Next Generation Leader by Andy Stanley

I just started reading Next Generation Leader by Andy Stanley. It has been an interesting read as someone who is not a senior pastor. The biggest truth I have gleaned so far from this read is to manage the time I have rather than letting it manage me. If I do everything rather than getting people to help me do it, then not only am I robbing others of a chance to do what they are good at, but I am adding stress to my own life that doesn't need to be there. An example from my own life: Last year, my wife and I decorated the platform at church for Christmas. It took the two of us about five hours lugging out the huge Christmas tree and putting up all the decorations. This year, a team of people came to help and it only took about an hour. Another team came to tear it down and again it only took about an hour! Not only did I save my time and walk away with out sore muscles, but it became an enjoyable experience for a whole team! As a normal American guy, I have a tendency toward self-sufficiency and have trouble asking others for help. As I learn to do so, I am finding that the benefits aren't just for me, but also help to create a sense of community for those who use their own talents to help me, and the results are much better! I may post again on this book as I have more thoughts on it. So far, I recommend the read.

End of the Year...

This Sunday five people gave their heart to the Lord! That jacks me up! After last week when 10 people accepted Jesus into their hearts, it is a great way to end the year! Like most, as the new year looms in the near future, I make new years resolutions. This year, my goals aren't really personal, they are things that affect many people. My number one goal is that we can start a new Home TEAM/small group each month in 2009. As our church grows this is becoming a crucial need to help people connect to each other and to God. Another goal is to spend more time on my "part time" job.
The second part of the end of the year thoughts are on how God blesses us in so many wonderful ways! I look around my house and see that I have a place to call home! God has given me a wonderful wife! In today's economy, it is a wonderful blessing to have a job and be able to pay the bills. God has given me two jobs in which I can serve Him! Just today I received an e-mail from a graduate of the school where I teach. He is serving the Lord in the middle east and just managed to buy a "sewage front" building in which to put a clinic. I am inspired by the stories that come back from the kids who graduate and now are out in the world making a difference. I am equally inspired by the lives changed in my local community through the second job of working at my church. I get to see people every week who used to be drug addicts, alcoholics, prostitutes...who are now living clean productive lives for the Lord! Have a great New Year!

Merry Christmas!

I pray you all had a wonderful Christmas! This has been a great year! My wife and I had all of her family over for Christmas eve dinner. That was the first time all of her family had been under our roof at the same time, and the first time ever for some of them to visit us, so it was a great occasion. In all the fun and joy of family reunions of this type, I sometimes wonder if that isn't a little taste of what heaven will be like as the body of Christ gets together for a HUGE family reunion! There might even be some surprises when we see someone and think; (((Can you believe he made it?!))) Maybe not, but I know that however it turns out, Heaven's family reunion will be a great one! While I still have much to do here on earth, I am looking forward to the day I get to stand before God Almighty and just get to praise him for a few million years face to face! Have a great rest of your Christmas week and a Happy New Year!

Thoughts on a Verse

Ephesians 3:20 is a wonderful key verse in life. “Now to Him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us”. Think about that for a second! What is the most incredible thing you can imagine? God can do more than that! HE wants to do more than that! So why isn’t God answering prayers? One reason is that we aren’t asking. Another one that we often don’t like is that the moral power that we have through Jesus Christ comes when we live in obedient discipleship. When we live in sin, our first prayer must be for forgiveness. Remember that Jesus loves us more than we can ever know and He wants us to progress in understanding His love and in loving as He loved. That is why we should pray for others.

Praises!

Paul talks about boasting in the Lord, well today, I am thrilled to brag on God! Ten people gave their heart to Jesus yesterday in our services. As I think back over this year, there have been quite a few services when five or six people asked Jesus into their hearts! As the guy who teaches the New Believers class, this excites me, but as an ordinary Christian, this excites me more! Seeing how God saves people and then transforms their lives is incredible! Hey, if you leave a comment, I would love to hear how God is changing lives in your church! I know this is not just happening here at 5 Point Fellowship! I know that a few weeks ago another church in our city had 11 people get saved! That is awesome! I am sure some huge churches have more than that each week! One church in the next city to the south of us had 220 people come to Christ yesterday! And some small churches see one or two come to Christ in a year! The great news is that it isn't a competition! As long as we as the Body of Christ are seeing new souls coming into the kingdom, that is Awesome! We can all do more, but today is a day of celebration! Praise the LORD!

Abundantly and Exceedingly more...

Pecans, yes, Pecans...that is the topic of conversation around my house lately. You have probably heard the term "Bumper Crop", well this year, the 10 pecan trees around our house have yielded exactly that. After harvesting about 4 of the trees and having given away many, many gallons of pecans to most of our friends, and having boxed up pecans for Christmas gifts, we still have a big rubber tub full! We have exceedingly and abundantly more than we ever could have asked or imagined from a bunch of old trees that I was temped to cut down when we first bought our house. I realize this post isn't very "spiritual" but is just shows how God is over everything in our lives, even if a bunch of old pecan trees will produce good nuts or not. Have an awesome day!

Why does God choose us?

I live a wonderfully blessed life! I don't mean that I am rich financially, but I do mean that I am very blessed by God! In today's rough economic times, I still have, not just one but, two jobs that I absolutely love! I have a wonderful wife who loves me! We both have a vehicle that runs! We haven't had to miss any meals due to financial hardship! God has blessed me with wonderful friends! I could go on and on, but this morning I was wondering why me? Not the Why Me! that we scream at God when life is not going as we think it should. I am talking about the quiet "why me?" that we ask in wonder as to why God would choose a sorry sinner like myself to work for Him. He, the Almighty, All Powerful, All Knowing, Everlasting, Ruler and Master of the Universe reached down and saved my soul! Then, he chose to give me so very much to be thankful for! I pray that one day if I, like Job, am asked to suffer for the Lord in a very real way that I too will stand true to my faith in Jesus Christ. I just praise God that He has given me another day alive to serve Him, and I pray that I won't waste it!

Crazy Sundays

So in your church have you ever had a Sunday that seemed to go well, but behind the scene it was quite hectic? Maybe that is your experience every Sunday in which case I would encourage you to get a little more organized, but for the rest of us, it happens from time to time. This last week, our pastors hunting buddy died, so he flew back home to do the funeral. His son in law did an incredible job of preaching the sermon! The son in law usually works with the children's ministry. As you can see, there was a trickle down affect. I filled in a bit with the children's side and the controlled chaos on that side of the church was wonderful! The kids were learning and it was great to be back over there even if for only one day. You may not think about how much one person affects the church even when that one person is the pastor. What we learn is that the church will go on even if not as smoothly as before, but it also teaches us that each person is important! Have an awesome day! Craziness can be good.

Reaching Out

We need to reach out to our community. Jan Johnson in her Moody Monthly article "Escaping the Christian Ghetto" refers to people she calls "Rabbit-Hole Christians." According to Johnson, "In the morning they pop out of their safe Christian homes, hold their breath at work, scurry home to their families and then off to their Bible Studies, and finally end the day praying for the unbelievers they safely avoided all day." That is exactly the kind of Christian that we want to avoid being. Our goal as a church is to reach the un-churched for the Lord and then to teach them to grow in their faith in Jesus Christ. The best way that this happens is when people in the church are excited about what is happening and they tell their friends outside the church. God is Awesome! He is doing incredible things in the lives of people here! That is the message that hurting people living without the Lord will hear and be curious about. They will not be interested in hearing that they read the wrong version of the Bible or that their eschatological views are not scripturally accurate. Something my pastor said recently is that we need to see people as opportunities instead of burdens. I pray that across Christendom we can ignite the fire in each other to reach out to people for the Lord and lead them to Him!

Upside Down Chaotic Orderliness

This week is finals week. Which means that all normal scheduling is out the window. My normal arrival at the church wasn't at 8:00am but at about 3:00pm. Two finals in the morning. Each day this week is thrown into turmoil. It is times like these that doing daily devotions is the toughest. We as humans love our routine!Chaos is not usually our friend.
God however isn't ever caught off guard by anything! Isn't that awesome! When we wonder at the chaos of the world around us, we can remember that God didn't wake up this morning shouting "Oh no! What did America just do now? I didn't see that coming! What am I going to do?" No, God knew from the laying of the foundations of the earth what each day was going to hold for us and for each person on earth. He has a plan even when all seems lost! When we put our faith in God, even the upside down chaos begins to have order. Have an awesome day!

Final Exams

This week at the university, I am giving final exams to my students. I can't help but think that God is happy when His students (us) pass the exam. Unlike my Spanish students, God's exam is Pass/Fail. He either tells us "Well done!" and shows us into heaven, or He says "I never knew you" and failure has an eternal price. It was fun to grade the exams when the student had grasped the material and I could see that learning had definitely taken place during the semester. It was disheartening when the pages bled showing that the opposite was true. Does God ever shake His head at us wondering when we will finally get it?

Thoughts on God...

