Off to a great start

We set out to bring Hope. 

Hence, the Hope Initiative.

We want to do two things; 1) double the size of our sanctuary, and 2) plant churches.

The result is, dozens of families bought in. Hundreds of people believed these things are worth sacrificing some personal things for.  Some of them sacrificed (I more prefer the II Cor 9 term "sowed") tens of thousands of dollars! Many families stretched themselves to give up a house addition, or an extra vacation, or a new car. Others gave what they believed they could. $608,000 in three year commitments, $25k in cash came in to get us started.

Heroes, they are. Somebody sacrificed to create an environment where they could discover that Jesus cares passionately for them. Now they are sacrificing their hard earned dollars so that others can find the fresh water they found.

There ought to be a way to celebrate people like this more. Somebody ought to throw them a lavish party, in an ostentatious, opulently appointed mansion in some far away exotic place, with rewards for their kindness and all the friends around them that they sacrificed for. Great celebrities should be brought in, like maybe that guy whose life split history in half, along with his twelve closest friends who died for him,  and the guy who invented faith,  and the man who invented laws, and those great prophets who literally described the future into existence.

Wouldn't that be grand?

Heaven, even.

Hope Creates Opportunity

This weekend we will watch hope create.

Hopeful people see everything differently. When things are darkest, they believe in the coming of dawn. And they act accordingly. When things seem bleak, they rejoice because Spring is around the corner! When they are in lack, they believe that God will create a way for them to come into abundance.

They seem unstoppable. 

The quality of a hopeful heart creates opportunity, or perhaps the ability to see opportunity and seize it.  These are people who change the world with hope.

When Jesus taught his leaders, the first (perhaps therefore the most important) thing that he taught them was to see the harvest as "plentiful". Leaders don't see the glass half empty, the opportunities as few, or the people who want to follow Jesus as few.

Because of the hope within them, they see opportunity and seize it! By seeing it, they participate with their Creator to create.

Leadershifting

One of my dreams is coming true. One of my nightmares too.

I dream of helping world leaders discover their callings, polish and sharpen their leadership sword, and send them out to utterly annihilate something evil.

There is just nothing quite as satisfying to my soul. 

And it is happening again right now. 11 new churches are currently being designed, dreamed, and deployed. It is incredibly exciting! I have long dreamed of a moment like this.

The nightmare part is whether or not i can hold faith in such a fast moving, exciting, and completely scary environment. Half my staff is being promoted to a church plant. The other half is scrambling to shift their own callings, adjust their portfolios, and fill the needs with the next round of ministry trainees, leaders, and future devil-chasers.

If I can hold on, not swerve, not give up, and not run for cover, I believe God is about to do things in my day that even I will not believe AS I WATCH IT HAPPEN!

Holy Spirit, your word says that you pray for me.

I need you now.

Hope generates the future harvest

People with hope are always generous. Without hope, there is no reason to believe that generosity makes sense.

A hopeful person easily believes that if I sow generously, I will reap generously. A generous harvest makes it possible for me to give more again.

A hopeless person doesn't give because they cannot believe in the value of giving. To them, there is no hope that giving will actually help, or that generosity makes a difference. God loves cheerful givers because they are a lot like him- cheerful in giving their best. Grudging givers probably ought to keep their money.

He generously supplies us with the ability to give, because our giving becomes seed He can use to multiply back a harvest to us. One seed can turn into 30, 60, or a hundred fold return, blessing the giver back abundantly. God even supplies the seed to givers so that they CAN sow a crop and become blessed harvesters!

I LOVE this system.  Simple, effective, and empowers me to build my own future. 

Love it.

another one of those places

So here we are, at another one of those places. The breath-takingly scary place where it looks like not everything we planned could come to pass. We don't have enough money. Or time. Or people.

It's really tempting to pull back, or change plans. And I am not saying that we won't do that. I have a lot of praying to do.

But I have been here before. There is always this time of testing before the victory. Always. When it looks like things can't possibly work out, so we should find a way to do what CAN be done instead of what SHOULD be done. There is a big difference.

Like Jim Ruddy preached so well at our initial meeting; this faith walk is probably about right, right when things are the scariest, and when it doesn't look possible.

So, the question might be; what did God actually say for us to do, and when did He say to do it?

Raising kids to leave you

Good parents raise kids that grow up to leave home, right? The failure to launch syndrome doesn't seem like any fun.

But moving day, whether it's a wedding day, or helping them leave for college, has proved much, much harder than it ever looked when I was a kid and my parents were doing it.

Raising up leaders can be the same way. I dream of raising up powerful, world changers who grow up to leave my direct team and go out to take over the world for God.  

But the day we actually send them out sounds like... well... a lot like the day I sent my daughter off to college. It was sort of like a "painful-celebration". We carried her stuff to the car, packed it all up, then sat on the sofa together and cried for an hour. Then she drove away. The crying didn't drive away for awhile, but the excitement over what a great lady she had become didn't end quickly either.

