Hey Trailblazers!
I'm so excited for the journey that we are on together. As a Leader and influencer here at White Oak I'm so grateful for you. Keep scrolling to listen in or read along.
Nathan
Transcript:
Hey guys. I am glad that you’re listening in on our first Trailblazer podcast. Several weeks ago, you attended one of our Trailblazer Gatherings where you heard about SHAKEN. I am so glad you did. I am grateful that we were able to spend that time together, sharing the vision God has given White Oak, and looking forward to the bold moves he’s calling us to take as we trust the Holy Spirit to shake up our lives as it relates to our generosity.
God has called you to be a leader or influencer here at White Oak. What we want to do with these bi-weekly updates is to engage, encourage, and equip you as a Trailblazer.
This past winter, I took at hike at a park near my house. It was a beautiful hike along a creek with cliffs looking down over the water on one side and trees surrounding me. The neatest part of the hike was that it appeared I was the first one on the trail after we received a dusting of snow. I remember as a kid being the first one out the door after a snowfall to run through the yard, disturbing the snow, and forging a path! So, on my hike, I got to trod through the snow, making the first footprints, breaking through the thin ice over puddles of water. There was something childlike about it and almost spiritual as I blazed a path forward.
Remember, trailblazers are those who step forward to lead the way for others to follow. It means that we go places perhaps others haven’t gone before… we show others the way down a path they haven’t considered… and we step obediently out in faith trusting God to lead the way for us and our church family.
By now, you should have been contacted by someone to set up a time to meet with you in order to hear from you of your experience with the Trailblazer guide and to share some more vision with you. I’m asking you to consider what questions in that guide shook you up and challenged you? What has God been saying to you since the time you first heard about SHAKEN? Please be sure you are responding to the email, phone call, or text you received from one of our other Trailblazers in order to set up that time together. We have had some great conversations with many of you as God is working in you and we look forward to more!
I want to ask you to pray. Set aside a time each day or week to pray for SHAKEN. I have the stones I received from the Trailblazer events sitting on my nightstand. The words “trust” and “enough” are on some of those stones, I’m reminded that my brothers and sisters need prayer in this season. Use the stone you received from the gathering as a reminder to pray for how God is shaking you and also how he’s shaking other Trailblazers at White Oak.
Remember, we often take the word “shaken” in a negative context (or at least as an unwelcomed experience in our lives). But in Acts 4, the believers trusted God, prayed for his powerful work to be done in and through them, and the place where they were meeting was SHAKEN by the Holy Spirit! When God shakes you, that’s a good thing!
You’re offering trust and expecting him to move boldly through you!
I’m asking you to pray with me. We have much coming this fall as we look to the public launch of SHAKEN at White Oak. I look forward to journeying toward that with you.
In the coming weeks on our Trailblazer Tuesday updates, we’ll share stories from other Trailblazers as to how God is beginning to shake in them. I was in one Trailblazer’s home the other day as a follow up to one of our gatherings, and he showed me the stone he picked up from that event. He shared with me how the word which someone else had written on that stone was a word that was actually shaking him. What God had placed on his heart over the last year was captured in the word on that stone.
You won’t want to miss stories like these over the next few months. In them, I am reminded just how Good our Heavenly Father is!
We aren’t waiting for the fall for SHAKEN to begin. It’s already started, and God is already at work through us now! Thanks for joining me this week.