Crazy Dream Last Night

I dreamed last night that Dan Patrick, former Sportcenter Anchor, came to Crew and I asked him for his autograph on the way up to preach. He signed Jacy in the book of Luke. No idea what that means.

This is a true story though: I had a great friend from college who saw Dan Patrick and Charles Barkley, former NBA great, having dinner at an ESPN zone in Chicago. Get this, my friend went up to Patrick and asked for his autograph instead of Barkley! Patrick signed it, "To Jake, You're Weak". I love that story. This is Barkley, Patrick, and Pete Sampras, not my friend Jake

What To Do With Your Economic Stimulus Package

John Piper has issued a challenge to Christians everywhere:

http://www.desiringgod.org/Blog/
1203_economic_stimulus_payment__christ/

I'd love to hear if you're going to take the challenge and how it all goes down. It wouldn't be bragging it would be boast in Christ. What if we all did it. A 100 people giving it away to those who need it more than us. I'm thinking about doing, but oh the selfish greed within!

Conference Wrap Up

Overall this was a great trip. Thanks for those of you who’ve followed it with me through this blog. I hope you picked up on what I was attempting through the process. If not, then I’ll explain it.

My primary and maybe only readers of this blog are those who I pastor at Crew. Some of my responsibilities as a pastor are to teach, lead, and protect. When I come to a conference like this I’d love to share it with you and teach through it, but at a conference like this there are a lot of things that are good and a lot of things that aren’t. So as I listened to the speakers and reported on it I tried to affirm with intense celebration what was great and condemn heartily things that aren’t. This is called discernment. I want our church to be discerning. Not just of the culture (Huntington) in which we live, but the subculture (church) in which we live. I probably went over the top at times. But my heart is that there are good and bad things at every conference and sometimes within the same speakers. This is true of our church and myself as a communicator. We need to be alert to the things that aren’t good and eliminate them as we can. We need to be wide awake to the good and celebrate it.

Thank you Jesus for teaching me this week. Thanks for loving me. Thanks for providing this great opportunity to learn and spend time with other leaders and to think. Thanks for the EFCA that paid for it. Thanks for my church for supporting me through prayer and encouraging words. I ask that you use this time to transform my leadership in both methodology and strategy as well as biblically and theologically. Thank you for the hard work that went into this by all of the volunteers and leaders. Give me a safe trip home to my family that I can’t wait to see!

Final Session: Rick Warren

Rick Warren is up.and he’s the pastor of Saddleback Church in California. He has written a book title The Purpose Driven Church that really got churches thinking strategically about what they are to be doing and how they can best do that in their culture. I thank God for men like him. His opening just illustrated those last few sentences. He’s been planting churches out of his church while he was still probably considered a church plant. Here is a man who was into church planting long before most. Crew is far from a purpose driver church, but there is much in our literature and thinking that is very influenced by him.

He had some good things about comparison of your ministry to others: 2 reasons not to do it: (1) There’s always folks doing better so that discourages you. (2) There’s always folks doing worse so that makes you proud. Good word.

Now some words of advice from a church planter to another:

Never stop growing personally. If you stop learning you stop leading. Anybody can be great for 2 years. That’s a great line.

Pay attention to your family. At this point he got onto critics and mentioned how blogs can be critical of him. It wasn’t me I promise! ;) But it was a timely word to me, thanks Rick.

Thanks for the conference everyone and I'll post one final wrap post in a second.

Main Session: Tim Keller

This is it the final session of the conference. This will be led by Tim Keller who we just heard from. It’s hard to describe but that was the greatest intro of a speaker I’ve ever heard. Hilarious. You’ll have to ask me about it.

The DNA of a reproducing church has to be the gospel. Romans 1:16 doesn’t say that the gospel brings the power of God. But the gospel is the power of God. This passage started the Reformation which really changed the word. He said he is going to reverse directions and give a very theological talk. (Bring it sir). A fuller version of this talk will be in the latest issue of Leadership Magazine if you’re interested.

But we live in a day where Christians don’t know the gospel. It is becoming common for Christians to misunderstand it. Is the gospel the kingdom of God as it seems to be in the Synoptic Gospels (Matt. Mark, Luke), or is it belief in Jesus Christ as the Son of God as in John, or is it about atonement and justification like in Paul’s letter? So what do we say.

Here’s his understanding: The Bible teaches that there is 1 gospel. Yet the gospel has several forms. Paul shows that there is one gospel. Read Galatians 1:9. One gospel but they are emphasizing different things about the gospel. But look at Gal. 2:7. What’s he talking about? Read also, 1 Cor. 1:22-25. The New Testament is written in real time to different audiences. So, with the gospel, the writers were confronting the wrong of their culture’s false belief or lifestyle, but at the same time pointing to Christ as the fulfillment of what they were looking for in those false ways. So as missionaries we take the one true gospel to our culture to confront and show fulfillment.

