what were your staff and elders wives doing friday night?

Monday, October 18, 2010

The temperature of the leaders always determines the temperature of the Church. Another way to state it would be to say that the culture that is built in the Church Body begins with the culture that is built in the Church Office. But behind every Staff Member is a spouse. And one of the things I’ve learned over the years is that you can tell an awful lot about a potential Staff Member or Elder by spending a little time with their spouse (mostly as a result of listening to my own wife…she’s really smart).

In light of this principle, something happened last week that absolutely blew me away. My wife went down to the Atlanta Dream Center to participate in Princess Night. An incredible ministry opportunity where women actually go and hand out roses to prostitutes and offer to pray for them, all in the hope that one of those prostitutes may take up the offer to come off the street. Unbeknown to her, as she got on the van to travel downtown she found herself surrounded by Staff wives, Elders wives, and other women from North Metro Church. The women on the van ranged from two young expecting mothers to Grandmothers. The last people that I would expect to see on a van headed to down town Atlanta to minister to prostitutes well after dark would be an expecting mother or a grandmother. Yet here they were giving up their Friday evening and leaving the comfort of the suburbs to take the Gospel into the darkness.

The night grew sweeter the longer my wife and those ladies stayed out there on the street. She came home with the incredible news that a girl in her early 20’s who is pregnant and had been prostituting since her early teens came off the street! Those same wives have already come around this young lady to do an incredible baby shower for her and have provided an incredible support network for her. While she may have a long road in front of her, this young lady has women around her who genuinely, fully, tangibly, and truly love and embrace her.

How incredibly cool to be a part of a Church where this is the kind of stuff is going on! A Church that doesn’t just give lip service to the Gospel, but rolls up their sleeves and lives it out, even when it’s uncomfortable. I almost feel spoiled to be a part of something that most guys dream for and live their entire lives hoping to see.

Posted in Spiritual Formation

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human trafficking in the city my kids are growing up in

Monday, September 27, 2010

Since moving to Atlanta, Georgia three months ago God has thrown the issue of Human Trafficking in front of me more times than I would have liked. And while I’ve been familiar with it from a distance for some time now, it seems God will no longer allow me to be a casual observer. It has come to the point where I can’t ignore it and I have had to wrestle through not only what I’m going to do about it, but in the role I find myself in, what I’m going to lead others to do. I confess I have much to learn on this subject…and much to do. So while this may be my first post on this issue, I can assure you that it won’t be my last. This is too big of an injustice for the Church, and for me to remain silent on any longer.

Posted in Leadership, Spiritual Formation

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The Media Influence

Thursday, August 5, 2010

In the last 50 years, media has quickly risen to the top as the #1 influence on Western Culture. Below are five reasons that have driven that accent to such a paramount place in our lives. While I’m not celebrating this fact, I’d much rather see the Church as the #1 influence in our culture. I do hope that this conversation helps us better understand the culture in which we live so that we may more effectively influence it with the Gospel.

Posted in Creative Arts, Spiritual Formation

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sticky church

Sunday, July 11, 2010

People end up coming to church for a myriad of reasons. Motivations range from church was something that they grew up with and is a cultural norm in their life, to a moment of personal crisis, a simple invite by a friend, and sometimes even a cleaver marketing campaign by a local church. But what makes them come back, what makes them stick?

In his book, Sticky Church, Larry Osborne does a great job of addressing the leadership tension between the front door (getting people in) and the back door (keeping people in) of the church. In it he asserts that, “As long as the front door remains larger than the back door, any church will appear to be growing. But sooner or later the front door can’t get any larger; either the budget or the skill set runs thin.” He goes on to explain that many pastors are guilty of using the people they already have in order to reach the people they want to reach. Instead of viewing their church as a flock to care for, lead, and tend to they often become viewed as a tool to get to the pastor’s dream…and that’s a dream that needs to die. If this has ever been an issue that you’ve had to contend with, you know first hand that by the time the indicators of a problem with the back door begin to rear their ugly head more often than not the problem has become so large and so complex that it takes a serious time, resource, and people commitment, and often times the courage to make some very difficult and far reaching decisions to wrestle this down.

You might need to spend some time addressing the backdoor at your church if you can identify with the following list:

Posted in Leadership, Spiritual Formation

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building a culture that creates a movement

Thursday, June 24, 2010

If you haven’t read Will Mancini’s book, Church Unique, go and buy it now! If you’re a leader than even the subtitle should get you going a bit, “How Missional Leaders Cast Vision, Capture Culture, and Create Movement.” In it he does a masterful job of reframing the conversation about vision that has been so overcooked in “Church-World.” Instead of selling everyone on a secret method, philosophy, or model that we should all adopt he lays out a roadmap to a journey that will lead you, and those you lead with, to discover the unique part that God has created your local church to express and play. The conversation goes far beyond simply coming up with mission, vision, and values statements to build an organization around and instead discusses, in a totally integrated fashion, the underpinnings of building a culture that frees the Church up to be the movement that it was intended to be from the beginning. In it you’ll find helpful tables that simplify the takeaways and the right kind of questions and exercises for you and your team to wrestle through and discover your uniqueness together! In the Author’s own words, he lays the book out in four major parts: