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When You Can't Do Everything

Too often, we see a need and the vast scope of the need causes us to not do anything.  The task is too large, the need too massive, the problem too universal.  

Seven years ago, the leadership at The Journey felt a conviction about the AIDS and orphan epidemic in Africa.  But what do you do for an issue that is continent-wide and systemic?  Often we become paralyzed by those issues.  You can't do everything and you don't know where to start so you don't do anything.

We decided we needed to do something.  We partnered with a small orphanage in Naivasha, Kenya - the House of Hope Home.  We had a previous relationship with a family who was helping to bring some leadership to the orphanage and the surrounding community.  We knew we couldn't do everything, but we knew we could do SOMETHING and it turns out that something means everything to that orphanage.  

It matters to the two kids we helped rescue while on a trip there, and then paid for them to be part of the orphanage.  It matters to the children we've helped build classrooms for.  It matters for the kids who have milk and eggs to eat and drink from the cows and chickens we've purchased and the cow sheds we've built.  It mattered to the 300 children who received shoes at the local school.  It matters to Julius who was left as a baby in a sack by the side of the road.  It matters to Alice and her 9 children who were living in a tin & cardboard shack, but now are living in a home we had built.  It matters to the workers at the orphanage who have water accessible now and rain tanks for storage and a methane gas distributer that helps them cook food without having to do it over a wood fire all the time.  It matters to the orphanage owners to have a van to take kids on field trips or to the store.  And it matters to those who have went from The Journey on teams to Kenya, and it matters to those who have given generously, and it matters to those who have had their faith grow.

We can't do everything, but we can do something.  And that something matters.

What CAN you do?  When you can't do everything, you still can do SOMETHING.  And something still matters!

Words of life . . . or death

My birthday was two days ago.  Which means that all of facebook knew it was my special day.  I got well wishes from all over the United States and from all different seasons of my life.  I was grateful for each one.

In Proverbs 18:21 it says that "the tongue (our words) has the power of life or death".  If you've lived any length of time, you know that wisdom to be absolutely true.  There have people who spoke words to you that crushed your spirit, that killed a dream, that destroyed your confidence. In those moments you felt like you died a little inside.  

And hopefully you've had some moments where people spoke words of encouragement, or hope when you were feeling down, or they took time to celebrate what you meant to them and it lifted your soul.  As you walked away from that conversation you soared.  You felt encouraged and grateful.  Life.

Our words have great power.  And . . . it really doesn't take that much to speak life to others.  Simply respond to the prodding God gives you.

So about 11 am on my birthday we got a phone call.  It was from one of my youth group "kids" (I was still a kid then) when I was first a youth pastor some two decades ago, fresh out of college.  She's now has four kids of her own & has moved cross country.  

She said that she had just been thinking about us & then saw my birthday pop up on facebook and decided to make a telephone call.  She proceeded to share about the impact we had made on her life and how grateful she was for it (thank you God for using two twenty-two year olds who knew next to nothing!!).  And those words breathed life into me.

Who can you breathe words of life into this week?  What phone call do you need to make, or email do you need to write?  It doesn't have to be long.  Just respond when prompted & share your heartfelt thought.

R and R and Arkansas

I just wrapped up a two week vacation.  I do one two week vacation every year because I found that I usually am still unwinding (thinking about church stuff) the first day or two, and when it gets to two days before the end of vacation I start gearing back up again.  So, if I do a week of vacation there really are only about 3 days where I am completely free of thinking about "work".  Especially without weekends off, an extended vacation has been important for us.

This year, I was able to get in the groove right away and with two weeks, I got a good 10-12 days where I was able to rest, relax, refresh, and be fully engaged with my family.  I needed it.  It's been a long season of ministry.  I was weary.  

But today I feel refreshed and ready to go.  I want to be in ministry for the long haul.  I want my family to love that I was a pastor, not regret it.  These times away help me to stay fresh, help our family stay connected, and help me to be more contemplative.

Mark Batterson says something like "change of pace plus change of place equals change of perspective".  What do you need to do to change your pace and place so you can get a fresh perspective?  You are better for it, your family is better for it, (if you're a pastor) your church is better for it.

