In the weekend services at Journey we concluded as short series on 3 of the 1st four kings of Israel called “Tools and Fools”.
Check out the video created for the series by our amazing Dan Stevers

Tools and Fools from Dan Stevers on Vimeo.

Sometimes when you preach / teach you feel like the very series or subject matter is especially “in step with the Spirit” (there’s a J.I. Packer book by this title – thus the quotation marks). This stuff really seemed to strike a cord & do so at the right time. For me the most poignant thought that will haunt me is the idea that three of the first four kings of Israel fell into life wasting foolishness. They all feel from not only knowledge of God but from amazing experiences of God. I see so much foolishness still “bound up in my heart”. I hope you are praying with me, “lead us not into temptation.”


I LOVE WHERE OUR COMMUNITY IS GOING IN WORSHIP! We were talking in meeting today about this and I remembered what Jack Hayford (in my pastor hall of fame click here for his website) once said in an interview:
“It is infinitely easier to cultivate a congregation that will listen to the Word of God than to cultivate a people who will worship God.” (For the Christianity Today article click here)

We at Journey are not there yet, and wherever “there” is will be distinct to us, but I’m encouraged by what God’s doing & has already done. Let’s press in!

HOLY SPIRIT MOMENT – I was struck in our Friday Night services that the worship needed to continue on the last song specifically we needed to pray with arms open before the Lord. It’s an odd and not altogether helpful historical development that when we say, “let’s pray” we close our eyes and become more closed with our bodies. So I got up and it seemed like a moment in which God wanted to meet us. But I love how God is willing to interrupt hundreds of people because He has something special for one! After the service, a young single mom who found Jesus and Journey at the first of the year came up to me to tell me how she felt tonight like the Lord was telling her take it up a notch in her worship. She felt specifically like God was prompting her to raise her hands. But she was a little scared and didn’t. When we messed things up, she felt so affirmed and like God was reaching out to her. This woman came to Journey at the very end of hope ready to totally give up. You can now see hope all over her. I love a God who says to building full of people, “you all don’t mind if I stop your service to connect with someone I really care about do you?” May we always answer, heck NO!