leadership is universal…

This year again I am so blessed by the pastors and leaders here in Rwanda, they truly want change, and are hungry to know better how to lead and develop leaders.

We had a great conference today, we have with us a friend from Uganda Pastor Samuel who brought a team of guys that sing and dance. They are amazing! High Energy. Just the way we like it at harvest.

Owen spoke for a few minutes on radical change, we are being flexible as our itinerary seems to be the most fluid thing here. Its really funny they are trying to get us into as many things as they can.

I spoke a message this morning on the heart of God. This afternoon on a spirit of Excellence. We had a Q and A which never fails to amaze me. Their questions are intense and they are hungry for true training and answers.

The leaders here are like leaders everywhere else. They need validation, they need encouragement, they need inspiration, and direction.

So what’s next? Tomorrow more leaders conference, then we go to an orphanage and fit them all who need it with glasses and take them food. Then tomorrow night starting at 9 pm our Next generation meeting. Which we found out today is an all nighter. Fortunately we get to go back after a few hours to sleep for the next day of conference. We will be in different churches on Sunday. Monday starts the medical clinic and Owen and I get to meet with the rector of the nations leading Law School, more to come. Please continue to pray for the teams strength. We are having a great time.

Please respond when you read these and be blessed.

Listening….

I’ve noticed that if you listen you will here things that are remarkable. I am setting here at “the hotel Rwanda” and listening to my friend Pastor Jackson Tell my team his testimony about how he started his church, how he went from being an accountant to being a pastor. He just started helping people, he started putting together proposals to govt and to governments in other countries to build programs to help kids and families. I noticed as we came over on the plane listening to lots of people who were coming over to africa to help the African people. There are so many people helping others in the world. We will visit the museum and an orphanage tomorrow, testing kids for HIV. We will be starting the leadership conference tomorrow. Pray for us, there are so many leaders and pastors over here who are hungry for teaching and training. They want help, they want to grow, they want to make a difference, especially the young generation.

take a minute and listen to those around you and see what you hear. You may hear what God is doing in the lives of others. Take a minute and let me know what God is doing in your life.

Helping people…the great adventure

I love adventure.  I love trying knew things, taking a challenge, doing something thats fun or gives you a rush! I love the risk of it the commitment of it, the courage it takes to be adventerous.  If someone around me is not asking, “you’re really going to do that?”  or,  “are you sure you want to do that?”  I know I’m not really living.

I love adventure.  The greatest adventure in life is taking the challenge and the risk.  Making the commitment, and sacrifice.  Accepting and embracing inconvenience for the sake of helping others.  There is no rush, no excitement, no fun, like helping other people.  Getting involved in their lives, dealing with their issues and helping them find solutions, this is adventure.

There are so many christians in the world right now who are living this great faith adventure, and I love it!  I love it that the church is figuring out, that the answers are not in setting behind our four walls enjoying each others company, but it is in reaching out and bringing people in that is changing lives, and causes great adventure.

Christians who aren’t passionate about Jesus, are struggling being bored with their Christianity because they’ve lost the adventure that is supposed to be at the forefront of a Christians life.

One of the reasons I love our church, and many like it is because we are living the adventure, we have lots of people who have embraced this exciting life and are doing it together.  This week we will be serving women at our “Girlfriends Conference”  Women from all four of our campuses and over 50 other churches will come together and experience a highly creative, spiritually impacting, relational and fun conference.

We have volunteers that will take their time and serve these ladies so they can have this life changing experience.  We also run youth camps all summer long, june through august at our OKC facility.  Rental camps and Our National youth ministry, Youth America. Next Monday we will be taking a team to Africa, where we are leading a pastors and leadership conference as well as a medical clinic for two weeks.  At the end of  July we will be taking another team to Camobdia, To work with Orphans and impoverished children, helping them  not be victimized by human trafficking.  We have a Kids camp as well as a Royal family Kids Camp which is our ministry to Foster Kids.  A free camp for 85 foster kids ages 7-11.

That may sound like a lot, and is why we call summers at harvest one big adventure!  We are committed to Change the world through the adventure of helping others.  All the teens, all the kids, all the adults, locally, regionally, nationally and globally we will help this summer, are all part of this great adventure called Christianity.  Its about taking the chance to love people, to extend grace to them, and to live life full tilt for the greatest adventurer of all time.  Jesus!

