Full Confidence . . .

Do you have full confidence in God? I mean, do you believe with every fiber of your being that he's going to do what he promises? A couple of days ago in Bible time I read the, "Do not worry" passage in Matthew. As I was reading it, I asked myself if I really believed it. Do I believe whole heartedly that God is going to take care of me and my family the same way he takes care of the flowers in the field. And my answer . . . YES!!!

I do believe it. I believe it for two reasons. The first one is He said he would. That should be enough, but there's more. The second reason I believe it is because of God's history. Not His global history, but His history in the Taylor Family and in my life. God has always showed up, always right on time. I want to tell you about how faithful God has been over the summer. I think you'll be amazed!

For those of you not familiar with Connections, let me give you a couple of quick facts. We're a new church, less than a year old, reaching prechristians and young families. We're still under 100 people (but growing). I have a couple of side jobs that I do now and then when I can get the work, but mostly I put all my time in making Connections go. Financially things have been a challenge, as they are with any non-profit in this economy. But the fact that most of our people are college aged or unsaved makes it even a bit more challenging. Still God has been faithful. Here are the last few months and what God has done to save the day.

At the beginning of the summer, we needed money to pay all our bills at the beginning of the month. We prayed and God showed up in the mail. We got a 600 dollar check from our escrow account. We're still not sure if they miscalculated something (we bought this house when we moved here about a year ago), or if it has to do with a change on our mortgage insurance, but either way, we needed it.

Fast forward 30 days, same situation, just a little worse. Tammi came in and sat down with me to talk finances. "Here are our options. We can take a partial paycheck and pay the mortgage or we can take no paycheck and pay the rent for the church. What do you want to do? Oh and we need to pay our worship leader and children's worker too." As a man, that's tough, I mean, that's my main gig, providing for my family. Even more than starting a church and loving on people, I'm commanded to take care of the Taylor clan. Tam and I prayed together and the next day, in the mail box we got a support check for 1200 bucks. How amazing is that!!! We didn't ask for it, we didn't even make the need known, it just showed up.

Thirty days later, same song, third verse. This time it was a check for 1000 dollars for some work I hadn't even done yet. The original agreement was that I'd get paid after all the editing was finished. We were still a month out from even doing the shooting, much less all the editing, but I was holding in my hand a 1000 dollar check. The guy who sent it had no idea he answered our prayers.

Number 4. Probably my favorite story (that's happened so far). I'm sitting in a parking lot waiting for a lady 4 spaces up to back out so I could park as close as possible to the front door. While I was waiting, I noticed the car directly to my left was also backing out towards me. "Surely she'll see me!" I thought. I tapped on the horn a couple of times then laid on the horn as hard as I could (as if that would make it louder). I actually broke the plastic piece that activates the horn. My horn didn't stop her, but my driver side door did. She apologized and admitted it was completely her fault. My car left an imprint in her plastic bumper, "Reatta" (only backwards of course). Lucky for her it was a loaner car, hers was being fixed. The Reatta took a good sized dent up by the front wheel well. When the insurance company called me to talk about a fix they said I could just keep the money if I wanted or I could have it fixed, either way it was up to me. I still have the dent, and my house. Another mortgage miracle. I love my car (it turns 20 in January), I'm bummed it's got a dent in it, but I'm thinking about keeping it just as a great story of God's faithfulness. He always shows up.

Last month I felt God calling me to sell some things to make things go and I was faithful to that. I understand completely that God calls us to do our part too. We have to be men and woman willing to give it all up for him. We can't just stand there with our hands out all the time.

All in all the last 4-5 months have been amazing. To me it's just more proof that God is behind the ministry we're doing here. And I know he'll continue to be faithful because he has always been faithful, he has always provided.

Let me close with another verse I ran into recently. It's in the book of 1 John, chapter 3 starting in verse 21, "Dear friends, if our hearts do not condemn us, we have confidence before God and receive from him anything we ask, because we obey his commands and do what pleases him." IF our hearts do not condemn us . . . in other words, if we are clean before God, no unconfessed sin, no baggage that we're carrying around, then we have full confidence in God! He will do what we ask, He will help us accomplish His will on this earth, He will help grow Connections and continue to provide for the Taylor family. I believe this with every fiber of my being! I have FULL CONFIDENCE!!!!

