Okay. Okay. I know I’ve been neglecting the blog. Problem is I got stuck in a pattern I found frustrating . . . institutional . . . not to my liking. Couldn’t lick the pattern so I simply escaped it . . . not a recommended approach for solving anything. Just felt like I was in a box I didn’t like, but couldn’t get out of . . . couldn’t write my way out of . . . couldn’t study my way out of . . . couldn’t pray my way out of.
Then I discovered it was God’s box, and I needed to be in it! I needed to feel what it’s like to be, on the one hand, made to be unleashed, but on the other facing the reality of confinement. Maybe like the wild animals we watch in the zoo . . . pacing around in their cages, no matter how much we try to disguise cages as their real environment . . . somehow as we watch the pacing we have that feeling they weren’t meant to be there . . . confined. They were built to be unleashed.
So it is with the Gospel . . . it is the power of God unto salvation for all who believe. It is meant to be unleashed. Yet, we so often succeed in boxing it up . . . confining it in packaging we call the church. And the people who make up the church . . . confined in the box . . . become cantankerous, difficult . . . deep down inside they know they were saved for something else . . . to be unleashed . . . they just can’t find the door out.
And we pastors and Christian leaders can be the confining agents if we’re not careful . . . people called to unleash men and women who have been changed by the Gospel inadvertently creating cages that tame both the people and the power.
So here’s my theme for this year: UNLEASHED. I’m going to do everything possible to stay unleashed, and to help leaders, churches, and Christians get unleashed if they’re not . . . stay unleashed if they are. It’s a scary, wonderful, faith-driven theme . . . a life-changer, church-changer, community-changer and maybe even a world-changer. What do you think? Are you ready to let God unleash the Gospel in you . . . through you? Could make for an exciting 2010. | 
