WithoutWax.tv by Pete Wilson |

Choosing To Be Real Over Being Liked

Time and time again in my life I’ve been tempted to live for the approval of others instead of trusting Christ.

Following Christ with all your heart is tough. Sometimes God calls you…

to take risks

to stand up against things

to go against the flow

to do something remarkable.

But when you live for the approval of others you limit your life to following the herd. You see most people feel safest when they’re in the middle of the herd. What happens when you break off to follow a God prompt, to take a risk, is the herd will criticize you until you fall back with the rest of the crowd. The approval addict is destined for a life of mediocrity because they always have to follow the herd.

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Written by Pete Wilson on April 30, 2012 @ 7:54 am
Filed under: Spiritual Growth

The Aware Life

One of the things I talk about in my latest book Empty Promises is this idea of living the “Aware Life.” I wrote…

In an effort to find out why I felt so empty, I started to pay more attention to what was going on internally. Paying attention or examining my life forces me to face the internal questions I can no longer keep quiet. I was compelled to come face-to-face with what was lurking at the deepest level of my soul.

These were questions I could no longer ignore:
• Why do I continue to say yes to others, even though I’m overextended and hurting those closest to me?
• Why do I continue to struggle with showing my wife love on a more consistent basis, the way I should?

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Written by Pete Wilson on April 25, 2012 @ 7:43 am
Filed under: Spiritual Growth

Go Fly A Kite

I snapped this picture last evening of my youngest son, Brewer, flying his kite.

He’s always had a thing for kites.

It reminded me of a time over a year ago when he had received a kite as a gift. It hung there in our laundry room for months as almost daily he would beg me to fly it in the backyard.

Every time he asked I would remind him that our backyard was full of trees and it would inevitably get stuck in the tree. Well, he eventually wore me down and in a weak moment, I think on the 138th try, I finally gave in.

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Written by Pete Wilson on April 24, 2012 @ 7:06 am
Filed under: Family, Leadership

Empty Promises Book Trailer

Written by Pete Wilson on April 2, 2012 @ 1:52 am
Filed under: Uncategorized, Videos

Loved Beyond Your Wildest Imagination

March 26, 2012 in Spiritual Growth with 24 Comments

We wrapped up our series “Unseen” yesterday at Cross Point by talking about the amazing parallel between Jesus’s time in the wilderness compared to the Israelites’ time in the wilderness.

Jesus is driven into the wilderness for 40 days after God’s statement of love and affirmation (his baptism). The Israelites wandered in the wilderness for 40 years after being set free, a statement of God’s love and affirmation.

Now, if you know the story, you may remember that the Hebrew people had trouble trusting God when they were in the wilderness. God continually told them…

You are chosen, You are loved, You are set free.

But it would only take a few days in between each sign/miracle before the people started focusing on the wilderness surrounding them more than on God’s love and deliverance. So they decided they wanted to go back. They’d rather be a slave to Pharaoh than to have to live in the unpredictable wilderness where they had to trust God on a daily basis.

Now, like the Israelites, Jesus is driven into the wilderness. What Jesus does is astounding because he transforms this wilderness experience.

How does He do this?

His secret is that He goes in completely confident of who He is. He is God’s beloved son: chosen, called, and loved.

And he did what the Israelites could not do. He passed the wilderness test. He walked away from so many of the temptations that snare you and I almost every day.

All of this tells me that my most important weapon in the wilderness is the knowledge that: You are loved beyond your wildest imagination by a God who never changes.

In the wilderness we’re tempted to think that God has abandoned us, but that’s simply not true. The wilderness is a time to be reminded that even though life is not turning out the way we want it to, God is still faithful and we are still loved.

Why do you think we have such a difficult time remembering our identity in Christ as loved, chosen and called?

Introducing a NEW Podcast

March 23, 2012 in Conversations with Pete Wilson Podcast with 15 Comments

You know what I wish we could do today?

I wish we could all sit down over a cup of coffee and just talk about the things that matter most to us. I’m serious when I say if I could stop time I would literally LOVE to sit down with each one of you and hear more about your story. I would love to tell you more about my own story. I think that will be one of the cool things about heaven. Living in eternity we’ll have all the time int the world to just sit around and go deeper with each other.

