There was lots of energy and lots of people. In fact, outside of Easter, it was our highest attended Sunday yet!

If you're wondering why we do a relationship series every year, here's why:

Healthy marriages don't happen overnight. They take time. A one-time talk, a good book, a conference or even an entire series on relationships isn't going to help anybody long-term. Marriage is a journey of growing, learning, discovering and maturing. So I look at any series we do on relationships as part of an ongoing discussion about love, sex, dating and marriage.

The fact is, before I got married I struggled praying regularly, picking up after myself, eating healthy, being concerned for others, doing chores, and a bunch of other stuff I could add to the list.

Then I said, "I do".

And I discovered that Rindy was also coming into the marriage with her own list of struggles.

No wonder marriage is tough.

This coming Sunday, Rindy and I are planning on talking about some of the lowest points and biggest challenges we've had in our relationship and the journey we're on to build a marriage that goes the distance.

So over the past year I've wrestled with the entire concept of church membership to ensure we're not just doing something at Great Lakes Church to do it. Here's the summary of my thoughts:

1) The local church is a faith family.

2) The local church is the key to spiritual health and growth for every Christian.

3) The local church is the best environment to actively live out our faith.

4) Being a follower of Jesus has many responsibilities including: praying for, caring for, encouraging, challenging and serving the people in our faith family.

In summary, church membership is much more than a formality. It's a way of identifying ourselves with a local group of believers and partnering with them to bring the message of hope, healing and forgiveness to as many people as possible.

 

Here is a brilliant article on this topic, if you're interested (click here).

By the way, if you attend Great Lakes Church, you can sign up for our upcoming GLC 101 (membership class) here.

Coke vs. Pepsi

McDonalds vs. Burger King

Packers vs. Bears

Mac vs. PC

Justin Bieber vs. Puberty

One of the greatest rivalries of all time is one that we're not even aware of. It's taking place inside of us. It's the battle between gratitude and entitlement.

In Luke 17, we read a well known story of Jesus healing 10 individuals with leprosy and only one returning to say thanks. At the end of the story Jesus asks, "Why didn't the other nine come back to say thanks... where are they?".

From our perspective, it looks like the 9 lepers who were healed were totally ungrateful. But most likely that's not the case. Most likely, they were incredibly grateful, but got so busy with life they never returned to say thank you.

When we don't say thank you, it communicates that we're not grateful. People aren't mind-readers, so when we don't say thanks it communicates that we feel entitled. Learn to express gratitude. One handwritten card. One phone call. One verbal expression of thanks makes all the difference in the world!

That's it. 

I know it doesn't sound all that impressive, but it's been a whole lot more effective that coming up with a long list of things I'll never do. The results have been amazing! I'm getting a bunch of stuff done.

And guess what? Today I read Michael Hyatt's blog and it was freakin' brilliant! It pretty much summarized what I've been experiencing. 

It makes sense when you think about it. So here it is: Slay Your Dragons Before Breakfast

Just read it...  apply it... and who knows, someday you may have your own stories of the dragons you're slaying before breakfast!

In some ways, it feels like just yesterday that I received a call from the local school district informing us that we had lost our lease with the school that we were renting, because we had decided to take on the topic of sex (and advertise it). That one event sent our less-than-one-month-old church into crisis mode! I've never been more panicked in my life.

Looking back, it all worked out great. Losing our lease with the school started a chain of events that eventually led to us to being at Tinseltown Movie Theater. I can't imagine doing church anywhere else.

But here's something interesting: Today, 36 months later, I still run into people who ask me if I'm the pastor of the "sex church". My answer, almost always, is "You know it!"

The question never offends me, but truth be known... I never want that to be our identity. I'm not interested in being known as the "sex church", the "beer drinking church", or the "church that plays loud music". 

I want to be known as the church that loves God and is obsessed with showing His grace to others. That's it. It's nothing complicated or fancy, but it's what I'm hoping to be identified as.

"By this will all people know you are my followers, if you love one another." John 13:35

This is a myth.

It's an Old Testament way of thinking that goes against what Jesus taught.

Jesus is "The Anointed One". In Luke 4:18-19, he says, "The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, for he has anointed me to bring Good News to the poor..."   

Everything else Jesus taught us was about how essential each and every person is to building and expanding God's Kingdom. If you're a follower of Jesus Christ, God has given you the Holy Spirit to make a difference in this world and in His Church.

