Forgiveness: Say What?

This year we are doing a Christmas series called Christmas is... The theme of the series is that Christmas is a time when we should be seeking forgiveness from those we have hurt and offering forgiveness to those who have hurt us.

As I sat down over the last few weeks to work on these messages I got to thinking about something. When it comes to Judging people we have different standards. For, example:

• We judge other people by their actions.
• We want to be judged by our intentions.

Think about those for a second. We judge others by what they do and we want to be judged by our intentions. If we didn't mean to hurt someone then they shouldn't have taken what we said in a hurtful manner right?

Wrong. We need to realize that this runs both ways. Other people are judging you by your actions and themselves by their intentions. Remember that the next time someone is hurt by something you have said or done. That will make it easier to go to them and ask for their forgiveness.

Sunday Night Mind Dump

We had a decent service today. Music was a little rough it was almost like the band was fighting each other over the tempo. The message seemed to go over well. I saw a lot of people nodding along with me and laughing at the funny points....which is nice!

• Went and looked at a possible new location today. It's nice and looks like it might be a fit. Now the hard part getting the money stuff to work out for us. They are within a few hundred dollars of where we are at the YMCA so it's going to be close!
• I love our people. Every week I see them stepping up in a bigger and bigger way.
• My wife really puts up with a lot. It's tough to lead a worship band anyway. Let alone being the only female. She tolerates a lot of boyish behavior and jokes. Everyone should thank her!
• Last month was our second largest month in terms of giving. That is so cool, not because we think dollars equal success but because we have been self-funded from day one and God just keeps providing for our needs.
• Martha is doing a killer job with the kids. They all have their Bible memory verses down and keep coming up to people quoting them. The kids really love what she has done with that ministry.
• We still REALLY need to find a couple more singers. Ideally a guy who could sing lead and a girl who could sing harmony would give us everyone we need.
• I am really pumped about where we are as a church and where we are going.

Church planting is a huge rush! I can't imagine doing anything else in ministry. I love just watching God bring people in as we need them.

Church Planting

I read a new study put out by Ed Setzer today and I have to say if it's accurate it rocked my church planting world! His group did a study of church planting over the last ten years and they really made some sense of what most church planters are looking at. First off, according to the numbers the days of being able to send out some mailers and see large amounts of people show up are over. I can echo that. We have seen slightly less than a 1% return on them. For example if we mail out 20,000 mailers we'd see fewer than 20 people show up......for most churches the return rate is 1/3% meaning they'll see about 4-5 people per 20,000 mailers. What they were getting at is that unless God does something supernatural you can plan on growing slower than churches that were planted 15 years ago. I am feeling really good about were we are BTW!

Here are some other factoids I picked up from the study:

• The average church plant sees 10 conversions/baptisms it's first year.
• Most church plants are running under 100 people after 4 years
• Most church plants are just getting to the point where they are financially self sufficient at the 4 year mark.
• The success rate for new church plants is much higher than it was 15 years ago.

I won't tell you exactly where we are on all this yet other than to say we are beating their numbers in every area! If you want details you'll have to be at our vision 2008 service the last Sunday in December.

Writing

Doing some writing this week for the next month of messages. It's really interesting at times how God works. I get an idea about where God wants to go with something and it's not until I actually sit down and start writing does it all come out. Today was one of those days. We have some good stuff coming up soon!

Roller Coaster Week

This sure has been one of those roller coaster weeks. Very busy and all over the page in terms of emotions. As a church we are all in shock over the loss of Shelly's son TJ. We are getting ready for the funeral, in fact, I just finished the message for that. That message was one of the hardest things I have ever sat down to write. I do think that God is going to use it in some really powerful ways. In fact, it might just be my best work in ministry. How many times can you say that about a funeral message?

On the exciting side we are prepping for our Christmas series. April is getting all the new songs ready and the band will start working them out tomorrow night. For Christmas, we are doing a candlelight service that is going to be un-plugged. We'll just a guitar, a bass, and a couple of voices. I have also been thinking about doing communion as well. It's tough to do communion in a seeker friendly church for a whole host of reasons. We'll see if God gives me the Green light on that one.

Our message series is called Christmas is.... and it's all about forgiving those who have hurt us. Going to others and seeking forgiveness for our wrongs and Learning to forget what has happened in our past. I am looking forward to it. The My Secrets series was awesome but very heavy and this will be a much needed break for me personally!

Sunday mind dump

A pretty solid day at church today. We ran our first video lesson from Lifechurch.tv. I'd like to get some feedback from our people to see how they liked it. We have the opportunity to do more of that. In fact, we could go as far as becoming a network church that uses their materials every week or we could just use them now and then as a change of pace. We will be using them at least two more times with the kickoff of our series on personal finances in January.

• Music went well today. I did make one boo boo that the band will hound me about at every practice from now until the rapture. I played a song in the wrong key. I get ahead of myself and do it all the time during practice. Today was the first time I have ever done it during a service.
• People seemed to enjoy My Secrets. I really think it was much needed and several people told me how much they needed to hear some of the things we talked about.
  
• I want to thank everyone who gave a testimony during My Secrets. I know it can be tough and you really helped make the series a success.
• I missed small group tonight. I love getting together with God's people and fellowshipping. There isn't much of anything better church wise!
• We had some technology safus today with the TV and video stuff. Gotta love it. A big thank you to Tony Trezzo our resident Geek Squad go to guy.
• I pastor one of the coolest churches ever. I love this job!
• People are really starting to get into the worship more. I see more and more people singing and worshiping than when we first started. How cool is that?

On a tragic note. One of our members lost a son to a suicide today. At times like this there is nothing you can say or do to make a person feel better. We can only pray and offer to hold a hand. Right now, I'd ask everyone to pray. There are a ton of people hurting and asking a lot of questions tonight that there are no answers to. Just pray.

What am I thankful for?

I just wanted to take a second and tell everyone some of the things I am thankful for.

• I have awesome family. A great wife and two really great kids.
• I get to lead the greatest bunch of people I have every met @ Real Life.
• God blesses me over and over again even though I don't deserve it.
• I live in a place where we are free to worship as we choose.

Most of you will never know it but I thank God everyday for everyone that is a part of my life!