watermelon and special sundays

Let's start here: What's up with the steps and the "teaching stage"? a couple of weeks ago we removed the steps that stretch across the front of our stage to make room for the equipment our director of sound, Dan Fulkerson needed to install our new sound system. As I mentioned on vision Sunday in October...our old system was ten years old and on it's death bed. So yesterday we debuted a sleek, new and much more efficient sound system. I've always thought a little lower and further out platform for me to preach from would be more intimate. So instead of putting the steps back we used some of our movable stage pieces to make what I preached on yesterday. Loved it! Made me feel closer to everyone as I preached. We'll see what happens there in the future.

Message on fruit trees yesterday was convicting. Take these two questions with you this week: What kind of fruit are you bearing? and What kind of tree would others say you are? Ouch! Don't you just love conviction? By the way, showed a watermelon for fun yesterday...yes it is my favorite fruit. When Sara and I were engaged in college she used to go by a Knoxville mall just to pick up watermelon flavored popcorn from a store there.

Recently, some people have asked why we don't do special Sundays with special speakers (I get people all the time who say, "why don't you have so and so come and speak?") with big "crowd drawing" programs and events. Well, a couple of years ago we decided to really push our vision. Bottom line, we have one strategy for getting people to Jesus. We expect all the people at Eastview to be "passionately engaged in outreach". This means that all of our church growth is contingent on believers loving those outside of Christ enough to share their faith and get them engaged with our church or some other church. That's it. We believe that nurtured followers of Christ will get the job done of evangelization. And it's working. Other implications of this strategy are these:

1. Since we don't focus time, money and energy on big production Sundays we can focus our energy on every Sunday. To us, there are 52 really important days of the year and we work hard to make them moving, spiritual, biblical, and relevant.

2. If you bring a visitor to church on Sunday, they will experience pretty much what we do every Sunday. In other words, you can really show them who we are because each Sunday is consistent.

3. Since i and a few staff members do all of the preaching, we can extensively plan and execute a teaching schedule that we think will best allow our people to grow. There are a lot of great preachers in the world, but God has placed us here to minister in this place and since we love to preach...this works well.

4. We can sustain this. A good friend of mine says that many churches fail because they grow with programs that they can't sustain over the long haul. Well we know that until Jesus comes back we can dedicate ourselves to preaching the word, prayer, musical worship, giving and remembering the Lord's death, small groups, serving and spreading the good news of Jesus. We can and by God's strength will sustain this over the long haul.

OK. that was longer than I expected it to be. Hope you have a good week. And in case you're wondering, yes I'm finally tired of snow now. Don't worry...spring will come. God promised after the ark and the flood that the seasons would continue...check it out in Genesis.

home again

Well, I missed my people at Eastview yesterday. A pastor always feels kind of weird when he finds himself not a pastor - it's very healthy, mind you, just weird. I heard things went great and I'm already working on Sunday's sermon...looking forward to it.

Let me say that this pastor's conference was the best I've ever attended. Maybe it's because I've gained some experience in this role or maybe it's just that the right conversations happened. Of course, there is the setting. Cabo was great - not really clear sunny days, but nice "partly cloudy" days (you know the kind where you can get totally fried when you think it's not sunny - yeah my head is peeling). Here are some highlights from my week:

-It was whale season..and it is amazing to stand on the beach and watch a whale jump up out of the ocean. Makes you feel really small and makes God seem really big.
-Had a great breakfast with a pastor veteran who is now retired and 80 years old. I loved sitting and listening to his wisdom.
-I won (via a drawing of all the sr. pastors present) a trip to the Holy Land for free!
-I was renewed in my passion and energy for preaching and leading. I am so unbelievably blessed to be able to do what I do. See Daniel 4:17 for a verse that came alive to me this week.
-I am humbled to be able to encourage other pastors who are not having such an easy time of it. This job is not easy and I'm glad God allowed me to speak into their lives.
-There is nothing like sharing the intimacy of a meal together. Many of my conversations this week took place in the context of food. There is something in the sharing and the saying grace and the conversation that happens around a table that is priceless.
-I was able to write a lot in my journal this week. I'm a big fan of capturing memories and God thoughts in writing for reflection and historical perspective later.
-Sara is the best pastor's wife a guy could have. Why did God bless me in this way? Don't know, but I'll take it and I'm thankful.
-We talked about preaching.
-We talked about technology in ministry (what would Paul do if he lived in this era of history? One staff member said he'd own a MAC!). There are a lot of ideas out there. I still believe in the face to face, live ministry as the most effective.
-A guy came and talked about Pastor's tax laws. Very interesting stuff from a guy who has worked extensively on congressional subcommittees with this.
-We arrived home last night to Chicago around 6:30 with a 65 degree change in weather. Good to be home even if it is cold.

Sr. Pastor's Conference

OK so this is the part where you get really jealous if you're from my home area of Normal IL (or anywhere in the midwest for that matter). Sara and I left Chicago at 8:30 this morning and by 4:00 P.M (mountain time) we were sitting on a beach in Cabo, Mexico watching the waves crash in. We saw whales (no fat jokes about me in a suit) and enjoyed the beauty of God's surroundings. Why am I here? This is the part no one really believes...I'm on a work trip!

No, it's not hard work, but this annual time with other pastors who lead mega churches is one of the most important times each year for me. It began in the late 80's when a few guys (whose churches were then over 1,000 in attendance) got together to discuss issues and challenges that were unique to their situation. Back then there were about 12 guys...now it has grown to over 100 guys and their wives with churches that range anywhere from 1,000 - 20,000.

I have already spent some time with Tim Harlow - pastor of a church of 5,000+ and JP Jones who is in Champaign with a church of 1500. As soon as I got here my old buddy Don Wilson (Peoria Arizona church of 12,000+) started joking with me...he's a blast. All told about 45 pastors and their wives will be here to share a week together. What do we do?

We talk about our churches...our challenges...our frustrations...our joys...our fears...our visions. We laugh alot. We pray together for our children and for our leaders and for our churches. We talk about where the mega-church is as a movement. We compare notes on leadership structure and sermons and all things pastoral. There really won't be a time over the next week when I'm not talking about ministry and the people I've come to love deeply at Eastview church (even if I am golfing, or sitting by the pool, or eating at a marina-side diner). It really is a good time. So I'll try not to rub it in that I'm in a really cool place (where it's not snowing like it is back home...a lot). But I hope you'll pray for me cause I'll be praying for you.

reflections @ 45

Well it's my birthday today. I'm forty-five years old. I preached the funeral for Norma Gresham today - which many people have thought was a bummer for my birthday - but in a weird way a funeral for an older person who has walked with the Lord is a joy. We have hope. And as I reflected this morning it helps me do the thing the Psalmist says to do "teach me to number my days aright Lord". I don't know how many more days I have, but they are numbered (I thought today that if I live as long as Norma did, I've got 32 more years and if I live as long as my dad, I have 12) Again, none of this is really troubling to me. For whatever reason, I've always been very comfortable with my death and my age (somehow they are related:-). I don't mind being old..as a matter of fact want to get there, and if I keep living I will.

Before "45" reflections however, I want to say how awesome it is that so many responded yesterday at the invitation time for annointing and prayer for healing. It always moves us as elders to minister in this way. I love to see the faith that is willing to walk forward and ask God for healing. I told one couple that was praying to get pregnant that they needed to call me when it happened. Same goes for you...if God works miraculously in healing you, please let me know about it.

