More of what I'm learning right now (Part 2)

So on Monday, I began a new series of blogs about "All the Things I'm Learning right now..." Here's the 2nd installment...

6. It only takes 1 idea to succeed. Never underestimate that truth that: The power of one idea plus God, can equal Breakthrough into a whole new level. Don't be too quick to give up on an idea. Some of the best ideas ever were simply morphs of a "pretty good idea." Make every idea a beach ball, and give permission to people near you to bat it around until it becomes great. Your job is to simply keep it from hitting the ground.

7. Risk ought to be regular. Plain & simple, if we're not taking enough
risks, we're not positioning ourselves for true success. When was the last
time you took a risk? What's keeping me from taking more risks on a daily
basis? What if I developed an ability to risk in the small things everyday
so when a big risk came along it wouldn't feel so foreign or awkward to me?
Huh.

8. The only way to win is to lose first. Can we really go up, before we
hit rock bottom? Hopefully, but more probably, no. God uses failures and
shortcomings in our lives to mold us on a heart level into what God wants /
needs us to become so we can become what He wants us to be when we finally
do succeed.

Just a bloggish thought,

Matt

A Few of the Things I'm Learning Right Now!!!

I realize that I've been a bit AWOL from the Blogosphere lately, and I
apologize. Quite honestly, I feel like the rhythm of my life has been crazy
lately and unfortunately, my blogorhythm is the first thing to suffer.

In light of my apparent neglect of reblogibility, I submit to you the follow
insights:

A few of the Things I'm learning in my life right now...

1. I'm Totally in Uncharted Territory. The deeper I go into this whole
thing called "Life & Ministry" the more I realize that I'm definitely in
over my head. The grace of God still better be sufficient or I'm sunk
pretty bad. 2 Corinthians 12:9 "...but Jesus said to me, 'My grace is sufficient for you, for My power is made perfect in weakness.'" I'm living that right now, no doubt about it! It seems the further we go, the more that Scripture becomes true in my life!

2. "Life & Ministry" is a Team Sport. It's impossible to go where God is
leading us alone. We truly have a dream team at NLC. I can't even begin to
tell you how they have lived that out over the past several weeks. They
truly understand what it means to "manage" Matt's uniqueness and giftings.
They make my strengths look infinitely stronger than they actually are.

3. The Path to Success is through Teachability. I am learning that I've got to continue to stay amazingly teachable in my leadership. To lead where we're going requires a completely different skill set then it does to lead where we are, or where we've been.

4. The Path of Teachability is through Humility. I'm learning that being & remaining
teachable bites sometimes. It means admitting when you're wrong. Admitting
when you blow it. And that's anything but easy, I don't care who you are. Getting up, brushing yourself off, and getting back on the horse is essential.

5. Asking for Grace and Forgiveness from people is hard. There's nothing
more difficult for us humans than this one. And yet, there's nothing more
powerful and effective at positioning us for personal growth like it in the
whole world.

I'm going to continue this line of blogs all week long. I'm up to 19 things that I'm learning right now. I can't wait to share them with you...

Thanks for reading along,

Matt

How do you explain Daylight Savings Time to a 7 year old?!?

So last weekend, my oldest son, Will, started asking me about the time change. (Of course, he thinks the time change is just a great excuse to go to bed an hour later and get up an hour earlier) so this has been no small amount of trepidation on our part! Anyway...

So Monday morning he's in the bedroom at 6 am asking me to explain to him how it's possible to "lose or gain an hour." I tried to explain as simply as I could by using such logic as, "Well, see the government declares a time when we all move our clocks forward or backward and then..." or "okay so you have to look at the whole thing in light of a one year period of time." All of which yielded no fruit.

So finally, I got out a piece of paper and drew the numbers 1 to 24 in a big long row.

then... I said something like, "In March, we all "rename" 2 am, 3 am, and 3 am, 4 am, and 4 am, 5 am..."

to which I think he responded, "That's funny."

Then I drew another set of numbers under that and said, "Then in November we all "change the names back" to what they were before."

