Hydroplane

I had an unusual experience yesterday morning. I had gotten up early so I could drive in to our church to join some friends at a prayer meeting. I was running late. Before leaving, I had a few things to do. My morning regiment includes feeding our three border collies, three horses and our one barn cat. I rushed through the chores. I had to gather all the things I needed for the day. I had to fix a cup of coffee for my trip into town. As I gathered my stack of stuff, I realized I didn't have my wallet. I searched and searched and became frustrated. Finally I had to wake up my wife because she knows where everything is located in our house. I praise God for this wonderful gift He has given her. She told me my wallet was on our dryer where I had left it the night before. I finally got in my car and headed into town.

A few inches of snow had fallen that night and the road was a little slick and slushy. But I was focused on getting to the prayer meeting and I was determined to get there on time. I was hustling as usual.

I had driven for four minutes when suddenly, my car began to hydroplane. The back end of my car began to slide around to the front. I steered into the slide like they teach you in Driver's Ed but nothing would correct this situation. My brakes didn't work. I could not steer the car. I was out of control. I slid down the pavement backwards for what felt like a mile or two. (It was probably 50 feet) Then I could feel the car slide across the center line and toward the ditch on the opposite side of the road. I am now watching the forward progress of my car through my rear view mirror. As my car began to move toward the ditch, just another fifty feet down the road I spotted a light pole coming toward me. I'm going, "Oh crap...Jesus help me".

By the time I reached the light pole, I was going about five miles per hour but I struck the light pole with my rear passenger side door. My car spun around at impact and I ended up in a shallow ditch with coffee spilled all over my clothes. I sat there for a moment, coffee dripping off my eye brow trying to figure out what had happened and then it occurred to me. "Dan, you've got to slow down. You've got to take time to live. This pace is not healthy."

I write to my dear friends who are reading this blog. I want to encourage you. Slow down. Give yourself the gift of time to read and pray more in the quietness of the solitary moments of your life. Take time to listen to God's voice. Leave more time to "be still and know that I am God". Make time to watch your kids grow up. enjoy your spouse and your closest friends. Coffee is not meant to drip from your eye brows but to be shared with friends in loving conversation. Don't hydroplane through live. Life is so precious.

A Community of Hope for a Despairing World

A few years ago, the National Director of the Vineyard Churches, Bert Wagoner passionately called for the Vineyard to become "A community of hope for a despairing world." That phase has stuck in my heart. Yesterday, some friends of mine and I were talking about hope. What does it mean to be a "community of hope"?

Reggie Hovenga, one of the pastors of our church related a teaching his Small Group had done on what it would take to become a healthy, enabling and loving body of believers. The first aspect that was discussed in becoming an authentic community of faith was honesty. We live in a very disguised and hidden culture riddled with deception. We are often times afraid to be honest for fear of the judgment we might incur. It is hard to find people who will really be honest about their feelings, thoughts and behaviors. But without honesty, authentic and trusting relationships cannot be formed. Even in our relationship with God, honesty is so necessary. Dishonesty in our relationship with God can only lead to dead, cold religion. Honesty with God leads to fervent and effective prayer and a peace filled walk with God.

Second, Reggie talked about obedience. As a Christian community, obedience is mandatory. How can we announce Jesus as King unless we are willing to be wholeheartedly obedient to His word and will? A true Christian community assists it's members in maintaining an obedient posture before God. The Holy Spirit has been given to us who believe to empower us to live obedient lives.

Reggie then spoke of patience. That in order for us to be able to grow in our relationship with God, we must learn to be patient with each other and patient with ourselves. We are all in process. No one has hit the pinnacle of the Christian life. As God is patient with us, we must learn to be patient with Him in waiting for the fulfillment of His promises. I'm grateful that patience is listed as one of the fruit of the Spirit in Galatians 6.

Finally, Reggie talked about being a people filled with expectation. We are to filled with an expectation of God redeeming each and every situation in life and bringing them into harmony with His will. We are to live filled with an expectation of His great and wonderful promises coming to fruition. We are called to live our lives with an expectation of the powerful presence of the Spirit to move among us and radically transform our lives, an expectation of good rather than bad.

Honesty, obedience, patience and expectation. These seem to be core components of what launchs a people into becoming a "community of hope for a despairing world".

A Prediction from Rev. Franklin Graham

I was struck by this article. In the 40 years I have walked with the Lord, I have watched this post-Christian era develop. I believe we are entering a marvelously powerful and challenging time for the church. Please read the following article.


The Rev. Franklin Graham says just mentioning the name Jesus Christ in the public square is increasingly frowned upon and warns: "The spirit of anti-Christ is everywhere."