We swam, and ate out, and went tubing, and mined for quartz, and played in a pool, and went boating, and spent the day in Chicago, and traveled about 1700 miles to St. Louis & Hot Springs, AR and back, and read, and played family games, and didn't check email, and didn't post on facebook, and didn't go to church (yup - we slept in on two Sunday's in a row - one at the vacation spot, the other on a travel day).  

It doesn't have to be two weeks.  You might have 1 or 2 weeks of vacation a year.  Maybe you can take a couple 3 day weekends.  What do you need to do to refresh.  To be your best at home, at your job?  

Better Together

When we launched The Journey over 10 years ago, we were counseled to guard the vision close.  We were told that people loved to come into a new, young church and push for their agenda (often an agenda that did not gain traction and support at a previous church).  We also knew that our vision of reaching people who didn't go to church & were disconnected from a real relationship with Jesus would look vastly different than many had experienced in their previous church experiences.  

So we were ready.  And we were good at saying "no".  And by God's grace, we became a church where over 60-65% of the people who come weren't previosuly attending church.  

But, as we've grown larger and went to two sites, and added staff, we also had to make a crucial course-correction of sorts.  We still hold tightly to the vision and we always will.  But, I think early on, holding tightly to the vision meant that we didn't hand off ministry as well as we could or should have.  I think it also meant that we didn't have as much ownership or community.  

So, we have been and are determined to be more intentional about that.  We are seeing the rewards of that too.  Our Lead Team feels like real partners in the ministry - we all have our hands in.  Our Network leaders are growing in their ownership and commitment.  Journey Kids staff are developing a sense of responsibility for not only their own ministry but how they can help others.  

This is all a very good thing, because we're better together.  We need each other.  Our community needs our concerted efforts.  If you're a part of The Journey, there's a place for you, an opportunity to get in the game & have a significant role in the lives of others & we're all better with you than without you.

So lets do this . . . together.

Do or Become?

Often times when people think about their relationship with God, they think about what they need to "do" so they can "be" the person God wants them to be.  But too often it's about the next program, it's about following a set of spiritual disciplines that becomes more legalistic gymnastics than anything.

A vibrant relationship with God isn't so much about what you do, but about who you are.  In other words, it's about your identity.  

That identity isn't what religion says you should be, who others have said you were, or what you have come to believe about yourself (P.S.  We've been talking about that in our series FreeWay).  Our identity is found in the One who made us and created us.  And, you'll only experience your best life, you'll only experience the life that He has for you, when you live in that identity.

God is all about the relationship, which means He cares much more about who you are becoming than what you are doing.  It's about your relationship, your trajectory, your movement.  

At The Journey we've tried to help us all think through this by identifying 6 Core Essentials. When we are living out these 6 Core Essentials, we believe we will be becoming the people God designed us to be, we will be living out our best life, and we will be increasingly in the relationships that we were designed for.

For more information, steps, resources, questions and more on each of the Core Essentials, check out the Core Essentials page on The Journey's web site.

So, who are you becoming?  We aren't asking those who call The Journey their church to do a bunch of religious stuff or sign up for a bunch of programs.  Our goal isn't to make religious people.  We want to do everything we can to help as many people as we can experience their best life by becoming the people God designed them to be.  

Even the best golfers in the world, the best basketball players in the world, the best actors in the world, have coaches.  That's kind of how I see myself - as a coach, helping others live up to their full potential in relationship with God.  

So, quit trying to just DO more, and start focusing your attention on who you are becoming.  And, if you're a church leader . . . be honest:  is your church schedule more focused on doing or becoming?  If it's "doing", it's time to "do" something about it!

 

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Who are you becoming?

In the Spirit of the season

So, you may not know this and you may - but for the past number of years I have posted blogs on April 1 that were written in a way that made it hard to tell it was an April Fools joke, but they all were.  One year I told a story that Jen was pregnant.  8 months later an out-of-state friend asked about her impending delivery.  

Well this year, with all the snow on the ground, and the fact that I haven't been blogging over the past 3 months, and an incredibly large work load, I decided against doing an April Fools Day post.  Sorry. 

