Uncharted Territory

God has been doing incredible things in my life. I know I have only begun this new journey of discovering God’s riches in a more real and impactful way, but I already feel as if I have grown so much. I also realize this is just another “zag” in my relationship with God along this life’s journey and that this new zeal for God is directly from his hand.

I have been challenged recently to take my gifts and talents to the next level. Many of you know that I feel as though I have been called to full-time ministry (at some point) and more specifically to help start a church with my good friend and mentor Steve. He has asked me to come on board as a co-laborer to help in the planning, implementing and forging of this new ministry. He has also asked me to be the music coordinator handling the worship (though this will encompass a small portion of my responsibilities.

To that end, I believe God is preparing me for this task. While I have been involved in one form of music or another most of my life, I have been playing guitar and singing these last nine years. I have only been a part of consistent lay ministry in this capacity for about six of those years and been involved in leading worship off and on for the last few.

A few weeks ago, I was asked to pray and consider coming on board with our church at Rock Eternal in a regular weekly worship leading role. Nervous at first, partly due to my insecurities as well as the fact that I don’t know 75% of their songs, I prayed and sought counsel. Then I was told that I would be teaming up with someone else in a co-leadership role which made me feel really good about this.

This guy is a great guitar player and knows the songs pretty well. He even went to some kind of worship leading camp for something like a year! Knowing that it’s not all on me and that I have another talented guy to work with has not only been a confidence booster but an answer to prayer as well.

It’s going to be a lot of work- learning the Media Shout program, bringing more organization to the ministry with monthly schedules and online detail of all the songs, as well as learning said songs. But I look forward to the challenge and to what God is going to do in and through me.

Please be praying for me as I take a more “center stage” role and strive at the same time to decrease as Christ increases. This concept is somewhat of a paradox for musicians and especially challenging for those involved in worship leading. Pray that I would be able to learn many of the songs quickly and memorize them as I attempt to free up the Spirit to engage the audience. Pray for Dave and myself as we both strive to take this ministry to the next level.

Passion

Godly sorrow brings repentance that leads to salvation and leaves no regret, but wordly sorrow brings death.

1 Cor. 7:10

Sorrow has consumed me lately. Especially this last weekend at a Men’s Retreat in Williams, Arizona. I was greatly convicted about many things. First, my lack of suffering in my life and my subsequent and constant complaining in spite of it all. Though my life has been relatively free of pain and heartache, I live my life as if I am constantly afflicted, plagued, and targeted with the self-imagined ‘bad luck’ that is nothing more than the reality of life itself.

I had been feeling sorry for myself and allowing the sorrow that comes from wordly attitudes and desires to overtake me, but now I seem to be experiencing a shift in focus to a more God-centered sorrow. Meaning that I have been learning what the effects and realities of sin really are. The consequences of the actions of people in my life as well as my own wretched sin have awakened me to the desperate state of my complacency. As the old adage goes, “sin always hurts the innocent.”

Recently I began to realize my lifestyle was not living up to what God has called of me. I was smacked upside my spiritual head with the help of some very encouraging, albeit hard-hitting and convicting messages from Adrian Despres* this past weekend on a men’s retreat I attended in Williams, AZ. For those who were there, I had been living a “2nd Chair” life and I realized how devastating that was.

Essentially, I was doing the bare minimum, acting spiritual on Sundays and not really living a passionate life for Christ; passion meaning ‘to suffer.’ Not that I want to look for suffering, but that it is evident by my life that I have been living the comfortable life- seeking entertainment and pleasure rather than living boldly for Christ which yields a natural by-product of resistance, persecution, and suffering (to some extent).

Realizing that I need to hate sin more and love myself less and live recklessly abandoned in my relationship with Christ, I am starting to gain a healthy perspective on life and my current pursuits.

Suffering is a natural part of our existence. Now I just need to learn to expect it and prepare myself for how I am going to respond to it when it approaches. Will I begin to feel sorry for myself or realize that in light of other lives throughout the ages and more so, in light of the suffering of my Savior, my suffering is fleeting and nothing but a moment in time? Will I instead see it as an opportunity to show others the love of Jesus?

I hope so. I pray that I would learn to decrease and allow my God to increase as I embrace his love and the suffering that comes hand in hand with a life lived boldly for Christ.

I would ask that you continue to pray for me as I learn to live wholly and completely for Jesus. I already have begun to realize a calling and a strong passion to equip others with tools to strengthen and fortify their marriages. In a world where divorce is on the rise and that those numbers aren’t better in the Christian Church, I have begun to weep for those who don’t take their marriages seriously. More to come in future posts as God reveals to me what this looks like in my own life.

Please visit http://www.fortifiedmarriages.com/page.php?7 for more details on fighting for your marriage- it’s worth it!

Please visit http://www.adriandespres.com/ for info on his ministry and heart for the lost.