Grow Up

This weekends message called Grow Up! is going to be liberating for some people and it's going to be a little convicting for some people. We are going to talk about what a spiritually mature person looks like. After all, why is it that some people can go to church for 30 years and still not be able to show any real fruit in their lives?

Here's the deal, if you've been in church any length of time you'll notice there are some people that are hearer's of the word. They love to dig deep in the Bible and they'll tell you about all the things they know about the word of God. They love deep home groups, deep messages, and love to soak it all in. They'll tell you that iron sharpens iron. In fact, if you try to get this group of people into a group that is primarily focused on building up relationships and caring for one another their likely to make an appointment to tell me we are wasting our time and that we are doing baby stuff. They'll tell you they need the meat of the word.

There are also the other type of people. The do'ers of the word. Those are the people that are busy serving God by serving his people. Do they enjoy deep Bible study? Sure, when they can fit it in between having meals with God's people, spending hours ministering to God's people, and raising up their families. This group of people will show up at the hospital when you are sick. They'll be at your house when your pluming goes bad, and they'll spend time at a coffee shop just listening to you when your struggling. Why do they do that? Because they have a desire to live out their faith.

Here is the rub. We are called to live out our faith. The Bible actually uses the term "Work out our salvation." Being a do'er of the word is what that is all about. In my book, we measure maturity by what we do in God's name and for God's people, not by what we know.

This weekend we'll find out some things that will help us measure how we are doing. Much of what we do is geared at those who are far from God. That's a good thing. This weekends message is geared at those who are a part of the church. It's not that this weekends message is going to be weird for them it's just that this one is geared towards the family.....consider yourself warned :)

One Prayer

I am really getting stoked about One Prayer. I have checked out the messages and they are awesome. Each pastor we are using for the series is different than the next and for that matter different than me. It's going to make for a cool series. We are going to hear the prayer and word of God taught from four unique perspectives in a single month. That never happens at a church.

Over the next week. I am going to be mailing a letter to each home inviting people to personally join the one prayer cause by fasting for one day and participating in a special one time missions project. We'll be supporting three different missions causes. First, we are going to give to David and Billie Blessing. The are missionaries in Africa. We are also going to use our spare change to give to Campus Life. They are getting prepared for a missions trip to the inner city of Chicago. Lastly, we want to support a local Christian camp.

As of today there are over 1100 churches with over 750,000 people taking part in One Prayer. These churches cross every type of denominational and cultural spectrum. This kind of event is rare. I am so glad we get to play a small part in it.

Deadliest Catch

Anyone else totally addicted to this show? For some reason I cannot stop watching the show. I just love it. I am really looking forward to it tonight...rock on!

Sunday Mind Dump

Man, am I tired today!

We had a great day today. Last weeks message was a little heavy and uncomfortable. Today's was like a breath of fresh air. Sometimes it just works out that way doesn't it? So, let's dump.

• Band sounded good today. They had some great tunes that people just love. I keep working on the song leaders and telling them to pick stuff you know people love not just what you like. When you play and sing songs people like they worship and sing better and that is really fun!
• New week. New people on vacation. Such is life in the summer!
• Had a nice Memorial Day cookout! Thanks Tracy and Nate for having our rag tag bunch out to your place!
• What an awesome day for a cookout! 80 and sunny with a slight breeze.....how cool is that?
• I messed up the recording today so our first attempt at using the new web cam didn't take. Everyone that wanted DVD's will have to wait. Sorry. My bad.
• Next weeks message is going to be liberating for some and feel very convicting to others. Either way it hits you remember we've all been there. The key is knowing that there is something you can do about it!
  
• A bug thanks the Jeanie today. It was her first day on kitchen duty and she did a great job!
• Oh.....and awesome couscous.....that was my favorite dish of the day!
  

I need a shower and and a nap. See you all soon!

Bread

Starting tomorrow we are going to give away bread, bagels, and treats that are left over after the worship experiences. We are now getting so much in terms of day end donations we can't use it all. So, if you'd like to take some home please start bringing some baggies so you can pick out what you like. Until further notice we'll have it available every week.

