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How can you find true fulfillment? I have been asked and have asked that question many times. I have also received many different answers to that question. In the end, I have found that the simplest answer is usually the one I needed.

For the purpose of this series of posts I am going to operate on the assumption that all who read this are devoted followers of Christ. I say this because I feel like that is the foundational step to fulfillment. Not having the will of God as the first priority throws the rest of my thoughts off course, as well.

Here is one of the answers that I have been given.

Just ask yourself, “What would you do if you did not have to worry about finances any longer?”

The point is that once you can answer that question, you will have found the thing that you are supposed to do with the rest of your life. You will have to take some time to get past the extended vacation, world travel, and shopping sprees till you get to the thing that you would give your life to.

God has given you unique gifts, skills and desires. What would you do if finances and your daily job weren’t an issue?

As a pastor I try to never take for granted the words that come out of my mouth when I speak to a group of people. I always try to remember the my responsibility as a leader. The truth is that when God speaks most people don’t listen. When people claiming to be speaking for God do, you can be sure that someone is listening.

Here are some prophetic bloopers that I read at Mark Conner’s blog. Enjoy.

• “Thus saith the Lord, Why does this people sit around on their cans and do nothing? For do you not know that my word has been around for God knows how long?”
• “Yea my people, that is if you are my people, I would say unto thee, fear not! For the Lord your God knows that you fear some things and you fear sometimes! You know that sometimes I am afraid myself!”
• “Yea my people, I know that you are having a hard time. Yes, my people, saith the Lord, I know that it is rough on you sometimes! Sometimes I don’t know what I am going to do myself.”
• “Yea my people, as far as I know, I have nothing against thee.”
• Yea, saith the Lord, yea, yea, saith the Lord. Surely, yea, saith the Lord. Yea, saith the Lord. Yea, saith the Lord. Oh me, yea, saith the Lord, yes, yea saith the Lord. Yea saith the Lord.” This person walked around the preacher, looked at him and said, “Brother, I have yea’d and yea’d, but the Lord won’t say anything.”
• Some one prophesied, “Yea my people, as Moses was caught up in the chariot …” and continued a long dialogue about Moses in the chariot and sat down. The person jumped up a few minutes later and said, “Yea, my people, saith the Lord, I have made a mistake, it was not Moses in the chariot, but it was Elijah in the chariot!”
• “Yea, my people, I am not in this place.” A few minutes later, “Yea my people, really, I am not in this place.” About fifteen minutes later, “My people, you think I am kidding. I am not in this place.”
• “Dot, dot, dash, dash, dot, dot, dash, dash, dot, dot, dash, dash. Yea my people, saith the Lord, this is Morse Code from heaven.”
• “A young man stood up and gave a prophecy, and it was wrong. The Elders of the church rebuked, corrected and encouraged the young man and continued the service. The same young man stood up and said, “It was too of me, saith the Lord.”
• One man was agitated about another man prophesying so long. When he was finished, he said, “That prophecy was not of me, saith the Lord, but this one is of me.”
• “Thus saith the Lord, I am not in this place.” Another person said, “I am too in this place, saith the Lord.” The first man stood up and said, “Don’t believe that. “I am not in this place,’ saith the Lord.”
• “The ball’s in your court, saith God, and you’re not doing a darn thing with it.”

Recently I took one of those online tests for fun to see whether I was classified as a nerd, geek or dork. I believe everyone was betting on dork. The results that actually came back were very appropriate. They stated that I was “Joe Normal”.

This is pretty consistent with my whole life. I have never been “the” one at anything. Here is a list of all of the ones that I was not.

• The Popular One
• The Good-Looking One
• The Smart One
• The Athletic One
• The Funny One
• The Rich One
• The Strong One
• The Fast One
• The Talented One
• The Stylish One
• The Creative One
• The Handy One

When I look at the above list I can’t help but wonder why God asked me to start LifePoint. There must be more qualified people. The more I consider it the more encouraged I get. God never asked me to be “the” one. In fact it is the person who knows that they are the one that usually hinders what God wants to do.

