Not Safe, but BRAVE

This past weekend, our church leadership team took part in a simulcast of Willowcreek's Leadership Summit '08. We spent all day Thursday and Friday at a local church here in town, watching a video-feed of a conference on leadership. I'll admit, I wasn't necessarily looking forward to it! Finding childcare for 2 full days and just getting somewhere is difficult and I had looked at the speakers and wasn't too excited. Let me be the first to admit, I was wrong! I had a blast. Not only were the speakers very good, but time spent with our team is always enjoyable! We have the best people!! Yep, I'm a little biased, but I sure do love them.

We learned a lot over those 2 days. . I'm still processing some of it. I think as a whole we learned that we want to be passionate!! I kind of have that one down. . ha ha. . . but sometimes I hate it. I want to hide my passion. I don't want others to be offended by it or think that I require them to have the same passion. After hearing 2 amazing women speak (Wendy Kopp from Teach for America and Catherine Rohr from Prison Entrepeneurship Program), we had a lot of discussion. All of us were touched by their passion. Now, do all of us feel impassioned to jump right into teaching in the innercity or working in prison ministry? Not necessarily. . but, their passion did something to call out ours. I think passion begets passion. So, after loving these women up one side and down the other for being unabashed in their passion. . I've decided not to be ashamed of mine. I want to be excited about what the Father is doing all over the world and share it!!

Wait. . I still have my favorite stuff to share! My ALL TIME FA VORITE speaker . . .and possibly my new favorite person in the world (haha) was Gary Haugen, president of International Justice Mission. He was a phenomenal speaker, and not just because he was totally speaking my language! He started IJM which is a human rights agency that secures justice for victims of slavery, sexual exploitation and other forms of violent oppression. Yeah, so you know his stories and pictures were heart wrenching and beautiful. He said a number of things that I needed to hear.

"If God is passionate ABOUT getting it done, then it's HIS responsibility to do it". sigh. It's like I can breathe again. So often, I feel God's heart and then I just take over. Ok, Lord. . I'll handle that then. But NO, that is not His call. Gary spoke of the feeding of the 5,000. Jesus didn't look at the disciples and say, "Hey, get it done". . no, he asked them what they had to offer and then HE miraculously worked through that meager offering to do amazing things. Oh Jesus spoke to my heart in that. HE is calling us to come out of the safety of what we can do. Gary talked about how, if we can handle everything in our lives. . we aren't really living. We need to be listening and following God into the unknown, the dangerous. God wants to stretch us. . "so Jesus beckons me to follow him to that place of weakness when I risk the vulnerability of a child so that I might know how strong my Father is and how much he loves me." (from Gary's book and speech). Oh yes! He talked about as leaders, calling people out. Not so that they move away from their gifting, but so they move beyond it. So that God takes their gift and mulitiplies it supernaturally beyond what they ever thought possible. He also spoke in line with my favorite quote from CS Lewis about Aslan (Jesus) where the beaver answers the child about how safe Aslan is. . ."He's not safe, but He's GOOD". Gary put it this way. . .God didn't call us to be safe, but to be BRAVE. May we live our lives not missing the adventure. . not staying safe and protected but out on a limb for Jesus. . following Him into the unknown!

God is speaking to me about so many things in this. Big things like possibly going to Africa in a few months, about raising big dollars for an organization and even about how we are possibly going to get 100 women at our women's retreat in a few weeks. It was such a necessary reminder. . .if God is passionate about getting it done, it's His responsibility to do it. All I've got to do is show up with my loaves and fishes, to be obediently following Him. . and the miracles are His job. But, without my obedience. . without the bravery. . .I would miss out on seeing amazing things first hand!