My Tomorrow

This is where I'll be tomorrow... could I be more excited? Nope.







OK, so, quick explanation, Thr3e is a "conference" being hosted by Elevation Church (the second fastest growing church in the US) and will consist of them explaining just about everything they've learned in their first three years as a church (did I mention they're only 3 years old?). The trip also includes a packet of all of the important documents they have developed over that time, the sort of stuff I have been killing myself trying to find on the internet. If anything will help to jump-start the start of Project Church (working title), it will be Thr3e. Thanks also go to churchmarketingsucks.com for their encouragement of churches to use Twitter to reach members. Through my use of Twitter I have already made 2 acquaintances who will be at Thr3e tomorrow, one of which started a church this month... I'm super stoked to pick his brain and hopefully make a few friends out of this whole deal. Again I ask, could I be more excited?

Also, if you have time, go watch Steven Furtick's interview with Ted Haggard and his wife. Regardless of how you feel about him, and whether you're a Christian or not, you should watch the full interview. It is incredibly powerful and deserves to be watched. Check it out here.

A Great Friday

Today, Elevation did something that yet again impressed me (something I have come to expect from them). This morning when I checked Pastor Steven's blog there was an anouncement that said that today at noon, the staff of Elevation would be taking communion and would be streaming it live for the public. When I followed the link I saw that the program they were using was one that I signed up for myself just yesterday (you can see it on the right side of the page). It allows for a chat to take place with the viewers while the owner transmits a live video feed.

When noon rolled around my students were taking a quiz so I pulled out my headphones and tuned it. Pastor Steven popped up and began to talk about how we can't overlook the importance of Easter this week, and in order to truly appreciate Easter we must reflect on the events of today, Good Friday. Quoting Isaiah 53 he discussed that the worst pain that Jesus felt wasn't in the physical death but in the spiritual seperation from the Father.

Following that he presented communion and a time to pray and reflect. All I had were some cinemon Honey Combs and some Diet Dr. Pepper which I used to join with them. The spirit of reflection and communion stands. This weekend the church is having 10 services at 3 campuses and have really pushed for using this as a weekend to bring in friends and family. So many times we only see Easter as a time for Christians, which it certainly is, but what better time is there to spread the message of the hope we profess? Because of that, he asked everyone to give the name of somebody that they hope to reach this weekend and who the church could be praying for. During this time one of their worship leaders came out and played "Jesus Paid it All."

The whole thing only lasted 15 or so minutes but it was awesome. It was great to be able to take a few minutes out of my busy day to take communion and reflect on the freedom Jesus has granted me through His death and resurrection. It was so cool also to get to take part in that with people from all around the world. Many of them were from the local Elevation church family but not all, and getting to share in that was great. I thought the whole idea was awesome.

Any thoughts?

Confessions of a Church Snob

Those who know me well can attest to the fact that I'm pretty snobbish when it comes to church. I try not to be because I know that we're all part of the same body and that we should be building one another up but, especially when it comes to things that could effect the way the church is viewed from an outside perspective, I'm particularly snobbish. I like to think it is rooted in the fact that I have a passion for reaching the unchurched and, having many atheist friends, I recognize what sort of things Christians do that repel the unchurched. When I see something that screams "we're Christians and you should stay far, far away" I cringe. For example:
This gem is a church banner that was made for Easter, and thanks go to Matthew Paul Turner for bringing it to our attention. Now, the question is, what is that dog being stabbed to death by the cross and why is the red tornado of blood only dripping on part of the 3d (yes boys and girls, that's half a globe attached to the banner) world? The sacrificial atonement of the crucified dog carcass is only good for those residing in the northern hemisphere... I am baffled that this is the way we try to present the gospel. Am I off-base?

The church I'm attending had a deacon ordination this Sunday. Now, I'm all for the biblical ordaining of deacons, the laying-on-of-hands when appropriate, etc. None of that bothered me. This particular church runs 3 services and I can only assume that the deacons were ordained in all 3 as it was also their introduction to the church. The second of these three services is a "contemporary" service that meets in the fellowship hall and is relatively small when compared to the other two, more traditional services. Well, when the deacons went up to speak they both mentioned that they had never before been to the contemporary service. Now, I understand that if your personal preference is a traditional service, that's fine but when you find out that you're going to become a member on staff at the church, not only should the church make you do it, but you should feel a burden to attend all 3 services on your own. It was as if they were saying "I'm going to be responsible to take care of you even though I know nothing about you or what you do." I think that they should have been encouraged to attend all three at least once before being ordained, but that's just me.

