As one of the two main guys of the Catalyst organization, Andy Stanley spoke twice during the conference.  This is just a tiny bit from the first time he spoke.  I’m still trying to work my mind around a lot of the other stuff.  Maybe tomorrow.  But for today, here is what he said.  Your picture or dream for the future will be no bigger than what you believe is possible.  The realities of today crush our dreams for tomorrow, but the cross is a symbol to remind us that all things are possible.

All of our childhoods people ask us what we wanna be when we grow up.

Astronaut
Cowboy
President
Movie Star
Superman (or Mighty Mouse if you were me)
Optimus Prime
Doctor
Etc.

The answers vary wildly from moment to moment and are usually based off of whatever we happen to be into at that given moment or what our parents do, unless you are my little brother and want to be a trashman because you get to stand on the back of the truck.  We seem to be born dreaming big.  Our imaginations and hopes have no limits to them.  We believe that ANYTHING is possible.  (How else could I become Optimus Prime.  I know I’m not a robot, but I am for sure going to believe it is possible!)  Then somewhere along the way as we get older we start to learn about the realities of the world full of harshness and disappointment.  So we stop dreaming.

Maybe I could settle for being something less than my dreams.  Maybe I could just settle for being whatever I am capable of pull off with little to no effort so that I’m not disappointed.  We give up on everything we dreamed about for so many years because the world tells us that it’s just probably not gonna happen.  If this didn’t happen to you in Junior High, then you are a stronger person than I!  We just stop believing that it (whatever “it” is) is possible and our goals change and our lives reflect the weakness of our dreams.

But we are missing a huge part of the equation!  Me + my capabilities = my limited dreams happening, right?  But that’s not right!  What if we continued to dream big?  What if we actually took to heart that ALL things are possible through Christ?  I think the equation should be me + Christ = bigger my biggest dreams taking place.  We should be dreaming big.  We should be dreaming of things like…

Every person on earth having clean water to drink
Ending sex slavery
Getting every kid adopted
A Christ centered marriage and family
Salvation for friends, family and your enemies

I know that I am not capable of pulling these things off, but the cross is there as a symbol of hope and power.  He can accomplish anything!  I want to dream bigger than me.  I want to dream bigger than I can imagine.  God sized dreams.  Dreams that only He can accomplish!  I’ve got some but I need to hold on tight to them KNOWING that with Him they are possible!

What about you?  Are you dreaming bigger than you?

How often do you look to someone else’s leadership role or ministry role and wish you had something like what they have going?  How often does it go farther than that?  You see their success or joy or whatever it may be and instead of just learning from them you try to be them.  You try to do them.  Well if you are anything like me, this has happened many times.  I can think of several different worship leaders that I basically tried to be as I was growing up in my ministry.  I thought that’s who people wanted me to be and so I gave it my best.  And that was my whole problem.

I was looking to what others were doing and who they were and trying to be them because at the same time I was trying to win the approval of people.  I was missing the point.  I was created to be me.  God didn’t put me here to be Chris Tomlin.  He didn’t put me here to be Michael W. Smith (which is really good because my voice just wouldn’t work for that many key changes).  He put me here to be Brook James.  As Carlos Whittaker put it once in a tweet, God created you to lead like you.  He didn’t create me to be anyone else or any other worship leader.  Or as an infamous rap video from Ed Young says, you be you.

Last week at Catalyst Mark Driscoll said something that made all this come back into my mind.  ”Assume that God didn’t make a mistake with you and specialize in what you are good at.”  I can’t count the number of times that I have forgotten this and tried to specialize in what others are good at.  But when I am refusing to be me, I am just telling God that He screwed up with me and should have made me differently and that is probably not a good thing.

Know that God created you to be you.  You are not perfect and should constantly be learning and leaning on Him, but He created you, specifically.  He didn’t create you to be the someone else that others are trying to make you.  He didn’t create you to be the someone else that you think you should be.  He created you without making mistakes in doing it.  Learn from other people in similar roles.  Learn from those with more experience.  But continue to be the you that God chose.  Specialize in you.

The hard part of Catalyst is that there is so much to take in and very little time to digest it.  I didn’t know that last year.  I learned by day 2 a year ago and so this year I was more prepared.  Instead of just going and listening, I came this time ready to listen and write.  I still wasn’t prepared enough.  I took 4 normal sized pages of notes on my iPhone.  Next year I think I will have to just bring the computer and figure something out with the charging.  But because there is so much to take in, I am gonna have to take this in small steps to try to work my mind through it all.

