Jesus continuously worshiped God the Father. Depending on your background, the word worship could have a lot of baggage with it. Some view worship as a meeting time once a week. Some view worship as a music genre. Some view worship as doing a set of prayers/chants/mantras. Some view worship as singing some songs.
While all of these are forms of worship, they all fall short of a full understanding of what worship is. Worship at its core is giving value to something or someone. In his book Unceasing Worship, Harold M. Best defines worship better by saying that, “worship is the continuous outpouring of all that I am, all that I do and all that I can ever become in light of a chosen or choosing god.”[i]
Human beings are worshipers. Everything we do, says, think, or feel is an act of worship. At the heart of everything we do is giving value to someone or something. We are born worshiping and we never stop. The only thing that changes is what we worship. God is the only one worthy of worship. God’s original design was for us to continuously worship Him, but sin entered the world and we started worshiping lesser things. We started to worship created things (ourselves generally being at the top of the list). We started to worship idols.[ii]
The reality is that at the heart of all sin is an issue with worship. Romans 1:24-25 puts it this way, “Therefore God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves, because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever! Amen.”[iii] Because of sin, instead of continuously worshiping God, we continuously worship created things. Because of sin, we have had no desire to ever give glory to God.
Now that we are being made into the image of Christ, we are able to glorify God with our lives once again. Jesus used everything in his life to worship God. He is the only person to perfectly worship God, and through the power of the Holy Spirit we can do the same. Instead of worshiping money, we can use money to worship God. Instead of worshiping our jobs, we can use our jobs to worship God. Instead worshiping our families, we can use our families to worship God. Instead of worshiping all of our stuff, we can use our stuff to worship God. In Jesus, we have been freed to worship God. Spend this week focusing on how you are called to worship God with all your life.
[i] Harold M. Best, Unceasing Worship: Biblical Perspectives on Worship and the Arts (InterVarsity Press, 2003), 18.
[ii] An idol is anything that we worship that isn’t God.
As it’s already been stated, Bible reading and prayer are the two most basic spiritual disciplines of Christian faith. Prayer in the simplest way is talking to God. It is sharing with your loving Father your heart, thoughts, emotions, requests, needs, cares, anxieties, worries, praises, thanksgivings, hopes, and desires. The list could go on for days. God speaks to you through His Word and you speak to Him through prayer. Here are some simple tips and steps for developing a discipline of prayer.
Tip #1: Set up “triggers” in your life. We talked about triggers last week. Take things that you do everyday and make them triggers for you to pray. Here are some ideas to help you get started: taking a shower, using the bathroom, getting in your car, making coffee, getting in bed, getting ready to read your Bible, finishing reading your Bible, driving to work, driving home, finishing lunch, eating eggs, sailing on a boat, scratching your nose, and buying a tambourine. You get the idea. Take things that you do everyday and use them as a trigger to pray.
Tip #2: Have a plan. If you don’t have a plan, you can easily become a random prayer. Whatever comes to your head at the time is what you will pray for. You will constantly be praying for the same things over and over. This isn’t necessarily bad, but there are a lot more things/people in your life that could be praying for. So have a standard place where you keep track of all the things that you want to pray about. Then review this list at least once a day. This way nothing gets left behind.
Tip #3: Talk to God. This might sound dumb to some, but for others this will be an epiphany. I don’t know if you noticed this or not, but some people like to use what could be called “prayer talk.” This is where a person suddenly embodies the spirit of a TV evangelist and sees how many times they can say the words God, Father God, Lord, or Jesus (whichever is the persons favorite) in a prayer. It comes as a surprise to most that you can actually just talk to God. You don’t have to use His name as the punctuation to every sentence. You don’t have to speak in old English. You can just talk to Him. Just like you talk to your friends about your troubles and your successes, you can talk to Him. You can tell Him your struggles and failures. You can tell Him jokes. You can even be angry and cry out to Him (read a few Psalms and you’ll get the idea). Prayer is you simply talking to God. No flair. No technicalities. No special formulas. Just talking.
Tip #4: Write it down. When you develop a habit of constantly praying, it becomes easy to forget what you’ve prayed about. Therefore, you can lose track of whether or not God has answered your prayers. This is so you can look back and see how God has answered your prayers over time. Keep it simple though. Don’t set a limit. That means no minimum or maximum. It puts an unnecessary burden on you. Some days you will write pages worth of prayer to God. Other days it will be the simple phrase, “God help me.” The idea is to simply write it out.
