National Porn Sunday
Along with the Superbowl, this weekend, 300+ churches are celebrating Porn Sunday to draw attention and bring help to those caught in the literal web of addiction. Here’s a few links about the event and a few extras:
- “The Elephant in the Pew” – NPR article on the event – “48 percent of Christian families are dealing with the issue of pornography in their home”
- The National Porn Sunday Intro Video – Involving two NFL players discussing their battle with pornography and sex addiction.
- The Social Costs of Pornography – Academic findings about the issue.
- XXX Church Event Page – Two churches here in Louisiana will be hosting the event.
- Covenant Eyes – The tool I use for accountability
Recent Q and A:
“What are three hopes that you have for the future of your current ministry?” – I was recently asked this for the Q and A section of our state newspaper. Looking back through my answers frightened me and challenged me. What the heck are we thinking!?!?
1. Responsiveness to the needs of people – One of the filter questions we are using for decisions in our church is, “Will this allow us to stay close and be responsive to the needs of people in our community?” I’m hoping that our church can stay outward focused and unselfishly give ourselves away for years to come. I’ve been convicted as a church leader by this question about personal debt – “Do you think about living generously and then remember something you have or want?” Responsiveness and generosity must be a priority if it’s going to be a reality. Anything that keeps us from responsiveness and radical generosity must be eyed with great caution.
2. Reproducible. I hope that more disciples, leaders, ministries, and churches will result. Insisting on reproducibility forces us to keep things ultra simple and stretches our faith. We’re already planning for new expressions of Bridge Church in 2011, in surrounding communities. I’ve been wrecked by Ralph Moore’s question in How to Multiply Your Church – What’s better, a church of 400 taking on overhead, or 5 churches of 80 that can be responsive to the community and quickly reproduce itself?
3. Transformation. A question that I’m constantly asking myself as a leader: “What good is it if our church grows, but the community continues to deteriorate?” Disciples transform the world by responding to the needs and shaping the culture around them. I hope that we won’t settle for anything less than transformed lives and community. One of the things I’m most excited about is multiple dysfunctional family systems that we’re engaged in restoring around our community. Families that for generations have battled addiction, abuse, disease, etc. It’s hard, messy, discouraging at times, but when transformation is your goal, seeing someone sitting in the pew every Sunday isn’t enough. We insist on seeing God glorified in the daily and seeing a new road paved for future generations.
What are your most challenging hopes and dreams?
Worth Reading: Cracking Your Church’s Culture Code
“Culture – not vision and strategy – is the most powerful factor in any organization.”
Samuel Chand brings a much needed perspective to the hype over mission statements and strategy with the book Cracking Your Church’s Culture Code. Why do great strategies not produce results? “culture eats strategy for lunch. You can have a good strategy in place, but if you don’t have the culture and enabling systems, the negative culture of the organization will defeat the strategy.” As a leader who is tasked with helping churches strategize and revitalize for effective ministry this book has been very helpful to me and will be for anyone in church or secular leadership. Dr. Chand defines culture as “the personality of the church or nonprofit” and in the book he gives you insight on how to identify problem cultures, how to influence culture positively and negatively, and how to change a negative/defective culture. The author uses many personal stories and real life examples from his work as a leadership consultant, making the book easy to read. Well worth reading for any leader interested in organizational effectiveness.
Here are a few of my favorite quotes:
- Culture – not vision and strategy – is the most powerful factor in any organization.
- Toxic culture is like carbon monoxide: you don’t see it or smell it, but you wake up dead!
- Healthy teams are pipelines of leadership development. …an organization is only as healthy as the pool of rising leaders.
- developing people is far more essential in creating a healthy culture than training people in specific skills.
- Managers get the most out of themselves. Leaders get the most out of others.
- Healthy teams foster the perspective that failure isn’t a tragedy and conflict isn’t the end of the world.
- We can rearrange boxes on an org chart in a moment, but changing culture is heart surgery.
- Loyalty earned is a beautiful thing, but loyalty demanded is toxic.
- Our ability to connect with people, earn their trust, invite their opinions, and inspire them is the most important trait we bring – even more important than our experiences and skills.
- the sickest cultures are those that close their doors to new ideas.
