Eric Taylor

Money Talks...

Man, I'm loving hearing all the stories of people who are seriously tired of being mad at their money and are ready to do something about it.  God is really stirring in people's lives to set them free from debt and bad habits with money.    I've gotten emails and  phone calls and  we talked about it in our growth group last night.  That's why we're in this series called, "Mad Money".  You don't want to miss the next 2 weeks because there will be some RADICAL stuff happen then and you'll be sorry if you're not there.  Think of a friend or a neighbor you know who would benefit from this series and go today and invite them... give them a call, send them an email, or walk up to them and hand them one of our special invite cards.  I've said before that this series could have the most impact of any series we've done at Journey.  I'm so glad people are getting into it.  Remember to sign up for the ReThink Money Financial Seminar on Saturday, May 10th.  Click here for more info and to register. 

SHAKEN!

I love the passage in Acts 4 where the believers are praying for courage and they ask for great boldness in preaching God's word and for power to do the miraculous... The bible says after they prayed the place where they were meeting was shaken and they all preached the word with boldness.

God's been shaking me up for the past couple of weeks.  I've always told you that when God messes with me it trickles down to you... so get ready!  I'm going to share some cool stuff Sunday as we begin our series called, "Conversations with God".   I've been preparing for this series on prayer for a while and I believe God has been using the preparation for the series to shake me in a few areas...

1.  At the Evolve Conference... all of the main session speakers spoke directly to me... they shook me with Truth.  So I have repented, I'm getting healthy, developing Courage, owning my insecurities and swinging til my hands bleed... man that's some good stuff... most of you don't have a clue what I'm talking about because you had to be at the conference to hear it... I have the CDs if you'd like to listen. 

2.  Yesterday I had the privilege of heading to Nashville (I love that town!) with my good friend Dave Anderson.  We met with some other church planters and a God used a couple of them to Shake me up some more.  They really spoke truth into my life in a big way!  Thanks Pete Wilson and Randy Cook!

I tend to be very futuristic and visionary... I think all church planters are... and so I have had a tendency to drift toward praying so much for the people that aren't at our church yet and have missed opportunities to pastor and love and lead the people God has already given me.  I've been praying for God to grow our church and now I'm shifting and beginning to pray, "God, let me love and lead the people You've given me to pastor."  He shook me hard there!   Acts 20:28 says "guard yourselves and God's people.  Feed and shepherd God's flock--his church, purchased with his own blood..."  Someone said to me yesterday, don't build the church God has for Steven Furtick, or Shawn Lovejoy or Dave Anderson... build the church God has appointed me to build!

I hate it when God messes with me like that... especially when I know He's right... and He always is!
We're beginning our series "Conversations with God" and it's all about prayer... You can bet some of this story will be shared over the next few weeks because it HAS changed and IS changing my life.  Do you have any stories of God shaking your world?  I'd love to hear them.

God's at work all around us

I'm going old school today and bringing back a principle from Henry Blackaby's "Experiencing God"... It's been around a long time and the principles in it are timeless... because they're biblical!  One of the principles at work reminds us that God is ALWAYS at work all around us.  Sometimes you may not think He's at work... but He is... I caught a glimpse of this yesterday when I got out of the office to run some errands.  God has been stretching me in my prayer time to pay closer attention to people and engage them when possible... I tried that out at the bank, and got a chance to encourage and invite one of the managers.  Most of the times I just hit the drive through... but today I went inside... God was at work!  It happens all the time... A lot of times we miss it, we think God can only work at church or on Sundays... but God is ALWAYS at work... all around us.  Let me encourage you to treat everyone you see today as an opportunity for God to work through you.  It may make you late for something, but you just might be the instrument God uses to bless someone. 

Pumped about Prayer

Yesterday was a great day @ Journey.  We had lots of guests, JourneyKidz was rockin' and full, the band did a great job and Merideth knocked it out of the park on Martina McBride's anyway!  We finished up the Sermon on the Mount series and I'm ready for the next 3 weeks as we prepare for Easter with a series on Prayer.  Get ready because we're going to challenge you to pray BIG!  We're going to teach you how to pray, but most importantly, we're going to pray!  Lot's of churches talk about prayer a lot... They have prayer lists, prayer rooms, prayer meetings... but not a lot of prayer goes on... (I'm not knocking those churches who do, it just seems like we spend more time talking about prayer, demystify prayer so we can program it... We're going to embrace the mystery of prayer... how we can develop our prayer lives and how we can pray BIG prayers to a BIG God!  In the middle of this series, we'll be having another Sunday Night Live. (March 9th--5:30pm)  You don't want to miss it... It's going to be AWESOME.

