Author Archives: Lane Corley
“Hey, You Just Told My Story”
“Many people think of the Bible as a book of moral teachings with stories sprinkled through to illustrate the teachings. But it’s a lot better than that…the Bible is a single true story with teachings sprinkled through to illustrate the story.” ~ Tim Keller
I’ve always been primarily an outline and propositional truth kind of teacher, but I’ve been trying my hand at storytelling over the past month and seeing the fruit already. Lot’s of reasons story-telling is needed – our society is less literate than ever, Jesus was a great story-teller, 3/4 of the Bible is story – but the one reason that has jumped out at me recently is that people put themselves inside the story before they put themselves inside the outline. Hear’s the line I’m hearing multiple times a week: “You just told my story. I’m the guy that …” “Hey, that’s me you were talking about. I’m the girl that …” “You were talking about my friend.” Story has a way of connecting us with truth and seeing how it can change everything.
At our Bridge Church gatherings, we’re telling the One Story of Salvation in four acts: Creation, Corruption, Redemption, Restoration.Follow the series here. Get some good storying resources here. Leave in your comments good stories that I can use :)).
Are You Plateaued?
Few leaders finish well. Maybe as few as one in three. And this was true of the leaders described in the Bible as well. Whether you’re leading a family, a church, a team, or a business, it is difficult and God’s wisdom is needed if we are to do what it takes to finish well. How can we keep from plateauing and burning out as leaders?
Just finished Neil Cole’s latest book, Journey’s to Significance: Charting a Leadership Course from the Life of Paul. In the
last chapter he describes a plateaued leader who’s on the way to burn out or worse:
He says plateaued leaders…
- Avoid relationships of personal accountability. How many degrees of separation are there from you and other leaders?
- Have infrequent personal application of God’s word. Are you mastering a subject or following and pursuing a King?
- Have seen joy, peace, and love replaced with envy and resentment. Is your character being shaped by Christ or by the opinions and actions of others?
- Frequently look for greener pastures in other places. Are you too focused on the circumstances around you to bring transformation to the place God has called you?
- More easily find fault in others than in themselves. Do you give others as much grace as you give yourself?
- Are burned out from lots of activity that has been substituted for intimacy with Christ. Are you exhausted from thinking more effort and more activity will bring you more blessings from God?
- Compromise ethical principles once held dear. Are you taking liberties that you once would not, because of entitlement?
- Stay within safe areas of expertise rather than branching out into new learning endeavors. Does the idea of learning something new make you afraid or proud?
- Are teachers and experts more than learners. Are you easily offended when instruction and advice comes from others?
- Have reduced the Christian life to the rut of a routine. Can your Christian walk be described as a few do’s and many don’ts?
- Perspective. They are focusing their energies on consistency over the course of their lives.
- Renewal. They take time to refresh and renew and rest and reconnect with God.
- Discipline. “Finishing well over the course of a lifetime is not accidental but intentional” ~ Cole.
- Learning. They maintain a learning posture throughout their lives.
- Mentoring. They mentor others and are mentored themselves.
- They maintain a personal vibrant relationship with God right up to the end.
- They maintain a learning posture and can learn from various kinds of sources.
- They manifest Christ-likeness in character as evidenced by the fruit of the Spirit in their lives.
- Truth is lived out in their lives so that convictions and promises of God are seen to be real.
- They leave behind one or more ultimate contributions.
- They walk with a growing awareness of a sense of destiny and see some or all of it fulfilled.
Story-Tellers Needed
- Researchers believe that 70% or more of the people in North America prefer non-literate means of communication.
- Over the past twenty years, 20 million people have completely stopped reading.
- Only 14% of Americans still read extensively.
- 80% of American families did not buy a book last year, and the average reader only makes it to page 18.
- Over 50% of people over the age 16 are functionally illiterate.
- 58% of US adult population never reads another book after high school.
- 42% of college graduates never read another book. (I actually had a doctor recently tell me that he had never read a book all the way through!).
- Each day, people in the US spend four hours watching TV, three hours listening to the radio, and 14 minutes reading magazines.