Tip #5: Keep it simple. During the time of Jesus, Jews would have standard prayers for everything that they would do. You would have a standard prayer for plowing a field, eating a meal, drinking wine…even going to the bathroom.[i] The key was that most of these prayers were only a sentence long. The reality is that our prayers don’t have to be five minutes long for God to hear us. Sometimes the simplest prayers are the best prayers. If you can only think of a few things to say to God, then say them. God isn’t keeping a tally of how much you pray. He just wants to hear from you.
Tip #6: Keep it sweet. Remember whom you are talking to. While God is the King of the Universe, He is also the Lover of your soul. One of the reasons that David was a man after God’s own heart was because he was passionate and honest with God. He was open and honest as you can only be with a closest friend. The worst prayer isn’t a long prayer or a prayer said in Old English but a prayer that has no heart. If you aren’t praying out of a love for God, then are you really praying? The reality is that this is the core of all prayer…to seek the face of God….to seek after His heart. Prayer is one of the most intimate times we have with God. Treat it that way.
The two most basic disciplines of the Christian faith are scripture reading and prayer. In fact, it is hard to separate the two. God communicates to His people through His Word, and we communicate with Him through prayer. This week we are going to focus on reading our Bibles and journaling, and next week we’ll look at prayer.
Reading our Bibles and journaling our thoughts are helpful tools to cultivate our relationship with Jesus. Through scripture we are able to learn more about Jesus, have Him speak to our hearts, and be prepared to do His work. Here are some simple tips and steps for developing a habit of spending time in God’s Word.
Tip #1: Have “triggers.” Probably one of the hardest things to do is to get in the habit of opening your Bible. Leo Babauta of WritetoDone.com talks about putting triggers in your life to help you develop habits.
What’s a trigger? It’s the event that sets off your habit. For example, when I used to smoke, I had a number of triggers: I would smoke upon waking, when stressed, after a meeting, etc. When I wanted to change that habit, I had to change each trigger so that I had a new habit to replace smoking. Upon waking, for example, I would exercise instead. To create a new habit, you need to strongly associate your habit with a trigger. For example, let’s say you want to write in the morning — you might awake, use the bathroom, make your coffee, and then start writing. So making coffee is the trigger for writing, and using the bathroom is the trigger for making coffee, and waking is the trigger for using the bathroom. And as you wake every day, you have no problem. Choose a trigger that you know you’ll do every day, and then do your writing right after it, without exception.[i]
Triggers can be a very powerful tool for any spiritual discipline that you are trying to start.
Tip #2: Have all the right resources. It is suggested that when you sit down to spend time in the Bible, you should have the following items:
A Bible – Make sure it is a version that you can understand (different versions of the Bible are written at different reading levels). This guide uses the English Standard Version, but you might find another version easier to understand. Just go to your local bookstore and test a few out. See how easy they are to read and if you can understand the words that are being used.
A Journal – This is where you are going to write down your thoughts. You can find several different styles at your bookstore. Don’t be afraid to switch journals if one isn’t working for you. Use the first few pages to keep an index of what you are learning each day. This way you can look back and see what you have been learning.
A Reading Plan – This guide provides you with passages to read every day while you’re going through the lessons. When you’re done going through this guide, read whatever you want. Just have a plan. There are several different Bible reading plans online that will take you through the Bible in a year, or you could make it as simple as reading two chapters a day. Whatever you do, use a plan, or you’ll spend half your time trying to figure out what to read.
A Planner - It’s going to happen. You are going to be in the middle of having a wonderful time with God. Journaling your heart out…and you are going to remember that you’re out of milk. This is where your planner comes in handy. You can write down, “get milk” and go right back to your journaling. If you don’t have a planner, just use a scratch piece of paper. Otherwise, your time with God will be hijacked by random thoughts of things you need to do for the day.
Tip #3: Use S.O.A.P. This is an acronym for a Bible reading and journaling structure from Wayne Cordeiro.[ii] It stands for the following:
Scripture: Start off with the Bible. Read the verses that are on your plan for the day.
