Add It To My Resume - I am a Church Planter

(my grandbaby...)

Why is it we tend to focus on what we have not (yet) done, as opposed to what we have done?

I remember when I first realized that I am a gardener. For the longest time I actually thought that since I didn't tend to large expanses of lush gardens, that I was not a gardener.

This sort of bedeviled thinking has crept into my thoughts on ministry. My husband and I have planted one church, so far - the one he currently pastors. We and a few (a very few...a reeeeeeeally, really few) stalwart souls planted it from the ground, up. One church. More than most people ever plant in a lifetime. It has grown to be a thing of beauty.

To think that I am not yet a church planter because I've planted "only" one church is like saying I am not yet a mother because I have had "only" one child. Ridiculous. The fact that I have had four children does not make me more of a mother than the woman who has had only one child.

Now I'm not talking about stretching the truth. I won't be calling myself a photographer just because I've snapped a few pictures, or an artist because I've painted a landscape. (Well, I've almost painted a landscape. I have yet to finish my first painting. Shoot - I am compulsively honest.) But most of us aren't into stretching the truth. A lot of women I know tend to sell themselves too short, rather than the other way around. (There are a few who oversell themselves, but I usually can smell that a mile away, and I avoid those few.)

My daughter is no less a mother, just because her child is yet unborn. Now that is a concept! That concept speaks to all things yet unborn in our lives - things that God sees, but we don't. Much like the way He called Abraham the Father of Many Nations. Much like the way He called Gideon a Mighty Man of Valor.

Because your God has better plans for you than you know, you yourself are more than you realize.

Who are you?

Have You?

Today, I laughed until I cried.

I laughed so hard, I stopped breathing.

I mean, I ugly laughed. (You know - when your face is helplessly frozen in a humiliatingly ridiculous expression.)

I laughed until I thought I was going to die.

I laughed so violently, my whole life passed before my eyes. That made me laugh even harder.

And it made me realize, for the millionth time, that laughter is one of the "sounds of joyful shouting and salvation" that the Scripture talks about. The devil hates laughter with unholy passion. He'd rather you fear him, give him credit for all the bad things in your life, blame him, anything but laugh in spite of his existence.

Being convulsed in a spit giggle is a sign of great spiritual strength. I'm tired of Christians who have forgotten how to unselfconsciously laugh their behinds off. G.K. Chesterton said, "It is easy to be heavy; hard to be light." He didn't mean your bathroom scales, either. I am telling you, it takes real brains to be funny, and it takes humility to laugh regularly and genuinely and so hard your head feels like it will pop off.

Most are too self absorbed to notice the hilarity that surrounds them on a daily basis. Hey - takes a self absorbed woman to know one. When I'm not laughing, I'm not noticing, either.

Going by the hermaneutical principle of "first mention", it is no mere coincidence that the first time laughter is mentioned in the Bible, it was a Great Woman of the Faith who was cracking up. Giggles are surely a sign of impending Promise and Blessing.

I swear, I tell the Lord all the time, that all I want to do is have some fun. He assures me that that is what He wants for me, more than I want it for myself. Its just that, as I'm having fun, He keeps making me do stuff. I guess if I'm giving my life away hilariously, it doesn't seem so awful. Giving my body to be burned is an actual sacrifice when I am absolutely in love with the life He has given me, and the people He has put in it. So the Lord slips in a good punch line, as I set myself on fire, figuratively speaking, again and again. God is good to me like that. If that messes with you, I am sorry.

The way I see it, laughter, at the appropriate things, at the appropriate and even inappropriate time, is one of the permanent expressions of a saint. Every negative emotion you and I experience is temporary. There will be no sad or mad tears in heaven. No frowns. No furrowed brows or anxious faces.

You may have heard of the Toronto Blessing. I'm not sure what I think of all that laughin' in church, ya'll, but I'm fine with bustin' loose at my own table.

The Knoxville Blessing. I'm so glad I had a visitation today. (and I have my daughter Hannah to thank for it, but that is another story...)


