Near and Far Faith

I'm purposefully taking a lazy family day today. Tate slept until almost nine (thought the rapture might have come - kids first). Food shopping is the only thing on our to-do list today.

It was a long week that started with Charm City and I feel like I barely saw my family. It's too easy to let the passion of ministry seep though your life into every part. I'm a very strong believer in keeping parts of your life ministry-free, ministry-absent. The church doesn't rise and fall on me. But my family does.

Lesson 4: Humility is neccesary for any ministry. Saturday night as we hung out in Tent City, Colleen, Crystal and I went over to an elderly lady on a bench. After giving her some food, we asked her if we could pray for her and as we finished she began to pray for us. Not that you can tell for certain, but when she prayed I could sense that she was saved. She had prayed before - she was honest and knew God by the way she talked to Him.

She prayed for me and you know what, I needed it as much as she did. We get so haughty as Christians - like because we know God we're better people (I'm not even going to get into spinning basketballs). Here sat on a bench at midnight in the part of Baltimore that you might visit with your family, someone that I'll know for eternity. Next time I ask God why he's doing what He's doing, I'll be grateful that I'm not asking "Why did you take my home and family away."

I'm not better because I'm saved. The simple difference between me and a pre-christian is that I know what my purpose is and I'm living to accomplish it. And even that gets hairy sometimes. Everyone should get prayed for by a homeless person once in their lives

I finished episode 4 of The Little Big Church Podcast today with the interview I talked about last week - Ben Arment. Ben is the former pastor of Reston Community Church and has a passion for seeing churches succeed from the start. Check out his blog here and listen to the podcast at littlebigchurchpodcast.com (or slack off and click the link to the right under "pages").

Lesson 3: Change your stereotypes. I've had some nasty ones - Catholics, Assembly of God, I'll stop there. Our stereotypes are formed so quickly and blindly that we never throw a thought to the hearts of the people within them. I was reminded of this on our trip down on Friday as the guys, that were riding with me, told me all about homeless people, from their years of experience, of course. Everything they new was from either TV or a 4 second encounter in Philly. I couldn't get upset - I've done the same thing numerous times.

The cool thing was seeing God move through our experiences. Saturday night we went to find all the homeless people we could to just give them what we had - pizza from the night before, candy, fruit and vegetables. What startled me was that Colleen and Crystal (I'm sure a spelled that wrong) the two girls we worked with all weekend, would go and do this on their free time. They new some of their names and right where to go to find them. I wanted God to change the stereotypes that the students had, and He came through. At Tent City, a refuge of sorts in the courtyard of a catholic church, they met a guy about my age. One gentleman said that He'd hug Emily for giving him the food... if he had legs.

It made me think of what other stereotypes I have. My conclusion is this: constantly ask God if He would let you see people as He does. He has no stereotypes. The result is a love for humanity... at least that's the best way I can describe it.

Check out Tally's blog about a man he and I met this weekend.

Lesson 2: Girls need purpose, guys need motivation. So let me say first off that this is not a universal preincipal, nor was it the norm this weekend. It's just something I had to come to terms with.



Going about the tasks that we had lined up for this weekend - everything from serving hot dogs to painting - I realized that while it may have looked like the girls worked harder than the guys, that wasn't the case. The girls simply needed a purpose: We're here to serve - do whatever you can to serve. The guys needed more specific motivation: We're painting this room because there's a lack of classroom space and the more they have, the more kids they can teach. So imagine a cool classroom and make it so.

Not that I implemented this over the weekend. In fact I must say that I got rather frustrated at times with the guys and I'm learning this now in the quiet relaxation of my office. Men are task-oriented. If the task is meaningless, it's a waste of time. Thus, I need motivation for each task. It's not wrong, it's nature. Women can be motivated more by emotions. Get a good "Aaawwwwwwe!" out of a group of girls and they'l be good to go for a few days, no matter what the task.

So, sorry guys for not understanding, and please, someone learn from this and save yourself the I'm-ready-to-scrape-your-face-on-the-pavement frustration.

I just got off the phone with Mike Kemper who I talked about earlier today. As preached on Saturday at the block party that we helped pull off in SW Baltimore, he made a statement to the people listening. He said something like "Death is certain. Some of may not be here tomorrow. You need Jesus today!"

One of the young ladies listening was Amanda Bishop. Charm City Church has a relationship with this neighborhood girl, as they do with much of the community. Early Sunday morning, Amanda was brutally murdered so badly that they just identified her body today. Please pray for her family and the community of SW Baltimore. I'm investing there because life is preciously short. Jesus must be preached as best we can now.

So if you didn't know, we took a group of 8 high schoolers to Baltimore this weekend to work with Charm City Church, a church in the heart of the worst neighborhood in Baltimore that is making a difference. I experienced the ministry 1st hand a few weeks ago and was pumped going into this weekend. But my expectations were too low. I want to share some of the funny and amazing things I learned over the past few days.

