Some Church on American Idol

Brilliant performance on American Idol of Smokie Norful's "I Need You Now." I think Stefano does it better...

Monday Thoughts (CS Lewis commentary edition)

• I'm really enjoying the challenge of teaching through a book. Currently in Acts. It's easier for me to teach a topic, but I'm really enjoying this challenge.
• Acts. You can't understand it without the Holy Spirit. It just doesn't make any sense without the real-time, active presence of a living, loving, full of mystery and beauty and glory God. It's a breathless book, and if it happened (which I believe it did), it changes human history and what's possible for you and me.
• I can honestly say I have more respect and love for Scripture than at any point in my life. Questions of canonicity are behind me (as an intellectual barrier--I've come to terms with the questions) and I'm hearing Scripture as God's Word to me and to his people in a new and fresh way. The point of the Bible is to point us to Jesus, not to make us worship it. I am seeing Jesus in deeper ways every day.
• Many of us get a daily email from these folks. Following their Daily Text has revolutionized my reading of the Bible. John Wesley was profoundly influenced by them, so I'm good with the character reference.

CS Lewis “There is no formula in these matters. I have no recipe, no tablets. Writers are trained in so many individual ways that it is not for us to prescribe. Scripture itself is not systematic; the New Testament shows the greatest variety. God has shown us that he can use any instrument. Balaam’s ass, you remember, preached a very effective sermon in the midst of his ‘hee-haws.’

• Lots of new people. Love that! That God would trust us with the people he loves so much, wow, humbled.
• Band and vocalists have been killing it lately. So proud of the efforts they are putting in.
• We're working on how to be more intentional in talking about what it means to follow Jesus. Salvation ("being saved") is the doorway to living with Jesus as Lord. That is, when you follow Jesus, he messes up your life (no, really, that's what happens), reorders it, makes it part of his new creation.
• We're working on creating a path for people to clearly follow so they can take the next step. Jesus said we need to open eyes to see the harvest field that is ripe, so we want to tune our hearts to see what God sees, tread boldly right into the harvest field, and be ready when those people are ready to respond to Jesus' call on their hearts to follow him.

CS Lewis again: It is not enough to want to get rid of one’s sins,” he said. “We also need to believe in the One who saves us from our sins. Not only do we need to recognize that we are sinners; we need to believe in a Savior who takes away sin. Matthew Arnold once wrote, ‘Nor does the being hungry prove that we have bread.’ Because we know we are sinners, it does not follow that we are saved.”

“You can’t lay down any pattern for God. There are many different ways of bringing people into his Kingdom, even some ways that I specially dislike! I have therefore learned to be cautious in my judgment

• The article containing the CS Lewis quotes.

How to Repent

Repentance is a life skill.

In the original language of the New Testament, the word literally means, "with new mind."

If you can't change your mind, you die as a human being and become someone hard, rigid and stuck. Who wants to be around someone (for long) who can't change their mind?

Martin Luther, the protagonist of the Reformation wrote in the opening paragraphs of his 95 theses famously nailed to the door at Wittenberg, "Our Lord and Master...willed the entire life of believers to be one of repentance."

And here's how George Whitfield, one of the leaders of the 18th century Spiritual Awakening in both England and America practice repentance (he usually did this each night). He once wrote, “God give me a deep humility, a well-guided zeal, a burning love and a single eye, and then let men or devils do their worst!”

Deep Humilty (vs. Pride)

Have I looked down on anyone? Have I been too stung by criticism? Have I felt snubbed and ignored?

Repent like this: Consider the free grace of Jesus until I sense (a) decreasing disdain, since I am a sinner too, and (b) decreasing pain over criticism, since I should not value human approval over God’s love. In light of his grace, I can let go of the need to keep up a good image—it is too great a burden and is now unnecessary. I reflect on free grace until I experience grateful, restful joy.