This morning, I was reading in Acts and some verses in Chapter 14 just leaped off the page at me. In verses 8-10 we see a crippled man listening to Paul preach. "Paul looked directly at him, saw that he had faith to be healed and called out 'Stand up on your feet!' At that the man jumped up and began to walk". I have seen God move in mighty ways in healing and I am always thrilled to see God move in miraculous ways! The part that did the "leaping" was that Paul looked at him and SAW that he had faith to be healed. I realized that I have no clue what that is like! If I look out at the congregation at my own church, would I know that someone has the faith to be healed? Do we relegate that kind of activity to the hyper-pentecostal fringe? I believe that God is still doing marvelous works in the world! I pray that He will not let me put Him in a little box! Please pray with me that God will move on this generation in a miraculous powerful way that goes so far beyond sciences ability to understand that only God can be given the credit!

The Shack

I am about halfway through reading the book The Shack by William Paul Young. It is a wonderful work of fiction that I am thoroughly enjoying while simultaneously challenging my view of who God is and what our relationship with Him could be. First let me say that I would recommend this book as a great read! My blog today is more on the reactions of people who find out I am reading the book. There are two camps- the first camp is the "Oh yeah! I loved that book!" the second camp is the "I have heard that book is full of theological errors and thus shouldn't be read." In defense of the second camp, I don't know that I would want to base all of my theology on The Shack and put it on the same level as the Holy Bible, but Mr. Young was not, as I understand him, trying to write a 5th gospel. He was writing a delightful work of fiction for his children that did contain some wonderful biblical truths. One could compare it to Pilgrims Progress or the Chronicles of Narnia. So you can decide to read it or not. I doubt that when you stand before God that He will be asking if you read it while here on earth. I would say however that it is worth taking the time to read if you enjoy a good book that just might challenge your walk with God a little too.
PS. If you decide to read it, have tissues handy.

In Sickness and In Health

The last couple days have been wonderful, yet trying. I have been more sick than I have been in quite a few years. In the midst of that, I find God's creation amazing! God created our bodies to be able to fight off sickness and come back to a fully functioning form! While I am not personally back to that fully functioning point, I am up enough to be seated at a computer having just checked my neglected e-mail. God is awesome! I sit amazed at the complexity of the human body to be able to fix itself with such simple remedies as sleep, rest and lots of liquids! I wish the computer would be so easily fixed. Just turn it off for a day, pour some water into it, and poof! All fixed! See, man's best technology can't keep up with something God designed thousands of years ago! Praise the Lord!

Thanking God!

I talked to my brother this morning to wish him Happy Thanksgiving, after family stuff, we began talking about all the great things God is doing in our churches! It was wonderful to hear how God is working not only here in Easley, SC but halfway across the country in Neosho, MO. He shared how the church has been growing to the point where the pews are all full and they have chairs out in the isles. He has lost track of how many men have gotten saved in the last month! God has healed the sick and even a sick dog. I had to laugh at the dog story, but it just goes to show how God cares about our needs even when they might not seem all that important to the rest of the world. There were many stories of healings, but the cool one for me was a lady who hasn't been able to tie her own shoes due to a hip problem. Her teenage daughter has helped her get dressed every morning tying her shoes, putting on her socks etc. because she couldn't bend down. After God's healing, she is able to dress herself completely! I am sure that for a mom, that must be a great thing! Hearing about kids who have come to the Lord through the children's ministry and now their Dads are getting saved! It was a wonderful uplifting conversation! Thank you Lord for all that you are and all that you do in our lives! Today is truly an awesome day of Thanksgiving!

Thanksgiving week!

Like most people, heading into Thanksgiving week makes me extra aware of all the things I am thankful for. I am most thankful that our Almighty God chose to save a sorry sinner like myself and give me a chance to work for Him! He blessed me with a wonderful wife who loves me in spite of my faults. He has seen fit to give me not just one, but two absolutly wonderful jobs that I absolutly love! For those of you who dread getting up in the morning to go to work, you can surely see why I am so thankful for that part of my life! I have my dream car. Before you get visions of a Lambourguini, my dream car is a 1995 Mustang. It has over 200,000 miles on it, but I still love driving it. God lets me take people on Mission trips to places like Mexico and Honduras! My life is so blessed that just one day of thanksgiving isn't enough time for me to tell of all the ways God has blessed me!
Recently, my wife and I were discussing the idea of children. We have been married for about 19 months now, so I guess this is a natural topic of conversation for people at our stage in the marital life. She gave as a reason for wanting kids that she wanted to leave a legacy like my parents had left. Not her own parents, she was talking about mine! That would be her mother and father in law...the people that american society is sure she is supposed to not get along with. Anyway, she talked about how my parents had raised two boys, my brother and I, in a Christian home where we both grew up to love and serve our Lord Jesus. That is the legacy she wants to leave on this planet. I couldn't be happier! God is awesome!

Christmas before Thanksgiving...

Today at the church, I and a bunch of volunteers were putting up the massive Christmas tree that goes on the stage. I almost felt like a hypocrite putting up Christmas decorations on the Monday before Thanksgiving. The great news is that the guys who showed up to help worked hard and that leaves very little for my wife and I to do before Sunday's service in the decorating arena. (She loves to decorate, but hates carrying all the heavy boxes from the attic to the sanctuary.) Have an awesome day!

Courageous Cowardice

This morning, I was reading about Gideon in the book of Judges. We all know the part about Gideon going out under the power of God and defeating the Midianites. This morning however, the part that really stuck out to me and challenged me was that he cut down the Asherah pole and the altar to Baal that belonged to his father! (Judges 6:25) It is one thing to challenge the world for something when God tells you to. It is quite another to go against ones own father! He did so, following the Lord's command. We see later in verses 30-31 that his father must have loved his son very much even though he had destroyed his altar, for he gave a great short speech to the crowd about Baal not needing the crowd to defend him from Gideon.
I wonder what I would have done in the same situation. As an American, there is such an emphasis on personal property. Destroying someone else's property is so ingrained into us as wrong that even if it is evil, we have trouble destroying it. I am reminded of a man in Springfield, MO who went into an abortion clinic and shot up the machinery and the office. He took no lives, but did damage thousands of dollars in equipment. I think God protected him. He was never apprehended that I know of. Today's blog is just my own thinking out loud. I don't expect anyone to form their theology around it. I do welcome your comments though.

God's Intervention

So, do you believe in "Divine Coincidences"? Lately it seems that God has been working through so many "coincidental" events in my life that it has my brain spinning. Just one simple example. God asked me clearly to give a man a certain sum of money. I asked my wife if it was OK, and she asked, "Where will the money come from?" My response was simple, "I don't know. But I know that God has never let us down yet, and He isn't going to stop providing for us because we obey Him." She immediately gave her blessing on the decision and I gave the man the money. Within a day, not only had God "replaced" the amount I gave through a series of "circumstances", but I was told I am going to receive an unexpected raise that amounts to more than ten times the amount given! God is awesome! I am constantly reminded of how God our Father wants to bless us, but we must first be obedient to His will!

Thoughts from Sunday!

This last Sunday, we talked about some great stuff...SEX! The sermon was soundly biblical, yet for some reason, people were a little on edge that the church would talk about such an important subject. Are there certain subjects that the church just isn't supposed to talk about? God showed up in an amazing way in the song portion of the service. As people sang out worshiping God, He was there! It was incredible! Now I am sure He wasn't there to find out about sex, after all, He created it. He was there because His people were shouting out praises to Him!
As I have mentioned, our church here in Easley, SC is hitting that awkward stage of between about 500-600 people. That is incredible for a 4 year old church, especially where most of the growth is from new Christians, not transplant growth. The reason it is awkward is that we find ourselves struggling to find leaders! One would think that with almost six hundred people, surely a few hundred would be fine leadership material. And, that is true, but they aren't yet there. Many of the people have been Christians less than two years. So, this convoluted blog is a request. Any ideas on how to help people realize their leadership potential in a very short amount of time? What is working in your church?

Happy Birthday!

This morning came, and I turned 36. It is looking to be the best year of my life! God is doing amazing things here in Pickens County, SC! The church I attend is having wonderful growing pains! The college where I teach is still growing amidst the national trend of downsizing. Life is good!
I come to goals each year at my birthday. Last year, one of my goals was to read through the Bible once, and the New Testament twice. It was the first year for that goal, and God used it to teach me many things! This blog has been something new from this last year. The surprising thing to me still is that some people actually read it! I have really enjoyed the feedback from y'all, and enjoyed that it isn't just people from my own church! Another goal, which those of you trying to lose weight will want to kill me for,was to get back up to 180Lbs. About three weeks ago, I got there! It is the first time since my sophomore year of college that I have weighed this much. (It is a good thing, If you don't know me, I am a tall skinny guy who could use a few more pounds.) This year, God allowed me to pray with someone to lead them to Him! That was an incredible experience!
My goals for next year are to read through the Bible twice and pray that God will let me lead someone to the Lord. My work goals are to present at at least one conference - University job. And at the church, I want to help take the Home TEAM ministry of 5 Point Fellowship to the point where at least 50% of the church are actively involved! Have an awesome day, and thanks for helping me celebrate my birthday by reading my blog...and maybe leaving a comment!

