Fanning the Flame wraps up tonight in the Fieldhouse at 6:45pm! It's gonna be a great end to a great week!

Tonight! We wrap up Fanning the Flame 2010! God has been moving the past 3 nights and I am confident that He is going to show up again! See ya tonight at 6:45p.m. in the Fieldhouse! It is going to be great! Boo-ya!

Stepping forward, keep us from just singing, move us into action, we must go!

Man did God speak to me tonight through Karl. My biggest was a culmination of the night that ended forming in the one of the closing songs' lines: "We must go, live to feed the hungry, stand beside the broken, we must go. Stepping forward, keep us from just singing, move us into action, we must go" That line just went straight to my heart. Pretty powerful stuff.

Here are my notes:

Karl Black: Fanning the Flame
Ambassadors of God's Heart

2 Corinthians 5:16
Christ reconciled is and gives us responsibility to do reconciliation ministry.
-You are part of this! You have a job!

Key: v. 20 we are His ambassadors...

As he does the work inside of us, God begins to use us in carrying out his ministry

Genesis 12:1-3
God's Intention: "Blessed to Bless"
-the point is because Abram became God's ambassador so that everyone can be blessed

Deuteronomy 24:17-22
Generosity is our hearts response to God
-We have to come to remember that we are nothing without him.
-Without what he has done, we have no hope

Proverbs 22:9
Matthew 6:22-23
We are intended to see through God's eyes
-Good Eye: a generous man in Hebrew culture
-If I had the monopoly "Boardwalk" game piece, would I be willing to give it away (St. Jude's hospital)?

Proverbs 11:25
Philemon 1:7
Generosity refreshes other people's souls
-They have the time to really care when they ask, "How you doing?"

Where should our blessing be directed:

Luke 4:18-19 = Jesus Mission
-the Poor
-Brokenhearted
-Prisoners
-the Oppressed

They are all MARGINALIZED...

Examples in Jesus' Life:
Luke 19: Swindler, Cheat and Traitor
John 8: Woman in adultery
John 4: Samaritan Woman
John 4: Hung out with Half-breeds Matthew 8: Touched Lepers
Matthew 15: He listened to Caaninite Woman
Matthew 9: Invited Tax Collector to be disciple
Luke 7:
Matthew 9: hungout with the tax collector's friend...

"Obese students were slightly less happy than chemotherapy patients." - Powerful representation of how we treat people in our own lives and marginalize the people who are just as blessed as we are and are simply different.

We abuse people and we don't take time to look at it and consider the ramifications.

Luke 14: God is Love

Our calling us not to love just the lovable, but love because Love lives in our hearts.

Notes from FTF Monday Night with Karl Black... what pieces of my heart have I not given to God and instead to someone else?

For a lot of Sunday Night, I was taking notes and taking in a great amount of information that is key in understanding a great and many things about the Salvation that God has provided for me. Last night, I was blown away with how much I had to look into my heart and see what was going on. What have I given my heart to? The illustration Karl used last night is powerful to me in this way: How many little pieces of our fragmented heart have we tried to give to other people or things and we should be giving them back to God?
Here are my notes:

Karl Black: Fanning the Flame Monday Night
Seeking God

Mystery behind the mystery- Parker Palmer - a frozen river

God never intended the brokenness that we feel in our lives. So now God wants to bring us back to His original question.

Wholeness is God's Agenda:

Jeremiah 29:11-13

Literal Hebrew Meanings:
1. For I know the plans-machashabah- thoughts, ideas, intentions
2. I have for you- chashab 'al - devise/invent together with you
3. Plans to prosper you- shalom- complete, wholeness - unbroken mirror
4. Not to harm you- ra'aah- injure/hurt- ranger and the turtle- when we go through things that are painful... In the details of my life you can't see me but i'm there...
5. To give you hope and a future- 'achariyth tiqvah- set in motion towards hope- movement towards something

Karl Black Translation:
"I want to participate with you in creating a new future, a future that will bring healing and wholeness to your life, not more fractures, and this participation between you and I will lead you continually into more hope! As you become more whole/complete you will search for me - then you will seek me with more of who you really are and you will begin to discover me to be present in the circumstances of your life."

