7:40am Great personal prayer time this morning.  God is renewing my view of His greatness.

7:55am Today’s Bible-reading notes:

• Deuteronomy 15:1-6 – I wonder if people would lend less if they had to forgive debts every seven years.  Interesting that God warns Israel not to borrow from other nations because it will make them servants to the other nations.  Sounds like an application of Proverbs 22:7.
• Deuteronomy 15:7-11 – Give generously to the poor and don’t be stingy with them.  Israel was to give freely because God had given freely to them.  How much more should we as Christians give based on what God has done for us in Christ?  (see 2 Corinthians 8:9)
• Deuteronomy 15:19-23 – Give best and first to God.
• Deuteronomy 16 – Two words repeat in this chapter on the festivals – remember and rejoice.  We are to remember what God has done for us and rejoice in who God is and what He is doing.
• Isaiah 13 – the wrath of God on the earth is what justice demands.  To think what Jesus endured for our salvation, so that we did not have to endure God’s justice personally.
• Matthew 18:10-20 – God sent His Son to go after the lost sheep.  He relentlessly pursues those that are far away from Him in Jesus Christ.
• Romans 15:22-33 – Paul writes of traveling to Spain – ever the missionary.  May we have the missionary zeal to take the name of Christ to every people on the planet.
• Psalm 133 – live together in harmony with your brothers, says the Lord.

8:25am Working on notes/slides for a talk I will give soon on my missionary trips to East Asia.

10:10am So thankful for our partnership in East Asia.  God is doing a great work in that part of the world.  Praying now for our partners there.  Praying for wisdom about when I should go back to East Asia now that baby #5 is on the way.  God, where are you leading?

11:00am Reading Chuck Lawless’ book on church membership.  We already do many of the things he recommends very well.  We require new members to attend our class in order to join the church.  We clearly articulate the beliefs, vision, and values of the church.  However, we need to grow in laying out clear expectations for our members.  Right now, we give them generically, but we don’t give them specifically.  We need to define what the elders expect every member in our church to do and then teach that in the membership class.  Equally important, we need to define how church discipline works with church members so that people know how the elders will hold them accountable as part of the family.  We also need to make sure that we host the membership lab regularly.  In addition, the staff and elders need to work with shepherds and ministry leaders to hold people accountable to their membership covenants.  Reminded by Lawless in this book that while processes and classes are important, assimilation and involved happens most effectively by personal invitation.  Most people who are involved in ministry and growing in their faith are doing so because they were asked by someone.  Just finished the book.  Good stuff – mostly reminders, but also some new ideas.

12:30pm Reading Grafted into The Vine on rethinking biblical church membership. Good notes on the requirement from 1 Corinthians 12 to be in community with other members of the body of Christ.  Good emphasis on the plural “you” in the biblical languages.  Eubanks makes the historical argument that church membership has been the key way to know you are truly a Christian – through making a public confession of faith in Jesus Christ to the members and leaders of the church.  He says that church membership is nothing less than a public profession of faith in Christ.  He then goes on to argue that nothing more that faith in Christ should be required for membership.  I agree with him in theology but not in his practical outworking.  We can clearly articulate that faith in Christ is the only requirement for membership and then also clearly say that those who are converted members are expected to participate in the life of the church.  I think he is merging membership requirements and membership expectations.  These are not the same.  In other words, what is expected of members is not what makes people members – just as what is expected of my children is not what makes them my children.  Overall, a good, short read – reminding me that gospel conversion lies at the foundation of membership.

3:30pm In my prayer and Bible-reading time, I continued to be burdened for the need to keep God in the right place in my life.  Our readings in Deuteronomy (in our reading plan) have been awesome the last two weeks.  I love that book.  Moses continues to warn the people of Israel that they will face the temptation of picking up the idols of the nations that surround them.  I feel this same temptation, don’t you?  I am an idolater, taking up the gods of the culture around me uncritically.  The problem is that when I do that nothing in my life works as God intended it to work.  Thank God that Jesus came to set us free from our idolatry and to set our hearts on the Father.  I’m praying for an awe-inspiring encounter with the Holy God this week.

3:42pm I like that Psalm 127 was on our reading plan this week – sons are indeed a heritage from the Lord, children a reward.  like arrows in the hand of a warrior are the sons born in one’s youth.  happy is the man who has filled his quiver with them.  Amen.

3:50pm I have really liked our Bible-reading goal this year – both that it has pushed me to be faithful in my daily time in God’s Word and also that it has created great conversations around the church since people are reading the Bible together.  Our elders have been in a rhythm of doing an outward focused goal one year and an upward focused goal the next year.  Next year we will again focus our eyes on being a people sent on mission with the gospel into the world.  I’m praying this week about what that looks like – how do we equip and encourage each other to be intentionally evangelistic?  Maybe Romans 15:19-20 can be our theme verses for next year – “I have fully proclaimed the good news about the Messiah…My aim is to evangelize where Christ has not been named.”   Powerful.

