Lead Me – Father’s Day BUMPER video from Southbridge Fellowship on Vimeo.

The 411 – April 25, 2010 from Ascending Productions on Vimeo.

Psalm 118:1 Give thanks to the LORD, for he is good; his love endures forever.

Here we go headed into another year. I am excited about this next year. I have learned some valuable lessons especially over the last few years. Over the past few years Shanna and I have started having kids (at number 3 right now). Southbridge Fellowship has launched. We have learned a ton of personal, parenting and leadership lessons through wins and set backs. I think those things combined set me up to have one of the best years in my life.

Here are somethings that have make me believe that saying this year will be the best one yet is not just optomistic thinking: (these are also things I am incredibly thankful for).

1. I have more special people in my life than ever before (the most recent addition being our newest daughter). I have a wife who is willing to talk through where we are at and where we are headed. I would hate to ever just exist living in the same home together.

2. I just preached on Revelation 2:1-7 and keep thinking about loving Jesus more now than in the past. I hope that I will continue to love Him more each day.

3. I am surrounded by people who love and support me. My wife being #1. My friends, our staff team, my community group, our elders and those who keep me accountable, and some mentor figures.

4. I get to serve on a team at Southbridge with people who like working together.

5. The church as a whole is at a place where I think we are about to go to the next level in impacting this city for Christ. We have experienced some great numeric and spiritual growth. I think it is going to continue to deepen and spread.

6. There are enough knowns to think things are headed in the right direction (personally, with my family, and with the church).

7. There are also enough unknowns that it is still exciting, still requires faith, and still gives me the desire to keep pressing on. I could write out all that I think will happen and plan towards that but God is full of surprises which requires dependence.

Here we go… 33 years and 1 day.

I have found that while we will do whatever God wants whenever God wants, life works best when we are in a groove. If we stay in the same groove for too long there is the danger that it becomes a rut. It is possible to begin to think it is the groove that is working (and not God) and start to depend on the groove, especially when that groove is working for you. Some people are still doing the running man (it worked for a time but it is time for a change). I am finding I function best with a groove, but it is healthy to change the groove from time to time just to keep things fresh. God is the one who makes all of this work. After all I would not even be breathing if it were not for Him, but I think the way He has designed me I function best with a groove (or you could call it a routine).

Does your life feel like chaos? Are you always doing things and never getting anything done? Where is your groove? Your life may look like me dancing at a wedding (that is not good).

Is it time to change your groove?

A couple take aways:

1. When we confess our sin that is it. We are forgiven. Stop doing it and move on!

2. Men need some real relationships not just more guys to hang out with. That means other men who will look them in the eye and ask them tough questions.

3. I don’t think most men have ever had a spiritual mentor.

4. We are to talk with our children about what it means to love God with all of our heart, soul, mind and strength when we sit at home, when we walk along the road, when we lie down and when we get up.

What does that look like? It looks like  not only wanting what is best for them, but doing something about it. Something like spending time with them (quantity time). It means having the difficult talks with them about bad decision making leading to bad results. It means disciplining them when they disobey. It means holding them and loving them and learning to communicate with them. It means telling them the truth about your own relationship with Jesus Christ.

5. Jason Tovey our Shepherding Pastor wrapped up and reminded us God wants what is best for our children even more than we do.

It has been an adventurous and exciting 9 years. We laughed as we prayed together this morning before I left. We have been through a lot together. I think of the difficult issues like losing loved ones at one end of the spectrum to times of seeing God come through in what seemed like impossible circumstances at the other end of the spectrum. Now there is the daily adventure of raising two (soon to be 3) children while also starting and leading this church Southbridge. It has not been easy, but it has been great. We will go out tonight and have a nice dinner and talk about what lies ahead.

I thank God for giving me such a wonderful lover, friend and teammate.

1. Own up to our failures.

2. Step up to our responsibilities.

3. Begin a conversation about how to step up to our responsibilities as fathers.

We started the night with a time of repentance and prayer followed by a very brief challenge by me to our men from Ephesians 6:4 which reads: Fathers, do not exasperate your children; instead, bring them up in the training and instruction of the Lord.

We then began our conversation about how to do this by introducing a panel of fathers who while not perfect have aggressively pursued Jesus and pointed their children to Christ. Our panel consisted of: Mike Michaels, Graham Self, Danny Lotz and Jim Young. We were led through this time by Allin Foulkrod. I want to thank these men for their willingness to share with all of us there that evening. Thanks guys.

Allin fielded questions that our men had written out for him and the questions consisted of everything from, “How do you discipline a 2 year old?” to topics like confessing sexual sin and regret. It was a great step for our men to begin to have this conversation about how to be fearless fathers. I believe we established a place where we can have some real conversations about how to be men who are not afraid to lead our families not only physically, but spiritually.

Fearless fathers have an overwhelming responsibility that cannot be delegated to the church, to mom, or to the anyone else because fathers are responsible to lead their families. We desire to equip our fathers the best we possibly can to lead their families. I believe last night was a step in the right direction.

For next steps our Dads were given a couple books Raising a Modern Day Knight (for Dads with sons) and She Calls Me Daddy (for fathers with daughters). Some men signed up for this Falls Men’s Fraternity ministry that we will be hosting. Some men even pursued potential mentor figures who were there last night (fathers who were further along in their journey of fathering and pursuing Christ). I thought last night was a win.

As a follow up to today’s message the Fathers of Southbridge have been invited to a Fearless Fathers Forum at the Southbridge church office on Monday June 29th at 7:00pm. I am going to lead this time starting with a challenge to our men. Then we are going to have an open forum time of question and answer where our fathers and future fathers can ask any question they want to a forum of men who are leaders at Southbridge, and who have sons and daughters at various stages of life. I think this is going to be a great time for our fathers to sharpen each other and hold each other accountable to be real men to our families.

If you are a father and want more information about attending the fearless fathers forum email us at: southbridge@southbridgefellowship.com.

This week at Southbridge we talked about a woman from 2 Kings 4:1-7 who was at her limit emotionally (she lost her husband), she was probably at her limit physically (she had two boys), and she was certainly at her limit financially (a creditor was going to take her two boys as his slave).

We all have a limit. We are limited by time, by our physical bodies, by our financial resources, by our abilities. However, many of us try and function as if we are not limited so we over schedule, over work, over spend, over eat etc. We need to realize we are limited and that there is One who is unlimited in every way. God is unlimited in His resources (He can create out of nothing and owns a cattle on a thousand hills. He even owns us as we have been bought at a price). He is unlimited in His attributes. He is unlimited in His power, in His knowledge, in His presence, in His love, in His grace, in His mercy, in His forgiveness. So if we are limited (the first thing we should learn when we are at our limit) doesn’t it make sense that we would turn to the one who is unlimited (the next thing we should learn at our limit)?

The thing that really gripped me when I was working on this message this week was that God who is unlimited and has more than we need, wants all that we have. God asks us to give what we have to Him and He gives what we need to us. He truly is an amazing God worthy of all our hearts, all our souls, all our minds, and all our strength.

I have nothing against Electrolux. I am sure it is probably a great product, but moms if you want to be even more amazing see what God can do with you when you turn to Him and your life is in His hands. He has this tendency to take what we have and do beyond what we could imagine with it.