Man, I thought for sure I was going to escape illness this Christmas.

I usually get sick because I work too hard, don't take enough time off or stay up too late.  I thought I had passed through the holiday fire unscathed.  While I watched person after person get picked off with illness this fall, I stayed healthy.  Until now.  

This morning when I woke up, my voice was several thousand feet below its usual elevation, and when I finished the final service, I was ready to go to bed (sorry if I talked to you today and looked like I was paying zero attention.  I kind of wasn't. My brain resembled fried bananas.) 

I keep thinking I can beat the system.  Nope.  Natural law – don't get enough sleep and go too hard – pay for it.  I've been pretty good at staying in balance, but the last two months I've pushed the limits. 

So today I'm thinking of 2 Chronicles 36.20-21.  God had earlier told his people to rest…even to give the land rest.  They ignored him.  So he shut down their nation for 70 years.  One way or another, rest happened. 

God kind of gives us a choice.  You choose to do limit yourself voluntarily on the front end, or the limits will come involuntarily on the back end.

Lesson learned. Again.

Think I'll go to be early tonight.

Hey all.  Something powerful happened 2000 years ago.  Earthshaking.  History shattering.

Enjoy it, explore it, engage it.  Dig in.  Jesus is worth every ounce we can muster.

I'm going off line for a while, in part so I can divert more of my attention to this incredible season we're in.

Talk soon…and Merry Christmas.

I loved this verse I read this morning (from Zechariah of all places…yep, Zechariah is actually a biblical book):

The context was the building of the second temple, which by all accounts was less glorious than the first temple (which had been destroyed by invading armies).

What struck me was God's comment to not despise these small beginnings.  Our culture tells us that bigger is better, that there are short cuts, that real gratification can always be instant. 

But often things don't really work that way.  My guess is that over Christmas, you'll be on some journey that has a small beginning. 

• You are going to eat less than last Christmas. 
• You will not get engaged in the tension that usually happens when your brother-in-law shows up. 
• You bought a little less for yourself so you could give a little more to someone in need.
• You are going to have one drink less than you normally do.
• You are going to show more kindness to a friend who often doesn't show kindness to you.
• You are going to give 1% of your income away next year when this year you gave away .01%. 
• You are going to read your bible once a week rather than once a month or never.

I don't know what your small beginning is, but you'll be tempted to write it off as nothing.  No biggie.  God won't use it because it's not huge. I'm not totally transformed, therefore it wasn't worth it.

Wrong.  Obedience always starts with a single step in the right direction. 

Don't despise your small beginning.  Maybe God is rejoicing in it.

So we are wrapping up Revolutionary Love this week at Connexus.

It's almost Christmas, and I'm thinking about a revolution. I know how powerful the reality of Jesus is.  I want to live there every day.  But truthfully, I always feel like I can ever only get a fraction of the edge of my mind around what God has done for us in Jesus.  I also feel like God's love is so immense, and I can only comprehend or even apprehend a speck of it. 

I know it's revolutionary.  But I want to live the revolution.

So as we count down to Christmas, I'm throwing this wide open. What makes you understand the revolutionary impact of God's love?  What things do you do or thoughts do you think that help you live in a more revolutionary way?  What enables you to grasp how full and wide and deep the love of God is for all of humanity?

What helps you become revolutionary? 

Share away. I'm thinking your comments might help all of us become greater revolutionaries this Christmas.

Today, I want to encourage you.  And I mean that in the literal sense. To encourage means to give courage.  This isn't encouragement designed to make you feel good about yourself, it's affirmation designed to give you more boldness, to take more risks, to give you courage to do what you couldn't do otherwise.

The opposite of encouragement is discouragement.  Which, naturally, means feedback that results in you losing courage, losing the willingness to tackle issues.  

That's why this week has been so refreshing for me and others at Connexus. We took some big steps in faith last year, and while we've had some real highs, we've had moments where it was downright discouraging and scary to live this kind of mission.

This past week, in some small but important way, we've gotten a glimpse into how God is using a tribe of people who call Connexus home to shape live change over the last year. I was so excited for our team – our volunteers, congregation, staff and elders.  Their courage is making a difference!

I want to share those findings in the hopes that they will encourage you to think about how God is using you. The whole exercise will take 2-4 minutes.  If you're ready, jump here to read this week's posts on the Connexus blog. You'll read posts about how God is impacting lives, how the ministry at Connexus impacted people, some phrases that summarize the life change and more. 

As I read some of the comments, I was amazed at how many stories God is writing that none of us have heard yet.  And yet the are incredibly meaningful to God and to the person/people involved.

We all run into this coming weekend feeling some emotion.  If you are encouraged, don't let the encouragement simply make you feel good, let it give you more courage to step out into new places with Christ.  If you are discouraged, ask God for more courage.  He's probably using you more than you think.

Encouraged, or discouraged?  Regardless of how you feel, I promise you God wants to encourage you to take more risks, to trust Him more.  Because He – guaranteed – is willing to use any life surrendered to Him.

