ONE for ONE Impacts Single Mom and 3 Kids

This week ONE for ONE provided $507 in groceries, toiletries, and basic supplies for a local single mom and her three kids! 

Here’s a letter we received this week:

Dear Rock City,

When you announced that in February our ONE for ONE efforts would go towards blessing single parents, I could not stop thinking of our dear friend whose life was literally turned upside down six months ago.

It was at that time that our friend was shocked to realize that her husband had been keeping a terrible secret that would impact their family forever. The months following were like a nightmare as formal charges were brought against her husband and he was convicted and sent to prison for 18 years without the possibility of parole.

They were the picture-perfect family. She was a stay-at-home mom and he took care of providing for the family. Their three children were involved in sports, church, and had many friends.

Fast forward just six months … she (without an education beyond high school) is a single parent struggling to provide even the most basic needs for her children.

This journey for our family has been difficult as well, as we have struggled with the trust that was broken and the anger at what had taken place. We were devastated that we had potentially put our family in harm’s way and blindsided since we thought we knew this man whom we had called a close friend.

During the next few months God began to work on our hearts and give us the compassion we needed to help our friend and her children through this difficult time. We realized that her children needed a safe place to share their family heartaches with and to let loose and have fun.

Eventually, we decided to reach out to them like Jesus had reached out to us. As we did, we realized just how dyer their situation was … without any income, limited savings, a mortgage, private education and bills piling up by the minute.

One day I dropped by with a pack of toilet paper and you would have thought I brought by a thousand dollars. Our prayer is that God’s love would be shown to this fragile family and that their hearts would begin to heal.

Thank you Rock City for being Jesus to our dear friends!

What I LOVE about Rock City is the heart of the people. On Sunday, after hearing what Rock City was able to do through ONE for ONE, several people stepped up to offer additional support!

In all, this week we were able to bless this family, through ONE for ONE, and through the awesome generosity of the people of Rock City, with $1,314.00!

Now … THAT’S ROCK CITY!

THAT’S THE CHURCH!

I’ve Got Sex On My Mind [Part 3]

If you’ve read my last two posts, you know where I’m headed with this. Sex is everywhere. Sexual temptation is everywhere. And if we’re honest, even the most noble of people, even the best of Christians can easily fall in this area. Even the most committed husband, even the most honorable mother can fall in this area. Our culture baits us sexually from every direction and from every angle. That’s why, when it comes to sex, we need more than guardrails … we need reinforced steel. So here’s 3 more guardrails to consider …

3. ESTABLISH ACCOUNTABILITY
First off, let me just say this as directly as humanly possible … IF there’s a computer in your home that’s not protected with anti-porn software or some sort of accountability software, you should throw that computer in the trash. When it comes to sexual purity online, when 70% of men in a given month give in, when 57% of Christian Pastors saying it’s a strong temptation … there’s NO NEED TO TRUST ANYONE … not yourself, not your husband, not your wife, not your children … no one. When it comes to online purity, trust won’t get you far. I won’t even trust myself. Rather than trust I suggest that you KNOW online porn isn’t an issue for you or someone you love by taking the appropriate precautions. Examples of available software are SafeEyes and X3Watch. Download one, use it. You won’t regret it.

When it comes to life in general (real life, not online life), it’s also important to have accountability with someone you trust. Remember, a conviction unspoken is a conviction that WILL BE broken. Find a Life-Giving friend and be honest. It’s worth it to have a person in your life that you can be an open book to.

4. HONOR GOD’S DESIGN AND INTENTION FOR WHEN AND WHERE SEX IS TO BE EXPERIENCED. It’s natural for us to drift from God’s design and intention. We’ve been doing it since the original fall of man. Honoring God takes intentional effort and discipline. And when it comes to sex, we’re always trying to see how close we can get to the line without technically stepping over it. Every time sex is mentioned in Scripture it’s ALWAYS in relation to marriage … either as something to be enjoyed and experienced within the context of marriage … OR something of a slippery slope with a world of regret waiting for you at the bottom.

