Prayer for Opportunities

I just read this off of the blog of one of my favorite writers (Mark Batterson). I think it is a prayer we should all pray as we look for opportunities to share our faith with others.

Lord, I pray for an opportunity to share my faith with someone in some way. It’s not up to me to decide who or when or where. But I know why. Because you love them and want a relationship with them. So Lord, surprise me with opportunities to share my faith.

Forgive me for trying to do your job for you. You are the one who convicts of sin. You are the one who draws to Christ. But help me do my part as salt and light. Help me see those opportunities to react compassionately or listen patiently or speak kindly. Through word and deed, help me plant seeds of love in the lives of others. Give me boldness when it’s time to speak. Give me restraint when it’s time to listen. Give me words to say. But more importantly, give me ears to hear.

Lord, help me be sensitive to the prompting of your Holy Spirit so I can see the divine appointments you send my way. Help me not to be afraid of questions I cannot answer. Help me not to be afraid of people’s reactions or rejections.

Lord, help me preach the gospel every day, when necessary, with words.

In Jesus name, amen!

Rainy days and Wednesdays

There is something that I just love about a good rainy day (especially after the extreme heat of last week). I don’t remember where I heard it first but the metaphor of rain being like God’s grace in our life. The rain comes down to clean and restore the earth, much like how God’s grace comes down on us to clean and restore us. Cue Todd Agnew’s “Grace Like Rain” in the background, good tune if you don’t have it or know it. Though today has been gloomy, the rain will cause the flowers and grass to perk up and make our world beautiful again.

I also love Wednesday’s. Many days during the week I make the 13 mile commute to our Harbor Campus to plan and coordainate services between our two campuses. I love our team and the people I get to work with, but I love the day that I get to spend working at the South Office (commonly known as the Panera Bread in Gurnee), love getting a drink and using the free WiFi.

It is at this South Office that I never know who I might run into. Conversations have been started with a guy named Mark, who runs a Home Inspection company. He has said that he is going to come visit but hasn’t yet. I’ve helped him get some business and he has helped me with some issues at my own house. I haven’t seen him in a while, but I pray for him regularly that we might meet again and that he might check outwhat we are doing at North Point.

I have also met a man named Sargon, who is one of the construction supervisors for the Gurnee Wal-Mart project (He tells me they are about done, we’ll see). He reads the Bible from time to time but has no real interest in church. He lives in another part of the city so North Point wouldn’t be convenient for him. We have enjoyed some religious and philosophical conversation. He seems cool with Jesus, but not so sure about all of His followers. He has promised to call or email me, hasn’t yet but still praying for the opportunity to tell him more about God’s love for him.

Where is your day taking you? We have two options each day. We can either feel like we HAVE to serve God and do what He says, or we can look at it as if we GET to serve God and do things that might bring Him glory. I admit there are some days that I look at it as a HAVE to, the Spirit isn’t always willing and the Flesh gets its way. There are other days when the Spirit is on overdrive and the Flesh is along for the ride, and doing God’s will is the natural by product.

Honestly, most days are lived somewhere in between. I wish I could say that I took advantage of every opportunity presented to me, but I don’t. I have become much better at recognizing open opportunities for conversations with strangers about what God is doing with me and seeing if they want to come along for the ride.

Can I offer a challenge? When the door opens, walk through. Who knows where the road may take you, and on the way God may use you to bring someone back to Him.

A Call to Holiness

As you probably know if you’ve been reading the blog recently, I’ve been reading through Deuteronomy. Now there are some crazy laws and regulations that God set out for His people. Some I still wish we had today, others I’m glad we don’t. Here is just a sample:

Deut. 21: 20,21, “They (the parents) shall say to the elders, ‘This son of ours is stubborn and rebellious. He will not obey us. He is a profligate and a drunkard.’ Then all the men of his town shall stone him to death.”

Deut. 24: 5, “If a man has recently married, he must not be sent to war or have any other duty laid on him. For one year he is to be free to stay at home and bring happiness to the wife he has married.”

