Make Your Life Count!

I have participated in far too many funerals for my age. Every single one of those ceremonies is intended to honor the memory of the one who passed and to help the surviving loved ones deal with their grief. A funeral is one of the most profound moments of humanity; it is during these moments when we focus on what is truly important to us.

Let me tell you something incredibly important. Not one of those funerals mentioned how much money the deceased had earned. There was not one mention of the final total in the checking account or how many assets were in the portfolio. Very few of the services even mentioned what the person did for a living.

Instead, family members and loved ones share stories and memories from good times in the past. They speak of challenges that were overcome together. They relate values their cherished loved one held dear to his or her heart. They speak of faith. More often than not, there is focus on generosity in both time and love.

There is something about this that speaks to our core. We have been trained from birth to think life is about getting all we can get, yet that path leaves us unfulfilled. Everything inside of us screams there must be more to life than this. Your heart is giving you insight into a spiritual truth. The sum of your life is not found in what you get; it is found in what you give. We are not put on earth to consume; instead, God asks us to contribute. Giving is the most practical expression of love because a person cannot love without giving. It is impossible.

This Sunday, March 2^nd, Higher Calling will be having a special offering. We are trying to raise $10,000 above and beyond our normal offering so we can reach out into our community. The money will fund advertisements and outreach resources, primarily in the form of a mailer to be delivered in the week before Easter. I am asking for your support for this offering. Together, we can reach our community with the love of God!

Don’t ever fall for the trap of thinking life is about the acquisition of things because that path will only lead to disillusion. None of the things you acquire will have any significance to you when you evaluate the impact of your life. What will matter is the contribution you have made in the lives of others and for the kingdom of God. Choose to focus on what is truly important in life. Make your life count in eternity!

Fueling the Fire; Ignition

When we move past inspiration, individualism, innovation and then we begin to implement the vision that God has for our lives and our church, we move into a really cool zone. This is where God begins to act, unleashing his divine timing and power into our efforts.

God is described as a fire many times in the Scriptures. I love this image because God consumes just like a raging fire. Can you call to mind the forest wildfires that burn on the West Coast? We are the most advanced society in world history, but when these great fires rage, the best we can hope to do is to contain the damage.

You know what it really neat? Our God is a God that cannot be contained by any force. When he burns, nothing stops it. Do you know what really gets God involved in situations, what makes him burn? It has been and will always be the faithfulness of his people. When there are men and women that are following God and seeking to obey him, God moves in their midst and he ignites supernatural reactions that are uncontrollable.

There is no predicting it. There is no stopping it. The only thing you can do is hang on for the ride. Are you ready to trust God this year?

Fueling the Fire; Implementation

Implementation is about walking the walk and not just talking the talk. This is the most important step and value because without it, nothing gets done. We can dream great dreams and have God-honoring visions but if we do nothing about them, we are the worst kind of failures. I truly believe that those of us who know the truth and choose to do nothing will have a lot to answer for in front of God.

The book of James tells us not to simply listen to the Word of God, but to do what it says. Listening to something can be a great deception because we can confuse our hearing of something with action. You can hear a good sermon, but it does nothing unless you make the principles a practical reality in your life. You can watch a TV commercial about needy children overseas, but simply watching it does nothing to alleviate suffering. We know all of this, yet we can be satisfied by simply going to church and thinking that we have done enough.

Wrong! Remember, church is not something you go to; it is a family you belong to. Because of this, what we do together is much more important than the things we hear together. We must take the principles listed previously here and put them into practice.

Our goal, as always, is to follow through with what we say we are going to do. We are a church with a great story, but stories are essentially worthless if they are not told. Who will tell this story? How many of you have been changed by God here at Higher Calling?

Will you tell about your experience? Will you act on what you know? The answer to this question is the key to implementing your God given purpose.

Fueling the Fire; Innovation

One of our values at Higher Calling is innovation. We are committed to trying and risking new things for God. Innovation is all about the pursuit of newness.

The church is seen by many as the defender of the status quo, and is often criticized as being 50 years behind the curve. I am glad to be at a community of faith where newness on stage and elsewhere is accepted and not fought.

How can we ever look at the world around us and think that God is the defender of the status quo? The heavens and earth scream out a song of newness and celebrate a God that creates something from nothing. The entire Bible is a story of God doing new things. In the book of Isaiah, God tells his people that he is going to provide for them in a new way. When Jesus walked the earth he confronted many people who loved their old traditions more than people. He strongly criticized such people because he came to break the hold of tradition on our lives and instead create a model where love and compassion flourished. When Jesus instituted the Lord's Supper, or communion, he called it the symbol of the "new covenant." And in the book of Revelation, Jesus sits on the throne of God and says he is making "all things new."

God is the original innovator. The Bible also tells us that we are made in the image of God, so we can reflect parts of his nature. Just as God is creative, we are creative. I believe that when we try new things we honor God. By the way, that is why we are pursuing this blog. I truly believe that every church will have a blog within just a few years, it will be seen an necessary and people will wonder how we ever got along without this type of communication.

We will always seek to try new and exciting things. If that scares you, its ok, but know that God is in favor of our risking on his behalf. I am excited to hear your ideas as well.

What do you say about this value of innovation? Do you have something to add to the discussion? Leave a comment and share any thoughts that you may have!

