Derek and Patti are members of Grace Bible Kapolei. Watch their incredible story of clinging to faith in Jesus when faced with seemingly impossible circumstances.
more about “Derek and Patti: A Living Hope“, posted with vodpod
April 7, 2009
Life’s measure
Every few months I measure the height of my three boys. I do it the old school way. No fancy tools or cartoon wall charts. I make them stand ramrod straight against the door jamb of my office with a book on their heads and note their height with a pencil. Then we stand back and ooooh and ahhhhh at how much they’ve grown. They are growing fast.
Have you ever thought about how much we humans measure things? We measure our health, finances, time, distance, each other, etc. I once measured the distance from my house to the nearest Starbucks (.5 miles). I think it’s natural to measure things. Measuring helps us appraise our surroundings and gives us a sense of meaning and order. Measuring marks progress and directs decisions and next-steps.
An old carpentry adage is, “measure twice, cut once.” That is, make sure you measure correctly so you don’t waste time and materials. Ever find yourself running late only to discover that your watch is 15 minutes slow? Again, it’s important to measure correctly.
Jesus tells us to measure our lives correctly: “Real life is not measured by how much we own.” (Lk. 12:15, NLT) Measuring life by how much we own is taking wrong measuremets. It doesn’t give us an accurate appraisal of how we’re living. Instead, Jesus says life is measured by how rich our relationship with God is and not how rich our pocketbooks are. Imagine how different our lives would look. The grip of acquisition and accumulation would loosen and living for what matters and what’s eternal would grip us. Let’s measure our lives correctly
April 4, 2009
Church-planterpreneur
Just a quick thought on church planting. It takes a certain amount of entrepreneurial characteristics to start a church:
- Self-starter: Nobody’s going to do it for you. It takes initiative and self-management. There’s a certain appeal to being your own boss, but it can be a person’s downfall if they don’t know how to work without supervision.
- Risk-taker: You have to be o.k. with failure. If not, you’ll never try things, you’ll never risk it. One of my favorite quotes is, “playing it safe is risky.” Failure is a necessary component to success.
- Vision implementer: Everyone can dream. Dreams are good. But can you implement the dream and vision God’s given you? Can you rally people around the vision? Can you put a plan and a strategy together? Can you recruit others? Talking the vision builds excitement, doing the vision builds credibility. Credibility sustains the vision when the excitement fades.
- Starter-manager: Most church planters like the start; it’s exciting, new, fresh, fun…like a honeymoon. But all honeymoons end. For a church planter the honeymoon ends when he/she realizes there’s an organization to manage. You gotta do both, especially in the early years. As the church grows, a lot of the management stuff can be delegated to staff, but in the beginning, it’s just you. However, management is part of life and there’s no way to fully delegate it.
- Self-feeder: It’s crucial you stay inspired, but no one will spoon-feed you inspiration. You need to go out and feed yourself. Conferences and books are important to inspiration. Even further, read blogs and listen to podcasts. Don’t have an ipod? Go get one now…do it! Network with other church planters. Make friends with them and hear their stories.
- Not an exhaustive list, but just some things I’ve been thinking about.
April 2, 2009
Lighthouse
I always liked the image of a lighthouse in a storm. I have this same picture hanging in my office. I always think of God as the lighthouse standing firm, giving guidance, direction, and security.
I’m pretty sure that David – king and psalmist – didn’t have a clue about lighthouses. But his words in Ps. 18:10 say it so well:
“The name of the Lord is a strong tower; the righteouss run to it and are safe.”
It’s truth that all that we take security in will come to an end one day. The kingdoms of this world will fall. But Jesus stands, and will stand in that day. He is our rock, fortress, strong tower.
April 1, 2009
Radical
Radical = departure from the usual or traditional.
This Sunday is the final message of the “Aikea” series. You can listen to the previous messages here.
The message is titled, “Aikea…so I’m radical”. First, radical does not mean piercings, tatoos, or wearing Ed Hardy clothing. Being radical is not about how we look on the outside. For the Christ-follower, being radical is exactly that: following Christ. Ephesians says we are to be imitators of Christ, and since Jesus lived a radical life, so should we. Jesus’ life was a departure from the usual and traditional; he was radical.
Jesus overturned every traditional notion about relationships, religion, God, money, prosperity, success, social order, leadership, poverty, medicine, prayer, love, etc. When you read about his life in the Gospels, Jesus constantly confused and upset people because of his radical behavior. Even his own family was mad at him. His own disciples were often confused and probably thought Jesus was off his rocker.
But why? Why did Jesus live this way? Was it because Jesus was a political revolutionary, or community organizer rallying people to fight the power? Or maybe Jesus was on a power trip, or mabe a mushroom trip? And what’s even more concerning is Jesus calls us to live the same way.
The answer is found in this phrase that Jesus repeated constantly throughout his recorded life: “The Kingdom of God is near.” You see, Jesus’ purpose on Earth wasn’t to introduce nice teachings, make people happy and successful, and give them a one-way ticket to Heaven. Jesus came to introduce a whole new kingdom, a whole new order that touched every part of humanity. He introduced the kingdom of God that is a radical departure from the kingdom of this world. He showed what it meant to be a citizen of God’s kingdom, and how while one could exist in both kingdoms one could not be a part of both – no duel citizenship.
