I’ve been carrying so many things around in my heart this week. But the thing that is rising to the top is an incredible sense of joy over two things:

1. The vision we’re running after together – the idea of making Christ famous in the collegiate generation of our nation’s capital. I believe in that more than I can express and I love the path the Lord has us on.

2. The people involved in The Gathering. As I was at Mason last night, I was struck by how many people pour hours of their life into The Gathering every week. It takes so many people to carry this movement forward. From our creative teams, to our small group leaders, to prayer teams, to The House, to promo teams. I could go on and on and on. It’s a constant inspiration to me. Then I think of how many students have joined with this movement and I think about how honored I am to be able to walk through life with you. You are the carriers of the light of Christ to a new generation. Represent Him well and know that He loves you deeply.

The Gathering is a movement of people. Individuals. Each one of you matters so much in the story of God!

I felt life seeping into The Kay Center at AU last night. What a way to start what is going to be an amazing week for The Gathering. There was a passion in Kay last night that made my heart sing. I loved having Matt Walkley there to lead with us. I loved hearing your voices rise up over his at times. I loved the intensity and passion in that room.

That’s what we’re all about. We don’t do what we do to create events. We do what we do to encounter a Living Savior who transforms the most broken into holy ambassadors for Christ! We sing for the glory of a King who is worthy of our lives. I felt that so much last night.

I could feel the energy rising all night. I can only pray you’re still riding that wave today. Go represent Christ in beautiful and extravagant ways today!

Rarely do I invoke the all caps urgency for a post. But this one is a really big deal for all of my friends at The University of Maryland. We have moved this Thursday’s Gathering launch from The Armory to The Nyumburu Cultural Center! The Lord is stirring something powerful and it looks like there are just too many of you planning to be there to fit into The Armory.

This is a huge leap of faith for us. We’ve never done this – move a venue before we even hit the ground. We’re going to be working like crazy to communicate this in the next 48 hours at UMD. And we need your help. Tell your friends. Text them. Do whatever you can.

The Lord is stirring something mighty at UMD. I can’t wait to be in on it this Thursday.

Students at GatheringNW have developed a partnership with The House to create a weekly outreach program for middle school students. I can’t tell you how much I love the heart and the vision behind this idea. I love it because it was created and designed by our students. I love it because it makes a real difference in the lives of these middle schoolers. And I love it because it just might be the thing Jesus would do with His Saturday if He was here.

I wanted you to hear about what God is doing at The House from one of the student leaders who has designed this ministry. Here’s what Candace emailed me yesterday:

“It was awesome to see the way God worked this Saturday at The House. Never before has a single outreach we’ve done gone so smoothly. Everyone was on time; instead of people calling to cancel, they asked to come. Volunteers showed up from American, Mason, and GW. Logistically, God answered every prayer.

However, when 2 o’clock rolled around and no middle schoolers were showing up I was slightly concerned. Instead of sticking to our plan for what the day looks like we got flexible. All the volunteers were amazing. They were willing to do whatever it took. Groups walked around the neighborhood inviting the kids they saw. The high schoolers who are working with us went out and found their younger friends. We even took on a group of about 25 in football. A deal was made – we win, they come to The House; we loose, we keep playing.

When we had only an idea of what today would look like it centered around the idea of a relationship. We knew that would be the most important thing. As we planned for this ministry we got more structured but always kept that in mind. However, we planned and were creating activities to do. Instead, God brought us to a point where we went and hung out with these kids doing what they wanted to do. I think that’s the best way to start to show someone you care. From this starting point we can build trust and relationships.

After the football game, we got everyone inside over at The House where they took advantage of all the opportunities for them. There were groups of kids on workout equipment, playing pool, air hockey, pinball, ping pong, video games, making music, and just hanging out. Everywhere I looked volunteers were mixed in with the groups, talking and getting to know each other. I love how God brought us back to the main point – sharing His love with these kids through relationships. It was a great day and I’m completely excited for the rest of the semester.”

