10.18.09 - presentation

I walked out after church to see a bunch of the cupcakes my wife made left over on the bake sale table. Everything else sold :(

Not knowing we were selling things individually, I brought the cupcakes to church in a tin. We then ended up at the last minute putting each cupcake in the only thing available, plastic bags. The bags ended up hiding and smearing the original design, making them quite unattractive to the potential buyer. Packaging is important, because it forms our first impression.

Woody Woodson is here at our church sharing with us this week. He is talking a lot about "what we see." We need to expand our vision and see what God is seeing.

When we look at people, do we see what God sees? Or do we judge the "book by its cover?" It's our call as Christians to look past the plastic bag that is stifling peoples inner calling and beauty and call those things forth.

When Woody prayed for me today he said a few things, that there is a depth with me and God, that I would have creative bait, and that this week people would come to know who they were because of being around me.

While I'm not fond of the word "bait" and don't consider myself uber creative, (like my friends Jon Barnes and Cory Pampalone) I'm more than okay with people coming to know who they really are .

My heart for ministry is rooted in people finding out their real identity. Stepping into what they were created for and falling in love with their creator. So stop and ask God right now, what was on your heart when you created me? What was my original design? And now ask God to help you walk in those things because it is where you will feel alive.

Some of my students came to me after church and said that the did not want to go to Woody's meeting on monday night, which will replace our regular meeting time. When I asked them why, they said he was hard to listen to. I replied two things. First, that I'm under our pastors authority and he asked that we be there, so we would be there. And secondly, myself included, we need to learn how to look past a persons style of communication and get the truth out of what they have to say.

God help us to look past the packaging.
JIM baker


p.s That's a lot of revelation from a cupcake.