Wise courage (vs. anxiety)

Have I avoided people or tasks that I know I should face? Have I been anxious and worried? Have I failed to be circumspect, or have I been rash and impulsive?

Repent like this: Consider the free grace of Jesus until there is (a) no cowardly avoidance of hard things, since Jesus faced evil for me, and (b) no anxious or rash behavior, since Jesus’ death proves that God cares and will watch over me. It takes pride to be anxious, and I recognize I am not wise enough to know how my life should go. I reflect on free grace until I experience calm thoughtfulness and strategic boldness.

Burning love (vs indifference)

Have I spoken or thought unkindly of anyone? Am I justifying myself by caricaturing someone else in my mind? Have I been impatient and irritable? Have I been self-absorbed, indifferent, and inattentive to people?

Repent like this: Consider the free grace of Jesus until there is (a) no coldness or unkindness, as I think of the sacrificial love of Christ for me, (b) no impatience, as I think of his patience with me, and (c) no indifference, as I think of how God is infinitely attentive to me. I reflect on free grace until I show warmth and affection.

Godly motivations (a single eye)

Am I doing what I do for God’s glory and the good of others, or am I being driven by fears, need for approval, love of comfort and ease, need for control, hunger for acclaim and power, or the fear of other people (Luke 12:4–5)? Am I looking at anyone with envy? Am I giving in to even the first motions of lust

or gluttony? Am I spending my time on urgent things rather than important things because of these inordinate desires?

Repent like this: Consider how the free grace of Jesus provides me with what I am looking for in these other things. Pray, “Oh Lord Jesus, make me happy enough in you to avoid sin, and wise enough in you to avoid danger, that I may always do what is right in your sight. In your name I pray, Amen.”

HT

The New Frontier

People don't think there are frontiers anymore. There are. Being a church that serves our community is ours. We could happen in North County because of us? We'll need Pioneers to lead the way and Settlers to develop the territory. Which one will you be?

People are Awesome

Wow.

Starts Sunday

Our series in November. Excited to talk about this beginning Sunday. I'm looking forward to three things in particular:

1 - Giving people hope about their finances so they see how to keep money from keeping them from the things money can't buy.

2 - Overturning the preconceptions people have about money and the Church (There has been and still is a lot of people in the Church who misuse this--namely, prosperity preachers.

3 - Bonus: It's a chance for me to learn too. My wife does a phenomenal job managing our finances. (I married up!) And during this series, I'm looking forward to be learning more about how to better manage our finances so we can pour even more of our money in the direction of God's kingdom.

The Decade of Growth

Admittedly, this is seriously long. It's loosely a transcript of the vision I cast last weekend (audio will be up soon). I wanted it available to circulate and share.

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I talked a few weeks ago about a 40 year vision for our community—how a community of God’s people who know who they are, know their calling and know how to work could literally change the face of our area. I don’t think that’s a pipe-dream. The Clapham Sect did just that in England 100+ years ago. It’s time for Jesus’ disciples to do the same in our day.

But something that big needs to be broken down into bite size chunks. So I talked last Sunday about our next decade together. I’m calling it the decade of growth—an unprecedented decade of growth personally, relationally and as a church. As Trinity’s pastor, I am 110% committed to your growth over the next decade. Many people, instead of growing for 10 years, live the same year over and over 10 times. I don’t want that for you. In 10 years, I want you to be out of debt, healthy, in a great relationship, and loving God and loving people more than you ever have. We’ll have to do that together. You’ll need help. So this is a talk about the next 10 years we need to experience together to get there. Here are the 6 things I think we must do if that’s to become a reality.

Trinity has a great history. Over the last 8 decades, thousands of people have been impacted and millions of dollars has been raised to meet needs. We honor that and are aware that anything we do in the future is built on the foundation of committed leaders in the past. There is an amazing, amazing track record of what God has done here. So the question is, what do we do now?

