The Value of Story

My team made me aware of an awesome resource for storytelling using media. It's a site called Deidox. The Bible speaks of the power of the word of testimony. These speak that power. If you are at all involved with church media, or if you want to be inspired, check them out. Here's the trailer:

Deidox | Trailer from Deidox on Vimeo.

Jesus Wants to Save Christians

Rob Bell's book Jesus Wants to Save Christians is rocking my world. Here's a quote:
"When the goal of a church is to get people into church services and then teach them how to invite people to come to church services, so that they in turn will bring others to more church services-

That's attendance at church services.

And church is not ultimately about attending large gatherings.

Church is people.

People who live a certain way in the world."

Is a different rubric needed to identify a healthy church? I'm wrestling with this right now. How do we know if we're helping people grow?

Workshops Coming in June!

Back in March, we had the opportunity to network groups of people from churches around the country in our One Day Workshops format.  Our next set of workshops is June 25 & 26.  You can register for one of these days (or both!) HERE.  This is a great way to get access to great people - seriously great people - who know what they're talking about when it comes to topics like: local/global missions, first impressions, working with volunteers, etc.

Cool new adds have been to have worship at the beginning of each day.  From the impressions in the March workshops, this was a great time for God to meet with people.  I hope you'll join us in June!

Brilliant Night

The team from Hillsong London treated us to a wonderful night of worship at GCC yesterday! How thrilling to give our people permission to express their hearts to God. I also think we definitely stretched some people in decibels! :) My brothers in worship, Jason Miller and Trace Rorie helped pull this together along with tons of teams from the church. I'm so grateful for a night to simply take in all that God had in store.

Check out their video for Hail to the King:

TWO MONTHS AND COUNTING...

With the lovely Spring weather in Northern Indiana...

We're looking forward to 2 months to the day when we're going to...

We'll try not to gross our kids out like this. Or maybe we can't help it...

Birthday Traditions

My daughter, Sophie, just turned 8 yesterday.  Our family likes to make a BIG DEAL out of birthdays.  We've started traditions along the way and have kept many of them.

Here are just a few highlights:

• on birthday mornings all the other family members wake the person up with a LOUD rendition of Happy Birthday
• a Krispy Kreme donut with a candle in it is on their plate
• balloons and flowers are at their place
• birthday person gets to choose where we go out to eat - usually it's Carrabbas!
• a poster of some sort with pix from the past year (sometimes a baby pic) is sitting by their place
• for the kids, dad writes a birthday letter to each of them every year which I read to them.

We've been doing this last one since they were able to understand things (around 3 years old).  In this letter I love having the chance to, in writing, affirm God's working in their lives.  I also point out strengths and growth that I've seen in the past year.  I highlight a few key memories which will help preserve them for the future.  Often, I will challenge them to growth in a key area as well.  

Here is a small portion from the letter that I  wrote Sophie this year:

There is a verse in the Bible that says: “Therefore, my brothers and sisters, you whom I love and long for, my joy and crown, that is how you should stand firm in the Lord, dear friends!” Philippians 4:1 You are my joy and my crown, Sophie. I’ve told you this from the very beginning of your life and whispered it in your ear as I held you in the hospital. Joy is something that runs deep inside me when I get to be with you. You make my heart smile (if it could)! A crown is something that a king or queen wears and is proud of. It is something for others to see. I have to admit, I want others to see what a wonderful daughter I have in you.

These are things that I want her to know.  I've heard countless times about the difference a daddy makes in the lives of his daughters.  In fact, Kevin Leman wrote a great book about it.   

We treat birthdays with a lot of love in our family because we believe that this not only speaks, but shows VALUE to our kids.  I wonder if you have some birthday traditions that we could learn from?

Intentional Community

Our worship leaders, Trace Rorie, Jason Miller, Don Reynolds, Seth Bible and myself are getting together at Panera on a weekly basis now. We're finding that as things get more spread out between 2 campuses and various ministries that we need to have that regular contact, not only to "get 'er dun" but to build a sense of community and awareness of what is going on in each other's worlds.

I've been at points in my life where silo ministry has happened. People are working together, but they're not really "together" in truest sense. When things are smaller and only a few people involved, community can be less intentional. You do things together. You go to lunch. You work on projects because you are the only ones. As teams grow, the intentionality toward community must grow as well. We're choosing to make this an important part of our week. I can better pray for my brothers since I've heard where they're at. Our full staff team does this as well each week. Tim Stevens, our Executive Pastor did a great post on this a few years back.

I have to admit that this is a challenge for me because while I crave community, I also crave independence. As a person who has "IDEATION" as his chief character trait (check out Marcus Buckingham's Now, Discover Your Strengths), I like to do a bit of trail blazing. I realize though that as Mark Beeson has said that "the team outperforms the individual in the long run every time." I believe it and I'm willing to sacrifice some of my individuality and time to build God's church.