Blog

“A ROAR from Heaven as GOD’s Heart cries out for intimacy!”

Can you even begin to imagine what it must be like for God when His  beloved children are so distant from His heart? What if you were looking at humanity through His eyes – a Dad’s  or a mother’s heart? What would you see? What would you think? What would you feel? This is a Father who sent His only Son to die so that we may know Him and experience His great love for each of us.

What if for a moment we felt the pain of God’s broken heart for His children?  Would it sound something like this?

An overwhelming sense of shear grief and longing for His children, nothing more important to Him.  A Father who has lost his children. Sadness, heaviness, sheer pain, agony and complete unrest.  A strong desire to find His precious ones.  Screeching, shrill, bone chilling, shriek.  A deep, deep soul longing to be reunited.  There are so many to come home. Broken hearted, A Universe shattering roar… monumental importance!  Nothing, nothing more important to Him than for His children to come Home!

And…

Pure joy for His children which are home, spending intimate time with them.  Exuberant, jubilant, joyful with His children dwelling in love together.  Getting to know one another.  Relief and anticipation for others to come home, not just home but really coming to know and experience the heart of their Father.  Spending quality time.  Relief, ease, His contentment and pleasure, basking in the presence of His special children.  Nothing more important to Him!

Romans 8:38-39      Luke 15:11-32

God’s heart break has become our heart break at CLOUD WALK…. God has filled our loving community with a desire to be used to reunite the Kingdom Family with its’ Father and Savior.  Our lives are dedicated to Him to this end.

Discovering our Father’s Heart

(Below are two stories of transformation within our community)

“God seems to have me at a place of deep observation.  The need to participate and engage is not even close to the need right now to just observe and listen.  A friendship with Jesus is just beginning to develop and there is something about agape love that has stirred my imagination. Never has love been so dominant in my life and I am beginning to see it more everywhere.  What’s kind of strange is that I’m beginning to see where it isn’t and it’s in it’s absence that I begin to understand how freeing love can truly be”.

- Mike

“The magnitude of God and how He works in everything and everywhere simply boggles my mind.  I feel like I’m beginning to experience life in the Kingdom more and more.  The fact is that everything that is going on in my life and around me is God.  This is true regardless of how I associate with the circumstances or feelings surrounding me.

If it is uncomfortable, there is God, if I’m depressed, there is God.  He is everywhere all the time.  My job is simply to see Him in the mix at all times.  This is becoming a truth more and more the longer I come in and out of experiences with my eyes always fixed on Papa.

What am I Feeling? Wonder, Amazement, Growing Faith and Confidence (whatever that feels like), Joy, Comfort, Contentment, Energized, Full of Life yet Peaceful and grounded.”

- David

What’s New

Lots…

More and more people are finding their way to their Heavenly Father’s heart which is bringing great JOY to HeavenThe Bottom Line – God is teaching us that if we seek Him we will find Him. Literally!  We are finding His heart and His will. Or perhaps better said, He is revealing His heart and His will for us to us.  We bow in love, wonder and awe.  Filled  with a simple desire to walk and serve together in obedience.

2010 Stewardship Updates

For details on the reach of the ministry through July 2010 please visit website at Cloud Walk About Us.

Thank you!

Upcoming Environments and Experiences

August 2010- Encouragement Prayer 22^nd / Spiritual Facilitation ongoing

September 2010 – Encouragement Prayer – 26th / New Life Compass Groups forming  (men, women & couples) / Spiritual Facilitation ongoing

October 2010 -  Encouragement Prayer – 24th / Peter Lord – “Hearing God” Retreat 1st-2nd / True Identity Retreat (women) – 15th-17th / Souly Business Retreat (men) – 22nd-24th

November 2010 -  Encouragement Prayer – 21^st

Financial Giving (as a joyful act!)

