Fear

Fear is always looked on as a bad thing. It's negative, dark, unwanted. However, fear is also an opportunity; and therefore I welcome it!

Fear is what keeps people from accomplishing things that need and should be accomplished. Most people fear disappointment, failure, and many other things that occur when a venture is not successful.

Because of these thoughts, I looked at the passions that the LORD has put in my heart to see His church reflect more of His image. I started thinking of what area in today's ministry is lacking in experiencing Him more fully and therefore not seeing more of Him reflected in Christ's ekklesia. Man this frustrates me! (sorry, side comment). Anyway, I am really excited to see a multi-X church. The reason that I put 'x' is because in it comes a slew of things that I feel the LORD desires His church to have and be like. Instead of just putting x, let me explain the sort of church that I would love to be a part of: a holistic ministry that is Multi-ethnic, multi-gendered, multi-generational, multi-cultural, and multi-lingual. That's a lot of multi's! I am sure that I didn't cover all of the 'multi's,' but I desire a sphere church. A church that starts with having Christ as the center and then it becomes a 3-dimensional sphere. And after this ekklesia realizes that Christ is not restricted to 3-d it becomes 4-d!!!

Okay, let's back up and explain what I mean with this whole sphere thing. I have a picture in my mind that started to develop when I pictured God being outside of time and being able to see all of time as the sort of time-line that you see in most history books. In my mind, I saw a stereotypical three-dimensional spirit (God), looking at time as time attempted to become a mirror of the Creator. Then, this image transformed to the cross beam that Jesus carried on the Via Dolorosa at which point I desired to see more of the image of God by celebrating the redeemed parts of different cultures and by having the central focus be the redemption that Christ bring to all cultures once the culture is looked at through the lenses of Christ as Savior. I might have lost you there, but if I did, comment on this and I will respond :) thanks...

Then, this three-dimensional cross-beam progressed to become a full-fledged three-dimensional cross as I read Leviticus and came to the realization that the LORD also has a place for children and the elderly. I was a youth pastor, so while I always knew that everyone was just as important as the youth, I always concentrated on them an, therefore, sometimes forgot about the other part of the church.

No think of this three-dimensional cross as a '+' sign instead of a cross. Jesus is the center and through Him, all things are connected and redeemed. So, I started adding things to this '+' and kept Jesus at the center and started getting '*'. I kept adding more lines about things that the LORD started to speak to me about and the asterisk soon became a dot... But I knew that the Lord had MORE, so this asterisk continued to become a sphere. Once an asterisk becomes a sphere, and we integrate more and more of the differences that we see in people and those differences are redeemed by Christ, we will see more and more of the image of God!!!

Going back to this multi-x we were talking about above, can you imagine a church that is worshiping in 3 or 4 languages, celebrating different cultures, aligning the different generations and having the elderly tell their stories to children and youth, having leaders that give different cultural perspectives, and many other things that can be named here? I cannot because it hasn't been done; it's too hard... This attempt drives fear into the hearts of men because most, if not all, times that this has been attempted, there has been failure.

I want to SEIZE this fear and therefore this opportunity!!!

My heart literally... LITERALLY... warm and feels on fire when I think of this!! I seriously want to cry out in front of the LORD to allow me to be David and step out in front of Goliath and lead! David was anointed to be King, but he did not become a leader until he took the courage that the LORD had given him until David TOOK the courage from the hand of the LORD. David was overflowing with the Spirit of God and because of the overflowing courage that he had, once he acted, the whole army of Israel was not afraid any more. They received courage as well and followed David. I want to be that leader! I want to take step one so that when I am taking step two, the people that chose to follow are right behind me in step one. And I don't want people to follow my 'good ideas' I want people to follow the passions and ideas that the LORD GOD places within me. LORD I patiently and eagerly wait for when you place this Goliath in front of me. I will look back to how you delivered me from the paws of the lion and the bear, choose my stones, and cut the head of your enemy for YOUR glory!

*singing*
I WAS CREATED TO MAKE YOUR NAME.... GLORIOUS!!!!