Last week I posted some of Andy Stanley’s closing thought from Catalyst.  We discussed them for awhile at our Elders meeting Tuesday night.

“To reach people no one else is reaching, we have to do things no one else is doing.  We must become preoccupied with those you want to reach rather than those you are trying to keep.”

In Rochester there are about 35,000 people, and about 25 churches.  Bottom line, there are a lot of people who are not being reached.

What can we do that no one else is doing to reach them?

Are we committed to reaching the lost or satisfying the saints?

If we were to get into the head of those outside the church, what we would we want from the church?

I am a fairly simple guy.  I like things that are simple.  I don’t like a lot of fluff.  I have been in a lot of church in my 35 years of life.  I have read and about and studied even more.  The more I read and the more I study the more I just want to keep it simple.  We drift toward complexity.  We tend to make things more convoluted then they need to be.  I want to keep things simple in our church.  Everything we do need to revolve around 3 simple  loves.  Love God, Love Each Other, & Love The World.  With everything we do or think about doing, we need to bring it back to those three loves.  Will this “program, activity, guest speaker, small group, ministry, etc” help us to Love God? Love Each Other? Love The World?  If it isn’t helping us toward one of those loves we should let some other church do it.  Let’s keep things simple.

• First I want to say again a big “THANK YOU” to everyone for the outpouring of love and support last Sunday. Thank you, Thank you, Thank you
• Today was great, it awesome to see all the faces, this is becoming a nice trend.
• Worship was fun, great job everyone.
• Supernatural is drawing to a close, maybe one more, possible two weeks
• We hit the Holy Spirit today and hopefully it was information and transformational for everyone.
• The food pantry benefit is this Saturday, we hope to see you all there.
• It is so exciting to see all that God is doing in our church and I can’t wait to see what He does next.

I love Perry Noble, He is the Pastor of Newspring Church, a very hard hitting and innovative church in South Carolina.  He does not mince words and says what is on his heart.  The following is a blog he posted today, he is talking to pastors, but the principles apply to us all, we cannot give the enemy a foothold or even crack the door for him.

Attention Pastors: Keep Your Penis In Your Pants!!!

No, the title is NOT a type-o!  I meant exactly what I said…and I will mean every single word that follows.

Before you write me an email (which will automatically deleted…I don’t freakin’ care what anyone thinks about this post) you need to understand that I am completely pissed off…and…at the same time completely broken over this subject!

AND…this is something that NEEDS to be addressed.  Unfortunately at conferences people will talk about it in the corners and private conversations…but rarely will anyone speak (or blog) about it because they feel they may offend someone if they use “strong language.”  I am SICK and TIRED of people dancing around the issue and speaking in OBSCURE terms!
It’s about freakin’ time SOMEONE quite worrying about who gets offended and just flat out told the truth…

PASTORS…we have a calling from God, we are called to live with integrity, we are called to LEAD by living an example…and that CANNOT be done if we are trying to have sex with women that we are NOT MARRIED TOO!

The other day I was sitting at my desk and received an email from a friend informing me that another good friend of ours had disqualified himself from the ministry because of an affair.

I wanted to throw up!  I began shaking all over.  I wanted to cry…and at the same time I wanted to throw things and cuss.  The enemy scored another notch…another black eye on the Christian faith.

Am I judging the guy?  Heck no!  Anytime I hear of something like this happening I always say, “It’s by God’s grace that it didn’t happen to me.”  In fact; I called him and spoke with him for quite a while.  I love the guy–he’s my friend and always will be.

However, pastors–THIS HAS TO STOP!  We cannot get up on Sunday and tell people how to live if lust and sexual fantasies with women we are not married to are dominating our minds.

Paul said in Philippians 4:8 that we need to think about things that exalt Christ…NOT satisfy our own flesh!  Let me ask you an honest question pastor–RIGHT NOW…is there a woman other than you wife that you are thinking sexual thoughts about?

If the answer is yes then you’ve GOT TO TELL SOMEONE!  PLEASE, get some help!!!  Talk to a friend…go see a Counselor…but DO IT NOW!  I know you think you are strong…but all it takes is ONE WEAK MOMENT and then BAM…everything you’ve worked so hard for is LOST on the five seconds of sensation that you obtain!

It’s SO SAD when pastors will talk about how bad it was that Esau sold his birthright for a bowl of soup…and then they will turn around and sell their ministry for an orgasm!

Is it tough to maintain a sexually pure mind?  YOU HAD BETTER BELIEVE IT!  I remember my pastor saying to me back in 1990 when he was meeting with a group of young men who were called into the ministry, “Boys, everyone of you is going to have a chance to have an affair…and it’s not because you are good looking but rather because the enemy is crafty and knows he can use a woman to take you down!”

