Starting this week the staff is going through Andy Stanley's book "Visioneering." We are not doing it so much for the sake of developing a clear, articulate vision for the church but that the individuals leading the church may be able to understand their own vision or lack of vision. Stanley says visions are multifaceted. My goal is that the staff come to discover God's vision for their life as it relates to children, spouse, fiance, and ministry. I want to use this blog as a way to redefine the visions of my life. I would love to hear from you as you think through these categories as well.
Project # 1 (from Visioneering)
1. You have multiple visions for your life. Some are clearer than others. To begin clarifying what you believe your future should hold, write a one-sentence summary of how you believe life ought to be in the following areas.
* Career (Church): I believe the church structure should serve to help people discover the passionate life that Jesus came to give us.
* Finances: I want to be completely debt free and able to serve God in financial freedom.
* Spouse: I want to love my wife with a passion that grows deeper over time.
* Children: I want my children to have a joy about life that radiates in whatever they do.
2. Visions are born in the soul of a man or woman who is gripped by a tension between what is and what should be. Are you gripped by a particular tension? If so, take a minute to describe your dilemma
* What's bother you? I am bothered by the fact that a particular people group (those that know me know what I am talking about) are not being engaged with the Gospel.
* What is the solution? The solution is intentional engagement through incarnational living among this particular group.
* What should be? The unengaged group should be discovering the life found in Jesus.
3. Have any burdens begun to feel like a moral imperative?
It is imperative to share the Gospel if we are convinced that the gospel is Good News. We cannot allow fear and ignorance to limit the stretch of the Gospel.
4. Do you see a connection between your vision and what God is up to in this world?
God wants all people to come to know Him. He is raising up people now to extend the Gospel into this area of the world. We just need more creativity and the ability to think outside the traditional missional way.
Share your thoughts here or on FB.
Jamey
Monday, September 7, 2009
Sunday, September 6, 2009
Sunday @ LibertyHill
* Worship was totally "INTERRUPTING" today.
* Impressed with the crowd during small group hour - great to see LibertyHill folks waiting until Monday to celebrate Labor Day.
* Nice lunch w/ missions pastor.
* Got a chance to reconnect w/ Jon Poole and the gang (i.e., Echoing Angels)
* Dinner at Cracker Barrel w/ folks who make me feel like "family."
* Miss my family. Can't wait until they get back.
* Nascar race in Atlanta at night - cool!
* Impressed with the crowd during small group hour - great to see LibertyHill folks waiting until Monday to celebrate Labor Day.
* Nice lunch w/ missions pastor.
* Got a chance to reconnect w/ Jon Poole and the gang (i.e., Echoing Angels)
* Dinner at Cracker Barrel w/ folks who make me feel like "family."
* Miss my family. Can't wait until they get back.
* Nascar race in Atlanta at night - cool!
Friday, September 4, 2009
Engage:Part Four
Jesus wants us to have an abundant life. An exceptional life, or as Eugene Peterson translates John 10:10 in The Message: “A life that you could never dream of.” A passionate life. Can you honestly say right now that your life is “passionate?” Jesus is not interested in how religious we are. Jesus wants us to live life passionately wherever we find life. He wants you to be a passionate father, husband, and friend. He wants you to be a passionate mother, wife, and friend. He wants you to be a passionate teenager. A passionate child.
A passionate life is not a life of comfort. It is not dependent on outside circumstances to make us happy. It is not obtained quickly. A passionate life is a life abundant in love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, and self-control. It is a Christ-centered life. It is a life with purpose. It is more than existing. It is engaging.
An engaging life truly exists for others. It gives up luxury so that others may have necessity. The engaging life rejects the lone-ranger mentality and lives in a sacrificial and compassionate community. Those engaged in the life of Jesus view money as a resource of God’s kingdom and not as an object to be consumed. They are people that trusts the Spirit and takes risks for the sake of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Engaged in a passionate life is the abundant life.
A passionate life is not a life of comfort. It is not dependent on outside circumstances to make us happy. It is not obtained quickly. A passionate life is a life abundant in love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, and self-control. It is a Christ-centered life. It is a life with purpose. It is more than existing. It is engaging.
An engaging life truly exists for others. It gives up luxury so that others may have necessity. The engaging life rejects the lone-ranger mentality and lives in a sacrificial and compassionate community. Those engaged in the life of Jesus view money as a resource of God’s kingdom and not as an object to be consumed. They are people that trusts the Spirit and takes risks for the sake of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Engaged in a passionate life is the abundant life.
Thursday, September 3, 2009
Engage: Part Three
The irony is we are not comfortable. The mom driving the SUV with the child star on it is soulless. The father who takes on a suffocating commute for the sake of the family is exhausted. The teenager who is taught to put on a “perfect face” even when things are not is lost. The child who is taxied to one event after another has forgotten how to dream and have an imagination. In the opening paragraphs of Message in a Bottle, Walker Perry asks, “Why does man feel so sad? Why do people often feel bad in good enviroments and good in bad enviroments? Why do people often feel so bad in good enviroments that they prefer bad enviroments? Why is it that a man riding a good commuter train home from Larchmont to New York, whose needs and drives are satisfied, who has a good home, a loving wife and family, good job, who enjoys unprecedented cultural and recreational facilities, often feels bad without knowing why?” That is a great question. “Why do we feel bad in good enviroments and good in bad enviroments? Another way of saying this is “why is ‘Desperate Housewives’ the most popular show being watched in the suburbs?”
