I sort of limped into 2013 because I bit off more than I could chew in 2012.  When everything was said and done, I wrote 3 1/2 books in one calendar year.  Ouch!  And that was on the heels of The Circle Maker which took a 110% effort.

For the past four months, I’ve devoted every spare second to my next book.  The good news is that I’m all done with All In. It’ll release in September 2013.  Hard to describe this one, but it’s a call to consecration.  It’s probably the hardest hitting book I’ve written, but definitely motivational as well.  You are only one decision away from a totally different life!

We still have final edits, but I’m taking a deep breath right now.  My goal is to only write one book in 2013. I’m also scaling back to a dozen over-night speaking trips in 2013.  Gotta dial it back because of family stage and church stage.

I think my one word for 2013 is margin.  I need more margin to dream, to read, to play, to serve, to laugh, and to go on Wild Goose chases!

Looking for a New Year’s resolution?

Take the 40 day prayer challenge!  We’ll do it as a church during Lent, but it’s also a great way to start the New Year. I wrote Draw the Circle: The 40 Day Prayer Challenge to help people cultivate a daily prayer habit.

The way you break bad habits is by establishing good habits.  And one of the most significant God habits is prayer.  If you want to break the sin habit you’ve got to establish a prayer habit.  The goal of the 40 day prayer challenge is to cultivate a daily discipline.  If you pray daily for forty days, I think there is a good possibility you’ll still be prayed on day 41, day 57, day 365.  And that’s the goal of the 40 Day Prayer Challenge.

I’d encourage you to read it with someone else for accountability purposes.  It’ll create prayer synergy.  And Jesus said, “When two of you on earth agree about anything you ask for, it will be done for you by my Father in Heaven.”  Obviously it’s got to meet the two-fold litmus test: it’s got to be in the will of God and for the glory of God.  But there is power in forming a prayer circle with others who will intercede with us!

You’ll find a bulk discount at www.thecirclemaker.com.  You’ll also get a free copy of The Circle Maker Prayer Journal if you order a case in January.

We’ve got some amazing bulk discounts on The Circle Maker, Praying Circles Around Your Children, and Draw the Circle: The 40-Day Prayer Challenge. Also, if you purchase a case of books in the month of January, we’re giving away a FREE copy of The Circle Maker Prayer Journal while supplies last.

If you are doing a sermon series or small groups based on one of the books, check out the FREE RESOURCES.  And check out the The Circle Maker Curriculum Kit with DVD.

Order info @ www.thecirclemaker.com

We cast the $3.8 million vision for the DC Dream Center at the end of October. We’re now only 2% or $76,000 away from hitting that number.  I honestly believe it’ll be the most significant thing we’ve ever done as a church.  A huge thanks to shareholders who have already invested.  If you’d like to download a digital brochure, make a pledge, or give online you can do it at www.dcdreamcenter.com.

One of our core convictions is this: God will bless us in proportion to how we care for the poor in our city.  There is a third-world country in our nation’s capital.  The Dream Center is our way of saying: not in our backyard and not on our watch!

It’s going to be a cooperative ministry with other churches and other ministries. The last thing we want to do is reinvent the wheel. And we’re not coming in as saviors. We’re coming in as servants.  That is the example the Savior Himself set.

So many miracles have already happened to confirm that God’s favor is all over this dream.  First of all, we got a $500,000 piece of property for $38,000.  Then we got a $100,000 seed gift from Covenant Church in Dallas, TX.  And then we got a $1.9 million matching grant.

So grateful for the way so many people have made such sacrificial gifts!  Blown away by it.  I believe that our gifts are going to translate into far more than a brick-and-mortar building. That isn’t what this is about. They will translate into lots of hurting people hearing the life-giving message of the gospel that will transform their lives and change their eternal destiny!

I occasionally post The Lion Chaser’s Manifesto that is adapted from In a Pit with a Lion on a Snowy Day.  I think it’s a good reminder as we approach a new year!

Quit living as if the purpose of life is to arrive safely at death. Set God-sized goals. Pursue God-ordained passions. Go after a dream that is destined to fail without divine intervention. Keep asking questions. Keep making mistakes. Keep seeking God. Stop pointing out problems and become part of the solution. Stop repeating the past and start creating the future. Stop playing it safe and start taking risks. Expand your horizons. Accumulate experiences. Enjoy the journey. Find every excuse you can to celebrate everything you can. Live like today is the first day and last day of your life. Don’t let what’s wrong with you keep you from worshiping what’s right with God. Burn sinful bridges. Blaze new trails. Criticize by creating. Worry less about what people think and more about what God thinks. Don’t try to be who you’re not. Be yourself. Laugh at yourself. Don’t let fear dictate your decisions. Take a flying leap of faith. Chase the lion!

Over the coming weeks I want to share a few excerpts from my newly released devotional book titled Draw the Circle: The 40-Day Prayer Challenge. The goal is to help people cultivate a daily prayer habit.  Day 35 is titled The Longest Lever.