What is the One Gospel?

1. In Christ God emptied himself and became a human.
   
   
2. In Christ God atoned for our sins, substituted himself for us and died and rose again in our place.
   
   
3. In Christ, God will return to destroy death, disease, and decay. New heaven and new earth.

All of the NT teach those things, but they bring out and emphasize different aspects. For example, The Campus Crusade, Billy Graham crown emphasize point 2. The Emergent Group (McLaren, Bell, Pagitt) today are upset about losing point 3 and so they respond by emphasizing point 3 and even call only point 3 the gospel. That is preaching 1/3 gospel. On the other hand, some ministries only preach point 2 so they are insufficient as well. You have to have all three points. Three things ought then to be a part of our church.

1. Our values should be about service and loving others, not power, popularity, or money. This emphasizes point 1 of the gospel.
   
   
2. The . Our preaching ought to be substitutionary atonement. The repentance of sin and conversion to God through Jesus death and resurrection for us in our place. This emphasizes point 2.
   
   
3. We ought to hate and attack and make war on poverty, death, disease, racial injustice, and other social ills in hope of Christ’s return. This emphasizes point 3.

He is afraid that nobody has the gospel. Yikes!

To Preachers From Tim Keller: John’s gospel puts more emphasis on point 2, conversion. The Synoptics put more emphasis on point 1. Paul does it all, but not at the same time. So in preaching you don’t have to preach all 3 points all at once. You will have folks in your church that are most attracted to one point more than the other. So every gospel presentation won’t hit everyone. So you give’em all at different times. Like in Gal. 2:7, a gospel to the circumcised and the uncircumcised. Then he says to preach expositionally (verse by verse through the Bible) that way you hit it all.

Breakout Session: Tim Keller

The final breakout session is with Tim Keller. He’s pastor of Redeemer Presbyterian Church in New York City. This feller is the best theologian, pastor, and church planter here. Folks were all excited that Rick Warren and Andy Stanley is here, but this guy is the heavy weight. He loves that Jesus Christ died for our sins and rose again. His book The Reason For God is a book you need to read. So go get it…now. Hear this young pastors and those who want to be leaders in the church. We need to sit at the feet of godly, gospel loving, experienced, mature, Calvinist, evangelistic leaders and learn. I don’t have any in my city and so I’m dependent on the books and podcast of people like Keller and Piper.

We begin now. He points out that this conference is really about methodology. He’s not going to do that. He wants to talk about what really makes a church grow and plant churches. He said it’s really about revival not methodology. Did I tell you this guy is great or what?! The reason our churches don’t grow and our community doesn’t experience God is because we are spiritually and biblically dead. So the reason churches aren’t reproducing themselves isn’t because they’re not smart or don’t know how, but because they are dead spiritually. This doesn’t mean you aren’t skillful. It means that the methods are slick enough that non believers could do the steps and build a church to 10,000, but who gives a rip. That’s not good. That’s not revival.

So here are 16, yes, 16 things, for true revival in churches. Get revival and you’ll get reproduction of churches. Revival/Reproduction is a theological issue. This all comes out of his experience in New York City and study of church history (Birth of the Church, Reformation, Great Awakening).

3 Instruments for Revival (Things the Spirit Uses to Bring About Revival). We have control over this.

1. A recovery of a difference b/w gospel and religion. Religion says, I obey God therefore I’m accepted. The gospel says I don’t obey God, but Jesus died and rose for me. I trust that so I’m accepted. Religious people live scared, inferior, and condemning of others. Gospel people are free and confident, secure in God, and gracious. So preach the gospel, not religion. That’s why when you show a hard core pagan that you love the gospel not religion they are open to the message of Jesus.

2. A recovery of great prayer. Not ordinary prayer in worship gatherings, small groups, and devotional prayer. This is united over the top impacting zealous prayer. Every revival in church history is accompanied by this.

3. A recovery of creativity. The worst thing we can do is to say this is how revival happened there and then, so we’ll do that here and now. So we have to be creative in our prayer and revival. You never get back into Narnia the same way twice (C.S. Lewis)

3 Aspects of Revival (We have no control over this)

1. Nominal believers get converted. They believe theology intellectually, but haven’t owned it. They don’t really get it. You sometimes find that these folks realize that they weren’t Christians.

2. Sleepy Christians wake up. They believe theologically the gospel, but they look to something else (Family, job, approval, comfort, power) as their practical gospel. Romans 8:16-17, deals with how the Spirit gives us assurance not just our own personal assurance that we’re believers. Revival moves these Christians from personal assurance, but Spirit assurance.

3. Outsiders are drawn in. Christians are experiencing the depth of their relationship with God. This is felt in worship services. It cannot be produced. It has nothing to do with timing or pacing or style. As unbelievers come in they don’t feel manipulated by slick methods, but they enter a dynamic community of Jesus lovers and they want it.

