And the Shofar Blew

Okay, I'm finally coming out of the closet. I love Francine Rivers' books. Yes, she is a woman. Yes, she writes Christian fiction. But man she is a prophetic voice we all need in our lives, churches and leadership. Last year I read Redeeming Love and was rocked by God's desire for love. This past month I finished And the Shofar Blew.

I was convicted and my deepest level about my own leadership in the past. I can't give away the story line but I will tell you if you're currently in a ministry, leading a church, building a program you must read this.

Ask the Lord to show you where you are missing His heart for people, your family and Him.

In summary, my review is short. It will make you angry at yourself, the pastor in the book, church but at the same time in love with the work God does in leaders, churches and in your own heart. A must read.

Now I'm going back in the closet and will try to read some more manly non fiction book. :)
Categories: Leadership, Church, Books

Is There Hope for America?

The past 4-5 years I have been reading about the work God is doing worldwide through simple and traditional church planting. There are encouraging stories and discouraging ones alike. One of the reasons we felt like God calling us to Mexico 2 years ago was the stories of what God was doing in Latin America and we wanted to be part of it. God had a different plan for us and we're grateful for the hard lessons learned and taught.

Now that we're back in the U.S. we have focused much of our thoughts, prayers and energy into what God is doing in the U.S. and what are we, the church, missing.

Recently I started reading, thanks to my local library, Kinnaman and Lyon's book called UnChristian. It is the summary of 3 years of research on what the rest of the world thinks of church and Christians.

Our research shows that many of those outside of Christianity, especially younger adults, have little trust in the Christian faith, and esteem for the lifestyle of Christ followers is quickly fading among outsiders. They admit their emotional and intellectual barriers go up when they are around Christians, and they reject Jesus because they feel rejected by Christians. p. 11

It has been humbling and heart breaking to read their thoughts and how we are missing the point of Jesus.

Today I was reading Guy Muse's blog The M Blog and again my heart is heavy by some of the stats and observations of what is happening in the U.S. church. Read What's Wrong With This Picture?

In hindsight I'm glad the Lord brought us home to relearn His grace, mercy and Gospel. And I'm thankful for the new vision and heart He has given us for His church here in the U.S. I know there are many arguments and discussions on what is and isn't church but after those interactions all I think about is how much people, outside any form of church, are missing when they don't experience the love, grace and mercy of God. The rest of the world is looking for something, something that isn't just about words, theology, right thinking or saying yes to Jesus. They want a life that is transformed, supernatural, powerful, dealing with the wrongs and hurts, they want real relationships, authenticity, care and love. What they are looking for is what Jesus offered in the Gospels, not just in words, but in life lived in community. They want to experience the Kingdom Come.

I don't have all the answers but I do know when I see something in me, my past leadership, and in other leadership when we have missed the point. I was also reading Sam Metcalf's blog Under the IceBerg today about how to kill a movement. Here are a few things that kill movements and I will add supernatural kingdom church growth:
1. Require education for the leadership
2. Demand conformity of methodology
3. Refuse to provide administrative help and let it suffocate under it’s own weight
4. Get spooked by supernatural phenomena outside your paradigm
5. Make no room for younger, less experienced leadership
6. Be obsessed by theological purity
7. Put the safety of the people involved as a higher priority than sacrifice
8. Centralize the funding
9. Punish out-of-the box thinking

I can relate to these. I have led this way and have experienced some of these from others. Read the whole thing at How to Kill a Movement. Maybe a new movement of the Spirit, Church, and Jesus Followers is birthing that will do the opposite; bring about Jesus' Kingdom.

Now that I have broken every blog rule and have posted way too many thoughts in one post I leave us with an action point. Pray and seek the God of the universe to help all of us see clearly on how He wants us to move here in America.
Categories: Church, Movements, Leadership, God, Prayer

Organic Church Movements

In February, Christine and I, are heading to Ontario, CA for a short weekend to spend time with the CMA guys and gals who are training many on Missional Movements. We want to invite you to come, be part of the training and then trust God with what He wants you to do. You can find more info at CMA Resources.

Categories: ChurchPlanting, Movements, Leadership

Only God Can Do This....

I have been thinking and reflecting a bunch on the power of God, His Grace, His desire to bless us and move in our lives. Last week in the midst of my cancer scare I had lunch with one of the most non-religious spiritual Jesus loving people I know, Tom, my dentist. We went out to lunch last week after he put my good looking gold crown on.

