Learn more about Village Gatherings.
Register for the Corvallis gathering.
Visit the Corvallis OR gathering Facebook group.

If you’ve been to worship@8500, maybe you could leave a comment (here or on the Facebook group) to share your perspective on what these gatherings are all about!

I’m really pleased with that for a couple of reasons.

1. You chose to give well over a thousand free downloads of our music away to people you really care about. One of the best parts was seeing the notes of encouragement you sent to one another alongside the downloads and to hear about the encouragement you draw from the music. That makes Laurie and I feel honored and humbled, so glad to be a part of what God is doing in the world through you and your people.

2. We set a goal that was too big for ourselves. We dreamed something that we couldn’t do without God and without you. I think that is very important. So rather than calling it quits, we’re stepping it up.

Giving Even Recklessly-er in 2012

For a long time we’ve enjoyed having suggested donations (not fixed prices) for CDs at our live events. We love being free to give and free to receive.

In that same spirit we’re embracing a self-determined pricing model for all our albums online, with the goal of getting the music God’s given us into more ears. And hearts, through the ears.

Now on our music page you can choose to pay zero for downloads (and join our email list), or if you want to sow something back into our ministry we’ll receive it gratefully and put it to good work.

I can think of three good responses to this.

1. Think of someone you care about and take a minute share one of our albums with them.

2. Post a favorite song with a quip about why you like it on your social network.

3. Do nothing because you are so zen.

If you like options 1 or 2, there’s a button on our music page that makes it really easy to email or post a link. Click this image and observe. In Facebook it even creates a little audio player, not just a link. Slick.

Thanks for being a part of what we do, and more importantly, what God is doing. We hope this empowers your generosity even further. Have fun sharing!

Visit the music page.

If you’re like me, you’re starting to feel the pressure to get your last gifts checked off that list. Like the one for your wife. Actually, I already got it, Laurie. No peeking.

We added all three of our CDs for a merry price to the merchandise page (http:www.theblackthornproject.com/merch) as a little Christmas gift idea for those of you who are looking to share some kingdom-oriented worship sounds with that special someone. Or with that someone whom you want to be that special someone.

Gift messages and festive packaging are available, in case you are a terrible gift-wrapper (like me) and would like to leave that work to someone else.

There are also some nice posters and my book Back to Basics.

“I’ll say it again,” proclaimed Doug. “God has called us to be rulers, not reactors. For example,” he went on, “if someone comes up and does something that you don’t like, your first notion would usually be to pop the guy in the lip. Now, if you take that thought captive and know that it is not a good one to have and it is not the character of Christ, then you can say, ‘Brother, I just bless you.’ That is learning how to rule in a situation.”

“Now, you may actually say any number of things to the guy,” said Tim, taking up the imaginary scenario, “depending on how the Lord leads you, but what we’re talking about here is a ‘being in the drivers’ seat’ that is befitting sons of God. A sense that you can remain centered in who you are, no matter what the world throws at you.

“A lot of people have never been told that it’s good for them to control their own thoughts and emotions. They imagine exercising that control would lead to an unnatural, robotic life of total suppression, but being a ruler and not a reactor is actually a very creative life. Jesus said that if someone hits you on the cheek to turn the other cheek to them as well. Well, that just turns the whole situation on its head. A strike on the cheek is meant to get a certain reaction, but you don’t just give the world what it’s used to getting when you’re a son of God. You become a ruler over the basic principles of the world. As we read in Galations, ‘You are no longer a slave, but a son; and since you are a son, God has made you also an heir.’”

Ben chimed in, “That must be what Paul’s frame of mind was when he said in Colossians 2:20, ‘Since you died with Christ to the basic principles of this world, why, as though you still belonged to it, do you submit to its rules?’”

For eight days I’m posting excerpts from each of the eight chapters in Back to Basics: Eight Foundations for Kingdom Living, the book I co-authored with Doug Roberts and Ben Pasley.

Each day I’m also going to give one 50% refund on the price of the book to the first person to gift a copy of Back to Basics to a friend from our merchandise page at http://www.theblackthornproject.com/merch.

“A lot of people try to pray their troubles away,” Ben reflected. “I’m not advertising that we should not pray some troubles away. I’m just saying that our obsession with having a trouble-free life by rebuking all manner of trouble, regardless of discernment, is not the way it should be.”

“Sometimes when you rebuke trouble nothing happens because you are actually rebuking God, who has allowed the trouble to happen in order to work for our good,” Doug explained. He opened his Bible and read aloud from James 1: “‘Consider it pure joy, my brothers, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith develops perseverance.’ And then over in Matthew 5:11 it says, “Blessed are you when people insult you, persecute you and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of me.’

