, despite all his personal piety, I wouldn’t describe his primarily focus in life to be personal holiness. When Jesus was here, he focused his entire life’s attention on reaching people for the Kingdom.

This is why I tend to lean on the second possible answer to what Jesus was talking about when he encouraged us to store up treasures in heaven. I THINK HE WAS TALKING ABOUT PEOPLE! That’s the only other option of what we can actually take with us to heaven. We can’t take our cool technology. We can’t take our nice homes or fast cars. We can’t take anything except us and the others who we have eternally impacted with Christ’s love.

If that’s the case, then shouldn’t our priorities as individuals and as a church fall much more heavily on seeking to add people to the Kingdom than on simply improving our own personal piety? Again, I’m in no way trying to undermine the importance of personally seeking the Lord. I just can’t help but feel that we often seek the Lord at the expense of ignoring others. But Jesus commands us to do exactly the opposite. He says sell everything (stuff that helps us) and give it to those in need (in order to help others). Sacrifice our needs in order to meet the needs of others. Focus so intentionally on the needs of others that we have to trust God to meet even our most basic of personal needs. That’s how he describes seeking the Kingdom.

At this point, we usually like to point out Jesus’ frequent use of hyperbole in his illustrations. We say that surely Jesus wouldn’t ask us to give up everything we have. He’s just exaggerating to prove a point. Right? Whether you take his statement literally or figuratively, the point is clear: we are to seek the eternal benefit of others more than we seek the temporary benefit of ourselves. We are supposed to be willing to sacrifice our comfort, our safety, even our stuff, in order to help someone else enter into the Kingdom. We are to give up EVERYTHING that we can in order to impact the eternity of others. This is to be our highest priority in this life.

People are the only thing outside of us that we can take with us into heaven. We can’t take our stuff. And trust me, I love my stuff. I have always been the kind of person that, if I wanted something, I got it for me. I love providing me with everything I want. The problem is, when I store up so much temporary stuff for me, it’s really hard for me to see anything else around me. I can’t see the eternal needs of others through the temporary desires of my own selfish life. Even when it came to my own spiritual growth, I was so intensely worried about myself that I didn’t really focus on the spiritual needs others.

Now I’m beginning to realize how my priorities need to change. Jesus said sell everything, and I’ll tell you why. Because he understood and wanted us to understand just how momentary this life is. We don’t have any clue what the concept of eternity means. The only reference point we have for eternity is in multiples of our own lifetimes. I understand eternity in multiples of 29 years. No matter how much I try to grasp eternity, the best I can do it compare it to the life I’ve already lived. Eternity seems like a long time, but so does 29 years. Because of my insufficient view of eternity, a problem arises. I’ve convinced myself that this life is all that really matters. I’ve convinced myself that this is really all that life has to offer. I’ve convinced myself that this life is all there really is.

But this life we live isn’t true life. Whether we live another 10 years or 100 years, this is only a shadow of what true life is. Life happens when we leave this place and enter into the presence of God into eternity. But we’ve convinced ourselves that this life is as good as it gets. Because of this, we store up for ourselves treasures on earth. We’ve convinced ourselves that we need stuff. We want our families to have the stuff they need, so we do whatever we have to do to make that happen. We want to have something to fall back on whenever we get old, so we do what has to be done to make that happen. But in all our working to provide for ourselves and our families, we have lost the ability to see the eternal needs of those around us.

But what Jesus wanted us to see was that this life is so short, that we need to spend our time incredibly wisely. Jesus wanted us to take our old ‘last semester of high school’ mentality to the extreme. When you entered into that last semester of your senior year of high school, you realized that sooner than later, everything was about to change. Life as you knew it was coming to an end, and everything was going to be different soon. So you went all out. You went after the girl. You partied like it was 1999 (for some of you, it was; for others, you have no idea what this weird cultural reference means). You did everything you could to fulfill your top priorities in the little amount of time you had left. Because summer was coming soon, you knew life would never be the same. When it’s over, it’s over. But at least you’ll be able to look back on it and know that you lived it, that you did what you had to do. The little bit of time that you had left you spent in the right way.

