This is Lori, Pastor Steven’s assistant, with a Furtick family update.
Baby Graham arrived today at 12:29pm and weighs 6 pounds, 6 ounces! We praise God for a healthy, beautiful baby boy. Mommy and Daddy are doing great! If you would like to send flowers or gifts, I know they would love restaurant gift cards so they can order-in as they settle at home with Graham, but please no visitors. Mommy and baby need to rest!
Here are a few pictures, more updates to come!
First of all, many thanks for the stacks and stacks of emails that have been pouring in to celebrate our one year blog birthday.
I can’t wait to take a few hours and read through them all one by one.
Honestly, the past few days have been a bit of a blur for me. As a leader, I have been stretched and strengthened in ways that have simultaneously supercharged me and sucked me dry.
I spent the last few days in Houston being trained by some of the most influential pastors in the nation, and I cried like a baby during the opening session as I realized that yet again, God is perfectly positioning me for the next stage of my development. The Lord is good.
I can sense irrefutably that God is preparing us to crash like a wave into another major season of blessing and growth within the next few months because of…
1. … the way God is equipping me.
God has been building me up in significant ways in the last several months.
T.D. Jakes says that you can tell what God is getting ready to build in your life by the kind of equipment He’s bringing around you. If God is bringing heavy duty bulldozers and cranes onto the jobsite, He’s not going to build a chicken coop.
If that’s accurate (and I believe it is), God’s drawing up blueprints for a sky scraper at Elevation.
In the last couple of weeks, God has brought connections and relationships into my life that I certainly don’t deserve. He is bringing people around me who are bigger, better, faster, and stronger than me, to help me learn and force me to grow. I’m grateful for that. Really grateful, and really humbled.
2. … the way God is pruning me.
As God has been building me up, He’s also been cutting back.
This part of preparation isn’t nearly as enjoyable, but it may be even more vital.
Jesus said that God prunes every branch that bears fruit so that it will bear even more fruit.
I like to bear fruit. I don’t like to get pruned. Too bad. You can’t have one without the other.
God always strips away something before He brings forth something else.
He always subtracts before He multiplies.
The last 6 weeks I have been in a pruning season. It’s very painful.
I have sustained some major losses (details aren’t important) that have left me seeing stars.
But I know it’s profitable. It’s fruitful. And I’m excited.
God is just about ready to load our vine with more fruit. In fact, it’s already beginning. 162 salvations on Sunday. A season called Dominate just around the corner that is going to turn heads all over the city. A new wave of leadership that God is raising up and bringing forth.
Does it feel like God is cutting back on you during this season of your life?
Watch out: He’s about to grow some freaking watermelons on your vine…
In your ministry, in your business, in your family, in your marriage… and beyond.
This line of thinking isn’t called self-help, it’s called Biblical hope.
Receive it today… in Jesus’ Name!
Tomorrow is a big day for the Furticks. Updates to come!
This is Lori, Pastor Steven’s assistant and he’s out of town today. The testimonies and stories of encouragement have been unbelievable! Please keep them coming. Send an email to Pastor Steven by clicking here.
Here’s a look at some of the life change…
My life has been blessed immensely by Pastor Furtick and Elevation church, but I have to say the biggest blessing hasn’t been to me, but to my sister. My family and I are eternally grateful for what this church has done in her life. She has given her life to Christ, been baptized and is now and active member of Elevation (she works in the nursery and attends small group). Those are things we’ve never imagined possible in her life as she has dealt with a lot of heavy blows in her life. But Elevation has deeply changed her, she is a different person and I can’t thank Pastor and the church enough for presenting the gospel in a way that was finally the RIGHT way to reach her and I’m sure many others in the Charlotte area. I am now happy as well to call Elevation my church home. God bless Pastor Furtick and each and every member of the staff and congregation. To God be the Glory!
