Prepare the Way

For the past three or four years, I have been listening to my friend David Woodall from Gainesville tell me about this guy, Graham Cooke.  David has been one of our strongest advocates from an older generation.  I deeply respect his opinion, so a few years back I listened to a few tapes.  Frankly, I didn’t hear anything too exciting at the time.  Too much from a charismatic mumbo-jumbo camp for me.  But that was a few years ago when I was still reconstructing what it might look like to be a follower of Jesus who values the work and ministry of the Holy Spirit in my real life.  So a few months ago when I heard Graham Cooke was coming to the Vineyard in Gainesville, I penciled it in on our calendar.

You know the old line, “You had me at hello.”  That’s what happened to me Thursday night at the first session with Graham.  One of the first things out of his mouth was, “The church today is producing people with an unconscious contempt for the word of God.”  That got my attention, and it didn’t stop there.  Graham’s deal is helping churches through transition – the kind of transition we have be wrestling with in our community for the past four and a half years.  What does it mean to be church?  What does it mean to live as the people of God?  What if living life was more important the church meetings?  What if leadership’s primary responsibility was to affirm, uphold and equip the visions of each individual in the community?  What if vision was something the community arrived at rather than something a leader handed down from on high?  And on and on.  It was so refreshing to hear someone from another camp (i.e. not an emergent evangelical or more familiar author or speaker) voice many of the same things we have been working through and then add his own unique twist.  Very encouraging and challenging all at the same time.

I ordered CD’s from the main sessions that I will be distributing to our local community.  However, I thought I’d just hit some of the highlights in this post in order to spark some discussion:

• This is a year of accelerated growth.  He felt that prophetically, this year is an opportunity to pack five years of process (change, breakthroughs, growth, whatever you want to call it) into the space of 12 months.  For our home church in Gainesville, I believe this will be a year of enormous change – deconstruction and reconstruction - something I’ve been hoping for them for a long time.  For me and us locally, I think this year holds an opportunity to build on the foundation that has been laid, but with increasing speed and effectiveness.  Hold on, the mojo is coming.  What does that mean?  I have a few ideas, but I’ll get to that later.

• God speaks to our hearts first, then to our minds.  We must respond with our hearts first and then he will speak to our minds and give us the plan, strategy, tactics, etc. – the “how”.  Too often as western Christians we get lead by God to move a direction and then immediately begin trying to figure out how we’re going to get there.  But when God calls, he is not looking for a thesis statement and five-year-plan in return.  He just wants us to say, “Yes”.  The ability to say yes with our hearts is a function of our intimacy with him.  No intimacy, and we go off trying to figure out how to do this impossible thing God has called us to.

• Expect to make mistakes.  They are all covered.  When we begin moving out into the areas God calls us into, we will make mistakes.  That’s a given.  What is not a given is how we will respond.  Often we give up trying a new thing after a big mistake is made.  However, mistakes are usually the best opportunity for growth in that area.

• We need to quit praying from a place of fear.  Begin to pray from a place of thanksgiving and then ask, “God, what are you already doing?”  I loved what he had to say about prayer.  I find myself many times praying because I’m just worried about something or fearful something bad is going to happen.  What I love about starting with praise and thanksgiving is that it centers our prayers in who God is and what he is doing rather than our little miserable problems.

• Begin practicing awareness.  Awareness is having our eyes open to the kingdom of God around us in our real lives, not just during a church service.  Graham had some amazing stories about things God did through him while he was just going about his daily routine – flying in a plane, buying cheese, hanging out with neighbors.  I am convinced that I do not see more evidence of God’s kingdom around me because, frankly, I am just not looking hard enough.

• We cannot afford to live in A, work in B, and worship in C.  The whole issue of living intentionally for the community’s sake came up for me again this weekend.  I’m glad that I have two of those in play right now, but I long for closer (geographically) and deeper connections with people in our community.  This is not something we should take lightly.  Our culture is relentless in presenting a way of life that says, “Your home is your castle.”  We need to be just as relentless in coming up with alternatives that foster kingdom community.

• Define your life as a contribution and then live there.  We, as God’s people, are not out to live the American dream.  There’s nothing wrong with providing for our families and having nice things.  But we must place before our minds that the goal of God is that we know him and cooperate with him.  He’s on the move...joining with him might just cost us everything.