“You see, trials and hardships can be a purpose of the Lord in our lives. Hebrews 12 really draws this point out…I am going to read verses 5-11: ‘My son, do not regard lightly the discipline of the Lord, nor faint when you are reproved by Him. For those whom the Lord loves He disciplines, and He scourges every son whom He receives. It is for discipline that you endure; God deals with you as with sons; for what son is there whom his father does not discipline? But if you are without discipline, of which all have become partakers, then you are illegitimate children and not sons. Furthermore, we had earthly fathers to discipline us, and we respected them; shall we not much rather be subject to the Father of spirits, and live? For they disciplined us for a short time as seemed best to them, but He disciplines us for our good, so that we may share His holiness. All discipline for the moment seems not to be joyful, but sorrowful; yet to those who have been trained by it, afterwards it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness.’

We need to understand that in the world we will have trouble, but we take courage because Jesus has overcome the world and has given us His peace. We have to have our identity in Christ because that is where the peace is. We can’t have peace that passes understanding in the world in the midst of tribulation and suffering outside of Christ.”

“I like how you just read that Scripture and then just moved on,” smiled Tim. “I thought you were going to explain it, but you just went on to your next thought. You’re right. It doesn’t really need explaining; it’s quite clear. One thing I’d like to point out, though, is that it plainly says to ‘endure hardship as discipline,’ not to wait for God to tell you if your hardship is discipline. If Romans 8:28 tells us, ‘All things work together for the good of those who love God and are called according to His purpose,’ then I can accept any kind of hardship, or ‘trials of many kinds,’ as discipline for my ultimate good.”

“That’s fortunate,” said Doug, “because my second point is this: I’ve noticed that life is a series of problems. Every time you solve one, another is waiting.

For eight days I’m posting excerpts from each of the eight chapters in Back to Basics: Eight Foundations for Kingdom Living, the book I co-authored with Doug Roberts and Ben Pasley.

Each day I’m also going to give one 50% refund on the price of the book to the first person to gift a copy of Back to Basics to a friend from our merchandise page at http://www.theblackthornproject.com/merch.

Tim nodded, “So we’re talking about two natures here, spirit and flesh, at war inside us. And to be in Christ—or to walk according to the Spirit—requires the Holy Spirit because the things of the Spirit are spiritually discerned. I’m referring back to that passage in I Corinthians from our last discussion, and to Romans 8:1 which says, ‘There is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus, who do not walk according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit.’”

“Being in Christ is a process,” Doug explained. “As you believe in Christ and as you walk in faith, your mind is being transnewed and you are taking on the new image of who you are in Christ. And as you take on that image of being in Christ, then your life is no longer your own. It is in Him that you live and move and have your being, and it is no longer you but Christ in you working though you. You have become one in Christ.”

Ben admirably waited for Doug to finish making his point, but couldn’t contain his laughter any longer. “I think you just invented a new word, Doug!”

His voice became official, as if reading from a dictionary: “Transnewed: being both transformed and renewed.”

Everyone laughed. Ben, not having missed the truth in what Doug was saying, continued, “The more you trust in Christ and the more intimate you become with Him, the more you understand His work and His heart for you. I see myself being moved into an arena where I’ve realized my entire atmosphere—the entire surrounding of my journey—has changed. My perspective is being changed. I am in Christ. I’m really in Him.”

“You are now looking through the eyes of Christ as God sees and loves the world,” said Doug. “Then some things become clearer, like the Scripture that says that God is not counting our trespasses against us but that He has given us a ministry of reconciliation that we might reconcile men to the Father.

“The natural man only looks at the downfall or the temporal things that he can see. What God has called us to now that we are in Christ is to call forth people’s destiny and to know them according to the true identity of who they are in Christ. A lot of times people don’t even understand what their purpose or their destiny is. That question is asked all the time: ‘What am I supposed to do?’ Part of being fathers in the Lord and men and fathers of faith is calling people into their destiny, and the only way to find that destiny is to encourage them to come into an understanding that their life is in Christ. Because their destiny is in Christ. It is not in what they do. It is not in what they don’t do. It is not in performance. It is in Christ alone.”

For eight days I’m posting excerpts from each of the eight chapters in Back to Basics: Eight Foundations for Kingdom Living, the book I co-authored with Doug Roberts and Ben Pasley.

