Big Weekend!

This coming weekend is a big one for River City Community Church! On Saturday, we are having our annual fall festival. We anticipate as many as 3000 people to come and eat, play, hang out, and have a general good time on our campus. I love this event! We get to meet people from our neighborhood as well as all over San Antonio. There will be some great bands (including the RCCC house band!) playing live music all day long. It really is a good time! I'm praying that we get a chance to connect with lots of people from our community.

On Sunday, I begin the much anticipated series "APOCALYPSE NOW?...A Message of Hope from the Revelation." I know this is an area of great interest to a lot of people. I’m really looking forward to the series and praying that God really speaks to people through the messages.

A Busy Day

I had a lot on my plate today. This is not an unusual condition and it’s not like that plate seems to ever get cleared off, but I still am aware of “the pile”. As I face a day like today, I am tempted to hit the ground running and play catch up. This is not entirely bad except that I may run right past some very important things in my haste!

If I run too fast, I might run right past my appointment with the Lord. This is an appointment I don’t want to miss. As I talk with the Father, He gives wisdom, peace, guidance, and strength. How much time and energy will I waste if I blow by the most important appointment of my day?

I could also breeze right by our staff small group / prayer time. We got together this morning for our weekly time together and I got to hear their heart’s as we shared and prayed together. What did we get accomplished? I guess that would depend on whether you were looking at the plate or the people.

I wouldn’t have had time to spend with three different staff members encouraging them, sharing vision and helping them think through various issues related to their ministry.

Jesus said the most important thing in life is to love God with all we’ve got and to love others the way we want to be loved. This cuts right to the heart of the matter and even though I didn’t cross that many things off my list, by Jesus’ standard, I guess today wasn’t half bad.

The plate is still sitting there but somehow I feel like some very important things were accomplished today. It was a good day.

Easter evening

This has been a tiring day...a good day, but a tiring day. For a minister, Easter is "big game time." I get to talk to people I may not see until next year this time about the most important event in human history...the resurrection of Jesus Christ. I get to tell them that resurrection means they don't have to go it alone...He desires to walk with us. I get to tell them they don't have to do it in their own strength, because His strength is available. I get to remind us all that resurrection means all things are possible. Our greatest fear, the fear of death, has no teeth because death has been conquered!

Then I get to challenge every one of us to stop living like the resurrection either never happened or is simply a religious story. I get to challenge us to rethink our lives in light of the reality of resurrection. Consider yourself challenged!

What matters most

I find it a constant struggle to remember what matters most. You would think in my job I could keep it straight! As a minister, I regularly remind people of the eternal and the lasting. Even as I'm pointing the way for others, I am constantly tempted to focus on things that won't matter in a year, let alone a hundred. Not that things like details and deadlines don't matter at all...they just aren't what matters most. Jesus put it simply..."The most important thing is love, for God and one another"

Relationships are what matter most. The Spirit inside you and that person beside you are more important than the task before you. God help us if we sacrife what matters most for...whatever.