It is hard to believe how quickly this year is flying by.  I can’t believe it is Christmas already.

This fall has been really encouraging for me at Green Hills where I pastor.  We have had a spike in attendance and have seen many new people join our faith community.

The most exciting thing however has been that our people have become excited to serve the underserved.  Brad and I really feel that it is nothing that we have done to bring this about but it has been God who has been doing something special in our church’s heart.  To save some space I just want to give you a list of some of the things that we have been encouraged by our people’s obedience.

1.  Our college students put together 127 bags of basic toiletries and Bibles for homeless people.  They have chosen to put these bags into their cars so they can hand them out when they see people in need.

2.  We were able to put together over 90 shoe boxes for Operation Christmas Child

3.  Our small groups have adopted 2 families who were in great need.  One of our groups is dedicating a Saturday to go repair and clean the trailer of their adopted family.

Our most exciting event this fall was this Sunday when we had Gwen and Suzanna from 147millionorphans.com come and share about how God has been moving them to champion the cause of adoption and care for orphans.  There wasn’t a dry eye in the place.  They have partnered with Katie Davis and Amazima ministries in Uganda and have created a clothing line to raise funds to feed orphans and provide grants for families who want to adopt.

We really encourage you to check out the video and their story.  We podcasted the service on itunes.  (The first half of the podcast is my Sermon and the last half is Gwen’s story of how God is using them.)  http://phobos.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewPodcast?id=274809927.

We also showed a video of what Katie Davis is doing in Uganda.  You can see it here: http://www.greenhillschurch.org/media.htm

lIf you want to find out more about 147 Million orphans  visit their website: http://www.147millionorphans.com/ I also really want you to visit Katie Davis’ blog:  kissesfromkatie.blogspot.com/ It will melt your heart.

This is the real heart of Christmas!  To be the body of Jesus to a lost an hurting world, showing them that the savior cares for them and inviting them into a relationship with Jesus.

Christ is All

Green Hills Church made the news.  Fox 17 (the local Nashville affiliate) asked to do a feature on us this past sunday.  The piece aired September 20th on the evening news.  It is a really cool piece that gives a good look at our church and why we are in Nashville.  You can get a good look at what our worship environment, music and teaching looks like.

Check out the video here:  http://www.fox17.com/newsroom/top_stories/wztv_vid_1460.shtml

Here is the excerpt from Fox 17’s website

Local Church Congregations Worshiping in Non-Traditional Places – Blair Simmons

It’s a growing trend — congregations are finding off-beat places to meet. It’s partially because of the economy, but in large part, their aim is to reach a different crowd.
Churches are getting creative. They’re meeting in coffee shops, business complexes — there’s even a “Cowboy Church” that meets in a rodeo arena… but if you think that’s unorthodox, check out Green Hills Church. They meet in a bar.

If you are anything like me your life is a checklist.  I wake up and the first thing I think about is what I need to do that day.  I seem to have been born with a personal task master wired into my brain that is OCD about arranging the items I have to do in order of importance, urgency and the most efficient order to do them in.   There is always something new to do and something new to see.  So if I want to do something, even if it is fun, I just add it to the list and proceed to execute that task with as much precision and focus as I can muster.  Unfortunately, I get so busy thinking about what is next and how to do it that I miss the beauty and pleasure in what I am currently doing.  It’s what I call the curse of “NEXT”.

It is so easy to live in the future and not in the present.  If we are not careful, we can miss life while we plow right through it.  I used to think that when I got my iPhone my life would be so much easier because I could keep my calendar synced up and I could find a lot of extra time once I had all my calendar issues settled.  But instead of being less busy, I have simply filled the time with other busy things.

This week I have been thinking about the concept of slowing down.  John Ortberg, the author of “T he Life You Have Always Wanted”,  devotes a whole chapter that is very worth reading about this concept.  His premise is that if we don’t slow down we will miss the most important things in this life.  Ortberg says we must choose to slow our life down or else it will constantly be out of control.  We will never enjoy life unless we choose to slow down.  No one else can do that for us.  We must practice it as a discipline.  In the same way that we train for a 5K or a Triathlon, we must train to be people who enjoy the moment.

Last year I had the opportunity to start a church.  Although it is a labor of love, it is a lot of hard work.  There is constantly something to do and people to minister to.  In the midst of all this I must choose to slow myself so that I can enjoy the journey God is allowing me to go through.  There will never be another beginning to Green Hills Church.  If I am not careful, I will miss the joy in seeing a new church bloom.

We all need seasons in our lives to rest.  Doing things are very important, but if life is constantly doing and never being then it is not enjoyable.  I don’t want to be a human doing, I want to be a human being.  That’s why God has given us the Sabbath, a time to rest.  God from the beginning has chosen to model that we need to take time in our lives to rest.  He told the people of Israel to rest every week and every 7 years they had to let their land rest.  Rest is very important.  It allows us to live, not just to do.