The Samaritan’s Purse founder and son of beloved evangelist Dr. Billy Graham voiced his dismay at the rapid secularization of society during a Tuesday chapel service at John Brown University, a private Christian university based in Siloam Springs, Ark.

Graham, who was banned from a Pentagon national day of Prayer event last year for expressing his opinions about Islam, told students: “Even in our government today, you can't pray to Jesus in many public meetings. You can pray to God or a god. You can mention Buddha or the name of Muhammad -- but you can't pray to Jesus Christ.”

The president and CEO of the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association criticized the recent memorial service for the Tucson shooting victims.

Unlike the memorials held after the Oklahoma City bombing and 9/11, he said, the Tucson program did not include an official prayer or mention of God. Graham noted gratefully, however, that President Barack Obama did quote scripture from the biblical book of Job.

The one religious dedication on the program came from a member of the Pascua Yaqui tribe, who delivered a peroration that among other things called out to “"Father Sky, where we get our masculine energy" and "Mother Earth, where we get our feminine energy.”

Earlier this week, Graham penned an op-ed in the Washington Times saying it was “a shame” that the University of Arizona had failed to put God anywhere on its program.

“How sad,” the Graham op-ed stated. “Father Sky and Mother Earth can do nothing to comfort Capt. Mark Kelly, who had been at the bedside of his wife, Rep. Giffords, wondering if she'd ever leave her bed. Or Mary Stoddard, who was only alive because her husband sacrificed his life by shielding her with his body. Or the family, classmates, teammates and friends of little Christina, whose life was snuffed out before she could play another season of Little League.”

Graham told the university students what was missing from the memorial: “There was no call for God to put His loving arms around those who were hurting,” said Graham. "Why did they leave him out? They scoff at the name of Jesus Christ."

Graham predicted the persecution of Christians will get worse in coming years, and he encouraged students to use the new media and the Internet to spread the gospel.

Dan's summation:
The church of Jesus Christ was birthed in an environment similar to the one we live in today and revival burned for centuries. If there was ever a time for God's people to rise up in a deep devotion to King Jesus, it is now. Prayer must become not just a simple Christian discipline but a necessity in our lives.

A Disciple: What do they do?

As we enter a new year, I renew my heart the the mission God gave our family 22 years ago when we moved to the Cedar Valley from New Mexico to plant this church. Our stated mission was to equip and army of a 1,000 fully devoted disciples of Jesus Christ who would extend the Kingdom of God.

What is a fully devoted disciple of Jesus. I suppose you could define a disciple in many ways but here's the way we have learned to define the activity of a disciple.

As a follower of Jesus we want to:

1. Grow in our ability to enthusiastically and sincerely worship our God.

2. Reach out to those who are poor in spirit with compassion.

3. Learn to do the ministry of Jesus with a hands on approach.

4. Graciously study and then obey the Word of God.

5. Come to enjoy the blessing of loving carefrontational community.

6. In all that we do, we do it with a humble servant heart.

These are the six primary practices that we are determined to promote in the Jesus followers who are part of the Heartland Vineyard Church.

Join us this year in growing as a fully devoted disciple and experiencing the joy of extending the Kingdom, that is, the rule and reign of God upon the earth.

It's coming! 1/1/11

I like the way God designed time. We have new beginnings regularly. Every morning, we have the beginning of a new day. Every Sunday, we have the beginning of a new week. We are getting ready to celebrate another new beginning, the beginning of a new year. And new beginnings allow us to adjust our ways into greater harmony with God and the people around us.

If you abbreviate the numbers of the year that is before us, the beginning of this year is 1/1/11. That's got a real ring to it. And so may I encourage all my friends to take on four new life advancements, one for each number one in our new year. Take some time and think and pray about four adjustments you can make to your life that will enrich your life and the lives of others.

Now these advancements might be something you want to give up. I want to give up about 25 pounds this year. I want to believe that my desire is not vain but for simple reasons of health and strength. If your advancement is something to give up, tell as many people as you possibly can. Take out an add in the news paper if you can afford it and announce what you're giving up. This will add some accountability to what you want to accomplish.

There are "givin' up goals" and then there are "goin' up goals". Goin' up goals are things like reading a few more books this year, setting up a date night with your spouse, spending some quality time with your kids, learning a new skill or giving Jesus more time in devotion. For those kinds of advancements, the goin' up kind, pick out a few very close and trusted friends and invite them to ask you periodically through the year how you are doing with that goal.

