FaithEngineer

We are in the middle of a harsh winter in the mountains of southwest Virginia. Starting the week before Christmas, we have had snow almost every week. This picture is the road that goes by our house. It has stayed covered with snow and ice for most of the past month. The schools have missed days and weeks at a time, and it doesn’t look any better in the foreseeable future.

We are digging out now from about 9 inches of snow with more sleet and freezing rain to come. While I’m happy that I have a 4-wheel drive F-150 pickup, it has still been tough getting around. But the snow definitely can wreak havoc on schedules and church activities. We have already missed two Sundays due to the snow and this week may not be much better.

So here is my question. What does your church do when it snows? I know some churches are adamant that they will be open no matter what. Some close at even a hint of snow in the forecast, but what should be the deciding factor? Anne Jackson had a great post posing a similar question and it really made me think. For me, it is always a tough decision. I have tried to delegate it to others, but it is usually a collective decision. Our decision is usually based entirely on safety. Even if we tell people to be careful and stay home if the roads aren’t safe in their neighborhood, many still feel obligated to come. Especially those who are serving. We don’t want to put them and their families at risk. I would feel terrible if someone was injured because of a decision we make.

Why do we feel pressure to have church every week? I enjoy meeting together and I truly miss having church services, but for many churches, the answer is simply money. If your church is operating week-to-week on a budget, then missing a week can really affect paying the bills. Luckily, Cornerstone has built up a reserve for times like these so we can continue on without ministry being affected. We trust and pray that God’s people will give generously when they get back to church. Here are a few other things to consider:

• If you have services, then you are responsible to clear walkways, sidewalks, steps, and the parking lot to ensure the safety of those who come. I talked to a pastor this week who had someone fall and break their hip due to ice in the parking lot. The first question the insurance company asked was if they had someone professionally clear the parking lot and sidewalks.
• If the local police have asked people to not travel due to bad road conditions, then please honor their request
• If you do have services, why not simplify and meet with children and adults all together. Combine services and don’t try to do everything like it’s always been done.
• Why not utilize technology and share a video message or audio message with your church online
• Why not provide resources or encourage people to have church in their homes or communities. Share resources or ideas for children to study as well.

This past week, we tried something a little different. Here is the email we sent out. We pointed people to other churches who had online experiences, and we encouraged them to worship as families. At our house, I got out my guitar and we had church together as a family, and it was an awesome time. What other ideas do you have for when services are cancelled? Leave a comment and share your thoughts.

Dear Church Family

1. If you have missed any of the past weeks from our current teaching series, we would like to encourage you to go back and listen to them online here.

2. Take the time to have a family worship service at home. Involve the entire family with singing and devotions and a time of Bible study.

3. Tune in to one of the many online church services from around the country. Some of the ones that we recommend are Lifechurch.tv (9:30 and 11am), Seacoast Church (9:30 and 11:15am), Newspring Church (11:15am and 6pm), and Northpoint Online (6pm). Lifechurch also has an excellent children’s website for activities and lessons to do at home.

4. If you are a regular giver at Cornerstone, we ask that you continue to worship by giving your normal tithes and offerings online. This may be a good week to check out the online giving options at our Cornerstone website. Our expenses don’t go away on snow days. If you are not comfortable with online giving, of course you are welcome to simply catch up next weekend. Our weekly operations budget has been down over the last month or so with the weather, the holidays, and possibly extra giving to AEP . We appreciate your generosity in advance as we continue to combine our resources in order to pursue the vision God has given us for reaching the twin counties.

We hope and pray that you and your family stay warm over the next few days and stay safe if you absolutely must head-out. We can’t wait to see you next Sunday!

Enjoy your time in the snow!!

If you haven’t noticed, my blog has been pretty quiet for the past few weeks. It’s been a busy time with all the excitement of the Christmas season, and I have definitely been doing a lot of planning and thinking. For the first time in my life, I’m thinking through some long term goals. In order for me to be the best husband, father, and pastor that I can be, I am making some changes.

One of the biggest changes is the amount of time I use the computer in the evenings.  While it may seem minor, I am making sure I am fully present for my family. That means I am disconnecting from much of the tech world after I get home until the kids go to bed. Although, I’ve had much less time to work on the blog, there is no doubt that I am making the right decision. I will continue posting to the blog, but it will not be as frequent as in the past. My goal is 3 high quality posts per week. I simply don’t have the time to do more than that right now with the demands of a growing church and a busy family.  I will still be on twitter for other day-to-day thoughts, so you can follow me there.