Take that illustration into the spiritual realm and you have a close idea of what Jesus was telling us. He wanted us to WAKE UP and do something meaningful with our lives, because our lives are but a vapor that will soon be gone. Unfortunately, the mentality that we took in high school disappears afterward. We get out of high school and realize that we have all the time in the world to live our lives. Life will never end. It’s never going to change. So we ignore the stuff that will impact eternity and focus almost entirely on what is temporary.

We have a tendency to ignore the fact that there is a real, eternal hell, that is the present destination of billions of people around the world, and hundreds of thousands of people in our own back yard. There is a lot of buzz around the American Christian world right now about a guy named Rob Bell. He recently released a video promoting his upcoming book, Love Wins. In this video, he asks some very leading questions about the reality of hell and whether or not a loving God could truly punish someone into eternity. Couple this with the clearly claimed synopsis of the book released by the publisher, and a lot of American Christendom has erupted calling Bell a heretic and a Universalist because of his claims.

Avoiding the argument behind that issue entirely, I want to point out an even more appalling fact than someone making seemingly-Universalist claims. We live out Universalism every day of our lives by ignoring the eternal destiny of those around us. We would never claim to be Universalists. But our lives scream it. We have become functioning Universalists in every aspect of the term. We act like people aren’t really going to hell when they die. That’s really the only logical option we can claim. Otherwise, we are readily admitting to hating other people so much as to sabotage their eternity by not telling them the way to be saved. As my friend Dave often says, “How much must you hate someone to not tell them a bus is coming right for them?” If we don’t genuinely hate every lost person on the planet, the only other options are that we don’t really believe they will go to hell, or worse, we’re just too lazy to even think about it because people just aren’t worth our time, our effort, or our discomfort. Either way, we certainly have no reason to be proud of ourselves.

And I say to you, that if we are going to exist as a church full of a bunch of functioning Universalists, count me out. I want no part of it. What I want to do is to realize that this moment we have is fleeting. And I want to be able to say to Christ, I’m okay selling everything. I’m okay with giving it all up. Sign me up, because I know that right now, what is most important is reaching people. That’s it. And if that means getting rid of every temporary thing I own so that people can live eternally in the presence of God, so be it. Because I’m beginning to realize that my time on this earth is so fleeting, that’s okay. When Jesus said to seek first his Kingdom, the priority that he wanted us to have in mind was reaching people.

And I say to you, when I talk about our church needing a fundamental shift in our priorities, what I believe we need is to become a church that is more concerned with the people we are trying to reach than the people we are trying to keep.

Let me say that again: we need to be more concerned with the people we are tying to reach than the people we are trying to keep. I unashamedly stole that saying from Steven Furtick at Elevation Church. You can read about it on a great blog post he wrote here. This post was instrumental in pointing me down this journey I’ve been on.

Notice the underlined word in the previous statement. More. We are to be more concerned with evangelism than anything else. Instantly, red flags went up in your head. That’s because we have a tendency to focus on discipleship, this idea (as most people understand it) that is all about people growing closer to God in their relationships with him. Again, I assure you that I see discipleship as a great and noble aim in our lives. But what we tend to do with discipleship is make it all about us growing closer to God to the point that we get comfortable in forgetting that there is an aspect of discipleship called EVANGELISM!

We claim that if we focus on discipleship, then evangelism will come. I’ve heard that many times. I’ve said that many times. I’ve seen that very rarely. Every now and then, someone will actually get it. Someone will grow through their time in the Word in such a way that they are spurred outward. But for the vast majority of discipleship-oriented church-goers, discipleship doesn’t breed evangelism any more than issuing tickets convinces people to drive the speed limit. Most of the time, when we focus on discipleship, we develop an atmosphere of comfort where our greatest act of obedience is to get rid of some small aspect of our lives that isn’t exactly Christ-like.

I would argue the same thing Furtick argued in his blog: disciples who are focused on evangelism will breed other disciples. When we focus on evangelism, discipleship will come. I am truly beginning to see how discipleship follows the sacrifice that is necessary for evangelism.

