Rocks In The Water

I wore flip flops today with blue jeans…out in public.  Now, I know by writing that I immediately revealed how lame I really am, given the fashion trend.  That’s especially true among church planters.  I’ve seen them wear them everywhere…to meetings, to preach in, etc.  I actually didn’t mind it too much.  I may have even liked it.  However I do live in rural Alabama so the guys with the muddy work boots and hats with the infamous red “A’s” on them may have thought……oh well, never mind.

Things and how we do them always change.  There’s nothing we can do to control that.  One of the reasons that most churches are irrelevant to today’s world is that they continue to do things the way they always have.  One of my big mantras has been that the message never changes but the methods do.  Flip flops and jeans…definitely method.

As much as we like to change our methods, there are still things that are unchangeable.  There is a great story from the Bible that you can read in Joshua 4:1-9.  In Joshua chapter 3 the Children of Israel came across the Jordan River in a really miraculous way.  Immediately after this passage (chapter 4), Joshua instructs them to take twelve rocks and place them in the water at the place they passed over. 

The reasoning is simple and genius all at the same time.  Out of sight, out of mind is nothing new, it’s just human nature.  We tend to forget things that are not in front of us often.  A good example is looking at an old photograph and thinking…wow, I didn’t know I looked that weird back then.  We also tend to remember things in a better light than they really happened, hence the term the “good old days.”  Really?  They were that good?

Times changed.  People changed, but the simple, ordinary rocks stayed in the water.  They never changed.  In years to come there were even better and simpler ways to cross rivers.  But the rocks remind us of something.  They are not a testimony of how well people did in crossing the river, but they show what God had to do in order to bring them over.  They are a testimony of a supernatural, “God moment.”  It is a time where God intervened in people’s lives in an incredibly miraculous way.

Methods have changed, but ways of accessing the presence of God haven’t changed.  Things such as fasting, praying, seeking God, devotion and servanthood are things that, no matter how much time goes by, never change.

As Acts 2 describes the early church, there is one portion of a verse that has always stood out to me.  Acts 2:43 “And fear came upon every soul” (KJV).  The NASB and NLT call it a “sense of awe.”  What is that?  Those are the rocks in the water.  That is the part of the church that is beyond description.  It is the part of the atmosphere that only the Holy Spirit can create.  We can have great, modern methods, but we all must have that “sense of awe” to what we do.  That sense is one of those things that never has and never will change.

An appropriate question for me today in my blue jeans and flip flops with an iPad open nearby, could be that of all the “contemporary” things that I am doing today, what is one thing that I must do that has been done by great men of God before me and has still never changed?

When The Wind Gets Knocked Out Of You

We are planting a church that is opening this September.  It is really the hardest thing we have ever done.

The middle of April this year, we had made some changes in an effort to increase our momentum and get some new families on board with our mission.  Our website had just came out, we were putting the finishing touches on some great new commercials and we were getting ready to move into a much needed fund raising campaign.  In addition, our spirits were high after a recent conference sponsored by our planting organization (ARC: Association of Related Churches).

Everything was going great then April 27th happened.

It began a little after 6am that morning.  I was working night shift at the hospital as a Critical Care Nurse while my wife was home with our five children.  We had heard all week that Alabama was to expect severe weather that Wednesday...and, yes, we do hear that alot here in Alabama.  That early morning, a strong cell was moving into our area.  I had called my wife about 6am to let her know that our school system was on a three hour delay that morning due to weather.  The idea was that her and the kids could sleep in for a little while longer.  We were watching radar at the hospital and I phoned back a few minutes later to let her know that a strong cell was about 10-15 minutes away from our city.

A few minutes later I received a very frantic and disturbing call from my wife.  She was crying and hysterical, letting me know that something had happened at home.  A tornado had touched down in our neighborhood.

The day did not get any better.  Multiple tornadoes continued to strike Alabama throughout the day Wednesday.  As it stands today, 238 people have died and damage estimates are upwards of $5.5 billion.  Hundreds of homes are destroyed.  Five people we knew died.  Areas that I have known since my childhood were destroyed.  It is hard to travel to any part of Northern Alabama and not see damaged areas.  It is tragic, breath taking and amazing all in one.

We were the lucky ones.  Everyone was unhurt.  That morning, I drove home through alot of damage.  The closest I could get to my home was 3 miles.  I walked the rest of the way through trees, power lines and such. The next few days were very different.  No power and sometimes no water.  Cell phone service was limited at times.  We ate lunch in a food line one day.

