With Spark 2013 beginning in just a few days, things around our humble town are feeling a strong vibration!

People are on the phones day and night, on the social network, inviting every living creature within a few hundred miles. People are confirming. Hundreds are planing to fast and pray, many are planning to stay one full night, some for several nights.

Here are a few band videos…

Aaron Long

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1uI5ynxMfAs

Brent Taylor

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iCHaQzvge3A

Derrick Burroughs and The Cry Worship Band

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2d4Ae-KXtdw

Julie Bernstein

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UyWFC2FlrF8

The opening worship set begins 9-11pm, Sunday night, May 12.

Live worship sets continue nightly 6-9pm through Sunday, May 19.

Spark is ongoing 24/7 for one week. I am camping, fasting, praying, and worshiping in the DFC Sanctuary for the entire event.

All night sessions will be live broadcasted. (More info coming)

If you haven’t done it yet, go to the Spark Event Page and click GOING.

See you soon. It is upon us.

Chuck Balsamo

Please don’t think I’ve lost my mind, but I’m camping in my church sanctuary on an air mattress for one week 24/7 from May 12 (9PM) to May 19 (9PM)… for Virginia’s second annual fasting, prayer, and worship event.

During this time, I’ll be on a water fast, and I’ll be praying and worshiping God for a spiritual awakening in our community, state, nation, and world… in a time of unprecedented need.

I’ve scheduled live worship bands (6-8AM, 11AM-1PM, and 6-9PM daily), and I’m inviting everyone, everywhere to join me for an hour to many hours.

Have you noticed the tagline for Hunger Games II – Catching Fire?

Ironic? I think not.

spark:: a small particle of a burning substance thrown out by a body in combustion or remaining when combustion is nearly completed; a hot glowing particle struck from a larger mass; especially one heated by friction; something that sets off a sudden force; a latent particle capable of growth or developing.

TOGETHER, WE CAN BE THE SPARK OF A SPIRITUAL REVOLUTION IN AMERICA!

I invite everyone, everywhere to join me for an hour to many hours. You’re even welcome to stay overnight for a few days or the entire week!

We did it last year, with more success than we had anticipated. Some people lived the entire year on the spark they received during that one-week.

This event is not about trying to make our church bigger. It’s about Christians unifying in prayer, fasting, and worship… to win our nation back to God.

If you want to recommend a worship band, or if you want to give a 10-minute message during one of the sessions, please let us know! Contact our Spark Coordinator Kristin Via at kvia@destinyfamilycenter.com or by phone at 540-337-2216 ext. 10.

Go to the Spark FB Page and click “GOING.”

Then invite 25 of your closest friends!

Please pray for us, join us in any way you can, and help us spread the news.

Share this blog in your social network.

I’ll see you there.

Dream Big,

Chuck Balsamo

There are those days when you know that, if God doesn’t help, you don’t have enough strength within yourself to keep going.

That enormous weight of responsibility, mixed with a barrage of resistance, from circumstances and people.

Fear, anxiety, terror.

Sometimes, it even makes you cry. And you feel like you might just disintegrate into thin air.

Some people say that Christians are weak because they need a god to carry them.

That’s ok, because when I am weak…

He is always strong.

Three different times I begged the Lord to take it away. Each time he said, “My grace is all you need. My power works best in weakness.” (2 Corinthians 12:8-9a NLT)

Have you cried in prayer, “I need help. I can’t do this anymore. God, where are You, don’t You care about me?”

Have you begged Him to take IT away, but IT is still there, intimidating you down to your knees?

Know this: God’s power works best when you MOST recognize your need for Him.

So, stop whatever you are doing right now.

Step away from the chaos.

Change your prayers.

Ask for grace.

Breathe.

Smile.