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I have been a youth pastor for about 10 years now, but deep in the farthest corners of my heart I have been too scared. Too scared to try something too big, too out there, to out of my hands. For the last 6 or 7 months I have been reading your Blog and listening to your messages on I-tunes. The biggest thing that God has taught me is that NOTHING IS TOO BIG FOR HIM. In fact, maybe He is somewhat annoyed by how small I tend to make Him and His ministry. Thanks for challenging me to pray big, believe big and expect big.
(And I’m expecting gifts)
On this day in history just 365 days ago, a tiny blog was born into the world.
www.stevenfurtick.com has since grown into a robust, 5 day a week, mildly entertaining, occasionally controversial and hopefully inspiring blog read by way more people from way more places than I ever would have imagined.
Happy Birthday to me… and you’re invited to the party.
Would you do me a huge favor please? Every week my assistant brings me a stack of emails written by folks both within our church and all over the world, telling us how the ministry of Elevation has been a blessing. It’s the highlight of my week. The only problem is, I feel like an encouragement hog… because only I get to see them.
So here’s the plan:
If God has blessed you through the ministry of Elevation in the smallest way (you read the blog or watch the sermons and you’re encouraged by what God’s doing in Charlotte) or the biggest way (you gave your life to Christ at Elevation) or in any way in between, take a few minutes out of your day and let me know.
Send us a short testimony by clicking this link.
It doesn’t have to be poetic, or long, although it can be. Many of you reading this will think: “Well, I’m sure he doesn’t want/need to hear from me”… you’ll either assume that I already know or that I don’t care. But you’re wrong.
Whether you’re a pastor, staff member, business man, stay at home mom, student… we want to hear it all.
At Elevation, we measure success by the stories we hear.
And no encouragement is insignificant.
After we’ve received all the emails, I’m going to print them out and share them in various formats with the wonderful staff and volunteers at Elevation.
I may even share a few of them here. (Anonymously, of course.)
Please participate! You’ll never know how much it means to me.
Again, here’s the link, or you can send an email directly to amen@elevationchurch.org.
It’s been a heck of a year… Thanks for being along for the ride.
I know that so many of you were praying for the launch of our new Butler High School campus this morning…
God heard your prayers and answered in a jaw dropping way. Over 1140 people showed up for the Grand Opening of our new Butler campus this morning!!!
Our attendance at the Providence campus was very strong as well, and we’ve managed to open up a couple hundred seats at our optimal service times.
The greatest miracle of the day: 162 people gave their lives to Christ! Our Next Level ministry leaders actually ran out of New Believer Bibles in the middle of the day. That’s a good problem, I suppose… but it looks like we needed more faith!
I had prayed that God would give us more salvations today than in any single Sunday in our history, and He did just that.
This brings our total number of salvations for Year 2 (which began in February) to over 800!
We serve a faithful, awe-inspiring, miracle working God.
Glory to His Name!!!
Tomorrow we begin a new series based on this historic incident… when God hit pause on the cosmos to give His people an accelerated victory-and turn Joshua’s mistake into a miracle.
I feel a tangible, palpable, yet inexplicable certainty that God is doing that very same thing at Elevation right now. We’ve already seen God do more in 20 months than some “experts” project is possible in 20 years. And that trend will continue. God is going to continue to take us further than we ever thought we’d go, faster than we ever thought we’d get there, so that He can receive the glory.
We are praying for 10,000 (people in attendance) by 2010.
An accelerated victory. A God sized timeline.
Tomorrow, God is going to stop time again…
And the clock will stand still so that many, many people can receive the gift of salvation.
I get stuck in certain Bible passages a lot. I’ll come upon something that really hits the spot for me, and I’ll read it over an over again for days, sometimes weeks at a time. Right now I’m stuck in Psalm 20.
I’m particularly blessed by this idea:
David prays: May the Lord answer you when you are in distress.
It stands to reason that:
The purpose for my distress is to set the stage for God’s deliverance.
Some of you are probably distressed and confused by the issues of life right now: Maxed out, uncertain, full of doubt, afraid.
Relax… help is on the way.