I don't know... I think he got it, I'm not sure I ever fully answered the question of "Why" for him though...

Maybe it's cause I don't really know why we do that myself...

Oh well, I guess I'll try again in 6 months...

All I know is, I'm still hungry at 11 am and tired at 10 pm. Weird.

Just a bloggish thought,

Matt

A Great Veterans Day Talk with my Son

So time change has been no small adjustment for the Keller boys. My oldest actually thinks that it’s cool that he gets up an hour earlier now. More time to be awake I guess. Anyway, this morning at 6:15 am, Will came in and was laying in our bed while I was praying in the bedroom, and Sarah was getting ready. Apparently, he heard me praying something and he says to me: “Dad, we can be thankful for 3 things: Freedom to pray, Freedom to Worship, & Freedom of speech.”

At that, I sat down next to him and began talking to him about his comment. It was such a great 20 minutes.

• I shared with him how people in other countries don’t have the freedom to pray, or worship.


• I had him imagine what it would be like to be talking to his friend about Jesus and for the police to come and take him to jail.


• Then I got to share with him about our missionaries and how they work in countries where it’s illegal to talk about Jesus.


• I told him of one of the missionaries we support at NLC who went to jail recently because he was helping pastors, like daddy does. He was totally getting it.


• Then, I told him how our soldiers have to fight for our freedom of prayer, worship and speech.


• I shared how his great grandpa was a soldier in World War II and he helped stop a “bad guy” named Hitler from taking that freedom away from the Jews and from the whole world.

I’m actually going to be telling that same story this weekend at NLC, I have chills just thinking about it.

6:15 am & I’m teaching, U.S. History, Missiology, & Military Philosophy to my 7 year old.

It’s truly an amazing life…

See you Sunday. 9:40 am – Kid check-in & Coffee. 10 am. Veterans Day.

Matt

I'm so Excited about this Sunday!!!

This weekend we launch our brand new series, "Leave No One Behind," at NLC. It's a 3 week series themed at honoring our veterans and capturing the heart and vision of Jesus for our lives, both individually & as a church.

If you know anyone who is connected to the Military in anyway, you have to bring them on Sunday, it's going to be a really powerful day.

Pray for me this weekend. I need God's help to present this message in a honoring and life-changing way.

10 am. South Fort Myers High School. 9:40 am Coffee & Kids Check-in.

"Leave No One Behind" ... A New Series by Next Level Church

Paul played the Opposite Game Too!

Alright, so I'm reading in 2 Corinthians 12 today, and it appears that the Apostle Paul played the opposite game too. Apparently, Paul's got this "thorn in the flesh" problem, as he calls it, that just won't go away. He asks God 3 times to remove it from his life, and No Dice...

So then he comments on God's response back to him in v. 9... "But he said to me, 'My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.'" Then he goes on to write, "Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ's power may rest on me. That is why, for Christ's sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in dufficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong."

Okay, seriously, who talks like that? Nobody in our world, right? Paul flips it all around. The world around us says, "hide your weaknesses, cover them up, work on them, etc." Paul says just the opposite. Recognize that God uses that weakness to keep us dependant on Him. In other words, if we could beat this stuff in our own strength, then God wouldn't get any glory. So He leaves a certain amount of weakness in our lives, just to keep us leaning into Him.

I have read this verse or quoted it literally a hundred times in the past 15 years, but today it just seems more real and true then ever.

Thank you Jesus...

Are you dealing with a "weakness" you can't seem to get over? There's a good chance it's there, to make you lean into God daily... "For when I am weak, then I am strong."

What kind of crazy opposite game is that?

Keller

Jesus and the Opposite Game

Do you remember playing "The Opposite Game" when you were a kid? Whatever your friend (or sibling) would say, you would say the opposite, until they got so annoyed that you either got punched, or they walked away? Well, it would appear that Jesus was familiar with the opposite game as well.

I was reading the "Beattitudes" today in Matthew 5. I couldn't help but notice that everyone of the things that Jesus says indicates a "blessed" life, is the exact opposite of what the world today says a "blessed" life is.

