I’m sitting here late at night listening to Bebo Norman’s song, I Will Lift My Eyes. Have you heard it?  The heart of the song is found in the words, “I will lift my eyes to the maker of the mountains I can’t climb.  I will lift my eyes to the calmer of the oceans raging wild.  I will lift my eyes to the healer of the hurt I hold inside.  I will lift my eyes to You.”

Estes Park

The song brings to mind a psalm.  Psalm 121:  I will lift my eyes to the hills.  Where does my help come from?  My help comes from the Lord, maker of heaven and earth. Now I think it is natural for us to read that psalm and hear it through the ears of someone who is caught in a moment of awe while looking at the creative glory of God seen in the mountains.  Like times when I have been in the Rocky Mountains in Estes park.  I look up at these mountains and I just want to shout out, God you do good work! I look to the mountains and the mountains remind me of God.

It’s natural to think this is what was happening for the psalmist.  But it wasn’t.  In fact it was exactly the opposite.  In the days when this psalm was written, people who looked to gods other than God for thier support would go up into the hills to build their altars.  In fact they called their sacred areas, “High Places.”  So the psalmist is looking up at these high places that people go to rather than going to God and he exclaims… I will lift my eyes to the hills and ask myself where does my help come from?  My help does not come from the high places, my help comes from the God who created the high places.

So here’s my question…what high places are we looking to rather than God?  I will lift my eyes up to Malls at Christmas.  Where does my joy come from?  Not from stuff, my joy comes from the Lord.  I will lift my eyes up to the stock market.  Where does my security come from?  Not from my savings, my security comes from the Lord.  I will lift my eyes up to the government.  Where does my peace come from?  Not from politics, my peace comes from the Lord.

Where are you lifting your eyes?  Where does your help come from?

There is this really cool story in the Bible, 2 Kings 7:1-9.  It reminds me a little bit of Thanksgiving dinner.  I would title the story:  Four Lepers at Lunch.  It’s about four lepers who found themselves outside the locked gates of a city filled with famine and surrounded by a great enemy army.  Think about that for a minute, this has the makings of a really bad day!  You have leprosy.  You are not allowed in the city, but that’s okay because everyone in the city is starving.  But that also means there is nothing between you and a horde of enemy soldiers who are intent upon killing everyone in the city.  Out of desperation, the four lepers decide to go surrender to the enemy army — “If they don’t kill us, we’ll eat.  If they do kill us, we were going to die anyway.”

When they get to the enemy camp they find out that the enemy has fled — on this side of the story we find out that God scared them all away — and left all their silver, gold, clothes and food behind.  So frame the story…we have four lepers at lunch, and it’s a feast.  Everything they always wanted they now have.  It all belongs to them.  So while they are feasting on lunch, they start stockpiling everything of value.  Digging holes and hiding it.

But something happened, good news turned to gratitude and gratitude led to sharing their stockpile.  In fact the four lunching lepers said, “This is not right. This is a day of good news, and we aren’t sharing it with anyone! If we wait until morning, some calamity will certainly fall upon us.  Come on, let’s go back and tell the people at the palace.” 2 Kings 7:9

I love how God stockpiles good things for hungry lepers locked outside the city.  So I’m thinking about my stockpiles.  For example money, check out global richlist to see how big your stockpile compares to the rest of the world.  But it’s not just money or stuff.   If you are a Christian, you have an even better stockpile. We have God.  We sing these songs about an amazing God, the creator of the universe, a universe filled with billions of galaxies filled with millions of stars, a God who not only created the milky-
way, but knit u together in your mother’s womb.  I’ve got a stockpile.  God loves me.  Jesus died on the Cross for me, so that I can be forgiven.  He gives me a million second chances.  I am not defeated by my own stupidity or failures.  Not only that, I have people that I love hanging out with… I get to laugh and cry and dance (but only if it embarrasses my daughters) and I get to worship & be stretched and grow…  What a stockpile…huh?

