Glorious Mud

Yesterday, I once again was privileged to preach at Trailhead Church . I preached from Paul's prayer in Ephesians 1.  Paul was asking God to open the eyes of our hearts so that we would know "what are the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints."  The central idea was this: God's glory is the most valuable thing in the universe and he has buried that glory in an unlikely field: the church. After the sermon, I had a good conversation with one of our leaders.  He loves the church and wants to serve it more, but finds it frustrating that his life is consumed with having to make money to make a living.  He wasn't saying he wanted to work for the church - more that he would one day love to have enough money that he could be self-sufficient and devote full time service to the church. So, I asked him what he would do if he were financially independent that right now could not do (in service to the church).  He thought for a moment and responded that he was...

So, a strange thought came to me in the shower the other day.  Being a pastor is like being a Chinese buffet.  Everyone shows up with different and specific expectations and everyone walks away disappointed. This thought didn't come to me because I was feeling sorry for myself, because I'm not.  I love what I do because of who I do it for (Jesus), and I have no internal need to meet everyone's expectations of me.  My job is to please the one who loved me and called me to himself.  (And, awesome thought, he is already pleased with me and will continue to be because I am covered with Christ, the delight of God!) The thought actually came to me as I was thinking about how the church today has lost the experience of being the church.  O ur cultural Christianity has essentially taken all the “one another's” of scripture and robbed them of their community experience. Like Colossians 3:16.  It says Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching a...

I posted this on one of my older blogs and it generated some new conversation lately, so I thought I would repost it here (with a little editing). The article isn't brand new, but the link is still active and so is the conversation. The USA Today ran an article about how our nation's youth see Christianity as anti-gay, judgmental, and hypocritical. Here is an excerpt: "The vast majority of non-Christians — 91% — said Christianity had an anti-gay image, followed by 87% who said it was judgmental and 85% who said it was hypocritical. Such views were held by smaller percentages of the active churchgoers, but the faith still did not fare well: 80% agreed with the anti-gay label, 52% said Christianity is judgmental, and 47% declared it hypocritical. Kinnaman said one of the biggest surprises for researchers was the extent to which respondents — one in four non-Christians — said that modern-day Christianity was no longer like Jesus." The full article can be viewed...

Church services are a lot of work to pull off. It doesn't matter if you attend a mega-church with a disneyland like children's ministry and performing monkeys onstage or a rural church of 100 people. Unless you attend a house church in your own home with no other families with kids, you will probably be confronted with the need at some point to recruit people to help you pull everything together for a church gathering. When I came on board with The Journey in 2006, I was immediately hit with the need to recruit enough volunteers to staff a new service (we were, at that point, moving from three to four services). I had a leadership team I was already developing - but I needed around 40 warm, caring, entertaining, and energetic bodies - and I needed them quickly. The problem was compounded by the fact that I didn't even have enough people to cover all the needs at the other services. So, I put in a request to God. I asked him, if he wouldn't mind, slowing down the gr...

It seems like every year I have a conversation with a friend who is dissatisfied with his or her church and is ready to chuck it and leave for something better down the street. So, in a nutshell, here is my advice. 10 Rules for Leaving a Church 1. Do not leave without first examining your heart to find out why you want to leave. Many will say they are leaving their church for doctrinal issues, lack of leadership, a lack of genuine community, or other issues - when really the reason they are leaving because their pride has been wounded in some way. Maybe they aren't getting the recognition they think they deserve. Maybe they think their gifts are undervalued. Maybe they see someone else getting attention and public applause and they feel threatened or jealous. Too many people leave their churches under the guise of some spiritual reason, when really it is a vindictive act stemming from wounded pride. 2. Do not leave without first having the hard conversations. Some people l...