We were talking all about the changes in either of our lives, the presence of God and His church. Tom asked me if I ever tried to catch a butterfly without a net. I said, "No." He was teaching his kids this past summer and as you probably know, it is nearly impossible, except for maybe Mr. Miagi from Karate Kid. The key is that don't go and try to catch it but just sit still and let it land on you. The point he was making for my life is to stop trying to control, catch, create, manufacture what God can only do. Rest, be still, wait and let God do the healing, creating, birthing and moving in and around my life. That is exactly what I needed to know.

The previous night I was meeting with another non-religious spiritual Jesus loving Friend, Andy, over an adult beverage in Longmont. I love Andy's chaotic faith filled life. A year ago he quit his job, adopted 2 twin African American premies, that makes 6 kids in his house under 7. He was sharing with me the powerful year it has been. Turning down jobs, seeing God move, touching his family and blessing them. It increased my faith a ton.

Much of what I'm pondering and thinking about in our own lives, marriage, family and ministry has been about the real power of God. For so long, tied to my performance issues, I have worked hard for God, producing great results, becoming addicted to them, looking for praise and honor from friends, donors and family. I have done the tried and true strategies that I know with my power, strength and energy will yield great God results. The bummer is that in hind site it doesn't feel like God is moving at all. I'm begging God to bless me, move around me, do something supernatural but I'm unwilling to sit, wait and listen for God to show up.

Starting over in life, marriage and ministry gives us a great opportunity to create a new value system of living, loving and serving. Realizing that my issues are still tucked away in the corners of my heart, we're begging God to shed His grace on us. We need a new and fresh way of living and serving. We want to see the supernatural, not the natural.

Andy sent me this great article from a pastor of a church called, Time Square Church. It is well worth the read.

Maybe all we need is a great big push to move from the Natural to the Supernatural.

Categories: Church, Faith, God, Leadership, Spirituality

Starting a House Church

It was about 5 weeks ago I finished a new copy of my local library's book of Starting a House Church by Larry Kreider and Floyd McClung. A few years ago I read Kreider's book called House Church Networks: A Church for a New Generation and I remember that he gave a great balanced approach to Mega-church, community church and simple/home church. I felt like he wasn't attacking traditional forms of church but offering a new approach to church to compliment others. Since I had a good experience with him, I wanted to read this recent book since we have ventured out to start a home church.



For a couple of years in ministry I had been searching for the 'golden goose egg' in ministry that will solve all our problems. I would think, "If we just have this new technique, strategy, formula then we'll be an explosive, life changing ministry." What I realized about 2 years ago is there isn't a golden goose egg of ministry, other than what God desires to do through Christians; hearing and following the will of God. If you do take a look at New Testament Movements they were all pretty simple. Run by normal, unschooled men and women. They were bold, courageous, believed in a real Jesus, God and Holy Spirit that spoke, answered prayers and moved mountains. They didn't have church growth seminars or massive discipleship programs. They loved people and talked about the love of Jesus that changed lives. They brought Jesus to the streets and encouraged people to bring Jesus farther into their homes, business and yes, even bars.



After reading this book I was encouraged and reminded again how simple doing church is. We have made it pretty complicated. Normally today, in order to get more of Jesus, we need seminary trained teachers, buildings organized in way that maximizes the church experience, big amps and big bands, videos, youth and child-care centers and massive parking lots; all this to allow us to worship God who is a personal, communal, intimate God that is known through the Holy Spirit, His Word, and fellowship of 2 or more believers.



This is what we want to be about. Making Jesus known in homes, streets, workplaces, parks and bars. As Neil Cole says, "lowering the bar on church and raising the bar on discipleship." Let's teach people to follow Jesus and then they'll see how simple church is. Yes, I still believe church is a tool that God is using to make himself known to the world. Yes, church is Biblical. My thought is that the way we have known church the last 20, 200, and 2000 years is changing, morphing and adapting to meet those that want to know an unchanging, unmorphing powerful, intimate God. There are many forms of church and church is ecclesia, meaning "called out ones." Isn't church just the gathering of 2 or more believers, regardless of the structure, setting and education level of those leading?



I appreciate the vision, passion and heart of Kreider and McClung. They have been part of some pretty radical churches, big and small, traditional and non-traditional, throughout the years. They encourage the 'chosen people, royal priesthood, holy nation a people belonging to God' to just go out and be church, not just attend one. Yes, they have an apologetic, how to's and questions you may have as to why simple/home church is uniquely platformed to reach this new generation of not-yet-Christians. But why is that all that bad? New forms, new wine skins to go out and love a lost and hurting world with the message of Jesus. I think the dream of many today is that we'll look across this planet and see many types of churches, some with huge steeples, others small and with a run down look and others you can't visibly see because they're hanging out gathering in homes and stores.



