I love these pictures. Children at the orphanage in Myanmar. Because of your generous giving, these kids are going to school. School is a gift we take for granted. In fact I’m fairly certain that my kids would not consider school a gift-wrapped wonder.  But think about this amazing gift for these 100+ children.

In Myanmar 10-20% of the children die (from preventable diseases such as diarrhea, malaria and pneumonia) before they celebrate their fifth birthday. That puts the kids in these pictures in the living 70%. The average family spends over 75% of its annual income on food which means there is little money to spend on education (it isn’t free in Myanmar). So you can understand why less than half of those 70% will finish at least 5 years of primary school. That puts these children in the top 35%. Children who don’t get an education are at an increased risk of child trafficking, and forced child labor.

I guess what I’m saying is that through your generosity, they have a chance. They have food to eat. Basic medical care. An education. Most of all they have people who love them and who tell them how much God loves them. You have given the kids in these pictures, the amazing gift… of a chance.

If you would like to take the opportunity to continue to give the amazing gift of a chance, the opportunities are seemingly unlimited. Click GIVE and select Myanmar Ministries in the box.  $25 will give a kid a month of chances.

“Above all else”…that’s one of those superlative phrases. No mistaking it’s intent…when “above all else” flows out of a mouth, the next words are to be marked as of great value. If your boss is giving you instruction and you hear the words, “above all else” you get out your notepad because your job will depend upon how well you understand and apply the next words uttered. If the father of the girl you are dating is laying down the ground rules for your evening with his daughter, and you hear him whisper the words, “above all else” look him in the eyes, repeat what he said, and then say, “yes sir.” (As a father of daughters, I trying to give you helpful advice.)

So when a man with a reputation for being the wisest man in the world say, “above all else” it’s a good idea to mark his words well. So here is what Solomon writes in Proverbs 4:23, “Above all else guard your heart, for it is the wellspring of life.” It is the wellspring of life.

In the Hebrew language and culture, the heart was seen as far more than just the source of emotion or love. The heart was the source of the deepest, truest you. The wellspring of life. Every great act, every ennobling thought will flow from or through your heart. All significant work, every life-giving relationship is shaped by your heart. And so Solomon encourages you to guard your heart. Above all else guard your heart.

Let me ask you… What is Your “Above All Else?”

Perhaps it’s your reputation. For some of us being respected is our “above all else” Many of us have found it hard not to hold “external success” as our “above all else.” Maybe it’s winning… maybe it’s your kids. Maybe it’s a career goal… or the purchase of the next big toy. Maybe it’s your social network.

Maybe it should be your heart? I find that when I don’t guard my heart, I stay bitter longer (hard-heart). I get discouraged quicker (losing heart). I hurt others with greater ease (heartless) and I mope (heavy hearted). How about you?

There is something about your heart. It is the wellspring of life. It was made to bear the image of God. So how is your wellspring? Are you loving better this year, than you did last year? Has the capacity of your heart grown in it’s ability to forgive? Is it a little less hard? A little more tender? Have you grown in generosity? How is your heart?

This weekend we looked at the story of Peter walking on the water.

Caught in a boat in a storm, Jesus comes walking on the water, about to pass his friends on the way to shore. They think Jesus is a ghost. He calls out, “Don’t be afraid it’s me.” Peter calls back, “Jesus if it’s really you, tell me to come out to you on the water.”

I love it. Peter had a bias for action. He could’ve said, “Hey Jesus, if it’s really you tell me what we had for lunch yesterday.” But he wasn’t looking for information. He was looking for action, an invitation to do something. So Peter got out of the boat. He took a risk. He got out of his comfort-zone and took a risk.

Frank Lauden, a philosopher of science has spent the last decade studying risk-management. He summarizes all the literature on risk-management in 19 principles… You know what the first one is? Everything is risky.

In other words, you’re comfort-zone is not as risk-free as you think. You can stay home in bed but that might make you one of the 1/2 million people who annually get treated in the emergency room for injuries sustained…falling out of bed. Everything is risky. Nothing is guaranteed. You take risks everyday.

