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Doing the Right Stuff

Doing the Right Stuff!

There is an ancient Chinese proverb that says " Power is not revealed by striking harder or faster but by striking true" in other words effectiveness is not doing the same old stuff harder and faster but doing the right stuff. If we are going to be effective in making an impact on this earth we must assess whether we are just doing the same old stuff, just a little more harder and faster. A lot of the things we call missional today are just the same old stuff with fancier packaging. We have become professional makeovers of the old. I am convinced that unless we engage the whole church and begin to dismantle the traditions of men that separate clergy from laity we are simply striking harder and faster but not striking true. The whole church must again invade commercial and industrial life, education and learning, the arts and family life, morals and government with this tremendous message of The Kingdom. Almost all of Christ’s metaphors for the church is penetrating, salt to penetrate food, light to penetrate darkness, leaven to penetrate the lump. The emphasis is never on the instrument but on the function. So a successful church is one that is engaging every domain of society, chiefly through the action of its members. The way we make the church grow is by making the members more effective in penetration. I am convinced that if church leaders are not actively and intentionally mobilizing the entire body to penetrate all domains of society we are simply striking harder and faster but not true. KP Yohannan, the founder of Gospel for Asia which has been considered one of the most significant movement in India says this "The single most important hindrance to world evangelization is the lack of total involvement by the Body of Christ. Listen carefully as you read Ephesians 4:11&12 "And He gave some, apostles, prophets; and some evangelist; and some, pastors and teachers; For the perfecting of the saints, for the work of the ministry.." He did not give us church leaders to grow big churches and build big buildings. He gave them to mend, train and send out" That, is striking true; that is the right stuff!

Living Brochures

Go ahead...do a quick search on Google for church mission statements. You will get hundreds of hits.The world would be changed tomorrow if all the love, acceptance, forgiveness, and authenticity declared in cyberspace and on paper were actually happening. Guys...give your people this challenge: Let's forget all our hot brochures...BE THE BROCHURE...Incarnate those mission statements. Seems like I remember something from the Apostle Paul...something about "living epistles".

Lance

Life In The Fast Lane-Church Planting Lessons from The Eagles

"Life in the fast lane

Surely make you lose your mind

Life in the fast lane, everything all the time"

If you hope to have success as a church planter do not plan to be sightseeing, driving along at the speed of everyone else. Forty-hour workweeks will not get you where you want to go. Plan to work very hard, keeping a swift pace. Work by a schedule and know how you are using your time. As you do this it is vital that you raise your personal discipline to the highest level ever. The balance? Establish boundaries for your family. I highly recommend to all church planters that they create a "Family Day" from the very beginning. This is the one day a week that is all about you and your wife and kids. Don’t let anything short of a life and death emergency infringe on this. The fact is, there will be very few genuine life and death emergencies. Talk about your family day to your leaders and members. When you do this you are modeling two very important lessons. One, you are teaching other men in your church to value their family. Two, you are declaring and proving to your wife and children that they are your number one ministry. If you make this part of your life your children will grow up loving the church.  For More Church Planting Lessons from the Eagles...go here

Boiling Down Leadership

The array of books and articles on leadership is endless. We all are looking for good leadership, looking to be good leaders, etc. When you boil it down, what is leadership? I resonate with Bobby Clinton's definition: "A Christian leader is a person with a God-given capacity and the God-given responsibility to influence a specific group of God's people toward God's purpose for the group."

Throw More Parties!

I can't help but agree that Chris Tomlin's song "Party" is a little chessy...but...I love the spirit of it enough that I let the song play through when it pops up on my ipod. One of the best pieces of advice that I received early on was simply put, "Throw more Parties." Church planting really comes down to meeting people and connecting those people to one another. They may connect with you early on but if they don't connect with one another they will drift off. One of the best investments you can make is in food. Now...you can do that can't you! Loren Cunningham (founder of YWAM) recently shared with us this insight, "In the gospels we see Jesus relating with people around food at least 13 times." Bring on the hot wings boys, let's plant a church!

Mission Produces Community

I had a friend who once told me about his father who was a WWII bomber pilot. He had just returned from a 50^th reunion of his squadron and told my friend about how that within minutes of being together these old men were laughing and crying together. The takeaway? Those guys didn’t come together to form community. They joined together to fight a war and community "happened". So often church planters go out to "start a church"—that’s backwards. You go out on mission and community follows that. THOUGHTS?

Warren Interview with Cho

Download cho_and_rick_warren.doc

This is a really fascinating interview that Rick Warren did with Dr. Cho. It covers a lot of territory. It would be great to hear your comments on his pursuit of cyberchurch. To say the least, Cho is not stuck in time.

Lance

Andrew Jones on Barna

In light of my recent post quoting Barna. Check out Andrew Jones' review of "Revolution" by Barna. It is well worth a read. Post your thoughts after reading his.George Barna's Revolution: A Review

Lance

House Churches Getting Traction

How many of you saw the recent Barna research regarding House Church attendance? House Church Involvement Is Growing "The new study, based on interviews with more than five thousand randomly selected adults from across the nation, found that 9% of adults attend a house church during a typical week." WOW! Can you believe that? What thoughts do you have on this?

What We Can Learn From Seedless Fruit

My wife is not a card-carrying organic nut, but she does do a great job cooking and keeping our family on great tasting, healthy food. One thing she refuses to do is to buy seedless grapes or seedless watermelons. Why? Her logic is that if it is seedless it has been engineered by man. It is a false mutation. Bottom line—its not right. It cannot reproduce. God made fruit to be in a form that it contains seed. It’s purpose is not only to exist as edible fruit but also to multiply many times over…thus, the seed. Think of this in light of church planting. If the churches we plant are truly God made then they have seeds within them. Too many (most) churches are seedless. Less hassle, no future, no reproduction…just a single piece of fruit.