Today I want to be a good friend.  To be able to sacrifice what I want for what my friends want.  And even to give up what I most value for the sake of my friends:  my own life.  At times I may need to be a friend through trials rather than laying in comfort.  I may need to tell the truth, even if that stings a bit and even it makes my friend mad.   Today I will not blame, manipulate, guilt, talk down to, or violate the trust of my friend, because that is the territory of an enemy, and today I am not an enemy.  I am a good friend.  The only thing that should come before being a friend is being a Christ follower, and the two should only co-exist.  For if I am like Christ…

I am a good friend.

I was listening to an interview this afternoon from one of my favorite writers, Donald Miller.  His new book comes out this fall called “A Million Miles in a Thousand Years”.  In the interview, Miller spoke of the importance of story and the study he’s done on the literature genre called story.  His insights were very interesting, but one of the most interesting things he said dealt with the main character in a story.  Your story.  My story.  It doesn’t matter.  He said that, in literature, the main character has to want something, or there’s no point in reading or participating in the story.  He also went on to imply – though he didn’t actually say this – that what the character wants says something about the character of the person, and how interesting the character is or isn’t going to be.  So I took a look at the things I want and the things I will do (or not do) to get what I want, and hopefully this will give me a good feel for what kind of story I make.
One of the things I want is to see my community transformed with the love of Christ.

What about you?

One of the hardest things about being a leader (that I’ve found anyway) is the balance between contentment and the desire to get to the next level in that which you are leading.  As a pastor, my heart’s desire is to connect and lead people to Jesus.  Fellowship Church is a catalyst for doing that, and I love being able to serve God this way.
I love being a part of a group of people who have the same heart and purpose too.  I would certainly call myself content.  There literally is no other place I’d rather be in the world (outside of Aruba this week when it has rained for more than a week straight).
Then there is the other side of me.  The side that wants to go to the next level – spiritually, numerically, and even physically (says my bones after a big workout at the gym).
Currently as a church, we’ve grown to the place that I’ve seen us grow 2 other times since I’ve been here (though I led as an assistant during those times), and are now looking toward the future of growth.  Both of the other times, at the peak of that growth, we’ve lost the point leadership, causing us to take a step back in one case and light years back in the other.
I know God has protected this place through all that for a reason – for His glory and for His praise.  And now that we’re back where we were, facing the same hurdles we faced before, we’re praying…

God, bring us another step forward.

So I’m listening to Ken Blocks solo cd project “Drift” today (ken Block is the lead singer of Sister Hazel, a band I’ve loved since their first hit release in 1997 – “All for you”), and I come upon this song called “Chances” I wanted to share with you.  Here’s the 2nd verse and chorus:

“I can’t believe I called it love before you,
To think I even thought I could ignore you.
I had no idea I’d disappear for fear,
Those days were cold and I almost faded away.
But you changed the way I breathed, a rearrange of needs,
To the world you might be one, but to me you are the world, and…

Chance, what are the chances,
That you’d look down from the sky and choose me to be your own
Chance, what are the chances,
That you would sacrifice your wings to become flesh and bone for me.”

Amazing stuff, really.  I loved the song, and it hit home as a kind of praise song.  Whether it was written to be or not means very little to me, because it made me think of the one who sacrificed himself for you and me about 2,000 years ago.

But for those of you who don’t care about any of that, don’t worry, Ken Block still brings his “Sister Hazel type” lyrics when he pronounces in the next song, “You and me” – “The best part of you and me is (wait for it)…

me.”

What would happen if you decided to never choose sides?  Not that you wouldn’t stand for anything, because we all have our opinions, beliefs and perspectives, but rather than linking up with a political party, denomination, or an association, you decided to stand in the middle.  This might help you to influence and build a bridge between opposing viewpoints, many of which are not actually all that opposing.  Of course, you would also be labeled a heretic, a loser, and a wimp by extremists from those political parties, denominations, and associations that you chose not to side with.  Or it could just be that you’re trying to be like Christ, who had no value in sides and positions, because the kingdom he was fighting for…

was not on this earth.

I shared these thoughts with some of our team this  afternoon.  People are usually good at one or the other.  But what does it take to capture the vision of what you’re trying to accomplish AND execute that vision?  Here’s part 1:

Vision

Vision is seeing the big picture.

Vision can take the form of:

     *A statement – FC’s vision statement is to “lead people into a 
       growing relationship with Jesus Christ.”

     *A goal – “We want to see people _____________ people in 
       attendance for our Easter service.”

     *A drive – “I will do whatever it takes to make this succeed.” 

Another definition – Vision is seeing something that you want to see happen even when it hasn’t happened yet.  (this resembles faith, doesn’t it?)

     -If you don’t have a vision or a passion for your 
     ministry/work/innovation, get one, get out, or be looking forward
     to having someone else lead the way.

Tomorrow, pt. 2

"Use my soap, and I'll throw you a Marty Party"

Donald Miller used to use this amazing illustration about the church feeding into darwinistic theology by teaching that “if you get right with Jesus, your life will then be better.”  He paralleled this by using dish soap advertisements.

Marketers would have us believe:  “If you buy our dish soap, everything will be great in your life.  You can have extremely clean hands.  The extremely gorgeous blonde on this commercial will want you, or you can look like her in her perfect suburban home.  Oh yeah, and by the way, your dishes will be really clean.”

