Clutter: Replacing Chaos, Confusion, and Captivity in Your Life with Peace, Purpose, and Freedom!

By Patrick Cannon

If youve ever watched one of those shows about people that hoard stuff you know the damage it can cause in someones life. As their clutter grows, the more toxic it becomes. It causes chaos and confusion and often times holds them captive. The same is true in our own lives.

All of us have those areas in our lives that hold us hostage. Even though God created us to live with purpose and freedom, we tend to collect clutter that can become toxic and prevent us from experiencing Gods best. Clutter was written to help us discover the number one thing in our lives that keeps us from running unhindered this race called life.

Through easy-to-understand examples and brutally honest personal stories, Clutter uncovers five areas that can weigh us down or trip us up and explains how to start the cleaning process. Our past, worry, fear, lack of forgiveness, and lust can all cause chaos, confusion, and captivity. The good news is that there is a way to not only recognize the clutter but take steps to clean it out of our lives once and for all.

You dont have to remain locked up or weighed down any longer! Why not open up those closets in your life and start cleaning out the clutter today!

• Language: English
• Publisher: WestBow Press
• Release date: Jul 21, 2014
• ISBN: 9781490843285

Patrick Cannon

Pat Cannon lives with his wife, Kelly, and their youngest of 4 children in one of the most impoverished areas of Ohio and Southeast Michigan. He pastors That Neighborhood Church in Toledo, Ohio. He is also part of a church planting network in the Great Lakes Region for the Christian and Missionary Alliance. Reverend Cannon also loves woodworking and 3D printing. He has authored two other books, Clutter and Rooster in the Hood.

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Copyright © 2014 Patrick Cannon.

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Scriptures taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.™ Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved worldwide. www.zondervan.com The NIV and New International Version are trademarks registered in the United States Patent and Trademark Office by Biblica, Inc.™ All rights reserved.

Scripture quotations taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright 1996, 2004. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Wheaton, Illinois 60189. All rights reserved.

Scripture quotations taken from the New American Standard Bible®, Copyright © 1960, 1962, 1963, 1968, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975, 1977, 1995 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission." (www.Lockman.org)

New Revised Standard Version Bible: Catholic Edition, copyright 1989, 1993, Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

All Scripture quotations in this publications are from The Message. Copyright (c) by Eugene H. Peterson 1993, 1994, 1995, 1996, 2000, 2001, 2002. Used by permission of NavPress Publishing Group.

WestBow Press

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ISBN: 978-1-4908-4327-8 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4908-4328-5 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2014911977

WestBow Press rev. date: 7/16/2014

Contents

Dedication

Preface

Acknowledgement

3 Dreams

Chapter One Clutter Defined

Chapter 2 My Past

Chapter 3 Worry

Chapter 4 Unforgiveness

Chapter 5 Fear

Chapter 6 Anger

Chapter 7 Lust

Chapter 8 Keep Going!

Dedication

This book is dedicated to all those who helped make it possible. My friends at That Neighborhood Church and those that volunteer on a regular basis. Especially my wife Kelly who put up with my whining throughout the process.

Finally this book is dedicated to my mom. She struggled until the day God took her home. Knowing someone’s journey makes all the difference in the world.

Preface

If someone would have told me five years ago that I would be writing a book based on 3 dreams I had on the same night, I would have told them they were smoking crack! This will be my 30th year in ministry. Through most of that time I’ve been ministering to children and their families. I have spent countless hours counseling families, moms and dads who’s lives look great on the outside but are deteriorating on the inside. At one time I was on staff at one of the fastest growing churches in the country. For almost 10 years it was non-stop growth. From starting with 12 kids on a weekend to over 1200, it was a children’s pastor’s dream. My ministry was successful to say the least. But in the midst of running at break neck speed something toxic was taking place on the inside of me. I continued this pace even after I left the ministry to help build into my oldest son. I went right into planning an animation studio. The cycle continued as I put in countless hours trying to build my business while volunteering at another church. Needless to say my business never really took off. I ended up working at a print shop I used to own. Talk about humbling.

Fast forward to 2007 when I accepted a staff position at another mega church. I had gone through some pretty tough circumstances, but this seemed like a chance to move forward. Even though I tried to pace myself into the new position, I found myself getting into the same old rut.

At the end of 2009 God called me out of a very comfortable ministry situation into one of the most dangerous impoverished areas in Toledo, Ohio. Planting a church is hard enough, let alone trying to plant one in the hood. Lots of poverty, lots of drugs and an overwhelming amount of oppression. It was in this environment that God began to get my attention. I had spent my whole Christian life running forward. I wanted my life to count. Maybe the only way God knew to get my attention was while I sleeping. Whatever the reason, it was during one night that everything began to change. I had collected some very toxic clutter in my life that was causing me chaos, confusion and captivity. Whether I had ignored it, excused it or was just plain ignorant of it, God knew it was time for me to do some soul searching. Over the next months as I was in counseling I discover just how deep this clutter had collected. Some of it had affected me for over 40 years! As I began to work on identifying it and began the cleaning process I noticed a difference in how I dealt with life. I was gaining new freedom, peace and purpose in my life.

Then I had the courage to develop a series that I preached in our church as well as others titled Clutter. It was during this time that I saw how many others were being held hostage by things like their past, worry and fear. Desperately wanting to experience the freedom God talks about. I was encouraged to write this book over and over again. What you are about to read is the result of not only my journey but also many others who I have counseled over the years.

My prayer is that as you read my story and others, God would encourage you to come face to face with those areas that have held you hostage for years and have the courage to start the cleaning process.

Acknowledgement

Special thanks to the Lana, Paul and Christopher Shryock. Without your help this would still be sitting in a drawer somewhere gathering dust!

3 Dreams

Nothing really spectacular happened that day. As the pastor of a church in one of the most impoverished areas in the country, my days are usually filled with meeting the needs of our neighbors while trying to point them towards Jesus. It’s a rewarding, depressing, energizing, eye opening, confusing and faith stretching job all at the same time! At the end of the day when my head hits the pillow, I’m out in a matter of seconds. I usually sleep through the night, except for the typical call of nature in the middle of the night. Yeah, I’m getting older.

I’m one of those weird people that remember their dreams and could even tell you some of the dreams I had as a child. There was the time when I was visiting my grandma in Colorado. Where I dreamed that a large horned creature slowly opened the door, ran into my room and jumped on my bed. (I swear I felt my bed move as I woke up full of fear.) There were also Superboy dreams I used to have. I saved an elementary school from a tornado, stopped a flood from destroying our town and rescued my wife and I from some weird cult-like church by throwing cars in the parking lot. As a side note; my Superboy dreams stopped after I spent some time talking to a counselor to work through some kind of rescue everyone thing I had going on. Since then I haven’t had any more Superboy dreams. Go figure.

Back to Tuesday night. It wasn’t that I had a really weird dream. It was the fact that I had three dreams in a row that were all different but, had the same message. I want to say right off the bat that I