Category: The Gathering

As we continue in our series, “12 Steps Up: How Messy People Mature” this weekend, we’re going to be talking about how you face up to the pain and aggravation that you cause other people.

The truth of the matter is, hurt people hurt people and oftentimes we do things to wound those that we love the most.  So the question is, what do you do after dumb, after a betrayal, after lying, cheating, stealing, even adultery? What do you do after those times your life has changed because of shortcuts and broken promises that you yourself have committed?

If you know someone who’s reeling after a string of failures, dumb decisions, lay-offs, firings – you know the score – this weekend would be the perfect time to come and find out what you do after dumb.  Do you run, or do you try to redeem it?

Remember, at The Gathering, we specialize in God simple, not church complicated which means God loves messy people, you’re a messy person, therefore God loves you enough to accept you where you are and to take you where you want to be.  Join us at 9:00 and 10:30 at the Thoroughbred 20 Theaters in Cool Springs. Tomorrow might be the day that everything changes for you.

One of my pet-peeves are people who call themselves Christians, and who believe that their faith is only about their personal relationship with God.  Nothing could be further from the truth.

Jesus made it very clear that our relationship with God, the health or lack thereof, is reflected in the relationships of the people around us.

This weekend as we continue our series “12 Steps Up: How Messy People Mature,” we’ll be talking about Step # 8, Follow Up; which means that once we’ve awakened to our powerlessness, looked up, and aligned our lives behind the authority of God, we need to understand that making things right with other people is a critical next step. To miss this is to literally miss the essence of Christianity.

This weekend @ The Gathering we’ll be talking about how to restore ruptured relationships.  We’ll be talking about the cost of forgiveness, and the high cost of unforgiveness. Not a day goes by that I don’t hear about the pain and the agony caused by broken promises, adultery, lying, and cheating in marriage relationships.  Almost not a week goes by that Paula and I don’t deal with children who have been abandoned by their parents.  Broken and ruptured relationships make life a living hell.

If you know someone who needs help in how to get back into their lives the people they’ve wounded, or how to forgive the people who have wounded them, this weekend would be the perfect time to attend.

If there is one constant about life, it’s change.  Some people change for the better; others change for the worse.  Which it is, is always a choice.

So this weekend as we continue our series “12 Steps Up: How Messy People Mature,” we’re going to talk about how to embrace change; the deep kind of change that comes from a spiritual awakening inside our soul.  The kind of change that gets us out of old ruts and allows us to look at life in new ways.

The one thing I’ve found working with people with all kinds of addictions over the years, is that change is a fearful thing for a person who is hiding deep in shame.  It’s the secrets of the past.  It’s the old ways that need to be protected because as bizarre as it may sound, and as painful and destructive as those ways are, at least they are known and in some way, safe.

It’s odd to think that some people would opt for being miserable when they could be happy.  It’s weird to think that some people would rather spend their life in a dark room hiding from the truth rather than embracing it, and as Jesus promised, be set free from it or even by it.

If you know someone who is facing change, lots of change, and they want to embrace it, they want to learn how to change for good, this weekend at The Gathering is for you.

Don’t just tell them about The Gathering.  That’s informing.  Call them. Text them.  Say, “Listen I will be by to pick you up.  We’ll go to Starbucks or McDonald’s,” or brunch, or wherever.  There are over 245 restaurants within a five-mile radius of where we meet in the Cool Springs area.

So this weekend could be the weekend when everything changes for you and someone you know.

I’ve been meaning to sit down and put some of my thoughts on paper as I reflect on the first three years of The Gathering.

Let me first say that I’ve been doing this a very long time.  As a matter of fact, if you won’t tell anybody, I’ll let you in on the fact that I’ve been a pastor for 38 years.  I started when I was 18.  Yeah, that’s the truth, no joke.  I’ve been a pastor all these years, and I am ashamed to say I haven’t always enjoyed it.

For some reason I can’t explain, The Gathering is different.  So here are some things I want to say to our Gathering tribe, movement, family; those who gather here in Nashville, and those who listen to the podcast and tune in regularly every week on the webcast.

