Friends,I've taken a much needed break from writing. For several months, I've felt the need to pull back practice what I preach and write about. It's been a good season for me.However, this morning, I took an early walk in the forest across from the house we're staying in at present. With each step, words began to come unlodged with me. As if there was a break within my heart and the river began to flow, yet again.I took this picture on my walk.  The Spring Eucharist On this sunny spring morn,I walked the floor of a forest.The more I walked, the more lost I was.But strange as it seems, the more found I was. The magpies sang their morning chant.The fox ushered me to give an offering.The snow clad peak adorned the sky as a precious jewel.Spring has finally come and winter’s resurrection is here. The Aspen lined trail was my journey outward.But it led me inward to soak in the peace of the world;Within and without on this fine morn.Sun draped Spruce gives up praise.So do I.  So do I. This morn is the beginning.Yet another beginning I need amidst the others.Today hope rises. I am alive.I chant my joy like a monk on the way to Mass. My bread and wine is the sun and my private moment.Alone in the woods I find my Eucharist  laid before me.The ferns my altar in the woods,Lavished in the rays of this fine spring morn. Stephen W. SmithMay 24, 2013

Thanksgiving Observations

        I've heard it said, "Be kind to everyone, for everyone is in a great battle."  This year brings this ancient quote to mind for so many I love; so many I care about; so many that matter to me are in an uphill season of their journey. The way is steep and the journey is arduous.So how do we turn our hearts to be grateful in such a time as this?  My son will be deployed again in a few days to a war---yes, a war where real sons die everyday and real daughters never come home. Yet, I am grateful for his courage; his willingness; his resolve to be my defender--your defender.This past year, we have walked with many who have received disturbing and unsettling diagnosis about their bodies as well as their emotional conditions. How can we be thankful when disease and death rob us of those we love so deeply? How can we express gratitude when illness, be it mental or physical makes people walk with a limp so crooked that they may never walk straight again?  We can be humble in our words this Thanksgiving and recognize that any life--no matter how damaged or spent matters.  We can give thanks for the years we have spent with loved ones who have given us joy though now they sow only the seeds of strife and hard times. We can be thankful to realize that an illness does not, in the end, define a person. A person who is stricken with an illness is still the Beloved of God and this, in the end is what really matters.These are hard times for many of us regarding our money and the lack of it. It's our toughest year in ministry. We are significantly down in our support. It causes great concern because you wonder how you can go on building into the future when the sand that you are standing on seems to shift at the slightest ebb of the tide.  What matters is this:  God knows. God cares and we are all in the hands of the Potter.  We simply open our hands to receive what He gives and this, in the end, makes us thankful when we realize that for far too long, we have taken advantage of the generosity of our Heavenly Father. Thank you God for our daily bread. We trust you for tomorrows!Many  I know are feeling alone. Not anchored to a stable community, we feel like there is an aloneness which is larger than our sense of community. Do people really care?  Will the church ever wake up from it's long winter's nap and offer us what Jesus intended all along--a place to belong.  Last night, I held hands with a few folks and we made a circle.  Every circle we stand in is a visible symbol that we are not alone. I am thankful that I am not alone---that there is a circle of friends both in heaven and on earth that stand with me even now.  I am thankful for Lord Byron's words he penned hundreds of years ago when he wrote, "In solitude, where I am least alone."  The gift of solitude shapes our hearts to realize that we are never alone. That across the threshold of aloneness is Jesus himself. I am so thankful for this.For families that feel so fragile.... I am your brother here. My own family feels so fragile. My Mom is in congestive heart failure and her days seem short not long to me. There is tension sometimes and exhaustion at other times.  Yet there are the memories of love, happiness and contentment that feed my soul and help me to realize that "There is a time for everything" and that no time last forever--not even this time of feeling like we are but dancing on thin ice and we can hear the cracking all around us.  Let us at this Thanksgiving turn our hearts toward our brother, Jesus and our father God and rest in the fact that we are family with the Trinity and in that family there is no end to the joy we will one day relish at the big, thanksgiving banquet that will go on and on and on.Let us be reminded that the very first Thanksgiving was one full of paradox. The pilgrims found themselves in a frigid, frozen new world, yet their hearts were filled with hope.... by this time next year, life will be better. By this time next year, we will again, see God's faithfulness. By this time, next year, we will have overcome a year that might have been hard--perhaps the hardest we have endured, but this will cause us to bow our heads and pause in this hurry sick world and say today, "Now thank we all our God, with hearts and hands and voices."Thanksgiving Blessings 2012Steve and Gwen SmithPotter's Inn

