More Like Falling in Love
Love this song by Jason Gray. Fits well with our current message series at Bridge Church on the book of Galatians. Hear the song here. We’re incapable of producing righteousness on our own. Religion is about rules, lines, statements. Christianity is about a love relationship with Christ that leads to transformation.
Give me rules
I will break them
Give me lines
I will cross them
I need more than a truth to believe
I need a truth that lives, moves, and breathes
To sweep me off my feet
It ought to beMore like falling in love
Than something to believe in
More like losing my heart
Than giving my allegiance
Caught up, called out
Come take a look at me now
It’s like I’m falling, oh
It’s like I’m falling in loveGive me words
I’ll misuse them
Obligations
I’ll misplace them
‘Cause all religion ever made of me
Was just a sinner with a stone tied to my feet
It never set me free
It’s gotta be…It’s like I’m falling in love, love, love
Deeper and deeper
It was love that made
Me a believer
In more than a name, a faith, a creed
Falling in love with Jesus brought the change in me
Leadership is Lacking when…
Love this list from Dave & Jon Ferguson’s new book Exponential: How You and Your Friends Can Start a Missional Church Movement. Take the test…
- I wait for someone to tell me what to do rather than taking the initiative myself.
- I spend too much time talking about how things should be different.
- I blame the context, surroundings, or other people for my current situation.
- I am more concerned about being cool or accepted than doing the right thing.
- I seek consensus rather than casting vision for a preferable future.
- I am not taking any significant risks.
- I accept the status quo as the way it’s always been and always will be.
- I start protecting my reputation instead of opening myself up to opposition.
- I procrastinate to avoid making a tough call.
- I talk to others about the problem rather than taking it to the person responsible.
- I don’t feel like my butt is on the line for anything significant.
- I ask for way too many opinions before taking action.
Amen and Ouch!
Product of the Spirit
Finishing up our Galatians series in a few weeks. This weekend spent some time talking fruit bearing.
“the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness,gentleness, self-control” – Galatians 5:22-23
Do you find it hard to love those who won’t or can’t love you in return? Are you often overwhelmed by life’s circumstances and unable to see God’s goodness in life? Do you give up on people easily or often write people off as unchangeable? Are you unmoved by the needs of others? Do you seldom put your faith to action by serving? Do you jump in an out of commitments and struggle to stick with people and projects? Do you feel the need to have control of situations no matter the cost? Are you easily overcome by temptation?
If you have wisdom enough to see and admit that any of these are true then you’re seeing the gap between what your life is producing and what God’s Spirit will produce in you if you yield to him.
The spirit of God produces “whatever it takes” and “I don’t care who you are kinda love,” inward joy and belief that is unchanged by outward circumstances, a willingness to stick with things and people at all costs, a heart of irrational generosity and compassion that drives a response to the needs of other no matter who they are, a loyalty and dependability that has the end in mind, submission to God over emotions and selfish desires.
Praying for the Native American Awakening
Several Louisiana churches have gotten plugged in with an Awakening happening among Native Americans. I’m looking forward to partnering with Woodhaven Baptist Church in Tickfaw to plant a church among Native Americans in Macy, Nebraska. Today is a big day for the ministry as the tribal leaders will be deciding what to do with the church building that the core group has been using. Praying they decide to leave it in the hands of our church in the area. Please pray with us…
Benefits of Sponsoring a New Church
In Ed Stetzer and Warren Bird’s new book Viral Churches: Helping Church Planters Become Movement Makers:
A study of church-sponsoring churches showed that the typical sponsor fared quite well from the experience. Worship attendance increased 22 percent for the five years after sponsorship of the church plant. Financial giving to the local church increased 48 percent over that same period, and designated gifts such as toward foreign missions giving increased 77 percent.
Seems like I read something one time about giving and it will be given unto you. Now where did I hear that?
Exponential: The Largest Gathering of Church Planters on the Planet
Great first day at Exponential. Worshiped with over 3,100 church planters and team members, heard messages from Mark Batterson and Louie Giglio, attended breakouts on Social Media in ministry with Kem Meyer and Reproducing Vision with Will Mancini, and got to hang out with Florida Church Planters at the ReproducingChurches.com Network Dinner with Jason Dukes. I’ll share some takeaways at the end of the conference.
Best Freebies so far: Besides the coffee, of course, Zondervan gave away over 2,000 copies of Dave Ferguson‘s new book Exponential: How You and Your Friends Can Start a Missional Church Movement. Almost bought it last week. Thanks Zondervan!