6 Balances to Revival (Can partially control them)

1. Dynamic Worship. It’s worship that is fun and exciting, but deep and meaningful. It can be thin and shallow, but it can be to deep and clogged either.

2. Great Teaching/Preaching. It has to be biblical and gospel centered. It has to be clear and relevant. So theologically rich, yet practically relevant (that’s my phrasing, not his if that’s too cheesy).

3. Life changing Community. All revival happens in community.

4. Outward focused. Very evangelistic. Revival are able to be bold, yet it’s done in humility and respected by unbelievers.

5. Passion for Justice/Poor. Didn’t develop

6. Cultural Engagement. The church ask how it can make an impact in their culture. Revival doesn’t allow Christians to separate life into spiritual and secular. It’s all gospel

4 Results of Revival (Have no Control Over)

1. There’s always a crazy fringe. There will be some folks that come out of the revival very proud. This happens because of premature leadership. You have to put people in leadership because everything is happening so overwhelmingly.

2. There’s always a backlash. There will be resistance within the church and the culture. It scares folks.

3. There’s a lot of new churches started. There has never been revival without this. It isn’t turf conscious because you’re coming out of the ears with people.

4. There is real social healing. Abolishing of slavery, child labor laws, etc have come on the heels of revival.

Last comment few comments: God regularly brings revivals and will finally bring the Great Revival with a new heaven and new earth. (Here comes the gospel…). There will be a final spring after the winner. Jesus will return and then we will stay revived!
The role of the pastor is to do the same thing whether revivals are happening are not. We’re happier when we see the results, but it doesn’t change our job.

Oh my gosh, I have tears in my eyes with the beauty of that session. The gospel is so high and lifted up. I want this. I beg for this Jesus in our church and in our city.

Breakout Session: Matt Chandler/Brian Tome

Final day is beginning. I’m in the session that will be taught by the guy Jonathan Lewis has a man crush on: Matt Chandler. He’s the pastor of Village Church in Highland Village, TX. I have high expectations for this session. I bet I’ll get my Bible out. The session is titled “From the Weekend to the World”. He’s going to talk about how the church’s mission isn’t for Sunday morning worship, but to reach the world.

Sorry, Jonathan, but I just found out Matt Chandler didn’t make it for some reason. They said something about a hooker and a kilo of something, so a guy named Brian Tome is filling in. Oh well, slightly disappointed, but God must have something for this guy to say to me. My ear is stretched out and my heart is wide open. Oh yeah, that hooker and kilo comment was a joke. But here’s a question: if you google Matt Chandler and hooker will my blog come up now? Maybe I’ll teach a session here next year: “How to grow your church by creating blog traffic through slander.” Ok, enough stupidness.

Brian is talking about how his church views their place in the city and in the world. Theologically they realized:

--The Kingdom of God is to be lived out in the world. The kingdom of God is not only to be realized in the future when the King returns. It is to be seen in part here and now in believers. How?

--We are called to good works. All of the NT passages commanding believers to do good works (Eph. 2:10; Gal. 6:9-10).

Let me pause here and affirm Tim Bailey the new leader of our city team. This is his heart. He is excited about the effect that good works in the city of Huntington will have for the kingdom of God. We live in a culture that is suspicious of Christians and the church, so we have the hard but worthy task of revalidating ourselves in Huntington. This is only effective as we make much of the king, Jesus. If not then we’re simply a social philanthropist.

Practically they realized:

---They shifted their emphasis (resources, money, staff) away from the weekend worship gatherings to weekday service. They obviously still worshipped and did it well, but it was for the purpose of launching the church out as missionaries into the city.

They Learned:

--Do a Few Things Well
--Start Small and Build
--Do Official Public Things and Empower Unofficial Private Things
--Cheerlead From the Front (Let people know when we win)

Main Session: Steve Andrews and Dave Ferguson

Hola. We’re back for the final session of the day. The speakers are Steve Andrews, lead pastor of Kensington Community Church in Troy, MI and then the second half will be Dave Ferguson who is hosting this conference and is pastor of Community Christian Church.

They did worship prior to this session and it was wonderful for me. The song, Into Marvelous Light, was deeply emotional for me. “Sin has lost its power, death has lost its sting, from the grave you risen victoriously…by the cross you are the life you are the way.” I felt the Spirit of God encouraging and comforting me in my leadership and my trip. God feels close right now.

First up, Steve Andrews. He says that 3 things need to be passed on to next generation church starters. You know what. I’m tired of writing today and this sermon isn’t going anywhere worth our time. So, adios. See you tomorrow.

Breakout Session: Greg Surratt

This breakout session which is my 5th is with Greg Surratt. He’s a pastor at Seacoast Church in Charleston, SC. He’s going to talk about developing a leadership farm system. This is about how a church will develop small group leaders, pastors, elders, team leaders, and church starters from within the church, not hire outside the church. I’m tired.

How do we do this?

