Dirty Little Secrets of the Church

Today we wrap up the Dirty Little Secrets of the Church series. It’s been one of our best received series. Talking about things like When the Bible was official (397AD), Sex, Money, and Power in the church, outside cultures influence on Christianity, and the use of terms, phrases, and word pictures of other religions in the Bible, And how despite the secrets, we can still have faith that God is who He says, the Bible is inerrant and inspired, and we can passionately purse after Christ with everything we have. It’s been a fun series to prepare and just get back to the basics of why can we believe. And now, it’s late, and I’m off to bed.

The 2nd Best Way To Mess Up Your Ministry. Porn.

Sunday we did our 3rd week in the Dirty Little Secrets of the Church series. It was on sex, money, and power. Long story short, Lust and temptation are throughout our culture as you well know. In churches lust and temptations are HUGE! And the #’s for pastors involved in sexual immorality, especially online, are eye opening. It’s the second most productive way Satan will mess up your ministry (I would say the first is keeping you too busy to focus on family or your own spiritual health which I know all to well). If you have an issue with online porn, or you don’t but you just want to be smart and proactive in keeping it out of your life, check out the link on our dirty little secrets page. Or just go directly to xxxchurch.com, for some free software. Do It. Now! And keep rockin in ministry.

Dirty Little Secrets of the Church

We are in our 3rd week of the “Dirty Little Secrets of the Church” series. It’s been a blast to take people through the last 2000 years of the church and look at the things we don’t really like talking about. The goal is that no matter what, don’t let the skeleton’s in the church’s 2000 year old closet keep you from a life-changing encounter with Jesus Christ. Besides we all have our own little secrets. Last week was on the Bible, how we got it, can we trust it, when was it officially formed? This week is Sex, Money, & Power. Totally. Excited.

Initiators

A cool blurb from Seth Godin’s “The Tribe,” regarding leadership:

The easiest thing is to react.

Reacting as Zig Ziglar has said, is what your body does when you take the wrong kind of medicine. Managers react.

The second easiest thing is to respond.

Responding is a much better alternative. You respond to external stimuli with thoughtful action.

The hardest thing is to initiate.

Both pale in comparison to initiative. Initiating is really and truly difficult, and that’s what leaders do… They cause the events that others have to react to. They make change.

It’s easy to react or respond. It’s safer. We can blame others. We can point to circumstances outside our control. But, neither of those are leadership. They’re management. Initiating is difficult, perhaps lonely, always uncomfortable.

Either we are Initiators or we are Responders/Reactors.

Lowering The “If” Rate

Last week as I was writing the message, God kept bringing this to mind:

1 Tim 6:8 But if we have food and clothing, we will be content with these.

We usually focus on the word “content” in that verse. But as I was working through this God continually brought my attention to the word “If” because “if” some people have food and clothing implies some do not. God started working in me and said, its time this church started taking care of the “if.”  So, from now until Dec. 20th our Christmas service. We are doing a cereal and coats drive. Open Arms provides food to people who can’t otherwise get it. And they need cereal. We’re also in the midst of a freakin’ cold and snow spell up here and some people don’t have coats, while many of us have like 8 and we only wear 2. So it’s about giving those coats that go with that outfit or those shoes (which we never wear or only have once), to people who would wear them every day.  Check out the website for more info.

It’s all about lowering the “if” rate in Uptown.

Francis Chan’s Video Blog

Just checked out a bit of Francis Chan’s video blog. Continuing to be amazed at what that guy is doing and his awesome heart not just for the church, but for the world.  Never heard him speak until last years Exponential Conference and he was absolutely amazing in his encouragement in pushing all of us to continue rocking on in ministry.

New Book

Looking for a new book to read. Thoughts?

Board Meetings.

The Exchange Church Board met yesterday and I LOVE our board meetings. Our board is totally about what we are doing as a church. Not about anything else. As a church plant, we have half our board made up of members of the church and the other half made up from our parent church, The Crossing. The cool thing is our board is completly about, How do we get to the next step of where God is leading us? Its never, “we’ve done this, or seen other churches do it like this,” or etc.  In fact I’ve noticed they ask two main questions every time:

1. How can we best achieve what God is calling The Exchange Church to do?

2. How are you (me as the Pastor) doing in your own well-being (physically, emotionally, spiritually, mentally, etc).

They care about the church achieving its full potential in the way God has designed it and myself as well by not being burnt out and making sure I take rests, sabbaths, and spend time with God. The freedom that it gives is Absolutely Awesome! They care about the church and the person God has called to lead it. I thank God deeply for our board. They’re creative, they’re loving, they ask hard questions, but above all at the end of the day it’s all about Him and what He is calling us to do and going after it with everything we have.

A Good Reminder.

From Wayne Cordeiro’s “Leading on Empty,”

“So the Sabbath rest becomes a command we respond to, not a result of nothing left to do. It is a part of our obedience, not a consequence of our expedience and industriousness.”

When Prayer Doesn’t Work.

We posted our series on prayer “The Most Powerful Thing You Can Do!” online. Last week we talked about what happens when our prayers don’t work. The core of the sermon was 5 questions we need to ask when our prayers aren’t answered.

1. Is there sin in my life?

2. Am I the answer?

3. Is this about God’s perspective or ours?

4. Is the pain/hurt/difficult time really a part of the answer?

5. Is there a spiritual battle going on I am unaware of?

God definitely worked on me through preparing and giving the talk. Wrapping up this Sunday with April rocking out to “Keys to Prayer.” She’s gonna knock it out of the park!