Freedom In Christ

I have the privilege of serving on staff with a great friend, Keith Ferguson. Some of you are aware of the history that Keith and I have in which we met during our college years while serving on a summer ministry team. For the past three and a half years we have worked together with many others to plant Hill Country Bible Round Rock.

One of the amazing things that has happened during this season is to see both of our lives continue to develop. And one of the main ways we have seen our ministries develop has been a growing understanding of the centrality of the Gospel. That may sound elementary to some, but what we have discovered is that because of the simplicity of the Gospel message, it is many times shelved post “the prayer” of salvation. So what happens is that we believe the Gospel is for those who have yet to put their trust in Christ, and that once cross the line of faith, it is then our job to work hard to be like Christ divorced from the Gospel. Which, by the way, is totally unbiblical and leads down a path to empty, moralistic religion. The power of God in the Gospel is what saves us and the power of God in the Gospel is what sanctifies us.

Anyway, I am rambling on now. (which I tend to do a lot) I wanted to link a sermon from this past Sunday that Keith preached at our grandparent church, Hill Country Bible Church Northwest, in Austin on freedom found in the Gospel. This message is really powerful and encapsulates a lot of what God has been teaching me in the past three years. Check it out and let me know what you think…FULLY FREE.

Partner With The Shock’s This Summer

7-8-2010

Friends and Family-

I hope that you are having a great summer. So far it has been a good one for Jada, the kids, and me.

Jada and I are very excited about the remaining summer weeks, and one of the main reasons is an opportunity that we have to travel to Alamaty, Kazakhstan July 30th through August 7th in order to train and encourage church planters from five countries in the Central Asia region. It is encouraging to see what God is doing through the men and women of faith in these countries despite the fact that organized religion is highly regulated by the government, which has resulted in the persecution of Christians.

In writing this note, we are inviting those who are willing and able to partner with us financially and in prayer. We are asking God to provide at least $3500 through people like you to cover our trip expenses. In addition, we are also asking God to provide at least 50 people who will commit to praying daily for us while we are there. If you would like to be a join with us in one or both of these ways, please email me at nshock@hillcountrybible.org. All financial gifts can be mailed to Hill Country Bible Round Rock 206 W Main STE 105 Round Rock, TX 78664. We would ask that you write Shock Kazakhstan in the memo line.

The Association of Hill Country Churches, of which we are a part, has had a relationship with Christians in this part of the world for around a decade, and this is not the first time we have sent leaders to invest time and energy there. We have been asked to focus our time on the leaders’ families through marriage and parenting teaching while they are retreating to be refreshed. This area of ministry is a passion of our hearts, and we anticipate a really powerful time of pouring into them. I am confident that we will be challenged and motivated by the leaders as well.

We will be sending out updates related to this trip along with ways that you can pray specifically for those of you that want to participate. Our hope is that many of you will join with us in this mission experience.

Grace & Peace-

Nick & Jada

Backing It Up…

In my last post I included a Francis Chan clip where he was challenging church leaders to go to scripture and ask this question in essence: If the description of the Church that we see in scripture is all we looked to for understanding what the Church is, would it look like the expression we see today? If it is not, why and how do we need to realign with God’s intent for real gospel-centered community? I had the privilege of hearing Chan speak at the Verge Conference in Austin a couple months back and he said things very similar to the clip. It was heavy and it was compelling. Today, I saw the clip I posted below where he is resigning from Cornerstone where he has served for 16 years. This apparently has been a lengthy process of wrestling through the scripture for he and his wife. I am really curious as to where he will ultimately land, considering what he alludes to in the clip. Once again, thank you Francis for continuing to challenge us to live in line with Scripture and with radical faith-filled obedience in response to God’s stirring.

Francis Chan is stepping out in faith… from Catalyst on Vimeo.

Dang It! Thank You God For This!

Every time I hear Francis Chan speak, it rattles me, disturbs me, hurts me, and confuses me. I honestly am wrestling deeply right now about what God is leading me and my family to do, but I am so thankful for men like Francis who are calling people to look to God and His Word to determine this for us. Just watch and ask God what your life would look like if you abandoned all and followed whole-heartedly after Christ. Luke 9:23-24!!!

The Word of the Lord Came…

I was reading Jeremiah 1 this morning and reflecting over God’s calling and charge to Jeremiah. I was convicted by a few insights from the chapter. In the passage, this phrase leaps off the page: “The word of the Lord came to Jeremiah.” Wow! How incredible to have the word of the Lord come to you. The word that comes, informs Jeremiah that He formed him, knows him, set him apart, and appointed him to be a messenger to His people. Jeremiah, just like Moses, makes the excuse that he does not know how to speak and that he is unqualified based on his age. I initially want to focus on Jeremiah’s lack of faith, but there is a healthy awareness that he cannot do what God is asking him to do without God. He realizes his human limitations. However, God presses in on Jeremiah telling him not to make excuses and that just as in the story of Moses, He is sending him and will give him what to say. So some questions for me and maybe you to consider:

Am I listening for the word of the Lord to instruct me?
Do I have a true humility that comes from seeing God accurately and myself honestly?
Am I making any excuses about why God could not use me? (driven by fear of failure?)
Do I genuinely see God as the source of my calling, content, and courage to do what He has asked me to do?
Do I realize that He is going to hold me accountable to the instruction He gives me?

I need to repent this AM!