1. Cast vision. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I got that. Next.

2. Choose the right leaders. What are the right leaders?

A. Visionary Leaders: They’re able to see what could be and should be when others don’t.

B. Resourceful Leaders: They’re able to do what could be and should be with limited resources. They don’t use money as excuses to not lead

C. Inspirational Leaders: They can inspire and recruit folks to dream with them and work toward the goal. Good communicators.

(This is sounding an awful lot like church growth vomit. Did I tell you that I was tired?)

D. Delegating Leaders: They love people and get excited when seeing other getting involved in the mission.

3. Build a Ministry Pipeline (2 Kings 4:2-4) (Beware, this sucka is about to warp the Scriptures for his purposes)

--The solution to your problem is probably in your own house.
--We are usually too quick to say there is nothing in the house.
--We need to have a system ready so God can provide a leader.

How do you develop the system?

--Define the pipeline. Oh my gosh this is hokey. I’m hating typing it. And as I wrote that two people got up and left. Godspeed my friends. We need to tell people how we're developing them into leaders.

--Develop the process. How will we teach what we want people to be, know, and do. It can't be limited by time or space. It can't be Wed. night at 7pm. It has to be people based. Have it when the leaders to be developed can meet and where they can meet. It's flexible. I like this so see I'm not too hard on him. Man, I'm glad I'm not speaking at this think. I'd wear me out!

--Identify where the folks are in the pipeline. What have they mastered?

--Help each person take the next step. Let them know where and what they need to do now.

These last two he didn't get to because he was a poor communicator who told stories instead of teach. Oh relax. I'm just joking.

4. Empower them to do ministry.

5. Review their progress.

The Main Worship Center Where This Bad Boy Is Happening

Breakout Session: Darrin Patrick (Part 2)

I’m back from lunch and at the next Breakthrough Session. The speaker is again Darrin Patrick. You have his bio in the previous post.

This session is about raising up good leaders. He’s going to take us through pieces of 1st and 2nd Timothy. He sees this as a letter from a church starting coach writing to a church starter.

Now he’s having us get our Bible’s out. The first guy to have us do that here. He told us if we don’t have our bible’s to quit and get out of the ministry. Nice.

1. Good leaders cultivate a Deep Gospel Identity. Read 2 Timothy 1:8-14. Part of this cultivation is understanding our own sin (1:8-11). Being aware of our own sinfulness, quickly repenting of our sin, and glorying in the grace of God. This is our responsibility as leaders. No one can do this for us. Great leaders are obsessed with the gospel. He’s getting a lot of this from Tim Keller, but I don’t care where he’s getting it. It’s awesome.

2. Good leaders work hard. Read 1 Timothy 4:14-16. Great leaders want to be around hard workers. Not only will you be a good leader, but you will attract good leaders.

Now he’s shifting to pitfalls leaders make

1. Forget that Wolves Can Come From Within the Church: Read Acts 20:28-30. Most enemies will come from the core group or the eldership or the church. Be on guard for that.

2. Wowed by People Who are Great Leaders: Read 1 Tim. 5:22. Make sure that leaders are tested and watched before becoming leaders. Take your time.

3. Give In to Age and Security. Read 1 Tim. 4:12. Young leaders sometimes back down from God’s calling because older and more experienced folks want them too. Obviously seek mature and godly older wisdom, but it doesn’t trump Scripture or your leading. Sometimes young leaders will accept any older leader who can help them. Be discerning.

4. React to Pressure. Read 2 Tim. 1:7. You have urgent needs so you compromise on principles or bible. Need a worship leader so you’ll put up with the leader smoking weed. You need a set up leader so you overlook that he’s cussing everyone out. We respond to God in dependence not react to pressure out of fear.

5. Let Others Design the Corporate Worship Gathering. Read 1 Tim. 2:8. This one is a stretch for me, but here it is. Many leaders get so overwhelmed that they punt this to someone else who doesn’t get what worship is to be. You have to oversee that it is happening biblically. I get the point and it is well taken, but leading the worship service can be done by someone other than me, but the elders need to make sure that it is done biblically.

Now to some Leadership Tensions

1. Change vs. Stability. It is easy to settle for stability when you need to change. Always stay a missionary church starter. Never become a pastor. Every year re launch your church to the community. I liked that statement a lot. As Bob Dylan would say, “Always be in a state of becoming.” I’d love to get some public feedback on this. We are in a transitional area where folks move constantly and new folks are coming in regularly. How do we embrace that? Some thoughts I have now:

Push the public presence through marketing and public outreach, a few week sermon series on our mission and values, rally the core of Crew and push once again what we’re about as a church and how we need our core to buy in all over again. What else?

2. Activity vs. Aloneness. Be aware of whether you are an extrovert or introvert. Make sure you schedule yourself that way. Extrovert don’t be too busy. Make time for your family. Introvert don’t hide. Neither personality is wrong, but have different tendencies.