If you never had any questions, God couldn’t give the answers.
If there was never any distress, there could be no deliverance.
(I know you are reading this on Thursday, but I wrote it on Monday, so back off.)
I’ve never used illegal drugs, but the way I feel on most Mondays is the closest thing to coming down that I’ll (hopefully) ever experience. Perry was explaining to me the other day how much adrenaline is released into your system when you speak in front of a large crowd (he’s smarter than me, and I didn’t understand the terminologies he was using, but it was a lot), and how, when you multiply that over multiple services in just a few hours, it wreaks havoc on your body.
Then there’s the mental triathlon of trying to bring the same focused intensity to the task of preaching three times back to back. Trying to remember whether you’ve already covered a certain point in a certain service, and trying to reconstruct the same sermon for 3 different crowds and stay fresh in your delivery… it’s mind bending, for me.
Add to that the after effects of the spiritual battle that you must fight through to be able to preach the message, and it’s a recipe for near meltdown come Monday morning!
On Sunday afternoons, my state of mind is somewhere between exhilarated and exhausted, over-energized and over-depleted. My body is dog tired, but I usually can’t fall asleep for a nap because my mind and my spirit are wide awake. I have the annoying ability to replay everything I said in all three services in slow motion, and the even more annoying propensity to wish I could go back and say it all better.
The privilege of preaching takes all you’ve got: body, soul, and spirit.
There’s nothing like it in the world. It’s the highest of highs. And the psychological aftermath sometimes results in very low lows.
But I’m addicted… and there’s nothing I’d rather do.
The grand opening of our Butler campus this Sunday is going to provide us with some long overdue capacity for growth.
This Sunday morning, for the first time in a long time, we will have a sufficient number of empty seats at all of our worship experiences at both campuses.
This is a rare occasion, and will only last for a limited time, so I’m calling all Elevators to take full advantage of the opportunity to invite, invite, invite. (Providence evite, Butler evite)
I have an extraordinary anticipation about what God will do through the opening message of this new series.
I will be preaching on the power of God to restore hope and accelerate victory.
If you have someone in your life who needs hope and needs to meet Jesus, this is the time to make the ask.
We’re bracing for another record breaking, history making day at Elevation…
Elevators, bring your A-Game.
Everyone else, thanks for your prayers.
I’m an unabashed fan of numeric measurements of momentum in the church.
They don’t tell the whole story of God’s activity, but they provide a lot of clues.
We don’t just scrutinize the attendance numbers. At Elevation, we measure according to all 4 of our Gs.
We just wrapped up a Fall vision series on our 4 Gs based on Acts 2, 3, and 4, themed with 80s (and early 90s) rock covers… and the results have been pretty remarkable.
Growth:
Average attendance during this series: 2522 (!!!)
This represents 274% increase from our Fall kickoff series last year. If percentage increase means nothing to you, that equates to a jump of 1847 in attendance. Wow!
Confession (of our lack of faith): Our year end goal for 2007 was to have 2500 people in a worship service one time, maybe around Christmas. God’s plan was bigger and faster… and He allowed us to realize and exceed that goal over 4 months early.
Gifts:
We added over 200 folks to our volunteer teams during this series. As of today, this means 744 people are serving in a volunteer role at Elevation. That’s more adults plugged into volunteering than the total attendance at Elevation (adults and kids) a year ago. Praise God.
Giving:
In the 2 weeks following our challenge to bring the tithe, our weekly tithes and offerings have increased by 44% above our 10 week average.
I’m so proud of all of you who are stepping out in faith to begin the 10% journey. You will be blessed. God is good.
Groups:
380 (just got the final report, it’s 407!) new people got plugged into Community Groups Sunday night at our GroupLink event. Holly, Elijah, and I drove through for a little recon, and man, the joint was jumping. A tunnel of volunteers outside cheering to celebrate the people who had just joined a group? That’s over the top. And I love it.
