Rain, Rain Go Away!

I am not a big fan of the rain. I like the results of rain and understand its importance, but definitely do not enjoy the whole experience of rain. Rain is gloomy, it makes me tired, and it is very inconvenient. As a sign I am getting old, my joints ache when it rains, especially my knees and right hip.

Rain is one of the few things that can cancel golf for me or even cause me to leave a course early. I have golfed in the rain, but usually only for the benefit of someone else or as part of a golf scramble. Once it starts really raining, I'm done.

When we sing songs asking God to rain on us in church I always pause. Truth is, I don't want God to "rain" on me. It's not enjoyable to have God "rain" on my parade or to experience His "rain." I understand the intent of most of these songs are for refreshing and an outpouring of Him. Just the concept of rain always gets me because I don't like the rain.

I think there are a lot of things like rain in our spiritual lives. God wants to come in and cleanse something from us. He wants to wash us and restore us. Sounds great. Experience tells me it is not always the most enjoyable time to walk through, much like a rain storm. It is inconvenient, it is uncomfortable, it is hard to see, we tend to be grumpy, we lack zeal and energy, we get tired. Sometimes it hurts. Why? Because God is doing a deep work within us that is causing us to be confronted with ourselves and our shortcomings. He is asking us to change and remove things. He is leading us into a deeper and fuller understanding of Him and of ourselves. We are never consulted about whether or not it is a good time to do this. It is always on His schedule. Much like when rain pops up when I am supposed to golf; I didn't order that!

The cool thing is what happens after those periods. Things really are refreshed and rejuvenated. Growth is taking place and beauty is seen. Everything is a bit softer and brighter. We sense life and feel in tune and harmony.

As much as I don't like rain, I love the results; in nature and in the spiritual.

What are your thoughts?

Flexibility

Of the many lessons I have learned over the years in ministry, flexibility is one of the more important.

Every day there are new challenges and new things that come up. Surprise in schedules and unforeseen issues are common occurrences when dealing with people. As long as we realize that and are flexible, there are no problems with this.

I have heard it joked before that the ministry and church would be great if it weren’t for the people. What a sad view. People, or more specifically individuals are what the church and the ministry are about. Of course, God is our central focus, but our earthly mission is reaching and training and equipping and encouraging people.

With people, there will be the unexpected, the uncertain. To be inflexible and think that everything has to be just so and on a certain schedule will just cause frustration and, even worse, ineffectiveness. Every ministry group and missions team I have ever led, this word has been a major part of our language. On one trip we used the phrase, “everything is tentative until the day after.” Just for emphasis, I would sometimes add, “and even then it may change.”

As we look at the life of Christ, He was flexible. His day changed often based upon the needs of those He was ministering to. A servant is sick, He stopped to heal. A little girl has died, Jesus went to her and brought life. A woman at a well needs forgiveness, Jesus is there.

As the unexpected comes our way each day, may we be full of enough grace to do what Jesus would do and remain flexible.

It's Sunday

It's late Sunday night and I am sitting here relaxed and content. What a great day!

Powerful service this morning!

A couple highlights:

• Worship was strong right off the bat.
• We tried a slightly different version of an older favorite, "Shout to the Lord," it was pretty cool
• We had a special guest from the Gideon's today, Aaron Trevis. He is the president of the Gideon's in Australia. He did a great job sharing the vision of the Gideon's. The accent doesn't hurt for getting people's attention either. :-) I think a couple of more of our people are signing up to be a part of this cool ministry. Love the unity across the body of Christ that happens within the Gideon's.
• Wrapped up our series "What I Wish Someone Had Told Me" today with the "10 Things I Must Remember." Posted below.
• Powerful response at the end of service. It never gets old seeing people make life changes.

10 Things I Must Remember:

1. I cannot change people; only God can do that.
2. I cannot make people love Jesus and serve Him; only the Holy Spirit can do that.
3. No matter what a person has done, he is worth saving.
4. Listen carefully to others.
5. Do not set goals for others. Expect more from yourself than them. Help them find their dreams.
6. I cannot take myself too seriously, but must take the time to enjoy life.
7. Accent the positive. Spend more time in praise and less in complaining. Be an encourager
8. I, too, have needs and God will use others to minister to them.
9. I will fail in many areas of my life, but Jesus never fails. Exercise faith daily.
10. I belong to God. I am answerable to Him. I must always do that which pleases Him only.

