I think I’m writing this blog for myself today. I have found myself wanting all of the answers and the timeline and the DETAILS to the journey that God is currently taking us on. I’m trying to figure it all out, as if I can take the pieces of the puzzle and complete the picture without the box or all of the parts I need. I just want a little glimpse at the end result so that I can relax and enjoy the ride.

But, as always, life is just simply not that way! It is in the uncertainty that we grow in our faith. If we can work out all of the facts and figures in a self-pleasing light, then the goal probably wasn’t from God in the first place. God delights in the process! He teaches us trust, patience, and perseverance in the times when we can’t see the final product.

The problem is that those times of uncertainty also bring to the surface our weaknesses. We are once again reminded of our negative attitudes, our lack of patience, and our frustrations – both with our brothers and sisters, but also with Christ. It just isn’t fun to look in the mirror and see the reality of it all sometimes.

With that being said, we can rest in the fact that God is not surprised with our faults and every challenge is a blessing of opportunity to iron out yet another rough edge. I just wish God’s sandpaper wasn’t so rough sometimes!

We are praying for North Creek Church this week! If you are in the same boat as I am and find yourself wanting the answers NOW, hang in there! God is working on all of our behalf’s and He is for us, not against us!

This might go down as one of the busiest, most fun, most intense, neverending, horrifying, encouraging, frustrating, amazing days of my life. It was about 20 hours of non-stop adventure, some of which will not be shared on my blog, but I’ll sure leave you wondering!

First of all, we broke our attendance record this morning! We had 270 people there and it was just a “normal” Sunday. Our parking lot was chaos at the 11 am service, so we are thankful for the overflow parking beyond the gas station. If you ever run into a problem finding a spot, parking over there is actually a shorter walk than the top of our parking lot.

The 9:30 service has room (although they had an attendance record this week as well!), so if you love church, but would rather not deal with parking and seating issues, that’s a great solution!

There’s another pregnant lady in our church who is due in July! That makes four July babies coming our way!

It’s fasting week at North Creek! Mark challenged us to fast SOMETIME this week in the way that God asks you to. I think telling a coffee-addicted church to fast is just downright hilarious. I see headaches in your future.

Mark spoke on persistent prayer yesterday. We have a prayer ministry that you can be a part of…just email prayer@coffeechurch.com to either sign up or leave your prayer requests. We’ve also began sending the prayer requests through and it’s amazing to have my inbox flooded with what people are believing God for. I am standing with these requests and believing for miracles at our church!

Congrats to Jim and Sarah Gilliam, whose church plant, The Link Church, turned one yesterday! We are excited with you for the future!

Leadership is H.A.R.D. There are thousands of details, conversations, and decisions that impact a lot of lives on a daily basis. Sometimes you succeed and sometimes you fail, but it’s worth it to keep on keeping on!

We went out to lunch with some visiting youth pastors, which is always fun! After over a decade of youth pastoring, we have a heart for people who serve teenagers on the front lines of ministry.

Our staff meeting was full of interesting moments yesterday. We are processing the future and some big decisions. We are all on an emotional roller coaster of decision making. If you see our team walking around with a twitch, just pray for them! They are amazing people that I am blessed to work with and fall apart around…

On that note, Josiah Thalhofer has the most calming voice in the universe.

At the end of our long day we crawled into bed and Mark said, “I am more tired than I can EVER remember being.” Two minutes later the phone rang and we were told that a friend of ours was on the way to the hospital. The good news is that all is well with his health now, but for a few hours in there we were beginning to wonder if the day would EVER end.

Today I am thankful that His mercies are new every morning! It’s a fresh start with a bright future. If you look back on your yesterday and wish you could delete something, just remember…God can delete the things in your life that are keeping you from a close relationship with him!

I’ve had a lot of fun conversations about risk this week! I love that people are listening to God and allowing Him to whisper dreams in their hearts. With that in mind, one of the things that I think people miss is that taking risks should include wise calculations. Mark and I have stepped out multiple times in faith, but behind all of our decisions is a mountain of planning and figuring. Yes, we hear from God, and yes, it is usually beyond our reach. That being said, there are many parts to the equation that you can plan for and you need to always partner risk with wisdom.

Here are some tips for hearing from God and living a life of bold faith:

1. When you begin to hear from God, you need to begin to get a financial plan. Most of the things that God puts on our hearts equate to needing cash along the way. If you are hearing from God and aren’t being a wise saver/spender, you are being irresponsible. If your plan is to live off of welfare because you are “living in faith”, that is not a good plan. If you REALLY heard from God, then begin setting aside the funds as you go because you believe it to the core of your decision making.

2. You need wise counsel. I am most afraid of people who hear from God and don’t include wise people in the conversation. Who did God place in your life as a sounding board? (In addition to the financial piece above, if your “wise counsel” handles money poorly, you need some new counsel.) When God speaks to us about a new opportunity, we jump into action and start making calls to the few key people who walk alongside of us in life. Troy Jones had given us advice at every major turn of our lives since Mark was 15 and I was 20. We keep going back to him because he listens to God and he knows us inside and out.

3. You need boundaries of when to quit. Let’s face it…sometimes our plan just isn’t progressing forward even after our BEST attempt. Put boundaries around your plans that allow you to go another direction! Mark and I had an “end date” for our church. If it wasn’t growing and financially viable at a certain point we were going to pack our bags and quit. Why? It’s simple…our core dream is to impact people’s lives (we’ll never quit on that), but if the plan we are functioning within doesn’t do that, we’ll give up on the plan at some point in order to keep our dream alive one way or another.

