last week, i mentioned something chris had said about living in america but not living an american lifestyle. over the last few months, we have made some drastic changes that have helped us look at needs vs. wants vs. reality differently.

in oklahoma city, we lived in a brand new luxury apartment in downtown. when we moved to nashville, we could have moved into a cottage in the famous downtown franklin (read: trendy and expensive) or into a 1970’s townhome in older west nashville, sight unseen.

we chose the townhome. it’s a few hundred dollars a month cheaper. and it has wood paneling. which i have grown to love.

yet i am still tempted. i am still plagued. with the speaking engagements, and inevitable public appearances that come with widely releasing a book, i feel i must look a certain way. dress a certain way. have my hair a certain way. lose those “last 10 pounds.”

because i feel as if i don’t, people won’t take me seriously.

i am a jeans a tee shirt kind of girl. i don’t always match. on purpose. i love my flip flops. it literally takes a wedding or a funeral to get me dressed up. it really hasn’t mattered much to me…until now.

i have to admit, i’m feeling the pressure.

would it be so terrible to wear my (nice) jeans and my (nice) shirt when i talk to pastors who are old enough to be my dad? will they take me seriously? will my glasses make me look smarter, or be a barrier for eye contact? will they notice that i’m 28? does it matter i’m a girl with nine hours of college credit, and only three of those were a bible class that i barely passed? should i get my nails done?

[welcome to the inside of my mind]

it would be easy for me to drop a grand on a new wardrobe that would make me look like i have my stuff together. i could look really sharp, no doubt. i could hire someone who knows something about how to dress people so i don’t feel so darn self conscious.

but i really don’t think that would truthfully represent me — all of me.

yet i feel the pressure. and i’m struggling with it. i think deep down inside, i know it doesn’t matter. but i so feel that it does…

do you?

NOTE: this is a long post, but HANG IN THERE. VERY COOL STUFF AHEAD!!!!

first, you guys donated

$2,332

to the compassion global crisis food fund. in just a couple of days. HOLY SMOKES, y’all.

i have to admit…sometimes it’s easy for me to see how big the problem is, and you all gave me so much hope. which isn’t what it was about, but it happened anyway. it was so encouraging to see you care the way you did.

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second, yesterday at cross point was very cool in quite a few ways. we celebrated our volunteers (read more here and here). i have never enjoyed working next to so many people. everyone worked so hard, from setting up and planning, to last minute video tweaks, to doing dishes, cutting cake, and taking out trash.

pete announced four very cool initiatives we are focusing on as a church. (you can read more about the specifics here on his blog).

-we are adding a fourth service. for those of you unfamiliar with the church, we currently lease an auditorium (with pews - it rocks) from a baptist church and space presents challenges, especially with parking.

-we are beginning a third campus (but we don’t know where…or really when…but we’re so excited we just couldn’t wait for the details to share)

-we are partnering with habitat for humanity to build three houses this fall. this is going to take several hundred volunteers and i love seeing the people of cross point serve together!

and…if i can have a favorite, this is mine…

-currently, cross point gives 10% of it’s income straight to missions. we have committed to increase that by 1%, every year, for the next 10 years. so in 2018, we will be giving 20% of our income straight to missions.

pete had a great idea to get other churches on board with this kind of sacrificial and incremental missions giving. we want to see 100 other churches get on board and we think in that ten years, these churches will give over $100,000,000 to missions simply by increasing it by 1% every year.

we realize it’s not all about the money, but where your treasure is, your heart follows. we truly believe this can be a life changing, church changing experience.

if this sounds like something your church would be interested in doing, please shoot me an email at anne@crosspoint.tv.

so…yes…it has been an amazing weekend!!!!

i’ll admit. sometimes when tony comments, it makes me mad. he likes pushing buttons.

but i also have learned that deep down inside, he’s a sappy teddy bear. (see, that’s what you get for making sarcastic comments…i publicly call you a sappy teddy bear. that’ll teach you.)

all kidding aside, tony has offered to match a $300 donation $400 to compassion’s global food crisis fund.

so, if you donated last night or can donate now, please do so and leave a comment with the amount you donated. if you would prefer to stay anonymous, just put in fake information in the comment name and email field.

but seriously…here is an opportunity for at least $600 to be given to help feed people who desperately need it…that is feeding over fifteen families!

let’s do it! you guys have always rocked on stuff like this. i really wanted to eat out with my husband today, but i’m going to put that $25 in the fund right now.

your turn!

so let’s all donate something and make this sappy teddy bear match our $300 $400 in donations.

We are already at over $800 $1000 $1100 $1200 $1600 over $1800, but don’t let that stop you from giving!!!! Let’s get as many kids fed as we can. You guys never cease to amaze me by your generosity!!!

according to feedburner, there are about 700 more subscribers to this blog than there was when i went to africa back in february with compassion international. so, if you are new, i really encourage you to read about that trip (it’s in reverse chronological order).

what was amazing was the opportunity to meet linet, one of the children chris and i sponsor. she is beautiful. shy. smirky. and the smartest girl in her class.

it has been a little over six months since i returned, yet my heart has only grown heavier for children living in poverty, and especially those in uganda. just last week, chris and i watched a documentary about orphans in uganda. i freaking cried during the whole thing. sometimes they were happy tears. sometimes they were tears of longing to be back there. sometimes they were tears because i was devastated by the unfairness of it all.

i got an email today about the global food crisis. we all know it’s affected places like haiti and ethiopia and india. but my email today talked about the crisis affecting uganda.

it’s affecting our little girl there.

so i just wanted to give you this link this weekend…if you can donate anything at all to the global food crisis fund. it’s in an emergency state. any amount will help. $5. $10. $50. just click here.

thank you.

it may sound like it from what i’ve written before, but i’m really not about trying to pass the buck. i realize leaders have a responsibility to find accountability and talk about their issues.

but what is it that makes leaders feel unsafe to share sin in the church world?

why did hundreds of pastors and church leaders who took my mad church disease survey last year say that they were afraid of accountability, or that they have it but they lie in that relationship?

what can we do to make people feel less judged and more loved when they confess?

that fear holds so many people back methinks.

sometimes people get busted. and sometimes people confess.

either way, it seems that a lot of the time, those people don’t receive grace.

i think of john edwards. kind of busted, and kind of confessed. the healer song guy confessed. and yet, a majority of people just drag them through the mud or cry about how disappointed they are.

i will never forget two separate days in my life when i had to walk through dealing with serious confessions.

my former boss, a pastor, and very good friend confessed quickly to an affair he had with another very good friend of mine. yes, it felt like my heart had been ripped out but surprisingly, i felt unexpected joy (??!!) because i knew he had just taken a step closer to freedom and restoration.

two years later, another friend, who was almost like a father figure to me and my pastor confessed to his long term affair. my heart broke, but again, i still found some very random peace knowing that someone else was walking toward freedom.

there are obviously consequences and pain that come along with confession…i mean, when you confess, obviously you’ve screwed up somewhere along the journey. and sin does break the heart of god and causes problems in relationships. sometimes it’s even impossible to mend those human relationships.

people will let you down. i’d like to challenge you to suck it up a bit when you’re hurt or disappointed by someone who’s fallen.

instead realize that their confession is actually a huge part of them becoming restored. it’s a huge step toward holiness.

and that should be celebrated.