This means all of us are essential. There is no place for celebrity pastors or celebrity thinking in God's Kingdom. It's all about Him. 

When God uses people in a special way, we like to believe there is something special about the person (ie - the anointing). The fact is, when you are open to being used by God, He uses you in conjunction with your personality, talents and passions! God uses rich people and poor people. He uses individuals at the end of their life and some just starting out. He uses men and women. He uses pastors and mortgage brokers.

As much as I'd like for people to bow before me and kiss my ring, there is nothing biblical about it.

I love the message of grace, the hope of heaven, what the cross represents, the fact that I have a worldwide church family and the constant challenge to become more and more like Jesus in my character (Sorry, Kirk Cameron films don't make my list of "likes").

But it's not all roses.

When we open our hearts to God, our souls are converted, but our flesh is not. I hate this.

No matter how much we love Jesus. No matter how much we pray. Now matter how much Scripture we can quote. It's always going to be a challenge to reflect the character of Christ.

We're always going to experience the tension of forgiving people who don't deserve it.

We're always going to struggle with true generosity.

We're always going to battle lust.

We're always going to want to retaliate when someone hurts us.

We're always going to enjoy gossip.

We're always going to hope our "enemy" doesn't do well.

It's just reality. Our flesh will never be converted. The only thing we can do is tame it and discipline it and control it (1 Corinthians 9:24-27).

I woke up today to hear a bunch of commentators talking about how Rick Perry's campaign went up in smoke last night as a result of a pretty big brain lapse (see video below)...

Really?!?! I swear I'm missing something. I honestly couldn't care less about the Perry campaign, but to say it "went up in smoke" is about as big of an exaggeration as one can make.

This past week I somehow gave out the wrong address for my house to a Growth Group that was coming over for breakfast. I don't even think I'm fit to run my own life.

It is amazing how much we care about the dumb things that other people do, but when we do something dumb we expect mercy and grace 'cause after all, "we're only human". 

This is why Jesus taught us to treat others in the same way that we want to be treated (Luke 6:31).

Seriously, if Rick Perry's blunder made your blood boil or cause you to assume he's an idiot... get a freakin' life!!! You are a loser. 

And no... I'm not voting for Rick Perry. I promise.

I'm being serious. I think that getting married, changing places of employment, and moving to new cities all FELT like risks at the time, but in reality that we're all pretty safe bets. It's not that much of a risk to move to a new area when there is a "guaranteed" salary in an established setting. It's also not that much of a risk to get married when you love someone and enjoy being around them.

When we started Great Lakes Church (January 2009) the first series we ever did was simply called, "DNA". The talks covered 5 specific topics that we wanted to define our church. "Taking Risks" was one of them.

Since that time, we've taken almost no risks at all. At times I've convinced myself that we were taking a risk, but really we weren't. We've tried new things. We've experimented with stuff. We've even spent money and used resources... but we haven't really done anything that had a good possibility of failure.

2012 is going to be different. We're going add service time options and move towards starting a campus (fall 2012). For the first time since our launch, it's becoming impossible for me to keep up with what's going on in every area of the church.

Yes, I am peeing myself over this. However, if we allow fear to paralyze us and our love for comfort to keep us from moving forward, we're going to simply EXIST as a church. For me personally, I think that's a pretty lame place to be and not worth giving my life to.

According to numerous Bible passages (1 Corinthians 12:7-11, Romans 12:6-8, 1 Peter 4:10-11, Ephesians 4:11-13, etc.), when someone opens their hearts to God's grace and becomes a follower of Jesus Christ they are given four things: forgiveness, eternal life, God's Spirit and a SPIRITUAL GIFT!

This is very mysterious to me. I don't understand it.

Some of the spiritual gifts sound somewhat normal! The gift of hospitality is one example. Another example is the gift of mercy. 

Some people are given the gift of faith and are able to believe God for the impossible! Others are given the gift of generosity and never seem to flinch in sharing their resources with others. Those gifts are pretty cool.   

But there are some gifts that make me really uneasy (tongues and prophecy are two examples).That doesn't mean those gifts don't exist. It just means they have a very mystical element to them and can easily be used and abused.

That being said, 1 Corinthians 13:1-3 puts everything into perspective by saying that without love even the most supernatural and mystical spiritual gifts are useless!

So without further ado, if you're interested in taking a spiritual gifts assessment to help you figure out what your gift(s) may be, here is a test that covers some of them (click here). Obviously this isn't error-proof, but it's a great start!