On the road to Easter

This past week reminded me that Easter is on it's way. Not the Cadbury Egg commercials, not the previews for "HOP" on TV, but the fact that so much is happening at LifePoint Church. Just a few of the challenges/opportunities around here:

• Jeremy and Amy Malekos announcing their departure from our church staff has been a mixed blessing. Of course we're excited for their next adventure, and we know God has something for them in California, but it hurts to see them go after all that they have invested in ministry here. They will be missed, and they do leave a whole that God will need to fill.


• One of our facilities staff, Dave Henry, has also tendered his resignation. He's taking a position at a local coffee roasting plant (and he better get me a tour...). We wish Dave all God's best in his transition, too.


• We're working to hire an administrative assistant in the church office about now, and that process is underway.


• We're still looking for a Worship Pastor, and are hoping to have one this summer.


• We're going to break ground this spring on a solar collection system that Nevada Energy is giving us for FREE that will power our campus almost entirely, giving us a huge cost savings each month.


• We continue to see new people connect to our church, and people in our church connect in small groups, and our small groups connect to serving in the community. NICE!!


• Included in that small group movement is our Senior Thursday group, just getting off the ground, but growing in enthusiasm and momentum.


• We baptized 22 people this weekend, 18 in regular services, and 4 more as a part of Jeremy and Amy getting some 'last chance' opportunities.

That's not even the complete list! There's much more happening around LifePoint, but it all reminds me that while there are hard things, there are also good things that God is doing all around us. And Easter means that we will need to ramp up everything: serving, helping, loving, inviting, giving, and most especially PRAYING!!!

Pray for your church, for the leaders, for the folks who are working to make Easter a special, hope-filled event, and for the thousands of people who will come through our doors looking for hope. Now is the right time to pray, and I hope you'll join in as we follow the road to Easter.

A Lesson on Waiting Rooms

After big events like Easter weekend, I tend to have some kind of let down. I always attribute it to the adrenaline and excitement surrounding the big days that, when it subsides, leaves my body a little more vulnerable to the bugs in the air. I thought this year was going to be different, since for a whole week after Easter I was doing really well. My energy was up, my enthusiasm was high, the rush of all God did at LifePoint this Easter was fresh on my mind and heart, so I was going great! The first weekend of the new series, Make The Connection was really good, with a good turnout and tremendous feedback.

Then Monday hit.

I woke up to get Mac off to school, and I was sick. I went back to bed and slept most of the morning. When I did wake up, I was coughing and feeling miserable. I dragged myself down to the Urgent Care Center in Minden to get looked at, and found a waiting room full of people.

Turns out I wasn't the only one sick in the Carson Valley.

So I waited. They had been slammed all day, with many admissions to the local hospital, so they were very backed up. So I waited. And I waited. I Tweeted my Twitter and I waited. I watched Food Channel and I waited. I finally got back into an exam room, and then... I waited. Finally, the doctor showed up, looked in my ears, listened to my lungs, told me I had bronchitis, and sent me on my way. Three hours (not joking) of waiting for a five minute visit to tell me what I already knew.

When I got better this week, I realized that sometimes people have the same experience with church. They come, expecting something, but instead, they wait around for something to happen. They think it's going to be good, but sometimes, in the waiting, they lose sight of why they came. They know there's something good supposed to happen, but they end up being somewhat entertained, but not really. And they wait. And if they finally get where they thought they wanted to go, it seems somewhat anticlimactic. "I knew that already."

Instead of warehousing people, instead of creating a big waiting room for people to hang out in and be somewhat entertained, what if we offered real help and real connections for people when they arrived? What if, instead of waiting to see a pastor, we had lots of people who could offer assistance, care, compassion, a listening ear, and even training to be involved. Instead of passively waiting, folks could get actively involved in something, what would that be like?

That's why the shift in churches has been toward being more missional, more focused on getting folks connected and actively involved in their own faith journey, rather than passively sitting around waiting on someone else. It makes a difference in the lives of people much more quickly, and more effectively. Here's what I mean:

One of our leaders recruited unchurched people to come be a part of her ministry during our Easter weekend. Those people might have never set foot in church otherwise, but because of their connection this leader, they came. They attended a service to see what this was all about, despite having no intention of doing so at first, and they heard the gospel loud and clear. The impact was real: afterward, they wanted to know more.