I am also making changes in the way I take care of myself. I want to finish strong and I want to finish healthy.  That means I will be working out and eating healthier and taking more time off. I’ll share some more of my goals for the next few years in a future post. I am excited about the changes and I want you, my blog readers, to know that this site will continue to have great information about church technology, about ministry in a small town, and about the lessons I learn along the way.

Cornerstone has partnered with Because We Care Ministries over the past several years to do mission work in Nicaragua.  We have helped build a sister church in Tonala, Nicaragua and we pay the pastor’s salary each month.  Before Cornerstone had a building in Galax, we had a church building in Nicaragua, and before we had a full-time pastor in Galax, we had a pastor in Nicaragua.   You can read about some of our past trips on our church website.  I will be in Nicaragua all of next week with a team from Cornerstone.  I ask for your prayers as we do construction work, as we share and preach and teach, and as we distribute food and love to the people of Nicaragua.

I don’t know how much I will be posting next week. We will have limited internet access, so I will try to share some pictures and thoughts.

Here is a video from last year’s trip to Nicaragua

This past weekend reminded me of the importance of community.  We saw our close-knit city come together to support a young family in need after the tragic death of the father.  If not only affected many of the family members who attend our church, but it affected the entire community, and it also deeply affected me.

Little things really do make a difference in a small town.

• As word of the tragedy spread, prayers were lifted up around the city
• There were hundreds and hundreds of people at the funeral home who waited over an hour to visit with the family and share their love
• Cars pulled over and stopped to show their respect as the long funeral procession made it’s way to the cemetery. I’ve never seen that in a bigger city.
• People brought food to all the different homes of family members
• Everyone came together to cry and mourn and even laugh together as they stayed for hours after the funeral

While most pastors long to go to the growing suburban and affluent areas, there is something powerful about community.  I’m thankful that I have the opportunity to minister in a place where everyone knows each other.  In times of pain and tragedy, we see true Biblical community as the body cares for one another.

I’m not a huge fan of curriculum for youth.  I’ve seen far too many lessons that were long and culturally irrelevant, and most of the time they didn’t even make sense. If I see another youth lesson where they ask people to dress up in Biblical costumes I think I will drop kick the writer into the 21st century!  For the most part, over the last thirteen years of working with youth, I have written my own lessons.  I like getting ideas from others, but I couldn’t find the right mix of Biblical teaching and conversational questions that fit my teaching style.  With our recent changes to our youth ministry at Cornerstone, I knew I needed to come up with a plan for equipping and preparing our different youth leaders.

We have made the change from one large youth meeting each week to multiple smaller groups meeting at the same time.  We all meet together for announcements and some activities, but then we split up into different age groups.  I did want all the groups studying the same thing each week, so I started looking at several different options.  I really liked the content and messages from the XP3 curriculum by the reThink group, but it is geared for one teacher to teach a large group and then break up into smaller discussion groups.  We have tried that before and it is tough to teach a lesson that connects with a large group of students ranging from 6th to 12th grades. The lessons were also very long.  I looked at some others that I won’t mention here that seemed like they came straight out of 1980, and then I finally found what we we’re looking for. Simply Youth Ministry just recently released a curriculum for small groups called the Live Curriculum.  I talked with another youth pastor who was using it, and we made up our mind to jump in.  So far it’s been great.

The lessons are easy to customize and share.  It is online based, so I can login, make any specific changes that I feel are necessary, and then share with the rest of our leaders.  They can then customize the lessons for their group and teaching style, and print out the lessons and student sheets, all from their homes.  The lessons are intended to create discussion, and there are even text message questions and parent emails you can send during the week.  You can also choose the order in which you teach the lessons.  The cost sounds a little high ($499), but you are buying into a four-year plan so it really becomes cheaper than all the other options that I have seen.  I’m not easily impressed, but I think this will really help our youth ministry and save some valuable time for our leaders.

When choosing a curriculum, don’t choose something because everyone else is using it.  You have to evaluate your ministry and style, and then find something that will be a good fit.  In many cases, you may have to write your own, but don’t rule out looking at all curriculum.

