This Christmas Eve was even more special because it was snowing. It started as a gentle storm with beautiful, huge snowflakes. As they day wore on, though the storm picked up. By mid-afternoon the winds had picked up to near gale force and snow was blowing hard. The long nights of winter were even more evident with the clouds and the storm, as darkness started setting in early this Christmas Eve. This storm promised to be a nasty one!

Of course there were Christmas Eve services to go to, too. The church had promoted and planned a huge celebration for this Christmas Eve. It was to be Christmas pageantry at it’s best, children dressed as Mary and Joseph, the choir dressed in full robes, and even live animals as props. It would be a glorious celebration of the birth of a Savior.

Lisa and the kids were all planning to go. Ten-year-old Ben was in the play, 8-year-old Brittany was in the children’s choir, and baby john was just excited because the Christmas pageant was finally going to be taking place. Lisa wished so much that her husband, Tim, would attend also. She had been praying for Tim for years, that he would finally see Jesus as his savior, that he would see beyond the religious ritual that he had grown up with and see a relationship with a God who wanted to be part of his life, with a Savior who had died for him, and with a Holy Spirit who wanted to be in him and guide him.

But, Tim, was cold to all that. He didn’t want anything to do with it at all, as a matter of fact. He had done that ‘religious thing’ as a kid and was done with it. He didn’t need God; after all, where was God when his dad died when Tim was a young teenager? No, Tim just didn’t get this religious thing at all; he was done with it.

So, as it came time to go to the Christmas Eve service, Lisa and the kids got all bundled up and booted up to go. Lisa asked Tim, one more time, if he would like to go. She didn’t want to nag, but wanted him to know how much it would mean to her. Tim cared for Lisa so much, not wanting to hurt her feelings and wishing he could bring himself to go along with her, but hearing the words come out of him mouth, “no, Lisa, you know how I feel about all that religious stuff”.

Lisa and the kids went on, then, without Tim. The service was grand, just as everyone had expected, but the storm was picking up more and more. Tim was concerned about the family and their safety as they were out in the storm so he was a little wary as he sat home, alone, on Christmas Eve.

Tim needed to go out to the garage and get a few presents ready for tomorrow morning, so he put on his hat, coat, and gloves to make the trek out to the detached garage. He had wanted to build a breezeway from the house to the garage for years, and he understood why tonight. The trip from house to garage, although only thirty feet, would be a cold and windy one.

Once he arrived at the garage he saw a little family of birds sitting outside. The seemed to be sheltering themselves from the storm, as best they could, by gathering close together and close to the garage, only a few feet from the garage door. Tim tried to show them to the garage door, knowing their chances of survival would increase greatly if they could just go into the garage. He didn’t like the idea of having a family of birds in the garage for he winter, but he felt that was a better alternative than having the birds die just a few feet from warmth and safety.

Tim waved the birds into the garage but it seemed they didn’t understand what he was doing; they didn’t make a move. He tried shooing them, over and over again, into the barn but the birds simply could not understand. Tim was so frustrated. He thought to himself, “you silly birds, you see me leading you to safety but you ignore me, you just don’t understand”.

He kept waving, kept shooing, but the birds just would not move toward the safety of the garage. “How can I get them into the garage, to safety”, Tim kept thinking. His frustration was building. Then, he thought to himself, “if only I could become one of them for a little while, I could talk their language, and become one of them! If I could become a little bird for jut a short while I could lead them and save them from their lack of direction! If only I could become one of them…”

Then it hit him. Through all of the religion Tim had learned as a kid, through his church attendance as a child and a young adult, he had never considered this. The Christmas story just became crystal clear. God was just as frustrated with mankind as Tim was with this little family of birds. Only, God had the ability to become one of us, to be like us, to send a Savior to us to lead us and save us from our lack of direction.

Through Jesus, God was with us! He sent His Son to become one of us, to communicate with us, to see our problems from a human perspective, and to lead us and to save us from misunderstanding, misdirection, and even from ourselves! This is the Christmas story. God with us!

