BEYOND

For those of you who are linking to my blog from the NACC – welcome!

To those of you (both of you) who are normal blog followers, I’m at the North American Christian Convention. NACC   It is the annual convention for the churches we’re affiliated with, and I’ve been to 45 of them in my life, if you count the one just before I was born.  It’s been a vital part of my summer all my life.   They’ve asked me to blog and comment on the President’s message tonight.

So here we go.  First of all, Ben Cachiaras is one of my closest friends, a guy I share ministry life with on a regular basis.  So I wouldn’t rat him out (and believe me, I could).  Ben is too important to me.  But enough of the sap.

I know the amount of work he’s put into this convention and I’m really excited to be here this week.  He and his team have gone over and above to bring in Tony Dungy, Rick Warren, Francis Chan, etc. (and they are having Mosaic sing as well).

Ben got things off to a great start tonight.  Actually the worship team did.  Worship was incredible as we all were given the time to forget about our trip to Indy, and the problems with our motel room, and the hurried dinner with people we haven’t seen in a year – and come before the throne.

Ben sucked up to the Indiana crowd with a clip from Hoosiers, but he made a valid correlation in the minds of many worshipers in this crowd of thousands.  The reference was that even though this was a bigger crowd than most were used to, and there were 100 people on stage and we were in a convention center, the goal is still 10 feet high and free throws are still made from 15 feet.  I think that settled everyone down to talk about the topic.

“Beyond” is the theme of the convention this year.  Ben’s introductory sermon served as a way to tell us about the mini-themes as well as give us the over all picture of how we can all leave here on Friday and go (and take our churches) BEYOND where they’ve ever been before.  What would our churches look like if Jesus was physically here?  Would we change?  Would we take them “beyond” where they are now?

Beyond means following God and God is always on the move.  If you want to follow Jesus, you have to keep moving.  Ben asked us to pray a four word prayer, “Dear God, disturb me.”

I think God did that through the service tonight.  We studied Mark 1:14-17 where Jesus asked the disciples to drop their nets and follow him.  “Dropping your nets” means leaving the place of comfort and safety.  He quoted someone who said that growth comes more from subtraction than addition.  And then they followed, but it says “at once” they followed. 

Following Jesus beyond where we are now means dropping the things that have become comfortable in our hands – even for good reasons – and being willing to follow Jesus beyond anywhere we could imagine for ourselves.

It was a great message, and a great start to this convention.

I’m going to hit it and be ready for a great day.

Tim

Comments

[Paula]

GREAT! Hit it GOOD :) Ben should come back and see us again...he's a good preacher! (too). GOD Bless All of you!
:) 1 of 2

[Mr. Puggle®]

"To those of you (both of you)"

So I guess I am number two? Hahahah. Sounds like you had fun. So cool Mosaic got to play. 44 years? Really? Wow.

[Douglas28Twila]

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