When sex is experienced between two people, there’s a vulnerability that’s shared. And God has created the safest place possible for such vulnerability and intimacy to be shared … and that is within marriage. It’s not that God doesn’t want us to have fun. It’s not that God wants to stifle, but God knows what’s best. And it’s our job to trust him and honor Him. Period.

5. IT IS NEVER TOO LATE TO BEGIN AGAIN
This may not sound like a guardrail, but it may be the most important guardrail you establish in your life. Here’s why … no matter where you’ve been, what you’ve done, what’s been done TO you, it’s never too late to begin again. In Christ, there is no condemnation. There is peace, joy, life, forgiveness, and new beginnings.

For someone that means that, even though you’ve been sexually active since the time you started following Christ, you can draw a line, establish a guardrail, and decide to honor God with your body from this point on. Today can be your new beginning.

For someone else, maybe you’re living with your significant other, and you know that with as good of intentions as you may have of remaining sexually pure together, sleeping in the same bed, living under the same roof certainly isn’t going to help your cause. Sometimes when we separate ourselves from these kinds of circumstances for the moment, there is just enough space created for God to supernaturally work in our hearts, heal us, restore us … and the intimacy gained will be far greater, between you and your significant other, and between you and God, than ever before.

Bottom line, most of us have made plenty of sexual mistakes. Most of us carry with us guilt from past sexual experiences. And, if we’re honest, it’s really not all that easy to remain sexually pure in this culture. BUT, IF we are intentional,  IF we have accountability, and IF we establish guardrails to protect and direct us, we CAN honor God … we CAN remain pure. And I can promise you this … no one has EVER regretted establishing these kinds of guardrails … but a lot of people HAVE regretted NOT establishing guardrails BEFORE it was too late.

I’ve Got Sex On My Mind [Part 2]

1 Corinthians 6:18 tells us to FLEE from sexual immorality. Notice the Apostle Paul isn’t urging us to “pay attention” or “be careful.” He’s telling us that, if we’re really going to live the life Jesus died for us to be able to live, then, when it comes to sexual experiences that are outside of God’s design and will, we should FLEE … Run fast.

If you’re a Christian you know this. If you’re not a Christian you’re probably thinking … “Who cares? I don’t need some pastor or book telling me how to live my life, especially THIS part of my life!” But here’s what I know about you … This is what YOU WANT! Maybe not for yourself, but for the people you care about the most. This is what you want for your husband, for your wife, for your boyfriend, for your children, grandchildren. You don’t want your husband or your little girl flirting with sex … you want your husband, wife, son, daughter to FLEE!

We’re told to flee because sex really is a big deal. Our culture will tell us that sex is purely physical … but we all know better don’t we? Sex is so much more than that.

The thing about disaster is that it’s pretty much possible to bounce back from just about any kind of disaster. A person can suffer professional disaster … lose her job and go bankrupt. She works hard, makes good decisions and comes back stronger than ever. Physical disaster … a college athlete has a career ending injury, told he will never walk again … but he overcomes the odds and wins the silver metal at the Olympics. These are the stories we love to tell, we love to hear. They are stories of triumph. But when it comes to sexual disaster, sexual sin, sexual histories, these are the stories no one ever wants to talk about. We don’t laugh about. Married couples won’t stay up late to entertain one another with stories from their colorful sexual histories. Why? Because it’s more than physical … and the damage done will follow with you for the rest of your life.

That’s why we need guardrails. We’re being baited. We’re being pulled, lured. And it’s not easy anymore to stay faithful, with our eyes, with our hearts, with our bodies. Even with the best of intentions, it’s still possible to run into sexual disaster because it’s all around us.

Here’s two more guardrails to consider …

2a. [For Marrieds] I WILL NOT ALLOW MYSELF TO BE ALONE WITH A PERSON OF THE OPPOSITE SEX. This is when you’re supposed to tell me how this is way too extreme and impossible to live up to. And it’s also when I tell you how I live this out in my own life.

