WHAT IS WRITTEN ON YOUR HEART?

"What is written on my heart?"  It seemed like an easy question... for about 7 seconds and then it quickly became overwhelming... I struggled with that question for about 15 minutes; How should I know?

The next question was designed to create focus, "What one thing has defined your life?" 

Really? Just One Thing? 

The words hung in the air. I could feel their weight. Then I recalled a question I had often asked young people when I was helping them sort out their priorities...

"If you could do anything, what would it be?"
That was the question I posed to myself.

"David, if money was not limited?" 

"If time was freed up totally?"
"What would you do with your days, weeks, months, and years?" "What legacy do you want to leave behind when you pass over to that other place?"

I don't know about you but I can already feel the Yeah-buts percolating to the surface of my conscious thoughts.

• 'Yeah but, I don't have unlimited time or resources.
• Yeah but, I have a family.
• Yeah but, I have a job. 
• Yeah but, I have a house, cars, etc. to maintain. 

Maybe there is a better question to help silence the Yeah-buts; if just for a moment or two to allow us to think more openly. Here is the first question asked again to silence the cries of "yeah-but!"

What is written on your heart? 

I began to look back over my life the way a climber might survey the path he had just taken that eventually led him here, to the summit. From this perspective, looking back down the path I could recall and identify the smaller hills I had successfully climbed in the past.  I could see what is written on my heart by looking backward and identifying the hilltops I have scaled successfully, by the empowering grace of God. 

#1 SMALL GROUPS - have been written on my heart for 46 years. 

When I look back over the last 46 years of involvement in the Kingdom and in the Church it is small groups that are my frequent and consistent experiences of the ZOE life of God. I believe small group meetings are at the core of Christian life. I was thrust into small group dynamics at age 17, my youth pastor launched a college-based bible study fellowship group, and during my senior year in high school, we met in his home.  In the very beginning, we could easily fit everyone in the living room. The relaxed nature of a home setting was much more conducive to holding deeper conversations. Unlike Sunday morning meetings, there was no platform, no pulpit or podium, no rows of chairs, or hard-backed pews. In fact, over half the students had to sit American Indian style on the carpeted floor. 

The result was a free-flowing conversational style meeting whereby anyone could interject a comment or a life story. This pattern was so infused with life, that the group grew to 30, then 40, or more, it became impossible to remain in the living room even with a contingent in the adjoining dining room. So we improved the unfinished basement, partitioned off a small space for a laundry room, and carpeted the rest with a wall-to-wall orange carpet, (that was August 1972). The numbers continued to grow until one night we reached 110 students, although our peak attendance was 110,  70-80 was more common. 

" Wait, he said his passion was small groups and his first example is 80-100 people, that's not small, that's as large as an average church! 

We sat elbow to elbow, knees to back, across the entire lower level of this suburban basement.
In order to see the person who was speaking, we had to position him/her in the corner of the L-shaped space. We used two guitars for worship, they were positioned near the center and at the elbow of the L-shaped space, spread apart so each "leg could hear and sing-along, along with the choruses. 

You are probably thinking right now " Wait, he said his passion was small groups and his first example is 80-100 people, that's not small, that's as large as an average church! 

Stay with me for a moment, I am about to share the second thing that is written on my heart.

#2 CAPTAINS OF TEN - informal personal pastoring has been written on my heart for 46 years. 

Towards the end of each weekly meeting, we would break into small groups for prayer and sharing.

In order to facilitate that number, we had 8-10 people in every room throughout the house including a group that met in the master bedroom. Ministry included praying for and reaching out to each of my ten students during that week. This format continued weekly for over four years, from 1971 until 1975. 

#3 TEENS AND STUDENTS - raising up the next generation has been written on my heart for 43 years

I was married at a young age and my wife and I became involved with neighborhood kids a few years later. We met them because they habitually loitered around the apartment building where we were the resident managers. Over an eight-year period, we had almost 20 young men come to our apartment. They came daily, in twos and threes, sometimes they came in mass. We had cookouts with them, table talks, we lived life in front of them and invited them to see us as we were.  Eventually, they became so familiar with us, that we had to set some boundaries. When the "boys" (young men aged 12-16 yrs.) began to enter our apartment without even knocking or waiting for an answer; to them, it was like home. One of those young men has visited us several times over the last 35 years, his brother has also visited us but less often. They even put us up in a swanky hotel for our anniversary a few years back. The older I become the more I want to see young men and women work together with older men and women so that the torch can be handed off in a seamless flow of God's empowering grace. 

