Things I am learning

Well we are 9 days into the 30 day sex challenge and the media buzz is still very alive. So today I wanted to write out what I have learned over the last 13 days from all of this:

• The media is not our enemy. I say this because for the most part every main stream media outlet that I have spoken with has been more respectful to me and our our church than many religious people.

• People believe what they want to believe even if the facts are right in front of them.

• You really know who your true friends are when your are in the spotlight.
  

• TD Jakes is amazing. I heard his message at C3 the other night and I wept. I cannot find it online yet but it was amazing. Thanks for bringing the word TD, God used you like you will never know.

• New friend pop up that just bless your socks off like Mike Glenn from First Baptist of Brentwood. Thanks for the encouragement dude.

• You pray like crazy. My wife and I have had a couple of all night prayer meeting over the last week that have been more amazing than any church service I have ever been to.

• God is so much bigger than me. I am amazed and humbled that God would use me to share His plan for marriage and relationships to the masses. He really does have the best plan for singles and married people alike.
  

• I love our people at Relevant. As I watched some interviews of couples taking the challenge everything that we prayed is beginning to happen. Couples are beginning to talk to each other and read the Bible together, they are turning the TV off and actually communicating with each other all the while meeting each other deepest emotional needs. Yeah God

• I have the most amazing prayer team. They have been praying for me and Susie and our family nonstop since before we even launched this series. Thank you prayer warriors Susie and I have really felt your prayers.

Well I am off to a creative meeting with our team to pray and plan our next series "TXT" Trust me this one is going to stretch each of us spiritually like never before.

Paul

Relevant update 2.22.08

Here is my update from this morning

My Prayer Time Today

Well I had an extended prayer time today because God woke me up at 3am. I am not complaining although I did wake Susie up as well. So she may be a little sleepy this morning. I will tell you this when God does these sort of thing in my life I usually just go back to sleep but this morning was different. Susie and I enjoyed the most incredible time of prayer together and talking about what God was doing with this whole 30 days things and we just gave it back over to God and said this is all yours do whatever you want with it to make Your name famous. I truly believe God wants to restore marriages and relationship back to the way He intended them to be and for 30 days if we will do it His way I think there could be a revolution. Let pray that way.

Here is a verse that kept popping into my head this morning.

John 3:14-15
14Just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, 15so that everyone who believes in him may have eternal life.

This is my prayer in all of this that the Name of Jesus would be made famous over all of the earth.

Paul

What a weekend

So there I was in my office on Valentines Day finishing up my message for Sunday and planning on a nice quiet evening with Susie over in Orlando when I get an email from someone letting me know that the story about our new series "The 30 Day Sex Challenge" was one the newspapers web site. I thought that was cool so I went and read the article and was pleased that God had given us favor and a story was being written about our church and our new series. What I did not know was what was about to take place over the next 72 hours. From that moment around 2:30pm on Thursday I have spoken with every network TV station in Tampa and have been contacted by a half a dozen radio stations we even made Fox News Nationally on Friday afternoon. Crazy

What I think is crazy is that when the church decides to talk about sex "God's Idea" the media go bananas and the "Christians" get mad. I can say that the vast majority of main stream media has been very kind to us and as clear as they can be without being a church. I think ABC Action News did the best job so far. They were out last night at our evening service. It was cool to see our band rocking on TV.

I write all of this to say that I am humbled by the fact that God would use us to do this think called church planting. Our goal in this whole series is to draw people to a closer relationship with Christ and a closer relationship with their spouse if they are married and if they are single to understand that singleness is not a bad thing it is incredible.

If you want to know more about the challenge you can go to our churches blog I will be posting there each day of the 30 day challenge. Hey if you are married or single why not join us for the journey. All the information that you need can be found at the blog site. If you do decide to join us please let us know so we can track the success of the series.

If you are local it looks like I am going to be on the radio with Nancy and Chris in the morning Tuesday at 7:40am on Mix 100.7 Please pray for me.

Peace

Giant Suprise

WOW! I did not see that coming. Did any of you? As I tuned in to the super bowl last night I was quite dis-interested in who was playing. I mean one team is just to perfect and the other team seems to have a teenager as a quarterback. So as I settled in to my couch just to watch the commercials I begin to see this team emerge from the shadows of the perfect to completely disrupt the powerhouse Patriots. As I watched the scene unfold I found myself drawn into the excitement of rooting for the underdog. By the end of the game I was standing up rooting for the young Manning to win it all. It felt good to see the impossible happen. I mean no one really gave them a chance and yet they came out victorious.
This got me thinking I wonder how many of us in our faith walk feel a bit like an underdog and do not feel like we will ever end up on the win side of the win/ loss column. I know I have felt that way many time in my faith journey and for the most part when I feel that way I am prone to quit or get discouraged. Maybe you feel this way too sometimes. Well here are a few things I am learning about God on this journey of faith I am on.

1. God is not like me a fickle fan who only likes winners. In fact He specializes in failures and misfits. Read some of the stories of the disciples> Now that was a Motley Crew.

2. God specializes in turning Losers to winners. Just check out this verse.

3. God knows that the win is not always seen right away. Sometimes you have to wait a few days. Read this you will get the picture.

4. God knows the art of Declaring the win.