As a pastor, there are a lot of people who require my time. There are meetings. There are coffee appointments … lots of them (and I don’t even drink coffee). Early on in the life of our church I found myself in a meeting with a woman about an opportunity for our church. We were at a local lunch spot so there were lots of people around. I didn’t know what this woman looked like until we met face to face. It’s always been a no-brainer for me to NOT travel alone with another woman … NOT to ride in a car alone with another woman … those are easy, common sense. But everybody knows that meals are where deals are made. So, I had this meeting. Problem was, she was quite attractive. And I found myself feeling a bit awkward.

I called my wife after our lunch appointment and told her that I felt awkward and that the woman I had just met with was quite pretty. I also told my wife that I really didn’t think I should’ve had that meeting alone. It’s not that I did anything wrong, or even wanted to. These kinds of meetings happen all of the time. BUT, I’m not interested in living an ordinary kind of life because the natural ebb and flow of our culture doesn’t do much for honoring marriage and maintaining sexual purity. So, we decided, no more coffee appointments, no more lunch meetings, no more one-on-one counseling appointments with woman alone (which, I don’t think I’ve ever done anyway). If the need arises for me to meet with a woman, I take my wife, or somebody else. And I’ve become a master of connecting women with other women … you would’ve thought?

It’s a guardrail that’s WELL within the safety zone, so this one gets a big of pushback, but it’s a guardrail worth implementing. When I think of the story of Joseph and Potipher’s wife in Genesis 37, it says that “One day [Joseph] went into the house to attend his duties and [no one else was inside].” That’s when Potipher’s wife jumped Joseph and tried to get him in the sack. Joseph did the right thing, he RAN … BUT … because he was alone, it still ended quite badly for Joseph. He spent many years in prison on attempted rape charges. My point is, why open the door to question? Why open the door to unnecessary temptation? Just establish the guardrail.

2b. [For Singles] I WILL BE CAUTIOUS AND INTENTIONAL ABOUT THE TIME I SPEND ALONE WITH A PERSON OF THE OPPOSITE SEX.

Here’s a few thoughts on what being cautious and intentional looks like.

Being cautious means I won’t spend the night at my boyfriend’s or girlfriend’s house. If you’re a Christian, that should be a no-brainer. Sadly though, it’s not. Don’t set yourself up for a fall. Don’t open the door to temptation. Be cautious.

Being intentional means you’ve established boundaries, TOGETHER. Remember this: A conviction unspoken will be a conviction broken. I learned this the hard way during the time I dated my wife. Any time we held back our personal convictions from each other, we’d violate them. We’d cross the line and then say things like, “I thought that’s what YOU wanted …” And then the other would say something like, “I thought that’s what YOU wanted. I really didn’t want to cross this line, yet, here, now …”

Communicate. Be open. Establish boundaries. And honor God in your relationships. When you’re intentional and open about the boundaries you’re establishing in your relationships, it’s easier to honor God. It’s easier to remain pure.

[I'll post the last 3 guardrails tomorrow] …

I’ve Got Sex On My Mind [Part 1]

I’ve got sex on my mind, and apparently, so do you. It’s been said that men think about sex every seven seconds. Women, five times a day. That really is an impossible statistic to prove. Nevertheless, sex really is EVERYWHERE. Our culture sells sex like it’s no one’s business. I can’t even walk through the mall without feeling a bit uncomfortable with Victoria showing her secret … and have you noticed how realistic those mannequins have become …

The thing is, about sex, everyone in our culture would agree that there IS an age that’s too young for a little boy or a little girl to engage sexually. But then look at what’s being marketed to little boys and little girls. And the advise we give to children about sex is, “Don’t have sex until you’re ready.” Let’s be honest, that’s lame advice.

Everyone in our culture would agree that at some point online sexual activity becomes a bit awkward, to say the least. But when 70% of men regularly polled say they’ve looked at porn online in the last 30 days … and when 57% of Christian Pastors say online porn is a real and present struggle … what gives?

