{"id":1539,"date":"2010-02-28T16:04:59","date_gmt":"2010-02-28T22:04:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/192.185.166.32\/~davidfoster\/?p=1539"},"modified":"2010-02-28T16:04:59","modified_gmt":"2010-02-28T22:04:59","slug":"today-the-gathering-%e2%80%93-accept-no-mediocre-life-i-will-go-the-extra-mile","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.davidfoster.tv\/today-the-gathering-%e2%80%93-accept-no-mediocre-life-i-will-go-the-extra-mile\/","title":{"rendered":"Today @ The Gathering \u2013 Accept No Mediocre Life: I Will Go The Extra Mile"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"Before I talk about the content of the day, I want to just say something about the importance of gathering with good people.\u00a0 I discovered today as much as anytime in my life doing what I do, that people have a deep effect on how you\u2019re able to execute.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve been trying to figure out why The Gathering Nashville has been such a joy to me.\u00a0 Over the years, being a pastor hasn\u2019t always been joyful or fun.\u00a0 And I\u2019ve discovered two reasons.\u00a0 One is me; the other is them.<\/p>\n

The \u201cme\u201d part I won\u2019t bore you with, but the \u201cthem\u201d part I think is important.\u00a0 The Gathering has been able to attract really honest, open, loving, enthusiastic, encouraging people.\u00a0 It\u2019s these people who gather each weekend who inspire me to be at my absolute best.<\/p>\n

When your job is to inspire other people, you fail to realize how much the people you try to inspire play a role in inspiring you back.\u00a0 Here is my point.\u00a0 If you\u2019re not gathering each week consistently with people who lift you, love you, challenge you, and care for you, you\u2019re gathering at the wrong place<\/em>.<\/p>\n

The day is long gone that Americans choose their churches on the brand label alone<\/strong> \u2013 Baptist, Presbyterian, Pentecostal, Nazarene.\u00a0 We\u2019re craving for gathering places where other honest, messy people gather around their common pain, but are kept together and moved forward by their common vision.<\/p>\n

Our vision at The Gathering is to specialize in God simple, not church complicated.<\/strong> For us that means being honest about who we are as we gather.\u00a0 We are indeed the beat up, the broken, the betrayed, and yes, even the bored.\u00a0 We come together around a common belief that Jesus is our God and Savior; that He desires a relationship with us that will transform us from where we are to where we desperately want to be at the core of our being.<\/p>\n

If you\u2019re not gathering each week around people who will love you and lift you, who care for you, challenge you, and inspire you to be your absolute best, find another place to gather<\/em>.\u00a0 Don\u2019t choose not to gather, which is what a lot of people do.<\/p>\n

So today at The Gathering <\/a>we talked about going the extra mile.\u00a0 Here\u2019s what we dealt with.\u00a0 There\u2019s no way I can translate in this blog post what happened in the morning talk itself.\u00a0 So you need to go listen to it either here online, or subscribe to it through the podcast. But here is the main idea: life has a way of being hard on the lazy<\/strong>.\u00a0 It rewards lavishly and generously the diligent: bottom line, period.<\/p>\n

So many people who use Christian language are basically lazy people using God as a crutch and an excuse.\u00a0 How many times have we heard people say, \u201cI\u2019m waiting to hear from God,\u201d or \u201cI haven\u2019t seen the hand of God,\u201d or something that keeps them immobile or inactive or even unemployed or unmarried because they are waiting for some big revelation that comes down from God?<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s all the revelation that you need.\u00a0 God intended for you to work, get married, and make a difference<\/strong>; that you raise children, pay taxes, and engage life with all your heart, mind, and soul.\u00a0 There.\u00a0 That\u2019s all the goad you need.<\/p>\n

So if you\u2019re a person who\u2019s accepted mediocre, I challenge you to embrace life on the extra mile.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Before I talk about the content of the day, I want to just say something about the importance of gathering with good people.\u00a0 I discovered today as much as anytime in my life doing what I do, that people have a deep effect on how you\u2019re able to execute. I\u2019ve been trying to figure out … Continue reading “Today @ The Gathering \u2013 Accept No Mediocre Life: I Will Go The Extra Mile”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[],"series":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.davidfoster.tv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1539"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.davidfoster.tv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.davidfoster.tv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.davidfoster.tv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.davidfoster.tv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1539"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.davidfoster.tv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1539\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.davidfoster.tv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1539"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.davidfoster.tv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1539"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.davidfoster.tv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1539"},{"taxonomy":"series","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.davidfoster.tv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/series?post=1539"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}