Instead - here's a look back at some of my favorites from years past:

 

 

April Fools 2012 - the houseboat 

April Fools 2010 - the pregnancy

April Fools 2009 - good-bye to Big Blue

April Fools 2011 - TV Preacher?

April Fools 2013 - Part-time Priest

How to Make your Christmas Eve Services Count

Every church has their own unique culture, but this is as close to a universal as anything.  You should have Christmas Eve or Christmas Eve Eve services!  I know it means more for you, pastor.  I know it means less time with family.  But here's why it's important and a couple of practical thoughts and steps to make it count.

Here's a couple reasons why you should have services:

1. Families are together, including your congregations family members (that don't usually attend church).  This gives your congregation an easy invite!

2. People tend to be more open to spiritual things at Christmas time, plus it often brings back pleasant or comfortable memories from childhood.

I know each context is different, but here's a couple things to help you make the most out of the Christmas services:

1.  If you don't normally have a 10 piece band and laser light show, don't do it on Christmas Eve (or at least only do it for one segment).  Churches often try to outdo themselves on Christmas Eve.  The problem is that if that visitor comes back sometime in the next month, they'll wonder what happened to the church they went to on Christmas Eve!  It's important to look like yourself on Christmas Eve.  Do special things, but let people see who you are.

2.  Do a video, or some kind of promo for your new series (which should start within the next week or two).  Let them know they are welcome back and that they can jump in on the front end of something you're just starting.

3.  Acknowledge and respect visitors.  Let them know you expected them and help them "be in the loop" by not assuming any knowledge of your church or of the Bible.  Explain things so they can follow along.

4.  Invite them in.  Geoff Surratt had an intersting post about this.  We are inviting them in this year by having our Children's Ministry take photo booth kids and family pictures that we will then put on facebook and they can tag themselves.  We're providing a fun service, and they will interact with us even after they leave the service.

5.  Know when to have your services in your community.  Our community is stable.  It's not transient.  Most people are from here, which means most have family gatherings in town or close by on Christmas Eve and Christmas.  So two years ago we started doing Christmas Eve Eve and Christmas Eve services.  This year, our Christmas Eve Eve service was the first to "sell out" (we give away FREE tickets to know about how many people we have coming).  We also realized in our community that Christmas Eve services didn't work past 5 pm (unless we held something at 11 pm for those who grew up with that tradition).  7 pm was family parties and dinners.  If you're community is anything like ours, I'd strongly encourage you to do a Christmas Eve Eve service.  Lots of people want to come to the service but just can't because they have prior commitments on Christmas Eve.

6.  If you do candle lighting, think about doing glow sticks for the kids.  One, they think it's cool!  Two, you don't have to worry about them dripping wax on themselves or trying to burn a hole in the chairs or pews.  Parents will love you for this!!  How many parents aren't even really paying attention because all they are concerned about is how their child is doing with the candle and dripping wax.  Glow sticks are cheap and effective.

7.  Don't do a 40 minute message.  Get creative.  Do a 15 minute message and use other creative pieces.  You probably have kids in the service.  Kids who have sugar plums dancing in their heads.  You will need to be disciplined and it will mean more work, but you can tell the story in a compelling way in 15 minutes.

8.  Don't get too cute.  The Christmas story is the Christmas story.  Let it's power and beauty drive the service.

riding camels

Jesus says in Matthew 19:24 that it's easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for a rich person to enter the Kingdom of God!!  That's quite a statement!  It's seems outlandish, it feels like he's making sweeping generalizations and building stereotypes (and does that help anyone?).  

We're a week away from Christmas, and in the United States it is a time of polar extremes.  At Christmas we seem to see the very best of our wealth.  We see people being generous with others.  Gifts given, cookies baked, checks written, gifts bought for strangers.  It can be beautiful.  

We also see the worst of our excess and greed.  Exhibit A:  Black Friday shopping.  There were shots fired or knives drawn in no less than a couple parking lots in our area, and that's not unique to western Michigan.  Exhibit B:  A total disregard to our true financial situation in the pursuit of more.  Christmas (and the gifts that go with it) can be beautiful and it can also be out of control.  Increasingly it feels out of control.