One the great things about the Revolutionary Love series at Connexus is that it's had such practical application points every week.  Bring food and clothing.  Buy a mosquito net.  Build a health clinic.  All tangible, "doable" stuff.

To be honest, peoples' response has been incredible.  I'm wondering whether it's not just because people's hearts have been moved, but because the "ask" has been so clear, direct and specific.

Often in preaching, we're vague about what we ask people to do – how we ask them to respond. "Be generous" is far less tangible than "buy a mosquito net".  And while I've tried to get clearer and clear on how people can respond tangibly to the teaching of scripture, I feel like there's still a gap we can close.

As we get ready to leave this series, I'm thinking actively about how to make more concrete asks with regular series.  I'm not sure doing a "project" a week is realistic or tangible every single weekend.  But clearly, we're not preaching so people can simply say "nice message" or "I didn't know that before."  We want to preach for transformation.

So, week to week, what kinds of things would help you better apply what we're talking about.  What's worked well in the past, what crazy ideas are floating in your brain, and what might work well in the future. Ideas?

Sometimes a verse just jumps off the page.  Had this happen to me this morning.  Check this out from Micah 6.3-5:

“O my people, what have I done to you?
      What have I done to make you tired of me?
      Answer me!
For I brought you out of Egypt
      and redeemed you from slavery.
      I sent Moses, Aaron, and Miriam to help you.
 Don’t you remember, my people,
      how King Balak of Moab tried to have you cursed
      and how Balaam son of Beor blessed you instead?
   And remember your journey from Acacia Grove to Gilgal,
      when I, the Lord, did everything I could
      to teach you about my faithfulness.”

When I think about my own journey and I reflect on years of conversations with people about their frustrations with God, this verse spoke to me so deeply.  We can be so quick to complain, and so slow to recognize how good God is.

For me, the faithfulness of God is not just demonstrated by what He did or didn't do "for me" last week, but by His steady hand over all of time.  That I can put my trust in.

How about for you? How does this passage speak to you?

My last blog post was the result of a conversation I had last week with a staff member in our weekly one on one meeting.  I was asking her for feedback, and she said she'd love to see me step out with more creativity in the messages on the weekend.  She felt God uses me most when I am most creative.

I loved that conversation.  I think I needed the prod.  It made me reflect not only on my preaching, but on my leadership in general over the last year…that after taking some real risks in leaving a denomination,  building a new leadership team, and being involved in launching Connexus, I wonder if I slipped into 'status quo' mode a little too easily in late 08. 

I spent late last week and the weekend thinking about what it might take in 2009 to push the envelope further than it has been pushed before around here, because that's the kind of leadership the church has always required when the church has been at its strongest.

Here's my encouragement as we plow into a new week:  the reason I got thinking about this stuff is because someone spoke some encouraging truth into my life.  It might have been easier to say "I think everything's great", but I'm richer for her not having said that.

This week, you and I are going to have dozens of significant conversations.  What might God be encouraging you to speak into others' lives?  You and I are positioned to speak truth and love in multiple directions this week. 

So if you feel a prompting, I'm just encouraging you –  say it.

Last night I was on a groups tour (we're visiting our community groups just to connect with folks and talk about life at Connexus). The tour's been great!

At one of the groups I was at last night, I caught a comment in passing that I loved.  One guy was telling me he was talking to friends about being a part of Connexus, and his friend said to him – "Connexus – you guys go to Connexus? Man, Connexus is crazy!"

To me, that's one of the highest compliments anyone can pay our ministry.

Our culture needs more out of the box, crazy, over the top people willing to risk something for the Kingdom.  Current Christianity is so sanitized that if any biblical figure jumped out of the scripture into most churches, we'd run them out of town.  The Bible is less Christian book store figurine and more like a crazy man who needs a shower.

One of the things I've been thinking about as 2009 rolls in is that we need to do more crazy things for the Kingdom – take risks no one else is taking so we can reach people no one else is reaching. We've got one idea rolling around right now to engage the unchurched that's bound to draw a ton of criticism from people if we actually pull the trigger. I say bring it on. (Stay tuned for details).

Is crazy a part of your spiritual journey?  Are you taking enough risks in your leadership for people to call you crazy?  Truthfully, not sure I am right now, but in 09 I definitely want to change that.

It is now legal to apologize in the Province of Ontario. 

It's not that it was illegal to apologize before, it's just that most people didn't when the matter was serious for fear of their apology being used against them in a law suit. 

So the government actually passed allow saying you can apologize and it can't be held against you in court. It's a fascinating study in human nature.  To read about the bill, click here and download the Bill 108 apology.  (Sorry it's a PDF…there aren't great online summaries of this. But at least I can apologize for the PDF without fear of a lawsuit.)

The principle in our lives is the same – often we don't want to apologize because of fear. Which is weird for Christ-followers in light of the cross and in light of how forgiven we really are.

Anyone you feel you need to apologize to today?  Just wanted to let you know, because it's now more than legal. :0)