My thoughts center on a single thing: values. We all value something, as individuals and as organizations. Now, these values might be the result of intense soul searching or they might be the result of the values our parents instilled in us as children or they might be the result of our own experiences or they might be a result of a combination of these things. Regardless of where they come from though, we all have values. That is to say, we all value something.

I think the Red Sox have valued doing things well, doing them with excellence, and doing things that bring a big return. Over the decade of the 2000′s, they invested a lot of money and time into certain players, front office personnel, and even in their ballpark as a means of doing things with excellence. Their world series victory in 2004 seemed to spark a revival of Red Sox values that worked its way through players, management, and the entire organization.

The result of all of this was an amazing string of seasons beginning in 2004 and going through 2010. They won a couple of World Series, were annually in the playoffs, and were constantly mentioned as one of the best organizations in Major League Baseball.

However, I believe that at some point they started living off of momentum and let their values begin to slip. They were the Red Sox and they did things well. Winning seasons were a given. Doing things with excellence was a given. It seemed as if they didn’t even need to try as hard because the momentum they were riding would carry them to excellence.

I’m not sure where it began but at some point, perhaps during a lopsided victory, a beer in the clubhouse seemed to be ok. “It’s just a beer, after all, and I’m not even scheduled to pitch today.” “We’re winning the game by 6 runs, for goodness sakes.” Then, maybe a day later or maybe a week later, a beer seemed like a good idea. Maybe the Sox weren’t winning by such a big margin, but “I’m still not scheduled to pitch for a couple of days.” From there, it became easier and easier.

Would the manager hear about this and say something? Would one of the guys in the clubhouse stand up and put a stop to this behavior? No, no one was willing to say anything because they were winning, they were in the pennant race, and no one wanted to start a controversy or start trouble on the team.

Finally, drinking in the clubhouse was ordinary, every day, and no one said a word about it. The values were slipping. Once the values started slipping, the wins started getting more difficult. Once the values started slipping, the pennant race became more difficult. Once the values started slipping, the team went into an abysmal slump and fell out of the playoff race on the last day of the season. Once the values started slipping, the controversy began and here we are in late October hearing about how the clubhouse was out of control, there was no excellence in the organization, and the team needs to clean house and get a jump start.

That’s the way it is with value slippage. We start to veer off course just a bit. Things are going well, we have great momentum, and the values start to slip. That thing that we spent time on so that it looked excellent wasn’t so important any more, because we had momentum. Those things that everyone could count on our organization to do and to be were not happening because we were living on momentum and on past successes. We didn’t need to be quite as clear and crisp in the things we did. And suddenly, we’re out of the pennant race, suddenly we are ordinary and no one is interested anymore.

And, the worst part of it all is that no one said a word when the values started to slip. Everyone was either too caught up in the momentum of success or they were too afraid to speak up and call us to accountability. Values slipped right before our eyes and no one said a word!

Unfortunately, this isn’t such an unusual story. It’s a story played out over and over every day in our culture. Businesses, churches, civic organizations, families, and any other type of organization are susceptible to value slippage and so, so many fall to it.

My advice is to guard your values, appoint someone to watch over them. Empower someone to speak up when they sense value slippage. Empower everyone to speak up when the sense value slippage. Don’t let values slip because no one is watching out for them. You see, I don’t think the Red Sox demise during the playoff stretch had anything to do with whether or not a couple of pitchers had a few beers and some fried chicken in the clubhouse, I think the Red Sox downfall goes much deeper than that. I think their demise can be traced directly to value slippage.

The Who asked the question a long time ago, “Who are you?” If we can answer this question, then we are more likely to know what we value. If we let this question continuously ring through our ears, then we are more likely to guard those values and fight value slippage tooth and nail.

I Thessalonians 2:8 says, “We loved you so much that we were delighted to share with you not only the gospel of God but our lives as well, because you had become so dear to us.” What a great discipleship program this could become!

We use a lot of different tools, today, for discipleship. There are books and Bible studies galore that we can use as we disciple people in their walk with the Lord. None of these books or programs are bad things and most of them are probably pretty good. But, what would it look like if the main component of our discipleship programs were sharing our lives as well as the gospel of God because the folks we are discipling are so dear to us? I believe this method would develop some deep and strong disciples of Jesus.

