Joel Young Blog.com

God isn’t good, he’s awesome! That may seem like an overly dramatic way to communicate God’s might, but for me it fits perfectly. Last night I watched as my wife baptized one of her friends and D-group members, and was again amazed at how quickly people can realize the need for Jesus in their lives through real relationships and the study of scripture. Not through a fantastic music at a worship experience, not through flashing lights and fog, not through an impressive conference, not through a famous speakers, but through reading God’s Word and real people loving them. I’m not saying that those things are bad, but that was my baseline for this kind of life change for many years.

This is the second baptism in 6 months at Horizon, and while that might not seem phenomenal to most here are a few things that God has given me to get excited about.

• One baptism after 50 years of ministry would still make the work worth while because someone who was going to Hell now gets to spend an eternity in Heaven.
• Since the launch of our Discipleship Groups at Horizon we have seem major life change from everyone involved. Both mature believers and people seeking to figure out what Jesus is all about have seen a perspective shift. Real relationships and Biblical accountability change people.
• Over the last six months Horizon has baptized over 10% of her weekly attendance. That’s huge!

I’m thankful for every ounce of effort that God allows me to pour into His Church (not MY church), and today I’m thankful the healthy perspective he has given me.

Ok, I should probably know this by now, but when you talk about something publicly (i.e. expecting to be frustrated by the devil’s efforts to fight the work of God’s kingdom) then you usually become a target. And right on cue something crazy happened to our church once again this week. I showed up a couple hours early to our Sunday Gathering, as I usually do, to find that we had no electricity. There wasn’t a power outage…there wasn’t a down line…our power was straight up shut off. I knew that we hadn’t done anything deserving of our power being shut off, but that didn’t change the fact that we had less than two hours to power this place before people began to arrive.

Needless to say, I was pretty steamed. Thankfully, a few of our guys had also come over extra early to get some things ready and they helped me keep my cool (Yes, we preachers can lose our cool too. We’re not perfect!) as we sorted out the situation. We had a couple of our resourceful men round up some generators, but by the grace of God the power company showed up and sorted the issue out with just minutes to spare and we didn’t have to alter anything. A clerical error on the power company’s part had lead to our loss in power.

While this is yet another chapter in the book of what to expect when you’re a church planter it was also a reminder to me that if you become a visible threat to Satan, he will attack you. We went on to have one of the most powerful gatherings we have ever had. The room was packed, the Word was preached, and God was honored above all. Satan didn’t want that to happen.

It’s awesome to think that Satan sees our work at Horizon as a threat, but it’s still a frustrating thing to endure. I think I’ll be praying for patience and perspective this week.

Over the last month I have been going through one of the most trying seasons of frustration I have ever dealt with. Every day it seems like there is yet another pressing problem or another fire to put out. Not only is it tiring, but it’s taxing on every aspect of my life. This morning as I dealt with yet another frustrating headache I realized something about myself. I expect, and even welcome, frustration during a season of personal or public growth for the Kingdom of God, but somehow I have embedded this understanding in my heart that it will be over quickly. I have been assuming that Satan’s schemes to frustrate me in my life and ministry will be like the removal of a band-aid from my forearm. I expect to lose some hair, but I also don’t expect it to last very long, so I can easily deal with it.

The problem is that Satan doesn’t always play by the rules. Look at Job as an example. After he had lost all of his family and possessions he was probably thinking the season of frustration was over, but it wasn’t. He went on to lose his health and some of his closest friends. Look at the Apostle Paul. Scholars believe that he suffered through debilitating pain most of his adult life. He called it a, “thorn in his side,” and pleaded with God to take it from him. Sounds frustrating to me.

What I’m trying to say is that if we are going to commit to serving the kingdom of God we should expect no end to the frustration. In many ways we should expect it to continue as long as we are faithful in our service. The season could last for weeks, months, years, or decades. But, since we’ll never have that kind of information we just have to push forward through the frustration and continue to work diligently in God’s will knowing that it will do nothing but frustrate Satan and his efforts all the more.

A lot of people ask me, “what has church planting taught you?” Often my response is something like, “Not to do it again,” or “That I really don’t know as much as I thought I did.” But all joking aside there is something that church planting has taught me that is invaluable in both life and ministry. Craig Groeschel captured that lesson in a very short an concise post this morning. Here’s what he said about, “Letting Go of the Fear of Failure.”

The fear of failure paralyzes too many people.

I’ve found one of the best gifts God can give a leader is the gift of failure.

Too many of us are not doing what we feel called to do because we’re afraid to fail.

As I observe the people around me, it seems the most effective have failed far more times than the least effective.

The people making the biggest impact seem to:

1) Try something outlandish.

2) Fail.

3) Learn.

4) Adjust.

5) Try something that works better.

Failure is never final. It is often the first step to success.

If you haven’t failed in awhile, why don’t you try something crazy and see what happens.

This one lesson we all need to learn. Thanks for the reminder Craig.

Alright Horizon people. This is your final warning. We are meeting at our new facility THIS SUNDAY! You will need directions and about 10 friends/family/co-works/people you just met to bring along (because it’s a monumental Sunday). Not only does this new place rock, but Malachi 2 is going to rock even harder this week. Be there, or miss out. There are no other options.

GET DIRECTIONS

I just inadvertently stumbled onto some really stupid and petty online mudslinging. I’m not going to say who was doing it or who it was about because I don’t want to add to the drama, but a guy I know who is very close to my age and also leads a young church was the one getting trashed. He was being called a goat herder, a false teacher, and a heretic among other things. In case you’re not hip to the lingo these are all very bad things that shouldn’t just be thrown around.

