Seeing 2010

As the new year dawned, how did you see it? Was it the same as it was yesterday, or did you see it entirely new? The key word fro me this year is vision. It will be a theme in my preaching this Sunday, but has also been a theme of things I have been reading lately. Vision is not just seeing what is, but what can be or will be. I tweeted earlier today that I see 2009 in the rear view and am slamming the gas into 2010. Vision is being able to leave the past in the past and push toward the future. Over the Christmas break I read Seth Godin's e-book What Matters Now. It is not a "Christian" book, but a book that needs to be read by every leader. It is thought provoking and challenging. There's some good stuff in there and there's some stuff that does not apply right now. The thing that I took away from it is that away is the need that everyone of us has for vision. What has happened to so many people is that they have lost their vision. There was a time, when we were young, and we thought we could conquer the world. Then as we grew older, we began to listen to the critics and we lost our desire and drive to be world conquerors. We became settled and we lost our fire. As the fire died in our soul it dimmed our vision for grandeur.

If we are going to crash into life, then we must be people of vision. We must spend time seeking the will of God so that we set our vision on the things that matter most. I hope that we enter the second decade of this millenium that you will begin the process of becoming a person of vision. I hope that you regain the fire of your youth and that you will begin to conquer the world. 2010 is a year of great promise, a year of great vision and a year of great accomplishment.

Discipling

I'm excited about a discipleship material that I found quite by accident. It's the Growing Disciples Series put out by Lifeway. I received one of the books called Witness to the World as part of the Texas 2010 emphasis by the Baptist General Convention of Texas. It seem interesting enough but upon looking inside the back cover, I discovered the Witness was one of seven in a series of discipleship studies. I begin this week discipling a young man in our church. He has agreed to meet with me weekly as we discover the life a disciple. I was looking for something that would relate to a teen but would also give him a good solid foundation. The first study is called The Call to Follow Christ is the introduction to the series and give an overview of the other six studies in the series. I am very impressed with what I have seen so far. Claude King has produced another hit for discipleship. I am looking forward to discipling this young man and helping him begin his life with Christ. I think that he is excited too. He has great potential to do great things for the Lord. Discipleship is one of the greatest needs in the church today. It is not something that happens in a class or even a small group, necessarily. Ideally, it is something that happens on a one-on-one basis. I read a great post today by Dan Wooldridge about the definition and need of relational evangelism from the Engage Evangelism conference. I think that along with relational evangelism there must also be relational discipleship. If we invest all that time to lead someone to Christ, then it makes perfect sense to continue to invest in there spiritual development. Isn't that exactly what Jesus did? There was the crowd, whom He ministered to in a certain way, but then He had the twelve, whom He really invested in. Even withing the twelve, though, there were three, Peter, James, and John, into whom Jesus poured His life. I think that lays out the perfect pattern for us to follow for discipleship today. It makes no sense to lead someone to Christ, hand them a Bible, and wish them luck, while we dash off to notch another conversion. Discipleship is all about relationship. It is about building a relationship with another person so that you can help them in building a relationship with God. At the same time you are teaching them to do what you are doing with them; build relationships with people so they can build relationships with God. When we engage in relational evangelism which leads to relational discipleship, we are truly crashing into life. Crash on!