Not sitting around watching a show, but connected relationally and actively participating as they had a chance to connect to Jesus. What if church was like that, and not so much like a waiting room? Would Jesus smile?

Easter At LifePoint, Part 2

Tuesday, and stories are coming in about lives impacted by the weekend at LifePoint Church:

• One person let me know that they led people to Christ at the dinner table over an Easter meal after the services on Sunday. You have to know how fired up that makes me! That's the definition of teamwork: The worship team opens the door, I tell the story, someone else walks people they know across the finish line, Jesus wins!!
• Some folks told a staffer that they are moving here soon, were visiting again over the holiday weekend, stopped in and were touched by the service. Now they can't wait to get back and get involved.
• Children's ministry folks heard that some of the first time volunteers were seriously looking to jump on board more regularly after Easter. Yahoo!!
• One person who did kids ministry most of the services got to pray with six kids to receive Christ!! That NEVER gets old!
• Hearing multiple stories of folks coming to multiple services in order to bring more friends to hear about Jesus.
• Folks at Guest Central noticed that more and more of our regulars were bringing their friends to the Guest Central counter to introduce them and help them get connected. WAY TO GO LIFERS!!!
• One college student ended up with eight invite tickets from all the Lifers they knew inviting them. Nice!!
• One person noticed that we had plenty of volunteer help this year. Folks stepped up and offered their time and energy to help - very servant-hearted!!
• Lots and lots of comments, notes, postings and phone calls about how folks were touched and even moved by the Friday night service and how God moved even after the lights went out. If you missed that, look here for part of the story.

And there's more where that came from! If you have a story from the Easter weekend at LifePoint, make a point to post it here. Let's share what God has done!

Easter At LifePoint, Part 1

I'm so excited about what God did at LifePoint Church this weekend, I want to sing and jump up and down, but I'm my throat hurts and I'm wiped out, so my heart is dancing (or, as my friend Stacy likes to say, "my heart is pink and full of Spanish!")!!

So the first of six services was Friday night, and everything had come together. The message was done, and I got to see the dance number I in it's entirety that morning, and it looked great. A few tweaks to the order of service, and we felt like it was ready. All week we had been praying for the light board to work, and it was working great. So, 6 pm rolls around, and we start. The first song, then the dance number go off amazingly well, and the crowd was into the experience.

Then the lights flickered hard, like they wanted to go out, but came back up. All that did was take out the media and jack up the lights, but it all got put back in place pretty fast, so by the middle of the next song, it was all up and running like normal. All through it, the band played on, and the congregation sang, or tried to without the words on the screen. Pretty cool, and just a great bunch of work by the band and the team working sound and media.

So I got up to start the message, and it's rolling along well, the crowd was following right along, when suddenly, about 2/3 through, the lights flicker hard again... and stay out. Totally. Pitch. Black.

The emergency lights come on, and the crowd all laughs at the predicament. They start telling me to keep going, so I joke, "I can't see my notes!" Someone in the crowd comes up with a flashlight, and I kept going, pushing my voice a bit to get to the back row, but not too bad (years of football coaching comes in handy!).

The kids ministry folks do an amazing job keeping the kids calm and still focused, and word was that five kids received Christ in their service. Wow.

So after the service, I'm super proud of the team and all the work to get through what was obviously a difficult situation with more than just grace, but also with great presence of mind and real ministry hearts. But I'm feeling a little down that people will walk away and remember what a great job we did to finish out the service, but they won't remember Jesus.

Then, Saturday morning, I'm at the gym when a lady comes up and introduces herself to me. She tells me that she had three people she invited who had either never been to church or never been to LifePoint. She said they had a wonderful experience, and they were really excited about coming back.

I was stunned. Turns out God works, not only in the dark, but in my moment of doubt. I was worried that folks wouldn't see Jesus in all that chaos, but the truth is, He shined brighter than ever for those who needed Him the most.