- It’s estimated that we spend as much as 80% of our non-working, non-sleeping time in front of a screen – TV or PC. [1]
As I come across more and more folks who are post-literate, I’m challenged to think about my communication of the Gospel. 75% of the Bible is story, and by making it primarily propositional truth do we take it out of the comfort zone of learning for many of our hearers and especially for those who are unchurched and not accustomed to listening to preaching. What about you? What is your preferred method of learning? Outline? Story? What do you remember most from the last sermons that you have heard? Leave your comments below.
Trying my hand at more story-telling this Fall with our new Message series called One Story. Enjoying it so far and seeing the impact already.
Check out a few resources on this if your interested:
- Truth That Sticks: How to Communicate Velcro Truth in a Teflon World by Avery T. Willis, Jr. and Mark Snowden
- Story Thru the Bible: An Interactive Way to Connect with God’s Word from Walk Thru the Bible
- Story of God Training by Soma Communities Church in Tacoma Washington.
- Making Disciples of Oral Learners from the Lausanne Committee for World Evangelization
Upcoming Training for Planters and Multipliers
- Basic Training for Church Planters, September 8-10 @ Woodland Park Baptist Church in Hammond. More info here. Register for the event here. After registering Prepare for the Journey here. Basic Training is a workshop that helps shape the vision and direction of a new church. Looking forward to taking the journey again with our newest crop of planter in the NOLA region.
- Greenhouse w/Neil Cole and Church Multiplication Associates, October 21-22 @ New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary. Here’s the event brochure. Register for the event here. Neil Cole’s writings have inspired me to think beyond planting a church to planting a movement. Looking forward to spending a few days learning with him and his team.
Church Multiplication is a spiritual decision of a local church to put the needs of a desperate world before self-preservation.
~ Stephen Gray – read more: http://tinyurl.com/3dhbpak
Hurricane #Katrina
A few things I remember 6 years later:
- the weatherman saying, “a little jog to the west.”
- preaching Sun, Aug 28 to a small group of people who mostly had their bags packed for a nervous trip north.
- seeing my family drive away into the endless stream of cars heading north.
- the 3 hour drive that took 9 hours.
- the sound of generators running from miles around.
- the smell of pine sap, sweat, and bar oil. It’s forever burned into my nostrils.
- the trees. So many trees.
- 10 weeks without electricity.
- MRE’s and Southern Baptist cooked pastalaya.
- Countless volunteers, I wish I could remember all their names, who cooked, cut, constructed, & deconstructed.
- Rice crispy treats!!! Our church received a call, “Can you take the contents of a truck from TN?” “What’s in it?” “Not sure.” It was a truck load of rice crispy treats. Took forever to get rid of them. Still have night mares about rice crispy treats.
- Saying good-bye to friends who had to move away.
- The heart breaking sights and sounds in the city of New Orleans & the Gulf Coast.
- The day my family came home :)).
- Laying down in my bed for the first night with electricity and realizing the trees were no longer there to shade the street lights.
- Hearing people say Katrina was a good thing because it helped me realize I needed God and needed others.
This van was left in our church parking lot by a St. Bernard resident.
Faith in Action Sunday!
Four times per year Bridge Church takes a Sunday and instead of gathering, we scatter for worship by serving and giving ourselves away in our community in a variety of ways. Here’s a quick list of our scheduled projects and a few before pics:
- Disabled single mom had a kitchen fire in 2007. She’s washed dishes in her bathtub since then. This summer,Homeworks teams re-roofed and painted the house. Sunday she’ll get new cabinets and sink. We’ll also cut the grass, clean up the yard, and serve her any other way we can.
- Habitat House in Abita Springs – Habitat loved our Faith in Action Sunday idea so much, they asked if we could be on their project list. They have several homes at different points of completion.
- Several projects at a local Mobile Home Park including hand rails for a recent stroke victim and two elderly widows, new door locks for a single mom who can’t lock her house and cleaning the place up in a Tipping Point kind of way.
- A new porch and steps for a family with special needs child in Hammond.
- Hadden Hall, Jahnke St., Covington – Council On Aging Senior Center in need of repair, pressure washing, andpainting.
- Food Baskets – @ the YMCA, Ladies will prepare baskets with food, Bibles, etc. to be delivered to elderly residents at Oak Villa MHP & other places.
- Potted Plants – @ the YMCA, kids will prepare plants to be delivered to elderly residents at Oak Villa MHP &other places.
- Bake Goods to Public Servants – Families can deliver baked goods to area fire depts and police depts. Great way to say thanks & get to climb on a fire truck :).