#4 LENTIL STEW - Church is a Spiritual potluck! and that's how we ought to experience it. 

Later on, in 1987-89 I was asked to take over the small group ministry at my local church.  I was asked to provide oversight of 16 small groups that we launched across the southern portion of the Twin Cities metro.  I launched a new direction based on one of my 'life' verses, (1 Corinthians 14:26-31) In order to cast vision, I asked each of my leaders to bring just one ingredient (pre-assigned) from a lentil soup recipe. My secret hope was that one of them would forget their ingredient so I could use it for my object lesson. But they were faithful men and so they each remembered and brought their items. 

We made lentil stew out of what each man brought and then I read through 1 Corinthians 14 so that what we were eating, would be an object lesson of how 'everything must be done for edification.' If you are unfamiliar with this passage you might want to read it, as it is Paul's blueprint for corporate church meetings.

#5 HEARING GOD'S VOICE - it's every saint's right. 

In 1995 I was invited to help lead a house meeting that ran from November 1, 1995, until July 31, 2000. As I discussed under #1 (above) we started with a small number of co-workers but it grew to 30-50 by 1998. We moved out of the house setting, into a church building but we always emphasized the ability of every believer to hear from God... in fact, we used the workbook and videos of "Experiencing God" authored by Henry Blackaby for most of those three years teaching many how to hear God's voice for the very first time, or discovering they had been hearing God's voice, but for the very first time like the little boy Samuel they had previously thought it was a human voice they had been hearing. This continues to be the heartbeat of Heaven inscribed on my heart. 

#6 SPIRIT LED PRAYER - We don't know how to pray as we ought. 

In 2008 a small prayer meeting was begun to pray for the children's bible study program sponsored by our local gathering. I was traveling frequently for business in those years and was out of town almost 90 days a year, I was gone during the week so I missed about 1/3 of those weekly meetings. I took a break from traveling in the fall of 2010 and then I joined this band of men who gathered once a week on Thursday night (even though the children's program had been discontinued their prayer meetings had not.) The first time I came in October of 2010 there were only 4-5 older men.

In a way, this last group incorporated all the Six things I have mentioned above. 
1. It was a small group.
2. We checked up on each other during the week
3. Two younger men joined this 'older men's group and we saw them spring up into maturity in a matter of several months.
4. We practiced Church as a potluck based on 1 Corinthians 14.
5. We practiced hearing God's voice and then reporting what He was saying.

6. We experienced Spirit lead prayer, singing of new songs, prophetic songs, signs, and wonders. 

The highlight of being a part of this small band of men was that God would show up each week in a variety of different ways. We would sing prophetic songs, and new songs, anyone, and everyone could share Scripture, prayer, exhort, teach, or prophecy.
It became the highlight of our week, we would linger until late into the night when God was speaking. Many times we would receive a Scripture, an understanding, an application and we would act on what we heard, sometimes there would be a symbolic act that was suggested.  We would wrap up and go home. the next day or the next Sunday service a visiting speaker would touch on the same exact Scripture, follow it down to the same application and sometimes even suggest the same exact action to be done symbolically.
On August 14, 2014, this group was no longer meeting and the eight men who were part of it had each gone their separate ways, in one sense or another.

Now I can clearly state the answer to the question... What is written on my heart? 

1. Small groups of individuals who,
2. Pastor (care for) each other 
3. Raise up the next generation in a safe place. 
4. Hear God's voice for themselves. 
5. Fight for the roundtable setting that looks more like a potluck than an elaborate eight-course professional chef-prepared meal. 
6. Where every Saint can hear God and share what He is saying "let everything be done for edification." 

I wanted to share this with you.

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Various writings from the past
The Road Not Taken

At Home In MN