A Shift In My Thinking

Well, that time of the year is upon us. It's the Easter season and many church leaders are expecting lots of people to check out their churches. Many of us are spending a ton of money to put on a huge production. Will you reach our goals? Are you going to be effective?

Yesterday, I read a blog by Tony Morgan that talked about reaching people at Easter. He pondered whether we're really reaching the unchurched. I've served in the church for over ten years now. During that time, I have never thought about this question. Are we really reaching the unchurched? I just assumed that we were reaching people who don't go to church because our auditorium was full.

Morgan maintains that we are probably reaching the churched and people who are already connected to our churches. I will have to pay more attention this Easter. I want to see if we're really reaching people who don't go to church. I don't want to be the kind of church leader who assumes that we're being effective because we have full auditorium. In my mind we're ineffective if we have a room full of people from other churches. Jesus didn't call us to recycle, he called us to disciple.

What do you think about Morgan's blog? Is he accurate in his assessment? How will you pay more attention to people who show up this Easter?

You Play To Win The Game

"You play to win the game!" is now a legendary soundbite in the sports world. Then NY Jets coach, Herman Edwards, went on a tirade about playing and winning football games. These words echoed in my mind as I traveled home on Sunday after church.

Our male youth leader, Michael Coffin, preached on Sunday and did an excellent job of preparing people for our prayer ministry part of our service. All of our prayer teams were busy praying for people. We had people who haven't come up in a long time. We even had a few people who were 1st timers that got prayer. The song the band sang coupled with the message made our ministry an encounter with God.

Here's the tie in! We don't do Sunday service just to do Sunday service. We used to do that but not anymore. Our Sunday service has a purpose. We want people to encounter God every Sunday through music, the arts, multimedia, and a biblical message. All the elements in our service are designed to lead people into the ministry time. The ministry time is the high point of our service because this is everyone's opportunity to respond to their encounter with God. We 'win' when there are people responding by coming up to receive prayer. The 'win' tells us when we're successful. Everyone wants to be on a winning team!

Sunday was a win for the CRV corporate worship service. We play to win the game!

If you're a pastor or church leader, what's the purpose of your corporate gathering? How do you know when you're successful? If you're in the business world, how do you know when you're successful in meetings? Do your meetings have a purpose? Do you spend a lot of time wondering why your in a meeting?

Leading With 20/20 Vision

I really enjoy hearing someone else clearly articulate my thoughts. I just finished listening to some audio from the Andy Stanley Leadership Podcast. The talk was about communicating your vision convincingly. Two of the three points I already incorporate into my leading with vision.





The three points were:

Define the problem you vision will solve (CHECK)

State your vision as the solution (CHECK)

Answer the questions: Why us? & Why now? (NEEDS IMPROVEMENT)

By nature I'm a problem solver, a troubleshooter. You can call me crazy, but I get a natural high from solving problems. So the first two points come naturally. Unfortunately, I never think about asking those last two questions. People have to see why they need to be part of the solution and why the problem needs to be solved now. It's important to get them to feel the burden of the problem. This is one of the few times when feeling a burden for something is a good thing. Bill Hybels calls it holy discontent; which at its simplest level is no more than having a burden to fix a problem. Of course, the assumption is that your burden is God-driven and not man-driven or just plain ol' bellyaching.

When I followed the first two points, I saw amazing results. The last time I remember doing this well, is when we launched our first membership class last year. I did a message about church membership.

Problem: It's not good for man to be alone

Solution: God has adopted us into his family

Needless to this was our highest attended membership class. It also helped that it was our first but the point was made.

Recently, we placed more emphasis on our prayer ministry time at the end of our service. I don't think I stated the problem or the solution well enough. It's something that I will need to work on. I'm also looking at some changes in our Life Group structure. Its time to put into practice the things I have learned.

Casting vision has a lot to do with change. People don't like change and rarely see a need to changed. This is why communicating your vision is so important.

Are you a problem solver or a goal setter? (According to Bob Biehl most leaders fit into one of these two categories.) How do you cast vision convincingly? What tips would you give someone who is about to cast their vision?

Lights, Camera, Action!!!!!

Yesterday I got the opportunity to do a camera interview for the Virginia Beach City Public School system. The interview was related to our work with Salem Elementary School. Last year because of our work with Salem we were asked to become a Partner In Education. We humbly accepted even this invitation. Our invite marked a second step in our ever growing relationship with Salem.