I have been meeting with a group of young pastors for the past several days.  We are part of a leadership development program called uptick and we are being coached and mentored by a pastor who has a huge heart for helping younger leaders.  Our topic this week has been accountability.   We all know the importance of friendship and accountability, but why don’t we make it more of a priority in our lives?

A pastor who has struggled with an addiction in his life came and shared with us today.  He shared the importance of finding at least one true friend who you can be open and honest with.  I don’t know about you, but for me, this thought was scary. Outside of my wife, I really don’t have anyone who I feel I can confide in.  That definitely needs to change.  I will be praying and working on developing more accountability in my life, and I challenge you to do the same.  In Hebrews, we are told we are naked and exposed before God.  You can’t hide before God, so why do we try to hide all the problems we face in life?

Nothing in all creation is hidden from God. Everything is naked and exposed before his eyes, and he is the one to whom we are accountable. Hebrews 4:13 NLT

The following is part of a devotion that Craig Groeschel used at Lifechurch during the Life Development series.  I was reminded of it during our talks this week, so I found it on my hard drive and decided to share it here on my blog. Accountability is so important in our life, so let’s commit together to taking it seriously.  This is powerful, so read it slowly.

When I was in school, one of the things I often wanted to know about an assignment was if it was going to be graded. If it was, then I’d put more into it. If it wasn’t going to be graded, then I didn’t work as hard.

My life today demonstrates this principle just as much as it did when I was in school.

Accountability closes the gap between intentions and actions.

Most people prefer not to be graded in life. We need to embrace the truth that life is graded. Hebrews 4:13 says that nothing is hidden from God’s sight. At the end of our life on earth, we’ll stand before God and give an account of what we’ve done—or haven’t done—in His name.

There are four common reasons that most people resist accountability:

• We fear failure. If we have accountability, then people will know when we fail.
• We don’t see the value of accountability. We think we can do it on our own, but the truth is, we probably haven’t and won’t.
• We’re rebellious. We don’t like having someone else hold us responsible for our actions.
• We’re full of pride. We think we don’t need others. But we weren’t created to accomplish things alone. God created us to need Him and to need each other.

The Bible teaches us that we must overcome these barriers to accountability. Ecclesiastes 4:9-10 says, “Two are better than one, because they have a good return for their work: If one falls down, his friend can help him up. But pity the man that falls and has no one to help him up!” The truth is that it’s very unlikely that you’ll accomplish God’s plan without correction. Isaiah 53:6 says, “We all, like sheep, have gone astray. Each of us has turned to his own way.” We’re prone to wander. We may start strong, but our attention quickly drifts.

I’ve found that I’m easily distracted from God’s plan by many of the cares of the world. That’s why I have people hold me accountable—they help me get back on track. When a rocket launches, headed for the moon, it’s only on track ten percent. Ninety percent of the time adjustments are being made, but in the end, they reach the goal. That’s what accountability does for us. We may start to drift off course, and then someone lovingly comes in to help us adjust. You cannot correct what you are unwilling to confront.

I feel like the guy juggling and trying to keep all the balls in the air without dropping any this week.  It’s been pretty intense, so my blogging has been a little slow.  I’m officiating a wedding Friday night, attending and helping lead a prayer service Saturday night, preaching Sunday morning, and then speaking before the Decemberadio concert Sunday night that we’re hosting.

After that, we’re helping with Praisin In The Park, our community wide Bible school from Monday to Thursday.  My phone has been ringing constantly, and I keep expecting Jennifer’s phone to burst into flames from all the ringing.  She has been the main organizer for the concert, and it’s going to be great. We’re expecting several thousand people, so there are a lot of details that have to be taken care of.  When I quit juggling for a minute, I’ll post more of my thoughts.

On our youth retreat, I gave our students a survey.  One of the questions was “Do your parents engage you in conversations about spiritual matters?”  Here are their answers …

• Never - 9.5% of students
• Infrequently - 43% of students
• Regularly - 47.5% of students

The numbers are actually higher than I expected.  What may be surprising to parents is that there is a very strong correlation between spiritual growth and parental involvement.   In other words, what happens at home is far more important than what happens at church.  Our job in ministry is not just to teach our youth, but to equip and encourage their parents to do the same.

Have you seen this in your ministry? What are your thoughts about equipping and training parents?

