My friends from Brothers McClurg just debuted an awesome new video. They want to hit 5000 views this month.
I dare you to try to watch this video only once!
Tonight I had the privilege of attending a service in Providence, RI called “ONE EVENT”. I heard about this event through a few brothers in christ that I know on Facebook, but have never met in person and they were both spearheading this with their churches. Andrew Mook from Sanctuary church and Jason Lee from Renaissance church along with pastors from a few other providence churches came together to meet, pray, and worship. They came together in unity to seek the face of God and to fight for their city.
If you have ever read my blog this heart should sound familiar. Not only is this something I think about daily and try to work towards in my own community/ministry, but it is the heart of God to see His body united.
We walked in and were greeted by some pretty cool/hip looking kids that made this prematurely bald worship pastor feel wicked old. Behind us was a mass of people piling into the building. There was something here that I don’t see very often in Newport area.
Anticipation.
Let that sink in for a second because it is key. They came in with expectation and you could see it on the peoples faces. Worship was great and so were the times of prayer. Nothing insane happened. Nobody rose from the dead. Nothing out of the ordinary to the naked eye. But for a guy who has been in ministry for 17 years and plowing through cement within the context of unity in the body there was something clearly out of the ordinary.
This group of people truly were there for the city. Every agenda, every theological difference, worship style, ethnicity, and cultural background was put aside for this time. There was a sense of purpose that I have not seen in the RI body of christ in a long time. There was an awareness that 5 churches being present in a building regardless of what they do is powerful in the spiritual realm. There was an expectation that the prayers would shake up the principalities in the area.
I have seen this hunger before in my area of RI and have seen the ebb and flow. We spend a ton of time praying for the church and for revival to happen. This body prayed that God would move in any way He chose and that they would be willing and repentant participants in His story.
They concluded with communion. There is nothing that unites the Church more than the cross.
Recently in our 1Prayer unity nights we have begun to do a very similar format.
I am blessed to have been able to have seen the Lord tonight. God is moving in providence. God is stirring up His people and calling them back to Him.
Monday night we have our own UNITY event in newport. I pray we continue to walk in expectation that God wants to do something amazing. I pray that the apathy that has enslaved our churches gets released.
I pray that our friends in Providence that are seeing God set the captives free intercede for their brothers and sisters in Newport County and the same way we are for them.
To God be the Glory.
Let end with this:
BEAUTIFUL BRIDE by FLYLEAF
Unified diversity
Functioning as one body
Every part encouraged by the other
No one independent of another
You’re irreplaceable, indispensable
You’re incredible, incredible
Beautiful bride
Body of Christ
One flesh abiding
Strong and unifying
Fighting ends in forgiveness
Unite and fight all division
Beautiful bride
Strengthen your arms now
Train your fingers for battle
Urgency’s here now
Iron Man 3: a review from a comic book nerd dad -
TIRADE ALERT
Last night I took my awesome wife out to see iron man 3. I have been crazy excited about this movie for ages. We bought tickets hours ahead of time and showed up 30 min early, greeted by a nice long long of fanboys and 4 year olds. 4 year olds? Let me segway here for a moment. I have many friends that let their kids see movies like this and ones that are PG-13 when the kids are clearly 6 years away from ever meeting that restriction age. I am fully aware that some PG movies play like PG-13 and some PG-13 movies really could pass for PG. I also know that every parent gets to choose how they parent. We might be in the extreme in that we haven’t let any of our kids, including our 12 year old, see any of the comic book movies.
The reason is simple… Innocence.
It is a word we seemed to have lost along the way in regards to our kids. We live in a day in age when 15 year olds can get the morning after pill, children bring guns to school, bullies no longer just pull hair, and terrorism can come from your next door neighbor. It’s possible some of my friends might be mad at me for saying this, but as parents I think more than ever we need to guard the innocence in our children. Notice I didn’t say put them in a bubble, but there is a difference between our kids just experiencing life and parents introducing violence and sex into an 8 year olds brain and heart. I will get back to that in a second.
This Iron Man was fantastic. It had every element I love from the comic, the other iron man films and even tying in the avengers through the movie. Some of the twists were interesting and I will eliminate spoilers here. Some changes I liked and some I didn’t.
The writing in this film is brilliant. Character development, story arc, love interest, and it keeps you entertained from beginning to end. Through the movie we start to see bits of humility shine through stark and yet we retain his witty ego which is a blast to watch. I would have loved to have seen iron mans Extensis armor. I can’t wait for Avengers 2.
Gwyneth Paltrow, an actress I am normally not a fan of, was pretty great in the film.Gwyneth is a woman who supposedly works out every day for 2 hours with personal trainer to the stars, Tracy Anderson. I actually have one of Tracy’s videos that my wife and I have worked out to and it kicked our tails. What I noticed in the film was they made sure to as much as humanly possible show Gwyneth’s Abs. At the end of the credits I was waiting for a workout video info-mercial.