3. Shepherding vs. Leadership. His definition of each: Shepherding is using ministry to get people done. Leadership is using people to get ministry done. We need to love people, but we can’t be consumed by them that we can’t lead. We’re constantly counseling and talking and going to the hospital. But the other side is we can’t use people to promote ministry or even worse self and not care about people and love them.

A few trailing thoughts that fell in during this talk. He said that everyone at their church that is on staff is either elder or deacon since those are the only NT offices. He is right that those are the only NT offices, but does that limit who you can compensate to do ministry?

Very good session. Learned a lot of good leadership tips here, plus Darrin loves the Bible.

Breakout Session: Darrin Patrick

This breakout session is led by Darrin Patrick who is a big wig for Acts 29 church planting network which was cofounded by Mark Driscoll at Mars Hill Church in Seattle. Highly respected by cool church starting Calvinist everywhere. I see here he pastors a church called The Journey.

If you don’t know what this talk is about, sorry. I’m walking in mid talk, so we’ll figure it out.

Ok, I’ve been sitting here 10 minutes and I’m not sure what he’s talking about. He’s mentioned knowing strengths/weaknesses, being dependent, and building character as leaders. It sounds like a lot of it is really good and can be found in Leading with A Limp by Dan Allendar who teaches at Mars Hill Graduate School. So check that out. Sorry, but that’s all I got out of this.

A Baptism Update From Orlando

Let me give you an update of my last hour here at the conference.

Our baptism at the YMCA has gone to pot. We’ve done baptisms at the YMCA in the past and it has been beautiful, but they have a new director who is adamantly against this. Yes, the YOUNG MEN’S CHRISTIAN ASSOCIATION is against us doing baptisms there currently. Rachel, our church admin, regretfully informed me of this, so I started the calls. I called all the baptismees and informed them that we’ll most likely postpone to May 4. I called 2 elders, Mike Bailey and Brad Sigler, who are organizing a contingency plan, so they are running all of that down.

This isn’t a crisis obviously, but it is inconvenient and aggravating. So let’s be wide awake to how God is changing things and pray for Mike and Brad as they lead us here.

Thanks ya’ll. Now back to the conference. I’m walking into the middle of a breakout session. What the freak’s going on?

Main Session: Alan Hirsch

The next main session is with Alan Hirsch, an Aussie, who has a leadership network called Shapevine. It’s committed to developing leaders who are centered around Jesus command to make disciples (Matt. 28:18-20).

He opened by pointing out that church leaders are pretty bad about just toeing the line of what we’re told. We simply plant and grow churches they way we’re told to without evaluating why and is that biblical. What is our theology and ecclesiology (study of church)? I’m liking this guy a lot right now.

The answers aren’t found at Exponential conferences or fads, but its found by going down deep into the Bible, theology from the Bible, and church history. I’m really liking him more.

There are at least 4 ways that we need to recover this thinking:

1. Recover the centrality of Jesus Christ. He is starting with Jesus and the gospel! Christology is the heart of church renewal. Not modern church leaders like Stanley or Hybels, not the Reformation with people like Luther and Calvin, but Jesus. Starting churches need to go back to our root: Jesus. If it’s not about Jesus what are we doing? In the words of one of my favorite DTS profs, Jeff Bingham, “It’s something. It’s not Christian, but it’s something.” Jesus is the center of church renewal.

Now this next part is wordy, but hang with him. Our view of Jesus (Christology) determines what we are to be doing as a church (Missiology) and that determines how we do church (Ecclesiology). He is exactly right. So when our church isn’t going well and isn’t effectively reaching the lost, the answer is to return to Jesus not our Ecclesiology. Question time folks: Are we at Crew doing church, no matter how attractive, cool, or fun. Are we clearly showing that Jesus is everything to us?

He points out, with great pics, the type of Jesus many churches wrongly promote:

There’s spooky Jesus (think pic of Jesus glowing and looking all scary). This denies his humanity and incarnation.

There’s buddy Jesus. This is Jesus as begging us to be his friend. No power or deity.

There’s boyfriend Jesus. I’ve talked about this one before. This is seen in all of the romantic worship songs about “touch me God” and “I’m so in love with you”.

There’s sissy Jesus. This is prissy blond headed silky long haired Jesus. This guy won’t call you to do revolutionary things and stand up to wrong because he's putting product in his hair.

We need to recover Jesus as the holy and powerful and strong, yet gentle and loving God man who demands to be worshipped and followed. This Jesus changes lives as he desires.

This flies in the face of making Christ palatable to our culture.

2. Recover discipleship as the basis of the movement. A disciple is a person who completely follows Christ. The drive of the church MUST be deadly serious about calling people to an intense and complete following of Jesus.

This flies in the face of making all of our ministry about making our worship gatherings sellable to our culture. We are reaching consumers by giving them a product rather than challenging their consumerism. That needs to change.

