For years the blobfish was voted the ugliest animal on the planet. Which as you can see on the bottom picture it aint exactly cute. The bad thing is that is kind of what I look like when I shave. Being voted ugliest anything is not a good thing. Sometimes we feel like we belong in that catagory…ugliest ________, worst _________, slowest _________. That is the bad news…the good news is…that is NOT how the blobfish looks. He is a deep sea creature and is actually quite cute. It is only when he is brought out of his natural environment that the pressure causes the deformities. THAT is GOOD NEWS.
You see, you may feel like a blobfish right now…what that might mean is that you are not in the right environment. God’s word says that the Lord knew you while you were still in the womb, you are fearfully and wonderfully made…for a purpose! You just have to find that purpose, around the right people, in the right opportunity and BAM! The blobfish is a cutefish once again.
Don’t let the outside pressures make you feel ugly. Get in your environment. Get around good people that encourage you. Get into a job/career/ministry that fits your gifts and passions. More importantly get into the presence of God. Because God don’t make ugly.
I have seen these types of pictures on my feed since the passing of rock legend Ozzy Osbourne. It is sad…there needs to be an honest conversation about eternity. There was a decision made a few decades ago that we need focus on Life in Christ and not focus on hell. I am a proud proponent of that philosophy. However, inso doing we have forgotten to communicate the truth about hell. Hell is real. Hell is eternal. Hell is painful. Hell is a recognition that you had the opportunity for Glory yet must spend an eternity separated for it. Hell is also a real place of torment, fire, and anguish. There is a devastating myth that hell is going to be one big party with loud music, beer, whiskey, and women. It isn’t…the devil is not the master of ceremonies for a grand celebration mocking all the goody goodies in heaven. The devil hates you. All of you. The devil hates the Christian and he hates the Wiccan. The devil hates the men and he hates the women. The devil hates Billy Graham and he hates Hitler. Jesus says the enemy is here to steal, kill, and destroy (John 10:10). Steal, kill, and destroy what you may ask? You. So, I beg you…stop with the cute portrayals of hell. Ozzy is not in heaven (he has openly mocked God, even up to his final days). Ozzy is not partying in Hell. In fact he is probably enduring more pain for appropriating Satans label “The prince of darkness”.
The good news is there is good news. The other side of hell is heaven. For God so loved you that he gave his one and only son…that whoever believes in him will not die (spiritually) but have eternal life. Heaven is full of joy, love, a flawless world that is absent the pain of sin and death. So, I beg you don’t take eternity lightly. I promise you Jesus and Satan don’t.
I’m sitting here on a Saturday watching the 4th round of the 2025 NFL draft. I love the draft. I love the idea that these men have worked their whole lives towards a goal and now it is being realized. I love how these men have no idea where their careers will begin…some will get to go to New Orleans or Dallas and some will have to go to…Buffalo. The big storyline this year is the QB from Colorado, Shedeur Sanders. He was projected to go top 5 and has yet to be drafted. Some are postulating that it is due to his cockiness, and some are saying it is because of his dad’s influence…I’d like to pose a different idea.
It is being reported that he had a bad interview. It is being spun that it went poorly because of his cockiness…however, the NFL is filled with men who are cocky…it takes a level of cockiness to make it this far. I believe it is his spirit of teachability or lack thereof. When you come into a situation with all the answers or when you deflect your mistakes by blaming others (especially your teammates) then you make it difficult for a coach to want to work with you.
Let me tell you something…confidence is good. You should be confident, but you should always be teachable. So, here is some transferrable principles for you when you go for a job, promotion, or a new project.
Always believe you have more to learn. The moment you feel like you have arrived, you realize you are just at a rest station.
Know that you can even learn from those who are less talented than you. I have worked for some knuckleheads in my career but I have learned something from everyone of them.
If in doubt, shut up. Sometimes…you are the smartest person in the room. Sometimes…you are smarter than your boss. Learn self control and let others realize it without you stating it.
Football is the ultimate team sport but the quarterback sets the tone. If you bring in a rookie who without throwin their first pass feels like they are God’s gift…it messes with the vibe of the locker room.
That is why I think he is sliding. I hope this is a lesson that he receives and makes him a better man…and a better QB.
