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The Killer of Comparison

Comparison is a killer!

Well Easter Sunday has come and gone. As a new church planter, I was looking forward to Easter. It’s the christian Super Bowl… it’s the big number day! But as the big day came and went I did what every church planter should not do on Sunday afternoon. I went on social media. As I scrolled through my various feeds, I found myself feeling bad. When I should’ve been rejoicing for the Kingdom wins I was seeing, I was actually feeling insecure and not that great about myself.

Where the heck was this coming from? We’re only 10 weeks old as a church and in church planting standards we are crushing it! We have great numbers but why was I feeling so bad? Oh I get it… comparison. I was comparing myself to churches and leaders who were a lot older than us and had a lot more experience than I do. I was reminded by the Holy Spirit with this scripture.

John 21:21-22 NKJV
Peter, seeing him, said to Jesus, “But Lord, what about this man?” Jesus said to him, “If I will that he remain till I come, what is that to you? You follow Me.”

This struck me hard because even the first disciples dealt with comparison. Peter had just been told about the gruesome death he would experience in the earlier verses of this passage and immediately he wants John to have a similar experience. BUT Jesus… Jesus says in essence, If I want him to live forever… that’s my business! We must understand Jesus is building His church and He is the one doing the work. Our feelings and expectations have nothing to do with it. Our job is to follow Him.

Don’t compare someone’s highlight reel with your behind-the-scenes.

Comparison will always be a temptation, but don’t take the bait. Make sure to compare yourself to no one but yourself. This isn’t a competition, it’s a kingdom.

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Don’t Go Looking

Don’t go looking but be on the lookout!

I remember my friend Kevin told me one time, “Ashley, you need to stop looking and be on the lookout!”

After that, it wasn’t long until Stephanie came into my life and I was on the lookout.

Sometimes we are so busy looking for the next thing that we don’t look up and be on the look out for what God has right in front of us. Sometimes we are looking for some far-off external solution when maybe the solution we need is in reach of our current sphere.

Instead of hopin’ and wishin’ we’d win the lottery, maybe we need to be faithful with the finances God has given us in order to build wealth. Maybe instead of envying the marriage our neighbors have maybe we take our spouse by the hand and passionately express our love to them. Instead of looking at what someone else has, maybe it’s time to be on the lookout of what we already have.

Being on the lookout is much harder than going looking because we want to make it happen but the bible is clear about what happens when we endure.

Romans 5:3-4 NLT
We can rejoice, too, when we run into problems and trials, for we know that they help us develop endurance. And endurance develops strength of character, and character strengthens our confident hope of salvation.

Don’t give up and go looking but be on the lookout!

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Victorious Church UPDATE!

We launched Victorious Church on February 16th and it was awesome!

In three weeks we’ve seen 22 salvations and over 160 people attend the church! We also launched small groups with 34 people in men and women’s groups! Praise God!

The worship has been amazing and God has been drawing people from all across the valley to find us. It’s truly been supernatural to watch the Lord build His church!

I want to ask you to help us in moving forward as we build a culture of generosity. Please pray for a moment and ask God what you can do to give your best gift. We believe some of you can partner with us for next 6 or 12 months and help us financially as we gather more people to help us finance this great dream of Victorious Church.

We have changed our online giving option to make things much more simple than before, so please take a moment and try it out!

Thank you so much for your faithfulness!

 

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Experiencing Positive Pressure

“What’s in you will come out of you when the pressure is applied.”

2 Corinthians 4:8
We are hard-pressed on every side, yet not crushed; we are perplexed, but not in despair;

Have you ever squeezed the last bit of toothpaste out of the tube? That’s what I feel like right now… 48 hours before the launch of Victorious Church. We feel that everything in us has been squeezed out of us but it is for a good reason. Like squeezing that last bit of toothpaste out is for a good reason… whiter teeth and better breath (all the coffee drinkers said, “AMEN!”) But for us it is like the verse says… we aren’t in despair, we aren’t empty, we aren’t really even fearful. We are hopeful. We’ve run the gamete of emotions that we were supposed to feel but at this moment we feel peaceful, as we all should in every moment. We’ve done our part and now we get to watch God do His part. We get to watch Him build His church. This is what it means to be a co-laborer with Christ.

So when you experience pressure don’t allow the negative emotions to overwhelm you. We don’t live by emotion. We live by the Spirit. Instead, learn to rest in the peace of God and allow the work God has done in you to be expressed in the great work He wants to do through you. This is how we experience pressure in a positive way. You and I were born for this moment. And like my good friend Troy told me… don’t screw it up! 🙂

I want to ask you to help us continue to launch strong this weekend. Please pray for a moment and ask God what you can do to give your best gift. We believe some of you can partner with us for next 6 or 12 months and help us move forward as we gather more people to help us finance this great dream of Victorious Church.