Church Leadership

Monday Night, we had a bunch of the leaders in our church get together with the pastor for a time of fellowship and letting the pastor do some vision casting. We as a church must have a purpose! If we just say, "Well, we want to be a church." What does that mean? Why should God bless a church if it has no purpose for being? Here in South Carolina, you almost can't throw a rock without breaking a stained glass window. There are at least four churches within a quick stroll of my office. We each have a ministry working as part of the Body of Christ! As pastors and leaders who read this blog, remember that the congregation needs leadership. If you are a leader who isn't the senior pastor, remember to support the leadership of your pastor! If he can't count on the trust of his associate pastors and lay leadership, he will be hamstrung in his ability to lead the church. Does that mean that you must agree with every move he makes? No! But, it does mean that you trust him to be hearing from God, and if you think he is hearing wrong, you will confront him directly and privately, not talk about his "bad decision" behind his back. (Remember that I am not a senior pastor and am not speaking out of anger here.) God will do great things with a church that is showing people his love and leading souls to Jesus Christ, but my personal belief is that He doesn't have much reason to bless churches that are really just clubs that sing nice songs together. It is also hard to lead a church that is fighting internally. Sorry for the rant...the point is to support your pastor and leadership. Have an incredible day! God is AWESOME!

This Morning...

Last night, I started reading a great book by Robert Morris entitled, The Blessed Life. This morning, I woke up at a little before five. For some, that may be normal, but I don't usually drag myself out of bed until about six. I went ahead and got up to spend some extra time in prayer and reading God's word. So why share? It was incredible! The getting up earlier isn't spiritual at all, but the uninterrupted time with God was AWESOME! Honestly, I never before understood people who said things like, "I got up at 4:30 this morning and spent time with God." I always figured they were just bragging or wanted me to feel sorry for them for getting up so early! Now I understand! Sorry to all those who I had bad feelings toward in the past!
Back to the book, when I finished praying and reading the Bible, I still had a little extra time before having to leave for work, so I picked the book back up and read a couple more chapters. It is challenging me in some incredible new ways! I don't know Robert Morris, and have never heard him speak, but he has written a wonderful, yet easy to read book! I highly recommend it, not just to pastors but to all Christians!

Great Days!

We had our baptism service for this month yesterday! There were six people baptized, but that isn't the point of this blog. Yesterday, there was a lady named Jenny who got baptized, while I had nothing to do with bringing her to church or even leading her to the Lord, she and her mother have been attending a new believer's class that I teach. Jenny is a grandmother herself, and has been an inspiration to me as I have gotten to know her over the last 4 weeks. One week after giving her heart to the Lord, she was out helping during the "Family Fun Fall Festival" that our church puts on for the community. When we went over what having a quiet time is in the New Believers class, she has begun reading her Bible in earnest and coming in with questions each week! Being around new believers is the best part of my job! Church people can at times, though I am sure not at your church, be a little tough to get along with. New believers remind us of the incredible change that God works in a person's life when they give themselves wholly and completely to Him! I am also thrilled that Jenny's daughter will be in the next New Believers class! Praise the Lord!!

Part Time Pastors

This blog is for all of you out there who are "Part Time" pastors. As we all soon learn, there is no such thing as "part time" when one is in any area of ministry. My "full time" job is as a Spanish instructor, however, I often find myself working on ministry stuff during office hours, or even getting a great idea in the middle of class that is for the "part time" job, not the full time one. I am sure if you are in this situation that you completely understand.
The thought that goes through my mind is that there is no such thing as a "Part Time" Christian, so why should any of us be "Part Time" pastors. In truth, we aren't! OK, so our salary from the congregation wouldn't keep a dog in dog food, so we work another job to be able to afford our ministry habit. You are a full time Christian even when you work in a "secular" job. Isn't that what we teach our congregation? So you are a full time pastor even when you work that secular job too! Paul made tents so he could preach the gospel. Have fun and enjoy the ministry God has given you! Remember that he counted it all JOY to be able to suffer for Christ. Chances are that if you are a pastor reading this in the United States, you aren't truly suffering. Police aren't hauling us out in the streets and beating us for being a Christian as they are in some countries. Have fun this Sunday with your congregation! As your church grows, you never know. You might end up "Full Time"!

New Days Ahead

At my church, we just hit that 600 mark. A little background, we are a four year old church plant in a rented theater building. Our space is far from optimal though the location is good in the downtown area of our big town/small city. While we have space in the main theater(sanctuary) for the adults in the two services, the kids side of the church is overflowing! It is a good problem to have!
Creative solutions is becoming the name of the game around here. We have a New Believer's class meeting in the pastor's office,there is another group meeting in the lobby, of course in the sanctuary, and then the upstairs, downstairs and classroom space is being used on the "children's" side on Sunday nights! God is Awesome! We are praying for God's guidance,(and funding), for a new location or some other creative way to handle the growth. It is incredible to see people coming to the Lord and seeing people's lives changed.
This is more of a testimony than a great blog to help your church, but hopefully it will encourage you if you are a pastor out there who feels like your church is handicapped by your facilities. God can do amazing things with very little! Think a few loaves of bread and some fish!

Day After Elections

Today, half of you are upset, the other half are thrilled. Such is life the day after elections. Now that things are over, I as a teacher can talk about my voting. I am most closely aligned with the Libertarian party however in the primaries, I voted for Mike Huckabee because I thought he was the best choice of candidate to represent me. As we now know, he not only lost in my state of South Carolina, but he did not get the Republican nomination for presidential candidate. Then I had a choice to make again. When I realized that Bob Barr was the Libertarian Candidate, I knew I could not vote for him and began looking more seriously at John McCain and Barack Obama. To be honest, neither of then thrilled me. When John McCain took Sarah Palin as his running mate, that sealed the deal for me and I ended up voting for the McCain/Palin ticket. Guess what? I lost! So now, I, and all those who voted for someone other than Barack Obama have a serious choice to make. When Barack Obama is sworn in as our new President, we can either gripe about him for 4 years or we can decide that he is now our President and learn to be proud of the things he will do right and deal with the things he will do that we don't agree with. Most of all, as Christians, we will pray for him.
The last 16 years of my life, I have heard Republicans and Libertarians bust on/attack/slander/impeach/and tear down Bill Clinton and then when George Bush was elected I heard Democrats bust on/attack/slander/ cry for impeachment/and tear down the current president. We have a choice to make now. Continue fighting or work together.
Have an awesome day!

Intentional Relationships

Note: I cannot take credit for coming up with all of this on my own. Much of it comes from Catalyst 2008 notes and from reading what others have already written. It is a lesson I put together for the Home Group leaders at my church, but thought those who read this blog might also be interested in the material.

George Gallup said: “Americans are among the loneliest people in the world.”
We have busy, overcommitted lives and schedules. We live and work around lots of people, but somehow most Americans miss out on MEANINGFUL RELATIONSHIPS.

God didn’t intend for us to be alone. In the Garden of Eden, God made Eve for Adam because he was lonely. Each of us is wired differently as to our need to be around other people, but all of us as humans need some form of meaningful connection with others.


John 17:11 I will remain in the world no longer, but they are still in the world, and I am coming to you. Holy Father, protect them by the power of your name—the name you gave me—so that they may be one as we are one.

Jesus is praying here his last prayer before being arrested. He has come to the end of His ministry as a human here on earth and like many he is focused in on what is most important as he faces the end of His human life. Note that he prays, “So that they may be one as we are one.” He is talking about his disciples! The guys he has been hanging out with for the previous three years. He is talking about the guys who couldn’t stay up praying with him. He is talking about the guys who never seemed to get it. Yet his prayer for them is that they will be one. He wants our relationship with each other to be close like the relationship Jesus shares with God and the Holy Spirit! That is pretty close!

John Ortberg said: “In community – the divine community especially—a heart comes alive.” Jesus was praying that his disciples would experience this kind of life giving divine community that makes our hearts come alive. This kind of community can only come from God himself!

You might be thinking, ((Yeah, of course Jesus prayed for his disciples. They lived with him for three years.)) But notice that he wasn’t just praying for them. Look down to verses 20-21 “My prayer is not for them alone. I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message, that all of them may be one, Father just as you are in me and I am in you.”

We are those people he was praying for! We are believing in Jesus because one of the disciples told someone about Him, and then that person told someone else….
I want to share a bit of questionable history, but it makes a point. How many of you have heard of Edward Kimball? What about Billy Graham?
• Sunday School teacher Edward Kimball helped lead Dwight L. Moody to Christ;
• J. Wilbur Chapman was converted at a Dwight L. Moody evangelistic meeting;
• Billy Sunday was converted at a Chapman meeting;
• Mordecai Ham was converted at Billy Sunday meeting;
• and Billy Graham was converted at a Ham meeting.

Why in a lesson on Intentional Relationships am I talking about the history of people who got saved? Each of these people was a link in a chain in the world of ministry. Each of us, through our Home TEAMs and other relationships has a chance to affect people’s lives. We may or may not see the end results of the affect our relationships have on those people. Edward Kimball was long dead before the first Billy Graham crusade was held.
When Jesus continues in verse 21 “May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me.” Our relationships with God and with each other show a watching world about Jesus’ ministry. “He is saying that the credibility of His life and message in the eyes of unbelievers is dependent on the way we as His followers relate to one another.” (Andy Stanley) Loving one another is Jesus’ command to us. He also says in John 13:35 “By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.”
We have an awesome opportunity through our Home TEAMs to share that love and relationship with the people in our groups. We also as a group of leaders have the opportunity to share meaningful relationships with each other. However, it is a weighty issue! Do you see how high the stakes are? Do you see why we can not settle for anything less than Jesus’ dream for community? The integrity and credibility of His Gospel is at stake!
Our job as Home TEAM leaders is to create communities that are “so satisfying, so unique, and so compelling that they create a thirst in a watching world!”(Andy Stanley)
Get into groups of 4-6 people.
Questions for small groups:
1. What roles have meaningful relationships played in your faith journey?
2. Identify a time when you felt isolated from others. What kept you in isolation?
3. What distracts you from connecting well now?
4. How can you begin to create opportunities in your current context for people to connect meaningfully?