With gas prices so high every little bit helps!

Seasons

Sometimes God speaks to you on a regular basis and sometimes it's in seasons. The last few months have been a quiet time for me. I think that can be for a variety of reasons sometimes it's our fault. We aren't in his word like we should be or maybe our prayer life isn't what it needs to be or perhaps God is just silent for the moment. Sometimes his silence has a purpose. Sometimes I believe that God is silent because he is waiting for us to process and put into practice the stuff he has already hit us with.

Think about this for a second. If God keeps hitting us with new stuff the stuff he just gave is hasn't always had a chance to work in and through us yet. Sometimes he's waiting on us to act on it before he gives us something new.

Over the last week. God has hit me with some really heavy truths through some different people and circumstances. Some of of those truths will be finding their way into messages and some of them won't they are more personal. The key for me is, if I want God to keep moving and speaking and not experience a dry season I have to put the stuff he is revealing to use.

If you are in one of those dry seasons. Ask yourself what God might have hit you with that you are not using. Once you find that put it into practice!

New Message Topic

Every once and a while God hits you with something and it's so timely and needs to be said you drop what you had planned and you do it. Today God hit me with one of those things. It'll be coming in a few weeks. It's something we all need to hear and keep in mind.

That is all....Renner Out!

Good Stuff

Did some writing and finalizing the message for this weekend. I think this is honestly going to be one of the best and most practical messages I have given. This weekend we are talking about How to Stay In Love. I am going to lay out some really practical ways we can grow closer to our spouses and help make each marriage the best it can be.

This is going to be the least preachy message yet! Not that I am preachy ever!

Sunday Mind Dump

A good service today. Still quite a few people out camping and visiting family. It makes the place feel kinda empty but, as my grandma always says, we don't exist for the church the church exists for us. I hope people enjoy their time away and come back refreshed and ready to kick some butt!

So let's dump:

• First off happy birthday John! John and his wife Shelly are a huge blessing to Real Life. They put their heart and soul into the church and that is awesome to see!
  
• The message left people feeling a little uncomfortable today. I understand, it did me too! Sometimes that's not such a bad thing. I know one thing. Every time I mention the word "blessings" people will snicker and laugh a little....Thanks Julius!
• The band is continuing to rock it out. They are doing a much better job of building songs!
• We have some big stuff on the radar. Tony is ordering the camera so we can do web casting. Trust me, it's going to be sweet.
• We are three weeks into the iMarriage series and next week we are going to tie it all together.
  
• I can't wait for summer. I need a little alone time to pray and write. God has been hitting me with many cool things and I am going to start pursuing some of them over the next couple of weeks. If it's a God thing it'll be huge for Real Life.
• The leadership team is doing a 2 day retreat at my mom's cottage in Indiana. We have some things on the agenda to discuss that'll hopefully make the ministry we do a little smoother.
• With all the families gone over the last few weeks I really missed seeing the little ones. I just love looking and seeing chocolate covered faces! For some reason that cracks me up

Got to do a few things then I am off for a shower and I am going to veg in front of the tube for a few hours. Later!

Been Thinking (Scarry I know!)

Many times we in leadership confuse what we like with what God is calling us to do. We tend to to what makes us comfortable, tickles our ears, or makes us feel better about our positions and our place. We often lead from the position that our likes are more godly than other peoples likes, thereby justifying our stance on things. Sometimes, we get wrapped up in the notion that because something blesses me therefore it will bless those in our churches.

The simple fact of the matter is quite often this just isn't true. What blesses me may mean nothing to the people in my church. The things I like might not be liked at all by the people in my church. The things that tickle my ear might really annoy the ears of those in our church. The things that we justify in doing in our churches because they appeal to us aren't really always the things that God is calling us to do.

Here is the rub. Leaders lead. It doesn't matter what the arena or venue. Leaders have a knack for looking at where they are, seeing things from an accurate perspective, and leading where they believe the church or organization needs to go. Leaders, if they are going to be effective, must learn to separate their personal tastes from the needs of their people.

