Here are my take-a-ways from the message:

God commands us not to worry. Matthew 6:25, “Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more important than food, and the body more important than clothes?”

Jesus calls himself “the good shepherd,” and promises to lay his life down for his sheep. John 10: 11 – 15, “I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep. The hired hand is not the shepherd and does not own the sheep. So when he sees the wolf coming, he abandons the sheep and runs away. Then the wolf attacks the flock and scatters it. The man runs away because he is a hired hand and cares nothing for the sheep. “I am the good shepherd; I know my sheep and my sheep know me— just as the Father knows me and I know the Father—and I lay down my life for the sheep.”

We need to develop the same “hope for provision” that King David had. Listen to Psalm 23…

¹ The LORD is my shepherd, I lack nothing. God is a God of provision in every area.

² He makes me lie down in green pastures,
he leads me beside quiet waters, God gives us his peace.

³ he refreshes my soul.
He guides me along the right paths for his name’s sake. God gives us his protection and direction. In laying down his life, he purchases the possibility of eternity for us.

⁴ Even though I walk through the darkest valley,
I will fear no evil, for you are with me;
your rod and your staff, they comfort me. God protects us with His presence and guides us with his gentle authority.

⁵ You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies.
You anoint my head with oil; my cup overflows. God gives us his overflowing pleasure and joy.

⁶ Surely your goodness and love will follow me all the days of my life,
and I will dwell in the house of the LORD forever. We all need to develop this confidence that David had for God’s provision.

I woke up this morning thanking “the good shepherd” for all of his provision in this life and in eternity through salvation.  He truly has laid is life down for the sheep and I am so thankful… Surely your goodness and love will follow me all the days of my life,
and I will dwell in the house of the LORD forever!

*** On another note – this summer there has been one tragic death after another… from Farrah Fawcett and Ed McMahon to “the king of pop” Michael Jackson and closer to home, Steve “Air” McNair.  Many people have asked me my thoughts on the subject.  My friend and Every Nation President, Steve Murrell best sums up my feelings in this blog that he calls, “The Accidental Missionary.”

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A recent series @ Bethel

The church has been entrusted with the role of equipping followers to fulfill the Great Commission (Ephesians 4: 11 -12).  The followers have been entrusted with the Great Commission itself by advancing God’s Kingdom through”making disciples” (Matthew 28: 19 – 20).  Instead of being God’s agent of change and an equipping center for an army of disciple-makers, Ed Stetzer said recently that unfortunately, “the church has become good people standing in front of good people, helping them to be good people.”

The Great Commission is God’s only plan to reach the world with the message of gospel.  The gospel is the “good news” of God’s only solution for man’s sinful predicament.  The purpose of our series was to help every follower of Jesus to obey God by fulfilling the Great Commission, to demystify what it means to “make disciples,” and to create some language that will help us identify the process of fulfilling the Great Commission.

With the help of the entire Bethel team and inspiration of Pastor Rice Broocks we created this five part series.  The steps that we shared include:

• Pray & Ask – it all starts in prayer.  In prayer we develop a heart for people and gain the proper motivation for ministry.
• Go & Look – at some point you have to leave your prayer closet and open your eyes to those that God wants to reach.  Usually this isn’t  a mystery it is those people that you already have relationship with… your family, friends, co-workers, teammates, classmates, etc…
• Show & Tell – “they don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care” – I first heard this from former Notre Dame Head Coach Lou Holtz.  It rings true in making disciples.  You have to live the gospel, but certainly it doesn’t stop there…at some point, you have to open your mouth and share the life-changing message of Jesus.
• Laying the Foundations – Jesus said, “make disciples, baptizing them and teaching them to obey,” meaning in making disciples doesn’t stop with a decision.  A well-built disciple must have systematic foundations instilled in their life.  The tools that we use for this is The Purple Book and the One to One Book.
• Entrust and Empower – this step is the litmus test of whether we have successfully made a disciple.  At Bethel we define a disciple as a passionate follower of Christ that lives as He lived, loves as He loved, and leaves behind what He left behind.  What did Jesus leave behind?  Disciples that were able to “MAKE ONE,” disciples that left behind what Jesus left behind… disciples who make disciples.

I encourage you to check-out this entire message series on podcast.

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Last week, my two oldest girls (Gracie 10 & Mollie 6 – almost 7), and 3 staffers from Bethel Community Church traveled to Chantilly, VA a suberb of Washington, DC to our annual summer conference for Every Nation Churches and Ministries.  the church was hosted by Pastor Brett Fuller and Grace Covenant Church.