May I suggest a "goin' up goal". Go to www.gatewaybible.com and sign up for a daily reading of the Bible. This simple system will allow you to read your Bible in one year. I am surprised by how many Christians have never read the Bible from cover to cover. It is a wonderful experience. Once you go to their website and sign up, Gateway Bible will send you free of charge an email with the reading of the day. You can select from a number of different approaches but typically, you will read from the Old Testament, the Psalms and the New Testament. If you are married, my wife and I have found it is a wonderful way to start the day together. The reading will take about 30 minutes and by December 31, 2011, you will have the blessing and satisfaction of having read your Bible from cover to cover.

I am praying God's great love to fall each and every day on your life as you seek to advance your life and the lives of others into a closer and closer relationship with the Author of life.

Sinking Deeper into God's Love

Some one has said that life is cyclical. We are either in a challenging season of life and in the midst of a dilemma, we are coming out of a challenging season or we are getting ready to go back into a challenging season in life. That sounds a bit fatalistic but it seems there is some truth in that basic life concept.

In this present life, there is no perfection. The world we live in is broken. And though heaven awaits those who have placed their faith in Jesus, God's Kingdom and Rule has not yet been fully established. Therefore, we will be regularly tested with dilemmas, crises and potential loss.

I have noticed that there are three issues in life that seem to gather my attention more than anything. I call them the "Big 3". Relationship breakdowns, financial stress and physical / emotional sickness. In my nearly 59 years of life, I have faced all three and every time I do, I find myself responding the same way. I am, at first, disoriented. I sometimes reel in pain. I then take some time to worry, fret and lose some sleep. Finally, I find myself deepening my life of prayer.

Most of us don't feel that confident in prayer. That may be why so many opt for worry over prayer. I am still, after 38 years as a Christian, a novice when it comes to prayer. But nothing teaches us more about prayer than to simply pray. And nothing, it seems, motivates us to pray than when we are facing a painful situation. I have read countless book on prayer and all of them have been helpful. But I have learned more about prayer by just praying. And when I am face to face with one of the "Big 3", my prayers are more intense, they are less wordy and religious and they seem to sink deeper into God's love.

I don't believe there is anything you can do to more effectively create an environment of peace, joy and contentment for yourself and those living around you than to diligently develop a life of prayer. As the great pastor James said, "the fervent effectual prayers of a righteous man avails much".

Examination

Who am I?

Deep question right? Do you really know yourself? All of us have a public life. That's the part of life that not only we know but everyone around us sees and knows. We also have a private life. This is the part of our lives that few people know, only the ones we have allowed to enter into our confidence and trust. My wife, for instance, knows things about me that no one else knows. We also have secret lives, the part of our lives that only we know.

Since becoming a Christian, I have wanted to be authentic and transparent. What you see is what you get! My public life is not that much different than my private life. What people see when I'm down town or at church is pretty much the same as what you would see behind the closed doors of my home. I've wanted my secret life to be pretty small and becoming smaller as I grow in my trust of other believers who desire the best for my life. I think we all want a life free from hypocrisy. None of us want a huge gap between our public and private life and a long list of secrets we work to keep hidden. That's why it's so important to be in a Small Group and have people surrounding us that we can truly be accountable to, people we trust will love us no matter what and to tell us, not what we want to hear but what we need to hear. I think that is a major part of Christian community.

But there is another part of our life that really interests me. I would call it the inner life. It's that part of life that people don't see and is hidden even from us. It is the part of our life that only God knows, the thoughts and intentions of the heart. It is that part of life that David spoke of in Psalms 139 when he asked the Lord to search him and see if there was any wicked ways in him and to lead him in the everlasting way.

Would you like to know more about your inner life? Let me give you a practical way of discovering a bit more of what makes you tick.

Carve out 30 days after the Christmas season and take 15 minutes at the end of each of those days and journal two things. First, jot down the part of your day that gave you the most fulfillment and created the most joy and offered you the most strength. Don't be too haste in what you write. Give the Holy Spirit time to review with you your day. This might be as significant as getting a salary increase or as small as receiving a word of affirmation from a friend.

Second, partner with the Holy Spirit in determining the place in your day that was the most disappointing, the most life draining, that brought you the greatest sense of grief, fear, anxiety or discouragement.

Then, before your finished, ask the question "Why"? Why did this event in my day create joy and why did this particular event create anxiety and fear. Give this little exercise 30 days and I believe you will see a pattern. And for the things that strengthen you, be thankful and aware of the Father's delight in filling your life with joy. And for the things that drain you, let God touch those areas of your life, allowing Him to bring His healing and love and to strengthen you in that area of life.

If anyone takes me up on this little exercise, I'd love to hear from you.

I pray that Jesus will fill your Christmas and lead you through the coming new year.