PURE

I just finished sharing the details of tomorrows from the seats to the streets ‘God <3’s Community’ event and I am consistently blown away.  I lead with the most passionate and committed people on the planet!  After sending out an email with the final details for tomorrows service at CityLink, instantly i had 5 emails fired back to me with “I cant wait for tomorrow” or “Tomorrow is going to be amazing.”

So heres why theyre excited.  Instead of meeting at WOL tomorrow. PURE is heading to WOL’s CityLink facility in downtown Fontana.  Why?  Becuase tomorrow 600 hungry people will be there waiting for us to come serve them food, paint their kids face, cut their hair, pack them a box of food…Share HOPE, second chances and Worship with them.

Jesus gave us 2 jobs in this life…Love God, and Love People.  Sometimes that means we have to do something to live out LOVE. Tomorrows your chance to do just that…The details are here and there’s a map below.

‘God <3’s Community’ Details

Passionate Christianity…is loving the least of these…the best part about it…they are in our community…and we get to love them.

Reading today I couldn’t help but share a couple thoughts on pain.  Its never a fun thing to talk about and can become laborious and overwhelming when we focus on it.  But there is something we often forget “God is going to make sure you get where He wants you to go.  He is always working behind the scenes, engineering our circumstances and setting us up for success.”

Funny how in the middle of pain or life size challenges we forget to look at the opportunity.  Maybe its out of fear…because we are scared to fail or take a risk.  Funniest part of life…failure is the cure to fear itself.  So how is it that some people find the opportunity in opposition and others run and hide?

Perspective…when we are overwhelmed and feel like we can’t continue…it’s usually our perception of reality that is closing us in, not reality itself. Usually we are so focused on the problem…who to blame and what went wrong…that we fail to ask ‘Jesus, this isn’t fun…but why am i here?  What do You want out of this?’

I know many of you began to wrestle with deep pain last night and began to allow Wholeness to join HOPE.  Remember this week that joy is a choice and that the most powerful thing you can do is worship even when you don’t feel like it.

This life isn’t ours…it’s His…Don’t let what’s wrong with you keep your from worshiping whats right with God.

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There’s really no way to articulate what happens when hearts begin to heal. And while I sit thinking through the faces of the dozens of people who chose to come forward tonight and begin a journey of healing I can only think one thing…tonight marked a moment for so many that took the HOPE of Jesus and added the Wholeness of healing.

So many hearts that were once bitter burdened, failed, crushed, and broken began the journey to wholeness…the wholeness we should never forget was provided by Jesus, through His sacrifice…God, through His belief that His children are worth saving and healing…and the Holy Spirit who promises comfort and help.

Tonight my heart is overwhelmed with the faces of those who chose more than HOPE, they chose the next step…wholeness. That response took risk…and that risk taking is the true mark of passionate Christianity and world change. So moved by each of you that too that risk tonight.

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Tomorrow night we are going to unveil a huge opportunity for all of you to participate in loving our community and generating some local world change…don’t want to miss this!

Speaking of heart change…I am excited to share Wed.  There is something that has been aching in my heart to share, something that I believe will change lives…not because of me but because Jesus wants to do something in many of our hearts that we have never experienced before.  Heart change takes response…world change takes risk…and healing broken hearts takes freedom and freedom only comes with risk born out of a response to a loving God who promised He and He alone could take broken hearts and make them whole…I will be sharing some of my story, how my heart was destroyed, bitter, angry and broken…more tomorrow.

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Been thinking a lot about this next year. The last year was without a doubt a year of heart change for PURE…and while that part of our family should never change…whats the next step? My prayer is that the next 12 months will be a year of WORLD CHANGE.
World change requires freedom…and the truth is…freedom never comes without risk taking. My hope for the next 12 months…we will make life less about us, more about HIM, and the world He called us to love…by making our prayers less about removing pain and obstacles and more about asking for opportunity when obstacles and pain show up.
Risk filled prayers are the ones that change the world…HE came for HOPE…HE came for LOVE.

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In just a few hours PURE will turn 2.  And tonight hundreds of passionate Christians will come out and celebrate love, hope and second chances…

For me there are times that this still seems surreal and I drift back to the moments in my apartment when 8 people sat down and started to dream about what it would mean to find world change for Gen-Y.  I am aware that with God’s purpose and Jesus redemption we should never be shocked or amazed when He does something to bring Himself fame, save peoples lives, and give second chances.  But I would lie if I said that a week goes by that I don’t sit at my desk, fall on my knees, or stand in the back of the worship center on a Wed with tears running down my face…with amazement that a huge God would use me…save me, and give me another chance at a life I threw away so many times.

Truth is that today wouldn’t possible without you…those who have walked with me…beside me…carried me…and believed in a big God, not me, that this world could be changed.  Today I say to you…it is changing, there is hope and its spread far beyond just Gen-Y and is now a thriving invested part of a church that believes two things, we must have ‘Passion for God’ and we must ‘Love People.’

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For as long as I can remember I have been told that there are no silly prayers.  There is nothing too small or trivial for God.  And while I know that God’s concern for every aspect of our lives is never a question…I am convinced that God does us a favor by not answering some of our silly prayers.