Think about this. Have you ever heard or read about someone who has met their hero. This is especially true in church leadership. When people meet the Craig Groeschels, the Andy Stanlys, the Ed Young Jrs, most of them say the same thing. “They were just regular guys”. Of course they were, those are “the” ones God uses. I’ll put it this way.

Average people serving an above average God will accomplish extraordinary things in below average circumstances.

1. I really enjoyed the message yesterday. This may sound strange but I don’t always but occasionally the message has a profound impact on me.
2. A couple in the church took us out to lunch for a belated Pastor’s Appreciation day. I never pay attention to these types of things but when someone else does, it means a lot.
3. I lost my wallet last week so I am in the process of recovering all of my important things such as drivers license. bank cards, etc.
4. This Saturday LifePoint will be helping with Habitat for Humanity to build a house. If you want to be involved, visit the site and create a login. Make sure that you choose LifePoint as your group and then sign up for the November 3rd project. We absolutely need at least three more people on the online volunteer list.
5. This is actually a pretty busy week. Monday night meeting, Possible Wednesday night meeting, Thursday night small group, Saturday at Habitat for Humanity and to finish out the week, this Sunday is our First Sunday Luncheon. If you are new to LifePoint and would like to get to know us better this is a great place to do so. Lunch is on us directly after the Sunday service at the Wards house. See the welcome table for directions.

Last night I was having a talk with Jenny (a fellow LifePointer) discussing her nerdiness. She then went on to call me a nerd as well. I have never classified myself as a nerd (although I have nothing against them). I had to get to the bottom of this once and for all, so I went to the most reliable source I could…an online quiz. The results are in and you can see the results below.

Your Score: Joe Normal

30 % Nerd, 30% Geek, 17% Dork

For The Record:

A Nerd is someone who is passionate about learning/being smart/academia.

A Geek is someone who is passionate about some particular area or subject, often an obscure or difficult one.

A Dork is someone who has difficulty with common social expectations/interactions.

You scored less than half in all three, earning you the title of: Joe Normal.

This is not to say that you don’t have some Nerd, Geek or Dork inside of you–we all do, and you can see the percentages you have right above. This is just to say that none of those qualities stand out so much as to define you. Sure, you enjoy an episode of Star Trek now and again, and yeah, you kinda enjoyed a few classes back in the day. And, once in a while, you stumble while walking down the street even though there was nothing there to cause you to trip. But, for the most part, you look and act fairly typically, and aren’t much of an outcast.

I’d say there’s a fair chance someone asked you to take this test. In any event, fairly normal.

Congratulations!

I just got back from our volunteer’s orientation a couple hours ago and thought I would remind everyone of our commitment. It was cool to see a few other LifePointers there as well. If you would like more information on Habitat for Humanity you should check out their website.

On Saturday, November 3rd, LifePoint will be helping build house #55 that will be going to the France family. This is a great opportunity to practice what we preach and serve our community. I love their volunteer montra…build your community. The truth is that Cleveland is our community and it is up to us to take care of it. We have the honor of loving our neighbor in a very real way. Remember that a neighbor is determined by how you act towards them and not how close they live to you.

So I want to be a part…what do I do now?

Great question. Go to www.habitatofcleveland.org and click on the VolunteeUp image (seen here) at the bottom of the page. Create a login but don’t forget to check the box that says you are with LifePoint.

Once you are all signed in go to the November 3rd listing and click on “LifePoint ” to go to the project page and click “sign up”. There are only 10 slots available so do it as soon as possible. You will already see that I have signed up and I would love you see your name with mine.

After that, all thats left to do is show up on the work day. I believe we will be putting up vinyl siding. I am not extremely handy but I am looking forward to learning a new skill. I will be looking for you names on the project page. See you soon.

Perhaps some of you noticed that the blog was down from Sunday night until Monday night. I accidentally broke the blog in a way that is still unclear to me when I was attempting to upgrade our WordPress version and finish the redesign of the site. With Kevin’s help and a whole lot of hours I was able to get it back up and running.

Hopefully you didn’t miss us too much. Either way, I hope you enjoy the new design of the blog and LifePoint website. There should be a lot of new additions coming in the not so distant future. And as always I would love to hear your feedback.

