In Sync with God

The other morning, I had the rare opportunity to drive my 15-year-old daughter, Whitney, to school. It was great to be able to spend a little time with her one on one without distractions or interruptions, just to find out what was going on in her life.

I knew she had been doing the student version of Experiencing God in her youth Bible study at church. So i asked her what she thought God was saying to her. I expected her to kind of think for a bit but to my surprise she answered right away: "I think God wants me to trust Him and not get stressed out so much in my life." Wow, I thought, my little girl is all growed up and hearing from God!

We talked for a while about what causes stress and I gave her my theory about why we stress out. I think I covered it here in an earlier post but the Cliff Notes version is basically this: We wake up every day with a set of expectations for the day -- things we expect to accomplish, the way we expect our day to go, how we expect things to work, etc. Stress happens when our day doesn't happen the way we expected. There is a tension between what we expect and what God actually gives us and that tension is called stress.

The way to avoid it, I told Whitney, would be to wake up and the very first thing you do would be to take all your expectations for the day and hand them over to God in prayer. Phillipians 4:6-7 says, "Don’t worry about anything; instead, pray about everything. Tell God what you need, and thank him for all he has done. Then you will experience God’s peace, which exceeds anything we can understand. His peace will guard your hearts and minds as you live in Christ Jesus." NLT

We began to talk about prayer, about what it is and what it is not. So many people treat prayer like it's a way to get what they want from God. They see it as a way to get God on their agenda, to meet their expectations. Rather, I told her, prayer is how we get on God's agenda, how we catch His heart and make it ours. It's how we sync our lives to God, I said. And that's when it hit me.

Suddenly in my mind's eye, I saw an iPod attached to a computer by that little cable. "Whitney," I said, "think about syncing your iPod to the computer. Let's say the computer represents God and the iPod is you. You want everything on the computer's library to be on your iPod, until it mirrors exactly what is stored on the computer. Now that little cable that connects the iPod to the computer is prayer. It is through that connection that you will be synced to God, He will download Himself into you, until you mirror Him exactly. Then as you go through your day, you are taking everything God is around inside you."

I don't know which one of us got more out of that illustration but she seemed to like it. Since that morning, though, that image of syncing my life to God's heart through prayer has been stuck in my head. Have you "synced" yourself to God today?

Mary Margaret: Story teller for a new generation

This kid is an amazing story teller. Check her out...

What's in your hand?

"Withhold not good from them to whom it is due, when it is in the power of thine hand to do it ." - Prov. 3:27, KJV

This past week our lead pastor, Steve Whipple, was preaching on Giving Like God from John 3:16. Near the end he asked this question: What is in your hand? In light of this scripture from Proverbs, that is a very good question.

What do I hold in my hand that someone around me needs? Has God brought someone across my radar with a need that it is in my power to meet? Am I withholding some good from someone to whom it is due?

As I thought and prayed on this over the weekend one word kept coming to my mind: encouragement. Think about it. What is one thing everyone needs and everyone can give? Encouragement! It's something all of us can afford to be generous with and none of us can afford to live without. But how often do we withhold it from each other!

The word encourage literally means "to put courage into another person." We all face challenges every day. Even Jesus said that each day held enough trouble of its own (Matt. 6:34). His answer was that we should continuously set our eyes on God and the kingdom He was establishing, and the righteous life that would be the defining characteristic of that kingdom. But that takes courage.

Encouragement is so vital because it is much rarer than dis-couragement. Interesting thing about the prefix dis-: it is from the same Latin root that means twice or to divide. It literally indicates a separating or parting from something. So when we say we are discouraged, we are saying that we have been separated from our courage. It has been taken from us. So when the challenges come, when the trouble of the day rears its ugly head and threatens to overwhelm us, we have no courage left to deal with it. So we retreat, withdraw, hide, or, more often than not, simply do nothing and let life just happen to us. We take no part in it. We become disenchanted, disheartened, and disengaged. In short, we are a dis-couraged people.

Why? Because we refuse to see the significance of en-couraging each other, of putting courage back into someone who has been separated from theirs. Hebrews 10:23-24 says, "... let us consider how to stimulate one another to love and good deeds, not forsaking our own assembling together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another; and all the more as you see the day drawing near (emphasis mine)." It's not optional. You can't say, "I'm just not that kind of person." Are you a human? Are you a Jesus Follower? Then you are that kind of person!