1. "Blessed are the poor in spirit." The world today says that being "poor" in anything is never a good thing. But Jesus says that being "poor in spirit," in other words, emptying ourselves of ourselves is a great thing!

2. "Blessed are those who mourn." The world does everything in it's power to move past "pain or mourning" as quickly as possible. "Quick give me something so I don't have to feel this pain..." Is it possible that Jesus understood that pain woudl be a mighty teacher in our lives, if we would learn to not move past it too quickly?

3. "Blessed are the meek." The world promotes strength & power & any sign of weakness or even meekness (which are not the same things, by the way) is seen as a bad thing.

4. "Blessed are those who hunger and thirst..." The world convinces us every 30 seconds that we shouldn't "want" anything. "Do what you must, but you HAVE to HAVE this new product, or gadget, or toy, or restaurant, etc."

5. "Blessed are the merciful." The world declares with compelling directness that "Ruthlessness wins." Never relent. Never retreat. Never show mercy.

6. "Blessed are the pure in heart." The world wants us to contaminate our hearts with anything and everything we can find. Purity is mocked on every TV show today. Wow.

7. "Blessed are the peacemakers." The world is looking for a fight. "It's a dog eat dog world out there..." type of thing. Jesus promotes the opposite.

8. "Blessed are those who are persecuted." The world wants to so water down truth, in the name of everyone feeling comfortable, & thus doing away with any sort of ill-will related to a belief that could be seen as "unpopular." Jesus says there are going to be times when believing in me isn't going to be easy or popular."

9. "Blessed are you when people insult you." Nobody likes to be insulted or put down. But Jesus says that the "Blessed life," looks different than that.

Interesting stuff, isnt' it? Does the world around us consider you & I blessed? Based on what? Who would consider our lives more blessed, Jesus or the world around us?

Just a bloggish thought,

Matt

NLC Extreme Food Drive - A Huge Success!!!

I can't even begin to tell you how proud I am of our church. Yesterday was the last week of our "Fuel for Life" Series and the "Extreme Food Drive" that went along with it. The Single's won by about 80 items, but the true winners are the 100 needy families that we helped yesterday afternoon. In all, we had close to 4,000 items brought in over the 5 weeks of the series. Already, we're getting responses from the families who received the food. Each one makes me cry.

I knew when we were putting the series together that I wanted to link it to a "community service" event, and this one was amazing! Mike and Scott did a great job each week, keeping it light and fun during announcement time.

After church let out yesterday, we had all the food set up on tables in the foyer and people & families were able to "pack the grocery bags" and then take them directly to the community and give them personally to the families! It was so amazing. I can't even begin to tell you the joy I felt in my heart watching hundreds of NLC'ers packing groceries after church.

We have truly been given so much, my heart for our church, is that we would leverage all that we've been given for the sake of those who are in need, both physically & spiritually.

I'm so proud of our church!

(NLC family... If you have a story you want to share about your experience yesterday with the food drive, I hope you'll comment back and we'll post it).

Matt

DC Trip Successful

I just wanted to let all of you that prayed for Quigs and I know that our trip to Washington was a great success. We shot video for 5 1/2 hours & got nearly an hour of video recorded, which is incredible! We battled lighting issues all day but had plenty of sunshine for warmth & ease. (At least it wasn't raining & cold!)

In the evening, we had dinner with David Stine, who is an ARC Church Planter in Pentagon City. His church is 8 weeks old. It was so timely to spend time with him and encourage him as he's just getting out of the starting blocks. God really used us to speak a timely word to him.

Thanks to everyone who prayed for us. We felt a God confidence all day long, that's for sure. I am so excited about the new series that begins November 11th... "Leave No One Behind." It's going to be powerful, moving and hopefully very honoring to all the veterans of the USA. If you know any veterans, you'll definitely want to get them there on the 11th!

I'm looking forward to the final installment of Fuel for Life this weekend. It's going to be a great finish!

Thanks,

Matt Keller