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Prayer to Be Jesus’ Hands and Feet

This is one of my favorite quotes that I read in my morning prayer book a few days ago. It’s from Teresa of Avila and helps me to put things into perspective:

“Christ has no body now on earth but yours, no hands but yours, no feet but yours. Yours are the eyes through which Christ’s compassion is to look out to the world; yours are the feet with which he is to go about doing good; yours are the hands with which God is to bless people now”

Powerful isn’t it. Reflect on it a moment. Would people say your eyes have the compassion of Christ? Would people say your actions are the loving actions of our Lord? Would people say your hands are the hands that they receive the blessing of God from?

I know I rarely live up to that standard. So my prayer today, and maybe yours can be as well, is this. “God may I be your hands and feet today. May you take these hands and use them to bless. May you take these feet and help me to do your good today. And most of all may you change how I see the world and the people you love with only the compassion and grace you see them with. Amen”

by Andrew Mills

How to Launch a Vision

So on Sunday we talked about the practical steps Nehemiah takes to see his vision start to come to fruition. We see the steps he takes that leads to action, progress, and development. We came away with three steps:

  • Deal with reality
  • Share with clarity
  • Own your responsibility

Nehemiah begins by dealing with reality. He shows up in Jerusalem and doesn’t assume he knows the people, place, or process to build the wall. Instead he waits and inspects the wall before going public with the vision. Because a vision shared prematurely dies quickly. A vision that isn’t connected to reality doesn’t succeed. So he adjusts his plans and figures out how to the build the wall not in theory but in practice. So he first deals with reality before sharing publicly.

He then shares his vision, but he shares it with clarity in 4 steps. He says what the problem is, what the solution is, why it needs to be done, and why the timing is right. Each of these steps leads to clarity and then commitment on behalf of the people. He shares that the problem is the walls are burnt and down, that the solution is to build the walls, that it needs to be done because they are a disgrace, but it’s the right time because God is with them at this very moment. So they all agree and begin to build the wall.

The last thing Nehemiah does is he owns his personal responsibility in the vision. He consistently speaks of “we” rather than “they”. He doesnt’ show up and give the city officials the plan, resources, and letters and then say “Now you build the wall”. No, he knows that if God has given him the vision, he is to be part of carrying it out. Too often people get a vision and then expect their church, their pastor, or their little committee to program it, run it, and own it. The truth is we need to personally own and be responsible for what God gives us. We can’t expect others to risk or give more than we are personally willing to give or risk.

So with Nehemiah we see him deal with reality, share with clarity, and own his personal responsibility. And when he takes these steps his vision launches and begins to succeed. So in our own personal visions, dreams, or desires there is a lot we can take away. We need to deal with the reality of where our family, business, or ministry is at. We need to share with clarity why change needs to happen. And we need to own our personal part in the whole vision. Those are the steps Nehemiah takes, and I believe there is wisdom in following his model. Because at the end of the story Nehemiah gets the wall built, a people restored, and a future is renewed. And I think we’d all like to live a life with that type of legacy and meaning…

Adult Discussion Questions: Has God given you something to live for? If not yet, how can you find out. If so, what is the reality you are dealing with? What is the problem, the solution, why it needs to be done, and why this is the right timing? How have you seen people’s visions “compete” before? How can we ensure our personal visions don’t ever compete but complete God’s overall design? How much are you personally willing to give for your vision?

Challenge This Week: Deal with Reality – Inspect the Walls of your vision

by Andrew Mills

Learning to Launch Well

This Sunday we are going to be looking at something very practical. When God gives you something to live for ~ how do you actually go about doing it? Let’s say like Nehemiah you’ve been given a vision, a passion, or a burden for something. You’ve been waiting, praying, and preparing and the door to walk forward opens. So you start to tentatively believe and move forward to God’s vision for your life. What do you practically do to ensure you’ll succeed?

Because the truth is, it can be both exciting and terrifying to start to try to make a difference. When you start to step out into God’s dream for your life you can be worried it will falter, you can reach opposition, and you can be unsure of the next steps. So on Sunday we are going to look at the steps Nehemiah takes and how they relate to our own personal lives. How if you want to start a ministry, launch a business, save a relationship, we can discover some practical steps to moving forward. And then next week we’re looking at how to deal with opposition. But for this week we’re going to look at the steps to take to launch a vision well.