So now I am glad to boast about my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ can work through me. That’s why I take pleasure in my weaknesses, and in the insults, hardships, persecutions, and troubles that I suffer for Christ. For when I am weak, then I am strong. (2 Corinthians 12:9a-10 NLT)

I hear the Lord’s voice calling to you this morning…

“Come away with Me,” He says. “And I will give you new strength for today.”

If you benefited from todays blog, please post your comments and share it with your friends.

With Much Love,

Chuck

Today’s image is from a great blog: Feeling Overwhelmed Revisited

Most embarrassing moments. What would life be without them!

LOL, yesterday morning… I finished saying hello to the church, Levi Brown did the announcements, and I went back to my office for a quick potty break.

When I opened my bathroom door, I saw that our Pug “Ming Me” was being kept in there during the service (long story).

So I said (in the worse kind of doggie talk), “Oh, what do we have heeeerreee? Is there a mingeeeeeeee in here. Is there a mingeeeeee? Ok, watch out, back up, I don’t want to get this on you!”

And, I started to GO… and then, there was a loud knock on my bathroom door.

It kind of startled me, so I yelled out, “Hold on I’m peeing!”

And my wife (Emily Wall Balsamo) yelled back to me, “Your microphone is still ONNN!” lol

WHAT?

OH GOD, NO!

WHAT?!??

It turns out that I had entered my bathroom just as Levi started his prayer for the offering, and my microphone was much louder than his.

So he stopped the prayer to figure out why I was talking over him, and everyone in the church listened. That’s when Emily took off running to my office!

Eventually, Jon Higginbotham muted my channel after he figured out I was in the bathroom.

I never wanted to walk back out into the sanctuary again. I was terrified! lol

I think this registers on my list of top 5 most embarrassing moments.

Hahahaha, another fun day Destiny Family Center!

Has anything like this ever happened to YOU?

I’m sure you have a few stories.

Don’t be shy! lol

What is your most embarrassing moment?

I’ll be waiting for your comments…

Chuck

This morning, I had a conversation with a lady about how her daughter was suffering in her heart… because she qualified for a team that her friends did not make.

This is a time when she should be upside down with happiness, yet she’s terrified about this promotion… in the fear of how it could make everyone else feel.

This conversation reminds me of a section from my book…

Make Me A Legend

From Chapter 15: Bow Lower As You Climb Higher

Beware, the Fear of Success…

As we learn to appreciate deep humiliation, we tend to feel safe in our brokenness. If we are not very careful, we may find ourselves preferring a life of continual suffering. We may shun success through the fear of pride. This is the anti-biblical belief that says: As long as we are always in some kind of unbearable conflict and so messed up that nobody else will have us, then we will always be perfectly united with Christ.

Believe it or not, many people fear success more than they fear failure.

Give a person a huge success—challenge the person with power and decorate him or her with honor—then we shall see what that person is really made of.

I think everyone knows this and it is a very big reason too many goodhearted people settle with a safe and manageable dream.

We are not afraid that God might think too little of us, but that He may be counting on us to step up and save the world!

We hope that we are called to be legends, and we spend years dreaming of a legend’s future—but when God says “now,” we run away and hide.

A few years ago, when I was about halfway through this book, I went through several months of hating myself for the filthy sins of my dark past life. I glanced forward with prophetic eyes and sensed that I was racing forward too fast to stop. It hit me like a ton of bricks when I heard God say to me, “Chuck, this is going to happen! Your future is not a far-fetched dream anymore. That future is now! Over the next few years, I am going point you out—and the whole world is going to feel the warmth of your light.”

Instead of being excited with this reality, I fell into a miserable depression. I stopped writing, toned down my speaking gift, and stopped doing anything powerful that might further expand my influence.

I told God I had changed my mind because I no longer felt worthy of His high calling. I asked Him to remove His power from my heart and leave me to an average future.

I told Him that I would certainly fail, so He better give my dream to someone else.

God was gracious to me during that breakdown. He gave me plenty of time to pray, meditate on His Word, and rest. Then, finally, when I was in a position to hear from Him again, I received a phone call from an old real estate partner and friend—Robert Michon. He asked me what I was doing those days, and he said he wanted the whole truth; so I held nothing back.

