History in the Making

Out of Town

I blogged profusely today because Ains and I are leaving town for a few days. Every once in a while, we reach a 10+ stress level from the volume of activity... and need to decompress. This week is one of them. I've got a crazy September in the works ~ our Vision message series, two weddings to officiate, two big outreach projects, and meetings to prepare for the new small group semester and ministry teams.

I'll miss blogging until the end of the week. But that's not a bad thing. Blogging is terribly one-sided. When my hit-counter is high, my phone stops ringing and the e-mails stop coming. People already know how I'm doing. I'm clueless about them.

Neighborhood Update

The lady who lives in our church's neighborhood wrote back tonight with some helpful answers. She's a strong Christian (which I didn't realize).

I think alot of the neighborhood is sooo busy working and trying to take care of their kids that they don't expand their horizons. I would recommend doing things with the neighborhood, they usually have a community yard sale, and several other events that you could become involved in - that might open some doors.

1.  I would describe it as friendly.  A lot of people walk around Kinross and not afraid to smile and wave at people they do not know. 

2.  Mostly families make up the neighborhood. I have families with young kids on either side of me, but my exposure - because I have teenagers - is mainly to older kids.

3.  I have not heard any of them talk about History church.   

4.  I do think an event is an excellent idea to draw them out.

5.  I think the Backyard movie night sounds like fun and would definitely bring out some.  I also think that if you can find a way to help these busy families that would be good - Mom's Day Out - is one idea.  God calls us to serve, and these people are sooo busy they don't even know they what they need, they just know that they are tired, and just making dinner for the family and doing laundry is exhausting.

I thanked her for writing back and subtly explained that I  am praying for even just one family to serve as a
"beachhead" to reach the neighborhood for Christ.

The street is called Kinross... "Kinross for Christ!"

Top of Mind Concern

I just posted photos of the backyard movie night on our official History Church website so that the small group members can refer it to the neighbors who attended. Think of it as our own version of JoePix. Joe Pix has an amazing evangelistic strategy ~ they shoot photos of complete strangers at major events, and then give them a card to find their photo on the JoePix website. This website leads them into a presentation of the Gospel on-line... and even church recommendations, I think.

At the top of my mind today is our church's need to do a better job of reaching our immediate neighborhood. We are in a highly unusual setting for most Fairfax county schools. Our location is smack-dab in the middle of thousands of residences. But here's the thing... we haven't drawn even ONE of these families into the church. =( In my mind, even if we were reaching thousands on a Sunday morning... we would be losing if we weren't reaching any families in the immediate neighborhood. There's a disconnect somwhere.

So today, I e-mailed a lady who lives on the same street as our school. She attended History twice and then never returned (in spite of follow-up efforts). I'm praying that she'll respond, and allow us to use her house as a home base for reaching the neighborhood... somewhere to host backyard events for kids.

I also just received 100 pages of demographic information I ordered for the surrounding 1 mile and 3 mile radius. I want to know this neighborhood inside and out.

At this time next year, I am praying for dozens of Oak Hill families to attend History.

Backyard Movie Outreach

Three couples in our church ~ the Morgans, the Milams, and the Kruses ~ hosted an amazing outreach this past Friday night. They used our video equipment for a backyard movie night for an entire neighborhood. Get this ~ 45 people showed up to watch Chicken Run while our History couples got to know as many people as they could. What an incredible job!

Infamous Pink Shirt

Fun Wyatt Videos

Experienting with YouTube videos:

Wyatt couldn't stop making funny noises in the car, so we captured it on video. After two minutes of this, his cheeks and lips were all blown out like Dizzy Gillespie! [here]

Like James Brown, Wy enjoys some dancing in the kitchen [video here]

Ainsley plays a game of "Where's Wyatt's nose?" [watch here]

Wyatt successfully wins the game of "Where's Wyatt's nose?" [here]

Wyatt climbs the park bench on the boardwalk at Ocean City, New Jersey [here]

Leadership Interviews

Josh is doing something amazing on his blog these days ~ he sent questions to quite a few notable pastors throughout the country, and many of them took the time to answer him. He's posting their responses on his blog at http://www.leadershipblog.blogspot.com/.

Pink Shirt

For this morning's message, I wore a pink T-shirt that I bought at Nordstoms 6 months ago with the slogan: "I Feel a Sin Coming On." I think the congregation was shocked to see me wear it... but I explained that it explained the Christian life better than any shirt I've seen at Christian bookstores. We had a great time looking at Galatians 5:19-25, which talks about the struggle with our old nature.

