July 13th, 2010 by Tim Moore

Another question I’ve been wrestling with in regards to this so called dichotomy between faith and responsibility is this:

Can you step out in faith in one area of your life and expect God to bless it when you are NOT being responsible in other areas?

I’m not so sure that God will bless one area of bold faith when you have other areas of your life or business that aren’t measuring up to His standard.

Let me explain.

Some people in the church continually ask God to bless their finances or their marriage, when they are continually living in sin. They might be addicted to alcohol, having an affair or engaging in online-pornography. Yet they still want God to bless their finances or be with them as they begin a new business. I’m not so sure that our obedience in one area compensates for our disobedience in another. In fact, I’m pretty sure it wont!!

When you look at Luke 16:10-11 from this vantage point it would seem that faith and responsibility work together.

“Whoever can be trusted with very little can also be trusted with much, and whoever is dishonest with very little will also be dishonest with much. 11So if you have not been trustworthy in handling worldly wealth, who will trust you with true riches?

This is challenging to me as a church leader who wants to take bold steps of faith to reach people with the Gospel. It causes me to pause and make sure that in every area we are being RESPONSIBLE with what God has given us before we ask him to bless our steps of faith. If we can’t be trusted to be responsible with what God has given to us, how can we expect him to bless us with more?

For you this might mean?
…you need to balance your checkbook and get your finances in order before you take a new job that moves your family.
…you need to confess a sin in your life that may be indirectly affecting God working in your marriage.
…you need to deal with a relationship matter before you begin a new ministry venture.

Before you take your next step of faith, look to see if you are being responsible with what you currently manage.

July 2nd, 2010 by Tim Moore

Continuing to use my painful dental procedure as a teaching tool, here’s another lesson we could extract regarding sin.

2) If you don’t deal with it…it will mess you up.

I had always heard that if your wisdom teeth don’t bother you, leave them alone. After all, why did God put them in your mouth if you didn’t need them? I didn’t really have very much pain from them at all. I didn’t want to have them out. But my orthodontist told me something concerning. He said that if I didn’t remove the impacted tooth it would eventually destroy the other good teeth next to it. That got my attention! I didn’t want to think about dentures!

What most people don’t realize is that when we leave sin in our lives without dealing with, it eventually will mess up the rest of our lives. Someone who drinks a little too much on the weekend, doesn’t think it interferes with the rest of his life. That is until it causes strife in his marriage and his kids to want nothing to do with him. The Bible says in James 1:15 that sin when it is fully grown gives birth to death.

While your sin may live under the gums now, at some point it will begin to destroy the good teeth. All sin comes with consequences. You might live it up now and think nothing of it. But I can tell you for sure, at some point it will begin to destroy your life.

What you need is an extraction. Only Jesus can extract the messed up sin from your life. The Bible says in 1 John 1:9, if you confess your sins he is faithful to remove it from your life. It might not hurt now, but it will someday. It’s better to deal with it now.

If you are wrestling with a sin in your life and don’t know what to do, here are some things that might help you extract it.

1) Confess it to God. He already knows, but is waiting for you to invite Him to help you deal with it.
2) Tell someone you trust. I have found that until you confess your sins to someone else, you will never get serious about dealing with it.
3) Remove the tendencies to do it again. If drinking is a problem stop buying alcohol. If pornography is an issue, get rid of your computer or put filters on it.
4) Take it one day at a time.

June 3rd, 2010 by Tim Moore

Have you ever noticed how creativity and order seem to live in opposite worlds…or at least we see it that way. We think that creative minds must be free of order in order to create. We often try our best to keep organization out when we want creativity to flow. We even portray creative inventors in our media as people who live in piles of rough drafts and totally disheveled lives.

But I’m learning the exact opposite is true. The more order you have…the more creative you can be. All of us have the ability to be creative. We were made in the image of the ultimate Creator. One attribute that differentiates us from the rest of creation is our ability to create new things from nothing, much like how God created this world.

I have found that the more order or organization I have the more creative I become. The more prepared I am for a message in advance, the more room I leave for my mind to create more unique ways of stating things. I have often lived on the edge of stress and deadlines which has often forced me to “create” rather than allowing creativity to come.

If you want more creativity, create more order in your life. Organize your schedule better, manage your time more efficiently and allow the creativity to flow.

April 13th, 2010 by Tim Moore

I have thoughts that I ponder often in my head. I thought today I’d share them with my blog world!
Here are some random things I often wonder about.

1) Do other people who are not in full-time ministry think about the church as much as I do?

2) Why are some Christians the weirdest people I know?

3) If I had started playing golf when I was 2 years old…could I have been a pro-golfer? (of course the answer is no, but I still wonder)

4) What is our church going to look like in 1 year?

5) Is my staff really going to hell? (Inside joke)

6) How many people live around central Ohio who never go to church? And why?

7) How many people say “Crossroads is my church”? Because we only see some of them once very six weeks and Christmas and Easter.

Why so many people in the church today think they can be a Christ-follower without doing any of the things he COMMANDED us to do?

9) How God is going to fulfill the dreams I feel he has given me for this church? (Sometimes it seems impossible to me)

10) Will I ever get to play golf this year?

February 26th, 2010 by Tim Moore

I want to take a moment to let all of my readers know about a free concert this Saturday evening at Crossroads. This was not really advertised to the entire church, so consider yourself an insider if you read this.

Our worship leader, Joe Miller, will be reuniting with his old band (thehungr) to put on a little private concert. We actually use some of thehungr’s songs in our weekend experiences. Songs like Amazing, Closer Walk with Thee, and Heartcry are ones that we sing at Crossroads. If you would like to hear more of thehungr, you are invited.

