I love our church. We’re small, and we meet in our home. And we’ll often just sit and listen to hear what God might be saying to us. Some will share visions. Others, dreams. Still others will share Bible verses that are apt for the moment. Through it all, it becomes clear that one word from God is worth a thousand sermons.
Isn’t that what prophets do? Figure out what God is saying for the moment? I haven’t seen anything else motivate a community more than a word that everyone knows is from God.
“Dad when I get bigger and bigger I am going to drink coffee too.”
One the funniest things about being a dad is the way that my kids try to copy me, repeat what I say, and really aspire to be like me.
It is fun, makes me feel loved, and also gives me a huge dose of humility as I realize what I show them is really important.
Everything I do, especially the things I do every day, are showing my son what it means to be a man.
He wants to drink coffee because his dad drinks coffee…every day.
This hilarious and sobering fact makes me immediately think about two things:
I have never told my son that he should drink coffee when he gets bigger. He just sees me doing it and infers that when you are a “big guy” you drink coffee.
[This is part of a series on John The Baptist as Prophet. You can read the other posts here!]
My husband and I recently became foster parents of a baby boy. We picked him up from the hospital when he was just 2 days old. His life, very unknown to us, stretches out like a blank manuscript, waiting to be written.
When a smile breaks across his face, I sometimes think about all the things ahead that will make him laugh, bring him joy. When he cries, I know all too well the possible heartbreaks he may face, already having braved a traumatic entry into this world. His life is one big deposit of potential. He could be an artist, a teacher, a criminal, or a revolutionary.
God has marked us all, built in each of us the DNA that will shape the rest of our lives. Here at this blog we talk a lot about apostles, evangelists and prophets. I believe these are both gifts God gives people at certain times for certain purposes, but also ways that God has hard-wired some of us to be. This “wiring” can be seen throughout our life, if we look closely. The journey of our lives often shows us marks, or signposts, of what God is calling us into becoming.
The life of John the Baptist reveals such marks, they are the fingerprints of God’s call on his life and also obedient responses from John and his family. The marks on John’s life as a prophet are clear from the beginning, and stretch throughout his life, giving us a glimpse of what marks may exist in our own lives or in the lives of those around us.
Here are six marks of a prophet in John’s life that pave the way for his life purpose.
This is a guest post by Nick Price. Nick is a teaching pastor at Trinity Lutheran Church in Lisle, Ill., and a student at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School in Deerfield. He is the proud father of two kids and happily married to his wife of four years, Jenny. He writes regularly on his blog, Prodigal Preacher.
Since becoming a Christian I’ve heard lots of people talk about having a “life verse”. Usually it is a passage of Scripture that they feel embodies their own journey with God. It could be something that they received at their baptism or during confirmation, but whenever they discovered it has (hopefully) become a motto for how they live as a follower of Jesus.
[Do you want help writing a life purpose statement? Here is a great resource to help you do that]
For a while I was unsure whether I had a life verse or not. There are tons of passages in the Bible that I love, but a “life verse”? I wasn’t too sure about that. And then I attended a staff training event with InterVarsity. During one of our sessions together we were encouraged to pray for each other. Eventually it was my turn to be prayed for by my team, so I sat in the middle of the group as the others gathered around and began to pray.
Suddenly, one of them said, “I’m getting the sense that I should pray a verse over you.” And this is what she read:
photo courtesy of @ The News Tribune
By Beau Crosetto
I know this sounds ludicrous that I would mention the two names in the same sentence, but there is one main thing here that I want to draw our attention to.
If you know me I bleed blue and green and just absolutely love the Seahawks and now Pete Carroll. People close to me know he is probably the #1 guy I want to meet in this world because I am fascinated with the way he goes about building a culture and team. He is dogmatic in his approach to building a program. And one clear-cut part of that approach is what catches my eye!
Some of you can’t stand Pete Carroll but don’t write this article off because of that!
He and Jesus have a one thing in common.
