Who is my neighbor?

Linkin Park |MTV Music

Used this video at our service tonight. We talked about how this video relates to the message in Luke 10 where Jesus is asked "who is my neighbor".  Who my neighbor is has changed.  With social media and internet connectivity we can be a "neighbor" to someone half way across the world.   How can we walk across the street to someone that is numb?  How can Christ followers take a step in the right direction to care for those that are numb?

Probably one of the best posts I have read. Not enough people shoot straight. Not only does Perry say it like it is, he is right on the money! This is a difficult subject to speak truthfully and speak conviction in love. Most people and denominations err on the side of legalism.

My favorite line that seems to sum up the post is...

"It’s SO SAD when pastors will talk about how bad it was that Esau sold his birthright for a bowl of soup…and then they will turn around and sell their ministry for an orgasm!"

My guess is that this post ticked a lot of people off and that's probably a good thing. This topic isn't spoken in love enough. Stuff like this needs to be openly discussed with pastors, church leaders, board members, men in the church... The question isn't if, it's a question of when and will you be ready for it?

I'd love to hear your thoughts... read the post and let me know what you think.

Five Hundred

A quick post as I get ready to jump into an all team celebration. This past weekend our 3 campuses joined together and did a huge baptism service. It was an unreal day. The energy in the place was off the charts. At my campus we had 34 people signed up to be baptized, which alone is awesome, but during the service the invitation was given for anyone that wanted to join in and be baptized to just jump in line. When it was all over we baptized 99 people on Sunday.

Yesterday as the numbers came in the total for all three campuses came to 500 baptisms. The stories of life change are so amazing. I love the fact that we are getting ready to celebrate what God has done and look ahead to what God is going to do out of this.

A lesson in puddle jumping

As the storm came through I would occasionally peek outside to check the status. At best it was a rainstorm with a moment of high winds. For the most part the DFW area only experienced a light bit of rain today. We are praying for the TX coastal cities that were hit so hard. The pictures and video of what happened in Houston and Galveston are unbelievable. So many of our church staff have relatives that are affected by Ike.

At one point I stepped outside and it seemed to be a perfect opportunity to have my kids come out and play. The kids had been inside all day and were getting a bit stir crazy. I had no idea they'd have so much fun. We ended up walking around the block. The longer we went the more the kids jumped. At one point I had to roll up Sam's pants so that he could keep jumping.

We found the drain where the water was rushing to. We sent leaf boats down the drain and jumped around. I was reminded of a few things on our puddle jumping walk today.

• Go for it... I didn't have to teach my kids how to jump in the water. I showed them the best puddles and they jumped. How many times do I know the right thing to do, have it pointed out, and yet wait to think about if it's right or not?

• Carefree... I saw this quite a bit on our walk. Emma's socks were getting wet and Sam's pants got soaked, but they didn't care because they were having a blast.

• Laugh a lot... there was no shortage of laughter on this walk. By the end of the walk the kids had even made the spashing into a game. I am convinced that there are too many adults that have lost their ability to laugh and have fun. The saddest part of all is that most of these adults think they are being a better Christ follower this way. Some how there's an equation with honoring Christ and being boring. Just to clarify, I totally disagree! A Christ-like life is the most exciting life. A God-honoring life is more exciting than the greatest day of puddle jumping. Jumping in puddles is good for the soul.

Watching my kids jumping around and laughing today made me remember a time like this for me. One particular rainstorm I jumped onto my BMX bike and rode all day. I was soaked. It was great. Somehow responsiblity equals not taking any risks. We even term it as calculated risks. Can a risk be calculated?

Get out... find a puddle... and jump. It's kinda fun.
Live life and experience some laughter.
Live the life that Christ has said we can.

Questions for Guys

Proverbs 27:17... I love concept of iron sharpening iron; but like Tony says, "it's usually just two dull rocks passively talking about sports." Or maybe it's someone that thinks they've got enough people around them and they are doing good enough. How are we doing at being authentic with each other? How authentic am I being in my relationships?

Tony posted some great questions for guys. Check them out. Here's a few...

Are you honoring your wife in your marriage’s sex life?
Are you giving your kids the right attention?
What did God teach you in your quiet time this morning?
What have you done right this week in your faith? marriage? family? job?
What is something worthy of celebration in your life that you’ve just kept to yourself? Let’s go party about it!

