The Vines of our lives

This past Saturday, my boys and I cut and cleared some old fallen and partially fallen trees in the “natural area” behind our house.  As we were cutting and moving old trees, we found that there were a lot of “vines” of some sort that had grown some 40-60 feet above the ground and had intertwined themselves into the branches in the trees.  In fact, some vines had moved from one tree to others, and much of the tree top canopy was not made up of tree branches and their leaves, but rather twisty vines and their leaves,

As we tried to pull the vines down, we noticed how difficult it was to get all the vines down (sometimes two of us were hanging from the vines and still couldn’t get them down).  We also noticed the vines were choking out much of the new growth in the trees, and in some trees, were actually holding up broken branches that had been dead for many months, yet hadn’t fallen to the ground because of the thick vines keeping the dead branches suspended in the air by their web-like strength. 

It was in the midst of this “father-son” activity that I realized how much “sin” in our lives had in common with the vines in our backyard.  

1)Over time, sin grows from its one root, to spread into our lives, choking out our personal growth.

2)   The end of the vines are usually very far reaching from the root, but they are still connected; so to is the sin in our lives…the longer it is allowed to continue, there is no limit to where it can go (even jumping from one person to another…just like the vine jumped from one tree to another.

3)   Some vines could be removed with little or no help…but the largest, difficult, and most intertwined (complex) vines had to be taken out with the help of others…so it is with the sins in our lives

Once the vines were removed, the whole backyard looked better.  Sunlight began to shine through the tree top canopy to the ground and surrounding areas that hadn’t seen sun in a long time.  I am sure that we can look forward to stronger trees and new vegetation in our small backyard paradise. 

I think the same is true when we seek God’s forgiveness of our sins and allow Jesus to remove our sins.  Once removed, God’s light can shine through to allow for new growth to happen in our lives, making for a stronger and beautiful human being. 

Hey, I know what, lets help each other out…in fact, LET’S DO LIFE TOGTHER

 

Don't Even Think About It!

I saw this sign the other day and was blown away.    I laughed at first and then thought, “How witty, someone is making a point about parking here and that sign is going to get everyone’s attention…and it will probably ‘tick’ somebody off”

 

Then I thought about a church I once attended.  There were members there who would have loved to have a sign like this put in their pew that would read in big, red letters, “don’t even think about sitting in my seat”.    And do you know what, they wouldn’t CARE if they ticked someone off in the process.  As long as they had their seat, in their spot, on their pew they could “worship God” freely (I guess they were taught that God takes attendance for worship services by seating assignments, and if you are not in your assigned seat…the right seat, God may count you as absent that day)

 

 

I’m excited and encouraged when I see people at LifeSpring… slide over, and give someone their seat at our worship service.  It’s like they’re saying, “Don’t even think of sitting somewhere else!!! Here you go, take my seat right here so you can see better, I’ve already got it warmed up for you.“

 

You know, that’s one of the small sacrificial things we need to be doing in the world today to “get everyone’s attention” so people will feel welcomed.  Why don’t you try offering your seat to someone and see what happens…

 

Let’s do life together 

It's More than Bread and Juice

What a phenomenal worship service we shared at LifeSpring this past Easter Sunday.  It was the first Easter service in the history of LifeSpring and special to all who attended.  Especially when we all shared in Holy Communion (the Lord’s Supper) for the first time as a worshiping community.

A seminary professor of mine named Robert “Bob” Tuttle once told us that when we serve communion to others that it is a “slam dunk for the Holy Spirit’s presences”.   And you know what…HE WAS RIGHT.

 

Person after person who came up and received the bread and juice (representing the body and blood of Jesus) with anticipation, expectations, fears, doubts, hopes, hurts, disappointments, or whatever baggage or dreams they may have had, encountered the Spirit of God, and were different when they returned to their seats. 

 

The prayer I was taught as a young boy for meals that has stuck with me (and probably you too) for what seems all my life took on a stronger meaning this Easter

 “God is great, God is good, let us thank him for our food.  By his hands, we are fed, give us Lord our daily bread”

 It was a great and good God who provided for the “bread of life” that would supply our needs daily.  Jesus, from the small town of Bethlehem (also known as the “house of bread”) became the bread from God’s hand to fed us. 

 

I hope you had a meaningful Easter this year, and feel as though you are ready to take on the world…because that is where Jesus’ new disciples are called to serve, so let’s get busy. 

 

Won’t you join us? 

 Let’s do life together!

Visit to the past puts me back on track

Sorry for not posting earlier this week.  With the death of my grandmother and a 3 day trip to North Carolina for the funeral services, I decided that my blogging could take a back seat to being with family.  God was good to me and allowed for me to have some quality time with my mom, dad, and brother in the midst of our loss.  I also reconnected with 3 important people in my life, 2 in person, and 1 over the phone.  

I was able to reconnect to one of my best friends in high school, Keith Anderson.  We have kept up with each other over the years, mostly through our moms. In fact, he is a teacher at our old high school.  Talk about eery feelings, walking through those old hall ways took me back a lifetime.  Keith and I could only talk short time, but after all these years, we were able to look at each other and "truly" hear the other, remember our past hopes and dreams, and connect them to what God is doing in each of us today.   Having someone who can "truly" hear you and visa versa, is rare in this world today, but this was to be the norm for me on this trip.  

