Prayer

Rarely do I ever re-direct someone from this blog to another for the purposes of explaining this blog! Actually, I don't think I've ever done it. I have directed you to other blogs for the purpose of just reading a great insight from someone else, but not the former. Today I'm going to do that.

Yesterday, my wife (who is expecting our second child) got out of bed and made a nasty face and grimaced, while holding her belly. Yeah! My thoughts too!... Uh oh! The next words out of her mouth kinda made me feel a little bit frightened. She said that she felt like she was having contractions and she was nauseous. Not good, cause that would mean baby Haydn would be coming 4 weeks early! Now, you all have to understand, with Cason (my son) she had the picture perfect pregnancy. No sickness, no tiredness, no nausea, etc. My wife is a runner, and she actually continued to run 3 miles a day almost into her eighth month last time! This one, however, has been different. Immediately I found myself talking to God, saying, "Please God, just take care of her and the baby. Whatever happens, just take care of them, please." Long story short, we went to the doctor and they said, nothing to worry about. Just some Braxton/Hicks contractions and that it was normal.

Usually on Mondays, I post this blog and one other, our worship team blog. The worship team blog is a tool that we use, as a team, to stay in the Word and hold each other accountable throughout the week for being in the scriptures. Since I spent the entire morning at the doctor's with my wife, I wasn't able to post that blog. I asked one of my leaders on the worship team to post for me. Philip, the guy I'm talking about here, is an awesome guy. Very selfless, always there with an encouraging word, and is willing to serve whenever/wherever. So, I asked him if he would do the post instead of me. And I told him to post whatever God put on his heart. Given what I just told you... he said, "Yeah! No worries!"

So when I got back to the house, I jumped online to see what he posted about. As you will see, he posted about something that is... well, should be... one of the most practiced things we do, as Christ followers. It really got some good conversations going through the comments. (this is how we communicate with each other about our thoughts on the post throughout the week) And it got me to thinking. We throw around the word "prayer" a lot in this world. But do we know what prayer really is? Do we know how we are to pray? (there actually is a template lain out in the Bible for us, by Jesus) Do we know what to pray for? And what are the possibilities of prayer in our world? This truly is a great conversation that I would invite all of you to join us in. If you would, click on the link HERE, and read Philip's post. Then, check out the comments that have been left by our team. If you would like to post a thought, please do. We would welcome your input. You will need to have a google account in order to post a comment, but that's as easy as going HERE and signing up for one. It's free and completely secure. I look forward to hearing all of your thoughts!

-Robbie

Here are the songs from the last two Catalyst services, since I didn't post last week due to the Holiday.

"Let God Arise" & "Sing Sing Sing" Christ Tomlin, "Come Now Is the Time To Worship" Pick an artist! there's like 100 to choose from!, "Saviour King" Hillsong, "From the Inside Out" Kristian Stanfill, "We Shine" & "All Because of Jesus" Fee, "Agnus Dei" & "Love Song" Third Day, "Let Me Sing" Todd Fields,

Movement

The dictionary defines "Movement" as a noun, meaning a series of actions or activities intended or tending toward a particular end.

Now, that's just one of about 14 definitions it gives, but they are all similar in content, basically meaning the same thing. When we talk about "movement", we usually mean one of two things. 1: motion: the act of moving or 2: a cause. An example of number two would be the Civil Rights Movement.

As human beings we are always drawn towards something, some cause, something that stirs within our soul that compels us to take a stand on an issue and, for most of us, to act on that impulse. You see, we were designed to be drawn towards things like this. God has birthed certain wants and desires within our souls. The problem is, often times, those things are the desires of God, but we fail to see His role in them and the significance that they were intended for our lives.

Right now, our country is up in arms about the health care movement. I would think, unless you are just a stubborn, hard-headed mule, that everyone would agree that, though we may have the greatest health care system in the world, it has problems and needs to be fixed. I don't think there is any argument about this. The argument comes when we try to decide how to fix it. But the TRUE problem is, no one is looking at it from how God sees it. Listen, I'm not here to debate the role of health care in our world. This is just one of many examples. The problem lies deeper than health care, or any other issue like this in our world.