O.K. - So I'm forty five now!
* I thought I'd be wiser by now.
* I don't think this is middle-age because I don't think I'll live to be ninety (too much coffee and motorcycle riding)
* I'm close to 50 now than forty and when I get there I can start measuring my life in half-centuries.
* I hope that no matter how old I am, I can preach until I die. I'd love to be that guy who is preaching at age 90 and everyone just marvels at how unable i am to put together a coherent sentence and yet still they love the sermon. Oh yeah, I'm not expected to make 90 - OK how about 75. Honestly, I'm unable to string together many coherent sentences now...oh well.
* I have spent very little time in my life at the doctor's or the hospital...I'm thankful to God for that and hope it continues.
* I don't want to have any age conversation that centers around me having to give up coffee or salt or fat or anything else that makes life enjoyable.
* Although, I don't mind talking about my age...most women do ( I know this from being married to one).
* I'll probably write some lame blog like this on my 46th birthday.
* I wore a suit and tie today for the funeral...I guess this is my birthday suit!

Kris' question

This blog is in response to a comment received on my Haiti trip blog. Here's the basic question:
Concerning the earthquake in Haiti how can God be both all powerful and just? If he's all-powerful why didn't He stop this unjust thing from happening and if he's just but couldn't stop this thing from happening; then he must not be all-powerful. Good question and I won't pretend that I can fully explain how God operates here (he's God and none of us knows his perspective, purpose, or greatness - it's like a gold fish trying to explain college level calculus). Anyway, here are some thoughts that may give a start to what might be happening with the Haiti earthquake.
1. If you are a believer and follower of Jesus, it is by faith that you trust God to be both just and all-powerful. You may never be able to explain it...but you believe it because you believe God (see Hebrews 11:1). Mostly non-believers have this question because they don't want to believe in God (usually some bad church experience or they want to live a life free of God's demands so it's just easier to write him off).
2. We're assuming that the Haiti earthquake is unjust because we view it from a worldly perspective. The worse thing from this perspective is death and next to that is suffering of innocents (children) - but that's not God's perspective. Let me be clear here - I'm deeply saddened by what I've seen and experienced (closer than I wanted to)! But consider these eternal perspectives: a. Out of the 200,000 (living in extreme poverty, homeless and eating mud pies to stave off their hunger) who died in the quake , let's say that 100,000 were Christ followers or children before the age of reasoning. According to the Word, one minute they were in the worst of conditions and the next they were in the presence of God in heaven. Is that not just? Is that why an all-powerful God didn't jump in and stop things miraculously because he couldn't stand to see them suffer any more and wanted to bring them into eternal peace? Something to consider. b. What about the hundreds of thousands who were injured, displaced, etc... Consider this, before the earthquake these people were literally starving to death and lived in complete squalor. Consider that right now there is ten times as much food in Haiti as before the quake. God has resourced all the world's riches (mainly through his body the church) to send immediate aid to Haiti. In other words, maybe he didn't intervene miraculously because he wanted the world to finally pay attention to Haiti and come to it's aid. You'll have to admit aside from many church organizations - no body cared about haiti until the quake! c. What about the hundreds of thousands who will now come to faith in Christ because of this tragedy? There are already stories of Haitians who have given their lives to Christ because of what they've been through. Maybe the all-powerful God didn't hold back the devastation of the earthquake because he wanted eternal justice (salvation for as many as possible) for those he knew would turn to him in crisis.

I could go on...those are just a few thoughts on how God might have viewed it - taking nothing from his all-powerful nature and his just nature.

One other thought. God created the world in perfect order (Genesis 1&2) and allowed man to have free choice. Man sinned (Genesis 3) and completely altered God's creation. It's flawed now because of sin...reaching even so far as natural disasaters. With man's choice to sin - Satan was given place here in the world as a tempter for a time. A day of final justice is coming when Jesus will return and Satan will go away forever and God will exert his power.

Until then, we view things as through a glass dimly and we don't understand it all...but there is one other "injustice" and "lack of power" that we bank our eternities on: Jesus died on a cross for our sins! Now that's not fair! And God forsook His power to stop men from killing His son. And yet somehow...that act...Jesus on a cross... showed God at his most fair and most powerful!

beautiful feet

Okay, before I catch a bunch of flack for those of you who may see a picture of my feet on some facebook page. I can explain. Last Wednesday night, our small group went together to get pedicures (guys and girls). I'll tell you...never had a pedicure, probably never will again...but we had a blast. Believe it or not, this activity was suggested by a guy in our group who is really a guys guy. So, we figured, if you can't do this with your small group family, who can you do it with?