As a pastor, one of the most encouraging and uplifting events is to see people publicly proclaim their faith in Christ through baptism.   I just wanted to share a few pictures from today.  We had a great time eating and playing on the church property and then topped off the evening with six people being baptized.  We have seen 37 people baptized so far at Cornerstone, many of them adults, and I am excited about seeing many more in the months to come.

We’ve decided to shake things up a little this summer for the youth ministry at Cornerstone. Instead of regularly meeting on Sunday nights for our weekly time together, we have decided to leave the building.  Some of our activities will be fun, some will be challenging, and all of them will be focused on growing in Christ.

Last week we met at the New River Trail and had a joint meeting with the youth from Cliffview.  Yesterday, we all piled into several cars and showed up at a local trailer park unannounced.  We setup a bubble machine, and got out soccer balls and basketballs and frisbees, and then started rounding up the children.  It started out slowly, but by the end, we had a crowd.  We gave out free food and even flip-flops and shoes.   By the time we left, the children were giving us hugs and asking when we were coming back.  We plan on going back and even possibly leading a Bible camp for the kids.

Why did we do this? Just to show the love of Christ to our community.  We are serious about engaging our community for Christ, and by building relationships we can show the love of Christ in tangible ways.  The truth is that when we show love, we earn the right to share the Gospel.  We want to see lives transformed by God, and we want out teenagers to experience first-hand the thrill of serving their community.

Each week, we plan on providing different opportunities for service and growth for our youth.  Then this fall, we will be relaunching our youth ministry with some exciting new changes.  I’m excited as we pray and seek God’s vision and direction for the youth at Cornerstone.

If you have been at church the past two weeks, you have heard the great news.  Sam Bartlett has officially joined us on staff at Cornerstone.  Sam has been an integral part of Cornerstone from the very beginning, and God has been drawing him back into full-time ministry.  Sam was a youth pastor and a church planter in his younger days, and I am super excited about how God has worked out the details for him to join us on the pastoral staff.  For the last several years, Sam has served as CEO of several major companies, including Digital Juice and Family Friendly Schools.  He has also written several books in addition to traveling around the country with his own speaking and consulting business.

We haven’t really worked out job titles, although Sam shared Sunday that he thinks his title should be CCO, the Chief Community Officer    Sam will be focusing most of his energy and time into building true Biblical community through developing our visitation and pastoral care ministries.  He is already handling most of our counseling, and he will also be teaching more on Sunday morning.   I will remain the primary teacher on Sunday morning, but with Sam coming on board, I will be able to devote more time to implementing our vision, developing our facilities, and improving our youth and children’s ministries.

We have been working together for the last several years, the main difference is now that Sam will have more time to devote to Cornerstone and God’s mission.   It is exciting to see how Cornerstone has grown and developed over the last several years.  I have seen many lives changed through the ministry here, and we are just seeing the beginning of a great move of God.   Join me in sharing with Sam and his wonderful family how thankful we are that he has joined us.  It was definitely a sacrifice on his part, but he knows that this is where God wants him to be.

We had a great service yesterday at Cornerstone.  We are blessed to have a great group of teenagers who really love God and love each other. I started in youth ministry 13 years ago, and I have seen many students grow and mature in their faith.  Out of all the students I have seen come through our youth group, I think this has been the most accepting and friendly group.  They have gone out of their way to make others feel welcome and to show love to everyone.

Galax is located between two counties, so we actually have students from three different school systems.  We also have several home-school students as well.   It is amazing to see how these students, who are normally rivals in sports and school activities, have all come together to build strong friendships.  They attended each others graduation ceremonies, they have hung out together, and they are excited about their future together.  I challenged them yesterday with a verse from Matthew 10:16.  As a church, we are sending them out into a world that can be very cruel.  But we want our students to show that same love and compassion to a lost and hurting world.  Here is a short video that we showed on Sunday morning.  We surprised Richie, who is one of the graduating seniors, by using a recording of him singing and playing this song.  (we created the video using the online service animoto.com)

Over the last four years at Cornerstone, we have not developed a reputation for planning our services.  We typically showed up on Sunday morning and hoped everything would fall into place.  Most weeks it did, although the stress level was through the roof when the unexpected happened.  I have heard numerous times that we should just let the Holy Spirit lead, and not worry about how everything comes together. But my question was always, do we honor God with our lack of preparedness?

