In 1 Samuel 15:22, Samuel is speaking about obedience and following God. In the passage he says that to obey God is better than any amount of sacrifice we could give to God. The passage reminds us that God is looking in us for a clean heart. He’s looking for men and women that will be obedient to His call on their lives. He’s looking for those who will put follow Him. 

That doesn’t mean that obey Him will mean you won’t have to make sacrifices…

About 8 months ago now, my wife Kristin and I began to feeling like God was leading us in a new direction with where we were serving in ministry. We began to feel that God was leading us away from Thomas Road Baptist Church.

When I first felt the Spirit leading this on my heart I got confused and angry. I love my job. I love doing ministry at Thomas Road, especially my ministry with middle school students in PowerSource. I love working with the team of staff and volunteers that I lead with. They are my family. Kristin and I have so many life long friends when we walk into the PowerSource room every Sunday. There are so many there that are near to our hearts. They have walked with us through thick and thin. 

So why would God move us? 

Somewhere in the middle of all this Kristin became pregnant with our baby girl Rylee Kate. This was an awesome time in our lives. God was getting ready to make some major changes. 

In a bit of retaliation (maybe not a smart move on my end) I told God that I wasn’t going to go looking for anything. (again me telling God to do things maybe not the best idea). I wasn’t going to put my resumé out online or anything like that. If God wanted us to move He was going to have to bring it to me. 

Immediately God began to bring opportunities my way. He began to open doors through praying friends and mentors. He began to shape our hearts for what He wanted us to do. 

I had asked my friend Jordan to be praying for me about where God was leading us. And shortly after he drew my attention to a church in Dover, Ohio called New Pointe Community Church that he believed I would be a good fit for. Kristin and I began to pray about the position. After praying and feeling God’s leading, we submitted the application for a worship pastor position at the church.

After applying for the position Kristin was talking to her sister Kelsey and we realized that she was a member of that church and sang on the worship team! To us this was a major confirmation from God that we were doing the right thing. One of my biggest concerns with moving would be leaving the friends and family we had built around us in Lynchburg. This helped to confirm that God was in control and He knew what was up ahead. All things were in His hands. 

The interview process began shortly after that with some phone calls and a Skype video chat with their creative teams. At the end of the Skype interview Dave D’Angelo, one of the pastors at New Pointe, prayed that God would place my hands where they would have the most impact for His kingdom. Whether that was at New Pointe or in Lynchburg, or California, or across the world. Kristin and I began to pray this same prayer together. That God would place us where we would have the most impact for Him. 

Soon they asked Kristin and I to come visit their campuses and lead worship for them.

Kristin and I immediately felt at home there. We met the people who served and ministered at New Pointe and got to know their mission to love God and love people. We heard their heart and vision to reach the people of north east Ohio with the love and message of Jesus. We began to truly feel like this is where God was leading us to serve in His kingdom. 

Shortly after the interview process, I received a call from Dave D’Angelo, who offered me the job. Kristin and I prayed some more and felt God leading us to accept the positon. And we did. 

While we are both excited and believe we are 100% follow the will of God for our lives we are both a bit scared and nervous. Being obedient and following Jesus means that we have to sacrifice some things. It means we have to leave PowerSource and the family that we have here. It means selling our home. It means uprooting from what we know and moving to a new place. It means longing hearts and tearful “see you laters”. 

While I understand I’m stretching the context of 1 Samuel 15:22 a bit here I believe that obeying God in this move, in this change will be far better than the sacrifices we have to make in order to be obedient. The issue is still worship. For Samuel it mean that obeying God (true worship) was better than meaningless sacrifices and prayers (false showy worship). For Kristin and I it means that this is going to be hard, but we believe, Jeremiah 29:11, that God has a plan and purpose for our lives. A plan to prosper us and not to harm us. A plan with hope and a good future. 

Even though we believe that…
This is honestly the hardest thing I have ever done in my entire life. 

Yet in my longing to follow Jesus and serve Him I have to be obedient. 
That’s my prayer for all of us. For all of us who follow Jesus.
It’s my prayer that we would always strive to be obedient to His call on our lives.

We always have a choice to make. My prayer is that: 

When it’s hard, follow Jesus.  
When it hurts, follow Jesus.  
When it means tears, follow Jesus.  
When it’s easy, follow Jesus.  
When your friends don’t, follow Jesus.  
If your church doesn’t, follow Jesus.  
When your life is going great, follow Jesus.  
When your life is falling apart, follow Jesus.  

