Pastor Brent Shares Recent Testimony / I Need A Waterfall

Hello Friends! Brent here. Last Saturday on Facebook live, I poured out my heart a bit regarding God’s grace that I am still alive (after an emergency angioplasty last Tuesday) and shared how my experience in the natural has distinct parallels to my kind Father’s ongoing surgery deep within me: “The message God spoke to us in Christ is the most life giving and dynamic influence in us, cutting like a surgeon’s scalpel, sharper than a soldier’s sword, piercing to the deepest core of human conscience, to the diving of soul and spirit; ending the dominance of the sense realm and its neutralizing effect upon the human spirit. In this way mankind’s spirit is freed to become the ruling influence again in the thoughts and intentions of the heart.” (Hebrews 4:12, TMT) In the end, this is what I know to be true at the core of my being: God is astoundingly good; and our lives really are all about Jesus! With all that’s happening in the earth, we can forget what our spirit knows to be true. Take in this message from my dear friend Jason Clark and find your way deeply back into Jesus. It’s the only place you were meant to be! Click to Watch Brent's Message - Saturday, June 20

I read a meme online this week. “Some poor phoneless fool is probably sitting next to a waterfall somewhere totally unaware of how angry and scared he’s supposed to be” And I thought, “I am exhausted.” And then I thought, “Oh Jesus, forgive me. I have been outraged. And rightly so. But along the way, I’ve become angry and scared.” Racism has been the primary focal point of my righteous outrage. But even as I’ve focused there, I couldn’t help but notice in my peripheral other great injustices. There’s the systematic racial abuse of millions in China, there’s the new outbreak of Corona Virus in our overcrowded and broken prison systems. There are thousands of children enslaved in the brickyards of Pakistan. Inequality is ravaging our world. And I am outraged! Then there are the approximately 11,00 babies aborted in the US this week. This means there’s 11,000 mothers and fathers who lost their sweet little ones this week under the devastating pretense of a better future. And I am outraged! Then I read about a new injustice at our southern border, about the abuses perpetrated on impoverished nations by big pharma, the newest disgusting Trump tweet, the newest gross Biden controversy, another story on how my city is a hotbed for human trafficking. And I am outraged! And I’m exhausted.         I need a waterfall. I need Jesus.  And not the outraged, flipping tables, calling out Pharisees and exposing religious and corrupt government systems, Jesus. And also not the, feeding the hungry, healing the sick, calming the storms, raising the dead, Jesus. I need Jesus, the personal, cry together, laugh together, relational connection with my best friend, Jesus. I need the triune Jesus. The “it is well with my soul” intimacy of the indwelling Holy Spirit, Jesus. The confident knowing of the pleasure my Father takes in my presence, Jesus. I turned off my news feed today. I found a waterfall and gave Jesus all my anger and fear. It wasn’t helping anyone, and it was killing me. And Jesus replaced it with grace and love. And it flooded me like mighty rivers… His grace filled me and reminded me that my only focus today is to be one with my best friend, to receive and grow confident in the perfection of His love. And then to love others in the compassionate expression of His goodness, to live as a response instead of a reaction. In grace, I can weep with those who weep, but I can also speak to Lazarus, “come forth!” In grace I can flip tables in outrage, but only because I am also willing to lay my life down for those behind the tables. The outrage that changes and saves this world is the outrage of love. And so I lean into His love, a relational grace; the empowering evidence of my friendship with Jesus. And now, no longer exhausted, I am ready. Full of life, I am ready to love in all the transformative ways love does. Turn off your news feed for a minute. Go find your waterfall today. Grace.

