We all fall into habits. 

When something new enters my life, I usually have a period of a few days where I establish some learnings on how to use it. And within those first 48 to 72 hours, I form patterns that soon become indicative of how I’ll interact with whatever I’m using.  For example, I bought this laptop back in August, and it is my first Mac.  Initially, everything seemed new.  But for the most part, I figured out how to use it in the first 72 hours.  It was like I made little deals on what keystroke shortcuts I’d use, what features I’d open, and what I’d never bother to figure out.

In those first few days, I didn’t explore every feature or probably even 90% of what this baby can do.  I just figured out how to use it for what I needed it to do, explored a few bells and whistles, and left it alone.  And what I did in those first few days set the pattern for my use of this thing since then.  Even though I totally love my Mac (I’m a raving fan!), I’ve explored two raindrops worth of ocean so far.

The same is true of how I’d explore a new cell phone…set patterns in new relationships….even how I’m approaching the new patterns of how to preach at Connexus with video and very steeply raked seating…in the first few days of using something new, I set a pattern that I pretty much follow without much deviation from thereon in.

Think about your own patterns.  Do you see a trend like that?

The pattern may be natural, but what it leaves me with is probably using a small percentage of the power of whatever I’m dealing with, like this laptop.  I think the same thing is true of so much in life, including my spiritual life.  Have I fallen into a place where I’m discovering .1% of God, only because my approach to God was set years ago and hasn’t varied much?  What would I do differently if I really explored Him, really got to know Him differently and fully?

What about your relationship with God?  Have you fallen into patterns that you know limit you to exploring a fraction of God?  Just asking.  But I think I’d like to chew on that personally for a few days.

By the way, later this week, I’m going to sit down with a fellow staffer and she’s going to teach me how to use some software I’ve always ignored over all these years of computing.  That should be fun.

And maybe…maybe…I’ll even talk to God about exploring Him far more creatively and fully too.

It’s so easy in a culture that is always on to the next and greatest to wonder what happens next.  I know I have that default to my personality.  While that kind of characteristic can produce great things, it can also be a bit unhelpful. 

I ask the question in light of the fact that by the grace of God, we’ve launched two campuses for Connexus in the last two weeks.  It’s been an amazing journey — one we’ve seen the hand of God in over and over again.  We’re so grateful.  But even as we celebrate these launches, people are saying "where’s your next campus?"  Naturally I answer
that we have plans for Muskoka and even Toronto, but right now I feel
like there is so much still do to here.

I think what’s next for us is taking something that is really quite good (our two campuses as they open), and that we’re thrilled with to start, and making them better and better week by week.  Not only do we need to get a few bugs out of the system (people have been so gracious), but even after we reach a level at which we feel "satisfied", there is so much more to do.

Ultimately, we want to make every environment we run all it can be.  Community groups change lives as people intersect with God and each other.  So does Waumba Land, our infant environment.  We want those environments — and all the ones we run — to be leveraged in the best way possible to help people grow in their relationship with God.  Rather than being generalists — trying to do a whole lot — we want to be specialists, choosing a few things and doing them optimally.

As we tweak each environment, make what we do better and more conducive to God’s work and to life-change, we’ll see more and more people realize how simple it is to have a real relationship with God. 

What things are you already doing this week in your life that with a little prayer and attention, can go from simply being good, to being great?   And how would your life be used by God if things truly went from being very good, to realizing their full potential?

I’m sitting here in my living room on a lazy Saturday morning (thank God for lazy Saturday mornings) thinking someone parked a snow-making machine in the sky above my house and plugged it in. I’m not complaining…it is so gorgeous.  Postcard material. If you click on the image, it will open in a bigger window, and you can see how beautiful it is and how lousy my photography is.

I’m thinking God must be so creative, and so delighted at small details of beauty.  Things really do look so much more beautiful covered in snow.

I was thinking today how everything looks so bleak in November.  Grey, dead, lifeless.  And then God covers the lifeless things with something so spectacular.  A blue December sky and bright day after a snow fall almost has no equal in beauty.  And even a soft snow just-below-freezing morning like this is gorgeous.

