In a chat this afternoon with Jeff Fulton and discussing future office space and what we want to see on a daily basis.  One thing we are thinking about is some quotes worth living by.  Here are just three we came up with.

The Art of Living   

A master in the art of living draws no sharp distinction between his work and his play, his labor and his leisure, his mind and his body, his education and his recreation.  He hardly knows which is which.

He simply pursues his vision of excellence through whatever he is doing and leaves others to determine whether he is working or playing.  To himself he always seems to be doing both.

Disturb us, Lord, when We are too well pleased with ourselves, When our dreams have come true Because we have dreamed too little,When we arrived safely Because we sailed too close to the shore.
Disturb us, Lord, when With the abundance of things we possess We have lost our thirst For the waters of life;  Having fallen in love with life, We have ceased to dream of eternity And in our efforts to build a new earth, We have allowed our vision Of the new Heaven to dim. Disturb us, Lord, to dare more boldly,
To venture on wider seas Where storms will show your mastery; Where losing sight of land, We shall find the stars. We ask You to push back The horizons of our hopes; And to push into the future In strength, courage, hope, and love.

-Francis Drake - circa 1577

" The point is, He wants you to know Him: wants to give you Himself. And He and you are two things of such a kind that if you really get into any kind of touch with Him you will, in fact, be humble -- delightedly humble, feeling the infinite relief of having for once got rid of all the silly nonsense about your own dignity which has made you restless and unhappy all your life."

-CS Lewis

I just spent the last few days meeting all kinds of new people and even saw some old friends I haven’t seen in years.  I was at Church Multiplication Network event, Multiplicity08.  I’m just amazed at what God has allowed me to be a part of.  I heard all kinds of stories of people that are going to where others need help.  Some are bridges of compassion, others bringing hope to the hopeless, helping moms all over and hundreds more.   I don’t know where to start…

I think I’ll start with a guy by the name of Jay Covert.  Jay is reaching the community of East St. Louis.  If you are familiar with the St. Louis area, you know that East St. Louis is a place you avoid and hope to never find yourself after dark.  Talk about a community of lost and hurting people.  Jay has spent the last four years there making a real difference.  He takes flowers and chocolates to the prostitutes, has relationships with the drug dealers on the corners and is on a first name basis with the mayor.  He’s even used the mayor’s office as his own a time or two.

Friday morning I met with Alexandra Kuykendall from MOPS (Mothers of Preschoolers) where their slogan is “Better Moms make a Better World.”  They have about 4,000 groups nationwide with over 100,000 moms involved.  They have now begun mobilizing those moms to reach their community.  She tells of a group that has started reaching out to moms in a low-income housing teaching them life skills and building relationships.  They have another group that is in a half-way house doing the same thing only the government mandates the women to go to these groups. 

Last night I had the chance to meet J.R. Mahon.  If you don’t know the story of XXX Church and the ministry they have the porn industry you really need to check out what they are doing.   JR Was the architect behind that and has now branched out and is starting hollywoodpastor.com where he is reaching that community and discipling writers, editors, and actors/actresses.  Talk about an ignored group of people from the Christian community.

These three people are great examples of multilplying the church and not just by building buildings but truly building bridges to those who don’t have the love of Christ. 

I also heard from our keynote speakers Dave Ferguson, Alan Hirsch, Bob Roberts Jr, Dave Mills, Daniel De Leon, Dave Olson and George Wood.  All men with great passion for multiplying the church and seeing people loved with God’s love.

I challenge you today what are you doing to build bridges to the hurt and lost world?

First thank you to everyone praying. I want ask you to continue to pray. My dad suffered a stroke yesterday. He has little to no use on his left side and is finding it difficult to formulate completet thoughts. The doctors say with some physical therapy he should be able to recover most of his motion.

This was a big scare as it was completly unexpected. Please continue to pray. It's been a scary night and hard to see my childhood hero like this, but God is faithful.

Again your prayers have been felt, thank you.

lincoln in bouncer from Leo Crosby on Vimeo.