Forward from the Verge

It is a true honor in life to be the pastor of Fellowship Church in Prairieville. In 1999 God began to work in my heart and spirit a calling to plant a church. During the next two years I learned and trained and prayed about what church planting would be. June 1, 2001 my wife and I moved to a town we had visited 2 times to settle there and start a church. Little did I know that church planting was nothing like the textbooks, the classes, nor the popular books written by mega church pastors.

Fellowship Church has become the work of my life. I was a 26 year old man that had the audacity to believe that God could use me to start a church that would reach people for Christ. And he has. He has put people around me that I believe are absolutely some of the most amazing and wonderful people in world. The only problem I have really faced is discouragement. I have often struggled with my desire for success over God's work. I have lived many days here in Prairieville defeated and discouraged because the church was not what I had intended, desired, or envisioned. Not that discouragement has been my daily life. It has just been a lingering problem from time to time. Overall life is great, but my goals (my goals) were not being met.

This year some people from within Fellowship shared with me that they could see the burden in my life and spoke boldly and truthfully to it. I was honest about my struggle with them and they committed to pray for me and to help me. This was the confession I had to make. "I do not consider myself successful. Too often all I see is what we have not done instead of seeing what God has done." For some reason I felt real shame in admitting that to those people I pastor. There sat in that room lives changed by the ministry of Fellowship and I struggle to see it as such.

Over the last month or two God has really done some great things in my life. I shared with you a prayer time I experienced recently but did not tell you what it was all about. It was about this. One Thursday morning in my office, I was praying. I was praying as Kirk usually does. I was bringing God my laundry list of things to get done for his glory and asking him to make me ready. I was not asking him to talk to me about me - maybe about you - but not about me. So that morning he told me to shut up and sit still.

And he spoke. And honestly his words set me free. God simply told me "Thank you. And I am proud of you." Hear me when I say that Jesus Christ owes me no gratitude. God knows all that there is to be ashamed of in Kirk Jones. What God also knows is that I might not be a man that gets it all right, but I have a heart for him. He also knew I needed to hear it. He knew I needed to put down my definition of success before the altar of Christ before I would ever be ready to experience it.

There has been a great freedom in my life since that day. Literally God has rejuvenated my spirit and my soul. My hunger for him is growing. My prayer life is increasing. I am becoming a better husband and father. I believe I am also becoming a better pastor. The passion I have is renewed and so is my vision.

God took me through a valley so he could bring me to a Verge. I truly believe that Fellowship is on the Verge of a great movement of God. The people of Fellowship are telling others about Jesus and sharing his love like they never have before. The church is excited about Christ and their Pastor is ready to lead. No wrong motives. No hidden agendas. No personal success stories desired. Just ready.

This Friday I ask for your prayers as our church has A Night of Vision with Pastor Kirk. We are coming together to hear where we are going and why we are going there. I am so humbled that God would allow me to be the man with such a vision. I will tell you this though. I truly believe that if the people of Fellowship will follow me down the path God is laying ahead of us, that down that road is the salvation of our city.

I do not deserve the place nor the position, but I appreciate the grace that has given it to me. Pray that God will continue his work in our midst and that our lives will be laid open before him for his work. Pray that I will not speak any personal preferences, opinion, or agendas, but simply the will of God. Pray for Prairieville. And as I pray I praise because he who began a good work in me also began a good work in Fellowship and HE will complete it!

I praise God that he has renewed the audacity within me. He has given me the audacity to believe that not only will he use me to start a church but he will use that church to reach a city for Christ! Are you ready to get audacious?

Passion Action

(I try not to blog two times in one day, but I am leaving for some time of retreat with the Lord and had 2 things I needed to say.)

This Sunday we concluded our sermon series Connected. This series taught 4 characteristics needed in our lives for us to live connected lives to others spiritually and personally. The characteristics are love, authenticity, forgiveness, and compassion.

This Sunday we talked about compassion. The definition I taught is that compassion is passion action. It is one thing to be passionate about something or someone. It is entirely different to be compassionate. It is one thing to take action over a problem. It is entirely different to be passionate about it. Compassion is both passion and action.

Passion action is to rare in our lives. Many Christians can be passionate about worship and walk away and put no action into the truth they heard that day. We can be active in serving the Lord. We can be action, action, action and have no passion. God desires us to be passionately active in our lives.

The text for the day was Philippians 2:5-11. I challenge you to read and check out the greatest passion action of all time. Jesus’ death on the cross was the greatest act of compassion EVER! This passage talks about the name he was given by the Father and the glory that was his, but this was not why Jesus died. It says it in the last verse that he did all this for the “glory of the Father.”

Jesus was not concerned with his rights (his ability to take hold of his nature as God and claim every right he has the Maker of all things), his privileges (equality was not his concern), his promotion (he made himself nothing), nor his position (he became a servant.) Jesus lived the ultimate life of compassion because he had the right attitude. We must not simply change our actions, we must allow God to change our attitudes if we are to live lives of compassion.