Can you see why I’m hoping you’ll all be a part of this?

I can’t tell you how excited I am that the State of The Union Address is tonight. To be honest, I’m just excited that it’s NOT tomorrow night! For the last two years, The Gathering at AU and the State of the Union have gone head to head. A collision that is relatively inconsequential on many campuses. But a conflict that creates staggering implications on AU’s campus. I’m so excited to know that all our young politicos can indulge all night tonight and then enjoy tomorrow.

So, go watch tonight – it’s what I’ll be doing. And then come tomorrow night – that’s also what I’ll be doing. See you there.

I love how God can weave together a day. I definitely felt Him doing that yesterday. In the afternoon I had the chance to spend a significant amount of time with two of our campuses leadership teams. The Gathering703 team is one of my favorite groups to hang out with and I get the sense that God is getting ready to launch something so powerful at UMD.

As I met with each one of those teams, I had a real burden to remind all of us of how important individual people are to God, to us and to what we’re trying to accomplish. As The Gathering continues to grow and get more complicated, it’s easy to loose sight of that. We can become so focused on systems, numbers and processes that we can forget that God is in the business of rescuing and transforming individual lives – and that’s what we’re all about!

Being able to end my night doing baptisms for 13 Frontliners was the perfect way of solidifying that in my mind. Although it was freezing and it certainly wasn’t any horse trough, it was great to jump in the baptismal pool with those people. Each life marked by the Lord Christ. Each person transformed for the glory of our King. Each life so precious to God that He sent His Son to die for their sin that they could live forever in Him.

It was the perfect end to the day. It’ll be the thing I carry with me into this week.

I’ve been getting a lot of emails on this one, so I thought I would post the answer to the blog. You might have noticed that we haven’t posted any of this semester’s talks to the website yet. The little iPod up there remains remarkably unrefreshed. Here’s the deal – all of our campuses are out of sync with the talks and we don’t want to publish talks to the site before I’ve had the chance to share it live on a campus.

But that all gets worked out this week. Next Saturday we will post a talk and then a fresh one will go up every Saturday after that. So, one week from now you’ll be able to clutter your iPod with Gathering talks.

If you follow this blog regularly, you know that Friday is my rest day for the week. No phone, no computer, no work. It’s an amazing way to refresh myself mentally, physically and spiritually every week. I love it.

And sometimes it’s really hard. I think it’s good to be honest about the difficulties of our spiritual journey as well. Yesterday was one of those hard days. Everything in me wanted to work. I kept thinking about how much I had to do this week. My mind kept going to talks that still aren’t quite ready, ministry demands, email that’s a little out of control, meetings, etc… I found myself wanting to cheat on rest. I found myself frustrated. I found myself reeling from the effects of some difficult conversations this past week. If I’m honest, I wasn’t even sure I was really connecting with God.

Inspiring, huh?

I share all of that for two reasons:

1. My life and yours really aren’t all that different. I think sometimes we fall into that trap of thinking pastor/speaker types are made of different material and don’t face the same struggles as everyone else. Not true. I’m right there in the battle with you guys.

2. I didn’t cheat. I stuck it out and forced myself to spend the day reading, praying, going to Great Falls and resting. I wasn’t sure it accomplished anything yesterday but today I feel great – physically and spiritually.

So, find some time to rest this weekend. Even if it feels like a waste of time, I promise it’s not.

This has been a great week for The Gathering on many fronts. But one of the most exciting has been the addition of Kate McNeill to our staff team. Many of you know Kate and her husband Daniel already; they have both been very active volunteers in The Gathering for the last couple of years. In addition to that, Kate has been a leader for Global Impact having recently co- led a women’s trip to Cambodia to serve young girls liberated from forced prostitution. Her husband Daniel is a talented film editor who has worked on several Gathering projects. They are an incredibly Godly couple and I’m thrilled the Lord has called her here to MBC.

