Unlike the last two years, this year I wasn’t blessed with the opportunity to go to the Catalyst West Coast conference.  I had major hopes of returning for a third straight year (and not just because I wanted to go visit my coast again), but God had other things planned for us.  So while we hold the record for the youngest person to attend CatWest (under 2 months old), I’m sure, we didn’t get to back that up with the youngest person to attend back to back years.

But that didn’t stop me from living vicariously through all my friends who did go and all their tweets and notes.  So while I am attempting to sift through all the amazing things that God shared with us there, here is one of my favorite quotes so far.

The purpose of life is not to arrive at death safely.

- Christine Caine

So many times in our lives we make the safe choice instead of the better choice.  We may not always know the outcome, but making sure that we finish up our life in a nice, safe manner probably won’t reach many people.  Maybe God has something amazing planned if you would take that homeless guy dinner.  Or invite that lonely person over for Thanksgiving with your family.  Or pack up and move to a new place and culture.  Or love on the dirty, broken, and poor people in your church even though they smell, cry and don’t tithe.

I know I don’t want to live a safe life.  That would be boring in so many aspects.  I don’t want to miss out on the things God could do through me and in me because I was too scared to take a risk.  I don’t want my family to live in that “germ-free” bubble that is religion and not real love.

Did you know you are in ministry?  It’s true.  You are.  Whether you know it or not, you are.  You don’t work at a church?  Oh.  That’s ok!  You still are in ministry.  That doesn’t mean that deep down you are a pastor and you didn’t even know it.  It doesn’t mean we all have to get up and preach (thank the Lord).  But as Christians we are all ministers.  Ministry isn’t just something that takes place in the church building.  It’s not something that only the church staff does.  If you look up the term minister in the dictionary all the normal things we think of come up.

• One who is authorized to perform religious functions
• A high officer of state appointed to head an executive or administrative department of government
• To attend to the wants and needs of others
• To perform the functions of a cleric

But there is another definition that I like.  A person serving as an agent for another by carrying out specified orders or functions. As Christians we are exactly that.  People serving as agents for Christ by carrying out specified orders or functions.  In the book of Mark we are told that second only to loving God with everything that we are we are to love those around us.  Seems like a pretty specific order and function.  It’s a command!  Love them!

If you think about it we have chances all the time to minister and show love to those around us.  Do we always take those opportunities?  Sadly no.  But there are so many times when someone close to us needs someone to talk to or some to love on them or help them.  We don’t have to be in full time ministry, paid by the church with business cards that say some translation of the word pastor!  Minister at home!  To your spouse.  Your kids.  Your neighbors, friends, family, etc.  Even when you don’t want to or don’t feel like it is your job or that you are good enough, God can and will use you to minister and love on them.  As Mark Driscoll put it, “Ministry is what God does for us, in us, through us and sometimes in spite of us.”

Next time you think to yourself, this person needs some prayer or counsel or love, remember that you are a minister of God.  You are called by God to be just that!

I’m gonna take a slight detour this week for our video of the week.  Usually I have some song that I’m really feeling at the moment, but this week I’m branching out.  Poetry.  That’s right.  I said it.  Poetry.  But not just poetry.  Anis Mojgani poetry.  He’s pretty good.  Well, he’s actually was the World Poetry Slam Champion and the back-to-back 2005 and 2006 National Individual Poetry Slam Champion.  In this video he is performing his poem that he did for us at Catalyst West Coast called Shake The Dust in which he reminds us of the power of words and the value in our stories.  This is for you.

As little kids we looked up to our dads. They were/still are super heroes. They could do anything, fix anything, be anything, play anything, create anything, etc. We wanted to hang out with dad and spend all the time we could with him. But the best fathers know that their kids eat it up when they feel needed. Nothing else is important in that moment.

When daddy needs you the entire world stops.

As fathers we know that (yes I am speaking a little ahead of my own life but I have seen it happen) the two-year-old really doesn’t lend any real help, but it builds them up and makes them feel a part and loved. When you are carrying the groceries in and the little one is there to “help” you give them the bag of chips knowing that it isn’t heavy and they taste just as good in smaller pieces as it will be dropped multiple times on the way from the car to the kitchen.