The Full Video

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Opening Sequence

We've posted an opening sequence of the short we're producing. It's about all the junk we carry around in our lives. It's two minutes long. Then hit comment and help me come up with a good name for the video. We don't have on yet!

Quick Update

Things at Connections are incredible. We've aimed for and envisioned this community of young believers where we can gather together to Connect with God and with each other. Also, and this is key to our energy, we want a place where everyone enjoys themselves on Saturday night. We want to see smiles and hear laughs.

I believe we have it.

We had a ton of visitors this last week. I sent emails out to most of them and I got this response back . . .

"Dude, I think I'm hooked! You have a very infectious group. (I've tried other churches but) you guys have a much different energy. It probably has to do with the younger ages of people with Connections, and that helped me "connect" with the others. Nothing against the other group, but you need to find the right fit." -The parenthesis are my paraphrase.

So good! I'm proud of our teams and our families for creating an encouraging atmosphere. All we need now is a few hundred more people!

This Saturday night we're talking about our callings. Next Saturday is our fall kick off. Complete with music, videos, some preaching and a BBQ. It will be a great time!

God is in the Calories

Which tastes better, broccoli or cheesecake? Easy right? How about this, if you were hungry, how would you rank these five foods in order from worst to best tasting; lettuce, bacon cheeseburger, bowl of fruity pebbles, 1 chocolate chip cookie and a cup of grapes. Go ahead . . . make your list. I'm guessing most of us would do something like this, starting with the worst . . . lettuce, grapes, fruity pebbles, cookies and bacon cheeseburger. I know, I know, someone is saying, I don't like cereal or maybe you just ate dinner and cookies sound the best, especially if my mom or wife made them (same recipe), but overall we'd all head the same direction. Now, if I made a list of which foods are best for you health wise, the list would be reversed. I once heard that lettuce actually takes more calories to eat than it has in it.

I think this is another proof of God. Everything, including calories, has order to it. If Mountain Dew and burritos were healthy, we'd have a skinny nation. If chocolate, in it's various forms, were part of a weight loss plan, I'd be the first to sign up. On the other hand, if strawberries were full of fat, carbs and sugar, we'd kill them like a weed and probably consider them poisonous.

We see this organized God in other areas too. Running and exercise are great for you. Sitting in front of the TV is not. You run a little, you get a little healthier. You run alot you get alot healthier. It's like the harder you work, the more willpower you exert, the greater you can become.

Is this true in our spiritual walks? Definitely is. These last three weeks I've been ramping up my Bible time. Everyday, usually before lunch, I spend a half hour studying God's word and praying. I have a good pastor friend who spends twice that every morning. I'm not sure God created me with 60 straight minutes worth of focus, but we'll see. I have found that for me, it helps to set a minimum amount of time. That way I can marinade in the Word and not rush through it (which I do sometimes). It forces me to slow down and listen. I'm loving it!

In what other ways do you see God's divine order? Maybe you disagree completely and think that there is no real order. Hit the reply. I'd love your opinion!

Sleeping and Eating

I've turned some corners this last year on my views of creation. I have always BELIEVED that God created us, but it was all faith, not facts. I am now completely convinced, on a scientific level, that we were, without any doubt, wonderfully designed. Now, if you don't believe in God, you can think that aliens designed us or a group of gods or a former advanced race or you can even believe that we live in a matrix, either is fine. For this particular blog, it really doesn't matter. The point we have to agree on is that we were indeed designed. If you want some of my personal proofs, just make a comment to the blog and we can chat.

Once I decided that, I began asking questions about why we were created like we are. Some things make total sense. My hand is at the end of my arm. That's perfect. I can reach things. My eyes and ears are at the top of my being. That's another win, I can see and hear farther. I even think it's cool that our eye lids are about 90% opaque. Even when they are closed, I can tell whether there is light on in a room. If they were completely opaque, people could just close their eyes and go to sleep in the middle of the day. I know, I know, you and I would never do that, but the the world in general?