Here’s what I want to encourage you to do… take a risk for God. Jesus did it all the time. He took the risk of confronting people with the truth. He took the risk of gaining a reputation as a partier and an immorally correct person by hanging out with people that society pushed to the margins. He continually followed God and led his followers into missions that were doomed to fail unless God showed up. I want to challenge you to decide now that the next time God prompts you to risk by…
– giving a gift larger than you ever imagined considering…
– hanging out with someone at work who is career suicide…
– sharing your God-story with someone who might reject you…
– setting out on a journey to a place you can’t see…

Do it… I dare you to trust God. Buuuut… If you do…I can guarantee that there will be times when you fall… times when your risk-taking seems to have led to the sinking sensation of failure. That’s okay. God is bigger than your failures. To be honest He doesn’t need our success to accomplish His dreams…through us.

Step… out of failure with your hand held high. And let it be an opportunity for growth. Before Jonas Salk developed a vaccine for polio that finally worked, he tried two hundred unsuccessful ones. Someone once asked him how it felt to fail 200 times. “I never failed 200 times,” Salk replied. “I was taught not to use the word failure. I never failed 200 times in my life. I just discovered 200 ways how not to vaccinate for polio.”

Did Peter fail? Some would say yes. I say no. Sure he started to sink — but for a moment he walked on water. For the rest of his life, he would have this moment of grace to remember the storm-walking faithfulness of Jesus. What about the other disciples? The 11 who stayed in the boat. Did they fail? Well they didn’t sink…but they didn’t walk either.

I’ll take Peter’s failure over their success any day.

What do you see?  I’ve been thinking about that question this week as I ponder the story of Jesus inviting Peter to go for a walk in the storm.  You know the story?  It’s found in Matthew 14:22-33.  The disciples are going through a storm…actually more like stuck in a storm.  Jesus comes walking on the water in the midst of the storm.  They see him, but only sorta see him.  They think he’s a ghost.  He keeps going — they almost missed him.  But Peter calls out, “Jesus if it’s really you, invite me to come out to you on the water.”  Jesus says, “Come.”

He started walking on the water… but then he saw the wind.  Have you ever seen the wind?  He took his eyes off Jesus.  He saw the wind and he began to sink.   His circumstances became more real to him than Jesus.  Sometimes it is so easy for us to miss Jesus in the storms of life.  We assume that the presence of a storm is proof of the absence of Jesus, when the reality is that Jesus does some of his best work in storms.

Here is the point…at least for me.  What we see will shape how and where we walk.  More to the point — if we see Jesus, we can make it through any storm.   In fact we can do more than make it through the storm, we might find ourselves face to face with Jesus — an encounter that leaves us breathlessly full of worship.

I like what Al Denson once wrote…

When you recognize God as creator, you will admire him.  When you recognize his wisdom, you will learn from him.  When  you discover his strength, you will rely on him.  But only when he reaches down and saves you, can you worship him.

Peter called out in panic.  He lifted up his arms and Jesus pulled him up — saved him.  Then they got in the boat, the storm stopped and the disciples were amazed.  There in a boat by the light of the moon, they fell to their knees in worship.  Are you in a storm?  Rowing with all your might but going nowhere?  Wondering where in the world is this storm-walking Jesus,  you have heard so much about?  Run to the storm, not away from it.   He does some of his best work…in storms.

Last week the Calvary staff leadership spent the day out away from town, talking strategy and praying.  The first hour or so we spent in Psalm 33.   It lead to some rich discussion about our future, about the church of the city, and about our role as leaders at Calvary.  As we worked our way through Psalm 33, God used a different portion to speak to each of us.

My eyes and heart settled on vs. 10-11:

The Lord frustrates the plans of the nations and thwarts all their schemes.
¹¹ But the Lord’s counsel stands firm forever; his intentions can never be shaken.

Sometimes God messes up our plans — on purpose.  When He has a better way; when our plans are going to lean into our harm; when we need to grow in character; when we have too much pride; when it’s the right plan but the wrong time, He messes up our plans.  But His counsel stands firm forever.