Don’t just shout to God, serve God. Don’t just serve God, shout to Him. Put the passion into action and see that action become more passion.

Getting Hungry

It is rare in life that I allow myself to truly get hungry. Some times I say I am starving, but it has never been true. The only times I go out without a meal is by choice for spiritual reasons or schedule reasons. (Or because I ate so much the last meal that I am not yet able to force any more food in my body.)

I wonder how much this is true in our spiritual lives. We are told by Jesus that “blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness.” Are we really hungry for God? Do we yearn with a spiritual need or do we simply sit among the spiritual want of life? We want God but do we hunger for him? Do we live needing him?

Often in the spiritual life we can confuse a craving with hunger. I challenge you to learn how to hunger for God. There is a book by John Piper called A Hunger for God. It is not a book I can truly vouch for because I have not finished it – but Piper is pretty much a safe bet. I am however being challenged by the thoughts in it.

Recently I have challenged our church to fast and pray. I must admit that neither fasting nor praying is a particular strength in my walk with the Lord. (Praying more than fasting.) I have considered fasting simply as the giving up for something to draw closer to God, but I never stopped and considered why that drew me closer to God. Fasting is more than simply doing without. It is more than simply making time. I am going to personalize the illustrations and thoughts of Piper in my own life to share this within this blog. I pray it helps you pray.
Wendy and I were engaged while I worked at summer camp and went to school in Ft. Worth. I literally asked her to marry me and then a week later left until we were married. I visited but was not in the same place as her very often. I recently found some of our letter correspondence during those days. The love letters were pretty strong. Why? I hungered for her. I did not simply desire her in my life; I hungered for her in my life. What happens to that? Sometimes when the extraordinary become a part of daily life we see it as ordinary. Recently God has really been working in me as a husband and some of what seemed ordinary has been renewed as extraordinary. (Because Wendy is extraordinary!)

We often seek God because we miss him. We have been away from him or we are in tough times. Those times are easy times to see and experience the hunger for God. But what about during the regular days and the good times of life? It is not so easy to hunger for God, when he is all around you. We do not hunger for God as we should when all is good at home, at church, and at work.

Fasting is seeking hunger. If you want to get hungry work all day in the hot sun or play all day in the ocean. (It is amazing how hungry I get on vacation every year.) Or walk into your favorite restaurant and watch someone else eat your favorite meal while you smell it but do not participate. That would make you hungry. Fasting is purposefully building a hunger for God in your life. A hungry stomach is not the goal. It is not the sacrifice as much as it the passion to be with God sought through sacrifice.

Piper says it this way, “The greatest enemy of hunger for God is not poison but apple pie. It is not the banquet of the wicked that dulls our appetite for heaven, but an endless nibbling at the table of the world…….The greatest adversary of love to God is not his enemies but his gifts. And the most deadly appetites are not the poison of evil, but for the simple pleasures of earth. For when these replace an appetite for God himself, the idolatry is scarcely recognizable, and almost incurable.”

WOAH! We have to build our hunger for God by not simply denying the evil in the world, but the good in it, too. Sometimes the enemy of what is best is that which is good. During this time of year the majority of our city is practicing Lent (or their church thinks they are). Lent is a time where people are challenged to give something up for over 40 days to seek God in their life. It is a great concept when practiced correctly.

But, what are you giving up? This year I pledge to eat no asparagus for 40 days? ME, TOO! Actually I will pledge that for next 400 if you want me to. No, fasting is about giving up something that you need and/or desire because you need and desire God more. It is to say to God, I will take you over food today. I will take you over caffeine this week. I will take you over my favorite tv show tonight. It is to tell God I want you MORE! I need you MORE!

Strangely when we seek God this way, we experience him more in our life and at the same time we hunger for him more in our life, too. We take more of him in, yet we feel unsatisfied. We have a greater longing for him, his work, his ways, and his will.

This week commit to give something up to grow in your relationship and hunger for God. Seek him not just to find him, but to desire to find him more…and more…and more.

Letting Loose

I have experienced some things in the last few weeks that have been very freeing. It is amazing thing when we are loosed by the Spirit of God. The Bible teaches us that the truth will set us free. Jesus says that if we come to him heavy and laden that he will give us rest. The Scripture teaches that the following of Christ is freedom.

The amazing thing about this freedom is that we best experience it when we fully live as bondservants of Christ. When our lives are 100% focused on being bound to the Lord Jesus Christ and his service and His Kingdom. It is then we discover and experience the truth that if we seek first His Kingdom and his righteousness that he will provide all we need.

The problem that too many of us as Christians face is not that there is not freedom in Christ but that we are not willing to live that life of freedom. Let me tell you why I say that. Truth sets us free. Seeking God’s kingdom first sets us free. Coming to Jesus and giving him the burdens sets us free.