Don Shula was a great football coach, perhaps the best ever. The great thing about Shula was that he didn't have a system. He, unlike most coaches, wasn't tied to anything other than winning. If he had guys that were more skilled in passing the ball his teams became prolific passers (think Dan Marino.) When his players were better runners than passers they did that (think Csonka and the 72 Dolphins.) Leaders lead with what they have and they find a way to get things done plain and simple.

How does all this fit into discussion on church? Leaders lead. We in ministry need to learn to do a better job of putting aside our personal preferences in order to better lead the people God has given us. Sometimes that means playing music that isn't our first choice. Sometimes that means leaving the suit in the closet (were it belongs!) Sometimes that means dropping the old time preacher routine of pacing back and forth while speaking progressively louder. Sometimes that means allowing people to bring some coffee into the holiest of holys (our church sanctuary's!)

Plain and simply put. If you're in ministry and something in your area of ministry isn't clicking maybe it's you :)

I am not saying you need to get out of ministry or run for the hills. What I am saying is maybe you (and all of us for that matter) need to take an honest look at what your doing and ask yourself if it meets the needs of the people I am leading right now. If not, replace it with something that will. Am I saying you need to tickle peoples ears? Not a chance. What I am saying is that packaging is everything. I will never sacrifice what I teach. NEVER. I make no bones about it.

I will however constantly look at the way I teach it and the way I lead. Everyone in ministry and for that matter leadership needs to do that. Part of being a good leader is being willing to change tactics when the time comes. What worked last year may not work next year. The songs that moved the church to tears today might not move the church to tears in a year. It's not that they're bad songs it's that people and times change.

The message doesn't change. Just the way it's presented! Winning doesn't change but sometimes you need a new game plan!

This week is going to be a hoot!

Let me explain a bit. This week we are going to talk about what God has to say about sex in the context of a marriage. I was little weirded out thinking about talking about it earlier this week. then I got to thinking about how much the Bible has to say about sex in the context of a marriage and I began to think about how important it really is since such a large portion of the word is dedicated to teaching about it. I began to change my thinking and suddenly it went from feeling a little weird to feeling like a great honor.

Here is where the hoot part comes in. My kids normally rotate between sitting with the adults and helping out with the preschoolers. This is Jakes' week to sit in with the adults. He is gonna be totally freaked sitting next to April for 30 minutes while I talk about sex! What 14 year old would ever sit through that if they knew it was coming. In fact, if he knew it was coming he'd do whatever he could to help out with the kids!

SHHHH...don't tell him it's coming. (It'll be our little secret!)

Any Guys Game?

I saw this photo and it got me wondering if any of the manly man guys at Real Life would like to give this a shot? Perhaps I can put a call into the Air National Guard and see if they would be willing to fulfill your fantasy ski trip?

I hear Tim Allen grunting in the back ground don't you? Course the other side of me is looking at this picture thinking "hey if he was a real man he'd be doing this barefoot."

Ownership

What makes a church go from the phrase "you have a nice church here" to "we have a nice church here?" It's pretty simple. Ownership. Ownership is critical to the success of any church. The notion that we as individuals identify a church as our church is huge. That also means that people begin to take on the responsibility of supporting the church. Supporting the church is typically thought of in monetary terms and while that is of course needed and important. Supporting the church by getting involved in serving is just as important.

It doesn't matter how much money a church has if no one is willing to serve. Believe me when I tell you it takes a lot to make a church run smoothly! In most churches, people really never see the little things that go on. We just sort of take them for granted. We expect clean facilities, we expect the coffee to be hot and ready, we expect the kids to be well taken care of. Most of us don't get out there and make sure it happens.

It's kinda like thinking about where your chicken dinner comes from. We don't really think about where it came from and the process of getting it to you. We just know we like the chicken and want it ready for us.


Over the next few months. I am going to ask each person that calls Real Life home to step up their game in terms of ownership. People will be asked to serve in ways that they have never served before. If we are going to move ourselves to the next level we are going to have to do some things we have never done before. For many people, that will mean serving in ministries for the first time.