Why all the Prayer Talk?  We've been praying for God to double our attendance for Easter.  We need to build some momentum to continue to grow... so we're challenging everyone to reach someone... even those who are guests... we give them invite cards and tell them to invite their friends!  Fact is, we believe God has called our church to something GREAT!  To reach people who are living life far away from God and connect them to God and the Church and help them become a passionate Christ follower.   

I've been continuing my 100 hours of prayer over the next 30 days ... (yes, I am tracking a little behind), and it's been really rich... The best times are usually when I finish running through my list  and I have nothing left to pray about... That's when God shows me really cool stuff!  If there's one thing I've learned it's this... PRAY TO THE END OF YOURSELF... Then LISTEN!  God's got something GREAT to say to YOU today... are you going to listen?

Prayer Challenge

A lot of you know that I challenged myself to pray 100 hours over the next 30 days for our church to grow... (I first heard Bil Cornelius @ churchplanters.com conference say he did that).  I'm almost a week in and I thought it would be difficult coming up with stuff to pray for for 3-1/2 hours every day... surprisingly...it's not.  If anything it has really caused me to focus on specifics of our church... the systems and ministries, the leadership, the volunteers, the families, the hurts and needs as well as a lot of disconnected people in our community.  One thing it has done is caused me to realize how self focused a lot of my prayers have been.  I learned that the first couple of days... when I got to the end of me and my selfish prayers... what do I pray for?  That's when I really began to sense God stretching me!  I can't wait to see what He has next!   

Great Movie Line!

I recently saw August Rush, a movie my wife and I had been looking forward to for a while.  The previews just looked pretty cool and we love music and anything w/Robin Williams in it.  I loved the movie... in fact... it's moved into my Top 3 all time movies --Braveheart and Gladiator are the other two--as for rankings... it depends on what kind of mood I'm in... but August Rush had some incredible stuff in it.  My favorite line in the movie comes when Robin Williams is trying to help the boy musical prodigy come up with a new, flashy, cool name.  The boy is an orphan but has always believed his parents wanted him and is committed to reconnecting with them, and Robin Williams' character ("Wizard") asks him... what's a cool name... what do you want more than anything else in the world?  Here it is... the answer to life's most important question... and the little boy said it:  "To be FOUND"!  The movie didn't really acknowledge how profound of a statement this was... but it's the heart of every church planter I know and it's the heart of everything we do at Journey... to connect disconnected children to their heavenly Father.  And the reality is that we are all (CHURCH BUZZWORD ALERT) "seekers".  Over the next few days there will be thousands of people I'll walk past, drive past, sit next to, stand in line behind who's greatest desire in life will be to be found.  They may not say it that way, they may not even know what they're looking for, but as Christ Followers, we know that the greatest thing we could ever experience is to be found in Him.  I'm reminded what Paul said in Philippians 3:8-9:

"I consider everything a loss compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them rubbish, that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ."

That's it, Journey!  That's the search we're on as humans on this planet.  Jesus made it possible because He took steps out of heaven and came to where we are so we could be FOUND in Him. How about taking a look around you today at the people who are living life disconnected from God...  Deep down their greatest desire is to be found by their Father...what will you do to help them take a step toward Him?

East Alabama YFC

Just got back from the East Alabama Youth for Christ Banquet.  it's their annual fundraising banquet and I get invited because I worked with them as a Campus Life Director for a few months while we were  beginning to plant Journey.  I love YFC and what they do for teenagers that don't "fit" into a normal church youth ministry setting.   This year's banquet was great.  The main speaker was Bill Muir, writer, director, producer and YFC dude for 30 years... He's an amazing storyteller and I'm telling you now, if you go to Journey and you heard his talk... you're going to hear it again... I'm going to rip it off!  It was that good.  He told the story of the Good Samaritan, my favorite story in the bible.  He mentioned that we see people (I think he said teenagers, but I was already thinking how I could use this in a broader context with all our people) in 5 different ways... Here they are:
1.  The Expert in the Law saw the man as a Topic to be discussed.
2.  The Robbers saw the man as a Target to be Exploited.
3.  The Priest and Levite saw the man as a Problem to be avoided.
4.  The Innkeeper saw the man as a Customer to be served.
5.  The Samaritan saw the man as a Person to be loved.

I know this sounds old school church with points and all, but, man... He was right on the money.  We see people through those lenses every day... Over the next few days, I'm going to chew on this and I'll post more thought on each one.    But for now, I'm going to kiss my kids goodnight!

