Justin Gerhardt

How To Be Free

Wed, 10 Nov 2010 15:58:17 -0600

Here’s the video we put together to celebrate what God did at Round Rock a while back. Let’s lay ‘em down, folks!!

Wow.

Mon, 18 Oct 2010 00:51:43 -0500

God. Is. So. Good.

Please, please trust me. Test him. Taste him. See.

"The Lord…has watched over your journey through this vast desert. These forty years the Lord..."

Thu, 14 Oct 2010 14:55:00 -0500

““The Lord…has watched over your journey through this vast desert. These forty years the Lord your God has been with you””

- True for the Israelites in the wilderness. True for us in suffering.

[Deuteronomy 2:7]

Further

Wed, 13 Oct 2010 13:30:00 -0500

For me, deeper discipleship (that is, God-following that’s one step deeper than my current reality) is scary.

Mostly, it’s scary because I haven’t been there. It’s scary because I don’t know exactly what would happen if I _____________ (gave/committed/sold/confessed/sacrificed/reached out/etc.). I don’t know because I’ve never been there.

That’s why I couldn’t help underlining this statement today from Moses to Israel in Deuteronomy 1: “The LORD your God who goes before you will himself fight for you.” I love that—”God who goes before you.”

What a powerful truth: God is wherever I’m afraid to go.

The next level of discipleship is not a frightening abyss; it’s a light-filled, God-inhabited, pre-scouted trail. And it’s certainly not dangerous. If anything’s dangerous, it’s not going to where God is.

So here’s to next steps, and to taking those steps with the calm assurance that though I’m not sure what lies ahead, I know Who’s waiting for me there.

__________________

P.S. For a fantastic post that will no doubt tempt you (as it did me) into picking up Deuteronomy and feasting on its goodness, click here.

How's Your Heart?

Tue, 12 Oct 2010 14:18:35 -0500

For the next few weeks at Round Rock, we’re exploring how to guard our hearts from envy, lust, greed, pride, and anger. (It’s not as much of a downer as it sounds like, I promise!)

On Sunday, I shared some questions we can ask in order to get a handle on monitoring what’s going into and coming out of our hearts. Several people have asked for those questions, so here they are. Take 15 minutes or so and answer each of these with a sentence or two.

After all, the wisest man in the world said, “Above all else, guard your heart for it is the wellspring of life.”

WHAT’S GOING IN?

What are the TV shows I watch pouring into my heart?
How might the music I listen to subtly be shaping the way I think and feel?
What are the voices am I giving access to my heart on a regular basis? (Friends, talk show hosts, authors, columnists, business gurus, mentors, preachers, etc.)
How often am I reading the Bible?
How much Scripture am I internalizing by committing it to memory?

WHAT’S COMING OUT?

What do I say when my filter gets thin, and what tone of voice do I use?
What thoughts enter my mind when I encounter someone who’s… Beautiful? …Annoying? …Poor? …Rich? …Dressed immodestly? …A different color than I am?
If someone tried to decipher my priorities, based solely on my credit/debit card statements, what would they decide?
When someone succeeds where I’ve failed, what do I say under my breath?
When someone fails where I’ve succeeded, what’s my first thought?
What makes me laugh?
What makes me cry?

Breaking Bread

Thu, 30 Sep 2010 22:15:31 -0500

There’s something intimate and powerful about sharing a meal with someone in your home at your table.

Hospitality is not quite as easy as it was when the Gerhardt house wasn’t teeming with offspring. …Okay, not “not quite”—more like “not hardly.”

But it’s such a powerful relationship-builder/friendship-enricher/community-developer. So glad God encourages us to do it.

Awesome Morning.

Sun, 26 Sep 2010 20:22:00 -0500

So today I had one of the most moving experiences I’ve ever had in worship.

HERE’S WHY WE DID IT
We’re in the middle of a series called “How To Be Free” at Round Rock, with each lesson coming from Israel’s first few moments of freedom in Exodus 14. Wow that’s a great text.

Today, we talked about how we can’t do freedom on our own—how that, like Israel, we have to learn to trust God to fight the battles we can’t. We talked about how, with the Egyptian army bearing down on them, Moses assured the terrified Israelites, “The Lord will fight for you; you need only to be still.” And then, in a stunning moment, after God brought his people through the water, he buried the pursuing Egyptian army in the sea.