Sometimes we have this habit of saying, “God here are my plans.  Please bless what I’m going to do.”   When really we should be saying, “God show me what you are blessing.  I want to do that.  Show me your counsel…the counsel that lasts forever.”   On the other hand, sometimes we discover the counsel of God and we start doing it.  But then it gets difficult.  It doesn’t work out the way we thought it would.  Surely if it’s God’s plan, it will have God’s power and it will be easy.  But it isn’t so we look for a new plan.  We look for new counsel.  But His counsel stands firm forever.

So it got me thinking — what are the forever counsels of God?  Are there plans we have had in the past, principles we followed in the past, that we abandoned because it didn’t seem to work the way we hoped?  I’m all for relevance, different times and different cultures may require different methods.  But what if we hit upon a forever counsel of God and we abandoned it in search of something new, then wouldn’t new simply be a plan that God would mess up?

When I think about some of the forever counsels of God for Calvary… I think of a passion for prayer, not just prayer inside the four walls but out in the community.  I think of our bias towards unity amongst the congregations of the city.  I think of the vision of building a church without walls.

I like new plans.  But we cannot forget that His counsels stand firm forever.

Cheryle Touchton is a recent addition to the Calvary family.  She is a speaker, author, and traveling collector of God-stories.  I love what she does.  She takes time out every year, travels around the country, looking for places where God is already at work.  She opens wide her schedule book for divine appointments.  At the moment she is traveling somewhere up or down the east coast, sharing Jesus, and then sharing her stories.

Last week a CBN blog picked up one of her stories.  It’s a good one, so I thought I would share it with you.  Cheryle’s Blog.

Perfection was stolen this week.  If you are a baseball fan, you know the story.  Armando Galarraga had made it to batter #27 of a potential perfect game — 26 batters and not a single one had made it to first.   Batter #27, Jason Donald from the Cleveland Indians hit a ground ball towards first.  The first baseman caught the ball and threw it to the Armando covering 1st Base.  The batter was out by a good long step and the game was over…except it wasn’t.  Umpire Jim Joyce called the batter safe and the perfect game disappeared.  Joyce was wrong.  It wasn’t even close.  In fact later — in tears — he apologized to Galarraga.  Meanwhile perfection is gone.

Out of all the games that have ever been played, by all the pitchers who have ever pitched, major league baseball has only recorded 20 perfect games.  Perfection is an elusive goal.  Think of all the pitchers who would be considered failures if perfection was the benchmark of success.  But perfection isn’t the goal…winning the game is the goal and even perfect games require a team.

Let me make a statement that I’m afraid will not sit well with many church leaders.  I wonder if choosing “excellence” as a value is close to making perfection the goal.  If you google the words “church values excellence” you will have pages of churches that have chose to value — statements like — “We value excellence in all we do.”  and “Excellence honors God and inspires people.”

Calvary doesn’t value excellence.  There I said it.  We don’t value excellence — unless you are talking about the excellence of God.  Excellence isn’t our goal.  Helping people engage in the mission of God is our goal — sometimes those people do not engage with excellence — but excellence is not the goal, involvement in the mission and empowerment by God is our goal.

So here is our axiom — “We will give God our best because He is worth it, not because He needs it.”

It reminds us that our effectiveness is not dependent upon our excellence but upon His involvement.

It reminds us that God values our sacrifice, our earnestness, and our commitment but sometimes — maybe more than sometimes — His strength is more visible in our messes than in our excellence.

It reminds us that half-hearted is not good enough, but failure does not limit God.

It reminds us that if we have to choose between our perfection and God’s grace, grace wins out every time.

It reminds us that everyone has a place in ministry, a part in the Kingdom epic, a calling to be in the game.  Everyone.  Regardless of capacity or courage, skill or ability, intellect or giftedness.  Everyone.

We will give God our best, because He is worth it, not because He needs it.  He is always worth it.  Sometimes my best will not be very excellent, but He is always worth it and He is always so very excellent.  It’s amazing what He can do with my imperfect games.