I know of some pastors who have had emotional affairs with women…and when questioned about it they will simply say, “Well, my wife just wasn’t there for me!”

WHAT A FREAKIN’ WIMP!!!  In 99.9% of the cases the wife wasn’t there because the PASTOR was out trying to impress everyone else and, in doing so, didn’t pursue his wife!!!!!!!  SHE NEEDS YOU BRO!!!  AND…if you would pursue her and QUIT allowing the church to be your mistress…things would be a lot better!

Pastors…I am NOT a legalist…except for this subject!  We simply CANNOT allow the enemy to steal our calling, kill God’s work and destroy our families simply because we began thinking between our legs and not between our ears!

My advice…take RADICAL steps.  Make a committment to NEVER be alone with a woman!  EVER…under ANY circumstances.  Form a relationship with a godly man whom you trust and talk about your struggles…every single one of them.  Pastors–we’ve GOT to stop trying to impress others with how “godly we are!”  HONESTY paves the way to INTIMACY with GOD…and the reason a lot of pastors don’t feel a connection with the ALMIGHTY is because they are too busy trying to “connect” with a willing woman…BUT denying that they have the desire to do so!!!

If you are a church member…PRAY for the purity of your pastor–EVERY SINGLE DAY!  Is sexual temptation real for him?  Let me go ahead and say it–YES!  (And the pastor who says no is a freakin’ liar!!!)  As I said earlier…the enemy is wise…he knows WHEN to tempt and WHAT to tempt with!!!  Pray that he will walk with Jesus and ONLY have eyes for his wife!!!

PASTORS…the battle is REAL…and IF you are struggling it is NOT going to go away!  How do you resist?

STOP DENYING there is a problem…if there is…CONFESS IT!!!

PURSUE YOUR WIFE with passion like never before!  Warning…if you haven’t pursued her in a while she is going to be skeptical of your advances…it’s going to take time to win back her heart.

II Corinthians 10:5 says that we should take every thought captive and make it obedient to Christ…that means WHEN (not if) the lustful thoughts come your way…understand that those thoughts are NOT FROM GOD…take them captive!

STOP FLIRTING WITH ANYONE EXCEPT FOR YOUR WIFE!!! No texting, no emails, no chatting online, no “counseling appointments,” no long lunches…STOP IT NOW!!!

I’ve said about all I am going to say about this for now…as I said…I am ANGRY…angry that the enemy is so persistent and that SO MANY men give in rather than calling on the unbelievable power that Christ has placed inside of us through HIS Holy Spirit.

Pastors…let’s be men who LOVE Jesus, LOVE our wives, LOVE our children and then LOVE His church!

AND…one more time, IF you are struggling with this–PLEASE GET HELP!  You cannot keep sin in the dark…Galatians 6:7 says God will not be mocked…you know that verse…you’ve preached it many times…problem is you don’t think it applies to you…and it does!!!

My desire when it is all said & done is NOT to pastor the largest church in the world or to speak at tons of conferences or to sell lots of books…but rather to hear the words of my Lord, “Well done my good and faihtful servant.”

And…if I die before ‘Cretia I want for her to be able to stand over my coffin and KNOW that I was 100% faithful to her…that I was a man who took a vow to forsake all others…and that I was man enough to fulfill that vow!!!

Do you have the stones to man up?  Will you commit to purity RIGHT NOW?  Seriously, break off a phone call to someone TODAY and have a serious conversation about this.  Ask them to ask you the tough questions…and be man enough to be honest!!!  We can’t let the enemy have any more ground here…let’s take it back!!!

Hey everyone just wanted to let you know that the sermon player is down due to problems on their end of the web.  They assure us that everything will be back up in running in the not to distant future,  Thanks for your patience.  We’ll keep you posted.

Clif

• Wow what a day, it was Pastor Appreciation, and my family was blessed
• Thank you to all who made this such a special day
• Great service today, very cool time of worship, Ed does a great job leading and the team is awesome
• We are moving right along with Supernatural, we dealt with the Devil today and I think it went well, this series has been a blessing to many as we have been disarming the devil.
• Yet another video intro, I haver tons of gag reel footage for later this week, some very funny stuff
• Great time of fellowship after service, God is doing some great things in our church and I am glad to be a part of it.
• Thanks again for making today so spacial and thank you to all who gave so generously to my family and those that wrote notes of encouragement, you guys Rock!!!

Hey everyone here is the intro video that Johnny and I put together for the Demons message in the Supernatural series.

Here is some footage that didn’t make the intro, see if you can figure out why.