Building the BIG Mo'

How does one build momentum, big mo’? Dave Ramsey has a formula for building momentum. Ramsey believes that (Focused intensity / Time) * God = Momentum. Translation: Focused Intensity divided by Time multiplied by a Big God equals Momentum, (Fi/T)G=M. We see momentum building in our church. Our momentum is being built up by our events, our services, and our door hangers. The door hangers have done extremely well. So far we have done door hangers for the May, June, and July services. I cannot say they have done poorly because I believe that we’re in a seed scattering phase.

We should always scatter seeds but I recognize the season in which I find this young church. This phase will not produce immediate rewards, see Jesus’ parable of the sower. Some seeds will sprout immediately while others will not. The biggest question I need to answer is, What’s next? After our launch, what will be our way to continue to ride this momentum? Just like surfing, the wave can only go as far as the shore. Then you have to get on your board, ride back out, and catch another wave. I feel that door hangers are our wave. We will ride this puppy till the wheels fall off! Eventually, the wheels will fall off and I need to be ready to make some changes. I see the door hangers being effective during big times for our church. We really need to turn our attention to community involvement. It will be a slow process but focusing on the community needs is important in the kingdom of God.

One of the things I will do is have a meeting with the principal of our school. I want to talk with him about having an impact on the community and what are some ways he feels we can accomplish this. It will start out small and we have to be happy with that. The Bible exhorts us to despise not the days of small beginnings. I have been through small beginnings before. I remember the times I used to sit on my couch and gaze out the window waiting for people to show up for our small group. We overcame that! Now we have a small group of about 40 people. I find myself watching the window of the school and waiting to see who pulls up in the parking lot. Soon, I will no longer be doing that either. God will bring the people. We have to be confident in him and do our job at the same time. This is that tension in which we all live with. If there is no tension then you are doing it all yourself or you’re sitting by and expecting to do nothing while God does everything. God has given us the ideas for momentum. We walk in faith and to them. Then he works on our behalf! What an awesome God! Our God, is an awesome God!

Until next time…

Crossroads Vineyard Church

The Tyranny of Busyness

It has a few weeks since my last post. The tyranny of busyness has held me hostage again. I really need to work hard to make sure I break free and stay free. One of the ways to do this is through scheduling my time with the important things in my life. My family and I spent a week in the Pocono Mountains in Pennsylvania. It was a great week for us as a family. We were able to take a brief vacation, see some of the sites in Philadelphia, and spend some time together as a family. The speakers were great as usual. Rich Nathan, Lead Pastor of the Columbus Vineyard, did a phenomenal job speaking towards engaging our communities for Christ. I want this to be one of the hallmarks of our church.

What do you want your church to be known for? I think about this question a lot. I want Crossroads Vineyard to be known for a few things. One of which is being active in our community. I always wanted to be part of a church that did something in the community. It doesn’t have to be something extravagant or huge or anything like that. I just want a church that does something, anything in the community. When a church is active in the community it is putting the words of the Bible into action. Above all, I want Crossroads Vineyard to be known as a church that knows, understands, and lives out the Bible. I want our church to live out the faith we profess on Sunday throughout the week as well.

Until next time…

Crossroads Vineyard Church

The Beat Goes On...

We had another outreach this past weekend. We passed out cookies for all the males in honor of Father’s day. I always find it interesting and amusing that people always think there are strings attached to giveaways. Many guys seemed apprehensive at first. This says a lot about our society. We seem to think that nothing in this world is free. This may be the case for many things in our life but it is not a principle. Principles are timeless and remain the same regardless of the situation. I believe this is one of the issues with accepting Christ as Lord and Savior. In our minds there is always something for us to do in order to earn salvation or earn a gift. By the very nature of the word, gift assumes that something is given for free. Overall, the cookies were accepted by many guys. It was appreciated by a lot of them as well. It was good to see our team out in the community. We had more people than we needed but it was still good.

This past weekend also marked a milestone in our family. Our oldest daughter graduated from high school this past weekend and now will be looking at going to college. One down…three to go. Now, we need to focus on the last three. Isaiah, the youngest started school the same year our oldest graduated. That is interesting. I never thought about it until today.

