the blog

So it’s been quite a while since I’ve fired up the old blog. It’s amazing how much time I used to invest in this place. I really don’t know why I’m not consistently blogging lately – maybe it has something to do with the fact that I just don’t have Internet at home. But here I am writing “unplugged”, not sure why I don’t do this more often.
Anyway, this is a quick one – just an idea that we came up with that I thought I’d share with other families. We’re always thinking about simple things we can do to incorporate Christ in our lives since we’re so easily distracted by the hustle and bustle of life.

Every night we pray together as a family, right before bed – it just works for us. To make it a little more interactive, we started the “Prayer Box”. It’s just a little box that we filled with little papers. On each paper is written something to pray about. Right now we’ve got about 12 or so right now and we’ll keep adding to the box as thing come up – things like:

• Our own family
• Our kids teachers & school
• Our church & our pastors and families
• Extended family
• Friends

You get the idea. Each one of gets to pick from the box, and each paper is a “surprise” for us – then we all take turns praying for whatever thing was on our paper. It’s fun watching the kids get excited as they read their slips and so encouraging to hear them pray for others. It’s a habit that we want to instill in them now.
Of course we don’t always do it – some nights we just say a quick prayer, but we’re really trying to get into the habit of doing this every night. I’m looking forward to adding things to our prayer box as our kids grow, things like:

• Global events (disasters, missions, etc. – we want our kids to think bigger than themselves)
• Their future spouses (I know, crazy to think about but it’ll be here soon)
• The Kingdom (We want to teach them that this life is about advancing God’s Kingdom and spreading the Gospel)

So there it is, the “Prayer Box”. What do you do to help your family spend quality time in prayer?

Everyone’s writing (or has written) blog posts about the new year, resolutions, goals, anti-resolutions, etc., etc. It got me thinking about the new year and how I’d like to approach it. So for me there will be no resolutions this year. This year I really just want to be faithful and obedient to what God has already called me to do, and to grow more into the image and character of Christ. And this post is probably more for my benefit than anything else – those closest to me may pray for me and help keep me accountable. I know that together, in community, is where I grow and learn the best, so maybe this will help you as it helps me. So here’s my list of things that I know, without a doubt, God has called me to in 2010.

• Discipline Myself
  Check out 1 Corinthians 9: Do you not know that in a race all the runners run, but only one gets the prize? Run in such a way as to get the prize. Everyone who competes in the games goes into strict training. They do it to get a crown that will not last; but we do it to get a crown that will last forever. Therefore I do not run like a man running aimlessly; I do not fight like a man beating the air. No, I beat my body and make it my slave so that after I have preached to others, I myself will not be disqualified for the prize. Everyone who competes in the games goes into strict training. They do it to get a crown that will not last; but we do it to get a crown that will last forever. Therefore I do not run like a man running aimlessly; I do not fight like a man beating the air. No, I beat my body and make it my slave so that after I have preached to others, I myself will not be disqualified for the prize.

  I guess I can authentically admit, that’s not me right now. I tend to stumble into God’s will for my life – to be honest. God has been gracious beyond measure to me, and to my family. I’m approaching 35 this year and I feel like I might finally be on my way to becoming an adult. But I’ve got quite a bit to tackle. I’d like to be more disciplined in my spiritual growth – rather than on-again, off-again devotions and study. I’d like to pray more specifically, and focus more on hearing God, especially through his word. And not out of duty, but out of a love and desire to grow closer to God and to hear his voice in my life – so that ultimately my life would be just a story of what God is doing and how great he is.

  And of course as I’m getting older, my body is not quite the same as it used to be. Again to be honest, it’s mainly because of my lack of discipline. So in order to honor God, be an example to my family, and of course to impress my wife, I’m working towards taking back control of my body and literally beating it into submission.