The Church That Jesus Imagined

by Stephen W. Smith          After 25 years of serving the church and now having 10 years under my belt of serving the church’s leaders across the world, I feel like I’m going to upset the apple cart and cause many people devoted to the work of the church distress in stating the obvious and giving some reflection to the fact that Jesus said the word “church” only twice in his entire life and both of those times are recorded by only one of the four Gospel writers—Matthew in 16:17 and 18:17. He never told us to plant churches. He never instructed us to join churches. He never told us much at all about the church he envisioned.My point here is not to solve the many questions that this blog will raise but to allow some honest discussion. I''m an insider to the church and my aim is not to throw stones but to actually invigorate a discussion whose time has come. One blog on this is not enough so I’m planning more and would invite your feedback, discussion and questions—as long as you use the “comment” space on the blog provided.Jesus spoke more about prayer, money, forgiveness, love and friendship than he did church. Have we missed something here by ignoring this reality?  With all of the church’s efforts to build itself up and to grow itself, expand itself and propagate itself, one needs to stop and ask oneself: What is the church that Jesus imagined?As I recently walked up to one of the nation’s largest mega-churches hosting a sanctuary that cost over $100 million dollars, my companion who was walking beside me pointed to the megapolis that we were about to enter, and asked quietly “Steve, do you think Jesus had this (meaning thee huge church campus) in mind while he ministered here on earth?”What do you think?How are you answering that question these days?  Think for a moment of all the strategy meetings you have sat through; the deacons and elder’s meetings; the woman’s meetings and the men’s pancake breakfasts; all of the terms that come up every three or four years to help us re-envision church like missional, the purpose driven church and so forth. Are these mere words to help us have to re-think what Jesus may have never wanted us to think about anyway?The truth is simply this. Jesus spoke more about the gathering of two or three and the mystery of experiencing his presence than he did planting churches, growing churches and managing churches. For Jesus, it was simple. When he spoke the word, “church” he meant the ones called out to form a new sort of community—a new way of doing relationships. His intent was basic and fundamental. In Jesus’ way of doing church, people would simply recognize his presence in their midst and have assurance of the fact that they were truly no longer alone—but that in this new community—God was surely with them. Here, they would love and be loved; help and be helped, celebrate and be celebrated; serve and be served. They would then share that Sacred Presence inviting the outsider to become the insider.  Church was sharing the experience of God in our midst. Together, we would do what one could not do alone. We would offer the cup of cold water. We would extend the incarnation of Jesus by sharing this message and experience. We would offer hope. We would experience forgiveness and we would practice accepting each other just as Christ accepted us—with our flaws, failures and fissures.  Love would be our goal. Praise would be our song.I have often experienced this same phenomenon when I have lunch with my friend and we break bread together at lunch time. We talk about the beautiful and the brutal in our lives. We do far more than “catching up.” We share our lives, our hopes and fears as we share the bread on the table.  We bow and give thanks for the food we are about to receive—knowing that our true food is the Host in our midst. Our hearts are warmed by the togetherness we are experiencing.  And as I do this, I often feel as if I am—right then and there experiencing the church that Jesus imagined. It feels holy, sacred and –yes, it feels like church to me.In my work with leaders in the church, I find few happy with their work. Most are lamenting. Many are afraid of the slippery slope, not of theology but of the church we find ourselves on.  Where are we headed?  Is the American church doomed?  Why are churches in other cultures (Latin America, Africa and The East) thriving while the American church is waning (All statistics confirm this). All admit that there is trouble in the camp and life seems about rising above the trouble and enduring a calling that at times seems hopeless against the cultural tides that are sweeping against us in this present hour.When I look and examine the life of the Apostle Paul, I find great encouragement in the very final verse of the book of Acts, where Paul is imprisoned and facing the end of his life of having planted churches throughout the then known world.  What Paul does is staggering in his final description of his remaining days of his life. He does not organize mission teams to go plant more churches. He does not give edicts or advice about strategy. And he certainly does not convene a Leadership Summit to problem solve his demise.  