Observation: As you read, write down any observations that you have from the text. Use the questions, “Who is God?,” and “How do I enjoy Him?,” to focus your observations even better.
Application: Based on what you have read…what should you do? Try to make this practical and realistic. Set a goal for the day based upon your reading. Write it down and hold yourself accountable to it.
Prayer: Last but not least, spend some time in prayer to God. Confess and repent of any sins that were brought to light while you were reading. Spend time thanking God. Also spend some time in silence listening to God. Make note of these in your journal.
Tip #4: Keep it simple. The goal of your time with God is to try to grow closer to Him. It’s not to check off your list. Don’t add extra burdens to this focus, such as: “I have to make at least 15 observations.” “I have to write at least 5 pages in my journal.” “I have to pray for at least 45 minutes.” The goal is to spend time with God and to grow closer to Him. Do what it takes to do just that…the rest is just distractions, burdens, and religion.
My week at Re:Train for the Spiritual Formations class truly helped me to solidify what my concept of a disciple is. Before then, I had only given minimal thought and study towards the question, “What is a disciple of Jesus?” Let me clarify my definition of a disciple before I move forward with the implications this has on my ministry.
Before we can understand what a disciple is, we first have to take a look at what a disciple isn’t. While each of the following is an aspect of a disciple, none of them by themselves give us a full picture of what a disciple is.
First, a disciple isn’t a mystic. A mystic’s whole life’s goal is to seek to be in the presence of Jesus. While this is a noble task and one that we should all seek to some degree, it is not a disciple.
Some would say that a disciple is a student. A student’s goal is to gain knowledge from a teacher. While we need to grow in our understanding of Jesus and the gospel everyday, a student and a disciple are two different things.
Third, some think of a disciple as a practitioner, focused on actions. They want to do what Jesus did. They love seeking out the methods of Jesus and seek to do the same thing as He did. While we need to learn to do what Jesus did, this isn’t a disciple.
Lastly, some people think of a disciple as a professional. In his or her mind, a disciple is someone who has finally arrived. They have read several books, taken classes, and probably hold some kind of title in the church.
So if a disciple isn’t a mystic, student, practitioner, or professional, what is a disciple? To begin, we need to take a look at what it would have culturally meant to be a disciple during the time Jesus was on earth. Ray Vander Laan talks about the education system and the relationship between a rabbi and disciples.
A few (very few) of the most outstanding Beth Midrash students sought permission to study with a famous rabbi often leaving home to travel with him for a lengthy period of time. These students were called talmidim (talmid, s.) in Hebrew, which is translated disciple. There is much more to a talmid than what we call student. A student wants to know what the teacher knows for the grade, to complete the class or the degree or even out of respect for the teacher. A talmid wants to be like the teacher, that is to become what the teacher is. That meant that students were passionately devoted to their rabbi and noted everything he did or said. This meant the rabbi/talmid relationship was a very intense and personal system of education. As the rabbi lived and taught his understanding of the Scripture his students (talmidim) listened and watched and imitated so as to become like him.[i]
A disciple doesn’t want to know what the rabbi knows or do what the rabbi does or simply be in the presence of the rabbi; he wants to do all these things to become who the rabbi is. The disciple’s sole focus is to become who the rabbi is. So this shapes my definition of a disciple:
A disciple is someone who is on the path to becoming like Jesus by the grace of God through the power of the Holy Spirit. As the disciple becomes more like Jesus, they find their identity in Jesus and image Him by worshiping God with all their lives, living in gospel community with other disciples, and going on mission to make more disciples of Jesus.
Tomorrow we’ll break down this definition a little more…
I’m going to come out and say this…I have a man crush on Moses. Of all the men in the Bible, I have always found myself drawn to Moses. I truly think this is a God thing. Because of all the men in the Bible, I relate to Moses the most.
We’re both miracle babies (my mom wasn’t suppose to physically be able to have children). We’re both overly ambitious (although I haven’t killed anybody…yet). We’re not the “bestest” of speakers. God has used trials, tribulations, and time to prepare us for our callings. Most importantly, I feel like God has given me the same clarification on my calling that He gave Moses.