Why I Struggle To Blog…

So, for all 5 of you following my blog, you may notice I don’t tend to post much. I thought I would give some reasons that I was mulling over on why this is true. So here’s 5 reasons why I struggle to blog…

1) I don’t enjoy writing that much. I’m not great at it, and so it is not really enjoyable.
2) I analyze what I write so much that it takes too much time. It takes me longer than it should, and it probably doesn’t show!
3) When I finish a blog and post it, I worry about what others will think of it. Creates self-centered thinking about what people think about me and my ideas. (not healthy!)
4) I don’t really make time for it consistently. Blogging for me is typically an afterthought. I usually wish I would have blogged about something when I was thinking about it because after time passes it isn’t fresh, and thus many times seems irrelevant to me.
5) I enjoy reading and learning from other’s blogs so I don’t really feel like it necessary to do my own. I guess what I am really saying here is, “Do I have anything to say that anyone else hasn’t said or that anyone actually wants to hear?” This leads me to uncertainty that my posts are really helpful to anyone. (thus a waste of time)

Ok…I gave some of my reasons why I don’t. In my next post I will blog about why felt like I should at least give it a try.

Dang That Verge Conference!


I am still reeling and in somewhat of a funk after attending the Verge Conference this past weekend. I’m pretty messed up and distracted right now. Don’t misunderstand, I have great hope and excitement about what I heard and saw at the conference. However, I have a love/hate relationship with conferences, especially good ones, because I tend to get fired up and overwhelmed at the same time. I just heard Ed Stetzer call conferences “ministry pornography” because the guys that speak many times paint a glamorous picture that distract us from what God intended for us to be doing! If you’ve been there, you get the point.

I am by nature, a starter and risk-taker. I love getting a vision from God about what could be or should be, then seeing Him make it happen as we mobilize. Getting people stoked about reaching people with the Gospel in a new or refreshed way is addicting to me. This can be dangerous at times, because I have to make sure I stay focused on follow through as well as the launch. Though I confess the thought of maintaining a system gives me hives. At least after 13 years of ministry, I have learned to be better in moving at God’s pace rather than reacting solely to the emotion of the moment.

Anyway, I wanted to type out some of my high level takeaways from this past weekend to clarify what God is stirring in me…

1) God is moving all over the world in a significant way, and I am only one of millions who really want to see God do something God-sized in our world! (love this about being at conferences!)
2) We must stay Gospel/Jesus centered or all of this missional talk is a waste of time.
3) We need to focus on hearing from God personally more than plugging and playing the expression of the the Gospel movement elsewhere.
4) Our model of church planting needs an overhaul. Learn from other global models.
5) Contextualizing the expression of church our setting is something I need to get clarity on.
6) We need to take risks with urgency to accomplish the mission.
7) We must make disciples of people not simply plant churches.
8) God is leading the church to go exponential in its multiplication, even in the States!
9) I need to stay intentional in living missionally personally! (quit complicating, theorizing, analyzing, or theologizing it, and do it)
10) We have to continue to think global Gospel! This gives us westerners a great dose of reality that we are not the center of Christianity!

Staying Grounded In Leadership

This morning I was working through Psalm 2 and was reminded of some important realities. In the psalm, David is talking about those in authority. It is in this context he gives some really practical ideas on how to serve in leadership. What struck me in the context of the passage was what I saw in verse 11 which states “Serve the LORD with reverent fear, and rejoice with trembling.” As a pastor, sometimes I can lose perspective on who I serve and why I serve. The implications of this verse are extremely important to stay in a place of effective ministry. So here’s what I gleaned…

First, it is God that decides who is in authority. He establishes who is in the lead and can remove them whenever he deems necessary. I do not attain leadership positions on my own apart from God allowing and even enabling it to happen. I must confess that this creates some big questions about bad leaders in powerful positions, but suffice it to say that God is not surprised or clueless about the state of depraved leaders. He is never out of His position as ultimate authority over all!

The second observation is that we are servants first and foremost to God. Note: we are servants before we are masters, followers before leaders! We all have someone over us despite how many people we lead, and that master is the King of Kings and Lord of Lords. Churchy and cliche’ish sounding title, but think about what that means. We are not first and foremost servants to people, despite the fact that we are called to serve people. We will not lead well if we see ourselves as servants to people first rather than God because we will submit to the will of the people rather than yield our hearts to God.

The third idea is that we should maintain a healthy fear that we are accountable to God as we serve. Not only must we submit to God as His servants, but we are also accountable to Him for our leadership. We need to keep this in view as we lead, because we can quickly get on a power trip. And, as Proverbs 16 so succinctly tells us, this will lead to our destruction.

Fourthly, when we celebrate success, we must continue to keep the object of our worship in focus. One of the most dangerous places in ministry is when we succeed. How quickly we turn our eyes and hearts to ourselves, away from the one who is the source of all good things, including success! May we all tremble with awe as we celebrate.

These are only four quick observations from this passage, but deeply convicting and helpful. (for me at least!)

Counted Worthy To Suffer

The past week or so I have been following closely the story of Matt Chandler, the lead pastor at The Village Church in Dallas. Matt has impacted me deeply from a distance, going back to my college days in Abilene, TX where he spoke at a weekly Bible study called Grace. I have watched God use Matt’s incredible gift of communication to rally believers to live their lives radically for the sake of the Gospel. On Thanksgiving he had a seizure, collapsed, and was diagnosed with a mass on the frontal lobe of his brain. Anytime something like this happens to a young person it is sobering. When it is a person you know, a leader in the church who is influencing thousands, it creates even more intense reflection. So, when these type of things happen, it is a gut check, heart check, perspective check, and even motive check. I have been praying for Matt, his family, his friends, and his followers. At the same time, I try to put myself in his position, and consider how I would respond in the face of suffering. I want to be the type of person who finds my focus on Jesus and the Gospel intensify in hardship. This video I have included below is a powerful testimony to the faithfulness of God. Hope it encourages you to live more faithfully rather than fearfully for the Gospel.

How Do You Wake Up In The AM?

Maybe you need this alarm clock?!?! Ridiculous…