• Pastor my Family
  How do I know that God is calling me to this? Just take a look at Ephesians 5 & 6:
  Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the word, and to present her to himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless. In this same way, husbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. After all, no one ever hated his own body, but he feeds and cares for it, just as Christ does the church— for we are members of his body. “For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh.” This is a profound mystery—but I am talking about Christ and the church. However, each one of you also must love his wife as he loves himself, and the wife must respect her husband. Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right. “Honor your father and mother”—which is the first commandment with a promise – “that it may go well with you and that you may enjoy long life on the earth.” Fathers, do not exasperate your children; instead, bring them up in the training and instruction of the Lord.

  If I have ever thought that I’m a “good” husband, this verse quickly reminded me of how selfish and self-centered I am. I’ve had this recurring thought in my mind in the past weeks, “How can I serve my wife”. And while I am trying to live that out – after reading that “Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her”, I realized that I am nowhere close to where I need to be in building our marriage to be a picture of Christ and his church.

  And the same goes with being a father. This isn’t an “I suck” post, it’s just a reality check. There’s so much more I need to be doing to truly pastor my children. I need to increase my patience threshold for one thing – some days the kids just drive me nutty. I want them to see their dad becoming more and more like Christ. More loving, more patient, more kind, more selfless, more interested in their world, more consistent, and more caring. I don’t want to tell them how to live – I want to show them.

  A question came up in our staff meeting this week, “Are you Christian at home?” because it seems so easy to be a Christian at church, or at work, or around other Christian friends, but it is in the home where your true character emerges. And that is the place where it is the most important to be Christian because the family is the expression of God’s love and plan for this world.

• Lead at Work
  Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for men, since you know that you will receive an inheritance from the Lord as a reward. It is the Lord Christ you are serving. -Colossians 3:23,24
  This one honestly, and embarrassingly, is the easiest for me. I love what I do – sometimes a little too much, and my family pays the price. So what I’m working on is time-management and balance. It’s really about trust I think; do I trust that God is in control? A lot of times I act like he isn’t.

  I do though, have a monumental task facing me this year at work: Rebranding a school – new logos, new website, new look & feel, updating all the paperwork and sharing vision with the staff, students and families. We’re hoping to increase our enrollment, take our school to the next level, and bring a new fresh sense of customer service and school spirit onto our campus. I will say that we are poised to accomplish these goals because of the gifted staff, the history and establishment of the school in this valley, and great attitudes of willingness to change and grow from our staff and our school families.

I’m looking forward to an amazing 2010 – the best year ever. Not necessarily because of my wonderful family or my job, but because I plan on spending 2010 walking closer with Christ than any year before. And whether he brings success of failure, joy or tragedy, health or sickness, my goal is to glorify him in my life, through my family, and in my work. If you’re the praying type, I’d sure appreciate your prayers throughout the year.

Well, it’s a little too early to do the 2009 wrap-up (have you read the 2008 wrap-up?). But I do need to share some breaking news…

I’m changing jobs, again… sort of. Over the course of my life, I have worked as:

• landscaper
• paperboy
• burger flipper (at McDonalds)
• sandwich artist (at Subway)
• salesman (at a music store, yes I got paid to tune drums & guitars all day)
• delivery boy (at my future mother en-law’s restaurant)
• AC fabricator & installer
• sign shop manager
• business owner of my own graphic design firm
• framer
• snowboard designer
• youth pastor
• worship leader
• media pastor
• executive pastor
• communications pastor

I was hired on at Rancho Community Church and School in 2009 as, “Pastor of Communications for Church & School” (I know, kind of a lame title). My basic job description was to help with the look & feel of both the church and school, and help with the internal and external communications of both organizations. I began my time at Rancho in March (February, really, but who’s counting), and basically I split my time equally between church and school – I even had two separate offices. I went to work immediately on helping re-brand the church, with Pastor Scott’s vision of five values – we landed on a really cool logo, and are currently in the process of slowly re-branding and re-skinning the church (it’s a huge process). I knew that the school would have to go through the same process, but I just couldn’t land on a look & feel… So it waited. I spent my school time trying to connect with staff and parents, to get a good idea what the vibe was over there; know what I learnt? School is VERY different than church. But I really got to get a good feel and began honing in on how we could really revitalize our look, and maybe create a whole new sense of excitement. Little did I know this was a catalyst to a pretty major change for me.