However, in this world, time is limited. For most of us it’s very limited so it’s not likely we’ll be sitting down with each other anytime soon. But I do have a bit of a solution. What if we do a podcast? What if we take your questions and spend some time discussing life?The highs and the lows. The mistakes and the lessons I’m learning.

So, I recently sat down to do the first of what I hope will be many podcasts. In this first installment I talked about the people who have helped shape me over the years. I hope you find it helpful. Just click on the icon below to listen.

For future podcasts we would love to answer YOUR questions. If you have a question you can call us at 218-248-7383 or leave a comment on this post.

Any questions or topics you would like to hear us talk about?

Podcast: Subscribe | Download | Play on mobile

I Always Have & I Always Will

March 22, 2012 in Spiritual Growth with 19 Comments

I love my church. By that I mean I love the people in my church. I love the way they inspire me to love and live more like Jesus.

The church I’ve been privileged to serve in often gets “tagged” as a church full of young hipsters. I’m not a big fan of stereotypes because what I know is that our church is made up of all kinds of people. People of different generations, different backgrounds, all on a journey to figure out what it really means to follow Jesus.

Yesterday I had the chance to meet Terry. Terry has gone to Cross Point for a couple years but I’ve never had the chance to sit down with him until yesterday. We didn’t get to visit for long but I loved this soft spoken guy from the moment I met him.

His father died when he was a child. His mother was verbally and physically abusive. He drowned his pain with alcohol abuse for decades. And although he’s been sober for 16 years his bitterness and anger toward his deceased mother continued to rage.

Almost everyday I come in contact with people who are allowing unforgiven anger and bitterness from their past to destroy them today. Unknowingly their unwillingness to forgive is impacting their marriage, the way they treat their kids and their attitude toward most everything in life.

I’m not going to pretend like forgiveness is always easy because we all know it isn’t. Some of you have been hurt in ways I can’t imagine. Someone wounded you, or betrayed you, or lied to you or maybe cheated you. You’re afraid if you let go of the hurt, they get away with something. And you’re right, to forgive you will pay a high cost. In fact, the only thing that will cost you more than forgiveness is not forgiving someone.

I know you want to see them hurt back, but that desire is a weight or burden that actually becomes a part of you. You’ll carry that weight from relationship to relationship, from season to season and if you carry that bitterness and anger around long enough it will choke the joy out of your life.

It costs a lot to forgive. But to not forgive will eventually cost you your heart.

A couple months ago at Cross Point we challenged our community to leave behind their anger and bitterness and Terry responded to this Gospel message by finally letting go of the right to get even with his mother who had hurt him in so many ways. After some 50 years he finally set his burden down and experienced the freedom that comes along with forgiveness.

Terry told me that everyday since he hears God telling him…”I always have and I always will love you.”

That’s a good word for all of us today, don’t you think?

Test It On A Few

March 21, 2012 in Church Leadership, Leadership with 16 Comments

“A plan in the heart of man is like deep water, but a man of understanding draws it out.” Proverbs 20:5

The writer of that Proverb reminds us of the importance of having knowledge in regard to moving one’s plans out of the deep recesses of the heart to the surface to where those plans can be carried out. Generally, the first step in seeing those plans carried out involves some level of vision casting. A lot of people have great vision. But you’ll never see your vision become a reality unless you communicate it well to others. Many great God-given dreams die in the vision-casting stage.

I’m going into a season in my leadership where vision casting is going to be essential. I think vision casting is always an important part of leadership, but there are certain seasons it’s crucial.

Some leaders are just natural vision casters. It almost just oozes out of them. Other leaders (like myself) have to work at it.

Over the years the most important lesson I’ve learned about vision is: Test it on a few before you cast it to many.

If I know I’ve got an important vision casting message or meeting coming up I’ll intentionally set up a handful of one on one meetings to lay out the vision in a much smaller atmosphere. And then I do two things:

1) As I’m casting the vision to them I read their body language. What makes them squirm? What makes their eyes sparkle? At what point do they lean across the table wanting to hear more? While the vision is the vision, how I say it and the order I say it in is important and I often readjust quite a bit just by watching people in these mini-environments.

