Are you the smiler?

Today I went to Hammond to visit my grandpa in the nursing home.  As I walked into the building from my little comfortable world, I wasn’t expecting what I was about to encounter.  Immediately I felt as if I had walked into a war zone.  Despite the buzz of activity along the hallways and the workers moving like bees in and out of rooms helping patients, a feeling of doom, gloom and heaviness filled the air.  There were some patients with more freedom than others.  The ‘others’ were limited only because of their own lack in mobility.  A couple just laid in their beds crying out for help.  If you translated their cries of “help me”, it really meant “I just want someone, anyone, to talk with me…please.  I just want attention.”  What an experience!  It was my first time in such an environment.  I decided to make the best of it, so I did simply what I know to do…I brought my smile down the hall and began sharing it.

First was the aid that came in to feed my grandpa.  She entered the room with a serious expression, almost as if she expected me to complain to her.  I started asking all about her and lightened the air by telling her how special she was to work in such an environment.  The smile instantly became contagious.  She was now infected.  Next I targeted my grandpa.  He cannot hear well so smiling worked wonders with him.  He finally broke his silence by asking me “Are you the smiler?”  I replied “Yes” with another smile.  He said “I like it.”  Again, contagious.  After that, I observed the man sharing a room with my grandpa.  He had no company today (not sure if that was normal or unusual).  He (VERY SLOWLY I might add) got into his bed without one word, took a little power nap, and with the same amount of energy and words, put himself back into his chair.  Down the hall he went.  As I exited the room to leave the nursing home, I began smiling at everyone I passed.  It was as if people had not seen smiles in days or weeks, and didn’t know how to respond.  Upon reaching the front desk, there was grandpa’s roommate sitting all alone with such a blank expression.  I flashed a smile at him with a “have a good day”.  He lit up like a Christmas tree and nodded.  Again, the smile infection continued to spread.

On the drive home, God reminded me how smiling is such a simple and inexpensive gift to give.  In fact, it doesn’t cost a thing.  It brightens the day of everyone around so when you don’t think you have anything to give, you can always share one.  Never under-estimate the power of a smile.

Questions:   Am I leaving a trail of smiles?  How contagious am I?  What am I reflecting to others?

May the entire nursing home be infected with simple smiles Lord.  Fill the building with people overflowing with joy.  Let it be a place of hope and life Lord.  Bless the nurses that work there and the aids that daily take care of so many in their final days, weeks and months.  Pour Your presence and healing in those rooms God.

Miracles, Seeds and Needs – Ps Tommy Barnett

The interviews were great tonight.  Wonderful stories of God working through small beginnings.  Stories of God moving in peoples lives calling them into His purpose.  Then there was Mollie White’s video of the “Awkward Bubble”.  So funny!  However, tonights icing on the cake has to be Pastor Tommy Barnett speaking about our Miracles, Seeds & Needs, and opening the altar for the Multiplication Annointing.  He is a wealth of information and his life experiences are priceless.

PASTOR TOMMY BARNETT

Everything we need is found right in our own house.  You never know what’s in your house.  Miracles are waiting to be found in your house.  Always be on the lookout for the miracle right in your own place.  Look for those that God has anointed.  Pastor Barnett said he has seen more signs and wonders in the last 6 years than he’s seen all of his many years of ministry leading up to that point.  Despite all he’s done, Pastor Barnet (who is 72 yrs young) continues looking for ”his miracle”.

Question:  Am I watching for my miracles?

Pastor Barnett talked about how “needy” he is.  We should all be needy.  He’s in need of a lot of people to help him do what God’s called him to do.  Live a life that’s full of need, the right kind of need.  There are 3 kinds of need:  bad need, wrong need, and right need.  Be aware of the needs in your life.

4 Points Regarding”Need”:

1. You need more of the right kind of need. Phil 4:19  If you weren’t supposed to have any need in life, why would God have a need to supply anything?  Ever thought that maybe the need also comes out of His riches.  The supply of the need is the favor and blessing of God upon the lives of the members and Pastors.  Take away the need, and you no longer need the supply.  Need is not always bad.  Bad need comes out of greed.  The right kind of need attracts the supernatural supply of God.  The whole earth is FILLED with the Glory of God.  We shouldn’t rebuke all of the things wrong with the earth upon waking.  We should give God thanks for the Glory of God filling the earth.  We should have the expectancy of “I cannot wait to see what God’s up to today!”

Question:  What kinds of needs do I see in my own life?

2.   The bigger the need, the bigger the supply. Don’t limit God.  Seek the big needs.  God can supply the biggest one you can imagine.

3.  God knows your need. Matt 6:8  God knows what you need before you even ask Him.  God has a big book of miracles where all of the miracles were recorded before time.  Until you step in, you’ll never see those miracles.

Some miracles are in “seed form”.  Do not allow anyone to devalue you.  NO ONE!  God has prepared people for you that are in seed form right now.  Be on the lookout for them.