What our culture does is bait us as close to the edge of disaster as humanly possible and then chastises us the moment we step over the line. That’s why we chastise Christian Pastors who fall … famous actors who admit themselves for sex addiction … and we say, “How could they … That’s horrible … Gross …” But why the surprise? We’re being baited everywhere we turn. And all they’ve done is taken the bait.

And, if we’re honest, every single one of us is just as vulnerable. That’s why we need guardrails. That’s why we need need men and women who will say enough is enough … Who will establish guardrails … boundaries when it comes to sex.

The interesting thing about a guardrail is that it’s never placed in the danger zone. It’s always placed in the area of safety … but its job is to protect and direct us, to keep us from STRAYING INTO the danger zone.

So, I’m going to offer you 5 guardrails to consider. These are guardrails I use in my own life. They may sound extreme, BUT, it’s my personal conviction that, in this area, one can never be too careful. And, there may be just one person who establishes one or more of these guardrails and SAVES their marriage … or lives the life they were created by God to live … in freedom … with no baggage, guilt. So, before you knock it, give it a try.

Here’s the first …

1. NO MORE SECOND LOOKS

This is one that us guys can practice EVERY day. Matthew 6:22 tells us that the eye is the lamp to the body and if our eyes are good our whole body is good. There’s another scripture that literally tell us that if our eyes cause us to sin, it’d be better to gouge our eyes out than to continue sinning. I don’t know about you, but I’d rather establish a guardrail in my life that says, “NO MORE SECOND LOOKS.”

The story of David’s affair with Bathsheba illustrates the power of a second look. David sleeps with a married woman, gets her pregnant, and then has her husband killed to cover his tracks. And it all started with a second look. 2 Samuel 11 records that David was walking around on the roof of his palace when he saw a woman bathing. We’re told that the woman was VERY beautiful.

I think it’s safe to say that a guy can tell a woman is beautiful at first glance … but a woman is VERY beautiful only after a few looks. And that’s what happened with David. And if you read the story, it wasn’t like David was out LOOKING for trouble. He was just taking a walk, riding to work, leaving the office at the end of the day …

This is one of the hardest guardrails to live with because EVERYWHERE in our culture we’re being baited, especially men, who are naturally motivated by sight. But that’s also why this guardrail is so important. You’re not going to get it right every time, but when you get it wrong, if you’ve been practicing this for a while, it’s going to feel like you just had a train wreck. When I catch myself going for a second look, I feel awful. And that’s what a guardrail is for. I crash against the guardrail sometimes, but there’s far less damage and guilt when I hit the guardrail I’ve established in my life than there could be had that guardrail not been in place, and had I allowed my mind to wander.

NO MORE SECOND LOOKS. Try it for a week. I think you’ll be surprised at the bait that’s vying for your affection. And tomorrow I’ll give you a few more guardrails to try out …

Show Me Your Friends

I had a youth pastor who used to always say, “Show me your friends and I’ll show you your future.” And to be honest, I’d make fun of him behind his back because he’d say it literally, every week. But what I’ve come to know is that “Mike” was right. My friends really will influence the direction and the quality of my life!

And this is something we grew up with. Our parents would freak out about who we were spending the most time with. They’d establish curfews. They wouldn’t allow us to spend the night at certain “friend’s” homes. Some of our parents even stepped in and ended romantic relationships on our behalf … because they understood what was at stake. They understood this principle, that ultimately, the people I surround myself with, the people who make up the greatest influence in my life will greatly influence the direction and the quality of my life.

Proverbs 12:26 says that “The righteous CHOOSE their friends carefully …”

Do you see it? Too many times we justify the unhealthy relationships in our lives.

“These are just the people I work with … That’s just my family … Those are just the guys I go to school with … They’re just my friends.”

But the truth is, you and I have a CHOICE as to who surrounds us and who yields the greatest influence in our lives. Our friends don’t happen by chance. We CHOOSE our friends, and the friends we choose WILL ultimately influence the direction and the quality of our lives.