The Drop Cloth

We have had several painting projects over the years. One of our last ones was in our previous house painting the basement den.
I went and got the paint and supplies and prepped the room. Of course, this means I moved all the furniture away from the walls and cleared things out. Now, if you ask me, we got dark brown for one wall and light brown for the other three. In case you didn’t know, the room HAS to have an accent wall. (If you don’t know why, ask a woman, she will explain it you.) If you ask my wife we painted the accent wall Belgian Chocolate Mocha (or something) and the other walls Waverly Antique (or something). Dark brown and light brown.
So the trim was taped and everything was ready to start painting and out came the drop cloths. There are all kinds of drop cloths you can use. Ones that are actual cloth (canvas, etc.), ones made of vinyl, ones of plastic, disposable ones, reusable, and on it goes.
The thing that is true of every drop cloth is that it going to be abused. It will be stepped on, pulled, tugged, spilled on, dripped on, and then put away dirty or discarded. All of this is OK. That is what it was designed to do. It is there to help keep the carpet from getting paint on it. The drop cloth has a very specific purpose. That purpose is not very glamorous, it is not noteworthy, it is taken for granted, it is temporary. Yet, in spite of all of this, it is important.
I might be able to paint without a drop cloth and get away with it, but maybe not. My wife might also get away without one for a time. My daughters, well, they must have a drop cloth. Yes, they have helped paint, so a drop cloth was absolutely essential.
This piece of fabric so under appreciated, so seemingly insignificant, serving its purpose saves me a great deal of time scrubbing paint out of carpets. Not to mention the strain on my voice from yelling at my girls for getting paint on the carpet. :o)
Truth is, there are times when each of us feels like a drop cloth. Under people’s feet as they walk over us, being tugged this way and that, problems and junk dripping on us, stresses and circumstances spilling out, and then being thrown aside, discarded in a heap, unappreciated.
There are times when our duty is one that is not glamorous or noteworthy or exciting. That doesn’t mean that our purpose at that time is not essential. It might be just as important, or even the most important of any of the other things happening at the moment.
We can’t all get the spotlight or glamor. Some times we have to settle for knowing that we did our best and accomplished our purpose in a situation.
Several years ago, I read of a high school art class that had a piece of plywood that had made up the top of their work station for mixing paints and painting small projects. They took this piece of old wood that had been abused and ignored for years and instead of throwing it away, they entered it into a modern art contest. It won and ended up on display in a gallery. It was sold and the proceeds went to helping that art program expand some of what it was doing.
Don’t get discouraged if it seems you aren’t getting the recognition or attention you should. Keep doing, keep living your purpose and in time this moment will pass and the next just may have you on display in a gallery as a great work of art.

Too Stuffy

I just watched a great video on Youtube. You can watch it here. I've had weddings where they danced out, but never in. This is cool.

Truth is we have become way too stuffy about some things. I didn't say serious, I said stuffy. Serious means we understand the reality and the weight and the responsibility. Stuffy means we have drained the fun right out of it. Marriage is serious, but it is a blast. Weddings are sacred and a significant event, but why can't they be fun? Can something be sacred and fun?

I say yes! Worship is sacred, yet when combined with others and using music can also be quite fun! There are many other forms of worship. The artist who paints or sculpts or designs for God's glory is worshiping. David when he danced before the Lord was worshiping and I find it hard to believe that he wasn't having the time of his life.

How did the holy and the sacred come to be made stuffy? Yes, there are times for reverence and times to be subdued and reflective, no question. But, not everything or every moment is that time. We really need to loosen up and learn to have fun. I believe Jesus did. I believe He was a fun person to be around and knew how to laugh. I spoke about this a couple of Sundays ago. In case, you missed it, go here.

We take ourselves too seriously. In this sense we see ourselves as the answer or as having the answer and then start to trust ourselves more than God. We need to see God as the only source and the only answer. If we will worry less and trust Him more, I believe, we will find more joy and more enjoyment in life.