Lesson 1: It's not what you do it's why you do it. We're spoiled - no surprise there. But I looked at what Charm city had as a facility and I'm still amazed at how many lives they touch by being an example of Jesus' love. Their heart is focused on being THE church, not A church. They're surrounded by other small churches that make little or no impact on the immediate community, but they are with far less personnel and equipment than most of us would opt for. Let me give you some examples: Their worship experience consists of Mike Kemper's Preaching - He's the head pastor and his testimony about the history of the church is nothing less than moving - and prayer. No worship team. They have a video projector with built-in DVD player and they watch worship DVDs. One of the leader's wives plays the piano. One of the attenders has an amazing gospel voice. At any time throughout the service Mike might call on them to augment the experience. Their sound system is like a great car that has been sitting in a barn for ten years. I'm actually going back down for the day tomorrow with a few students to fix that.

Th point is that I believe that my heart is often off-target. My motivation is a combination of self-glory or comfort. Their focus is on feeding people that have no food, clothing people that are homeless, and praying for miracles for those that wrestle with multiple addictions. I know that some of you are thinking, as I would reading this, that "Well that's because of where they are. We can't do that stuff here." We can if we put more effort into loving people than we do into not changing ourselves. Why do you do what you do?

So I'll post more about the amazing weekend we had later, but for now you can embark on a pictoral journey of our escapades by clicking on the dirty foot...

So I didn't think I'd have time to do this, but let me just say that our students rock so much so that this is the least amount of planning I've done for a missions trip and because they worked their butts off today... I have time to blog a few pictures of our escapades thus far.

We found some cool signs...



My $2.50 Old Navy flip flops broke during a prayer walk to promote the block party

So this happened...



Sorry they're not of heart-to-heart evangelism. I said escapades, not ministry.

Ok that was corny... but it's time to bring back "or bust", says I.

Today we're (Wink, myself, and 8 eager students) to hang out in Baltimore with Charm City Church (check out their kids ministry HERE). I visited about a month ago in preparation for this trip and I was so impressed with the committment level of their core leadership.

It's awesome going into a weekend like this knowing that we're participating in something that God's behind - that we will be accomplishing things. I'm so excited to be utilized and to watch some of our most committed students experience Christ in this way. We'll be doing everything from amping up their facility to helping throw a HUGE community block party.

It's a rough part of town, but please pray specifically that the church would find the finances to buy the building that they are in currently. They need about $80,000 to get the process started. They are a light in the community - how I believe we're biblically intended to be - feeding the hungry, clothing the needy, etc.

Please pray that they will get the financing they need to remain where they are. They will continue no matter what, but relieving them of that burden opens the door for more effective ministry.

I just couldn't. Here's the artwork for our upcoming series that starts in two weeks

I'm learning new technology. I've stated to Skype. It's ridiculously simple. You just go here and download the free program - the interface looks similar to AIM. Then you can call anywhere - call another Skyper computer to computer for free or buy Skype minutes really cheap and call any phone. That's what I'm using to do the phone interviews for the Little Big Church Podcast. Try it out!

Within the next week or so I hope to have published 2 more episodes of the Little Big Church Podcast. One will have an interview with Dave Daniels from Churchy Media on why the church should use media and it's benefits. The other interview will be with Ben Arment who is now on the Catalyst team. Stay posted to littlebigchurchpodcast.com.

I think any good leader has the ability to see the leadership vacuum before others - it's a place where there's an overwhelming need for direction. Leaders see the urgency in failure with plugging the vacuum with talented leadership. Ok, sometimes it's not talented, it's just leadership.

That leads to this problem: without the right leadership, the vacuum will suck the wrong leader down. For many of us, that means patience, and patience means watching failure happen. That means working behind the scenes to properly equip the right leader, and being out of the spotlight. For many leaders to exemplify self-control is most tested in an environment of failure. We are fixers, to one extent or another. There are a 2 main issues that jumping into the vacuum will cause.

1. Our Pride - Left unchecked, we fix things for the glory of others attention. It's a fine line between leadership and arrogance and before you know you've fixed everything. It's leaking and sticky because of your sloppiness and it won't last long but "TAADAAAA! I... me... big man... have fixed all of your problems! Bow at my experienced and strong feet!" It snow balls from there. We've all met the control-freak pastor who has to have everything perfect - it's so everything that points to him is awesome. Careful. That guy ends up lonely and leading no one, but constantly trying to prove himself to others.

