Last night was an incredible night at Crash. We started our fall series “Mind the Gap”.

Our first conversation as a part of that series is entitled “The Character Gap: The Gap within us”.

We showed a great teaching video on “Jesus and the Kingdom”, which you can view by clicking here.

We also played two new songs – one by Kristian Stanfill called “Kingdom” and the other
by Tenth Avenue North called “By Your Side“.

I spoke about “Beginning to Live”.
My big idea was “The path to our dreams runs through fires that forge our character.”

I had three significant quotes in my message.
“The way you begin to live out your God-given dreams is to become the person God desires you to be.”
-Erwin McManus, Wide Awake
“Above all, remember that the meaning of life is to live it as if it were a work of art. You are not a machine. When you’re young, start working on this great work of art called your existence.”
-Abraham Heschel
“But no matter how much the mess and distortion make you want to despair, you can’t abandon the work because you’re chained to the bloody thing; it’s absolutely woven into your soul and you know you can never rest until you’ve brought truth out of all the distortion and beauty out of all the mess – but it’s agony, agony, agony – while simultaneously being the most wonderful and rewarding experience in the world – and that’s the creative process which so few people understand….
“It involves an indestructible sort of fidelity, an insane sort of hope, an indescribable sort of….well, it’s love, isn’t it? There’s no other word for it…And don’t throw Mozart at me…I know he claimed his creative process was no more than a form of automatic writing, but the truth was he sweated and slaved and died young giving birth to all that music. He poured himself out and suffered. That’s the way it is. That’s creation…You can’t create without waste and mess and sheer undiluted slug. You can’t create without pain. It’s all part of the process.”
-Harriet March, sculptor

I spoke out of Genesis 37-50 about the story of Joseph. I called Potiphar’s wife a “cougar” (stole that one from a Donald Miller talk). I talked about how we project the blame for gaps in our lives outside of our onto other people, the place where we are, systems we can’t change, and circumstances we can’t control.
We often become bitter, cynical, negative, and pessimistic. And as a result, we fail to pay attention to the gaps WITHIN us – our character or the lack thereof – and we miss the opportunity to become the kind of people that God wants to use to fulfill great purposes and dreams. It was a good talk for me – lots of personal application – and hopefully lots of challenges for you.

-Savage