Today I’m gonna start with some thoughts from Mark Driscoll.  As he talked to church leaders from all over the country, he said some things that I believe are good for every Christ follower to realize and understand.  We have big dreams.  We want to do big things.  But as humans we fall short.  We realize we aren’t good enough.  We aren’t strong enough.  We aren’t capable.  Once we realize this it is pretty easy to get down on ourselves and frustrated at life, but this is when God takes over!  Driscoll put it this way.  ”You do not have the strength to do what God has commissioned you to do.  The difference between your abilities and your calling is the grace (generosity, kindness) of God.”  What we are capable of doing ourselves isn’t worth much.  ” God’s grace allows you to be someone you’re not and do things you can’t.”

Does truly understanding that change your outlook in certain situations?  I know it does for me.  I don’t know how many times I have been so frustrated about what I am doing because I forget or ignore that only through Him am I capable to actually do it.  I see the vision in front of me.  I dream the dreams.  But what I am able to accomplish myself is nothing.  It leads to nothing.  It conquers nothing.  But because of the grace of God through Christ, I am able.  I can be the man I myself am not every going to be.  I can lead the way God asks.  Now I just have to hold on to the knowledge that through His strength I can live out my calling and watch Him do crazy things!

Are you living out the calling on your life with His help or are you finding yourself in the moping around in the dark feeling sorry for yourself?

Wow. Days like yesterday are so hard to work through. So much learning and information and…wow. When we learn from amazing leaders like Andy Stanley, Louie Giglio, Dino Rizzo, and Mark Driscoll it’s difficult to comprehend it all. Then toss in Aaron Keyes, Carlos Whittaker, the Sheltons and Chris Tomlin doing music it pretty much caps off the day. Then I got to meet a ton of friends that I have never met before but know so much about. AND I got to spend it all with KK and Jessi!

It was a good day. Hopefully today is the same. There is so much to think and pray through. There will be plenty of blogs to come I am sure!

As stated here on many occasions I am not a morning person. I know. Shocker. I don’t get up early and cook a big breakfast (or eat a bowl of cereal for that matter) and go for a morning workout. It’s just not in me. I get up just early enough to get ready, grab a SlimFast and leave. I don’t even use the snooze button because it would just wake me up earlier than I need to be awake.

Needless to say I have never been good at getting up in the morning before everything and having what my Baptist church growing up called a “quiet time”. For those of you that don’t know, a quiet time is time spent reading the Bible, praying, etc. But for me the quiet time was always too quiet of a time and I ended up back asleep because I couldn’t keep my eyes open. I don’t want to neglect spending time with my God so I had to adjust. So for me my time with God or quiet time or (if you really wanna go back to my Baptist roots) vespers (which I just looked up and apparently Camp Hudgens was wrong because vespers is an evening prayer service in Catholicism…punks…they just wanted us to wake up early) has always been a night thing. I am awake. I can focus. I can think. I can write. I can read. Those are already difficult things for me to do anyway, so I capitalize on the time my body and brain agrees the most.

Right now I am reading through Paul’s letters to the churches. Of course this baby thing is making that a bit more difficult too what with the being tired at 7 PM because I didn’t sleep the night before so I am having to adjust again. But I am curious about how the rest of the world does their time.

What do you do? What do you read? When works the best for you? What keeps you focused? What keeps you disciplined?

We got a new Video Of The Week this week!  Aaron Keyes is a new-to-me (in the last year or so) worship leader.  Every time I have seen him lead he has done an outstanding job.  Every time I listen to him I realize a little more that my Scriptural knowledge is lacking.  I think he has a YouVersion brain implant.  That or he just really knows his stuff and love his God.  I think it’s more of the second one.  Check out this video, follow him on Twitter (@aaronkeyes) and then hit him up on iTunes and get his album Not Guilty Anymore!

How often do you find yourself living knowing that God is real and out there but as if He is just the Man Upstairs.  He is out there but you shouldn’t bother Him with your problems.  Life sucks.  Hard times have hit.  Stress is piling up.  Worries are keeping you awake at night.  Too bad God is out there but doesn’t really concern Himself with the small stuff.

I know I live like this too often.  I forget that God is there for all my issues.  The relationship He wants from me is a personal one and not just knowledge based.  If I don’t go to Him with the small things in my life am I really trusting Him with everything?  Nope.  He wants me to trust Him with everything.  Through Jesus He made our problems personal to make it all right.