The concert is free and begins around 8pm on Saturday and will probably last about an hour. This is just a concert, not a church event. So don’t expect childcare or coffee! And give them some slack, they haven’t played together in 3 years!!

October 15th, 2009 by Tim Moore

Sometimes I find myself in situations where I desperately want to hear from God. I might have a big decision that needs to be made and I want to know that I’m making the right one. So I am driven to spend more time in God’s Word and get up earlier so I can spend more time in prayer. I say, “Okay God…speak now.” And almost everytime I do that, I never get the answer…then. That’s frustrating!

But then, at a time when I’m not focused in deep prayer or reading God’s Word, the confirmation or answer will come. It’s the weirdest thing. I have felt God confirm things in my heart while on phone conversations with people, listening to someone else preach, or just driving down the road. I can’t figure out God. I don’t know why He does that.

I am learning that the most important thing we can do is ALWAYS be listening for Him. I believe God speaks to us through so many ways, but most of the time we are so tuned into other things we don’t hear him speaking. When we constantly talk with God throughout the day and stay tuned into His Spirit, we can hear his voice so much more! (John 10:14-16)

Does that mean I don’t need to get up earlier or spend more time with Him? NO!!! I believe God uses that time to PREPARE me to hear from him. To get me in tune with Him first. If I don’t TUNE into his voice in those quiet times, I don’t believe I will RECOGNIZE Him at other times.

Check your frequency… Get in tune with Him and you will begin to hear his voice…even at times when you least expect it.

September 11th, 2009 by Tim Moore

Every time I write the date 9/11 I am instantly reminded of that dreadful day. Most of us remember where we were when it all happened. I wonder if people felt like that in the years that followed Dec. 7, 1941? It reminds me that we are still in a fight and have soldiers on the line today.

In fact, this week someone my wife used to work with lost a son-in-law to a bombing in Iraq. I was shocked by that news as we rarely hear about those military deaths in the media today. But the fight is still very real and our troops still are putting their lives on the line for us every day. Remember them today and pray for them.

Remembering how those 3,000+ people died unexpectedly reminds me that the Church is still in a fight for lives every day. And this fight carries an even greater responsibility as it deals with people’s eternities. We never know when we will breathe our last breath. So take every chance to live your faith out loud and invite people you know to church to hear about Jesus. Each weekend we preach the Gospel. We do that on purpose. It might be someone’s only or last chance to hear it!

We are still in a fight. Not a political fight or even a physical one…but an eternal one.

August 7th, 2009 by Tim Moore

What if we used our social networks to reach people for Christ? Oh wait, that was His plan. One of the greatest benefits of connecting with people through online networks is the ability to share the Gospel. People I went to school with years ago can see that I am a pastor now. It gives me an opportunity to share why. I have invited people to our church through Facebook. In fact I have heard stories of people’s lives being changed at our church because of people leveraging these networks to share the Gospel.

Jesus has called us to go everywhere and preach the Gospel to everyone. What better way to connect with people all over the world than through online social networks.

Paul said it best in 1 Corinthians 9…
When I am with those who are weak, I share their weakness, for I want to bring the weak to Christ. Yes, I try to find common ground with everyone, doing everything I can to save some. I do everything to spread the Good News and share in its blessings.

So what do you do when you are spending time on Facebook or MySpace? (Then again…why are you still on MySpace?) Have you considered using your online social networks to invite a friend to church with you or is it just shoot people with a fake water pistol???

August 5th, 2009 by Tim Moore

I have found great value in social networks like Facebook and Twitter. (I’m just using Facebook and Twitter as my examples since they are the most popular right now. Yes there are new social networks emerging all the time.) I have re-connected with old classmates over facebook. I receive inspirational tweets from pastors around the globe. Social Networks can add some real value to your life. However, let me caution you that there are some dangers involved with them as well.

Facebook can be an easy cover for “meeting people online”. In other words, what can start out innocent in meeting “old friends” online can turn into emotional or physical affairs. I only receive tweets from people I follow, but my list of followers is always growing from people I don’t know. When I look to see their profile I find people trying to use Twitter to promote pornography or other inappropriate stuff. We must approach social networks with the same caution we do anything in life.

While social networks can add value to your life they can also be dangerous. We must take precautions to protect ourselves and our witness while on these networks. Here’s a good rule to live by: Don’t say or do anything online that you wouldn’t do in person with your spouse or your parents in the room.

August 4th, 2009 by Tim Moore

This past Sunday I mentioned Facebook and Twitter in my message. I think some people jumped on twitter just because of that. Those are two of the hottest social networks on the web right now. This week I thought I’d take a look at some of the reasons why social networks are so huge right now.

What is driving people to social networks online? Could it have anything to do with the current cultural trend toward isolation? During the Industrial Revolution, urbanization became a big thing. Everyone moved into the big cities for new jobs and opportunities. As a result, people formed all kinds of close-knit communities. People lived their lives with their neighbors.

Today, people are moving away from the big cities. Suburbs are the fastest growing areas in our country. People are looking for bigger houses, bigger lots and more space. With our new houses on bigger lots with garages, we leave the house from the confines of our garage and return to the garage without even saying one word to our neighbors. We are moving toward isolation.

The problem is that God made us in such a way that we need and desire relationships. When God saw Adam all alone, he said it is not good for man to be alone. It’s in our DNA. We are built for a relationship with God and with others.

As a result, I believe people today are reaching out for relationship through the internet. Enter social networks.

Your thoughts on the social network revolution?