When it means leaving your friends and family and moving to a new state… 
follow Jesus.  

So we’re following Him.

Here’s how you can pray for us:  
Pray that our house sells quickly.
Pray that our move goes well.
Pray that Rylee continues to grow safely.
Pray for Kristin and I as we adjust to a new state and a new place in ministry.
Pray for PowerSource and they move forward into a new era.
Pray for the new friends we’ll make.
Pray for the life long friends that it’s killing us to leave.
Pray that we will have the most impact possible for the kingdom of God in Ohio.

Practically, we need help packing boxes and moving. 
We need your support and love even after we move to Ohio.
We are all the body of Christ.
We are the Kingdom of God regardless of distance.
We need your strength and prayers to help us through. 

This time in Lynchburg, at PowerSource/Thomas Road has been one of the sweetest seasons of my life. It’s very hard to leave, but the rewards of obedience are far better than the pain of the sacrifices made.  

To all of our friends and family in Lynchburg, we love you and will miss you. 
To all of our friends and family in Ohio we’ve yet to meet, we are praying for you already and can’t wait to follow Jesus with you.

Love God. Love People.
- Micah 

Starting about 8 weeks ago, almost every Sunday I’ve been up in this room at the Wingate Hotel in Lynchburg, VA. I come up here as part of a 50 Days of Unbroken Prayer campaign to pray.
I checked in this morning and no one had been here since 2pm yesterday. It was the same thing the last time I came through. When I see that i get discouraged. I get discouraged about Christ-followers who don’t understand or care about the power of prayer. I feel saddened for this generation of Christ-followers who care only for a ticket out of Hell and nothing of a lifestyle of worshipping Jesus.

I think of Isaiah 65:65-7 “On your walls, O Jerusalem, I have appointed your watchmen; all day and all night they will never keep silent you who remind the LORD, take no rest for yourselves; and give Him no rest until He establishes and makes Jerusalmen a praise in the earth.”

Where are the watchmen?
Where are those willing to pray day and night for their cities and towns in order for them to become a “praise in the earth” for th name of Jesus?
We are a wicked and selfish people.
We need a lesson in love management because when I look around I see that many of us only love ourselves.
Where are the Christ-followers who actually follow Jesus?
The ones who are uncompromising?

Do I fall into this category of Christ-follower?
Can someone look at my heart and, instead of selfish gain, see Jesus?

If Darwin Prayed by Bruce Sanguin was not at all what I expected. When I first requested the book to review I thought it might be a biographical text on Darwin’s struggle with his theories and how he believed they would in effect “kill God” or at least His role in the creation of the earth. Darwin’s Origin Of Species is a book that changed the face of science for many in the modern world. It’s impossible to escape middle school without being taught the theory of evolution and how the earth came to be. No, If Darwin Prayed is not about the history of evolution or a biographical piece on Darwin. It’s actually a book for corporate worship. 

Now what does Darwin have to do with worship? Well, this book is written from the perspective of a Theistic Evolutionist. This is a person who believes that God used evolution to create the world. Some would take this view to the extreme of saying that God started the evolutionary process then walked away leaving us to ourselves. This is not the perspective the book takes. It views God as the “Ultimate Source”. The start of all things, and that we have attributed “God” as a name to this “Ultimate Source”.

The book is filled with prayers, many of which follow along the Catholic Church’s Liturgical Year. These prayers have been altered and changed so that they attribute worship and thanks to God for being the one who began the evolutionary process. 

I disagree with the views presented in this book as I believe the scientific evidence support a creation theory much better than it does an evolutionary theory. I believe that when, in the Genesis account, the Bible reads that God spoke the world into existence - that is what occurred. 

I do think the approach of a worship book geared toward this type of thinking is interesting.

It’s definitely a stretch to read. I like being stretched. I disagree with the author’s conclusions, but I can appreciate the work he took to come to them. 

Proceed with caution in reading this book.  

Here’s a bit of the author’s view on Evolutionary Mysticism: 

Well I’m awake so I may as well do something productive.
How can I pray for you?
Hashtag your requests with #TCCPrayerTweet.