So, last night was Superbowl LIX. The halftime show has become as much of a draw as the game…sometimes more! This year, Kendrick Lamar was the performer. Now, as a fifty year old white man, I will admit I was not his core demographic. So, this morning I scoured the internet to see what other people thought of the performance. What I found was not only disturbing but something that I also see prevalent in the church today.
The discussions would go something like this…
Headline = WHAT DID YOU THINK ABOUT THE HALFTIME SHOW?
Responder #1 = “It was confusing, I couldn’t understand what he was saying, I didn’t like it.”
Responder #2 = “That’s because you don’t understand him or his music, he was making a profound statement and got in a dis on Drake.”
Responder #1 = “I don’t know anything about a diss, I just wanted to hear a good show.”
Responder #2 = “You need to get cultured…you obviously (not like us).”
Turns out, after doing some digging, that the show was rich in symbolism and a message that right or wrong was profound.
*1. Samuel L. Jackson as Uncle Sam – Playing the “house slave” role, just like in Django Unchained.
2. A Warning to Kendrick – Jackson telling him to play the game white America expects.
3. Squid Game Stage – Symbolizing the rich exploiting the poor.
4. Red, White & Blue Dancers – Representing the American flag- notice what’s missing?
5. Prison Yard Stage – A reminder of mass incarceration as Black performers harmonized.
6. Protecting Black Women – A nod to Serena Williams after Drake’s disrespect-karma never misses.
7. “They Not Like Us” – A message to Drake & America: our culture is real.
8. Call to Action – The world is in crisis. Turn off the TV, organize, and unite.
9. “GAME OVER” in the Audience – A bold statement demanding change.
*Commenter on CNN’s Facebook Message Board.
Here’s the problem: the only people who got the message already knew the message.
Kendrick Lamar had a massive audience and a huge microphone at his disposal, and he apparently is someone who has deep thoughts and controversial ideas. So, I believe clarity would’ve been needed. Yes, he is an artist. However, If I am going to be berated by people for not understanding and labeled “not like us”, then art or not…clarity is in order.
Now, that is the most I have ever cared for Kendrick Lamar, and I really don’t care now…my reason for writing this is how similar this is to the church.
The church often speaks in its own vernacular and when young people (or even young believers) don’t understand the message we are quick to write them off as a lost generation.
It doesn’t matter how fancy your services are. It doesn’t matter how polished your sermons are in content or delivery. If the message is unclear to those who need converting, you are simply tickling the ears of the converted. While that might sell some records or fill the pews, it is hardly fulfilling the great commission.
I learned something from Kendrick Lamar…
I learned that clarity is more important that creativity.
I learned that a single message is preferrable to multiple messages.
I learned that for the love of everything holy…speak slower so old folk like me can understand!
“…Jesus Christ our Lord, through whom we have received grace and apostleship to bring about the obedience of faith for the sake of his name among the nations,…” Romans 1:4b-5 (emphasis added)
Grace is the unmerited favor of God. There is nothing that you or I did to earn or deserve the love or favor of God. Yet there it is. Love, forgiveness and favor. Why? That doesn’t make sense. What it is represents the overwhelming love of God. A God that can look beyond your mess and see who you were created to be. But I go back to…why? Why does God bother to love me at all, have grace for me at all?
The reason is because without it there is no way to be reconciled with him. God desperately wants to be reconciled with you. God hates sin and he hates what sin has done to his creation and so through Jesus he has made a way for us to be made right with him. So, he gives us grace so that WE may be reconciled with HIM. He then implores us through our relationship with Jesus to then bring the obedience of faith to the nations.
That phrase “obedience of faith” is interesting to me. It seems to encompass the debate over works or faith to show our love for God. Some through their doctrine seem to believe that you must do good works in order to attain a level of godliness. Others lean towards the idea that it is through faith alone that you attain justification with God. I believe that this phrase points out that it is our faith that leads to obedience. Faith and obedience are intertwined like a rope.
Obedience to do what? Well, according to Romans 1…it is obedience for the sake of his name among all the nations. We must be obedient to live for his name, share his name, represent his name for all the nations. That begins in our homes. That then spreads to our workplaces and places of leisure and then when the obedience requires…to the nation and then the rest of the earth.
