One of the things I love about Cross Point is the culture of generosity. Our church loves to give.
Our creative team is doing something pretty cool…they are giving away a free original Christmas song written by our Music Director Jarrod Morris.
You can listen and download the song HERE.
If you’re a worship leader and want the charts & lyrics you can download those for free right HERE.
Merry Christmas from the staff at Cross Point. We hope you enjoy the song!
It is a story we tell a lot.
In 2002, we sold everything we owned. We stepped out in faith, and we moved to a town where we knew 4 people. We had a vision to start a church for people who didn’t go to church. And God showed up. Over the next three years, over 700 people would come call Genesis Church their home.
It is a great story. It is a story we’ve been telling for eight years. It is a story I have shared with pride. Not pride in myself as much as being proud to talk about all that God is capable of if we will just trust him.
Then, I went to Catalyst 2010, and heard Francis Chan’s talk. It is a talk that keeps playing over and over in my mind. You can watch a few minutes of it here:
Catalyst East 2010: Francis Chan from Catalyst on Vimeo.
The question I ask myself after watching that is why is my story eight years old?
I want my life to be littered with stories of faith, not just an event that I keep going back to. It seems to me that my journey with Jesus should be a series of cashing out, stepping out, trusting, being uncertain and then watching God supernaturally come through.
I want my kids to think its normal to risk everything. I want them to have memories of thinking I was crazy for how much we sacrificed; how much we gave up; how much we trusted; and how powerfully God showed up.
Instead, I find myself talking about the good ole’ days…A moment in time rather than reoccurrences of audacious faith.
I want a new story. One that is 8 days old rather than 8 years old. I want to tell a new story 8 days from now. I want my life to be a series of short stories built on outrageous trust in a God that always provides; always comes through; always blows my mind…if I can redefine “normal”.
What about you? What comes to your mind after watching this video?
Last night, I posted on Twitter a picture of the book we received Monday from the printer. Our friend Ali worked with us over the past few months to design this marriage conference resource. It isn’t as big of a deal as receiving your book from a publisher, but this little booklet is very special to us. This booklet represents a five year journey in our lives and marriage that can only be described as God-ordained. 
Trisha and I had no vision for ministry. We had no idea that God would use something so destructive; something so painful and humiliating to provide hope and healing to others.
God in a miraculous way, took something that was meant for harm and hurt and brought about redemption and restoration.
Sharing our story for the first time in 2009 evolved to starting our blog. Our incredible RefineUs community (you) helped us see a vision for ministry again. We established RefineUs Ministries in June 2009. The response continued to grow and God continued to lead and that vision lead to RefineOurMarriage.com, in 2010.
We launched RefineOurMarriage.com in August in hopes of establishing a resource to help restore hope and renew relationships. Our desire is to reach and serve three audiences: spouses in crisis; marriages in process and pastors and churches in need.
We launched our Marriage Coaching program. We began to write content for Marriage Conferences. We opened our schedule up to pastors and spouses who were struggling and have no one to talk to, through OneDays. We agreed to speak at churches and church leadership conferences. God continues to lead in ways that blow our minds every single day.
This weekend we have the honor of partnering with SunCrest Christian Church and lead them in our Refine Our Marriage Retreat. Then on Sunday, we have the opportunity to share with Fox Valley Christian Church, in Batavia, IL. Trisha and I were on staff there in 1997 as their student pastor. We are so excited to be back with them on Sunday.
Why do I share this? Three reasons:
1. Thank you. Thank you to those of you that have been with us since February of 2009. We didn’t even know what a blog was when we started this deal. You have prayed for us. You have encouraged us. You have believed in what God was doing when we were doubting our ability to communicate. You have emailed our posts; retweeted us; shared on Facebook; become a fan of our ministry; been a partner with us through prayer. The couples that hear God’s story this weekend do so because of your faithfulness. Thank you!
2. We want to serve you. The reason we launched RefineOurMarriage.com was to provide resources. There are audio and video downloads. There are PDF downloads; there are several ways we are striving to restore hope and renew relationships. We want to be faithful to share what God has done and can do.
3. Be encouraged. Five years ago at this time, Trisha and I were separated. We didn’t live in the same house. We weren’t sure if our marriage would survive. God is bigger than our mistakes. He is bigger than our hurts. He is bigger than any destruction that may have wrecked your life. He has great plans for you. If He can restore our marriage and redeem us…he can do anything. Be encouraged. God is fighting for you even more than you are fighting for yourself. He has plans for you; plans to give you hope and a future. Live in that today.
We are so thankful for you. We are humbled to be on this journey with you. Please be praying for us this weekend as we share God’s desire and dream for marriage.
I was given an unbelievable gift yesterday. I was able to meet someone I’ve looked up to, admired and emulated for many years.
John Ortberg has been an influential voice in my life and my journey with God for the past 15 years. I have read every book he has written. I have preached the majority of his sermons. I have used his style of speaking and writing to develop my own voice and style as a communicator.