Archimedes of Syracuse is famous for his quip, “Give me a place to stand on, and I will move the earth.” He was referencing the lever, one of six simple machines identified by Renaissance scientists. A lever amplifies the input force to provide a greater output force. Simply put, the longer the lever, the greater the leverage.  Let me borrow this simple statement and substitute one word: Give me a place to kneel, and I will move the earth.

In the kingdom of God, humility equals authority. Call it bold humility or humble boldness.  That is our lever. If we try to exalt ourselves, God will find a way to humble us. But if we humble ourselves, God will find a way to exalt us. There is no leverage like kneeling in prayer. If we hit our knees in humble prayer, God will extend His mighty hand on our behalf. He will leverage us in ways that are humanly impossible.

One of our mantras at NCC is: stay humble, stay hungry.  Humility is how we get out of the way of what God wants to do. And if we stay out of God’s way, then there is nothing God cannot do in us and through us.

During our forty-day prayer challenge this year, God revealed his favor in amazing ways.  A church gave us their church building without us even asking!  Someone wrote a $1 million check without us even asking!  And we received the kind of news coverage that money cannot buy. The Washington Post ran a remarkably positive front-page story in the weekend Metro section. A few weeks later, the Today Show filmed one of our weekend services, and the segment aired on the last day of our forty-day prayer challenge. Coincidence? I think not. It had God’s fingerprints of favor all over it.

We were seeking any of those things. We were seeking God.  So here’s my advice. Don’t seek opportunities.  Seek God. And opportunities will seek you! Here’s what I know for sure: Prayer is spelled potential and potential is spelled prayer!

Draw the Circle!

Christmas is all about wonder. I love the line of lyrics from the Christmas Hymn: I wonder as I wander.  So apropos for this time of year. Right at the heart of “becoming like a little child” is recapturing the wonder of the Creator and His creation.

My friend, Margaret Feinberg has a new book and 7-session Bible Study called Wonderstruck: Awaken to the Nearness of God that releases Christmas Day.  I love the way Margaret writes.  It’s one of my “must-read” books in 2013.

A fascinating study was done more than a decade ago on 300 of history’s greatest minds from a wide variety of disciplines.  The researcher, Catherine Cox, found one common denominator among them.  They all kept a journal of one kind or another!

Next to my Bible, nothing is more sacred to me than my journal. I think journaling our thoughts and prayers and dreams is one of the most important yet least practiced spiritual disciplines.  As we close out 2012, I’m able to look back at the things I’ve circled and give God praise for the prayers He’s answered. That’s huge!

We have a tendency to remember what we should forget and forget what we should remember.  The antidote to spiritual amnesia is journaling.  Day 5 in Draw The Circle: The 40 Day Prayer Challenge focuses on journaling like a journalist.  When we journal we are not only documenting the faithfulness of God, but we are also obeying a command. Habakkuk 2:1 says, “Write down the revelation.”

The shortest pencil is longer than the longest memory!

The Circle Maker Prayer Journal released this week.  At the top of every page is a little prayer maxim with margined pages to journal. We tried to design something that was nice, but not too pricey. I also wanted it to be very user-friendly–easy-to-turn pages and comfortable margins.  Of course, it’s not about the physical journal. It’s about what you put on the pages!

He never received a formal education, yet he lectured at Harvard.  He grew up in a gypsy camp outside London, yet he was invited to the Whitehouse by two different presidents.  Gypsy Smith was powerfully used of God preaching to millions as he crisscrossed the Atlantic Ocean forty-five times.  Everywhere he went, it seemed like revival was on his heels.  Gypsy revealed his secret to a delegation of revival seekers that asked him how they could make a difference with their lives the way he had with his. His answer was simple yet profound—as timely and timeless now as it was a hundred years ago.

Go home. Lock yourself in your room. Kneel down in the middle of the floor, and with a piece of chalk, draw a circle around yourself. There, on your knees, pray fervently and brokenly that God would start a revival within that chalk circle.

The goal of Draw the Circle: The 40-Day Prayer Challenge is to help readers establish a daily prayer habit with a daily dose of prayer inspiration.  It picks up where The Circle Maker left off, with the story of Gypsy Smith.  Then it shares new stories and new learnings in prayer that will inspire you to dream big, pray hard, and think long!

Take the 40-Day Prayer Challenge in 2013!

Do it with your family, friends, small group or your church!

The Student Edition of The Circle Maker releases TODAY, along with The Circle Maker Journal, and Draw The Circle: The 40 Day Prayer Challenge.

Each book was a labor of love. I’m especially excited about the student edition because I think teens have so much prayer potential, but you need to establish a prayer habit early in life!  I really think each resource can help create a prayer culture in churches. And that’s the goal.  I think our sermon series on The Circle Maker really set the tone for National Community Church this year.  Then our 40 Day Prayer Challenge helped turn the tide. And turning our small groups into prayer circles via The Circle Maker DVD curriculum helped create a culture of prayer!   We’re not the same church we were a year ago!

You can get a bulk discount or FREE resources for your church campaign, sermon series, or small group at www.thecirclemaker.com.