Kate’s role in The Gathering will be focused around three primary areas: spiritual care for our women leaders and students, the day to day operations of The Gathering and building infrastructure in the small groups, ministry teams and global impact areas of The
Gathering.

I’m so excited to have Kate on our team and I hope you’ll spend some time praying for Kate and Daniel today.

Going to be spending all day with our Gathering team today. I would say we’re all pretty tired at the end of a long week, but I’m trusting Christ to break through all of that and stir something powerful in our hearts through this time. I would love to have your prayers with us today.

I often pray Colossians 1:9-12 for our staff and community. Would you join me in praying it for our team and yourself today? Here it is:

For this reason, since the day we heard about you, we have not stopped praying for you and asking God to fill you with the knowledge of his will through all spiritual wisdom and understanding. And we pray this in order that you may live a life worthy of the Lord and may please him in every way: bearing fruit in every good work, growing in the knowledge of God, being strengthened with all power according to his glorious might so that you may have great endurance and patience, and joyfully giving thanks to the Father, who has qualified you to share in the inheritance of the saints in the kingdom of light.

There’s so much in there. Just let it all sink into your heart today.

Yes, that title is a grammatical mess. But starting tonight, we’re back to doing back to back Gatherings. I can’t wait to be up at Mason tonight! Last night was amazing at AU. I was so encouraged to have Ashley Jackson leading last night. She has such a heart for Christ and that just shines through when she’s leading.

It feels right to be carrying the momentum of last night to Mason tonight. Last week we just did AU and that felt weird. Back to back Gatherings feels really good!

And then next week we get to go 3 in a row! Can’t wait!

See you at Mason tonight!

I’m praying that many of you GatheringNW folks registered for Passion’s DC Regional after The Gathering last night. If you’re looking for the link to register, just click here. Trust me, you’re not going to want to miss this experience.

I also had two people come up to me after The Gathering and offer to help out students who might not be able to afford Passion on their own. So, as of right now I have four half scholarships to Passion. If this would help you out, please email me so we can make this happen for you.

So grateful for the the people who are willing to help students out like this. This generation really is worth investing in!

You’ve gotta look for those little moments of joy in your day. As an unapologetic lover of all things Mac, this little moment on my desk was a clear highlight.

Pulling of a Gathering requires a lot of Mac power and for some reason, they were all having a little meeting on my desk this morning.

Just enjoy that picture. It’s stunning.

Wow.

I’ve been doing a little self check of the different ways I find myself referring to Jesus. I call Him King a lot and I like to call Him Lord. Christ and Messiah are pretty common. Son of the Living God is frequent and King of kings and Lord of lords always stirs something in my heart. All such amazing names for Jesus. All so right on. All so descriptive of who He is.

But I miss one more than I realized.

Savior.

It’s the most important. It’s the core. Before Jesus was my Shepherd or my Provider, He was my Savior. Before He could breathe meaning into my days, He had to breathe life into me. Before He could be the antidote to anxiety, He had to rescue me from hell. How quickly we forget that.

He’s my Savior. Without Him – death, destruction, terror and torment. In Him – life, eternity, joy and peace with God. All in a Savior who gave His life for me. And for you.

“For I am the LORD your God,The Holy One of Israel, your Savior;” – Isaiah 43:3

Savior.

I don’t quite have all the theology worked out, so please don’t get all worked up about this post. But it seems to me that this freezing weather must be the result of the fall of man. Can’t be part of God’s design for the world.

Genesis 2:25 records, “And the man and his wife were both naked and were not ashamed.” We get all focused on the naked and not ashamed part. I would also like to point out that they were naked and not cold! Which leads me to believe that prior to the whole fall of man, God’s plan was essentially San Diego – sunny, warm and not humid.

Please do not let this post get you all in a frenzy. This is not a serious theological statement – but I just might be on to something.

Stay warm!