In Exodus 3, God tells Moses that He is going to use him to deliver His people out of Egypt. Moses’ response is the same as any person who has a great calling put before them, “Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh and bring the children of Israel out of Egypt?” Moses is scared, perplexed, shaken and lacking confidence. How could a screwed up man like him complete such a large task after he had failed so many years before? He has been hiding in the desert for 40 years, and he is looking to God for a sign to give him confidence in his calling.
God’s response is classic. He doesn’t give him some pep talk about how awesome Moses is and how God has been preparing him 40 years for this very moment. Instead God tells him, “But I will be with you, and this shall be the sign for you, that I have sent you: when you have brought the people out of Egypt, you shall serve God on this mountain.”
This one verse has been the summation of my entire calling. October 27 of this last year marked the 10 year anniversary of God calling me to vocational ministry. I have known since then that God is calling me to serve Him as my full-time job. And as I have sought Him for clarification of the years, His sign has always been the same. It’s not a pillar of smoke or fire, or a damp towel on my front porch, or a star in the east. Instead God has quietly told me He will be with me, and I’ll know I’ve fulfilled my calling when I look back and see that I’ve fulfilled my calling.
For this reason, I have never really looked forward to try and figure out what God wants me to do. Instead I’ve looked backwards to see what Jesus has done in my life to determine where He wants me to go next.
By looking at the last 10 years of my life, I can see that Jesus has been moving me towards pinnacle moment in my life. In college, I went on a mission trip to Rio de Janeiro, Brazil for two-and-a-half months. My main point of contact there was the head of the Purpose Driven Church Planting movement in Rio. Him and others spoke into my life saying they saw in me great potential to plant churches in my future. I filed the information deep in the recesses of my brain and went on with my life.
I came back to Eastern New Mexico University, started a interdenominational Bible study with my best friend, married the most beautiful woman in the world, graduated, and got a job as a youth minister in a small town in the panhandle of Texas. It was during my time as a youth minister that God stirred the memories of Brazil in my head and moved in my heart.
I don’t remember the day or the time, but I remember the intense emotions and distinct clarity. I knew that God wanted me to plant a church. So I did what any young ambitious newly married kid does only a year-and-a-half out of college, I turned in my two week notice and made plans to move to Portland, OR (motivated by the book Blue Like Jazz).
When reality snapped to, we figured out that we had no jobs, no place to live, and no friends in Portland. Therefore we did what every young ambitious church planter does, we packed up all our stuff and temporarily moved into my mother-in-law’s house in Albuquerque, NM. It was going to be our half-way point on the way to Portland
We tried our best to find a way to get to Portland, but God kept shutting the doors. And the longer that we stayed in Albuquerque, the more Jesus opened my eyes to the beauty of this city and broke my heart with the sin of its people. In the quiet of our hearts, God showed us that He had other men for Portland, but He wanted us to stay here in Albuquerque.
As Shannon and I began to settle into Albuquerque, getting jobs and a home of our own, we started looking for a church that we call home while we prepared to plant. We scoured hundreds of church websites and visited numerous in person. We began to get so discouraged by what we found. And as time went on, we began to see why God wanted us to plant a church in Albuquerque.
But like a diamond in the rough, we came across a small church that was meeting in a run down theater on Central Ave, City on a Hill (now Mars Hill Church Albuquerque). The church was a place of love, grace, and mercy as you would see the rich rub elbows with homeless and the messed up mingle with the self-righteous. The pastor, Dave Bruskas, had planted the church only a few years earlier and had a heart to help young men plant churches in Albuquerque. He had a deep love for the city and an even deeper love for Jesus. His passion was infectious (and still is to this day).
It was during this time that a few things happened. First, I felt like God told me to wait. I had some growing up to do, and like the disciples, I needed to go up to my room and wait for the Holy Spirit to come. Second, I learned about Acts 29, Mars Hill, and Mark Driscoll. Through them I learned what it means to be a church planter and more importantly a husband and father. Third, I got a job with UPS doing sales. By working for UPS, I have traveled all over Albuquerque (and half the state of NM). I have seen the good, the bad, and the ugly of this city.
But one area has always stood out to me as I make my daily visits to customers. Uptown has to be one of the more unique areas of Albuquerque. If Nob Hill is the cultural hub of Albuquerque, I would say that Uptown is the socio-economic center. You have the wealthy and affluent who come to work in the high rises and play at Q Mall, but there are also the gang-bangers who come from the War Zone to roam the Coronado Mall. You won’t find another place in Albquerque where more diverse group of people live, work, and play. It has captured my heart (but more on this later).