At the end of the day it comes down to one thing. The Church has removed itself from many of the roles that God intended us to serve. Do you know that up until just a couple hundred years ago, the Church was the trend-setter in the world? That the Church defined culture? Now, it seems like there is such a disdain for the Church in our world that more and more we are removing God from everything. Why is that? Here's a thought: Over the last two hundred years, the Church has been more about telling people what they can't and shouldn't do, instead of telling people about the love and hope of Jesus. And rather than love people, regardless of their circumstances, we have chosen to put up this imaginary wall around an imaginary city that we call Christianity. It has a big, huge moat around it, and you would think that it has fire-breathing dragons and man-eating crocodiles live in the moat. Pastor Rick Warren of Saddleback Church in CA. made one of the most brilliant statements I've ever heard about the church. He said this: "The Church has NEVER been persecuted for its righteousness. The problem is, instead of being the hands and feet of the body of Christ, doing the work of the church, we've become one big MOUTH! And people are tired of hearing it!"

What I've noticed though, is there is a group of people who are tired of seeing this world go to hell in a hand basket. They understand that we were created for more. They understand that there is a movement that is taking place around the world, one unlike any movement that has taken place since the time of the disciples. I believe that God is raising up a generation of people who are not concerned with legalistic religion. Rather, they are desperate for a relationship with the Living God, a relationship that we were born to desire. They are concerned about the things that God is concerned with. They are seeing the world through God's eyes and they are about his purposes. This movement is what we at the Journey call, "The Jesus Movement". And we're seeing it take place before our eyes. We are seeing people's lives transformed. And we're seeing these people start to take action and begin to be the hands and feet of the body of Christ. You want to see things like health care, poverty, and brokenness get fixed.... then we must be the Church that Jesus created us to be. The Church that He gave His life for. We gotta stop running our mouths about all the things we're against, and start telling people what we're for! We can't change someone's situation. We can't transform anyone's life. Only He can. And when we fully understand that we, the Church, carry the ONLY message of true hope and change, then and only then can we fuel the movement of Jesus.

-Robbie

Songs from Sunday's Catalyst service:

My Glorious (Delirious), Filled With Your Glory (Starfield), Not To Us (Todd Fields), I Stand Amazed (Kristian Stanfill), Give Us Clean Hands (Chris Tomlin), Salvation Is Here (Hillsong)

Football

Ok, so today, I'm not going to go into something deep. I'm going to talk about something that is very dear to my heart.... FOOTBALL! But first... I want to say thanks to everyone who has helped to get the new "Sex" series ready at The Journey. Yesterday was the first week, and WOW! It was really awesome. We had a lot of new guests there. I hope that they will find a home with us, but more importantly, I hope that they encountered the Living God.

I can't remember when I've been so excited for football season to be here. It's been a long time. After living in nashville since '91, it's been up and down for me during football season. I moved here from just outside of Pittsburgh in a little town in West Virginia, just on the state line. Interestingly enough... I'm not a huge Steeler fan. I know... blasphemy! So, shoot me! But I am a WVU fan. And well, it's just been up and down. Because of that... I was bent on not giving into the pressure and donning the Big Orange. Last year, though, my boy Erik conned me into going to a game. We went to the Florida game. If you follow football, you know how that went. It was one of the most electric environments that I've ever been in. It was really exciting... for about the first three minutes of the game. LOL Anyway, I began to give in and realized that I have become a huge UT fan. With Kiffin taking over, I'm excited to see what happens. So Go UT!

But here's why I'm REALLLY excited. I told y'all that I'm not a huge Steeler fan. Long story that I won't go into, but as a kid, there were two teams to watch... the Niners and the Cowboys. If you know me, you know how badly I HATE the Cowboys! So, I'm a Niner fan. This year, I've TVO'd their pre-season games and I got to tell you.... not since the late 80's early 90's have they looked like this. They have (talking starters here) something like 8 takeaways on defense, they're killing QB's, they got a rookie RB (who I hate to admit is from Alabama), who is running up and down the field like he's playing against high school teams, and Alex Smith actually looks like an NFL quarter back. Shaun Hill is right behind him (looking as good or better) trying to win the starter job. It's the second year as head coach for Mike Singletary and this guy is coaching these guys like they just came off of a Superbowl win and they're trying to repeat. Could this be the year that the greatest team in NFL history begins a new dynasty?

Living in Tennessee, I'm still a big Titans fan too. So don't think I've given up on them. But they're in the AFC, so it's ok. You all know what they did last year. I'm hoping that they won't fall apart either. Who knows? Things could get absolutely retarded in the NFL and NCAA and we could see a Niner/Titans Superbowl, with UT winning the National Championship!........ It could happen!

Here's the songs from yesterday's Catalyst service:

Jesus Is Alive (Fee), Everybody Praise the Lord (Lincoln Brewster), Filled With Your Glory (Starfield), Help Me To Find You (Todd Fields), Word Of God Speak (Mercy Me), Everlasting God (Todd Fields)