Well, he also ordered pizza and when we showed up one of the "technicians" - don't know pedicure terms came up to me and said "hi", she was from our church...so there's no hiding my identity now. Anyway, 7 ladies from our group went first and the process looked pretty harmless. It really involved some trimming of the nails, some scrubbing off dead skin and a massage! Awesome. Here's where it gets crazy...you get free nail polish with the pedi.

So all the women were picking out their color. So, you know I'm a kid and I say, "what if I want my nails painted?" Well, the rest is history. I picked a loud purple-pinkish color (really it's obnoxious) and guess what three of my good brothers joined me. It was funny and we had a good time, but here's the spiritual part of this...

You know the bible says "how beautiful are the feet of those who preach the good news!" Well, the next morning when I woke up, I was startled in the shower when I saw my toe nails and this verse popped into my mind. This verse is of course about messengers who brought good news for the kingdom and is used in the new testament about telling others about Jesus. So now I really have beautiful feet and I pray every morning in the shower for God to help my feet to go where i get to share good news!

At least that's my justification for painting my toe nails! And, by the way, before I go to my annual sr. pastor's retreat where it will be warm and I'll be wearing sandals; I'll lose the paint.

My Haiti Trip

First of all, let me say that the main reason I went down to Pillatre' Haiti is that Manno Laguerre (whom I have known from college in 1983) asked me to speak at his 25th anniversary working in this church. The story is amazing. From a stick church that his father started to a building that seats 1,000 + Haitians in 25 years - this is an incredible God story. The celebration was incredible - starting with a Saturday night banquet that honored all the people involved throughout the years. Great testimonies to Manno and Prisca. Then the Sunday worship service dedicating the new building to God's service was over the top. I was the preacher and I didn't get up until 3 1/2 hours after the service started. It was one of the top three preaching experiences in my life. The Spirit was moving and the translator was awesome. What an eternal thrill! I will never forget it. Of course, as you know by now our trip took a most interesting turn on Tuesday, January 12th when we were scheduled to return. Following are the events as I remember them...

We woke up at 5:00 a.m. to be at the airport at 6:00 to catch the first flight out (we knew we couldn't fit all of our team on one plane so we were hoping to get there on two planes to Port au Prince before our American Airlines flight left for Ft. Lauderdale). It had been pouring non-stop for days and the roads were flooding and the streets were bad (seriously - you've never seen a pot-hole - trust me). But we packed our stuff in pouring rain and headed to the airport. I was in the front car with Manno (he drives the most aggressive and was pushing to get to the airport). When we arrived (about 5 miles in 20 minutes - again the roads) there was a plane on the tarmac ready to take off. Manno ran in (past security - he owns this town) and got them to allow four passengers on (but they had to come right now). Since Sara was in the car following with the luggage in the truck behind; I sent the other four in my car (Jason Smith, Jim Probst, Tyler Hari, Jason Smith) onto the plane. There was literally five seconds to make a decision and our thought was we'll see you in an hour and a half. They flew off in the rain and the rest of the group went through security (again think Kindergarten registration instead of "security") and began waiting for the next flight. That flight never came. It was raining sideways - with low clouds and no visibility. We prayed and prayed for our plane to come and at least get us to Port au Prince. There was a 4:30 flight that we knew we could get on and at least get back to the U.S. Manno was to fly with us for a meeting in downtown Port (he is the president for Samaritan's Purse in Haiti). Please God, get us to Port au Prince (we prayed this until 2:00 when Manno, said "let's go back to the house, there are no flights today"). A little disheartened we returned to our host's house (we were ready to come home)

We all put on warm and dry clothes and I began to work on Sunday's sermon with the help of Manno's commentaries from his office. Sara and Shelly were trying to reschedule our flights (even though it was still pouring and we didn't know if a plane would be in Cap Haitian in the morning). About 5:30 I was lying in a bed reading a commentary on Luke and the floor began to rumble and I thought "wow that's weird", but it continued and I was actually bouncing off the bed and the bookshelves were shaking and I staggered to the door and then it was over. "Dude that we just had an earthquake!" We were all kind of humored with it all. There was no damage and it was just another part of the adventure. I casually texted my sons to let them know we just had an earthquake but we were o.k.

