Advance

So it's been a little over a week since the Element Church Men's Advance ended, so I thought I would post some reflections about the weekend.

First of all, Thanks go out to Bob, Ryan and Jay for all the planning and organization for the event. I thought we went into the weekend very prepared and most of the event went off without a hitch. The food was awesome and there was plenty of it. Sleep---well that's another story.

Thanks to all of you who attended. I have heard a lot of great stories. Hope you enjoyed yourselves and will join us again next time. We are tentatively looking at late summer/early fall for the next advance. Also, thanks goes out to Calvary Chapel for letting us use their facilities. They stepped up bigtime to get things ready for us.

And thanks to Bob Norris for joining us as our guest speaker. You did great. I loved your concept of "Glorifying God And Enjoying Him Forever". Do I do that? Hopefully most of what I do in my day to day living glorifies God. But do I enjoy Him? Do I enjoy the journey? Have I lost my laughter? I was challenged by that.

Also, kudos go out to Bobby G. Way to go man. Loved your thoughts/talk on Saturday morning. You did great man!. So cool to watch from the sidelines as one of your friends.

I was blessed to be able to wrap things up by sharing on Sunday morning. The basic premise of my talk--"Shepherd Your Flock". Whatever 'flock' God has given you--lead and protect it with all you have. Be a "warrior-shepherd". My final challenge--"Make It Stick". Whatever God showed you this weekend--Make It Stick. How many times have you and I had a 'mountain top experience' and then gone back to normal everyday life and routine and totally forgotten what God showed us on the 'mountain top'? I know I have.

Again, thanks to all that went with us. I enjoyed getting to know more of you and watching you all connect with each other. It was cool to see new friendships formed. One final thought--we might want to put someone else in charge of the bonfire next time!

Advancing, Grant

Wrecked Afresh

So this morning I read Pastor Jeff's blog . Then I read Pastor Curtis' blog. (Both of them titled the same as this one) Then I picked up Wild Goose Chase to read chapter five -The Cage Of Guilt- to prepare for my Life Group tonight and I got 'wrecked afresh'. Man was my world rocked.

Now you need to understand I had already read the book before. We read it together as a staff back in August. But this time through was different.

Last time reading through I got very little out of this chapter. Maybe I power-read through it to get ready for staff meeting. Maybe my attitude was bad. Maybe I was distracted. Who knows. Interestingly enough, the whole story of Peter's denial of Jesus and his subsequent guilt and shame then later getting "reinstated" by Jesus is one of my favorite stories in all of the Bible. Maybe that was why. Maybe I thought " I already know this story. I'll just skim through it. I mean really, what more can I learn from this story. What more can I learn from this chapter." Uh.........WRONG!

This morning I was "wrecked afresh". SO many challenges from God, so many convictions, so many things to be grateful for, so many blessings--all at the same time. BAM! Wrecked.

One particular line just jumped off the pages straight into my heart---"It's like Jesus is saying to us 'You give Me all your sin. I'll give you all My righteousness. And we'll call it even'. Wow!

Wrecked,
Grant