Looking forward to hearing from Ken Blanchard, Matt Chandler, Reggie McNeal, Ed Stetzer, and Alan Hirsch tomorrow.
“… the gap holding back most believers is not the gap between what they know and what they don’t know. It’s the gap between what they know and what they’re living. Many Christians are trafficking in unlived truth. They are educated beyond their obedience.”
Dave Browning in Deliberate Simplicity: How the Church Does More by Doing Less
Making Disciples Can Be Messy
“Preaching to a crowd is safe, but mentoring someone is costly and messy and can hurt your heart” Pete Charpentier
Could this be why our default position of ministry today is planning and paying for big events and hoping that maybe, just maybe people will get in a relationship? One on one discipling can be less than “cost-effective” when it comes to todays score card for ministry success (which is how many? how much? how often?).
My heart is hurting a bit this morning because some I’ve invested in have recently made destructive choices, some are experiencing hardship, some are seeds falling by the road or among thorns. I think I understand in a small way what Paul said to the Galatians who were pursuing a false gospel: “I am again in the anguish of childbirth until Christ is formed in you!” 4:19. This morning, I am also full of joy because others are making progress and growing and tracking with God’s will. I am also humbled to think about those who mentored and discipled me with patience and love and shaped me into what I am today.
I believe one of the greatest questions for leaders is: “Who are you currently mentoring?”
Recently, Pete Charpentier, Pastor at Woodland Park Baptist Church in Hammond, challenged one of our monthly Pastors conferences with the need for one-on-one mentoring in ministry. He gave me permission to share his insights which have stuck with me the past few weeks. Here they are:
Utilizing Social Networking for Ministry
— This was originally presented at a Conference for Ministry Assistants. Download the PDF version here —-
The Gospel of Jesus Christ is big news. It’s a message to be declared, proclaimed, announced, and distributed to as many people as we can as often as we can. God’s work among His people is also news and a story that needs to be told. The tools that churches have relied upon to announce their message and distribute their stories are the pulpit, newsletters, letters and post cards, phone trees, scrolling power point announcements, and email. As a Pastor, my church utilized each of these tools and still I heard regularly from people in my church – “I didn’t know anything about that.” Communication is definitely one of our biggest challenges. Also challenging is the fact that a generation is here that is abandoning paper and phone lines for wireless messaging and social networking. It’s time for the church to take communication to another level and engage the world in the fastest growing means of messaging that we have today and utilize the world of Social Media.
Why?
So you’re not a computer geek, you don’t enjoy video games, you hate hype and fads. These are some of the reasons given for not engaging in the popular social networking domains. Here are four reasons why you should put all excuses away and just do it:
1) It’s where the people are. In February, Facebook announced that it now has 400 million users and some estimates show that growing by as much as 35,000 a day! There are 3.5 billion pieces of content uploaded to Facebook each week. Facebook now supports 65 languages. Twitter boasts 75 million users and growing. Currently there are 50 million tweets everyday, about 600 tweets per second. These interfaces are growing and people are using them more and more each day. If we’ve got a message that we want to get out to as many people as possible it seems that we’d want to get it where the people are and social media seems to be that place.
2) Message saturation is possible. Recently I asked a group of Church Secretaries and Administrative Assistants if the teenagers in their church are reading the church’s publications. 100% expressed uncertainty. We recognize that a hard copy newsletter does not reach all of our audience. Utilizing social media will allow you to get the exact same information to them in a way that does attract their attention. It is possible to saturate your message throughout the different age-grades and audiences in your church today like never before.
3) It’s Free. The most compelling reason for utilizing the fastest growing communication tools today is the cost. It’s completely free! At every level of social networking, free is an option that gets you out to where millions of people are interacting every second of everyday.
4) You Might Have Fun. Why has Facebook grown so fast? It’s enjoyable. People like having info at their fingertips in real time. They like talking about themselves and connecting with people. They will enjoy connecting with your church and discovering what it’s all about as well. And it’s ok to have fun while we proclaim His message and tell our story.
TOOLS OF THE TRADE
With so many different social networking sites popping up, here are three types that can definitely help ministries communicate their message in this new age. I’m sharing personal discoveries and what I’ve learned over the last few years as I’ve waded into these waters, so I’m certain my knowledge is far from exhaustive, but here goes:
