FusionLife

Last night I finished reading Wild Goose Chase by Mark Batterson. After reading “In A Pit With A Lion” a couple of years back, and felt like a lot of others, that the book was speaking directly to me, I can say Wild Goose Chase is again one of those books that speaks directly to you as the Holy Spirit works through Mark’s words.

Wild Goose (An Geadh-Glas) the Celtic name for the Holy Spirit is a name that is full of both “imagery and implications”, as Mark says. If you have ever chased anything wild before or watched someone chase a wild animal you know it is not an easy task. As a young boy my Grandpa would take me to the auction in his town and as a part of the night they would have greased pig chases for the kids. I remember chasing and grabbing the pig just to have it squeeze through my fingers. I’ve never chased a goose before but I can imagine it’s not something you easily conquer. I’ve been chasing “The Wild Goose” for almost half my life now and to look back on the adventures He has lead me on could never have been planned with the human mind.

In Wild Goose Chase, Mark talks about the adventures God wants to send us on to further His Kingdom, but we let things get in the way of those adventures and cage to where we are. Mark works through six cages (responsibility, routine, assumptions, guilt, failure and fear) that keep us from God “writing His-story through your life” (and mine). Working with and along side of people everyday I’ve seen in my life and theirs these cages holding us back from allowing God to use us and change us. Unfortunately the church for the most part has tried to tame the Wild Goose and in doing taming us. In the book Mark shares Biblical accounts of the adventures that God sent His people on and stores of people both past and present who have like the Bible characters did not allow these cages to hold them back from God working through them. I really like how good of a job Mark does of weaving the points he is trying to get across and the stories that make the point jump out at you and resonate deep down in your soul. This is definitely a book everyone will receive encouragement from but if you have feel like you are trapped in one of these cages and seen your interaction with God wane this is a book for you as it was for me.

Here are some great quotes from the book:

We have a primal longing to be uncaged. And the cage opens when we recognize that Jesus didn’t die on the cross to keep us safe. Jesus died to make us dangerous.

Quoting C.T. Studd, “Some people want to live within the sounds of the church or chapel bell; I want to run a rescue shop within a yard of hell.” The church needs more Studds! And you can quote me on that.

Check out www.chasethegoose.com for a sample chapter, a download of Mark’s 10 Steps to Setting Life Goals or to buy the book in bulk. Wild Goose Chase is available in stores or at these places online starting today.

www.amazon.com
www.barnesandnoble.com
www.borders.com
www.cbd.com
www.familychristian.com
www.parable.com

Also Mike Kupferer won the contest for the free copy of Wild Goose Chase, thanks to the people Multnomah for second copy to give a way and the opportunity to review the book.

Wild Goose Chase by Mark Batterson comes out August 19th and right here on FusionLife.org you can win a copy before you can find it in the store. I got a gracious opportunity from Random House Publishing to do a blog review of the book and they also gave me an extra copy to share with one lucky winner.

Summary:
Most of us have no idea where we’re going most of the time. Perfect.

Most of us will have no idea where we are going most of the time. And I know that is unsettling. But circumstantial uncertainty also goes by another name: Adventure.” –from the introduction.

Check of the Wild Goose Chase website or if you don’t win you can pre order the book at
www.amazon.com
www.barnesandnoble.com
www.borders.com
www.cbd.com
www.familychristian.com
www.parable.com

How to win:
Leave a comment here on this post about a time God sent you on a wild goose chase or adventure. God has sent me on my share of wild adventures and I wouldn’t trade any of them for the world and I’m sure I’m not alone. So come and share your store.

Contest Rules:
* Entries must be posted no later than 12:00am (midnight) August 13.
* The winning entry will be announced here at FusionLife.org on August 14.
* One winner will be chosen by a sole expert judge who can not be bribed (my wife!)
* The book will be shipped via USPS Priority mail to U.S. or military mailing addresses only.

I’ve been reading N.T. Wrights book Simply Christian and I just finished chapter 11, Worship. It’s really interesting that I just listened to a podcast about using Revelation (the last book in the bible) as worship and now he goes into this chapter on worship talking about chapter 5 & 6 of Revelation also. Now I’ve held the view that there is more to end times material (if that is in there beyond the last few chapters) in Revelation but never really been able to put my finger on I, this has helped.

As I read the chapter one huge piece stuck out to me and I’ve been trying to wrap my mind around it since.

“Telling the story (of redemption of man), rehearsing the mighty acts of God: this is near the heart of Christian worship, a point not always fully appreciated in the enthusiastic, free flowing worship common in many circles today. We know God through what He has done in creation, in Israel, and supremely in Jesus, and what He has done in His people and in the world through the Holy Spirit. Christian worship is praise of this God, the one who has done these things. And the place we find the God-given accounts of these events is of course scripture: the Bible.” N.T. Wright, Simply Christian, Ch. 11, Pg. 150

He goes on in the chapter to talk about reading scripture in (you choose the word: service, gathering, big church, little church, home church) your corporate time together. Not just what the preacher is using in his sermon, not some small amount like a verse or two, but reading large clumps of scripture.

Here is where I have been wrapping my mind at how to work that into a gathering of the God’s people that isn’t by nature liturgical. As I was riding in the park with my son in tow in his trailer it came to me (Thanks Holy Spirit). Wright refers a little to it so I can’t take complete credit to it but if you (the preacher) where to select a larger selection of scripture around the central text you are using to read in your time together it could give greater context to what you are preaching (if it’s not expository of course) and add to the validity of what you are trying to get across.

