We had another awesome day at The Gathering. The weather was incredible, the sun was out, and people were coming in straight from the parking lot in a great mood. What lesson did I learn today? Going to church ought to be a happy thing. Gathering together ought to be something we look forward to with anticipation, something that we dread missing, not something we dread going to.
When you create that expectation that this is going to be a good place where God is going to meet us, where each one is going to get something to take away; that hurts are going to be healed, that burdens are going to be lifted, that people are going to understand, that God is going to be here in some real and relevant way that makes gathering together to worship God so important that as we go, we’ve learned how to worship God everywhere else. Just going to church on Sunday morning without taking something away that colors and forms the rest of the week, is missing the mark.
I spoke out of Chapter 6 of the Renegade book today on the morphing power of conversion. We highlighted the fact that as Christians, we call ourselves “believers” and our problem isn’t with belief, it’s transforming that belief into life-changing action. That’s’ always been the tension, hasn’t it, between what we believe and how we behave, what we believe and what we truly possess.
This seems to be a really important message. I got a lot of feedback from people particularly as I talked about the mechanics of conversion. So the question I asked today and each person has to answer is, “Do I live with a converted heart, or am I someone who just believes a certain set of facts that really haven’t worked their way deep into my heart and into my soul?”
I also talked about the conversion effect: the three signs that my religion is more than rules, that it’s entered into the relationship phase. Next week is April 1st, one more week before Easter. It’s exciting and you can feel the excitement build.
Last week at our Leadership Summit we had around a hundred people show up for leadership training. It’s exciting to see the enthusiasm and the number of people who are willing to step up and to take leadership of this movement we call The Gathering.