Now back to what I started with. This was the most violent and dark film of the marvel superhero genre so far. It didn’t bother me one bit because I am 36 and have been reading comics all my life. I am a nerd/geek and proud of it. While I was watching a film a film with a hero that of course saves the day it also had terrorism, people being burned, people being shot, evil characters in bed with two women, and very close to home flickering scenes of maniacal evil people. The whole time I sat there I enjoyed one of my favorite characters, but only could slightly because I watched parents bring their 4 year olds into the room. In front of us 7 and 8 year olds were cheering their hero while watching scenes sprinkled with violence that was growing them up too fast.
I can go on for days on this, but let me end with this:
Iron man gets 5 stars from me. Its brilliant and dark and awesome. It is also PG-13 for a reason.
The parents who brought there 4-11 year olds into the theater last night get -12 stars because they chose not to exercise wisdom and are subjecting their kids to “comic book violence”. As much as we would not like to admit it the “comic book violence” we saw on that movie is happening all around the world even as I type this.
So GO SEE IRON MAN 3!!!! but… for the sake of keeping our children innocent for just a little bit longer please don’t take them with you.
I am Going to be doing a FREE 1day Conference at Gospel Light Community Church in CT with Adam Fagan-Kela based on the Dangerous Faith curriculum we have created.
The material we are teaching is strictly the word and testimony taking attendees on a journey to ignite revival in their hearts and make us all zealous for the heart of God.
April 20th 9am – 5pm with a lunch break
Night of worship 7-9pm with special Guests: my wife Kelly and Adam’s wife Heather -
ITS GONNA BE AWESOME!!!
I have many pet peeves with “christianeze” or Christian slogans meant to erase untruths by introducing more untruths.
One of these phrase really drives me nuts. It is when people say to leaders in the church:
“remember…this is for an audience of One”
Let me clarify here that I know what people are trying to say. They are basically reminding the leader that we do everything for God and only His opinion matters. It is the concept that even if there is nobody in church on sunday that we should still worship the King.
The problem is we are taking a flawed phrase to express this and creating an even worse mantra for the church to spout off.
As leaders and even as Christians in general we are should be doing all we do for God, but there is a much larger audience than one.
The entire Body is an audience
Our community is an audience
The lost are an audience
1 Corinthians 14:13–19
“13 Therefore, one who speaks in a tongue should pray that he may interpret. 14 For if I pray in a tongue, my spirit prays but my mind is unfruitful. 15 What am I to do? I will pray with my spirit, but I will pray with my mind also; I will sing praise with my spirit, but I will sing with my mind also. 16 Otherwise, if you give thanks with your spirit, how can anyone in the position of an outsider2 say “Amen” to your thanksgiving when he does not know what you are saying? 17 For you may be giving thanks well enough, but the other person is not being built up. 18 I thank God that I speak in tongues more than all of you. 19 Nevertheless, in church I would rather speak five words with my mind in order to instruct others, than ten thousand words in a tongue.”
This text is discussing the “gifts of the spirit”, but also tackles prayer as well. Paul basically says that if you are going to say something outloud that your “audience” has grown to those around you and then what you say should be clear. The gifts of the Holy spirit have been given to us for the edification of the Body. What that means is yes we bless the Lord, but it is meant to bless the church as well with clarity.
This same thing holds true for our walk. We are always leading. We either lead others to Christ or away from Christ. Because of this our walk ALWAYS has an audience.
1 Corinthians 13
13 If I speak in the tongues[a] of men or of angels, but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. 2 If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge,and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. 3 If I give all I possess to the poor and give over my body to hardship that I may boast,[b] but do not have love, I gain nothing.
What this is basically saying is: It doesn’t matter how great of a preacher, worship leader, mother, school teacher etc… you are. If you don’t love others you are not doing what you should be for your God.
In Matthew 25 it speaks of the separation of the sheep and the goats. in the message it says:
“Get out, worthless goats! You’re good for nothing but the fires of hell. And why? Because—
I was hungry and you gave me no meal,
I was thirsty and you gave me no drink,
I was homeless and you gave me no bed,
I was shivering and you gave me no clothes,
Sick and in prison, and you never visited.’“Then those ‘goats’ are going to say, ‘Master, what are you talking about? When did we ever see you hungry or thirsty or homeless or shivering or sick or in prison and didn’t help?’
“He will answer them, ‘I’m telling the solemn truth: Whenever you failed to do one of these things to someone who was being overlooked or ignored, that was me—you failed to do it to me.’”
Are we so stuck on our Audience of one that we can’t even see those in need right in front of us?
Are we so stuck on our Audience of one that we are not aware that others are watching us and forming their opinions about God based on our actions?
Are we so stuck on our Audience of one that the LAW in our hearts outweighs the grace we give out?
I am currently reading “Day of War” by Cliff Graham. It is the story of David and his mighty men. This book is amazing, inspiring and convicting. I think it is important to remember to worship our KING and that we need to be listening to the Holy Spirit for more awareness in the rest of the “audience” watching us every day. This quote struck a chord with me when thinking about this mentality as leader showing that our “audience” needs us to LOVE lest we become a clanging GONG.
“Men don’t follow speeches, Eliam. David gave terrific speeches, but his men followed him because they loved him. Speeches don’t make you stab a man in the guts or slice through his neck while his blood sprays over you. If you ever lead troops, remember that. Be there with them. Suffer with them. Bleed with them. Then they will follow you.”
-Cliff Graham
