¹⁵He said to them, “Go into all the world and preach the good news to all creation. ¹⁶Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved, but whoever does not believe will be condemned.

Mark 16:15, 16

Are We Reaching the World?

Notice the question wasn’t – are we reaching more Christians? I’m not even talking about the church at this point – that’s a whole other story. I’m talking about you and me…are we reaching people for God?  I got challenged like crazy at Catalyst in this area. Questions like this were asked of me:

• When people have a need, do they think of you as a means to helping them?
• Are you allowing people to belong (be a friend) before they have to believe?
• Do you like people who are only like you?
• Does everybody feel welcome around you?

After interning, serving, and working for a church for 6+ years, it is easy to get detached from the world. Since getting a job outside the church recently, I’ve realized there are a ton of people who don’t know God and are searching desperately for Him, and I’ve done a pretty good job at reaching Christians, but a pretty bad job at reaching the world.This has to change…

Here are some thoughts from Catalyst to make you think more about this subject…

• The church doesn’t exist for us, the church (we) exist for the world. -Erwin McManus

• Are we befriending people that are different than us? When is the last time you had a non-christian over your house for dinner? Hung out with them outside of church?

• You’ll never reach people until you draw people to you and earn the right to show them God in their life.

• Jesus first words: Come Follow me – Jesus Last Words: Go Make Disciples – we need to stop being so focused on ourselves and our spiritual growth and more focused on making disciples.
  

• We’re called to be traffic directors in Hell!- pointing everyone to Heaven
  

• You’re a miracle to somebody when you give them Jesus – Do you remember who led you to God?
  

• Small acts may not change the world, but they can tilt it to go in the right direction – There are millions of people everywhere that need encouraged, need to hear I see you, I believe in you, you matter!

How have you been doing with what Jesus told us to do? Going into the world (not the church) and making disciples…

The Pittsburgh Marathon has officially come and gone… it was a great experience! It was a lot hillier than expected, but overall a great run!

Pastor Moore and I finished the race in 4:38:04

To check how the other runners did click here

I’ll write more on this later… here are some pics from the marathon:

Steph, Pastor Moore, and I at 5:00 a.m. getting ready to leave

Before the race – staying warm in trash bags!

And here we go…

After the race – We did it!

Pastor Moore and I ran together throughout the entire race… good times!

Ok, so it has been an insane 2 weeks – so I haven’t been able to blog nearly as much as I would have liked to… Have some catching up to do!

Going to Catalyst West Coast was unbelievable! To get to hear and meet men and women of God who are tearing it up around the world was such a privilege.  I’ll be posting a series on the top lessons I learned from Catalyst this week so stay tuned for that… for now – Here are some highlights from the trip!

• Catalyst West Coast!
• Seeing the Ronald Reagan Library
• Beverly Hills
• Hollywood (It’s a dump! You can literally see all you need to see in Hollywood in 20 minutes!)
• Universal Studios – (pretty cool to see the behind the scenes of making movies!)
• Seeing Santa Monica Pier
• Spending the extended weekend with Ben Rath
• Getting hooked on Jamba Juice!

Ben and I got to go to Universal Studios on Sunday – Fun stuff – definitely recommend the Simpsons ride!

I got to meet Craig Groeschel – he did the worm during his talk – awesome!

I got to meet Erwin McManus as well… He is amazing!

Yea… these guys got $4 from Ben Rath for taking a picture with him… Hilarious

The Crew (Pastor Nathan left a day early and wasn’t here for the picture)

Here are all the pics if you’re interested…