Jesus said, "You are the light of the world. A city on a hill cannot be hidden. Neither do people light a lamp and put it under a bowl. Instead they put it on its stand, and it gives light to everyone in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before men, that they may see your good deeds and praise your Father in heaven." (Matthew 5: 14-16). In this passage, Jesus compares our lives as believers to a city on a hill and a lamp inside of the house.  In other words, we are supposed to light up the world with the message of Christ... specifically in how we live our lives... our "good deeds" as Jesus said.

Let's cut to the chase: Whether we want to face it our not, Jesus has given us the responsibility of bringing people to him.  We can't save people, but we can help bring people to the foot of the cross. Think about your own journey:  Who are the people that helped you step into an everlasting relationship with Jesus?  If you are believer, immediately a person or even a string of people come to mind.  You see, our job is to show them the way, and "the way" is a person... Jesus himself.

We have three great opportunities this week to bring people toward the cross.  This Sunday, we'll do a special Christmas service at 10 am called "The Divine."  I'm going to carefully and creatively show people the message of salvation through the Christmas story and a series of Christmas presents I'm going to unwrap on stage.  Next, we have the FC Christmas party Sunday evening at 5 pm, and then on Christmas Eve, we'll have the Christmas Eve service at 6:30.  All of these events are excellent opportunities to bring your friends, family, and neighbors with you.

Wouldn't it be great if a bunch of people came to know Christ not only as a baby in a manger, but as Lord and Savior over the next few days?  I'm challenging you to pray hard this week and let your light shine.

Pray like crazy... Shine like crazy.

Just came back from Bay Area Fellowship in Corpus Christi.  I am in a mentoring program with fifteen other church starters from around the country where Bay Area shares everything they know about church with us.  I'll be going down there once a month for the next five months.  Bil Cornelius, their lead pastor, began the church in his living room in 1998.  Today, they run about 7000 people a weekend over several church campuses in Corpus and nearby towns.  In other words, they've been there, done that, got the t-shirt.  This is a really great opportunity for me to learn more about organizational and leadership issues as well as practical tactics to reach the lost.

My brain felt like mush last night on the flight home.  I was bombarded with information for eight hours straight.  So much info, but there was one thing that really stuck out.  As Bil talked, he constantly said things like, "we have to reach lost people,"  "this will help you reach the lost," "we will get lost people to come to church in any way we can..."  In other words, in spite of millions of dollars in facilities, equipment, staff, and just about everything else, the only thing Bil really cares about is people stepping into an everlasting relationship with Jesus Christ.

Our church will grow.  It will change.  It will continue to develop. I'm working on plans now for it to do just that in some radically different ways.  In the end, though, the only thing that really matters is that in everything our church does, we are preaching the gospel and people are getting saved.  That is our mission and it is our only mission.  Period!!!

All of us as Christians have those times when our steps get off track.  As believers who are born again spiritually but still stuck in a fallen body and mind, we all sin and react to things that we don't understand - it is just the human condition.  So, what do you do when you do the wrong thing, say the wrong thing, think or react in the wrong way, or fall back into some old sin from the past?  In other words, what do you do when you realize that you are wrong and you have taken steps away from Jesus?  The first thing we want to do is "back track" - to simply take back what we have done and go back to where we were.  Of course, we're not time travelers and its not possible to back track - the only thing we can do is move forward.  To move forward in our walk with Christ, we must:

• Confess - get real with God and admit you are wrong.  Ask forgiveness.  We know from God's word that when we confess our sins to him that he is failthful and just to forgive our sins and cleanse us from our sin.  Jesus will not ignore a humble and repentant heart.
• Make it right - if you have hurt someone else, don't try to back track the hurt - move forward and ask forgiveness and work to repair the hurt you caused.
• Learn - our sin and failure always gives us a chance to learn.  Experience is often the hardest, but best teacher. As long as we move forward and not try to back track, we have the possibility of becoming stronger followers of Christ.  Denying our past doesn't allow us to grow into something new in the future.

After all, Peter denied that he even new Jesus, but he followed these steps and went on to be the greatest leader in the new church that Jesus created.