We only have a small amount of time on this earth. We are not infinite. We only have a small number of options by which to spend our time. We at The Vineyard could focus quite easily on becoming the next trendy church, attracting other people from other churches or possibly reaching people that other churches are likely to focus their attentions on. Or we could focus on our own spiritual growth so that we ultimately get our own way: our style of worship, our style of teaching, our type of congregation. We could do these things.

Or we could do something entirely different. We could be more concerned with reaching people to impact eternity than we are with any of our own preferences. I was not entirely comfortable underlining that word, more, because I wanted us to be the church with a steady, healthy balance between discipleship and evangelism. Therefore we could be proud that we were focusing on the entire counsel of Scripture. But I’m beginning to see that our time on this earth is so short and our time in eternity so long, that we’ve got our priorities completely upside down. We will have an eternity to grow in our Lord. We will have an eternity to worship. We will not have much longer to share the Gospel with people who desperately need to hear it. To seek balance is to do a great injustice to the world around us.

So I argue that if we focus primarily on evangelism, the rest will fall into place. Is that not what Jesus claims in this passage? Seek first the Kingdom, and all the other stuff will be given to you. Your material needs will come. Your Lord will take care of the other stuff. Sell your possessions, give to the poor. Focus more on who is out there than who is sitting in your seat or living in your mirror. If we’re not here for evangelism, then why would God leave us on this fallen, depraved rock of an existence? Why not just sweep us directly into his presence and into eternity where we could grow faster, higher, deeper, and wider than we could ever dream of here on this earth? We must be here to be outward focused witnesses of our Lord.

That’s the fundamental shift I want to see. I want to see a church that is intentionally mobilized to reach our city and impact the Kingdom.

There are tons of churches out there that can be cool and trendy and hip. But when I look at the masses, I see people that are hurting and dorky and needy and socially awkward who desperately need a friend, and I don’t see many churches intentionally reaching out to those people. We throw a bone to the idea, but when it comes down to it, we want to reach other people who are just like us. We want to be a cool church that cool people can come to and feel cool at. But there are so many people out there that desperately need Christ who are anything but cool. And no one seems to be making much of an effort to show them that, despite their weirdness and social awkwardness, they are loved and wanted. I wouldn’t mind being the dorky church. I want to be the kind of church that attracts people that nobody else seems to care about.

This could be a fundamental milestone for us where everything changes. In fact, I believe this is going to be a milestone for us, one way or another. I say this because what I have in mind for the future of our church is either going to make us or break us. This is going to be our do our die moment. What I have for us is a concrete challenge that we are going to embark on over the course of the coming year that is either going to step us into the position God has for us in the city of Mobile or it’s going to convince us to shut our doors and go graze at one of the established churches elsewhere in our city.

I’m giving us a very concrete challenge, and I’m giving it to us in the form of math. We’re taking our first step toward becoming the dorky church. There is nothing difficult about this equation. It is nothing but basic math. But I think it can serve to challenge us to become intentional in impacting the Kingdom over the course of this year. So here it is, some basic math:

Kingdom + 1 > Kingdom

I know, it’s earth-shatteringly simple. But the truth is deep. If any one of us would impact the Kingdom of God by one other person over the course of this year, the Kingdom would be bigger and stronger because of it. It’s simple. It’s basic. It’s logical. So what’s to stop us? Our self-centered priorities? Our comfort? Our laziness? What would happen if we took this seriously?

Over the course of the coming weeks and throughout the coming year, you are going to hear this equation until you can’t stand it any more. And through it, I want to challenge every person who is a regular part of The Vineyard to take seriously their call to seek first the Kingdom of God by impacting the Kingdom by at least one soul this year. Every person, adding at least one other person to the Kingdom. That’s the challenge.

You know I’m not going to leave you hanging with no practical ideas about how to fulfill this challenge. So over the course of the next three weeks, you’re going to hear me talk about a very simple process of inviting people into the Kingdom. Here’s the basic preview of what we’re going to be talking about.

Step 1: Invite people to see Christ in you.

This means inviting someone into your life. This is the first, and probably the most important step of them all. Far too often, we think we can just invite people to church and that serves as evangelism. But this usually comes across as hollow and inauthentic. In order for someone to want Christ, they need to see what real life in Christ looks like. They need to see Christ in you. This is foundational in seeing someone want to truly follow Christ.