I have wanted to meet him since 1998. What made meeting him yesterday so special is that my friend, and in many ways, mentor, Pete, made it happen.
We have shared an appreciation for John Ortberg and talked about his writings and teaching for YEARS. Pete was being interviewed by John about Plan B yesterday and allowed me to tag along. (Actually, I hounded him about it for at least a week.)
What I realized yesterday is how God has used both of these men in my life to form and shape me. I believe that we all need voices that speak Truth into our lives from a far. Often for me these people are writers or speakers or preachers that “mentor” from a distance. John Ortberg has been that for me.
But we also need mentors that can speak into the application of that Truth. These people know us. They love us. They have our trust. They have our best interest at heart. Pete has been that for me. I hope we have been that for each other.
He has been there when I was knocking it out of the park to remind me that it is God’s success and not mine. He has been there for me in my darkest moment begging me to allow God’s Spirit to speak to my heart. He has offered me truth and he has extended to me grace.
I don’t know where I would be without John Ortberg. I don’t know where I’d be without Pete Wilson. I’m thankful for spiritual mentors that God has placed in my life, and I am so thankful to have captured a moment with them in the same frame. I will cherish this memory forever.
Yesterday, I wrote a post about Who YOU Are. At the end of the day yesterday, I felt like God laid it on my heart to write a post for pastors who may be struggling with their identity.
As a pastor, I lived for 10 years with an identity crisis that eventually lead to my meltdown and moral failure. I realize this post won’t apply to everyone, but it is vital for someone. If you aren’t a pastor, maybe you should pass it along to yours.
You are not the size of your congregation
You are not as good as your last sermon
You are not as bad as your last critical email
You are not your speaking ability
You are not your insecurity
You are not your fear of failure
You are not your ability to be hip or relevant
You are not your worship style
You are not trying to compete with, out perform or out preach the pastor you work for or work with
You are not your ability to lead or inspire
You are not the value of last week’s offering
You are not as incompetent as you feel
You are not their savior
You are not competing with the church down the street
You are not measured by how many people will come this Sunday
You are not wasting your time even when you feel like you are
Here is who YOU are:
You are a follower of Christ
You are a husband or a wife
You are a dad or a mom
You are a friend
You are called
You are set apart
You are anointed
You are God’s masterpiece
You are more than your role
You are created in the image of God
You are valuable independent of your church, your ministry or your status
You are much more important than the title you hold
You are loved, forgiven and chosen.
That is who you are.
I’ve always thought that the opposite of fear was courage. Growing up, every time I would express fear, my dad would tell me to be brave. When my kids tell me they are scared, I remind them that courage isn’t not being fearful; courage is overcoming fear. So many sermons that I’ve given over fifteen years have had to do with overcoming fear with courageous faith. Obviously, courage is very much linked to fear, but courage isn’t the opposite of fear.
According the thesaurus, the opposite of fear…is safety. The opposing feeling to being scared is feeling secure. Maybe I’m the last one to this party, but that is very interesting to me. As I began to think about this, I started thinking about my life, my marriage, my ministry, and my relationships. I have spent much more time trying to be a courageous Christian than I have a secure Christian. I have spent much more time trying to prove how brave I am, how much faith I have than I have spent resting in the safety of my relationship with God.
In fact, I believe that in the Church as a whole, we spend much more time trying to prove how brave we are, trying to convince one another how courageous we are…our fear still robs us of our security. We still live without a sense of safety.
I am not talking about safety in the sense of “not taking risks”; (that is a different kind of safe) I’m talking about feeling so secure in your relationship with God that you don’t fear others noticing your imperfections.
In this sense, I believe we have made the Church the least safe place on earth. Part of our passion with RefineUs is to change the culture of the church so that pastors, their wives and those of us who make up The Church feel safe:
Do we have a passion to help men and women whose spouse has broken trust? Yes. Do we have a heart to coach and mentor couples that are trying to recover from adultery, or a pornography addiction? Yes. Do we have a desire to counsel pastors who have lost their ministry and their marriage because of poor choices? Yes.
But what if we could be a part of creating a safe place for pastors to be themselves? What if there was a place for them to seek help without the fear of being criticized or judged or fired? What if we could help save their marriage and their ministry before it implodes?
That is the heart behind our Pastor to Pastor program. We want to provide a place where pastors and their wives can feel safe to admit hurt, weakness and heartache so that they can find healing and wholeness. So that The Church can be whole as well.
Today is a huge day in our lives, marriage and ministry.
We have been planning and praying about today for a long time!
We are launching a resource site called RefineOurMarriage.com.
RefineOurMarriage is site aimed to engage 3 Audiences:
-Spouses in Crisis: Crisis Coaching, Crisis Resources, Next Steps
-Marriages In Process: Marriage Coaching, Downloadable Resources, Monthly Newsletter
-Pastors and Churches in Need: Marriage Conferences, Pastor to Pastor Program, Church Partnerships
Thanks to my man Kyle Reed, we’ve also launched RefineUs 2.0 today. We hope you like the new look of our blog!
