THE UPRISING

I can think of no better setting for a sighting of You than a full surrender of me

To escape the error of salvation by works 

we have fallen into the opposite error 

of salvation without obedience. . A. W Tozer

M. Scott Peck: "There are many people who... want, and believe it is possible, to skip over the discipline, to find an easy shortcut to discipline. Often they attempt to attain it by simply imitating the superficialities of saints... Some even believe that by such imitation they have really become saints & prophets, and are unable to acknowledge that they are still children and face the painful fact that they must start at the beginning and go through the middle."

On our knees & on our feet we fight for you guys. Gladly laying down our lives to help you learn to live in His. Although it is for you we labor, God's pleasure is our ultimate aim. And God alone is our reward.

                   Keep back no part for yourself from Me

              & all parts of yourself will reverberate with Me

Sitting in the quiet of an unforced time of absolute surrender, of cross taking, & of ministry to the Lord... thoughts ran briefly back to yesterday. Spent the better morning part of it working to help convince someone whom most would call a criminal to starve the monster & feed the hero – those two strong-willed beasts of calling inside him calling him. The one courageous the other cocky. The one with criminal intent, the other with character, goal, & life cultivating intent. In a hundred little things inside the head & inside the day, Feed the hero. Starve the monster.  I offered this person Christ as a great help with that tug of war & turn in feeding habits. He rejected Christ seeing that as too drastic a step & fearing he would have to become something other than who he was, & instead, a kind of Stepford kid. But he accepted the challenge to live out the next few weeks starving the monster & feeding the hero. He wanted to see if it would produce a better quality of life than the one he had. This guy who sometimes ran toward pain because it made him feel,feel something other than numb, made plans to walk to 24-7 & check back with me at the end of the experiment. Letting the success or failure of it determine if he would take the next step of deliverance & the kind of salvation that would promise more of a good thing. Sitting in the quiet of an unforced time of absolute surrender, of cross taking, & of ministry to the Lord, I look over the landscape of the day ahead, breaking in new 24-7interns, returning emails, setting appointments with ministry leaders, working on Justice Project things, time with my kid, my spouse, myself…Making plans to unforgetfully fill the crevices, those quiet moments in between the end of one task & the start of another… plans to fill those blank short spaces with short prayers for the Hero to prevail in the heart of this someone whom most would consider a criminal.

"Richard Foster, in his classic book, Celebration of Discipline, uses two metaphors to illustrate the purpose of disciplines: a field and a path.

A farmer is helpless to grow grain; all he can do is provide the right conditions for the growing of grain. He cultivates the ground, he plants the seed, he waters the plants, and then natural forces of the earth take over and up comes the grain. This is the way it is with the Spiritual Disciplines--they are a way of sowing to the Spirit.

The spiritual disciplines are, "a means of receiving God's grace. …[They] allow us to place ourselves before God so he can transform us." He goes on to say, that the spiritual disciplines are like a narrow ridge with a sheer drop-off on either side: there is the abyss of trust in works on one side and the abyss of faith without deeds on the other.

On the ridge there is a path, the disciplines of the spiritual life. …We must always remember that the path does not produce change; it only places us where the change can occur.

The task for us, then is to cultivate our daily lives into fertile ground in which God can bring growth and change. This is what the spiritual disciplines are all about."

-W. Edge

Isaac Bennett: It has been more than two months since the initial alert over swine flu. Since then, the H1N1 virus has entered more than 100 countries, infected more than 70,000 people and killed more than 300 worldwide...this is compared to the 500,000 that die annually from the 'regular' flu. Come on people.

 

BILLBOARDS ATTACKING PRAYER, & Pete Greig, leader of 24-7 prayer responds HERE

                                 where do you make space?

              Godisnowhere.
              God is no where.
              God is now here.

right now finds me wanting to lay on the hood of my car, rest my
head on the windshield, gaze into the heavens, & watch day
slowly give way to night. if i should attempt such a 'norman
rockwell' moment i know prophetic would lay with me whispering
its own reminders that for humanity time is rounding its outer
rim - that time must now be a factor into all kingdom plans. 
such reflections are these days tailing me like a detective or
my shadow. they are not ominous, but it is certain - time is no
longer on our side & all k-plans must include a preparedness for
what i can only refer to as 'the drastic'. sitting in the cool
of this day, i'm enjoying its delights & savoring them in ways
a terminal patient might. only it is not i who am soon ending.
rather it is time itself who has caught first sight of the
finish line off in the distance.

In the barren landscape of my journey,

when I did thirst...

the rocks bled wine.

And when I hungered,

nature,

though wounded from the fall,

yeilded up its tithe

to keep this priesthood alive.

In the barren landscape of my journey,

when I did thirst...

the rocks bled wine.