God wanted His people to be different. Not freaky weird different, but just not like everyone else. There were rules about clothes and farming. There were rules about how to relate to each other and how to relate to Him. While the nations around them were sacrificing their children to the gods, God said, “NO! Don’t do such a detestable thing.”

So what does holiness look like today. God calls His people to be different. He calls us to not be like the “nations” around us, to not follow in the same footsteps that they do. Our path will look different. The things we do should look different, God has called us away from a path of destruction and to a path of abundant life.

Now here is our problem, we get so tied into holiness that we lose all contact with people far from God (this can turn into legalism). We can also throw holiness out the window and draw very close to those far from God (this can turn to heodonism). So here is the balance, to become so much like God that you reflect His glory while maintaining contact with those whom He loves that don’t yet love Him. When we begin to understand this, we will begin to understand the mission of Jesus. “I tell you the truth, the Son can do nothing by himself; he can do only what he sees his Father doing, because whatever the Father does the Son also does.” (John 5:19, NIV)

Staying Teachable

One of the most important lessons I have learned in ministry and church planting is the need to stay teachable. Though in many situations I am viewed as the leader or the even the “expert” (heaven forbid), I have to remember that I have not arrived and that there are many more people who are smarter and are better leaders than myself.

Recently, we returned to Charlotte for a family wedding and while there I was talking to my buddy Justin who leads a college campus ministry at UNC- Charlotte. Justin has been leading his group (IMPACT UNCC) through a Bible reading plan where you read the whole in 90 days. I asked Justin what he had been reading recently and he said that he has realized that all he wants is more of God. Now this could sound really presumptious and pompous, but knowing Justin’s heart what he really wants for himself, his family and his students is to have an ever growing intimacy with God.

The moment we think we have arrived is the moment when pride wins and God loses His place of speaking into our lives. To combat this fight with pride we have to remember the Biblical command to remain humble. In our staying humble we position ourselves best to be taught by God, His Word, others and the circumstances around us.

Here are somethings that I have been doing lately to remain teachable:

1.) Making daily Bible reading a priority. There is no substitute for time with your Bible. If you are an extrovert like me, sometimes time by yourself reading is the last place you want to be, but in the busyness of life we often need to shut out the noise and rush and quiet ourselves before God and listen to His words to us.

2.) Listening to other preachers. I love having an iPod because I can download a lot of good preachers and listen to what God is communicating through them to their people. Some of the guys that I listen to are Mark Driscoll (Mars Hill Church, Seattle); Mark Batterson (National Community Church, Washington, D.C.) and Andy Stanley (North Point Community Church, Alpharetta, GA).

3.) Reading other Christian authors. These may be on blogs, books or magazines. I subscribe to Relevant Magazine which is a magazine devoted to Christianity and Culture. I often read the blogs by church leaders such as Mark Batterson, Dave Ferguson and Vince Antonucci. A book that I have been using to guide my devotional time is a book called Asleep in the Land of Nod by Dave Butts of Harvest Prayer Ministry. It is a 30 day devotional that helps lead you to pray for revival in yourself and your church.

4.) Journaling. I have picked my personal journal more often here in recent weeks. You may have also noticed a renewed focus on blogging as well as I post some of my personal thoughts in cyberspace for public consumption. Givingn words and voice to my internal prayers and putting them for me and others to see is vulnerable yet a good reminder that God isn’t done with me yet.

5.) Spiritual Disciplines. A friend of mine and I, and maybe some of you reading this, are fasting one day a week as we seek God about how He wants to use us as we seek to be used by God to bring others to know Him. Times of silence and solitude, study and prayer and celebration are some of the other disciplines I am trying to using to seek God.

This may seem like a huge list. I am not saying I do all of these daily nor am I saying that I am doing these well on a regular basis. These are things that I am using to stay teachable before God as He moves and directs my life. You might want to just focus on one or two or maybe you are at a point where you want to stretch yourself to a new area of learning and discipline. Wherever you might be, enter with humility, keep your ears open and stay teachable to what God wants for you.