Here are some pictures:
There are a few intangible metrics of momentum that I’m picking up on as well. Like the way the people clap and cheer before the Word of God is preached. Like the way the folks cheer for the offering. Yes, I said cheer for the offering. Like the expectancy and intensity I’m starting to sense as we sing together. Like the increasing proportion of people who are coming to our experiences who are truly far from God.
Our less than 20 month old church is starting to get its own little personality, and it’s a lot of fun to witness. This is the church I always dreamed I could be a part of.
With the grand opening of our new Butler campus this Sunday, which will result in the opening of hundreds of seats at optimal service times, the possibilities surrounding this Fall are limitless, almost terrifying. I hope I can keep up.
Every week of this vision series we challenged the people in a hardcore way.
Every week they responded.
The Gospel works.
The Church works.
And God is working at breakneck speed here in Charlotte. Glory to His Name!
Because I have a strong personality and our church is committed to a culture of honor, I think a lot of people assume that no one on staff at Elevation is ever allowed to disagree with me.
Those people are wrong.
I don’t just value the opinions of the staff at this church, I crave them and I mine them.
I love to ask questions of those I lead, and I demand to hear honest answers.
With that in mind, I think that I can help all of you who want to offer your input or differing opinion to your leader do so a more effective way.
(I’m sure every leader is different in how they want to hear opposing viewpoints, but this works well for me.)
It’s not exhaustive, but enough to get some discussion started.
1. Make sure it’s the correct setting and time. Like, don’t tell your pastor that one part in his Sunday sermon was confusing until at least Monday. Actually, make it Tuesday. Or Wednesday. You get the point.
And pay attention to how your leader likes to hear your ideas. It varies from leader to leader, but it’s your job to learn your leader. What formats does he prefer for pushback ? Written? Spoken? One on one? By appointment? Over meals? Figure it out, and your ideas will be met with a much warmer reception. Respect your leader enough to prepare your presentation custom tailored to the way he or she needs to hear it.
2. Start positive. Recognize and affirm the pros of the idea you disagree with before you launch into a list of 50 reasons this won’t work.
3. Bring solutions, not problems. “Pastor, the idea about the singing Christmas tree isn’t lighting me up (get it?), but what if we took that same amount of energy and did a high level production like this?” (This is the part where you hand him a written and researched proposal for an alternative Christmas outreach event. Or 3.)
4. If you can’t beat it, shut it. If you don’t have a better idea to present to your leader, go back to work until you do, or just keep your mouth shut. Nothing is worse to a leader than a team member who always looks disengaged with the current idea, but isn’t offering up anything better. We don’t perceive that as discernment. We discern it as laziness.
5. Affirm your willingness to give your 100% effort to the initiative if your leader still wants to go ahead with it after hearing your input. Of course, this wouldn’t apply if you’re confronting a leader’s blatant sin. I’m talking about subjective ministry ideas. When your leader knows he has your full support in whatever he decides (not feigned, but heartfelt), it makes him able to listen to you without second guessing your motives, or thinking you’re just lazy.
Oh, and this should go without saying, but ALWAYS own the leader’s idea publicly even (and especially) if you’ve disagreed privately.
Doing otherwise doesn’t make you strong, it makes you divisive.
6. Pray for your leader and build him up. When your leader knows you’re in the foxhole with him and you’ve got the entry wounds to prove it, you won’t have to ask him to give your ideas a hearing. He’ll come looking for them.
7. Make sure that deep down you support the vision and core values of your leader. If you don’t, move on. He’s better off without you.
I heard somebody on TV the other day saying that Britney Spears has gotten too fat.
And my first reaction was: “I wish I could cover the ears of every 13 year old girl in America right now.”
I seriously wanted to throw up.
As a young pastor who wants to see the next generation rise above surface level spirituality, nothing makes me sadder than to imagine what it must be like for all the young ladies who are being force fed the lies of the modern media.
Should we take care of our bodies? No doubt.
Is it okay to care about fashion and appearance? Go for it.