Discipleship that looks like this can be so powerful as we love others, share our lives with them, share meals with them, share struggles and triumphs with them, and let them see how we walk with the Lord as they are developing their own walk with the Lord. It would probably get a little messy at times, because we’re human and humans get messy but the rewards would be so amazing; true disciples who love Jesus, love each other, and who will subsequently go out and make more true disciples who love Jesus.

This method worked for Paul, Silas, and Timothy back in the day, and I think it would work for us in 2011, 2012, and beyond.

We are staring back up during the week of 8/14 , though, and I can hardly wait. I have missed my cell group. As we start back up, I am encouraging everyone to always bring something to their cell meeting. No, I don’t mean you have to bring cookies and brownies every week (although I love cookies and brownies!). I want you to bring something more valuable than that.

I encourage you to bring am word of encouragement, a word of hope, a burden to share with your group, or a heart of prayer for the group. Bring one of these things or something similar to your cell group and I can promise you your cell group time will be enhanced.

Bring an expectancy for miracles to your next cell meeting, then the one after that and the one after that and then you will start to see the miracle of doing life together. You will then be able to know God is working in your cell group as people are transformed and lives are better because of what you have brought to cell.

It’s not the sole responsibility of the cell leader to make cell fun and exciting. It’s everyone’s responsibility!  We have a choice. We can come to cell empty-handed and have a meeting or we can all bring something to cell and see miracles happen as we do life together.

If you are part of our community at GCC then you know all about our cell groups are small groups meeting in houses throughout the Central New Hampshire region where people gather and do life together.  Hopefully, you know that cell groups are the life of our church and that they are in our DNA.

I have formed great friendships through my cell groups over the years as I’ve gotten to know people on a much deeper level than if I just saw them at Sunday Celebration services.  I’ve gotten to witness the miracles of seeing families in crisis that have been brought back together and are now thriving.  I’ve seen the miracles of people coming to know Jesus as a result of the cell group’s outreach, love, and acceptance.  Many times, cell group has breathed life into my week when I’ve been struggling.  My cell group has become like family to me.

So, as we re-launch cell groups in a couple of weeks, I want to invite all of my GCC friends to give one a try.  If you’ve never committed to a cell group, then I encourage you to commit.  If you’ve been in cell group before and have disengaged, then I encourage you to engage.  If you’re currently committed to cell, then stay with it and help spread the news about the miracles we see as we do life together!

Then, later, I started thinking that, as leaders, we probably don’t do enough shoulder-to-shoulder listening.  I define shoulder-to-shoulder listening as time I spend beside someone, listening to them, and looking in the same direction.  That way, I can see their goals, their visions, and their directions while I’m listening.  I don’t think this has to be physically shoulder-to-shoulder, I think we can do shoulder-to-shoulder listening while we are facing each other.  We can listen shoulder-to-shoulder while we are sitting face-to-face if we decide within ourselves to listen and view the other persons visions, hopes, and dreams while laying ours aside for a few minutes.

So, maybe I need to be a better listener.  Maybe I need to be willing to put my agenda, my hopes, and my dreams aside while I listen to someone share theirs with me.  I did this with my son last night as he told me he thinks he wants to be a teacher when he’s older.  I got to hear that from him and affirm him in that, and I think we are both better off for it.

Maybe all leaders could be better listeners if we would sit shoulder-to-shoulder with those we are leading and let them explore their hopes and dreams.  If it’s affirming and edifying to our children, then it would probably be affirming and edifying to those we are leading.

I have a hard time relating to some of the men and women of the Bible, especially the Old Testament. I seem to disassociate myself from it because it was so long ago and I have a hard time imaging what life was like. Life must have been so different, the Internet wasn’t even around during Elijah’s time!

As a matter of fact, King David was a man just like me, Moses was a man just like me, and the Apostle Paul was a man just like me.