Where: My Office, Lynchburg, Virginia.
Coffee: Starbucks Pike’s Place Roast
Listening To: Vitamin String Quartet (Various Tribute Tracks) 

Pray.
Father, guide me now. Speak to my heart.

Read.
When Jesus had spoken these words, he lifted up his eyes to heaven, and said, “Father, the hour has come; glorify your Son that the Son may glorify you, since you have given him authority over all flesh, to give eternal life to all whom you have given him. And this is eternal life, that they know you the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent. I glorified you on earth, having accomplished the work that you gave me to do. And now, Father, glorify me in your own presence with the glory that I had with you before the world existed. 

“I have manifested your name to the people whom you gave me out of the world. Yours they were, and you gave them to me, and they have kept your word. Now they know that everything that you have given me is from you. For I have given them the words that you gave me, and they have received them and have come to know in truth that I came from you; and they have believed that you sent me. I am praying for them. I am not praying for the world but for those whom you have given me, for they are yours. All mine are yours, and yours are mine, and I am glorified in them. And I am no longer in the world, but they are in the world, and I am coming to you. Holy Father, keep them in your name, which you have given me, that they may be one, even as we are one. While I was with them, I kept them in your name, which you have given me. I have guarded them, and not one of them has been lost except the son of destruction, that the Scripture might be fulfilled. But now I am coming to you, and these things I speak in the world, that they may have my joy fulfilled in themselves. I have given them your word, and the world has hated them because they are not of the world, just as I am not of the world. I do not ask that you take them out of the world, but that you keep them from the evil one. They are not of the world, just as I am not of the world. Sanctify them in the truth; your word is truth. As you sent me into the world, so I have sent them into the world. And for their sake I consecrate myself, that they also may be sanctified in truth. 

“I do not ask for these only, but also for those who will believe in me through their word, that they may all be one, just as you, Father, are in me, and I in you, that they also may be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me. The glory that you have given me I have given to them, that they may be one even as we are one, I in them and you in me, that they may become perfectly one, so that the world may know that you sent me and loved them even as you loved me. Father, I desire that they also, whom you have given me, may be with me where I am, to see my glory that you have given me because you loved me before the foundation of the world. O righteous Father, even though the world does not know you, I know you, and these know that you have sent me. I made known to them your name, and I will continue to make it known, that the love with which you have loved me may be in them, and I in them.” 

(John 17 ESV)

Think.
……………………………

Write.
You know… I love it when I read this passage and realize that Jesus is praying for me. Specifically in verse 20 He begins praying for those who will “believe in me through their word.” Their, in this moment are the current followers of Jesus who will spread His truth to the world through their testimony. I’m a result of that. Jesus was praying for me. He was praying that God would keep me from the evil one and that God would sanctify me in the truth of His word. Jesus was praying for me then… before walking to the cross. He was praying for me. He was praying for all of us who would come to know Him as our Savior and Lord. I love that.

Do.
Jesus is praying for those who would come to know Him through the word, or testimony, of His other followers. When is the last time I shared that love with someone around me during the day? I need to learn to more often and more openly share my story. If I’m more vocal on my blog about Jesus than I am in real life something is wrong.

Share your story.

I have the unique privilege to sit under the teaching this afternoon at the “Power 2 Change Weekend Conference” at Thomas Road Baptist Church. I first heard about Alistair on a burned CD a friend of mine gave me in a stack mixed in with techno remixes. The messages on that disc were about following Jesus more closely than I had ever heard before. I remember he spoke with such passion for Jesus and hope for tomorrow that immediately I needed to hear more from this man. Not because of this man, but because of how he spoke of my Savior. I subscribed to his podcast and listened as I opened my Bible and began to read more. At that point in my life God used this man of God to teach me much about him. 

I’m excited to hear and see him in person finally today. As I was getting ready to come I started to think about Christian celebrity. I believe that Christian Celebrity is an oxymoron. It should be something we push against. The only celebrity we gain should be pushed away from us and focused on Jesus. 

We’re getting ready to eat (a major plus of having a luncheon) and we’ve had an “introductory” speaker speaking for roughly 15-20 minutes now. Not sure he knows what “introductory” means. I have to leave in an hour… hoping I have time to actually hear Alistair. 

Just ate some amazing lunch with some awesome new friends from C3 Church in North Carolina. Alistair is now speaking. There seems to be a sort of awe that has entered the room. Here we go. 