The purpose of the interview was for us to tell what we do for Salem, why we do it, and tell others about getting involved. We do work for Salem because we want to be active in our community. It's important for us meet the needs of our community. We meet these needs spiritually, physically, and emotionally. We decided before we can meet needs spiritually and emotionally, we need to meet physical needs. Meeting physical needs helps to build our relationships and it builds trust. Jesus modeled this wherever he went. He didn't only meet spiritual and emotional needs, he met physical needs as well.

Our philosophy is pretty simple. If you want to really impact a community for the long haul, then reach out towards the children and youth. They have their whole lives ahead of them. It's like brand new candle versus a candle that only has 1/2" of wax left. You can guess which one is the child and which one is the adult. Our aim is to put life back into our community by impacting our community's children and youth. Help us to make this impact.

What is your long term plan to put life back into your community? Who are you intentionally trying to reach and meet their physical needs?

Doing Life

One of the biggest reasons why we place a high priority on Life Groups in Crossroads Vineyard is because we know the power of community. God said early in the Bible, "It's not good for man to be alone." This was the first time He said something wasn't good.

In our groups you get the opportunity to read the Bible, learn about the essentials of the Christian faith, and grow deeper relationships with people in the church. Many times people come to a group not knowing what to expect but they leave feeling connected to others.

There's a connection through like thought or like experiences or even like attitudes or like upbringing. You simply can't duplicate this on Sunday mornings. Don't get me wrong...Sundays are important to the life of the church but it's limited. It's hard to go deeper on Sunday. But during the week we can go deeper. We can get our relational needs met. We can get others to pray for our seemingly bleak situations.

I will always advocate being in a small group of people to share my life with!

Cluster Group...What's That?

Last year I read a book called The Big Idea by Dave Ferguson, Jon Ferguson, Eric Bramlett. It wast a very good book, I highly recommend to it to church leaders. After reading the book, I found that we already do a lot of the stuff in the book. This was a huge sigh of relief. Then I began to ponder the idea of going full steam with the Big Idea concept. Then I ran across a guest contributor to the book Hank Brooks of Coastal Community Church. I was overjoyed that he was in Virginia Beach as well.

I met with him and began to discuss the concept of the Big Idea. After some time he invited me to check out a cluster group for church planters. I couldn't have been more excited to accept such an invitation. Last week I went to the cluster group and thoroughly enjoyed it. For me it was an answer to prayer. I was already praying for some kind of coaching/mentorship. God used the Big Idea to lead me to this group.

I know your wondering, "What exactly is a cluster group?" I got the same question when I posted on Facebook that I was at a cluster group. Here's what the group is in a nutshell. It's a group of pastors, church planters and established churches, who come together once a month for teaching, lunch, accountability, idea sharing, and coaching. The teaching is based on the homework, a book, from the previous month.

In our first meeting we had the teaching and then we did introductions. Our homework is reading Effectiveness By The Numbers by William Hoyt. This has been an excellent read. I can't wait to discuss this book later this month. MAN!! This is a serious answer to prayer!!

The accountability consists of four questions:

How are you doing as a person?

How is your relationship with Jesus going?

How is your ministry going?

How is your marriage doing?

This is a closed, confidential group and what gets said there, stays there!! As a man, it can be hard to share this kind of things out fear of being seen as weak. The confidentiality is important.

Thank you Lord for this blessing in my life. You continue to give me what I need, when I need it!

As a leader in the church or marketplace, how are you doing in those four areas above? You don't have to share here but at least begin to think about these questions. Where do you look for mentorship/coaching and accountability in your life?

Moving Into The Next Chapter

We finally had our first formal leadership meeting. We've had launch team meetings and Life Group leaders meetings but never a leadership meeting. This first meeting served as an opportunity for us to let people know what leadership means to us and how we see leadership in our church context.

We base our leadership on the following three (3) principles:

Leadership is a stewardship

Leadership is temporary

We are accountable to God for how we lead


Anyone familiar with Andy Stanley knows these are the principles he teaches for leadership. These three principles break leadership down to its simplest form. Leadership opportunities and authority are given to us from God. He establishes leadership and authority in our world. He uses this leadership and authority to perform his will in our world. Since, leadership is given to us, it can be taken from us. He gives and takes away! Additionally, we move on to other things while this leadership journey. Its imperative that we never leave leadership voids in our ministries. We should look for our replacement from day 1! Finally, since leadership is given to us by God we're held accountable for the way we lead. In everything we do in this life, we're going to be held accountable to God and the gift of leading others is no different.

