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Today in worship I was singing along and praising God when right after I joyfully sang the following lyrics I was struck and had to stop

Lord use us (me) as You want, whatever the test

I was struck by the power and responsibility of that statement. As I was standing their silently reflecting on this I was convicted that I don’t believe that I could sing that with full truth. I have said yes to the Lord in many places and callings not knowing what would come of it… spreading the Gospel, world travel, unemployment, sleepless nights…

But am I ready to stand before the creator of the universe, my Savior, my God, my redemption, my Lord, my all and say; use me as You want, no matter the test!?!  I know what my Jesus would want me to say, I know what my heart should say.  My Savior Jesus left eternity to enter this world and be humbly born as a human, lived among us, taught us, feed us, prepared us, lived without sin and then was crucified brutally on a cross and died.  His death was not for anything He had done, but instead the punishment for my sins and the sins of all people from eternity to eternity were laid upon Him.  So where is the joy, where is the hope, why would submit my life to this Lord and be used no matter the test?  The joy is found in the resurrection of my Savior Jesus Christ, whom on the third day was raised from the dead, defeating death and hell for all of eternity.  My Savior lives, my Savior has concurred death so that I can live, so that all might live if they place their faith, trust, their all in Jesus as their Lord and Savior.

So, whatever the test… what is your answer?

Today marks an interesting day, a time of transition shall now begin. My first post college career with Sun Microsystems (now Oracle) I made the choice to transition to new employment. Today the decision was made for me to transition into the next area of life. I have loved to serve at Messiah on staff for three years. In that time I had the privilege of helping to give birth to journeys, and bring the technology Messiah uses to reach the world and spread the message of Christ much further along.

I leave this post with a word from our Lord.

And I am certain that God, who began the good work within you, will continue his work until it is finally finished on the day when Christ Jesus returns. Philippians 1:6

Be Blessed
dl

So what is up on this end… I use to be a power blogger and now it seems as though I have dropped of the face of the blogsphere?  I am here but my public writing has fallen off a bit so here is a slight catch up on some happenings.

I had the wonderful pleasure of joining with Third Place Consulting in helping to open up a cafe.  It was an amazing time of ministry, leadership and training.  As a side note… remember “ceramic works far better than paper when drinking coffee in the shower”.

From a local ministry perspective, this past Easter was the first since I have been full time at Messiah, that is a learning experience of really understanding what work / life balance is.  For those that have never been in employed full time ministry with at church, there as you would guess are two times that the work load goes up: Christmas and Easter.  This does not discount any and all of the other worship services that happen throughout the year, but those are two key opportunities to reach out and there is extra effort placed in those times.  If for some in America that are CEO Christitan (Christmas and Easter Only) than that is a key and curcial time to pour the love and salvation message into everyone that enters in either physically or virtually.

Virtually, what the heck do I mean by that?  One of the first items that we took on at Messiah was to launch a live streaming worship experience.  Messiah currently offers a live streaming worship service every Sunday at 9:30 eastern time.  We have blown the doors of the church and said that no matter where you are in the world, if you would like to worship with this faith family, then join us in worship online and give glory and honor to Jesus just like if you were sitting in the physical worship center.  Some time has passed now and we have most of the bgs worked out, a few more to go.  I am so honored to be a part of getting it off the ground and seeing it start to take a footing.  I was amazing the first time that we were able to witness someone through this streaming service give their life to Christ, that makes all the hours worth it.  All honor to Jesus for a transformed life and I am humbled to be a part in it.  If you would care to join it you can find it at Messiah On Demand.

journeys is still rockin’ away and I continue to see it as a valuable ministry tool to connect people, develop leaders and fund causes.  They just posted a brief on the latest cause the help to fund… nothing but life transformation and life saving.

Right now I am jacked to see spring is here and to enjoy being outside with my family.  Our oldest is starting soccer this year and she could not be happier.  Our youngest is still pushing in teeth, so that is a bit rough, but is all over the place and is bundle of joy and love.  My lovely wife is doing well, she is an amazing woman of God, awesome wife and unbelievable mother.  She is getting close to finishing up a large project at work and balances it all so well.  I can’t wait for the backpacking trips this season… I totally missed out last year with the bad knee.

God Bless,
dl

volunteer: a person who voluntarily undertakes or expresses a willingness to undertake a service

servant: a person working in the service of another

I was struck yesterday by these two words will listening to teachings by Pastor Chris.  He was teaching on a prayer of making us servants.  The key background was from John 13.  The part that really struck a key with me in relation to journeys was the difference between a volunteer and servant.  I have to say now that I don’t want any volunteers in this ministry, that is right, we don’t want volunteers.  If you have a servants heart and have been called by Jesus to serve him through the ministry team of journeys then welcome aboard and let us release you to do what the Lord is calling you to do.

I have from the beginning tried to not call the staff that gives freely of their time volunteers but staff.  I made this a very intentional effort to let everyone know we were one as a team.  I will be changing that statement now, I feel that we are all called to be servants in the ministry team of journeys.  I believe that for all of the servants currently serving.  It is more than a cup of awesome coffee, it is about a changed life.

Thank you to all of the servants who serve.  I have a tough question though, if you are a fully devoted follower of Jesus and you are not serving, are you fully devoted to the cause of Christ in this world?  I urge you to seek your heavenly Father and ask Him to place upon your heart where He would have you serve for His kingdom.  I also pray that you don’t volunteer to fill a position but to serve as our Savior did.

journeys received a little press this month in a Leadership Network article.  The article summary is simply:

Today’s churches are strategizing in ways that are innovative, intentional and missional to reach a group of people who might not be churchgoers, but  who are attracted to a nonreligious venue for coffee, lunch, play dates, workouts or concerts—where followers of Christ are also hanging out.

The staff here at journeys has started in on a new study on leadership, character and integrity. Here is the first post on digging deeper in.

What are you hiding? What are you keeping in the dark place of your life that you don’t want anyone to see? Are you talking about topics you should not with people you should not? Where is your web browser going and what images you viewing that you shouldn’t be? Okay, so that is the dark side, where is the light coming in to make the darkness flee? Sure the quick answer is that we know that we will all stand and give an account for ourselves before God (Romans 14:12). Next we know that is biblical for use to stand accountable to one another (James 5:16). So it is biblical to have a close friend to give full / 100% access to you that will act in love and grace. So Jud and Mike have this at the fullest level, more than I have with my accountability partner. They have it so that they know all of each others passwords and have software that will let each other know all of the websites they have been on. That is amazing access into ones life and a level that we should all strive for. So why do they do it, why should we do it? For some of those reasons that I started out asking in the begining. Thinks about it, are you going to carry on conversations that are un-godly if you know that someone has access to all of that information at any point in time? Are you going to visit a website that may contain material that you know you should not be viewing if you know your accountability partner is going see that and call you out on it in love and grace? I doubt it, if you have truly given that level of access to your life. So why is that we do not get it that Jesus all ready has our passwords and has that full access to our life? We fail with the One that has the greatest access into our life.

I don’t know how you came across this today, but know this fact my brothers and sisters, Jesus Christ loves and adores you and want to shower you with His forgiveness if you will let Him into your life. Do find that person on this side of heaven that you can give 100% full of love and graces access for your life and remember that Jesus all ready has our passwords…

God’s Blessings,
dl