So jump off the bench, get off the sidelines, get in the game and enjoy the adventure and who knows, you might open up a life of adventure for someone else.

David

Day 2 and 3 Servolution….Personal Impact

Saturday and Sunday on harvest MWC Campus our projects were an absolutely no cost car wash, and an outreach to “Manor Care” a local nursing home facility.

we have had a good number of volunteers in all our projects. The car wash was Fun and interesting. People would pull in we would give them a couple of gifts, a bottle of water, and a car wax product and applicators, then we would wash their car. It was amazing to me, how many people wanted to give us money, and when we said no, it was as if they couldn’t grasp what we were doing. They really were having a hard time understanding this totally free, no agenda car wash. Once they got it they were really appreciative, wanted to know where we were from, and why we were doing this.

It shocked me at the response, and to be honest made me a little sad. I was sad because it is so foreign for someone to do something kind like this just to be kind, and not have an agenda or want something in return. It has really challenged all of us, to live our lives serving others, every day. Coming out of this, it will no longer be an event but a lifestyle.

We washed one lady’s car who lived in the neighborhood close to the wash, and her family were obviously impoverished, didn’t have a lot, but a few minutes after we had washed her car, her little son came walking up from their house, his hands full of change. He said “we wanted you to have this” If we had been raising money they had no clue what it was for, but were so moved by our generosity they were ready to give. Our youth pastor told the little guy, you take that money back to your mom, and tell her we just wanted to bless you guys.

I pray that the church becomes known in the community, not as the neediest, but as the most generous. Let the world know that Jesus Loves them, and his people stand ready to show it.

On Sunday we had great services and that afternoon we went to the nursing home. We took adults, teens, and children with us, and we sang songs, we gave out gifts and we just sat down and talked with these wonderful, beautiful elderly people. Honestly our hugs and hand shakes were the best thing we could have done. My girls, Sydney and Taylor set down and talked to a lady named Pauline. She was so sweet, obviously her memory was affected and she had a hard time putting thoughts together, so we just begin to tell her about ourselves, and she loved it, she loved my girls hugging her, and holding my hand. It was interesting watching my girls in this setting, they have so much love to give and i am glad to be teaching them that this is what Christians do, they show the love of Jesus in a practical way. My oldest has decided that after church on Sunday we should make it a regular journey to see Pauline, and my youngest just cried, visably moved at the loneliness of an elderly person in her situation.

Love goes farther than we can imagine, its a touch of sincerity, a hug that says, I don’t even know you, but I care, a heart that is overflowing with compassion, not even knowing what to do but to say, I love you.

What we are finding is serving people can be inconvenient, and serving people can be awkward, but serving people is the mandate on our lives and the expression of our faith, and the love of our Savior.

Our culture, our people, our families, and our lives are changing, I feel forever. We have always done things for the community on some level, we have branched out in the last few years locally and globally, but I feel we are moving to a whole new level of love, and compassion for people. A revolution means a complete turn. This has been a complete turn of serving. A Revolution of Service.

More to come….honoring and appreciating our Dept of human services employees today. They’ve already begin to thank us, and we haven’t even done it yet. Just the thought moved them.

Remember its not about what we are doing, its not about, how good we are, cause we all know better, its about one thing. Expressing the Love of Jesus to people in all walks of life. Thank you Jesus, it’s all about you.

David

Servolution Day one

Wow! What a blast! Who knew that handing out water could be so fun, and create so many great interactions. It is completely unnatural to role your window down at an intersection and take a free bottle of water from a stranger but thousands did it tonight. They were surprised, thankful, inquisitive, and even made commitments to come to church on Easter. One lady said, “I’m coming just because you people are so Happy.”

Our teams at Stilwater, OKC, Edmond, and Midwest City, all had great turnouts of volunteers and handed out a lot of water. First day was big success.

Its interesting, how a generous act opens the heart of people. How just being Kind, with no agenda makes people smile. When we would say would you like a free bottle of water they would say “really?” They would ask, “why are you doing this” of course the answer is showing the love of Jesus In a practical way. Just want to serve the community. The response was amazing.

We had way more than enough volunteers, so we just grabbed garbage bags and started picking up trash. It felt so great to truly be contributing to the community.

I love servolution, our people Love servolution, and we are taking it as a mandate to live out servolution every day.

7 days? How about 70 x 7?

Jesus loves people, and we get to show them. Its awesome!

David

April Fools…

This is always a fun day. Friends playing tricks on one another, and everyone having a lot of fun.