Here are some quotes:

• Could it be that God wants to change everything about how we view the church? He has created the church to be a dynamic, growing, changing movement, not a static doctrine. The Spirit of God calls each generation to re-imagine church for its own context and culture. The Holy Spirit invites every generation into the struggle to discover answers and approaches for themselves about church--answers that bring them into fresh partnership whith God and fresh contact with their culture. p. 17



• We believe that simple, small, non-building oriented, non-professional led, family based communities are some of the keys for re-evangelizing our nation. p. 30



• House church networks reproduce churches rapidly because the micro church model lends itself to more authentic relational connections, deeper and more natural discipleship accountability, quick reproduction of leaders and every member involvment. p. 33



• Rich Joyner says, "Pastors sometimes don't like having young stallions in their church. They seem to cause too many problems. But only young stallions can reproduce. Resist the temptation to 'fix' them so they cannot reproduce." p. 83



• The goal of leadership is to facilitate, release and encourage. p. 95

Go start and be the church!

Categories: God, Movements, Leadership, Books, SimpleChurch

The Call of the Entrepreneur

My new friend, Jay Gary, posted this video clip on his site. I watched the trailer and it seems very interesting. I'm challenged by those who shape our culture, economics, politics and faith. I wonder who are the next that will shape and the way people experience Jesus.

Check out the trailer.



Categories: Culture, Leadership

Disruptive Missiology: I like being disruptive

Sat down today and read through the Mission Frontiers Magazine, found online here. The last article in Further reflections called Disruptive Missiology Part 1: Definition by Greg Parsons has some good insights.

At times, to see that happen, we need a disruptive missiology. Something that looks at what is happening, what is not happening and dreams about what might happen. Something that hears the footsteps of the working of God in breakthrough and thinks, dreams, and works towards what might happen should God choose to move in peoples where we haven’t seen Him yet move.

I like dreaming with a healthy dissatissfaction of where we are at in reaching the lost. He ends with, "How might god use your giftings and creativity beyond what you have dreamed to disrupt something for good?"

Categories: Missions, Movements, Leadership, God, SimpleChurch

Missionalism will destroy you and others

I toss around the idea and dream of missional communities that impact a person's heart, life, relationships, community and city with the Gospel. Today I read an article by an author, pastor, speaker that I highly respect, Gordon MacDonald. Not because of his greatness but because in his brokenness he learned a ton about the grace and mercy of Christ.

Here he talks about something different than a missional church or community but the dangers of missionalism. Here are a few of his thoughts:

It's a leader's disease. Like a common cold that begins with a small cough, missionalism catches on in a leader's life and seems at first so inconsequential. But let this disease catch hold and you are likely to have bodies strewn all over the place, the leader's and some of the leader's followers.

Missionalism starts slowly and gains a foothold in the leader's attitude. Before long the mission controls almost everything: time, relationships, health, spiritual depth, ethics, and convictions.

Missionalism catches hold when an idea is bigger than a person and overwhelms the soul's ability to constrain it and direct it.

Missionalism—the passionate need to keep things growing and growing so that one proves his/her worth—can catch hold from various sources. For some of us, it came early in life when we discovered that we got a lot of love when we went forward to dedicate our lives to Christian service.

Comedian Robin Williams, who has lived his life rather frantically, checks into a rehab clinic (our modern version of a monastery) and when he comes out two months later, tells Diane Sawyer what he's learned.
"All any of us want is to be loved," he says. Could that be what's behind missionalism? A suspicion that if I build and build and build, doing all these good things, that people will love me? Do bigger accomplishments equate to more love?

Read the whole article and insights on how to protect your heart, mind and relationships from the dangers of Missionalism: click here.

Categories: God, Movements, Leadership, ChurchPlanting, SimpleChurch

No Perfect People Allowed

Well I'm sitting out on my deck, the wind is blowing my long brown hair in my eyes, the smoke from my cigar is far from making this weakling cough and I finished a good read by John Burke, No Perfect People Allowed: Creating a COME AS YOU ARE culture in the church. For you spanish speakers and readers you can read it at No Se Admiten Personas Perfectas.

At first it felt like a "Look at our church; we are perfect and follow us" type book about Gateway Community Church in Austin, TX. But soon I let that first emotion go and saw the tremendous heart that John, his staff and congregation have for the lost, broken and messed up emerging generation. It really pokes and prods my heart and our current American churches on how we are structured, thinking, praying, reaching and responding to the hurting people around us.

I first read it because the title struck me and I was at Joel and Ana's wedding in Michigan and saw it in the hotel lobby sitting around. I read the first chapter and I thought, "Hmm, I not perfect and I feel messed up and like a failure this past year. This book is for me." I didn't realize that it was for those leading and wanting to reach these type of people. But all along the way I found my heart longing for a type of church, life and ministry that reaches people in my community like they have, even though I have issues with the traditional four walls church.