Step 2: Invite people to see Christ in community.

This is inviting someone to see your church. But I don’t want you to invite someone to your church gathering or small group for the purpose of hearing the Gospel from a preacher or teacher. I want you to invite them to see your church in order to see the Gospel at work in your community. People need to see what Christ looks like within the context of community. They need to see genuine love and sacrificial care. They need to see loss and heartache dealt with on the shoulders of the many as opposed to the sole back of the individual. They need to see grace experienced, not just grace talked about. This is crucial to leading someone to desire the life that you have in Christ.

Step 3: Invite people to see Christ in them.

This is the step that everyone dreads. This is what paralyzes people with fear and inaction. What if they reject me? What if they ask something that I don’t know the answer to? What if I don’t know what to say? We all have these fears (even me, who has been in ministry awhile, studied evangelism, and led lots of people through the process of evangelism). We all get scared. Are we willing to sacrifice our comforts and the possible awkwardness of the people we’re talking to for the sake of their eternity. During this week, we’ll talk about what do to invite someone to see Christ in them: namely, start following Christ. Very simply, we’ll talk about how salvation is following Christ and how you can encourage someone along that path.

So there you have it. There is our direction for the year. There is our challenge. Will you join me? I truly believe this is either going to make or break our church. This will either show us that we are here for a reason or that we have no unique purpose and probably should stop killing ourselves just to exist. I hope it’s the former, because the latter would really stink. I refuse to flounder as a church. I refuse to become complacent or comfortable. I refuse to be happy focusing on ourselves when countless others plunge directly into a dark eternity. I’m ready to start being intentional about reaching people. So let’s do this. What do you say?

So, over the past year, I’ve learned a few things.

Allow me now to take a step back and emphasize that the above statement is probably my UNDERSTATEMENT OF THE YEAR.  To say that I’ve learned a few things through this long, grueling process doesn’t even begin to do justice to the events of the last year and the subsequent wisdom gleaned over that time.  Not that I consider myself to have now arrived in church planting.  I confess that the majority of lessons learned were hard ones that I never saw coming (and most likely fought kicking and screaming all the way).  Nevertheless, as I look back on the year (yes, it’s hard to believe it’s been a year since I stepped down at FBTC), I am amazed at the journey.  Here are a few brief thoughts about some of the more surprising tidbits gleaned in the school of hard knocks affectionately called ‘church planting.’

1.     God really does provide for his people, but that rarely means things are easy.

This year has been anything but easy.  I finished last year as a student pastor who showed up daily to a relatively physically undemanding job (unless you count late night express trips to Six Flags and pizza five times a week physically taxing).  Now, I go to work every day I can as a general contractor doing anything and everything under the sun.  This year, I have painted houses, pressure washed, cut yards, landscaped, flipped houses, installed electronics, cleaned out foreclosures, painted murals, roofed, changed out appliances, installed lights and fans, laid tile, renovated kitchens and bathrooms, replaced rotten soffit boards, patched drywall, installed wood floors, and a hundred other things I can’t even remember.  It amazes me (and quite frankly, scares me) to think of how different my life is now.  I get home and I’m physically exhausted and emotionally drained.  And then I start to think about ‘church stuff’ for the week on top of whatever I have going on.  Life has been anything but easy over the past year.  But hear me when I say this: God has provided for us every step of the way.  Yes, I have had to work my tail off to provide for my family while the church is unable to provide for our needs.  But I decided early on in this process that if God would be faithful to provide the work for me, I would be faithful to do whatever it took to plant this church while providing faithfully for my family.  I learned the hard way what everyone kind of alludes to when they say, “Where God guides, God provides.”  I learned that he certainly does provide.  Though often he requires us to do our part in the equation.  Oftentimes, God doesn’t provide a handout.  He provides opportunity.  And it is this opportunity for which I am incredibly grateful.  God has provided.  It hasn’t been anything like I thought it would be going into this past year, but it has been all the more incredible because of it. 