3. Recover a structure that multiplies. This means that what we do needs to be able to flex and adapt to any culture of any time. Christ is over culture so he can’t be limited to a certain package of delivery to only specific cultures. Every believer is a church starter and every church can multiply churches. Why? Because every believer has Jesus and his gospel. Jesus, one man, multiplied himself into 11 men, who multiplied into others, and on and on until us.

4. Recovering our call to be missionaries. God goes to the culture. Jesus became flesh to redeem us. We must incarnate ourselves into our culture in order to redeem it.

Easily the best thing I’ve heard since being here. Good good word.

Breakout Session: Shawn Lovejoy

I’m back at the conference this morning for a breakout session. The speaker is a dude named Shawn Lovejoy of Mountain Lake Church in Cumming, Ga. He’s going to yell at us about being a healthy leader in healthy church. This isn’t a session about doing, but about being.

Shawn started off talking about how the church planting process caused him to doubt himself constantly. This really rang true for me. I am an extremely upbeat and optimistic guy, but the first year of starting Crew sent me reeling into a time of depression. It was a rough time for me.

Here are some things that these times bring about:

Comparison to other leaders. We size up other leaders. How many people are at your church? Why isn’t our church that big? How old is your church? What are you doing? Should I be doing that?

Copy other leaders. The way we dress, what we say, and the style we adopt. But we aren’t those people so that only further frustrates us.

Condemn other leaders. We speak negatively of those who are doing “better” than us. They don’t preach well. Their theology is weak. Their selling out. On and on. Notice this guy’s points all start with “C” (See how I condemned him right there?). That’s the point.

(Those 3 things, so far, are things that are true of everyone in whatever stage or position, not just church planters.)

Add your own ideas to this list. Just make sure they start with “C”.

Now, he’s turning to 1 Samuel 17:38-40 to teach some of this. He’s preaching from the New Living Translation! Man, this guy is going to hell. Shoot I did it again. My bad.

Shawn Lovejoy says that, “Many church leaders are trying do ministry someone else’s way”. Just cookie cutter churches. How do I know if I’m doing that?

You take another leader’s personality. Act like they act.

You take another leader’s story. You take their path to “success” that they took.

You take another leader’s context. You do ministry as if you are doing ministry in another place. Your methods and creativity is reaching folks in a city your not in.

You take another leader’s expectations. Your church ought to be at the level of another church.

Great things to be heads up on and really dead on about the temptations I face.

My only question is: What then is a healthy leader? Someone who doesn't do those things? This was a lot of don't be this. But what am I (a young leader) to be? The answer by the way is 1st and 2nd Timothy. Am I right?

Breakout Session: John Burke

We’ve broken out into workshop sessions. I’m in the one titled “Growing your Church Out of the Culture” with John Burke. He is pastor at Gateway Community Church in Austin, TX. He wrote a popular book title “No Perfect People Allowed”.



I’m sitting next to a guy who smells like mildew, but I’m sure he’s a great guy.

Here we go…

He’s starting by telling of several folks who are a part of his church that were sex addicts, drug dealers, homeless people, lesbians, and agnostics. Almost all of these folks came to Christ the first year of the church. He loved it because this group was fairly representative of the folks in the culture.

The question he’ll attempt to answer in this workshop is: how do we help the culture love Jesus.

1. Create a church culture (vibe, feel, language, environment) that is loving and accepting of people who don’t love Jesus. He uses the Corinthians passage to show this. You know where Paul planted and Apollos watered but God gave the growth. I’m not sure where that is right now. You can find it at www.biblegateway.com. Anyway, it’s God’s job to reach people. It’s our job to be missionaries to our city. That will look different everywhere. Jesus also does this in John 4 and Matthew 9. This shows grace, tolerance, and trust.

The mildew smelling guy got up and left.

2. Know the people of your culture. Hear their stories, have them over, and build friendships with them. They will be raunchy and messy, but so are you, so get in there.

Although some good things were said, this wasn’t a real helpful workshop for me. I get this and feel like we’re doing it at Crew. If you want the full dose of this teaching, I think it’s in the book I mentioned above. Check it out.

Session 2: Andy Stanley

Session 2 is with Andy Stanley, pastor of North Point Community Church in Atlanta, Ga.



His topic is vision. He wrote a book called Visioneering that covers this. His definition of Vision: is a mental picture of what could be but its fueled by a passion that it should be. I like that definition quite a bit.

As leaders we need to communicate that vision, which we’re good at it, but we also need to tell them what it looks like when we do it. What is a win at our church?

How do we do this? 5 Ways:

1. State it simply. Spend time thinking through what you’re trying to do and then be able to say it quickly, clearly, and memorably. If vision is going to stick it has to be something that everyone in the church can get and tell others about. That way the church becomes the vision casters. Not just the lead pastor. This vision won’t be exhaustive, but catchy. We have the rest of our life to explain it. Their vision statement is “creating churches that love to create churches that unchurched people love to attend”. Let me ask you Crew.