As we open up our sixth gift on Christmas morning (four of which we don't really need), do we understand or realize that the majority of our world would be happy with one gift?  That over 780 million people lack access to clean water!  That around 4 million people are caught in sex trafficking every year (and around 50% are children!!!!)

But beyond our lack of understanding (or truly caring) of the needs of the world, is a preoccupation with ourselves.  With our wants, with our desires.  Consumerism.  Narcissism.  We too often are all "about me".  I can fall into that trap way more than I want.  And it's not just with money and stuff.  I can fall into that trap in relationships, or with my time.  And it is so counter to how Jesus called us to live.

Which brings me to the REAL point of this post.  As much as I can sometimes struggle with a Consumeristic Christmas, what's even worse, and an epidemic, is Consumeristic Christianity.  How do we ride camels?  How do we, in this wealthy country still embrace and follow Jesus?  The Church in America is often "all about me".  It's not about what people give, but what they get.  It's not about how they can serve, but how the church can serve them.  It's not about worshipping God but being seen.  It's not feeding themselves spiritually, but how the church is or is not feeding them.  And when "my" needs aren't getting met, I just move on to find another church (until that church doesn't meet my needs either).

I know that's not everyone and it's not every church and I certainly have made some generalizations of my own in this post.  But, somehow, along the way, we've in large part lost what it means to be "The Church".  We've lost what it means to be "ambassadors" of the message of Jesus, we've lost what it means to really love others, to serve and care for the poor, to love God with all of who we are, to put the needs of others first, to live open-handed trusting God as our provider, to care more what God thinks than what others think, to love the community we are a part of by being a family together.

I can't help but think that if we could get back to that originial vision and mission as Jesus-followers, Christmas (and our world) might look a lot better.  What can you do this week to reject the "all about me" attitude?  How can you follow Jesus this week (of all weeks as we head toward Christmas)?

The Anatomy of a Sunday Morning Lip-Sync Battle

This past Sunday morning we had a lip-sync battle in church at The Journey.  It went over BIG.  Of course, there are pastors and churches all over who, on the surface, would be absolutley appalled.  They would feel like we are at best, dumbing-down the message and at worst giving up the Gospel entirely.

So, I thought I'd give a quick run-down on why we did the Sunday morning lip-sync battle.

We are in a brand new series:  Heaven and Nature Sing.  We're looking at some classic Christmas songs and what they have to say about Heaven and nature colliding in the birth of Jesus.  We're looking at songs like Oh Come, Oh Come Emmanuel and Silent Night, among others and the Scriptural passages surrounding the birth of Jesus.

So, we wanted people to begin thinking about the music of the season in a creative way.  We also showed this video before the morning message.

Yesterday was the first day that our new intern, Brent Swensen, was at our Pontaluna exit site.  We knew we needed to introduce him.  We had seen a lip-sync battle on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon a while back.  Originially we thought about doing a short video spoof on the lip-sync battle, but then we decided to do it live.

So, as part of our announcements we introduced Brent & the new series and then said that we do a little initiation for new staff team members.  And a lip-sync battle was on!  We did 20 second clips going back and forth doing 2 songs each between Brent and myself.  P.S.  He clearly won with Barbara Striesand's "Jingle Bells"!  It was an instant classic.

The Lip-sync battle didn't have anything spiritual about it - nor was it a worshipful moment.  So, why did we do it?

1.  We believe that many of the people who come to The Journey and are seeking or skeptical need some opportunities to "unfold their arms".  For some, they aren't expecting anything good to happen.  They are checking the time on their phones.  If something goofy like that can help unfold their arms and cause them to hear about the love and grace of God, then we want to create those moments.  P.S.  You should see some of the facebook posts from yesterday - it totally proves this point!

2.  God is a God of serious commitment and focus.  But also a God of joy and peace and celebration.  We live in a world that is heavy with heartbreak, financial insecurity, terrorism, relational chaos.  People need to laugh.  Laughter was God's design in the first place.  We need both the somber, reflective moments and the moments that make you hold your stomach in laughter.  Both are good for your soul, and both show us part of God's character.

