Inspiration Avenue 2017 06 11
Welcome to Inspiration Avenue!
My conviction is that our generation is over-taught and under-inspired, so every week I cultivate some of the most inspiring content I can find on the internet and bring it to you. I hope you are inspired to live fully submitted to Christ and pursuing everything He purchased for you on the Cross.
Maybe this goes without saying, but I don’t expect you to agree with me about everything I post here. In fact, I expect some of the things I post will rattle your theological cages. My suggestion? Be inspired by people who aren’t perfect. Realize you won’t agree with everything I share here. Eat the chicken, spit out the bones.
So, without further ado, here are three sources of inspiration for the week:
Methods and Tools vs. Prayer and Obedience: Roger Thorman writes about his journey into simple, organic house churches on his blog, SimpleChurchJournal. This post hammers at the thought that all of our disciple making methods and strategies are useless outside of a close walk with the Lord. This is so crucial, because often we get so caught up in the methods that a relationship with Christ can get left behind.
The Phenomenonal Growth of the Salvation Army: Lex Loizides is a church historian of the revivalist variety. He spends his time at his blog Church History Review telling the stories of revivals of the past. Currently Lex is telling the story of the Salvation Army. While the whole story is powerful, I was particularly touched by the picture here of William Booth as an old man, completely eclipsed by the men and women he had raised up into ministry from the ranks of the poor and disenfranchised. May God help us all to raise up disciples that touch the nations of the Earth like He did with William and Catherine Booth.
David Ravenhill: David Ravenhill is the son of famed preacher and revivalist Leonard Ravenhill. Leonard Ravenhill was known throughout the 70’s and 80’s for calling the church away from being like the world. I recently came across a quote of David, echoing his father in many ways: “this tidal wave of deception [. . .] seeks to make self the ultimate object of our worship while reducing God to being our ultimate personal trainer. In recent years, the words “your destiny” have been preached, prophesied, and promoted throughout the Body of Christ, to the point where self has become the center and focal point of life rather than Christ and His Kingdom.” Let’s all purpose to serve Jesus and not continue to ask Jesus to serve us.
Guts Over Fear
My apologies.
I found out over the last couple of days that in many ways, I’ve embraced fear. I haven’t been living afraid. I haven’t been up at night worrying. I’ve just been careful because I was worried about messing up.
Some of it has been on the job. Some of it has been in other areas of my life. But much of it was here. I’ve got a stack of topics worth writing about for 30 days or better, but most of them seem like the kind of blogs that need a lot of explanation not to offend people. And so my dusty stack of topics to cover is going unattended.
It’s just weird. I started blogging daily to attack the fear of showing up, the fear of having nothing to say, the fear of being misunderstood. But somewhere along the way, the routine of writing daily lulled me a little bit out of writing about things that matter. I don’t regret what was written. I just regret not leaning in against the resistance in my own soul. And for that, I am sorry.
We all deserve someone in our lives who challenges us to do the hard things. I hoped to be that guy. Lately, I’ve not been doing that in my own life and that makes it tough for me to challenge you as well.
So I’m hitting the reset button. Maybe you’ll see more blogs with less context. Maybe I’ll just talk about the stuff I love with all the passion I can muster. But my hope is to lean into the places where there’s fear and challenge fear’s right to limit me and you.
I think we’ll be better for it.
“Courage is contagious. When one brave man takes a stand the spine of others stiffens.” Billy Graham
— Jody Gurley (@jodygurley) June 1, 2016
Don’t Be A Fool: A Bonus Post
A story:
The Year was 2006. Not only had we gotten a new computer that year, but at the end of that year we had gotten a new daughter. Our first, in fact. Having purchased our first digital camera a few years previous and being fairly early adopters, we printed very few of the pictures.
Fast forward two years. We are early into the life of our second child. Our daughter is almost two. The computer hard drive crashes and most of our pictures are irretrievable. Not just by me, but by professionals who would have charged me hundreds or thousands of dollars if they could have been retrieved.
The point of the story: Don’t be a fool. Back up digital content that’s important to you. It doesn’t matter whether its on a hard drive or in the cloud. Just do it.
April 1st is a great day to think about things like this.
Cluster Map
Pursuing Glory 