Take a look around. I bet you have all that you need to get started. I bet that you have all you need to hit a home run! Our vision for ministry cannot begin with the proper tools. This is a backwards way to lead the church. Good ideas come long before the resources needed to pull them off.  A little creativity goes a long ways. What projects have you been waiting to start?

The Spiritual world of Mario

Is spirituality visible or invisible? What does it look like? Many of us draw a clear black line between the spiritual and physical self. We believe that what happens in the heart cannot be seen in the real world. Our Christianity becomes otherworldly and we start to believe that our role in God’s story is to escape creation. This view has become known as Platonic dualism (ya, I just name dropped Plato).

Robert E. Webber has written a book about ancient spirituality titled The Divine Embrace. In it he argues that, ”the Christian spiritual life is not an experience out of this world, it is an experience of transcendent meaning here and now in this world through a passionate participation in God’s vision for humanity in theis world.” This passionate participation has a real world effect.

Do you agree with Webber? Can your spiritual life have an affect in the created world?

Robert E. Webber, The Divine Embrace p. 171

You and I are a limited resource. I hate to admit it but I can only accomplish so many things in a given day. When we enlist the help of others we can increase the potential output exponentially. The scary part is that it no longer becomes our output and is the output of others. I think this is why so many of us have a hard time empowering others to succeed: we lose control. The success is no longer accomplished how we would have done it. The end result may be different than we imagined it and the worst part: we may not get any credit!

How is this process more powerful? It sounds like a losing proposition.  Those of us who serve the church cannot make decisions based on our own egos. It is not about you. You and I must realize that we are serving a purpose that is far greater than ourselves.

If your church is going to make a difference then you need to help other people win. You propagate the life changing story of Jesus in this way: by teaching and training up others. Remind yourself that serving in the church should never bring glory to your own name. Serving the church means serving others. This service is where we can find value being the first loser.

Yes, Allah.

I was reminded that today’s culture in North America is becoming more ignorant of the Christian tradition. At the same time I believe that our culture is becoming more religiously aware. The lines between religions are becoming less and less distinguishable for an entire generation. God or Allah: its all the same to them. Christian or Mormon: same difference. I understand that the name Allah can be used outside of the context of Islam. Our guest this Sunday had innocently confused the two faiths.

Does this change the way that we present the Bible to kids? Do you see a greater awareness of world religions emerging in your Sunday school classes? Could this be a good thing for the Church?

This is not Joiner’s doctoral thesis on family ministry. It is, however, a useful guide to help you start thinking about family ministry. The second half of the book offers some helpful images of family ministry that would be useful for any church. If any of us could begin to implement some of the concepts that Joiner and his team have captured we would be in a better place.  I have brought some of Joiners ideas to my team already. This book is well worth your time… but dont read it alone. Make sure that everyone in your church who works with babies to eighteen year olds gets their hands on this book. It is really that good.

What about your church? Does your church think orange? Is the family regarded as one unit or do you ministries take a narrow view of children and students?

God is Not in Your Toolbox

God is not in your toolbox; he is not at your disposal.

He is not something for you to apply to a problem. That is not how it works. Some of us work hard in ministry and think that if we can find the best way to apply God then we will succede. This approach inverts the relationship between us and God. We are to be his hands and feet in ministry, not the other way around.

We are in God’s toolbox, we are at his disposal.

The Christmas Story

Nothing is better than kids sharing the Christmas story. A group from New Zealand have created my favorite reenactment of the story of Jesus’ birth. They do a great job at capturing the reality surrounding Joseph, Marry, the Shepherds and some of the other major players. I love watching this narrative striped of popular christmas culture. It reminds me that this story is real. It reminds me that Christmas recognizes the day that God’s son came to earth as a human being.

They have made the video free to use so long as you dont “change it in any way, nor make money out of it.” Its not too late to add it to your Christmas service. You can download it by following the link below.

I think of my ability to resist temptation. Sometimes I succede and sometimes I fail. I noticed how some kids would stare at the marshmallow, some would touch it, smell it even nibble it! How are they going to resist eating the thing when they get so dangerously close! There it is. I do the same thing. How can I resist temptation? Stay far, far away. I am sure you are familiar with the words that Paul wrote to the early Christians in Corinth.