(By the way, that picture up there, that’s the new School logo – pretty stoked about it).

And here’s the news:
As of December 1st, I will be known as “Director of Admissions & Family Relations” for our school. I’m not really sure exactly what that all means and entails, but I do know that I get the opportunity to work with some really gifted and committed people at our school. For those who don’t know, our school is pretty amazing – it encompasses preschool through 10th grade, and currently has about 750 students.

I’m excited and a little freaked out at the same time. Here’s why…

I’m excited because:

• This is a great opportunity to learn and grow – it’s a challenge.
• I get to work with our admissions department, marketing, public relations – really creatively marketing our school.
• I get to be on the same campus where my kids are going to school.
• We’ll be going through a major look & feel overhaul – which I love!
• I get to use leadership gifts, serving the staff and sharing some of the things I’ve learned, and hope to learn.
• I get to reside in one office – this is new for me, I’m usually mobile.
• I get to work closely with school parents (our customers) to help make sure we as a school are serving their needs in a way that honors Christ and meets the highest standards.

I’m a little freaked out because:

• I’m pretty sure I’m not qualified for this position – I NEVER thought I’d be a school administrator.
• I’ve been a pastor for the past 12 years – that’s been my identity, this is new. And yes, “pastor” is relative – there are tons of “pastors” out there who don’t pastor, and I realize that this is ministry – it’s just a little funky & I’m trying to be real. I guess what I am saying is that I will continue to “pastor” even though I won’t have the title. (this is a whole ‘nother post).
• School is a different atmosphere than church, it scares me a bit (actually, a lot).
• I could fail pretty hard-core and it wouldn’t be pretty.
• I “get” to work in one office – this means I’m not as mobile as I’m used to being.
• I think I have to dress better.
• Did I mention that I could fail at this job?

Anyway, just thought I’d let everyone know what is up. I will continue to be very involved with the church, especially with the look & feel, graphic design, working with our Ministry Communications team, and working closely with our Executive Pastor, Don Hallworth (who, by the way is a stud, my mentor, and an all-around amazing guy) – Don and I strategize on a number of things pertaining to our church and I wouldn’t trade that for anything.

I can’t believe how God continues to show himself faithful to our family, not only meeting our basic needs, but giving us the desires of our hearts. If you think of us, please keep us in prayer as our family adjusts to what this means for us as a family, and as I adjust to this new role personally. We’d appreciate any prayers.

Thanks for readin’ (hopefully I can get back on the blog every-once-in-a-while).

So, blogging is all about being real, being authentic right? Well I’m back to school right now and here’s me being real with my first “Paper” in probably 10 years…

“The book of Acts gives us a well organized history of the proliferation of the first “Christian” church from its inception in Jerusalem to the expansion outward, especially through Paul’s journeys as it stretches to Rome. The church began with many signs and wonders, including: the coming of the Holy Spirit in the form of “tongues of fire” above the heads of the disciples, speaking in tongues (many languages), exponential growth, and healings, to name a few. The church also operated in a very communal way, with members eating together, living together, and sharing all their possessions. The early church also dealt with governess, segregation, “law” versus “grace”, heresy, betrayal, and persecution.

One of the typical responses by churches forming today is to look at the church in the book of Acts as normative; even taking snapshots of the church at different points of its development and calling that behavior normative. If we do believe that the book of Acts gives is a guide-map for building a local church, than we really have to look for some general patterns of behavior that we can apply today.

Some of the issues that the early church of Acts dealt with leave us some great patterns that we can bring into the modern church. For example, when the church in Jerusalem began teaching that Gentile Christians must practice the tradition of circumcision, Paul immediately challenged that train of thought. He went directly to James in Jerusalem and argued that this teaching went against teachings of Jesus Christ, and would only lead to an outward religion. We can see this argument throughout the New Testament, and we almost always see that the traditions and outward expressions of religion can lead to pride and legalism. So as we build our churches today we would want to be very careful about traditions and expressions that are imposed on people, leading them away from grace and a relationship based religion.