And there is more, wow I have the Holy Spirit with me and in me, if I can learn to be quiet, God is even willing to speak to me, when I don’t know how to pray He translates my groans into the language of God.  He empowers and guides me and encourages me when I’m down.  I have gifts and abilities and  opportunities that I’ve been given through no merit of my own, and I get to use them to make a difference in the world.  I get to enjoy experiences like hikes on Mt. Nittany, sunsets across the pond at Harvest Fields, and a light snow the day before Thanksgiving. And as I’m enjoying them I get to say thank you to the one who made them.  What a stockpile huh?

I have a body that moves (somewhat) & a mind that thinks (sometimes).  And, if all that isn’t enough, I don’t have to be afraid to die, because I’ve been promised that death is not it… I go beyond death.  I get to hang out with God and Moses and Peter and Esther and Jesus for a great forever with no tears or pain or loneliness or depression.  That’s not just four lepers at lunch, that’s GOOD NEWS.

So here’s my challenge.

1)  Make a list of your stockpile.  Or in traditional language, make a gratitude list, for what are you thankful?

2)  Figure out how to share your stockpile — especially on black friday — what a great day to share rather than stockpile more.

Hope your thanksgiving is God-awe-full!

A recent blog post by Mark Batterson reminded me of a book I looked at a few years ago.  Didn’t read the whole thing, but have pondered the concept.  The book is Purple Cow by Seth Godin. In the book Seth unpacks this idea: If you have seen one brown cow, you’ve seen them all, but a purple cow, now that would catch your attention. One statement in the book gives a good ponder moment: “If you aren’t remarkable you’re invisible.”

Now here’s the deal…sometimes it’s okay to be invisible.  In fact my dark side leads me to a great desire to be known.  I must constantly remind myself that living the dream comes when I live for an audience of one — not myself, Jesus.  Which means that I want to be invisible so that He (Jesus) can be remarkable.

On the other hand, when it comes to living the dream God has for us…we are remarkable.  We are unique creations shaped by the master-artist.  A church is nothing less than a group of remarkably unique God-shaped masterpieces, which reflect the glory of the artist.  When people live as this kind of church, it should become remarkable in the community.  In other words, the community should take notice and remark.  And the mark of this kind of people is that it is good that we are here.  In other words, we should live in such a way that the Good News is good news for everyone.

How does this happen?  It happens when we live the dream and do the good works that God has planned for us ahead of time.  That’s why I get so excited about the annual experience we call leadership advance.

LEADERSHIP ADVANCE is an opportunity for a group of people — primarily, but by no means limited to those in their late teens through early 30’s — to come together and dig deeper into the discovery of God’s dream for their lives.  It’s taking another step to live the dream, follow our calling.

If you are interested in this experience, go tofor more information.  Or shoot me an e-mail.

That’s what President-elect Barack Obama and Senator John McCain spent on the last election.  This is NOT counting the primaries…just the final presidential election.  One BILLION dollars were spent by the two.  Now I didn’t do the final math.  Obama received more votes, but spent more money, so I really don’t know who paid the most per vote.  But the two of them together paid about $8 per vote.

Now this is NOT a political post.  It’s simply a reminder of the power of synergy and addition.  Small things done by many people can have huge results.  122,394,724 people voted.  One billion dollars was spent.  That’s about $8.17 per vote.  If tomorrow every person who voted would go to their polling place and give $8.17, we would have one billion dollars.  What could we do with one billion dollars?

Well we could elect a president, or…  Have you ever visited the website www.emptytomb.org?  Click the url and the first thing you see is a number.  Today when I looked the number was 8,402,358.  That’s the number of children, under the age of five, who died worldwide, so far this year.  The vast majority of them died from preventable poverty conditions.  This same website suggests that around 5 billion dollars would elimante the vast majorirty of those preventable poverty conditions.  Roughly the math says that if we canceled this year’s election we could save around 2 million children under the age of five.

But like I said, this isn’t a political post.  In fact let me take it to the most non-political subject I can find… Christmas.  Last year Americans spent 450 Billion Dollars on Christmas.  If we skipped Christmas one year we could save 9-10 million children under the age of five…and do it for the next 90 years.  If the rest of the world skipped Christmas we might get it to 100 years. That’s a lot of people spending a lot of money.