Today we have power, phone and internet.  Our home is very livable.  We have about $20,000 worth of damage and have spent alot of time cleaning up and helping others.

Yes, I am a man of faith and confidence...but I have to confess.  I feel like the wind has been knocked out of me.  I don't think it's self pity, but it could be.  It's all just a little overwhelming.  The other day, I watched a few of the hundreds of tornado videos that were shot that day...that was amazing and very difficult both at the same time.  There remain questions about how this is going to affect alot of things.

The fact is this.  Sometimes no matter how well you play and how hard you go at it, the the wind can sometimes just get knocked out of you.  It is by no means a game ending injury...it just sure is uncomfortable for a few minutes.  The treatment....pause for a moment, make sure you are okay otherwise, then get right back in the game.

See life is not about whether or not you get hit (because you will), it is about recovering from those hits.  That's what makes you victorious..not getting hit, but getting over them.

Church Planting...Why?

I never wanted to be a church planter.


It first seemed too hard, and, as I initially thought, unnecessary.  There are churches everywhere and what good will a new church plant do anyway?


One of the first questions that I had to answer was that of all the churches that currently existed, how healthy were they and what were they doing to reach and disciple new people for Christ?  I found that, sadly, a large number of churches are not really healthy at all.    Furthermore, very few of them are reaching and discipling new people for Christ.  


If you ask people their thoughts on church the answers will be about as varied as the number of churches that exist.  People go to church or don't go to church for a variety of reasons.  It is safe to say that in America the church is both an institution and a tradition.


But what's the real purpose of the Church?


The mission of the Church must be to reach people.  The simple truth is that people's lives really can be better because of what Jesus came to do.  When I see people in stores, restaurants, driving down the road, etc., I think, "if they only knew...."  What a tremendous difference it would make!  You can be a better (a lot of things) when you have a life-giving relationship with Jesus Christ.


Church is not a building, event or an organization.  Rather, it is a purpose driven family with two missions:  love God and love people.  It was when I first really grasped this truth that I thought about church planting.  Statistics show that more people come to Christ through a new church plant than through any other method.  Where are those lost people  who are ready to come to Christ?  Everywhere!!!


Was it uncomfortable to think that I should leave my comfortable church position and start a brand new work from scratch?  Was it crazy to prepare to move my wife and four children out of our home of 12 years to a totally new city?  Absolutely!!!


So what was the proverbial straw that broke the camel's back for me?  It was a project by a man named David Olson called The American Church in Crisis.  Please click this link to watch a short summary of this project:  click here.  Watch it and see what you think.


So now, do you hear the call?  Do you feel the passion?


When people come to the Interest Meetings for our new church plant, I always ask them the same thing:  "Ask the Holy Spirit what your response to what you have seen and heard should be."  If you do that and obey the voice of the Holy Spirit, then I am happy.


So what is the Holy Spirit telling you to do?  Should you step out of a comfortable place and become part of something bigger than yourself?


The bottom line is that we are not waiting for the harvest.  The harvest is out there waiting on us.

It's A Matter of Perspective

Perspective is basically the way you look at things. It is the appearance of something relative to something else.  Perspective is quite finicky and can change based on your mood, position in life or even the attitudes of those around you.   

Perhaps the most important thing to remember about perspective is how powerful it is.  It shapes us and determines the outcome of situations we face in life.  Perspective is the one thing that most influences the decisions we make.  From one perspective a situation may look like a problem.  Change perspectives and that problem then looks like an opportunity. 

The next time you make a decision ask yourself this question:  what perspective am I approaching this from.  I have come to appreciate more and more those things and those people in my life than can give me a different perspective on a matter.  It is really amazing how differently things look just by changing viewpoints (i.e. perspectives).

Recently I was feeling a little beat down about the busyness of things going on in my life and, quite honestly, came to enjoy some self pity.  Then I thought about a friend of mine who has end-stage cancer.  He is receiving the most powerful chemo and radiation treatments available.  Yet he continues to serve other people, encourage other people and go about his daily tasks.  They gave him a week to live.  That was over a month ago and two weeks ago he did a bible study at his church on a Wednesday night.  When I looked at my situation from his perspective...I was doing pretty good.  Perspective matters.

Consider these three verses from the Bible:

Hebrews 12:1-3 (NLT)
¹ Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a huge crowd of witnesses to the life of faith, let us strip off every weight that slows us down, especially the sin that so easily trips us up. And let us run with endurance the race God has set before us. ² We do this by keeping our eyes on Jesus, the champion who initiates and perfects our faith. Because of the joy awaiting him, he endured the cross, disregarding its shame. Now he is seated in the place of honor beside God’s throne. ³ Think of all the hostility he endured from sinful people; then you won’t become weary and give up. 