What leadership principles guide your life? How is God using your leadership gift to impact his Kingdom? What are some characteristics you look for in leaders?

In God We Trust

I really wish this were true. You may think that I'm going to talk about the state of our society in America in reference to this statement. You may think I'm going to talk about keeping this statement on our coins. However, I'm not going to talk about either of these things. Instead of looking outward on this statement let's look inward.

Let's start by changing the statement to 'In God I Trust.' Then let's ask the following question: Is this REALLY true in my life? When I take away the lip service and the cool (not really that cool), catchy (not really that catchy) but highly overused (this is definitely true) Christian slogans, what is left? Are the slogans merely something that's printed on the front of my T-shirt? Or is it actually a part of my life? Are the slogans merely words to play Buzz Word Bingo so I can impress my friends at church? Or do I really living these slogans out?

I love asking myself questions like these. Questions like these, when answered honestly, can help me to grow by leaps and bounds. Answering them dishonestly really limits my opportunity for growth. I have come to the conclusion that I don't trust God very much. This is evident by my actions, not my words. I may sing songs about trusting God and talk to my friends about trusting God but the true evidence is found in my actions.

Over the past few years, my trust in the Lord has been tested by the fires of starting a new church. About 6 months after going to weekly services in September '08, I lost my 'other' job. This was the job that helped to pay the bills and take care of my family. It allowed the church to have 0 on the payroll. This job represented my way to take care of myself and my family. That's not a bad thing unless I begin to rely on myself and not God. After losing my job, I felt like I was placing too much trust in myself and not enough in God. This job also helped us to build up some savings. Now, I find it a little hard to touch those savings. Recently, I discussed this with God and got that feeling that I'm back to relying on the savings instead of Him.

So, it seems that I need to start taking risks again. NO RISK...NO REWARD!! (This is better slogan!)Its time to start placing my trust in the ONE and not myself. Risks always require faith. More importantly, risks always require trust. My trust won't grow unless I take more risks.

What are your thoughts about the questions above? How do you measure up on the trusttest? In what ways are you being asked to trust more? In what areas of your life do you need to build up more trust?

Immovable Objects

Are we willing to move when God says move? Church planting is an endeavor where you really find out what people are made of. Personally, I think it shows how much we're willing to be obedient to God and the call he has to reach people who don't have a personal relationship with him. There's the planter and their family (if they have one) that is given the call. Then of course there is the team of people that the planter tries to gather. Everyone involved has to have a heart totally set on God.

A heart set on God lives in tents not houses. The writer of Hebrews says in the "Hall of Faith" chapter that Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob all lived in tents. The casual reader would pass over this statement without thinking twice about what this means. The patriarchs of our faith lived in tents. A tent can be torn down just as quickly as it can be set up. Let's call it tent-living. Tent-living means we set up shop where God tells us to. But when he tells us to move, then we can move. Tent-living means that we can uproot ourselves when God calls us to move on. This is one of the reasons why I hold folks who are willing to move across the country to start a church in such high regard. I admire their team members even more. I'm usually their biggest cheerleaders, pom-poms and all!

Tent-living is only metaphorical. Does that mean we shouldn't buy houses? ... NO! We should buy houses. We should attempt to root ourselves in our community. However, we don't get so firmly rooted that we're unwilling to move when God calls us to move. By the way, this includes leaving one church to start another one. In my opinion, this is one of the only few reasons someone should leave their church.

What are your thoughts about tent-living? Are you REALLY willing to move when God says move?

How Goes The War?

So, how goes the war? This is a common question I want to ask fellow church planters and pastors. Unfortunately, I don't ask it because I feel that it may be taken out of context and I will have to explain what I mean by the question. So here's what I mean by that question.

The Bible is pretty clear that we're in a war. This war has been going on since sin entered our world. God said that there would be conflict between the woman's and serpent's offspring. Scholars also consider the ten plagues against the Egyptians to be God's attack on their false gods. Job experienced an attack on his faith. The angel Michael reported that he was being held up by the 'dark side.' Jesus entered our world and did battle with disease, sin, death, and demons. Paul talks about spiritual battles. John in Revelation speaks of a final war. There seems to be an overarching theme of war in the Bible.

By asking, how goes the war? I'm asking, are you winning or are you losing spiritual war that is going on around us all the time? Are you advancing the kingdom of God into the dark places of your city and community? Are you pushing back the gates of hell in your city? Are people experiencing life change through meeting corporately on Sunday and throughout the week in Life Group? Are you seeing people healed spiritually, physically, and emotionally?