#1 Realize we are a mature church. The growth cycle is huge when you are a baby and an adolescent but slows down when you are an adult. This is completely normal. So we first have to realize where we are in the growth cycle. We are—in the language of development—an adult church. That is our current reality.

#2 BUT, we have to refuse to be comfortable. We all like comfort. That’s just part of being a human being. For instance, I don’t like it when I’m all settled down for the evening with a book or a show and then one of my kids starts crying for me. I love them, but frankly, it’s annoying. However, if I consistently ignore their needs I stunt who they become, favoring my comfort over their needs. In the same way as a church we have to refuse to be comfortable. I think God’s blessing is on the church that cares about others.

Here’s three things to keep in mind in that respect. 1) The church that doesn’t grow stagnates and dies. It’s a simple fact. No growing=dying. This requires incredibly unselfish people; People aware of other people’s needs and willing to do something about it. 2) God commands us to grow and bear fruit. Jesus told his disciples that we are to show ourselves to be his disciples, bearing much fruit. (John 15:9). 3) The needs of people—now more than ever—demand that we grow. People are desperately in need of hope, purpose, meaning & strength. We will grow as a church—grow as followers of Jesus.

#3 We have to restart a new bell curve by reaching the next generation. Again, the growth cycle is like a bell curve: A steep path of growth on the front end, a peak, followed by a decline. It happens with a piece of fruit: ripening, peak flavor, then decay, and it happens with your own body: growth, peak years, then the aches and pains of age begin to set in.

So how do you grow when things naturally decline? Two things: 1-You start a new bell curve at the peak! We’ll do that by actively and intentionally leveraging the skills, experience and wisdom of the current generation to train, lead and reach the next generation. 2-Raise the evangelistic temperature. Evangelism has gotten (probably rightly so) a bad rap as of late. In many people’s minds it raises the image of shoving God down someone’s throat. But it’s coming back into vogue in our culture—Apple even has a position called “Chief Evangelist”.

At its best, it simply means “messenger.” We want to help you recognize that you are a messenger and representative of God’s Kingdom—both with your actions and your words, in every place that you go. So we want to teach you how to use Jesus’ strategy in Luke 9 & 10 (known as the Person of Peace), finding the people near you whose hearts are ready to hear about God’s love through your kindness, genuine friendship and words.

And then we want to help you use the weekend service as a tool both to grow personally and a tool to help your friends, family and neighbors grow. We’ll do our best to make the music great, the message relevant, and be prepared to experience God’s presence together. In fact, during the month of December we’re gearing the services specifically toward people who are un-churched, de-churched, and no-churched (we always try to do that, but especially gearing it that way during December.) We’ll be talking about how Love has Come—to your hurts, to your doubts, to your relationships—and want to challenge you to invite a person of peace to the service with you and then go out to lunch with them afterwards. It’s all about the relationship!

And on Christmas Eve, let’s pack the place out—having at least 400 people present. And Christmas Eve, seriously easy sell! J We’ll have hor’s doeuvres before the service, candlelight, a great atmosphere. Make it happen!

#4 We’ll do that by focusing on developing people. We’ll do that 2 ways:

1 – By renewing and revitalizing our core. All of us need renewal. A new heart. A new spirit. A renewed sense that we are loved by God, we have a purpose God is calling us to and that it can happen. At any point, we can turn to God and he will give us freedom and a new start. If Jesus isn’t a normal part of your conversation, you don’t find yourself talking or thinking about him and doing what he said is best--—then it’s time for renewal.

We’ve talked about abiding (see John 15) several times and want to help you learn a rhythm of life that is sustainable and ties you to your basic identity as the child God dearly loves. Get that--the covenant relationship God invites you into, let it grip your heart, and you become unstoppable. The Apostle Paul said it to the Corinthians like this: though we are outwardly wasting away (on the down side of the bell curve), inwardly we can be renewed every day. (2 Corinthians 14:6). Tap into God’s Holy Spirit for renewal. We’ll help you do that. We’re working on a retreat for our entire church family and a way to help you regularly follow the rhythm of Jesus’ life: Engagement and renewal, engagement and renewal, engagement and renewal.