No, Luke gives us an important clue into Paul’s heart and his belief the church that Jesus imagined. Luke says this about Paul’s remaining days and his philosophy about what was really important: “For two whole years Paul stayed there in his own rented house and welcomed all who came to see him. Boldly and without hindrance he preached the kingdom of God and taught about the Lord Jesus Christ” (Acts 28 :30-31). I have to admit, I yearn for that kind of church today. Paul did two things in his final years that we need to embrace today--now in this very time. He talked about the Kingdom of God—that pivotal relationship where there is a King who is all about living in new ways with new ethics and new values that match the King’s heart.   Secondly, he simply taught them about Jesus.  That seems so simple yet so strangely profound. Something really does happen when we teach people about Jesus—his ways, his practices, his insights into human nature and his stories about authentic transformation. It's like Jesus said, when he is lifted up, he will draw people unto himself. Paul settled on two things and for the last two years of his life focused on this two prong approach to life.  It was not about the church. It was not about buildings. It was not about programs. It was about Kingdom living and the King, himself.This being so, then we must ask ourselves why church growth has replaced the very practice of Paul.  Why is the message of the missional church replacing the message about Jesus? What if the church has hijacked the very teaching of Jesus and now we can't hear the message cause the preachers and teachers are more concerned about other things than what Paul was concerned about?I admit it. I am weary of all of this hype about the church that is happening now. Tell me about the Kingdom. Remind me of the values I should align my heart to. Tell me the stories of Jesus.  Often, when I am with a church leader, I will share those final verses in Acts with my friends and without exception, I will always hear, “I never knew that was in the Bible.” And we sit in stunned silence--together as a tiny micro-church confessing our wayward ways and sensing that Presence again invading our space to become his presence.Why all the emphasis on mega?  It's more American than Biblical. Why not then celebrate the micro?  The small seed, the grain of wheat, the lone sheep and the micro-church---it  just might be the church home you’ve been waiting for—the church that Jesus really imagined for us to enjoy.Let me be clear. I am a member of a mega-church. We are 6,000 strong or struggling which ever way you look at it. But it is not in my worship there; it is not in my attendance but it is in the moments in my Sunday School class where we sit around circled tables that I gain this perspective I need. There at the table sit my fellow pilgrims who come as tossed about life’s storms as I am and we share and we read a passage about Jesus and we unfold our insights for others to feast on. And it is that moment that I know where I am. I am in the church that Jesus imagined. I really don’t think (pardon me, please) that Jesus envisioned choirs in robes, silver offering plates and  sermons lasting forty minutes. George Barna and Frank Viola have shown us conclusively that many of our practices in church are really drawn from pagan ideals and cultural shifts. (See their book, Pagan Christianity.)  Think of our “Praise Band” or now the struggle over traditional or contemporary worship.  At one church recently that I was invited to speak on “the Power of solitude and silence in the believer’s life” all the music was rap with a light show and even smoke—not incense but smoke from machines that blew it far into the reaches of the windowless auditorium. It was windowless to reveal the power of technology—not the glory of God in the skies. Some churches seem more like they are re-arranging the chairs on the deck of their own Titanic. They speak of surviving not thriving. They are lacking the youth—who once were called, “the future of the church” and now they are leaving by the boat loads-- disillusioned with yet one more attempt to be the church that Jesus imagined.Tables at Starbucks now resemble more of the church Jesus imagined than our sanctuaries.  There, over java, people are connecting, talking and perhaps even praying with eyes wide open in search of the church that Jesus imagined. Perhaps they are in it---actually experiencing it. I kick myself when I enter Starbuks today and read their new fall promotion.  Fall Rhythm?  We need a winter, spring and summer rhythm as well. Will the church help me or abandon me to the busy world without prophetically calling me to live another way... a way in rhythm, not balance.Questions I want to walk into here are these:  What hope is there for the existing church? Where did we go wrong?  How do we reclaim the intent of Jesus in our church?  Why establishing community may be more important than planting churches!  What is the role of missions today?  Why does the church shoot the wounded? If this bores you, pardon me while I try to voice some things that have been stirring in my heart for quite a time now.