Thoughts from Deuteronomy

I know the title has you gripped. Your thoughts are also probably close to what I was thinking when I noticed that Deuteronomy was next up for me in my Bible Reading plan. More law, geesh.

Well, God has a way of kicking me in the butt when such thoughts come to mind. He has a way of opening my eyes so that new things come to light, old things re-revealed and His story coming through in my time. Deuteronomy literally means the second law and tells of Moses giving the same law to the Israelites a second time before he dies and turns the leadership mantle of Israel over to Joshua.

Moses starts by telling them their story and how God has given them this land that they are about to enter. He then goes on to tell them that as long as they keep God first they will prosper, but if they stray they will be scattered among the nations.

There is this thought that has been working on me since the first reading of the verse today. Here it is, God has given us a “land” wherever we are. There are a people that we have been called to in the place where He has us, we must pursue God and in so doing allow Him to use us to draw all men unto Himself.

For this to happen we must first do TWO things:

1.) Pursue God- This was the first and greatest commandment to the Israelites, to love the LORD your God with all your heart, soul and strength. It all starts with and flows from here. If we are failing to pursue God, we may as well just go home because it won’t do any good. Ask the Israelites who went up to take the land after they decided they were going to be crushed by the people in the land. They went up without God and got crushed. We must pursue God first and foremost.

2.) Humble ourselves- We must make sure that what we do is not about ourselves and how good we are. We must make ourselves a vessel or conduit for God to flow through. When what we do becomes an opportunity for pride and self-promotion we will fail. When we limit God to the things that WE can do, we will fail. When we first pursue God and then let Him use us, the sky is the limit with what He can do through us.

There is this gnawing in me that God wants something more. That there is something that I am limiting because of something in my life. My priority needs to be a relentless pursuit of Him through prayer and His word. From that starting point I pray that God will use me to draw men unto Himself as I continue to humble myself in His presence.

Warren and Fasting

Ok, so I’ve been terrible at blogging here recenly, which they say is not a good way to create and build an audience.

Yesterday I was having a conversation with one of my friends and it echoed something that I had been thinking for a while. My friend mentioned that while he had been on vacation that he felt God calling him to take a day each week to pray and fast for the Warren Campus. During the weeks leading up to Easter the Leadership Team of North Point fasted one day a week and we saw a renewed spirit in those weeks. I agree with my friend that it is time for us as a campus to take a day each week to fast and pray for our Campus and how God might use us to reveal His glory to our community.

For some of you this idea of fasting is both scary and intimidating, and you would be right because often by fasting we bringing allow ourselves to be more closely in tune with the heart of God and that can cause some discomfort as we realize what God is calling us to do. Now fasting is usually involved around taking the time you would use to eat and devoting that to prayer and reading the Bible. There are some of you that may have health reasons that would keep you from fasting from meals, the good thing is that fasting doesn’t have to be exclusively food, you can fast from media, TV or any other routine in your daily life so as to take that time and devote it to God.

Here are the Biblical requirements in my own words:
1.) Don’t make yourself look bad while fasting. Take a shower, comb your hair, shave, brush your teeth, present yourself as you usually do.
2.) Don’t make a big deal about what you are doing. This doesn’t mean you can’t say that you are fasting, just don’t make a big deal about it.
3.) Do devote the time to God your Father, who sees what you do in secret and who will reward you.

Here is some reading about what type of fasting you can do and some even provide some help with directing your thoughts during your fast.

