Holy cow…the past few days have been one amazing ride…I don’t know where to begin…but I’ll try…
God has been rocking my world lately…and He chose to fill me with creative ideas on Monday morning—AT 1:30!!! Literally…I was awake from 1:30 to 3:30 this past Monday just thinking about leadership, teaching, and a host of other things!!! Who needs sleep, right?
THEN I got to staff meeting…and I was WIRED! Our senior management team agreed to go in together in order to purchase some sleep medicine for me because I was SO full of ideas…and I had to overcompensate for the missed sleep with large amounts of coffee. :-) I think they were all ready to shoot me!
On a serious note—we spent hours talking about the vision of NewSpring Church and giving each section a grade. We acknowledged that there are some things that we are doing really well…and then there are some things that need to be IMPROVED on in a dramatic way…and we are going to be attacking those areas with pit bull intensity!
Yes…we’ve came a long way…but there is so much more to do!!! One of the things I have been praying for is that we will never be satisfied with the way things are. There are so many things we can improve on…and we know it. (The danger is when a church thinks it is perfect and does not need to work on anything…if that is the case then you can be sure they have one foot in the grave and the other on a banana peel!)
And then yesterday—DANG!
Let me back up and let you know that I have been working on the Christmas Eve message since October. I am serious about every message that I speak…but I especially want to nail Christmas Eve because there will be so many people who attend that do not know Christ.
Well…Tuesday is the day that I usually get out the manuscript that I prepared for that week and begin to go through it. (I am generally about 3-4 weeks ahead) So…yesterday I got out the manuscript—spent about 30 minutes wrestling with it…and then the Holy Spirit spoke to me and said, “You won’t be giving that message this weekend.”
I freaked out! I thought maybe I had a case of really bad gas and that it would soon pass away…but it didn’t. I kept looking at the message…and the more I looked at it the more I could not even begin to think about preaching it.
So I said, “Ok Lord, if this isn’t it—then what.”
A verse of Scripture immediately popped in my mind. I turned there…and in 15 minutes I had jotted out an outline. I called in Shane, our Creative Arts pastor, and ran the idea by him…and he LOVED IT! And so I spent the next hour really developing it and praying hard!
Folks—keep something in mind—THIS IS NOT NORMAL FOR ME!!!
Needless to say…I am PUMPED about the Christmas Eve service…but especially the message because it is SO fresh! WOW…God rocked my world yesterday morning…and I am convinced that people are going to receive Christ when they hear what He has to say this weekend.
WOW…God is SO good! I would say this as a small piece of advice to speaker. Prepare ahead…we do! Today I developed the concepts for the January 28th message…but ALWAYS be open to the Holy Spirit…and when He says change something—change it!!! Yes, God is honored by our preparation…but He is also honored when we listen to Him.
OK…that is enough rambling for today. WOW…I am PUMPED!