Egos

"while knowledge makes us feel important, It is love that strengthens the church." this is a translation of 1 Cor. 8:1 NLT. When I read this it really seemed to scream at me, "see, this is what I am doing right now." The Church has too many egos. There are far too many people and pastors who love to feel important. Why do we love to show off our knowlege? Because it makes us feel good... US... Not Jesus, us... I just wonder what would happen to the kingdom if people made a shift from showing off their knowledge to showing off their love and passion for Christ. I hope to never preach with the desire to make people say "man, that dude is smart." after people hear me preach I hope that they say "man, that guy is broken hearted over lost people and the current condition of the church." I think that it is high time that we admit that we are the church, and our egos are way too big.

Awesome!

I'm at the office tonight about to continue working on a message and I just wanted to say a quick word while I have a computer that can access my blog. I usually have to type on my phone because we have no internet at home and that gets a little difficult. I just want to say a couple of things so this will be in a simple format.

#1. This past Sunday was awesome. We had our first baptism. I had the wonderful opportunity to baptise my oldest son and it was way way amazing. God has given us a powerful illustration of new life in Christ through baptism.

#2. Eric is our Creative Pastor and He does a lot of different things for us, the best way to describe his role is that he is in charge of most anything that you look at. He does the website and I must sayt that he does an awesome job. Go by and take a look at it when you get some time. He recently updated several things on the website. Please take some time to read the why are you hear letters, they are very powerful. Our first official message series is on the front web page. We are very excited about it!

Thank you to all of you who are so supportive of us. May God use us to reach the lost and empower the saved.

Shattered

I don't know what it is about me and grocerey stores. It seems like every time that I go to the grocery store I have an experience. Last time I danced on isle 3 and maybe 4,5 and 6 too. But tonight was extremely unusual and unexpected. I was walking through, getting a few essentials while listening to a podcast with Chris Tomlin, when my heart was suddenly shattered. Chris is a famous and passionate worship leader and he made what I belive is a tremendously profound statement. He was talking about how we work so hard to have our preferences met in church through worship styles and in going to conferences and doing so many consumer minded things. Then he said that he believes that we as Christians are far too busy consuming things for God when the reality is that we should be busy trying to allow God to consume our lives. Just after he said that, I found myself starring at a can of green beans... I know, deep right? But as my eyes slowly moved up the isle to see all the food that is so easily accessable to me and really all Americans, my heart was so broken for all of the starving people in this world.
You see, I have had a guilt complex. I didn't understand why God would call me to serve him in this nation of great prosperity when there are so many places that He could send me where the need seems so much greater and where I would have to suffer so much more for Him. But as I looked up that isle full of food I began to understand that God has called me here where we have all the resources to meet any need. My heart was broken and yet burdened with such a sense of responsability to meet the needs of the poor and broken.
How great would it be if one day we as a church could adopt a whole city or village where they are struggling to live. We could drill them wells, build them homes, give them shoes and clothes, give them farming supplies. There has got to be a village or city some where that we could do that for one day in the future. Just imagine how we could actually help a whole community move from poverty to having every need met... To having a hope!!! Do you think that they would hear the gospel then? Do you think God would be glorified and worshiped?... I do!

Just an update.

I just wanted to take a couple of minutes and update folks about what's been going on and what we are looking towards.

Things have been good lately. Right now we are still trying to get past Christmas, and are looking ahead a whole lot. We hope to have our first baptism very soon. Be looking back at this blog because I hope to be announcing when really soon. This will be our very first baptism and I am very excited about it. Not only will it be our first baptism for Oasis, but I will get to baptize my oldest son, which will be soooo awesome. We are still looking forward to our first sermon series coming soon. I hope to be able to announce the dates for that really soon too. I guess that we could call the series a beta series. That's just a fancy name for "trial run". I really enjoyed this past Sunday. We got to go in the pool area for the first time as a core group. We went to pray for the lost souls who will be baptized into new life in Christ in that room. check back soon for the dates that we will be announcing.