2 – By paying attention to how Jesus did it. For the last year+, I’ve been studying how Jesus made disciples and doing my best to exactly imitate not only what he did but how he did it. So I’ve spent time every week with 6 guys that I’ve invited to learn with me and from me how to follow Jesus. We call it a huddle.

The great invitation of the huddle was (and is) that we’d learn together and that they wouldn’t be left behind. The high challenge was that they’d do exactly the same for a few others. The next rounds of huddles have just begun. What we’re developing is an incredibly strong base of deeply Christ-like disciples who have a clear sense of who they are and what God is calling them to do. This discipling culture we’re building is the foundation of the church. To put it in computer language, discipleship is the operating system of the Kingdom of God and the Church is the killer app. (We often get it backwards—thinking the Church is God’s operating system that spawns multiple programs—discipleship being one nice thing among many.)

Making disciples first is how Jesus did it and he gave no Plan B! Make disciples who do everything I commanded you (Matthew 28:19-20). And since he’s the smartest man to ever live, I’m going to go ahead and defer to his methods. J

#5We must reposition our church for a new decade. There is a point at which a church can define what they are known for, but that soon becomes something they can no longer control. Other people decide what a church is known for. For Trinity, I think it’s fair to say that if we asked someone in the community what we are known for they’d say something like:

· Friendly (we are an incredibly friendly church—I hear that over and over again)

· The annual Live Nativity

· On Shackelford Road

That’s certainly not bad. We’re friendly, have a reputation for putting on an annual community event, and people know where our building is located. Ok, good. But to what degree do those things reflect what the Church is meant to be? Do those things naturally lead to people becoming followers of Jesus?

So what will be known for in the next decade? Let’s be known for these three things:

· Meeting Needs – if someone needs food, a job, is addicted, is grieving, is going through a divorce…whatever, let’s be known as the people who help meet those needs. In the next 2 months, we’re doing a food drive for a partner church in the city that houses a food pantry that is deluged by need. Bring food every week in November and December. And we’re having a coat drive in early November and packing gift boxes for Operation Christmas Child. That’s just the start.

· Young Families and Students – The natural cycle of life is Baby->cute kid with lunch box->Student->college or trade-> Married->kid->raise your kids->watch them go through the cycle->grandkids. Admittedly, this is not how it happens for everyone, but it is the basic reproduction cycle of the human race. Raise kids well, you raise a whole culture well. In the next decade we want to reach the next generation and do everything in our power to help them succeed. We’re targeting them to develop and renovating our space they use and the way we teach their kids and develop them as disciples and parents who know how to love and raise their kids.

· Radical Love – Let’s be known for loving God, loving each other, loving the unlovely and the unloveable, loving the despised…in a radical way. Here are 3 ways we are going to start that now:

1-We’ve adopted Coldwater Elementary School just around the corner, and are again going to be providing Christmas for three families (they have several families who are homeless!). We’ve even had someone offer a house they own to us to use as a way to bless a family that just needs a leg up for a few months to help turn things around financially. So in a few months, we’ll have a home we can offer to those families—rent free—where they can begin to turn things around financially (and for their entire future!). Wow. Only God could do that.

2 – In January, we’re going to be “Regifting Love” by challenging you to serve 3000 hours in our community. That works out to each person (that would be YOU) serving about 2 hours/week in January. We’ve contacted 10 agencies in the area and will have a catalog listing tangible ways you can serve. Make plans now to clear your schedule in January for 2 hours a week.

3-We’re hosting a free community health fair January 29. It will be run by health professionals and offer everything from nutrition and exercise help to diabetes screening (you can serve some of your hours there, by the way).

Radical love. Let’s be known for that.