Wrestling

Before I post anything, I want to say thank you to everyone for all of the encouraging comments. It was wonderful hearing from so many friends. We miss you guys too. Thank you for your continued prayers and support.

This post is long overdue... I have really been wrestling with just what to say and how to say it. Part of me didn't really want to respond... I've been working so hard to look forward at the future God has for me and my family and not focus on the past disappointments and trials we've endured. Those that know me well (and some that don't) have found out that I never shy away from dealing with the difficult situations... the last 10%... the stuff we'd rather not deal with... the portion that's easier to walk away from and say "forget it" about.

Yesterday I was reading in 2 Samuel 23; the chapter that lists David's mighty men and tells a little about some of them. Whenever I need to get that God-boost, that internal push that causes me to stand up tall with my shoulders back ready to face life I read about David's mighty men... men of valor, integrity, honor, loyalty...

It blesses me every time I read through the comments from our friends. I am also saddened by the fact that over a year later someone is still able to come spewing anonymous venom. It has been and always will be my prayer that God's is central in all of our lives. Whether it be a previous place of ministry, a future place of ministry or a person I randomly encounter in life; I love and hope to be part of the process that draws them closer to living a Christlike life. Without a doubt it is my life's mission to challenge people to come to a place in life where God is the center and everything flows out from there.

Anonymous, as for your apology... thank you. I do accept your apology. I have to admit though, it is somewhat difficult, seeing that I don't really know who it is that I am accepting this from? Apologies are personal, if you desire to be more personal with your apology feel free to contact me: thornton83@gmail.com

All that said, life is still crazy. In fact God is truly at work in the Thornton family. I look forward to the coming weeks and months as we see God move on our behalf and do some incredible things. Pray with us that He makes our path straight, as we have some big things that need to come together. I look forward to sharing more with you all soon.

McManus @ Awaken

There are a lot of great churches out there that are reaching people like Mary and Martha and Peter in the Scriptures, but there aren’t enough which reach out to Dionysius and Damaris (Acts 17).

It’s better to be alienated by the Christian world if that is what it takes to reach the alienated.

Thanks to Eric for keeping us updated on Awaken.

Risk

A while back I had a shirt that had RISK boldly printed across the front of the shirt. I like taking risks. Steven and Seth post some thoughts about risk and how it has an effect in our lives. They compare: boldly take risks when we have nothing to loose vs. how we aren't as bold with our risk taking when we have more to loose. When we have more to loose...

"There is now a strong temptation to mistake risk aversion for maturity.
Sometimes, under the guise of getting wiser, growing deeper, or waiting on God, we let our audacity atrophy and set the stuff that made us special on the shelf.

That must really insult God. After we’ve already seen Him part seas, kill giants, and multiply fish and loaves, we should be more inclined to push our chips to the center of the table, not less!

Otherwise, we’ll eventually find ourselves building altars in honor of where God was."

Originality

An excellent post by Eric Bryant. He shares about a new series at Mosaic.

Too often we believe the lie: “It’s not my fault.” We may not be able to change what happens to us, but we can choose how we will respond. 2 Peter 1:3-7, reminds us that we have been given everything we need from God for life and godliness and even still we are to “make every effort” to become the people God created us to be... don’t have to succumb to a “victim mentality,” but I can live an original life.

It seems that conformity is more widely accepted than originality. Sometimes an origional life causes friction due to the fact that it is different than what others are being conformed into. I don't think we enjoy or were meant for "assembly-line humanity". Something within us fights against the pressures of legalism; sadly not everyone withstands the pressure to conform.

Somehow we've equated conformity with holiness. Spirituality is more identified with tradition and ritual than it is with a future and a hope. Too often discipleship equals standardization.

-McManus, Soul Cravings

Live an original life that God intended for you to live!

Blogs on a roll

The blog world is really putting out some great content lately...

• The lifechurch.tv team continues with the Kingdom-minded series
• Herbert Cooper talks about "what to do when you don't know what to do"
• Mark has two great post on measuring the urgent vs the important and three important leadership reminders

Kingdom-minded

How kingdom-minded am I? How kingdom-minded are you? Craig posted some challenging thoughts on the issue... (a couple of biggies...)