I sat at my desk for more than 10 minutes before I could do anything. I was sick to my stomach, I was angry, and most of all I wished that their was something I could do to defend this guy. I can’t imagine that I would have felt any differently if I was the one getting trashed all over the world wide web. It just made me sick.

After thinking long and hard about the whole situation, and with the realization that this is more common than I know, I have decided to share my personal challenge with you all for your consideration. Here’s what I’m asking myself:

• Is it more important that people hear the Gospel, or that they hear it from YOU?
• Is it more important that your church grows or that the Kingdom of God grows?
• Is it going to hurt your ego if you see another guy doing the same thing as you doing, only doing it better?

I’m not just talking about those times when people put this kind of thing out there for the world to see, but I’m also talking about the condition of our hearts. I may not blog about it, but do I feel these feelings?

The bottom line is this: THERE WILL BE NO MUDSLINGING IN HEAVEN. If you’re in Christ, we’re all on the same team. If someone is out of line with scripture, call them on it (but do it in a Biblical manner, not on your blog or YouTube). But, if someone is out of line with your personal world views or opinions or the blessing they enjoy is eating at your heart, it’s probably time for you to get over it.

My Discipleship Group at Horizon is reading through the book of Psalms this week. If I was being honest I would have to say that I was less than enthused to start this long book full of poetical chapters. I’m not much of a poetry guy, even though I am a song writer, so it’s a bit of a challenge for me. But, I believe this time through God has allowed me to realize some things about these Psalms that I never had before. I thought I would share one this morning.

Even people like King David had major upswings and downswings in their relationship with God. As the author of many psalms, David never ceases to express his true feelings; no matter how good or bad. Sometimes you can sense his frustration with God and His plan. Other times you get the feeling that he is going to explode with appreciation. This isn’t because he’s got a polar personality. It’s because he is being honest with God. I think on some level we all need to learn that being honest with God is okay. He already knows the desires of our hearts and every thought we have, yet we try to conceal our true selves in those times when we struggle.

This week, try to be as honest with God as possible. You won’t be revealing anything new to him, but I think you’ll be surprised what it will do for YOU and how you relate to your creator.

Well, after a week like last week I’m not really sure where to start. So many things happened and so many lives were changed. Not just in the realm of my church, but in God’s Kingdom. I could run down the list for you, but just the things that I know about personally are far to expansive to list; so I’ll just say this.

God is always preparing His Church for something. It could be a for a huge blessing. It could be for a huge obstacle. It could be for a huge opportunity. But, no matter what it is we must always realize that God is preparing us for something. We should stand at the ready, with our sword in hand every day ready for whatever he is preparing us for.

Think about the brave men and women who are a part of our country’s armed forces. When they train and prepare and dedicate themselves to serve they don’t always know where it’s going to take them. Yet they still train diligently knowing that they are preparing for something.

In light of what I have seen God do over the last week allow me to urge you to prepare themselves for whatever direction God is taking you next. You may not know where that is or what that means yet, but God has a plan.

I wanted to update everyone on Horizon’s facility struggles. If you’re lost, read my previous post: “Important Information about Horizon”.

Yesterday, God answered our prayers in a huge way. Not only did we find a place to meet, but this new place will be Horizon’s first permanent campus! That’s right. Not only did God bless us with a place to meet, but it’s going to be a place that we can make our own and use seven days a week. The facility is located in the community of Wilder, KY and we are very excited to see how God will use this space to enhance and expand what we do at Horizon.

The only thing left for us to do is finalize some paperwork and prepare the space for our gatherings so please continue to pray for these things, as they must happen very quickly. Thanks to all of you who have been praying and/or fasting this past week for our situation and God’s direction for Horizon. We know our family of supporters stretches far beyond Northern Kentucky and we are thankful for every last word lifted to God on our behalf.

Please continue to hep us pray as we prepare Horizon for great things.

Because many of the readers of my blog are also great supporters of Horizon I wanted to keep you all in the loop about the current situation of our church so you can join us in prayer. Below is the message I sent out to our community this morning.

Hey everyone. I wanted to inform you all of some very time sensitive information that was just confirmed this morning.

The facility that we currently rent as part of UK’s extension cooperative has decided to discontinue their agreement to allow us use of their building. Because of their policies and our rental agreement they are only required to give us two weeks notice which means that this coming Sunday (Oct. 25) will be the last Sunday we will be allowed use of the facility.

One of the greatest things about our church is that our church and our mission and morale is not tied to any person, place, or thing. This is our chance to live our the words Paul spoke to Timothy in his second letter (Something we preached through no more than two weeks ago) when he stated that the Gospel is not chained by our situation. Our momentum and passion is threatening Satan’s work and there is no doubt in my mind that this is nothing more than a ploy to distract and discourage us, BUT WE WILL NOT BE DISCOURAGED OR DISTRACTED! We will press on and seek the direction that God is taking our church and follow him wholeheartedly.

Our Leadership Team has already begun the process of searching for a new facility and we hope to have solid plans by Sunday. In the mean time we would like to ask every one of you to join us as we pray and fast for this search and God’s leading for our church. Feel free to conduct those things in any way that you feel is appropriate in your own life.

Stand strong church. Satan has already been defeated and God is still on the throne. We will move past this speed bump to greatness for the Kingdom of God.

No matter what your connection with Horizon is I hope you will join us as we pray and fast as we seek God’s direction for our church. I am confident that God will prove this to be more of an opportunity than an obstacle.