So let me bring it home…to Calvary.  It would be difficult to find one person at Calvary who could give $150,000 to serve the poor.  But is it possible that we could find 1000 people who would give $150?  If everyone did a little, we could do a lot.  If everyone did a lot, it would be a generosity conspiracy against poverty.  So this weekend, we are going to start talking about…a generosity conspiracy against poverty.

A couple of years ago, I took my daughters to Myanmar.  This year my family is going back for Christmas.  And after this election I’m just asking myself, “What could we do together…that might be better than an election…or maybe even better than Christmas?”

This idea of living the dream is stirring up some conversation amongst us.  I have enough e-mails and one-on-ones coming in and coming up that I’m falling a little behind.  But I love hearing what God is putting on your hearts!  It might be that some of you are interested in doing a little more reading/pondering on this topic.  If so here are three books that you might find beneficial.

1)  Chazown by Craig Groeschel.  The word chazown means vision.  Craig leads the reader through a process of looking at core values, spiritual gifts and past experiences to determine your vision for life.

2)  Get a Life by Reggie McNeal. This book is meant to be a very practical conversational guide to discovering the life God has planned for us.

3)  The Cure for a Common Life by Max Lucado.  Written in Max Lucado’s typical story-rich, conversational style, this book is filled with practical insights in the journey of discovering your sweet spot in life.

None of these books try to give you a “discover-your-dream-in-three-easy-steps” approach.  But each one has great practical insights and good probing questions.  Any of the three would be a good beginning read on living the dream. In fact I have 5 copies of Get a Life that I will give away to 5 people who…

#1) WILL READ IT

#2)  ARE INVESTED/PASSIONATE ABOUT FIGURING OUT GOD’S DREAM FOR THEIR LIFE.

Just leave a comment to this blog.

We college essays for sale started a new series at Calvary last weekend, Living the Dream. First up…we spent some time pondering the story of Gideon — Judges 6-7.  A lot of thoughts still wandering around in my heart.

What dream are we living? For example why is it that the American Dream has so much power to shape our lives?  I suppose one could argue that somewhere back in time the American Dream was a bit more noble than it is today.  It had to do with things like freedom, servanthood, compassion for the poor and oppressed, liberty, justice, the pursuit of happiness, and stuff like that.  But is that the essence of the current American Dream?  Or has our dream degenerated to low gas prices, a bullish stockmarket, and increasing home values?  There is much being said about the fact that our two presidential candidates offer starkly different perspectives on the best way forward for our country.  But what if they are offering two starkly different perspectives on the best way to live the wrong dream? 

What power are we seeking? I love the journey that God takes with Gideon.  It’s a journey from the many to a few.  The essence of the story is that God calls Gideon to deliver his people from enemy occupation.  Gideon gathers 32,000 men, but the enemy has 135,000.  So Gideon goes back to God because he knows that he needs more people.  He is looking for the power of the majority.  But God isn’t concerned about majorities so God leads Gideon to cull the troops from 32,000 to 10,000 to 300.  And 300 men AND GOD brought home the victory.    Politics inherently seeks the power of the majority.  A few decades ago, Christians began to think that politics was the path to transform society so what was our goal?  A Moral Majority.  It didn’t work.  When it comes to the power God shares, faith is of  far greater value than majorities.  Which means that prayer is probably more important than voting… I’m not saying don’t vote.  Just saying don’t forget to pray.

If  you are interested in listening to the pondering we did… click here.

I love that picture.  It gives me a sense of freedom, potential, opportunity.  I’m not sure if you can tell or not, but it’s a sunrise, not a sunset.  The day is just beginning, full of possibilities.  That’s what our new series is about.  It starts this weekend.  I’m so looking forward to spending the next 5 weeks talking about the dreams God has for our lives.

When I was a kid, my dream was to be a professional football player.  During high school, it changed.  Starting to think I might not be fast enough, big enough or strong enough for professional football, I turned my heart toward coaching.  I was going to teach math and coach football.  But then I got to college and that silly math major was requiring too much — studying.  So I dropped it.  Studying was not what I came to college for to do.  But then I’ll never forget my first theology class in college.  I loved it.  Soon after that my dream was to teach theology and coach football.  I know.  Where was I planning on putting those two things together?  Then I went to seminary; thought I was going for my phd but ended up in a church; thought being a pastor was going to be a short-term gig, but you know how that ended up.