- ICU Waiting Room visits – we’ll have gift cards to deliver to area ICU waiting rooms. Cafeteria’s are closed on weekends, so this meets a basic need and communicates to those in crisis that they are not alone.
- Block Party @ Dave’s Trailer Park – as we work on the porch in Hammond, we’ll bring light to the West Hammond community with inflatables, snow cones, hamburger, hotdogs, and an old old story.
- Block Party for Visitation at a local work release center to connect with families of inmates that we minister to on a weekly basis.
Wondering Why? Click here. Or show up at 9am with a willingness to serve. It’s more than singing and sitting that shapes a disciple of Christ. God wants to use us as well. Through Faith in Action Sunday, everybody can serve, we can see our community in a different way, we shine light on hundreds of people who are not in church on Sunday morning. Looking forward to serving with my family on mission tomorrow!
“In every apple is an orchard”
Yesterday was our annual luncheon to talk about opportunities and avenues for partnering to plant churches and multiply off-campus ministry on the Northshore. From my notes:
- North America is the only continent where Christianity is not growing.
- No county in America has a greater % of churched people today than 10 years ago.
- Since 1991, the number of adults in the US who do not attend church has nearly doubled.
- Missional affirmations by the LA Bapt Convention: “We believe the Biblical mandate to Make Disciples of All Nations is a call to plant multiplying churches among all people groups in Louisiana.” “We believe that planting indigenous, multiplying churches is the most effective strategy for making disciples and impacting lostness.”
- 1 out of every 2 Louisiana residents surveyed indicated no “personal relationship” with Jesus Christ.
- On the Northshore, population has grown 3 times as fast as church membership. Only 3.3% of the population attend a Southern Baptist Church on any given weekend. Less than 10% attend evangelical church of any kind. If we wanted to double that to 6.6% over the next 10 years we would need to add 16,000+ worshipers.
- Dr. David Hankins shared about the need for a paradigm shift in ministry mentality in North America and four unfounded fears that pastors have about Church Planting: 1) I’m going to lose members, 2) Will the new church remain baptist, 3) We can’t afford it, 4) I don’t have time. Eric Hankins writes about these four fears here.
If you’d like to get an info packet from the event or learn about some of the specific opps to partner in 2012, email me at lanecorley@gmail.com.
Are You Getting in the Way?
Great post here by my On Mission Partner Mauricio Hance.
Mauricio, his wife Rebecca and there three awesome kids moved from the safe confines of seminary housing into a 64′ Mobile Home in one of the Northshore’s largest Mobile Home Parks in order to be On Mission, plant life, and help our church go forward with our incarnational church planting strategy. He’s written about how this move meant moving below the poverty line for their family. And his observations here make for one of the clearest cases for incarnational ministry that I’ve read:
Getting in the way is not always a bad thing. In fact, perhaps we should get in the way more often.
I have been praying for God to show me how coaching and living here in the park are connecting. In searching for what He has called me to do the I have found that He has called me to get in the way. Get in the way of what?
He has called me to get in the way of young boys becoming drug addicts and womanizers. He has called me to get in the way of people feeling like they are worthless and unable to achieve beyond what they have. I am called to get in the way of young girls becoming mothers too early, or prostitutes to support a drug habit. He has put me here to get in the way of young girls feeling low and inconfident, making them prime candidates for sexual abuse. He has put me here to get in the way of young men ending up in prison or becoming thugs. He has put me here to get in the way of spousal abuse and oppression. He has called me to get in the way of women becoming objects of lust and men becoming oppressors of women. What has He called me here for? To get in the way of those walking the path to death and darkness, and guide them out of the darkness and into the light.
Check out the entire post and follow Mauricio at missionarycoach.wordpress.com. Also, pray for Mauricio and Rebecca’s work. And, you can get involved this weekend as we put our Faith in Action at the park through light construction projects, delivering food to elderly residents, and more. Check out our projects for Sunday here and/or message me for more info – lanecorley@gmail.com.
Missional Axiom: Don’t start services, start making disciples
Church planting methods in the United States have emphasized starting services as the primary focus of starting new churches. Jesus commissions believers to make disciples, not start services.
Planning and preparing for your first worship service won’t make disciples.
Start with Making disciples!
See other Missional Axioms here.
Lane Corley 