Coach’s Corner

This morning was week #2 in our grand opening series about second chances.  Today’s service followed on the heels of yesterday’s amazing skydiving trip (which I will blog about and add pictures for tomorrow)….all of which was built around the idea of a second chance at adventure.  So, this morning we combined thoughts, pictures, videos, and experiences from the skydiving trip with scripture and other analogies to talk about this “adventure” that Jesus calls us into.

• We showed video of our skydiving before the beginning of the service…which was very cool!
• We opened the service with Steven Curtis Chapman’s “The Great Adventure”
• We had a special time of prayer for one of our ladies who will be leaving on Thursday for a mission trip to Russia to distribute shoes to orphanages.  That will no doubt be a great adventure for her.
• We continued the service with the Tim McGraw song, “Live Like You Were Dying”.  Just in case you don’t know the lyric, it includes the phrase… “I went skydiving”…. how could we NOT do that song today?
• I spoke today on the frustration I feel between the encouragement I get and the disappointment I feel when I read John 10:10.  Jesus certainly said that he came to give us life to the full.  So it must be true, but why aren’t most of us living it?
• I think the key is two chapters later in John 12, when Jesus says that a kernel of wheat must die in order to produce a crop….and that whoever loses his life for Jesus sake will find it.
• I tried to illustrate all of this by having a guy hold onto a really big jar (which represented everything he owns & possesses) while offering him a “mystery contents” envelope.  It could be the deal of a lifetime or a terribly bad decision, but he can’t hold onto both.  Obviously, he (and all the rest of us) would want to hold onto the jar of his stuff instead of swapping it for the unknown.
• Most of us come to Jesus hoping for the “full life”, but still clinging to our jar of stuff.  We simply don’t want to let go of it.  But we can’t experience what God has for us without letting go of our jar of stuff.
• We watched a clip from The Bucket List.  Faced with their mortality, the guys in the movie decide to do the things they had always wanted to but hadn’t.  Facing death has a way of bringing clarity and focus.  In facing death, they found the freedom to pursue dreams.
• Jesus tells us to die to ourselves in order to have the freedom to pursue the dreams and the life that he has for us.  It will most certainly have it’s share of challenges and setbacks.  But it is in facing death that we find ourselves truly living…..and then we are ready for the Great Adventure.
• We closed with our “unofficial” theme song, “Battle Cry”.
• One of our men told me immediately after the service that the message hit him head-on today… I love hearing that.

It was another good day… and I think we are all more and more ready to live the adventure and GO B.I.G.,