Amazingly, the time between our services seems like it has taken forever. Time actually seemed to slow down this month. I feel like there are so many other things to do but I’m not too worried about it. Everything will be done in due time. We received our latest door hangers late last week. They came out exceptionally well. We are learning something new with each thing we do. I never claimed to know it all and this helps to take the pressure of me and the team. I view everything as a chance to learn something new. These door hangers have definitely been a learning experience. It has been a time of growth for me as well. This…my friends, is one of the biggest things that our church wants to be about…GROWTH! If you really want to grow in your faith then start taking leaps of faith for God. He wants to grow us. The question we need to ask ourselves is…how much do we want to grow?

Until next time…

Crossroads Vineyard Church

Week in Review...

Last week I spent three days in Chicago learning how to conduct multiethnic conference type workshops. Overall the training was pretty informative but the major event that happened during the training was talking to the National Church Plant Director for the association of churches that I belong to. It was great talking to someone who has a wealth of experience and knowledge in the subject of church planting.

Our church’s inaugural Clean the Bay Day effort went really well. We have about 17 people show up to help clean up Birchwood Malibu Park. I got to the site around 8:30 and it was HOT already. We spent about an hour on the effort. I was really happy to spend the time cleaning up. It is our job as Christ followers to make sure we take care of our community. A great way I have found to do that is by taking advantage of events like Clean the Bay Day. The next community clean up type event I will look into may be Adopt-A-Park.

This weekend we will do a cookie outreach to guys for Father’s Day. The last outreach we did for Mother’s Day went really well. We pray for the same amount of results this time as well. Many kids will graduate this weekend also. The city of Virginia Beach will have tons of new graduates this Saturday. My eldest daughter Katherine will be one of those graduates.

As we move into the summer months, I need to start focusing on two things for the church: 1) funding and 2) the community letter. The community letter will be put together as a result of doing a survey in the community. I feel if I can survey at least 100 people about church and their attendance then that may be enough to draft some ideas about how we will serve our community. A big part of starting a church is funding. Churches in America cannot be started without money. This is a fact that cannot be changed. We have done really well in the early stages by using our tithes and offerings. I heard it said before that funds follow the vision. I have seen this ring true in our church thus far. We have a very faithful team that are 100% sold out on the vision. As the old saying goes, “Where God guides, he provides!”

Until next time…

Crossroads Vineyard Church

Something to say about ministry

Another week down and we’re one step closer to launching this new church. The ride has been great. Our team is growing in unity which is always nice to have. I have a very busy weekend ahead of me. I have a wedding to officiate, a Comeback Event to attend, and a flight to get ready to take. I will be flying to Chicago and driving to Evanston, IL for a multiethnic conference facilitator training. It should be good. Hopefully, I will have some time to talk to the National Church Plant Director about securing funds for this new church. In America, things take money…a new church is no different.

I learned something interesting and very important this week. Ministry is a series of highs and lows that occur throughout the week and the day. I realized this after our Launch team meeting this past Wednesday. We had some great news from one couple and it was equally exciting to see our team reach out to each other in times of need. We have two families that are moving on the same day. So, both of them will require some help to move. It was awesome to see our team step up to the plate. One family needed a place to live and another family offered to rent out their town home. Of course, none of this is accidental or coincidental. It is purposed by design.

In the midst of all this stuff going on after the meeting, I realized that this is what ministry should be about. I also realized that times like these are short lived because the very next moment could be filled with tragedy. I know this is a slight embellishment but people’s complaints and so called critiques can really hurt. The complaints and the critiques are where the lows come in. It doesn’t always have to be about complaints or critiques either. Many times it is our selfishness that brings on the lows in our lives. My goal is not to run or hide from the lows and seek only the highs. My goal is to manage both. Too many lows can lead to depression. Too many highs can lead to an unrealistic (rose colored) view of ministry. I strive to maintain a balance where I don’t get too high but celebrate and don’t get too low but find the teachable moment.

In reality, ministry is messy because ministry is about people. We are all broken vessels that need the mending of our heavenly Father through Jesus Christ (Is. 61). Until next time…

Crossroads Vineyard Church

Moving Along as Planned...

Well it’s been a long time since I posted to this blog…again! I need to post more than once every six to eight months. There has been a lot of stuff going on since my last post. We have had our first, second, and third monthly services. Our first service was on Easter. It was a great service! I was moved to tears when I saw parts of my vision coming to fruition. It was definitely a God moment. I can take no credit for the work I haven’t done. I have only been obedient to the call and doing the work I am supposed to do.

