A Slower Pace

Good friends of ours are planting a church in a small community near us and last week was their launch service. Consequently, we have been attending our large church on Saturday evenings and then following that up with Sunday worship with them.

Today was our second week of double duty worship and, as a family, we have been getting a lot out of it. This morning I was impacted by a pivotal quote from the sermon and had to share it here.

“Is your life a blank check for God?”

If your life is not a blank check, what is your limit? And what are you doing to constantly increase that limit?

Because, after all, God spared nothing to purchase you — He gave the blood of His only son, Jesus.

…..Dan at aslowerpace dot net

“Watch out for false prophets. They come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ferocious wolves.” — Matthew 7:15

…..Dan at aslowerpace dot net

On KLOVE this morning, I heard a very cool statement by Mike Donehey from Tenth Ave North —

“You can’t live FOR God until you start living BECAUSE of God”

…..Dan at aslowerpace dot net

Throughout all of the news regarding the Colorado shooting, my blog post of that morning about Jesus being the light in our dark world becomes even more true. Now I take no credit for the timing because when I posted that entry I hadn’t heard about the incident yet. And while the event was the result of an evil individual, God specializes in taking broken, wounded, hurt, thrown away, and seemingly irretrievable people, circumstances and events and redeeming them with His perfect love into things that are loving, charitable, worthy, good and true. And while I have no idea how He plans to do that with this recent shooting, I know — Scripture tells me — that it is in His hands and He will turn it into something for His glory.

This blog piece exemplifies that — http://aminiatureclaypot.wordpress.com/2012/07/20/so-you-still-think-god-is-a-merciful-god/. She is a survivor of this shooting and is being used in His plan.

I love, love, love her statement:

God is always good.

Man is not.

Don’t get the two confused.

I encourage you to click on the link and go read her inspirational blog post.

…..Dan at aslowerpace dot net

Last night we had a string of storms sweep through. Some rain, high winds, lots of dark clouds and lightning/thunder every second or so. A few strikes hit the back property and there was not much gap between the flash and thunderclap.

As the storm departed it was very dark all around except for one section in the front yard which revealed beautiful clouds penetrated by light.

My son said that it looked like Jesus was returning to earth. I was thinking the same thing — but more metaphorically in Him being the light in our very dark world.

…..Dan at aslowerpace dot net

This weekend my church celebrated its 50th Anniversary. And while Southeast Christian Church is one of the top 10 largest churches in the U.S., the worship service was specifically intentional to focus on what God has done and what God WILL do and to give Him all glory and praise, not to self-placate itself with accolades. It was a very special service in that there was lots of music, lots of prayer, lots of worship, and sermons from every pastor who had ever preached there (Bob Russell, Dave Stone and Kyle Idleman). Several times during worship my eyes filled with joyful or repenting tears revealing the piercing of my heart in worship. Moving to say the least.

Senior pastor Dave Stone often comments when Scripture verses are read and the sound of Bibles being pulled out and pages turning fills the sanctuary. He says that it is a sound he loves to hear. I agree with him for several reasons.

One, it means that Scripture is being preached on. Unfortunately, even though I was raised “in the church” (not Southeast but elsewhere), I bore through many sermons that were not based on God’s Word. That is definitely not the case at my church now.

Two, it means that church attendees are actually bringing their Bibles with them to worship. And by diving into God’s Word they move from “attendee” to “participant” to “disciple” — exactly the path God calls us to be on.

But I digress….. Back to Dave Stone’s favorite sound of Bible pages turning.

So during this last service a different sound in the sanctuary came to be my favorite. And I possibly might not hear it again. You see, this 50th Anniversary worship service, celebration and praise to God was initially intended to occur at our local Papa John’s Louisville Cardinal Stadium. It is a football stadium that has the capacity to seat the entire Southeast congregation in one sitting — all three campuses. For logistics purposes, many things had to be considered and rearranged. One was communion. So these unique self-contained communion units were purchased (think “individualized coffee creamer with grape juice inside and wafer on top”).

As these special self-contained communion items were distributed and people began their prayer and repentance, the sanctuary was filled with the sound of people removing the cellophane wafer wrapper. I was in prayer after consuming my wafer and grape juice and it was revealed to me that it sounded like a gentle rain rather than cellophane removal. I basked in this new perspective, soaked up the acoustical expanse and let the imagery of rain in prayer wash over me like God’s forgiveness does when we submit in the Eucharist. It was incredibly metaphorical and powerful.

It truly was another facet to an already amazing worship service and I am so blessed to have participated.