1. Thank you for the privilege of being called your pastor.  I take that very seriously and I want to be worthy of that trust in every moment, every day of my life.
2. As your pastor, my goal is not to build a huge church that gets me notoriety.  I can say, at one time in my past that might have been.  I am not even sure then.  But I can say without question, because of who you guys are and particularly the influence and wisdom of Paula, I am far more focused on helping people.
3. For all those of you who call The Gathering home, who aren’t yet followers of Jesus, Christians, saved. whatever you want to call it, but you still come and listen, I say, “Yea God!” Keep coming.  Keep listening.  If the whole issue of Jesus is a lot to swallow, join the club.  It has been for all of us.  But don’t give up because a conversion experience to Jesus Christ as a loving Lord is so life-changing. it’s worth pursuing no matter how long it takes.
4. You have to know that every Sunday morning for me is like Christmas, seriously.  I will say this.  For 38 years, I’ve always shown up every weekend ready, excited, passionate, and wanting to see God do something great in the lives of the good people I get to serve.
5. We’re working on the first new re-do of our website.  We’ve on purpose left it alone for several years as The Gathering developed to see where she’s going.  But as the new website is launched in the next month or so, you’ll see a new mantra statement that says, “We specialize in God simple, not church complicated.”  That is the best statement of the philosophy of The Gathering I could come up with.
6. Our mission is simple too: “To help people connect to God and each other for the purpose of changing not only their lives but the world.”  We’re going to help you get connected.  Life is not a solo sport.  Relationships are important, particularly a relationship with a loving God.

Before this gets way too long, let me just stop and say I am committed to leading The Gathering to the future, to let her reach her full, God-given potential.  And whatever God wants us to do, we’re going to do together.  We’re going to keep it simple, real, relational; we’re going to let God show up and do something that no mere religious group could ever do.

This weekend at The Gathering we’re going to continue with our series “12 Steps Up: How Messy People Mature” with step #5, Fess Up.

We’re going to be talking about how to find the right kind of people.  You were created for relationships and you need the right kind of people: classy people, good people, the kind of people who understand what you’re going through, who support you and promote you.  So we’re going to be talking about how to reach out and extend those friendships, how to attract really high-quality people into your life and help you get to where you need to go.

If you know someone who is struggling with a relationship, feels alone, abandoned, feels like no one likes them or cares about them, feels like they are never picked or included, now is a good time for them.  Bring them this weekend to The Gathering at 9:00 or 10:30 AM. Remember, at The Gathering we specialize in God simple, not church complicated, which means God loves messy people.  You’re messy.  Therefore, God loves you. Come and join us.  It could change the rest of your life.  Who knows?  You might even make some friends.

If you’ve ever felt like you’re dragging the weight of the world behind you, you’re not the only one. We tend to do that, We tend to collect things over time that weigh our lives down; not just physically in our homes, but also spiritually in our souls.

This weekend at The Gathering we’re going to be talking about how to Lighten Up.  It’s step #4 in the 12 Steps Up: How Messy People Mature.

Step #1, Wake Up: we admitted that we’re powerless.  Step #2, Look Up: we’ve come to believe that God knows us, loves us, and cares what happens to us. And last week we talked about Line Up; that we bring our life into alignment with the things we have come to believe, and the One we’ve come to trust.

This week, is a natural progression.  We Lighten Up.  As we’ve looked up and aligned our lives with the One who loves us, we then are free to let go of the old baggage; the baggage of past disappointments, regrets, hurts, betrayals – you know the story.

If you know someone who’s struggling to let go of the past in order to turn and embrace the future, this weekend at The Gathering would be a great time to introduce them to this unique gathering of men and women who come together around our common pain, and who stay together around our common hope.

At The Gathering we specialize in God simple, not church complicated.  Which simply means there is a God who loves messy people;  you’re messy, and God loves you as you are, not as you ought to be.

Join us at one of our two services, 9:00 & 10:30 AM.  Let us help you make the connection that could change everything about your life.