The challenging part was wearing the shirt out to lunch and then to a video store for Wyatt's afternoon nap. It drew quite a few looks. =)

Follow-up

My Reston real estate contact has followed up twice with some stunning e-mails this week. The idea of our facility in the Town Center being a performing arts theater during the week would certainly help our cause. My contact's e-mail said:

I would like to refer one of the employees at the Chamber of Commerce to you. She is the Visitors Center Manager. In addition to her role at the Chamber, [she] has a long term goal to operate a performing arts center. I thought that the multiple-use aspect of your urban concept church could be complementary to this.  FYI, [her] father is also a minister and is a member of the board of directors for this endeavor [the town center development].

Amazing. I've begun pulling together a team of individuals in History who can help us begin the developmental side of this kind of capital project. One of the wonderful ladies in our church is a former board member of the Children's Museum in Springfield, IL and currently a CFO of a corp in DC. [For such a time as this...] She's agreed to lead the team. My mind is racing with excitement these days... But it's aaaall in an open hand.

8 Laws of Leadership

My favorite seminary professor, Elmer Towns, wrote a book on leadership, along with a few other Liberty VIPs. Here are the 8 laws of leadership they cited:

1. The Law of Dreams
People follow a leader who has a dream of a desirable objective. When people buy into a leader's dreams, thehy buy into his/her leadership.

2. The Law of Rewards
People follow a leader who rewards them when they accomplish their goals, which ensures they will continue to follow him.

3. The Law of Credibility
People follow a leader when they have confidence in his plans. The leader who believes in his followers usually has people who believe in him.

4. The Law of Communication
Motivation is not stirring speeches, slogans, or threats. People tend to follow a leader who gives them compelling reasons to do so. People follow you when you give them a reason to work.

5. The Law of Accountability
The leader must give specific responsibilities, and know the specific contribution his followers can make to help ensure the entire group reaches the goal. Then he must hold each group member accountable to do his part.

6. The Law of Motivation
People follow a leader who effectively communicates his plan to reach the objective. People tend to follow a leader who gives clear directions.

7. The Law of Problem Solving
People follow a leader who gives solutions to problems that hinder them from reaching the objective. The more barriers that frustrate your followers, the less likely your followers are to reach their goal.

8. The Law of Decision Making
People follow the leader who decides well when questions areise as the group moves toward accomplishing their objective.

Movie Night... and Other Ideas

Matt just sent out an e-mail about his small group's backyard movie night this Friday. This is shaping up to be an incredible outreach to the friends and neighbors of this small group. The goal is to build relationships and get to know people. I can't wait to see how God uses this event. I don't plan to attend ~ but rather to sit back and watch people be the ministers God wanted them to be! Matt wrote...

"It looks like there is going to be between 30 and 50 kids there not counting any of the families that [Butch, the host] hasn't been told about. Awesome! That also doesn't include adults!" [They're going to show "Chicken Run" on the big screen].

Today at my monthly church planter meeting [the convention I'm a part of], I was inspired with some other pretty neat outreach ideas...

- Sponsor a 25-cent gas buy-down at the gas station near our elementary school [church site]. One planter drew 160 people to a two-hour event on a Saturday morning. Cost them $400, but made substantial contacts and got amazing television coverage.

- Order custom-printed "thunder sticks" to hand out at local high school football games. I think History should print our website address and this slogan on them: Our Love is Loud  [which happens to be a David Crowder song]

- Promote a "sign party night" where people in our church go out at 8:00 PM to place History Church yard signs along the major roadways of northern Virginia. We've already got 500 waiting to go; we just need the manpower.

Vision in Bits and Pieces

Blackaby quoted Deuteronomy 7:22 in his devotional yesterday, which I found really interesting:

"And the Lord your God will drive out those nations before you little by little; you will be unable to destroy them at once, lest the beasts of the field become too numerous for you."

God doesn't ever fulfill the vision He's given us in one chunk because we wouldn't be able to handle all of the load right now. He uses our "enemies" [or things we perceive as barriers] to help maintain "the land" until we come to a place where we can handle it.

This gives me a whole new perspective on waiting for God's promises to be fulfilled. It means that we're already successful ~ [we already possess "the land"]. It's just that our rivals are helping us maintain the people, the property, and the possessions until we're ready for them. Praise God.

He Doesn't Give Stones

From Oswald Chambers today ~ "Who, if his son asks for bread, will give him a stone?" [Matthew 7:9]

Terrific meeting with the real estate mogul today. Isaac Newton Square is off limits, he said... but without saying too much [he's under confidentiality agreements], there could possibly be opportunity at the famed Reston Town Center. [Even better!] He gave me some phone numbers to call. Two ways to go about it, he said ~ generate enough community consensus, or buy yourself in.

This man was unusually receptive to churches building in the heart of Reston. He said, "Your inquiry couldn't have come at a better time." ... "I've been trying to advocate for a long time having at least a prayer chapel or wedding chapel built in the heart of the town center."

