The Week In Brief(s) (7/5/09)

Every Sunday I'm sharing a recap on some of what happened that week. It will be quick (in brief) and I'll write in my underwear (in briefs). Here ya go:

1. Continued the search for a possible leasing 24/7 space.

2. Went and looked at a possible rental location in place of, or as a backup for, the Rave Theater. This place would be awesome, except that there's no space for Children's Ministry.

3. Updated our web page a little.

4. I was asked (and I agreed) to speak at Revolution Church Canton, Georgia on July 19. They were one of the first churches to commit to supporting us. Excited to hang with them.

5. Finally finished writing our Creative Arts Strategy & System. It's up around 40 pages. I hope this is worth it!

6. Speaking of systems, got some help with some systems stuff from Michael Lukaszewski. That dude is a good thinker!

7. Got the FREE update to for my iPhone. Sweet!

8. Youth Works, which is a youth mission trip deal, is having the 40 to 70 teenagers they have in Vegas every week of the summer do a prayer journey for us on Tuesday nights. I've been going out on Tuesdays to teach them about ministry in Vegas, cast the vision for what we're doing, and direct their prayers.

9. We had our first "official" Verve staff meeting.

10. Because of the peculiarities of Vegas, and especially working on the Strip, I've known that how we'd do church would need to be (at least) a little different. So I've been researching, praying, and consulting with people like crazy to figure it out. Finally I think the vision for what this church will look like is starting to come into focus in my mind. And yes, it is going to be different. I'll share more in the near future...


TO PRAY ABOUT THIS WEEK:

1. As the vision continues to develop (see #10 above), please pray that God totally guides us so this church ends up what He wants it to be.

2. Pray that we find a perfect place for our services and, if it's God's will, that it will be a space we can lease and have all the time.

3. Please pray our people to develop lots of great relationships with their neighbors, co-workers, etc. We want to have lots of people to invite when we start having services!

The Great Outdoors

For a few weeks I've been getting up extra early ... and heading outside. I've been doing part of my quiet time in the backyard. (By the way, someday I hope to meet the guy who invented the term "quiet time" and beat the snot out of him. I don't know why, but I don't like that term.)

Anyway, I digress.

I am proposing that you consider doing your "quiet time" bright and early, and outside. Why, you ask? You'll find out tomorrow morning when you do it. But you don't want to get up that early, you complain? Tell it to the birds tomorrow morning, when you do it.

Negativity

The thing that struck me in today's reading (Proverbs 17) is how negative it is to be negative. It really made me think about my negativity. Several examples of the negativity of being negative are given in this chapter. Like:

- Mocking other people. (It might be serious and outright offensive, or it could be "all in good fun" but either way it's negative and breaks others down instead of building them up.)
- Taking joy in the pain of others. (Maybe there's a perverse little piece of your heart that gets excited when you hear about something bad that's happened to another person. Or perhaps you enjoy being the bearer of bad news.)
- Telling people about how someone offended you. (You have a lot of sentences that start out, "You're not gonna believe what ______ did...")
- Starting quarrels or loving to debate. (Maybe you get an adrenaline rush from verbal sparring. Or you're just interested in "the truth" and if that means you get in a lot of debates, so be it, the truth is worth it.)

The ironic thing is that I think we'd all say, "I prefer to be around positive people?" but we have to ask ourselves the question, "Am I a positive person?" Are you? Are you positive you're positive?

Tomorrow, More of the Same

One thing about Vegas is that the temperatures are consistent. I just copied the three day forecast, here it is:

Sat

106

Sun

106°

Mon

106°

Ideas 4 Your 4th

Happy Independence Day, yada, yada. Enjoy your frankfurter and fireworks, blah, blah, blah.

But here's two better ideas:

(1) How can you use this day to celebrate the freedom you have been given in Christ? Seriously, how? Maybe go off by yourself for two hours and have a one person worship concert? Maybe sneak away and write a psalm of your own?

(2) Since people are extra neighborly today anyway, how can you use this day to draw close to someone who is far from God? Maybe call your church small group, let them know you won't be going to the cookout, go over to some neighbors, ask them to come over for dinner, go to the store, buy some good food, cook it up, then have a blast building relationships with people who need to experience the independence you have in Jesus, which they don't yet know about...

There you go. And, by the way, those two suggestions are better than anything you're gonna get from Martha Stewart or Bobby Flay.

Begging and Bartering

Through our interactions with other people, our experience of perfect, unconditional love is, well, I think pretty non-existent. People don't give that kind of love. And it's probably our lack of experience with it, that makes it so hard to believe that God really loves us perfectly and unconditionally.

In today's reading (Psalm 71, 72) we see this. In Psalm 71, there's begging, "Please, God, don't stop loving me when I'm old and gray." And throughout Psalm 72, Solomon is bartering with God, basically a, "You should give me a lot of king power, and if you do, here's what I'll do for You."

But God doesn't stop loving us when we stop being useful to Him. And we don't have to offer anything to God for Him to offer us His love. His love is perfect, it's unconditional, and there are no strings attached.

Now if I can just get myself to remember that...

Live from Las Vegas

Have you seen this yet? I guess it's been shown on CNN and MSNBC...