We are looking at every task that needs to be accomplished at Real Life and then asking ourselves who might be able to do it. So be thinking right now of some things that you really would enjoy doing. There is no greater joy and connection to a church than when you are connected relationally to God's people and serving them with the gifts and talents He has given you.
These are great times!

Sunday Mind Dump

A great day today. It was nice sitting in with the band again. I love getting out there and playing. I definitely don't want to go back to doing it every week again but it's nice to do it now and then. I am really enjoying our current teaching series.

Sometimes the teaching we do is gut wrenching and really hits us hard sometimes it's liberating and we feel great teaching. This is one of those series that is somewhere in between. I am enjoying it and it needs to be done but it still hits home because none of us have perfect marriages. We all have issues.

So let's dump:

• The band sounded great today. Ok, yes I did play, but, I had little to do with it. They just rocked.
• Smaller crowd today. We had quite a few people out with their mothers.
• All of the ladies seemed to enjoy the Bath and Body Works stuff the church gave out for Mothers Day presents. Just wait till you see what we have planned for Fathers Day. It's going to be cool!
• I have been sick almost all day. I went to bed last night with a headache and upset stomach and woke up feeling pretty rotten today too.
  
• I took April out for a Mothers Day lunch. She didn't know we were going out. I took her to Applebees. She loves their Boneless Chicken Chunks.
  
• Since lunch, I have been chilling on the couch with a blanket watching a Deadliest Catch marathon. Man, I love that show.
• I am really looking forward to One Prayer. It's going to be awesome. Wait for the details.

Going to put the computer down and watch a little more TV. See Y'all later!

Random Thoughts.

I was thinking today about how blessed we are as a church. We have been given so much for a church that is so young. We have tremendous favor is so many areas its an honor and it's also a little scary.

Think about this.

• We have a kid to adult ratio of 1:1.5. In other words, for every 1 and a half adults we have 1 kid. Most churches have somewhere in the neighbor hood of 1:12. That is awesome. It does present us with some challenges but. I 'll take that any day.
• We have more musicians than we can use on any given Sunday. Most churches struggle to have enough skilled musicians to field a whole band. We can fill two whole bands and both would be better than 90% of the churches out there. Again, it presents challenges getting people enough playing time but I'll take it.
• Giving has ALWAYS been higher than the budget. We have NEVER had to decide what bill we were not going to pay.
• In the last three months we have been given three computers. we now have four computers for the church.
  
• We are a few weeks away from being able to web cast our worship experiences. Two weeks. Wow.
  
• We have a killer kids ministry. I could not be happier with it.
• We are going to be making some changes to the look and feel of the church to help with the coffee house aspect of our church. It's going to be sweet.

We have only been holding monthly worship for three months. Three months. We are a baby church and we have been given so much. I thank God everyday for all he has trusted us with.

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Garage Sale

Wow....could we have had a better day to do a church wide garage sale? This was almost perfect weather. The sun was shining, the temps were just right, and people got to get rid of their junk. How cool is that? On top, of the sale stuff we got to talk to a couple hundred people about the church. Virtually everyone loved how we have the church done. The coffee house church concept is about to go big time!

Holy Crap

Ok....normally you don't hear me saying Holy Crap much but tonight is an exception. We just got approved this week by Panera Breads for their day end donation program. Under the program local charities can sign up and once approved are given a certain day of the week (for us it's Friday) where you show up at closing and they basically bag up all the left over baked goods and give them to you free of charge.

For us, our first time picking them up was today. I thought we'd get a lot of food but holy crap. We got five garbage bags full of baked goods! So here is what we are going to do. We are going to set aside enough for the next few weeks at church and the rest we are going to give away at the garage sale tomorrow. It's free you are welcome to it. I am going to go to the store and buy some saran wrap so we can even wrap it up for people.

We are going to have to get creative with giving this stuff away. We are getting this every week and we'll need to find some needy people. Anyone with any idea's hit me up.

