Category Archives: Ministry
Pastorpreneur
I love this term – Pastorpreneur (Pastor/Entrepeneur). It describes the kind of leaders we need in the church today. Saw it first in Dave Brownings book Deliberate Simplictiy. Here is how Browning describes the pastorpreneur:
- a kingdom-minded leader who has a heart for people and the ingenuity to reach them.
- so concerned about reaching lost people that they will launch a new ministry endeavor to save them.
- self-inspired and self-directed to fulfill God’s calling on his or her life.
- comfortable being a trendsetter rather than a replicator.
Asking God to raise up more pastorpreneurs.
Coming Face to Face with Self
Luke 9:23 (ESV) “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me.”
Here’s Following Jesus 101: Deny yourself, consider yourself as good as dead, and now you’re ready to get in line behind the One reconciling and restoring the world. It’s a call to come face to face with your own selfishness and put it to death.
The disciples didn’t get it. Just 23 verses later they are arguing about which one of them was the greatest disciple (Luke 9:46). They needed to come face to face with their selfishness.
When you are obedient to the call of God to love, to serve, to give and go, you often come face to face with self and see it for what it is. If your life revolves around pleasing self, you will avoid the call of Jesus and ignore the needs of others.
My Journey:
- I came face to face with my own selfishness as I stood in an orphanage in Zimbabwe looking at 150 orphans, many of them HIV positive, as the director of the home told me they had enough food for one more meal.
- I came face to face with my own selfishness as I stood under a tent in a remote village in Chiapas, Mexico, as a lady received life saving medication that cost less than an American dining experience.
- I came face to face with my own selfishness as I stood in an emergency room with a young man and his family as he lay dying from wounds received in an auto accident.
- I came face to face with my own selfishness when I met a couple in my area who both have had strokes and live in substandard housing.
This Saturday, August 29th, our church will follow the reconciling and restoring One into that neighborhood to put aside self and love, serve, give, and go.
If we don’t deal with self, we may never see the needs around us and be blessed to respond to His call and follow His steps. I couldn’t afford either of those mission trips. I didn’t have time to stop by that hospital. I’ve got plenty of other places that me and my family could be on Saturday, August 29. That is according to self. But what’s going to really matter? That I get all I want to please myself or that I make a difference in the lives of others?
Jesus calls us to a new outlook on life. And it gets better! He gives us a new outlook. He gives us the ability to see beyond ourselves, to hear his voice, to respond to needs as He would.
Father, give us the grace and courage to lay aside self and follow Jesus.
A few random lessons from Fatherhood, Church Planting, Denominational work:
- Experience in church planting just means you understand how hard the journey is going to be.
- A five-month old puppy can tear up anything. Anything!
- There is lots of ways to sponsor a church plant, but the most successful plants happen when senior leaders bet the farm and make it a top tier priority. That’s why multi-site works. Leadership buys in and is willing to pay the bills – spiritually, physically, and financially – putting the name of the ministry on the line for the sake of the plant.
- Entrepreneurial leaders make it happen anyway, because no is not an answer when the eternal destinies of people are at stake.
- The community is very open to the involvement of the faith community when we can fit them into our schedule.
- No matter what you tell them, children insist on following your example.
- 1 & 2 Corinthians could have been written to the churches in North America yesterday.
- Hurting people, hurt people, and are more easily hurt by people.
- God is raising up a generation of young people who are ready to change the scorecard for the church from “how much, how many, how often” to community transformation and people development.
- Don’t give people large-scale influence with others based upon potential and likeability. Humility, an others orientation, and teachability are the best predictors that influence will be multiplied in positive ways.
- The way to Christ-likeness is to be consumed with serving others instead of being served.
- There’s not enough Philippians 2:3-4 or Hebrews 13:17 in most churches today.
- I have a lot of lessons to learn and I’m learning to pay attention to the people and experiences God is putting into my life.