"God has made me laugh, and all who hear will laugh with me." (Gen. 21:6)

My Anchor Holds...Or, A Strong Consolation

My soul needs strong consolation. You?

It is found in only one place: this gospel of grace through faith in Christ. I marvel freshly at how different my whole perspective is, since re-soaking my heart in the doctrines of grace. Truly, God can take a woman who has walked with Him many, many years (37 to be exact) and change her mind. Bless the Lord, Oh my soul!

So I've been thinking lately, as I look for grace-sightings in the Old Covenant, about how the high priest entered once a year into the Holy of Holies, to make his offering in the presence of God. He was "anchored" so to speak, outside the veil, by a rope around his ankle. If he didn't do it all exactly right, he died on the spot, and was pulled out of the presence of God with that rope.

There is no hope to be found in our performance, friends. We will never...ever...get it all right.

My hope is built on nothing less than Jesus' blood and righteousness.

Because of Jesus, I too am anchored. There is a rope tied to me. And when I don't do it all exactly right, if I stray, if I am faithless, I do not die.

Rather, I am pulled right back to God, rather than away from Him. God pulls me to His very heart, and breathes life into my moments and my days. Because the wrath of God was spent at the cross, I am the recipient of a great, great hope. I experience unmerited favor each and every day. God is rich in mercy towards me, and towards my seed, to a thousand generations. This is a generation-spanning rope, and I am tied securely fast, and in this I find not just any consolation...

I find...strong consolation.

My anchor holds within that veil...where God is, in other words. Anchors have to be tied to something, and weighted down by something. I'm tied to Him, Who is Great, Who alone is consolation, and Who is heavy with His own Weighty Glory. And. And. Because I am tied to Him, all that is tied to me is tied to Him.

You are so blessed, if I love you!

::she smiles::

Because if I love you, I carry you in my heart always, I can't let go, and my Father is always wanting to know what and who is on my heart.

By grace, through the sacrifice of Christ Jesus, I am pulled by God, to God. My anchor holds me and draws me into His presence. And there, I bring Him my weakness and my need. I bring Him those I love.

I'm not hoping in hope. No...my soul hopes in God alone.

Strong consolation. A sure salvation.

..."by two immutable things, in which it is impossible for God to lie, we have strong consolation, who have fled for refuge to lay hold of the hope set before us. This hope we have as an anchor of the soul, both sure and steadfast, and which enters the Presence behind the veil..." (Heb. 6)

Book Recommendation

A few months ago, Tim and I discovered the work of Dr. Stephen Crosby. After giving several of his resources a look and a listen, and reading one of his books twice through, we'd like to highly recommend him to you. I plan on including an excerpt from his book "Silent Killers of Faith - Overcoming Legalism and Performance Based Religion" over the next several days or weeks. It is not often that we come across someone who has been teaching so many of the same things we have been teaching. It is not often we come across a body of work that this closely resembles our own.

He and his wife are moving from the west coast to North Carolina, by the way. We hope to get to meet them - we'll see what the Lord has in store!
Enjoy!

"We get it backward. We expect accountability to produce sons. Accountable behavior will never produce a father-son relationship; rather, a father-son relationship spontaneously begets accountable behavior."

"Holiness that leads to isolation or insulation is a biblical counterfeit. Religion without love has been responsible for most of the world's misery. A.W. Tozer said, "You can find more carnal, unregenerate, self centered characters in the church who have religion and are sensitive toward it than you can bury in the Grand Canyon." Separation that begets a spirit of superiority is a betrayal of Christ and His gospel."

"We need to testify to His redeeming hope, not the process of our sanctification."

(how I loooooove that. That says it all.)

"We Americans are so private in our paradigms and so "wounded" from, and resentful toward authority figures, that we are reluctant to reach out to others for help. Sometimes we are comfortable reaching out horizontally to peers when looking for comfort or help, but the real deliverance anointing comes when we reach "up", so to speak, to those who have oversight. We have to reach out to someone who values our future more than our friendship - someone who not only will provide comfort, but will also lead us to that place of discomfort, confrontation, and spiritual growth."

