BradDutton.com
The semi-regular ramblings of Brad Dutton.

Jun
04

The Next Step.

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The next step

Christianity is a journey.

I’m sure if you’ve been around me for more than 10 minutes you’ve heard me say that. Almost two years ago, my journey with Christ brought me to FBC Lowell where we’ve been a part of something that can only be described as a God movement within our student ministry. Since August of 2007, we’ve seen our student ministry grow from 13 to 160, over 90 students give their lives to Christ, and baptized over 50. We had 20+ students involved with Vacation Bible School last year and expect just as many this year.

Am I bragging? You bet your mac I’m bragging. However, I didn’t do any of this. People ask me all the time ‘what are you doing?’ thinking there’s some secret formula to growing a group that quick in that short amount of time. There is and I’ll let you in on it…..

It’s getting out of God’s way.
It’s amazing what God can do when you check your comforts, preferences and ego at the door and allow God to do what God wants to do. If Brad did what Brad wanted to do, this student ministry would look radically different than it does right now. But it’s not about Brad, or Brad’s preferences; it’s about God doing what God desires to do.

Well, it seems this step in my journey is coming to an end. Last night at Revolution I announced that next Sunday (June 14) is going to be my last day at FBC Lowell. I’m not being forced out. There’s no hidden scandal.

I’m leaving because God is calling me to leave.

So as I await God to reveal the next steps in this journey I’m excited about the road ahead of me and what God has planned. I’m not exactly sure where He’s going to lead us, but I know that He’s called Carol and I to jump, and now He’s going to show us how He’s going to catch us.

So if I could ask you to do one for myself and my family, it would be to pray. Pray God would show Carol and I what He desires our next steps to be and that we would have the courage to take them.

All to Jesus I surrender,
All to Him I freely give;
I will ever love and trust Him,
In His presence daily live.

I surrender all,
I surrender all.
All to Thee, my blessed Savior,
I surrender all.

Categorized in Church, God, Student Ministry, revolution recap and verticalstudents.tv

May
01

world record pie throw

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I got quite a few emails from those of you who wanted to see the actual world record for custard pies thrown being broken, so…..

Before I do, I just thought you’d like to know the standards and requirements Guinness had in order for this attempt to be official:

-each pie had to be a custard, or flan filling

-each pie had to have a minumum diameter of 10″

-the pie’s crust had to be a sponge or pastry

-only pies hit full on in the face counted

-the thrower had to stand a minimum of 10′ away

After all that, I NEVER want to see a custard pie again. Ever.

Categorized in Church, Student Ministry and verticalstudents.tv

Apr
30

Revolution Recap // making history style…

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Umm, Yeah……That just happened.

Last night will go down as one of the most incredible nights I’ve ever had in student ministry. Last night was ‘Making History’ Night where our student ministry attempted to break four approved Guinness World Records. I’m proud to say that pending approval by Guinness, our student ministry will soon OFFICIALLY hold the Guinness World Record for the most custard pies thrown in 1 minute. TAKE THAT FORMER RECORD HOLDER KELLY RIPA!

What’s even better is that the highway to hell got a lot less crowded because 16 students made history by accepting Jesus Christ as their Savior last night. That makes 22 in the past three weeks. Man, that NEVER gets old.

The entire evening was amazing but we started and ended the night in the most mind-blowing ways possible. Check ‘em out:

Here’s the beginning of the evening captured via my handy dandy flip video camera:

Here’s the ending:

Our band, volunteers, adults and everyone took it up to a WHOLE ‘NOTHER LEVEL last night. You guys and girls Rock!

All in all, we had 162 last night; a new attendance record for our student ministry.

Categorized in Church, God, Student Ministry, revolution recap and verticalstudents.tv

Apr
20

ain’t no office dope as mine 2.0

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A few months ago, I posted this talking about my new office in our student building. Well, in keeping with my love of all things change, I actually made the move back to my “old office” and did a little reorganizing in the process. Here’s a few shots of my new digs.

Categorized in Student Ministry and random

Apr
17

The Three before…

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For those of you who do any kind of service programming know, annoucnements are the absolute killer of any worship gathering. What we’ve started doing at Revolution is a new segment called “The Three Before” where we do our welcome and announcements via video during the three minutes before the service kicks off. This was our second week to do it and I’m really liking the flow of the service as a result of this simple move. Check it out and tell me what you think:

Categorized in Church, God, Student Ministry, verticalstudents.tv

Apr
16

Revolution Recap: 4.15.09

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A lot of guys in student ministry don’t like it, but I really love this time of the semester.