North Shore Church Planting update
Sometimes I can’t believe they pay me to do what I do. Spent this weekend hanging out and worshipping with church planters from various demographic contexts.
Friday and Saturday I was privileged to conference with our Filippino-American Church Planter Network. Lito Magbanua leads our network and his passion for people to know Christ has ignited a mini-movement in our region. I learned a ton about Church Planting movements and the Filippino culture. International Director of the Philippino Missions Association was our presenter. We talked Church Planting Movements, House Churches, and the need for missionaries and missions monies in the the least reach regions. Most challenging question of the weekend: How do we reach Muslims for Christ? Answer: Increase the witnesses in the Muslim world. Problem: This would also most likely increase the martyrs in the world as well. Still more interesting is that the word for witness and the word for martyr are one in the same in the Net Testament. 73% of the Bibles printed today are printed for the 33% of the world that have much access to the gospel. .5% of mission monies actually go to reaching the 172 billion unreached peoples in the least reached regions. We’ve got a lot to do, and we as Americans have a lot to learn from Asian believers about moving the Gospel through and over obstacles.
Today, our family had the honor of worshipping with and teaching at Stillwater Baptist Church in Hammond. The sign outside said, “Worship Experience, 10am” and it was not false advertising. Stillwater Baptist Church is alive. They are a four year old church that were bounced around by Hurricane Katrina and currently worships in a 2,300 square foot warehouse. Today, they celebrated the signing of a contract on a 12,000 square foot former gym. Lonnie and Frankeya Tucker have led well and are sure to bring in a great harvest for God’s kingdom. I’m looking forward to being back at Stillwater real soon.
The church that I am planting, Bridge Church of West St. Tammany met this
evening for Admin. night. Matt Marrs, our worship pastor is in South Africa for a Mission Trip, so we punted on music and crunched numbers for the glory of God all night. We decided to give away 25% to Missions and try to increase it 2% each year. Glad to be a part of Church Planting efforts in Southeast Louisiana.
“In the case of false reports against yourself…”
A great lie, if unnoticed, is like a big fish out of water, it dashes and plunges and beats itself to death in a short time. To answer it is to supply it with its element, and help it to a longer life. … Your blameless life will be your best defense, and those who have seen it will not allow you to be condemned so readily as your slanderers expect. Only abstain from fighting your own battles, and in nine cases out of ten your accusers will gain nothing by their malevolence but chagrin for themselves and contempt from others. …our best course is to defend our innocence by our silence and leave our reputation with God.
– Charles Spurgeon in Lectures to My Students
Lessons for when it seems it couldn’t get any worse
There was once a little bird that got a late start flying south for the winter. So late, that as he flew it began to snow and sleet and the temperature dropped far below freezing. His wings began to freeze to the point that he could fly no longer, so he made a crash landing. He began to realize that he would die in a pile of snow because he could not fly. Then a cow walked over to him and dropped a pile of manure on him. The little bird thought things had gone from bad to worse, but then realized that the warmth of the manure began to thaw his wings out. In jubilation he began to chirp loudly and constantly. He chirped so loudly and constantly that a nearby cat heard him and ran over, fetched him out of the manure and ate him at once.
Three lessons:
- Not everyone who drops manure on you is your enemy.
- Not everyone who pulls you out of manure is your friend.
- When you’re momentarily stuck in a pile of manure, keep your mouth closed.
Proverbs 27:6 – “Wounds from a sincere friendare better than many kisses from an enemy.”
Spurgeon on Missional Living
Stand in the stream and fish. Many preachers are utterly ignorant as to how the bulk of people are living; they are at home among books, but quite at sea among men, What would you think of a botanist who seldom saw real flowers, or an astronomer who never spent the night with the stars? Would they be worthy of the name of men of science? Neither can a minister of the gospel be anything but a mere empiric unless he mingles with men and studies character for himself. Read men as well as books, and love men rather than opinions, or you will be inanimate preachers.