A Day in Spanish Class

If you have followed my blog, you know that I teach Spanish at North Greenville University. Today, as I took attendance, my question of the day, translated back into English for the reading audience,was "What has God been doing in your church?" I was amazed to hear all the testimonies from the students! God has been busy, and so have God's people! Sometimes it is easy to get focused on our own ministry, our own church, our own community. It was refreshing to hear what God was doing in all sizes of churches and communities represented by the 100+ students that answered the question. HE is helping poor hispanics, people hit by hurricanes, planting new churches, growing youth groups, growing college groups, healing hurts, helping the homeless, starting house churches, adding home groups,sending out mission teams, adding prayer teams, bringing in new pastors, reaching out to communities and much much more! I must say that today's question of the day was quite a blessing to me, and I think to the other students in the classes as well! It was a great reminder that we serve an AWESOME GOD!!!

True Revival!

I just want to share a quick story today about an event that God inspired. A young man in the next town over from mine was waiting at a house for a drug deal to commence. While waiting, the Holy Spirit convicted him so strongly that he told his friend he didn't want to do it, and he went home. On the way home, he began to weep and ask God to forgive him. When he arrived at home, he confessed to his father what he had been doing recently. Now he is involved in a thriving youth group and growing in the Lord. Notice the obvious here. No one was asking him where he would go if he died tonight. No one was leading him down the Romans road. While those things are great! It was God who decided that this lost sheep needed to come home! True revival is breaking out among the young people of today. I just pray us "older and wiser" folk don't miss it!

Responsibility

Erwin McManus, once quoted an unnamed source, "Is it possible that Christianity has rejected this gospel because it demands too much of us?" Jesus changed the world with his life. He didn't call us to be comfortable or even successful by the world's standards. He called each of us who know Him to share that testimony of His grace with others. That quote is stuck in my head. Are we causing sinners to reject the gospel because we make it look to easy? There isn't a club in America that doesn't ask its members to do something, yet we so often try to get people to come to church and believe in our God with an promise that Salvation is free. We know that true faith in Jesus Christ costs us everything! He freely gives us salvation, but are we doing our job sharing with new believers the cost of the decision they have made? And do we really think that unsaved or un-churched people don't have a clue that if they commit to this Jesus following stuff that they are going to have to do more than pray once and it is all over? Please do not misinterpret what I am saying, I know that we are saved by the grace of Jesus Christ, and not by anything we do. I am however saying that once we are saved by grace, that there are things that we are called to do. Are we adequately sharing that with the people that we share the gospel with? I would love to hear comments on this one!

Catalyst Conference

Got back from the Catalyst Conference in Atlanta yesterday, but this is the first chance I have had to sit down and write. It was an awesome time! If you are a pastor or business leader who would like to get new ideas on how to be a better leader from a Godly perspective, then I encourage you to register for next year's conference! There were great speakers like Craig Groeschel and Andy Stanley but even better was that I was surrounded by 12,500 church and business leaders in the seats. I enjoyed the breaks getting to talk to people about their own ministries and what God was doing in their church or business. At one point while talking with two men, one from a church of thousands and another getting ready to plant a church, just as the break was about over, we had an incredible time of prayer together praying for the guy who was planting a church. We were from different states, but we were all in one accord in our prayer. God is doing amazing things in our world! It was neat to hear many of the stories of what he is doing!

Date Night

Ok, so this blog really isn't about church life. I went on a date with my wife tonight. We went on the kind of date we hardly ever go on - Dinner and a movie. After a wonderful meal at Olive Garden we went to see the opening night of Fireproof. It was an incredible movie and very well done. I usually don't go to the theater to see a movie, frankly because it is expensive. Tonight however, My wife and I wanted to support the production company that is making great movies with a strong salvation and life application message like this one...So we went. If you have not heard of the movie, or haven't yet decided if it is worth going to, I want to encourage you to go. If your marriage is in trouble or strong as a rock, it will be a good date flick. Enjoy!

New Ideas in Church Growth

I was talking with a friend today about church growth American style versus other ideas for church growth. We began the conversation discussing church planting models, and finally came to an idea that crossed the two ideas. What if churches, when they hit the point that they can afford to hire a second pastor would plant a new church. Then as the two churches grow, the pastors could continue to work with both congregations, but without the need to be tied to one large building in one geographic location. As the third, fourth, fifth etc. churches were planted, the geographic area impacted by the church as a whole would be larger. Once in a while, a large facility could be rented or borrowed that would be of sufficient size to hold the mother/sister churches in one location for a joint service that would be much like the "mega-church" experience, but without the constant overhead of maintaining the multi-million dollar structures that the larger church would need for a single location. (Note: I am not bashing large churches here; I am just throwing out an alternative hypothesis for church growth/church planting.)If there are any pastors of large churches/mega-churches that actually read my blog, I would be curious if you think there is any merit to this idea? Is there ever a feeling of being trapped by the need to maintain the structure of the church that inhibits the ability to do what you set out to do when the church was planted? Which was most likely that you wanted to reach people for Jesus Christ.

Thoughts on the last weeks.

Sometimes we humans sin just from our own stupidity and human nature, and sometimes Satan is gunning for us. I just want to mention an interesting "coincidence" from the last few weeks. A while back my pastor asked me to start a pornography addiction recovery group at our church. At first, I thought, how in the world do you get guys to come to a group like that? But then, after praying about it and talking to my wife about it, I agreed. Two weeks ago, we had our first meeting of "Monday Night Porn Talk". Here is the interesting part. Almost immediately, the level of e-mails inviting me to visit singles and/or porn sites arriving in my inbox went up drastically, and those are just the ones that got through the filter! So, why am I sharing this? On one hand, keeping a low profile is easier, but when we begin to challenge a stronghold of Satan not only outside the church, but one he has IN the church, I do believe he gets upset and fights back. The great thing is that our God is much more powerful than Satan can ever hope to be! We already have victory over him through Jesus Christ. So if you feel like Satan is keeping you from doing something that God has asked you to do, I am encouraging you to do it! And while Satan will retaliate when provoked, our Lord God is not challenged at all by the forces of darkness. Thanks for reading. Sorry I haven't posted in a week or so.

A day in the life...

Today was my first day back to work at North Greenville University after a nice summer vacation. It was great to see everyone, and it is great to have a job that I absolutely love! God is AWESOME! He not only provides for all of our needs, but sometimes, He gives us abundantly more than we could ever ask for or imagine! Some of you are thinking that I mean monetarily. I assure you that while I haven’t starved, people who teach in private Baptist colleges aren’t rich. What I mean is that this summer, I had the time to be able to work at my church as a volunteer much more than anyone who is working a full time job would be able to do. God has allowed me to be a part of the birthing of two new ministries and be a part of two others! That is the blessing I am referring to. Being able to work closely with some great staff members and share in the vision of what is happening was something I wish every Christian could experience. Being able to rejoice when people gave their hearts to the Lord, and be sad when people got mad and left the church was something that can’t be experienced when one only comes on Sunday morning. I thank God for giving me the time to be a part of all of that.
Now, in the interest of full disclosure, I haven’t figured out what to do with the title of this blog. Next Monday, I start my first day on staff at my church as a part time connections pastor…which means, I am not a “lay person” anymore. So, this blog may change names and formats slightly. Even though it has only been up a couple months, I hoped it inspired someone out there.

Freshmen Christians

For those who don’t know, I work at North Greenville University as a Spanish Instructor. During the summer, there aren’t many college students running around the campus. This weekend, the droves of students were moving back into the dorms. Many of them had parents in tow. The campus once again was alive with excitement and anticipation of a new semester. It reminds me a lot of the church. Some churches are like the summer campus. The same old professors and administration are sitting around planning for the upcoming year, but it isn’t until the life of new, young, and vibrant students come on the scene that things get exciting. In the church world, if there hasn’t been any new, young and vibrant life in your church, look around. Are there any new baby Christians? Young Christians, just like freshmen are full of energy. They sometimes do stupid things or at least things that are unexpected from a “mature” Christian’s point of view. The life they bring to the scene is incredible! Even God and the angels party in heaven every time a new Christian is born into the kingdom! Look for ways to bring about new growth in the church. It will keep things exciting!

Missions

Churches have different views of what “Missions” means. In its most simple form, it is anything that reaches out to others with a purpose. In Christianity, we reach out to others with the purpose of showing them God’s love and asking them to join us in our journey through life accepting Jesus as their Savior. When Jesus told us to “Go unto all the world” he mentioned Judea, Samaria and the ends or the uttermost parts of the earth. Many preachers have paraphrased that to mean your local community, your state/country, and foreign missions too. I believe that there is order to that. If all our church is doing is sending some money to a missionary in a far off land while never showing God’s love to the grumpy guy who lives right next to the church building, then we have missed the call. Likewise, if we are reaching out to our local community, but never reach beyond it, we have also missed out on what God intended. If your church has never taken part in foreign missions, then I encourage you to do so. I don’t just mean that you send a few dollars to a missionary. Contact a missionary and find out how you can help them on the field. When you take a group of people from your own church and reach out in another area of the world, it will not only help the missionary and the people where you go serve, but it will be a life changing event in the lives of the people on your team! Another side affect is that when people are concerned about those who live in another land, they will begin to see the needs in their own community as well. If your church rarely goes outside the walls of the building you meet in, give missions of any kind a try! I am sure that you will find the effort very worth the return on investment when you see how the people in your own congregation are changed.