Finally, I wanted to bring up something that's becoming a new trend in Europe: de-baptism. It turns out that many atheists are renouncing their infant baptism as a way of showing that they don't support the Catholic Church's political involvement. They believe that somehow the number of baptisms is recorded and used by the Catholic Church to gain government power. I think that idea is silly but it seems to be a popular one. More than 100,000 Britons have received de-baptism certificates, many of them paying roughly $5 for them. Reading through what the certificate says, I see nothing wrong with it. I think that, although the idea is a bit silly of getting back at the church by de-baptising yourself, that theologically it is a sound argument (aside from Christianity being superstition). From the National Secular Society's De-Baptism Certificate.

"The certificate declares:I ________ having been subjected to the Rite of Christian Baptism in infancy (before reaching an age of consent), hereby publicly revoke any implications of that Rite and renounce the Church that carried it out. In the name of human reason, I reject all its Creeds and all other such superstition in particular, the perfidious belief that any baby needs to be cleansed by Baptism of alleged ORIGINAL SIN, and the evil power of supposed demons. I wish to be excluded henceforth from enhanced claims of church membership numbers based on past baptismal statistics used, for example, for the purpose of securing legislative privilege.”

You can read more about this growing trend here.

C3 Day Two, Part 2

Getting right into it, following Ed Young Jr. that Thursday was Bil Cornelius, founding pastor of Bay Area Fellowship in Corpus Cristi, Texas. He only spoke during one session of the conference but boy, was it awesome. He spoke on the lack of pastoral prayer in our churches and how we need to burden ourselves with the desire to pray so much more than we do. He through out a statitistic that 50% of all seminary grads are out of ministry in 5 years. One of the hardships that many pastors face is the feeling of not having many confidants but he said that we need to learn to encourage ourselves in the Lord, which is absolutely true.

One of the ideas that came up often is that pastors are called to be modern-day prophets. While they may not all have prophetic spiritual gifts, they all (should) have an encounter with God where they recieved their calling to pastoral ministry. Additionally, God uses them as His instrument to teach and speak to His people, through the teaching of the living Word. God gives the vision to the pastor who in turn gives it to the people. Perhaps one of the most interesting things he said was that because the pastor is the prophet for the church, lay people should not be praying for the vision of the church. That is the pastor's job. They should be praying instead for the pastor.

But in order to hear from God we must get alone with God, something too many pastors neglect. Another trap pastors fall into is forgetting that not everything God tells them is for the church. We spend so much time seeking answers to God's will that we forget that seeking God is God's will. In the hustle and bustle of pastoral life, many pastors neglect their first love. Great pastors teach what God has personally told them. Pastors also get so busy wanting people to show up that they forget to carry the people to God in prayer. "We forget the people and focus on the numbers." As a remedy he suggested going to the mall and people-watching and simply praying for the people you see. You should try it, it's pretty great.

Next up was Jentezen Franklin again and his message was awesome. Using 1 Corinthians 16:15 he talked about how the church needs to become addicted to Christ. In the KJV it says in v. 15-16 "I beseech you, brethren, (ye know the house of Stephanas, that it is the firstfruits of Achaia, and that they have addicted themselves to the ministry of the saints,) that ye submit yourselves unto such, and to every one that helpeth with us, and laboureth." According to dictionary.com, to be addicted is defined as "compulsively or physiologically dependent on something habit-forming; devoted or given up to a practice or habit or to something psychologically or physically habit-forming." When you are fully addicted to something, you simply can't stay away.

In order to be successful in ministry, we must become addicted to the ministry and to God. It has to be a voluntary addiction but we should be doved such that we become compulsively and physiologically dependent on it and on God. That is how the early church survived and it is how we today will thrive in ministry. Jentezen said that if we ever hope to become addicted, we just have to get started.