Summer time is a great time to slow down.  The pace of life around us naturally slows down due to the change in seasons. This summer, my Co-Pastor, Brad and I decided that we were going to enjoy the summer.  We decided that we were going to slow down and choose to rest because the fall is an exciting and very busy time.  It’s just really hard to honor that commitment.  But this week I have realized that summer is passing by very quickly and if I don’t choose to slow myself, I will enter the fall fatigued.

So here are some ideas on how to proactively rest.  I don’t mean that you shouldn’t go to work or that you should slack off on work but I think there are some ways to slow life down.  First of all turn the TV off.  Thats right.  Football isn’t here yet and all your favorite shows are on hiatus until the fall, so why do we need to watch reruns for hours at a time at night?   Try this, instead of watching TV, pick out a book and immerse your mind into another world.  I know some people like reading non-fiction, I think there is no substitute for escapist fiction.

A second idea is to choose to be either 5 minutes early or 5 minutes late to things.  You would be surprised how much pressure you relieve when you do this.  You take the control of the situation instead of falling into the tyranny of deadlines.

Lastly, I think a great way to slow down is to remove something from your calendar that is important.  Our lives are constantly filled with things that are important and urgent.  Many things we think are important really aren’t.  I often find myself doing things that I dont want to do, in hopes of impressing someone.  Sometimes we need to let those things that only seem important to fade away into the background and let the truly important things like family and God rise to the forefront.

Some of you have checked out my buddy Josh Bronleewe’s music- especially his song “Wake Up” that I posted a while back on the blog.  I was listening to a new song he posted on his myspace page called “Highway.”  It’s really mellow and it slowed me down as I listened to it.  I hope you like it:  http://www.myspace.com/joshbronleewe

Rob Bell put this video/talk together and it is really inspiring.  He talks about the value of serving others and how to be blessing.   Of course it has his trademark creativity and relevant explanation of Old Testament teaching.  If you have 5 minutes to watch it I promise it will move your soul.

To see the video just cut and paste the link:

http://player.flannel.org/compassion?referer=corner

I have found that most of us struggle with a fundamental distrust of God.  Even if you are a devout believer in God, when tough times come it is easy to begin to doubt the fundamental nature of who God is.  That is because at our core we believe that bad stuff shouldn’t happen to good people.  We think only good things should happen to good people.  We believe subconsciously in a cause and effect relationship with the universe.  Subtly, we begin to see God as someone who spends his time averting evil from people who follow him and rewarding them for doing good.  At the same time he is punishing people for doing bad things and bringing chaos into their lives.

Unfortunately in the real world, bad things do happen to nice people.  Good things happen to bad people.  It seems really unfair.  When pain enters into our life we doubt whether God is good, omniscient, and all powerful.  We may even wonder if God exists at all.  This is because we do not have a good understanding of the God of the Bible.

It is easy to lose hope in God when we think that he allows evil things to happen and for justice to be withheld without a good reason.  But just because we can’t fathom a reason why bad things may happen to us or to those we designate as good, does not mean that God doesn’t exist.  It’s a form of pride in our own mental abilities, to imagine that with our finite understanding of the universe and the limited time we have on the planet we could figure our all of God’s reasons for why we experience pain.  But as we look at the Bible we can find an answer to the question of evil.

In the Bible, we find a God who is good, all powerful,  and hates evil.  However, he allows evil to exist in the world for an important reason.

The reason that God allows evil to exist is rooted firmly in the gospel.  This is Christianity 101.  God allows evil to happen because he loves people. I understand this seems very counter intuitive.  Why would God allow pain and suffering in the lives of people that he loves.  Isn’t that sadistic and cruel?  That doesn’t seem very loving.  According to the Bible however, God allows evil to exist because he wants to rescue humanity from its clutches.  God has vowed to end evil, pain,  and suffering forever someday but he has held back because he is extending grace to those who are perpetuating this cycle of evil, namely you and I.

You see, if God was to destroy evil and suffering today, then he would have to destroy all people who are currently under the domination of sin.  It is a package deal.  If he were to destroy one part of the construct of this world he has to destroy all of it.  Humans are tied into the story of suffering and injustice because we are the ones who initiated it into this world.  We are not exempt from the system of this world that we are born into. God does his work of limiting evil by setting constraints upon it.   When he finally does away with evil, all those who do not come to a repentant relationship with Jesus Christ will be destroyed along with evil, injustice and pain.  God is extending mercy upon humanity by waiting to do away with evil.

An interesting side effect of God extending mercy on humanity is that God has not exempted himself from the human problem of pain.  Jesus entered into the world and experienced pain and suffering first hand.  God has not chosen to keep pain at an arms distance but has instead chosen to enter into it.  He understands what it is like to suffer.  He understands what it is like to be mocked, because he was scorned by the religious crowd.  He understands what it is like to hurt when a family member dies young, his earthly father Joseph died before his time.  He understands what it is like to be different, he was seen as an interloper by the leaders of the Jews.  Jesus knows what it is like to be beaten and cursed at.    He even understands what it is like to die for what you believe in.  He understands pain.  And he has chosen to weld his story with ours so that God no longer has the choice to opt out of human suffering.

