It's in the small things...

Nothing too eventful today...just really appreciating the ability to 'breathe'. It still amazes how it's not until I have a blocked nose or blocked ears from a silly little cold that I am able to appreciate life's seemingly unimportant or minuscule things.

So I thank God in the midst of this cold and just the fact that He has given me His breath - despite having an immensely blocked nose!! - it is enough reason to praise Him!

Have a great rest of the day
Laz

Yes It's been a while...

Well what can I say? A good friend of mine told me not long ago "whatever you do Laz next time you blog DO NOT apologize for not blogging." So I guess I will follow his advise.

Many things have happened since I last wrote, obviously, and many which I will definitely be 'musing' over the next few months. God has been, is and continues to be a Great and Mighty God!

Last week in our church's prayer meeting we had an awesome ministry time. I remember being at a really weird place...not a bad place, just a weird place. I was in dire need of restoration. God's restoration only I didn't know it. Has that ever happened to you? You know that something is right and that you need something from God only you don't know what it is...

So I decided to go up to the front - something I unfortunately see few 'leaders' doing - I just knew I needed prayer. The presence of God was clearly there and God was moving only I wasn't feeling it. I prayed and said God I am here but I don't 'feel it'. Almost instantly I felt an impression from the Holy Spirit telling me "I really don't care what you feel. The truth is I have declared it over your life and my word remains: Be RESTORED."

Once I had this that was it...I believed it and accepted it THEN I felt it. Mate I felt to the ground in tears before my God and His restoration happened in my life!

So I encourage you to walk in what He has already declared over your life and BE RESTORED!!

Peace as you breathe!
Laz

Growth...

Hi Friends...

At work we have the standard "desk-calendars" and I am always excited to turn the page on these because they have famous quotes for every day of the week. Each day it is like looking up a surprise and it's good to start the day with a good quote.

Not long ago I came across this quote which was refreshing to read. It goes:

“Be not afraid of growing slowly, be afraid of standing still.”


It's awesome how God can use the everyday things in our lives to speak volumes to us!

So yeah learn to hear God through the small things in life because sometimes in the small things you will hear big things from God!

Peace
Laz

In honour of my friend Dawn...

Apparently I suck...

I suck at blogging and I suck at fishing!

A couple of days ago I decided I would go fishing with my old man, so we set out at midnight so we'd catch the high tide and catch heaps and heaps of fish. Lo and behold we arrived at approximately 1am and left at about 6am, with about um...zero fish!! A couple of bites but no fish.

Not long after I opened my email and my friend Dawn urged me to get on top of my "blogging game" because she hadn't seen anything new.

So yeah I sucked...

This morning though I was led in my devotion to read Galatians and came across the verse where Paul encourages to "not tire of doing good, for in due course you will reap a harvest." Ain't it awesome!!

Its so easy for me to get caught up in the things I "suck" in but when we do things for the Lord it's all about knowing that its all about being obedient and doing your part he will do the rest, there's always a blessing in disguise in what we do.

So what blessings were there in blogging and fishing. Well I went fishing with my pops and we spent the whole night just "catching up" and I realised how long it had been since I had a heart to heart with him. I love my dad!

With blogging, well I was wondering if I should stick with it I mean, I have the facebook commitment, the myspace commitment, the hotmail commitment and the yahoo commitment so I feel well and truly cyber-busy! But getting that email from Dawn let me knows that at least she was out there reading my blog...and that makes it worthwhile!

Thanks Dawn...

To my fellow married men!!

Hey its been a while since my last post so I thought I would return with what I found to be an awesome video shown to us over the weekend. So the wife and I are doing this studies called Marriage on Track with some other young married couples at our church. The topic this weekend was on Communication. Yes that's right fellas we all know those dreaded four little words: "We need to talk." We all know what that means!!

Anywho as part of the lesson the leaders showed us the following video and I was cracking up! Hope you guys like it. If you have any cool Husband/Wife stories or Husband vs. Wife Stories please share them!

Stay True
Laz

Ps. New to this so if the video doesn't show please go to this link for you tube

Celebrate Good Times C'mon!!!

Hey friends,

Been a couple of days but I'm still here sorry! This is gonna be short and sweet just letting you all know that we celebrated an awesome easter weekend at our church International City Church. Easter Friday service was truly awesome, this was our combined cells service and had an attendance of nearly 400 people with many giving their lives to the Lord. It was a night full of surprises, there were hot cross buns been thrown around the room, we had an easter egg hunt (yes with 400 people!), and had an easter egg fight as well! This was coupled with awesome worship and a powerful drama about how different people encountered Jesus on easter Friday in a different way. Very thought provoking and the night was ended with everyone in the room coming to the cross. Powerful!

Sunday morning service was awesome too and we are starting a series titled "World Changers" we had a great time and an awesome altar service. Good things are in store for God's People today!

This is the time for God's grace and there is an open heaven for his children! Let's walk in this truth!

Peace
Laz

PS. For those of you who don't know here's a pic of a hot cross bun!

Perfect Love

"Love is not finding the perfect person, it is finding an imperfect person and loving them perfectly"

A couple of weeks ago I had the opportunity to share at the Creative Arts monthly general meeting at my church and that's when I came across this quote. It fitted in so perfectly with what I was asked to share on.

My topic: Worship and the heart for missions.

Ps Jono asked me to speak to our team of approximately 30-40 people that make up the worship and creative arts team at our church and needless to say, these are extremely talented people and definitely anointed for this ministry. So here I was racking my brain about what I would share with them. Ps Jono wanted me to simply speak on my experiences in both San Francisco and Mexico in the light of worship and missions.