I don't think it means we become a stand-up comedy act or a late-night show.  We can't do those like Hollywood can anyway.  But, I do think many of our churches would do well to use humor in a way that fits their personality.

How is Generosity Born?

I think a lot of people think that it would be easy to be generous if they had a lot of money.  We can even convince ourselves that "when" we have a lot of money "then" we'll be generous.  But I don't think that's usually true.  

Statistics tell us that some of the least generous among us are some of the wealthiest.  Why?  Because the more you have the more you try to hold on to.  

Generosity isn't born out of wealth, it's born out of a heart that trusts God.  When we trust God for our provision, when we trust God with our lives, when we trust God to care for us, then we can truly live open-handed with our lives.  After all, He's the one who gave us what we have in the first place and He's the one who promises to meet our needs.

In the Bible we read the story of a woman who had only a couple pennies.  But she gave what she had.  Jesus said she was more generous than anyone else that day.  She probably gave the least amount, dollar-wise, of everyone present.  But Jesus said she was the most generous.  Why? Because she was trusting God with everything & living completely open-handed.

Generosity isn't born out of wealth.  For our family we experienced that first hand.  Years ago, before we had kids, we decided to make a move from Washington state to Chicago.  I was wanting to go back to graduate school, and was accepted at a school on the north shore of Chicago.  School was a full-time job.  17 credit hours, 300-500 pages of reading a week, 50+ hours of study and classes.  Jennifer got a job at the university as an administrative assistant to put me through school.  Her salary was $18,000 a year.  I worked a few extra hours in the library and made about $3,000 a year.  God provided a free place for us to live (crazy, God story) in a church apartment where I cleaned the church during the week.  So, we made $21,000 a year, and school was going to cost around $11,000 a year.  That was a problem.  

Things were incredibly tight for us.  And it created a dillema.  Jen and I grew up in the Church.  From the time we were both old enough to make any money we were taught to always give a tithe (the FIRST 10%).  So when we got married, we just naturally did that too.  But now we had NOTHING.  I couldn't figure out how we were going to tithe $2,100 a year to our local church.  On top of that we had a Compassion Child which was about another $300 a year or so.  

I began to carry on a conversation with myself.  I tried convincing myself, God, Jennifer that maybe we should just "tithe" to ourselves during graduate school after all I was going to school to be a pastor.  It WAS ministry.  After school, once I had a job that paid more we would go back to tithing and I would even give beyond that.  I also KNEW that we couldn't keep our Compassion Child.  There was just no way.  Plus that was above and beyond our tithing anyway.

Then I felt like God spoke to me.  As I sat in our little, God-provided apartment, with a decent amount of clothes, and a refrigerator of food, studying for the graduate school classes I was starting to take, it felt like God told me:  "Really?  You aren't going to care for this child?  The one who needs sponsorship to have an education?  That needs someone to sponsor them so they can have food and some clothes?"

We got it.  We weren't sure how we were going to do it, but we made a commitment to continue to bring our 10% back to God and to continue to sponsor our child all throughout graduate school.

A week later I stopped by my mailbox, picked up the mail and started going through it.  I saw a letter from my grandpa.  Inside was a check for $10,000.  That had NEVER happened every before - not anywhere close to something like that!  And we got another check the next year.  And the next.  We walked out of graduate school with no loans.  Amazing!

Would my grandpa have given those checks even if we had quit giving?  Probably.  I don't know. But, I have no doubt that the timing was straight from God.  We've had too many things through the years happen that way - "coincidentally" being lost in the mail, or showing up the day we needed it, or the day or week after a decision has been made.

Those years were some of our leanest financially.  But a growing generosity was born in those lean times as we trusted God to be our provider, and strived to live open-handed even as we did so with some fear in our hearts.

The funny thing is, the more we've been able to live generously, the less and less fear we have.  Instead we have more and more faith as we've seen God provide and meet our needs and let us be a part of what He's doing in the world.

What can you do to take a step of generosity, to put God first in your finances this Thanksgiving and Christmas season?