Let's get personal. Are you winning the war with your mind (pornography and other sexually explicit material)? Are you winning the war with your mouth? (or are you letting your words fly without much thought about the consequences.)

So, how goes the war? Are you winning or losing? If you feel like you losing then remember that you're on the winning team. Don't ever forget this! Also...let me know how I can pray for you!! We're in this war together. I GOT YOUR BACK!!

It's Complicated!!

Question: Are you in a relationship? Answer: It's complicated! That seems to be the popular response nowadays amongst people who are in relationships. I'm not sure when, where, or even why this answer was used but I find it pretty interesting.

We were created for relationships (friendships, dating, & marriage) with each other. I wonder if we are complicating our relationships. Are we making our relationships, especially dating relationships, more complicated than they need to be? I think we are.

I wasn't raised in church. Therefore, I wasn't taught that sex is more than a physical encounter. I wasn't taught that sex was more than an activity. As I look back on my life one question comes to mind. Has my life been easier or more complicated as a result of premarital sex? Of course, my answer would be the latter and not the former.

Truthfully, we don't need to believe that the Bible is true to know that premarital or extra marital sex doesn't make our lives easier. All you have to do is look at your life and ask the same question. All you have to do is look at our society and ask if it's making marriages last longer. There's a whole list of questions that can be asked about our society. I doubt very many of them would be answered positively.

When we reflect on our current culture we can easily see that our sex has made our lives more complicated. Tiger Woods would be a prime example. One of the world's most adored athlete's life was brought down in flames because of extra marital sex. If Woods were to answer our question, what do you think he would say? I doubt he would say that his life is easier. If this causes the break up of his family then this will affect him in the later stages of his life.

The Woods story is just one of many that have surfaced over the years. Unfortunately, we don't see that sex before marriage doesn't make our lives more complicated now. In most cases it affects us in later stages of our lives. What we do or did in our teens, twenties, and thirties can come back to haunt us in twenties, thirties, forties, fifties, and even sixties.

Sex within God's design can be truly amazing. His design was for us to enjoy sex within the context of a committed relationship called marriage. God's design for sex was not for the context of a complicated relationship called dating or friend with benefits. His idea for sex was show how a man and a woman can create an intimate connection through a physical activity. The act of sex begins with the physical connection and then it extends to a spiritual, emotional, and mental connection. It's the deepest connection we can make with the opposite sex.

Life gets complicated when we make these connections with many different people. It's very hard to break these connections or bonds once they are formed. We carry this bonds into our future relationships. We call this relational baggage. Hurts or pain from past relationships is the reason we guard ourselves in new relationships. Each connection we make outside of marriage causes our intimacy factor for our spouse to become lower and lower and lower. If you're married and are struggling with an intimate connection with your spouse, then premarital sex may be the reason. Again, our lives were affected in a different stage of our lives. Unfortunately, it is affecting the marriage stage of our lives.

At least this has been my experience in life. What has been your experience? Has sex before marriage made your life easier or more complicated?

So....I Was Reading 'Blogging for Dummies'

The "(Fill in the Blank) for Dummies" books are all the rave. Only can a book legitimately call us dummies and we still pay money for it. I figured reading this book would help me with this whole blogging thing. My main problem with blogging isn't topics or content. I mean...God is doing so much in my life that I have tons of things to talk about. My main problem is being a full time student.

Please...allow me to explain. I'm no longer in college but taking online classes for has had a major impact on how I write on the Net. Online classes require you to make posts and respond to other student's posts. Usually, I had to respond to at least two other people. I also had to respond to the people who responded to me. Furthermore, I had to add quotes from the textbook or outside sources. Of course this also meant adding footnotes in the MLA or Turabian style. I love schooling!! I'm one of the biggest proponents of education. Unfortunately, though...my experience with online classes has seeped into my blogosphere world.

My problem is spending too much proofing the blog. Checking and double checking my references. Sometimes I even want to add footnotes. I know this may be a little overboard but let's face it. I'm a knowledge hound...I'm the kind of guy that hated to be sick because I would miss a day of school. This side of me has made blogging very difficult because I spend too much on them. I don't had have the bandwidth to spend a lot of time writing a blog.