The Ministry’s specific provision needs to serve God’s call:

2010 Unmet budget needs are $42,000

• August needs: $4,500
• September needs:  $8,500
• October needs:  $9,000
• November needs:  $10,000
• December needs:  $10,000
• 2010 Projected budget needs are $145,000

You would greatly bless numerous people (and yourself as Jesus promises) by your generous giving in 2010.  And if you are not led to give to Cloud Walk right now, PLEASE give in some way to the Kingdom of God. It will do amazing things for your heart.

Thank you!!!

Our Operations Committee met today.  The Operating Committee is a team of guys that help coordinate and plan for the upcoming needs of the Cloud Walk ministry.   God is doing some very amazing things at Cloud Walk.  Lives are being changed, affected and drawn to God’s heart.  It’s sweet work to serve knowing that God is so alive and present and that He’s at work molding hearts and lives.

However, in the midst of all the joy and excitement, it’s ever-so-easy to fall into a mindset of “ministry work”, to categorize it in a traditional way.  While our intentions are pure and well-guided, the work and service we extend can get overwhelming, even God-honoring activity.  But, as we discovered in our discussion, we were reminded that we can very be easily pulled from our families in our service to “the ministry”.

So, we began to consider counting how many nights we’re away from our families doing this rewarding work. It didn’t take us long to realize that we had put ministry in a box…a box that’s rather limited in scope – limited to our work at Cloud Walk.  We were reminded that our true ministry is bigger than Cloud Walk….our entire lives are a ministry…a work of serving all the people God has put in our path, in our domain.

Our main ministry, if you call it that, is to our families first.  Our families are the first area we need to serve.  So, as we consider, even the great movement of God among us, we have to be careful to not let that fine work – work with great potential and effect for the Kingdom of God – interfere with service and love to our families.

We agreed to hold each other accountable to the idea of a more holistic ministry concept, especially to our spouse, our children and extended family members. We agreed to protect each other as part of our role as servants at Cloud Walk.  We will each regularly give an account as to how we are balancing our ministry service.

Protecting the other men we serve with is a calling that requires being sensitive to their hearts and speaking truth in love.   This is a higher calling than simply serving at Cloud Walk events and environments….it’s a calling to serve as God would have us serve…with priorities aligned to His.

This is the way we are trained to think about programs and doing.

The Old Testament tells us that God is the one that buried Moses.  The people were unable to find his bones to carry them with them.  Christian author Beth Moore, says that God was very intentional about burying Moses himself, so that the people would not make Moses an idol.  We all want things around us to give us comfort, structure and guidance.  In business we live this out with PERT charts, strategic plans, GANTT charts, management objectives, goal setting and oversight committees.

Right now we are learning how God wants us to steward the things he brings to us.  Does He just want us to act….to plan….to make charts and set goals….or does He want something deeper?

We know this relationship with God is like a dance and He is the lead,  we follow.  So, in that way we are to respond to what He is doing, but we have to break a hard habit….we have to leave room in our lives and in our plans for Him to show up and reveal something to us.  What we are finding is that sometimes we tend to over-plan and over-analyze what has been given to us….and then, for some of us, we worry about the outcomes and how things will turn out.

The things God is beginning to lead us into at Cloud Walk seem daunting and overwhelming in their scope and potential. I think that overwhelmed feeling comes from a tendency on my part (and I maybe your part) to look at all the planned events and realize that we are not in control…the frustration for me is that I cannot control things.  This tends to lead to worry and stress.

I tend to ask myself these kinds of questions…

• How will all this work out?
• Do we need to put an org chart or GANTT together?
• How do we shape this and tie all this together?
• How will this get done?
• Who will do it?
• How does it fit in with other things – is this synergistic?
• What do we need to cut back on….this seems like too much going on?
• We can’t possibly engage in all of this…whose managing all this work….this is a ton of opportunity….let’s get busy – there’s work to do!!!

As it turns out, we don’t need to worry about any of that.  God has brought us the opportunities for growth and we are to simply steward those opportunities by asking for clarity from Him (prayer), stepping into what He has put before us (acting) and holding things loosely (be open to His ebb and flow).   This, to me, is the essence of faith.  We don’t have all the answers and we are not quite sure where this is all going…..but we believe in our hearts it’s of God.  He’ll tell us to stop if we get in over our heads or walk down a wrong path.