But before we get there if you were to decide on a few next steps for yourself personally what would they be? If you were to launch that business, that ministry, to start that new job or calling, what might some of your initial thoughts be? Think about those and then come Sunday we’ll see if they are similar to the steps of Nehemiah…

To catch up on the series before Sunday download all the sermons here.

by Andrew Mills

Failing Communities = Failing Churches

Here is a general rule I live by:

If your church is doing well and your town isn’t; your church is not doing well.

The point is that the church can’t grow and thrive as the community that surrounds it and supports it fails. If the church is growing but your neighbors are drowning in debt, depression and difficulty, the church isn’t really growing.

  • The church cannot be doing well, if our neighbors are struggling.
  • The church cannot be doing well, if the youth of the town aren’t valued.
  • The church cannot be doing well, if single mothers across the street aren’t loved.
  • The church cannot be doing well, if people don’t know one another’s name…

The point for me is to change our perspective. My goal isn’t to have our church grow massive; but to have a deep impact in the people and places that we are a part of. My goal isn’t for the church to be the biggest church in the area but to truly be the church to the area; meaning that we bring life, love, and grace to people needing it.

I think this is what Jesus gets at when he calls the church salt. Salt is supposed to change things. It’s supposed to preserve good things, enhance flavor, and bring out great taste. This is what the church is to do too. So today why not bring a little flavor and life to your community. Help a neighbour, start a conversation, invite someone over for coffee…

Because I think the reverse of my rule is true too. If your community is being filled with grace, life, God’s love, and is doing well…then your church is doing well too…

by Andrew Mills

The Waiting isn’t Wasted ~ Plan, Pray, and Prepare

On Sunday we talked about chasing after God’s vision for our lives. We shared that a meaningful life, is a life lived in God’s way. That meaning comes through the life that God has for us.

So we tackled how do you start to live this way? That if God gives you a passion, a vision, or a burden to make a difference – how do you start to follow it?

Well, the odd answer found in Nehemiah is to wait.

Nehemiah is given an amazing vision from God and then does something unique. He waits before moving on it (Neh. 2:1). But what we discovered is that in the waiting time he wasn’t idle, he wasn’t passive and he wasn’t simply reluctant to get going. He was praying, he was planning, and he was preparing for the right moment to step out.

The temptation is to rush forward, or to give up on the vision God has given us in the waiting time. Nehemiah though, doesn’t rush forward or give up, instead he prays, plans and prepares. Nehemiah believes that while he is waiting, God is orchestrating things. Nehemiah knows the timing needs to not be“right”, but God’s timing, before he moves forward. So he waits for God to open the door and then courageously walks through it.

Andy Stanley writes, “A vision rarely requires immediate action. It always requires patience”

So my challenge was this: if you are in the waiting time, are you using it well? Are you planning, preparing and praying? Because God’s path for you to make a difference won’t open until you’re ready. So trust that God is orchestrating things, but also prepare and pray.

Because the message of the gospel is that nothing in our lives is wasted. Even the waiting time isn’t wasted, and God wants to use it to ready you to make a difference…

by Andrew Mills

Finding a Vision Worth Chasing

On Sunday we looked at how Nehemiah found a vision worth chasing. He wants to build the wall of Jerusalem, to heal a people, and to bring dignity back to the land. I think many of us want similar visions. We might not want to build a wall but we want to do something lasting, that has a legacy, and changes lives. So the question is where do you begin? How do you find God’s vision that’s specific to you?

Well I think the answer is simple. You start praying and paying attention. The first step is to pray. Start asking God to show you where your life should be going. Start asking God to reveal to you what you should be giving your life to and then start looking. But just don’t think of what you want to get rid of, think of what you want to create. Peter Senge writes, “Most adults have little sense of real vision. We have goals and objectives, but these are not visions. When asked what they want many adults will say what they want to get rid of. They’d like a better job – that is, they’d like to get rid of the boring job they have”. The point is Nehemiah didn’t want to just get rid of his job, he wanted to give himself to creating a whole people. Nehemiah wanted to be part of creating something, not just getting rid of something in his life. Nehemiah was given a burden to change the state of Israel. And this is often how visions begin: as burdens.

