Motion

Likes and the Like

Social media is the thing these days. Everybody has some form of it, probably even your grandmother. 

I’m no exception. I have a Facebook account and a Twitter account. I also keep up with Motion’s Twitter and Facebook, as well as the Vimeo account. I also have some other Facebook pages that I’m responsible for.

Something I obsess over, without even meaning to, is how many likes, followers and friends I have. I never went into it with having X number of likes as a goal, but somehow it’s become a big deal for me. I guess it brings some validation. As if having a certain number of likes on your page means you’re more significant and have more value. It’s really dumb when you think about it. 

I wonder what my life would be like if I was more concerned about what God thinks about me than some cyber buddy? Would I have different priorities, ones that really matter in the grand scheme of things? Would I be more concerned about what the real people that are in my life think? 

It’s easy to get caught up in, speaking from first hand experience. But looking at it from a simple and logical perspective, what is really important? I think we all know the answer to the question. What we do with it is up to us. 

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Moxie Series- Pride Notes

This past week at Motion we talked about how pride is an enemy of Moxie. It is a pretty difficult and daunting subject. Here are the highlights of my notes for anybody that had questions or just wanted to take some more time breaking it down. 

Moxie

Enemies of Moxie- Pride

Intro

Excerpt from Mere Christianity from C.S. Lewis

“I now come to that part of Christian morals where they differ most sharply from all other morals. There is one vice of which no man in the world is free; which every one in the world loathes when he sees it in someone else; and of which hardly any people, except Christians, ever imagine that they are guilty themselves. I have heard people admit that they are bad-tempered, or that they cannot keep their heads about girls or drink, or even that they are cowards. I do not think I have ever heard anyone who was not a Christian accuse himself of this vice. And at the same time I have very seldom met anyone, who was not a Christian, who showed the slightest mercy to it in others. There is no fault which makes a man more unpopular, and no fault which we are more unconscious of in ourselves. And the more we have it ourselves, the more we dislike it in others.

The vice I am talking of is Pride or Self-Conceit”

Pride is the greatest enemy of Moxie. As we talked about last week, true moxie only comes from God and confidence in His abilities. 

Pride is an enemy of moxie because it makes an assertion of worth based on your abilities that are finite. If you are your answer for your problems and the solution to all of life’s dilemmas then you are going to come up empty. Then what?

1) Defining Pride

According to Webster pride is a feeling or deep pleasure or satisfaction derived from one’s own achievements. 

Some biblical defining of pride:

Pride is all about you.

Ecclesiastes 7:8- The end of a matter is better than its beginning, and patience is better than pride. 

Quarrels and contentions. 

Proverbs 13:10- Pride only breeds quarrels… 

Deception/ Manipulation (of yourself or others) 

Obadiah 1:3- The pride of your heart has deceived you…

Forgetting God. 

Deuteronomy 8:14- Your heart will become proud and you will forget the LORD your God. 

I believe that it would be a safe and fair assessment of pride, within the context of Christianity, to say that pride could be summed up as “an overestimation of ones worth and ability, as exhibited by their words, actions and thoughts”. 

So what does that mean for us? How do we know if we are prideful? 

The question should never be “Am I prideful?”, rather, “How much pride do I have?” and, “Where does it rear its ugly head?”

I completely agree with C.S. Lewis’ analysis of pride. Everyone has it to varying degrees. And we typically do a really poor job noticing it in ourselves, but an incredible job noticing it in others. 

The good news is that therein lies our answer and the definition of our own pride. 

It’s usually the variety of pride that we find so appalling in others that is at work in us.

This was aptly displayed in a tweet I saw from a guy that I follow on Twitter. He said ,”I got an email today that was very prideful. I asked for forgiveness. #takesonetoknowone

The trick for us is to do the difficult task of nailing down and defining the areas of pride in our life. 

Ways to do that: 

a) Call the glaring pride issues in your life what they are. Don’t rename it or mask it. 

b) What aspect of pride that you see in others drives you nuts? That may be a place for you to start your investigative journey. 

c) Ask some of the people that are closest to you. The people that you love and that love you know you best. Don’t be defensive, but allow them to be honest if you ask for their opinion. 

Defining pride and working on minimizing its effect in our lives is crucial because of its destructive nature. 

2) The Devastating Effect of Pride

The nature of pride is destructive. Where it exists, it destroys. 

Proverbs 16:18- Pride goes before destruction, and haughtiness before a fall. 