The dropping tripping over smashing help of the little one isn’t about the help, though. The help is more for the benefit of the child than it is for the parent. Dad is completely capable of carrying the groceries or turning off the lights or painting the wall. He doesn’t need the help of his kid and it may actually be causing him more work, but the whole thing is not for him. The child learns and grows and feels loved and accepted through the situation. They start to learn lessons and skills that they would otherwise miss out on by just going inside and playing with their toys.

There is a connection here with ministry work. As Driscoll put it, “Ministry is putting on a little hard hat and going to work with Dad.” Dad doesn’t need your help. He is an all-powerful God! But when we make ourselves available to be put to work our heavenly Daddy gives us a job to do. Yes He is fully capable of doing it without our help, but the benefit to us is huge. The lessons we can learn from being a part of what Daddy is doing. It helps us grow. It helps us mature. It makes us a part of what He is doing.

So go out there and put on your little hard hat and go to work with your Daddy. He is doing something far beyond your capacity, but He wants to involve you in it!

It seems like every time I hear Andy Stanley speak, God uses him to blow my mind or rock my world.  And every time I hear him speak I think to myself, why don’t I listen to more of his podcasts and not just follow him on Twitter (@AndyStanley).  Hmm.  Not sure, but I am really glad he does this whole Catalyst thing.

He always says things that make many in leadership positions rethink what they are doing or how they are handling their teams.  At Catalyst West Coast he was speaking on being a better leader and said “your fully exploited strengths are far greater than your developing weaknesses.”  As a pastor I know that this is an easily overlooked or ignored truth.  When the organization is small certain things are necessary, but many times we don’t grow past this.  I have seen it happen with setup/teardown teams, staff members and media teams and I’m sure those aren’t the only ones.

Is it a bad thing to be doing multiple things including areas that are weaknesses?  No.  That’s not what I am getting at.  But at least for me, if I am not careful (which many times I am not) the following things happen:

• I forget is that I am better that my strengths than I am at my weaknesses that I am working on
• I stop using my strengths to their full potential
• I start worrying about how I can make my weaknesses better
• I let my strengths suffer or go unused because my attention to my weaknesses becomes more important.

As it is true with me, it is true with leading my team.  Let’s say for example I have a volunteer that is serving in a capacity that they are just getting by but not being truly utilized.  If I know that they would be much more fulfilled and useful for our common goal, I need to do whatever I can to make sure they get into a position that fits them better!  Even those of us that have to do multiple things need to remember that God gave us strengths and that we cannot neglect those God given strengths because we are spending too much time on our weaknesses.  When we do that, nothing gets done well and everything suffers.

Now you.  Share with the rest of us.  Are you using your strengths as strengths or are you pushing them aside while being distracted by your weaknesses?  Is there someone on your team that you need to move to a different seat?  What do you think?

Go!

I have another song for you this week that I am hoping to start using soon.  Tim Hughes is one of those guys that writes great songs and has the fun accent to go along with it.  And once again, Tim graces us all with another great one.  This is another one that Carlos Whittaker, Aaron Keyes, Jeffery Scott, and Jonathan and Candi Shelton led at Catalyst West.  Great stuff.  Enjoy!

We are tossing in a new song this week at Kingsfield Church that I heard for the first time at Catalyst West Coast.  It isn’t necessarily a new song (especially if you are a big Chris Tomlin fan), but it has been so long since I have purchased new music, that it was new to me.  It was great to get to see Tomlin and his band lead it.  Anyway, the rest of them are going to be great, too!  So here you go!

Everlasting God – Lincoln Brewster – Everlasting God – Single
Revelation Song – Kim Walker-Smith – Consumed
All Because Of Jesus – Fee – We Shine
Our God – Chris Tomlin – Passion: Awakening

You are not the artist.  You are the canvas. – Mark Driscoll at Catalyst West Coast.

I love that!  God created me as a blank canvas and is painting away.  There is just something about knowing that He is in control and is working me into a beautiful piece of art.  After all, He is the ultimate Creator.  Isn’t it freeing to know that you are just the canvas?

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?