I was reminded / learned so many things from my week in DC.

From the Conference:

1. Its all about Jesus. ” I have done nothing that He hasn’t done through me.”
2. Thank God for the Cross.  “The Cross changes everything.”
3. The local church is the hope of the world. “Church must be a place where people can deal with their pain.”
4. We need to be more confident about the Gospel we preach. “Men are made for the Gospel.”
5. God has placed me in an amazing family.
   • At our core in Every Nation our mission is and will always be church-planting, campus ministry, and world missions.
   • We in Every Nation place a high value on spiritual family and discipleship.  “Undiscipled people will never change the world.”
6. Leadership is about sacrifice.  “Its about giving up so we can grow up.”
7. We have to over-communicate!  “Most of life’s problems are because we fail to communicate, miscommunicate, or are misunderstood in communication.”
8. We have to count right.  We have to guard our hearts in counting and count for Kingdom purposes.   “If we are getting our identity and sense of self-worth from numbers we are set-up for a fatal crash.”
9. There are many “I don’t know how” moments along any journey of pioneering.  You just gotta keep going and be a learner!
10. Relational moments are sometimes sacrificial, but always worth it.  It was not only good for me to connect and go deeper relationally but my girls have many new friends and were impacted by the relational component!

From Grace Covenant (the hosts):

1. Excellence gives God glory.  Just walk in to the church and there is an aroma of excellence.
2. There is no substitute for friendly.  “Hospitality sets the table for what the Holy Spirit wants to do.”  The staff was friendly and warm.
3. Team ministry is fun and effective. There was a great sense of team and the ethnic diversity was heaven-like!  Pastor Brett has a great team.  “Great teams make great coaches.”
4. Pro-bowlers make good ushers. Former Washington Redskins players like: Charles Mann, Art Monk, Darrell Green, Ken Harvey, and others… led the hosting team for the conference as they do for GraceCovs 4 Sunday morning services.  I would love to coach these guys in my church.  They modeled excellence, humility, and Christ-likeness!

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Here are a few of my take-a-ways from my experience:

1.  Never underestimate friendly.  Friendly is always in.

2.  Friendly needs to be intentional. After every ride we were greeted with, “Did you have fun?” Coming soon to Bethel Community Church exit greeters asking “Did you have fun?” or “Did you enjoy the service?”

3.  Deploy the next generation.  HW hires and buses teens to their “remote” Santa Claus, Indiana location from nearby Owensboro, KY and Evansville, IN.  They train, equip, and deploy an army of teens to make the HW experience the best.

4.  FREE is always good.  I fell in love with the “Pepsi Oasis.”  All day. Every day… drinks are free.  Sunscreen too…

5.  As a leader of an organization… consider “stressers” and reduce them.  HW is good at it – here are a few examples:

• Fair ticket prices.
• Affordable food.
• Free drinks.
• Free sunscreen.
• Big variety of things to do. All ages and “fear -levels.”

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Monday Morning Quarterback is a blog that I will be doing in review of the weekend… in particular the weekend services at Bethel Community Church, but sometimes it may be news, sports, or family.

If there is any question that Jesus’ commission to go from Matthew 28 applies to us as followers of Christ, lets examine His prayer from John 17:20, “My prayer is not for them alone. I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message.”  God clearly desires us to continue the spread of the Gospel for the fulfillment of the Great Commission to “go and make disciples.”

In making disciples there has been much done right and much done wrong, but there is no limit to what God will do with those who take the step of faith to simply GO for Him.  I like to call this the “art of showing up.” Certainly, for my ministry and the moments when God has used me most – it was because I was faithful to show up.

In this week’s message, “GO & LOOK” we learned that  when we GO, we should …

• GO with a mission.  Pure focus will achieve great things for God.
• GO out of obedience.  Our obedience puts us in position for God to use us.

And to LOOK is a habit we can and should develop as passionate followers of Christ.  Three principles of “looking” are…

• Start with expectant prayer. Prayer opens our eyes to see what God is doing in the lives of the people around us.
• Keep our hearts clean.  Jesus said, “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God” (Matthew 5:8)
• Build margin in our lives. Busyness will distract us – while God is trying to use us.

2 simple steps that we can apply this week in doing our part to “simply fulfill the great commission,” is to:

• PRAY & ASK
• GO & LOOK

This week let’s prepare our hearts in prayer, ask God for divine connections, then GO (out of obedience with a mission) and LOOK for those that God has been preparing for our arrival.

Feel free to leave me a reply or tell me a story of how MAKE ONE has impacted you thus far.

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