2.  Things rarely work out like I plan, but I’m becoming strangely ok with that. 

This whole process has been anything but ideal.  Going into the process of planting a church, I put a lot of thought and planning into how things were going to work out.  I had it all planned.  All that had to happen was for all the cards to fall exactly as planned, and within a year or two we would be the next great amazing work of the Lord in the city of Mobile.  While I do believe we’ve seen some pretty amazing works of God in the past year, I never would have foreseen exactly how things have turned out.  From the outset, we had a good idea of where we would meet, who would be a part of our core group, what kind of structure would work best for us, how we would best do outreach, etc.  Throughout the year, NOTHING HAS TURNED OUT EXACTLY AS I PLANNED!  When it comes to meeting place, we were blessed with the use a facility far beyond anything we could have imagined.  Several of the people who I expected to be some of the most pivotal members of our core group have pursued other directions in the Lord.  Our nice, neat, diagram-able structure has morphed into something similar yet incredibly different.  And our outreach efforts have been totally different that we could have ever expected (in some good ways and some not-so-good ways).  Suffice it to say, we’ve had to roll with A LOT of punches. 

But the craziest part of all is that I have been pretty okay with most of the changes in ‘my’ plans.  Those of you that know me well, you know that this is not a typical part of my character.  I like to plan things out to perfection and then sit back and watch my work come to fruition.  If you’ve ever played Risk with me, you’ve seen my planning in action and know that I don’t like when something doesn’t work out the way it was supposed to.  But just as in a game of Risk, I am learning that things often don’t work out the way I planned for them to.  And strangely, God is making me more and more alright with that.  While I never want to abandon the vision God has given me for the work to which he has called me, I am learning to take things in stride and realize that often God fulfills his will in our lives in ways that are far different and far better than anything we would have ever contrived in our greatest moments of creativity.  The bottom line is this: God’s ways are truly better than our ways.  We say that a lot.  I am learning how little I actually believed it until recently.  God has taught me the hard way that I really do need to trust him more than I trust myself.  And through many trials by fire, I can honestly say that I am making steps in the right direction to do just that.  I still have A LONG way to go, but I glad to look back over the past year and realize that I have made huge strides in the right direction.  So bring on the bumps in the road.  Bring on the twists and turns.  Bring on the unforeseen forks and dead ends.  Bring it all on.  I am willing to follow the Pillar of Cloud and Pillar of Fire wherever he chooses to lead.  I can’t wait to see him part whatever sea might stand in the way of his will in my future. So bring it on. 

3.     Kingdom growth doesn’t always look the same as our idea of church growth.

Our church’s growth has been anything but typical.  Re-envisioning my idea of what constitutes kingdom growth has probably been the biggest stretch for me throughout this entire process.  To be honest, it’s been a total paradigm shift for me.  Let’s face it, we come from a system where the only tangible way to measure success is by measuring the face of the ugly monster of numbers.  We say, “Numbers aren’t most important,” but the first question I always get when people ask about the church (almost without fail) is, “So how many are you running now?”  This is fair and honest question, but it really is telling about what we use to measure kingdom growth: are there more people in a congregation this year than there were last year.  Maybe we itemize more than the next guy: more people in a discipleship program, more people participating in an outreach program or event, and of course, more people in the pews (or chairs, depending on the church).  It always boils down to numbers attending something or other.  And to be fair, this is really the only tangible way for us to measure how successfully our churches are growing.  The problem is, this growth can often be very misleading.  Even our best numbers, those going through the ordinance of baptism, can be very misleading.  Our measurable growth can often be skewed because we often fail to take into account the fain, distant, incredibly remote possibility of re-counting (in case you haven’t noticed, I’m laying on the sarcasm somewhat thickly at this point).  Often, our baptisms are third or fourth baptisms for an individual.  And while I strongly believe a person should do it as many times as it takes to get it right, I do have a big problem with us patting ourselves on the back when the majority of our additions in numbers have come at expense of some other church dealing with a subtraction.  This year, I have really been forced to reexamine what kingdom growth means.  And I’ll be honest, what I have learned has been somewhat of a gut check to me.