(I personally love the way my wife works hard to dress well and look good for her man. And I try to do the same for her. That means I wear what she tells me to wear. It’s that simple.)
But I’m deeply concerned that this generation of gals is beholding the wrong standards.
So I’d like to offer a few pastoral observations to my wonderful female readership about the impending American female identity crisis.
1. Nicole Richie is too skinny. Make sure you’re drawing your inspiration from reasonable and truly beautiful role models. You don’t get a “pretty point” for every rib that I can count. In fact, I shouldn’t be seeing your stomach at all. Put some clothes on.
2. The girls on My Super Sweet 16 are not normal. They are bratty and disgusting. You should not act like them. If you do act like them, your parents should beat you. Not put you on restriction. Beat you. Yeah, I said it.
3. If you will cultivate Christ like character and pursue God with your whole heart, you’ll attract guys with the right stuff. Your identity has got to run deeper than your make up and new shoes. Make guys respect you for what’s within you.
I am passionate about this. I want to exalt true and lasting beauty that doesn’t fade for the young ladies who sit under my teaching every week. I want them to know who they are and who they belong to. I want them to hold themselves in high regard as women who are uniquely crafted and completely loved by God. And I want them to practice selective hearing, so that the next time some talking head tells them Britney is too fat, and it makes them feel inadequate, they’ll turn off their TVs and fill their minds with the thoughts of God instead.
When I started middle school my dad taught me a simple, slightly controversial, and very effective strategy in case I ever got in a fight.
(He was already about 3 years too late, but better late than never.)
“Now boy, don’t you ever go looking for trouble, but if someone starts something with you, here’s what I want you to do. The moment you realize a fight is unavoidable, you make sure you throw the first punch.”
(Actually I think he said “get the first lick in”, but I’m not sure how that would translate for my non-Southern readers.)
Relax, I’m not advocating fist fighting (necessarily :)). Just thought it made for a cool analogy.
Every single morning I wake up, I’m a marked man. Every day of my life, there’s going to be a fight, God’s Word says so.
So why should I wait around to get sucker punched? Why not drop kick the devil in the teeth before he knows what hits him? Why not get the first lick in every single morning?
Lately I’ve been waking up, going straight to the shower, and quoting the Word of God out loud. I’m not going to spend the first part of my day playing defense, I’m going on the attack.
I think too many Christians wait until just before the T.K.O. to start fighting. We unnecessarily get our brains beat out by failure, sickness, and overwhelming pressure…
Try this.
The next time you feel temptation coming on, don’t wait until the standing 8 count starts to get serious about the fight.
The next time you hear depression or discouragement taunting you, don’t wait until you’re seeing stars before you begin to block and bob and weave and counterpunch.
You’re in for a fight every day of your life.
Come out swinging.
And go for broke.
After all, the fight is fixed.
There are so many adjectives that I want people to use when they’re describing Elevation:
Intense. Aggressive. Bold. Excellent…
just to name a few.
And the one I’m keyed in on right now:
Generous.
I felt like my sermon on giving this Sunday was very well received. And even if it wasn’t, I had the time of my life breaking piggy banks with a hammer all three services. Little pig, little pig, let me in… you had to be there.
I know that there has been a lot of abusive teaching on giving in the body of Christ over the years, and a high concentration of it in my very own city. But I won’t be silent on the subject of money. Just because some charlatans have preached on money and then mishandled the money doesn’t mean we should stop preaching on it.
As I said Sunday: if a man who preached against adultery had an affair, it wouldn’t mean we should stop preaching about sexual purity!
We’ve got to get beyond our fear of how Biblical instruction on giving might be misperceived by the few, and speak the liberating truth of God’s Word to the many. We’ve got to get beyond greed based, need based, and guilt based approaches and teach Christ centered, Spirit led, Gospel grounded, grace powered generosity.
Elevation, I’m determined to see that day when 100% of us are bringing the tithe, and running over with the blessings of God.
When we started Elevation, it was impossible for people to be attracted to our success, because it was non-existent.