Each day I’m also going to give one 50% refund on the price of the book to the first person to gift a copy of Back to Basics to a friend from our merchandise page at http://www.theblackthornproject.com/merch.

Each day I’m also going to give one 50% refund on the price of the book to the first person to gift a copy of Back to Basics to a friend from our merchandise page at http://www.theblackthornproject.com/merch.

“Well good mornin’,” said Doug cheerily.

Tim got out of his truck, rubbed his cold hands together and took in the sunrise. He pulled a chair up close to the small fire that was already crackling and popping. “Mornin’,” he repeated groggily. As Tim shuffled around the campfire he thought to himself, ‘I have never been awake before Doug, and he has a mood at six in the morning that I can’t find until after breakfast and two cups of coffee. How does he do it?’

“Has Laurie had that baby yet?” Doug said, interrupting Tim’s thoughts.

“You think if she did I’d be in the woods with men?” Tim chided. “No, but any time now.” Tim had driven down the mountain after last night’s recording was finished in order to sleep at home with his wife, who was due to have their second baby right at the end of the camp-out.

“She must really think a lot of you to let you spend your days fishing, hiking, and hanging out with guys while she’s pregnant and has a two-year-old running around the house. Or maybe she just wants to get rid of you,” he smiled.

“Or she knows your book won’t be any good without me,” Tim shot back slyly despite his sleepiness.

Ben stepped out of the RV with scrambled eggs and some large strips of bacon and presented them to Tim and Doug.

“Thanks, I’m so hungry,” said Tim, who started eating without any hesitation whatsoever.

Ben followed with fresh cups of coffee, which Tim held on to like a man lost in the ocean clings to a raft.

Breakfast was quiet except for talk of afternoon showers in the forecast, the dreaming-up of canoeing and fishing plans for the evening, and the comforting crackle of the campfire. Beams of sun came over the treetops and changed the landscape. As the embers cooled from orange to gray, the three men leaned back in their chairs and felt the warmth on their faces.

“All fueled up?” asked Ben. They threw their paper plates in the fire and hopped into the RV, ready to record another discussion.

Doug fired away, “I am going to talk about the most controversial gift that the Father has given us. The devil despises and hates it so much. And the spirit of religion really doesn’t like it much either.

“It is the promise of the Holy Spirit.

Each day I’m also going to give one 50% refund on the price of the book to the first person to gift a copy of Back to Basics to a friend from our merchandise page at http://www.theblackthornproject.com/merch. Early elf gets the deal! You won’t know if someone else has already nabbed it on a given day unless they post a comment to brag about it. 

Doug built a fire and enjoyed some time alone listening to the wind in the trees and the laughter and songs from the nearby camps. The sky was black and bursting with stars when he finally saw his companions re-appear in the warm circle of the campfire’s light.

“How did it go?” asked Doug.

“Well, our hands smell all gross and fishy now,” Ben answered in pretend disappointment.

“Pretty good then!” celebrated Doug.

Tim explained how quiet it was on the lake, as all the daytime hip-hop fisherman and mountain bikers had gone home, and how most everyone else must have been eating s’mores, leaving a private heaven of dry-fly fishing for rainbows from the canoe.

When everything was put away and Ben and Tim entered the RV, Doug was sitting at the table. He wasted no time as they took their seats and gathered their things.

“The next foundation in our life that we need is faith. Hebrews 11:1 says, ‘Faith is the assurance of things hoped for and the conviction of things not seen.’ Let’s break that down into two parts.

“First there is the assurance of things hoped for. If we see that faith is a title deed of the things that the Lord has for us, or ownership of what God has predestined for us to have in Christ, then it is like when you go out and buy a vehicle. They give you a title. If you pay cash for it, the title is a clear title in your name. You own it. It is yours to do with what you want.

“Our eternal destiny is something that God has already paid for and given to us completely and freely. We have ownership of it by faith. We have the title deed to it. Faith is the title to our ownership.”

Tim thumbed through his Bible, landing on the book of Hebrews. Ben listened carefully as Doug continued.

“Secondly, concerning faith, there is the evidence of things not seen. This is faith in action; it is the living substance that gives concrete form to what we have in Christ. It gives body to what couldn’t otherwise be seen—it shows to be true what we believe.

“So, we put these two ideas together: faith is the title deed of the things we hope for and the evidence of the things not seen. I think we miss out on a lot of what God has for us because we really don’t take ownership of that which God has freely given us in Christ, and not truly claiming it, how can we make it evident in our lives? When we take ownership of it, then it is ours and we can do whatever we want with it.