No temptation has seized you except what is common to man. And God is faithful; he will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted, he will also provide a way out so that you can stand up under it. -1 Corinthians 10:13

We can resist because God is faithful. If marshmallows are your kryptonite then keep far away. In fact, I would recommend running in the opposite direction! Many of us need to pull a Joseph and run away from the sin that so easily entangles. How do you avoid temptation?

Come, thou long-expected Jesus,

Born to set thy people free;

From our fears and sins release us;

Let us find our rest in thee.

-Charles Wesley, Come, Thou Long-Expected Jesus

Charles Wesley

I had the privilege of reading the Christmas story to a small group of kids last weekend. Three of the seven had never head it before and had lots of questions. Who was Cesar? Why would they want to count everyone? Why didn’t they go to the hospital? It was awesome to talk through Luke 2 with fresh eyes and a curious heart.

Something jumped out to me. When the angels announced the birth of Jesus they referred to him using several names: Savior, Messiah, the Lord. Catch that? From day one Jesus was already the savior. How could a baby save anyone? We see how Jesus came for the purpose of bringing God’s rescue plan into fulness. Jesus came to save us.

And so we pray for Jesus to come, to save us, to set us free so that we may rest in him.

Back to the future?

How awesome was yesterday? Many of us consider the past better than the present… and you can forget about the future! Have you turned on the TV lately? The world is going to fall apart any day now. What’s that noise? Trumpets? I think I see a white horse poking its heads through yonder clouds (Bible Joke: Rev. 19:11)… You hear this talk in the church all the time. People begin sentences with remember when and they drift back to simpler times where flannel graphs and overhead projectors better communicated the love of Jesus.

Then there are those who throw out the past entirely. Grandma and Grandpa have nothing to offer because we have it all figured out. These people navigate with one reference point and can become easily lost. How can you possibly know where to go unless you know where you came from? These people also have a loud voice in the church and wont settle for anything less than the latest web 3.0

We read about this tension between the yesterday and tomorrow in the book of Ezra.

And all the people gave a great shout of praise to the LORD, because the foundation of the house of the LORD was laid. But many of the older priests and Levites and family heads, who had seen the former temple, wept aloud when they saw the foundation of this temple being laid, while many others shouted for joy. No one could distinguish the sound of the shouts of joy from the sound of weeping, because the people made so much noise. And the sound was heard far away. -Ezra 3:11-13

What a mixed bag emotions! Some people are happy about laying a new foundation for the temple; the house of God was going to be rebuilt after many years. But the old timers could only weep aloud because of what used to be; they saw the lost glory of God’s house. Who is correct?

The world is in constant motion including the lives of those who make up the church. At some point in life we feel most comfortable and would like to hit the pause button. We have found a balance and things make sense! The problem is that you cannot pause life. Even if you attempt to stand still the rest of the world continues to move forward. We may try to live in cultural stasis while the world around us continues to progress through history. The longer we stay still the less and less relevant our voice becomes. We must be fluid in our approach to being the church. Our mission is to the world of today not to the world of yesterday. We must be willing to take the message of Jesus to the people who need to hear it the most regardless of where that takes us. Know this: it will take you into uncomfortable places.

The more our methods change the more we depend on our knowledge of the past. No one can successfully navigate with one point of reference. This is especially true when we are navigating on currents of change that seem to moving more quickly than ever. You have to know where you are coming from. The church must understand its history in a local and global sense. This is how we can understand the best ways to tell people and show people how much Jesus loves them.

How do we do all this? The attempt to creatively forward the mission of God while thoughtfully considering our local and global foundation is a big task. Honestly, I dont know. It would seem that we start from a place of understanding and continue to move towards a creative expression of Jesus’ love that respects the current realities of life.

I dont think I would ever consider things too hot in years past. The more change the better! This view, however, dose not consider those whom we wish to lead. It can be difficult to remember that there are people to worry about other than ourselves when it comes to change. Martin Linsky discussed the importance of controlling the temperature when introducing change. It give you something to think about.

If you try to stimulate deep change within an organization, you have to control the temperature… The heat must stay within a tolerable range—not so high that people demand it be turned off completely, and not so low that they are lulled into inaction.

How hot is too hot? When was the last time you considered cooling things down?

Seconds of Beauty

How much can you say in a second? I often ask myself this question on Sunday morning. If your in leadership and work with a large team then you may not get to spend as much time as you would like with each member. We have many amazing volunteers at our church and many more wonderful parents. On the best week I get a chance to say, “hi” to half of them. OK, lets be honest, a quarter of them!

