Bad Day, Tough Call, Future Hope

A blogging friend posted this yesterday.

The worst day of my life was in 2000 when the doctor told us we could not have children on our own. Devastating. Eight years and two kids later, everything turned out better than we ever thought it would.

The second worst day of my life was today. Read more…

Very tough stuff. I know from experience though that his family will be taken care of and the work of God will continue on.

Cool News from New Spring, Life Church and Others

Tony Morgan blogged about something really neat his church is participating in. Four influential churches across the nation are joining forces for a teaching series called ‘One Prayer.’ Tony writes,

The purpose of this series is to, among other things, promote unity in the body of Christ, expose our churches to other great teachers and ministries, raise money for a mission project and participate in the larger work of God in His church.

This is really cool. Bringing the church together across the country under the banner of Jesus.

Amazed People Still Go to Church

Justin Buzzard keeps posting great quotes. Here is another,

Martyn Llyod Jones reporting after his six months away from preaching due to illness, in which he simply attended church services:

“My general impression is that most of our services are terribly depressing! I am amazed people still go to church; most who go are female and over the age of forty. The note missing is ‘joy in the Holy Ghost’…There is no life, no power! We of all people ought to have it. Joy and power are intimately related. One without the other is spurious.”

Helping Out

It is interesting how blogging has changed the way people receive and disseminate information. It is also interesting to see how people are using their blogs to generate fund raising. I have seen a guy finance a large chunk of money for a re-plant of his church. I’ve also read about a guy raising money to buy his friend a much needed new minivan. I have yet to enter into the fray – until now.

There is a church in South Carolina that will be shutting its doors at the end of the month if they don’t raise $10,000 dollars by tomorrow. You can read the whole story at their pastor Casey Ross’ blog. Maybe just glance it over and see if anything jumps in your heart.

There is a special website with a video from the pastor and a place to give online. Click here.

From Assembly of God to Covenant to Baptist to Non-Denom to Lutheran?

Tried out a new church in town this morning. It is a Lutheran church that meets in the high school auditorium. Probably around 200 people in the single service.

I had some inexplainable touching moments during the singing. The band was OK, the song selection and style were closer to what I am used to. The preaching was Bible based and they used a fun video to illustrate the chaos of Christmas time. The kids enjoyed their play area, though there are some security issues that I think need to be addressed.

Overall I would rate the experience a C+. I think we’ll probably head back there again.

The Struggle to Find a Church that Fits

For the past 18 months Stephanie and I had been attending Church of the Open Door. We both loved the size, the teaching and the worship there. It was a church that fit us well. Since we moved to Northfield, however, we haven’t been able to find a church that really excites us.

There are only a handful of churches here that we would consider attending because of their theology. That list narrows even more when we take into account the musical style that fits us best. Finally, almost all the churches here are very small and both Stephanie and I would like to be part of a church that is larger than 200. So what do we do?

There are a few churches that we would be open to trying but they are 20-30 minutes away. We’ve done the ‘drive to church’ thing (that was a big negative for me when we were going to Open Door) and we’re not really pumped about doing it again. We’d like to be a part of something in our own community that we could invest in and be excited about inviting and bringing people to.

Northfield is a very intellectual and liberal community. It will be interesting to see what kind of a church God rises up to make a big impact here. There is definitely a need – maybe we’ll just have to start something?

The Elephant in the Church

National Community Church is doing a new series called “The Elephant in the Church.” The series ‘plays off the old idiom: the elephant in the room. It’s a reference to obvious truths that everyone ignores.‘ It is a great creative idea and I think some things will come out that people in the pews really need to hear about.

In week one NCC focused on gray elephants, meaning the disputable issues found in Scripture that are not black and white. After preaching on alcohol Pastor Mark’s wrote this:

“Not sure how to say this, but I felt like a pastor today. I think it’s easy to talk about easy topics that everybody agrees on. But navigating the topics that are tough to talk about is part of what it means to be a pastor.”

YouVersion

For the last couple years I have been following Lifechurch.tv from a distance and I am impressed with the creative ways they have embraced technology to reach people for Jesus. Their latest initiative is called YouVersion and it looks like it is going to be very cool. In their own words YouVersion is…

a free online Bible that allows users to associate video, audio, images, text, tags, and links to other websites with any verse or series of verses in the Bible.

Basically, Lifechurch.tv is putting the Bible online and creating ways for people to explore, interact, and benefit from it. The hope is that people will benefit from user-generated content and that people may even find community and relationship with one another through the sharing of information. You can read more about all of YouVersion’s features, here.

You can learn more about the project on the Life Church blog here, and on the YouVersion blog here.

Signs Matter

Church Marketing Sucks posted a blog today that I wrote regarding the importance of good signage. Here’s a teaser..

When I was 10 years old there was a song by Tesla that was rocking the airwaves called “Signs.” All my friends and I loved the song. You are probably thinking of the chorus right now…

Signs Signs everywhere there’s signs, Blocking out the scenery breaking my mind Do this, don’t do that, Can’t you read the sign

Yesterday I had to take my kids to a medical check-up in a non-familiar place. The check-up was taking place in a local high school in our city and the whole experience felt to me very much like visiting a portable church.

Click here to read the whole thing.

Buzz Conference 2007

Stephanie and I are planning a 5 year wedding anniversay trip to DC this summer. Pretty excited about hooking up with a few bloggers/pastors while we are there. We’re also praying that God might open a door for us to attend this conference. If you are a pastor with an interest in the positive collision of church and culture, click here.