I love coming back from Spring Break knowing there’s nothing between you and the end of the school year but open weeks to really push and gain some momentum……And that’s exactly what’s happening @ Revolution right now.

Right now, we’re in week 2 of our series, TXT

The first week we looked at how we got the bible. It was like a recap of Church History 1 & 2 made as interesting and relevant to teenagers as I could. But I felt like we needed to know how the Bible we have to today ended up in our hands. We talked about guys like Athanasius, the council of Hippo, Columba, John Wycliff, John Huss, and Martin Luther; guys who were willing to give their lives so that people could have access to the Word of God.

This week, we looked at the question of “Is the Bible reliable?” and more importantly, WHY the Bible needs to be reliable. If even one thing in the Bible is flawed, we can’t trust it; meaning we don’t have any idea who God is.  We used two tests to look at the reliability of the Bible: external–or outside sources, and the proof in prophecy test which in studying up for this message really blew me away.

A statistician by the name of Peter Stoner was asked what the probability of one person fulfilling just 8 Old Testament Messianic prophecies would be. Stoner (awesome name, btw) crunched some numbers and concluded that the odds of one person fulfilling just 8 prophecies about the Messiah would be:

1 in 100,000,000,000,000,000 that’s 1 x 1017

To visualize that, it would be the same as flying over the state of Texas and randomly dropping a silver dollar with an X on it and then filling the entire state of texas 2 feet deep in silver dollars and having someone walk through the state, bend down and pick up the X’d out silver dollar on his first try. THAT’S JUST FOR 8 PROPHECIES. During His life, Jesus fulfilled over 300 prophecies about the Messiah.

We ended the night by giving students the opportunity to respond and inviting them to enter into a relationship with Jesus. It was AWESOME to see 6 students indicate they took the step and asked Jesus for forgiveness of their sins and save them.

THAT NEVER GETS OLD!!!!!

next week, we finish up our series with “How do I study the Bible?” and in doing so, we’re giving away a free Bible to everyone who comes to Revolution next week.

AND THEN on April 29th, we have making history night. Look out, the momentum’s building!!!!

Categorized in Church, God, Student Ministry, revolution recap and verticalstudents.tv

Mar
05

Revolution Recap: 3.4.09

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Good night last night. We were up to 85 in attendance last night. I started looking at where we were at this point last year and we were up 30% from a year ago! That’s nuts!!!

i This week was week 2 of our series ‘U CAN’T’ talking about the lies satan tells us. I got a little transparent and shared my struggles of believing the lie that I wasn’t good enough for most of my life. It all began to me believing a lie as an 11 year old and had a HUGE negative impact in my life. Believing this lie opened the door for Satan to rush in many, many more lies until God hit me with a spiritual sledgehammer called Romans 5:6-8. In this passage, it’s as if God is screaming at His people “I’VE GIVEN YOU MY SON WHEN YOU LEAST DESERVED IT! WHAT ELSE DO I HAVE TO GIVE TO SHOW YOU YOU’RE WORTH IT!???”

From that night on, as a freshman in college, I created a word doc. called ‘who I am’ in which anytime I would come across a verse that God used to show me just how valuable I am to Him, I wrote it down. Here’s who you are if you are in Christ:

SINCE I AM IN CHRIST
BY THE GRACE OF GOD I:

Rom. 5:1 have been Justified (completely forgiven and made righteous).
Rom. 6:1-6 died with Christ and died to the power of sins rule over my life.
Rom. 8:1 am free forever from condemnation.
1 Cor. 1:30 have been placed into Christ by God’s doing.
1 Cor. 2:12 have received the Spirit of God into my life that I might know the things freely  given to me  by God.
1 Cor. 2:16 have been given the mind of Christ.
1 Cor. 6:19,20 have been bought with a price. I am not my own. I belong to God.
2 Cor. 1:21 have been established, anointed, and sealed by God in Christ
Eph. 1:13,14 given the Holy Spirit as a pledge ( a deposit/down pay-ment) guaranteeing my inheritance to  come.
2 Cor. 5:14,15 no longer live for myself since I have died, but I live for Him (Christ).
2 Cor. 5:21 have been made righteous.
Gal.2:20 have been crucified with Christ and it is no longer i who live but Christ lives in me (the life I  am now living is Christ’s life).
Eph. 1:3 have been blessed with every spiritual blessing
Eph. 1:4 have been chosen in Christ before the foundation of the world to be holy and without blame  before him.
Eph. 1:5 was predestined (determined by God) to be adopted as His son.
Eph. 1:7,8 have been redeemed, forgiven, and am a recipient of His lavish grace.
Eph. 2:5 have been made alive together with Christ.
Eph. 2:6 have been raised up and seated with Christ in heaven.
Eph. 2:18 have direct access to God through the Holy Spirit.
Eph. 3:12 may approach God with boldness, freedom and confidence.
Col. 1:13 have been delivered (rescued) from the domain of darkness (Satan’s rule) and transferred to the kingdom of Christ.
Col. 1:14 have been redeemed and forgiven of all my sins
(the debt against me has been cancelled)
Col. 1:27 have Christ himself in me.
Col. 2:7 have been firmly rooted in Christ and am now being built up in Him.
Col. 2:11 have been Spiritually circumcised ( my old, unregenerate nature has been removed).
Col. 2:10 have been made complete in Christ.
Col. 2:12, 13 have been buried, raised, and made alive with Christ.
Col. 3:1-4 have been raised up with Christ. I died with Christ. My life is now hidden with Christ in God. Christ is now my life.
2 Tm. 1:7 have been given a spirit of power, love, and self discipline.
2 Tim. 1:9 I have been saved and called ( set apart) according to Gods doing.
Heb 2:11 am one with the Sanctifier (Christ) because i am sanctified, and he is not ashamed to call me ‘brother.’
Heb 4:16 have a right to come boldly before the throne of God ( the throne of grace) to find mercy and grace to help in time of need.
2 Pt 1:4 have been given exceedingly great and precious promises from God by which I am a partaker of the  divine nature (Gods nature).


I AM GOOD ENOUGH FOR GOD.

Here’s a couple pics from the night.

Categorized in God, Student Ministry, churches, revolution recap and verticalstudents.tv

Feb
24

awesome!

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In a day and age when the music video is getting less and less air play, it’s good to see bands still thinking outside the box when making them.

Categorized in random

Feb
23

C’mon now…

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picture-3

This is the dumbest thing I’ve ever seen…..yet for some strange reason, I wouldn’t mind having one

To buy your very own beard head, click here……but just don’t tell anyone :)

Categorized in random

Feb
09

God’s loving justice.

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Academic update:

Some of you weren’t aware, but I’m currently 9 hrs away from getting my master’s degree at Liberty Theological Seminary. So, come July 1st, I’ll be able to put a comma and some letters behind my last name if I ever get pompous enough to want to. Right now, I’m in Systematic Theology 1 which has been a real brain bruiser so far. I do have to admit that I’m beginning to enjoy this class more and more the deeper we get into the materials. At first, I thought this class was a huge crock (and sometimes still do) but I’m beginning to shift (ever so slightly) to see the importance of it. Each week, we have to post our thoughts on a particular subject to our entire class via message board. I thought I’d share this week’s with you because I think some of you are struggling with the same things I did for too long in my walk with Christ and that’s the tension between God’s love and His justice. For too long I wrestled with the question of ‘if God is a just God, how can He love people who deliberately spit in his face and turn their back on Him?’ Well, here’s what God showed me at that time and what this class has reinforced for me. Enjoy:

For the first two years of my life as a Christian, I lived with an undercurrent of tension in my life. After I came into a relationship with Christ, I began to grow in Him and read God’s word daily. I would read one passage in the Psalms describing how just God is, then I would read a passage in the gospel of John describing the great love God has for humanity. I could not come to a conclusion on this dilemma; how could God be just, yet loving at the same time? How could He punish sinners yet love them enough to sacrifice His Son in their place? This began to be a major pitfall in my early spiritual life until I came across the passage in 1 Corinthians where Paul put an end to this questioning when he writes “When we are judged by the Lord, we are being disciplined so that we will not be condemned with the world.” God spoke to me at that time saying “you are beginning to see me as your father now, not as some far off spiritual being, but a Father who loves his children but disciplines them in order that they may live amazing lives.”  My fault was not in questioning God’s desire for His people; my fault was in attempting to view God’s love and justice with finite eyes. I also tried to view God’s love and justice as two separate qualities, which as the lecturer in our class points out that we must view as one in the same. God’s love and justice are not mutually exclusive. They are not compartmentalized, but intertwined like braided rope. A rope  strong enough to hold the weight of all of humanity dangling from it. A rope offered to any man, woman or child that takes a breath.

Categorized in God

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