The reason I have been working to get my mind around this idea is because I agree with him that scripture is a great way to worship God and the telling of it corporately shows it’s great importance in worshipping Him and in the lives of God’s people but more over I’ve been trying to figure out where it plays out in a church that is reaching predominantly non-Christians. I’ve heard Mark Batterson say, “That when you reference scripture you gain buy in from Christians, but when you use non-Christian references you gain buy in from non-Christians”. And where I agree with him and that is an extremely helpful point. But where does this play into that?

So I end with this question. Can we use scripture in a way that brings validity to our message and brings a greater picture of the one we are worshiping in our gathering and still be a place that non-Christians feel at home? I hope so.

Mike tagged me for this meme. Here goes…

Here are the rules for this fun little bit of Internet foolishness:

* Pick up the nearest book of 123 pages or more (no cheating!)
* Find page 123
* Find the first five sentences
* Post the next three sentences
* Tag five people

“And that’s often a good thing, but in the words of an old proverb, “Doers who do but do not think, tend to be do-doers.” And that’s not such a good thing. As this sections header amply demonstrates (HEADER: I Was Taught To Study… Not To Think), we’re both well-educated- thanks to four years of college and three years of seminary.”

I’m not sure what a meme is. But this is interesting concept to see what others are reading. I just start “Speaking to Teenagers” in a line of books that I’m reading to sharpen my skills as a communicator (the other books include: Made to Stick, Communicating for a Change, and The Big Idea”).

I tag Chris, Tony, Adam, Joey, Tim.

At our last youth event on of my 8th graders broke his nose while we were playing in a youth touch football tournament away from home. After a few minutes the bleeding stopped and he seemed a bit confused so we called the parimedics just in case there was a concussion and to make sure his nose wasn’t broken to badly. We’ll the ambulance arrived and I hopped in (leaving the rest of our football team in the care of our great volunteers) and was asked to sit up front. I got in the driver asked if I wanted to put on the head set so we could talk and he asked the usual questions. What happened? What were you guys doing? Who are you with? As I explained who we are, what we were doing and what happened he told me his youth group never did anything like that but just went to summer camp. Now just a few days before I had sat in on a workshop about conversational evangelism and I decided to ask the question, “so do you attend church now?” and he said yes then said that we were on the main channel and everyone could hear our conversation. So thinking it was over and not wanted to push it I dropped the conversation and waited for a minute to see what we could talk about next when he brought it back up again. He began to tell me about the way the church he grew up in treated his mom after she divorced his father and how they continued to attend on and off for a while. Eventually his mom started attending a big church in the area and he and his wife started to go but but for awhile they were sporadic in attendance. And right after that he said the most profound statement a non committed Christian can say about God and marriage. He told me that for a while his marriage had been on the rocks and how since they have been attending regularly his marriage has been getting better and I could tell that meant a lot to him.

All of us want better marriages and stronger marriages but most people have a hard time figuring out what it takes to get there. Craig Groechels’s book brings the answer back into focus by realigning our number 1 and our number 2 and then pieces begin to fall into place behind them. With the business of life we allow all kinds of things to become our number 1, sometimes its our spouse, or our jobs, a lot of people put that focus on the children and a good number of us put it in places it totally doesn’t belong (ie. hobbies, friends, affairs) never realizing that for the relationship of marriage to work our number 1 has to be God, completely focused on Him and making sure that our relationship with Him is strong (by daily connecting with Him prayer and listening to Him through His word, commitment to His church and living our life every minute relying on Him to direct us) and then rightfully place our spouse as number 2 and make sure that we are strong in that relationship as well (taking time to talk, dating your spouse, praying together) and these practices build a strong marriage and it cannot happen any other way.

Going All The Way is great book that is easy to read, full of life stories that make it real, and Craig is funny and honest never ducking from tell us how he has messed up and how he has worked to make his marriage strong. I’ve already given a copy as a wedding gift (to my sister) and know of at least two more friends that I want to send it to as well. As a guy who has made mistakes in his marriage and at times placed the focus of my number 1 on other things than God and my wife I have been really encouraged and after reading this book we are working to realign our focus as a couple on God first and then each other.

As I we kept driving to the hospital that afternoon and the Fireman/ EMT told me that I responded by saying that I wish more couple realized that God is the answer to our marriage problems. Focusing on God is the only way to have and maintain a health marriage the way He intended it to be.

Available on Amazon.com and at your local bookstore.

Not in that exact order. Yesterday as I was leaving Ormond Beach I stopped into Volcano’s Coffee Bar to pick up a bag of coffee and to eat lunch. The Volcano’s in Ormond is bigger than the other one I have been to and they have this really cool cement bar that I sat at and ate at while I sent out some emails and caught up on a few blogs I hadn’t gotten to on their free wifi.

They didn’t have the coffee, Guatemala Antigua, I was hoping for. See they roast green coffee beans every 3 days to keep them fresh and amazingly oily (which is where a lot of the flavor is). So I picked up a bag of Costa Rica Tarrazu. So I ground up some coffee this morning in the office and picked back up Simple Church.

Simple Church is a great book so far. I really love the idea of creating a simple process for moving people to being disciples of Christ. There is a lot to take in and process and I’ve actually started taking notes in the front cover to reference back parts I really liked. I hope there is enough space to takes notes through the whole book. I’ll post more when I’m done reading it.

Tags: Volcano’s Coffee Bar, Coffee, Ormond Beach, Simple Church