---What is Crew’s mission statement? Don’t look! Put what you think or know it is in the comments. Is it quick, clear, and memorable? Honest now.

--Does Crew need to not change our mission, but come up with a better way to articulate it and cast it in a quick and memorable way? What do you recommend?

2. Say it compelling. Convince folks that the vision MUST be done. Define the problem. Explain the Solution. Explain Why and Why Now. If people don’t feel the problem they won’t give a rip about a solution.

3. Repeat it regularly. Look at the rhythm of your church. Christmas, Easter, Spring Break, Summer, School Starts. When does energy go up and go down. Do vision casting when the high times are. People aren’t thinking about Crew all of the time like me, so I need to be constantly reminding everyone.

4. Celebrate it consistently. Whenever someone fulfills or implements the vision, celebrate it. Give it Sunday morning time. Put it on the blog. Tell the story of the wins. Don’t miss them! This is great to me. Because I hear tons of great stories every week, but you don’t. I need do a lot better job of celebrating the win.

5. Embrace it personally and publicly. Model the vision and mission in your own life. If I promote small group, I need to be in one. If I want folks to build friendships with unbelievers and share the gospel with them, I need to do that. This shows that I have bought in.

Not bad, huh.

Session 1 and Panel Between Session 1 and 2

The first session has just started at this bad boy. There about 2000 people in this giant auditorium. There are a lot people in jeans with vintage looking t shirts, holes in their jeans, and a goatee or soul patch or is it sole patch. I’m not sure I’m cool enough to be here. You can probably tell I’m getting cynical and jaded about all of this. I don’t want to be. Call me up short if I am. I’m just reporting the sights and sounds as I see it. You’ll be able to tell when I’m excited or grouchy. Optimistic or a smart…alec. The first session is with Ed Stetzer who has become the foremost student, writer, and communicator of missiology in North America. Missiology is the study of missions, thus his ministry is about missions to Americans of which we see ourselves at Crew. He’s a great communicator and even better thinker. I’m excited to hear from him.



Alright, the network sucks in this room, so I was constantly losing my connection. So I’m going to write live as I’m experiencing this, but I’ll be publishing it at a later time when I can get on. You’ll still get the info, but it won’t be live. Sorry.

I had several trends that he communicated, but lost them. I'll try to remember a few:

--Most churches are started by churches 200 folks or less.

--Smaller churches start other churches more naturally and easier than bigger churches

--The most effective evangelistic strategy in America today is start new churches.

All right, they’re doing a panel now between session 1 and 2.

They have a few pastors who have started churches out of their church at an incredible success rate. Here are a few things that resonated with me. Anything hit you?

One guy was asked how to keep church planting on our church’s radar. He said celebrate ways in which you contribute to church planting. Tell everyone how much money you give to planting churches, bring church planters in to speak at your church and make heroes of them. He said, what you celebrate is what you become. Based on that what would you say we celebrate at Crew that we shouldn’t? What should we be celebrating that we aren’t?

One church, Northwood Community Church, has planted almost 100 churches in 20 years. 13 of them are within 10 miles of their church and have over 10,000 people in them. If Northwood wouldn’t have planted those churches then they too could be a megachurch with a lake and a Payne Stewart golf academy. I think I’d rather be smaller Northwood, wouldn’t you?

“You can right the ship if you’re off course. But sometimes it turns like a freighter”

Ok, I'm live again...for now.

Converging on First Baptist Orlando or should I say First Baptist Disney Church

Hey guys. The conference is actually just now beginning to get underway. I spent some great time with the ex MU campus pastor of Revolution Ministries Danny Byrd and his wonderful wife Tara. Thanks for lunch and even more for the great encouragement and conversation and great title for this post. It was Dan's idea. I took a pic of his giant goatee, but don't have it on me. I'll get it up on here later.

But now to the important thing. This church is huge. Talk about a city within a city! They have 14000 members their website says, but since they're baptist that means that about 5000 folks worship here. The name of the place is First Baptist Church Orlando which is located on First Baptist Chruch Drive. That isn't a joke. They have a full Christian school,



a sports center facility that was purchased by Payne Stewart, now deceased PGA golfer,



a lake with their own ducks,



a loading dock for their food and other sundry goods,



a prayer garden



shuttle buses for their parking,



tennis courts,



and I haven't even seen their cafe, bookstore, and soccer fields. Again not a joke. You know how I feel about spending 5 million dollars to pay a staff of folks to oversee buildings and grounds and run a Christian school, but can you name some benefit to this type of ministry. How is this better than taking the same 14,000 or I mean 5000 and planting 500 churches all around the state? I'd love to hear your thoughts.

EFCA Church Planter Dinner Part 1

This conference is full of meetings, workshops, worship events, and networking dinners. The speakers range from the extremely well known (Rick Warren, Andy Stanley) to the lesser known (Tim Keller, Matt Chandler). Personally, I’ve never really learned a whole lot other than a few good ideas from that first group. But I’ve been transformed deeply by the cross centered teaching from the second group. They are serious about Jesus crucified. I am too.