So go out today and find an opportunity to have some fun. Do something different, something random, something unexpected and have some fun. You just might make someone else's day in the process.

Recently, we were standing outside a pizza joint with several friends of ours. Our daughters and our friends daughters saw a red Corvette convertible with top down coming toward us. Knowing that I love Corvettes they pointed it out. As the Corvette passed slowly in front us, for whatever reason, we started clapping and cheering. The guy driving the car looked a bit confused as about a dozen adults and kids were cheering as he drove by. Then he caught on and just started laughing. It was random and spontaneous and it was fun. I have no idea what that man's day had been like, but I guarantee we brightened it at least a little.

Look for the enjoyable, the random opportunities we have every day to do something fun. And stop walking around like you have a sour cherry ball in your mouth. :-)

Killing Cockroaches (Thoughts)

I just wanted to weigh in on a couple of thoughts from the seminar I went to last Tuesday with Tony Morgan, author of Killing Cockroaches.

First, what a brilliant idea he had: take a several week family vacation and each week make a stop at a church for a half day seminar based on his book. Sweet! Tour the country with your family and get others to help pay for it; now, that is using the thing between your ears for something other than a hat rack!

Seriously, the cost of the event was more than reasonable. Believe me, I go to conferences and receive invites and promo pieces all the time. Most get pricey very quick. Not without reason, but they can become expensive. On that note, kudos to Tony for not having books to sell and turning it into a marketing event.

Now to the meat. I have already posted my notes so I won't rehash any of that here.

I love the basic premise that Tony is presenting in his book, his blog, and this tour: keep the main thing the main thing. In other words, don't do what you should have someone else doing. Or at least, don't do that thing any longer than it takes to raise up someone else to do it. This of course applies to leaders and specifically the leader in the given context: pastor, ministry leader, etc. We all need to evaluate and make sure that we are staying on task with what we have been called to do, not just what seems to be needed in the moment.

No seminar or conference is worth the time and effort at any price if you don't walk away with some action steps or ideas to implement or changes that need to made. These usually start with you the individual, but should also transfer into the entity, organization, or ministry you lead.

Without going into too much detail (for many reasons), here are a couple of things I walked away with that we will be looking at here at Capital City:

• Putting more effort into raising leaders of leaders and not just filling holes to get tasks done
• We will be evaluating all of our forms of communication to make sure we are sending out one message. We will also be looking at frequency of our communications and make sure that we are going for effectiveness and not "noise."
• We will always ask the question: does this ministry/event add value to people's lives?
• No announcements will be made from the platform that are not truly whole church and vision specific. We will leverage our other mediums to get word out to those who need it for all other things.

By the way, I do recommend Tony's book from what I have read so far.

Week Unwind

Instead of a Sunday Unwind or one day wrap up, I want to recap this whole past week. So much happened and was accomplished that it needs to be recorded.

This week was VBS which made it busy to begin with. On top of that there was a seminar, surgeries, medical tests, work days, a ministry anniversary celebration, and life.

I'll start with the medical stuff. My wife has been having a few health related issues that may all have a singular cause. So last Sunday night and most of the day Monday she underwent testing. We will have the full results at a follow-up visit with her doctor in a few weeks. Thank you for your prayers as we are trusting God for a healing for her.

This past week we had two friends undergo cancer surgery. Both are recovering and moving forward. One had a tremendous report from the surgeon. Next to a "total healing surgery wasn't necessary" kind of report, this was the best possible word coming from the surgeon after surgery. As we walk through this time for this couple, it is awesome to see the peace of God and the provision of God in their lives. I firmly believe there is something significant that is coming out of this whole thing; something God is doing that when revealed will be a serious "WOW!" moment.

This was also a Teen Challenge work day week, which always means at least two days for me. You know, like those 2 day "One Day ONLY" sales that certain department stores are famous for?! Anyway, Friday and Saturday I was at the local Teen Challenge center working on the entrance ramp and steps for their soon to be office building. This is a summer long project that I am heading up for the men's ministry in this region of Ohio. We have had a couple of other churches participate so far and expecting others in the next couple of months as we finish the project. Saturday went well as we had a smaller crew, but turned out to be the right size for the day. With the rain, we could not have painted and the building work was more detail and only required so many. We got quite a bit accomplished in spite of some challenges we faced (you can read that mistakes as well as normal construction glitches). We overcame them and got everything fixed and the front entrance ramp is finished.

