Shane Ash

• The last few weeks have changed my Monday morning routine. I met a cool new guy at church who asked to be discipled…and I was wanting to try out some new material I recently picked up, so we decided to go through it together. It is awesome to have someone challenge and question the content…perhaps I am growing more than he is…
• Yesterday was weird…but in a good way.
• Wow…I’ve had a ton of great feedback about our upcoming change of service structure. It is going to be great…but it will take awhile to get used to. And it may even take awhile to get right…but we will get there.
• Unfortunately, I may regret telling yesterday’s scooter story the rest of my life. Everybody was giving me the low wave on the way out of church…but, don’t worry I can handle it…
• I missed Paul leading worship…but tell him to watch out…Holly rocked it yesterday!
• I stopped by the Young at Heart lunch yesterday and challenged our “older and wiser” crowd to really plug into our new structure…I love the picture of wisdom and experience mixing with new faith…
• I didn’t do so great in the first round…but my sweet sixteen is a fantastic fifteen…Arizona, really?
• Yesterday, changed my life. God has answered a prayer in my families life in a huge way…which begs me to remind you…God has not forgotten you and he already knows what you have need of before you even ask!
• This next week we will start our Easter series…and it is going to be amazing…invite anyone and everyone you know that needs to hear the story of God and his love for them…

• Yesterday I yelled while preaching…maybe a first for me. I think it was fairly obvious I was frustrated with the “I’m a Christian because I go to church” mentality.
• We were talking about the discipline of prayer…and hearing the teaching of Jesus out of Matt. 6…you can’t help but acknowledge that prayer is more than words…it is a life aligned to the will of God. And the more you know about Him…the more you will seek to live out His will.
• I am already excited about this next weekend. This Sunday is a day we will mark in our history. We are going to unveil a glimpse of future for our church. We are taking the responsibility of helping people grow spiritually seriously and we are going to do more than just talk about it…we are willing to change our routines to make it happen.
• We hope everyone will jump aboard and help us make this new ‘structure’ work…we believe in it and we believe in you.
• We believe that everyone needs two relationships in life to best grow…relationships with people, and relationship with God. Be at nbc this week to hear how we hope to help you grow in these two relationships.
• I read some great words today that remind me of what we are trying to accomplish at nbc: “It’s in the context of [local] church that we are going to learn best what it means to be a faithful follower of Jesus…And those are precisely the people I need to make me more like Jesus. It is precisely when the church is a ragbag collection of people who aren’t like each other that “great grace” is essential, and that grace is what turns converts into disciples.”
• Hang on…the best is yet to come, and there’s more after that!

• A week between posts…blogging has slowed down a little of late…partially due to the desire to spend less time online. It seems to be a widely shared thought that we spend way too much time staring at the screen…are you cutting back on your web consumption?
• Yesterday we continued our series “poured out.” The focus was the spiritual discipline of fasting….breaking the control of habits and things that we are enslaved too. I love the conversations that are happening around this topic.
• Today I met a guy that has been coming to nbc for a few months…and his story is amazing. God is doing something special in his life…moving him from a life of greed to a life of giving. Someday I will be able to talk about the rest of his story…and how God is using him to transform the world.
• I am going to go fishing soon…come on spring…hurry up.
• It has been two weeks since I have had any soda…what I would give right now for a Dr. Pepper.
• This next Sunday is going to be awesome. I have had this week on my mind for about 2 months. We will be talking about the discipline of prayer…what is it, how do we pray, what do we pray for, and what does God want from us. We will be ‘pouring out’ ourselves in prayer. Prayer is perhaps one of the most challenging, rewarding, misunderstood, ignored, and important disciplines of the Christian faith.
• Don’t forget our fast this Wednesday. Take the day and opportunity to fast. Break the habits that control you. Let the tools in our lives serve us rather then us serving them.

Here I sit…with a coffee (yea…I didn’t give it up for lent) and a sticky bun (wow, this is amazing) reflecting on yesterday and dreaming about the future.

• Yesterday we started our “poured out” series. I am really loving preaching this stuff…it is real, raw, relevant and deeply challenging. We are all going to see and experience real life-change over these weeks.
• The widow in Mark 12 gave sacrificially. One thing I wish I would have said more clearly yesterday is this; it is far easier to give generously than it is sacrificially. We judge generosity out of our abundance…but to sacrifice is to give and feel the impact. I think this is Jesus’ main point…you haven’t really given until it changes you. It is a different level of giving and Kingdom participation then most of us are used too…
• Yesterday a new Christian came up to me and told me they gave for the first time in their life…but not only did they give…they gave everything they had until the next check. That is sacrificial giving. And I promise God will give back… (and already has).
• Do you find it weird that new Christians seem to be more willing to sacrifice than those of us who grew up in the church? It is as if we think we are entitled to keep more…just thinking out loud.
• Btw, if you don’t like being asked to go deeper in your faith…well, then, umm, I’m praying for you.
• I know…it is crazy…and certainly not what we are supposed to do (insert sarcasm)…but seriously…what would happen if we lived this Christian thing out…
• Did I mention how much I love where this series is taking us….
• On a different note; we are very close to some major change at nbc…that will affect everyone. It is just one more movement that is going to make us deeper and closer to what God is calling us to be. Hang on…it is going to be fun.

More Monday morning musings…

• Yesterdays talk of reflecting the image of God’s justice has deeply challenged me…and this week I am going to be more aware of the opportunities I have to live it out. Do you have any stories to share yet?
• I think your right…maybe I shouldn’t have told the story of making my brother-in-law carry me out of the pond…but it’s too late now…so, I’m standing by it…proud of it. Thanks Brent, I’m sure that water was cold!
• I know I’ve said this before…but it is even clearer to me today. God is preparing and refining nbc for something amazing. Daily I am aware of the stirring and leading work of God’s spirit…he is breaking our dependence on form and ritual and he is moving us to into authenticity and vulnerability.
• How do you know when God is at work in people’s lives? Just watch for the push-back. It seems that when the Spirit of God starts to call us deeper…the level of resistance goes through the roof. Suddenly we start to hang on to the things we have replaced God with in our lives.
• As I mentioned yesterday at the end of service…these are exciting days at nbc…God is shaping and refining our vision of what it means to be the church. We haven’t fully worked out every detail yet…but we have a vision of a unified body of community…walking in the same tempo…growing…knowing…learning…and living out the Life. Continue to pray as we think and dream of what should and could be…
• This Sunday we are going to wrap up our Imago Dei series. We will be talking about reflecting the image of God’s beauty…to me, this is the heart of the series…the moment when the theology of Imago Dei fully makes sense. The beauty of God is best seen in the reflection of Jesus. This would be a great service to bring someone with you…we are going to do our best to communicate the beauty of the message of Jesus as clearly and simply as we know how.