Sin Or Normal?

Is it ok to have a Bible study at the home of a dating couple who are living together? What if they are both male? Or have a porn collection in the living room? Before I go on, it is only fair to let you know that the couple doesn’t yet know Jesus as their savior. This hypothetical couple is not “living in sin” as we church folk might be quick to say, they are still completely lost souls heading to hell. The fact that they are engaged in activities that are counter to what the Bible tells us is appropriate, is normal. Yes, normal. Sinners tend to sin and some do it very well! God calls us to go unto all the world and preach the gospel. He calls us to be fishers of men. The good news is that He doesn’t command us to actually catch the fish/men, nor does He expect us to clean them. Back to my starting point. The unsaved couple who exhibit signs of sin need Jesus and many won’t darken the doorstep of a church. WE must go unto THEM and share Jesus. Have fun fishing! Oh, and while I am on the topic, there are many kinds of bait out there. (Stealing an idea from Dean) It doesn’t matter what kind of bait you use, (within reason), what matters is that Jesus Christ is changing lives through us as individuals and through our church. Rockin churches will catch one kind of fish, while traditional churches will catch another kind, Cowboy churches another, and Biker Churches yet another…Each are fishing.

Monday Night Porn Talk

At my church, we are starting a new ministry called “Monday Night Porn Talk”. My personal opinion on the subject is that it is killing marriages and families. I had originally thought the room would be filled with married guys who are scared of losing their wives to divorce if they don’t get a grip on the habit. I am realizing that I was quite naïve! We haven’t even started yet, but just having let the church know that the ministry will be starting in a couple weeks has had men from teenager to senior citizen asking if they can attend, or letting me know they will be there! If you want to get something going in your church, or if you already have a pornography addiction recovery group, I would love to hear from you. The following information comes mostly from www.safefamilies.org
Here are some groups that are online to help with pornography addiction recovery.
Pure Intimacy - www.pureintimacy.org
Focus on the Family’s section on sexuality, including sections for ministry leaders, couples, and parents. The website has many articles and resources for addressing the issue of pornography.
Blazing Grace - blazinggrace.org
Biblically-based website and ministry addressing the epidemic of pornography use, providing help for those who struggle and support for those affected by pornography users.
XXXCHURCH.COM - www.xxxchurch.com
Billed as the number one Christian porn site, this ministry tackles the issue of pornography head on with irreverent and in-your-face presentations. xxxchurch offers, among other resources, Porn Sunday, a holistically constructed event-based program to help your church confront the issue head-on.
Porn-Free.org – www.porn-free.org
With many articles, resources, and online studies, porn-free.org is a content-packed site designed to help people discover the truth about pornography and sexual addictions.
Beating the Bunny - www.beatingthebunny.com
This website has numerous resources for parents and pastors in helping young people acknowledge and overcome struggles with pornography.
Morality in Media - www.moralityinmedia.org
A national, not-for-profit, interfaith organization established in 1962 to combat obscenity and uphold decency standards in the media. This site features articles and information about how to fight obscenity in the media and the detrimental effects of pornography on society.
Overcoming Temptation (Webcast) - safefamilies.techmission.org/webcasts/temptation
Learn about the structures to set in place, the groundwork to be laid, and the direction to take for your recovery work. Learn to embrace ongoing habits for a new lifestyle and what to do when temptation is strong and things are very stressful.

A guy commented on my other post on pornography asking if I am familiar with accountability software. Just to give a quick response to that, if you want to check these out, I am not endorsing or condemning the following programs, just letting you know they exist.


X3watch
www.x3watch.com
• Free
• Ministry of xxxchurch (www.xxxchurch.com)
• Regularly sends list of questionable web visits to
selected recipients
• Best free monitoring software
• X3watchPro version available for $14.95; includes tech support

Covenant Eyes
www.covenanteyes.com
• $74.99/year or less
• Pricing for households/ministry staff/business
• Regularly sends list of ALL web visits to selected recipients, with objectionable sites highlighted
• Most widely used monitoring software

ComputerCOP
www.computercop.com/homeprods.html
• $19.95 for download
• Scans computer files and Internet history for potentially
offensive material
• Deluxe version ($39.95 + S&H): includes keystroke
monitoring, scans chats and emails, expanded
dictionary of key words
Parents CyberAlert
www.itcompany.com/cyberalert.htm
• $39.95 for download
• Free trial
• Records email, IM, websites, keystrokes, file access,
screen snapshots
• Website, email, chat, IM blocking
• Games & applications alerts & blocking

Guardian Monitor
www.guardiansoftware.com
• $39.95
• Monitors websites, email, chat, IM, p2p applications
• Records keystrokes & downloads
• Website blocking

Chat Checker
www.chatchecker.com
• Free
• Records instant message (IM) conversations
• Login online to review IM conversations from within the
last 24 hours
• Receive daily usage summary via email
• Receive alerts to dangerous conversations or watch-
words via email

A cool link!

The following blog made me think of a prayer time my pastor and I had recently.
Steven Furtick's Blog really hit me. Are we dreaming God sized dreams?

Lone Ranger or A-Team?

This post is more for pastors, but Lay leaders still might want to read it. Pastor, are you a Lone Ranger or part of an A-Team is the question we are looking at. If you aren’t in the right age bracket for those references to make sense, The Lone Ranger fought crime by himself (though he did have a sidekick) and the A-Team was a group of guys who fought as a team, each one adding his level of expertise. I am not talking about how many people you have on staff. Some of you have a small church, and you are the staff. What I am talking about is running your church and sermon preparation. Are you trying to do it all by yourself? I want to suggest, if you aren’t already doing it that you try having a creativity team/big picture team/ideas team or whatever you want to call it. That doesn’t mean that God isn’t still your source of inspiration for your sermons. But it does mean that once you have the direction for your sermon that there will be people to help you in the planning. If you use video clips, they can help you get or create good ones to go with your sermon. They can help you pick out music for the song service that ties into the sermon topic. If you decorate your platform for a sermon or series, they can help you come up with ways to do it, and help carry out that decoration. These people don’t have to be paid staff, just find creative people in your church that love the Lord and would be willing to meet with you at some time during the week. As people see how things come together in your church they will be more supportive of you as a pastor as well. This works in a church of 20 or a church of 20,000. Granted in the church of 20, if your creativity team is very large, there won’t be very many people who haven’t already hashed out your sermon with you before Sunday morning comes, but so what? They are involved, and they will remember the sermon better than if they just came Sunday morning and listened to it. Hebrews 10:25 says, “Let us not give up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but let us encourage one another—and all the more as you see the Day approaching.” This doesn’t have to only apply to the Sunday morning worship service.
If you disagree with me on this, please comment! If you are using a creativity team in your church, please comment too! And if you aren’t, but want to start one, try it out, then come back and comment later once you have! I would love to hear feedback on this one….I don’t want to be a Lone Ranger blogger!

Short thought on Christian-ness

Ambrose Bierce in The Devil’s Dictionary wrote, “Christian, n. One who follows the teachings of Christ in so far as they are not inconsistent with a life of sin.” When he wrote that back in 1911 I am not sure of his intentions. Now however, it seems to be an accurate description of many who claim the title “Christian”. When people in our churches reflect the word Christian in its meaning of “one who is like Christ” rather than Bierce’s definition then our churches will be what God intended them to be.

Promise Keepers Atlanta

(The following is an article I wrote for the Pickens County Courier and thus not my normal fare for this blog, but I wanted to post it anyway.)

On the first of August, 21 men from Pickens County took off to Atlanta to experience a Promise Keepers weekend. The high energy at Eddie Long’s New Birth Missionary Baptist Church was much like a Clemson/Carolina football game! From the opening National Anthem through the final prayers, men were excited to be there. They confronted a great mix of serious life changing issues like pornography addiction and deciding what the measure of a real man is. There was also comedy in the form of George Bush impersonator John Morgan and Comedian Cletho Rodriguez. Speakers, Former NFL player Don Davis, Mike Silva, Josh McDowell, Dr. Richard Blackaby, Bishop Larry Jackson, Coach Bill McCartney and Dan Seaborn brought home challenging messages about how to be real men of integrity and purpose to the six to seven thousand in attendance. The altar call was reminiscent of a Billy Graham crusade in that hundreds of men went forward to ask Jesus Christ to change their lives, but not to the tune of “Just as I Am” but to U2’s “I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For”. There at Promise Keepers Atlanta, many men did find exactly what they were looking for! Like the last verse of the song says:
You broke the bonds
And you loosened the chains
Carried the cross
Of all my shame
All my shame
You know I believe it

Jesus Christ was breaking the bonds of men’s addictions and helping them deal with shameful issues throughout the weekend. Men had a great time just bonding with other men as well. Garry Renner of 5 Point Fellowship in Easley said, “I have decided that this will be an annual event for me!” For more information on Promise Keepers or to watch parts of the Atlanta event, check out their website: http://www.promisekeepers.org/

When you don't know what to do next!

When one is in leadership of a church, especially the senior pastor, I am sure you come to points where you think about the future of your church and don’t know what God’s plan is exactly. You seek His leadership, but He hasn’t spoken for whatever reason, or you haven’t heard Him speak. There is a verse that I love- 2 Chronicles 20:12 – “O our God, will you not judge them? For we have no power to face this vast army that is attacking us. We do not know what to do, but our eyes are upon you.” We can feel like the whole world is against us and not have a clue how God is going to work in the situation, but we can learn from the children of Israel here that when we don’t know what to do, we keep our eyes on God. I like to combine that philosophy with something Mark Twain said, “It isn’t the parts of the bible that I don’t understand that scare me, it is the parts I do understand.” As long as we are walking in what we know to be God’s will and we keep our eyes on Him, He will reveal to us in time what His next step is for us in the ministry. Be encouraged! We serve an awesome God!

Pornography Addiction Recovery

Tough subject today. But if you doubt it is a needed one, just check out a couple statistics. A 1996 Promise Keepers survey at one of their stadium events revealed that over 50% of the men in attendance were involved with pornography within one week of attending the event. Maybe you are a pastor saying to yourself, yeah, but those guys were just the non-Christian friends who were invited to promise keepers. Over half of evangelical pastors admit viewing pornography last year. There are countless statistics that I could add to this page. If you want more for your own research, click

here

. Our God is an awesome God and he can help anyone recover from sin of any kind. I am sure there are testimonies of men or women who laid there sin on the altar and God took away all desire to look at pornography from them. I will also let you know, that is not the normal way it seems to go. Satan is a liar, and as long as he can keep the addict thinking that his or her sin is secret, then he has power over them. Just like any other addictive sin, the first step is admitting you have a problem. The second and more important step is admitting it to another human being who can hold you accountable! When that second step takes place, Satan no longer has the same hold on the person’s life! Does that mean that after that, recovery is easy? NO! But it does mean that the person is no longer alone in their struggle. Pastor’s and Lay leaders, if you are reading this and are thinking, Man, he is describing me, but if I tell anyone, I will lose my job or my position in the church! Find someone to hold you accountable! It is a tough step. If there is no one in your community you can talk to,email me and we can set up a time to talk on the phone. It isn’t perfect (unless you live in Pickens County South Carolina), but it is a step. I will probably blog more on this issue in the future. If it makes you uncomfortable, I am sorry, but it is something that is destroying families, marriages and churches across America! Remember, just because you are sinning doesn’t mean you “lost your salvation” it just means you need to ask forgiveness and then “go and sin no more.”

The Body

Yesterday, I was leaving lunch and talking with a friend. Since the conversation was going so well, I failed to notice a step down off the curb to the parking lot. The resulting twisted ankle has made me quite aware of the normal functions of the ankle that it is currently in rebellion against performing. I admit that on a normal day I take the ankle for granted; it is just that part of the body below the leg and not quite the foot. Today, however I am much more aware of it. All that to say that as pastors and leaders, we must constantly be on the lookout to encourage those parts of the body of Christ that may not be in the glory locations. People recognize the music minister, the soloist, even the piano player, but who spends time praising the person who cleans the toilets, or sets up chairs for various functions of the church. Some churches do a great job at this, but if you notice that your church has a hard time getting volunteers, it may be that people feel that certain jobs just aren’t important enough to be worth doing. Leaders set the tone to let people know that every job is important! And Lay people who read this, it is OK to encourage your senior pastor too! His job at the top can often feel thankless and lonely. To all of you who are working diligently for the Kingdom! Great Job! Keep up the good work!

Building on the Rock

Luke 6:48 tells us that the man who puts Gods words into practice “is like a man building a house, who dug down deep and laid the foundation on rock. When a flood came, the torrent struck that house but could not shake it, because it was well built.” Later, Jesus told Peter in Mathew 16: 18-19, “And I tell you that you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not overcome it. I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven; whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.” God has a plan for your church! The context of this blog is that you as a pastor or leader have a choice to make to be in God’s will, and follow HIS plan or you can try to do it according to your own plan. When we plant a church firmly on the ROCK of Jesus Christ, then that church, as long as it follows Gods plan will be the church HE wants it to be. We as church leadership are like the stones planted firmly on a solid rock foundation. It won’t slip or settle. Following God’s plan is solid though not always predictable. Sometimes following HIS plan will mean that the church is growing like crazy, and sometimes not. God’s plan. Sometimes HIS plan is exactly what we think it should be, and sometimes not. God’s plan. Keep on the Rock, and it will keep us out of the quicksand of our own path. I like the words of Steven Furdick on this topic: “It’s better to be a rock that He can build on than a stumbling block that He has to remove.”

Prayer Teams

Prayer support is very important for a pastor. Today’s blog is a little more anecdotal than usual, but something that I did recently as a lay person in my church was go to our pastor and shared with him that I felt it is important to have a group of people praying for him while he is preaching. His response was positive and ended with “Burl, you have a passion for it, so why don’t you get it started?” So after asking a few men in the church if they would either stay late or come early and pray during the service they don’t attend. (Our church has two services) Some of them responded that they had been thinking the same thing, but just hadn’t voiced it. Soon a group of guys are getting together and praying for the service and our pastor while the service is going on in another part of the building. And while hard to prove a direct relationship scientifically, the number of people attending, and more importantly, the number of people asking Jesus into their hearts each week is increasing! God can do anything, and HE doesn’t need us, but HE asks us to pray to HIM. HE can do abundantly and exceedingly more than we can ask or imagine! If you are one of the lay people who read this blog; pray for your pastor! And if you are a pastor and don’t have group of people praying for you, I encourage you to ask some people in your congregation that you respect as people who love the Lord to begin praying for you. You may not have the luxury of having a “Prayer Warrior” in your congregation. But just like young men going off to basic training, they can start praying, and God can turn them into prayer warriors!

Overcoming Fear

Jesus walked on the water, fed thousands with only a few loaves and fish, healed the blind, lame, sick and demon possessed. Why are we in the church so often full of fear? Some of the fears we face are BIG…at least in our small human eyes. Others are not so big. In John 6:20, Jesus said, “It is I; do not be afraid.” He walks beside us through all things if we keep our faith on HIM. What do pastors and churches fear? I can’t begin to say that I understand every pastor’s fear, but here are a few I can think of. Changing worship styles. Reaching out to a new demographic. Try a new ministry. Give away a larger portion of our church budget. All these and more could give a pastor and church leadership a little cause for trepidation, but remember. God is with you always! Do not live in fear!

Tithing

In a blog for pastors, why write about tithing? Every pastor knows the importance of the personal tithe. What about the church? We are quick to exhort people to tithe by sharing with them how God blesses those who give. Do we believe that God will bless a church that tithes as well?
Over and over I have seen churches that practice giving to ministries, missions, and denominations beyond their walls blessed by God in miraculous ways! I have also seen churches who claim not to have a big enough budget to be able to help support other ministries struggle year after year just to meet the bills and keep the doors of the church open. “God loves a cheerful giver” goes beyond the individual level. If your church is not supporting missions or any ministry beyond itself and you feel like it is in a constant struggle to meet the bills, I encourage you to put this idea to a test. Trust God, give generously, and see how our Awesome Omnipotent God will pour out His blessings on your ministry.

My own thoughts...

Today’s blog is a little different. I want to share with you what doing this blog has meant for me in my own life. One thing has been that it makes me think throughout the day of things that might be helpful for pastors and lay leaders in a church. As I concentrate on that stuff, often things pop into my head that I need to pray about in the church where I am a member. A new ministry is birthing in our church in response to one post! The other thing that is more personal has been my own level of witnessing has changed. Since I am writing about things like prayer, evangelism etc. it would be hypocritical of me just to sit back and write about it without actually taking part in the things I write about. I think I have shared the gospel with and/or invited to church more people in the last weeks since beginning writing than I have in the 6 months prior to beginning this project.
Now you are thinking, why is this guy sharing this personal stuff on a blog for church leaders? The point that I hope is made is that when we involve people in leadership or in an area of ministry, even if we don’t see every quality we are looking for in that person, God can do amazing things in their lives as they step up to that next level in their own personal areas of ministry. The old church saying is true, “God doesn’t call the qualified; He qualifies the called.”

After the First Three Years...