God went for the jugular when he sent his own Son. He didn’t deal with the problem as something remote and unimportant. In his Son, Jesus, he personally took on the human condition, entered the disordered mess of struggling humanity in order to set it right once and for all.

Romans 8:3

I don’t like living like God is just up there for big things.  I don’t like living like He isn’t always a personal God.  I gotta remember that He wants to hear my small stuff.  He wants me to trust Him with all my life.

Remember He wants all of you, too.  He is your personal God as well.  Let Him be.

So, what do you think? With God on our side like this, how can we lose? If God didn’t hesitate to put everything on the line for us, embracing our condition and exposing himself to the worst by sending his own Son, is there anything else he wouldn’t gladly and freely do for us? And who would dare tangle with God by messing with one of God’s chosen? Who would dare even to point a finger? The One who died for us—who was raised to life for us!—is in the presence of God at this very moment sticking up for us. Do you think anyone is going to be able to drive a wedge between us and Christ’s love for us? There is no way! Not trouble, not hard times, not hatred, not hunger, not homelessness, not bullying threats, not backstabbing, not even the worst sins listed in Scripture:

They kill us in cold blood because they hate you. 
We’re sitting ducks; they pick us off one by one. None of this fazes us because Jesus loves us. I’m absolutely convinced that nothing—nothing living or dead, angelic or demonic, today or tomorrow,

high or low, thinkable or unthinkable—absolutely nothing can get between us and God’s love because of the way that Jesus our Master has embraced us.

Romans 8:31-39

Sometimes we just need this reminder.  Life gets hard.  It gets painful.  You seem surrounded by enemies trying to hunt you down.  BUT it is in those times that God shows up and shows us His power again.  He shows us His love.  His grace.  His truth.  I love that.  None of this fazes us because Jesus loves us.  I’m absolutely convinced that NOTHING can get between us and God’s love.

When you read Luke, as Jesus is entering into Jerusalem everyone is singing His praises.  But the Pharisees freaked out and tried to stop it.

Some Pharisees from the crowd told him, “Teacher, get your disciples under control!” But he said, “If they kept quiet, the stones would do it for them, shouting praise.”

Luke 19:39-40

I have always wanted to see that.  Rocks crying out to God.  That just seems so far beyond what I can understand and imagine, yet so insanely awesome.  But they won’t.  Not yet.

The created world itself can hardly wait for what’s coming next. Everything in creation is being more or less held back. God reins it in until both creation and all the creatures are ready and can be released at the same moment into the glorious times ahead.

Romans 3:19-21

Do you see the amazing privilege that we have here?  The created world is being held back.  The entire world wants to do something that we have the choice to do.  They want to worship God.  And we have a choice.  Worship Him without being held back or live for ourselves.  Unfortunately I do the latter far too much.  I want to worship Him more.  I need to worship Him more.  (By the way, worshipping is way more than learning G, C, D and Em on the guitar and playing every worship song.  It is much more than going to church and singing two fast, one slow, one fast…or verse one and two, skip verse three and end with verse 4…just depends on what church you go to.)

I want to worship/honor/praise/trust Him…

…with my attitude.

…with my family.

…with my road rage.

…with my tweets.

…with my life.

He deserves so much more worship than I give Him.  The rocks know that.  They want to let it rip, but it’s just not their time yet.  Maybe we should start learning from them.  Maybe I am dumber than a rock.

It’s crazy how something so small completely changes your world.  It’s no longer about what I wanna do.  It’s no longer about what is best for me.  What is best for me is now taking care of a little one that relies solely on us.  It is loving this eating, crying and pooping machine (still somehow cute through all of it).  If I still go through life aiming for the things that I want and not what WE want I have no right to be called daddy.

As I was reading this chunk of Romans this hit home.  Just as it says, when we focus on ourselves we are no longer looking toward our Daddy who created us.  We aren’t giving Him the love and attention He deserves just for being Who He is.  I pray that I don’t live my life focused on myself but rather on God.  I don’t want to be focused on me but focusing on my family.  I could never live up to the title daddy if I didn’t.

Focusing on the self is the opposite of focusing on God. Anyone completely absorbed in self ignores God, ends up thinking more about self than God. That person ignores who God is and what he is doing. And God isn’t pleased at being ignored. But if God himself has taken up residence in your life, you can hardly be thinking more of yourself than of him.

Romans 3:7-9