Recently, I heard a friend quote her husband as saying, "If I can't write a blog in 15 minutes then I'm not going to do it!" Now I must fight the urge to annotate my quote!! :-)

That being said...it's time to take his philosophy for blogging. If it takes too long then I won't do it! I simply don't have the time. However, if I really keep it to a certain time limit then this can be a great experience for me and hopefully for you!! Therefore, some blogs won't be grammatically accurate. Some will have misspellings but I will make every effort to clean all that up before I post. Until next time!!

Microwable Upon Request

It took Coach John Wooden 15 years to win his first NCAA Men's Basketball championship at UCLA. Once he figured out how to win, his teams were unstoppable. Would he be allowed to develop his program into perennial winners in our society today? I seriously doubt it. Most coaches get about 3 to 4 years to turn their programs around. If it doesn't happen during that time, then it is time to move on to another coach. In our 'want it now', microwable culture we expect results now. If Coach Wooden were to coach now, he would be given three years and he'd be out of there!!

Patience is a virtue that we've lost in our fast paced world. We're not patient with our children, we're not patient in when dining, we're not patient with people in our lives, and we're not patient with our spiritual growth.

It's important to remember the Christian life is a series of decisions and not merely one decision. It's a journey not a destination. The journey will have some highs and some lows. Personally, I try to be even keeled. I try not to get too high or go too low!! In those lows our patience will be tested. Will we trust God enough to ride through the lows? Will we take the reigns ourself and guide our own life? Abraham is a great character to study for this topic. God made him a promise. He took matters into his own hands. He got it wrong. God was still there for him. He still received his promise. "So after waiting patiently, Abraham received what was promised." Heb. 6:15

I encourage you to wait patiently. Don't take matters into your own hands. Do the things that you can control. Leave everything else to God.

Community: Bounded-Set v. Centered-Set

At a church plant boot camp, I was reminded of how many Vineyard churches prefer to “do” church and build community. The speaker talked about bounded-set versus centered-set. Many leaders wish to lead churches that are the latter but unfortunately they end up being the former.

By bounded-set I mean a community where everyone has to conform to a set of standards or boundaries (if you will) in order to belong. The phrase “You have to believe ABC before you belong to our community” comes to mind. Not only does the would be family member have to believe in ABC they also have to exhibit XYZ lifestyle. In his book, Doing Church, Alexander Venter states this organizational form produces a “rigid, control-driven society.” These types of communities use the letter of the law to control who becomes a member and who gets to play. There are strict guidelines on who’s on the inside and who’s on the outside. There’s a we versus they mentality. Finally, the bounded-set community keeps itself pure and untainted by a sense of what’s right and what’s wrong.

By centered-set I mean a community where everyone is accepted according to a set of values. The set of values are in the center of concentric circles. These values can be different from group to group. However, everyone knows where the group is going or called to. The phrase “You can belong to our community before you believe everything we believe” comes to mind. In this type of community one question gets asked about would be family members. Where are they going? Are they going toward the center of the set where are values are? Everyone gets to play in this community. Everyone gets to exercise their gifts, knowledge, skills, and abilities for their heavenly Father.

In the Vineyard, Jesus Christ is in the center of our set. We simply want to know whether or not you are going towards Christ or away from Christ. Your life doesn’t have to be perfect. You don’t have to get ‘cleaned up’ before you can belong. As long as you’re moving towards Jesus, then let’s enjoy the ride together because we’re all on this ride for the long haul.

This kind of view on community is very hard to live out. You’ll always have your pharisees in the family that want to point out other’s faults and issues. At times, I even struggle with pointing out faults and issues. However, I’m always reminded of the things Jesus did and said in the Gospels. In fact, I read through the Gospels every Summer so I can be reminded about Jesus’ ministry. Additionally, you’ll always have your naysayers that will call us demon-possessed, drunkards, and a friend of sinners. Which can’t be all that bad since they said the same thing about Jesus!

Let's Sharpen Our Minds By Reading

Here's my book list for the rest of the year. I chose five topics: theology, leadership, church history, best practices, and relationship development. My goal is to read two books a month for the next six months. My challenge is for you to think about the different areas of your life and select books to read. Some may be fiction while others may be non-fiction. Additionally, set a goal for how many books you want to read over the next six months.

• Minister’s MBA
• Surprised By Hope
• The Perfect Leader
• Breakthrough
• Money Matters in Church
• Developing the Leader Within You
• Martin Luther Bio
• The Big Idea
• Contrarian Guide to Leadership
• His Needs, Her Needs
• Gracism
• unChristian

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