Our lives are like that, aren’t they?  When things are bleak and desperate, even lifeless, God can still send remarkable beauty into it.

I’m so glad Christmas lands in snow season.  It’s appropriate, theologically.  I’m so excited about Christmas this year.  (If you are looking for great Christmas music this year, Sarah McLaughlin’s WinterSong from last year and Reliant K’s brilliant and hilarious Let it Snow Baby, Let it Reindeer are fueling my holiday spirit.)

But none of it takes away from the sheer beauty of it all.  Enjoy the snow.  And if you are one of the bloggers from the south reading this, pray for a blizzard.  It’s good for your soul.

So this weekend, both campuses of Connexus are wide open to everyone.  I’m so excited that Orillia is publicly launching this weekend.  It’s our prayer, our hope, our goal, that scads of people who had given up on God or on church and reams of people who have never explored either will flood into Orillia and Barrie.

If you think about it, that will be kind of amazing.  What will that be like?  I know many of you have invited friends, and you probably know them well enough to know that many of them have unusual ideas about God and, like the rest of us, lots to learn.  Historically, Christians can even get uptight about new people "learning" how to behave in front of God quickly.  Not sure God is nearly as concerned as we are.

Jesus called God "Abba" — a term that pretty much
means ‘daddy’, and invited us into the same intimate relationship with God that He had — a relationship all of us were actually designed for.  He also said that if were to really get the Kingdom of God thing, we would have to become like little children. 

I was reminded of all this recently when I encountered a charming little four year old named Kayla.  Kayla is the daughter of one of our elders and his wife who have offered their home (a very nice basement) to our staff as a temporary HQ.  Kayla wanders down once in a while and she’s started visiting me regularly.

Last week, when I was sick, she took her costume box out and decided it would be great to dress me up.  I had all kinds of tiaras, purple silk fabric and dresses thrown all over me.  She thought it was quite cute.  I was too queasy to fight back.  The staff snapped pictures with their cell phones and will sell the photos to you at inflated prices.  (Talk to them.)

What amazed me is that she had no fear.  She just thought it was perfectly normal. 

She came in again the other day and asked me if I could see anything because my glasses were off.  I jokingly told her I couldn’t see anything at all.  She didn’t miss a beat and said she’d clean them.  She licked her fingers and started wiping the lenses and then simply stuck out her tongue and gave them a total wipedown (good thing for her I keep them clean).  I thanked her.

What I was amazed by was her calm boldness, and the wonderfully innocent sense she had that all she was doing was very appropriate.  I realize how fragile that kind of trust is in this world, and valued it deeply.

I wonder if sometimes God wants us to come to Him like a little child — wide eyed, opened, trusting and happy to be in His presence.  The behaviour may not always be "socially acceptable" — but thank God for that. 

There are hundreds of people ready to get into some kind of a relationship with God this weekend. They’ll be wondering whether they’ve "got it right" and whether it’s even "okay" to be there.  I think we just need to send the message that absolutely it’s okay to be there, and encourage them to explore God and approach Him unashamedly, even if they get a few things "wrong" in our eyes.  We need to keep the kind of environment open where fundamentally all of us can enter into a direct, personal, trusting relationship with our heavenly Father through Jesus.  A little bit like a four year old did with me over the last month.

God is our Abba, our daddy.  And we can come to Him like little children.  Somehow, I think that kind of innocent and wide eyed trust really pleases God.  This weekend, bring it on!  Invite everyone you can – and yourself – into it!

This has been a pretty amazing season.  It has been actually quite challenging to launch two campuses in a very short time frame and begin ministry all over again from scratch.

But it will actually be hard for me to describe how encouraged I’ve felt these last few months.  Even as we went through some very difficult passages, the overwhelming feeling of encouragement has been remarkable.

Let me cut right through to the heart of it.  I honestly don’t think a day has gone by in the last two months in which someone has failed to send an encouraging email, note or post on the blog. I’ve gotten hundreds of emails, dozens of cards, scads of blog comments and facebook messages that are variations of "this is amazing…keep going…God is moving…thanks for stepping out in faith…." 