Last weekend, at Calvary, we talked about how much we need Jesus.  (

)  In many of our gatherings I made a challenge, “This week whenever you pray…ask for only one thing…more of Jesus.  I found this on a Phil Wickham blog.  Jeff Stewart shared a bit of his story of needing Jesus.

“Whenever I hear a message challenging me to be more like Jesus my mind immediately goes to all of the things that I need to “do” better……read the Word, pray, serve, love, and many, many other things. I then feel challenged and I make a mental, and spiritual, commitment to try harder and do better. This leads to me either forgetting about it (sometimes before finishing my next meal), or to feeling like a total failure when I realize that I haven’t been committed in the way I wanted to. In fact, I think a large part of my life with Jesus has been me feeling like a failure, in embarrassment that I have been unable to be what I should be.

About three years ago my life took a turn that would change my relationship with Jesus forever. My wife of 17 years was diagnosed with incurable, malignant cancer. It was the single most devastating day of my life. We were plunged into darkness in a way that is hard to explain. It forced us to reevaluate everything, including Jesus and our lives with Him.

What has come from this terrible situation is a beautiful realization….I really need Jesus!  I know this sounds incredibly simple, and in many ways it is, but I, and many others, have overlooked (or minimized) this reality.

As I have lived in this new reality of my deep need for Jesus, I have discovered the beauty of admitting how much I need Him, and the power and freedom that comes with this admittance. Crying out to Jesus allows me to rest and depend on Him.  The wonderful thing about seeing myself for who I am is that it allows Jesus to be who He is. I have found Him to be compassionate, forgiving, gracious, and absolutely full of love for me.

Today I know that the only way I can “surrender” to Jesus is to tell Him how much I WANT to have a surrendered heart, but without His help I am totally, and completely incapable of doing it. I so need Him.  I have a desire in my heart for anyone who loves Jesus to know that He also loves them. He knows them better than they know themselves, and what He wants most from any of us is to realize how desperately we need Him.”

How desperately we need Him.

Axioms.  They are widely accepted statements, or perhaps even self-evident truths.  They are principles assumed to be true that help to shape a system or perhaps even a culture.  They are proverbs that guide our decisions and describe who we are…  This last week, Calvary’s staff leadership spent some time identifying some of the axiom’s that we embrace, axiom’s that shape who we are striving to become.  For the next few days I’m going to list some of those axioms, not in order of importance.

Axiom #1:  Persistence makes failure a growth experience.

In other words, sometimes we are too quick to give up and too afraid of failure.  At Calvary we value persistence and we value the risk of faith…that will at times require persistence through failure.  One of my favorite axioms is found in Proverbs 24:16, “Though a righteous man falls seven times, he rises again.”  Righteousness is not defined as never failing, but as never quitting.

Some of our most teachable moments come in the presence of trial and error. The founder of IBM Thomas Watson said: “The way to succeed is to double your failure rate.” Or as Thomas Edison said “There is only one good idea in 100 so I want to discover the 99 failures as quick as possible.”

Every 9 sales calls will only bear 1 sale. Roughly 60% of all basketball shots made don’t go in. Only 25% of all batters make it to first base. In an oil company, only 10% of oil wells drilled hit oil. For actors, only 1 out of 30 auditions turns up in something that is of value. Two out of 5 investments are winners.

One of the greatest mistake we can make is to to believe that if we just knew WHAT God wanted us to do, the doing would be easy. I can’t tell you how often I’ve seen this happen. Somebody senses a call from God to do something, they accept the assignment and then it gets difficult. The task hits a wall. It takes longer than you ever dreamed it would take. The forces against the task seems so great…and you begin to think… maybe I got it wrong. Maybe this isn’t what God wants me to do…because God is all-powerful, if I figure out WHAT God wants me to do, surely the doing will be easy.

But that mindset is not Biblical. God values persistence because it leads to character and hope. Persistence requires difficulty and even failure. So the question is… Am I willing to follow God’s calling, even if I have to walk through years of difficulty and even failure to follow?