Chapter 10: Tribal Truth: Creating the Culture of Incarnational Truth was worth whatever price you pay for the book. I got my local library to buy it for me so I didn't pay anything but I would have paid the $12. If you're leading a church, pray for the lost, want to figure out how to get away from just caring and shepherding Christians then you ought to read this book.

Here are a few quotes to perk your interest and give you a feel for the John's heart and maybe this will challenge you in your thinking, life and ministry.

• "Are we raising up a generation of leaders ready to lay down their comfortable lives to dive into the muck of cultural America? Or are we just playing church-developing spiritual dependants who consume the goods off whatever church shelf will "feed me," or "puff me with more knowledge," or even "feel" postmodern?" p. 20
• "We can make people conform but not become. So the better path is to help people trust God, and that's a struggle for all of us! Even for religious leaders who often struggle trying to control people's behavior, because if feels like a reflection on us. We must all let go and trust God to lead and guide us into wholeness and healing." p.157
• "Sex is a psuedo-connection for hetero- or homosexual need for intimacy." p. 162
• "We must know where to doubt, where to feel certain, where to submit." Pascal p. 167
• Truths: 1. Humble Truth 2. Practical Truth 3. Rational Truth 4. Incarnation Truth
• "Our Goal is not to get people to "convert" by repeating one prayer. The goal is to love God and people, living out of the fullness of life in God's kingdom, inviting all to come and enjoy the fruits of His life in us, because the door has been flung wide open through Christ." p. 175
• "[Most people] lead lives of quiet desperation." Thoreau p.205
• "Ours is a culture crying out for intimacy, but only able to conceive of accessing it through sex." Mike Starkey (God, Sex and Gen X) p. 223
• "...leaders can't afford to retreat into holy huddles, cursing the darkness. We must walk forward into it and turn on a light. Jesus said His words are truth that liberate--that bring life and freedom to every aspect of existence." p. 226
• Regarding the Samaritan Woman: "Jesus knew that until she had living water springing up in her soul, flowing out a right relationship with God, she would forever drink from muddy water." p. 227
• "Listen attentively to a person's story, then ask, "Which way forward from here? Help people move toward Christ regardless off their path." p. 228
• "True healing, however, often requires a lengthy process of righting the wrongs and uncovering the lies of the past. God can heal us immediately, but more often He takes us along a different path that forces us to continually depend on Him, because only in Him do we find true life. If he immediately healed us, we would immediately turn back to our independent, self-centered ways." p. 247
• "...sometimes pain can be a friend if it drives us to the end of ourselves and into the arms of God." p. 252
• "God has a plan to create a new family, a redemptive family--a family with the power to heal and restore what humanity lost by going its own way." p. 288
• "...one of the tasks of God's new family needs to be teaching each other how to enjoy life as God intended." p. 292

That's a good snippet. The book has some great personal evaluation questions after each chapter and some for your small group. I would suggest reading this with your church or small group leadership. It will open your eyes to the lost around us, what they are going through and unfortunately how the church is hurting them and missing their real needs.

John ends the book with a chapter for leaders and how we should think about our future church generations. What are we doing to raise up the next generation of church planters?

Enjoy the read!

Categories: Church, ChurchPlanting, SimpleChurch, Movements, Ministry, Leadership, Books

This describes my heart a bit

The past few years I have tried to nail down who am I and what do I like doing. Having great team members and friends in our lives has helped confirm and validate some of our feelings and stirrings God has been tossing around inside our hearts and minds as of late. Also, moving to Greeley, CO, having some serious rest and process time and meeting new friends have shown us what we really want to do in the future. We're just not sure when; waiting on the Lord.....

One of my new great friends and neighbors is Billy Williams. He is a non-college graduate, super successful entrepreneurial businessmen. Maybe someday in the future I'll go to work for him. We talk often about business, leadership, start ups, church planting, our brokenness and the Gospel. It has been a source of life to have him in my life.

A post from Glenn Smith at New Church Initiatives caught my eye today on what goes on inside of me. Talking to Billy has also surfaced similar issues and passions in my life that he has being a entrepreneurial businessmen.

"Entrepreneurs are very interesting people. I work with entrepreneurs in both the vocational ministry world and the business world. I love them. It is true that most people perceive entrepreneurs to be "risk-takers" but I've learned that most entrepreneurs are also thoughtful planners!"

Read the whole short article at ENTREPRENEURS AND FEAR

Categories: God, Movements, Gospel, ChurchPlanting, Leadership