– Charles Spurgeon in Lectures to My Students.
Am I A Spiritual Person?
Our Director of Mission and Ministries on the North Shore of Lake Ponchartrain, Lonnie Wascom enjoys scoffing at social networking sites and those of us who enjoy them (probably because of his lack of time and inability to get high speed internet at his current location), but he dishes out some great info via an old school weekly email. Here is a thought provoking list he generated recently that grabbed my heart.
Characteristics of Spiritual Christians:
- They do not care who gets the credit as long as God gets the glory
- They do not have chips on their shoulders, but they do take up their crosses daily and follow Jesus.
- They ignore mole hills and by faith move mountains.
- They are not afraid to assume spiritual responsibility.
- The have the ability to adjust without compromising principles.
- They can adapt to a changing world without the world changing them.
Marks of a True and Healthy Church
I had the privilege of conferencing with area pastors here on the North Shore today and we had a productive discussion on what is a true and healthy church. Discussion was led by Pastor Louis Husser of Crossgate Church in Robert, LA. Here’s the list:
What determines a True Church?
- What do they believe about Jesus Christ? Not if they believe, but what they believe. Jesus plus nothing, minus nothing is the right formula for salvation and for the teaching of a true New Testament Church.
What determines a Healthy Church?
- Pastor led
- Deacon served
- Congregational ruled – it was a Baptist group
- Ministry driven
- Worship friendly
- Prayer covered
- Evangelistic nature
- Biblically grounded
- Gift driven / Multi-task ministries around the purposes of the church
- Revival – Transformation and brokenness evident
Two questions for our churches to consider:
- Are lives being changed?
- Are we hauling water to the desert or the ocean?
That final question made the discussion worth our time. I believe it’s the question of the hour for today’s church. Are we taking our message to those who need it. They don’t need more water in the ocean. We need to reach those in the desert of sin/darkness/hopelessness.
Any additions or subtractions to this list?
The state of the Church in Louisiana
I recently came across some insightful statistics from the American Church Research Project, compiled by David T. Olson of the Lausanne Movement (see www.theamericanchurch.org). They seek to answer the question “How many people really attend church in Louisiana every week?” Here’s what they found:
- 27% of Louisiana residents attend a Christian church on any given Sunday (regular attenders are those who attend 3 out of 8 sundays), including Catholic, mainline, and evangelical. This is #1 in the nation. The national average is 17.5%, down from 20.5% in 2000. What about Barna and Gallup saying that 45% attend. Olson calls this the Halo Effect – people over inflate their participation in activities that create acceptability within their social group. For example, in 1996, 58% claimed they voted in the presidential election but only 49% actually did. Olson’s stats come from actual attendance counts, not cold calls to people who are answering questions based upon what they think they should do and what makes them look good.
- Attendance at Christian churches declined 5.8% in Louisiana from 2000-2005. (.6% in evangelical churches, 6% in mainline churches, 12.1% in Catholic churches)
- Every denominational group except Pentecostals decline in attendance from 2000-2005. (Baptist .1%, Methodist 2.2%, Lutheran 17.6%, Catholic 12.1%)
- There was a net gain of 25 churches in Louisiana between 2000-2005. However a net gain of 81 churches were needed to keep pace with population growth.
The research also reports on individual parishes. I’ll mention some stats on St. Tammany, the one in which I reside:
- 23% of the population of 230,000+ attend a Christian church on any given weekend (9.5% evangelical, 2.8% mainline, 11.0% Catholic).
Personal Observations: We have a lot of work to do if we desire to reach our population and transform lives, families, communities, states, and nations. New churches should be a part of a comprehensive plan to get people plugged into our churches, but more importantly to get church people plugged into the communities and the lives of 72% of people not attending a church and are most likely not in a relationship with Jesus Christ.
Find more info about other states and the US as a whole at www.theamercianchurch.org.
Also see some other finding from the study here.
Lane Corley 