A few weeks ago, while I was out in California I had the honor of meeting an amazing guy named Johnnie Moore and I’m super excited to introduce you to him today. He’s a speaker, professor, author, and the vice president of one of the biggest universities in the world with 72,000 students, Liberty University.

At 18 years old Johnnie was singled out as a freshman at Liberty and placed in the leadership role of speaking weekly to a group of 150 students, which has now grown to thousands.

Now at only 28 he’s using his influence to speak out about an extremely important issue facing the church today through his book titled, Honestly. It just released a couple weeks ago and has been highly anticipated and endorsed by some of the highest level leaders in our culture and I’m thrilled to be able to tell you guys about it. I encourage you to pick up a copy and see what all the buzz is about.

God has blessed each of us with a certain degree of influence. I don’t think it’s something that can be achieved or produced, but rather a god-given gift we need to cultivate in order to effectively reach and impact those God puts in our path. Recognizing and openly confessing our downfalls as the church is one of the first steps in cultivating the influence God has blessed us with.

Getting honest can be scary. It places us in a vulnerable position that feels unsafe and out of our control. But the consequences of concealment are far greater than the consequences of confession and Johnnie beautifully articulates the importance of us as leaders getting real about who we are as the church, and how we can really live out what we say we believe.

I’ll be giving away 5 copies of Honestly today. If you’d like to be included in the drawing just leave your name in the comments and we’ll randomly pick 5 winners in the next 24 hours.

I’m sure all the names listed deserve credit for impacting the world in some way or the other.

But I’m interested in your life. Your world. Your family. Who was the most important person to you in 2008? Who made an impact on you?  Maybe a sibling? A pastor? A friend? A parent? A co-worker?

Who would you nominate and why?

Please Note: You can’t say Jesus as we all know he blows everyone else away.

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Not going to spend a lot of time on that issue but do want to say this: I’m not suggesting you buy a lottery ticket. I’m not encouraging you to gamble. If I made you stumble or led you astray, I’m sincerely sorry. I think there are many more important things we can invest our money in besides the lottery, fast food, movie rentals, ice cream and other things that we blow money on to entertain ourselves.

The bigger issue is this: I understand the weight of my responsibility as a pastor and as a leader. I understand that I’m held to a higher level of accountability. I understand that some of you reading this think that blogging about my personal life is not a great idea. I want you to know that I don’t take my posts lightly. I usually have several people that read my post before I go public with them for that very reason.

But I also want to tell you this. This blog is not a place where you will find perfection. If you’re looking for that, you may want to drop this blog and pick up another. It’s a place where I talk about life. Specifically my life and what God is doing in my life and Cross Point Church. It’s a place where I will be open about what I struggle with and at the same time will share how Christ is forming Himself in me. It’s a place where you will find random fun posts about my family, my garden, and daily life, sprinkled among very strategic posts to make you think about where you are with God.

But use wisdom when reading this blog. I’m not always right. As a matter of fact, I’m often wrong. Don’t assume because I talk about it that I endorse it. Often I’m just trying to get us as a community to ask tough questions, and create community in the process.

There are times I write posts that I wish I could take back. There are times I write a post that I’m ashamed of, but it’s where I am. There are times I feel I may have made myself sound better than I am or wished I hadn’t been so honest.

I don’t know where the balance is in all of this, but I’m working on it. I know many of us are “working on it.” Be patient with me as I try to figure it all out and whatever you do, DON’T play the lottery.

How do you deal with the balance? Do you struggle with this?