That story did more to stoke my fire than anything else could have. Every service after that, I walked to the platform knowing that God was there, whether people were there to see the dance, hear the band, listen to me or for any other reason they might have listed. God was there, and He was making Himself known to people far from Him.

Such a blessing. Thank you to all the Lifers for praying, inviting, serving, giving and showing up to see Jesus be famous in our valley. And thanks to the guy who loaned me the flashlight. :)

More later...

Praying a 'Paul Prayer' for Easter

I try to take time every day to spend reading the Bible and praying just for me. As much as I'm reading and studying for messages, teaching opportunities, etc... I want and need time for me and Jesus to talk, not just for what I can share with others. It helps me focus and stay grounded, and I have always struggled with keeping it regular in my life. I'm doing better these days, and calling it my Priority Time instead of my Quiet Time has helped, but that's a post for a different day.

I was reading in Colossians the other day, and Paul asks for the church folk there to pray for him. Pray that he would get opportunities to share the Good News of Jesus Christ with folks. Then, in chapter four, verse four he says, "Pray that I will proclaim this message as clearly as I should." That has really resonated with me this week.

I need to proclaim the message of the Resurrection as clearly as I should. Clear enough that folks understand that this is the hinge issue of the entire Christian faith. That this one event is the focal point of all of history. That this one piece of the puzzle is what makes the rest of the Bible and the rest of life itself make any sense. I need to get that point across as clearly as I should, so that there is no mistaking what we believe.

We as Christ followers don't believe in the philosophy and teaching of a man, or the crazy stuff he said. We believe that Jesus died a public death and was raised to life again in front of witnesses who, in turn, gave their lives for what they saw. It is powerful, life changing truth, and it needs to be spoken clearly.

So pray for me, that I might proclaim the truth of the Resurrection this weekend as clearly as I should. And pray for all the other preachers who are going to do the same thing. And pray for the musicians, the greeters, the servers, the parking attendants, the children's workers, and the singers to all do the same thing: to proclaim the powerful truth of the Resurrection as clearly as we should. This is too important to be unclear. It's too powerful to let it slip by. It's too vital to miss. Pray that I and my co-laborers in Christ will all proclaim it as clearly as we should!!

God bless, and may Easter bring effective ministry to us all in Jesus' most powerful name!

A Kinder, Gentler Easter

We had an amazing prayer time at our Staff Worship today at LifePoint Church. A great time of zeroing in on what God was saying, what we're supposed to be hearing and doing, and especially praying for the folks who will come and hear the Good News this weekend. It was a privilege to hear people who spend so much of their time focusing on serving others still having the energy to lift up in prayer those they serve. I am privileged to lead a tremendously loving and focused team.

Later, a great discussion with the Worship staff about how they are relaxed and ready for Easter. That's such a good thing, not feeling pressured, rushed, buried, or crushed by the deadlines and the production. As much as I love big productions for the holidays, it's always better when folks don't feel and portray the stress of getting ready as they lead in worship. I want us to offer the best we have, and the best is not stress. It is a gift, and the gift comes from the Giver, who is also the Prince of Peace. Giving an Easter full of peace is a good gift.

I love big productions for the holidays, and they are definitely the right thing at the right time if done the right way with the right heart. I love the heart I've been hearing and seeing at LifePoint, and I think that we're going to portray that heart effectively to the folks who come.

Keep praying for the effectiveness of the message (Colossians 4:4) in all the ways it will be shared: music, dance, parking attendants, food servers, kid's ministry, the message, the media, the greeters and ushers, the grounds, the bathrooms and everywhere else. Everything we do for the people who come, we do for the Lord, and everything we do for the Lord has the opportunity to show the Love of God to the people who come.

I can't wait for EASTER!!!

Message Delivered

The first one is in the books, and I'm pretty tired, but really excited about this first weekend preaching at LifePoint as the Lead Pastor. Lots of great feedback, and I was really glad to hear that lots and lots of folks signed up to help with the Easter Services. I'm always pumped up to hear that folks heard God's word and stepped out to do what it says.

I'm excited for what's coming, and I'm pretty fired up for the weeks we have leading up to Easter. Keep praying, because it's going to take more that just what we have to bring to the table to see the big move of God that's going to come. God has big plans, and we need to step into them with prayer and faith, open hearts and open hands.

