An interesting day off this past Sunday

Last week I took a Sunday off and actually attended another church. This was a first experience for me. Generally speaking, when i take a Sunday off, I'm taveling to see my parents, something like that. I've never taken a Sunday off and just stayed at home before.

I decided to go to another church for a number of reasons:

1. I am always told this is good to do for rest and relaxation.
2. It was interesting to be a regular guy in a church. I don't get to experience that too often.
3. Get some new ideas for our church, maybe... cause we do everyting right, right?

Saturday night I was stressed by this whole gogoing to another church thing. one, my kids didn't want to go. So we decided to have our kids dropped off at our church. That was a weird position to be in. Then, all week I kept thinking I was preaching Sunday, thenI would have to remind myself I wasn't. That was stressing me for some reason. Out of routine I guess. Then I felt guilty for not going to my church.

Well, we went to Forefront church in Virginia Beach and once I went there it was really relaxing. It was nice to go and not have to worry about anything. It was a great experience.

What did i get from this church that might help our church? We could do a lot better and making sure our service is open to new people who don't know anything about church. We also could do a lot better at tailoring our service to reaching to people who know vary little about church.

Why? Well think about it. Non-churched people don't miss going to church. if I missed a Sunday i would miss going to church. Non-churched people don't miss it. They are very happy to do what they are doing now, golfing, sleeping, hunting, whatever.

We've got amake our service so good that if a non-churched person came to our service they would not want to miss out what's going to happen next week.

SPARK Evaluation

Last night we had our monthly staff meeting and we spent the time evaluating the SPARK series we just finished. Everyone said they liked it and they wanted to do it next year, but as always there is room for improvement. here is what we found, see if you agree....

1. What needs to be repeated?
* The extended worship at the end of the service
* Having eveyone, adults, youth, and children looking at the same topic each week
* The prayer chairs
* The Generosity buckets

2. What are some things we liked, but don't neccesarily need to be repeated?
* Might not do it for six weeks, maybe four
* We don't have to start it in September, maybe October

3. What can be improved?
* Need to be more collabrative in the next session across ministries
* Have specific Life group Leader training for the series
* Suspend traditional Life groups for SPARK groups during the six weeks
* The generosity bucket could use something more novel next time (Possibly themed with
whoever we are helping

4. What doesn't need to be repeated?
* There was some confusion between what was in the Life Group lessins and what was said
in the messages.
* Starting it in September
* The Life Group Lessons could take the topic of the messge a little deeper

There you go!

What did you think?

A great quote

I was listening to a Andy Stanley Leadership Podcast the other day and he said a great quote by Craig Groeschel.

"If we are going to reach people nobody else is reaching then we are going have to do what no one else is doing."

Think about that. Where do church people get ideas on how to reach people? Often, they get thier ideas from other church people, not the people they are trying to reach. The churches in this area are already doing a good job reaching the people they reach, but there are thousands of people in Suffolk who still don't have an active faith in Jesus Christ. Who is going to reach those people?

We are.

That means if we are going to reach them we are going to have to do some things that no other church is doing. We're going to have to make mistakes. We're going to have to risk some things. One thing is for sure. we have to do something different. We might do some things that make the traditional church cringe. Good.

This brings up another thought concerning new church work. Many times a new church will attract people from other churches because of the freshness, or the cause, or whatever. What happens many times is they bring along the ideas from their other church to place on the new church. What they don't understand is the church was not started to reach people like them, church people. It was started to reach preople the other churches in our community are not reaching. Church ideas will not work in our church.

What does this mean? For example, if you are thinking that once we get into a building that we are going to become a traditional church with Sunday evening services, Wednesday night dinners and other traditional church programs you are going down the wrong track. We're thinking inthe direction as our church building as being a safe place for homeless people, victims of domestic violence, and the like. We want it to be a place where the community truly comes to, and not just church people.

Why?

If we are going to reach who no one else is reaching we will have to things that no one else is doing.

Thiings I Hate about God

Ever hear people complain about God?

How could we do that? He is God.

So that has led to our new series for November...

4 Things I Hate About God.

What are some things you hate about God?

Deacons

Deacons in the church carry an important role in the church. The role is loosely based on the men in the Jewish synagogues who were charged with taking care of the physical matters of the synagogue building. In the Bible we first see Deacons as a role created to solve a problem concerning the feeding of widows. Later on, in 1 Timothy, we see the role of Deacon as a formalized part of the structure of the church.

Deacon means servant. Literally it means "dirty feet people" as in the slaves who cleaned the dirty feet of ancient sandal wearing people. It has become popular to say that if you are serving in the church then you are a deacon. I have some concerns about this populist thought. Here are a couple comments concerning Deacons.

One, they serve under the authority of the elders. The elders appointed the deacons who were full of the Spirit to administer food to the elderly in Acts 6.

Secondly, it is an appointed office that carries authority. The authority isn't about spiritual matters or policy decisions, that's the elder's role. The authority concerns the allocation and distribution of the resources of the church so the congregation is well cared for.

Thirdly, it is a position that requires good character. The requirements in 1 Timothy are not an exhaustive list, after all, do you want a Deacon that doesn't show the Fruit of the Spirit? It is an emphasis on the character of the person. You need to be able to trust the people in charge of the resources of the church.

Being a Deacon is more than just taking care of the physical matters of the church. They are the front lines to making sure people in the congregation are being taken care of. It can be much more pastoral in nature than we realize. After all, isn't taking the food to the widows a pastoral ministry? They are responsible for developing systems so the congregation can be healthy and give a thriving testimony of God's community here on earth.

Concerning the Nobel Peace Prize...

I wonder if historical figures can receive the Nobel Peace Prize. I have a nominee.. Jesus Christ... who made mercy and justice kiss eachother on the cross so that we might know freedom.

PEACE in Christ

Fun at the Peanutfest

Hi everyone!

I just got back from doing a couple shifts at Celebration's booth at the Suffolk Peanutfest. It was a lot of fun. People like it when you give out free water after they ate some hot peanuts from a table down the way!

I had a couple of thoughts as I met all kinds of people. One was this: We're offering water, but Jesus offers living water, that will eternally quench our thirst in life. I sure hope that somehow, someway, through our effort that connection is made.

Then, concerning that effort, I thought this is a lot like the parable of the seeds. Some people are thorny ground, others rocky, others on a well beaten path, and other fertile soil. I pray that our brochures found some fertile soil for God's word this weekend.