See ya'll (in my best country twang) t'morrow!

What's in my Rotation

Some tunes I am really digging right now:

• Jeremy Camp - Unplugged
• Leeland - Count Me In
• Hillsong Untied - All of the Above
• David Crowder Band - Remedy
• Casting Crowns - The Altar and the Door
• Lincoln Brewster - Let the Praises Ring
• Reo Speedwagon - Greatest Hits

I know you're probably thinking. What the heck is Reo Speedwagon doing in this list it doesn't fit. Here's the deal. It seems like virtually every band practice our guitar player breaks into a Speedwagon song and so he has got me hooked on it. I am still really digging Leeland and I LOVE the Jeremy Camp unplugged Cd.

Mothers Day

Just want to tell everyone up front we have some really sweet mothers day gifts (and no, I did not pick them up at the Bass Pro Shop.) If you're not in church you'll be sorry. we might give you the left over presents....we might.

Pulling Together

This weekend we are going to hit week two of our marriage series. The message is called Pulling Together When You Feel Pulled Apart. In our world, everything pulls us apart from our spouse. TV, work, people, pressures, kids, conflict, and the list goes on and on.

The question for us is how do we learn to draw closer to our spouses while the world is pulling us apart. It's not an easy thing to do but if we want a healthy marriage we can't allow anything to get between us and our spouse. This weekend we'll learn a few trick for making that happen.

Shopping

Spent today doing some shopping for some of our upcoming events. Bought a massive amount of hot dogs, paper plates, and the like. Here is the funny thing. I had coffee cups on the list and a friend of the church (actually used to go to Real Life) called me up and asked if we wanted any coffee cups because the place he works was changing styles and he needed to get them out. Anyway, he gave us over 1000 cups. Talk about a sweet deal!

If you want to thank the business, buy a roast beef sandwich from Arbys! If you want to thank him specifically do it at the Arbys on Alexis by the old North Town Mall.

Thanks Greg!

Sunday Mind Dump

We had a great day today. We kicked off our iMarriage series and made a few changes around the place. The band sounded hotter than ever. I wish I could bottle that sound up and sell it we'd make a killing. Seriously they were good! I am not sure who gave her the recipe but those were some killer brownies Shelly. My goodness, I could get in serious trouble if I had a whole plate of those puppies sitting in front of me.

• Did I mention how good the band sounded today? Sweet!
• Finally got the right system for recording our stuff. Tony has done a killer job with that.
  
• Brownies. Really really really good brownies. Did I mention I liked the brownies? And yes, I have a real weakness for brownies.
• We are getting ready for phase 2 of our building plan. We are going to turn the look and feel of our place into more of a coffee house feel than we already have.
  
• Our kids teachers and workers are something else. They do a great job week in and week out.
  
• Next weekend is our parking lot sale. That is going to be big time fun. I am really looking forward to it. We are going to get to meet quite a few people in our neighborhood. Plus, anytime you put most of our people in one location you just know it's going to be fun. Or funny....either one!

Seriously a great start to a new month.

What's going on with me?

Ok....normally I get myself all psyched up for one message series at a time. I haven't even finshed writing all the messages for the iMarriage series (I have written 2 of 4) and had this overwhelming urge to sit down and write my message for our June One Prayer series.

Am I getting ahead of myself or what? Sometimes God just hits you and boom it all comes out. Which is not how he normally leads me in message prep. Usually I feel lead towards certain topics so I start gathering information and seeing what is out there that has already been written and said by people that are much better communicators that I am. As I am reading, God will reveal to me what to keep, what to ditch, and what to add to what I have found. Today was one of those days were it just all came out just sitting down with my computer and Bible and allowing GOd to speak........The good the bad and the ugly.

Sad thing is....quite often the best messages are a little ugly and you really don't want to know what we go through in putting them together. Quite often they are very painful for us pastors. We are reopening old wounds for ourselves and knowing many times we are going to open the wounds of others. Sometimes though, that's what it takes to bring healing for us and for you guys.