(Welcome to the new blog. The archives from Merge Worship are available here, but this blog will be more personal. Merge Worship may relaunch in the future, but for now I’ll be living my blogging life out here. Thanks for stopping by and I hope you enjoy your stay. Take off your shoes, drop your mask at the door and make yourself at home.)

My heart has been a little wrecked recently. There’s more than one explanation as to why that could be the case but none are really worth rehashing here. I was surprised by the way my heart has been revealing itself recently. Just the other day I sat down at the piano and this chorus came flowing out:

I want to tear down the walls of apathy and make believe

Take off the mask I wear of everything is perfect here

I wonder if I will ever find a place where I can just be me

I want to live…honestly

Now I hadn’t been doing a ton of thinking about living honestly but I will say that I live (and have for the past couple of years) in a state of what I call “holy discontent”. My heart has been heavy with the desire to be a great leader, a phenomenal Dad, a wonderful husband and a difference maker in the world for His sake. And the truth is that on any given day I feel like I stink at a number of those things but I don’t know who I’d actually say that to. I have a great wife, amazing family and wonderful friends but some days I still feel all alone.

In many ways I think I just want to be able to be real. Human. Honest. Broken.

Do you ever wonder if you’ll ever find honesty? Do you ever dream of a place where you can share all your stuff and hear truth and love in response? I do.

I had two conversations this weekend that left me with this impression:

Just because we’ve always done it one way, doesn’t mean we should never try another way.

It’s easy to get set in traditions. We experience something great that feels right and over time we settle into routine. Routine becomes ritual and, if we’re not careful, we can let sacred moments become sacred cows.

Which leads me to this. In addition to “never say never”, should we add “never say always” to our lexicon? I know there are things that are constant. But when it comes to our mode of communication or our format of service, I’m thinking it might be a good idea to drop the word always.

I’m a firm believer that God is, has been and will always be a creator. With that in mind, I’m never saying always again. Oh wait, I can’t say never either.

What do you think?

I’m coming to the conclusion that there are some things only prayer can fix. You’d think being a worship pastor, I’d already be rolling with that knowledge. But, if I’m honest, I try to fix a lot of things from my small reservoir of knowledge and personal leadership skills.

http://swerve.lifechurch.tv/2009/02/04/translation-tool-makes-global-a-reality/

You need to check out this new chat with live translation. Very cool stuff.

Thanks LifeChurch.tv for making the Kingdom better connected.

I had this thought last night that I might have spent a lot of my time gathering knowledge without gaining wisdom. Once Tony Evans said that “wisdom is putting feet to your what you know”.

How many times have I read a great book and not implemented what I learned?

How many times have I had an amazing conversation with another leader only to walk away and stay basically the same?

How many times have I read a passage of Scripture or devo and not put feet to it?

How many times has the Lord revealed Himself to me and I’ve left unchanged?

I have a large appetite (no fat jokes…this time) to read, connect and grow. In this new year I need my life to be about gaining wisdom not gathering knowledge. I’m endeavoring to live the words of James 1:22

“Do not merely listen to the word and so deceive yourself. Do what it says”

And all God’s people said…amen.