Church

For a while when I first started working at Blue Haven Pools and Spas, most of my co-workers didn't know I was also a pastor.  Our president and my fellow managers knew, but many of the hourly employees didn't.  I can remember with fondness when they first discovered my real job while we were eating together in the customer service room.  It was a classic "He's what?" / "you're a pastor?" moment. Today, I had a similar moment.  Since arriving in Highlands Ranch, I've been on a mission to find an inexpensive barber similar to the one I enjoyed in San Diego.  At $25 a haircut, I didn't feel like I had succeeded my first two times.  I shaved $10 off that amount (sorry for the pun) at Lon's Barber Shop in Littleton.  Lon is one of those barbers who likes to talk.  Normally, I like to settle in my…

Here's an excellent article on how to go about discipleship in an organic fashion: Making Disciples Jesus' Way.

One of the people I was blessed to cross paths with a number of years ago was Earl Ferguson.  Earl was pastoring a healthy, growing church in Chicago that was in the process of launching new campuses.  He was also the father of Dave and Jon Ferguson, founding pastors of Community Christian Church in Naperville.  CCC has been a leading church in regards to the multi-site movement. Part of the Mountainview vision is to launch new campuses and churches throughout Denver and Colorado.  It's exciting to be a part of a church that has an outward, aggressive vision for reaching people not presently connected to Jesus. With that in mind, let me share with you a good article written by Dave Ferguson on "The Seven Most Important Questions When Going Multisite."

I've just started reading The Passionate Church by Mike Breen and Walt Kallestad.  Kallestad is the pastor of Community Church of Joy, a 12,000+ church in Arizona.  I first heard of Kallestad by reading some of (and I feel the need to apologize ahead of time) Robert Schuller's church growth stuff back in the early 1990's.  His church was held up as a model for those looking for church growth methods and practices. That's why I found his author blurb on the dust cover to be interesting: "Walt is passionate about helping today's churches transition from program-driven to relationship-drive mission-minded communities." This transformation began when Kallestad suffered a major heart attack in 2002 and had to have six-way bypass surgery.  During the ensuing sabbatical, he began to reexamine his church and the direction it was moving.  Here's what he writes: "After my heart attack and six-way bypass in January 2002,…

FYI: Donald Miller ("Blue Like Jazz") will be in Denver at Pathways Highlands on October 2 at 7 PM.  I read Blue Like Jazz several years ago and really enjoyed it. It's appropriately subtitled, "Nonreligious Thoughts on Christian Spirituality."  I found it to be a good book to give to people who are spiritually searching.  It's a bit irreverent, a bit deep.  A good mix.  So ... I might scrape up a few books and go hear him in person.  Maybe ... Click here to buy tickets.