When I was a kid, it seemed like every time I turned around my school, sports teams, and everything else was having a fundraiser of some kind. So here I would go through the neighborhood, door-to-door, begging people to buy a cheap roll of wrapping paper big enough to wrap a bite-sized candy bar but costing enough to wrap every present under your Christmas tree. “But it’s worth it, Mister. After all, we need new textbooks ya know!”

I hated it.

More than anything I hated the rejection. I hated when people would say no. If I learned anything from that, it was that I am definitely not cut out for sales!

In the parable I wrote about yesterday, the Master told the servant to go get all the invited guests to come to the party. But each person had an excuse. I wonder if the servant felt like me as a kid when I was told no? The servant came back dejected, but the Master told him to keep it up! Move on to the next group who can come to the party. Don’t stop inviting until the house is FULL!

As we wrap up the fast, I want you to know that you will face disappointment and rejection as you live your life trying to reach people for Christ. But don’t stop! Don’t give up! Especially as we approach Easter and you begin to invite the people you pray for. If they say no, ignore you, or don’t show up – don’t give up! Keep pushing, keep investing in relationships, keep sharing your faith, and keep inviting.

As you pray and journal today, ask God to give you the courage and faith to keep going even when discouragement sinks in. And ask God to help you not give up! Let’s push hard to see 500 souls packing out Powell High School on Easter, celebrating that Jesus is alive and still changes lives.

I grew up in a small church. It was one of those churches where everybody had known everybody for years. I loved it. Many of those people are still like family to me. They were at my wedding, ordination, family members’ funerals, our baby shower, and the list goes on and on. If there’s one thing I learned from that church it is the power of being in Christian community.

As much as I love that small church, I’ve grown to have a bit of dilemma about small churches – well, all churches for that matter. If a church is truly following Christ’s example, won’t it be growing?

I’ll never forget driving by a church sign in Knoxville one day with the message, “That small church you’ve been looking for: you just found it.” The hilarious thing about that is this: what if 500 people were looking for that small church and all showed up? It wouldn’t be so small!

The issue of numbers in churches is one that gets people on both sides of the argument all up in arms. I’m not one to get argumentative, and I have to be honest in saying that my drive to have more and more people for the sole sake of numbers has definitely shifted to wanting more and more people for their sake, not my ego’s sake.

However, one look at Jesus’ ministry seems to bring clarity to the issue. In John 14 Jesus taught a parable that basically clears up for us that he wants us to go out and bring as many people to Him and his house as possible! Verse 23 puts it simply “Then the master told his servant, ‘Go out to the roads and country lanes and compel them to come in, so that my house will be full.’”

The “Master” in this story said what he did in verse 23 in response to his servant going out and bringing in the sick and the poor and then telling him “But there’s still room!” Can you imagine if we had this mentality?

“I brought my family today, but there’s still room!”
“I brought my boss from work, but there’s still room!”
“I brought my neighbors, but there’s still room!”

The list could go on and on. Now more than ever we have tools to share our faith and invite people to His house. Facebook, Twitter, email, texts, and – believe it or not – the good ole fashioned hand written note, phone call, or (*gasp*) face-to-face! As you pray today, ask God to help you not stop at “I already brought/invited some people” and instead to keep pushing you to the mentality of “but there’s still room!” Ask Him to show you who else may need to be exposed to him that you haven’t already thought of. Write them in your journal, pray for them, and then do something about it!

Easter is a great opportunity. Invite them! If we do this, it won’t be about our church being small or big. It will be about us reaching those who are out in the roads and country lanes who aren’t yet in His house. That’s what it’s all about!

If you have been fasting and/or praying with us for these 10 days, I want to encourage you to join us as we break the fast together Thursday evening. This will be a fun time to simply discuss what God has done in your life over these 10 days and spend time together.

We have space reserved at Calhoun’s on the River but space is limited! If you would like to come this Thursday at 6 p.m. please RSVP asap by emailing pastor@onelifeknox.com to let us know how many will be coming.

Hope to see you there!

I’ll never forget my first UT football game. I was only 7 years old, and my dad and I sat way up in the nosebleeds. I’ll never forget the guy sitting next to us letting me look through his binoculars. I looked at everything. Smokey, the football players, the cheerleaders, the band – everything.

That experience jolted me. As a little boy, I knew right away what I wanted to do when I was older. You see, I knew already that I was not athletically inclined. The thought of playing football gave me visions of stretchers and neck braces long before it gave me dreams of Heisman trophies. Instead, I knew right away I wanted to be in UT’s band one day. I knew that I wanted to be a Vol fan for the rest of my life. I was hooked! And as dramatic as it may sound, that day changed my life.

It just took one experience. It only took my dad saying “You want to go to a game?” Just one.

In less than two weeks we all have an opportunity to give someone their “first” experience at church. We all have the chance to see someone “jolted” by their first encounter with the God who is real, living, and loves them more than can ever imagine. We have Easter!

This is our chance to pack out OneLife, not just so we can brag about numbers. But so we can see that many more people in God’s presence and hopefully discovering Him and how their one life can make a difference. But here’s the deal…it won’t happen magically. God has chosen YOU to be his instrument and tool to see it happen.

If we each do our part of inviting someone to come, we will blow our dream of having 500 people there that day out of the water. Wait…I take that back. If we spend today, the next few days of our fast, and the next week before Easter BEGGING God to intervene in our friends’ and family’s lives by having them take us up on our invitation, we will see incredible things happen.

So let’s do it today! Write in your journal who you are praying for and pray for them all day today. It could just be the prayer that changes their life.

We’re more than half-way done and I hope that God has taught you a great deal during these six days. One thing I’ve really been thinking about is a passage I wrote about yesterday. The one where Jesus simply said, “If you believe, you will receive whatever you ask for in prayer.” Matthew 21:22

The crazy thing about that passage is there are no qualifiers. It is simple. Straight forward. If you believe, you will receive whatever you ask for in prayer. Now I’m sure there are some limits. Like I don’t think if I pray and believe that a BMW will be sitting in my driveway when I go outside tomorrow morning that it’s going to actually happen. But then again…Jesus did say that if we had the faith of a mustard seed (which is teeny tiny) then we could tell a mountain to jump into the ocean.

So maybe it really does mean anything. Maybe the problem is in the if-statement at the beginning: if you believe. Maybe we just don’t believe? Maybe we say we do with our lips and in our minds, but our hearts aren’t quite there.

Jesus also said that we would do greater things than even he did on earth! That’s pretty incredible! But once again, it was dependent on our belief in him (John 14:12-14). And once again, he said that if we ask anything in his name, it would happen.

Through all of that I am getting the sense that Jesus has a clear message for you, for me, and for OneLife Church. It is simply this: if we want to see God do something so great that only He can get the credit for it, we simply need to believe!

Over the next four days we are going to pray and believe for some incredible things to happen in our church – including on Easter. But for today, Day 6, let’s focus on our belief. Write your prayer in your journal and ask God to help you lose any disbelief or doubt that is in your heart. Ask him to help you believe so that we can see some incredible things happen.

The same God who conquered death lives in us. That’s amazing! Let’s believe Him to do some even more amazing things through us.