Tonight I’m at an EFCA church planters dinner. I’m glad to see that the movement is forward thinking and seeks to be proactive rather than reactionary in how they are missionaries to the United States and the world. This is extremely encouraging to see tonight. There are some super talented folks in this room and they love the glory of Christ and they are serious about multiplying churches. One of them was a great friend from seminary that I haven’t seen in several years. Ryan Latour, lead pastor of Mosaic Milwaukee (www.mosaicmilwaukee.com ). Great to see you Ryan!



I also learned some interested new developments for the US. When we planted I knew that the unbelievers in the US was the 5th largest group of people in the world who were not Christ followers. I discovered that we just moved up the list to 3rd. So we are missionaries to our own country. Learning the language, the worldview, the obstacles to faith in Christ, and become indigenous to our country in order to spread the supremacy of Christ. This is exactly what Crew needs to be thinking like and I think we are. In what ways would you see yourself as a missionary to Huntington? What are some opportunities Crew has to be a missionary center, where we are sending folks into to the Tri State?

Exponential Conference In Orlando

Hey guys. I’m on the road again these days and I’m going to try to blog my trip for you guys and for my benefit. I say try because my plans don’t always make it into reality as you well know.

The EFCA of which Crew is a part decided to give me an opportunity (free of charge) to attend what’s called the Exponential Conference (www.exponentialconference.com). A conference on all things church starting (aka church planting). I'm going to change from church planting to church starting, because that is what it is and it avoids confusion. We’re over a year old and we’re thinking in terms of what our next steps are in order to multiply churches out of our church. So this should be helpful. I’m really excited for this as opposed to most conferences I’ve gone too. But not so much because of the conference info and practical skills as much as I feel that God is calling me to a time of intense prayer, seeking, dreaming, and learning from Him. I’m anticipating knowing Jesus more intimately from this trip in the context of church planting. Starting churches is in our roots, our reality, and our future. If we are going to be a healthy church, we need to be a church that starts other churches.

So pray for me and be looking for regular posts from me over the next 4 days while on this trip. I’d like to start posting hourly once the conference starts Tues at 1pm. I'm going to hopefully have wi fi here and if so I'll be posting live what I'm hearing, learning, thinking, and asking. Please ask questions about any of it. Make comments. Argue with me. Whatever. I'd like for you to experience best you can what I am and reflect on it with me.

As I write this I’m in a hotel room in Orlando Florida at 11:45am having just gotten up. I drove all night with a couple of other church planters and the church planting big wig for the EFCA. I know I could have flown, but they wanted some car time in order to dream and talk. I'm always up for talking. So I’m on 3 hours of sleep but feel great.

One last comment and then I’m signing out of here. I want to thank my wife Sarah for making this happen for me. She is at home with 3 kids and will be until early Friday morning.



Without her full support and sacrifice to go it alone for a few days I couldn't have this opportunity. I want to publicly thank you Sarah and mention a few things that happens for me at these things:

1. I get to hear preaching from that Bible that is good for my soul.
2. I get to pick the brains of leaders who are more godly, more mature, creative, and innovate than I am. It makes me a better leader.
3. I am exposed to trends, technology, methods, and systems that are at work across the country and world and get a jump on applying that to my leadership and church.
4. I get an intense time of dreaming and thinking about where Crew is going with church planting.

Out

Seeking the Good of the City

Hey guys. If you read the paper, and you should, then you've been following our city's desire to govern with more autonomy. Huntington has applied to be a pilot city in WV for what is known as Home Rule. The HD article that explains the process in detail is here:

http://www.herald-dispatch.com/homepage/x112312479

The Bible tells us in 1 Timothy:

First of all, then, I urge that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgivings be made for all people, for kings and all who are in high positions, that we may lead a peaceful and quiet life, godly and dignified in every way. This is good, and it is pleasing in the sight of God our Savior, who desires all people to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth.

So, pause and pray that God would bless our city through whatever means, whether its home rule or not. Pray that our leaders would lead well and with insight and that our city would revitalize and grow. Because God also says in Jeremiah:

Seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you into exile, and pray to the LORD on its behalf; for in its welfare you will have welfare.'

Now...pray.

A Great Blog You Have To Browse

Hey guys. You know how I love to blast Christian subculture, of which I am a part.

A great blog out there that says it so much better than me is Stuff Christians Like:

(http://stufffchristianslike.blogspot.com/).

You have to go back to January and start working your way through it. It's dead on.

Preparing For 65 While I'm 30

Found this video on Youtube from John Piper. Yes I read and listen to other people, so shut up about that! But John Piper has become for many of my generation our pastor. Not Joel Osteen or T.D. Jakes. He is approaching 65 and it's got him thinking: