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Spirit-Led Chain

How often we forget that there is so much more going on than meets the eye. I was reminded of that this past week in a conversation with my pastor, co-worker, and close friend Tim.

We were talking after the Saturday night service and I felt led to ask him to pray for a person I'd met the previous Monday. She'd been on my heart and mind all week. It was actually the personal trainer who did my initial fitness assessment at the gym I just joined. As we made small talk at the beginning of our session I discovered she was from Kansas, Illinois...a small town just 10 miles from where I used to live in Charleston, IL. I mentioned that I'd been to Kansas before...that I'd attended Kansas Christian Church on several occasions. Her face lit up as she declared, "That's my church!" As the conversation continued I sensed a mixture of emotions going on in her soul. I don't know for sure but my guess is that she grew up really "getting it" in a church community that nurtured her young heart. Then like so many others she grew up, moved away, got married, had kids, and never really got involved in a church. I could see longing in her as we talked...almost as if she knew what she was missing. When I mentioned that I was a Children's Director she sighed and said something about having led VBS's at her church and how much she missed it. I invited her to church. She seemed somewhere in between receptive and resistant.

So as I relayed bits and pieces of this conversation to Tim he stopped me and asked, "What does she look like?" As I described her a knowing look came across his face. He said, "I met the same person this week on Tuesday in my neighborhood. I saw a family at the park behind my house and felt like I should go out to meet them. So I went and talked to the wife while the husband played with the kids."

The same person. 10 miles apart in two different settings (and it's not like there are only a few people here in the suburbs of Chicago). I met her on Monday. Tim met her on Tuesday. Both of us ended up having spiritual conversations with her. God is after her heart. If she'll respond to him this will be a great story of someone finding their way back to God.

It makes me wonder how God is pursuing the people I come in contact with everyday. It's so much fun to be part of the Spirit-led chain in a life. I think Tim and I got to be close links in the chain this week. Maybe there are other links that have been put in place in the days that have passed since. I have another appointment with her next Monday. I hope she is listening.

Health Insurance

I have the most amazing health insurance. Apparently it saved my church a significant amount of money switching to this company. It comes with this program called Vitality that provides incentives when you take measures to take care of yourself. You earn points for going to the doctor and participating in fitness classes. This week I discovered that they will subsidize a health club membership at this huge, beautiful club a few miles from my house. So a week ago I became a member of Lifetime Fitness. I only have to pay $20 a month instead of the normal $50 a month. The place is incredible. I'm sure at some point it will become a discipline but I like it so much I worked out 6 times this week. I don't think I've done that since high school.

If that isn't enough...while looking around on the Vitality website last night I discovered that the points I earn can also be cashed in for prizes. You can select iTunes giftcards, movie theater tickets, airline miles, or discount hotel stays. I've hardly earned any points but already I have enough for 55 iTunes downloads. So last night I cashed in some points for 10 iTunes songs and downloaded some new tunes.

Now I realize that I have no idea yet how well the medical benefit of this insurance will be. My right arm might fall off and they may refuse to pay to have it reattached. But for right now I'm digging my new tunes and the treadmills.

Intentionality

Why is it the most obvious things are always the best things? Better yet, why is it I so often forget that engaging in simple acts will leave me feeling better, body and soul? Things like...

• Pausing before I get out of bed to set my thoughts on God.
• Driving around in silence...no radio, no cell phone.
• Drinking water throughout the day.
• Reading bits of God's Word while I eat breakfast.
• Exercising.
• Choosing reading or journaling over television.
• Sitting outside enjoying a warm summer evening.
• Praying for specific requests.
• Taking a walk.

These are the simple things that do it for me. I hope my summer is marked by them.

Simple

Continuing to think about life change and true spiritual growth. I shared the thoughts from my previous post with my small group this past Thursday. Brooke, Sara, Cindy, and I have been meeting for 5 months. We've each taken a week to share our life story, gone through a spiritual assessment guide my church produced, read the first few chapters of a book that some of us were having a hard time connecting with, and mostly laughed a lot together as we've been getting to know one another. It's been a great 5 months but now I'm really excited about what is to come.