#6 Renovate our space. I mean two things by that. One, we’re going through the building and updating the spaces—starting with our kids area (it’s had several different looks over the years—again, this is about reaching a new generation!)—so they look clean, modern and welcoming. When the community uses our building, when the guests come that you are going to invite, we want them to realize that we were already thinking about them and the experience they’d have while in our building. We want to communicate that we care about them by having facilities that say “we care.”

Two, and more importantly, we want to renovate our space by extending our space. I don’t mean building a large sanctuary or bigger gym for $5-10 million (do you know how many people we could feed, how many people we could retrain for a new job, how many churches we could plant with that kind of money??), but sending you out as God calls you to have little communities of mission that meet in homes, coffee shops and other spaces. You and the mission that comes from God’s heart for you to fulfill are the truly “renovated space.” We’ve talked about these before. They are called missional communities. You won’t be thrown to the wolves. In fact, to lead a missional community, you have to go through a huddle first. So you won’t be on your own. You’ll be trained, helped, supported and equipped.

That’s what’s on my heart. I am praying it will now be on your heart. Peace.

The audio of the message will be up soon. And we’re excited to launch our new website, www.stltrinitychurch.net, in a few weeks that will include a sermon player where you can listen to the messages.

Stephen Colbert on immigration

Stephen Colbert using his satirical gift before Congress. Well done Stephen, well done.

Evangelism - a four letter word?

I've grown up--for better or worse--in what is commonly called the "Evangelical World."

Evangelicals are thusly named because we are evangelistic--that is, we want to tell people about Jesus and see people follow Jesus.

Enter irony.

For a number of valid reasons, evangelism has now become a dirty word to those of us in the younger evangelical set. Our skin crawls when we hear it and fear and anxiety grips our hearts. So with a tip of the hat to Stuff Christians Like, here's why that happens for me, maybe you can identify.

1-It's been about guilt. The way I heard it preached sounded an awful lot like religious cold-calling on an unsuspecting, uninterested soul who was just trying to get a new DVD player at Best Buy. "Sir, I can see you are looking for a new DVD player...can I tell you about the DVD player that never dies?" And to motivate us, our willingness to walk up to complete strangers was used as the measure of the fervency of our devotion to Jesus. I'd put the tenor of the pitch at roughly the same level as those guilt email forwards that tell you that you really love/aren't ashamed of Jesus only if you forward this immediately to 10 friends. And to underscore that this was possible (and to underscore how I was failing) there was always that one special speaker who'd led about 3,000 people to Lord in DVD section of Best Buy in the last year.

2-It's sounded an awful lot like sacred one night stands. Since the ultimate goal was souls in a disembodied heaven, all that mattered was that you got people to pray "the prayer." And if you got a lot of people to pray the prayer, then you were a successful Christian. Who cares if you knew or loved the person (or even liked them), if they prayed the prayer, then you and Jesus and the person's eternal destiny (hey, no pressure) were good . You love 'em, leave 'em and move on. There was even a thing that could serve as a prophylaxis against actual interaction with heathen: A tract. It earned us a reputation of ironically not actually caring about the people we were supposed to love.

3-It wasn't natural. Honestly, the messages were mixed. "Friendship with the world is enmity against God." "Separate yourself from among them." "Now go love them in Jesus' name." Holy whiplash Batman! I vividly remember walking down my High School hallway carrying my Bible completely torn up about the eternal destinies of my classmates, but not wanting to contaminate myself by actually being friends with them.

4-It's been about what to avoid. The pitch was most often centered around avoiding hell, not loving Jesus. Jesus, in contrast, talked most about what it meant to follow him and embrace God's kingdom, reserving his talk about hell mainly for the religious people who felt so smugly in the right.

To add irony to irony, the word evangelist is now hot. Apple even recently had a Chief Mac Evangelist. The business world routinely talks about being an evangelist for this or that product or service. What they mean is actually the original intent of the word: you love and believe in something so much that you can't help but share it.