Thank God, Rob listened to me cry for an hour or more and then he spoke. His brilliant words and persuasive attitude rescued my dying dream that day.

He said to me, “Chuck, God has given you a gift—a wonderful, beautiful gift! The Big Guy has chosen you to rescue people out of this suffering world. You cannot hide your light under a bushel just because you’re scared of all that power. People are right now crying out for your book and everything else you’re called to give them. I know you’re afraid of what might happen, and you’re afraid of failing, but those people deserve your blessing. So get back in the race, run as fast as you can, and don’t look back again!”

Still, the fear of success creeps up every now and then. When it does, I think back to that conversation, and I stare fear in the face—and I lay everything on the line again for my dream of a better tomorrow.

You can do the same!

Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that frightens us most. We ask ourselves, “Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, and famous?” Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that people won’t feel insecure around you. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It’s not just in some of us; it’s in all of us. And when we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others. (Our Deepest Fear, by Marianne Williamson)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I9MXF8qoKQE

Until you overcome this “deepest fear,” you will always unconsciously assassinate your God-sized dream in the hopes of preserving your humility. You will keep shunning high success and wishing instead for a lowly life of poverty and rejection.

I call this the trap of playing it safe.

There is so much to risk—and yet, you and I are stuck with this tameless passion in our sacred hearts.

We want to run away to the safety of a no-challenge life and yet we are driven with a dream that matters!

We are positive there is a way to change the world and not lose ourselves doing it.

There has to be a way of holding on to love. There has to be a way of catapulting today’s humble posture forward—even into the most prominent earthly arenas.

Heck yeah, we can succeed without becoming the biggest jerk in town! We can head our billion-dollar companies, sit in high political seats, and even run for president or prime minister—all without having to forfeit our values.

I just know there is a way to shrug off the bloodthirsty mobs and every lurking temptation. There is a way to manage millions of dollars without making it lord. I honestly believe that we can change the world.

Either we stay right here try our best to play it safe, and we hurry up and burn this book and turn down our beauty so we never have to worry about standing out.

Or, we can take a holy risk—and if we fall, then at least we will never be like the “man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better.”

We will know that:
The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena (and we will be that person in the arena), whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly; who errs and comes short again and again; because there is not effort without error and shortcomings; but who does actually strive to do the deed; who knows the great enthusiasm, the great devotion, who spends himself in a worthy cause, who at best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement and who at worse, if he fails, at least he fails while daring greatly. So that his place shall never be with those cold timid souls who know neither victory nor defeat. (Theodore Roosevelt)

As for me, I cannot bear the thought of living little when I was born to stand out!

Can you?

We should not think up a run-of-the-mill dream for ourselves, because we fear potential failure!

If you and I were created for something big, then we should never duck away from God when He smiles in our direction.

Instead, we should do everything we can to run our best race with honor, endurance, and a very impressive finish!

We must never forget that even at our very best, we are still just a men or women. Yes, we definitely want to feel the pressure of accountability to God for the way we represent Him.

We just have to keep on reminding ourselves that we are not God, and we will never be big enough to shoulder His Kingdom.

We are mortal. We are weak. But still, we are called for big things!

Knowing this frees us to try and fail, and try and fail again—as people stepping out for God.

I hope this message encourages you today!

God has given YOU a gift—a wonderful, beautiful gift! The Big Guy is asking YOU to help someone (many someones) in this suffering world. I know you’re terrified about the haters, and you’re afraid of falling flat on your face, but people need YOU. They pray for YOU to rise. They long for YOUR rescue. So get back in the race, run as fast as you can, and don’t look back again!

Your thoughts?

If you haven’t read Make Me A Legend, you can order your signed copy today. If you can’t afford it, we will mail you a free copy.

Dream Big,

Chuck Basamo