Follow Jesus Away From Your Comfort Zone

Navigating through the current goings on in our society and in the world can be confusing and frustrating, to say the least.  Some say this, others say that and so many are attempting to take the lead.  But which way do we go? Who do we follow?  JESUS, that’s who!  I guarantee He’s not arguing with anyone on facebook, bashing anyone for not agreeing, worrying about what to do and so forth.  Reminding ourselves that we are “Jesus Followers” is a daily necessity. However, when we remember that, we also need to do away with trying to lead Him or have Him lead us where we want Him to lead us. He just ain’t gonna do that.  He’s got bigger and better plans and it’s most likely going to take you to some places you wouldn’t have gone on your own.  In John, chapter 4, we see that Jesus decided to leave a bunch of religious leaders, who were trying to stir up dissension, and go elsewhere.  He made a stop at a well in Samaria.  Others wouldn’t have made this stop because the Samaritans were looked upon as lower than and even hated.  Jesus isn’t like that though. His dad is LOVE…He is LOVE.  He encountered a woman who was an outcast among the outcasts.  After his time with her, she felt seen and loved.  Jesus let her know that He saw that her life matters.  Not only did this impact and bring a shift to her life, but she told the news that this man of love from that "other race" came to their territory with a message that they matter. Another time we see Jesus go out of his way again, surprising His followers once more.  In Luke 19 he calls on the tax collector, Zacchaeus to come down out of the tree and have dinner with him….at Zacchaeus’ house!  This man was an oppressor of the people…the bully…the lawless law!  Though grumbling complaints began to come from the crowd around, Jesus kept His course and blessed this man, letting him know that he is worth loving.  This very act, this detour Jesus made, brought Zacchaeus to a place of repentance and even repaying wrongs he had done to the people. If we are following our own agenda, or our own opinion, or some angry person on social media, we will keep going and miss the turn with Jesus.  We’ll just walk right into oblivion while Jesus is bringing hope, redemption, identity, compassion, love and healing where it was needed.  Of course we know that sowing seeds like that always produces a great harvest.  Let’s not miss our opportunity to sow life-giving seeds. Today, how about we humble ourselves, turn to Jesus and say, “I stopped following close behind and became arrogant.  Show me what I can learn today.  Teach me how to take care of something that will produce good fruit, rather than a whole bunch of nothing.”  He will so lovingly take our hand and tell us, “Come up here. Come up now.”, no matter how far away we went.  It’s time to really trust the Lamb who is a Lion because He knows exactly where to walk through all of this.                                                        Love, Todd

Every Life has Infinite Value / Justice

As so many of you, my heart has felt incredibly heavy and grieved over the pain our world is sitting in right now. Our African American friends are hurting deeply (and have been for many years) from racial injustice. So many are suffering from the effects of the pandemic. Cities need to recover from rioting and looting. Only Jesus can make the wrong things right again. He doesn’t only execute justice; He IS justice. Justice is the restoration of everything that would attempt to violate or hinder love. It’s what Jesus paid for on the cross and He is more than able to take the weight of every heavy burden you’ve been carrying.  I have had some hard, but healing conversations with some of my beautiful black friends and young adults in my life this past week. Recently I heard a pastor say that we need to learn to sit and listen before we take our place and “stand with”. Sometimes we’re hesitant to approach topics like racism for fear that we’ll say the wrong thing, adding further pain to an already deep injury. But for many of our African American friends, silence can be very painful and feel like apathy. I want to encourage you that you don’t have to say everything perfectly. In fact, the best thing you can do is simply listen and offer empathy right now.  Nehemiah wept over Jerusalem. He was fully invested in seeing the wall rebuilt around it to protect the people from enemy attack. If we want to see real healing happen in our communities, we need to invite God to close the distance between our own discomfort and the pain our black brothers and sisters are feeling. We sometimes dismiss others’ pain because we haven’t experienced it ourselves. It can also cause us to look at our own hearts and the blind spots we may have. Let me encourage you that this is a great opportunity to allow God to highlight those areas and bring truth. Taking a posture of humility, laying our defenses down, leaning in and listening to the cries of others is the doorway to the healing Jesus wants to pour out on the earth right now.

"If others are weeping, join with them. Work toward unity and live in harmony with one another. Avoid thinking you are better than others or wiser than the rest." - Romans 12:15 - 16 -

To our African American friends: We are sorry for the ways we haven’t used our voices enough to speak up against the injustices you experience. We are sorry you’ve had to defend yourself and expend so much emotional energy trying to convince others that racism is still such a prevalent problem. We are sorry your pain has often been dismissed and overlooked. We are sorry for the ways you haven’t felt fully seen or known.  Jesus, we ask that your love would cover every heart. We pray that you would bring healing like only you can. We pray for the families of George Floyd, Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor and the many others who suffered injustice before them. Show us how we can be part of the solution that will bring lasting change. We pray that EVERY person on the earth would not be given anything less than the infinite value you’ve placed on them.  To quote Lisa Meyer-Jones, “IT’S TIME!” Love, Karena