In any organization but especially with churches one of the most difficult thing to navigate is transitions. The churches that grow verses the ones that don’t are the ones that prepare not just for the growth but the transitions between the stages of growth. In my experience there are a few numerical stages that seem difficult to attain but when you do there is often a difficult transition to get to the next stage. For instance, in my experiences as a youth pastor and a church planter I have always started in small environments. We started with about 20-25 people so our next stage was to get to was 50. However, as a ministry of 25…we ran ourselves as though we already were running 50. When we finally broke that ceiling of 50 we needed to ask ourselves “What does this ministry look like if we ran 100?” That question is the transition. In that question often requires shifts in teams, shifts in programs, shifts in methodologies…and shifts are often met with push back.
Why change what is working, people will ask. I like the way things are now, people will proclaim. So, as a leader here are a few things that I believe you can do to ease into these transitions smoothly (or smoother).
MOVE SLOWLY – Don’t call your team together Monday to declare a shift to the organization by Friday. The larger the shift the longer you should give yourself to turn. Bill Hybels says to think of it like the difference between a speed boat and a super tanker. One is small and can make quick turns, the other is massive and takes a while to make the same turn.
MOVE GENTLY – You can’t expect everyone to immediately (or ever) completely understand your decisions. So, be gentle in your explanations and in your responses to push back. Change is scary to some people and so you need to understand your team, encourage your team and guide your team.
MOVE CLEARLY – The best way to take the fear out of the equation is to be as clear as possible. Share the Why’s of the shift. Share the goals of the shift? Share the responsibilities of the team of the shift?
There are churches that didn’t want to transition…those are the ones holding onto their traditions and slowly decaying in their buildings. Transition is key to growth. Growing is hard. Thats why it is so rare. Comment below your thoughts or maybe some stories of transitions gone well or horribly wrong.
So, Sunday I had an “episode” between our two worship services. My eyesight got blurry, I saw stars and almost passed out. I made my way to my office and collapsed in my chair. My wife and several others encouraged me to go to the hospital. Which, of course I didn’t. Out of the abundance of caution (I hate that phrase by the way), I went to the hospital Monday night. Turns out, besides being fat, I am fine. My heart, cholesterol, blood pressure is all great. What I suffered from is a panic attack. It isn’t the first time this happened. In fact in college I used to get stress headaches that would cripple me. I hate, as a pastor that I must confess this. The reason I am doing so is to implore you to take care of your mental health. Too often, mental health is ignored or mislabeled in the church. It is either labeled as demonic (which sometimes it can be) or even seen as sin for a believer to struggle with anxiety or depression. I sat in church one day as my senior pastor shouted from the pulpit that it was impossible for a Christian filled with the Holy Spirit to struggle with depression. So, I simply had to struggle in silence. So, I say now as a senior pastor, mental health is a real thing. Mental illness is just as real as cancer, as diabetes or a broken arm. So, if you struggle…get help. Talk to someone, take medication if you have to but I believe many Christians struggle simply because we fail to live as God called us to live. In particular when it comes to having a sabbath.
Take a sabbath. God knows what we need, and we need a day to rest and spend time in worship (not walking around singing and preaching), giving God some attention. What this does is two things. 1) It places God in proper perspective – Too often we are the god in our own little worlds. When we take time to focus on God, it reminds us that we must decrease so that he may increase. 2) It places Life in proper perspective – When you go hard all the time, it forces you to believe that EVERYTHING is urgent, when very few things in your schedule really are. When you take a break, you slow down your mind, allowing you to focus more clearly. Ironically, you will likely get MORE done by taking a day off.
I am not very good at doing this spiritual discipline. Even though it is a commandment of God. However, my life as a father, husband, friend, and pastor is too important for me to ignore what my body is obviously telling me. So, I will strive to be better at demonstrating a godly way of living through sabbath.
Getting it perfect is overrated. Don’t get me wrong I believe we should strive for excellence in whatever we do but sometimes when you focus so hard on getting something perfect it causes a level of stress that is just not worth it.
I read an article in Golf Digest a long time ago where Jack Nicklaus was giving advice on how to make the long putts. His advice was so weird. He said don’t aim for the hole. Too often when you focus on the hole, you over think your swing and hit it too soft or way too hard. He said to draw a circle 1-3 feet around the hole in your mind and aim for that. Ironically, you will get it in the hole more often than you did when aiming for the hole itself.
