We’ve been talking about several of the different surveys out there (and there are a lot) and we decided to try out the NCD’s The 3 Colors of Ministry book.

As the title suggests, it has something to do with 3 colors. There are three main areas, each represented by a different color, that correspond to the 3 parts of the Trinity. Ok, here’s a better way to show it:

The concept behind the circle and colors being that each part of the Trinity has a different “focus” if you will with associated gifts, tendencies, etc. For example, the red area, representing Jesus, has a focus on service and commitment while green, representing God the Creator, focuses on working and wisdom.

After a brief intro to get you familiarized with the approach and the areas, the book has you find your starting point based on a self assessment of how well you feel a certain set of adjectives describes you. This should lead you to one of six starting points. Each of these starting points has most of your concentration in either one of the colors or a blend of two colors.

So, I did this assessment to find where I’m starting. And I came out almost dead even across all three colors. There isn’t a starting point for that one. I continued reading ahead thinking I had somehow messed up the assessment when I found these words:

it might be that you are among the 4.6 percent who have a relatively “balanced” diagram with basically the same score in all three areas.

OK, it looks like I’m special (just like my Momma told me). But wait, there’s more…

If this is the case, you shouldn’t conclude that you have already reached your goal; this just tells you that there is no dominant problem area. In other words: Growth in each and every dimension would be beneficial for you.

Hmmph! Special alright…

Well, I’m not done with it by a long shot. I haven’t even started the assessment for the actual gifts themselves. I hope to get that done in the next day or so. I’ll come back and post the results and a further review of this resource. You can preview the book from the NCD site here (PDF).

In the mean time, have you ever done a spirtual gifts survey? What were the results?

This week we got going on belief, faith, and trust. Let me back up a minute and give a little back story. J is the catalyst for me being “back on track” as a Christian. I was pretty far off the wagon when I met J in ’07. He was open and shared his faith easily with anyone around. J is also a great encourager and was beside me as I helped get a Bible study going at my previous job. J is currently following a calling by God to teach people and to write and publish a book about faith and trust.

In this calling, J has been out of work (as in not being paid wages or a salary) for well over a year. It’s not all easy, of course. And that’s why we had the conversation on belief, faith, and trust.

As the money gets tighter for J and his family, the questions from everyone have come. Many along the lines of “What if God doesn’t provide?” or “Where has He been to let it go this far?” And there is much encouraging to “have a backup plan.”

But is having a backup plan really trusting in God and His plan? Is there really a belief or faith that God will come through? I have to tell you, it’s a hard topic to roll around in your head and heart. Especially when you are the head of a family, too. I’ve struggled with this myself as I’ve looked out on my career options/choices for the past couple of years.

The story in the Gospel where Peter climbs out of the boat in a raging storm to walk to Jesus became a centerpoint of conversation between J and I this week:

Immediately Jesus made the disciples get into the boat and go on ahead of him to the other side, while he dismissed the crowd. After he had dismissed them, he went up on a mountainside by himself to pray. When evening came, he was there alone, but the boat was already a considerable distance from land, buffeted by the waves because the wind was against it.
During the fourth watch of the night Jesus went out to them, walking on the lake. When the disciples saw him walking on the lake, they were terrified. “It’s a ghost,” they said, and cried out in fear.

But Jesus immediately said to them: “Take courage! It is I. Don’t be afraid.”

“Lord, if it’s you,” Peter replied, “tell me to come to you on the water.”

“Come,” he said.

Then Peter got down out of the boat, walked on the water and came toward Jesus. But when he saw the wind, he was afraid and, beginning to sink, cried out, “Lord, save me!”

Immediately Jesus reached out his hand and caught him. “You of little faith,” he said, “why did you doubt?” (Matthew 14:22-31 NIV)

It brought us to the question “Why did Peter get out of the boat?” Was it intellectual knowledge or logical reasoning? I mean, Peter had been on boats most of his life as a fisherman. He knew what happened to people who climbed over the side of a boat, especially in a bad storm. I have to go with something other than logic. Was it blind faith? Maybe. That might explain why he started sinking when he took in the situation around him. That is, with a little faith but no grounding in trust, he was easily shaken.

If I look at Peter’s story following this event, I see a man who goes back and forth in his faith and trust. Take a look at the night before the Crucifixion and we see Peter taking matters in his own hands using the sword to attack the soldiers coming for Jesus (John 18:10-11). We also see his triple denial of Christ (Mark 14:66-72).