I have been amazed at how much these encouraging words have fueled not just me, but our whole team.

I think we underestimate how discouraging life can be…how empty it can feel when you feel all alone…cut off from community…isolated.  And I think we underestimate how much a word of encouragement can put the wind back in just about everybody’s sails.

In so many ways, when we encourage each other, we reflect God’s fundamental disposition toward us.  He made a decision a long time ago that He would be for us.  When God was free to choose to cut us off and leave us alone, in love He came in Jesus and decided He would make a way for us to cut through this mess and find Him and find each other.  God is for us.  God is an encourager.

None of this means we won’t have tough moments, hard conversations, even painful decisions to make. These are a part of life and a part of our relationship with God – our faith walk. But when you can make them in an atmosphere of love, kindness, respect and support, somehow everything changes.  Probably the thing I like most about Connexus these days is that I see this community and the broader community we’re a part of operating in a sphere of encouragement, of support, of love.

God is for you and me today.  That’s a pretty powerful thought.  Is there someone you might encourage today? Because having been encouraged by God Himself, it would be a shame to keep that to ourselves.

Being sick stinks.  There’s no other way to slice it.  Thank you for your prayers. We got through the morning and even an afternoon debrief lunch where we made a long list of stuff we’ll work on to prepare for next weekend.  I’ll sleep early tonight and hopefully all will be good tomorrow!

I managed to make it through the morning feeling great in the services (thanks my being so encouraged to see so many people excited, and our prayers, and thanks to my portable pharmacy.)  They were great services, and by 10:00 a.m. I felt like a real pastor of a real church on two campuses.  I felt like we were part of a move of God (I think you could sense the Spirit).  It was awesome. 

I loved being in Orillia briefly at 6 a.m. to thank the incredible crew that got up earlier than I did to transport all the gear.  By the time I rolled into Barrie at 6:30 all the trailers were unloaded.  It was so cool to see so many working so hard.   We realize we have a lot to do this week to get ready for a "real service", but we’re all committed to getting the job done.   Plus, God was there anyway!

I’ll blog about the specifics on the Connexus blog but as I sit here watching the Grey Cup with my family, I’m just very thankful for it all.  I hope to get a clear mind back at some point in the next day, along with my stomach.

It’s amazing what can happen when God gives you strength, even when you feel like dirt.  Being part of an awesome community is a huge part of the blessing!  It was just so great to be part of these two dynamic campuses this morning!

I rarely get sick, but yesterday I woke up feeling a bit queasy and it steadily grew worse over the day.  By supper I was ready to woof my waffles.  As best as I can figure, I either have the flu or food poisoning (had some red hot chicken wings for lunch on Wednesday….).  It was not pretty last night.  I had to miss my son’s hockey game.  I stayed home and lay on the couch, getting up only to stumble to the bathroom. 

Then, as though God was punishing me for always being the guy who likes the house cool, I got the chills.  I couldn’t stop shaking for 30 minutes and I threw a sweatshirt on and put every blanket in the bed overtop of me.  I was still cold.  Even lying down didn’t make me feel better. 

This morning I feel marginally better, but it got me thinking.  I can’t remember the last time I had to go to bed because I was sick with something.  It must have been years. 

I am so used to independence…being able to do things for myself and for others.  Sam got me ginger ale last night.  Toni went out and got me meds. I could basically just lie there and hope I warmed up.  Eventually, Jordan Sam and Toni all came in and we had good, long conversations.  That was great.

Spiritually, we’re all supposed to be dependent on God. I catch myself often and wonder whether I am doing things for God or whether I am doing things in God, in His strength.  As a write that as an A type personality, I’m not even sure I know what that means.

I always thought Jesus’ last words to Peter were weird.  Look at this exchange.

“I tell you the truth, when you were young, you were able to do
as you liked; you dressed yourself and went wherever you wanted to go.
But when you are old, you will stretch out your hands, and others will
dress you and take you where you don’t want to go.”

