Growing Smaller

We had our retreat up in the mountains outside Malaga, it was beautiful!

I am a dreamer. And if you have spent anytime around me I think you would already know this. I love being a dreamer. I love hanging around other dreamers. In fact, being a dreamer is what got me where I am today and will get me where I’m going. But I like other things too…like getting stuff done and seeing things happen, something that dreamers are notoriously poor at doing!

I remember about a year ago before I left for squad leading I was hiking my favorite mountain in the Smokies and as I got down a random woman was waiting for me at the bottom. She said she didn’t know how I felt about God, but that when we passed on the trail earlier He gave her a vision for me. (These things are becoming less and less surprising) So I listened as she spoke. She said that as I walked up the mountain she saw a giraffe and the good thing about a giraffe is that it can see above everything with its neck and is still graceful with it’s feet below.

I felt like that was a pretty good definition for what a successful dreamer was like. Being in the clouds and on the ground!

One of the hardest things this last year has not been seeing the “big picture” or forming a vision. That is actually the easiest part. The hard part comes after when you think…”O crap that’s huge, how will that ever happen?” I think there are 3 options after this.

1.Quit…um really?

2. Wait for God to do it…God’s just waiting on you to do it and he literally has all the time in the world!

3. Start taking steps…hmmm, that sound good.

But how? It’s not easy to plan 10 steps on how to save the world.

A pic from worship at the retreat. There are such great musicians here!

Many times this has crippled me and left me thinking that maybe the vision is too big. This has definitely been the case in coming to Europe and spending time in Spain. There seem to be so many possibilities that it can be overwhelming and you have no idea where to invest.

The other weekend we had our worship retreat up in the mountains. It was an incredible time and it continues to amaze me how close of a family a small part of the church network is in South Spain. I was privileged to teach a breakout session on the the relationship of worship, prayer, and missions. I felt a little in over my head but something hit me while I was teaching. In one of the sessions, I went around the room of about 30 people and asked how many different churches were represented. The result, over 10 churches, from different denominations and cities. This kind of blew me away because its not something that I had experienced before. I have been to retreats all my life, but none that diverse in such a small group.

One of Andrew Shearman’s sayings here at G42 is “Dream big and think small.” At first glance it seems like a contradiction because a lot of us have been told our whole lives that we need to dream big and then the only way to bring our dream to life is to think big along with it. This is simply not the case. Jesus dreamed of telling the whole world about the Kingdom so he focused 3 years on 12 men. Mark Zuckerburg started his network with one university and met their needs before connecting the world. These two examples alone should be enough for us since they are probably the very things that occupy our life, but I think you get the point.

One thing we often forget is that God wants to bring to completion the dreams he puts in our hearts more than we do, and he is faithful to do it! I firmly believe that he wants us to make decisions more than he wants us to make the right ones. Wrong choices aren’t always sinful but many times sanctifying. It shows how much we trust him and that we won’t stand for complacency. At least this is what I have seen to be true in my life and how I continue to operate. Besides, where’s the faith if we have it all figured out? Little by little I am seeing God put together some huge plans all through little steps. Tu puedas decir, poco a poco!

During the retreat I saw a passionate group of young adults that weren’t satisfied with what they have seen and aren’t standing still until they figure it out. Things are moving. People are going out of their comfort zone. People are crying out for their city. People are trusting God will show up. The thing that encourages me the most is that people don’t just want to see fruit but are finding unity in the fact that they want to plant vineyards together. That is what will change a country.

A photo from our Burn held at the church I go to in Malaga.

We had our first Burn last Friday from 8pm to 4am. For the first 2 hours there were about 3 or 4 people in the room. But crowds weren’t the point, praising God for who He is and what he is doing was the point. By 1:30am we had around 35 people. What a great model of how to start small and end big without being changed at the heart.

I’m not huge into symbolism, but Pablo asked me if I thought it was strange that we unknowingly decided to worship 8 hours starting at 8pm on March 8. I gave it a look and it wasn’t surprising that 8 is the number of new beginnings in the Bible. New things are definitely happening and it is such a privilege to be involved in it all!