(My note - when a leader is accessible, and becomes a friend - and THEN there comes a time when they must assert their God-given role in a performance-based Christian's life, it often results in a great upset. The performance-based believer would much prefer to think of the leader as their peer...perhaps even their "student". They become offended - sometimes beyond their ability to deal with.)

"A salvation that only brings us to moral zero, moral neutrality, is insufficient. We will all be back in the red in no time. No, we are forever free from the creditor. The state of the New Covenant believer is one of the abundant life, an eternal credit....we are not moral debtors on spiritual probation, trying to earn enough credit to have our death sentence commuted. We are pardoned, not paroled. Our sentence has been done away with."
There is so much more in this book. Can't wait to share more with you!

The Coolest Guitar Amp EVER!

Look what our daughter (Sarah) and son-in-law (Jonathan) got for their dad! A friend of Jonathan makes these:






A guitar amp, in an Altoid's container!



The inside speaker...


Tim, and his Les Paul and his Altoid's amp (playing some ZZ Top)...

You would not believe the sound that comes out of this tiny thing!

Get your own from the maker, Christopher Shibley, here. Please tell him that Tim and Sheila Atchley from Harvest Church sent you...

A Gift

A pastor has to be becoming known for something, when a man sees this, while far away on vacation, and one pastor comes instantly to mind ~





Thank you Scott and Cyndy! The even better gift has been that of your friendship. Sharing a meal together, talking about the things that matter most, as we did last night, is mine and Tim's favorite thing in life.

A toast to the Grace of God, through Christ!

The Gospel is Worth Our Cheerful Endurance

Go find your hairbrush. Go on...I'll wait. Draw from it a single one of your hairs. Now, take that hair and tape it to the front cover of your Bible study journal. It will be an icon for you, both of what is about to happen in your life story, and the outcome of your story. That single hair will also remind you of how to deal with what is about to happen.

In short - it will be more than difficult, but you will be more than just okay.

If you stand firm on the gospel of Christ Alone, here is what will happen to you:

You will be betrayed. (meaning: someone who you thought was with you, will leave you. Usually they will betray you "with a kiss" - saying with their lips that they love you, and still want to be your friend...or your family.)

Betrayal does not come by the kiss of just anyone, otherwise it wouldn't matter. No, betrayal comes by the kiss of a dear one, always.

But listen to me. It is a loss at first, but in the end, you will not have lost so much as a hair from off the top of your beautiful head. This is experience speaking! I have found the words of Jesus to be dramatically true.

Expect to be betrayed and lose those ones, yet expect to lose nothing. The Christian life is full of paradox. Bear it all with cheerful patience. Patience is no patience at all if it is not cheerful. Otherwise, it is just fleshly stoicism...an unattractive martyrdom.

You are not going to suffer the loss of so much as a hair from your head, see. That is yours and God's little secret. So let them kiss you and walk away. The gospel is worth your cheerful endurance, and it is through this cheerfulness that you possess an untroubled soul.

I taped a single hair of mine to the front cover of my Bible study journal just now. It is for me an icon of the fact that I am living a dream I do not deserve. In spite of weathering the worst, I am receiving the best.

If God is fully committed to the preservation of that hair from my head, how much more will he preserve and protect my heart...my reputation...my relationships and my resources? I've been betrayed, and I have lost, but as I look at the bottom line of my balance sheet, there is more in the bank than ever before, so to speak.

Each time I open that journal, and break open the word of God, I will see...a seemingly unimportant part of me that God has committed Himself to keep count of, and to protect...a single hair of a woman with an untroubled soul, a soul breathing deeply of the atmosphere of eternity, where all is undisturbed Shalom.


"You will be betrayed even by parents and brothers, relatives and friends; and they will put some of you to death. And you will be hated by all for My name’s sake. But not a hair of your head shall be lost. By your patience possess your souls."