Jesus said this to let him know by what kind of death he would glorify God. Then Jesus told him,

“Follow me.” [john 21.18-19]

I’m not sure I’d be happy if those were the words Jesus "blessed" me with.

Yet there is something to dependence that is amazing.  At new levels, you open yourself to others.  You open yourself to God. 

I expect to feel better later today (I still can’t stand being sick)…but somehow I hope I keep thinking about these things.

More and more I’m seeing at the end of the day all we’ve got is our relationship with God and with people.  Not the idea of a relationship, but the reality of a relationship.  Ups and downs, pain and tears, weirdness and wonder, triumph and high fives.   The full package.  There’s no escaping it.

We’re launching a church and all that (if you haven’t heard), and the single best way to get people to come with you and eventually meet Jesus is to personally invite them.

But I know most of us are skittish on jeopardizing our relationships
over a church invitation.  Most of us are scared to open the
conversation.  I’ve been collecting random thoughts on how to overcome
these hurdles.  I hope they help:

• Pray for people. If you’re scared out of your pants to invite someone to church, tell God about it.  Then ask God to be with you when you chat with them.  Pray that God would move in their heart.  It’s amazing how God actually cares more about people than we do, but we forget that.  So pray for them (and yourself).

• Try talking about church, not God. We all feel awkward going up to someone and saying "so…what’s the state of your heart when it comes to Jesus?"  I do, and I’m a pastor. So unless you really feel you need to say that, don’t.  Instead, ask someone what they think about church.  Then tell them about your church and what it’s like, and you’ll have more than 3 minutes of stuff to talk about.  Last week, I had a 25 minute conversation with a 22 year old who hates church and whose body piercings had piercings.  Every third word was "dude"…but he and I engaged in a great conversation at length.  I was out of our community, but I believe if he would have lived in our neighbourhood, he would have come.  You just never know.  I’ve had a half dozen very surprising conversations with local people who either will be there or might be there December 2nd and 9th.  If you don’t ask, you’ll never know what might have happened…

• Admit you’re an idiot and don’t have all the answers.  First of all, they already know you’re an idiot and don’t have your life fully together.  Second, admitting you don’t have the answers takes pressure off both of you.  After all, very few people get ‘informationed’ into heaven.  Most of us get loved there.  A real dialogue with real people based on love goes a long way.  Be real.

• Talk to them about the kind of church Connexus will be.  We are really gearing Sundays to be (at the highest level we know how to) an environment you can bring your friends to.  A service where people can hear Green Day and Steve Fee music within minutes of each other and messages that engage real life can be a pretty powerful environment for God to meet people in.  Kids ministry kids actually like is another bonus.  And telling people they don’t need to have to carry a 32 pound bible or wear three piece suits or bad sun dresses is still a relief to many (remember, they haven’t been to church in 10 years…if at all…and they stay away due to stereotypes).  The fact that they might actually fit in will still surprise people.

• Pray some more.  Remember…God loves you more than you love yourself and He loves them more than anyone every will.  He’s just using you as a channel.

I hope you’re investing in people and inviting them now.

You yourself can get a sample of a Connexus service because this weekend we’re open at both campuses at Connexus.
You can go to Barrie or Orillia at 8:30 or 10:00.  It’s our soft launch in both cities — a real service done imperfectly (that’s
kind of what you get every week anyway, isn’t it?).  But we’re actually
open.  Which is amazing!

As we gear up for the December 2nd grand opening in Barrie and the
December 9th, it’s a chance to invite everyone.

Who are you praying for?  When are you going to chat with them?   What fears keep you up at night?  Anyone say yes already that shocked you?

It’s been a great week, and so much to look forward to this weekend.  Some quick reflections as we head into an exciting weekend and week:

• It was awesome to be at the North Point lead pastors retreat again this year. I felt guilty on the one hand because our team at home was working SO hard on the launch this weekend.  But had us totally unplug for the better part of two days…it was good for the soul.  No blogging, no email, just connecting.  Had some good down time and actually slept nine hours one night….yikes..that felt too good.  I feel like I’m heading into weekend one of Connexus completely refreshed and restored, physically and spiritually. Rich time with God this week. Thanks God.