So, with that, here’s a few guardrails I’m offering as a suggestive way to choose wisely those people that make up our core … that yield the greatest influence in our lives.

I think your conscience should light up … you should be very concerned when:

1. Your core group of friends isn’t moving in the same direction you want for you.
If you find yourself in a place where, what you want spiritually, what you want financially, what you want for your family or for your marriage is not shared by the people that surround you … that should concern you.

2. You catch yourself pretending to be somebody you’re not.
If you’re always trying to “fit in.” Or, if you’re always putting certain values on the back burner, or pushing certain principles aside because you want to be included or accepted, you’re heading toward dangerous ground.

3. You feel pressure to compromise.
Often, when we hear the word compromise in church, we consider the obvious vices. But let me suggest that for many, the people with whom you compromise the most are with your “Christian” friends. When you’re with certain “Christian” friends you become more self-righteous. You begin to compromise what you know is God’s will for you … You begin to develop this “us versus them” mentality and your focus shifts from reaching the lost to filling your endless appetite for Bible knowledge and deeper teaching and you suddenly forget that it’s not about you and how much you can get, but it’s about them … and how much you can give and serve and what you can do to reach the lost. Because, that’s our mission. That’s something we ought never to compromise. Don’t become a Christian jerk.

4. You hear yourself saying, “I’ll go, but I won’t participate.”
This is true of any area of our lives … and I tell this to people who participate in our LifeGroups all the time … if you can’t open up and be real and honest about who you are and where you’re at with the people in your LifeGroup or the friends you spend the most time with, you’re living a lie. If you can’t openly participate because you feel the need to hide something … or if participating means you’ll be compromising a moral value … that should trouble you.

5. You hope the people you care about the most don’t find out who you’ve been with or where you’ve been.
It’s not that you’d have to defend something you’ve done because “technically” you’ve not crossed the line. You’ve not done anything wrong. But there’s just something inside of you … that still small voice … that says, “I’m just not comfortable vocalizing who I’ve been with or where I’ve been to my husband, or to my wife, or to my LifeGroup leader, or to my friends.” That’s not a good place to be. You need a guardrail.

What we need are Life-Giving Friends:

Friends who KNOW life the way Jesus defined life. He said, “I am the way, the truth and THE LIFE.”

Friends who are COMMITTED to living out God’s will for their life.

Friends who are committed to seeing God’s will lived out in OUR LIVES.

THOSE are LIFE-GIVING friends! That’s who we need to be surrounded by.

Rock City + Crack House =

Rock City + Crack House = An Awesome Day!

This weekend at Rock City was EXCEPTIONAL for a few reasons. For starters, Sunday was the highest attended service to date. It’s absolutely mind-blowing what God is doing here. There was such a tangible energy at both the 9:00am and 10:45am worship experiences. It was a great day.

But the BEST part of the day was when we got to give our FIRST ONEforONE check to Pastor Mitchell and CRACK House Ministries!

I met Pastor Mitchell last year. I reached out to him after reading an article about CRACK House (Christ Resurrects After Crack Kills) in Relevant Magazine. We met, and I knew pretty immediately that CRACK House was a ministry we were going to partner with. Pastor Mitchell and his team run a sober home program for men overcoming addiction and their innercity ministry reaches out to people who are desperate and battling drug and alcohol addiction.

Our ONEforONE mission is to GIVE ONE DOLLAR to a local or global need for every person that walks through our doors, every week. One for One, every person, every week. And on Sunday, we were able to bless CRACK House Ministries with a check for $2,000!

I told Pastor Mitchell he had two minutes to share. He showed up with an egg-shaped timer … he said, “I brought this egg, cause you don’t give a black pastor a microphone and expect him to only talk for two minutes.” HA!

It’s good to have friends like Pastor Mitchell. And it’s good for Rock City to continue to develop relationships with people and organizations that are moving in the same direction and making a real and tangible difference in the places where God has called them. And it’s so exciting to think about, in the course of this new year, how many checks we’re going to write … how many needs are going to be met … how many people are going to be loved and blessed as a result of ONEforONE!