Tuesday, Pastor Staci and I attended the "Killing Cockroaches" seminar with author Tony Morgan. I posted my notes already and will dedicate a separate post to some of my thoughts that came out of that day. I'll just say it was good.

VBS was exceptional. What an incredible job by our volunteers and workers! They went above and beyond expectations and just nailed it all week. The stage and the themed rooms around the building were impressive. If you are on Facebook, you can see it all in photos on the Capital City Fan Page here. The children had a blast! The adult and teen workers did as well. 55% of the children that attended were guests! That is a big WHY we do these things. Reaching those far from Christ is our purpose. We put so much energy and resources and time into what we do so that lives can be touched and changed and for people of all ages to be introduced to the God who loves them. I am very proud of Pastor Staci and her team! Everyone deserves recognition, but I want to highlight two: Matt Muir and Scott Crawford were awesome this past week! So many are worthy of mention, so I will just say, "THANK YOU!" to all those who prepped food, taught, cleaned, ran tech, assisted, and did anything with VBS. The finale Friday night was great. Thank you to 104.9 the River and Dr. Magic Smile for being a part of the night.

This weekend marked the 5 year anniversary for Pastor Staci here at Capital City. What an awesome outpouring of love from the people! Staci does an amazing job with our children! Her love for and passion for God drives her love and passion for kids. Great things are in store for our children's ministry.

Our worship gathering on Sunday was incredible! God is so faithful! I love that I get to be a part of what he is doing at Capital City. Worship was full and very real as the congregation connected right away. The kids did a VBS wrap up with some songs. Then we recognized Pastor Staci's five years which included a nice video from Pastor Jim & Renee Palmer. We also had a missionary; one of our own, Madeline Wengert. She is heading to the University of Indianapolis with Chi Alpha campus missions. Then we continued the series, "What I Wish Someone Had Told Me..." I talked about honor today. As Americans in our busy lives we dont' honor others enough. It is too easy to get caught up in the routines and tasks we face everyday and we forget about the people around us. We need to do better at giving honor to others and keeping "love and faithfulnes... wrtitten on our hearts." (Proverbs 3:3-4). The podcast should be up on Monday late or Tuesday early.

Have a great week!

Killing Cockroaches

Here is part two of my posts from Tuesday morning's Killing Cockroaches Tour seminar. These are the notes I took from session two. I will post some additional thoughts later.


Tony Morgan, Killing Cockroaches
7.14.09

Session Two: 3 questions we must wrestle with to gain focus...

Question 1. Are people hearing the message and experiencing life change?

• Tony gave the example of concert violinist Joshua Bell playing in a metro stop and nobody stopping to hear him play in spite of being one of the best in the world and normally tickets to a symphony with him are exclusive and expensive. In the metro stop he was out of context and didn't connect with situation and bustle of the environment.
• We have a great message (the best message), but we have not been effective at putting it into the context of people's daily lives. People are overly busy day to day and just trying to keep up.
• We need to help people identify what is most important in the Word of God and then help them apply that Word to their daily existence.
• Two questions that matter regarding God's Word:

1. What do people need to know?
2. What do they need to do?

Question 2. Are the next steps clearly defined?

• We need to define what it means to be a fully devoted follower of Christ and be able to communicate that to help people get form where they are now. We must be able to explain who we are trying to get people to become.
• (My thoughts: Variety may be the spice of life, but it can be poison in the church.)
• People don't need more options, they need clearly defined steps.
• Lots of activity does not guarantee results.
• Research has shown that more options actually generate less sales
• Complexity creep - adding new things and never unplugging anything old. Starbucks is experiencing this. They started by offering specific and focused menu of coffee. They keep adding to the menu and have lost much of their edge and even retreating in the market place as they close locations.
• Evaluations:

1. What event or program requires a major platform announcement? If people have to be coerced for the event to happen, it may not be viable or needed.
2. What would you not participate in if you were not on staff?
3. Does this event or program reach outsiders or just satisfy insiders?
4. Where is the fruit? What areas is God blessing the most? These may be the areas we should be focusing on.
5. Who do we want people to be and how do they get there?

