unmovable objects, the unstoppable message and stubborness

We are currently in a series of exploration to allow God to REDEFINE CHURCH in us. Specifically, we are devouring the Book of Acts to discover how concepts that Jesus taught, were lived out in real life.

This week, we are discovering what happens when an unstoppable force (God) moves on an immovable object (prison walls)and sets people free. The ultimate lesson? That the real issue is stubborn hearts, not prison walls, or people who disagree with us.

Stubborn hearts? Really?

These stubborn hearts masqueraded as having good intentions. Whether good intended or not, they were headed for a collision course with God, even while insisting that they were performing His wishes!

Which begs introspection: is there any area where I have myself believing that my intentions are good, when I am actually being stubborn? Are there things I would fight for, that I am convinced are right, but are actually fighting against God?

Biblical history suggests that it is not uncommon for people 'of faith' to find themselves on the wrong side of God because they are unwilling to go to the next level with Him. They use their 'faith' as an excuse to be stubborn preventing God from working, and calling it "faithful".

Father, I must have done this -perhaps even more than I know. Please help me not do it anymore. I repent of stubbornness when I refused to move with you and what you wanted to do.

WE ARE A HAPPY TEAM!

Tonight, after countless issues, interruptions, cancellations, sickness, and so many more issues, we had a breakthrough!

17 salvations tonight!

We feel like God broke us through demonic presences, drunken salvations, and so many interruptions. Huge, huge breakthrough happened, much larger than the 17 salvations, and another dozen or two re-dedications to Christ.

This team of guys (Don Danner, Scott Kemper, and Dennis Wilson) became relentless, pressing in, witnessing on the streets everyday, rescuing the drunken and the hurting, and praying like their lives depended on it.

Tonight the service was packed, and people eager to receive! It was incredible! Also today, Mike Fleming (our missionary) assisted his wife in giving birth to their firstborn- daughter Carolyn. Even that felt prophetic and so... extra powerful.

Thanks so much for praying with us! I can't wait to hug some of you, especially those of you who give sacrificially to make missions happen at Freedom Valley.

And the rest of you, just because I love you.

A huge little announcement

Jim Marocco and I finally got it hooked up Thursday.

He is planning to be here Monday December 7 for a one day event for Pastors.

Dr. Marocco leads a church called King's Cathedral, which meets in more than 50! locations in Hawaii, Alaska, California, Arkansas, Washington state and more.

The details for the Dec 7 day are not yet worked out. I hope to have several hours of time for Senior Pastors who are planting churches to ask him questions and go deep together. I also want to have some time for a larger group to learn more general leadership skills.

But in case you are a planner, I wanted to get up here the details that we do have. I want to spend the entire day learning from him and growing in my own leadership skills. I have never before had opportunity to spend time with a leader who planted more than 50 churches out of his home church, and I am very much looking forward to it!

I hope you can be there.

another day of destiny

I had SUCH a great day today.

This morning I rode my miracle motorcycle (yes, the one God gave me for free) to meet with a couple who wants to help make the Three Springs church explode with salvations, disciples, and growth. Denny and Patty Hunsinger are amazing, risk taking, crazy advetnurters for God who are willing to risk everything just in case it might work!

They are willing to walk away from a job with good benefits, and take a risk on getting the Three Springs church on track.They have lived in the area for the past 23 years, coached high school football down the street from the church for decades, earned the license to preach, practiced their spiritual gifts until God opened doors for them, and are now willing to risk it all to get this church re-started into something great. I get a chill thinking about people like them.

I believe that one day I will meet hundreds perhaps even thousands of people in Heaven who will benefit from the use of their gifts.

Then I hung out with my kids for hours while we goofed off, joked around, poked a fire with sticks, roasted marshmellows, and told jokes. Shawna sang some Ray Stevens songs. My wife and kids are my very best friends in the world. They are so much fun, so Godly, kind hearted, and full of vision. I feel so lucky to be their dad, and her husband.

Late this afternoon I got back on the that wonderful-miracle-bike and rode 30 minutes west of that mountain cabin, where Debbie and Bobby Landis are 6 months into The River church plant in Juniata County, where they averaged 133 people weekly over their first summer! They were doing a "go-cart races" outreach, where Bobby uses his Sprint Car racing background to reach people for Christ.

It was awesome!

And then there was a two hour ride home on the bike (did I mention the miracle bike yet?). But while I love that bike, I am seriously considering selling it to finance yet another church planting effort. I feel like Schindler, wishing I had more stuff to sell, to buy more eternity.

Boot camp at Freedom Valley

This Fall we are planning to host our first ever church planter's boot camp at Freedom Valley. This event will happen November 2-6 at Freedom Valley, 3185 York Road, Gettysburg.

Anyone who is considering or planning a church plant is welcome to come. Registration is not yet open, but hopefully will be soon.

Boot camp is held and taught by Church Multiplication Network, from Springfield, Missouri. It is an intensive week of prayer, Bible study, planning, and vision development for those who wish to plant a church at some point in the future.

Jason Fitch plans to help with event production details. I am working on recruiting and orchestrating the event with CMN. hopefully YOU plan to be there or in prayer as God brings many new, life-giving churches into existence, and de-populates Hell because of our work!

The ache in a good idea

I love the rush of a good idea. Hope rushes in where frustration once drained off energy and failed attempts brought a dull plodding gait.

