Surfing the Inner N8

Yesterday was a very interesting church day. In week 2 of the series “I’d Rather Be Fishing,” we rotated preaching duty. Pastor John Coleman from The Gathering Tree preached at CrossWay, Pastor Daryl from SonRise preached at The Gathering Tree, and I preached at SonRise. Strangely enough, attendance at The Gathering Tree–in the absence of their pastor–was up about 25%. And at CrossWay–also in the pastor’s absence–they had a higher attendance than we’ve had since I started there at the beginning of May! I’m not sure what the attendance was at SonRise, but it looked like a pretty good-sized crowd. Odd as all that is, I think it speaks well of the series that in week 2 all the churches are way up in attendance.

It was great to be back among SonRisers. And it was also really nice having LJ, one of our CrossWay elders, join us there. He led the prayer time in the second service, and at the end of that service, Pastor Daryl (who had arrived back from The Gathering Tree) called LJ, Carolyn, and I up front, then summoned the whole church, and they prayed for CrossWay. It was very cool.

In the message, we looked at John 21:1-14. In this passage, Jesus has already been killed, risen from the dead, and appeared to His disciples twice. He appears to them again and helps them score a huge catch of fish, much like in last week’s passage from Luke 5. But this time He does it differently. The way He works is very similar, but also very different.

We see in this passage that fulfilling God’s calling in our lives is not about following a procedure; it’s about following a Person–and that person is Jesus. Being a Christ-follower is not about a bunch of rules and routines, but about a relationship. We’ve got to stay closely connected with Jesus and not let our relationship with Him grow stale.

This week I’m hoping to get the triplecord podcast up and running. It will have the messages from all three churches for all four weeks of the series.