But that wasn’t the end for Peter,was it? No. Move ahead to the morning that Peter sees Jesus on the beach. He jumps out of the boat to go meet Him. We see Peter’s redemption in John 21:15-19. I think it is at that point that Peter gets it and can move on to become the Peter we know about in Acts. His belief and faith have become grounded in trust and love through his experiences and the work of the Cross.

But I don’t think Peter would have gotten there at all if he hadn’t made a choice to get out of the boat the first time. My man J is out of the boat. Big time. I’m just peeking over the side in wonderment. J is starting to notice the financial winds and waves swirling around him.

Prayers for J are certainly appreciated.

(Note: I’ve had no training on theology, interpreting Scripture, etc. This is just my little brain working with what I got. Please feel free to give me comments on where you think I might have gone wrong on this.)

That may or may not be true but I’ve realized that this is another assault against my self-esteem by the enemy…and I’ve succumbed to it! Damn it!!!

It became clear to me as I was reading “Pop Goes The Church” by Tim Stevens this week. What a great book. In it Tim discusses the What, Why, and, most importantly, the How around engaging popular culture inside and outside the church. He has some great insights in here and there are tons of concrete examples of what they have done at Granger Community Church and what other churches have done as well.

So why did this book open my eyes to myself? One word: Relevant. Tim’s discussion in his book is about finding ways to show people how relevant God is to them. For example, he describes a series that they did at Granger using a different Beatles song each week:

In one service, “Eleanor Rigby”, a sad song about the lonely people of the world, was performed. We followed with a message about the amazing love of God and the relationship he wants with each of us. The next week, the familiar Beatles’ words, “You say you want a revolution” were sung, connecting with virtually everyone in the room who could identify with this desire to change our broken world. The service ended with a message which acknowledged that the world is broken but which described the revolutionary love that Jesus offers.

OK, maybe you’re thinking it’s a gimmick. One more way that Christians use ambush or bait-and-switch techniques. But it’s not. It is about a real desire to reach people with the good news of the Gospel and finding ways for people to make up their minds that it is relevant to their lives.

And that’s were I come back to me. In reading “”Pop Goes The Church” I realized that I had slipped into a sort of “maintenance mode” and each day that I wasn’t actively praying, worshiping, seeking was another day that I viewed God as less relevant to my life. And one way that I was active in my relationship with God is blogging, reading other blogs, commenting on them, etc. I effectively pulled the plug on seeking. I was even getting to the point of letting several relationships just slide.

Well, my eyes are open now. I don’t have to figure out how to be relevant to an audience on the interwebs. I need to focus on the relevance of God in my life and keep actively seeking Him.

Father God, I pray that you will strenghten and encourage my heart in always seeking after you. I ask for your help in quieting my restless and noisy mind so that I can focus on the relationship that you want to have daily with me. I am sorry for how lightly I have taken your Love for me and I don’t want to do that again. Thank you for blessing me and my family. In Jesus name I pray. Amen.

Seriously, this week I want to say something positive about two people that I am proud to be working along side of. Our church has several ministry teams that are responsible for different aspects of the church’s life: Christian Education, Pastoral Care, Worship, Mission and Benevolence, Evangelism, and more. These are not run or staffed by paid positions. They are volunteer teams. Each team has one or two Elders that are the team leaders. I am on the Evangelism ministry team. And our team leaders, Diane and Beth, are amazing!

Both Diane and Beth take leading the Evangelism team seriously and they do it happily. These two are very creative, dedicated, intelligent, caring, and devoted. These wonderful attributes were seen extraordinarily in the efforts they put into helping with the recent Low Country Franklin Graham festival in September. Diane and Beth worked tirelessly getting people involved, establishing and attending various programs and events, and generally being excited about this opportunity to share the message of the Gospel and God’s love with the greater Charleston, SC area.

I’m also fortunate to be in a weekly small group with Diane and her husband. They set a great example for the other couples in the group.

In Paul’s first letter to the church at Thessalonica, he praised the Thessalonians for being a “model to all the believers”:

You became imitators of us and of the Lord; in spite of severe suffering, you welcomed the message with the joy given by the Holy Spirit. And so you became a model to all the believers in Macedonia and Achaia. The Lord’s message rang out from you not only in Macedonia and Achaia—your faith in God has become known everywhere. 1 Thessalonians 1:6 – 8, NIV)

I think that Diane and Beth fall into that category as well.