Somewhere along the way, I realized that I loved being a pastor and I couldn’t imagine doing anything else with so much passion.  That’s when I knew what direction I needed to journey to live my dream.

Over the course of the last decade+ God has refined the dream.  Building a church without walls to serve the Centre Region and beyond…all the way to God.

I believe that during the next five weeks, some of us are going to take huge strides to living the dream.  Invite a friend and come to Calvary.

What a glorious day.  We baptized seven people last Sunday afternoon at Harvest Fields.  Listening to their God-stories I was reminded again, how powerfully God will work in our lives if we let Him.  Each one had a story that God is in the process of writing on their hearts and through their lives.  Baptism was their opportunity to tell the world that God’s-story is the only story they want written in their lives.  You know baptism is not a magical moment.  It isn’t a ritual that takes away all our future problems.  But it is a statement by each participant that they are headed on a new journey with a new destination, and they are living with a new source of power — some of the same ol problems, but a new hope, a new power for living.

The pond was not crystal clear.  It was a little green.  The pond was not wild-life free, a snapping turtle here, a harmless snake there, a few fish.  The pond was not heated, it was refreshing.  On the other hand baptism is a statement that we are willing to follow Jesus — wherever he leads. :)  I guess the Harvest Fields pond was just a little test.

All I can say is that it was a God-awe-full moment to join with these seven as they told all of us that they believed in Jesus and had decided to follow Him.  If you haven’t been baptized maybe you should check it out.

One of the take-aways from the Leadership Practicum was Wayne Cordiero’s idea of a “Leader’s Dashboard.”  Let me call it a Life Dashboard because I think it has application for all of us — leaders and followers.  Here is the idea in a nutshell.

– 85% of what you do in your life, anyone can do.

– 10% of what you do in your life, someone — with training — could do.

– 5% of what you do in your life… ONLY YOU CAN DO.

It’s what we do with that last 5% that will determine how the rest of our life takes shape.  So the question is what is your 5%?  So the 5% is what you keep on your dashboard.  The 5% are the gauges that show you how you are doing under the hood.  Your 5% could include things like…

• Develop spiritual intimacy with God.
• Discover and follow your calling.
• Invest in key relationships like spouse, family, close friends.
• Stay physically healthy and mentally creative.
• Keep the Sabbath a part of your life.

Maybe your dashboard is similar…but different.  What would be on your dashboard?  What things can only you do…that if you do them, it shapes your day and your life along the lines of Jesus?

I spent last week in a leadership practicum with Wayne Cordiero and the New Hope leadership team.  This picture reveals a significant part of the practicum!  New Hope has grown in the last 15 years from a handful to over 10,000.  About 50 pastors from all over the world joined together for six days to rub shoulders and listen to Wayne share about leadership in the local church… a good experience and a great way to wind down my sabbatical.

What was the leadership practicum about?  It wasn’t about how to grow a church to 10,000 people.  It wasn’t about how to lead a staff of 100.  It wasn’t about how to lead a volunteer team of 5000 plus.  It was more about the rhythms of a leader.  In other words, when we look at a leader, we see what they do — up front, but not behind the scenes.  In other words we see the game, we don’t see the training.  We see the concert, we don’t see the rehearsals or the hours of individual lessons.  We see/hear what comes out of the pastor on the weekend, but we don’t see what goes into the sermon during the week.

Every leader — in fact everyone who excels in their calling — has a rythm to their life that brings the fruit that others see.  What are the rhythms of your life?  What are the disciplines you practice behind the scenes — day to day — that will bear fruit?  They should include things like prayer, time to hear God, planning, and exercise.  So every day of the practicum we participated in the rhythms of Wayne Cordiero’s life.  Up at 5:30am, prayer, calisthenics and 2 mile run from 6-7am, (they called me Krispy), breakfast at 8am, and devotions from 8:30am.  After that the day started.

So what are the rythms of your life?  What do you do on a consistent basis that helps you train for the Kingdom race?  What disciplines shape your heart so that you are ready for God’s calling?  It’s got me thinking about mine…