"And We're Back!" - Monday Morning Reflections

- Great to be back at LCC yesterday. I always miss everyone when I'm gone.

- Enjoyed a really wonderful time with our friends at Longton Community Church near Preston, England. They are really making an impact for the kingdom and seeing heaps of lives being changed by God's power, grace, and love. I'll hopefully blog about them a bit more this week - complete with photos! (If I can figure out how to input them correctly...)

- Yesterday was all about contentment and, no, I do not have a fetish for Tag Heuer watches ... just an unhealthy, unfulfilled obsession. Here's my favorite one (notice the color...isn't it beautiful!?).


- Contentment is living with what you have and being available when God asks.

- In this new series called "Revolu$ion," we'll discover that people who are financially free trust God, save consistently, spend intentionally, build purposefully, and give freely. It's going to be a blast!

- "Stuffitis" is when we have an insatiable desire for more and better stuff - it's the Elvis-head Chia Pet syndrome... "I just gotta have it!"

- Last year, over 5.3 billion credit-card offers were put in our mail-boxes and, according to CardTrak, Americans currently have $660 billion (that's a "b") in credit card debt. Hebrews 13:5 really puts this in perspective.

- Generous giving - whether it's of our time, talent, or treasure - also helps keep things in perspective for us. And God owns it all anyway (Ps. 24:1).

- The balance in the bank and the numbers of the paycheck aren't ours. They are resources God has blessed us with. They all belong to Him and we show Him honor when we give back our first fruits to our Provider. This reminds us of who we are and who He is.

- Tony Morgan has really challenged me with the following statements. I'll be thinking these through this week. Check them out and wrestle with them along with me:

When you teach on “felt needs,” you aren’t watering down the message. You are helping people find forgiveness and healing and a new direction for their life. It’s easy to preach through the Bible. It’s much harder to preach to hurting people who need to understand how the Bible applies to their lives.

When the person sitting beside you is dealing with a marriage crisis that’s leading to a crisis of faith, it makes your preferences of music and volume seem pretty small.

When you neglect the mission field in your neighborhood because of your desire to help people across the ocean, I wonder if you’re just choosing the path of least resistance.

When you choose to focus on your theological differences at the expense of helping people find healing and hope, could it be that you haven’t spent enough time living out your faith because you’re too busy defending your faith?

- Lauren surprised me and made a quick trip home from Atlanta this weekend. It was so good to see her again.

- Bear, the world's greatest dog, hung out with us this weekend. Tiff and Bryan went to see our Tigers paste Wake Forest. Wins sure do feel better than losses.

- So, what's on for this week? As always, getting ready for Sunday, then catching up on over 100 emails, blogging, heading to Atlanta with our youth ministers, Rob and Aaron, to check out Grace Fellowship's youth ministry, annual staff evaluations, meetings, and getting over jet lag.

- Have a great one!