It's true that for some it comes easily. Some have a gift of encouragement. But everyone everywhere who names the name of Jesus is required to encourage. Especially, the writer of Hebrews says, as the Day of His return draws nearer and nearer. Paul writes to the Thessalonian church about the return of Christ and then commands them to "encourage one another with these words." (1 Thessalonians 4:18, ESV)

Hope gives us courage. Paul told the Corinthian believers, "Since we have such a hope, we are very bold." (2 Corinthinas 3:12, ESV) Paul was encouraged to speak plainly and openly and fearlessly about Jesus because he constantly reminded himself that Jesus was returning. And with His return would come a new heaven and a new earth. Death, Hell, Sin, and Satan would be no more. Now that's encouraging, isn't it?

So my wife and I have decided that as often as we can, we will be lavishly generous with our encouragement. We want to leverage whatever influence God has given us to put the courage to follow Jesus into everyone God brings into our path. What does that look like? Here are just a few practical ways we have thought of:

Use your Facebook to encourage. Put up a scripture that comforts or encourages. Send someone an encouraging message. Write on their wall what their friendship means to you. Brag on them on your wall.

Spend time with someone who needs encouragement. Take them to lunch. Invite them for coffee. Have them over for dinner. Invest your self into someone else personally.

Write them an encouraging note or card. end them an email just to tell them how much you appreciate them, especially if they sacrifice their time and energy serving in kingdom work. This is not just pastors or church staff (but God knows they desperately need encouragement!), but for volunteers and lay leaders as well.

Meet a real need for them. Lavishly and generously. One woman in our church is spending the holidays alone with three children while her husband serves our country in Iraq. It has been awesome to watch members of our church deliver firewood, offer to babysit, invite her family over for lunch, and just serve her in the name of Jesus. Nobody told them to. The love of God compelled them to. It is not only an encouragement to her, but to the rest of the church as we witness the love of Jesus in action, right in our midst!

So... what's in your hand? Who needs it desperately? Will you withhold it? Or will you allow God to love them through you, so that everyone around you can see Who He is and how He loves?

New message from Jerry

Hello everyone!
This past Sunday I had the honor of teaching our people on thankfulness from Psalm 100. You can check it out here. The message is called "Thank You!" from Nov. 21, 2010. I went long... AGAIN, but overall the feedback has been very positive. Give it a listen and feel free to comment. Have a Happy Thanksgiving from the Davison Family!

Ouch. Modern church planting made simple...

A buddy of mine posted this on his blog. If you are a church planter it will either be hilarious to you or it will make you want to crawl under a rock. More than a little sarcastic about the formulaic approach to many hip, "relevant" church plants. Enjoy (or cringe)!

Way to go, Ridgers! Pumpkin Patch 2010 update video

I am so proud of our Ridgers! The Pumpkin Patch has been an overwhelming success on so many levels. First, our people are pulling together to raise money to build clean water wells for the impoverished people of Burkina Faso, Africa. Secondly, they are reaching out into the community to meet and invite people to come check out what God is up to at Church at the Ridge. But also, I have personally seen the nods of love and fellowship grow as our people work, laugh, play, and pray together at the Patch.

One other really cool aspect of the Patch is the uniqueness of the opportunity we have. It's no accident that God led us to sell pumpkins this year. October 2010 is the first time in 823 years that there have been five full weekends (Friday, Saturday, & Sunday) thus maximizing the potential sales! How cool is that?!

This video is just a brief update on how the Pumpkin Patch is impacting lives both here in Paulding County and around the world.

We gots ourselves a Punkin Patch!

Our church, Church at The Ridge in HIram, GA is doing a Pumpkin Patch to raise money for missions efforts in Burkina Faso, Africa. The money will all go toward digging fresh water wells and purchasing mosquito netting to help prevent malaria. We are at the corner of Ridge Rd. and Dallas Nebo/Baker's Bridge Rd, at the Kroger parking lot. Check out the video below , then come see us! Buy a pumpkin and build a well!