With the addition of our Saturday night service and a second band, it became increasingly difficult to coordinate everything happening in the service. How many songs is the band playing? What song should we use for the response time? Who is doing announcements? What videos are we playing? All these questions and more were asked every week. The other problem was for the band. They needed the ability to share chord charts and songs and even schedule who was playing each week. Based on the recommendations of several churches, we decided to give PlanningCenterOnline a try.

We’re two months in, and I’m loving the service. We haven’t got all our songs into the system yet, but the potential is great. We are printing out a service plan each week for our band, speakers, and audio/video operators. I am even thinking about expanding the use of it to schedule children’s workers and greeters each week. You can check out the video below to find out more.

And finally, the Holy Spirit can move just as much when we plan earlier in the week. Let’s not use the Holy Spirit as an excuse for our own unwillingness to plan and prepare. The schedules are still just a guideline.  In a few cases we have changed up the service as we go because we did feel God leading us to do things differently.  But because the plan was in place, the stress and craziness has been drastically reduced.

Introducing Planning Center Online from Planning Center on Vimeo.

Another awesome weekend at Cornerstone.   I am thankful to be part of a church that doesn’t mind shaking things up! We did things a little differently this week.  Usually our Saturday night and Sunday morning services have the same message.  This week was just a little different.  On Saturday night, I preached from the book of Nehemiah about overcoming a fear of commitment.   And then we had a special guest speaker this morning.  If I can track down the CD from last night, I will place both messages on our podcast.

A few months ago, I issued a challenge to our church to start looking for ways to engage our community.  As a result, a group of committed people at Cornerstone started meeting and seeking God’s will.   Through a series of divine encounters, we found out about an individual in our area that has an incredible addiction recovery ministry. Mike Edwards has a ministry called S.O.B.E.R., and he has made an impact on hundreds of people in our area.  He shared a powerful message of God’s grace and redemption with us this morning.

On a typical week, he has multiple meetings with over 500 people attending a 12-step addiction recovery program. He is also creating a halfway house for people who need somewhere to stay while overcoming their addictions. Mike Edwards overcame some serious addiction problems in his past and has an incredible testimony of how God can transform your life.  He felt God leading him to renovate a small apartment complex into a place where people can be encouraged, find work, and get back on their feet.

He is passionate about sharing Christ and his ministry has made an incredible difference in our community.   We are looking forward to partnering with him in the future as we develop a strong addiction recovery ministry at Cornerstone. He has already helped counsel several people from our church who are struggling with addictions.  We have 3 workdays scheduled to help him work on the complex, and I invite you to join us.  You can find out more about Mike and the work he is doing on his website.

Last night, my mom and dad brought over a Bible.   Not just any Bible, but a Bible that has been in the family for a long time.  My Great-Grandfather was a Methodist Circuit Preacher in the early 1900’s.   The Rev. Jessee Morris traveled all around southwest Virginia, West Virginia, and Tennessee in the Holston Methodist Conference. He was born in 1877 and died in 1938, and was a true circuit rider.   The Bible that they brought and gave me was the main Bible he used.  My uncle was the last family member to have it, and he wanted to give it to me since I am a pastor.

As I held it in my hands and looked through it, I felt a strange connection.  I could see his sermon notes and ideas, and it was amazing to see his thoughts.   Even though we are generations apart, we believe in the same Lord and Savior.  This is truly one of the gifts that I will cherish and hold on to.  It’s in pretty rough shape, it was definitely well used, but I want to read through his notes and glean wisdom from what he learned.   I was surprised by the number of ‘facts’ about the Bible that he wrote.  Do you know what the middle verse of the Bible is?  What about the middle word of the New Testament?  How many verses end with a question mark?  All of these and more are written in the back.  I had to stop and remember that this was long, long, before computers.  But the question that kept ringing through my head last night was this, “Do we spend as much time in the Word as our forefathers did?”

I’m afraid that technology has made it easier to study the Bible, but made it harder to fall in love with the Bible.

Reflect and think on that last statement, and I pray that it will have the same effect on you that it had on me.

Here are some more pictures that show the notes and the inside of the Bible.  It is a King James authorized version with red letters in both the Old and New Testament.  I don’t know if I have ever seen a red letter edition that also has Old Testament verses in red as well.  It is truly a glimpse into the past.

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