Why Beauty Matters to the Soul: Your help is needed!

 God created human beings with five senses that absorb the world around them. With our eyes, we take in the world around us and see things are they are. With our nose, we are able to smell and discern the pleasant and the repulsive. With our ears, we are able to listen to birds sing and waves crash on the shore.  With touch, we feel the world coming to us in soft and gentle ways or threatening and alarming ways.Every sense is a pipe line into the soul depositing God's creative design. Beauty by definition is this:

"the quality present in a thing or person that gives intense pleasure or deep satisfaction to the mind, whether arising from sensory manifestations (as shape, color,sound etc.),"

Let's re-read what I just wrote...." the quality present in a thing or person that gives intense pleasure or deep satisfaction."

The Psalmist said, “One thing have I asked of the LORD, that will I seek after: that I may dwell in the house of the LORD all the days of my life, to gaze upon the beauty of the LORD and to inquire in his temple. (Psalm 27:4) Also, “Splendor and majesty are before Him; strength and beauty are in His sanctuary” (Psalm 96:6).  Beauty is something that is of God.  The Creator Artist set before him on his palet of nothingness a sense of beauty that gives us pleasure to experience and also deep satisfaction.

It happens at a gorgeous sunset. Someone sighs and breaths deeply and breaths in the beauty that they are looking at.  Earlier this week, Gwen and I went to the symphony. WE did not recognize one single piece of music played. But we fully enjoyed one particular piece that was loud with the brass instruments in one section while the strings made sounds like waterfalls upon waterfalls.  We both looked at each other after the piece ended and said "That was so beautiful."  We each recognized what the beautiful music had truly ministered to our souls.

At Potter's Inn, one of the three shaping values we have is "beauty."  We want our retreat to be a place filled with beauty. Flowers abounding. Tables that call your name to sit down and enjoy and meals that are more than eating food. The food is beautifully presented and makes you feel at home---makes you feel comforted.

We have a place on the 35 acre retreat that I'm envisioning what you see in this beautiful image here. A garden--a meditative garden with a waterwheel flowing with the fresh spring water from our historic spring on site.  The pump house is already there and has been used for scores of years for the cabin's residents to get their water. As I've walked the property many times, I've always wanted a water feature where the sounds of water falling could be heard. We need such things to help us escape from the noise we listen to on our TV's, Iphones, and music players. In quiet, the heart is arrested at silence not mega-decimals. The soul is quieted by still waters---the Hebrew prayer poet reminds us. It's going to be a beautiful, inviting and resting place for thousands of people in the future to come and enjoy.

So through the fall, I'm hoping we can make another beautiful spot at the retreat where people might come and sit in the shadows of Aspens and Colorado Blue Spruce. I "see" a couple of benches inviting you to come and sit and stay awhile where you might take off the shoes of hurry and worry.  I'm seeing the waterwheel turn just as the Potter's wheel turns and with every turn unloading it's precious content of cool water cascading down over moss stones and into a small receiving pond.

It would be a place where men might pray and woman might weep. It may be a place where vows are heard joining a man to a a woman for a life long journey. It would be a place of solitude where we might find ourselves not alone at all but fully in the beautiful presence of the Lord.

