• The Most Important Thing Your Church Will Ever Do. “I believe any definition of fruitfulness for a local church must include the planting of new congregations” ~ Rick Warren
• Moving from “Church Membership” to “Mission Partnership” – by Will Mancini. Our church has been using the word “partner” instead of “member.” I like Mancini’s reasoning here. “Membership is culturally hijacked terminology by its use from country clubs to platinum cards. Partnership is a term that carries less baggage and brings new metaphors biblically.” Also check out Mancini’s Visual Summary to Church Unique.
• 8 Ways to Easily Be Missional. “Missional is not an event we tack onto our already busy lives. It is our life. Mission should be the way we live.”
• 4 Shifts Necessary to Become a Reproducing Church by Dave Ferguson. Church Growth to Missional Movement, Ministry Manager to Spiritual Entrepeneur, Owning to Renting Leasing or Borrowing, Reactive to Proactive.
• Seth Godin on Being Stuck. Seems more and more of my generation of men are dealing with being stuck.
• Dear Church…Go and Multiply. “Church multiplication is a spiritual decision of a church to put the needs of a desperate world before self-preservation.”

One of the many great partners we gained because of Hurricane Katrina is Hank Chardos and Home Works of America from Columbia, South Carolina. Homeworks is non-profit organization that empowers youth 14 and up and adults to do home repair projects in their community, specifically for those on a fixed income. I love Home Works because of the BEFORE & AFTER IMPACT. A Home Works weeklong session makes a huge impact in homes and lives. This years session will be July 10-17 and we have about 10 projects in West St. Tammany for this week, including yard clean up, roofing, light carpentry. It can be for four hours, one day, or all week. You could also help provide food for volunteers during their work week or donate $$ or supplies for a project. This year, some of the regular Homeworks volunteers over the past five years are working with Hank to start a permanent chapter here on the Northshore. You can get involved.

• Sign up to Volunteer or help out here.
• Contact Dave Saari – da.saari@gmail.com – about how to help start a permanent session on the Northshore.
• If you or someone you know needs Home Works to help you. 

• “Is your church more interested in quality programs or quality people?”  Excerpt from On the Verge by Dave Ferguson & Alan Hirsch. Reading this book right now. Incredible. “The promise that church programming alone will make your life better has been exposed. It doesn’t work. Everyday living is where spiritual development is worked out.”
• Learning from the Bible’s Unsung Heroes.
• Church Growth vs. Church Seasons. “Healthy churches go through life cycles of growth, pruning, decline, and blessing.” “You take care of the depth of your ministry; let God take care of the breadth.”
• 22 Ways to Overcome Discouragement.
• Are events killing the church? “If you keep people busy at your events, you may be preventing them from investing in their marriage, their children and their relationships with other people including people outside the faith.  They think they’re becoming more Christ-like by going to church, when you could actually be pulling them away from what God has called them to do.”
• The Ultimate Guide to Twitter.

When someone ask me, “What kind of church is Bridge Church?” I don’t immediately start talking denomination, but we affiliate with the Southern Baptist Convention. In many South Louisiana minds, Baptist are known for two things: They don’t drink and they don’t dance.

So recently I was asked: “Can you dance?”

My answer: “No. But that has little to do with Baptist doctrine and more about my inability to do anything in rhythm. I probably would dance if I could.”

I’m not sure where the “Baptist don’t dance” thing got started, but I know a church in our area actually had to amend their By-laws a few years back so that a wedding party could do a “first dance” at their reception.

So if someone asks you if Baptist can dance, the correct answer is: “Some can and some can’t.”

What makes a Baptist a Baptist? One thing: Authority. Baptist believe in the authority of the Bible alone for faith and practice. So that informs us on our other major distinctives. Such as, Believers Baptism – the practice of baptizing those who put their faith in Christ at the point of their decision to follow Christ and not until. And baptists are not alone in this belief, but that’s the short answer anyway.

Do you believe someone can lose their salvation? My answer: No. Some verses that inform my belief are in John 10:27-29.