How much can you say in a second? Not much. I saw this project called Seconds of Beauty by Montblanc. They made me think twice about how much can be communicated in a brief amount of time. See for yourself and take in a collection of one second documentaries.

JumpStart Podcast

This is an excellent ministry tool for anyone involved in children’s ministry. The JumpStart Podcast hosts a collection of talks from some of the best children’s ministry leaders in the Northwest. They are releasing monthly episodes to keep the conversation going and hooking up their listeners with great resources. Check their backlog for dozens of talks on leadership in ministry to kids. Their hosts, Dan @danmetteer and Kevin @lifengeer do a great job hosting each episode.

Check it out and recommend it to your local children’s pastor.

You are free to shop wherever you wish; it is a matter of conscience for you and your family. If you dont say merry Christmas in your window I want to meet you. I want to have a relationship with you and welcome you to walk right through MY door. If fact, you can come to my church. Both you and Santa would be welcome to hang out any time of the week.

A master connector can bridge the gap between many different peoples and groups.

We must not overlook our role as a connector. We have the responsibility to bring people together for a common purpose. The most effective way to get this done is through relationships. The connector may consider themselves some sort of ministry match-maker. Browse your church long enough to find two people who might work well together. We need to be careful not to objectify those who we wish to connect. It would be nice if there interest in bible memory or prison ministry would be enough for them to forge a lasting relationship. The truth is that we are the most meaningful common-bond between the people who serve in our church.

Chris Ernst and Donna Chrobot-Mason wrote a book titled Boundary Spanning Leadership. They define a connector as someone who can, “forge ties that are anchored in strong relationships… authentic, trust-based relationships.”[1] A connector is someone who can unite two people relationally out of his or her own relationship with those two people. If my aim is to unite two different volunteers then I must begin with my own relationship with each volunteer. I think that pastors often think that they can skip this step and may feel like a sort of relational middle-man. Senior pastors, those who are responsible for the largest amount of leaders, have a special challenge in this regard. Many large churches host a large staff and the pastor must develop a strategy for connections to be made between key members of the staff. How are these connections made? They are made through mutual relationships with other leaders.

You must become an effective connector. Churches who lack this social function fail to span boundaries and become compartmentalized. Those who can master this skill open up many new and creative ways to be the church.

pastoral staff off to the races

Is there any room for churches to compete with each other? Does competition ever result in the improvement of the church? Competition is one of the primary values in a capitalistic society. The idea is that competition between organizations pushes each other foreword and results in better products at lower costs. Is the local church improved under these conditions? Daniel J. Cladis states that, “God in perichoresis portrays to us the unity of God in three persons. There is a flow of affection, love, and unity among the three persons of the one God. Competition is alien within God.”[1]  God does not compete with himself. Do we compete with the guys down the street? Most church growth is considered transfer growth where members of one church begin attending other churches. Is this the primary result of church competition? I think so. Churches are quick to host a bigger and better VBS or sermon series. How often are they competing to out-do each other in outreach? I feel that this is a rare occurrence. Perhaps the heart of church growth is not competitive because this is one area where the Holy Spirit is doing the real work. Does the church down the street make me a better church? In many ways it does. Is the source of this improvement competition? I do not think so. The church down the street is most helpful to me when we collaborate and encourage each other. I think that this should be the modus operandi of the local church today and focus on the mission of God together.

This essay will discuss the interlocking roles of the Holy Spirit in evangelism in the Church in the mission of God. Like a Russian nesting doll these concepts can be found within each other as we look within the outermost layer: God’s mission. We will conclude by discussing some practical applications for the Church to move forward in evangelism with a clearer sense of purpose and direction.

Feel free to take a look at the rest of the essay: The Mission of God and the Church

We do this in church: substitute personal things for efficient things. There is a lot of talk in ministry circles about customer service; asking the question how are we (church staff) serving our customers (church members)? I am not sure this is the right question to be asking. You also hear things like, the bigger we get the smaller we must become. This is the right idea but how do we pull it off? Any of us could create a laundry list of idioms that highlight our desire to make a personal connection with others, with our community. The problem is that each of us have a limited capacity for personal connections. It dosent scale. So we find ourselves in a place where we create systems of scale instead of personal connections. This is the best solution… or is it?

Can we create a relationship based systems that grow as the church grows? I am talking about being relational in the way we recruit volunteers, the way we receive an offering, or about the way we teach the Bible. Many people assume that going to a big church means that you give up a certain amount of personal connection. I have spoken with those who are drawn to this ambiguity and are content to lurk in the back row. I dont think this is necessarily true. We must create relationship based systems of doing church. This is how you build a culture: it starts from the bottom up.