The last thing that happened was I listened to a podcast that would change my thoughts on church planting for the rest of my life. Up until this point I had planned on flying solo. I was going to gather a small group of people and start our own church named after a weird latin term or vague Harry Potter incantation. But God had other plans. As I listened to Doug Swagerty from Harbor Church in San Diego talk about why and how they do multi-site churches, God made it clear to me that this was His plan for me.
The organization, efficiency, and team-work that went into planting a campus as opposed to a new church spoke to the core of who God made me as a person. It was then that I had determined that God didn’t want me to plant a church, but to plant another campus for City on a Hill in the Uptown area. He wanted me to carry the vision and mission to another part of our beautiful city.
This brings us to this moment in time. For the past three years, I feel like have been metaphorically sitting on the bench waiting for God to call me into the game. Like Moses wandered in the dessert shepherding sheep for 40 years, God has been having me wander in the dessert waiting for His timing. But as City on a Hill has made the transition to becoming Mars Hill Church Albuquerque, I feel like God has been calling my number. The Holy Spirit has began to move fresh my heart, and I hear God saying, “Qualls…get in the game.” I feel like God is calling me to be on mission with Jesus in Albuquerque as He reaches our city to impact a region to influence the world.
Working along side Dave Bruskas, we are looking to start a Mars Hill Church campus in the Albuquerque Uptown area. Through Mars Hill’s campus model we hope to reach hundreds of thousands of people through preaching the gospel, planting Acts 29 Churches, and hosting Resurgence and Acts 29 events.
In preparation for this, I will be going to Re:Train starting on August 16th of this year. Re:Train is a one year training center that trains “missional leaders to live for Jesus and lead their churches to effectively reach their cultures with the gospel by staying culturally accessible and biblically faithful.” I see God using this training as a final step to prepare me for the mission put before me.
Looking back on the past ten years of my life, I can see how Jesus has been leading to this moment. Each trial and tribulation has been there to bring me to this point in time. He has led me here, and now He is telling me once again, “I will be with you, and this shall be the sign for you, that I have sent you: when you have brought the people out of Egypt, you shall serve God on this mountain.” I don’t know exactly what the next few years entail. But I know this, years from know there will be a Mars Hill Church in Uptown Albuquerque, and we will worship and serve our Lord Jesus on that mountain.
Here’s the deal though, I know I can’t do this alone. And I know that I’m not the only person that God has called to do this. I need all the help I can get. More importantly, I need your help. I completely believe in the sovereignty of God. So if you have gotten through the 1841 words of this post to this point, I believe that God has a part for you in this. I ultimately don’t know what that is for you (that’s between you and God), but I have a few suggestions.
1. Pray
I have seen God move in amazing ways through prayer. I know that God chooses to work through the prayers of His people. Therefore, I desperately ask for your prayers as I move forward with this endeavor. Pray for me as I go through Re:Train. Pray for God to bring laborers. Pray for my family. Pray for provision (finances, locations, volunteers, ect.). Pray for a pouring out of the Holy Spirit in Albuquerque.
2. Join
Join in on the mission in Albuquerque. As we get closer towards starting this, I will be getting out more information. For now this would simply mean joining the Mars Hill Church campus in Albuquerque. Join a community group and start serving. If you are interested in joining, email me, and we can start a conversation.
3. Give
Bread is made for laughter, and wine gladdens life, and money answers everything. – Ecclesiastes 10:19
Unfortunately, it is going to take money to do this. Fortunately, I know that God will provide. He will use His people (you) to provide for the tasks that are ahead. The biggest financial burden at the moment is Re:Train. I need to raise $2,000 in the next five weeks. This will pay for my first month of training, travel, lodging, and a basic laptop. Please pray if God would have you support this task financially. If you feel moved by God, you can use the ChipIn Widget below or email me and I will send you my mailing address.
I am excited to see what God is going to do in the next few years. I look forward to sharing with you what God is doing as we go through this journey together.
