This past week I spent a few hours in Lakewood at the Bear Valley Church. They hosted a new Denver church planting network called "Breakthrough Leaders." The question is this: how can we work together to impact our region for Christ? It's an important question because one church or one denomination cannot reach everybody. Church history, including the modern chapters, has been plagued by a turf mentality. We see our friends and neighbors as fish within our fishing pond -- and no one else should fish there. It doesn't matter that most churches aren't catching many fish. A better analogy might be to see our friends and neighbors as prisoners in a spiritual war. Does it matter who sets the captive free? Is it acceptable to allow people to remain captives? I sat next to Reg Cox, the minister of the Lakewood Church of Christ. I grew up in the…
Read More
On December 17, 1903, after many attempts, the Wright brothers were successful in getting their "flying machine" off the ground. They immediately telegraphed their sister, Katherine, with this message: "We have actually flown 120 feet. We will be home for Christmas." Katherine hurried to the editor of the local newspaper with the exciting news. He took the telegram and responded, “How nice. The boys will be home for Christmas.” Amazingly, he totally missed the fact they had actually flown 120 feet! It's possible to be so caught up in the ordinary tasks of the day that we completely miss those amazing moments around us.
Read More
One of the things I enjoyed the most about living in the Bay Area in the late 90's was the energy of the tech industry. There were start-ups springing up everywhere. You'd meet guys at Starbucks (or Peet's!) who were writing their business plan on the back of a napkin. When I ventured into that world in 1999, I found myself attending networking events in San Francisco with other young guys looking to strike a deal, get a job, or just enjoy the food. Lots of free food. The idea was simple: you walk up to someone, introduce yourself, and ask what they did. Within a few minutes you knew if you needed to talk more or bow out gracefully and move to the next person. As a pastor, I was accustomed to meeting new people and loved every minute of it. Did I mention the free food? One of…
Read More
From Tim Keller: All in all, church planting helps an existing church the best when the new congregation is voluntarily 'birthed' by an older 'mother' congregation. Often the excitement and new leaders and new ministries and additional members and income 'washes back' into the mother church in various ways and strengthens and renews it. Though there is some pain in seeing good friends and some leaders go away to form a new church, the mother church usually experiences a surge of high self-esteem and an influx of new enthusiastic leaders and members. However, a new church in the community usually confronts churches with a major issue--the issue of 'kingdom-mindedness'. New churches, as we have seen, draw most of their new members (up to 80%) from the ranks of the unchurched, but they will always attract some people out of existing churches. That is inevitable. At this point, the existing churches,…
Read More
Looking to regain lost passion? Here's the best piece of advice I could give you: Start Today There’s no better time than now. What happens, however, is that our “but” gets in the way. Everyone single one of us has a “but.” Some buts are bigger than others. I would start today BUT I have a deadline to meet at work. I would start today BUT I can’t miss the next episode of CSI. If you find yourself saying "but" more than once or twice, you may have a "but" problem. It's likely you're also putting off things you know you should be doing. What to do? Anything. Something. Passion will not be reclaimed without a choice.
Read More