Church culture that values individuals does not start with the church picnic. It starts with your mail. We need to reinvent yesterday’s email mail today. People need to become excited to receive email from the church. (I am using mail as a metaphor for the many ways in which we interact with the church.) When you preach, send  a post card or create a registration form you must ask yourself: does this sound conversational? Would I talk to my mother like this? Most of what we tell people on Sunday is not from the pulpit. It is from our lobby, our parking lot and the background we choose for our worship slides. This type of communication is contagious because it is honest. It will begin to saturate your congregation and they key to relational scalability will seed itself throughout the church: honesty. Can an honest sermon title help create an honest church?

Churches are getting bigger in North America and we run the risk of creating a gospel-machine that misses the mark of creating disciples. Is it a forgone conclusion that bigger churches will be less personal?

I do know what it is like to wait on God. I have felt dry in my heart and prayed for rain.

God stretches my heart in times of waiting. These times can feel downright desperate. I pray to be with God like we were before: when things were better. I ask myself why things feel so dry now? What am I doing wrong?

The truth is that we become stretched in times of spiritual drought. Waiting for God increases my desire for Him. It is hard to believe that we may take God for granted but we do! If you have never suffered a time in your life when God felt far away know that it will come. You are being stretched and your capacity for the love of God is being pulled out of you. Do not become discouraged. God still loves you and is still close to you. You are waiting for the rain.

When the rain returns you will go crazy. It is refreshing, live giving and new! Every drop of water brings you into a fuller existence and you know that life is within you.

Have I allowed my Bible reading to transform me or have I reduced it to a matter of word processing? Greenman is warning readers to stay away from some common evangelical challenges which typify modern spirituality. The reading of the Word of God has always been considered a key part of the evangelical experience. However, we must be careful not to regard the words of God as something that is common. Greenman notes that,

typical patterns of evangelical engagement with Scripture can easily devolve into an information-orientated rationalism wherein the Bible is “word processed:” in a mechanical way…”[1]

I read out of the Bible every day. Am I giving the Bible its due respect or have I become so accustomed to its company that I do not give it due reverence? I remember hearing the stories of the Gideons; men and women who distribute copies the Bible around the world. They tell stories about villages that are so desperate for God’s word that they will tear pages out of a New Testament book and take turns reading them in various homes. How many Bibles do I own? How many are with me in this very room?! I must allow my time in the Word to change me. This will most certainly change the way we read.

How would you read the Bible differently if your goal was transformation instead of information?

“We came, then, to the New Testament asking for a program of action by which we might further the victory of Christ, and we have received our answer: I give you no program, but a calling-to be the Church”

colors of change

We are resigning as the Children’s Pastor of Gateway Fellowship in Poulsbo. After five wonderful years of ministry we have sensed a call for change. Our hearts began to stir in January and we felt God preparing us for something different. We had no idea what this thing was or what it was going to look like. We only knew that God was behind it and that we must get on board. Since then we have experienced the many colors of change: sadness, frustration and joy.

We are sad to leave this church family. The staff at Gateway Fellowship are amazing and we have been blessed with special friends like Chad and Cynthia Rose. Pastor Tom is an excellent pastor and I am sincerely disapointed to step out from under His leadership. The rest of the staff have been excellent partners in ministry and personal friends.

We are frustrated to leave behind a place that has become our home. These past years have been the best of our married life. We have matured in ministry, graduated from Nursing School, welcomed Adele’ into our family and fallen in love with this church. It is hard to change what took so many years to build.

We are joyful because we know that God has directed our steps. We will be welcomed into a new ministry at Evergreen Christian Community in Olympia and are excited to work with Pastor Jim Ladd and his team. God has confirmed that we are moving in the right direction, no matter how sad or frustrated we may feel.  This is His plan for our life and we anticipate great things ahead.

Thank you all for letting us be a part of your church family. You children are crazy wonderful and we will miss each and every one of them. Our last Sunday will be on May 29th, 2011.  Please feel free to give us a call or send us an email. Our next few weeks are going to be quite full but we would love to make time to say goodbye to you.

-Brent, Bria and Adele’

p.s. don’t be surprised to hear a good bye from Billy the Goat sometime soon…

The art is by Gilad from Deviant Art