*I don’t know anything about Pete’s spiritual beliefs. I am simply using him as a leadership example and not in any way saying he is a Christian leader.*
As Martin Luther King Jr. day is fast approaching, it is amazing to realize that it was 50 years ago that he offered a prophetic vision of a “day when all of God’s children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual: ‘Free at last! Free at last! Thank God almighty, we are free at last!” Martin Luther King Jr, like other prophetic people share with us visions of a preferable future. They inspire us to pursue God’s shalom, to take a hold of God’s dream for this world.
We see pictures of God’s dream through prophets like Isaiah, seers like John, where peace and justice flourish and the wolf and the lamb lie side by side. Prophets call the people of God to live in God’s new social order and stand with the poor and oppressed.
I want to share some of my favorite quotes from Martin Luther King Jr. to inspire prophetic people today to continue to dream God’s future, and call others to live into that future.
By Beau Crosetto
A lot of time we, as leaders, don’t do what we need to do because we don’t like doing it.
I think this is a growing trend today especially with all the “focus on your strengths” material that is circulating our country.
But my father-in-law (Steve) and I had a great discussion today about doing things that you don’t want to do so you can go to the next level in your leadership and organization.
This is a guest post by Kate Vosburg. She has been on IV staff for almost 15 years, on 6 different campuses. She loves serving alongside her husband, Dave, who is a professor on the campus where she serves. With him as a faculty, on the inside of campus, there have been some amazing opportunities to share the gospel. Kate is an evangelist who loves to be on the front-lines with her students, finding ways into unreached communities and sharing the Gospel. Dave and Kate have 3 kids (Nate 6, Isabella 4, Diego 4) who keep Kate on her toes and laughing at their creative, crazy antics.
So, is reaching LGBTQ (Lesibian, Gay, Bi, Transgender, Queer) people worth it? Many evangelical Christians seem to say no. Not explicitly, of course. But when we don’t actively reach out to people in the LGBTQ community and proactively address homosexuality in all its complexity, we basically opt out of LGBTQ ministry. There are very few LGBTQ people who will enter a Christian space that has not made it clear that they’re welcome. And I don’t blame them; everyone “knows” how Christians treat gay people (a stereotype that is grounded in many years of countless experiences).
However, there is a deep spiritual hunger in the LGBTQ community, as far as I’ve found. There are many gay people with Christian backgrounds, but they feel they were ostracized from Christian community once they came out. There are many other gay folks who are spiritually curious and hungry, but they discount Christ because they have heard that his followers don’t want them unless they’re straight. (And of course, there are also many of us Christians in Christian communities who have LGBTQ sexual desires and don’t know how to work deal with these desires, fearing to ask our Christian communities for help.)
Who will reach this lost group of people? These people whom Christ loves and has come to rescue? Who will help our Christian brothers and sisters who struggle alone?
By Eric & Stacy Rafferty
[This is the start of a four part series on multiethnicity in the missional church. Unfortunately when we look at many of our churches, even missional ones, there is not much diversity among them. This series hopes to prophetically challenge the church and its leaders to cross cultures and build multiethnic communities!]
If you can’t tell from our tiny little picture, we come from different worlds. While a White guy from Nebraska falling in love with a Mexican
Multiethnic community is where God called us each to jump ship and follow him in a new direction. It’s where He exposes our sin, selfishness, and cultural blinders every day. And it’s where God has revealed something of what his Kingdom is like.
Multiethnicity has become for us something more than just another value that Christians are supposed to care about. It has become a picture of the Kingdom at work in a community on mission together.
Here’s our story:
By Beau Crosetto
When some of us were at Urbana we got together for our first ever A.P.E gathering and we had a great time sharing, praying and encouraging each other about all things apostolic, prophetic, evangelistic.
[Make sure to subscribe to our A.P.E. Newsletter so you don’t miss the next one! Here is the last letter I sent out with some apprentice resources not found on the blog.]
One of the things that was prayed out was an image of a fan spinning but the light was out.
The interpretation on this image was that the temptation for us as catalytic leaders is to lead and be busy, essentially spinning around, but not be fueled by the constant light of Jesus.
We appear active and “on” but there is no light!