We've dug the pond and thanks be to God--it's holding water. Now, we've found a place in South Carolina that makes waterwheels. We're going to have an 8 ft high waterwheel--large enough to capture your eyes and strong enough to carry the water needed and envisioned to fall and run into the receiving pond.

This is a project that will require some help--financial and labor wise. If it's something you felt you wanted to help with, please contact us.

I'm envisioning several clusters of Aspen Trees.  Five Colorado Blue Spruce trees and rocks.  We're going to make this a Legacy Garden where folks can help fund the project by buying a tree in someone's honor and we'll plant it. We are going to do this for our first grandson, Caleb. Gwen and I are going to buy a Blue Spruce and plant it near the pond this weekend when Caleb and his parents come to visit.

If you want to consider helping us, here's a price guideline of what the costs are:

Waterwheel: $2,000

Shipping of Waterwheel: $300

Aspen Tree: $50 each (we need 12).

Colorado Blue Spruce: $100 each (We need 5).

Benches: $150 (we need three)

Here's a link for you to help with a donation should you want to participate with  us.. We will have a plaque made indicating the gifts that were madefor the trees and other gifts and have it present in the Garden.

As a visionary, one never really knows if something one "sees" will actually come to fruition. But in this case we've started it by the digging of the receiving pond and tested it to see if it can hold water. When the evidence came in this week that the water is holding, I decided to see what kind of response we might get and I hope many of you can and will help!

Blessings,

Steve

Go to Donate

Letters to My Children: Chiefly About Life

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7OynlzqtxmY[/youtube] Ten Things I Want to Impress Upon My Children by Stephen W. SmithIt's called imprinting.  If you take a moment and watch the 40 second video, you'll see a man who has imprinted on the brain for four baby geese that he is the new Mother Goose--and that he should be followed, mimicked and imitated.This is what I'm realizing now in being a grandparent. I became the sort of male Goose for my four sons. They mimicked what they saw me do. My actions, right and wrong deeply imprinted their souls. As a counselor, I can trace how a person handles conflict by asking about how they saw conflict expressed in the home. You can do the same with love's beginnings by asking, ' How did you experience love from your parents?'  Some imprinting is good; some is necessary and some is in need of redemption.I confess that I did not do everything right as a father. In the early years, I was obsessed with my work. I worked way too many hours helping many other people and at times feel like I gave the left-overs to my wife and children. Call it Absentee Imprinting. Thanks be to God--I was able to see my wicked ways and make life altering choices. I became a father who was engaged-- a dad who cared--an involved male role model speaking into the impressionable souls of my four boys. Imprinting is the very serious work of spiritual formation. Here are some things I find myself thinking about ---wishing--hoping and longing--to imprint before I leave the planet:1) Now I want to imprint that tenderness is more powerful than strength.2) I want to imprint that love is the only power that really transforms--not obedience.3) I want to imprint that no job is ever worth becoming an absentee dad--no job.4) I want to imprint that being a great husband will be make you become the greatest of dads.5) I want to imprint that delighting in your child will become your greatest gift you can ever give to your sons and daughters.6) I want to imprint that you need to figure out how you need to delight in your children and be about that work more than the vocation you are involved with right now.7) I want to imprint that the souls of your young children are very, very impressionable and don't ever think they are not watching, mimicking and modeling.8)I want to imprint that before you yell at your children, walk away and get a grip on your own unresolved issues that are causing you to become so angry.9)I want to imprint on my own sons that their greatest model of how to father is learning from the God of Jesus Christ.10) I want to imprint on my sons and daughters in love to be careful about being overly committed to technology because no iPhone, internet dialogue or on-line shopping will ever replace the sacred moments you could be watching your child instead of watching the computer screen.Questions to Consider:1 What three things would you like to imprint into your children's minds so that they will NEVER, EVER forget?2.As you reflect on your on spiritual formation, what three things do you feel your own parents or guardians invested in you that you will take to the grave?3. How do your values differ from the world's values of what is important to leave behind? Author's Note: I'd really like to hear from you about your thoughts on this concept and title as it may morph into a book of some form with many of these ideas fleshed out. So please--I invite the feedback and leaving comments. I will help me determine the viability. Thanks so much)