And when I hungered,

nature,

though wounded from the fall,

yeilded up its tithe

to keep this priesthood alive.

"My People profess great love for Me, 

but they can't stand to be near Me. 

Call them to come near. 

Teach them to abide."   -God

Moving into the new space in August or September. And after that we'll see how fast things pick up. Looks like mama may be picking up some extra consulting work till then. Will start making contacts next week. What an adventure!  Weeeeeeee!!!!, she says as she slides down the big slope straddled atop a garbage can lid. She is certain that hot cocoa awaits at the bottom of the hill.

"Don't worry, L. Everything will be ok.", He says. And I believe Him.

-Eating the bread of His presence-

On the outside, errands, starbucks, lease payment, parent, employee, a missed appointment, a quick hello. On the inside, vicious skirmishes & ambushes. Swords drawn, blood spilled. Hurling some aspect of my inflamed or inflated self onto that cross i drag everywhere i go. Kill it, i say to God's Spirit in me. Crucify it, He does. When i hurl it up onto that splintered, blood splattered beam, my part is over & His begins. On the outside, errands, starbucks, lease payment, parent, employee, & a quick goodbye. On the inside, at red lights, eyes close & head hits the steering wheel in worship. Messy, stilted, wordless pockets of worship at the red lights & stop signs, & in the starbucks addiction line. Gritty worship in the summer heat - the cityscape ahead & my heart hurling itself ahead - head on into the oncoming come closer now of a hide & seek God. On the outside, i'm tapping out these aimless words like a pregnant soul needing to deliver. On the inside, warfare & worship... tenderness & grittyness... fasting & feasting.... jagged-edged worship.

                                 WE ARE ALL THIS... AND MORE.

                           we are sinners…  we are not only sinners
                              we are weak… we are not only weak
                               we fail… we are not always failures
                            we have destroyed… also we have loved

you, God, do not limit us to the stories by which the world knows us. you see much more in us than the labels we give ourselves. give us courage to defy all expectations - especially our own - and in your love become all of who we are.

   We tend to pray for refining,

all the while avoiding the crucibles

where refining can best occur.

Before there was sin to confess. Before there was spiritual warfare to engage. Before ther e was the need for intercession. Before there were demons to cast out. Before there were things to believe God for... Before there was all that kind of content which  now fills & defines our prayer time. Before all this, prayer was primarily about communion with God. And there was intercourse in the discourse, & communion in the communication. The parties involved exchanged ideas, talk of the day's experiences, the highs & lows, shared thier secrets, & bore their hearts there in the prayer context of "I want to be with you...I want to be near you... I want to know you. ". There, prayer was the conduit for knowing & understanding & companioning each the other. These sturdy foundations of prayer have all but been removed & replaced by, well... ya know.  Would that we began to seek out communion with God again as our chief pursuit in prayer. Not to the exclusion of requests & warfare & intercession, but to the betterment of them.  Powerful God... Lonely God. You can do something about the latter. We are God's delight. Yep. But is He ours. God is our friend. Yep. But are we His?   Many reach out to touch God's wallet, few reach out to touch His heart. Ub1

       Click: they tell me...

woke up intensely hungry - hungry to eat the bread of the covenant. hungry for its contract promises. hungry to swallow whole every word of life swallowing death, peace swallowing anxiety,  health swallowing sickness, rest swallowing tension, forward movement swallowing circle patterned strongholds, abundance swallowing lack, contentment swallowing discontentment, self value swallowing self devaluing, love swallowing hate, acceptance swallowing rejection, purpose swallowing wandering, joy swallowing depression, courage swallowing cowardice, faith swallowing fear, victory swallowing bondage - life swallowing death.  let the sweet smell of holy contract legalities marinaded waft through this house, & the judicial scent of appropriated God-promises fill the morning air.

from each meaty portion to every last sweet dainty morsel- i'm hungry to eat the bread of the covenant. hungry to taste "it is written".

