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Great Post on the Future of the Church

January 8, 2008 in Church Related with 0 Comments

I read a great blog post about the future of the church from Tony Steward’s Blog. I skim through and read about 80 different blogs using Google Reader and he always has some interesting ideas. He lists 3 ways that church will change over the coming years. He definitely hits on some of what I have been feeling and thinking. The Willowcreek/Saddleback model has been successful and converting people, but it is not working as good on younger adults. When you stop and think about it, what was contemporary 15 years ago is now traditional and not very contemporary. It doesn’t mean that you throw everything out and start all over, but it does mean that you should be willing to change. My problem with some of the emergent and house church models is that they completely discount everything that is happening in the contemporary church. Not everyone lives in a postmodern urban environment, so why should we listen to the critics of the contemporary church who don’t know the community we live in. However, I do think we should continue to tweak and improve on what is working. That’s why I like this post.

Just think about this thought. Every traditional church was contemporary at one time. At some point in time, they refused to change and turned their backs to the culture they were called to reach. I guess that is why I am interested in starting a young adult service. I think that if we are not careful, then we will forget to continue innovating and thinking of new and creative ways to reach young people. Below is a small quote from his post, but check out the rest of the article here.

We are at the point where the Church has finally stopped and taken a look back at the mega church movement over the past 30 – 40 years, and we are starting to see where adjustment is needed. During that time the church has gotten incredible at “packing the house” – and have produced amazing results and numbers. But what I believe our Emergent / Missional / Vintage Faith friends have sensed is the need for “something more.” The problem is that as with any generation they want to throw the baby out with the bath water by changing too much of what has gone well, instead of continuing to modify.

Regardless, what I believe the next 20-30 years of church is going to look like is a resurgence on the focus on sanctification. When the power of the gospel invades someone’s life, and then they are discipled in that faith one on one. The REVEAL study that came out of Willow Creek is the tipping point for this movement because it caught the attention of the boomer mega church leaders that would otherwise have just written the values of the next generation off like their values where by those that preceded them …

Saturday Night Services

January 1, 2008 in Church Related, Youth Ministry with 0 Comments

We have been kicking around the idea of starting a Saturday night service geared towards young adults. Currently there are no churches in our area that have a Saturday night service or a young adult service. Our teenagers, 20 somethings, and 30 somethings really could benefit from having a worship service geared toward them. What we’re thinking about doing is starting a service that is more participatory, more audio/visual, and more passionate than our normal Sunday morning service. It gives us an opportunity to develop some more musical talent from our youth and young adults and it gives us an awesome environment to invite friends.

Since this age group is a much smaller age segment here in this region, I think Saturday night is a perfect fit. Our Sunday services are going great and are a little calmer and geared more toward the 40+ crowd. The Saturday night service will give us an environment to experiment and try new things that could possibly be implemented on Sunday as well. And the environment will be cool, I can promise that!

Most things I have read on the internet about Saturday night services say that they don’t work. But the people that have that opinion don’t live in a small town where there is absolutely nothing to do except cruise the Wal-Mart parking lot and go to the movies. I have felt led for several years to do something special here for our younger adults, and it finally seems like all the pieces of the puzzle are coming together to make this a reality. Here is what I do need. I need people to be praying and I need people that want to be part of the organization and kick-off for this service. If this is something that you want to be a part of, then please call or shoot me an email or leave a comment. I’ll be planning a meeting in a couple of weeks to start working on some of the details. We would like to have our first preview service in March. I’m still not sure if this will be a weekly service or a monthly one, but the turnout and help could determine that.

Kicking off a New Year

January 1, 2008 in Church Related with 0 Comments

Wow, I took a whole week off from blogging. Last weekend, our family was in Pigeon Forge, Tennessee, for a family get together. I had some weird stomach bug and was throwing up for three days, I was in a tourist town that was filled with so many people that you couldn’t go or do anything, and I had a small family reunion. Sounds like fun doesn’t it! But I’m finally back in town and back in the saddle. I’m excited about what is coming up these next few months.

I’m bringing back the Dangerous Church series that I did back in July and adding a few new messages to it. I don’t want to live a safe and complacent and comfortable life. I want to live dangerously for Christ. As a church we want to take risks and not do what’s easy and comfortable. So let’s kick off the new year committed to living dangerously. The safest place to be is NOT in the center of God’s will. I promise you that when we live in God’s will He will lead you to live dangerously.

Just Stop And Think

December 12, 2007 in Church Related, Technology with 0 Comments

I ran across this great evangelistic video by Francis Chan. I first ran across his name when setting up our church’s podcast in iTunes. Here was this guy that I had never heard of, but he had an incredibly popular podcast and his church had the same name as ours. I got to hear him for the first time at Catalyst, and I think he gave the most powerful message of anyone there. His church has made a great 15 minute video that they distributed on dvd. It is a powerful, short, and effective sharing of the Gospel. Check out the video when you have a minute, it will be worth your time.

At the Movies

December 7, 2007 in Church Related, Youth Ministry with 0 Comments

How do we respond to movies that negatively portray Christianity? I hope we have learned from the Christian response to movies like The Last Temptation of Christ and The DaVinci Code and Harry Potter. We have to be careful to not draw more attention to the movie and accidentally promote the film by our complaints. But we do have an obligation to speak the truth and let Christians know the dangers of films that promote false doctrines. So we have this tension, we don’t want to be known by what we’re against, but we have a responsibility to speak the truth in love. I think much of the damage is done by pastors who speak out against movies without knowing the facts. They see a news story or an article on the Internet and automatically assume that they know enough to blast the movie from the pulpit. People want to know real facts, real issues behind the condemnation. And typically the church just makes a fool of itself.