Pride has detrimental consequences on the most important areas of our lives. 

a) It is destructive to our earthly relationships. 

This should go without saying, but just to make sure that we are on the same page, love is the driving force of our relationships. 

If you have pride it has a direct, negative impact on your ability to love. 

1 Corinthians 13:4- Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud.

When we have pride we are really just disrupting the balance found in Scriptures. 

Matthew 22:37-39 Jesus replied: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your should and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.'”

b) It is destructive to our relationship with God. 

James 4:7- God resists the proud, but gives grace to the humble. 

Pride diminishes the astonishing work of Christ on the cross and exalts our own restricted self-sufficiency. 

This one goes waaay back. Ezekiel 28:17 “Your heart became proud on account of your beauty, and you corrupted your wisdom because of your splendor.”

Pride is what led to what we refer to as the “Fall of Lucifer”. Ultimately, it was his pride that drove a wedge in His otherwise healthy relationship with God. The more he became enamored by his beauty and his value and his intelligence the more animosity it created between him and God. 

It’s really no different for us, it just may look a little different. Overestimating your ____, and not recognizing the Source and honoring Him as such is pride. 

Just for the sake of clarification, you can’t compensate for the sin of pride with appreciation. Ex. “God, thank You that I am so awesome!” Doesn’t work like that. 

3) Overcoming Pride

We never want to present a problem without presenting some sort of solution. 

Here are some practical ways to overcome pride in your life. 

a) Be honest with yourself. 

Don’t be blinded to your own shortcomings and areas of weakness. 

As we discussed in the “Defining Pride”, if you need help with this then enlist the assistance of a trusted, godly friend. 

b) Put others first. 

Philippians 2:3-4 Do nothing from selfishness or empty conceit, but with humility of mind regard one another as more important than yourselves; do not merely look out for you own personal interests, but also for the interests of others. 

Andy Stanley says that sometimes we want to change our way of thinking before we change our behavior. However, it may be more beneficial to go at it the other way around. Change your behavior first and then your thinking may follow suit. 

Go out of your way to put others first with behaviors. Open doors, pick up trash, carry their stuff, buy them things they like, do their chores at home, do their menial tasks at work, etc. Do this with out any expectation of something in return. 

c) Celebrate other people.

Then tendency of pride is to “one-up”. 

When somebody else accomplishes something or has something happen in their life that is significant, celebrate rather than compete. 

Don’t spin everything so that it brings the attention back on you. 

Romans 12:15,16- Rejoice with those who rejoice, and weep with those who weep. Be of the same mind toward one another; do not be haughty in mind, but associate with the lowly. Do not be wise in your own estimation. 

Closing

Pride is without a doubt the greatest enemy of Moxie. 

Overestimating your worth and ability, and down playing the need for Jesus in every aspect of your life is detrimental to true Moxie. 

Recognizing that you are utterly and completely helpless without the grace and mercy of God is a key ingredient in the Moxie recipe. 

 

The Motion Baptism Party

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This weekend at Motion (technically at my house, but you get the idea) we had our first baptism celebration, and it was amazing! We chose the words that we did to describe our baptisms intentionally; celebration and party, because that’s exactly what it is.

It had an incredibly celebratory, but serious tenor. We recognize the spiritual nature of the event, but we also realize that it is a cause to be excited about. People publicly acknowledging that they have put their faith and trust in Christ and have passed from death to life makes for an exciting event.

We had the honor of baptizing 16 people, young and “distinguished” alike. People who have been in church for years, as well as people who just started attending on Easter about a month ago. It was a perfect picture of what we want Motion to be about. It doesn’t matter where you’ve been, and it doesn’t matter what you’ve done, there is always hope because of the incredible God we serve. 

Thanks to everybody who participated in the baptism. We love you and are so proud! Thanks to the people that came to be supportive and to celebrate with us. That is what the body is about! And, of course, thanks to those who brought food! After all, what is a party without a crap-load of food??

Baptism at Motion

At Motion, there are a few things that we go over the top to celebrate.

  • Christmas is the origin of our understanding that “God is with is”, as embodied in the expression Immanuel. We definitely celebrate Christmas.
  • Easter and the resurrection of Jesus incite celebration because it is the source of our hope.
  • Another of the tenants of the Christian faith that we love to celebrate is Baptism.

Just to clarify, we don’t believe that baptism is an act of salvation. We simply believe that it is something that Jesus did and emphasized for us to do. That makes it important to us.