The world is with religious people who have a lot of beliefs.  Statistics tell us that upward of 90 per cent of people believe in God.  We are religious despite the few dissenting voices among us.

The question is not, “are we religious?”  The question is, “Does our religion work, or do we have to work it?” This weekend we’re going to talk about why going to church, believing certain things, embracing certain doctrine, and giving assent to certain values don’t necessarily bring about change.

We’ve talked about ‘Wake Up,” how important that is to admit that we’re powerless to change our nature.  We’ve also talked about “Look Up,” that God indeed is not only our Creator, but our source of hope and redemption.  This weekend, we’ll talk about “Line Up;” why it’s important to do more than just wake up and look up.  You have to line up.  We’ll talk about why and how to bring your life in alignment with your beliefs.

Bottom line, if God’s not working for you, that’s a good thing.  Hopefully you’re at a place in your life where you’re sick and tired of just being religious and you want a life-changing, earth-shattering encounter with God.  It is possible and you can have it, no, the truth is, you need it as much as the air you breathe.  Come to The Gathering in the morning and we’ll talk about it.

Last weekend we began a brand new series @ The Gathering called “12 Steps Up: How messy people mature.”

We’re taking the 12 steps from AA, an amazing process of not just recovery, but maturation, and applying it to everyday life.

Last week we started with Step One: Wake up.  Wake up and recognize that you are powerless to change your life.  You’re powerless over the ups and downs, the adversities.  It rains.  It rains on the good and the bad.

The second step is Look Up. When you wake up, and you look around and see the reality of your life, you have one of three choices.  You can look out around you to circumstances – good or bad – knowing that if they are good today, they could change tomorrow on a dime and be bad.  Or you can look to the people who may or may not be there for you.

Once you’ve looked outward, you can look inward and you see the wounds and the pain.  You see things in your life and your attitude that make you sad and angry because they are things you can’t seem to let go of and get over.  And then you can look up. That’s what happens in the second step.  We begin to believe that a power greater than us can restore us to sanity.

So tomorrow we’re going to be talking about how to Look Up in real, practical terms; not just some religious cosmetic cover-up of how life really is, but how we can truly, truly look up and connect to God in powerful ways.  Tomorrow we’ll talk about three things God dares us to do, and the one thing we have, only one, that He wants.  God doesn’t want your car, your house, your money.  He doesn’t want your song.  He doesn’t want your attention.  But there is one thing He desires.  We’ll talk about it.

Well what a week this has been!  It’s hard to believe we’re living in a city that has suffered the greatest non-hurricane devastation in history, from a weather-related event.  Who could have ever imagined that we’d live to see between 18 and 20 inches of rain in less that 48 hours?  But we have and we are, and we’re engaging this crisis with care and compassion.

I just want to let all of you know that The Gathering will be up and running this coming Sunday at 9:00 and 10:30 AM at the Carmike Theaters in the Cool Springs area. We’ll be sharing hope and gathering to thank God for the good things that He’s done.

It’s ironic that this past weekend I was going to be speaking on How to Manage Stress.  And even though this weekend is Mother’s Day, I’m going to go ahead and stay with that same talk.  I think it’s appropriate for what we’re all going through.

Again, this weekend will be a great time to gather to worship.  It also will be a great time to gather your friends and bring them with you, particularly people who have suffered loss.  And not just gather together to bemoan and become bitter, but gather together to worship and find reasons to be grateful and reasons to go on.

We live in days that can shake the faith of even the strongest among us.  And what we need today more than anything else as we face this brave new world that is evolving into existence around us, is courage; not certainty, not clarity, not even a risk-free existence, but courage.

Tomorrow @ The Gathering we’re going to be talking about courage: where you find it, how you get it, how you show it, and what you do when you’ve lost it.  Maybe you know someone who is overwhelmed by their fears.  They’ve lost their job or their will.  They’ve been downsized or a thousand different things that happen to real people in the real world.  We’re going to, right out of the Scriptures, show how in the real world today, you can find the courage you need to face whatever you’re going through.

As I’ve said before, excellence is defined in four ways: doing the best you can, where you are, with what you have, in the time allotted. We’re dealing with the second definition – “where you are.”