That brings me to the current movie that everyone is buzzing about, The Golden Compass. Our first responsibility as Christians is to educate ourselves about the culture of today, if we truly wish to speak truth into that culture. Here are some movie reviews about The Golden Compass. Read some of these first.

Now that you’ve read some of the background of the movie, it’s time to engage others in meaningful discussions. A film like this is not going to destroy the Christian faith, so don’t overreact. I’m sure that the cinematic quality of the movie will be incredible, but the storyline does trouble me. So how do we react?

I would like to see Christians use this film to say that the church is really not like it is portrayed by this movie. As a Christian, I would want to let other Christians know that this movie (and especially the later 2 parts of the trilogy) have some very troubling spiritual overtones. We must realize that movies are an incredibly powerful way to influence others, and the author of this book has great disdain for Christianity . Personally, I won’t see this movie. I’m not attracted to this genre, and I really don’t want to support Hollywood by paying money to see it. But I’m not going to scream and yell at others who do. Let’s use this movie to tell an unbelieving world that we as Christ followers are focused on loving God and loving others, and that there are more important issues in this world than a movie that attacks our beliefs.

God’s Presence

December 6, 2007 in Church Related, Technology with 2 Comments

We will be starting a new series at church this week about God’s Presence. I had planned on doing a series taking a walk through the Old and New Testament looking at why Christmas really matters to us today. I didn’t have a title, but I wanted something that really captured the importance of focusing on Christ through the Holidays. Now I have it, PRESENCE

I have watched and been amazed at what God is doing through Elevation Church and Steven Furtick in Charlotte. They decided to “open-source” their Christmas series this year by making their videos and graphics available for free. And their title for their Christmas series fit perfectly with the concept I was wanting to preach. So we are using their graphics which saves me a lot of time and allows me to focus my time on the message. I wish more churches would do this. LifeChurch and NewSpring are two of the bigger churches that have started a new trend in sharing their graphical resources for free. Let’s hope even more churches join in doing this in the future. The software and hardware is way too expensive for most churches to use. It really takes a full-time person to handle video creation and graphic design, so a smaller church is usually out of luck. So I am grateful that they are making this available and I can’t wait to get started this weekend.

Preaching a Pre-Packaged Series

December 6, 2007 in Church Related with 6 Comments

We just finished up the 4-week evangelism series from Willow Creek called Just Walk Across the Room. I thought the material was well-thought out, well-written, and supported by just the right amount of video and graphics. What really drew me to this series was the conversational approach to evangelism. Just simply sharing faith in the context of relationships. And it challenges everyone to take those walks across the room in order to reach out to others.

I thought that during this series I would be able to get caught up and do some long range planning. The sermons were already outlined and transcribed for each week, so I didn’t think it would take a long time for preparation. I was wrong, big time. I think it actually took me longer to prepare. I ended up pretty much rewriting it and then trying to adapt it to our church. It is extremely hard to passionately preach someone else’s sermon. I can’t understand how some people just download sermons and preach read them on Sunday mornings. I think that would actually be harder! Yeah it wouldn’t take as much time, but you cannot be effective without internalizing the message.

I’m glad we did the series but I’m looking forward to getting back to studying and preparing the old-fashioned way. By seeking God’s direction, by studying and reading the Bible, and by applying the Biblical truth in a way that will cause life transformation.

We Have An Incredible Opportunity

November 27, 2007 in Church Related, Youth Ministry with 0 Comments

I mentioned in a previous post that we have an awesome opportunity as a church. I can’t go into too many details yet because nothing is finalized, but I wanted to share just a little. We have the opportunity to rent a 6900 sq. foot room downtown. Our plans are to turn it into a multi-functional hangout for church. We want to add a stage area with seating, a coffee shop area with tables, rec areas with games, seating areas, and church offices.

How could we use a building like this? Why I’m glad you asked. Here are some of the possible uses we have talked about.

  • Youth Meetings: I love the teens, but having more than 25 teens in my living room is tough. It’s loud, there are a ton of distractions, and it’s not an environment that is conducive to inviting friends.
  • Church Offices: I’m working out of my home right now. Which means that when I’m studying, I’m constantly having to move around. Kids are downstairs, I go upstairs. When the kids are upstairs, I go to the basement. I love them, but we really need a place for meeting with people and a quiet place to study sometimes.
  • Small Group Meetings: We have several small groups that really don’t have room for childcare. This would be a cozy, intimate environment that would be great for small group meetings.
  • New Service Opportunities: I have been praying about creating a young-adult service for several years. This would be the perfect place to start a Saturday night service to reach out to teens, college students, and young adults.
  • Hanging Out: We could open it up on weekend nights. We could open it up after school. We could open it up after football games. Just having an awesome place to hangout with free wifi and good coffee will be an incredible opportunity to draw people in.
  • Community Use: Local businesses could use it for conferences and business meetings. Wedding receptions could be held here. And as a church we could use it for all different kinds of community outreach and training events.
  • Sunday Services?: Who knows, it might even workout so that we wouldn’t have to setup in a gym every week.

Now, for this to become reality, we need to do a few things. First, PRAY!!!! And secondly, we need to move from talking about engaging our community to actually doing it. And finally, we will need help with furnishing and equipping this center. Nothing is finalized yet, but we feel like God is definitely leading us to make this commitment. This excites me like crazy, but it also scares me because I know that God is getting ready to do some amazing things. I better buckle in and hold, because I have a feeling we’re in for an interesting ride.

And we need a name. Faith’s Place, Cornerstone Loft, The Upper Room, Cornerstone Downtown, Stoners (on second thought, that might not work : ) …. What are some more? Leave me a comment if you have any ideas. And don’t forget to PRAY!!!

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