Thanks.

It’s Tuesday and you know that means it’s time to be positive.

In the summer of 1996 I lived in Hampton, VA and worked for a Defense contractor building software and systems. I was a bachelor living in a big (rented) house with 2 of my fellow software developers (and Clemson grads). Life went something like this:

Work 9 – 10 hours a day Mon – Fri. Play golf and or basketball once or twice a week. Happy hour until around 11:00pm on Thur. Happy hour until around 3:00am on Fri. Saturday’s were for whatever but often included a men’s soccer league game. Sat nights often included a party at the big (rented) house. Sunday mornings were for sleeping and Sun afternoons were games for the U-15 boys soccer team I coached.

Week in and week out. Lather. Rinse. Repeat.

Ah, good times.

In July ’96, I went with a few friends to Virgina Beach to watch them play in their women’s soccer league game. We all planed to go out afterwards (it was Thursday, you know). Before the game began, I noticed one of the women on my friends’ team during warm-ups. It was pretty clear that this girl could play soccer. During the game, she dominated the midfield, embarrassed the other team’s defenders, and shell-shocked the poor goal keeper. 90 minutes and 3 goals later, I learned her name was Kim. 6 hours later we were the only ones left sitting at the table we all had dinner at.

12 years later and I’m more in love with her than I’ve ever been.

You see, we got married a couple of years later and have been sharing our life, love, and faith with each other everyday. She is an incredible woman that I, and so many others who don’t even know it, owe so much to. She encourages me, has faith in me, is strong for me when I can’t be, is a wonderful mother to our girls, is a great friend (and my best friend), and supports me even when she sometimes doesn’t understand me.

I almost can’t remember the times before we were together. I’m pretty sure I don’t want to.

Kim, I love you. Thank you for all you do for our family. I’m honored to be your husband.

Brody started it (and maybe changed the rules some) and I’ve been slack about keeping up. So today, I want to tell you about someone who means a lot to some special folks.

We have a Youth Director at our church by the name of Kari. Kari is a great person with a passion for reaching young folks and modeling how Christ works in her life. She has been with our church for a few years now (going on 4 maybe?) and has, in my opinion, made a huge impact.

I had the distinct pleasure of going along with Kari on a youth mission trip to DC this past summer. My respect for her abilities, her faith, her passion, and her love for these kids went up a lot. Since then, I’ve gotten involved in the High School youth Sunday School and become a youth adviser. All as direct result of Kari’s passion and work.

Recently, we’ve had a vacancy on staff at the church and Kari has stepped up to help fill the void while we find a new staff member. Even with the extra work, she has not faltered in her work for and with the youth. Kari’s dedication to her calling from the Lord and her mission to live out that faith through serving Christ through serving the youth is truly an inspiration to me. And others I hope.

Thanks Kari.

We are using the HomeBuilders series from FamilyLife. We just finished up the “Growing Together in Christ” lessons. Session 5 in that series of lessons is called “Following Christ” and has some good Scriptural references and conversation provoking questions about what Jesus means when he says “Follow me.”

But when I got down to question #7, I drew a blank. I mean, I literally stared at the question and the white space where my answer to the question would go. I could not think of anything to write down.

What was the question you ask? Well, I’ll tell you:

What sacrifices have you made on order to follow Christ?

For 10 minutes, I could not come up with anything. Not a single, solitary thing to write down there. Now, I did have some thoughts pop into my head but they seemed so, um, trivial. For instance, I thought about the “not sinning” things: I don’t drink as much as I used to, I don’t cuss in front of my kids (much), I go to church more often than I used to. But each time I thought of one of those things, I dismissed it. Those are not sacrifices.

In the discussion last night, it seems that most folks had the same issue I did. No one had much, if anything, written in answer to the question. We had a long discussion on what sacrifice meant and we found several things that seemed like sacrifices that we made in other parts of our lives: someone took a lower paying job in order to have a shorter commute and more time with family, someone else gave up a two income family in order to have a stay at home mom for the kids. But were those sacrifices to follow Christ?

I read what the Apostle Paul wrote:

Therefore, I urge you, brothers, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God—this is your spiritual act of worship. Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will. (Romans 12:1 -2 NIV)

I’m now wondering if I even know what this means. To borrow from Andy Stanley, I have all the information but what I need is the application.