Campus Crusade for Christ Guide to Fasting http://www.ccci.org/growth/growing-closer-to-god/how-to-fast/index.aspx

http://www.allaboutgod.com/christian-fasting.htm

http://www.getgreaterlife.org/userFiles/751/the_purpose_principles_and_promise_of_biblical_fasting.pdf

This is not at all mandatory, in fact I would rather only a few join us who truly feel called to participate. I also believe the only way for our campus to grow is if we start with prayer. Prayer often leads to action and obedience. Over the next few days and weeks I will be using this blog www.mikefoster.wordpress.com to document some of the things that I am learning and to give you some other things to think and pray about as you journey with us.

May God bless you as you seek Him.

Never Go Alone

Last week I challenged members of the Warren Campus to never go to church alone. If you come with someone who already goes to church that doesn’t count. You see we should always be about bringing new people to Jesus.

The church for too long has existed for those who are a part of it, too long we have satisfied our own needs for our own desires. It is time for the church to remember that it exists for those who are NOT yet a part of it and that we should look to their interests and desires and how the Gospel of Christ relates to them. It is a different world than when many of us first started following Jesus, but the mission is no different now than it was then. The challenges in introducing people to Jesus have changed and may be even greater, but the need for people to be introduced to Jesus remains.

As you finish up your work week and prepare for a weekend of activity, remember to Never Go To Church Alone. Pray for those you know, Look for opportunities to invite them and Pray for God to bring the increase.

Community Partnerships

I love the way churches are working together these days. Pastors sharing ideas and getting together to make real impact in the community. Here in Lake County (IL) there is an organization that is assisting in making these connections, Catalyst helps facilitate such things as Sharefest and other connections between churches. Other social networking sites have also assisted in bringing together church leaders together.

Facebook is one of these such sites. When we first moved to Chicago, Eskai got connected to a group of church planting wives and met a church planting wife in the area. We have gotten together as couples a few times but a friendship between the husband and I has been very beneficial to me. We get together every couple of weeks to share the joys and frustrations of life, ministry and family. It helps to know that you aren’t in this alone, that there are others who are going through the same things as you are and that others are praying and supporting you (even from other local churches).

None of us is as strong as all of us and the Kingdom of God gets stronger when we reach out as One Body to make real impact for the Kingdom wherever God has planted you.

Amish Love

What’s all the hubbub about Amish fiction? Major media outlets like Time and ABC Nightline are covering it, and authors like Cindy Woodsmall are making the New York Times bestseller list regularly. What makes these books so interesting?

Check out the recent ABC Nightline piece here (http://abcnews.go.com/Nightline/story?id=7676659&page=1) about Cindy and her titles When the Heart Cries, When the Morning Comes, and When the Soul Mends. It’s an intriguing look at Amish culture and the time Cindy has spent with Amish friends.

And don’t forget that Cindy’s new book The Hope of Refuge hits store shelves August 11, and is available for preorder now.

Back Home

We were able to get away for a week in the middle of May for my brother in law’s wedding as well as an opportunity to see some friends in our former hometown of Charlotte, NC. It was one of those trips that was good for the soul, but as we drove into a town we love so much we realized that though we love Charlotte, Chicago is home. It was a good feeling to know that though we spent so much time there that where we live now is our home. We can even say that after going through our most recent winter.

We were most encouraged by our time with our good friends Dave and Anne Milam, who came to Charlotte to plant Kinetic Church on the northside of Charlotte. We were blessed and encouraged by their ministry before heading to Chicago and continue to be even from a distance.

At the same time while we enjoyed our time away, our heart and ministry is in Chicago. I can’t imagine doing ministry anywhere else. The people, the challenges and the work ahead have me energized about what God is doing through North Point Church. We still face the challenges of building up our numbers and our impact in the community and teh warmer weather and different summer activities may just be the thing we need.

In April we took part in the National ReBuilding Together Day and helped an Army Veteran with some much needed repairs on his trailer. This has developed into a great relationship with a man who has given so much to our country and had felt that the country had turned its back on him. Though he lives in a great deal of pain, his spirits have been lifted by the work that we did on his home and at the same time on his soul and ours.

God is alive and at work. May we be busy doing what we see Him doing, and may He receive all the glory for it.