I see 100 life groups happening all over Central Massachusetts.

I see people people living out their lives together and learning what it is to “be like Jesus”.

Different backgrounds.  Different stages of life.  Different living conditions.

But one God.

And one Savior.

100 Groups of people listening to the Father, much like the One who gave His life for all of us thousands of years ago.

Not judging, criticizing, or forcing one another into a mold.

For where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom.

And we were created for freedom.

And for Him.

Love it!

People and the way they connect and build one another up to become more like Christ.

This is the one reason why I love church.  Sure you have serving and teaching and organization and leadership and bearing one another’s burdens and music, and for some there might be other reasons why they love the church, but for me, that’s it.

Last night Carie and I finished another season connecting and building up (and being built up) a group of people who we have come to love as our family.  We mixed in there a few people who will be a part of our next season of community, and in the midst of all this, I’m reminded why I do what I do.  It will be another few weeks of awkward time getting to know a new group and having them get to know us.  No doubt there will be some lull in the conversation and an inability to decipher what someone is trying to say, but in the end, I’ll be back here in a year or two writing in this blog, on a natural high, telling you how I’ve come to love this new group of people.

We are expanding our influence, challenging one another to serve, love, and give more than we think, and moving to deeper levels of intimacy with the God who we serve and the Christ who makes it possible.

And in the process, we become different people

I have yet to decode the reasons why some small groups grow and exceed my expectations and why some die, and never work out. But I love small groups more than any other part of the church, because I believe it’s actually the church in action.

So I’ll keep working on decoding this mystery.

These would be a lot easier to start at Fellowship Church.

What do you think?

My life group leaders have challenged me, and for about a half hour, I hated it!

As the pastor of Fellowship Church, I challenged our small groups to schedule consistent service projects at least every quarter, to ensure that our small group members are given opportunities to reach outside of their comfort zones and serve our community in extraordinary ways.  I further challenged them to take on the project themselves, because if no one showed up, the project would still need to be done, right?

I had no idea that my own life group leaders were going to take my challenge a step further, and would help grow me spiritually out of a place of complacency on a regular basis.  Ben and Milka went the extra mile when they decided they were going to schedule a service project with our small group every single month.

EVERY SINGLE MONTH!  When are we ever going to be able to schedule that?  We’re busy!

They scheduled the service time for Sunday afternoons at a Worcester nursing home.  Worcester nursing home?  That’s fine.  Sunday afternoons?  Not so much.  I get up freakishly early on Sunday mornings, and am on my feet for the next 8 or 9 hours. After all that, I’m tired.

But it was scheduled for when it was scheduled, and I said I’d go.

This Sunday afternoon I didn’t want to go.  I was tired and had no energy.

Of course i decided to go anyway.  There were no excuses good enough, and it was the thing I knew I should do.  So I got off my tail and went.  I had the time of my life spending time with people who have very little company on any kind of regular basis.  We were able to love them and sing with them and play games with them and be a friend to people who are friendless.

Quarterly wasn’t good enough for Ben and Milka, and I’m excited about it.  I get the opportunity to do what James said:  “But be doers of the word, and not hearers only…”

And it only take a half hour of complaining to myself before I get to go.

I went to Massachusetts General Hospital last night to visit a guy in our church who is going through some major stuff right now in the form of cancer.  He is a real trooper.  With his wife and two kids, there is no doubt in my mind they have shown considerable strength through the process.  I remember sitting in a Starbucks with this very same man only a few months or so before his diagnosis and he told me:

“I’ve been to a lot of churches around the country, and have seen a lot of crap.  Now I’m looking for a church where my family is going to be treated like family, because our family is not local, and we really want to connect.”

I said:  “So we’ll see you Sunday?”  (half-jokingly)

Last night as I drove to the hospital around 11:00 pm, I thought about this earlier conversation, and I prayed that his prayers had been answered through this time.

Then I arrived and found that a few members of his life group had been there before me already, and another member was currently watching their kids through this very difficult evening.

I think he found his church.

There’s no doubt that what gets me going is ideas.  As I mentioned here, it’s my number one strength.
For some reason, because of my job or whatever, it would appear that the fall tends to be the time when I get the best ideas.  And they buzz around and pan out in my head at all times of the day,and at all times in the night.  It’s really nothing to find me going to bed at 12 or so and get up at 3:30 am trying to figure out how to work out an idea I have.

Only recently though have I not looked at it as a curse, but rather to use the time God has alotted me to really process all sides of the idea and begin to flush out the more negative, bonehead parts of the idea.  It was funny when my cousin Jake visited last week, that he mentioned to me sometimes he gets up at super early hours and writes music.  Maybe it’s a Holman thing.  I have another cousin who actually has 4 of my top 5 strengths on the Strength Finder test.

So here’s a few ideas I’m accomplishing right now:
*The consistent growth of those who attend FC.
*The finishing of the web site to which I previously linked.
*Make Sunday Mornings @ Fellowship an experience that burns in the minds of those that have attended.
*Redecoration of the stage.
*Preparing the trailer in the back of the church to be torn down.  It was home to me, now its home to skunks.
*Measuring the numerical effectiveness of our small groups based on the number of people regularly attending Sunday Morning @ Fellowship.  Then making the appropriate decisions concerning those small groups.  (This may not make sense, but it would if I felt like explaining more in this post)

Here are future ideas I’m mulling over now:
*The sale of land.
*The consistent growth of those who attend FC.
*Continuing to build a community and grow at the same time.
*The Construction of a new building.

So there you have it – the things that are in my mind these days.  I’m sure there are more, but that is a base list.

Feel free to share your ideas with me.

By the way, Jake released a new song on the web you should check out.

I have this dream. It’s a simple dream really. It starts and ends with people just enjoying being together and growing together. Not under the false pretenses of being a part of a certain status like economic, family, or religious experience, but under something deeper. It doesn’t seem deeper, but it is. By the simple idea that they just really enjoy one anothers company.

To start off, they (the people) might not exactly understand why they would want to be in this community, but they take a chance. A chance to learn, grow, live, influence, and maybe even laugh with their newfound community. Over time they would even use the word “love” to describe their journey with the community they have take a chance on.

Now remember, there is no common sense or special commonality that brings these people together, except maybe a strong desire to love God more, though they might not really understand what that means, and may not even really ever understand fully. So they meet regularly and eventually grow to a place where they can take a chance and influence others in their journey too.

Obstacles (and in some cases tools) to this dream are technology, complacency, prejudice, pride, and comfort. Taking a step towards community can be hard when you have a preconceived notion of what your day looks like,and change is hard to come by, but my dream relies on people all across New England moving out of that notion and connecting with God and people.

My dream is authentic community, and I have a long way to go. But here are 4 ATOMic steps and prayers I’m taking and praying to reach my dream:

1. Authentic community – “God, help us to drop our walls and be authentic.”
2. Transormation – “Transform us as we move toward You together.”
3. Outward reaching – “Help us to not be focused on ourselves, but to make reaching out to others
    habit we’ll never take for granted.”
4. Multiplication – “And use us to influence others to move into this journey we’re on.”

Critics please?

My life group had a cookout last night.  This is a new game that Ben Erickson taught us.  It proves that a group of adults can have a good time with one pen, dice, and paper.

Who is in this video?