Am I taking Jesus for granted? In light of last night, probably so. Should I be? Of course not. Do I know what to do about it? Maybe.

I’d love to hear from any of you that have similar thoughts or that understand this better than me.

Sunday’s time was spent getting to know new folks (and teachers) and I saw immediately that there were some interesting dynamics. We have folks from 3 different public high schools, one private school, and home school, too. Many of them have been going to this church their whole lives, others are new to the area, and some are new to church in general.

I’ve been given pretty free reign to handle lessons and have been told that discussions tend to veer off target. So I’m looking at lessons and materials that will be engaging and “not cheesy”. So far, I have been incredibly impressed with the resources that LifeChurch.tv makes available through their Open program.

We also have a subscription to The Thoughtful Christian so I can download material from there, too, like “Dealing with Daily Pressures“

The key is going to be connecting with folks. I’m expecting to leave that part in God’s hands because that’s the only way I can really expect to make things relevant to that many teens…

I honestly pray that God will use me to reach these youth and to bring God’s word to them in a way that they can make it a part of their lives.

One such dog-eared page in my copy of Crazy Love is page 118. I marked this page because this is what is known as Stewardhip season in many churches throughout the land. Stewardship season is basically the time when we start asking people to catch up on their monetary giving for the current year and go ahead and make their pledges for the upcoming year.

For a lot of folks, this is “the part of church I hate.” Money and religion together is a funny thing in our American culture, it seems. Churches, who can be trusted with the principles of eternal life, can’t be trusted with money. Go figure.

I understand that a lot of this sentiment comes from the highly publicized cases of unscrupulous characters using ministry as a business. It also comes from movies, books, etc portraying people using Christianity as a front.

Most of all, I think it comes from a radical misunderstanding of what giving is and why we are called to do it.

Francis, on dog-eared page 118, has a good view, I think. He points out that giving is rooted in and motivated by love above all. Take a look at John 3:16:

For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. (John 3:16 NIV)

Why did God give? Out of His love.

Francis Chan on giving:
“Giving that is not motivated by love is worth nothing. Paul says that from this kind of giving we ‘gain nothing’; however, when we give out of love, we gain much. Giving results not only in heavenly compensation, but also gives us great joy in out lives here and now. As we love more genuinely and deeply, giving becomes the obvious and natural response. Taking and keeping for ourselves becomes unattractive and imprudent.

Remember the story where Jesus fed thousands of people with one boy’s small lunch? In that story, according to Matthew, Jesus gave the loaves to His disciples and then the disciples passed them out to the crowd. Imagine if the disciples had simply held onto the food Jesus gave them, continually thanking Him for providing lunch for them. That would’ve been stupid when there was enough food to feed the thousands who where gathered and hungry.

But that is exactly what we do when we fail to give freely and joyfully. We are loaded down with too many good things, more than we could ever need, while others are desperate for asmall loaf. The god things we cling to are more than money; we hoard our resources, our gifts, our time, our families, our friends. As we begin to practice regular giving, we see how ludicrous it is to hold on to the abundance God has given us a merely repeat the words thank you.”

I think that if churches teach more along the lines of “giving motivated by love” the Stewardship season and pledge drives would almost not be needed as an institution any more.

What kind of difference would that make in your church and your life?

Once again it is Tuesday, and I have something positive to say about someone who has been encouraging to me.

My buddy Joe is one of those guys everyone should meet. Joe’s the guy that got me to be serious about what being a follower of Christ means.

Joe is the kind of guy that really shows faith, commitment, and trust in God. His life, and he’s family, center on service to God and listening to and following what He has planned.

With Joe’s help and encouragement, I got back into having daily devotional time, opening up to others about my faith, and actively pursuing Christ in my everyday life. Joe’s daily walk, including the struggles and strife that come with it, have given me the perspective to lean more on God in all things and not just on the “leftover” bits that I thought I could trust to Him.

Joe does a great job doing what Paul writes of in Romans:

Love must be sincere. Hate what is evil; cling to what is good. Be devoted to one another in brotherly love. Honor one another above yourselves. Never be lacking in zeal, but keep your spiritual fervor, serving the Lord. Be joyful in hope, patient in affliction, faithful in prayer. Share with God’s people who are in need. Practice hospitality.(Romans 12:9 – 13 NIV)

Joe, thanks for being you and being such a positive example of discipleship. God bless you.