• If everyone did ministry the way I do, we would never reach the whole world.
• If you’re going to be guilty, be guilty of speaking well of the body of Christ—rather than being guilty of being divisive.

There are some very challenging points... check 'em out...

Dreams into reality

Mark posted some thoughts on their recent addition to the NCC family...

I have learned that the harder something is the more you have to pray and the less likely you are to take it for granted. We have prayed like it depends on God because it has!

So simple. So true.

Listen closely

The past couple of days I've had some great conversations with some close friends. We've been discussing what it means to hear God's voice in our lives. Many people feel that they are hearing the voice of God directing them when it's just last night's pizza giving them some crazy ideas. Many of these conversations about God's voice seem to surround how and where God is directing... His plan for our lives. This is something I've been working through; interestingly there have been a few others posting some thoughts about the way we talk with and hear from God.

Perry has some great things to say from a dad's perspective. One I especially connected with is how from a father's perspective I want my children to know my voice and hear what I am saying. God wants us to hear His voice more than we want to hear it! Another that seems obvious, but is so true... The voice of God will not lead you into sin.

Mark passes along great post from Catalyst about how listening to God's voice can mess us up... it can disturb us. Mark passes along what Craig Groeschel shared about practical atheism... it's scary how often this happens. One of practical atheisims is that we believe our effort is more important than God's power!

Answer this question that Craig presents...

If I REALLY believed _____________, I’d _______________.

Clearly Prayer

It was in college that I first read this book. It had a significant impact on my prayer life, on how I communicated with God and how He communicated with me. Recently I heard Bill Hybels, the author of this book, mention four ways to hear God's voice more clearly. They were meaningful to me as I am striving to clearly hear God's voice.

• Ask God to help you hear His voice more clearly.
• Remove the ambient noises: this is anything that is a distraction.
• Read the bible: God speaks to us through His word.
• Get rid of sin. Sin blocks our hearing God's voice.

They seem too easy, but I think that is kind of the point. Too often we complicate talking with God... when it really is conversational and God really does desire to communicate with us. It is my responsibility to make sure that I am ready and in a place to have the conversation.

Forgiveness

Steps to be able to truly forgive...

Ask yourself these questions:

• Who did I hurt?
• What did I do?
• Why did I do it?
• What were the results?

Romans 12:17-20
Never pay back evil with more evil. Do things in such a way that everyone can see you are honorable. Do all that you can to live in peace with everyone.

Great Verse

Ezekiel 36:26 I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. 27 And I will put my Spirit in you and move you to follow my decrees and be careful to keep my laws.

It would be great if this happened automatically for everyone.

4th of July

Happy 4th of July. Here is the grand finale of the fireworks display where we were.



It was a nice night. I found that the bathrooms were over the river and through the woods...

My favorite part of the night didn't have to do anything with the fireworks. My daughter skinned her knee on the way back to the vehicle. On our drive home we were discussing how her knee would heal. In a flash, she attributed the healing to Jesus and asked if we could pray that he would continue to heal her knee. About two minutes go by and my daughter exclaims, "Jesus is healing my knee"... "I can feel it!" The amazing faith of a child! How sad it is that as adults we have lost this awe inspiring faith. I am so proud of my little girl! As young as she is and she has such a grasp on God's love for us. If she only knew how awesome her faith is.

Hillsong church service

What an amazing service! This evening we had the privilege to be apart of the worship at the Hillsong city church. From the second that we stepped foot onto the curb I was absolutely impressed.

The mate that we met walked with us literally from the curb to our chairs. He was so helpful. This was true hospitality. It was so how excited everyone was. This seemed more like a group of... oh ... a thousand old friends just hangin out.

We could hardly make it into the sanctuary because there were so many people exiting from their earlier service. There is a side room that people wait in so that the earlier service can exit and the hosts (what they call their ushers, I love it!) can turn the sanctuary around for the next service. We were barely able to find seats! The place was packed and electric!

We get inside and people were jacked up and ready to worship. The band hit it and there was a people make dash for the front; some climbed over chairs. Those that were already up front were jumping, clapping, and singing. It was unbelievable. It was what church should be.