The Father KNOWS what you need before you ask.  If you just move toward the vision, He will supply.  In fact, God’s already in the process of answering your needs that you don’t even have yet.  1 Cor 2:6  God has THINGS for you.  Many receive vision and try to hold on to it too long.  Very few people can keep a dream for 5 years.  The nay-sayers come and instill doubt.  They discourage you.  Then delay comes.  It was 40 years until the dream of the “DREAM CENTER” came to pass.  Sometimes you’ve got to wait on the timing.

Question:  What dreams am I holding back?  How can I move forward?

4.  You need to know what your need is. Rev 3:17  ”A needless life is an unproductive life.”  (my favorite quote of the night).

So what do I do now?

• Find a need and fill it! Make it your responsibility to reach others that no one else wants.  You don’t need to be a genius or great theologian to build a church.
• Create a need in others they didn’t know they had, and they’ll be addicted to you. Instead of complaining, find a need that no one does, and build a ministry around it.  A sweet lady in Pastor Barnett’s church overheard him say he liked doughnuts.  She made it her job to make  him homemade doughnuts and coffee every Sunday.  No one asked or told her to do this.  One weekend the weather was bad, and Pastor Barnett really missed the coffee and doughnuts.  She had created a need in him that he didn’t even know he had.
• Seed your need. 2 Cor 9:6  He gives seed to the seed.  When I sow, I put myself in a position to be used by God.  We must learn to be better sowers.  God supplies and multiples the seed sown.  If you reach people nobody else wants, God will give you people everyone wants.  I can ask anything I want for the cause of Jesus with a sincere and right heart, and God will supply it.  Anything for the Kingdom of God.

Tonight, I believe I was among many “miracles about to happen”.  So many dreams in the house.  Pastor Barnett closed with impartation of the multiplication annointing.  An amazingly powerful time with almost every person in the sanctuary going up to the altar.  We should be tired of telling the stories of others.  It’s time to start believing and asking for our own stories.

JOURNAL:  Am I telling other people’s stories and ignoring my own?  What am I believing for?

Lord, open my eyes to the miracles in my own life.  Show me Your gigantic view.  Help me to see the need around me…in my home, in my church, in my workplace…and to put them into motion.  Give me resources to make these dreams of mine come into play Lord.  Thank You for supplying my need before I even new it was there.  May I bring You glory in all I do.

STAY SMALL – Ps Dino Rizzo

Interviews were rolling tonight! We heard from the likes of Matt Fry, Chad Daniel, Ben Rodgers, Dixon Changara, Brandon Meyers and Tabitha Montalbano (she is getting married in 25 days by the way), Mark Plumier from Mission of Mercy, and many others… an All-Star Line Up of leaders and Pastors!  One common thought I continued to hear throughout the interviews was the conference felt more like a reunion.  It was all about relationships, not just a conference.

The Holy Spirit was all over the place tonight. You could feel it from the front of the building all the way back into the studio. Worship was amazing, and Pastor Dino Rizzo delivered a grand slam of a message. Here are a few notes:

“Stay SMALL”  (PASTOR DINO RIZZO)

Pastors Dino and DeLynn have been married 21 years, and he’s been in ministry for 25 years. After all those years of Marriage and Ministry, he’s learned one valuable lesson which he shared tonight. “Stay SMALL”

1 Sam 15:17 – Samuel was speaking to Saul after being in disobedience. He was small in his own sight, and he was anointed despite his view. When he became big in his own sight, he became disobedient.

Other verses pertaining to small starts: Luke 19:17, Micah 5:2, Matt 15:34 (small fish), James 3:4 (small rudder steers the BIG ship), and Zach 4:10.

Do not despise (contempt, shame, disrespect) small beginnings.

Question: Is there any small area of my life I am despising?

Slow steady growth is key. HPC didn’t just grow over night. It took 17 years to grow to size the church is now. Pastor shared a story about attending the “Preach for Growth” seminar where he sat alone in a giant auditorium filled with top of the line equipment. As he sat there, he was despising his small beginning because of the small start he had.  Pastor said “I was shaming, holding in contempt, and disrespecting my current place. I despised it!”

Comparison is ACID to your SOUL. He felt so small in that building. Insignificant and unnoticed. No influence. No one likes feeling small. Anyone ever made you feel small?

Question: Am I feeling insignificant or unnoticed in any area of my life?

Everything God does smarts with small. Think about cell phones (microchip), laptops (processor), cars (spark plugs), and the list goes on. You get the point. Nothing would work without the “small”. We have cars, planes, Starbucks, Wal-Mart, McDonalds…all because of a small idea. ARC was a small 2 church idea (with Cajun leaders at that). Now there are 200 churches involved. God’s growing the ARC one church at a time.

There would be anything if it didn’t begin small somewhere. Nothing starts big. It starts with one seed, one dream, one death, one birth, one thought, one conversation, one blog, one lab, one surrender, one dedication. Small is celebrated in the ARC. Even if a church is listed on the TOP 100 churches of America list, you are still small. The bigness of what we are and what we do is in God Almighty.