A Key to Experiencing the Abundant Life is Rhythm

Living in rhythm—and the commitment to live life in a sustainable rhythm will help you avoid burnout, experience despair, and running your life on empty.In choosing to live in rhythm you are accepting a different cadence in life than the one which says: Get! Achieve! Acquire! Do!  That kind of rhythm over the long haul leads to the front doors of burnout and failure.  By developing a more life-giving rhythm, you will need to explore a few foundational realities: 

1. Every living thing has a rhythm to it. The birds migrate. The sea ebbs and flows in tidal rhythm. A woman’s body has a biological rhythm and the farmer knows the rhythm of the seasons to plant the crops.
2. Rhythm is found in the Bible in the opening chapters of Genesis when we read that God created the world in six days and on the seventh—he ceased from all his work. The kingpin of a system of living in rhythm begins with the Sabbath rhythm. Work six days and one day is totally off—completely ceasing from all work related activities.
3. The Judeo-Christian faith was built upon a system of rhythm, festivals and experiences that allowed people to look FORWARD in anticipation because they knew Sabbath, or some festival or celebration was just around the corner. It also allowed them to reflect BACKWARD in appreciation of how good their time off was; how nurturing; how life-giving; how fun.
4. The early church embraced this rhythm as is evidenced in the Apostles praying in rhythm at certain times and in observing special seasons and times that morphed into living in a liturgical calendar. For example, this Sunday is regarded as Pentecost Sunday. It’s the day Christians world-wide remember the coming of the Spirit and how the Spirit emboldens our lives and we now live with the Spirit of God living in us.

We've violated rhythm today. We're always on. We're always available. We're always working. Just yesterday two major news magazines featured articles on how Americans do not take their vacations because they'd rather work. Here's a link to one: Business Journal ArticleI discuss this more in The Jesus Life (Chapter 4).  The reality of rhythm is this regardless of your experience in living in rhythm or having never heard of what I am discussing here. Rhythm was modeled by God, lived out in the Old Testament era, anchored by Jesus through his own life style as recorded by Luke and embraced by the New Testament church. By the time of the industrial and technological revolution, we are now always “on,” always, “available,” and always, “wired.” We never quit.It was life giving for me to take our dog Laz to the Vet recently due an ear infection. We arrived at 12:30 thinking we would be seen by the next available doctor. However the sign on the door simply said, “Our office is closed from 12:00pm-2:00pm each day” Please come back during regular office hours. I could have gotten mad and irritated thinking, “I’ll go somewhere else that really wants my money and will stay open in this 24/7 world we live in.” But I smiled. I imagined how nice it would be to be on staff of this large vet clinic who closed each day for lunch, allowing employees run errands and more.We have much wrong in our way of looking at reality. Rhythm is the key to living a sustainable, enjoyable life which we might learn to experience as the abundant life; not the exhausted life. ---------------------------Let me encourage to get and read The Jesus Life as one of your TOP summer reads. It's filled with practical suggestions and resources to help you foster and develop a sense of abundance in your life right now. We're offering a special right now. We'll pay the shipping plus send a free book, Embracing Soul Care--which is a daily devotional reading on how to care for your soul. ---------------Download for FREE the chapter on Living in Rhythm from the Jesus Life!  Go to: www.myjesuslife.com

First Mornings

There are expectations when we come on a retreat. Some want this. Some need that. Every retreat will never meet all of the expectations.As I asked our retreatants why they came...they came as I suspected. Some were tired. Some are weary. Some are teeter-tottering on burn out. Some wanted to know more. Some needed to de-tox.So, I adjust my own agenda and bow into theirs. I try to slow down. To never make my agenda THE agenda but seek to bend my agenda and combine theirs into what I sense and trust God wants.Based on last night and my own heaviness of heart in listening to three of four of them, I'm going to try something I had not planned. Believing that solitude is always THE way into the ways of Jesus-- we'll start this morning by giving them 30 minutes of quiet and a walk on the beach. Then I'll begin my talk on the Rhythm of Life. I'm trusting this adjustment is what the Soul Care Doctor ordered for us this morning.Stay tuned.