They then introduced the speaker for the evening, Paul DeJong. This guy was amazing. He spoke out of 2 Kings 4. He used the story of the woman that built a room for Elisha to translate into our live and the need that we have to make room for God's plan in our lives. So often we pray for God to move in our lives but rarely do we make the necessary room in our lives for God to even have an opportunity to move. He referenced a great quote from A.W. Tozer.

We have prayed for revival, but we've substituted praying for obeying.

They closed the service with salvations and baptisms. What a great job this church is doing to make an impact down under and all over the world. A cool tidbit that I learned tonight... the Hillsong United album most recently released is number 3 on the secular charts in Australia.

Firsts and Fears

Hello from Sydney! It's 7pm here and 4am in Chicago... crazy!

Glenda took this picture out the window of the airplane, probably about the time we were crossing the international date line.


Here are a couple of fun firsts over the last couple of days:

• Crossed the international date line and skipped a day.
• Took an international trip with the family
• First time in Australia
• Pet a koala bear
• Fed some kangaroos
• Spanked a cow
• Saw a Tasmanian devil

I love flying. We had three times that during our 14 hour flight we hit some major turbulence. This is always so much fun because you can tell the people that afraid of flying. Another great thing about flying is the uninterrupted time... kinda. I've gotten to read a lot and mostly its been the Lion Chaser stuff. I love what Batterson has to say about fear. The goal of life is not to eliminate fear. The goal of life is to muster the moral courage to chase lions. Satan tries to neutralize us spiritually through discouragement and fear. So, if you are discouraging others or living in fear or putting fear into others... well re-read the last sentence.

What fear is most overwhelming? I've got a few things that are overwhelming, but I am mustering the courage to chase the lion and I am confident that the stage is set for an epic miracle... that will be another first.

By the way Sydney is awesome... so many things I'd love to get, most of all the cool accent. Maybe I will just try to bring home some authentic aussie phrases.

Dr. Root on Lewis

A couple of weeks ago I had the privilege of sitting down with a couple of friends and Dr. Jerry Root from Wheaton College. We met up at the Billy Graham center. Dr. Root is a foremost expert on the life and writings of C.S. Lewis. Jerry was doing a podcast for a leadership team that I am a part of. He had some inspiring things to say. Obviously Lewis was an amazing man. We mostly discussed the book, Surprised by Joy. Here are a few highlights from the conversation:

• Lewis was fleuant in about 8-10 languages.

• Lewis had an incredibly difficult upbringing: boarding schools, family life, school difficulties and fitting in... all of these things shaped him for who he was going to become and what he would do in the future.

• Lewis refers to the Arthurian torso and discusses the one of the first problems of life... how do you fit stone in the shell? He takes the words from the Wordsworth poem called "the prelude". The stone represents reason/the head and the shell represents the romantic longings (for God).

How do you fit robust intellectual thought with a heart that has passion for God? There are a lot of Christians that have amazing passion, but their heads are in dishwater; they are just not thinking. There are also a lot of Christians that have hard thinking; but they they have no heart... no heart for others, they are just interested in correcting others, they are rigid. Lewis says you need to bring the two together; head and heart. He tries to bring head and heart together in Surprised by Joy, in fact, he thought that the Christian faith could bring head and heart together.

• Lewis is haunted by our human longings and wondering about their meaning. He reasons through the morass of atheism and materialism. Lewis writes quite about this journey. He comes to believe in the existence of the supernatural, he then wrestles with religious questions... which God, which religion... Lewis becomes a theist and uses rich images and analogies.

Prior to knowing God Lewis writes about how he didn't think he could know God personally; anymore than Hamlet could know Shakespeare. A few years later Lewis becomes a Christian. He revisits this analogy in Surprised by Joy (you have to read the footnotes). He realized that the analogy was a good one, but it could have never depended upon Hamlet the character. Hamlet the character could have never broken out of the play and met Shakespeare the author; but Shakespeare the author could have written himself into the play as Shakespeare the character to make the introduction of Shakespeare the character and Hamlet the character. Which, in fact, is what happened in the incarnation... the God who loves us did not abandon us, he knows us, but he forgives us and loves us still. He comes to us as a testimony of His great love for us. He does all for us and expects our all in return.

I am still processing the weight and magnitude of the hour spent soaking this all up.