The Why
Going Deeper
Honestly Engage Your Stories … Good and Bad
Union With God
Create Environments Where Life Can Flourish
The Opposition
"It is for freedom that Christ has set us free..." – Galatians 5:1a
If you are to live out the “abundant life” Jesus tells us is possible in John 10:10, you must engage four realities in your life. You must:
Honestly Engage Your Stories … Good and Bad
Our stories are a blend of light and dark, “good” and “bad”. Some are the result of our interactions with others and some are grounded solely in the choices we alone make. And yet, whether light or dark, “good” or “bad”, shared or singular, the only real context we have for our stories resides in the heart of God. Our stories and gifting are the gold of our lives buried deep within the bed rock of our hearts. It is through our redeemed stories and gifting that God intends to impact the world. But first, your stories and gifting must be mined and refined. The impurities extracted. The shame. The guilt. The anger. The fear. It is only then that God uses our stories to impact the world for the glory of his Kingdom. Your glory for his Glory.
Union With God
But the redemption of our stories doesn’t just magically happen. The redemption of our stories requires something of us. A deeper relationship with Jesus (John 17) and a deeper relationship with others (1 Peter 4:8). And, because our stories are complex and we have an enemy set against us, we must choose. Choose to go deeper. For our stories and our gifting to be redeemed, we must actively choose to ask, seek and knock (Matthew 7:7-8). This redemption requires you to face your pain and trauma, your guilt and shame. Honestly and with integrity. To walk with Jesus in the places where you have been wounded and where you have wounded others. The places where you are broken. Stepping into this process is scary and painful.
But, for freedom, you must be willing to risk. To risk that God’s love is greater than your fear. (Galatians 5:1)
Create Environments Where Life Can Flourish
By engaging your stories with integrity and truth, firmly grounded in the love of God, you are then truly able to live out of the glory God created in you. From before you were born his desire in your creation was that your stories and gifting be healed and redeemed. That your become your true self.
It is then that you can create environments around you where life can flourish. Not so that you can become a “good” person. Not so that you can “be accepted.” Not so that you do the “right” things. But so that the life you live will inspire and direct others. That their lives might be healed and redeemed by the work of God in their own lives. That they may then continue reaping a harvest thirty, sixty or a hundred times what was sown (Mark 4:14-20).
It is the only way to truly live. The only way to live truly.
The Opposition
We don’t live in La-La-Land. We don’t live in Eden and the renewal of all things Jesus spoke of Revelation had not yet occurred. Not yet. Not yet.
Today, in our fallen world, we have three enemies:
The World – every place we go to try to live life apart from God
The Flesh – our sin, old and new; and the sin of others
The Devil – our enemy, the father of lies
"Open war is upon you. Whether you'd risk it or not." and every movement toward God will be opposed. It’s a reality of life no matter how much you wish it weren’t so. No amount of wishing or complacency will make this reality not true. The worldview you must embrace if you are to live Alive! Full! And Free is one of war. If you do, you can learn to wage war and to win. If you do not, you will be taken out.
You cannot honestly engage your Stories, go Deeper with God, and create environments where life can Flourish if you fail to recognize this truth. To be who God has called you to be and to help others step into their own calling, you must recognize and actively (there’s that word again) engage the physical and spiritual nature of a world at war. A clash of kingdoms.
Not to be feared. But to be engaged and resisted (1 Peter 5:8-9; James 4:7-10). Firmly grounded in God’s love (Ephesians 3:16-19).
Our Mission
We are broken. The Hebrew word is Shabar, which literally means to be broken into many, many pieces as when a sheet of glass is dropped to the floor, as you find most of the shells on the beach, or, as the Rolling Stones so eloquently put it,
"Uh huh shattered, uh huh shattered
Love and hope and sex and dreams
Are still surviving on the street
Look at me, I'm in tatters!
I'm a shattered
Shattered"
Born out of my own stories of success, brokenness, failure, and restoration, Invested Stories exists to guide and encourage people to live their lives out loud. To live out of their glory instead of their fear. To live out of the unique and special gifting God created in you from the beginning. Those abilities and talents which you usually take for granted because they come so naturally, which are mightily opposed, and which are so many times diminished. To truly live Alive! Full! Free!
Not only are we broken but, in order to deal with the brokenness, we compartmentalize our lives. Your professional life over here. Your personal life over there. Your pain and failure hidden in the corner. Your life of service to others tucked in the back. It seems to make life easier, more manageable … for a while.
At Invested Stories, our goal is to help you to reconnect the pieces and to identify and step into your glory. It is through reconnecting all the stories of your life; professional, personal and philanthropic, that you are able to truly live Alive! Full! Free!
Alive! To live in anticipation. To engage life in the fullness of creation. To live in the expectancy of what is possible and the goodness to come regardless of current circumstances.
Full! To embrace the glory God has created in you. The glory you were meant to impact the world with and which has been assaulted. To allow everyone you encounter to feel the weight of your glory with integrity and truth.
Free! To engage others squarely centered in both your glory and God’s love no matter how it may be opposed. To boldly answer God’s question, “Is your fear greater than my love?” with a resounding “NO!”
What We Believe
We believe the Bible to be the inspired, only, infallible, inerrant, authoritative Word of God.
We believe in the One True God, the Sovereign, eternal Creator of all that exists, both seen and unseen. God is eternally existent in three persons, yet one God: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
We believe in the deity of our Lord Jesus Christ, in His virgin birth, in His sinless life, in His miracles, in His vicarious and atoning death through His shed blood, in His bodily resurrection, in His ascension to the right hand of the Father, and in His personal return in power and glory.
We believe God created mankind in His image. Adam and Eve, the first human beings, chose to rebel against God and go their own way. As a result, all of mankind became separated from God; the image of God in man was distorted; mankind became subject to the power of the devil; and the sinful nature was passed on to all their progeny. Because of original sin, unregenerate human beings are incapable of pleasing or commending themselves to God. The only remedy for mankind's pitiful predicament is redemption through faith in Jesus Christ.
We believe that when a person exercises saving faith in Christ they pass, immediately, out of spiritual death into spiritual life and from the old creation into the new, a new nature and a new heart imparted; being justified freely by grace, they are accepted before the Father as Christ, His Son, is accepted and loved as Christ is loved, having his place and portion linked to Christ and one with Christ—forever.
We believe in the present ministry of the Holy Spirit by whose indwelling the Christian is enabled to live a godly life.
We believe in the resurrection of both the saved and the lost—they who are saved unto the resurrection of life and they who are lost unto the resurrection of damnation.
We believe in the spiritual unity of believers in our Lord Jesus Christ.