The Anatomy of a Retreat

Over the course of the next few days, I want to offer you an inside look at the anatomy of a retreat.I'll be doing this while leading a retreat.I'll be giving you an inside look at the anatomy of a retreat...confessing my private fears and sharing my observations while the retreat is going on. I'll be a detective of divinity as Barbara Brown Taylor describes. In my off time, I'll be posting to you--letting you know what I think God is up to in me--and in them. It will be your invitation to be a witness of a retreat and perhaps experience a blessing in some way as you make your way through your own weekend in the days ahead.Twenty four people are gathering at this very moment in a beautiful coastal house on a barrier island off the coast of North Carolina. Today, we're prepping for their arrival. Putting food in the 10 bedroom/10 bath house. Stocking the refrigerator. Making gift bags that will welcome people. Buying a Sabbath Candle for each couple and placing it in their rooms with a box of matches.A couple has come with us and their help and work is invaluable. We could not do this without help. I'm so grateful they are here and working as hard as they are. I now have a chance to be alone for an hour before the guests start arriving.A spiritual retreat is an event that has intention, purpose and a rhythm to the time that people will invest.Intention...our intention will be to flow through the new book, The Jesus Life. We'll gather from 6 states across the US at dinner with most people having never met. It will be an uphill climb as we journey together to seek to form a bond--a spiritual link between man to man; woman to woman and couple to couple all being linked to God. The Bible promises that a "cord of three strands is not easily broken."I'm imagining stress in many of the couple's lives as the dropped of their kids; said good bye to their jobs a day early because this retreat begins on Thursday---not Friday and this too was intentional. I felt we needed an extra day to create space and time--a mood of not rushing to get through the material and to allow the retreat itself to become the agenda. It's never about the material--or shouldn't be. The people who come are material enough for God to reform, transform and conform just as the Potter does the clay. The intent of this retreat is for our Divine Potter to do with us as He wills and wants. It is all a process and learning to submit to the process is key and foremost in being a good retreat leader or facilitiator. Don't drive the people like cattle. They've been treated this way all week long. Love them. Serve them. Expect God to do great things in them... in me.Purpose...the purpose of our retreat is to encounter the living Lord Jesus Christ. Nothing short. Right now as I sit on the deck anticipating the first person's arrival. I'm praying for them. For me. For God to show up. There's a strong wind blowing right now and I"m imaginging this to be the Spirit invading this tiny island with great things in store for us. To meet the Living Lord Jesus on the shore where the waves are pounding--pounding the beach will be another Easter morning for us.People will rock in the 15 rocking chairs--yes, I counted them. They will sit by the pool....our beach house has its own private pool. They will wade in the water and some will swim. Refreshing waters will revive our souls. For some who are coming are weary, tired and burned out.Am I prepared enough? Every retreat leader must ask themselves this question and for me, I am probably not prepared enough--even though I know the materiel well and wrote the book we will study. But I'd like another day of quiet---more time of solitude. I broke out into a a sweat as I helped get the house ready and thought..."Oh great, now I have to go put on a new shirt that I wasn't planning on wearing. Did I bring enough shirts? Do I feel comfortable in them? Or deeper---do I feel comfortable enough in my own skin and soul to lead the people to the water---the Living Water? That's a good question as a retreat leader to ask themselves. I need to pause now. Bow low. Come before the Lord. Get my heart right and open my self as a vessel before the Lord and say, "I've done all that I can do. Now, Lord, you must do the rest. It's up to you. Not me."So, as we begin this retreat pray for us. If these 24 people who are here are touched by Jesus, then return home and live out what God has poured into them...then the retreat will have met its goal.What is my goal in this retreat?  For those that come to encounter the living Jesus. If that happens then it will have gone well enough. And how will I know if this happens?I will see the prisoner's set free.I will see the lame in body dancing again.I will hear music rise above the waves and it will be glorious praise.I will simply know that Jesus was among us and this, after all is why people want to come to  a retreat. 