 CULTURE:  Interesting day. 24-7 sacred space hosted the pentecostal intercessors. Well, actually hosting them includes hosting their culture too. And it was thick with culture. Early in the day they pretty much scared away most of the post-moderns on the other side of the wall stopping in for some down time with God. I myself had some uncomfortable moments with em, but pushed past it to see the gems in the thick of it all. Ya know, moving past the cultural distractions to see through to the heart of the messages. It's interesting to see oneself & one's city through the eyes of another culture. Today I saw some gleaming true perspectives communicated, & some glaring erroneous ones. Also gleaned some interesting things about the strengths & inherent weaknesses in only being with those most like ourselves. There have been many detailed scientific studies about how familial inbreeding often creates deformities that grow more pronounced with each new inbreeding partnership. I find that to be true in Christian culture as well. And the less connected one tribe is with other decidedly & diversely different tribes, the less likely they are to be influenced by the wider counsel of God, & the less likely they are to escape spiritual, doctrinal, & cultural deformities. As a result, that particular spiritual culture can easily & often does become less & less assessable to the ordinary Jane's & Joes it was originally meant to help mentor & feed. The other side of the coin is a penchant to reject a vastly different spiritual culture simply because it is so much unlike our own. It is often worth it to wade through the mannerisms, style, & language barriers to apprehend the truths at the center.  If we don't, we could easily end up providing fewer & fewer on-ramps for our own tribe's janes & joes to fully mature, to go deeper, & learn to dance comfortably out on the spiritual egdes God may wish to take them to. The main goal is Christ formed in his people. The sub-strategy is to follow where the Lord is taking your crew, stay with the focus & mandates given to your tribe, but also to be intentional about actively pursuing Godly influence from other tribes; & most importantly to maintain assessable on-ramps for ordinary janes & joes to participate, understand, & be able to practically assimilate the truths purported. The fewer the on-ramps, the greater the likelihood of deformity. The fewer the godly ecclesiastical influences, the greater the likelihood of deformity. The greater the language & spiritual-culture barriers, the fewer those able to hear & understand...The more the seed is sown... the more falls by the wayside amoung all except for the few already in the tribe.

By the wayside is no place for the truths of God.  

To

listen,

click

Here

.

.

love it? hate it?

                        ...Ours is hard core freedom, unprecedented & mysterious...

  Let the bones which Thou hast broken rejoice. 9 Hide Thy face from my sins, And blot out all my iniquities. 10 Create in me a clean heart, O God, And renew a steadfast spirit within me. 11 Do not cast me away from Thy presence, And do not take Thy Holy Spirit from me. 12 Restore to me the joy of Thy salvation, And sustain me with a willing spirit. 13 Then I will teach transgressors Thy ways, And sinners will be converted to Thee. 14 Deliver me from bloodguiltness, O God, Thou God of my salvation; Then my tongue will joyfully sing of Thy righteousness. 15 O Lord, open my lips, That my mouth may declare Thy praise. 16 For Thou dost not delight in sacrifice, otherwise I would give it; Thou art not pleased with burnt offering. 17 The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; A broken and a contrite heart, O God, Thou wilt not despise. -Ps 57

             

Everywhere & up from every place

I am gripped

When I think hard on You

I slip into a lingering daze

As a man giving way

To an invading illness

I fall sick with love

And when thus under love’s sway

I forget my soil

And myself

Casting off fears

I move up to the rim of my rule.

There

At the border between

Absolute surrender & losing control

There

Between risk & reward

I worship

Had a crew, who referred to themselves as young alcoholics, waiting around at 24-7 yesterday hoping to catch me there at some point during that day. By no small miracle I did swing by for a bit. We sat & I listened to them talk of the spiritual revival they were experiencing at the AA group that meets at 24-7 nightly. They said they wanted to start an AA just for 20somethings. They wanted this new group of 20 somethings to experience God as they had... and take it much further. They understood the uniqueness of the space & the presence of God that hovered there. They wanted that for their peeps. When I sad "Yes", a few of them were literally trembling with delight. Literally. Kids starting out on a new adventure. Full of hopes & dreams & faith in a big God. Man, it's a beauty to see. I never cease to be amazed by the different ways God uses this 24-7 to do His thing. May we, the motley crew of misfits at the helm of 24-7, follow wherever He leads.

                          Walking in humility

is not synonymous with being a doormat 

but sometimes a willingness to be a doormat 

is what it takes in order to become a door. (click here)

                       Most of us have settled for being stirred 

                    as a substitute for being transformed.

"You can carry 

the measure of His presence 

that you're willing to 

jealously guard" 

-Bill Johnson

Chosen by God for this new life of love, dress in the wardrobe God picked out for you: compassion, kindness, humility, quiet strength, discipline. Be even-tempered, content with second place, quick to forgive an offense. Forgive as quickly and completely as the Master forgave you. And regardless of what else you put on, wear love. It's your basic, all-purpose garment. Never be without it. ~Colossians 3:12-14(MSG)

Putting skin on that 1st command, out in the thick of a work-dense day i have not left my co-habitation with The Holy. Keeping the coals burning hot on the altar between us... this is my Psalm27:4

On my way out a kid, a young youth Pastor who staffs 24-7 stops me, saying, "I need to talk to you." As I stood there (in the rain) he unpacked his heart for the poor & needy, which ended in this summation statement;  "With this many Christians & this many churches, homelessness should not exist in this city. I want to help end homelessness."  I looked him in the eyes, thought back on his history of dragging all his friends & all his youth groups to 24-7 to pray & make sandwiches for the poor, & then I thought forward on the complex causes of chronic homelessness that were more than simply a result of lack of shelter... Then & there I invited him into an real-world apprenticeship that I knew would cultivate & hohn his vision, & test his resolve.  After I explained what that would look like over the next 12months, he simply replied "I'm in! I'm yours. I'm all in".   

