Life Stories

There is truly something special about hearing from others what God is doing in their lives. Last night at the gathering, we had the unique opportunity to hear from several college/young adults of what God is doing in their lives and how the gathering has played a vital role. I believe that last night was a defining moment for this ministry and as I said last night, "greater things are still to be done." I can't wait to see where God will take this ministry in the next few months.

Later this week (hopefully), I will upload the video so we can share together the greatness of God as we watch "Life Stories."

Purpose VS. Process

Ministries and Churches come up with catchy "purpose" or "mission" statements all the time. They think that if they make these fancy statements that the ministry will take care of itself, and volunteers will gladly follow the purpose and there will be no issues and everyone will be in unity. I know of ministries that are struggling, and they decide to come up with one of these purpose statements and they are excited to do a sermon series based around their purpose because they think it will solve the problems...but in three months, the pastors are just as frustrated as they were before.

Why are the pastors still frustrated, after all, didn't they come up with a great purpose statement? The reason why these leaders are still frustrated is because the ministry is doing the exact same things as it was before. The only thing that has changed is now they have a fancy purpose statement on the wall. They have a great purpose statement but they have no clearly defined process on how to fulfill the purpose.

In seminary and even my first few months on staff at a church, I was the one who thought that the purpose/mission was the means to the end, and once the purpose was clearly defined, the ministry will take care of itself. Don't get me wrong....the purpose (the what) is important, but we cannot neglect the process (the how)...and this is where ministries fall miserably short.

We have created our nice statements with never clearly defining how we are going to fulfill the purpose. How do we know this to be true? Because nothing has changed, we are doing the same exact things we were doing before the purpose statement was ever written and we are seeing the same results.

It is time to create the process, because the process (the how) is more important than the purpose (the what)!

the gathering

Many have wanted to see pictures of our college/young adult ministry, "the gathering." Here is a glimpse of our new ministry. God is blessing and we are seeing some amazing things happen each and every weekend!

Continue to pray that we would see new people each weekend cross the line of faith and trust Christ with their life. Many young adults in our community need to hear the life-changing message of Christ.

Being Lazy

Tomorrow I am bringing a talk to our college ministry (the gathering) on Slothfulness. I have had a difficult time preparing this talk because if I was to ask a group of people if they are lazy, I highly doubt I would get any takers. Most Americans are dedicated to our work and dedicated to our recreation, and at the end of the day or week, we are lucky if we have any free time.

In my opinion, slothfulness has little to do with work or with how crazy full our schedules are. Slothfulness has everything to do with whether we are lazy with the important things of life. Here (in my opinion) are important things of life: Our relationships with God, our marriages, our children, and our church. We can be so busy with everything else in life that we become slothful with the important things.

When I hear people say, "I am just so busy during the day that when I come home all I want to do is relax and watch TV," I think to myself, "You are slothful!" Nobody denies that we all are busy with work, but when we say we are too busy to spend quality time with God daily, to have meaningful conversations with our spouses, and to not serve in our local churches, we have sure signs of sloth.

What say you? Are we a people of sloth?

New Paint, New Furniture and New Bulletins

I have been asked these questions several times in the last few weeks: "Why are we painting the lobby? Why are we building a new welcome center? Why did we change the format of the bulletin?" I respond with a smile (most of the time) and ask them the question: "Why wasn't this done before?"

As a staff, we are trying to be more intentional with our first time guests that come into our facility. We have asked ourselves these tough questions: "Is our welcome center noticeable or are people sitting on it (literally)? The information/details that we put in the bulletin, is it needed? The color of the walls, is it inviting or does it remind people of the 1970's?"

We have addressed some of these questions, but we still have a long way to go. The question that exists now is whether our members and regular attenders will get passionate about bringing their friends, co-workers and neighbors to experience a church that is trying to be intentional with them.

What A Summer

I cannot believe that it has been almost two full months since I last updated this blog. I guess I am not as good at this as I thought I would be.
Needless to say this summer has been a whirlwind! Getting married, my first summer of full-time ministry, and finishing seminary makes for a crazy time. Even in the midst of the craziness of summer (those in Michigan understand what I mean) and the busyness of life, I was reminded last night in our Bible Study that my ministry and my life is not about ME...It is all about the glory of Christ!
Maybe some of you are going through a serious trial, maybe faced with some major uncertainties. Let me encourage you to remember that your life is not about YOU...It is all about Jesus Christ! When our focus is on Christ, maybe just maybe our situations will seem a little lighter!

Building The Core

Our college/young adult ministry is booming! I can sense great excitement in our ministry as we move into the summer months. Our prayer is that we will continue to grow and build our "core group" as the summer passes along. We are trying several approaches on how to effectively build our core, but in my opinion there is no greater way than Bible Study.
Last night we started our first Bible Study (off campus) and we had a great response. We will continue this summer Bible Study with the hope of making effective small groups. We would love to have several small groups meeting during the week for Bible Study, fellowship, and accountability. Prayerfully by the end of the summer we will have two or three small groups for our college/young adults!

1/10

Answer this question: If 10 prospective guests come to a church and only 1 becomes an active member, is this acceptable or not?

I hope you shouted, "Absolutely NOT!" I have concluded that the answer to this problem is intentionality. Churches today need to have a specific plan set in place on how to handle guests from the moment they drive on the property to the moment they drive off. From parking lot attenders, children workers, music, the preaching, everything needs to be on purpose. Even before guests drive on the property, the advertising and marketing needs to be intentional.

As we move into the summer months, we will take an in depth look at our advertising and also how we can be intentional with the guests who walk through our doors. Our goal is to have 5 of every 10 guests become an active member of our church!

Modern Missions

Why would I fly over a mission field in order to get to another one? This question has been burning me up for the past few months. Don't get me wrong, I am not opposed to foreign missions, but are we neglecting our local communities for the sake of foreign missions?

My fear is that people in Guyana, Brazil and India know more about our church than people a few blocks away! Does anybody else hear me?