1. – Am I willing to take a step on the water, even if I’m going to sink?
2. – Am I willing to be his missionary even if it means I’m going to get thrown in jail?
3. – Am I willing to pray for someone’s healing, even if no healing comes?
4. – Am I willing to step out in faith, even if I stumble and fall?

I will be if I desire to grow. Persistence makes failure a growth experience.

Sometimes people ask me…why the blog title, “Dancing Cripples.”  It’s all about hope, about how God can take people who are crippled in a variety of ways and help us dance.  When I read Krystle’s story, I thought of Dancing Cripples. Krystle just finished her freshman year at PSU — a year that radically changed her life. I’ll let her tell a bit of her story…

“I met Val 7 years ago in middle school. I wasn’t a Christian, but she was. A couple months ago she told me something amazing: Val prayed for me for 7 years that I would become her sister in Christ. So my journey to God actually began a long time ago, but more recently, actually a little over a year ago, I decided to come to Penn State on a whim. When accepted into the accelerated pre-medical degree program there, I left the relatively docile state of Oregon for the east coast. Talk about culture shock. I didn’t cry when my family left me, I had a bit of a potty mouth, and I also had a bit of an attitude – these were covers for my lack of confidence in myself, my abilities to do well in school, and my looks, but boy would I cry a lot behind closed doors in the upcoming months…  I was not a Christian, and I most definitely did not turn to God in my time of need. I was sick of God and the hypocrites that I perceived most Christians to be. I had been raised Mormon for a good part of my childhood and I had been to Christian churches with my friends. God wasn’t someone I wanted anything to do with…

Then I met Afia, my college roommate. Afia liked to challenge me about my beliefs.  She didn’t understood how I could believe that maybe God existed and still not believe in the Bible or Christianity. I called myself agnostic. Eventually I consented to go to church with her – more to get her off my back and prove her wrong than anything else. My first time at Calvary Pastor Dan spoke about how broken we all are.  After hearing a pastor admit how screwed up his congregation was, and doing so in such a heartfelt way, I didn’t mind church.  I don’t think that I would have come back to church or had anything to do with Jesus if that hadn’t been the sermon I heard that day. Here’s an excerpt from an email that I sent my mom the day I went to Calvary for the first time:

The sermon today was about how we are all one of God’s masterpieces. The two things that really resonated within me were: “Everyone is broken.” and “You are not junk.” I sometimes feel so broken and so worthless, like a piece of white trash, but I realized today that everyone feels like that some days, and God really does love me.  I am so grateful for that. Everything in this world comes at a price, except for that, except for God’s love. I realized I am struggling to accept God in my life, not because I don’t know what is right, but because I am so stubborn, and I don’t want to change my behaviors.

That email, which spanned multiple pages, was the first true acknowledgement I made of God. Almost exactly one month later, I prayed to become a Christian at a DiscipleMakers fall conference. The decision has changed my life radically. Calvary was the first place I felt at home in Pennsylvania; Erica and the Doulos team, and all of my other friends here were so welcoming. As I get more involved and hear more sermons each Sunday, the more I love this church and the more I love these people. I now serve in Kidz ConneXion, and I absolutely love all of the adorable little kids as well as the others who help. It’s a blast and a blessing.”

“God has worked miracles in my life this past year. I told Erica that there is still a very big part of me that feels like white trash, broken and worthless. But she reminded me that Jesus is the God of losers and sinners. He is the God of the broken and the worthless. Because we are all trash. We all sin, and we all come from imperfect families, no matter how perfect they seem. For me that’s one of my biggest struggles. I continue to remind myself, and pray to God to help me because nobody’s perfect. But I am God’s daughter, and He is well pleased with me (Mark 1:11), and I can do everything through Him who gives me strength (Philippians 4:13).   …What keeps me coming back to Calvary is the gospel and the people – both of which have radically changed my life.”

The gospel and the people… I think that’s been God’s plan all along… using the gospel and people help fellow cripples learn to dance.  Thanks to Val, Afia, Erica, the Doulos team, Disciplemakers, and a host of other people who have allowed the gospel to shine through them.