But the rush of a good idea often gets tempered with the ache of what you have to give up to get to that new place you dream of.

Our new 1pm Sunday service experiment is already looking like it could be that way. We are pumped about the prospects of breaking our growth barrier. But there is also an ache about what we give up. Like that feeling you get when you met the person you want to spend the rest of your life with, and then realize that being a couple, while cool, also requires you to give up some freedoms you enjoyed. I am very proud of my staff for choosing to do this even though it costs them a lot. For example:

1. Room for Sunday afternoon events. The church building will be a little fuller, and some ministries will struggle to find time for their big events.

2. Sunday afternoon lunches with our families. Sunday afternoon events, period. Holidays with family things that happen on Sundays will be challenging.

3. Energy. It's just two more hours, but we will leave weekend services, bone tired. And it will take hours to replenish that supply.

4. Desire to linger. When you have multiple services coming, you sometimes tend to reserve some relational energy, and not work as hard at connecting with people when you can because you might need some energy later for the next service.

5. Office time. Each of us have crushing loads of needed study, prep time, record keeping, follow up calls, and time to organize ourselves. But with two ore hours of service times, some of that office time will re-adjust a bit, leaving us with the possible temptation to stress out more.

Are there others? I'd love to hear your thoughts...

wow this week

What a week.

3 more possible church planters contacted me. Could we possible still get the 10 new churches by Harvest Cry next year? That blows me away. Today, it looks possible. There are still 2 more possible planters that I have not even had time to get back to yet. What a crazy, wonderful problem.

Also this week, my team took on a gutsy possible idea to add more work to their schedule- a lot more. You would think that my over worked, underpaid team would shrink away from ideas that make much more work for them. But when they got hold of the possibility that it could mean more people in Heaven for eternity, they lept ahead to the YES!

These are some seriously wild adventurers for God, and I am so happy to be teamed up with them. I pray huge God-blessings on them.

Today, I experienced the first of 12 coaching experiences with Nelson Searcy's network. I am very excited about this stuff!

Also today, Rich and Ashley Fogal and I were given an idea that we think could affect many thousands of people for eternity!

It's late- way late. But I am pretty pumped about all that God allows me to do. This may be hard work, but it feeds my soul somewhere so deep inside.

another great coaching session

I feel like God dropped a very cool idea on me, right out of Heaven.

Today I had my fourth coaching session with the largest group yet. I am very excited about meeting with each of my team members (some paid, and some volunteers) to do our simple yet very powerful coaching strategy.

This is beginning to feel like one of the best little ideas God ever gave me. I hope to build world class leaders and send them out to conquer! These guys are very exciting!

The plan works like this; all of my staff and key volunteers (about 38 people) have put themselves in teams of about 6. We meet to discuss goals and help each other turns aims into do-able goals for the following 6 weeks. 6 weeks later we meet again to discuss progress and explore where to go next.

I still have a couple of openeings left in case anyone reading this is a leader and wants to be coached!

the right question

Last evening Cori Herbert asked me such a wonderful question. It challenged and blessed me, and made me ask myself if I ask God the right questions.

She said; "how can my ministry (Center of the Arts) do more to minister to Freedom Valley"? What a great question!

Recently I have been asking God to help me pray. It is one thing to ramble on to Him- he is such a patient listener. But, access to Him is so incredibly exciting, and has potential that I believe I can use much greater than I have so far.

And so, the new prayer that God put on my heart excites me deep in my soul beyond my ability to explain. The prayer is something like this: God help me develop world class leaders to the point that everyone else wants to hire them! (I will happily bless them in actually taking those job offers too!)

Our newest coaching tool; (Six-by-six, from Bill Hybel's Axiom book) has the potential to finally give me one more nugget toward getting this done. We have just started this simple coaching system, where I am meeting with current and future staff in teams of 6. We meet once every 6 weeks to pray, set goals for the following six weeks, and stir each other up with personal excellence.

I love it! I cannot waith to see this leadership team soar to radical, world class heights!

My great disappointment

So for the third or fourth time, I went to general Council because I was hoping for a piece of agenda that I cared about. I was hoping for change in that area.

It didn't happen. I am disapointed.

But that is not my real disapointment, exactly.

I am not even sure if our little idea would have made a big difference. It was just an 4 year experiment for 40 churches nationwide to create a new kind of district- a relational one. Currently all of our districts are geographical, which means that if your church is within the boundaries of Penn-Del for example, that yours is a PennDel church because of where it is geographically located.

The new district, because it would represent essentially a new wine skin, could have become a laboratory to experiment with and try some new ways to get some things done.

Because, here is my disapointment; in my ministry life time, church attendance in America has zoomed to about half of what it was in the early 80's when I started out.

My heart aches about that. I am weeping as I write this. My colleagues and I have failed. Our land is not reached, our once Christian nation is in apostasy, and I don't know of anyone who has an idea to fix it.

THAT IS MY BIGGEST DISAPOINTMENT; not with the AG for rejecting our idea. Not with my friends who have no idea how to fix it.

My biggest disapointment is with me.

I don't have an idea either.

80% of my culture does not attend church. I have small ideas, like about how to grow a church. I have a few larger ideas to plant more churches. But all of that together is so far from an idea, plan, strategy or way to reach my nation with the gospel.

Oh God, give me souls, or I die.