confessions of a church planter

Confession: I really didn’t want to have Quiet Time this morning. Once I got to my secret place, I really didn’t want to be there. I found that it was hard to get in the zone. Just so you know, the zone is what I call the moment when you realize that God is present with you in your reading and prayer. I love the zone and long for the zone, but when I’m not there or have difficulty getting there, quiet time is difficult. One of the difficulties of getting in the zone is unconfessed sin. Confessing sin is must for being in the Another difficulty of getting in the zone is confessing sin. Sometimes I get tired of bringing my crap to Jesus! Not b/c I don’t think I should bring my crap to Jesus, but that somehow Jesus gets tired of being crapped on. Furthermore, I get tired of my crap. So, this morning I was having a pity party in prayer. Thinking things like “why do I still sin, God?” I was so consumed with this thought this morning that I wasn’t able to reach the zone. So, check this out: While I have a normally scheduled Bible reading, my prayer journal has a verse at the bottom of each page. I happened to look down and it read: Hebrews 4:16, “Let us then approach the throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need.”

That’s the zone and that’s the zone. God met me right there when I was having difficulty meeting Him, which is the way God operates anyway. Furthermore, that is grace! That’s the zone! That verse challenged me to march right into the throne of grace. There was mercy or restrained judgement/punishment awaiting me. There was also unearned favor to help me.

I don’t normally like to share secret place stuff, but I kept feeling pressed that there might be some of you out there who need to know to approach the throne of grace with confidence today. God’s ready to meet with you and The Zone is awaiting your arrival today!

As I’ve stated in my previous posts, a person, a church, and a nation cannot predict revival nor produce revival. Only God breathing a new breath of His Spirit can produce revival or restoration to life. We can, however, set our sails to catch the wind of heaven or open the airway to receive that new breath! The last post dealt with prayer. In this post I want to deal with confession. I know that’s everyone’s favorite subject. It’s certainly mine! Well, I confess, I just lied. Confession is tough, but as Charles Finney said, “a revival is near when Christians begin to confess their sins to one another.”

Confession is a tricky subject. Some Catholics love the discipline. Some former Catholics despise it. Some Protestants think that it’s only something you do once and your ticket is punched to heaven. Others, view it as a healthy discipline of accountability and important for healing. That’s how I see it. I believe that if I confess my sins to God, God is the only one who can forgive me (1 John 1:9). Not only does God forgive me, but he cleanses. However, I also believe that when I confess my sins to another Christ-follower and he prays for me, then healing takes place (James 5:16). That’s why most Wednesdays you’ll see me with a few other guys drinking coffee and confession. Hey, coffee and confession-that’s a good combination. When it comes to confession, we’re responsible for confession about 5 specific areas:

1. Walk with Christ-We share how we’re doing in the areas of prayer and Bible study. Usually this is an indicator of how much we’re going to have to confess concerning the other four areas.

2. Diet/Exercise-Christ calls us to complete stewardship, which includes our bodies.

3. Thought life-If there’s anything that trips-up men more than anything else, it’s their thought life. So many pastors lose ministry b/c of adultery or sexual immorality. A lot of people think it starts there, but it actually starts with one’s thoughts. So, whether it’s a computer screen or someone live and in person, we need to capture all thoughts captive for Christ (2 Corinthians 10:5). Your head always directs your feet!

4. Marriage-Are we loving our wives like Christ loved the Church? That’s a hard question b/c sometimes we (pastors) neglect our wife for the church. That’s backwards, isn’t it. Christ died for the Church so my marriage doesn’t have to (dude, that’s good and if you quote that, please give me credit). None of the guys in my group want to lose our marriages to gain a few more in the church.

5. Church-Are we serving the churches we serve? That’s a good question. It’d be easy for churches to end up serving their pastors, but we’re called to do the opposite. Your definition of serving might be different than mine, but in principle, pastors are called to serve their churches. I just read about a church building/land in Decatur being sold for $17 million. The reason it was sold is b/c the pastor was being served by the church (and it wasn’t healthy service either), not the other way around.

If you can establish some type of honest confession with someone who is trustworthy and be specific in your confession, you’re setting your sails for the wind of heaven. Watch revival come!