The difference here of course, is that in raising up leaders, there is another crop of exciting young potentially powerful leaders coming behind them that I am very excited about. I am already looking forward to the day when I get to cry and celebrate about sending them out.

my kids make me really happy

Julie and I have been blessed with two sons and two daughters. 

I just had the best weekend ever with them. We all worked together in our various gifts to make church and our world better this weekend. In the middle of all of that, Shawna used her film school talents to make a funny birthday video for their Mom.

This evening after we all had a full day of very rewarding ministry, we sat at the house and watched their funny video- for two hours. I laughed harder than I ever laughed in my whole life I think. Julie and I watched, and watched, and watched, and watched, and still wanna watch it.

My job is the most rewarding kind of work in the world- helping people find their way to happiness, productivity and eternal life. But far, far more rewarding, is my four kid's faith, and getting to enjoy them growing up to be more powerful men and women of God than I am.

Of all the things I love God for, these four blessings have got to be near the top of a long, long, list. I love them so much.

This one was just for fun- honoring their Mom for how well she brought them up.  I doubt if you could like it as much as I did, but I think you might like it a lot anyway.

church planting team means team leaders

Leadership, ironically, is about leading leaders. 

So we hope to develop and send out strong church planting teams who can lead strong churches right from the start.

I am excited about sending out teams of at least 5; Lead Pastor, Administrator, Children's Pastor, Youth Pastor, and Worship Leader. That should start strong churches because it involves the commitment of 5 key leaders, all of whom will bring their friends, neighbors and co-workers into the project.

But recently as I was seeking the Lord about this, I felt Him open up some ideas for additional team leaders. These are just ideas on how to round out the team with spiritual gifts in operation and a full(er) slate of committed people at the core.

Perhaps these could be added: Evangelism and outreach director; this person could organize and outreach, service to the community, friend day, or other kind of event monthly or twice a month to help us focus of bringing people in.

Hospitality: (also known as Third Place Manager) this person would arrange for all the hospitality needs of the body each week, such as greeters, ushers, the information table, provide a collection of materials for sale to the body, and CD's or recorded material for sale and for uploading to the website. 

Prayer: arrange a monthly prayer event or time of fasting,  altar prayer warriors for during worship or after the service, etc. He/she could also take care of hospital calls, visitations for people who are hurting, prayer teams who minister during the services or outreaches, etc. This could really improve our ability to reach people and be the body of Christ!

Valley Forge Christian College

Yesterday I spent the full day at Valley Forge Christian College. What an exciting bunch of meetings!

Our first meeting of the day was with the Academic Dean Phil McLeod. He was incredibly helpful with our plan to do a church leadership school focused on training church planting teams. He helped us envision the possibilities and offered us his expertise so very generously.

The bottom line is that a plan is developing to offer students and much larger and more robust suite of classea and traing at Freedom Valley. We can now offer all levels of classes, and reshape the classes in a style and system that work well for our students. He offered us library resources , guidance in building a system where students can opt to study at Freedom Valley for a full calendar year to develop church planting expertise and practice, and so much more!

Essentially, I believe Valley Forge is now on track to partner with us to build an incredible excellent church planting school. Additionally, the work that we develop can empower many other churches to do a similar thing on their campus and a minimal cost! This is incredible, exciting, and powerful.

Then we met with a group of students that want to explore the possibility of becoming church planters with us. We also had individual interviews with a number of them that are deeply exploring the option of coming this summer!

And then I was interviewed in Tom Rees' class for Developing Outreach and Dsicipleship! The Holy Spirit seemed to enter that room and students seemed to be encouraged in their call to make disciples.

Great day. Thank you Jesus.

I'm ready

So I had this past week off. Nice.

I feel rested and ready to get back to work. Ready to take on some of my giants, face some issues, settle some details, and look some more devils in the eye and dare them not to back off. I feel rested, restored, rejuvenated, and optimistic about the future.

To top it all off, I had the opportunity to spend the week with my oldest son, Evan. I really enjoy his kind and easy heart, his humor, and Kingdom mindset. I have rarely known anyone as easy to get along with.  We talked about all kind of stuff. I like having adult kids!

When we get home, there could be 2-4 inches of snow falling. Welcome back from 85 degrees on the beach, and riding the Harley in a t-shirt right?

about the newest baby

I held one of God's babies in my arms today.

At least that's what it felt like. I visited Connection Point Community church, a new church that we had the privilege of helping get started.

To be honest, we helped very little. But we are the official sponsoring church for it, which I count a huge privelege. Steve and Tracy Wulf are excellent leaders, and the church had what somebody thought was a record attendance of probably more than 60. Not bad for a couple of months old.

Steve preached an incredible message about David and facing your personal giants. I was very inspired, and very fed. Not only is Steve a great personal friend, but also a real man of God and somebody I admire greatly.

I hope to plant a lot more churches like this one. The best church plants (in my opinion) are where new believers are brought into the Kingdom, not just people being moved around. Steve put together a great team, raised the money, and launched out into the scary future of church planting, believing that God would help him bring new followers of Jesus into the family.

This one felt like an incredibly good looking, healthy, exciting, talented new kid.