However, this is not an obligatory religious ceremony. It is the celebration of an individual that has been changed, literally shifting from spiritual death to abundant life (or as it says in Colossians 1:13 “For he has rescued us from the dominion of darkness and brought us into the kingdom of the Son he loves…”).

It is the outward expression of an inward condition. It is a way for you to “go public” with the life that you have found in Christ.

We strongly encourage everybody who hasn’t been baptized yet to join us in this celebration. We would love to be a part of your story, and we believe that a sequence in your plot should be baptism! Sign up today!

Things you need to know about Easter

Here is a semi-comprehensive list of all the things that are going on at Motion for Easter.

1) The Bunny Run 5k and Bunny Dash is Saturday (April 7th) morning at 8am. Registration opens at 7am and the kids Bunny Dash will start approximately 9:30am. It’s gonna be sweet! Over 1,000 candy filled eggs and sweaty runners. What a combo!?

2) Later that same day (April 7th) at 3pm we are dropping eggs from a FREAKIN’ helicopter!!! Operation Egg Drop is gonna be nuts!! It’s in the field behind Motion. If you take the road that goes beside the old Sitel building it will take you right to the field. 4,000 candy filled eggs!!!

3) And last but certainly not least is the Motion experience on Sunday morning at 11am. We’re putting a lot of energy into making this is over the top celebration. If you think about it, there really isn’t a greater time for the church to celebrate. Had the resurrection of Christ not taken place we would have no hope whatsoever. BUT that’s not the way it went down! Bring your kids, bring your wife!! Invest and invite! It is going to be AMAZING!

I love you guys and can’t wait for Easter!!

A Legacy and a Proud Face

We have a running joke about the uncontrollable facial reaction of someone who is caught in the emotion of a proud moment. We simply call it their “Proud Face”.

I have to be honest and admit that I had my proud face on for an extended period of time this past Sunday.

Here’s why: My Grandpa, who is the epitome of the patriarchal leader of a family, made a surprise visit to Motion. To me he is the greatest guy on the face of the planet. No one has more character, courage or tenacity than he does. I’m convinced that to this day, although he is coming upon his 80th birthday, he would work circles around just about every person I know. He’s always instilled in his family to “do the right things”, and led by example. He still galavants across the country in his RV with the adventurous zeal of a teenager.

Of course, there is the obvious generation gap. Our music is loud, our clothes are different, I have a tattoo (which I noticed he kept glancing at). But what made my proud face even more uncontrollable was that, in spite of the differences, he loved what we were doing. In fact, he seemed to have his proud face on too.

I tell my wife all the time that when I am older I want to look, act and be just like my Grandpa. I guess those aspirations were validated by the support of my “legend”. I suppose the take away is found somewhere in the concept of being supportive, leading by example, and having integrity. But to be honest I’m not very concerned with that right this minute. I’m just hoping not too many people are seeing my proud face as I type this in Starbucks.

Measuring Up

There seems to be a common thread that ties people of all social and economic genres together. While that is usually a good thing, I think in this case it is to our detriment.

The thread that I’m referring to is that of comparing ourselves to others.

I’ve seen successful people compare themselves to someone else in their area of expertise and diminish their worth because the other person has more or has done more. Of course it happens in sports. We “size-up” the opposition usually to find ourselves questioning our own faults and weaknesses. It happens to us at the gym, regardless of gender. “If I only had their _____.” Parents compare themselves to other parents. Teenagers do the same, to the nth degree. People who don’t have compare themselves to those that do. Those that do have find those that have more. Even pastors find themselves mentally and emotionally pitted against other pastors. They have a bigger church than I do. They preach better than I do…

It’s sad really.

A couple of things come to mind when I think about this struggle of ours.

1) You don’t know everything that goes on in the life of your comparison subject. Some people put on really exquisite fronts. The reality may be much harsher than it appears. Just because it seems to you that they have it all together doesn’t mean they really do. You know your faults inside and out and bring that to the table, skewing the comparison.

But the actuality is that it doesn’t matter if they are that much better than you.

2) God didn’t ask you to be somebody else. He asked you to be you. I have this redundant statement that I use as a reminder of this verity. “You are the only you and only you can do what you can do so you better do what God has called you to do.” Let me break that down for clarification.

You are the only you.
Only you can do what you can do.
You better do what God has called you to do.

