Seek Me to Live Wednesdays

Patti Dykstra serves on our staff in our Communication Department.  She's been huge when it comes to our presence on the web - including both our website and our blogs.

Two of the major "blogging sins" that I regularly commit when it comes to our blog are irregular and infrequent posting.  Patti has gently shown me my wayward ways when it comes to this area, and to be honest, it's spawned a couple of good ideas about some regular posts.

A couple of days ago we relaunched our weekend recap, "Monday Soup."  Every Monday you can check our blog for a chance to celebrate what God did through our teams in our church on the weekend.

And now, I'm proud to introduce to all of you for the very first time another regular post on our blog: "Seek Me to Live Wednesdays."

If you recall, at our All Team meeting in March we talked about what God's vision for our ministry has been these last 3 years:

• in 2008, it was a restored inspired identity.
• in 2009, it was taking inspired risks.
• and now in 2010, it is seek Me to live.

2010 marks a year in our ministry in which we've really been stretched in a number of ways, mostly caused by responding to God's call to become a multisite church.  We've had to recruit, train, and integrate a number of new volunteers to support two campuses.  Some of us have had to take on more than one role or serve on more than one rotation.  In short, we've each had to put ourselves in a position that is at times beyond our capacity and ability.

As always, there is an inherent danger whenever we do this.  It's a temptation, really.  We talk about it all the time.  Whenever we find ourselves in these positions, the temptation is to do godly things without God's power.  To just show up for rehearsal or a weekend without really connecting with God.  To not admit to ourselves or to others just how tired we are.  To pull ourselves up by our bootstraps and get it done out of obligation rather than out of the love we have in our hearts from God, for God.

And so for 2010, we believe that God wants us to seek him to live - to seek and find the life that is found in him before we go to serve him or serve others.  We want to serve out of a heart that is full instead of serving out of a deficit.  

Here's what we know: the task is just to great to do it on our own.  We just don't have it in us.  The work and the mission, because of their pure immensity, will eventually crush us if we don't do this with God before we do this for God.

So, every Wednesday, here's what you can expect: a scripture, a devotional, a link, or a resource dedicated to seeking God for our life.  

So here's your first:

Abide is a resource that I'm thinking of checking out, and that you may want to as well.  One of the bloggers that I follow, Ed Stetzer, recently did an interview with Abide's creator, Jared C. Wilson.  Here's a great excerpt from the interview:

...'being' precedes 'doing.' The book explores the difference between doing good Christian things we hope will make us more spiritual or holy and doing good Christian things because we are spiritual and holy. The difference is really that, from Abide's perspective on spiritual disciplines, God is the initiator and we are the respondent, rather than the other way around.

Hope you enjoyed our very first Seek Me to Live Wednesday.  Check back every Wednesday for the next installment.