According to Examiner.com

The most popular theory of when April Fools Day started is that it began in 1582 in France when King Charles IX reformed the Julian calendar and made it Gregorian. This made the new year begin on January 1, instead of April 1, as it always had been prior to the switch. Because cell phones, texts, and e-mails weren’t around then, the news of the calendar switch took some time to get across to everyone. As a result, some countryfolk (and a few stubborn ones who resisted the change) were labeled “April fools.” They were subsequently used as punchlines in jokes, sent on “fools errands,” and subjected to practical jokes. Scottish and French settlers brought to the colonies of the US in the 1600s. Thus, a holiday was born.

No one wants to be the butt of a joke. Most everyone likes to pull a good prank though. One thing of noticed about peoples attitudes towards God, even many religous people is they think, buy having faith God will somehow make a fool out of them, as if He is some kind of cosmic trickster.

Many believe He is all about the old bait and switch. He will draw us in with all this talk of blessings and eternal and abundant life, and then when we have faith in Him and “seal the deal” he switches on us and gives us negative things in our lives.

God is truly not a trickster and He is not trying to Make an April fool out of you. God loves you and I, He views Himself as our father, and desires that we view Him that way too. God is a benevolent father who loves to give good gifts to his children. God is good.

I love what Matthew 7:7-11 in the Message bible says…
“Don’t bargain with God. Be direct. Ask for what you need. This isn’t a cat-and-mouse, hide-and-seek game we’re in. If your child asks for bread, do you trick him with sawdust? If he asks for fish, do you scare him with a live snake on his plate? As bad as you are, you wouldn’t think of such a thing. You’re at least decent to your own children. So don’t you think the God who conceived you in love will be even better?

I would encourage you, you can trust God, he will not make a fool of you, your faith can be fulfilled in Him. If we being imperfect can treat people with respect and love, how much more can our perfect father and creator love us and bless us.

Don’t be an April fool. Trust God. He loves you!

overcoming frustration

Many times in the forty years of my life i have battled with frustration. The feeling that things just aren’t working out. The irritation that I’m trying hard to accomplish something and for some reason it just isn’t happening. The consternation that comes with expecting certain responses and results from people and them not living up to it, or worse, expecting big things from myself and not being able to meet a goal, or complete a task or get the results i was aiming at.

Frustration is a killer, its the step before discouragement and depression. Frustration unresolved steals motivation and momentum from your life, and brings everything to a halt. It opens the door to bitterness and offense in our lives, which lead no where but to negative circumstances.

So what is frustration really. Frustration is the difference between Expectation and reality. You expect your kids to behave a certain way, and in reality they are not perfect. Everything between the two is frustration. You expect to be at a certain level in your career by a certain time, but you don’t make it. The difference between what you expected and where you really are is frustration.

Given that life is imperfect, and there will be many times when our reality doesn’t line up with our expectations, how do we keep from being overrun with frustration?

The common Mistake we make is to get focused on our reality. There is nothing wrong with evaluating your reality, or being honest about it, but if we get to obsessed with it, or focused on it, especially in light of its deficiencies in relation to our expectations we will be overcome by frustration.

The answer is to keep our eyes forward, looking forward towards our expectations, moving forward towards stated goals, thinking forward in the direction of our vision, focused on where we are going, not where we have come from.

Expectations are powerful, we should set them high and shoot for them, and as long as we stay focused on that, then at some point our expectations will become our reality. Frustration can destroy that from happening.

Overcome frustration. Focus on your expectations.

David

Be encouraged

Just an encouragement to everyone. No matter what’s going on around us, fear does not help. Fear is a destructive force and only makes things worse.

One of my favorite scriptures has to do with overcoming fear. Romans 8:15 says we have not been given the spirit of Bondage again to fear, but the spirit of adoption whereby we cry abba father.

Several good things in this scripture. The first is it refers to fear as a bondage. The best description for fear is bondage. Fear binds your life, it paralyzes you or it pushes you into bondage because of bad decisions. Most decision based on fear are the worse decisions. It says the reason we should not fear is because of what we have been given. The grace of God. God has adopted us into his family. We all as children, when faced with a bully, would say, my dad is bigger than your dad, in this case its true. We have been adopted, God is the greatest and most and truly if God is my father, my dad, my abba, then why should I be afraid? He owns everything, He’s bigger than it all, His love and compassion far surpass any problems we may go through.