My sheep listen to my voice; I know them, and they follow me. I give them eternal life, and they will never perish. No one can snatch them away from me, for my Father has given them to me, and he is more powerful than anyone else. No one can snatch them from the Father’s hand.

I’m reminded that salvation is God’s work, not mine. So if I can do nothing to gain it, how could I do something to lose it.

The Baptist have gotten a bad rap for this statement which I hate – “Once saved, always saved.” Thinking of John 10, I like “if saved, always saved” because “No one can snatch them from the Father’s hand.”

That’s me. What’s your belief?

Of course my favorite answer to questions about personal beliefs came from my Systematic Theology prof in Seminary who would always say: “This is what I believe. But if I get to heaven and it’s not that way, I’m not going to ask for a transfer.”

The main thing and the thing that is non-negotiable is – Jesus alone get you there. Do you have a relationship with him? We’ll let Him set us straight on all the other issues throughout all eternity.

And, I do believe that I’ll have rhythm in heaven. Looking forward to that!

Talking about having joy in trials this weekend at Bridge Church. Saw this pic this week at one of my favorite blogs called Indexed. Problems and trials come in various sizes. Keep them in perspective:

This summer, Bridge Church has been studying through a few of Jesus’ one one one conversations with people in the Gospels. We’ve had Close encounters with people in the Shadows (the woman at the well), with the Wealthy Fringe (Zaccheus), people with Rough Edges (Peter), with those in Crisis (Lazarus’ family), with those who are Caught (the woman caught in adultery), and with the Religious Crowd.  Here are a few highlights from the series:

• Reminder: Every person has a name, a story, and great value to God.
• Don’t worry about dumping your gospel load and engage people as friends.
• God is able to make preachers out of prostitutes.
• When confronted with truth, what you do next demonstrates what you believe and if its real to you.
• Jesus has a vision for what you could be and will be through Him. He has you in the oven, He’s working on you.
• If any of us had the power to clean ourselves up, Jesus would not have had to die on the cross.
• Jesus didn’t say, “Peter, go get cleaned up, get you act together, quit being so undependable and mule headed and then maybe you can come and follow me.”
• God’s goal for us is CHRISTLIKENESS.  NOT COMFORT AND PLEASURE.
• Death and disaster may seem like the end to us, but it’s not to God.
• We can demonstrate to a doubting world and to doubting, skeptic friends the reality of who Jesus is when we live out his ways.
• “People may doubt what you say, but they’ll always believe what you do.” – Unknown
• Truth is not a club to be used on people, but a mirror to show us our sin and our need for Christ.
• If you say, “Well, that person will never change” – You are saying more about your belief in God than your belief in that person.
• Religion is man’s way to get to God. Christianity is the story of how God made a way to get to man.

Listen to the series here, or find us on Itunes.

Here are a few things I’m using regularly that are helping me merge my life as a disciple with technological advance. Still nothing better than an open Bible and journal, but wanted to share a few of my favorite resources.

ESV Bible Reading Plans – Nine different Bible reading plans that can be accessed in six different formats. I’ve downloaded the plan directly into my iCal and I get the RSS Feed to my phone each morning. The RSS Feed includes a link to audio files, so if I miss a passage in my morning devotional time, I can listen to it on my way to work. Currently doing the Outreach Bible Plan. Probably going to switch to the Chronological plan in January.

YouVersion.com – Using this resource as an iPhone App as well as the website. Great for Bible Reading online, searching Bible verses, cutting and pasting Bible verses, looking up verses in other translations, and more. Developed by LifeChurch.tv, totally free, and by far the best digital Bible out there.

Verse Card Maker – If scripture memory is important to you, you’ll love this tool. Type in the verse references you want to memorize and it makes the cards for you to print and cut. Developed by a computer programmer turned Seminary student. Verses are only in English Standard Version at this time.

Please send others that you’ve found helpful. So many resources out there. There’s no excuse for not interacting with the Bible daily.

Six flags over Jesus by Jared Wilson.