Another area that the early church showed patterns of normal behavior is in the idea of church planting. As the church grew and expanded, new churches were started in neighboring cities; churches with their own leadership and practices. This was against the model of a central church or synagogue, or holy place of worship. Today we can see that church planting is one of the most successful ways to evangelize. Not only do church plants attract mostly un-churched people, they also create places for people to serve, for ministers to develop, and for new and innovative ideas to be implemented. Church plants are also highly dependent on the faith and tenacity of the members, and require a high level of commitment, just as Paul had as he went and planted churches throughout the Roman Empire.

Those are just a couple examples of some ways we can apply some of the patterns and principles of Acts to today’s churches. I think the most important thing we can to do is to really study what the primary messages are from the stories of the emerging and growing church in Acts. There are many practices that may sound good or look exciting, but have no basis in today’s church culture.”

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So there you have it – hopefully I don’t get slammed too hard from my instructors.

My brother, James, has been living in Virginia for the past few years. He went to Liberty University and has been slowly moving his way into ministry. This weekend he and his team will be launching a church in Midlothian, a suburb of Richmond, called Village Church at Midlothian (I swear Midlothian is a country in Middle Earth from LOTR!).

I had the opportunity to interview Nate Schlomann, one of the pastors, check it out:

1. What process have you gone through up to this point – what have you learned?

One thing that was huge for us is that this isn’t really our first launch, not totally. We gained a lot of experience and perspective starting a church in a college town not too far from here. It’s not completely comparable because there we literally had a $0 budget (not that we’ve got a huge one here), but the experience was still invaluable. It’s hard to imagine going into this completely green. By doing something like that you learn a lot about people and how to lead, a lot of times by making mistakes or at least by noticing things you could have done better.

2. What are some specific & innovative things you are doing to attract/gather/launch?

I don’t know that we’re particularly innovative so much as we’re innovative to our culture. Like, when you live in the blogosphere and see what everyone is doing all over the place, it takes an awful lot to seem innovative. But I do think we’re doing a lot of things really well that people around here haven’t seen before. Not that it’s all about that, but there are a lot of things people need to see that we’ll be doing. We’re preaching the hard parts of God’s Word unapologetically, but at the same time very sensitively to the lost, hurt, and discouraged. That’s a combination that is innovative around here. We’ve definitely got an atmosphere like no one else – music loud, lights low. People just aren’t doing that around here. Innovative for church plants around here, and it’s sad that it is, is we’re aggressively trying to get the word out that we’re here. We passed out 8,000 door hangars last week. We’re doing our best to use facebook and email invites too.

3. What does your launch team look like?

Our launch team is amazing. In a lot of ways it’s really not fair to other launch teams, the talent God has brought together here. We’ve got people to fill a variety of different and complimentary roles. Most new churches have to struggle through some major deficiencies until they are able to bring folks onboard to fill those slots. Not that we’re perfect by any means or that we don’t need help (we do!), but we’re really fortunate for how many different talents God has put together. And I think, making that all the better, we have a very unified team. Most of us were pretty good friends with at least one other person in the team before we started. We didn’t just get thrown together out of seminary or bible school, in other words. The level of commitment in our team, top to bottom, is unusually high.

Thanks Nate!

I’m a huge fan of church plants, I was part of a church plant for 5 years, and have helped my friends and colleages every time a new church is launched in our community. It’s been shown that the most effective thing we can do to reach people with the Gospel is to plant churches. Church plants thrive because the must! There’s not a lot of half hearted leadership in church plants because their existence depends on their commitment to reach unchurched or dechurched people with God’s love, grace, mercy, and truth.

Please keep these guys in your prayers over this weekend as they seek to reach their community for Christ and continue to build his kingdom here on Earth.

Stay tuned for Part 2 with James…