Fueling the Fire; Individualism

Another value that is absolutely essential to success in our world and culture today is the idea of individualism. This is about personal uniqueness. We believe in and affirm the uniqueness of every person. We believe that God created us all to be unique, and that he wants us to use that uniqueness to shine for him. This does NOT mean that life is all about you. It isn't. You see, if you live a selfish life, only looking out for your interests, you may think you are living a life that is unique, but you aren't. There is nothing unique about living for yourself; we are all naturally wired to be selfish. If you want to be truly unique, it only happens when you lay down selfishness and decide to be a part of a community. True uniqueness is only seen in the context of a community.

All too often, the church is seen as the organization that creates standardization. We celebrate the idea of discipleship so we can become a disciple, and that has the same base as the word "discipline." We have a very military image of the word discipline in our minds, it projects an image of people looking the same, marching in lockstep. This is not a flattering image, but more importantly, it is also not a biblical image.

God did not make us all unique so that we could find ourselves in church one day so we could then be made all the same. Uniqueness is something to be treasured and celebrated, not fought against and hidden. Throughout the Bible, people make reference to how God made us in a special way; the Psalms talk about how we are "fearfully and wonderfully made" and how God delicately knit us together in our mother's womb. Ephesians 2:10 calls us God's "worksmanship," another word for that is "masterpiece!" You are the unique masterpiece of God, and just how we would never take great sculptures or paintings and try and make them look the same, the church should never attempt to standardize humanity.

We are created to become like Christ in our character. That means we lose the hateful, mean-spirited and evil parts of ourselves to take on a character of love, peace, courage, and gentleness. Keep in mind here that our character has nothing to do with changing our uniqueness. It doesn't matter if you are outgoing or introverted, athletic or a bookworm, loud or quiet, all of those personality traits can remain as you change your character.

God doesn't want to change your personality, he wants to change your character! And remember, we don't ever want to make you look just like us, we want you to look like what God truly created you to be.

Maybe you are searching for who you are. Let me tell you this: If you truly want to find your unique self, you must be where Jesus is. Where He is the where true uniqueness is found and celebrated. We would love to have you on the journey with us.

Fueling the Fire; Inspiration

This is the start of all good things in the church. Ultimately, we are to be a body that gives hope and inspiration to the entire world.

Many people forget the primary message of the Bible is gospel or literally, "good news." We lose that meaning in all of the negativity that is thrown around by many in our faith. The reality is that faith in the one true God is all about inspiration. God said in Jeremiah that he knows the plans for us and they are good plans, plans to prosper us and give us hope and a future. That sounds like inspiration to me!

Because the message of God is one of inspiration, we need to be men and women of inspiration in our daily lives to reflect the truth that we know. Do you actively seek to inspire those around you in your daily life?

My promise to you in 2008 and beyond is to continue Higher Calling's tradition of inspiration on Sundays and every other day. Your part is to contribute to the healthy, healing, and accepting atmosphere in our community. We must continue to reach out every single day in as many ways as we can.

Never forget: the church is not here for you! We ARE the church, and the church is here for the world. Be a part of inspiring your world today.

Vision Sunday 2008: Fueling the Fire

I believe that we are at a pivotal moment in the history of our church. At this moment, we are faced with a decision on who we are going to be as a church, and what our identity will be.

The question posed to pastors for years has always been, "Where are we going?" Now that question has been replaced with, "Who are we becoming?" Higher Calling must decide as a community on who we want to be. My choice is to take the road that is less traveled and pursue the dangerous path of outreach into a world that desperately needs Jesus.

So what defines us on this journey? Our mission statement has been the same since our founding, "We are dedicated to helping people discover and experience God's higher calling for their lives through the pursuit of God's purposes." That says a lot about who we are as a community. We are not a country club, where a select few get together and share quality time every Sunday morning. We are not a psychology department that seeks to understand the inner workings of the human psyche; we do not believe that the answer to life's most pressing issues is found within the mind of people. We also are not just a charity organization, simply trying to do good works in the community.

No, we are part of the Body of Christ. Never forget the church is not here for you! We are the church, and the church is here for the world. Our mission is people. All people, everywhere. And our message to them is Jesus. We believe and affirm that God has a high calling for everyone in Jesus. He is the one who is our creator, our leader, and He is the giver of life to the human spirit.

We also have a plan, and our plan revolves around teaching people that God has a purpose for their life and true meaning and fulfillment is only found through seeking that purpose.

The real question remains, "Who are we becoming?" There are two choices to be made. We can choose to take the path of least resistance where we focus inward and choose to ignore the needs of the world around us. We can choose apathy over action, comfort over compassion. Or we can choose to grab hold of the vision that God first put in front of His followers; a vision to go into all of the world, telling people the good news about Jesus. It is a call to a life of adventure and danger, a life that challenges tradition and shakes off the chains of legalistic religion. It is what you were made to do! This all awaits you, but you first must choose to take this path or settle for something far less. What do you choose?

If you are ready, let us together venture deeper into this vision, and the values we must uphold if we are to be a church that seeks God. I will be posting on this and other items throughout this week. I hope you participate!

Vision Sunday

Hello everyone! I wanted to get in touch with everyone this week to remind you about this upcoming Sunday’s service. We will be laying out the vision for Higher Calling in 2008. Our goal during this service is to communicate to you what our key values are and how we plan on practicing this values as a community in this coming year. We can never become complacent; we must always strive to reach higher for what God is calling us to become.

We can never forget that vision that does not become reality is merely a good idea. The challenge we all face is taking the imagined and the visionary and turning it into reality. I am looking forward to partnering with all of you as we work together to take Higher Calling to the next level. Please make it a priority to be in attendance on Sunday, January 20^th. Let’s join together and accomplish something together that would be impossible by ourselves.