Verse 1 is the place I want to be:  stripped off of everything that slows me down and free from the things that trip me up so that I can be faithful to the end with what God wants me to do.  That's awesome and there's probably not a person in the world that doesn't want to be in that same spot...but sometimes it seems impossible. 

The great thing about the Bible is that it answers every question that it poses.  The Bible shows us how to do that in verse 2:  keep your eyes of Jesus.  Simply put, change your perspective.

Take a few moments today and read these three verses again.  Ask the Holy Spirit to change your perspective.  Perhaps there are some things you have been looking at incorrectly.  It will be amazing how much things will change in your life today, just by simply allowing God to alter your perspective.

It's all about perspective!!!

You Have To Keep It Fresh

In order to be relevant you always have to keep things fresh.

With our rapidly changing world and cultural shifts, this is perhaps a little easier said than done.  But if we are going to impact this generation we are going to have to have a fresh message that is relevant.

For years Jamie and I have both worked in the medical field.  One requirement for anyone in this field is that each year you must do continuing education.  Change is a constant in medicine.  As technology changes, our ways of treating diseases change.  There are constantly new innovations, discoveries and updates.  Constant education and re-education helps you keep pace with the change.  If you fail to stay updated, you will find yourself quickly falling into irrelevance.

Think about this for a moment.  You have the choice of two doctors.  They both have been in practice 20 years with great success.  The difference between them, however, is that one is utilizing the latest technology, therapies and medications.  The other uses the same methods as they practiced 20 years ago.  Which one would you go to?  The answer is simple.

If the people that we trust our bodies to need to be constantly changing their methods to be most effective, why is it that those who deal with the eternal soul (the church) never seems to want to change their methods (notice I said Methods NOT Message)??  I know of ministries that are doing things exactly the same as they did 20 years ago.  We must have fresh methods and a fresh approach to be effective with the Gospel in this generation.

Let me give you two examples.  You may have heard of two ministers, now deceased, Lester Sumrall and Oral Roberts.  These were two men who made great strides for the Christian faith.  They were literally pioneers of the faith and did tremendous things to advance the Gospel of Jesus Christ.  They really began to make their big impacts in about the early 1960's and their reputations followed them until their deaths.

In the early 1980's a well respected minister had the opportunity to go to South Bend, Indiana, and speak at Dr. Lester Sumrall's church.  Now Dr. Sumrall had stories from the mission field that sounded like the book of Acts all over again...stories of mass salvations, deliverance and miracles.  He was alive with expectation about experiencing the environment of his services.  When he got there he found the church to be really just kind of "ordinary," "flat" and it seemed to be full of just older people.  He thought to himself, "these people don't know what they have.  Why is this church not the biggest church in South Bend, Indiana?  I just don't understand it."

In the 1970's Oral Roberts opened Oral Roberts University and the City of Faith.  The idea for the City of Faith was to be a medical center that would offer compassionate care, research and send out medical missionaries.  It really seemed like a good idea.  However by 1987, the City of Faith failed and had to close.  The years preceding and following this financial failure were tumultuous times for Oral Roberts.  The financial burden was overwhelming.  The well respected minister that I mentioned earlier had hired some individuals on his staff that used to work with Oral Roberts.  The Oral Roberts that this minister saw during the failure of the City of Faith was not the one that he knew...the powerful man of God and leader.  What happened?

Those from his staff gave a remarkable insight.  In the 1960's a tremendous amount of people had attached themselves to Oral Roberts' ministry.  These people supported the ministry, prayed for the ministry and funded the ministry.  Now most of these people were in their 50's when they first began supporting his ministry.  By 1987 during the City of Faith crisis, these people were dead.  Oral Roberts was not losing supporters...they were just dying.

What happened to these two ministers?  They each hit a home run with their generation but they failed to appeal to the next generation.  As a result an entire generation of people came around that had no idea of who these people were.

How often this happens with great moves of God.  We impact and win one generation but we fail to change our methods, and we lose the next generation.  Our message is too vital to fade into obscurity.  We must keep ourselves fresh and relevant so that we can reach each generation with the message of Jesus Christ!

Christmas Conversations

One of the great things about Christmas is the wonderful memories that it produces, many of which will last for a lifetime.  This Christmas produced one of those moments for me.

Early Christmas morning, after all of the gifts had been opened, our children were sitting around exploring all of their new found gifts.  One of my ten year old twin boys, Kylan, made a comment to one of his other siblings, "I hope I never grow out of loving Christmas."