The comparison trap is an easy one to fall to. However, it’s one that we should strive to prevail over.

We’re not called to measure up to other people. We’re called to be children of God. That is our identity.

Monday Morning Quarterback

If you’re unfamiliar with the phrase “Monday Morning Quarterback”, I’ll gladly enlighten you. By definition it is a person who, after the event, offers advice or criticism concerning decisions made by others; one who second-guesses.

I always feel a little like this the day after we have our experiences at Motion. When things don’t go quite as planned, or there are certain things that you forget to say that would have been perfect with point 1, subpoint b, or a technical miscue…. You get the idea. Hindsight, as they say, is 20/20.

But here is the interesting thing: Most people don’t even notice the things that make me freak out. If I put it in the proper perspective it changes everything. They really are just mole hills, not mountains. Even with a few shortcomings people still connected relationally, had an opportunity to worship God and heard and applicable message about Jesus. Not a bad day.

While I’m not excusing laziness or sloppiness, I am saying that we can lose battles and still win the war. In the grand scheme of things, giving it all we’ve got is all that we are required to do. The rest is out of our hands and into some pretty trust-worthy ones.

If you’re looking for a life application, here it is. When we fall short. When we don’t think we measure up to whatever standard we’ve set for ourselves. When we look back and say, “I wish I would have…”. In the middle of the chaos that we create, I can almost hear Jesus saying to us, “Stop looking back. Stop second-guessing. Stop allowing shame and guilt to consume you. Look forward. That’s where I am.”

Here is great scripture to complete this thought.

Proverbs 21:31- Do your best, prepare for the worst – then trust God to bring victory.

My Thoughts on the Motion Experience

First, let me start by saying that it was freakin’ awesome to get to hang out with the Motion peeps yesterday. I’m so glad we’re going steady now (that won’t make any sense if you weren’t there yesterday).

I’m absolutely blown away by the passion and commitment of our leaders and volunteers. They understand the virtue of honor and embrace it whole-heartedly. Like I’ve said before, “They make THIS what THIS is.”

It was so encouraging to see so many new faces. We will continue to work diligently to make Motion a place that you can believe in enough to invite your unchurched friends and family. Our vision is simply for people that don’t know Jesus to come to know Him through the church. I heard a quote one time that seems fitting: “We want the Message of Jesus to be comfort to the afflicted and affliction to the comforted.”

One of the Laws of Motion (core values) is generosity. We got to live this out by giving 10% of our offering to an organization called charity:water. You can track our campaign by going to http://mycharitywater.org/Motionchurch

The grand crescendo is this: the best is yet to come. Not even in a metaphorical sense, but literally, we are just getting started. We are already larger in attendance than the average church in America. We’ve got some great things planned, but God has even greater things than we can imagine. It’s appropriate to finish this post with the lyrics from the chorus of the song that is somewhat of our mantra.

“Greater things are yet to come,
Greater things are still to be done
In this city!”

Break The Wrist and Walk Away

Napoleon Dynamite is quite possibly the dumbest movie on the face of the Earth. Which is exactly why I LOVE IT!

There is one particular scene that reminds me of a scenario I was in recently. Since we’re being honest here, I have to tell you that there are some people that just rub me the wrong way. Don’t go getting all sanctified on me, because I know you feel the same way about “that person”. You know what I’m talking about. The “one” who makes your blood pressure go up at the mention of their name or during a chance encounter at Wal-Mart. The one that you would rather punch than pray for…. OK, so that may have been too much but you get the point.

The solution: “Break the wrist and walk away.” Now while we would possibly like for that to read “break their wrist”, that’s not exactly what is going on here. You know what I’ve learned about harboring animosity and unforgiveness? You’re the one that loses. The other person may never even entertain the thought that you get so worked up about their issues. So, break the wrist and walk away.

Separate yourself mentally from that persons failures, shortcomings, stupidity, or whatever it may be. I heard a quote one time that seems applicable, “Don’t let people rent space in your head.” In other words, put a “No Vacancy” sign out front. Don’t give them the emotional, mental and spiritual energy that they may even deserve. Break the wrist and walk away.

Romans 12 says that “if it is possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone.” It seems to indicate that there are some people that it just isn’t possible for you to be at peace with relationally. So to keep peace perhaps you need to steer clear of them. Break the wrist and walk away.

That is all.

I attached a link to the video as a refresher just in case you haven’t seen it in a while.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lcw6xBaCaXM&feature=related