So, what’s the difference then? I spent some time thinking of this and I believe one of the differences is that Elijah realized his mission in life and realized it was important.
How many times do we feel like we know our mission but we feel unimportant in fulfilling that mission? We are, after all, called to do what we are called to do for a time such as this.
God calls us all to a mission. He has work for all of us and we need to be sure to know that it’s important work. Elijah knew he was only a man, but he knew he was a man with God’s calling on his mission and, because of that, he went about his work with the diligence and assertiveness that made him great.

The trip was awesome.  I saw growth in everyone of our team members.  We went to Haiti, all of us at our on place in our walk with Jesus, and we all came back at least one step further on that walk and at least one step closer to him.  Our motto was “Mission: Love” and I’m declaring Mission Accomplished!

The recurring theme for the team, as we were in Haiti, was that we need to get out of the way and let God do what He wants to do in us.  We decided that the greatest barrier between us and the greatness God has in store for us is our own will, our own inhibitions, and our own stubbornness.  We decided that if we could only get over ourselves, then God can take us to the greatness He has called us to.

If you know someone who went on this trip with us, take the time to sit down with them and ask them what God did in and through them on the trip.  You will be inspired and I think you will be challenged.

Mission: Love - Mission Accomplished!

The school was a happy place.  There were about 20 – 25 children there broken down into 2 classrooms.  We had the opportunity to read them a story, the story of Zacchaeus, share some songs with them, and play with them for the morning.  It was amazing to hear the little children sing “Jesus loves me” in English (there is no Creole version of this song).  They sang with all their hearts and were happy when we joined in to sing with them.

Playtime at the school was amazing, too.  There was lots of laughter and fun as we jumped rope together, played ball together, had lollipops together, and just shared life together for a few minutes.  I commented to someone on the team that we might not be making a life altering difference to these kids today, but at a minimum we were making today a better day for them.  I know it made a better day for us!

At the school

I was so impressed at the school, though, by the headmaster’s heart.  He is a Haitian man named Jonas and he was teaching in the United States when the earthquake hit.  He decided, though, that God was calling him back to start a school here in Haiti.  He gets no money for what he’s doing, there is no tuition.  He simply cares about the ‘least of these’ and puts that care into action.  What a lesson in serving we learned from Jonas!

The orphanage was just as amazing.  There are about 30 girls living there in a series of tents behind a huge gate on one of the busiest streets you can imagine.  This orphanage is truly bare bones, we would even say it is nothing.  But, it’s better than what the girls would have if the orphanage wasn’t there.  They have shelter here and they have each other here.  They sleep in tents on metal shelves.  They have a little common area that is covered by another awning.

We were able to give the girls some clothes that some ladies from Austin, TX had brought down.  We shared the afternoon with them, shared some candy with them and loved on them the best we can.  We know God cares about the widows and orphans of the world because His Word is very clear about that.  This is something we need to bring back from Haiti with us and keep it active and alive in our hearts.

Living quarters at the orphanage

We all loved these girls and our hearts go out to them.  What happens when they are too old to stay at the orphanage any longer?  Do they just go on the other side of that wall to be lost on that busy street?  Thank God that Foursquare is doing something here to help these girls out, to make life a little better, and to give them a little more hope.

The Pharmacy

The people who come to this clinic are generally poor and needy.  They come, bringing their babies and children, to find a doctor to treat them.  What better time to introduce them to the power of prayer and the power of the Holy Spirit in our lives.  Most welcome our prayers and desire us to pray for them.  Many on the team are stepping out in this area; I’m so proud of them.

Wiring the bunkshouse

Our project at basecamp 2 is coming together, too.  Electricity is on at the bunkhouse and bathrooms (except for some weird issue with the outlets in the bunkhouse) and the bathrooms are looking good with new stall doors, mirrors, and lights.  Yesterday, we found out that there will be a group staying there on Friday night, so we need to wrap things up tomorrow.  I’m amazed at the craftsmanship that we brought with us.  I love to see the guys and girls working together and things getting done so quickly.

We have a big day today at a primary school and an orphanage.  I think we’ll all be stretched today!