Posted by GregQualls | Posted in Baby, Life, Videos | Posted on 21-04-2009
For those of you that didn’t catch the live feed yesterday, I thought I would post the video on here. At about 5 pm yesterday, Asa finally figured out how to work his hands into the crawling equation and started crawling. The video below is literally minutes after Asa started crawling for the first time (thanks to my jail broken iphone).
Posted by GregQualls | Posted in Tech, Tip and Tricks | Posted on 01-04-2009
Tech Wednesdy is back! Well for now. It has been a long time since I got my iPhone. So long that the warranty has actually gone out on it. So with that in mind I decided to jailbreak it. Jailbreakng an iPhone simply allows you to do whatever you want with it.
You can put whatever third-pary programs you want on it. You can access the OS. You easily add new ring tones. It is a beautiful thing. But the most beautiful thing about it was using Pwnage Tool. Pwnage Tool made what could be a headache of a process really simple.
I love my iPhone, but I love it even more now. My favorite thing is the ability to do video with my phone now. One of the first programs I installed was Qik. It’s a program that allows you to do live video from your phone. I’m loving it!!!!!!
If you have an iPhone and you aren’t worried about voiding your warranty, I highly recomend jailbreaking it. If you decide to, use this guide. It was really helpful and walked me through the process step-by-step (and it didn’t even have Suzanne Somers).
This is just a short rant I had to get out of my system. I don’t know if this happens to you, but it seems to happen pretty frequently to me. The people change, but the conversation seems to stay about the same.
Them: Hey can I talk to you.
Me: Sure.
Them: God has really been convicting me lately of _________ sin in my life.
Me: Ok.
Them: I’m telling you this because I’ve seen you do the same thing to me.
Me: um…..
I’m just a little confused, when did the fact that God is convicting you of your deep sinful character flaw, give you the right to nit pick my flaws. I kind of remember Jesus talking about taking the log out of your own eye….not leave the log in your eye, pick up a sniper rifle, and start shooting everyone with specks in their eyes. It just doesn’t make sense.
So here’s my recomendation. The next time God convicts you of something, stop! Don’t start looking around to see if anyone else has the same sin. Don’t start thinking about how you’ve been hurt by others in the same way. Don’t start calling every Tom, Dick and Sally. Instead, put the gun down and go to Jesus. Let him take the log out of your eye and give it some time to heal (logs in your eyes tend to cause a lot of damage). Otherwise you might end up shooting some close friends….
So about six months ago Shannon and I started our search for a home to buy. Being first time home owners we had a vague idea of what we wanted in a house….three bedroom, two bath, lots a space to grow. Our realtor started showing us houses in Albquerque, and we started to get depressed.
It seemed like there weren’t really any good houses in our price range. They were either to small or so run down that they were on the verge of being condemened. That was until we came accross “the house.” The second we walked through the front door we fell in love. It had everything we were looking for in a house and then some. Most importantly it was in our price range.
There was some small problems though. The Realtor for the house was a little crooked. He was part owner and was trying to do a short sale. But he failed to mention that he was a part owner and that the house was going to foreclose on if he didn’t get someone to pay cash for it in the few days he had left. By God’s grace we found out and didn’t get caught in a huge mess that could have happened.
So fast forward to this last Sunday. The house ended up going into forclosure, and no one bought it at auction. So it came back on the market this last Sunday as a HUD home. That brought up some small problems since we are qualified for a FHA loan and generally it’s hard to buy HUD houses with FHA loans. Things are ok though, but we have one last issue to overcome.
HUD houses are sold by a bidding process. Everyone interested in the house puts in a bid (not knowing if anyone else is bidding or the other bids if there are any) and the most cost effective bid for the government wins. There’s no counter offers or anything. You get one chance. So now we are seeking the prayer support of all our friends.
We really feel like God is opening up the doors for us to get this house (there is so much more to the story that I’m not sharing due to time). This house is more than a house. We see it as a place where we can truly do ministry for God. The only thing we have left to figure out is how much we need to bid.
So please pray that God would give us a clear direction on what to bid for the house. Pray that He would give us wisdom. Pray that He would give us peace. Pray that He would ulitimatly give us the house. Thanks so much and feel free to pass this along to anyone else. We are meeting with our realtor on Thursday to put in our bid and will find out on Monday if we got the house or not.
(Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1989).