Jesus fished with a net. Fishing with a net is completely different to fishing with a pole because when you fish with a net, you never know what type of fish you'll get. When you fish with a pole you can be picky... when you're addicted, you're not picky. So, the big question we must ask is, are we addicted to what Jesus died for? Jesus said to go out into all the world (that's where) to preach the gospel (that's what) to all the people (that's who), but nowhere did He tell us how. We live in an age where we have more freedom than ever to reach people in whatever way we see fit, which is great, but are we putting it to good use?

That night we came back for a session led by Ed Young and Craig Groeschel. Ed talked about the importance of reaching people and putting our attention not on all of the things that beg for it as pastors, but instead remembering that it's all about the chair. He pointed out that when the bride (the church) and the bridegroom (Jesus) get together, and when they are truly spiritually mature, there will be babies. He suggested that if your church is fully spiritually mature then about 1/3 of your congregation will be spiritual babies. Another large chunk will be made up of spiritual teenagers, people that believe themselves to be mature but aren't. The spiritual teenagers will complain all the time about how the church is too big (or small), the church is full of hyopcrites, their friends aren't there, or that the messages aren't deep enough (they're not getting fed). He said that that is the greatest compliment a pastor can make because it means that they are making the Bible understandable. Additionally, he said that when someone complains about not being fed that his response is always "I'm sorry, I thought you were old enough to feed yourself."

The last speaker of the night was Craig Groeschel he spoke about the "disease to please." He struggles with the desire to please people but you can't please both people and God. He points to Galatians 1:10 which says "Am I now trying to win the approval of men, or of God? Or am I trying to please men? If I were still trying to please men, I would not be a servant of Christ." He points out that people-pleasing is a form of idolatry when you are more worried about what people think than what Christ thinks. Proverbs 29:25 says that "Fear of man will prove to be a snare, but whoever trusts in the Lord is kept safe." The word used for snare is "mowqesh" which is a noose for catching an animal, or as it is used here, a hook for the nose. If you fear man it is as if someone has stuck their finger in your nose and is leading you around by it.

There are several traps that people-pleasers fall into:

"I will compromise for you" trap
"I will over-commit for you" trap
"I will let you limit my success" trap

Groeschel says that the fear of Gos is the best antidote for the fear of people. He points to Psalm 34:9 and 1 Thessalonians 2:4, 6 for support. The higher God takes you, the more people are going to hate you and you need to be OK with that. He used a great illustration of a kid in school with a hall pass. If you have a hall pass it doesn't matter if teachers or administrators stop you in the hall, you just hold of your hall pass and you're untouchable. Well, those who have been called by God for His purpose have a Holy hall pass. Ultimately, it doesn't matter what you think about what God has called me to do because I have God's approval... your dissaproval doesn't even compare.

So, that is the full summary of C3 day 2. Hurray,just one day left!

Dear Birthday Wishers

First I want to take just a moment to thank everyone who took the time to wish me a happy birthday. It was the best birthday I have had all year. Seriously though, I was really touched by how many of my neglected friends took the time to think of me and drop me a note. Sincerely, thank you.

So, I will write in the morning to tell you how wonderful my wife is and how good she got me last night. She threw me a surprise party and I was completely clueless, even after about half a minute of actually being there. I'll tell about that later though. What I really wanted to show you are the wonderful birthday wishes from churches I got today. I think it's a phenominal idea for churches to send out birthday cards, and there is something especially nice about recieving one that has been hand-written, no matter how brief of a message. I applaud Elevation and The Cove Church (both based in Charlotte, NC) for your initiative in sending someone who is not a member a card letting them know you care. It is something I plan to implement in my church some day.

While I applaud the effort, I do have one point of contention. If you can't read the person's name, especially their last name, don't write it. The postal service doesn't care and I know who Seth is... I'm the only one in my household. I can honestly say that never before in my life have I been called "Seth Mustywood." I know my handwriting is bad but I had no idea it was that illegible. Regardless, I appreciate the thought and time it took for my card, and I especially enjoyed the dueling colors. Bravo Cove Church.


I pray that everyone is well and again, thanks bunches. Happy April 2nd everyone!