But what about food. Do you find it odd that we have to eat 3 times a day? Why do we have to do that? Wouldn't it make more sense to feed yourself once, early in the day and be done with it? Or you could fill up, like a car, once a week or so. Better yet, why not breath in the energy like we do oxygen. Anyone smart enough to create the human nervous system surely could figure that out!

Here's the other thing that has always bothered me. I have to sleep 1/3 of my life. They say 8 hours a day is optimal and that we get alot more than that when we're in the nursery and in nursing homes. If live to be the typical heterosexual, white, male age of 75.7, that means I will literally sleep for 25 years of my life! WHAT? 25 YEARS? That really inhales.

Well, here are my personal opinions on getting tired and hungry. We won't know for sure until we get to heaven and ask (if we even care then), but I think it's fun to speculate now. The reason we get hungry is to keep some of us from being lazy. Food's a pretty good motivator. I remember as a kid playing video games on the weekend until I was hungry. Then I'd take a break and get some grub. Some of us need that motivator to go get a job or work the field. We're pretty spoiled here in the US. I can eat as many times a day as I want, but in some, if not most nations, you want food you have to work the field.

I think sleep is for the exact opposite reasons. Some of us would work non stop without that 8 hour break once a day. I'm more of a night person. It's not uncommon for me to stay up to 2 or 3 in the morning working on a sermon or a major video project. It frustrates me that I get tired. The kids are all in bed. The house is quiet, I feel like I'm conquering the world and then . . . the Dew starts wearing off and my eyes start getting a bit blurry. I try to fight it, but eventually I have to surrender to the laws of nature and realize that I can try it again tomorrow night. If I didn't need sleep, I'm pretty sure I'd just keep on working and working and working. But, that wouldn't be healthy for me or my family.

So that's my thoughts. Hunger and exhaustion keep us balanced between laziness and workaholism. It makes sure was all have some down time and some work time. God, being all knowing, would have thought about this when he created Adam and Eve. He would have seen the big picture of a world with over 6 billion people (and growing) and made the right adjustments for us to succeed. Apparently sleeping 5 hours a day wasn't enough, and eating once a week wouldn't cut it either. He knew.

So what kind of things puzzle you about the way we're made? What would you change? Do you think 70 is a good amount of years to live on the earth? Do you think it's good that it takes two humans to make a new one? What about wrinkles and grey hair? So many things that don't make sense, but I believe there is a reason for every single one of them!

A Bit of Leadership (especially for pastors)

Let's say we're about to speak at a church in front of a 1000 people or so. You and I have prepped well, practiced much and we even have a couple of sure fire jokes between the two of us to keep the people engaged. Right before we walk out on the stage, a magical genie appears (hang with me here . . .) and gives you these three choices. You can walk out on stage and be the 1. Most intelectual guy in the room. 2. The most spiritual person in the room or 3. The most emotional guy in the room. The choice is yours. Which would it be?

Do you want to know more than any other person in the room about your subject? This would make total sense, right? Why would you tell people stuff they already know? And, everyone says they want more depth. They want the original greek and the tense and historical significance and the cultural norms surrounding it all. You could give them all that if you were the smartest guy in the room. And, you could share it in a way that really connects with every one. We'd bring it "down" to their level so they could grasp these great Biblical concepts.

Or maybe we should be the most spiritual. I mean we are preaching, right? We've spent hours in prayer every day just like Billy Graham! The Holy Spirit just oozes out of us. People can see it and sense it. We have all our text memorized and look right at them while we quote the very words of God. We sense the leading of the Holy Spirit and have zero problems adding a few points that God downloads into us as we're preaching. At the end, we open the altars and loads of people come down and get right with God.

Or should we opt to be the most emotional person there? We preach with the greatest passion any stage has seen. With the smile of Joel O. and the conviction of MLK we raise our fist to the air and shout with all our might the great attributes of God. Then, in the same moment, with tears in our eyes, we tell our people how unworthy we are to know such a great God. We end our sermon with a call to action that is truly challenging. We know most of these people could never accomplish such a feat, but everyone leaves the building with boldness and courage. Ready to take on the world!