So start paying attention to your feelings and thoughts. Are there things that grab your heart, break your heart, that you want to create, or stir your desires? Here are some of the questions I ask:

  • What passions has God give me?
  • When I look out in my life what grabs me?
  • If I could be doing something what would it be?
  • What do I want to change around me?

Who knows what God might want  to do with you. Maybe it’s for you to give your time and energy to save your marriage, to build a new business that values people and the planet, maybe it’s to start a ministry, maybe it’s to make people whole and healthy, maybe it’s to launch your kids well. The possibilities are endless, but ask God what do you want to create through with me.

Donald Miller writes this, “The ambitions we have will become the stories we live. If you want to know what a person’s story is about, just ask them what they want. If we don’t want anything we are living boring stories, and if we want a Roomba vacuum cleaner, we are living stupid stories. If it won’t work in a story, it won’t work in life.”

So what ambitions do you have? What type of life, community, family, neighborhood, or church do you want to create?

Spend time today with God asking him to reveal to you where your time and energy should go. And start paying attention to yourself because God has designed you with a specific purpose, passions, and plan. So what excites you, what burdens you, what change do you want to see? What do you want in life? And I hope it isn’t just a Roomba vacuum cleaner…..

by Andrew Mills

Chasing Cars…Promotions…and Power

On Sunday I started a brand new series called “Where Is Your Story Going?” The point of this series is to examine where our lives are headed, and how we can discover a new vision for our lives.

I began sharing this quote from Donald Miller, focusing on the last phrase:

If you watched a movie about a guy who wanted a Volvo and worked for years to get it, you wouldn’t cry at the end when he drove off the lot, testing the windshield wipers. You wouldn’t tell your friends you saw a beautiful movie or go home and put a record on to think about the story you’d seen. The truth is, you wouldn’t remember that movie a week later, expect you’d feel robbed and want your money back. Nobody cries at the end of the movie about a guy who wants a Volvo.  But we spend years actually living those stories, and expect our lives to feel meaningful”

Miller is right that we do spend years actually living those stories. So for the next six weeks we are going to discover, through following Nehemiah, how to live different stories, how to live better stories, and how to live lives with meaning, passion, purpose, and vision.

So on Sunday we shared from Nehemiah 1 examining how Nehemiah was given a vision to build the wall in Israel. This wasn’t just a vision about brick and mortar but about restoring a people and giving hope. This is a vision God gives to Nehemiah. It’s a vision to change lives, to change a country, and change a people.

These are the types of visions that God wants to give us, to give to you. Desires to change our marriages, ministries, workplaces, communities, companies, and even countries.

And as we work through this sermon series we’ll look at the next steps to take to pursue a vision, how you overcome obstacles and hurtful people, and how to fulfill God’s vision for your life. But we closed with this challenge to spend time this week and see where is your life going? To spend time praying asking God to give you a vision like he gave Nehemiah. Toask God, “ are you chasing after Volvo’s or God’s dreams for you?”

So today do just that. Spend some time with God, ask him where your life is going; ask him where he would have it go? And then in a few days I’ll post some more thoughts on how to discover God’s vision for your life…

Adult Discussion Questions: What did you think of Donald Miller’s quote? Where is your life, or story, going? Are you chasing after something of value and meaning or not? Has God given you a passion, burden, or desire for something greater like Nehemiah? What is it? Or how can you discover it? Spend some time this week talking to God about where your life is going

Discussion Questions for Families: Spend some time sharing with your family what is worth living for. Ask your kids what some people live for (money, fame, to be cool, to be strong). Ask them what they think they should be living for. Share with them some of what you want to live for.

Challenge for this Week: To ask God to give you a vision to live for.


by Andrew Mills

What’s Best About Our Church…

A few weeks ago at church I asked us to fill out a survey about our church. I was looking for feedback on our strengths and areas that we could improve. Some of the best answers though came from the question, “What is the best thing about PEMC”. So what I did was break down all the answers into word, and put into a wordle (which is the cool graphic below).

So if you attend our church my guess is that some of these words are the reasons. And if you don’t attend our church now you can know a bit about what the flavor is like here.