Everyone has Egyptians.

They’re the things that enslave us. The things that incite fear, worry, and anxiety in our hearts. The things we can’t beat on our own.

So with that in mind, we decided to turn those things over to a God who promises to fight for us. And we decided to mark the moment.

HERE’S WHAT WE DID
Spaced around the edge of the platform were three big clear vases filled with water, about 10 piles of stones, and a bunch of Sharpie markers. With some evocative music playing behind powerful Scriptures on the screen, people rose from their seats, walked down front, grabbed a stone, and wrote on it the name of the thing that’s been enslaving them—the thing they need God to beat.

Then, they buried their stone in the water.

It was beautiful. Lines forming down the aisles all the way to the back of the auditorium. 16-year-olds huddled beside 75-year-olds, scrawling on stones the things they pledged to turn over to God. The clanking sound of rock after rock finding its way to the bottom of the water. The tears of so many so determined to be free. Then, finally, the sight of our Egyptians lying in piles, buried beneath the waters of God’s power.

And through it all, the words of Exodus 14 ringing in our ears and hearts:

“The Egyptians you see today you will never see again. The LORD will fight for you; you need only to be still.”

I’ll never forget it.

P.S. Round Rock folks, I’d love to hear your thoughts/observations in the comments.

Why I Like Jesus' "Water of Life" Comparison:

Mon, 12 Jul 2010 11:45:00 -0500

“If anyone thirsts,” Jesus says, “let him come to me and drink.”

And with that, he brings all of the truth of water—raindrops and waterfalls, fountains and springs, rivers and brooks, lakes and oceans, sometimes dripping, sometimes drenching, always cleansing, the power of steam, the beauty of snow, the mystery of ice—and applies that truth to Himself.

Covering three quarters of the earth, water is everywhere—and the places it isn’t are barren and wasted. Powerful, delicate, lullabying, destructive, healing—it carves canyons then fills them, laps up on the shores of Ephesus and San Francisco, Barcelona and Calais; collects as dew in backyards and city parks; gives life and carries nutrients, washes the filthy and wakes the sleepy, carries ocean liners and covers trenches.

Water both conceals and reveals: The same explorer who plumbs its depths for the secrets it cloaks reaches down and scoops a handful to wash a muddy artifact and reveal its details.

We do not use it, we only borrow it; for whether through the ground or the sea or the air, in time it will reenter its never-ending cycle, the same drop perhaps visiting us 10 times before we die.

Water is in everything and through everything—it is the stuff of clouds and rainbows and icicles, forever present, forever valuable. Those who view our blue planet from space know—water makes our world what it is.

And because of this, Jesus calls on one of his favorite elements to bear witness to the truth of Himself.

Well done, Jesus.

"The world breaks everyone, then some become strong at the broken places."

Thu, 08 Jul 2010 06:00:00 -0500

“The world breaks everyone, then some become strong at the broken places.”

- Love this truth from Ernest Hemingway

Sure the actual source is more powerful, but you’ve got to...

Wed, 07 Jul 2010 06:00:00 -0500

Sure the actual source is more powerful, but you’ve got to admit—reflection can be pretty cool.

“And we, who with unveiled faces all reflect the Lord’s glory, are being transformed into his likeness with ever-increasing glory”

2 Corinthians 3:18

God is awesome; there are some great fireworks going on. Let’s show them off.

Singing is Saying, But More

Tue, 06 Jul 2010 11:09:35 -0500

Why did God invent song? And why did he build it into the lives of His followers?

I’m not absolutely confident of the answer to those questions, but I know this: Some things are too beautiful or wonderful just to be said.

They need their own music.

Opened the fourth part of our Storyboard series at Round Rock...

Mon, 05 Jul 2010 06:00:00 -0500

Opened the fourth part of our Storyboard series at Round Rock with this extended quote from Donald Miller yesterday. We talked about how conflict/difficulty/suffering doesn’t diminish our story, but instead enriches it.

Two bottom lines:

Difficulty brings God into your story.
Difficulty allows you to bring God into the stories of others.

Like it or not, good stories are hard stories. God knows that.

…Do we?

"Death isn’t the extinguishing of a light; rather, it is the turning off of a lamp because the..."

Fri, 02 Jul 2010 10:54:14 -0500

“Death isn’t the extinguishing of a light; rather, it is the turning off of a lamp because the dawn has come.”