Remember: invite cards are for giving to people that you invite to Easter services! :) Come to one, serve at another. It's the best way to celebrate the Ressurection Day!!

Wrapping Up madatchurch.com - Part 3

Last one for this topic (unless someone writes me with more that makes me want to share). There are always consequences to our actions. Some are intended, some are unintended. Here's some of both:

• Intended: We wanted people to bring friends who had a problem with church so that they could hear that we knew we weren't perfect, and we were trying to chase after God even in our imperfection. That really worked for some folks. One woman spoke to me after the message about rules vs relationships and said she was so glad to have the CD to give to her husband. He had been part of a very rules-heavy church, and every time they found a new church, there would be some weird, unexplainable rules come up and he'd bail. She was fired up to have him hear that there were rules that mattered, but that mad made rules weren't as important as loving God and loving others. Easter Sunday, I saw here with her husband in church, both smiling and glad to be there. A great beginning!!
  
• Intended: we learned a ton about using media to share Christ! The website went up and stayed up, no glitches, but some of the things we wanted to try, like posting comments to the madatchurch.com site, we found were just too advanced for us. Maybe next time. The billboards worked, but where they were in town wasn't as visible as we'd hoped they'd be, so it limited our exposure. Turns out that when you only want a billboard for a month, they are harder to get than if you want them for 4 months or even 6. But the connection from the billboard to the site to the fbcpoky.com site to the staff blogs all increased traffic, so people looked, they clicked, they learned, and some of them came. Yeah God!
• Intended: there was buzz! I had several conversations with people about the talk in their offices about the signs. The Chubbuck City offices were all abuzz when the first sign went up just down the street from them. A couple of folks from FBC work there, and they heard people talking all about it from day one. I also got a call from a leader in another church here in town that overheard a conversation between two coworkers at his office. He interjected that they site wasn't bashing anyone, and invited them to check it out for themselves. He and his pastor were both very excited about our attempt to get the message of Jesus out to the culture, and he wanted to tell me that it had connected in his office.
• Unintended: Inside issues. There were people inside our church family who were upset by the series. I was somewhat surprised by the anger it generated in some of our people. I have tried to say we're not perfect as a church, and we're not always going to get it right, but even with that, folks were upset that we would talk about rules vs. relationships, etc, knowing that we have messed that up in our life together as a church. In a way, I was glad that it stirred up some folks, because some were willing to talk through their issues and disappointments, and for some, the messages could begin some healing from hurts they've had in our own church, not just somewhere else. All in all, while aimed at helping the outside world come closer to Jesus, I'm glad to say that it helped some people in our FBC family get closer to Him and to each other, too.
  
• Unintended: God smack. I wasn't really prepared for the way God was going to smack me in this series. Don't get me wrong - every time a pastor steps up to preach, God has been at work in their life and stirring them in whatever area the message is about (unless of course they are so cut off from the Holy Spirit that they are just on autopilot, which can and does happen), and I was expecting some of that. But what I got was more. I was really pushed around about my lack of faith in God's ability to draw people to Himself through our church. I kept seeing the reason we put rules up, the reason we get our agenda in God's way, the reason we are so excited to talk about end times things instead of now times things, the reason we get so obsessive about issues is that we don't always trust God to make change in people's lives. I realized that I was thinking way too often that God was waiting for me to DO SOMETHING rather than waiting for me to let HIM do something. It was a constant God-smack for the two months leading up to the series, and the four weeks of the series, and now some of the fall out is being seen in our church in cool ways. More on that later, but God is still working on me after this series.
  

If you've got more stories to share about madatchurch.com, let me know. God did some amazing things, and I'm glad for all the wins along the way. Even if there were some tough lessons to learn, it was all worth it in the end, so PRAISE GOD and keep rolling!