When we aim for perfection in everything we do, it sets us up for disappointment and burn out. Now don’t get me wrong I am not talking about not aiming for excellence. I’m talking about perfection. Chickfila aims for excellence but they don’t deny every now and then they give out a lemonade instead of a diet coke. We must give ourselves room for error. We must give ourselves room for unexpected delays and unexpected results.
We need to widen the circle. How?
Be careful with deadlines, don’t allow the success or failure of your plan be hung on a deadline. Give yourself some room when you can.
Don’t overreact to success or failure. If it was a good idea, it is still a good idea. Learn from trends not isolated events.
Imagine it is the day after the event, what do you imagine you missed or forgot.
Just some things that I am working on. What do you think?
We are defined by the Gospel of Jesus Christ, which is the good news. The Great Commission Baptists are a cooperative of like minded churches whose foundation is the gospel of Jesus Christ and the mission of sharing that gospel throughout the world. By cooperating with thousands of other churches (the GCB is the largest protestant denomination) we are able to do much more with our tithes and offerings.
We are aligned in our theology. We believe that the scriptures are true from Genesis to Revelation. We believe in the triune God of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. We believe that man has sinned and fallen short of Gods glory and that Jesus through his death and resurrection paid the price for our sins and all that call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. We believe that it is through faith not works that we are saved. We believe that salvation as a gift of God cannot be taken away by man. We believe that the Church is the bride of Christ and the communion of the saints is a necessary part of the spiritual discipline. We believe in baptism by immersion (that is what baptism means). We believe that one day the Lord will return and establish a new Kingdom. We believe that there is a hell and there is a heaven. We believe that all people are called to share the saving faith in Jesus Christ and to use their gifts and abilities to further the Kingdom of God.
We exist with autonomy….each church within the denomination is autonomous. In other words…how we function, how we worship, how we preach is not dictated by anyone other than the Elders of our local church.
WHY DON’T WE CALL OURSELVES LIVE OAK BAPTIST?
Because Baptists have a reputation. The history of the baptist church is riddled with abuse and racism…we acknowledge this and own the sin and repent and grow. Baptists are also seen as rather traditional in their worship styles and approach to society. Baptists are also seen by some as extreme in their political stances that may or may not align with the purposes of God.
WHY ARE WE GREAT COMMISSION BAPTISTS INSTEAD OF SOUTHERN BAPTIST?
In 2012 The Southern Baptist Convention adopted a name change to the Great Commission Baptist. Why? Well primarily as stated that the SBC has churches in all 50 states and all over the world. It is no longer a regional denomination as it was when it began. It also accents the core value of our denomination.
Many churches have tried to change the name in their congregations but many don’t like change or didn’t trust the motivation behind the change…as a church plant we don’t have to fight the battle of tradition by changing the designation
MYTHS OF GCB
Everyone is not a republican
We are racists
We are homophobes
Westview Baptist Church is part of your denomination
There has been quite a lot of talk this week about “unity”. President Biden tried to bring the very divided country together with a speech…the speech spoke often of unity. Then within a day he began to do things that others found quite divisive. Here is the thing…unity is overrated…it is unrealistic and since the beginning of humanity it has been elusive. It sounds good but God never called us to be unified…that is why I love this verse. “Be completely humble and gentle; be patient, bearing with one another in love.” (Ephesians 4:2) Did you catch that? BEAR with one another…that does not give me the sense of unity…if I tell you that I am bearing with you…do you feel warm and fuzzy. Go ahead, tell your wife “honey, I am bearing with you.”, it won’t go well. God knows we are often not going to agree with one another. That is ok. We are better when we disagree, Why?
It forces you to know what you believe (you have to be able to back up what you are saying and so you need to be knowledgable)
It forces you to hone down what you believe to its non negotiables…as you debate with others…there are things you are willing to concede but you will learn what you are not…that is a good thing.
It forces you to learn about other peoples ideas, cultures and thoughts
We are to bear with one another, not agree with one another…not even always like one another…bear with one another with patience and in love. Why?
Be patient because you hope people are patient with you…persuasion takes time
Be loving because the person that you are so frustrated with is also a creation of God and is worthy of the love, grace and mercy that God has given you.
I don’t want unity…I want people who are able to be humble, be persuasive, be gentle and be loving.
Let us reclaim humility and persuasion and do away with words for words sake.
Sean Rheaume 