3:55pm A church on mission must be a church that understands the gospel personally and corporately and a church that is set on fire by the Spirit through faithful prayer.  How do we get the gospel deep so deep in our bones that it naturally comes out in conversation?  How do we create a praying culture that anticipates God-moments every day?  Good questions to ponder.

4:00pm Looking back through my prayer journal from the last year – interesting to see how God has grown me in the last 12 months.  Convicted by commitments that I’ve made repeatedly that I still struggle to follow through on.  Maybe too busy.  Or too stubborn.

4:02pm Started a Word doc to get some book ideas I’ve had in one place.  Always thought about writing a book, but never sure I should.  I love making this list though.  Fun to dream.  And pray.

4:15pm I notice a lot of prayers in my journal over the last year for hurting marriages.  Makes me hopeful because some have been restored but also sad because some have not.  Many have been broken because of pornography and infidelity.  Sigh.  God, help us as a church to strengthen marriages.

4:20pm I’ve been collecting ideas for a while for next year’s goal on mission.  One of the outstanding questions has to do with our leadership development study for next fall.  Do I write a study on missional leadership or use an existing one?  So far, we use DWAP, Bible Doctrine, & Hermeneutics as our three leadership-level studies.  We need one on missionary leadership.  Essential for a movement built on obedience to Acts 1:8.

4:55pm Looks like one of my favorite things to do in 2011 was to write down titles of books I would like to read.  So many books that look interesting.  So little time.

5:05pm 2012 is going to be a year of massive change.  A new plant, a new building campaign, a new baby in our house, new staff members, new people.  I think the last year we experienced this much change was 2006 when we moved twice and had a baby in the same year.  Change can be good if it drives us deeper into Christ and helps us mature.  Or it can drive us crazy if we don’t have a strong foundation.  I tend to be a person of routine.  I like stability.  But I have a risky streak in me, especially if God is leading.  I will follow Him anywhere.

5:20pm Is there a football game tonight?  When do the Rangers start?

5:25pm Found a list of ideas for the missionary leadership study.  I could really get excited to lead that study and grow myself in evangelistic intentionality and effectiveness.

5:30pm I think cancelling cable television in January 2011 may have been the best decision we made all of last year.  Amazing how many patterns we adopt uncritically without thinking.  Who ever told us we had to do that?

8:40pm I’ve been reading the last two hours.  Two books on pornography and purity – one on the porn pandemic in general and one a guide for men to find freedom from pornography.  Both helpful, biblical, and concrete.  I have been sensing the Lord calling me to speak up on this issue more directly in the last several months and ordered these two books to read while on study break.  I have met with too many couples in crisis because of pornography use over the last four years.  Time to go on the offensive on this issue and stop playing defense as the church.  I also just finished a blog post on protecting your family (and yourself) from pornography.

10:52pm Finished The Holiness of God by RC Sproul.  I picked it up after the Pastor Prayer Retreat in January after feeling that my view of God was too low.  Anyone who talks to God and about God regularly can be in danger of becoming flippant or too casual in His presence.  This book has challenged to see God in the fullness of His holiness.  I like Sproul’s chapter on Luther – who encountered the grace of the gospel after almost going insane worrying about the holy wrath of a righteous God.  God is so holy.  If God were fair, we would receive judgment and wrath.  But God has been merciful.  Let us not take it for granted.  We deserve justice.  But Jesus took our justice so that we could receive grace.  The gospel upholds God’s holiness and does not diminish it.  The church today is most likely to present God’s character in light of His love & grace, His plan for our lives (functional & practical).  But we must not forget that God’s holiness of the characteristic which defines all the rest.  God’s love is holy love.  God’s grace is holy grace.  God is holy, holy, holy.

11:00pm  I’m going to bed.  Good night.

This week is my spring study-break, a time of focused prayer and reading.  A time to not work in the ministry, but on the ministry, a time to not talk about God, but to connect with God.  Usually, I take a week early in the year and another week in the summer to get out of the office, away from the daily demands of ministry, to listen.  I attempt to listen to the voice of other pastors and authors and to the voice of the Lord.  Listening is a spiritual discipline.  I appreciate that the elders ask me to take time each year to listen.  As a pastor, I am usually expected to have something to say.  But saying something of consequence only comes after listening to God and listening to others who have spent time listening to God.

You can see the stack of books I will be working through this week.  I thought it might be fun to blog what I’m learning as I read and pray.  Don’t hold me to everything I write this week – most of it will be thoughts in process, not fully formed.  But that’s what will make it so much fun.  Feel free to leave your thoughts as we go.