This is what the church advertises when we say that if you meet Jesus, your life will be all good.

Then I think about my mom, who’s been in bed for the last 25+ years.  She certainly is not perfect, but everyday she prays for healing, and everyday she stays in bed, praying for everyone she knows, because her relationship with Jesus has never been better.

And I think about a friend of mine I met with recently who has gone through a whole life of mierda (I just cursed in spanish; Carie would be so proud).  He can’t even see God work anymore, but he’s served in church for years and has such a sacrificial giving heart.

It would be easy for me to get theological here and try to explain these things away by sharing all the sin in the lives of my mom and my friend  You know, sin reaps consequences and all that…but then again, I’ll leave that for the seminary boys club.  Then I think about Jesus, who was perfect in every way, yet he found himself hung on a tree, dying because of my sins – under a divine curse because of my broken communion with God.

So I guess this next Sunday morning when I preach about Jesus the week after I talked about sin, and two weeks after I talked about God, I can’t really say that “If you take Jesus, everything will be all great in your life.  You’ll be all free of sin, and someone that looks like me will want you, or you can look  and preach like me in my perfect little suburban church.  Oh yeah, and Jesus will make everything go right too.”  So what do I say?

I guess I will say that by accepting God’s precious gift of Christ, you are reconciled back to your creator because of the shed blood of Jesus.  And that’s a very ugly picture, in case you haven’t seen “The Passion of the Christ”.  And by being reconciled to Him, you’re able to work on making Him all you need.  Because before that whole first man and first woman eating the fruit thing…

That used to be good enough.

Pauline was an amazing lady in our church who was very much a second mother to me.  She even stood in for my mother in Carie and I’s wedding to light the candles surrounding the unity candle because my mom couldn’t go up the stairs for health reasons.  Sadly, Pauline passed on to be with Jesus  in 2006.

Anyway, someone told me a story about her yesterday, and I had to tell you:

Pauline was driving one day with Patti, one of her closest friends.  They stopped and picked up a friend of her friend.  We’ll call him Dan.  Dan and Pauline and Patti were making conversation in the car as they drove, and Pauline noticed that Dan continuously said the words “Jesus Christ.”  So Pauline says:

“Dan, can you use the F word?”

“I’m sorry?”  Dan asked.  “What did you say?”

Pauline replied, “You keep saying the words ‘Jesus Christ’ with no purpose and as a cuss word, and I happen to have a personal relationship with Him, so it offends me a little.  So instead of saying that…

I’d like you to use the word F@#$%!”

Part 1
Part 2

In an ever changing world, it’s important to remember the things that you’ve gone through, but not so much keep those things with you for all time.  That is, I should remember how far I’ve come, and I should remember the lessons I’ve learned along the way, but I still need to get rid of the baggage that I could collect and make into a garbage dump if I’m not careful.

Simplify.  Edit.  Clarify. Disentangle. Reduce.  Shorten. Streamline.  Release.

This is always a process.  It is rarely easy to let go of things that are bad for you. And it is even more difficult to let go of things that are good for you.  But this is a necessary task over time if we don’t want to be left behind in a world of process, growth, and progress.

When I came to Fellowship church, it was a 20 year old baptist church that had closed down its Christian school two years earlier, and had room after room of garbage piled up in it’s hallways, nooks, and crannys. Not to mention the years of emotional baggage piled up high because of church splits, legalism, and sexual sin.  Now into our 30th year, we’re still simplifying, still reducing, still getting rid of the baggage, so that we can be more effective with our purpose of “leading people into a growing relationship with Jesus Christ.”

10 years from now, we’ll still be working on it. 
Hopefully, you and I will be too.

Yesterday I wrote here that there are 4 ways that the ever-changing world is changing my life, and focused on “Going Public” as the first way.  Today I want to focus on participating in “open sourcing”.
Currently this term is a buzz word for individuals and companies coming together to collaborate on projects and problems in order to hurdle each problem and situation that comes up in life’s arenas.
Open sourcing focuses on the idea that I do something well (I hope anyway) and I enjoy doing certain things, and by pooling my talents with others who enjoy that thing, we can move ahead faster than I could alone.

For instance, I love small groups.  It’s one of my favorite parts about being a part of this era of church.  I think I have a good grasp of how to effectively do small groups and have an interest in excelling in this arena.  But I don’t know everything, so I gladly share with other pastors or on this blog or in any number of ways what I do know about small groups, and do so in a way that is inexpensive (blogs are free, so is word of mouth), and easy to read or apply.  Then others do the same, and through this experience, my knowledge and understanding of the small group environment is enhanced.

Google, IBM, Sun, Firefox, Lifechurch.tv, and Wikipedia are just a few of the successful companies that have “open sourced” their organization, and enhanced our lives as people over the last few years. 

I’m no expert, but if I ever become one, even by default, I’d like to be able to say that as an expert, I still “open source” my expertise for the greater good of those who can take it and expand upon the work I’ve done.

My own mind is swimming right now after One Prayer about how the church can do this better.  I’ve been having these radical thoughts about how we can come together to out source and open source our expertise as we watch the body of Christ form into what He actually wanted it to be.  Like maybe if I’m an “expert” on small groups, and another church in our area is an “expert” musically or in their Sunday service or their work with the less fortunate, how can we utilize and link up with one another, for the purpose of leading people into a growing relationship with Jesus Christ?

Your feelings on open sourcing please?