Big point: It's all about the heart. God wants our heart back. We took it at the fall, Restoration is God working to show is why He needs to have our heart if we are to be completely whole.

Philippians 2 is is getting to know God's heart again... Allowing our heart to become more like God's.
Cute Guy Principle- Cause your brown bagging and he's buying-

Harmony with God is when we fully offer and give of our hearts to him... When we allow him to mold our hearts to his. Powerful right here!

Things begin to happen:
Less Anger
Less Lonliness
Less Anxiety

Slow transformation... But it is for a big plan.

What have I truly given my heart to? How do I know? Fruit inspector... You are the caretaker of my heart, you can give it to whomever or whatever you choose.

Restoration is waiting for you when you're ready to give God all your heart.

New Passion CD is out and you should get it now! Seriously! Great stuff to plug into your iTunes!

So my copy of Passion:Awakening came yesterday and so you can get it today. I really think that you should truly consider it because this is one of the best worship albums that you will ever listen to.

Seriously.

I don't tell people to spend money on things, but this CD will warm your soul and give you a great opportunity to have awesome personal worship.

So do it.

NOW!

My notes from Fanning the Flame Sunday Night. Where do we see ourselves in the journey from Shalom to Shalom?

Man, after last night, I have a bunch to chew on. Karl really brought it and I filled a couple of pages in my Moleskine. I have heard of some of this stuff before through some of my experiences in classes at Bethel and here at NMC, but some of this stuff was pretty raw for me. Here are some of my notes from my own experience last night:

Karl Black: Fanning the Flame
Salvation: The Full Story

The Beginning of the Story is Genesis 3 -> God said, "This is Good" = Shalom -> Peace -> Fullness -> Harmony

Creation -> Shalom
Fall -> Disconnect from God
Redemption -> Hebrews have a different understanding -> Ultimately it's the Cross
Restoration -> Return us to His Place -> This is the ongoing story that is the part that doesn't always get retold

Salvation is the process of Shalom back to Shalom. 

Isaiah 52: Salvation = "Your God Reigns"

Four Conditions of Salvation in the New Testament:
1. You BELIEVE and TRUST Jesus as Lord
------ Romans 10:9-10
2. ACKNOWLEDGE Jesus Publicly
------ Romans 10:9-10; Luke 12:8
3. REPENT- Turn from sin to God
------ Mark 1:15; Acts 2:38
4. Be BAPTIZED for the forgiveness of sins
------ Acts 2:38; Mark 16:16

Baptism and what it meant:
A. Forgiveness of Sins - (Mark 1:4)
B. Receiving the Spirit - (Matthew 3:11)
C. Jesus' Specific calling - (Luke 12:50)
D. Change in allegiance to Christ - (Acts 19:5)

The term "Rescue" had a different mentality for the Hebrews that included much more than what we see it as and we can easily miss the total meaning of "Saved" if we focus on a single part.

Three Meta-Narratives that make up Salvation:
1. Priestly Sacrifice - A Static Moment in Time (John 3:14-15)
------ ATONEMENT for Sin ------ Access to God
The Hebrews saw this in the sacrifices made in the Temple. We see this in Jesus.

---------The Cross Happened, therefore We are Saved Enough---------

2. The EXODUS Narrative - A Journey through Time 

------- from SLAVERY to FREEDOM------

God moved His people from Egypt to the Promised Land. Then when they cry out, he says, "Remember the Exodus?"

3. The EXILE Narrative - Movement in our lives.

------- MARGINALIZED to RESTORED -------

Examples: Prodigal Son & Zaccheus

Philippians 2:12-13

We don't need to be re-saved or saved-er, we just need to re-access that freedom and true full salvation.

It's Here and I'm pumped about it! FTF is a great opportunity to reset and invite friends in the process!!