Setting Your Face Like Flint: Professionally

Luke, an eye witness to the life and legacy of Jesus said this about him at one point in his life and work, “When the days drew near for him to be taken up, he set his face to go to Jerusalem.” Another translation says “he set his face like flint to go to Jerusalem. (Luke 9:51).  Jesus absolutely knew what he had to do and he set his feet to match his face and he went forward. For Jesus, this meant that he knew deep down what he needed to do and where he needed to go. For Jesus, it was all about going to Jerusalem--that place where his reason for being would unfold for the whole world to see. It makes me wonder if I know what I need to do; what I must do with my life?  There are moments in our lives when we think we know what we ought to be doing with our one and only life. We set the course; perhaps choose a major then we go out and try it.   But the Bible doesn’t tell us that Jesus tried to do what he thought he ought to do. No, we’re told he set his face like flint. Recently, I sat with a 35 year old man and his wife as we talked about what he ought to be doing with his life. There were many options because this couple was so beautifully gifted for so many courses in life. But through the course of our work together that day, he became galvanized on the one thing he knew he ought to do with his life. He wanted to fly. He wanted to get his pilot’s license and fly airiplanes. This decision and resolve would mean going back to talk to his boss; getting a plan together of who would take over this job and move into the direction of his face and heart—to get qualified to fly airplanes. He said, “I am at a cross-roads with my life. If I don’t do ‘it’ now, I will never be able to do it.”  It was the only resolve he needed. Since our weeks together, my friend has recalibrated his professional direction. He told his boss, who was in total agreement and set out on an intentional course to fulfill his boyhood dream of becoming a pilot. As we closed our time together at our retreat, I read to my friend, this verse from the book of Proverbs: “Souls who follow their hearts thrive” (Proverbs 13:9 MSG). 

1. What do you need to do in the next 30 days to set your face like Jesus did and do what you were meant to do?
2. What do you believe God made you to do while on Earth?
3. What would it look like for your to follow your heart knowing that God is the one who placed the desires deep within you?

The Dreaded Day: Thursday of Every Week

In talking to thousands of leaders, I've discovered that the vast majority speak of a dreaded hour of the day that begins to roll in on their minds like an unwanted tide.For marketplace leaders it is somewhere between 4:00pm and 5:00pm on Sunday afternoon. This is the precise time where their minds begin to surface back into a sobered reality about work. In just a few hours, this weekened will all be over. In just a few hours, all that I have done that was fun, life-giving and extra-ordinary will now, for sure, morph into my work.  Work is the place where they most do NOT want to be on a Sunday afternoon when the family is around and the sun is still shining and there's still time to call a friend over for a quick grilled hamburger.Yet it is work that calls.Maunday Thursday is a day of mourning because for Jesus, his work was calling him. The Bible biographers all agree that they witnessed Jesus, himself slipping away into what may have been a forlorn star; a far off country that he was thinking about; all that he would have to endure in the next 24 hours. He sweated his most dreaded day out. He could not sleep. His companions became something less than desirable companions--because they could not enter his agony. They slept and Jesus wept; begged God for something different; even desired a different outcome all together. But in the end, he did what working people do. He set his face like flint and finished his work.Thursday of Holy Week reminds us of the dread that is ahead. The dread of an unfinished life; the scorn of ridicule; the unjustices of our lives that will go unnoticed and even untouched. The Thursdays of our lives are when we face our most dreaded moments: the doctors pathology report which will come tomorrow--not today. We will have to remain under the pressure--get the nerve up to face this day and face tomorrow--no matter what the outcome.No matter what the outcome... That's a Thursday for us. And it was the same for our dear friend Jesus. No matter what the outcome he lived into Friday when the worst would happen. But deep down he knew something that every working person must also know: the worst is never the worst.