When we look at the life of Jesus, we see evidence of all three of these. Jesus the brilliant shows up when He was only 12 years old. I've heard this story so many times, it becomes a little ho hum. But, go spend some time with a 12-year-old and then read it again. Imagine this preteen, probably skinny as a rail and a little fidgety, explaining things about your ancestors. At first, it's a bit of a side show, it's just cool that someone has taught this kid all this information. Maybe you ask a question or two to see where his knowledge ends. Then, he starts making applications and piecing stuff together that you've never thought of. Maybe for a small moment you forget you're listening to just a kid and you're engaged in this brilliant message.

Jesus the spiritual giant . . . do we even need to address this? He was God! I love the stories where people approached Jesus and they just knew who He was. It wasn't like he was up on some huge stage with lights and a killer sound system. He wasn't being announced at the Staple's Center in front of 60,000 fans. He didn't even have a name tag on. Still, His very presence was convicting, or moving, or comforting. It was . . . spiritual. Matthew 8:28, "When he arrived at the other side in the region of the Gadarenes, two demon-possessed men coming from the tombs met him. They were so violent that no one could pass that way. 'What do you want with us, Son of God?" No one said, "Here comes Jesus! He's a prayer warrior." No one had handed out invites to the landing of this great leader. These two guys just knew. There was something great, something deep about this guy.

Jesus the passionate? Do we see that? I think we see it in two ways. We do see a Jesus who is so passionate, he turns over the tables in the temple. That's some serious passion. But I think just as important is the times Jesus stayed level headed, like when the fight was breaking out between the disciples and guards (why was peter carrying a sword anyway?) and Jesus reaches out heals the man's ear. I'm guessing Jesus' heart rate wasn't even escalated, kinda like when he slept through the storm out at sea.

So Jesus was the perfect example of the intellectual, spiritual, emotional giant. Is it possible for us to be all of those things? Can we be a smart, righteous, passionate preacher? Well, the short answer is probably. Some of us have certain limitations that we can never get past. No matter how hard we try, we'll never be the smartest guy in the room. I'm a great example of that. No matter how hard I try, or how many people try to help me, I still just don't get certain things. I miss social cues, say awkward things, and I'm great at stepping on other leaders toes. I think I'm above average at problem solving and creative solutions, but ask me to name the capital of your favorite state and you'll realize fairly quickly that my hard drive doesn't hold much. I took a semester of Greek in college with the vision of reading God's word in it's original form. How great would that be? I got a D-. I'm pretty sure I didn't deserve it. Thank you Dr. Weeter for being gracious! I tried to memorize all the words, but they just wouldn't stick. So frustrating. The good news is, I now have google and it is amazing! If you give me any subject and about 10 minutes and I'll find more information than you care to know. This is true in our sermons too. There's no excuse for lack of material. It's all out there and waiting for you. Instead of preparing a sermon, you can just spend your week listening to a dozen sermons about your topic and you'll have enough material for an entire series. Obviously you still need to listen to the Holy Spirit and see what he says.

When it comes to passion, this is easy for me. Partly because CX is so new that I'm still preaching sermons that I've been dying to preach for a while. New churches are all about reaching the lost and dechurched. I'm naturally pretty passionate about that. But what if you have to preach on something that you know God has called you to preach on, but you're just not feeling it? What works well for me is imagining someone who desperately needs to hear that exact message. How will this change their life? Will this help get them over the a major hump in their spiritual journey? Although I might not get fired up on certain subjects, I definitely get fired up about seeing lives changed. That's really encouraging. Also, and this may be a little too honest for some people, but if I'm preaching to guests (first time attenders) to CX, something in me just lights up. I feel like my messages come alive. New people energize me. The usual people still make me smile, but something about a new face walking in the door that is just exciting. If we had a room full of guests, I could get fired up about Easter Eggs (I actually did one time, listen to "Focus" on our media page).

