Winning in the Wilderness - Is in the MindSeveral years ago the United Negro College Fund launched a slogan in their ad campaign that said, “A mind is a terrible thing to waste.” Since then others have said, “A mind is a terrible thing to lose,” and still others, “A mind is a terrible thing.” Regardless of which statement your mind most closely resembles, your mind certainly has powerful potential for both good and bad. There was a time when folks could trust all of what they saw and most of what they heard. Today, because about every form of communication can be manipulated to fit a certain template, it’s a lot harder to discern what true frim what isn’t, what’s real from what’s fake. That’s such prevalent thing, I believe, because we are trending toward a culture where the perception of real and right supersedes what is actually real, right and true. It’s truly an amazing thing that our mind can be trained to believe something is true or false when what is actually true or false is staring us in the face and we refuse to even acknowledge it. A couple of years ago in Colorado, two guys broke into a house in the middle of the afternoon brandishing weapons and took some jewelry and a couple of flat screen TVs, all while a guy in his early twenties sat there in his parent’s living room playing Call of Duty, a military style shoot ‘em up video game, totally oblivious to the fact that real guys with real guns were carrying off his parents possessions right beside him.Can I give you some real news? We have a real enemy with real weapons that is coming after every believer everyday to steal your motivation, kill your joy, and destroy your testimony. He’s had a few centuries of practice and he’s really good at playing mind games with the best of them, especially when we’re in the wilderness. Here’s even bigger, breaking news... We can win against him with incredible consistency. But we have to understand that both the battle and the enemy are real. More on Sunday.Come and see.

Winning in the Wilderness - In Spite of the ObstaclesEver spent the night in an unfamiliar place and had to get up in the middle of the night for a bathroom call? You didn’t really lock away in your mind the floor plan before going to bed and what obstacles that might present a problem on your wee hour excursion into the darkness and then, sure enough, Bam! A toe stump here, a shoulder bump there and by the time you make it back to bed you’ve been roughed up pretty good and all you had in mind was a bathroom visit, not some cruel late night trek through an obstacle course. Obstacles are called that because they get in the way. They impede or slow down the progress being made or even stop it altogether, usually none of which you planned for.The occasional wildernesses we walk through in life are full of obstacles. The wilderness itself is hard enough on its own in our dealing with the confusion and isolation that often show up in the wilderness. Factor in temptation or a test or trial of some kind and the frustration gets disproportionally ramped up. As we begin a new 4 week walk through Winning in the Wilderness, we’re going to see some things common to about every wilderness experience and some things that might be unique to our own stop over. One thing that’s common to every wilderness experience though is adversity. In fact it’s probably adversity of some kind that has us feeling like we’ve marched into the wilderness in the first place. We didn’t ask for it, wander into it, or set our sights on it, but there it is, right in our face, demanding to be dealt with. Here’s a thought... if there were a way to leverage the adversity so that we deal with it head on, learn the lesson and move on to the next thing, wouldn’t information like that be of extreme value? Join us on Sunday as we learn from the Master Teacher Himself about how to do just that. This is pivitol stuff because it’s not a matter of if, but when the next visit to the wilderness might be lurking around the corner... in a dark room.... in the middle of the night.

Contagious - Whole Lotta LoveIn his book “Love Does,” author Bob Goff tells a story of how he and a friend crashed the late night set of the filming of National Treasure 2 while filming was underway at the Library of Congress in Washington, DC. He said they simply acted like they were supposed to be there and walked down the hallways, right past the signs and the security guards all the way to the set underneath the grand dome of the library. Then as quickly as they arrived, and feeling out of place, they decided it was only a matter of time before being discovered and decided to try and figure out how they were going to get out without being noticed. About that time the film’s stars, Nicholas Cage and Diane Kruger, rounded the corner headed for the exit and Bob and his friend simply fell right in behind them as a part of their entourage and walked right out the front door of the building and back to their car.He tells that story to illustrate how we sometimes find ourselves in places and wonder how we ever got an invitation to be there in the first place. He goes on to remind us of how that, when it comes to the family of God, many of us feel like and act like bouncers instead of ushers. Of how we are often seemingly at the door filtering who gets in, instead of ushering folks to a seat with their name on it that has already been paid for.Living a Contagious life and creating a lifestyle and culture of invitation instead of filtration is often really as simple as loving well. Last week’s look at the “what” in the Great Commission naturally leads us to this Sunday’s look at the “how” of the Great Commandment. And the how couldn’t be simpler... love God... love people. Join us on Sunday as we chase down the “hows” in loving well.Come and see.

A contagious life is about a process....that begins with authoritythat is intentionalthat is organic that is an investmentWill anyone be 'there' because of me?Staying is far more comfortable than going!What needs to change in my life to foster a world-view/culture of invitation ?

Easter SundayResurrected ThingsThe Value of....a resurrected promisea resurrected trutha resurrected storyGo back and find the things that need to be resurrected in you!Pick up God's Word.

The Cross- A Reclamation ProjectA Reclamation that......rights the wrongsCol.1: 19-20cleanses from the inside out Hebrews 9: 12-14redeems the unredeemable1 Peter 1: 18-21offers hopeActs 2:22-24Does your visit to the cross cause you to rejoice or retreat?