- How do we know if a vision is from God? One of the measures is that it has to be something so big that it requires God’s wisdom and power to pull it off.
- Most church leaders use their vision statements to say yes, but they rarely us it to say no and eliminate options.
- The conundrum of leadership is this: people want improvement, but they resist change.
Think 10 Conversations
Influence seldom happens with just one conversation. Bad news if your aim is positional and not relational influence. Influence takes multiple conversations and investment in someone’s life. Think 10 conversations and you won’t feel insecure or like you’ve failed when at first someone seems uninterested or unavailable. After each conversation, pray, invest, and keep planting seeds of influence.
Put Your Faith in Action. Why?
Every fifth Sunday Bridge Church, scatters instead of gathers, for what we call Faith in Action Sunday. This Sunday, Jan 30th will be our first FIA for 2011. Looking forward to worshipping through serving senior adults, elderly widows, single mothers, inmate families, families in ICU, public servants, multi-housing residents, families at local parks, and more this Sunday AM. When telling people in todays generation about our Faith In Action Sunday’s, one question we seldom get is “WHY?” It just makes sense to most people that the church ought to be out serving. But just for fun, here’s a few reasons:
- Because following Jesus includes putting our faith in action (Luke 6:46-49)
- Because Christianity is about more than just attending worship services
- Because Jesus said “Go…” (Matthew 28:19-20)
- Because if we love God, we will love people “in actions and in truth” (1 John 3:18, 4:7-8)
- Because if we love God, we do what He says. (John 14:21, 23; 1 John 2:3-6)
- Because success is community transformation, not just a big organization.
- Because proclaiming and demonstrating God’s love go hand-in-hand. (Luke 9:2)
- Because there are needs in our community that are going unmet.
- Because God cares for the whole person. (James 2:15-18)
- Because God desires individuals to live in healthy communities and just societies. (Jeremiah 29:7)
- Because everyone can serve.
- Because people follow examples better than they follow instructions.
- Because God has a special heart for those who are poor and vulnerable. (Jeremiah 22:16)
- Because God’s people are to be an instrument of blessing to the world. (Genesis 12:2)
- Because disciples are shaped through serving, not just sitting.
- Because the church’s ministry should be incarnational. (John 1:14; 20:21)
- Because God empowers us to participate in ministry. (Ephesians 2:10)
- Because God created us for good works. (Ephesians 2:10)
- Because it’s joining God in what He’s doing in the world.
- Because it’s fun.
While even a Faith In Action Sunday can become a meaningless ritual or a isolated event, our desire is that giving away will become a part of the flow of peoples lives as it’s part of the flow of Bridge Church.
“I refuse to sit around and wait for someone else, to do what God has called me to do myself”
Love Josh Wilson’s new song I Refuse. Can’t get it out of my head as my church preps for a Faith In Action Weekend this weekend. Check out the lyrics below. Follow Josh Wilson on his Blog, Facebook, Twitter. Original Video of the song here.
I Refuse
Sometimes I, I just want to close my eyes
And act like everyone’s alright
When I know they’re not
This world needs God, but it’s easier to stand and watch
I could pray a prayer and just move on
Like nothing’s wrong
But I Refuse
I don’t want to live like I don’t care
I don’t want to say another empty prayer
Oh, I refuse to sit around and wait for someone else
To do what God has called me to do myself
I could choose not to move
But I refuse
I can hear the least of these, crying out so desperately
And I know we are the hands and feet of You, oh God
So if You say move, it’s time for me to follow through
And do what I was made to do
And show them who You are
I don’t want to live like I don’t care
I don’t want to say another empty prayer
Oh, I refuse to sit around and wait for someone else
To do what God has called me to do myself
I could choose not to move
But I refuse
I refuse to stand and watch the weary and lost cry out for help
I refuse to turn my back and try and act like all is well
I refuse to stay unchanged, to wait another day to die to myself
I refuse to make one more excuse
I don’t want to live like I don’t care
I don’t want to say another empty prayer
Oh, I refuse to sit around and wait for someone else
To do what God has called me to do myself
I could choose not to move
But I refuse
The Christian Sponge
Each week us church goers, like sponges, sit and soak up great teaching and preaching from professional and highly trained
clergy, high quality Bible Study materials and devotionals, praise and worship music that moves us to experience God, and many, like me, listen to more great teaching and preaching through podcasting and conferences. Here’s the question: What’s next for the SPONGE after it’s has soaked? It SOURS and becomes unusable. Almost nothings more disgusting than a sour sponge. No one wants to pick it up, it stinks up the entire kitchen, and most of the time at our house we just throw them out.