Completely upside down. Jesus upset the order of this world’s kingdom, blew people’s minds, and challenged their traditions. He was radical because he modeled what it meant to be a citizen of God’s kingdom. So it follows that as followers of Christ we are also part of God’s kingdom, which means we can’t help being radical people.
When we change our citizenship to God’s kingdom he begins to change our thinking. We’re no long conformed to the usual thinking of this world, but our minds are being changed and reset to original programming.
One way our thinking is changed is how we think about death. Typically, death is something we don’t think about because we fear it. But for the Christ follower, death is simply a indicator that time has ended. It’s the period at the end of our earthly life, but it doesn’t mean life has ended. Death is the transition from a life governed by time to a life without time (eternity).
However, it doesn’t mean that Christians just sit around waiting for death. Though ours is an eternal kingdom, there’s still something to do in the temporal. Jesus constantly predicted his death, yet he lived with misson and purpose with the time he had. Living radical means asking yourself what you’ll do with the limited time you have on earth. And I don’t think the answer lies in do-goodism. I think what we do must have eternal ramifications; that is, the ministry of reconciliation is in the fabric of what we do. That thing we do must point others to Jesus. The point is, we need to get busy praying about and acting on what God is asking us to do.
March 30, 2009
Dollar-Cost Averaging
My dad taught me the investment strategy of dollar-cost averaging (DCA). In a nutshell, DCA means investment into the market at regular intervals no matter if the market is high, low, or flat. The idea is you will buy more shares at a lower price than at a higher price, lowering your risk exposure. It’s a sound investment strategy but it takes consistency and a long-term view of investing.
I think DCA applies to life too. I need to make regular investments into my marriage, my kids, my health, and my relationship with Jesus. Too often we wait for a crisis before we work on the things that matter. We’ll wait for a health scare before we adjust our diets, or we wait until our marriages stall out or blow up before we put any effort into them.
The good news is we can do something today in order to ensure a sustainable and healthy tomorrow. Small but regular investments into our relationships, health, skills, and spiritual life may seem insignificant at the moment, but these small investments add up over time. The key is to do something TODAY.
The bible says to “plant good seeds of righteousness”. A farmer never expects a harvest without investing his seed into the ground. Let’s plant seeds of righteousness so that we reap a good harvest that has eternal remifications and rewards.
March 28, 2009
conflict
I’ve been learning some big lessons about dealing with conflict. Conflict is inevitable because we’re human, but we deal with conflict so poorly – especially in the church. Here are some things I’ve been learning about conflict and forgiveness.
- Confront the situation immediately. The bible says go immediately to your brother when there’s an offense. It’s the principle of “closing the gap”. Too often we let too much time pass, we tell everyone else the situation, and we never lovingly confront the person.
- Always look to summarize and encapsulate what the other person is saying. “So what I hear you saying is this…”, “Let me repeat what I’m hearing you say…”. This way the issue becomes crystal clear and isn’t muddied.
- Don’t use the word “if” when apologizing: “If I offended you…”, “If I made you mad…”. “If” communicates that you’re not identifying with the hurt you’ve caused and comes across disingenuous. Only celebrities and politicians use “if”.
- When mediating conflict, don’t be afraid to control the flow and the tone of the meeting. Use pauses, allow people to respond, give people time to speak without allowing them to go on and on. That is, be an active participant not passive.
- Don’t be afraid of emotions, yet don’t let emotions drive the conversation.
- Put yourself into the other person’s shoes. Try to see things from their perspective.
- Forgiveness is a journey. The deeper the hurt the longer the journey.
- Above all, let grace rule the day.
- “Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you.” (Eph. 4:32)
March 23, 2009
Thrive
We begin a new series on Easter called Thrive. This series focuses on how God uses life’s downturns and recessions to show us what it truly means to live. In fact, a life given to God can actually thrive despite poor or difficult circumstances. It’s amazing to read the bible and see how God’s people experienced incredible miracles, a deeper meaning to life, and a greater sense of purpose even when all the odds were against them.
On Easter (April 12), we kick-off this series with a message titled, “Against all Odds”. The resurrection of Jesus beat the odds. If I were a betting man I would have bet against Jesus rising from the dead. BUT HE DID! The tomb is empty and Jesus is alive. Did you know that when the odds are against you that it’s a good thing? Yup, and here’s why. It’s through unfavorable odds that Jesus wants to resurrect trust, humility, worship, and faith in your life.
Often, our trust and faith in Jesus can get buried under the avalanche of life’s difficulties. And odds are it’ll get worse. The good news is that Jesus uses these tough times to resurrect our trust in him, and it’s when we truly need Jesus that we truly thrive.
At the service on Easter we’re going to tell an incredible story of a couple who came through some difficult odds through the faithfulness and power of Jesus. You don’t want to miss it! Start inviting friends and loved ones.
Let’s THRIVE!
March 22, 2009
Proud
I am so proud of Grace Bible Kapolei! Today was our Compassion Sunday. That means that individuals and families rose to the occasion and sponsored a child through Compassion International. For about a dollar a day these children will be rescued from the vicious cycle of poverty. They will receive medical care, an education, and most of all, they will meet Jesus. We had 39 children available for sponsorship and 28 were sponsored! Oh, man! 28 kids now have a great shot at a hope and a future. I’m so proud of the church rising up and living open-handed lives, understanding that what they do matters, and that Jesus magnifies their faith to make a difference. Way to go, GBCK!
