Writing a New Chapter in the Journey

It has been a long time since I blogged! But I wanted to take a moment to share what God has been doing in our lives over the past few months. 

In the summer of 2015, I felt God was calling me to finish my time in ministry as a Student Pastor. During this time, I began to pray and consider church planting in the northeast part of Florida. I met and talked with a few church planting mentors - and heard about the growth that was happening on the Northside of Jacksonville. They encouraged me to drive around and pray about whether or not God was calling me to plant in that area. I drove up there and prayed, but believed the Lord was saying, "not yet" and "wait."

So last summer I transitioned into a new role  as the Teaching Pastor and Groups Pastor at the church I had been serving at for the last four years, Church @ The Springs. During this season of ministry, I have been learning a lot as I preach at the campuses, train small group leaders and oversee the Men and Women's ministries. It has been a joy for me to serve The Springs in these areas, but I haven't been able to shake the tug in my heart to begin a new work. 

After much prayer, I'm excited to announce that I'll be taking the next step to begin a new Chets Creek Church Campus in North Jacksonville. We are excited to move back to the area of Jacksonville as it was the location of my first full-time position in ministry and where Cassidy and I were engaged and lived during our first year of marriage. The area and people that we know there have a special place in our hearts and we consider it "home" for us in a lot of ways.  

God has worked in my life through Pastors, friends and family to help me take this next step of faith in ministry. I owe a lot to the Pastors I have worked alongside who have helped shape, develop and encourage God's call on my life. 

My passion is to communicate the Bible, reach the family and equip the church to live on mission. As a Campus Pastor, I'll be the primary Teaching Pastor at the new campus and will lead the campus staff and volunteers. God-willing, I will join the Chets Creek Church team on May 2nd and begin to develop the strategy with the Lead Staff for the campus launch in Spring 2017. 

What Are My Spiritual Gifts?

The study and understanding of spiritual gifts has always been a passion of mine. Spiritual gifts are God-given to those who are followers of Christ. It is true that each person needs to use the spiritual gifts that God has given so that the body of Christ is built up and strengthened.

Prophecy - speaking truth with faith
Serving - serving people like Christ
Exhortation - encouraging others
Giving - giving generously
Leadership - responsibility of leading others
Mercy - showing kindness towards others

My main spiritual gift is Exhortation. Exhortation is to call upon people to follow God’s truth. At times, my strength can easily become my weakness. I tend to over communicate when I speak at times. I’m learning that I am simply a messenger and that God will do the work in the hearts and not do it based upon how eloquent or passionate I am when I speak to people. My desire is to lift people out of their self-doubt or discouragement and seek to follow God with all of their heart. One of the ways I have begun to accomplish this is by spending more time in prayer before I speak or minister to people, so I am being sensitive to the leading of the Holy Spirit.

My second spiritual gift is leadership. I thoroughly enjoy helping people get to reach their potential for Christ in their lives. The word leadership to me means to “guide” people into following God and seeking Him above all else. Leadership is an ongoing focus of leading people to a desired destination. Learning the difference between leading people and not pushing people to do something has been a process.

My lowest gift on the "test" is mercy. My wife is a mercy gift and I’m grateful for her to help balance me from focusing on the “right” things and to focus upon “how” I talk about what is right or wrong.  Mercy is being able to feel the pain of others and be sensitive to their needs. I plan to begin learning how to watch how I come across to others so that I can effectively show the love of Christ. I pray that I develop more mercy in my life to show to others and to my wife.

One of the most sobering thoughts is that many Christians are living their lives without the knowledge of the gifts God has blessed them with and they are not serving. It is the responsibility of the leaders in every church to equip and help people find their spiritual gifts to bring glory to God. I plan to focus a considerable part of my life into developing people to become fully devoted followers of Christ. My desire is that God’s mission would grow and people would find their spiritual place of service to glorify God.

If you are looking for a way to to begin the discovery of your spiritual gifts, check out this inventory! 

What are your spiritual gifts? How important is it for people to grow into how God has shaped them?

Jesus is not Customizable

I've been reading a great book by David Platt called, "Follow Me." I encourage you to read it. It is explaining the true meaning of Jesus calling us to follow Him.

I read this section and it reminded me of how I need more of Jesus and less of me: 

"Almost unknowingly, we shrink back from this cost, choosing to redefine Christianity according to our personal preferences, church traditions, and cultural norms. Slowly, subtly, we take the Jesus of the Bible and twist him into someone with whom we are a little more comfortable. We dilute what he says about the cost of following him, we disregard what he says about those who choose not to follow him, we practically ignore what he says about materialism, and we functionally miss what he says about mission. We pick and choose what we like and don’t like from Jesus’ teachings. In the end, we create a nice, non-offensive, politically correct, middle-class, American Jesus who looks just like us and thinks just like us. But Jesus is not customizable. He has not left himself open to interpretation, adaptation..."

We do not define Jesus by our culture, but by what the Bible says.

My life should be customized and changed by Christ not the other way around. Following Christ is a continual change and renewal to become more like Him. This is what it truly means to be customized.

Be encouraged! Jesus' customized life for us is better than what we could ever dream up on our own power.