2. No one else grows - The bigger problem, in my opinion, is that when we as leaders jump into the vacuum, we take experience away from any number of individuals or groups that could have learned the skills and, most of the time, been better at it than us. In the church, we are constantly in a struggle for volunteer assistance. Not just us, but I'd imagine that there aren't many churches out there who would say "Stop trying to volunteer! We have too many of you!" The reason is related to, in some way, leaders jumping into the vacuum. If you're in ministry, you've heard that old stat that 20% of the people do 80% of the work. That's because we often don't have the patience to train others. Training means developing a program to train others that works. It means being willing to let people go elsewhere (or even encouraging them to) when they discover that their gifts don't suit that ministry. That training program is a killer. Here's the one tip I have learned - start with the result and work backwards.

The bottom line is that many of us leaders need to watch the plane go down in flames instead of trying to fly the entire thing ourselves. If your ministry or job is based on you and not the vision, you're too important.

My brother Taylor got married on Saturday. Here are some pics of the fam.

So I spent the better part of an hour this morning combing through pages of Wordpress themes with trees but no bunnies, like the old look. This is not the coolest one, but it's my favorite one that works.

I never thought I'd say that. I hate curriculum for student ministry. It's constrictive and too much work to adapt to fit your style and vision... until now. I've been reading "The Seven Checkpoints" by Andy Stanley and Stuart Hall from Northpoint and they just launched a "curriculum strategy" called XP3. It combines the "win" philosophy (check out the podcasts here - if you're in ministry at any level these ideas will change you) and the 7 Checkpoints philosophy with a student ministry community, parent involvement, and a laser focus on quality small groups.

The cool thing is that it's enough of a shell to give you ideas but not so much that you have to change it. You can easily infuse it with your own philosophy and style. Below are 2 podcasts. One is a short description of XP3. The other is a longer, more in depth, picture of it with Stuart Hall and Reggie Joiner. Here's a link to the XP3 website

Click to hear the in depth explanation

Click to hear the in short description

I bought a slip-n-slide last week and Cher convinced me to try it out in my clothes. The result was cold with a very excited neighborhood onlooker. But I realized, slip-n-slides are a lot like ministry in the church:

- You get really excited to do something cool then you fall on your butt and feel stupid unless you're with good friends.

-The ride's a lot shorter than you remember it so failing to plan ahead results in pain and disaster.

-Sometimes the more people get involved at once the more difficult it is to have fun, but every once in a while you get a glimpse of glory in a 10-person train that works.

-Whenever you try to change things and make it more exciting, someone always gets hurt.

-There's a narrow path for success.

-Sharp objects and bad attitudes ruin it for everyone.

-There's always someone else with the newer, bigger, better version.

I've been really enjoying twittering - you can see my twitter page HERE or just look over in the right hand sidebar. Not just the chance to update or "microblog", but also to follow others. When people that I follow Twitter I get it texted to my cell.

Right now I follow Tally's and Ben's. Tally talked through an emergency room visit a few nights ago and Ben's made me laugh in the middle of dinner with friends last night.

So far I think I have 2 or 3 followers. Nothing compared to Los' 1300.

Try something new. Twitter.

Today is our 8-year wedding aniversary. We decided to spice things up with new wedding bands.



I was just remembering how much of a dork I was back in 1998 when we met. I thought I was so sly with the ladies and she still let me have a date.

No one else knows me like she does and there's an amazing comfort to knowing that. Her critique is the one I can always trust as best for me, even though I may not like it. I can honestly say I'm a better person - I grow - because of my wife Cherie and her wisdom. No matter what happens - death or bank accounts - I'd rather not go through it at all unless I'm with her.

I can't wait to have more kids together. NO, twins is not a stop sign for us. It's too much fun having a family with Cher.



The best 8 years of my life.

Check out Cherie's blog.

It's too easy to become prideful in your position in ministry - be it voluntary or paid staff. It becomes yours. To keep this from happening, I've found what's most successful is to try to work yourself out of a job. Give away your position as often as possible and delight in the outcome no matter what because if nothing else you're giving someone a chance to serve.

I'm eager to give away worship leading responsibility, teaching times, and even discipleship chances to others. If I hold too tight, I'm getting in the way of someone's opportunity to grow through service.

Just a quick thanks to Sarah for teaching me how to publicly spell "PURPOSE".

And congrats on winning the case! They should do a Law and Order episode - Ripped from the headlines!!

Check out Sarah's blog

I had one. I had a great quiet time today - I was outside - read and journaled. But my attitude just went down hill. I had a great night at Ignite - no complaints. Had a V-Staff/SLT (voluteer staff and Student Leadership Team) meeting that was overwhelming but good. I had no reason to have a bad day, but right now, I'd like to just sleep through tomorrow.

Four years ago today my dad died in my mom's living room. He hadn't spoken clearly in at least 2 weeks and he was a shell of who he was. Everyday I remember Him. Today, it just came up on me and I didn't even know what it was. Some sorrow is so deep it hides. Doesn't mean that God can't use it to remind you of the simplicity of reliance.

This is my favorite day.