 

Derry calls it the pause button. I call it awesome. Tonight we kickoff Fanning the Flame 2010 in the Fieldhouse! All Senior Highers should be in there at like 5:15 so we can party for a little bit! Leaders come too! See you there tonight with Karl Black and Trace Rorie! So pumped!

Do you rejoice because God glorifies Himself or do you find it difficult to be happy with His glorification?

Very interesting to me. I think that sometimes I still forget that His glory is the most important thing in this world. Not even Him using me or making me feel the fruit of His work through me, but simply His glory, period. We were made to praise God and to glorify Him.

Feeling far from God and some personal commitments that I will begin to hold to.

What do you do when you feel far from God?
How do you know that you are far from God?

I've recently been in what I feel is a spiritual funk. I'm not entirely sure why but I have my inclinations as to why and it derives out of a lack of discipline in my life. Do you ever find that when we stop doing the things that seem routine and monotonous, we find our lives out of equilibrium? We find ourselves "out of whack" or "on edge." Interestingly, the things that are the most important in my life, have been the things that have fallen out of my life.

TAWG. Exercise. Personal Worship. All replaced with TV. Gaming. Sleep.

So what do you do to get out of a spiritual funk?

Some of the things that I came to determine needed to reenter my life are:

Regular TAWG
This one is hard for me sometimes. Do I read just to read? Or does it need to be an all out emotional experience in which I experience the complete existence of His presence? I've been wrestling through this one and I land at the point that I need to continually have Him be part of my life; emotional or otherwise. In any case, this has to happen.

Consistent Exercise
Not very hard to think through. Just do something regularly. Read and Ride. That's all.

Personal Worship
Because of my typical responsibilities that I have on Sunday mornings and Wednesday nights, I will periodically be unable to spend time in corporate worship. However, even outside of this variable, I need some personal time of worship if I truly want to fully grasp my relationship with Christ.

After our weekend in Chicago at Simply Youth Ministry Conference, Doug Fields convinced me how much I need to make commitments and hold to them. These are just three commitments that are going to become pretty hard-line in my personal life.

What about you? What things do you do that keeps you close to God? What commitments do you have to ensure that you don't fall from God?

I have been blessed by the experiences in my life and doggone it, I am Good Enough.

The last few days have been crazy for me. Not in the sense that they were busy by any means. But more along the lines of what God has been taking me through. Weird and uneasy feelings pertaining to the things in my life that are holding me back from being all that I can be in the light of God's Grace.

We just got back from the Simply Youth Ministry Conference in Chicago and I was challenged, refreshed and overall, better equipped and in better connection with my team. It was awesome to see some of the people that I look up to in ministry and be able to interact with them.

As I look back on the conference, I am challenged to continue to discover my true identity in my relationship with Christ and not my relationship with other people and their views of me. I am challenged to discover what it means to do things for the Glory of God, even in the little things that I do. I am challenged to put the most important things first in my life. And there are some things that are required of me in order to do accomplish some of these goals.

I have noticed that my mind has been so bottled up and beginning of taking over my demeanor as of the last two days. I am confident that the reason is that I haven't written anything and have neglected that area of my life. And so this is me launching back into writing regularly. I never thought that this would be such a huge part of my life and discipline in following Christ, however I am committed to doing whatever it takes to grow closer to God and this is one of them. Writing, or blogging, is part of who I am. I am unashamed in that. And so this will become part of my life.

So, looking forward, I am excited to see what God is going to teach me about my ministry and my life. I am excited to see what He chooses to reveal to me about my identity in Christ and the things that are most important to Him as He looks on me. I will be unashamed for who I am, what I look like, how I act. Why?

Because I am Good Enough. period

Some Points from SYMC 2010 First Session

1. Authentic Passion is always a little Irrational. -Philippians 2:6
2. Authentic Passion is always a little Excessive. -Philippians 2:7
3. Authentic Passion is always a little Costly. -Philippians 2:8

-Duffy Robbins
Sent from my BlackBerry.