Our intention to use our planned theater for more than just church services [things like fine arts performances, stage productions, community events, throughout the week] would go a long way, he said.

Coming Soon...

Ainsley's sister Tiffany and her husband Lou are due any day now...

Canaan

Meeting tomorrow morning at 10:00 with the developer of this squared site in the middle of the photo. Praying hard, but with an open hand...

God's Favor

There are a few church planters I know that have the favor of God pouring all over them. Gary Lamb is one of them. And Mark Batterson is the other. He couldn't stay out of the Washington Post if he tried. [article here]

Where's CS Lewis When You Need Him?

Via John's blog, [this interview] on BeliefNet features an interesting statement by Rob Bell:

"For many people the message of Jesus was presented as an individual message of salvation for their own individual sin: "Jesus died for you." I affirm that wholeheartedly, but in the scriptures, its scope goes in the opposite direction. It begins with the Jesus who dies on the cross and rises from the dead.

"But as the New Testament progresses, you have writers saying that "by his shed blood he is reconciling everything in heaven and on earth." Peter says in Acts, "He will return to restore everything." So it is a giant thing that God is doing here and not just the forgiveness of individuals. It is the reconciliation of all things. It is the putting back together of the whole universe how God originally intended it to be.

"One way to look at it is that the message is an invitation into God’s giant, global universal purposes that "I" actually get to be a part of. I’m trying to get the focus where the first Christians seem to have had the focus. It is easy for it to become a very selfish thing—"look what I’ve got"—as opposed to "by the grace of God look at this amazing thing that he’s been inviting people into for thousands of years." And that is quite an awe-inspiring, amazing thing."

I'm not saying Rob is wrong, but in my study of Galatians at History, we see the Judaizers saying, "Yes, Jesus died for your sins BUT..." here's something else. And it's not that Rob is adding anything to salvation, but he seems to be working really hard to dimish the emphasis on salvation as the main thing... and he's saying that this is why Christianity has become obsolete, like a velvet painting of Elvis.

I can imagine the Judaizers saying, "But hold on, Paul, we believe in Jesus's death on the cross... but it's so much bigger than that."  Isn't that what Joel Osteen is saying? "Yes, I believe in Jesus' death for our sins... but it's so much bigger than that. It's about making people Champions!"

The way of Christ was never meant to be the popular way. In fact, it's the narrow road. Some would say, the narrow [minded] road. Let us not forget that Jesus ~ this compassionate, all loving individual that "fundamentalists" have seemingly mischaracterized ~ was crucified for his [narrow] views.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but from what I can gather from Velvet Elvis, Rob believes that this earth will eventually become Heaven in this dimension. I handed off my book to Matt, but I recall Rob in the latter chapters making an appeal for how much he likes Michigan, the coffeeshops and people... that the joy of Heaven is being reconciled here on earth gradually until the day of Jesus Christ's return.

Nothing against Michigan, but really? I recall in Hebrews that Abraham thought the promised land was in Canaan... but turns out, God had a Heavenly place in mind.  hmmm.

Monday Off

Starbucks Controversy

There's a lot of buzz brewing over Starbucks sponsoring gay pride week and placing pro-homosexual statements on their coffee cups. Churches are in a tizzy... especially all of the pastors and church planters who utilize their coffeeshops as church offices. =) This past Sunday, after we announced a relational evangelism strategy at History called "We want to take 500 of your friends to Starbucks," I had one visiting gentleman who issued me caution over this very issue.

While I am unflinchingly certain that the absolute truth of God's word opposes homosexuality (as well as any sex outside of marriage), I am also aware that surrendering one's life to Christ comes before any change in morality. Otherwise, there is no basis for moral values. Putting Grace and Sanctification in the wrong order equals legalism.

I also know that God called us to redeem environments. When our church met at a movie theater for a year and a half, we held services in the very auditorium where Bride of Chucky and Saw were playing. I can't tell you how many weeks the movie theater employees snuck in the back to experience our worship. One of the first experiences that prompted Ainsley and me to start History Church was leading an atheistic Starbucks barista to Christ in Virginia Beach, Va. She's still in our life 5 years later...

Besides, Starbucks has an extremely generous sponsorship program. When we held our Blessing of the Bikes event this past May, Starbucks gave us gallons and gallons of free coffee, without our need to explain the event very much. We led 4 bikers to Christ that day. And Starbucks sponsored it!

Churches need to stay silent. Francis Assisi said, "Witness at all times, and when necessary, use words."

New Life Church

New Life Church here in Centreville cracks me up. They bought an ice cream truck and revamped it with their own graphics to give away free ice cream to kids all summer. They've started a blog to recount their stories [here]. This staff has a lot of fun in ministry, and it shows...