I thought alot about this statement Kylan made.  Had our life been a television show or a "This Is A Wonderful Life" Christmas movie, I would have answered his question like this:  "Kylan, you will never grow out of Christmas.  It will always be as wonderful and special as it is right now."  But..is that realistic?  I knew how the mind of my ten year old was working at that moment.  All of his family was there.  He was safe, comfortable and surrounded by all of the things that he had wanted for Christmas.  No worries.  No cares.  What an amazing place to be in.  At that moment, that's what Christmas meant to him.

In my mind, I remember moments like that.  What would it be like to go back to a simpler time in your life where some of the worries that you have today weren't there.  During the rush of Christmas...a home for sale, Christmas Day to prepare for, four children, two additional foster children...I found myself having that thought.  A thought back to a simpler time.

So, realistically, what is the answer to Kylan's statement?

As uncomfortable as it might be, we all have to face change in our lives.  Change is the one constant that we will always have with us.  For Kylan, next Christmas cannot be like this one....it cannot because of change.  But the challenge for us is not change, it happens whether we want it to or not.  The challenge becomes how well we adapt to the changes that come.

There are three responses to change:  (1) you refuse to adapt to change (2) you adapt incorrectly to change (3) you take the changes that come, both good and bad, and make the necessary adjustments.

2011 will inevitably bring change to your life.  I am thinking now about some of the changes that we will be facing.  Right now I don't have all the answers, and I don't know what adjustments will have to be made.  But, you know what, we are going to deal with it.  We are going to make life happen, even though the road may be unknown, windy or even bumpy ahead.  We will figure it out.

What inevitable changes are you facing or even ignoring.  They are either going to happen or have already taken place, much to your objections.  Now, what must you do to adapt to it?  Change without adaptation equals misery, fear and disappointment.  But be encouraged.  Great ships change entire courses with only the small adjustment of a rudder.  Whatever adjustments you need to make, make them.  Change is coming.

So, Kylan, let me answer your question.  You hope you never grow out of loving Christmas.  Well, son, that is all up to you.

The Plumbing Truck

I was driving to Birmingham, Alabama, for a meeting and got behind a plumbing truck.  On the back of the truck, there was an advertisement that described this particular plumbing company as Clean, Courteous, On Time, Background Checked and Drug Free.  


I thought about this for a moment.  These were pretty good filters if you happened to be looking for someone to come into your home and fix your plumbing.  If I am going to let that person into my home, I want them to have ALL of those characteristics!


But being a church planter like I am, I took this a little bit deeper.  We want our plumber to have all of these characteristics, but how about those people who are the 'guardians of our soul?'  What qualifications do we expect them to have?


Church planting has forced me to look at church a little differently.  What if church were like the advertisement on the back of that plumbing truck?


1.  Clean.  
Church is not a second rate show.  It should be done excellently.  I believe in being very frugal but NEVER cheap.  Do things with preciseness and excellence.  The things we do for God should be the best that we could ever produce.


2.  Courteous
What if we treated all people like Jesus said we should treat them?  What if people came into church and really felt like people in the church genuinely cared about them no matter who they were or what they looked like?


3.  On Time
Yes, church should respect time, not waste it.  Church should be the most focused and mission centered experience that we ever have.  It is a reality in our world that the span of human attention is relatively short.  Church should maximize the moment.  Time is our most valuable resource and we should use it wisely.


4.  Background Checked
Church should be a safe place.  We must take responsibility to protect people not only from bad lifestyles, bad doctrine but also from 'bad' people.  


5.  Drug Free
Let me paraphrase what this means:  someone who is not a crazy crook.  And, yes, the church has been guilty before of being crazy and being full of crooks.  Let's take this one by one:


a.)  Crazy.  Often the church has packaged so many of the good things that God desires us to have in confusing and spooky ways.  It's very easy to blame our self-centered expressions and beliefs on the Holy Spirit.  Church should be a place of balance.  If you don't believe that God will hold you accountable for freaking people out then read 1 Corinthians 14:23.

b.)  Crooks.  One of the major problems the church has faced in the last 15 years has been the total lack of integrity among church leaders.  Church should be done above reproach and leaders should live lives above reproach.  People don't come to church to experience a con job.  People come to church to experience Jesus.  Let's build our churches and ministries on uncompromised integrity in all areas.


I love the church, and I do believe church can be different!  It can be a reflection of church like it was in the book of Acts.  That's what I long for.


And, believe it or not, you can learn a whole lot from a plumbing truck.