Jeremiah’s Blog

I heard that in a movie and loved the line so I decided I would use it. So here I have begun blogging again. The interesting thing about the written word is it can be taken so out of context, kinda like the Bible, except my words are not so perfect, LOL! So let me make this clear, I am trying with everything in me to fix my eyes on Jesus, simple as that. I don’t know what that means because when you fix your eyes on Jesus you don’t get a road map, you get to walk by faith day by day! So I am walking by faith with Jesus, and it feels good. It feels good to walk with Jesus. As a pastor everyone assumes you are always walking with Jesus, but sorry to disappoint, that’s just not true. In fact every series we have done in the past few months God was screaming at me this is you, you, I am talking to you. Here I am preaching and the Holy Spirit is trying to tell me I am talking to you! Being transparent can be a little uncomfortable for everyone, but it is so healthy. In a time when we hear so much about church health, we have so many how to books, I think we could make it simple, be easy on ourselves and just be real with each other. If we would get real with our lives, our relationships, our love we would have healthy churches, with healthy leaders, with healthy followers of Jesus. So here I am blogging, not sure who is reading, and I don’t really care. I am blogging for me, a release of my thoughts, talking to God, and if it happens to help some people along the way that would be even better. Just a PS. If it is not already clear, I am not planning on leaving, God would have to move us, and He has said walk by faith day by day with me…Walking and talking with Jesus, I can handle that.

Transparency So as I stated in my last blog I went to a church planter’s conference this week. One thing that can be weird about a conference like this is there seem to be no failures, I mean very few people will come out and say things are not going well. You have all these speakers and they all talk about how great it is. What if it’s not all great though? What if the first year of your church plant was the hardest year of your life, and you are wondering can I make it through another one. While at the conference I was getting ready to listen to Alan Hirsch, a man consider by many to be a modern day prophet to the church. He wrote the books The Shaping of Things to come, and The Forgotten Ways. This is really off the point though. There was a man there who I had met in Tucson at something called a Vision Tour. We just happened to sit down together and began to talk and realized that we had a past connection. As we talked he asked me how things where and something amazing happened. I decided I would do exactly what I do with the people of ECC, I was transparent. I told him of our struggles, and our victories. I told him how I was not sure if the finances were going to last before we got to the point of being able to sustain ourselves better. I told him how that would break my heart because I am so in love with people like Tawnee who has such a beautiful heart,  Ray who is such a servant, the little elderly women Nancy who inspires me to love others and live life, Dan and all his wisdom, Jeff, who is an agnostic, but is a better servant than most Christians, etc… I told how we have talked very seriously about me going on as a manager at Starbucks and making some time sacrifices because we believe so much in what we are doing, because we love the people we have connected with so much!!! Then he did something, something that caught me off guard. He prayed, right then and there. Thank you God; for a Godly man who was willing to stop and pray, for this man who is still praying. Please bless him!

Today my world was rocked!!! I was sitting in a conference for church starters, and all of a sudden from the most unexpected place God SHOOK my world! Rick Warren author of Purpose Driven Church and pastor of Saddleback Church in CA was the speaker. In the heart of complete honesty I was playing on MySpace as Rick started to speak. I was a big fan of Rick’s, and over time I think I let all the negative blogs, etc… sway my opinion for no good reason. Today though God used Rick Warren, the guy I was kinda tuning out to impact me in a mighty way!!! It’s funny because isn’t that how God is, lifting you up and supporting you in the most unlikely of ways? After all He does say to us,” My ways are not your ways”! So there I am listening to Rick and the Holy Spirit reminded me of some things:

1. I am in Tucson because God has placed me there, 100% no DOUBT!

2. Am I doing this for me, or for the Kingdom of God? To be honest, I have been doing it for me for a little while.

3. I have not taken care of my spiritual needs, so my faith has been in the toilet!

4. I have to stop building a church, and start building people.

I know these things are not complex, but my world was rocked. Sitting there so unsuspecting…Rick Warren!!! I cried for the first time in while, broken before God. I stayed for the first time ever just to say Thank You to Rick. I went up to him shook his hand and said, “I just wanted to say thank you”. He said, thank you and then asked to hug me and as I hugged him he said, “Don’t give up”. I don’t know if they were prophetic words, but they were in my life! You see because my faith has wondered is God really going to do this thing. I have thought about giving up, but God has renewed my spirit, and he used Rick Warren!