2) After I cast the vision, I shut up and listen. The questions they ask are like gold to me. Why? Because it’s the same questions everyone listening to my vision casting are going to ask the next time I make this presentation. Once someone has serious doubts about something I’ve said or a question that pops in their mind they often become so focused on that question that they miss the rest of the presentation. Being able to answer those questions inside the presentation before they get asked becomes key to the next presentation.

So there’s a few random thoughts on vision casting. I’d love to know what are you’re learning about vision casting these days?

Lightweight Prayers

March 20, 2012 in Preaching, Spiritual Growth with 22 Comments

I’ve admitted for a long time that I think “I Stink At Prayer.” While my confession had more to do with my personal prayer life I never thought about the impact of my public prayer life. Gordan MacDonald recently shared some challenging words when it comes to our public prayers, pleading for us to be more thoughtful and intentional with them. Here’s what he recently had to say in Leadership Journal…

Can I be frank? I’m distressed by the low quality of public prayer that is being heard in too many worship services today. Too often, prayer is used as a transition from one event to another. But what if the pastoral prayer was (as some like to say) a main event?

When Solomon dedicated the temple, a large part of his public leadership was a quite pastoral prayer. He knelt and said, “Lord, there is none like you … you’ve kept your promises … please give attention to my prayer … may you hear the prayer your servant prays toward his place … deliver us when we’ve been defeated … teach us the way to live … help us to walk in your ways … when we sin, please forgive.”

This is not a lightweight prayer. It takes in everybody in the crowd. As he opens the gates of the temple, the king (little k) is interceding to the King (big K) on behalf of all who will come to worship.

I love to be in worship when young men and women are leading. And many of them lead us so well. But when they come to the place where prayer is appropriate, the substance of the prayer sometimes reveals a person who has hardly thought for a minute what they are going to say next. If the music was done like the praying, we’d probably switch bands rather quickly.

“God … we just want to thank you for this day … that we just could … just … sing to you … that we could … just … love you.”

Well meant, those words. But they lack thought; they lack power, and they fail to lodge themselves in the souls of their hearers. The aged one losing control of his life who is listening for assurance. The sinner who is listening for hope. The addict who listens for deliverance. And the joyful person, who listens for thanksgiving.

Prayer can be intentional, thoughtful, powerful. Let’s give our prayers the energy and depth that our Audience—and our audience—deserves.

So here’s a few questions this article leads me to ask.

1) Do you think our public prayers should be more of a “main event” to our church services?

2) Should our public prayers be more intentional and thoughtful and less light and lacking substance?

3) Is there a danger we could become like the Pharisees who used their prayers to sound more spiritual than others?

What do you think?

Inhale….Exhale

March 19, 2012 in Family, My Family with 18 Comments

Inhale.
Exhale.
Inhale.
Exhale.

Now repeat over and over and over.

I had an amazing weekend with the family that included friends, animals, amazing conversations, and a few firsts such as drinking from a fresh water spring and building a tire swing. Getting away for a few days and remembering how to breathe again is always a good thing.

How was your weekend?

Dancing For Money?

March 16, 2012 in Family, Random Fun with 23 Comments

I’ve watched my kids do some crazy things in our neighborhood to make money.

There was the time I watched Jett pick up sticks in one of the neighbor’s yard only to later go to their door and try to sell them some “firewood.” He tried to sell “diamonds” which were actually just rocks. We’ve had several watered down kool-aid & recycled Halloween candy stands. However, this one may top them all.
This week Brandi looked out the window to find our two youngest dancing in the front yard…

They were also holding this sign…

Now, don’t get me wrong. I love their entrepreneurial spirit. I encourage my kids to be creative and innovative, but this isn’t exactly what I was thinking. Dear God, please be with me and please let this be the last time they dance for money. The next two decades will be interesting.

What’s the craziest thing you or one of your kids have done to make money?

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