As a Christian, I’ve had seasons of my life that can be described as SOUR. The sour Christian is sour toward others – nothing meets their standard, no sermon is good enough, they and their class or group or church are the only ones doing it right. No one wants to be around the sour Christian and he/she doesn’t really care to be around them. Being right matters more than being generous and graceful. (For a Biblical illustration of a Sour Christian see the story of the Prodigal Son in Luke 15:11-32 and watch for the Elder Brother).
What’s the remedy for keeping sponges from getting sour in the sink and in the church? A GOOD SQUEEZE. A good wringing out. With the sponge, by hand. But how is the Christian squeezed? Two ways:
1) Through Suffering – When I’ve lost a loved one, or experienced discouragement, or dealt with sickness, or faced financial struggles, or walked with others who’ve experienced these and worse, I have been squeezed. I have had to put to use all that I know about God and His word. That’s why God’s word tells us that there is great benefit to suffering. See James 1:2-4, Romans 5:3-5.
2) Through Serving – Don’t wait to be squeezed through suffering. Give yourself away and be emptied out through serving others. As we give ourselves away as Christians, we are allowing God to squeeze us and use what He’s placed in us for His good and glory. As we serve others, we experience more of God and the joy of being used by Him and He continually fills us.
In an effort to be intentional about the necessity of Christians to be serving, our church has made a part of our flow an opportunity for everyone to serve. Every time there is a fifth Sunday in a month we have Faith In Action Sunday. Instead of having church, we scatter throughout our community to BE the church in some of our communities neediest areas. This Sunday, January 30th, will be our first Faith In Action Sunday of 2011. Contact me if you’d like more info or need an avenue for God to squeeze you through giving yourself away.
My Favorite Martin Luther King, Jr. Quotes
From a recorded conversation with friend and colleague Andrew Young:
“I think the Good Samaritan is a great individual. I of course, like and respect the Good Samaritan….but I don’t want to be a Good Samaritan…you see, I am tired of picking up people along the Jericho Road. I am tired of seeing people battered and bruised and bloody, injured and jumped on, along the Jericho Roads of life. This road is dangerous. I don’t want to pick up anyone else, along this Jericho Road; I want to fix… the Jericho Road. I want to pave the Jericho Road, add street lights to the Jericho Road; make the Jericho Road safe (for passage) by everybody….”
I think of this analogy quite often. I love thinking past helping people, which can become a selfish thing, to transforming scenarios.
And from his famed last speech, “I’ve Been to the Mountaintop” –
the first question that the priest asked — the first question that the Levite asked was, “If I stop to help this man, what will happen to me?” But then the Good Samaritan came by. And he reversed the question: “If I do not stop to help this man, what will happen to him?”
That’s the question before you tonight. Not, “If I stop to help the sanitation workers, what will happen to my job. Not, “If I stop to help the sanitation workers what will happen to all of the hours that I usually spend in my office every day and every week as a pastor?” The question is not, “If I stop to help this man in need, what will happen to me?” The question is, “If I do not stop to help the sanitation workers, what will happen to them?” That’s the question.
Worth Reading: A few Links
- Crabby Joe’s Mission Statement – “What’s with the mission statements? I cook the food – you eat the food – you pay for the food and then you go home. And you don’t make a mess!”
- How to Take Criticism Graciously – “Anybody can accept a reward graciously, and many people can even take their punishment patiently when they have done something wrong. But how many people are equipped to handle mistreatment after they’ve done right? Only Christians are equipped to do that.”
- What is a Missional Community? Loving these posts about Missional Communities.
- What Not to Do When You’re the New Pastor
- 44 Actions to Boost Your Energy
- Ten Most Significant Cultural Trends of the Last Decade