We have been fasting and praying for the last 21 days and believing God for a great harvest for His kingdom this weekend. Please be praying for us as we make a huge impact this historic weekend! Thank you so much and I can’t wait to update you about how the launch went!!

 

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Don’t Lose Heart

“Therefore we do not lose heart.”

2 Corinthians 4:15-17
For all things are for your sakes, that grace, having spread through the many, may cause thanksgiving to abound to the glory of God. Therefore we do not lose heart. Even though our outward man is perishing, yet the inward man is being renewed day by day. For our light affliction, which is but for a moment, is working for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory,

As we get ready to step into a new year, is it going to be the same as the last year? The thought of going through the same pressure and stress as the year before can be overwhelming and can cause us to want to give up before we even get started! BUT as I read through 2 Corinthians 4, I find an interesting paradigm shift.

Paul is telling us that all the junk we go through is for our benefit even when we think it is there to tear us down. In fact, it is there to build us up! Then he goes on to tell us not to lose heart, not to give up. These things we go through are going to build us into greater people than we could’ve ever imagined.

So as we gear towards a new year, let’s gear toward greater challenges because we know they will produce greater glory. Say this out loud, “I WILL NOT LOSE HEART!” (don’t worry about the odd looks you get from those around you) We believe this will be a banner year for you!

Please go on to read an important update from about Victorious Church below!

YEAR-END GIVING

We wanted to personally thank each of you for your financial support as we gear towards the launch day of Victorious Church.

We are $17,000 away from our matching goal of $50,000 provided by the ARC. I’m asking that you would pray and ask God how you can financially support this ministry before the close of the tax year of 2013. The holiday season is a wonderful time to intentionally bring a greater focus to ways we can expand our hearts and generosity.

We are 7 weeks out from launch and our team is excited! We thank you for helping us and joining in this excitement with us!

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Dream Encouragement

Encouraging the dream of another person is like rocket fuel for their soul.

I’ve found that when someone encourages us in our dream it gives us a fire to keep going forward even in the most uncertain situations. On a similar note, I found that criticism in our dream can make the realization of that dream all the more harder. When you have someone in your corner, cheering you on in the fulfillment of your dream, it comes with encouragement, accountability, and a new sense of determination. The best way to experience our dreams is to help others reach theirs. Check out these tips on encouraging the dreams of others…

1. Encourage the person and the dream.
The point is people. When we encourage people in their gifts and abilities it adds value to them. This is our goal, adding value to others.

2. Be a helper not a hinderance.
Building someone else’s dream isn’t about building their dream for them, it’s about contributing what you can. It may be finances, a person they need to meet, or anything that you have to offer. What ever it is, make sure it’s a help and not a hinderance.

3. Be a DreamBuilder not a DreamBreaker.
This is key. Some of us have a tendency to be negative. Make sure to come up with reasons why another person’s dream will succeed instead of voicing the reasons why it could fail.

Speaking of encouraging the dream of another. I want to introduce you to  a great friend of mine. His name is Pastor Aaron Maners, he was my first youth pastor and is an executive board member for us at Victorious Church. I’m excited about this next season for Aaron because he is currently writing and self-publishing his first book called Weeds of the Mind. I am confident this book is going to help so many people and I’m asking that you would take a moment and check out his Kickstarter page to learn more about this great project and see how you can be involved.

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Diligent Dependence

This post is derived from a conversation I recently had with my pastor, Ashley Evans. He challenged me to think about being highly diligent yet hopefully dependent. It’s an interesting concept because it sounds like an oxymoron. If we are diligent in ourselves then why do we need to be dependent on God? Or vice versa, if we are dependent on God then what’s the use of being diligent in ourselves?

Well the answer isn’t “either/or” it’s “and/both”. Check out these four principles about this concept…

1. Being highly diligent without divine dependence is arrogance.

This principle has driven many a leaders into the ground. They find themselves burnt out and depleted because they are carrying a workload they weren’t designed to carry. It’s an unknown arrogance that leaders may posses to think they can do the work of the ministry without depending on the God of the ministry.

2. Being hopefully dependent without high diligence is laziness.

This principle is what over-spiritual leaders live by. Instead of taking responsibility and doing the work of the ministry they sit on their couch wanting to God to breakthrough and do it for them. Unfortunately this is not how it works. We are called to be co-laborers. Keyword being… labor!

3. Diligence without dependence produces temporal results.

Diligence without dependence isn’t an entirely terrible thing. It will produce results that can be positive but our goal isn’t positive results, it’s spiritual fruit.

4. Diligence and dependence produces eternal results.

In order to produce the eternal, our diligent efforts must be met with a supernatural faith in God. This is the delicate balance of high diligence and hopeful dependence.

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As a reminder, we are just over 70 days away from launch! We are in a great time of faith for our family and we are hoping that you will partner with us. Please consider partnering with us for 6 or 12 months and help us launch strong. Because of our strategic partnership with the Association of Related Churches, your gift will be doubled up to $50,000. We truly need your help as we get closer to launch.

Our goal is to raise $150,000 for our launch and $100,000 for our post-launch budget. That may seem like a lot to one person but if we all do what we can do individually then corporately we can make a huge difference!

Thanks for your prayers and support of Victorious Church! We launch on February 16th, 2014 and launch day will be here before we know it!

 

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The Big MO!

Momentum is a Beautiful Thing.

John Maxwell talks about the Law of The Big Mo. Basically this means that momentum is a leader’s best friend. When we have momentum it makes us look better than we really are and it’s easier to steer than it is to start.

As we have embarked on planting Victorious Church I’ve found that as we gain momentum there will be natural detractors to it and there will be early adopters to help us get this thing rolling. As a leader, I wish everyone would jump on board and see the picture we see for Victorious but they just don’t and it’s ok. Short-sighted people very rarely see the big picture; just like people with great vision can see the whole thing immediately.

As a young leader and church planter, I am quickly learning the power of momentum. I can honestly say we are starting to experience some good momentum right now and I want to give you some highlights as we move towards our launch day.

Check it out:

•  We’ve had our first two launch team meetings and we currently have 14 people who have fully committed or shown interest in being a part of the launch team. This is the stuff great churches are made of, a dedicated core of early adopters!

•  We have launched our new site at victoriouschurch.com. I can’t tell you excited I am about this because this site will grow with us, a lot more content and functionality will be implemented over the next 12 months.

•  We had our first Prayer Culture meeting and it was truly supernatural. God showed up in a huge way as we corporately prayed together as a team and started laying the foundations of fervent prayer. Although we’ve only had one of these meetings, I can tell these will become one of the most favorite things we get to do together.

•  We’ve established our core team of leaders and have begun to look for that right person to be our Children’s Pastor/Director. For more info on this check out our listing!

•  Financially we are moving forward! We have seen $16,500 in commitments!

 

Proverbs 11:24-25 There is one who scatters, yet increases more; And there is one who withholds more than is right, But it leads to poverty. The generous soul will be made rich, And he who waters will also be watered himself.

As I was reading this verse it struck me that I want to be a “scatterer.” I know, bad grammar but a good point so hear me out. Being a scatterer of love, mercy, and generosity can only lead to increasing in those same areas. This verse talks about money but not only money! I am determined that I want to be a scatterer! I want to help people by scattering as much love, mercy, grace, and resources around as I possibly can!

If you want to be a scatterer also then I encourage you to take a step of faith with us. Please partner with us for 6 or 12 months and help us launch strong. Your gift will be doubled up to $50,000.

Our goal is to raise $150,000 for our launch and $100,000 for our post-launch budget. That may seem like a lot to one person but if we all do what we can do individually then corporately we can make a huge difference!

Thanks for your prayers and support of Victorious Church! Launch day will be here before we know it!

 

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We Made It!

We hope you’ve had an awesome summer! We are so excited to tell you that we’ve made it to Phoenix! The girls are all registered for school and Steph and I have been making new friends like crazy! We are finally getting settled in to our new place with a few random boxes here and there… oh and… I finally found all my clothes! 🙂

Below are 3 quick things we want to update you on:

1.   We’ve scheduled our first launch team meeting for August 14th. We are on track to seeing 15-20 people at this meeting! We’ve partnered with some awesome families and are honored to do life with such a great group of people.

2.   We have secured our location at Camelback High School in their 1300 seat theater! We’ve also discovered our worship pastor and she is awesome!

3.   Last but definitely not least; the Association of Related Churches has increased their matching funds to $50,000! This is amazing! Never before has a church planting organization offered such support in helping churches launch this strong.

If you’ve thought about supporting us financially, I encourage you to take a step of faith with us. Please partner with us for 6 or 12 months and help us launch strong. Your gift will be doubled up to $50,000. That means if you give $500 dollars it’s like your giving $1,000 because of the matching funds we will be receiving!

Our goal is to raise $250,000 for our launch and post-launch budget. That may seem like a lot to one person but if you can partner with us for next 6 months and give your best gift then I believe we will have more than enough.

We don’t want to just raise a bunch of money, we want to invest this money into launching a life-giving church! I can’t tell you the amount of people in Phoenix who are hungry for real, authentic community and an experience with the Holy Spirit.

 

As I get to know people here in Phoenix, I keep hearing the same thing, “I love God but just had a bad experience in church.”

 

Our goal is to create an environment at Victorious Church so that we can reach this “de”-churched population of people and help them re-activate their God-given purpose and destiny.

Won’t you partner with us to do the same?

 

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