Church’s are meant to be a blessing to others. And this church has been a blessing to me. But regardless of whatever church you attend why not be a blessing back to your church? Take a moment and write to your leadership, your pastor, or person who you serve with sharing with them why you love them and the church. Share a blessing to the people and place who have blessed you…

Wordle: What PEMC Is...

by Andrew Mills

My Biggest Temptation…Each and Every Day…

“Let us leave a little room for reflection in our lives, room too for silence…Let us hear the Word of God in stillness and perhaps we will then come to understand it” – St. Augustine

Want to know what my biggest temptation is as a pastor? Want to know the one thing that I’m tempted to do everyday that would be the downfall of my ministry?

No it’s not something sensational. No it’s not something full of mystery and intrigue. It’s something everyday and ordinary.

My biggest temptation is to go to the office…and get to work.

Yep that’s my biggest temptation. My biggest temptation is to actually skip meeting with God, and get busy doing work for God. My temptation is to skip reading his Word, spending time praying, and get a lot of stuff done for God. Do you sense the irony and the problem with that?

The biggest factor in my relationship growing with God is spending time with him and reflecting on his Word. The problem is that seems so…inefficient. The problem is that it doesn’t seem to accomplish a lot, or change the number of things on my to-do list.

But that’s the temptation isn’t it? To see time spent with God as optional, as inefficient, as unnecessary, as not actually accomplishing things. But the type of change that happens through daily spending time with him isn’t instant. It’s long-term, it’s legacy building, it’s mentoring of the deepest sense. And it matters more than anything else. Nothing impacts your walk with God as much as spending time with God.

So now when I’m tempted to run and do ministry for God, I try to remember I’m really meant to do it with him. I try to remember that when I choose to stop doing things and be with Him.  It’s giving him space to do something in me and through me. I try to remember that time spent with God is the best way to spend my time.

So while I still get tempted to get to work…I’ve learned through enough failures that the work can wait. What can’t wait is the need for me to grow with God.

So today if you get tempted like I do, why not carve out some time, read a passage, reflect, pray, and pause. Take up the challenge and see if your day doesn’t go better by involving God in it…

by Andrew Mills

Overwhelmed By God in a God-Absent Place

Last Sunday we talked about Ezekiel 1. You saw my most terrible rendition of the passage on a white board. In case you missed it – here’s what you missed.

Yes it was that bad…

The point though was that this is a difficult passage to picture, it’s a difficult passage to understand, it’s overwhelming and even a bit odd. So what we wanted to discover was what does this passage mean for us?

I asked each of you to think of one place where you assume God isn’t in your life. The reality is that we each have these places where our experience tells us God just isn’t there, or that active. That in this relationship, that workplace, that family, that street, that place God doesn’t seem to be there.

But as we discovered Ezekiel was in a place where God was supposed to be absent and gone. He was in a far away land, in a different god’s land, his temple was gone, his connection with God was strained and he felt alone.

But what is so amazing is what God does.

He shows up and overwhelms Ezekiel with his presence and a vision. That even though Ezekiel was sure he was in a place God wasn’t, God shows up. Amidst all the amazing details of the vision, one incredibly important one stands out. Ezekiel had a vision from God, a connection with God, in Babylon, a place God wasn’t supposed to be.

So what we can learn is that even those places in our lives where we feel or think God is absent or isn’t active – that he can show up and surprise us. There is no place in our lives thatis absent from the presence or activity of God. And on Sunday we prayed that in those places where we feel alone, that this week God would surprise us, overwhelm us, and connect with us just like he did for Ezekiel.

So as you go off to school and you feel God isn’t there, as you enter that workplace that seems so dark, as you meet with that friend where it seems God is no where near…may you discover him today just as Ezekiel did in a surprising, life changing and deep way.

Because this vision is a reminder to us that when we feel far from God, and alone, that today could be the day he shows up, surprises us, and changes our lives…

Group Discussion Questions:

– What places in your life does God feel most absent? Where do you wish he would most show up? What do you think Ezekiel felt after that encounter with God? Do you trust that God can show up even in dark places? Who can you have commit to continue to pray for you that God surprises and shows up for you?

Discussion Questions for Young Families

– Spend time with your kids asking them – is there anywhere God can’t be? Ask them how they know God is with them? Then spend time sharing with them that God is always with them, and that they know that from the Bible and God’s promises (i.e. Hebrews 13:5)

by Andrew Mills