Kevin started a discussion on a group of people that he has affectionately named the Rantin’ Remnant (RR). These people are called such because they are, in their speech, correct about why many churches have become sterile and yet do nothing to change it. They seem to not be ready to actually be what they say that the church was intended to be. In the discussion Jenny asked me a question. “What are the real reasons that the RR people you know are not connected to a community”?

It’s a good question with a list as an answer, so instead of trying to comment my answer, I thought I would dedicate an entire post to it. Before I go into my list let me say that not every RR fits in this list, just the ones I know personally. My assumption, although possibly false, is that this list probably fits most cases of the RR epidemic.

First here is a list of the reasons that I have been given by various members of the RR. They offer these because they, on the surface, feel valid. After careful consideration most people will discover that they are in fact not valid, at least not if you are really passionate about something such as the RR seem to be.

• Frustrated / Discouraged / Overwhelmed - In this reason they make the assumption that every church is flawed because they have had bad experiences. I have had my share of bad experiences within the church so I can understand this and often empathize with people who offer this reason.
• Fear - It’s hard to be vulnerable when you have been hurt in the past. With this reason the person is saying that they would love to be a part of a real biblical community but they can’t risk the emotional scars that inevitably come when it all falls apart.
• God 0 This one is my favorite. The claim is that there are no available biblical communities that God has told me to be a part of. Some even go further and claim that God has specifically told them to leave every community they have had some affiliation.

Many have given me the above reasons without considering that I wasn’t born yesterday and in fact have a little experience with their lives. Here are some of the real reasons why the RR that I know are not connected to a community.

• Pride - They think they are the only ones who really get it. If a community doesn’t do it the way they have concluded that it should be done then it’s time to move on because they are wrong. The very nature of a community means that there are going to be disagreements but it is that diversity (not division) that makes it strong. These are the ones who usually use the “God”? excuse.
• Selfishness - It’s not that there isn’t community; it’s that it’s not focused on them. If it was always about their values, their struggles and their current crisis then they would be at every gathering.
• Laziness - As Jenny pointed out in her comment, creating community is hard. I couldn’t agree more. That’s why I think some would rather act enraged than actually do the hard work of changing it. If you show me a self-sacrificing community I will show you people who…sacrifice.
• Priorities - When topics of a spiritual nature come up the rant begins but only when it comes up. It’s a pretend soap box. They get on it and rant and then move on to more important areas in their lives. Sometimes they just claim they are too busy but the final outcome is the same. They claim to hate the state of the church but only when it’s the topic of the moment. All I am saying is that it doesn’t keep them up at night.

So these are the few that I have witnessed in my discussions with the RR I know and I recognize that these may not be true of them all. My prayer is that if you are one of the RR that you will see the tremendous potential for community that is wasted when we draw near to one another with our mouths but our hearts and lives are far away.

I am sure there are a lot more but here are just four to get you started.

1. I don’t run marathons. I run the first leg of the relay. I start fast, cover a lot of distance, get ahead of everyone and then…give it to someone else. I then stand at the envisioned finish line cheering the other runners on. The false assumption about me because of my leadership personality is that I am either a quitter or that I am lazy when actually I am a starter and I know that someone other than myself is supposed to do it. Unless you know me nothing will convince you otherwise and I’m okay with that.
2. I don’t know everything. In fact I don’t know a lot of things. I think this is one of my greatest strengths. If I knew everything I might not be as willing to try crazy things and it is usually the crazy ideas that work. Not to mention, know it alls don’t learn from their mistakes. They just assume it was someone else’s fault.
3. I fail on purpose. Okay, maybe I don’t fail on purpose but I am willing to fail for a purpose. All this means is that I am willing to lay it all on the line to do what God called me to do. This is how LifePoint began. It tends to make people nervous…especially my wife. Which brings me to #4.
4. My wife wins. If push comes to shove my wife comes before the church every time. It is for her that I have been willing to leave full-time ministry behind and it is because of her that I haven’t. Everyone has their own opinions but don’t fight me on this…my wife wins.

So what else irritates you about my leadership? I may not like what I hear but then again I might just refer you to number 2 and thank you for pointing it out.