A well known church planting fact is that the fastest growth happens in the first three years. Why is it that after that quick growth period, many churches fall into a lull and sadly, begin to decline after only those initial years of growth? When the church is young, there is almost always a heavy emphasis on evangelism. The church plant pastor and sometimes a small band of followers must get out and network and create excitement for the new church plant. This leads to many new Christians. George Barna shares in Marketing the Church that one out of four adults in the United States will go to church if someone invites them. When the church is young and full of passion, people invite everyone they meet. Somehow, that urgency seems to fade after a few years. The pastor who notices that trend setting in at his church has a decision to make. He could just let it happen as it is the natural tendency, or he can do something to be outside the norm. Here are some suggestions, should he choose the second route.
Taking another quote from Barna, in Evangelism That Works he wrote, “A church that strives to evangelize its community without saturating its efforts in prayer is like a race-car driver that jumps into his car at the starting line and discovers that the tank has not been filled with gasoline.” Not only should the pastor be in prayer for the souls of his community, but if he is to be successful, he will enlist those from his church that he can to pray earnestly with him as well. With the ease of blogs and e-mails, a weekly prayer list sent out to a prayer team is not a difficult task.
Once the prayer support is in place, modeling sharing the gospel with the lost is important. The easiest way is just to share one’s own testimony. What was I like before Christ? How did I meet Him? How has my life changed since? There are many approaches to evangelism, and many of them work. I think we can agree that there is no perfect system, but any of them is better than never opening one’s mouth to share Jesus with someone who is lost and going to hell! Perry Noble said that “50,000 people die every single day without knowing Jesus Christ.” Statistics like that should be motivating!
My last suggestion is to reconnect with the community. After a few years, the average Christian no longer has unsaved friends or has very few of them. We need to constantly cultivate new friendships outside our Christian community. Run for school board or city council, even if you don’t win, you get a chance to talk to a lot of people in the campaign process. The church could plan events that reach out to the community that aren’t churchy. While doing those things, the fact that the whole process was bathed in prayer from the beginning will help those involved keep the focus on evangelism.

Going Somewhere?

As a child, most likely you read the book Alice in Wonderland. At one point in the story, Alice comes to a fork in the road and there is the famous grinning Cheshire Cat. She asks him, “Which road should I take?” to which he responds, “Where are you going?” She answers him, “I don’t know.” And so the cat says, “Then it doesn’t matter which road you take.” The lesson for pastors or lay people here is that if we don’t have a plan for where our church is going, then we will most likely end up taking a lot of roads to nowhere. Casting the vision for the church must come from the leadership, but if the pastor and leaders in the church are unsure of God’s purpose and vision for their congregation, then the baby Christian in the pew has no chance of catching that vision and direction. Today’s blog is simple.
1. If you don’t already have a concrete vision for your church, get on your knees in prayer until you do.
2. Share that vision often with your church. As a Spanish teacher, I know that repetition is very important to get the average student to learn something. The same goes for teaching in the church.
3. Make sure the staff and leaders in your church know and share that vision and can share it with the people they are working with.

America's Next Top Pastor

This is just for humor. America's Next Top Pastor is a humorous view of what it takes to be a great pastor.

Why a Pastor of Discipleship?

To grow beyond the small church size, one thing that must be achieved effectively is that the church must move beyond the level of a single cell organism toward multiplication of cells. If your biology class was long ago, the point is that when a baby is conceived the sperm and egg becomes one single cell. That cell does not just grow into a body; the cell grows and then multiplies into two cells, then four, then eight then sixteen etc.
In the church realm, the senior pastor is often looked to in order to provide leadership and participation in all areas of ministry. When the church has 50 people, the pastor very well may also be the janitor, chair setter upper, secretary, youth pastor, counselor, worship leader and many more things that could be listed but would take up a volume in and of itself.
The point of this note is that many churches, after hiring a youth pastor and music minister do not know where to go next. I would like to suggest that a Pastor of discipleship is an important early addition to the church staff.
What would he do? His job description would be to help church members grow in their commitment, competence, character and conviction as they seek to move toward spiritual maturity. Unless church members are capable of becoming leaders themselves, the senior pastor will be continually overworked and in need of more hands. The Pastor of Discipleship would allow the Senior Pastor to delegate much of the workload that is expected of him in regards to teaching Christians to become true disciples of Jesus Christ. When the core congregation can be described as people who disciple others, who have a kingdom vision – showing God’s heart for people outside the church, who see new believers as a great chance to watch God in action and help mentor them, who use their spiritual gifts effectively, who’s character is self sacrificing and Godly, and who see worth in every individual, then the church will continue to grow even when the Senior Pastor leaves or the church has grown beyond the size that he can be a direct influence on each congregation member. The Pastor of Discipleship could be responsible for small group studies and other Bible study groups sponsored by the church. He could be responsible for writing or obtaining discipleship curriculum for specific groups as the need arises. (Example: something written specifically for the single’s ministry.) He could also be a director of ministries within the church leading the lay ministers in caring for new believers, men’s/women’s ministries, prayer ministries, etc.

Laity Unleashed

This post is more for those lay leaders that are reading than for the Pastors out there, but I hope all of you enjoy it.

The Church is made up of many parts. Paul said in 1 Corinthians 12:12 “The body is a unit, though it is made up of many parts; and though all of its parts are many, they form one body. So it is with Christ.” (NIV) In the ministry of the church there seem to be many areas that are all too often left up to the senior pastor or to a few paid staff members. Some of them are the duty of the pastor, but many can be shared by the laity which is why I called this note “Laity Unleashed”. In case you are thinking that all a pastor has to do is get up and speak on Sunday mornings for a few minutes, here is a short list of duties that a pastor often is expected to do.

Pastoral Care
Preaching
Administration
Discipleship
Personal Evangelism
Building Campaigns
Outreach
Visitation
Goal Setting
Church Meetings
Budgeting
Future Planning
Staff Leadership

The list above only includes what are normally seen as “pastoral duties” and doesn’t even touch the many other areas of ministry of a church. If the body of Christ is to work as a functioning unit, the head cannot do all the work of the body. While most pastors would probably not want to give up the preaching part of their job, most would gladly set aside other areas if they felt that the laity of the church would pick up those areas and competently work to see them carried out with excellence! If you are sitting in the pew on Sunday morning just wishing someone would ask you to get involved, be a little proactive and ask where you can be of service wherever you worship.
Other areas of ministry include but are not limited to:

Prayer
Music
Children
Family
Singles
Youth
College
Support Groups
Small Groups/Home Groups
Men’s/Women’s Ministry
Bus
Parking
Greeting
New Member’s Class
Visitation
Nursery
Missions -local/statewide/ national/international
Fellowship
Special Events – Movie nights/Halloween etc.
One on one discipling
Audio/Visual

In no way is this to be viewed as a complete list, but one can quickly see that there are needs in any church for many people in the laity to be involved. I just want to encourage you to find a place in your church wherever God is leading you. As a Christian, we don’t have the option to just take up space. God made each of us differently, but He enabled each of us to be a part of the body of Christ. As we see from scripture, even the churches Paul planted weren’t perfect, but we as part of the body should strive toward perfection and not allow our pastors to throw their up their hands in desperation when they realize that they cannot do it all themselves. Have an awesome day!

The Incredible Shrinking Church

I just finished reading The Incredible Shrinking Church by Frank Page. I must give it credit! I believe that this book is to the pastor trying to revitalize a church that is in a slump what Purpose Driven Church by Rick Warren is to Church planters. Dr. Page, pastor of Taylors First Baptist Church and the current president of the Southern Baptist Convention, shares the knowledge he has gained in his career of turning around churches that were on decline. People would have described Taylors and other churches he has pastored in the past as “past their heyday” or just “getting smaller”. The insights in this book could be useful to any pastor who wants to see his church grow into an affective role in the community. It is a must read for any pastor who has become complacent in the ministry and needs to find a new vision for an older church that is in decline. I believe that God has a plan for every church! I also believe that that plan very rarely is for the church to fade off into oblivion.

A Cure for Discouragement

The following is directly from Pastor Steven Furtick's blog, but I thought it was a great post! He is a great speaker and a graduate of the school where I teach! I am proud of him and all that God is doing through him in Charlotte!
Now to what he said:

One of the best things I can do when I feel my attitude drifting toward discouragement is to switch from defense to offense. Instead of sitting around waiting for someone else to encourage me, I try to go on the attack and encourage someone else.

If I’m feeling down because our attendance isn’t where I want it to be, I might call a pastor who is struggling big time in this area, and try to speak increase over his life and ministry.

If I’m hurting because someone I trusted let me down, I may write a short letter of encouragement to someone who I let down in the past. It helps me keep my own imperfection in perspective when I’m upset by the imperfections of others.

If I’m feeling sorry for myself for a vague, unnamed reason, I like to leave encouraging comments on a few random blogs-especially guys’ whose ministries may not receive a lot of attention-and say a short prayer for those guys.

I’ll bet Satan hates this strategy, because in effect, it turns his heaviest artillery against him. And when I venture away from my dilemma for a few minutes to bless someone else, I often find that the discouragement has greatly subsided by the time I return.

Your Church's Reputation.

How do we become known as the church that is more interested in helping than being helped? The church that is more interested in loving than being loved? The church that is more interested in giving than getting? How do we become a church that gives itself away?
If we try to be all things to all people, in spite of Paul’s words, we are likely to become nothing to nobody stretched so thin that real accomplishments slip through our fingers. Most churches don’t have the manpower to staff effectively every ministry that can be thought of by human kind. Our communities each have hurting people with needs, but how do we choose which needs are most important? My suggestion is that boards, committees, and impact studies are not the answer. The key to being effective in an outreach area of ministry is to let people in the church who have a heart to fill certain need find others who are like minded. Once there is a core group of people who want to start a ministry, then it doesn’t fall on the shoulders of the pastoral staff to try to coerce people into volunteering for something that a committee decided would be a good idea. All the pastor/pastors need to do at that point is be supportive and if needed get the process going by which some funding from the church’s budget can be used to help finance the ministry. As lay leaders in the church are trained to take charge of areas of ministry it promotes spiritual growth in the leader, the group and reaches out to the community in a way that you as the pastor might never be able to. Letting people know that it isn’t about how many people will join your church because of this new ministry but how many lives will be affected for Jesus Christ is a great step in the right direction. Creating an environment in which people feel free to try something new, perhaps having great success and perhaps failing, is this layman’s view of a great pastor and pastoral staff.