Wednesday, September 2, 2009
Engage: Part Two
Churches in the suburbs buy into the honor code as well. Whole staff meetings are focused around how to make people comfortable. We discuss parking issues, easy access points, and how not to be too offensive. We stand up and say we are going to go to downtown Atlanta to visit a homeless shelter on Monday night but we can come home to our comfortable beds instead of saying we need two families who will move to downtown and live among the homeless for a year. We create sports programs that pull kids out of public sports with unchurched kids because they need to be in a “Christian environment.” We do the same with school choice. We send our kids to private “Christian” schools where they don’t have to be salt and light in a dark world. They can just hang out among other salty kids. Why do we go to extreme measures? Because we are following the honor code: everything is fine and my life is in order – We are comfortable.
Tuesday, September 1, 2009
Engage: Part One
During the week I will post excerpts from last week's message.
People are attracted to the suburbs for many reasons. We want to get away from the hectic lifestyle of in-town living. We want to divide our lives in that I work over here and I live and play over here. We like the safety of the suburbs. We want our kids to go to good schools. Suburbia is the context and the setting for the fulfillment of people’s hopes and dreams. A place for new opportunities. The suburbs promise prosperity, upward mobility, a healthy life, safety and tranquility, the best place to bring up kids.
When you moved into the neighborhood you probably signed a covenant. The covenant says you won’t put your car on blocks in the front yard, you will not use the old toilet for a flower pot, the grass will not get as high as your knees and your child or dog won’t leave a smelly gift for the neighbor in his front yard.
We also sign an imaginary honor code. It is a code that rather we were aware of it or not by the simple fact of moving into the suburbs all of us sign. It is obvious in our conversations or lack of. It is obvious in the way we structure our lives. Most of us live by this honor code until the end but we don’t ever bring it up. Men ignore it on the golf course by talking about sports, politics, or nothing at all. Women out of pride refuse to bring it up in conversation around coffee or tea. It is an honor code that destroys life, destroys family, and destroys children. It is an honor code that leads to a shallow life, a life with no depth. Here is the honor code of suburbia: “Everything is fine” and “my life is in order.” The day you arrived at your new house you stood in the drive way as the movers moved you in and you looked around at your husband, children, house, and neighbors and you said, “Everything is great and I am finally getting some structure to my life.” That is the secret pledge every person makes to live in the suburbs. Don’t believe me try this experiment when you are at the little league field this week. Ask someone how they are doing. What will they say, “I am fine?” Then ask about their family and they will tell you about little Timmy who is a great soccer player, little Suzie who is at choral recital, and daddy, husband Jim Bob who is working late today so that he can take off on Friday to go play golf with the guys. Ask her how she is doing she will in one way or another tell you: “I am fine.” Which translates I have my SUV with my child is a star student at perfect elementary sticker on the bumper. I am not saying this is bad. I am just saying this is the honor code: “everything is fine and my life is in order” that we in the suburbs live by. The problem is we continue to live by this honor code even when life is not fine and my life is not in order. Or that we have come to define a “fine life” by the things we own, drive, or live-in and order is understood as comfort. Another way of saying the honor code is that I am comfortable.
People are attracted to the suburbs for many reasons. We want to get away from the hectic lifestyle of in-town living. We want to divide our lives in that I work over here and I live and play over here. We like the safety of the suburbs. We want our kids to go to good schools. Suburbia is the context and the setting for the fulfillment of people’s hopes and dreams. A place for new opportunities. The suburbs promise prosperity, upward mobility, a healthy life, safety and tranquility, the best place to bring up kids.
When you moved into the neighborhood you probably signed a covenant. The covenant says you won’t put your car on blocks in the front yard, you will not use the old toilet for a flower pot, the grass will not get as high as your knees and your child or dog won’t leave a smelly gift for the neighbor in his front yard.
We also sign an imaginary honor code. It is a code that rather we were aware of it or not by the simple fact of moving into the suburbs all of us sign. It is obvious in our conversations or lack of. It is obvious in the way we structure our lives. Most of us live by this honor code until the end but we don’t ever bring it up. Men ignore it on the golf course by talking about sports, politics, or nothing at all. Women out of pride refuse to bring it up in conversation around coffee or tea. It is an honor code that destroys life, destroys family, and destroys children. It is an honor code that leads to a shallow life, a life with no depth. Here is the honor code of suburbia: “Everything is fine” and “my life is in order.” The day you arrived at your new house you stood in the drive way as the movers moved you in and you looked around at your husband, children, house, and neighbors and you said, “Everything is great and I am finally getting some structure to my life.” That is the secret pledge every person makes to live in the suburbs. Don’t believe me try this experiment when you are at the little league field this week. Ask someone how they are doing. What will they say, “I am fine?” Then ask about their family and they will tell you about little Timmy who is a great soccer player, little Suzie who is at choral recital, and daddy, husband Jim Bob who is working late today so that he can take off on Friday to go play golf with the guys. Ask her how she is doing she will in one way or another tell you: “I am fine.” Which translates I have my SUV with my child is a star student at perfect elementary sticker on the bumper. I am not saying this is bad. I am just saying this is the honor code: “everything is fine and my life is in order” that we in the suburbs live by. The problem is we continue to live by this honor code even when life is not fine and my life is not in order. Or that we have come to define a “fine life” by the things we own, drive, or live-in and order is understood as comfort. Another way of saying the honor code is that I am comfortable.
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