This last week without a doubt has been the most challenging of the last 2 years.  For the first time someone from the PURE family went to be with Jesus.  Something that a community and family should ever have to endure…but death is the unwanted intruder in life.

As the week unfolded I clung to something Mark Batterson shares.  “Many of our prayers are misguided.  We pray for comfort instead of character, or an easy way out instead of the strength to make it through…But if God answered [those] prayers, it would rob us of our greatest opportunities.”

The difficulty of this week wasn’t a personal challenge or a point of personal failure.  The difficulty in this week is found in having no words.  No words to share with a mother, a brother, a sister, or a niece that can make sense out of the loss of Justin.  In the midst of pain we are often quick to find ways to make people feel better…when far too often there are no words, and there shouldn’t be.  Sometimes there is no cute prayer or verse in a time of pain and loss that can begin to measure up or explain why.

While believing pain bring perseverance and perseverance brings character and that sometimes God lets us walk through things we don’t understand to grow us in ways we cant imagine…how do you explain to a mother that her loss may actually be God walking her into a place that He alone can be her strength?  You don’t…you let God do what He does best love people, comfort and heal.

For each of us it is probably far too frequent that our prayers are wasted on relieving opposition instead of asking ‘What do you want me to learn in this God?’  No question Gods heart breaks when we experience pain…and He will always comfort when invited.  Is it possible that at times we ‘waste prayers’ by asking God to make us feel better instead of heal and teach us in every step of life?

So where’s the opportunity?  Tues will be the the opportunity.  A moment in the lives of the people that love Justin Morrow to learn about the eternal part of a young man whole believed with conviction that Jesus Saves.

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Yesterday a fantastic person, a lover of Jesus went home.  Funny thing is that he wasn’t know for being a man that Loved Jesus..but he was better known as the greatest basketball coach of all time.

John Wooden won more than most people could ever dream of…1o championships with the UCLA Bruins in 12 seasons.  Yet basketball wasn’t the most important thing to him…Jesus was.  In his own words “I have always tried to make it clear that basketball is not the ultimate. It is of small importance in comparison to the total life we live. There is only one kind of life that truly wins, and that is the one that places faith in the hands of the Savior.”

More and more I realize what an influence coach Wooden’s life and legacy has been on me.  My dad, a coach at heart, adored Wooden.  As a kid I thought my dad loved him for his accomplishments…then I met people who knew the spiritual side of John…the passionate Christian…and I began to understand the lure of a man like coach Wooden.

Today I say thank you to John, not coach Wooden, but to the man that knew the simple truth that “Material possessions, winning scores, and great reputations are meaningless in the eyes of the Lord, because He knows what we really are and that is all that matters.”

My heart is humbled today to know that there are people like the ‘Coach’ that went ahead of us and set the pace in this world…not to for the sake of accomplishment but for the pursuit of people knowing that there is more to this life than winning…Jesus was Wooden’s passion and purpose…is it ours?

The truth about John Wooden being know better as a coach than a lover of Jesus is more of a tell on how we place value today than a statement on John’s spirituality.

“Many have the will to win, Few have the will to prepare to win.” -something I will walk with for the rest of my life.

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Today on the PURE Facebook page a quick interview will go up that outlines my heart and thoughts on the last two years of heart and world change at PURE and what the next year holds for us…

Wednesday no doubt will be an emotional night and one filled with HOPE…we have some great stuff planned…bring your friends, family and anyone you know who needs to hear about some hope and second chances…it will be an amazing night. Cant wait to worship with some of the most passionate people on the planet…

I have an emotional story to share, about life, loss, and what it means to encounter Jesus.

Looking forward to sharing more Wed…

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This week at PURE I shared emotionally about someone who at one time was part of our family. On Saturday night Justin Morrow fell asleep and never woke up here again. And today I was with his family as they laid eyes on Justin for what will be one of the last times they ever see his face in person again.

There are no witty words you can say, or spiritual sayings that you can quote that will ever begin to explain or relieve a mothers grief or a brothers loss, none. But there was one thing that continued to circulate in my head as I stood by a family crushed with loss.

For 28 years God looked down and watched as His son, Justin, loved people, made them laugh, made them cry, gave affection to everyone he knew and changed the world around him. I have to think that God was that proud Father, so excited to share and revel in the moments His son made Him proud that He would pull angels to His side and yell, “Look, Look, that’s my son down there…that’s my kid…him, him, see him? That one, ya that one right there…You see him? He’s the one playing with his niece, the one telling his mom he loves her. I’m so proud of him!” And I can only imagine the glow on Gods face and the passion in Jesus’ eyes the night Justin raised his hand and asked Jesus to be his Lord and Savior.

The best part…sometime Saturday night…Jesus, standing next to His Father…brought Justin home. And right now God isn’t looking down on Justin, glowing with pride…There is a huge smile on His face, with tears streaming His cheeks while He holds Justin and tells Him, face to face, what He’s told Michael and Gabriel all those times…”You, yeah you…your my son…and I love you and I am so proud of you…”

I didn’t share that with Justin’s family…but I will tell you this…God is looking down right now…with an excitement we can’t imagine…and a joy we can’t comprehend and is yelling at the top of His lungs to Michael and Gabriel…’Look, look…look at my kid…that’s my kid…’ and He’s pointing at you.

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