Walking with God… post New Orleans

Remember the intimate and intense feeling of Walking with God in New Orleans? The beautiful harmony of listening to a God still talking to us when we quiet ourselves, lose the distractions, and lend an ear to what He is saying? Have any of you been tempted to just merge back into “life as normal”? I have, well sort of….

Life is just happening to me the last few days, with things outside of my control, but nonetheless, the enemy has made it clear he has come to steal, kill, and destroy any territory he might have lost in New Orleans and in me personally last week. I’m not going to let him.

One of my favorite authors, John Eldridge reminds me today… “Something stronger than fate has chosen you. Evil will hunt you. And so a fellowship must protect you. Would you try and do this alone?” And so we are each other’s fellowship. We have shared an undeniable experience with the God who created the universe, we have experienced him walking together, and to be sure we have an enemy whose sole strategy is to isolate us and take us out before it sticks.

How are you intentionally walking with God today? Sound off and join the fellowship.

Jordan turns 13

My daughter Jordan just turned 13 in the last few weeks. It’s a big deal to move from a pre-teen “kid” to an actual teenaged “woman”, just like it was for you and me. My wife and I wanted to make it a big deal for her, so we gave her twice the budget we’d given her for past years parties. We literally gave her the budget. She planned it all to the penny, including party favors, cake, pizza, and drinks to name a few. I’m proud to say she came in on time and under budget – I’m a proud daddy.

She had invited some twenty girls in the 12-13 year old age range, and worse than that it was a lock-in where the object is to stay up all night pulling pranks on each other or worse. Most of her gifts were gift cards, which is a story in and of itself (where is the creativity in giving these days?). She ended up with roughly $100 in gift cards, not bad for a girl turned woman to upgrade wardrobe and the wearable “bling” all the kids are wearing these days. So what did my new teenage girl do with the money? She spend about 1/3rd of it on a new outfit for New Orleans, and spent the other 2/3rds on items to fill the LifePacks she picked up at our pre-trip meeting for the homeless we’ll encounter while we’re there.

I can say a lot of wonderful and amazing things about my daughter Jordan, but what I will say is I feel better and better about our next generation of leaders, and every day I learn a new lesson of love and charity from my daughter Jordan turned young “woman” of 13 – Yes, I am a proud daddy indeed.

Dare You to Move

Our Team New Orleans theme song performed by our very own team worship leader Brian Witham.

Will you?

Recommended Reading

Under the Overpass (We didn’t get the chance to share this on the bus as we thought, but we lived it for 3 days. If you haven’t yet, and in light of living it first hand, I highly suggest reading this book or grabbing the audio book – Amazing!)

Starving Jesus (Highly recommended but not required)

Irresistible Revolution (Again, highly recommended but not required)

Meet Jesus in New Orleans

“You will always have the poor among you”. Jesus guaranteed us this. Poverty has habitually plagued New Orleans, Louisiana.  Hurricane Katrina exposed the plight of generational poverty and the challenges these people face.  Jesus spoke to me on my last trip to New Orleans. He said that if we will go work among the poor it will always change us.  Are you ready to change New Orleans and be changed?

 

Hello Team New Orleans!

Welcome to the team Blog for the LifeChurch.tv Mission to New Orleans – June 11th thru 15th.

Visit the blog to get the latest trip information and to communicate with other members of the team.