This is why we can have confidence in God.  Because God has said that we are now his people.  That we have been shown mercy.  1 Peter 2:10 says ‘Once you were not a people but now you are God’s people; you had not received mercy but now you have received mercy.”  God now offers us a chance to get away from the consequences of sin and pain through Jesus.

The problem is that we struggle when times get hard.  We quickly stop trusting God when pain enters into our life.  That is because we are really in it for ourselves.  However, God does promise to redeem terrible situations for good.  God is in the redemption business.  God wants to use our hard times to show himself to the world through us.  God uses our suffering as a stage to reveal himself to people far from him. There is a purpose behind the things that we go through.  I love John 9:3 what Jesus says when he is asked about a man who had been blind from birth.  His disciples wanted to know whose fault it was that he had been born blind.  Jesus said, it was neither the mans fault or his parents fault, but it was so the works of God might be displayed in him.  That is amazing.  God allows the pain of this world to exist so that he can show himself to be God.

I don’t know if you are struggling today with some sort of suffering or pain, but I know that God is at work within you if you let him take the stage.  If you say God, I trust you with everything, then he is able to take your pain and make something amazing out of your life.  God has not forgotten where you are and what you are going through.  1 Peter 5:7 says, “Cast your care upon him because he cares for you.”  The first step to casting you cares/suffering upon him is to trust Jesus. Trusting someone that you have an innate tendency to mistrust is a difficult process but it is one that brings eternal dividends.  It is a leap of faith that God really has your best interest in mind.

I talk more about this on this week’s podcast from Green Hills Church:

Just click the link to listen: http://phobos.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewPodcast?id=274809927

I don’t know if you are anything like me but I struggle with comparing myself to others.  Its something that happens in the back of my mind constantly.  I find myself gauging my own performance or self worth by looking around.  Don’t get me wrong, there is nothing with benchmarking yourself to seeing how you are doing and what you could be doing better but comparisons can be very dangerous to our psyche and our walk with God.  The reason they can be dangerous is because we can become slaves to an image of what we should be and miss the freedom that comes with being who we really are.

Many times when I compare myself to others I make dangerous mistakes.  I either prop myself up and push others down, allowing to think I am doing really well because of my perceived superiority, or I see myself as a complete failure because of someone else’s success.  Comparisons make us ride a out of control emotional roller coaster.  I become a hostage to my emotions.   The dirty little secret about comparisons that I have learned recently is that comparing yourself is really a form of pride.

Two areas that I struggle with are Comparisons with my dad and comparisons with my peers.

Comparison with Dad - I have a great relationship with my dad but it is easy to compare myself with where he was in his ministry or his life when he was my age.  I know other people struggle with the desire to please their dad and live up to his expectations.

Comparisons with Peers - This is probably the worst arena of comparisons for me.  It is so easy to compare myself with my friends and co-workers.  Performance is valued highly in western culture an the pressure to perform is exhausting.  I think preachers really struggle with this because we have so much value tied into how we do when we teach.  Everyone else is evaluating us as we teach and so we also evaluate ourselves.  We can fall in the trap of equating our personal value to our teaching popularity.  Compounding the problem is the power of the internet and podcasts.

Honestly the only way to be free from comparing yourself with your peers is to choose to walk in humility.  Dictionary.com defines humility as: having a modest opinion or estimate of one’s own importance and rank. I really like that definition.  Humility frees us to be who we really are.  1 Peter 5:5 says:  “And all of you clothe yourselves with humility toward one another, because God resists the proud,but gives grace to the humble.” Humility covers our nakedness and our insecurities. Humility brings God’s favor on our life

If you struggle with humility and comparing yourself to others I encourage you to trust God and fire yourself from comparing yourself to others.  That will allow you to find true freedom and the ability to enjoy your life.

I talk about this topic a lot more on this week’s podcast from Green Hills Church.  Check it out here!

Just click the link to listen: http://phobos.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewPodcast?id=274809927

My wife and I got to attend one of Middle TN’s most interesting phenomenon, Mule Day. If you have never been to Mule Day you really need to go. It happens every April in Columbia TN. There is a huge parade, a fair, and a ton of rednecks. It is very cool.

The official definition of Mule According to the official website

, http://www.muleday.com/, is the following: Mule Day is an annual celebration of all things related to mules and is held in Columbia, Tennessee, the “Mule Capital” of the world. Begun in 1840 as “Breeder’s Day”, a meeting for mule breeders, it now attracts over 200,000 people and takes place over four days. In addition to mules, traditional Appalachian food, music, dancing, and crafts are featured.

Good times to be sure. Anyway, I am posting some pictures for your viewing pleasure!

hopefully you can come to Mule Day 2010 April 11th!

Hey,

I don’t know if you are into listening to sermons but you can catch my latest sermon at Green Hills Church on this link.

http://phobos.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewPodcast?id=274809927

My sermon is called “The Way”  and is about the cost of discipleship.  The price of following Jesus and being a part of the way of God.  I look at the 4 responses toward Jesus found in John chapter 7 and tie how we too struggle with responding as a true follower to Jesus.

This was a hard message to teach but one that I think will be a blessing to those who hear it!