We are doing the launch process to start this church. The launch process involves doing monthly preview services. Our attendance has been pretty decent. We are not adding to our numbers daily like the early church but we are definitely adding to our team. I have set a prayer goal of 60 adults on our launch team for our launch service. This is a very large team and with the help of God we can accomplish this goal. Our Comeback Events (opportunities for people to hear the vision of the church) have not had great attendance but we continue to move in the path God is leading us. My wife, Tina, and I are looking at doing a mid-course evaluation of the way the launch process has been going. This evaluation should allow us to make mid-course corrections as necessary.

We have already touched one life with our new church. The custodian responsible for opening and closing the building for us has started to attend our services. I had been praying about this but had not spent a lot of time on it. Well, she seemed to be ready to hear from God! I was expecting months or years of prayer. I pray everyone is open to God like that but the reality is that some people will require lots of prayer. I need to be ready to dig in and pray for a long time for some folks. Our church is about touching lives. If we are not touching lives then we are not doing the very thing our Heavenly Father has called us to do.

Members of our team went to Transethnic Transitions Conference at New Life Providence last week. It was truly a great experience. There is a move of God to return the church back to being multiethnic. If a church planter doesn’t have multiethnicity in at least a part of their vision for a new church then, in my humble opinion, they are missing the very heart of God and the call of our society. I will make polarizing statements like this from time to time. But at times there is a need for me to be polarizing, this is one of them. The church should always be the head and not the tail. This means we should be leading society and not following it. Too many times the church has to play catch up. We are doing it again when it comes to a multiethnic worship experience and church. God’s heart has always been for an integrated church. Does this mean that monoethnic churches are ungodly? NO! It is sort of like looking at the Jerusalem church and the church in Antioch. Both churches were godly but the Jerusalem church was made up primarily of Jews. So they were only exposed to the Jewish culture. While the church in Antioch was multicultural and they experienced life in a church where there were many cultures. These many different cultures capture the fullness of God. God is not the God of the Jews only. God is not the God of the gentiles only. In today’s vernacular it would look like this. God is not the God of the whites only. God is not the God of the blacks only. God is not the God of the Hispanics only. God is not the God of the Asians only. ETC…ETC…ETC! I hope you get my drift. God is the God of all nations. Isaiah 56:6-7 says, “And foreigners who bind themselves to the LORD to serve him, to love the name of the LORD, and to worship him, all who keep the Sabbath without desecrating it and who hold fast to my covenant – these I will bring to my holy mountain and give them joy in my house of prayer. Their burnt offerings and sacrifices will be accepted on my altar; for my house will be called a house of prayer for all nations” (emphasis added). Foreigners worshipping along side of the Jews were unheard of in Isaiah’s day. God was setting a new standard for worship. His standard for worship would be an integrated worship experience.

Our next service will be June 29^th. I really look forward to this service because I will be setting the foundation of being a giving church. I want us to be the church that is known for giving up everything for the cause of Christ. It all starts with me and my family. We have always made huge sacrifices but we cannot hold on to our old sacrifices. Our Heavenly Father wants to stretch us more and more. He wants to grow our faith. I’m glad that he loves us enough not to just let us stay where we are. He wants us to move as he moves. He wants to grow us to be perfect (mature) in Christ. One way for him to grow us is through our finances. We truly show our maturity in how we handle our finances. It doesn’t matter if it is tithing, giving, or spending. I believe our bank account can be a great indicator of our spiritual condition. It can show if we’re patient or if we have to spend every dime as soon as we get it. It also shows if we have made good or bad decisions. It shows how disciplined we are and so forth. Many people wonder why the church talks about money. The church talks about money because in our society money plays a huge role in our lives. It makes a big difference in our marriages, our family, and our personal lives. So, if money were not talked about in church then we would be doing the community a huge disservice because we would not be talking about one of the things that affect so much of their lives.

I have put it in my schedule to blog more frequently. As of right now I have it scheduled to post a new blog on Saturdays. I may blog at other times as well but at a minimum Saturday will be my day. Until next time…keep leaning hard into your Heavenly Father because there is nothing too big or too small for him to handle!

Crossroads Vineyard Church