Question 3. Are the next steps clearly communicated?

• One message for the church that everyone knows and can articulate the same way.
• Are we over-communicating? In the corporate world, would much of we put out be called SPAM?
• We may just be adding noise to people's lives.
• Viral (word of mouth) is preferable and much more effective than a marketing campaign.
• The vast majority of new guests to a church come because they were personally invited by someone or heard directly of something that is happening.
• We need to make the experience better and work to build relationships.
• Luke 11 - We cannot create impossible religious demands or we are the same as the Pharisees. This would include attendance to all programs, events, etc as well as following a prescribed set of rules or expected actions.
• Jesus is supposed to be the center of a person's life, not the church.

Killing Cockroaches

This morning I had the privilege of attending the "Killing Cockroaches" Summer Tour with author Tony Morgan. It was held at Grace Church in Powell, just a bit north of Columbus. Kary Orberbrunner was the host for the event and he and the rest of his colleagues at Grace did a great job welcoming those that attended. It was a small gathering of pastors and leader which gave way to great discussion and networking in a relaxed atmosphere.

I took several notes and am going to post them here in two posts. One today and one tomorrow. Then I will follow up with some thoughts. I am still reading his book with the same name and will post a review when I finish it.

5 Reasons We Get Stuck Killing Cockroaches...

Reason 1. We settle for something that's not God's plan.

• Abram's father, Terah, settled in Heron instead of finishing the journey to planned destination of Canaan
• Leadership is hearing from God and then obediently doing what He says

Reason 2. The ministry outgrows us.

• It will happen if we are following God
• We must have enough confidence and security in our leadership that we can empower others to do great things. This will allow the ministry to continue to grow beyond us. We cannot try to hang on and control things.
• The trap is being involved in God's ministry instead of being true to God's calling. What has He called you to do? NOT... What activities are you involved in?
• Leading is a cycle os training and raising up to send and release others into leadership. Like parenting, the goal is to get them to move from dependence to independence.

Reason 3. We stay too focused on execution instead rather than outcomes.

• Move from delegation to empowerment.
• Let those leaders you raise up take care of the how as long as you make the expected results clear. Otherwise you are a backseat driver. They are driving, but you are barking out the instructions the whole time. You might as well drive.
• We should only get involved in the execution details when the results aren't what was expected. (In the parable of the talents, the master didn't worry with what the servants did with the money or give any advice when they got a return. He only spoke to the execution of the one who did not bring the desired results.)

• Potential leaders are asking:

• Am I really needed?
• Will I have input?
• Will I be kept in the loop?
• Do they care about me or are they just using me?
• Will I get to lead something significant?

Reason 4. We avoid giving volunteers the opportunity to serve and lead.

• We have become to professionally minded thinking that it takes a staff member or position to lead a ministry.

• A healthy progression of ministry:

• Lead by example (early on in planting, beginning something new, small churches, etc.). The leader must do much of what needs to be done and show others how to do it.
• Lead others (after a time of growth and stability is setting in). The leader is now overseeing others who are doing the bulk of the tasks.
• Lead other leaders (the step that many never take in growth, it requires a major change in the leader and his/her relationship with people). The leader is now directly leading fewer people who are overseeing the ones doing the bulk of the tasks.
• Lead thru vision leaders who lead other leaders (only a select few make it to this step and then actually follow thru with it). The leader is now setting the tone and casting vision to a group of high quality leaders who then impart that to others who are raising up people who do the bulk of the tasks

Reason 5. We embrace and are controlled by fear and/or pride rather than humility.

• We must embrace humility!
• EVERY leader does or will deal with one or both of these.
• Fear and worry are just as much about self and about control as pride is.
• These can paralyze a leader or destroy a leader. Either way, he/she become ineffective and God's Kingdom suffers.
• Trust God enough to follow through and take the risk stepping out into the unknown.

Sunday Thoughts

Today was powerful!