Wrapping Up madatchurch.com - Part 1

The day after Easter is always slow mentally. There isn't much left over after four services, even when I'm talking about the most exciting topic in history. But there are many people who have been following the madatchurch.com series, both here in Poky and around the country, so I'm going to do a few posts as we look at what God has done thru this effort. Some of the early pieces we are processing:

• 335 - the number of hits on the website. We didn't get exactly the highest traffic, most visible billboards in town, but we had a bunch of traffic on the madatchurch.com website during the time they were up. Traffic was also up on the fbcpoky.com site and the staff blogs, so people were using the web to connect to our church family. It goes to show that our culture is using technology to find answers, and even to check out churches. We as a church need to continue to find ways to use technology to the advantage of God's kingdom.
• 20-25 - the number of people who indicated they became Christ followers. In the four weeks of this series, we had the greatest response to the gospel of anything we've ever done as a church. When Aaron brought the message week two, 17 people raised their hands to acknowledge they were giving their lives to Jesus! There were 5 people who marked on their communication cards the past two Sundays. The reason we're a little vague with the numbers here is that we can only follow up on the people who tell us who they are, so we don't know if some of the people who raised their hands also checked the box the next week, or if there were more people but they didn't check the box... We're working on whatever the barriers are that keeps us from being able to follow up effectively with folks, but the big take away is this: there was a move of God in the past four weeks that has touched lives and made an eternal difference!
• Beginning or end? - We're praying and thinking about what works better: starting a series on Easter or ending a series on Easter. Over the years we've done it both ways, and it's hard to tell if there's an advantage either way. The next series we're doing is about following Jesus, and flows naturally out of both the madatchurch.com and Easter, so we're praying for people to get on board with what it means to follow the risen Christ.
• Sacrificing for others - There were several folks who gave up their usual seats on Sunday morning to come either Saturday night or to the 9 am service Sunday to make room for others. For some, that's a big sacrifice, for others a small step, but for anyone who did that, thank you! We had the largest attendance of the four services, the largest 11 service we've had in years, and three of those folks in that service gave their life to Christ! Your sacrifice in moving paid off, and I want you to know that. Thank you for loving God and loving people enough to move to another time slot.
• Taking it Personally - I met so many people who were introduced to me as guests by the person who brought them. As much as we want billboards and invitation cards to bring people to meet Jesus at Easter, it's always, ALWAYS going to be the personal invite that brings them in the door. Thank you THANK YOU to each person who brought someone to hear the good news of the resurrection this weekend. When you risk enough to ask, God smiles.

More later as we continue to process this. If you've got stories of how this series impacted you or someone you know, email me and let me know. And pray for this next series, Follow Jesus, I think it's going to push our church family toward the next step of challenge we need to hear. I'm being challenged by it already, and it's only Monday!!

Living In Between

This is Easter week, and I'm living in between.

I'm living in between birth and death. The dash on my tombstone - the one between the dates of the first and last days of my life - is all I get. I'm trying to make the most of what I have in between.

I'm living in between a funeral and the Resurrection. I attended the funeral of a long time FBC member on Monday night. It was a good service, with lots of amazing music (our own Becky Moore sang and led the hymn, great job representing, Becky!!). But any funeral in the context of Easter reminds me that death doesn't get the last word, Jesus beat death, and Brenda will get to tell us what Heaven's been like when we get there.

I'm living in between despair and hope. I have no ability to change people's hearts, lives, pains or choices. I have no ability to say the right thing or do the right thing. I can in no way make people happy, and I can't make anyone listen, think, pray, change, serve, worship, learn or grow. But as God has been teaching me, I have hope in the God of Heaven, who can open hearts, change minds, empower hands and feet, fill hearts with forgiveness and courage, and use even an imperfect, underwhelming vessel like me to speak grace and truth, and then by His Spirit, change lives for eternity.

I'm living in between writer's block and a flood. I'm trying to narrow down what God has been burning in my heart for over three months about the message for this weekend. I seem to be stuck in between not being able to think of a thing to say, and trying to say everything there is to say about Jesus, the Resurrection, sin, death, faith, life, hope, power, grace and forgiveness.

I know with all my heart that after the past three weeks, God is lining this up to be an Easter where He shows up and blows us all away. Pray that I will be able to get out of the way, get the right pieces in place to point to Jesus, and then that God's Spirit will turn up the volume in people's lives until they hear His love for them. Invite your friends, they will hear the good news, I promise.