Working through Ephesians

I've been reading very slowly through Ephesians for the past few days and I am amazed at the awesome stuff in this book.  It's amazing that God leads us to the right stuff at the right time to speak to us Clearly and Boldly through His Word.  I'm trying a new study method with this because I've read Ephesians a bunch of times and we have a tendency to breeze through stuff we've already read and think we know... but here's what I'm doing... I'm reading one section at a time... it's taking me a few days to read even one chapter... I still have a desire to read more, but I'm holding off and spending more time meditating and thinking more about  what Paul is saying to the Church @ Ephesus and then I'm spending more time thinking about it through the lens of my personal spiritual journey, then, and only then will I allow myself to see it as an sermon opportunity.  Over the years, we preachers can get into bad habits when we read the bible and just  look at everything we read as a possible sermon/message.  It's been refreshing to stretch and retrain my brain and thought patterns to look at it through a different filter... As I've done that, I've seen some AMAZING things that I've read hundreds of times, but now it's so incredibly fresh.  We're probably going to do a series on Ephesians sometime next year, but for now, I'm soaking this stuff up and it's challenging me like crazy. 

How do you study and read and apply the Bible. Do you have a method?  Do you have some sort of routine?  I'd love to know how God is speaking to you through His Word.  Leave me a comment. 

What's Your Burden?

I've been reading through the Book of Jeremiah and God has really opened my eyes to some things... One thing I read this morning shook me... Jeremiah 23:33 says,

Suppose one of the people or one of the prophets or priests asks you, 'What prophecy has the Lord BURDENED (emphasis mine) you with now?'  You must reply, YOU are the burden!  The Lord says He will abandon you!'

When I read that, it hit me... many times I'm burdened by the things that affect the daily operations of Journey Church... the finances, the process, the leadership, volunteers, the worship service, preparing messages... but I need a jolt like this sometime to remind me that, as a pastor/church planter, the primary burden, the load that I carry and lead others to pick it up as well... is people who are far away from God.  People who are living life disconnected from God and from the Church.  If I'm not careful I can miss it... and I'm a pastor!-- You would think this would always be on my mind... I have to admit... just like you, the things of life shift my burden (finances, kids, jobs, health, marriage, etc.) and it takes spending time seeking God's wisdom in His Word and it helps me focus on why we exist as a church... to help ordinary people become passionate Christ followers. I hope that you share that burden for people with me...so much so that you'll see people differently today.  You'll look for an opportunity to invest in someone who is far from God and you'll invite them to come to Journey with you this weekend.   I want to be able to pray with you for the person/people you're inviting, so leave me a comment with the name(s) of the people you're burdened for and I will pray that God would do something God-sized in their lives.  And when you bring them to church with you, please make sure you introduce us... I'd love to meet  them. 

Don't just do something...stand there.

I know the title of this post seems backwards... as a church planter we are people of action... always on our cellphones, blogging, preparing creative ways to communicate God's Word, bouncing ideas off of other church planters and always trying to connect with disconnected people. Some days I have gone nonstop all day long and have been very productive...but we have to always be aware of the habits we're forming... if we go constantly and never stop to think, contemplate or  meditate, that can wreck our ministries and churches just as much as laziness can.  I heard Andy Stanley say one time, don't just work IN your ministry, work ON your ministry.  One of the things I think that God is doing in me right now is SCREAMING LOUD to plan some THINK TIME.  Carve out some time in my schedule to think about what we're doing as a church that just turned 1 year old.  What are we doing well?  What are we doing poorly?  Who are we reaching?  How are we reaching them?  How are we helping transform them into Passionate Christ Followers?  Are people's lives being transformed?  Tons and Tons of questions... If I'm too busy to think about them... we'll just keep putting things off and pushing things back and soon... we'll be a church that's 5 years old and hasn't changed or grown a bit.  That's not acceptable for me... I know God has more for us than that... God has more for YOU than just to leave you the way you are.   I ran across a post from Bil Cornelius... I haven't read his blog in a while but it was just what I needed today because I've fallen into that "hurry up -- we've got so much to do we can't slow down" mode... in it he said said that we've lost the art of reflection... the art of thinking.

"One of the greatest reasons why we do not see more “fruit” in our lives, or more results is because we are not thinking. When is the last time you just sat down and contemplated why you do what you do and what needs to change in your life?  There is a forgotten art of contemplation and meditation found all through the scriptures.  If Jesus wandered off into the forest, wilderness, hills, or across a lake, maybe we should too.  I find that the greatest move I can make to see God move through me is to grab my Bible, a journal and a pen and wander off.  When you wander off with God you get to experience His wonder."

Man, I needed that today... It stings to think that I've let our church suffer... I haven't led like I should, I haven't planned strategically like I should, I haven't cast vision like I should... all because I've been trying to work IN Journey Church... so for the next few days... I'm going to grab my Bible and my journal and listen more than I talk, slow down more than I speed up and think and dream and recapture the vision that God burned in my heart years ago for a church that would rock the world by helping transform people who were far away from God into passionate Christ followers.  There may be some big changes... there may not be... but this I know... I anticipate God rocking my world and I'll never be the same.  I let you know what He's saying to me and what He's leading us to as a church.