We are not set free when we are in control. There is no freedom when there is a lack of lordship in our lives. When we decide who we are and what we do for the Lord, we do not experience freedom. Truth is that we don’t like that type of truth and that is why we lack freedom. There is freedom in the truth but the truth is what we too often avoid with our lives. We don’t avoid hearing it, we avoid doing it.

My challenge for you today is to let Jesus loose in your life. Tell him that you are his and you will do whatever he wants whenever he wants. There is an incredible freedom found in that. What you might discover is that the truth you learn when you get there is not the truth you thought you would learn.

This is the truth that I have learned this week. I have a great privilege and a great responsibility to be the pastor of Fellowship Church. God has trusted me with the souls of this city and to lead out in seeing our entire city come to Christ. You would think that would be truth to avoid, but the opposite is true. I much prefer that truth over the truth that I have privilege of pastor a good church that will do some good things. The truth that God has something bigger and bolder for Fellowship Church is not a burden but freedom for me.

For those of you at Fellowship Church who missed yesterday, first I am sorry because it was a great day of worship. Second, we announced that we are having a Night of Vision with Pastor Kirk on Friday, March 6 at 6:30 PM. Childcare will be provided and you want to be there.
That might sound arrogant, but I learned this week that it is in humility that I am who I am but it is in the boldness of Christ that I must do what I do. I have something to share that I think will change your life, the life of Fellowship Church, and honestly the life of our city.

Those are big words, but it is because we have a big God who has given us a big task and he has given me a big vision for that. Honestly, I see more clearly than ever before because I have allowed Jesus to set me loose. It is not my burden to see Prairieville come to Christ, it is his work. I will, however, seek that Kingdom first. Not second. Not third. Not after I get my life taken care of. First.

I ask everyone at Fellowship to make every effort to be there on Friday, March 6. If you are going to be a part of this vision, though, you have a decision to make.

Are you ready to live free knowing that freedom means bound and that bound means bold?

The Value of Connection

The body is a unit, though it is made up of many parts; and though all its parts are many, they form one body. So it is with Christ. 1 Cor. 12:12

The thing that too many people fail to grasp in today’s world of church is that we are a part of a body. Each one of us (who are followers of Christ) are one part of the body. The thing about bodies is that they work better when they have all their parts.

A part of a body that is healthy has several things that are always true about it. You will see I emphasized always true, not some times true, but always true. Here are those things about healthy body parts.

1. They function in their intended capacity. A healthy body part does what it is intended to do.
2. They are connected to the rest of the body. A healthy body part is not disconnected from the rest of the body. Disconnected body parts die.
3. They follow the function of the body that begins in the head. The brain runs the whole body and Jesus is the Head of his body. Healthy parts do what they head says to do.
4. They do not disconnect from the body and look for another body every time another part causes it pain or does something in a manner they would have wanted done differently.
5. They do not try to harm other parts of the body because they are jealous or selfish.

Unfortunately there are too many people in church today that don’t get the whole view there. They simply see the church as something that they benefit in not as something they participate in the health and work of. The sad part of this is not what it does to the church, but what it causes in people’s own spiritual lives. They miss out on so much when they are a part that is apart.

So the question all this brings about is, “Are you connected?” Are you truly a part of the Body of Christ? You must understand that this is not a question about the universal group of people around the world that are followers of Christ. This question is about a local body of believers. You will never be a part of the Big Body of Christ until you are part of the Local Body of Christ.
So at Fellowship we talk a lot about getting connected. Our statement that is used to describe the process of building up believers in our church is this Connecting to Love, Grow, Serve, and Go.

My challenge for you is to consider where you are in that process.
1st – Are you truly connected to love of Christ? Do you know him as your Lord and Savior? (Love)
2nd – Are you connected to other believers through the main discipleship ministry of a local church? At Fellowship that is Life groups. (Grow)
3rd – Are you connected to your God given function and purpose in the church? (Serve)
4th – Are you connected for the purpose of connecting others to Christ? (Go)

If not, you don’t really understand the fullness of what it means to be a part of the Body of Christ. You are still missing out on so much. At Fellowship Church we believe we are on the VERGE of a great movement of God. How deeply you connect will affect how much you are a part of that movement.

If you show up without the purpose of connecting deeper you might have a good view of the things God does, but you will not be a part of it. You might be able to see it, but you will not be able to celebrate it.

So this week take one step further in the process and make a deeper connection. If you are not connected to a church or Christ at all please visit us Sunday morning at 10:30 AM for our worship service. If you are already attending a service then show up at 9 AM for a Life Group and get connected to grow. If you are already in a Life Group and are growing then get connected to serving by speaking up and saying you want to serve in one of our ministry areas. (Your Life Group leader can help you with that.) If you are already serving then start going in the world and being a greater influence by finding one other person that is not at your level of spiritual growth and help them move forward.

The Verge is a great view, but it is not one that lasts long. Get connected so we can get going!

For more info on Fellowship like location and worship times check out www.4fellowship.org