Earlier, on my way to NC, I got a call from Sandy Bennett, who was instrumental in guiding me in my first part-time (soon to turn full-time) ministry appointment.  It was during this call that we reconnected and reminded each other what great work that God had begun in each of us, God was sure to finish.  We encouraged each other to remain focused on doing what God had told us to do and not to deviate from that until God said different... no mater what.

Finally, the last important person I reconnected with during this trip was with my best friend (other than my wife Jodi) in college, Gina Guilliams (previously Gina Miller Keller).  We got caught up after I tracked her down after stopping for gas on the way back to Georgia (got low on fuel, pulled over for gas, she came to my mine, and BOOM, through the technology of Blackberry, Facebook, and my old electronic address book I was able to contact her in the time it took to fill up with gas) .  We also shared about our lives since we had last spoken (many years ago), and God's hand allowed us to hear, encourage, and celebrate what God had done and was doing in each of our lives, with the promise to each other that we would not let distance nor time keep us from saying connected in the future.  

On this trip I met some others who were very formative in my life... my old sunday school teacher, Midgie Dial, and our good family friends, Tommy & Doris Davidson, who all shared fond memories with me of our past, and reminded me that God's hand of guidance on my life has been there for many years.

I tell you all this because in each conversation with these people from various times in my life, I heard confirmation of God's speaking upon my life.  I looked into peoples faces, listened to their words, felt the emotion in their voices, as one after the other who I met on this journey, reminded me of 1) whose I am 2) and whom I serve.

It's easy to get off track in life today, caught up in the "stuff" of the world and then loose focus on what we should be doing, losing focus on God's Purpose for our life.  Sometimes a trip back home and reconnecting with loved ones who we haven't seen in a while is just the thing God is preparing for us to help us GET BACK ON TRACK...

In the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 5:4 , Jesus Says, 

Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted. 

I came home mourning....I return back to my wife and children in Georgia comforted, confirmed, and committed to God's Purpose for my life... Let's do life together!

What would you do?

Yesterday I sent a text out to some of my friends that I was in the Georgia Southern University Library working on my sermon.  The funny thing is that my friends were mostly GSU students who were somewhere on "SPRING BREAK 09".  I told them that later on that evening I was going to Walmart to hand out some literature about LifeSpring Church and invite random people to come to our worship service this Sunday (more info on this at www.lifespringeffect.com).  I asked my friends to tell me where they were and what they were doing.

In came the text telling me things from "I'm on the beach", "I'm at Lake Blackshear", "I'm finishing up my work to head to the beach", "I'm with my family" and so forth.  But then something strange happened.  I began to get WARNINGS from some of my friends and even got a phone call, telling me NOT TO GO TO WALMART! They said they had heard (through what ever sources they had) that there was going to be some gang activity at our Walmart including some shootings, and not to go, that it would be to dangerous.  I made some calls and had others that said they heard the same thing, and some said they didn't know anything about it.  

So, my question is, what would you do?  

Well, I went to Walmart with a friend of mine named Tracy.  I told him what I had heard and he was still ok with going.  We separated and went to each of the 2 main entrances, he at the grocery side, and I at the Garden center side.  As I began to hand out information and talk with people, I tried to be conscience of my surroundings, just making sure nothing suspicious was happening near me.  And then I noticed a couple of Statesboro police cars pull by me and part at the other end of Walmart.  A few minutes later there was two more cars, and then another, and I noticed one police car circling the parking lot.  Now my senses are HIGHTENED now.  6 police cars, DUDE, what's going on down there.  

After about 10 minutes, all the police cars pulled off an left.  I saw Tracy walking toward me and asked him had any thing happened.  He said no, but there were several managers looking at him strangely, making him feel uncomfortable for giving out our information about the church. So I walked into the store and approached the managers (4 of them) and told them who I and Tracy were and what we were doing (you know, we're a new church in Statesboro and we are handing out information about our church).  They were very polite and told me that the proper procedure was to contact the service desk and set a time to solicit, but they figured I didn't know about that.  I told them I didn't and said I wouldn't do it again without getting prior permission.  Then I showed them one of the text I had received about the potential "Gang" activity that was given me.  They said that it was a hoax.  That several times over the last couple of year that this same type thing happened in several parts of the United States today, and in fact had happened several times before with no reported incidents.  They said that people really took to heart what they heard and with the technology today, and the "false rumors" circulated faster than they could stop them.   

Now, why am I writing this. I met my wife later that night and over super she told me that she had overheard the same thing in the Belks store and the customers there were saying they weren't going near Walmart (which by the way, was only 300 yards or so from the Belks Store).  As I heard from her the fear that was in those talking about it, I thought to myself, "how many peoples actions were effected by what they 'believed' to be true"?  I mean, there were people who not only "talked" about not going to Walmart, they "warned" people, sometimes total strangers, NOT to go, and then didn't go themselves.  ALL BASED ON SOMETHING THEY HEARD AND BELIEVED TO BE TRUE, even if they had no proof. 

So, answer me this, why is it so HARD for people, (particularly FOLLOWERS OF JESUS CHRIST) to go out into this lost world and TELL and even WARN others, even total strangers, of what they BELIEVE to be true (Jesus is the the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.  If you really knew me {Jesus}, you would know my Father as well.  John 14:6 & 7).  

I guess it all depends on whether your belief is STRONG ENOUGH TO MOVE YOU TO ACTION...

Just one of those things that make you go "HUMMMMMMM"

Peace out

Dorsia