• I am SO excited about the soft launch of the Connexus Barrie campus on Sunday.  This is week one of dress rehearsal (soft launch).  We’re running two services (8:30 and 10) and I’m excited and nervous and calm all at once.  Hard to explain.  Very excited about the message and the whole experience of making our environments more relevant than ever.

• I am SO proud of the staff and volunteer team.  Our team is simply tops.  I felt like I was on the French Rivera all week on retreat while they were in the trenches.  Between late Wednesday and late Thursday, it looked like our $600,000 equipment order wasn’t going to make it across the border in time for tomorrow morning, delaying the soft launch and the public launch by a week….but our team worked non-stop and made all the arrangements and the gear is set to roll in on Saturday morning at 6:00 a.m. as scheduled.  Special thanks to Rich, Nadine, Marja and Cindy who just didn’t stop till this got solved!!!!

• On the plane home yesterday I was writing small group questions for our six week series that kicks off the new year.  I have never ever had the privilege of putting together a series that comes close to the power of the stuff from God’s Word in that one.  Christmas is the perfect lead in to something incredible I think God wants to do in each of us….in all people.  These first two months promise something powerful, at least for me.

• The North Point community continues to amaze me with fresh insights and
  great encouragement, love and support.  North Point — you folks are one of a kind.  I’ll
  share some of those insights next week on the blog.  I think you will not want to go back to other ways of thinking and being…. I don’t.

• I just feel grateful to actually be able to be a part of all this.  God does more than we can ask or imagine.  And for a thoroughly depraved, forgiven guy to get a chance to be part of a work of God is amazing to me.  I’m so thankful for the whole emerging Connexus community.  We’re going to see so many lived transformed…including our own.  Can’t wait.

Talk to you on line over the weekend, but even better….see you in person Sunday. 

I had to leave our awesome Sunday gathering at Connexus on Sunday early…largely because I had to catch a flight to Atlanta where I’m spending a good chunk of this week working on things Orange and on retreat with the lead pastors from North Point, not to mention getting ready for soft-launch this weekend at Connexus Barrie.

On the way out, I had lots of time to think.  It’s not often a preacher finds himself with time off on Sunday mornings.  So, I looked around at life outside the church on Sundays.

The parking lot was pretty busy at the Galaxy with our people.  But Walmart was filling up too.  Okay…there were more lots more people at Walmart than at Connexus (even though we were close to packed out). And things were getting busy at Starbucks too. I waited in line for five minutes at Starbucks, desperate for a latte (they were closed at 8 a.m. when I went the first time!!!).

It got me thinking about categories.  I have spent so much of my life thinking of people as "churched" or "unchurched" – preaching to the churched, preaching to the unchurched etc.  But I’ve never called anyone "unchurched" to their face.  I mean how would that go over?  "Hey, I’m Carey.  I hear you’re unchurched."

At the end of the day, you know what we all are?  We’re people.  That’s it.  Just people.  More and more, I like that.  People — just plain people.

People Jesus died for.  People who find WalMart more compelling than church.  People who find church more compelling than Walmart.  People who all need Jesus.

I think moving forward, I’m going to spend less time talking about "churched" and "unchurched", and more time talking about people. Better yet…more time talking to people, not just about them.

Because the people shopping at Walmart have the same needs and face the same issues as those of us filling the Galaxy.  Because people in line at Starbucks still have deep questions about God, even though they are at Starbucks instead of at church. They simply don’t believe that the church can help them in their quest for God — at least not yet.

Maybe that’s who we’ll preach to starting next weekend with our soft launch in Barrie: people.  People who want to know God. People who desire relevant environments to lead them into a growing relationship with Jesus Christ.

Maybe one day, we’ll see Walmart less full on Sunday mornings and some weeknights when community groups are meeting across Central Ontario…because people are meeting Jesus.

Think about the the people in your life this week…and how we can all get them into environments that will lead them into a growing relationship with Jesus.