To celebrate the launch of RefineUs.org 2.0 and RefineOurMarriage.com we are giving away Standard Theme 2.0 and 1 autographed copy of Plan B OR a Visa Gift Card and an autographed copy of Plan B.
Entering to win is very simple.
1. Leave a comment with your name and your marital status.
2. Tweet, Facebook or Email this: It’s a Refine Our Marriage Launch Party from @justindavis33. Win Standard Theme 2.0 or a Visa Gift Card! Details Here! http://ow.ly/2pJBJ
That’s all you have to do to enter! But WAIT…THERE’S MORE! If you retweet or Facebook this post you will be entered to win twice. So you can double your chances with just 2 tweets or Facebook posts.
We’ll randomly select the winners on Tuesday August 17 at 9:00 PM Central Time.
Thanks for supporting our blog, our ministry and our passion to help restore hope and renew relationships. We love you guys!
This week Trisha launched a series of posts on forgiveness and restoration. What has been obvious is that many of us struggle with forgiveness. Also true is that most of us desire restoration.
We’ve been asked to each write a guest post on Jenni Clayville’s blog on Monday, for Affair Week. As you can imagine, the heaviness of that topic, coupled with the intensity of this weeks’ posts, we didn’t have much left to give. The topic of restoration is too important to give it leftovers. Trisha will be covering that topic next week as promised.
IN OTHER NEWS!!
We have some exciting news to announce to our community here! On Sunday, August 15, we will be launching our new resource web site. You will hear much more about this new site next week, but I wanted to give you a heads up today. This is something that we’ve been working on for 3 months! Can’t wait till Sunday.
We will also be launching RefineUs 2.0 on Sunday. We are so excited to continue to be a part of a community that is authentic and real. Our hope is to allow our blog to remain a place for community, encouragement and refinement.
The mission of our new site is to Restore Hope and Renew Relationships.
If you’d like to be kept up to date about the developments of our non-profit marriage ministry RefineUs Ministries, please join our Facebook Page.
We are so thankful for each of you. It is an honor to see our story and your story intersect with God’s story of redemption.
Have a great weekend…RefineUs 2.0 coming soon!
When you grow up in church, there is really only one unpardonable sin. The Bible says that it is blasphemy, but in the church world I grew up in, it was adultery. When Trisha and I left ministry in 2005 due to my affair, I had no idea what the future held, but one thing I was sure of: God was done with me.
About a year after we left ministry, we came to Nashville to stay with our good friends, Pete and Brandi. They had journeyed with us through so much; coming to their house was a retreat in many ways. One afternoon, Pete and I sat and talked and he said something that I didn’t think was true, and had a hard time hearing. He said, “God isn’t through with you, yet.” Whatever.
Over the next three years, God began to do a work in Trisha and I and lay a burden on our heart for ministry. We began sharing our story, helping couples restore hope in their marriage. That is how RefineUs Ministries was started. But the passion we had for the local church began to burn white-hot again.
One year ago today, we had the honor of coming on staff at Cross Point. What an incredible year it has been. To see now what only God could have resurrected in our hearts, and in our ministry is unbelievable.
I’d like to share with you three things I’ve learned over the past year that may speak to your heart today.
1. It isn’t your past sins that disqualify you for ministry, it is the condition of your heart.
Here is what is wild: I was disqualified for ministry years before the affair started. The pattern of hiding and running and pretending and posturing existed in my life long before the affair manifested itself. Because things were going so well with my ministry, it was easier to hide my struggles.
Maybe some of you have given up on yourself because of mistakes you’ve made years ago. Can I share with you what Pete shared with me: “God isn’t finished with you yet.” God cares so much more about the condition of your heart than he does the mistakes of your past.
2. The gifts and the calling of God are irrevocable. (Romans 11:29)
This verse doesn’t mean that the gifts and calling of God are beyond accountability or purity. But it does mean that just because you’ve made mistakes God doesn’t just rip away your giftedness and your calling. If He called you, and He gifted you, then He has plans for you. It took me a few years to believe this. But what I have seen is that the more I have sought brokenness the more opportunity He has given me to live out my calling. I get cautious when people desire the gifts of God more than they desire brokenness.
3. When giftedness outweighs character, implosion is on the horizon.
If you are a gifted person you will be given responsibility. If you are a gifted person, people will be drawn to you. If you spend more time developing your gifts than you do deepening your character, implosion isn’t a matter of IF, it is a matter of WHEN.
Giftedness is sexy. Giftedness is visible. Giftedness gets noticed; gains opportunity; gives you reputation. Character is often compromised so that giftedness can take center stage. As I have reentered ministry and been given more responsibility and more opportunities to teach and lead, I know that my character is the most important aspect of my ministry.
Maybe today, you feel like God is done with you. You’ve sinned beyond God’s ability to use you. You’ve messed up more than can ever be redeemed. Take it from this cheating pastor…
God isn’t done with you. God has plans for you. He is the God of the second chance.