We decided that for this next stretch of our group life we are going to do something simple. Each week we are going to discuss just one question. It may be the same question every week. Or maybe the one question will vary. I'm not sure yet. But the question we're starting with is this: "What next step is God calling me to?" That's it. That will be the basis of our group discussion. That next step can be about anything. We'll each have a chance to share and then we'll continue to follow the progress of our answer in the weeks to come.

Well, there might be some more. When we'd decided on the question Brooke asked, "I would love it if somehow we could read some of the Bible together too." What a novel idea that is. So in addition to our one question I volunteered to come up with a few chapters each week for the group to read and think about during the week.

For some reason, this feels like a breath of fresh air. Sometimes we make things so complicated that really lend themselves to simplicity. I just want to cut to the heart of what God desires to do in each of our lives. I think our small group has the potential to become a prime environment for significant life change.

What about you? What next step is God calling you to? Maybe it's a question you can wrestle with in your own small group, in your family, or during lunch with a friend. It's a simple question, but it could end up being the most important one you'll ever ask.

Life Change

I've been thinking about life change the past couple weeks. What is spiritual maturity? How do we know if we are growing? I went to a workshop during my marathon of conferences that defined a spiritual mature person as one who lives as if God is who he says he is and will do what he promised to do. Spiritual development is in essence faith development. We're growing when we are trusting God more. We're maturing when our life begins to reflect more and more that we believe him.

Today I had a great one-on-one meeting with a young guy who is growing. I was so encouraged by how he is sensing the movement of God in his life and how earnestly he wants to respond. He is fearful of the steps God is calling him to, but his deepest desire is to jump and trust that God will catch him.

Yet these conversations seem too out-of-the-ordinary to me. Are the majority of people in my church moving forward on the path to spiritual maturity? Is real life change happening? Are they growing? Am I?

Are we growing in love for one another? Are we moving toward extreme generosity? Are we stepping out of the bounds of our comfort and selfishness more and more to give all we have to the Jesus mission?

Or are most of us stationary? How do we begin moving? Not just isolated cases of movement here and there but mass movement. Community movement.

How do we come to believe God more? I can only imagine what could happen if we did. Somehow I think everything is depending on it.

Take That Rasheed!

"I know we're going to win it," Wallace said sitting on the scorer's table following Sunday practice at Quicken Loans Arena. "We're going to bust their (butt). Tomorrow night is the last game here in this building for this year."

At least for this one day in my 35-year history...it's good to be a Cleveland fan. No matter what happens the rest of this series, winning tonight was a blast. It's back to Detroit for game 5 and then we'll see Rasheed and his friends back in Cleveland for game 6.

Getting Life in Order

I am SO looking forward to tomorrow. It's Saturday and I have absolutely NOTHING on my calendar that I have to do. After traveling for the past three weeks, I am ready to have a day at home to get my life in order. The top 10 things I'm looking forward to about tomorrow...

1. Buying perishable groceries.
2. Balancing my checkbook to figure out how much money is really in there.
3. Emptying the few clean items that remain in my dishwasher.
4. Loading the 2 tons of dirty dishes from my sink into the dishwasher.
5. Unpacking my suitcase and actually putting it away.
6. Sleeping in.
7. Emptying the overflowing garbage can in my bathroom.
8. Putting away my ironing board.
9. Not doing the 9th thing if I don't feel like it.
10. Doing laundry so that every item I own that is not on my body is clean.

I don't know what it is about having order in my home that is peaceful to me. When I can get the mundane taken care of I feel free to be fully present in the things that matter. What is that? Is that a beaver personality thing? Is that just part of being a woman? I don't know. But tomorrow night at this time I'm going to be happy. If only it wasn't raining I could get my lawn mowed and garden mulched. That would be pure bliss.

Where Am I?

Missing blogging while I'm on my tour of church conferences. Currently in Mount Pleasant, South Carolina getting ready for the Coast-to-Coast Multi-Site Conference that starts tomorrow. I'm teaching two breakouts on Multi-Site Children's Ministry. I feel a bit unprepared but hopefully things will come together once we get rolling on the topic.

Yesterday I was in Atlanta. Spent 4 days there at the Grow-Up Conference at Northpoint Community Church. Such an incredible church. Visit it sometime if you are in the area.

The week before that I was at the National New Church Conference in Orlando.

I'm having a blast hanging out with various co-workers and being challenged with a lot of ideas as I sit through sessions. But man I'm getting tired! How do people who travel all the time for their jobs do it?