I had a real sense early this morning that God wanted to do something special during the service today. In my prayer and prep time in my office it was very clear that God's Spirit was stirring.

The songs "Mighty to Save" and "How Great is Our God" have become modern anthems of the church. I love the energy of corporate worship. Today that energy was high!

At what seemed like just the right moment we gave people the opportunity to come forward to seek God for Him to move mountains in their life. Incredible response. We have a couple of people dealing with cancer, some facing surgeries, others with family issues, and the list goes on. I firmly believe that this morning was a breakthrough point for some. Fantastic time of prayer and very moving. Looking forward to hearing the testimonies of God's power working in lives and answers to prayers from this morning.

We continued our series "What I Wish Someone Had Told Me" today. Life is too short to let the pain and tough situations dictate how we live. We can't take ourselves too seriously, but must learn to trust God and His design for our lives. This is the key to living a joyous and fulfilled life. The podcast is here.

Facing a very busy and quite diverse week. Some great things with VBS and the Teen Challenge project. Some things are more challenging as a couple of people face serious surgery. Expecting God to work mightily in all of it.

Quick Hit

Just wanted to put up a quick post. This past week was quite crazy and the next two are shaping up to be as well. I will get back to a more regular posting schedule, but probably not until after vacation which begins in 18 days.

Here's a couple of links to check out:

• In the spirit of the great OOPS! Someone really messed up this car (click here). And... It took several someones to mess this up and build a house like this... (click here). WARNING, while the two links I have provided are clean humor, if you decide to explore the FAIL blog website you will run across some photos and things that are off color and even offensive.
  
• In the learn something new every day catagory, the right way to open a banana is here.
• An interesting and thought provoking post on status quo here.
• Michael posted a short but insightful thought here.
• Steven nails another post here. This one if about faith.
• Whether any of this is real or just very good editing, it is still a very cool video here.

Have a great Sunday and see you on the flip side...

Weekend Unwind - Monday style

GREAT WEEKEND! It extended into today, so here is a Monday night edition of the weekend unwind.

Friday was a terrific daddy/daughters day. We walked around a lake, ate pizza and ice cream, and my older daughter and I went for a bike ride along the river. Friday night I took the girls to see the fireworks over downtown as part of Red White & Boom.

Saturday we got up early and walked a few blocks over to watch the Upper Arlington Parade. It was a great time and we had a perfect place to sit and watch right next to the main grandstand. Very patriotic event and lots of honor was paid to the veterans and active duty service personnel. Some of the floats were pretty amazing.
The rest of Saturday was very relaxing. Elena took Kiersten shopping and Bre and I hung out at home. We grilled out and had a family movie night. It was just about perfect.

Let me just say, I love Sunday mornings! Worship was very good. The opening video was quite appropriate as it took a look at the signers of the Declaration of Independence.
Communion is always such a meaningful moment and yesterday was no exception.
The three guys who gave the announcement for VBS were hilarious. Great job Scott, Van, and Matt. Loved the announcement video. Nathan is starting to get into a groove there.
The offering video was another powerful patriotic video.
We began a new series this week, "What I Wish Someone Had Told Me..." Before I got into my prepared message, I felt it was right to pause and take a moment to give someone and chance to respond to God. One person surrendered their life to Christ! That is ALWAYS incredible and NEVER gets old! It is a big part of why we do what we do.
I did get part of the way through my planned message for the day, "Sit Down & Shut Up." You can listen to the podcast here. As we look through Proverbs it is interesting to note that the wisest man to ever live instructed over and over again to listen.
Sunday afternoon was spent with friends and capped by watching Tiger win the AT&T National.

Today we had a great family day on a lake with some friends as we were learning to water ski.

What America Needs...

This video was recorded a couple of years ago and used for a Veteran's Day program we did. I wanted to post it here to kick off the July 4th weekend.




On another note, I know I haven't been blogging much lately and I am supposed to be writing a series of posts on follow-thru. I will. It will just take some time. I am spending a bit more time with my daughters while they are out of school and I am reworking some internal structure things for the church to get us ready for the next step. With all of that and the normal routine of life, I am just not devoting much time to the blog. It will pick up again when the time is right.

Happy 4th of July!