Before I explain, let me begin with a small disclaimer: I don’t believe this is the ONLY way for churches to operate.  Nor do I even argue that this is the best way for churches to operate.  But what I can say is that I had to come to this conclusion for our specific group seeking our specific goals.  That being said…

I have had to come to grips with the fact that kingdom growth doesn’t always translate into individual congregation’s growth.  I grew up in my faith believing that if I focused on true kingdom growth, it would always eventually show up in growth in my respective congregation.  It was Reaganomics in the form of discipleship.  Focus on the big picture of evangelistic discipleship and my church would grow.  But what if I had it wrong?  What if focusing on big-picture, kingdom minded discipleship not only didn’t always translate into congregation growth, but in fact often didn’t affect my congregation’s numbers at all?  Here’s what I mean:

This past year, we have focused A LOT on grassroots, evangelistic discipleship through relationships.  In fact, we believe that everything good that comes through the church ultimately works best through the context of relationships.  This is how Jesus did evangelism.  This is how Jesus did discipleship.  And this is how the early church exploded as it did.  It all happened within that context: people discipling other people who in turn disciple other people.  It’s exponential growth in the kingdom versus simple additions in a congregation.   Here’s the problem though: if you really do focus your relationship discipleship on maximum kingdom impact, the best place for those people who you have discipled to be is often somewhere other than where you are.  When Jesus was done discipling the twelve, he sent them out while he went somewhere else.  When Paul discipled Timothy, there came a time when Paul left Timothy in Ephesus while Paul went elsewhere.  There were a bunch of other times when Paul sent Timothy where he couldn’t go.  That was kind of the idea behind genuine discipleship: grow someone so that they can go somewhere else and grow others.  Or, grow someone who can remain behind so that you can in turn go somewhere else and grow others.  Either way, even though the kingdom has been impacted, the individual church remains numerically the same.  The kingdom gets a +1 but the local congregation stays even.  While this math makes perfect sense when the goal is spreading the kingdom, it is difficult to swallow when our ulterior goals are to pat ourselves on the back for how big our congregation has become. 

The question I’ve been struggling with is, if our congregation never really grows that large but makes a huge impact on the kingdom by raising up leaders out of the depths of Mobile that no one else gave a chance to, would I be okay with that?  It’s a tough question, but I am beginning to get to a place where the answer is ‘Yes.’  Over the past year, we have baptized six people.  Most of these people probably would never have taken that step in a traditional church context.  That, in itself, is an amazing testimony to what the Lord has done over the year.  But the coolest part of the story comes after that.  There is one guy among the group who is now a theology major at UM and has been my fill in, preaching while I was away.  He also now leads a small group for our church.  He’s ready to lead others through the exact same journey he took this year.  That’s discipleship at its finest.  The other five have similar stories.  They are being groomed into genuine Christ-followers.  So is the rest of our church.  What I am having to come to grips with is the fact that genuine Christ-followers are often asked to follow Christ into different contexts than they are presently in.  And that means away from our church.  And strangely, I’m becoming VERY COMFORTABLE with this new paradigm of church growth.  It really scares me because I know what it means for my pride.  I will most likely never be able to answer with pride about the huge number of people we have in our fellowship.  But I can be very proud of how God is impacting his kingdom through the work that he has called us to.  And that is good enough for me.

So when people ask me how many we have attending now, I still don’t know how to answer them.  I usually just give them a number that is far less impressive than they seemed to be looking for.  But know this, that small number is impacting the kingdom in ways I never could have imagined.  It’s a lesson that was hard to accept, but one that I am very glad to begin understanding.  Now, I just have to figure out how to finance such a different church model.  I guess I’ll save that for another day and another post.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WLy6j7K2LBU

We got together at the pool of some of our Vineyard attenders to host our very first baptism service.  We were blessed to see the Lord move in the lives of six people who wanted to publicly announce their intentions to truly follow Christ for the rest of their lives.  The two couples that you saw in the video were people that have gone through the long, grueling process of genuine discipleship through the small group that Dave has been leading at his house.  The other two guys have been attending our small groups and worship gatherings from the beginning of the church.  It has been incredible to see the Lord move in each of their lives in such a way as to challenge them all to put their previous conceptions of what religion was and to truly begin following Christ in the way that he has desired them to.  We have watched the Lord growing each of them in some truly amazing ways.  I have seen these six people become some of the most selfless and genuine Christ followers I know.  How awesome is it to see God at work?  It has been an amazing journey over the past nine months, and this baptism service made all those difficult sacrifices more than worth it.  I can’t wait to see what the Lord has in store for the next nine months!