On a different note, the service started out with a very hilarious video snippet — I highly recommend you click on the link and go watch it.

Where’s Bob – 50th Anniversary Pre-Show from Southeast Video on Vimeo.

…..Dan at aslowerpace dot net

My oldest daughter is interning for the summer at my favorite local Christian radio station. One of her first assignments was to photograph the WJIE Louisville Bats Day at the Ballpark and Concert. This is a super annual event where the radio station puts on a concert at the Bats baseball game (the Louisville Bats are our local AAA minor league farm team for the Cincinnati Reds) and all the attendees get to watch the baseball game afterwards. It is always an enjoyable event and this year’s act was Big Daddy Weave. We enjoyed their music last year at the annual WJIE Sweetheart Dinner (which I blogged about here).

During the concert, lead singer Mike Weaver said something very impactful that really hit me.

“The love of Jesus is bigger than any mess we make”

Amen!

…..Dan at aslowerpace dot net

While on vacation last week and because we were driving on Sunday, we missed the prior week’s church service and sermon message. However, I feel very blessed in two ways — #1 the sermons are typically spot on and hit home so frequently that I never want to miss any and #2 the sermons are always available after service online or by podcast.

So this morning I used my morning commute to catch up on the sermon I missed back on June 3. It was titled “The Trials of a King” and focused on the trainwreck that was King David’s personal life. And while David was a “man after God’s heart” and an Old Testament hero, there are also many lessons we can learn and apply to ourselves and our families to hopefully prevent the wandering and sin and all the consequences that brings into our lives.

One verse of Scripture that was highlighted in the message was in Proverbs.

“Better to live in a desert than with a quarrelsome and ill-tempered wife.” — Proverbs 21:19

That verse got me thinking about how blessed I am to be equally yoked to my wife who is a Proverbs 31 woman. Sometimes God blesses us with things we don’t have and I am so blessed to not have a wife like the one described in 21:19 and instead have one like it says in 31:10 – one of noble character worth far more than rubies. The sermon message also got me thinking on how I can continually feed my marriage and family so they grow into the strong bonds and foundation that God can use to further His kingdom.

If you get a chance, go check out that sermon — http://vidego-http.multicastmedia.com/mm/flvmedia/2878/A/c/t/Act3_wk5-audio-1013123.mp3

…..Dan at aslowerpace dot net

At church we are going through a series on families. Two weeks ago for Mother’s Day we heard about encouraging moms. Last week was on disciplining parents. This week it was on raising respectful kids.

As always, the sermons were very scriptural and spot on. (I encourage you to go check any of them out online — they can be streamed or podcasted at http://www.southeastchristian.org/?page=3477). Today’s sermon had a few quotes that resonated with me and I am sharing the gist of them here. Unfortunately, I did not write them down so I am going off my memory.

“If you have a daughter, you had better show her Christ’s pure love and appropriate touch, for if she doesn’t get it from you, she will begin to seek it elsewhere.” — James Dobson

“If you don’t want your family to turn out like every other family, then you will need to raise your children differently than everyone else.” — Craig Goeschel

…..Dan at aslowerpace dot net

Post NOTE: I went back and listened to the online sermon and corrected the quotes above so they are accurate and attributable to who spoke them. What you are seeing is the corrected edits.

This morning my devotions took me to Psalm 145 where David extols the glory and magnificence of God. I took in the scripture and pondered God’s marvelous blessings in my life and the awe of my Creator. I thanked Him for all my normal blessings — family, faith, shelter, food, work, relationships, service — but then my focus was switched to life and the actual breaths I was taking. I then specifically paused and completely took in my next full breath focusing on the breath and all that was going on around me — the blessings in my life.

The misty fog hung low against the glistening, dew-laden meadow out my sunroom as the sun rose behind the trees silhouetting them against a soft peach morning sky. The quiet home with my family still safe in bed slumbering away. The warm oatmeal in my mouth satisfied my hunger with sustenance and nutrition coupled with cinnamon and brown sugar. The perfect room temperature air entered my lungs filling them and giving the life that God allowed me to have in that exact moment knowing that He is responsible for that very breath in me….. and all the subsequent ones that followed. At that moment I was alive, in no pain, with hunger and thirst satisfied, and no other concerns other than the focus on that one breath and the scripture in front of me.

Thank you, Lord for that breath and allowing me to experience the full satisfaction of all the blessings that made that breath possible. Forgive me for being distracted during so many other breaths where I do not take in your glory and the satisfaction you bring.

…..Dan at aslowerpace dot net