I hope that helps as you are making decisions of how to pursue the whisper on your heart! I’m a BIG fan of risk, but I’m equally impressed by wisdom. If you can put the two together, nothing will stop you in life.

I LOVE this blog from Mark Batterson. You can read all of his blogs at www.markbatterson.com. Enjoy!

Blessed is he who is not offended at me.

Luke 7:23

At this point in the 21-Day prayer challenge, you might be experiencing a little faith fatigue. You aren’t alone. All of us go through prayer slumps! Sometimes it’s the slow erosion of faith. But more often than not, the loss of a prayer life is traced to unanswered prayer. Death by disappointment. What do you do when God doesn’t answer how you want or when you want? Let me tell you what you don’t do: you don’t stop praying! It’s always too soon to quit. It’s always too soon to give up. You need to resolve that you’ll keep circling until the day you die.

John and Heidi are part of the prayer circle that prays for me. In fact, they are some of the most prayerful people I know. God has given them some amazing answers to their prayers for others, but many of their own prayers for their own challenges have seemingly gone unanswered. But there is no quit in them. They just keep on praying like it depends on God because they know it does. They haven’t thrown in the prayer towel despite the disappointments. Their secret? One promise has sustained them through the toughest times and deepest disappointments. They circled Luke 7:23: blessed is he who is not offended at me.

Here’s the context.

Jesus is doing miracles right and left. He is healing diseases, casting out demons, and restoring sight to the blind, but John the Baptist misses the miracle train. It seems like Jesus is rescuing everybody except his most faithful follower who is in prison. And John is his cousin, nonetheless. It seems like Jesus could have, and maybe should have, organized a rescue operation and busted him out before he was beheaded. Instead he sends a message via his disciples. He tells them to tell John about all the miracles he is doing and then he asks them to relay this simple promise: blessed is he who is not offended at me.

Have you ever felt like God was doing miracles for everyone and their brother, but you seem to be the odd man out? It seems like God is keeping His promises to everyone but you? I wonder if that’s how John the Baptist felt. What do you do when you feel like God is answering everyone’s prayers but yours?

In the words of my friends who have experienced their fair share of unanswered prayers: “We try to live our lives unoffended by God. Jesus promises that we will be blessed if we aren’t offended. Obviously we aren’t in prison about to be beheaded, but we have seen many answers to our prayers for other people when we have prayed for their finances, their health and their kids. Yet in our own lives, well…”

When God doesn’t answer how or when you want, you have a choice to make. You can give up or hang on. You can let go or pray through. You can get frustrated with God or choose to live unoffended.

My friends have chosen to live unoffended: “Jesus promises blessing if we are not offended when He does things for others. And if He does it for them, He might do it for us. I don’t know why God does what He does. I do know that 100% of the prayers I don’t pray won’t get answered.” I love that approach to prayer, that approach to life. It’s the circle maker’s mantra: 100% of the prayers you don’t pray won’t get answered.

Live unoffended.

What an amazing journey we’re on! One week ago we began a series about prayer partnered with asking God for the BIGGEST desires of our hearts. We were challenged to believe God and ask specifically. Yesterday was already full of stories of changed lives! Here’s a few highlights:

A woman in our church was in extreme pain from a disease and was fearing a trip to the hospital with serious ramifications…now she is healed!

Another woman in our church made a VERY important decision after praying with two of her friends. This decision will change the course of her life and her ministry!

Our church is being given an opportunity that will impact our community in significant ways…details to come!

A family in our church has been praying for reconciliation with a difficult relationship. That person called them up this week and wanted to talk it through. The meeting ended with healed hearts and hugs!

God is SO big and when we ask Him to bring to completion the desires that He has put in us…He ALWAYS answers!

On another note about Sunday, Mark spoke a great message on fasting. He encouraged us to pray this week on how God would like us to fast the week of January 22. Is it one meal? One day? A Daniel fast? Whatever it is, I encourage you to listen to Mark’s message online and partner with us for MORE answers and miracles.

We also launched small groups this weekend! It was a GREAT start with every group getting people right away. There is also currently still room in every group, so go to www.coffeechurch.com to sign up today. Through this week, various groups will begin to close as they fill up, so please register sooner than later, especially if you have tight schedules.

If you want to grow financially, I highly recommend the Financial Peace University small group. North Creek pays half price for all of our attenders, so it’s quite a deal and will CHANGE the trajectory of your financial future.

We are also offering a Sunday morning small group called The Jesus Story. This group is so easy to attend since you are already on campus! If you want to create new relationships within our church, but have challenging schedules, this may be the perfect option!

One more to highlight (they are all so good!!) is Marcus and Tasha’s group on adventurous faith on Monday nights. This will be located at the church, so there is plenty of room for lots of kids. Maybe you are looking to grow and help your kids develop some friendships? This is a win-win with some of my favorite people!

I might just have to write two highlight blogs this week, because something is happening at the Coffee Church! God, continue to pour out your amazing blessings into the hearts of lives of your people! Help us to obey that voice in our hearts that gives us the direction to follow YOU!

Please email me your miracle stories at stacy@coffeechurch.com. We want to keep a record of what God is doing! Have a great week!