Counting Sheep

Pastors and Lay ministers when they get together often ask, “So how many people does your church have?” or “What is your membership over at Fillinblank Church?” We have all heard of pastors who are accused of counting the mice and cockroaches to inflate their numbers. I want to propose a different standard by which we measure a church. It is much harder to quantify than backsides counted on a pew each Sunday morning, but here goes. Why don’t we try counting the number of lives that are being affected positively for Jesus Christ by our congregation? This might include people who never darken the doorstep of your church, and in some cases might not count people who attend every Sunday! When a church is consistently reaching beyond its walls to the community at large for Jesus, there may be thousands on this list even though the Sunday AM service only numbers 75 or 100. Just a quick anecdote to make my point: I once had a pastor who preached his last sermon about a week before he died in his early 90’s. His church wasn’t more than 50 people on Sunday mornings, but the people in the community who showed up at his funeral who considered him their pastor or whom he had led to the Lord personally numbered well over 500. When one considers that this was in a very rural area and the population of that end of the county was only a couple thousand, I would say that he was a very successful pastor! Was his church perfect? Of course not, but they reached out to the community around them just as their pastor did. They loved on this young man in a time of emotional and spiritual crisis helping me to hold onto my faith in our loving Lord and Savior Jesus Christ! Hopefully your church is affecting many outside the walls of your building for the Lord in a positive way. One thought I heard recently that you might think about on this topic is: (((If our church went under today, would anyone care other than the staff and those who attend?))) I pray that your church is making a difference and would be sorely missed by your community!

Big Church/Small Church

If your church has less than thirty people, you can skip this blog and come back later. Many people like a “small church” because they feel like they get to know people better. One of the complaints about mid-size and large churches is that people feel they get lost in the numbers and don’t really create relationships. So, the challenge is to create the “small church” inside the “large church”. That is where all the small groups come in. Churches who get people plugged in to what they are doing find that those people don’t leave. It is a way of closing that back door. Small groups can be many things though, not just Bible study groups. Again, I will give a few suggestions, but then let your brain spin a little and see if you can add some.
1. Traditional Small Groups/Home Groups/Cell Groups/Sunday School
2. Accountability Groups
3. Worship team or Choir
4. Drama Group
5. Motorcycle Club
6. Prayer team
7. Church Decorating team
8. Ministry teams – puppet, music, street evangelism…
9. Creativity team – Art, Setting up the Pulpit area for each series the pastor is doing.
10. Event Coordination team – Sets up 4th of July, Septemberfest, Christmas activities etc.
Hopefully this scratched the surface for you and got you thinking about ways to plug people into small groups in your church so that they can build the relationships that smaller churches take for granted.

Reading to stay fresh in your ministry...

Are you busy? Yeah, I know, dumb question. This isn’t so much about your reading the Bible as it is about reading to stay fresh. (If you aren’t reading God’s Word and you are a pastor or lay leader in your church you need some time off to spend with God in prayer and getting into HIS word. You can’t do it on your own.) A good friend once told me to read old and new books to challenge my faith. I think he was citing C.S. Lewis, but even if he wasn’t, it was good advice. You can read to stay up to date, but it is also important to read to stay grounded in your faith. If we only talk to people in our church and community, it is easy to get stale in our teaching. If we read great books, we can see how great minds think. Isaac Newton said something once about doing great things because he stood on the shoulders of great men. In this century, we have the luxury of having millions of books in print. We can thus stand on the shoulders of both those who are currently doing great things in God’s kingdom and also those great saints who have gone before us. Scheduling time for reading is tough, but it can be done. My wife teases me because I prefer reading to TV, but seriously, many of us spend a lot of time watching very un-educational television. If you prefer the internet reading, which may be true if you are reading this, then check out the Christian Classics library. http://www.ccel.org/ I also have a link to it on the sidebar. There are many great Christian classics on this site. Most of all have fun. Don’t read it if it totally bores you. You may not be ready for it, or it is below you etc. As anyone who has read more than a few books knows, sometimes you can think a book is awful, and then a few years later, when you try it again, it is one of the best books you every read! What happened? You changed, the book didn’t. So that to say, if you don’t like it, try it again later.
Sorry if this was more rambling than usual, but hopefully you take from this that reading is a great way to help you stay fresh in your area of ministry!

Memorize the Playbook?

I heard an interesting thought this evening that I thought would be worth sharing with the type of people who might read my blog. The thought was, “If churches were like football teams, then most pastors would get fired after the first season.” Most churches and church leaders included have the idea that we memorize the playbook (Bible). We teach the playbook. We even practice the plays in the playbook. But what would happen to a team that knew every play in the book but couldn’t execute the plays for a win during the game? The team owners wouldn’t care if the coach said, “I know we lost 55-0 but my players know every play in the playbook.” Pastor’s and leaders in the church are much like a coach. Once the people leave the confines of the locker room (church lobby) and head out onto the field (real life) that is when we find out how good a job the coaching staff is doing. Philippians 4:9 tells us to “Put into practice what you have learned and received and heard and seen in me, and the God of peace will be with you.” Hopefully we can inspire and motivate those who are learning, receiving, hearing and seeing from and in us to put what we have modeled for them into practice so that the game of life can be won! If you didn’t like this blog, blame me. If you really liked it, check out Travis Holmes’ new church Thrive Church at www.thrivechurch.tv or see his blog link to the right on my page. Most of this thought was stolen from his mind.

Five Points of the Church

If you are a pastor, you most likely at some point back in Bible College or Seminary studied the five reasons for a church’s existence -- Discipleship, Worship, Ministry, Fellowship, and Evangelism. If you didn’t go to Bible College, maybe where introduced to these fundamental truths through Rick Warren’s book The Purpose Driven Church. As time goes by, has your church continued to work in all five areas? Are you really good at Fellowship, but maybe haven’t reached out in Evangelism in a while? Or maybe Evangelism is your focus! But somewhere the Discipleship got left out.
Before you start beating yourself up and feeling like this is going to be one more thing you read which shows you how or why your ministry is failing, remember the words of Paul in I Corinthians 12: 12 “The body is a unit, though it is made up of many parts; and though all its parts are many, they form one body.” You, as a pastor or leader in your church cannot fulfill all of these roles by yourself. WE as the whole body of Christ work together to create the community that is the Body of Believers.
This blog is just a reminder that as we constantly seek to improve our walk with the Lord and to improve our churches we can get back to basics. We can ask ourselves five simple questions that may need more than just simple answers.
1. Am I working to disciple one person?
2. Does my life worship God?
3. How am I ministering to others?
4. Have I spent time with another Christian sharing with them and uplifting them?
5. How have I shared Jesus with someone recently?

Have fun and enjoy serving the Lord!

Accountability Groups

In your church, there are men and women who struggle with sin! If this comes as a shock to you, I suggest leaving the bubble you live in. Satan likes to tell us that since we have all sinned that God can’t use us anymore and that we should just give up and be sinners. Accountability groups allow us to confess our sins one to another as James 5:16 exhorts us to do without the fear that our deepest darkest sins will be broadcast from the bell tower for all the land to hear.
So you think this sounds like a good idea and don’t know how to get started. Here are a couple pointers.
1. Pick people of the same gender! While hanging out with people of the opposite gender is great fun, they make for lousy accountability partners. Men are more open with men, and likewise women are more open with women.
2. Pick people that don’t gossip. Proverbs 20:19 says, “A gossip betrays a confidence; so avoid a man who talks too much.” (NIV)
3. Set some ground rules. One good one is that what is said in your Accountability group stays in your accountability group. I don’t even share with my wife the things the men in my accountability group share with me.
The following are the questions we use, though feel free to modify them or make up questions of your own that challenge your group in the areas that you and they are struggling with. (Disclaimer: I didn’t come up with these. I hope there is not a copyright on this list of questions. If you are the author; feel free to contact me and I will either give you credit or remove them at your option.)
1. Have you spent daily time in the Scripture and in prayer?
2. Have you had any flirtatious or lustful attitudes, tempting thoughts, or exposed yourself to any explicit materials, which would not glorify God?
3. Have you been completely above reproach in your financial dealings?
4. Have you spent quality relationship time with your family and friends?
5. Have you done your 100 percent best in your job, school, etc.?
6. Have you told any half-truths or outright lies, putting yourself in a better light to those around you?
7. Have you shared the Gospel with an unbeliever this week?
8. Have you taken care of your body through daily physical exercise and proper eating/sleeping habits?
9. Have you allowed any person or circumstance to rob you of your joy?
10. Have you lied to us on any of your answers today?
My personal experience has been that as I grew to know and trust the men in my accountability group, my spiritual walk with the Lord also grew and I learned to trust HIM more too. The first step can be scary, but I highly recommend getting together at a set time and place each week to grow in the Lord with a small group of people with whom you can let your guard down. You will also see great new friendships bloom out of these relationships. Don’t forget to have fun!