  What Charlotte's  24-7 is launching in June...

 Primal Prayer

+It will be a weekly or bi-weekly percussion driven prayer vigil+

FOR A PREVIEW CLICK HERE

To join The Tribe

contact: charlotte24-7@hotmail.com

Keeping sight of the extrordinary things God wants to do in this world, 

I get up, bow dow, surrender all, & hit the ground running.

             Reading the scroll. Eating the scroll.

              

Up & into the morning I find a quiet corner of the world & hang out there talking with my friend Jesus. I grab some coffee, & he interjects & scatters proverbs as we poke fun at yesterday's adventures & talk about the shape my day will take. Then I pull out his letters, poke fun at his crypticness, ask questions, & we talk about the shape my life will take. A while later, the Friend I joked with & walked beside in the pre-dawn hours of this day leads me to the God I prostrate myself before in a sacred time of uncensored worship that inflames my desire & fuels my desperation to lay down my life & see His face. Beholding Him becomes my undoing. Listening to the words proceeding out of the mouth of The Holy, I take my place low as a bond-servant... Sir, yes Sir!  Back on my feet, anchored to His grace, my only hope of strength, & to this Christ, my only hope of glory, I begin to run... running this race to win it. 

There is a pastor of a fairly new & fast growing church who said that when he started out many months ago, after work he'd go home & cry believing himself to be way out of his league or having bitten off way more than he could handle & wishing he'd never launched into what seemed to him likely to fail. He now has the fastest growing church in the city - But before that, when it was all hopes & planning & early launching, he had doubts. And yet he still kept moving forward. Kept working. Kept launching. I think every good ministry has a leader at the helm who has had to pass through that fiery crucible where doubt & faith duke it out. Where the triumphant departure toward a new thing meets the harsh reality of the new thing's portions of desert-like landscape.  It would scare any leader. But keep moving forward. Let the scary parts drive you to trust God as you take big leaps with sweaty palms & the reality check that there are indeed huge walls of water on either side. These mental/emotional obstacles may now be feeding your fears. But this pulling time will one day become an important part of your story feeding & fueling the faith of others.

The kid has been brought low.
If he can maneuver the remainder of
his proverbial 40 days
in the wilderness,
than soon enough
it will be time
to build up
& bring him high.
To
everything
there
is
a
season.

   Oh to help fulfill this great desire of God's heart to see the formation of a bride who out of white-hot love & devotion is making herself ready. A people who because of their sometimes messy, but authentic & intimate walk with Christ, manifest the kingdom of God - even in how they handle frailty & failure - both theirs & others. A people immersed in mercy who carry God's grace & their cross with equal tempered clinging. A people prepared.

You know the way some people push & run at God 

during a revival or a great move of God?

She runs near to God like that everyday.

A guy walks into the prayer room today, sits down beside me, & without any further adue  begins confessing his sins. When he is finished, he gets up & heads to one of the prayer booths here. A few minutes later, he paces back near me & confesses some more. Then, heads back to that booth. You can see he's wrestling with things. Yep, some ugly things. He won't even look me in the eye. Which is kinda good because, although I'm listening to every word, I don't even take my attention off the work I'm doing on my laptop as he pours out his tensions. It's not that I'm numb to this kinda thing. It's just that I'm used to it. Since the morning crowd has already departed, its just him & me at 24-7. Well, him & me & God. He unloads on us his confessed gunk & we barely bat an eye...  And that seemingly somehow comforts him. We offer him in response no contorted face of the appalled, no look of condemnation, no expression of shock & shame.  Just a certainty that his confession clearly marked with repentance is being heard. A while later after the worst has passed & he's on his way out, he repeats "Thank you. thank you for listening". 

 Love does not accept another based on their strengths

Nor does it reject another based on their weaknesses.

It is unswayed by another's greatness, power, or prowess.

And it is unoffended by their great weaknesses & wounds.

Love is out for another's good & is in their corner

even when that other person is acting like a fool. 

Especially then.

The greater the darkness, the brighter love shines.

Love covers instead of broadcasting.

It intercedes instead of accusing.

Not easily irritated, Love encourages even when rebuking.

Love stands firm. Love never fails.

"Love one another"   -Jesus

Jesus wants to build a church that thrives in opposition & trouble.

Jesus wants to build a people who will look at the greatest difficulties

 just as Joshua & Caleb looked at the giants in the promised land & 

simply said "They will be bread for us."

More than I want salvation,

I want the Savior.

More than I want the answers

I want the Teacher.

I come,

Hands empty.

Nothing but my longing heart

To recommend me.

A longing so deep...

That it is an ache.