The last question is can we be a spiritual giant. Of course we can! The challenge is that there are no shortcuts. You can't dial it up on your iPhone or order it off the internet. It can be faked, but not for very long. It takes time in the word and on your knees. A pastor I greatly respect said something in a meeting the other day that grabbed me. He said, "Do you really pray to your God? Do you get on your knees and pray?" I know, I know, we're all thinking, "We'll duh." But it's a bit of a challenge for me. The stillness the quietness, the lack of task or goal, that gets me. I need a goal, a finish line, something like . . . "Ok Dusty, you have exactly 4 minutes to pray for all 100 people that are connected with Connections, you have to mention them by name and at least one thing they need help with, on your mark, get set . . ." Then the music would come on and a big timer would appear in the corner of my room. That would be my kind of prayer time! I have a great friend who spends a half hour in prayer and a half hour reading his Bible every work day at the crack of dawn. I'm blown away by his commitment and consistency, and it gives me something to strive towards. Again, there's no way around the time, you just have to put it in!

I want to conclude with a tip on preaching. These three concepts, emotional, spiritual and intellectual, represent the people sitting in our pews and chairs. Some need proof there's a God, some need encouragement and motivation and some are just hungry for Scripture. How do we hit all three of these people every week? Honestly, it is a challenge. The intellectual loves the talk on evolution vs. creation. The spiritual want you to preach exegetically, and the emotional just want the pastor to cry. Although you'll rarely hit home runs for everyone every week, when I prepare a major sermon (Easter, Christmas, camps etc.) I use the 3 S's, stories, stats and Scripture.

Stories break down walls and if told correctly, puts everyone on the same ship. If it's a story we can all relate to, like the financial crises, it gives credibility to the speaker. "He's in the same boat we are." I love stories for two reasons. One, Jesus told a bunch of them. We call them parables, but they were really just great stories. Sometimes, he didn't even tell them what it meant. He just told stories and walked away. We should stop explaining everything to our people. Let 'em figure it out once in a while. Two, stories are engaging, even bad, stupid stories. I can be preaching about something incredible, the glory of God or the final judgement day when Satan is finally banished, and still, eventually people start to drift. Now remember, at CX, we only meet for 59 minutes, so it's not like I'm preaching for 40 minutes. Even in my 25 minute talk, I see a yawn or two, but if I say something like, "The other day I walked into the Sprint store . . ." Everyone reengages. Here comes a story, I better listen. Use more stories. Luckily the clouds are full of sermon illustrations, google it up!

Statistics are great because they prove a point outside of our opinions. I've been studying more lately about the homosexual movement so that I can defend my view points without Scripture. I read recently that more men have AIDS than women. Here's the interesting part, if you take all the way men can get HIV/AIDS besides being with other homosexuals, sharing needles, blood transfusions, heterosexual partners, and you put them all together, it only equals around 39% of the infected men. The rest is from homosexual encounters. Without the gay lifestyle, AIDS is cut by more than half in our nation. Not just because it is no longer being passed from man to man, but it's no longer being passed from man to woman. Now, I don't have time to go into the fact we do love homosexuals and we heterosexuals have temptations too etc.etc. But the point is, no one can argue with these facts. They are facts. The homosexual lifestyle kills people and in some cases babies are born with it because of homosexuality. One word of caution about statistics from the internet is that anyone can put together a website, anyone can make up a survey and get the answers they want, don't just find someone who says what you're looking for, seek the truth.

The last and most important is Scripture. I've been recommending an audio Bible lately called, "The Bible Experience." It's a very (very) well produced audio recording of the entire Bible being read by famous African American actors, actresses and pastors. I often use it at CX for our main Bible passage. It really brings things to life. I'll never understand why there is so much power in the words that make up the Bible. It's one of those mysteries. I was chatting with a friend of mine about the double edged sword passage that we all use and he made the comment that sometimes you read or hear the Word and it's more like a paper cut, you don't even realize you have it for a couple of days and then something happens and it stings you! Very well said. I have had an instance or two where I use a secondary passage of scripture to support the first someone comes up to me afterwards and tells me how much it spoke to them. Funny thing is my whole sermon was about something else, but that one passage grabbed them so much, they thought that it was the main topic. Amazing.

I hope there was something useful here. Since I don't get to preach this week, this is my release! Continue praying for CX. We're growing one family at a time. Even through the summer. God is so, so good. And, forgive the typos, my wife is out of town : )