Where you are is maybe not where you want to be.  It’s certainly not where you’re going to be in the days ahead.  But the journey from here to there is going to be determined by what you do in these moments.  And what you do in these moments of transition and change will be determined by the courage you’re able to muster up to take purposeful, meaningful, and fruitful action even at a place where you think the earth is moving beneath your feet.

If there is someone you care about that you want to help, reach out.  Ask them to meet you either at 9:00 or 10:30 at the theatre.  Walk in with them, get a cup of coffee, sit down, listen to the music, sit back, and drink in all the experience that this weekend has to offer for you and those you care about.  It could be the moment where everything begins to change for the better.

Also, for all the ladies out there, make sure you sign up this weekend for the Ladies Gathering coming this Tuesday evening. You can sign up and  find out all the details at TheGatheringNashville.com.  This is a night you won’t want to miss.  You want to be around good, strong, smart, caring women to know what it’s like to be a good, godly woman, filled with joy and confidence.

We’re having a great time in our new series based on my book, “Accept No Mediocre Life.” This will be our fifth week as we turn our attention toward fear.

There is one common experience men and women in our current environment have – fear.  Fear knows no education, demographic, or economic station.  People everywhere, every day, in almost every area of their lives are challenged with the question, “Will fear conquer me and consume me, or will I conquer fear?”

This weekend at The Gathering we’re going to be talking about how to conquer fear.  Fear is neither good nor bad.  It’s what we do with it.  It’s like money.  Money is not the root of all evil, but it’s the excessive, compulsive desire to have money in order to do bad things to oneself and to others that makes money so dangerous.  Fear is exactly the same thing.

As a follower of Jesus, if I believe the content of the gospel, my approach to fear should be very different than everyone else’s.  Not the fact that I face it and have to deal with it and have to conquer it, but how I conquer it, how I understand it, and how I approach it.  Bottom line hint: fear is not all bad.  We’ll find out more about that this weekend at The Gathering.  Join us at 9:00 and 10:30 AM.

Also, maybe it’s time for you to get involved in some of the exciting things that are going on outside Sunday mornings.  Check out the Ladies’ Gathering on March 23^rd.

And for the guys, whether you attend the Gathering or not, if you’re within driving distance of the Cool Springs area, join us on April 6^th for a Gathering 4 Guys.

Or maybe you’re out there married and miserable, or married and tolerating it, or married and making it more like work than joy.  Join us April 30^th at our first ever Live Event, “Making Marriage Fun Again.”

Every day we hear about ways people are cutting back, tightening their belt and trying to make their money go further. We read the statistics and watch the stories of people who have lost their jobs, their homes, their careers, and their dreams. At times it seems hopeless.

One thing this global transformation we’re going through is teaching us is that we can live without a lot of things we thought were essential.  We can live without big houses and over-financed automobiles.  We can live without a new pair of shoes every other week, and weekend trips to exotic destinations.  We can live without spending $100 on an evening meal, and we can live without the extravagance of having other people do what we should be doing for ourselves.

But one of the things we can’t live without, absolutely can’t survive without, is the very thing we are going to be talking about this weekend at The Gathering.  It’s the one thing that if you have it, you can make a comeback.  Without it you languish in despair and hopelessness.

If you or someone you know feels like we live in a world where the job market is shrinking and your future is bleak, then you need to join us this weekend at The Gathering at 9:00 & 10:30.  You’ll learn the one thing you absolutely have to have to make a come back and live well. We’ll tell you how to find it and then what to do with it once you’ve found it. You’ll also learn that this one essential thing, this thing above all other things is actually free.

For those of you who have been asking, our Making Marriage Fun Again web sit is up and ready for those  who would like to register to be part of our live event on April 30th.

I also want to send a shout out to all my buddies across the Nashville area, part of The Gathering or not, we’d love to see you at our upcoming Gathering 4 Guys.  Go to TheGatheringNashville.com to sign up to be a part. It will be six weeks beginning on Tuesday morning April 6th, here in the Cool Springs area.