Meanwhile (this was related to me later) back at the church my mom (receptionist at church and everyone's grandma) received a call from someone asking where I was and that there was huge earthquake in Haiti. Also, meanwhile the four that we had separated from that morning were in Ft. Lauderdale and were told that there was a major quake in Haiti. Needless to say, everyone freaked! For our part, we were eating supper and enjoying each other's company and wondering how the next day of travel would go.

It was two full hours after the initial shock (and several other tremors) that I decided (and this is Holy Spirit stuff) to turn on the t.v. after five days of not turning it on. They have satellite and as I was searching for ESPN I happened on CNN and suddenly things got serious. I called everyone in to see Wolf Blitzer - and it didn't take long to know it was bad. Manno and Prisca immediately thought of family and friends in Port au Prince and they started making calls (they only got through to a few). We thought of those at home. I got my phone and began getting tons of texts and e-mails. As a grace from God I was able to text our chairman of the elders, my administrative assistant, and some others who I now forget that we were o.k. but didn't know how we were going to get home. Shortly after we lost all communication ability...nothing.

Then we prayed. We told God that if he wanted us to stay then we would (some have criticized us for leaving when people were in need - we asked Manno if we needed to stay and help, but we were no good as a matter of fact our presence was a pressure and strain on him ) and if he wanted us to get home to provide a way. We had no idea what would happen next.

The next morning we were up at 5:30 again. It was pouring harder (if that is even possible). Manno's truck wouldn't start (we tried to push it to start - all we got was wet). We crammed into the cab of another truck and were at the airport at 6:00. Closed! Not flying today. Option one, gone. We went to a bus station in Cap Haitian - closed. But we waited for an hour and a half. They had a line heading to Santiago in the Dominican Republic and providentially there were enough seats for us all to get on board. Manno was relieved and so were we. Why was I happy to be heading to the DR?
1. My Spanish is better than my Creole. I have travelled alone in spanish speaking countries before and I can get a cab, find a bathroom, a hotel and food. I knew I could get our group to the airport.
2. Communication with home would be possible. As our church family was worried about us, we were worried that they were worried. (this is now Wednesday and the press had contacted Tyler and Mark early that morning - on three hours sleep they were back at the church office working on communication through the drama. They did radio, t.v. and newspaper interviews and coordinated communications via our web site for our church family - the phone was ringing off the hook. I was working on my sermon and still not sure how this would all turn out. About 10 miles before the border I realized I had service on my blackberry - communication was open and we began letting everyone know where we were and what we were trying to do. The news was still that the border was closed. We got through with no problem.

I texted Brook Brotzman who is the head of GO ministries and asked if he could help us. Within minutes he texted that Tim would meet us at the bus station, take us to Gabriel's house, feed us and get us to the airport the next day. It was beautiful! We settled in, took a deep breath and thanked God. Within hours we were sitting on a porch on a cool Dominican evening eating Domino's Pizza (apparently dominos delivers everywhere!). We were scheduled to fly out of Santiago at 9:45 the next morning and get home to B/N by 6:14 p.m. There is more to tell, but I will skip to our arrival. Tyler had prepared us that news media would be there for our arrival, but I was still overcome with emotion when I saw so many from our church there to greet us, my mom and my son. It was awesome. And then life was back to normal...literally. I had a quad grande americano at Starbucks Friday morning. It was beautiful.

We had a prayer time on Sunday night for Haiti and as of this writing our church has donated over $44,000 for haiti relief. the story continues...