- Jerry Jones, Beyond the Storm

Understandable.

Thu, 01 Jul 2010 16:22:10 -0500

I’m working this afternoon in a coffee shop in Austin. At this moment, about 15 yards away from me, a woman is positioned on a couch, reading a book. She’s all alone. And she’s smiling and crying and wiping tears away and taking deep breaths and crying again.

The only words I can make out on the cover of her book?

Beauty and church.

Love Your Daughter at Work Day

Wed, 30 Jun 2010 18:53:20 -0500

London just woke up in my office, having been moved here mid-nap.

She rolled over, her slightly sweaty wisps of hair sticking to her neck, raised her head up, and realized with a bit of surprise that she was in my office.

She smiled.

“You’re in my office!” I said.

She smiled again.

I got up from behind my desk and walked over to the couch. “Did you have a good nap?”

“Yeah, I did!” she exclaimed, her cheeks streaked with red lines from the blanket I’d tucked around her.

I scooped her up, and she asked if I could take her shoes off.

“Sure, baby.”

“Thanks, dad!”

I removed one pink sandal, then the other. “Thank you, daddy,” she sighed.

“I have some toys for you to play with. Would you like to see them?”

Another smile flashed across her face. “I’d love some toys!”

I pulled her close to me and told her she was adorable.

Because she is.

6 Ways to Tell if Your Spiritual Life is Ritual-Heavy and Relationship-Light

Wed, 30 Jun 2010 12:32:12 -0500

An inescapable truth in Scripture: Christianity is centered on relationship. Not ritual.

Is that to say ritual is meaningless and unimportant? Nope. But the moment the execution of proper ritual eclipses the pursuit of meaningful relationship with God and people, we’ve missed the mark.

So here are 6 ways to tell if your Christianity is more about ritual than relationship:

You talk more about issues than you do about Christ.
Worship/ritual feels empty.
You would rather debate someone than share what Christ has done in your life.
You know a lot of what the Bible says, but you don’t do all that much of what the Bible says.
Because your public worship happens a lot more than your private devotion, people think you’re holier than you are.
Your Christianity isn’t very portable; it stays mostly at the church building.

I’d love to say I can’t identify with any of these, but that would be very untrue. I’m glad to say, though, that a lot fewer of them apply today than did a few years ago.

What about you?

"85% of the people in Round Rock, TX don’t go to church ANYWHERE."

Tue, 29 Jun 2010 11:39:57 -0500

“85% of the people in Round Rock, TX don’t go to church ANYWHERE.”

- Found this out last week and haven’t been able to get it out of my head/heart. Tragic reality. Fantastic opportunity.

No Possible Term of Comparison

Fri, 25 Jun 2010 07:40:25 -0500

Love this statement by Napoleon. An empire founded upon love. Revolutionary.

Collaboration. Layered creation. Bigger-than-one-person...

Thu, 24 Jun 2010 08:40:00 -0500

Collaboration.

Layered creation. Bigger-than-one-person dimension. “I’m-not-you-and-you’re-not-me-but-that’s-a-good-thing-because-we-complement-each-other”-ness.

Love it in this song mashup, and I love that God wired it into Christianity.

God has arranged the parts in the body, every one of them, just as he wanted them to be. If they were all one part, where would the body be? As it is, there are many parts, but one body. (1 Cor. 12:18-20)

______

**Thanks to my friend Miranda for sharing this song.

A Reason To Sing

Wed, 23 Jun 2010 11:05:29 -0500

God wired song into creation. …But only certain parts of it.

Scientists tell us that approximately 5400 species of animals sing: humpback whales, pigmy blue whales, dolphins, gibbons, Mexican Freetail bats, certain tree frogs, and of course, birds—well over 5,000 different species in all.

But of all the animals that sing, apparently not one lives on the ground. It seems every singing animal lives either in trees or in the ocean.

Fascinating.

Researchers believe the reason for this is that singing requires security. Singing makes an animal’s presence known—not just to allies, but to enemies. Though they aren’t perfect, tree canopies and ocean environments tend to be more secure than their terrestrial counterparts. Because they are, their inhabitants feel safe enough to sing.

Of course, the one exception to all of the above is a species with which you and I are quite familiar. The only ground-dwelling organisms that produce song are humans.

Which makes sense, seeing as though, technically, our citizenship lies not on the earth but elsewhere.