It was impossible for staff members to be attracted to the benefits, because there were none.
I’ll liken this to the golden days of yore, when Holly and I were dating.
Was she attracted to me for my money? (I was a traveling preacher who got paid in slices of pizza, and if I was lucky, a check to cover gas)
Was she attracted to me because of my social status? (I’m not exactly an aristocrat)
No, she was attracted to me based on a vision. A vision of what our life would be like together. A vision of the kind of husband, father, and man of God I was becoming. A vision of how I would love her and take care of her.
So now that I’m a little more successful, and a little bit more financially stable, I have confidence in her commitment. She won’t be out the door if money gets tight. She’s not in it for the notoriety of being the pastor’s wife of a cool church. She was in it when I was speaking to groups of 20 kids in towns you’ve never heard of. She was on the front row taking notes then just like she is now. And because of that, I’m confident that she’s front row in my life to stay.
Now that Elevation has achieved a certain measure of “success”, it’s comforting to know that most of our staff members were staff members before they were even getting paid. They were attracted to the vision long before they saw the success. That means that if we have a losing season at some point, they won’t quit the team or stop playing hard. They’re not in it because we’re the hip church in town. They’re in it because God gripped their hearts for our mission and He won’t let go. They can’t be lured away by bigger and better offers. They’d do this for free if they could.
(Don’t worry guys, it’s hypothetical.)
I believe the same goes for the overwhelming majority of our volunteers, small group leaders, and giving leaders.
I hope I can lead in such a way that people will always be attracted to our vision instead of our success, no matter how tangible and front and center success might be.
Success is an elusive target.
Vision is fixed forever.
My wife is 9 months pregnant. During the hottest summer of the last 50 years, or something like that. She hardly ever complains. But she is so uncomfortable. And restless. Of course, there’s an end in sight. God willing, in a few weeks Graham will be here, and the discomfort of pregnancy will begin to subside.
I’ve come to the conclusion that Elevation Church will be perpetually pregnant. There’s no end in sight. We’ll bring new life into the world (new campuses, new growth, new leaders), and then be 9 months pregnant again almost overnight.
So we’ll always be uncomfortable. We’ll always feel awkward, and a maybe little nauseous sometimes.
And we’re very very restless.
But we’ll always be full of new life. That’s just the way it is for a living, growing church.
That’s the way it’s supposed to be.
I’m so excited (predictably) about the Grand Opening of our new campus at Butler High School on September 23rd.
The addition of this campus less than 5 miles from our Providence High School campus is going to almost double our current capacity to reach people.
Who wouldn’t get excited about that? Who wouldn’t be willing to endure some labor pains for that?
Elevators, please remember, beginning September 23rd, we will no longer be holding worship experiences at Porter Ridge High School.
And hundreds of you who currently attend Central have already committed to make the move to the Butler campus to make room at Providence.
Thank you.
If you want to make the move too, let us know. Click here.
Our theme verse for our Dominate campaign at Elevation beginning later in the Fall is Isaiah 54:2:
Enlarge the place of your tent, stretch your tent curtains wide,
do not hold back;
lengthen your cords,
strengthen your stakes.
There are two verbs in this verse:
Lengthen
Strengthen
Both bring growth.
Sometimes at Elevation, life mostly revolves around lengthening our cords… spreading out:
Adding services, adding campuses, adding new technology, etc.
Other times, we’re more focused on strengthening our stakes…
digging down.
Deeper leadership development, staffing up, shoring up systems, etc.
I’m not talking about the old evangelism vs. discipleship continuum.
Hopefully you know by now that these are two sides of the same coin.
I’m talking about two separate but equal, distinctive yet concurrent phases of growth.
If you’re always spreading out and never digging down, the wind will blow your work away.
If you’re always digging down and never spreading out, what’s the point?
Effective churches learn to walk and chew gum (lengthen and strengthen) at the same time. But it still seems like you will primarily aim at one or the other in different seasons of growth.
That’s what we’re learning… Hope it helps somebody!