To all those who have been faithful to give of yourselves so that The Vineyard could be at the point that it is today, I want to say to you, “Thank you.”  I’ll attempt to avoid the cheesiness possible in this moment by resolving not to cue a Ray Boltz song in the background, but I really do want you to know just how thankful I am for your willingness to give.  So many of you have given us gifts to help support this work we are in, and for that we are eternally grateful.  I know that I have been the world’s worst person at showing my gratitude in the past.  I seldom send thank you cards (I am ashamed to even write those truthful words), and when I do actually get around to sending them, they are usually VERY VERY LATE.  I could chalk it up to busyness with church work, busyness with working another full-time contracting job to support my family, or busyness with just trying to be a family man to my wife and two beautiful children, but the truth of the matter is that I certainly could have spent a little less time watching TV or reading or anything in order to take time to say thank you to the ones who have been so faithful to me.  So, let me say first, “I’m sorry for being so late with this,” and then follow it immediately with the ‘thank you’ that you deserve.

Thank you for giving and praying to support the work of the Lord in The Vineyard.  You are truly a hero of faith storing up many treasures in heaven through the works you are supporting.  You guys are the best, and I love you dearly.

A place to meet.  At the end of December, we fully expected to launch the new church in the home of one of our core members.  Though we had spent a little time and effort trying to find a suitable place for our group to meet, we knew we would have no money to spend on rent, so our options were severely limited.  To be honest, we really didn’t have any options.  Or so we thought.  Enter Brett Burlesson, the new pastor of Dayspring Baptist Church.  Dave and I met with Brett over lunch one day late last year to share with him the vision for the new church.  We had an awesome meeting where we realized our visions for the city were similar, if not one in the same.  After the meeting, we were encouraged to have been able to hear Brett’s heart, but didn’t know what would come of our meeting.  We told him some of our needs, one of which included a place to keep an office.  The week after the meeting, Brett called me and offered us office space at Dayspring BC… FOR FREE!!!  I was blown away.  God had answered a huge prayer through Brett and Dayspring.  During that phone call, Brett told me if there was anything else we needed, not to hesitate to ask.  The worse that would happen is he would say no.  So, after praying about it for a week or so, Dave and I decided to get a little bold in our requests.  I called Brett and asked if there was any way our group could meet at their facility during the first few months of our existence.  I knew Dayspring didn’t have a Sunday evening service, so I figured the facilities would be available.  I just didn’t know how far the church’s generosity was really going to extend.  Without hesitation, Brett told me he had to run it by a few people, but he felt like it wouldn’t be a problem.  He called me later that week and told me that the church was excited not only to offer us the youth building at Dayspring for our Sunday gatherings, but to offer it to us at no charge to us!  How amazing it has been to go from having nowhere for our new church to meet to having an incredible, fully equipped building at our disposal!  So for the past two and a half months, we’ve been meeting at The Shack at Dayspring Baptist Church.  How incredible it has been!  Praise the Lord for how He provides!

Interest in our Small Groups: There has already been a good deal of interest in our small groups by people that really aren’t interested in attending a worship service at a church.  Though I don’t want to include any names here (I would hate to offend or embarrass anyone), I can say that we have had people from numerous walks of life and various places in their spiritual journeys attend our groups.  And the crazy thing is, most of these people are actually sticking around.  The genuine community they are experiencing through these small groups has a profound impact on them.  The Lord is truly working through this ragtag group called The Vineyard.  I praise Him for how He has called us and equipped us to do exactly what He wants us to do!  God is truly good to His people!

I know this isn’t much, but it’s all I can post today.  There are many, many other success stories that I want to share with you.  Check back often and search the blog for the category “Success Stories” and you will find regular updates on what God is doing in and through The Vineyard!