If our motives are pure (to love Him and others, to serve him and bring him praise) then He’ll carry us through, give us resources and give us a peace….like drifting down a lazy river.  It should be relatively easy in a way.  Sure, we have work to do, but it should be joyful work and exciting work, not stressful work. (is it that are our entire lives to be led this way?…uhm…)

So, we are learning how to rely on the Holy Spirit for our planning (or lack of it!), for leader development, for our decisions and for our financial needs.  We are now learning to focus on and act in a window of time that is much shorter than before.  We are no longer terribly concerned about long-term strategy or numbers planning for 2011.  We are focused on the 2-3 weeks or 2-3 months ahead where we bump into God’s handiwork and where we bump into people who have need.

So, there’s no pressure to produce and live by a strategic plan or a project chart…..there are no bones to worship as they’d do in Moses’ day….we’re pretty naked and exposed…uhm…faith.  The good news is that God is still major sovereign and his Holy Spirit is very busy leading and guiding.  That sounds good to me.

When starting something new, what do you do first?

We are considering how to offer a new Cloud Walk service to businesses, churches and other ministries which involves helping them hear from God as it relates to the direction and purpose of their organization.  We know God wants us to move in this direction and serve in this way…and we know there are organizations that want this kind of support…this is truly part of our calling as a ministry.

What we don’t know and what we are unclear about is how we are to go about actually doing this new ministry service in a day-to-day way.

So, what do we do next?

Since most of us helping plan and operate Cloud Walk are in business, we tend to think like business people. We want to take some action, create a promotional plan, print brochure, create a partner program, take some people to lunch, talk it up….all the normal things.  In and of themselves there is nothing wrong with any of these things.   The question is…..are they what God wants?

Since prayer is foundational to who we are, we pretty quickly decided  to spend time in prayer and ask God what to do.  So, our ‘action item’ is to pray.  We will meet in the next few weeks as a group (and individually) to ask God what he wants us to do in terms of execution of this burgeoning area of service.  By seeking God’s heart on this issue we are relieved of the pressure and responsibility to find the answer….we will find the answer for sure, but doing it this way reduces the stumbling around running down rabbit trails.  If we pray, the answer will come from God.  Our responsibility is to respond to what God desires – to give response, to follow the lead of our dance partner.

It’s also more exciting to live this way.  When we take over and plan, make calls, chart things, send emails, push, create timelines, talk, ask, plead, schedule and brainstorm our ideas we assume control.  Doing things the traditional “business way” provides structure that we crave as humans. However, when we seek his face first and listen and test what we hear from scripture, we get started the right way – his way.  It’s definitely an adventure to walk out our new venture this way…there’s a mystery and excitement about watching for what God will do next.

So, today, we are full of joy, excitement and peace about how to execute in this new service area.  Relying on him through prayer and listening to his heart allows us to relax and trust that he will guide us to his success.  This yoke is easy.

We’re really glad you’ve found our new website. Our hope is that through our resources and through our service we can help bring you a bit closer to the heart of God. Our goal is to bring you to a knowledge of and an experience of a God who loves and cares greatly for you.

Our new website is also a way for you to keep up with what God is doing through Cloud Walk. As writer Graham Cooke says, “we should be experiencing daily encounters with God, not just a one-time salvation encounter”. Our goal is to help you grow into that kind of relationship. God has been putting a lot on our hearts lately about growing, maturing and planning for the needs in the community we serve. We believe 2010 will be a year to serve, as we have in the past, but to build and plan for new growth in 2011. This year we will continue to do our best to listen to the Lord, grow in his grace and prepare for an expansion in the future.

You will see on this new website that we serve in mainly four ways:

1. Small Group settings using our Life Compass 12 week program
2. Large Group Retreat Events like the one coming up in late February
3. Business / Ministry events for leaders in business and ministry organizations
4. One-on-one Spiritual Friendships for those that want to walk with a friend.

Please let us know how we can help you in your walk with the Lord.