Every few months I speak to the incredible staff at the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association here in Charlotte. Several of the folks are a part of Elevation, and the more I get to know Paul and the team, the more impressed I am by the spirit of excellence that radiates from every corner of that ministry: from the cleanliness of the bathrooms to the integrity in the boardrooms. I have told them that they are probably the largest crowd I’ll speak to all year, because by speaking to the group of a couple hundred staff, I am speaking to the millions they touch through the largest evangelistic association in the world.
Holly recently told me that the next time I was speaking over there she wanted to go with me and tour the new Billy Graham Library. So we did.
And I experienced a series of life changing moments as my new friend Don gave us a tour.
I guess you could call it my rededication to the Gospel.
And it couldn’t have come at a more perfect time.
I’ve taken a little heat in the last few weeks during the most explosive period of growth in the short history of Elevation, and in the last few days, it really started to sting my soul a little bit. I’m certainly no martyr, but man! When people take shots at your motives and intentions, it hurts! I don’t care what anyone tells you, it’s painful. The impetus behind the majority of the criticism is:
Elevation places an unhealthy amount of emphasis on evangelism…
And after hearing that one too many times, you can start to second guess yourself.
But as I walked from exhibit to exhibit with my beautiful wife, watching video of multiplied thousands respond to the pure and powerful Gospel of Christ that Dr. Graham preached, something shifted inside of me, and I don’t think I’ll ever be the same.
I am rededicating myself to leading people far from God into a relationship with Jesus Christ through the bold preaching of the Scriptures.
I am rededicating myself to the hyper-focus on evangelism that Jesus seemed to advocate in Luke 19:10. Those who don’t like it can happily find a home at one of our 720 other wonderful churches in Charlotte proper. And I wish them well. I really do.
I am rededicating myself to the vivid realization of what is at stake every single Sunday as I stand to preach to dying men and women who have no hope outside of Christ. I will give shamelessly intense invitations for people to enter into a relationship with Christ, and I will let this instruction from Jesus set me free to liberally offer the Gospel to all people, and let Jesus sort out the sincere from the insincere.
I am rededicating myself to selective hearing. Those who have a vision other than this vision: So that people far from God will be filled with life in Christ… will not gain an audience with me regarding the direction of this church. Their complaints will not occupy valuable space in my heart. That space is reserved for the compassion Jesus wants me to feel for the lost and hurting. The people He died to save.
I am rededicating myself to the DOMINATION of this city by aggressive and strategic measures. Dr. Graham’s legacy of unapologetic, Holy Spirit filled, old fashioned Gospel preaching will continue in Charlotte in this man and this church.
I will not waste another nanosecond engaged in fruitless debates about methodologies. I will simply advance the Gospel, by any means necessary. They called Dr. Graham a heretic when his organization started making movies… that was the “devil’s arena.” The church has given up too much ground and run away too far too fast from culture. I am rededicating myself to harnessing and leveraging any cultural medium which will help me communicate the themes which are concurrent in Christ and culture. I will speak into every vital component of this culture, I will not shrink back. The earth is the Lord’s, and I am His child.
I am rededicating myself to the confident humility that Dr. Graham’s ministry so wonderful exemplifies.
Humility:
Without Christ, I am nothing.
Confidence:
But in Him, all things are possible. And nothing is too hard for Him.
This is just the beginning of my rededication. Elevation, if you think I was edgy before, you haven’t seen anything yet. I’m going over the edge, past the point of no return, as we join together to reach your lost family, friends, and all the others you influence daily.
Only the Gospel matters to me. Denominational loyalties don’t. Program oriented preferences don’t. Misunderstandings about my motives don’t.
Seeing the system of a city overturned by the Gospel, ignited by the passionate preaching of God’s Word, and fueled by the force of the Holy Spirit of God, is my rededicated focus.
Rededication brings revolution.
And the revolution is just beginning.
Now that I remember what I’m fighting for, the blows don’t hurt so bad.