We need to rescue the word and the practice. We're sent by God (the root meaning of the word evangelistic) and so need to reclaim our mission of announcing God's kingdom. Here are three ways I'm working toward doing that.

The person of peace. Jesus--and can anyone actually argue he isn't the greatest evangelist of all time?--has a strategy we've basically ignored. In Luke 9 & 10 he sends out the 12 and the 72 with the instruction that when they go somewhere, they are to look for the man (or woman) of peace. "You enter a house and announce peace to it," Jesus says. "If a person of peace is there, your peace will rest on them. Stay, build relationships, announce God's reign over all things. If not, move on."

Here's what Jesus was saying. "As you go about your life and find someone you like and who likes you, start there. Build a relationship with them, and in the context of that relationship, tell them about God's love and care for them. If you don't find someone who likes you, move on." Heaven came down and glory filled my soul when I realized how simple and natural Jesus was making it. Focused intention, zero pressure. I am now always on the look-out for a person of peace.

Increase my powers of observation. In John 4, Jesus meets the woman from Samaria at a well. He observes several things (1) She's alone. Women didn't go places like that alone in that culture. (2) It's the middle of the day in the heat. Women went together in the morning when it was cool. (3) Based on 1 & 2, he notices that she is an outcast of some sort. When his disciples come back from the store and he unpacks with them the secret of having profound spiritual conversations, he says "open your eyes and look at the fields!" In other words, notice the things going on around you. It's there that an encouraging word, a smile, a kind conversation can open the door of someone's heart.

Serve people while being normal. When I serve people, I change their perception, change my perception and break down barriers. And I serve because I love, not because I hope we'll talk about Jesus (though I do hope that happens). A great interview on ABC News about the new face of American Evangelicalism underscores this.

So what about you? What comes to mind when you think of evangelism? How do we reclaim it without all the baggage?

Monday Thoughts

• Started a new series yesterday: Hope For Your Work. The framework is from the brilliant insights of Tim Keller. Everyone gets their stuff from somewhere. I get some of my stuff from him. Simply brilliant pastor.
• I'm glad I love what I do, but have had plenty of work that I didn't.
• All good work that helps people flourish (some work frankly doesn't) is a form of gardening (see Genesis 1-2).
• If you don't understand how your work fits into your faith, you are left with a gaping hole in your practice of following Jesus.
• Been wrestling a lot with the Celebrity culture we live in--specifically the church celebrity culture (it exists). This quote from Tim Keller helped me see the task ahead of me. Our celebrity culture comes because we think their tremendous success comes from a certain skill set the person has (that we then covet or try to copy):

  The difference between a solid church and a terrible church is pretty much up to you. The difference between a solid church and incredible success has almost nothing to do with you...It’s like you are out there paddling on your surfboard, and suddenly the wave comes and you ride in, standing up like you’re a Greek god. That has everything to do with the wave.

• Joseph went through three stages of character development. 1-Wow, look at my talent and how great I am! 2 - Wow, look at the talent God gave me. Now let me show you how great I am. 3-My insights are meaningless. Only God can do what needs to be done. If I'm honest, I think I'm somewhere between stage 2 & 3.
• I loved having a date with my wife on Friday night. A great student gave us the gift of a night of baby-sitting/month so we could go out. We took an inventory...and it's been way too long since we've been on a date. Regular dates now go into my life plan. I don't want to use my wife or my family to lead a church.
• From Saturday's Marriage/Parenting Seminar: A great marriage is built on three things. 1-Knowing your partner's inner world intimately. 2-Building a culture of fondness and admiration (over against a culture of "constructive criticism" and contempt). 3-Being aware of your partner's "bids" for attention and affection and doing everything you can to turn toward them.
• Lots of administrative stuff needing attention right now. I am not an administrator and find myself frequently drained by the demands. I'm having to really monitor my time and energy levels. I really want to serve the people I lead well and this means getting us past this necessary strengthening of our processes and systems regardless of how it makes me feel.