25 years of Advice: “Stay SMALL; keep Him BIG.” If you stay small, and He is big.  Then HE will anoint you. We just want the hand of God on our life and on our family…that’s all that matters.

HPC had 11,999 in attendance for the Easter weekend. That sounds so huge. Gigantic until you put it into context. It’s only 0.0038% of US Population and only 0.00018% of entire worlds population. Now really, is that big?  That’s tiny in comparison. NO matter how big you get, always remember you are really small in comparison to what’s really big. There’s only ONE very big God using a bunch of small churches in big ways. ARC is just that… a bunch of small churches on level ground believing in a very big God.

In summary, embrace your small beginnings. Cherish them. Or God might just leave you where you are until you do.

JOURNAL: Where do I need to embrace the small in my life? Am I focused on my place or space? Is my perspective from above or only at eye level?

Lord, help me to embrace the small things in my life. Direct my steps in every small area of my life. May I bring You glory in the small things and never stop dreaming about the God things. All for You Lord!

All Access 2010 (ARC Conference)

Tonight I had the pleasure of being back stage as Dan Ohlerking (@danohlerking) and Jim Gray (@jim_gray) interviewed some of the great Pastors and Leaders involved in this years All Access 2010 Conference (ARC).  What a great line-up!  Jim kicked off with the legendary Hillsong United Band.  What humble young guys!  Dan spoke with Pastors such as John Siebeling and Joe Champion, and then closed up this evenings interviews strong with Billy Hornsby.  Such an anointed man of God!

NOTE:  You can catch more interviews throughout days 2 and 3 at http://www.mediasocial.tv/allaccess2010

Hillsong United began the evening worship with high energy praise for God.  Tonights speakers, John Maxwell and Brian Houston, followed up with an equal amount passion.  I tried to keep it simple, but you just cannot condense such great information.  Hope you enjoy!

John Maxwell

Some random nuggets of wisdom:

• Grandchildren are God’s gift to you for not killing your own children.
• When looking at grandchildren, sometime we ask why did intelligence skip a generation?
• When you turn 60, you just ‘get’ wisdom.
• Every church needs a gong like on the old show “The Gong Show”.  When you talk too long, “gong!”

John chose to speak to everyone as if he were one on one talking off stage with each person in attendance.  If I were to ask the question:  “What would help me to be successful in my life’s career at work, relate better with my spouse & my children, or in ministry?”  This would be his answer to me:  You have to connect with people. His new book “Everyone Communicates, Few Connect” jumps straight into the topic.

None of us are as smart as all of us. Jesus was the GREAT CONNECTOR.  If anyone knows how to connect, it should be His children.

Here are 3 simple thoughts about Connecting to apply at home, business and just every day life:

1. Connecting is all about others.

Others are the grand foundation of connection.  It’s not about you or me, but about others.  Previously, connecting was conceived as getting others to buy in to what I was doing.  John once heard an older gentleman say “If you help people first get what they want, they will help you get everything you want.”

Leaders should never say “hey come up here with me”. If you are at the top alone, you are a hiker, not a leader.  You have to get off the top to find the people.  Leaders never cross the finish line first or alone.

Immature people don’t think of others first. They think of themselves first.  Age doesn’t always mature us. It just doesn’t enter the mind of a 5 year old to do something for someone else.  Sometimes it doesn’t enter the mind of a 35 year old.  It should but it doesn’t just occur due to age.

Leaders give up the right to think of themselves first. They no longer live for themselves.  Leadership is about servanthood.  Not about titles, but about towels.

Only the secure can stoop. Insecure people cannot do that.  To the insecure it’s all about ME.  In all actuality, it’s all about others.

JOURNAL:  What kind of leader am I?  Others focused or me driven?

2. Connecting requires energy.

Energy is a tremendous requirement. Only difference between a great dating life and a great marriage is the amount of energy you put into making the other person like you.  So often, when one gets married, the focus switches to “how are YOU gonna meet MY needs???”

Question:  How do you connect with those you do not have anything in common?  It requires ENERGY…and a lot of it!

Look at the inconvenience of Jesus connecting with us.  The energy He paid to connect with His people is a great example to us.  It’s completely worth it.

JOURNAL:  What type of energy do I put into connecting?  Am I an energy booster or power drainer?

3. Connectors find common ground.

Connectors understand to be effective, they must go where the people are, experience their culture, know what they know… Must find common ground.  It’s huge.

As great connectors find common ground with the people, they lift them to higher ground with them.  Once you get on the common ground with them, then you are able to help them move up with you.  You’ve taken the time to know them so well that you become acquainted with them.  Relationship has been formed, and it is the key.   It’s the common ground in ministry.

Relationship isn’t the common ground in the secular setting; it’s about “respect”.  John Maxwell found as a Pastor the majority of his following was from business leaders.  He learned one thing in the secular world:  You can still take Biblical principles learned from the Bible and simply present them without a scripture quote linked on it.  Regardless of the crowd, God still shows up and speaks.