I am amazed at how many times these two get separated and treated as almost opposite aspects when in fact they are almost one and the same. (anywho this is for another blog, maybe!)

As I sat and "mused" about my experiences in both Frisco and el Mejico, I kept coming back to the same conclusion: Compassion. No matter how eloquent I tried my "sharing/sermon" to be I could not get away from the simplicity of the fact that Worship and Missions come together in this one word: Compassion. We best love the Father when we live a life of worship, and please note this is not just singing in church, or filling in time before the preacher comes up! This is a life lived in the fullness of worship takes us to the very heart of God, once there, we catch his heartbeat, we get a glimpse of what makes him laugh, cry, and even twitch a little! And when our hearts get set on his heart, we see what he sees and this my friends is Compassion.

Jesus, on only few occasions, dealt with the subject of worship. I believe this is because His entire life was an example of true worship. However, one of the occasions where he did speak on worship was with the Samaritan woman. Here is an example where worship and missions are shown to be in perfect unison. We all know the story, and if not please check out John 4. Here is Jesus exemplifying true worship. He reached out in full compassion to another being who was, in that culture, regarded as perhaps worse than a dog, a Samaritan, not just that she was a sinner and despised in every sense of the word.

An Untouchable. An Unreachable. An Unloveable.

I love the transition of events here basically Jesus reaches out, the woman asks in relation to worship. Jesus tells her the now famous John 4:23-24, regarding true worship and the worshippers the Father seeks. IMMEDIATELY, she receives the revelation and claims "You are the Messiah!" True Worship leads to the Revelation of Christ in our midst.

So in the end compassion is not just about loving those who come from our socioeconomic or cultural background (ie. finding the perfect person), but reaching out to all people (finding an imperfect person) and loving them perfectly.

Now this is True Worship. This is what the Father seeks!

Ain't no thing, like a chicken wing on a string!
Peace
Laz

There's nothing like catching up with old mates.

Today I shared some Macca's (Australian for McDonalds) with a great mate of mine. Just to set up the stage for you a bit, I have known this guy for over 11 years and we've pretty much grown up in the church, and in particular, in youth ministry together. When I was hurled in to a youth pastor's position at the ripe age of 18 this mate was my right hand man, an awesome prayer warrior and a guy who has great insight into the things of God. We have shared many awesome experiences together and have also shared some not-so-awesome experiences together and its always good to sit around and 'muse' over what has been and what we feel God is trying to do in life today.

We got to talking today just about life in general, as you do, you know the spill, how's life, wife and work. And of course there's always the weather! Soon enough we found ourselves discussing issues of youth group and in particular, issues the youth we know are now facing.

It amazes me to this day, where some youth are heading. I remember sitting in a class one day at Patten University, and listening to my prof Dr. Gregg Moder, we were talking about the Immanence vs. Transcendence of God, and in particular how this, seemingly polar attributes of God come together in perfect unity, whereby we have the love and grace of God as well as his high demands for Holiness and perfection. Black and White coming together not to make a distorted gray shade of God, but more like a perfect checkerboard which is perfect and complete.

Where has this led to nowadays? I've been saddened of late by hearing of some of the young people from some of the more renowned churches in the area, talking of how they were out at the clubs and how they were dancing and/or drinking, and how the very next day they are at church and are in either a worship team or some sort of leadership role. Where are we at? Have we cheapened the grace of God?

Now don't get me wrong, I had the most awesomest (yes that is now a word "awesomest"!) experience of my life whilst ministering and leading worship at Providence Christian Church aka the Hot Dog Church. At one stage, we had a team member struggling to kick a drug addiction, another struggling with mental health problems and still others struggling with alcohol and the like. However, once they were in the presence of God, I truly believe change was happening from the inside out. They were dealing with some pretty tough stuff that was, in some cases, beyond their control. Here it was the grace of God being ministered to them as they ministered to the people of God.

No. What I refer to is those people who even though they have the means and the capacity to choose righteousness, still choose to walk in the ways of the world, and then try to justify this by saying things like, "I'm not doing anything wrong." or "God knows my heart." When they knowingly go out and act as though God is OK with what we are doing. This is taking the black and white things of God and meshing them into a compromising gray.

As a great man once said, "God is calling His church to be an alternative within society not an alternative to society." If we live our lives in the latter we are caught compromising the things of God. However, if we live our lives in the former, an alternative within society, we are caught bringing the unchanging truths of God to an ever changing culture (to steal The Salt Mine's motto!) My prayer is for youth ministers who are constantly in the thick of things, tackling the front lines, many times unnoticed, who have to minister in the breach constantly seeking to turn the hearts of the children to the fathers and the fathers to the children.

Lotta Laz!

Ok I figured, that as part of my introductions I should really explain what LottaLaz means.

Basically anyone who's ever been to Cherryville (pronounced "Cherr-ville") in North Carolina and has had a "Lotta Burger" would understand my obsession with this seemingly harmless nutritional meal.

I thought I would describe this, however, I remembered that my buddy Steve Wright took this picture of me and I thought that this picture would explain it better then I ever could!

Enjoy!

And so it begins...

My blogging life that is. My friends have been doing this for ages and I've enjoyed reading and keeping up with their thoughts and ideas. So I thought why not jump on the band wagon and give it a hurl!

So here it is my muse. And no that was not a word I knew before today, I saw it somewhere and thought it had something to do with musicians and or being amused. Boy was I off!! The dictionary explains it as follows:

Muse: to consider, think over/about, mull over, reflect on, contemplate, turn over in one's mind, chew over, give some thought to, cogitate on; think about, be lost in contemplation/thought over, daydream about.

Ain't that something! Anywho let us all muse, on something, every day of our lives!

Peace & Prosperity
Laz