So be encouraged, if God cares for the sparrows, and flowers of the field and has set up the process for them to be provided for, how much more does He care for us.

Don’t be afraid, your daddy’s got your back.

God Connections

God connections are imperative to our spiritual growth and human significance. People are a very important part of our lives. I have so many great relationships. My wife, daughters, friends and leaders are wonderful God connections for me. We all have a great need for these connections. They produce encouragement, love, friendship, fellowship and accountability.
When God created the world, he said all is good, accept for when He created man. He said and I quote, “it is not good for man to be alone.” I realize He is referring to the mate that he would give Adam, but I think there is a larger issue here. He is saying man has a real need for relationship with others like himself. We as humans have a need, not only for a relationship with God, but a relationship with people. This is one of the great reasons that God established the church. It was His idea. Jesus said, “Upon this rock, I’ll build my church.” The writer of Hebrews says that we should not forsake getting together, because its good for our edification. Join us at harvest, and just see what God connections there might be waiting here for you.
Harvest is definitely a God connection.

David

He Cared

As a preachers Kid I grew up in church. Yes, I’ve seen a lot of things; I’ve seen the positives and negatives in people and church life on extremes, most good, but some bad. I’ve seen imperfect people behaving imperfectly. I’ve seen the same thing in families, on jobs, and in neighborhoods that I’ve lived in. It’s human nature.
To help people get into a relationship with Jesus we don’t have to be perfect, non Christian people are not expecting perfection from Christians, they’re just expecting honesty. Wanting us to be true to who we say we are. They are looking for authenticity and sincerity. It’s ok not to be perfect, but it’s not ok to be pretentious.
I’ve seen hypocrisy and pretension at its height in my life growing up, and in my adolescence I was confused about my identity, who I was, or what God really wanted for me. All I knew for sure, I wasn’t going to be a phony or a hypocrite.
I just didn’t understand grace. Grace is the idea that if we choose to live in relationship with Jesus and commit our lives to Him, He will give us the ability and power to live our lives for Him, Grace is the unmerited, undeserved, unearned blessing and favor of God on our lives.
When I was a sophomore I had a turn around. I decided to give my life to Christ. I was lost and self destructing, truthfully my life was spinning out of control, and it was getting worse. (You might say, how bad could it be, when I was so young, but I had some horrible influences outside my family). Somehow God arrested my attention, and so I made a commitment to Him, and began to follow Him. I started bringing friends to church, and they started bringing friends. Many young people made decisions for Christ in our church. We were actually filling up pews with young people.
Most of the teens who made decisions for Christ were coming without their families, so they didn’t have parental support for this new decision. With no support structure they slowly disconnected and left the church. I gave into pressure and slowly disconnected myself, and decided I wasn’t going to live for God.
I never stopped going to church, thank God, because it was ingrained in me, but I backslid with a vengeance. I attended church consistently but was fading off into the spiritual distance and needed help before I would disappear into a future disconnected from God.
Thank God for a friend named Terry, he was the high school Sunday school teacher in our church. He wasn’t perfect, but he cared. Other people didn’t know what was going on with me, and to be honest wouldn’t have done anything anyway, because it’s intimidating to try to connect with the pastor’s kid, whose messed up, but Terry would call me, and ask me to come to his house and hang out with his family. He cared. He would encourage me, or hug me, or ask me how I was doing. He just wouldn’t let up. He saw I was lost, and he knew I needed help. He saw something in me that I didn’t see myself. Terry cared.
One day I couldn’t take it anymore. I just made a decision, “God, I want to live for you, If you care for me so much that you’re talking to Terry about me, than you must have a purpose for me.”, and from that time until now, I have lived my life all out for God, and trying to do for others what Terry did for me. He cared.
So today, find someone, who has never had a relationship with Christ, or maybe someone who is a prodigal like a was, running from destiny, confused about identity, frustrated about hypocrisy and trapped in sin. All it takes is for someone to care. I’m not perfect, but I am living for God today, because my friend Terry cared about me. Who will you care about today? Over Twenty years later I still Thank God for Terry.
I have a terrific family, an incredible church, a wonderful life, and have been blessed to have the opportunity to minister to thousands of people with the grace and love of Jesus in spiritual and practical ways. All because Terry Cared. I can’t imagine where my life would have gone without his influence.
My life is not perfect, but Gods grace is sufficient to give us victory in every situation.

David