————————————————————————————————

I’m committed to being a hip pastor: 

Being hip has nothing to to with the type of clothes you wear or if your church has 2 services or screens or an rock n roll band. Here’s what a hip pastor is: 

H - Humility (Is 66:2)
We can take the office seriously without taking ourselves seriously. 

“Humilty has nothing to do with depreciating our selves and our gifts in way we know to be untrue.” - David Welch

Humility is the soil in which all the other graces grow. Grace does not change our personalities. 

Most of the collapses I’ve seen since I’ve lived in America have been because of pride. 
King Uziah > Leprosy > Pride > Destruction

The biggest need that a congregation has in it’s pastor is the pastor’s own personal godliness.

What a person is on her knees before God is all that they are. 

I - Integrity (2 Kings 5)
Watch your life and doctrine closely. 
Loss of integrity ends in leprosy separated from the community.  
God may have given some of us cancer, or hardship because we have a “fat-had”
2 Corinthians 12 - Keep me from becoming conceited.
How obnoxious would we be without our thorns.  

“When you think you’re something stop because your not. When you realize you’re nothing there’s a chance you could be come something. But until you realize that there is not chance because the way to up is down.”

Flattery is like perfume: sniff it don’t swallow it.

P -Purity
This one is enough to get all the guys wiggling in their seats. 
Are you going down the David route or are you going down the Joseph route? 
You can build a reputation for 30 years and blow it out in 35 seconds. 

—————————————————————————————————-

I had to leave the session early because it got started late. 
Much truth to soak in from here today.
I hope it’s encouraged you as it’s encouraged me. 

hcolin:

Within the hour, (It’s 11:15 am, Friday, January 7), the father of a good friend of mine was found unconscious and not breathing. He has had high fever from the flu and from what I know, his fever jumped. He is being rushed to the ER as I am typing this. I don’t know many details but all I am asking is for you to pray for this family. The father is the main support this family has and a God fearing man. Please pray for a miracle, for lack of a better word. Reblog this as well so others can pray. I know how the internet can help spread this around.

Thankyou so much,

Colin

Today was a hard day. 
There was a lot going on.
Lots of fiery darts coming my way.
Lots of fiery darts coming my wife’s way.
Lots of hard conversations.

I spent a lot of time on my knees today. 
A lot of time praying. 
A lot…..of…..time…..praying…..

And you know what…
God completely came through.
He’s been there all day, in little ways.
In ways I didn’t expect.  
I’m so glad that He’s there when I need Him.

We are designed to make connections to God through prayer in more ways than we can imagine.

Prayer can be so much more than a simple conversation. It can be a wordless connection with God, a step beyond the boundary of the separated self. It can be a way to listen to the silence. And it can be learned. We can learn how to pray in ways we never thought possible. It doesn’t take more effort; it takes more understanding.

Wilson’s book shows how the brain is designed by God

To calm itself To relax into love To become increasingly aware of how connected everything is in God To experience a deeper intimacy with our creator Prayer is something that our brains want to do and can do with a little help. Ken Wilson tells us how.

“Mystically Wired” is a book about prayer written in a way I didn’t expect. Ken Wilson examines the scientific effects of prayer on the human body while also showing how that connects on the spiritual/mystical realm. Ken’s writing comes from a more charismatic mindset than I’m used to, but that is not to discredit his writing. The book is written very well, Ken has done his research and put in the hours of personal prayer experience.

As far as breakdown I didn’t really get into the book until the later chapters of the book. Ken splits the book into two parts. The first half is filled with introduction to prayer and personal stories of Ken’s experiences. The second half dives into more of the “how-to” selections. My only complaint is that much of the book is about what prayer can do for you or what prayer does to you. “YOU” being the main focus as opposed to “GOD” being the main focus. While I understand that this is an assumed thought it’s just not verbalized very well. 

Overall it’s a good book on prayer that is a great starting point for anyone wanting to stretch their prayer life. 

Lord we are forever indebted to Your love.
Without You we are lost
Please take these offerings we’re lifting up to You: as Your people for Your city
You are our only hope
God, draw us back to Your heart
Cleanse our hearts of our sin
Give us rest in Your strength
Through these praying hearts move in a love that is so confusing and clear,
That it could only be Yours
Capture our hearts once more for You.