Let’s keep this momentum going! And let’s continue to LIVE OUT generosity!

And remember, we’ve only just begun!

Why I Don’t Drink

Just a quick note about this post – we’ve begun talking about guardrails and how to apply guardrails in specific areas of our lives. A guardrail is designed to be placed NOT in the most dangerous part of the road, but in a part of that road that “technically” it would be safe to drive … but the purpose of a guardrail is to keep vehicles (people) from straying into dangerous or off-limit areas – areas of regret, remorse, pain and even death.

So, this is a guardrail that I’ve established for myself in the area of drinking alcohol. I am not in any way suggesting that EVERYONE should establish the same guardrails as I have. These are mine. And this is one guardrail that I’ve personally positioned in my life to keep me from straying into dangerous or off-limit areas. You may agree and you may not. But I am not in any way trying to impose my personal guardrails on everyone. They’re mine. For me.

That said, it HAS always surprised me how much push-back I get from well-meaning Christians when they find out I don’t drink. This is especially true of younger Christians, particularly those who grew up in an era of overly-legalistic churches and over-protective parents … of which I too am a byproduct.

I can’t speak for them, even though sometimes I want to. But here’s why I don’t drink -

First, I know me. I have quite the addictive personality. And I REALLY enjoy the taste of alcohol. But I also know God, and I know that His plans for me are far greater than anything I could ever dream or imagine. So, I’m not interested in doing anything that could mess that up. I’m not interested in putting myself in a position of drinking too-much. Ever.

Second, I know people. And in all of my years in ministry I have never once heard a story of … “Finding God was hard, but the moment I found beer, it was as if heaven opened and suddenly I felt closer to God and my marriage began to heal and my kids started respecting me more.” I’ve never heard that story. But I’ve heard multiplied dozens of stories of people who have abused and/or struggled with alcohol as well as an untold number of stories of people who have come from families or situations in which alcohol was abused. So, because I know people, I refuse to be a stumbling block … I refuse to make alcohol an issue for anyone that may be or have struggled with alcohol addiction. And some of those people are in my own family.

I love the passage in Ephesians 5 that we studied last week. Paul says, if you’re a Christian, don’t get drunk. He doesn’t say that drinking alcohol is a sin. And I don’t think that either. I’m sure there will probably be a few people getting raptured with a corona in their hand … of course, you do know, the corona will have to stay …

Paul doesn’t even say that getting drunk is a sin. But what he says is … drunkenness leads to something else … something else that I think we’d all agree is something we should all avoid at any cost … and that is debauchery. What’s it mean? It means extreme indulgence that leads to a loss of self-control.

I think we’d all agree that anything and everything that leads to a loss of control, our heavenly Father is against. And why should we expect anything less of Him? Whether it’s food or money or anger or pride or greed or alcohol … anything and everything that baits us to a place where we lose control, that’s a dangerous place to be. That’s why we need guardrails.

Nobody ever plans to mess up their life on purpose, but a lot of people have because they never planned NOT to.

So, I’ll still never understand the pushback, especially from Christians, when they find out I’ve nailed down a guardrail in my life when it comes to drinking alcohol.

All I know is, just because I CAN doesn’t always mean that I SHOULD.

And it’s my personal opinion that there are a whole lot of people, Christians included, that need to nail down a more solid guardrail when it comes to this particular issue as well. There’s a lot of Christians who spend way too much time trying to walk as close to the line as humanly possible without falling into sin. And there’s a whole lot of younger Christians that need to bring it down a notch … stop trying to overcompensate for your legalistic and over-protective past. I get it. But your past doesn’t have to define your future and who you are today. Stop allowing it to.

My suggestion, Paul’s suggestion in Ephesians 5 …

Embrace what you KNOW in your heart God’s will is for your life. Just because you can doesn’t always mean that you should. And this isn’t for everybody. But it’s for some, just like it’s for me. And if this is for you, be encouraged. You’re not alone. You may find yourself often in the minority, but you’re not alone.