Contagion

We had such a good day yesterday! It was the first of a four part series talking about The Naked Truth. I wasn't really nervous going into it but I definitely thought we'd have more negative push back than we did. In fact, I don't think we had any. People were amped! The guys were excited (what's new?). It was fun having props to aid visually. We had a bed up on the stage that was highlighted by the spotlight and then out in the lobby we had two male/female icons sort of forming a gate that we had to walk through to get the cafe area.

And just for the record, I painted those icons all day Saturday and that isn't gonna happen again! We waited too long to ask someone else to do it so I just decided that I would. Ya...that was a complete gong show! We'll leave the props up to the creative people...now we just have to find them!

I talked about redeeming our sexuality and challenged people to stop calling themselves Christians if they aren't willing to follow Jesus. Basically...if you don't want to follow Jesus...don't. But if you say you are going to follow him, then do. And this means that you follow Him with your sexuality. When you say you follow him you are telling the world that you live by his game plan, not yours. And when you say that you follow Him but your actions don't line up, you are just wasting your time.

I should also clarify that there is a difference between messing up, getting back up and continuing to move forward verses living in complete rebellion but pulling the "God's grace covers" me card. My whole point is, if you don't wanna play by God's game plan...don't. And stop living like you are but pulling the God card out. PICK ONE!

And the funny thing is...people loved it! It was a harsh challenge but one thing we've been discovering over the last few weeks is that when you raise the standard, the people who are serious about it will rise to the occasion and those who aren't...will leave. We are raising the standard and that's that.


In other news, Upstream Kids was crazy again this week! The kids were having the time of their lives and they were learning about Jesus in a way that they will remember for weeks to come. Tina is by far the best Kids pastor I've ever seen. We'll be fighting off other churches that want to hire her in the future for sure. Our Omega team is going to be gone for the next few weeks and then they will be finished at the end of March so we are going to have to step up as a faith community and start investing even more into our kids. For some of us that means that we're going to have to sacrifice attending the gathering so that our kids can get the best experience that they could imagine on Sunday mornings. The aren't the church of tomorrow. They are who we are as a faith community right now. If we don't invest in them today, tomorrow they won't be here!


I challenge you to take a risk this week and invite someone that doesn't already go to church. I've got stories to tell of someone who invited a friend that doesn't go to church and now the chain reaction is crazy! The worst thing that could happen is that they say no. Ya you'll feel like an idiot but what if you knew they would have said yes and you chickened out? Idiot doesn't even begin to describe how you'd feel. I've been asking my friend for the last 5 months...one day he'll come.