History in the Making

Back From Orlando

This afternoon, we returned from an action-packed week in Orlando, where I attended the National New Church Conference with Tally Wilgis, who brought his family as well. Heard Mark Driscoll, Gene Appel, and some other really great speakers in the world of church planting. Visited the Magic Kingdom. Thanks to Ainsley's sister Tiffany and bro-in-law Lou, we got an incredible suite at their timeshare for the week. I've got tons of thoughts and reflections from the experience... which I'll post sometime soon. In the meantime, you can view photos here.

The Value of Conferences to Church Planters

Rick Warren said, "If you want to grow a church to 100, go to seminary. If you want to grow it beyond this, go to seminars." I believe it is extremely vital for first-time planters to attend conferences and other churches early-on to gain a bigger perspective of ministry. We all come into this with preconceived ideas about "doing church," and it's all very limited to our experience.

Andy Stanley said that visiting Willow Creek was the inspiration for North Point.

I grew up in a children's ministry that was led by a Barnum & Bailey Circus-trained clown. Three years ago, I tried to launch a dynamic children's ministry at History. Two volunteers [who don't attend anymore] listened to my ideas... and them rejected them... for the sake of what they already knew ~ flannel-graph boards and flip charts. I immediately sent them to the Grow Up Conference... =)

"Signs" message series kicks off with Baptism

Our video extraordinaire Phil Sowada uploaded a quick video-draft for this week's message on Baptism... part of our "Signs" message series.

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Welcoming Guests at Church

Hilarious post on Brenton's blog today about a follow-up note from a church he visited on Sunday. You have to click on the photo at right to try reading it. This was obviously a rushed afterthought by somebody.

An incredible lady named Evelyn Milam [married to Butch on our leadership team] leads our welcome team on Sundays. She has a huge passion for making guests feel welcome at History.. and following up with notes and calls. Her passion developed, in large part, from her family's experience of visiting churches before History. She said that no churches contacted them afterward.

Brenton took some heat in his comments section... but they were anonymously written, so you have to consider the source.

Identifying our Church's Target Audience

Matt and I have been looking closely at who our target audience is at History Church. Savvy churches know the exact profile of the kind of person they're trying to reach... but I've always been a bit gun-shy at pulling the trigger on this. Truth is... we can't reach everyone. Our music will appeal to some, but not everyone. Our outreaches, our publications, my sermons ~ all of it has to be aimed at a particular profile... or we'll hit no one.

Matt came up with some great questions to help us shape this profile:

1. Who wants to come to History? Who talks about what is happening here?
2. What ministries are thriving right now without effort?
3. What kinds of people serve the most in History?
4. Who is most invested in History right now?
5. What kinds of people do our hearts beat for? Has this always been the same?
6. Who is not coming to History?  Why?
7. Who is coming to History?  Why?
8. What is the profile of the fringe groups, and why do they come?
9. When asked about people who have come to Christ at History, which stories most frequently come to mind? What is common among these stories?
10. Who are we most uniquely gifted to reach?
11. Who is not being reached by other churches in the area?
12. What are the "connectors" that get people to come to History?

Easter Hijinks

For some strange reason, I can remember the rap lyrics to many of the hit-makers from the early 90s... Vanilla Ice, MC Hammer. So I break them out occasionally to impress people at parties. =) On Easter Saturday night at our tech rehearsal, I performed "Ice, Ice Baby" for a sound check and slowly realized that everyone was pulling out their cameras. The thought ran through my head, "Why is everyone trying to capture this?" Sure enough... there are "viral videos" and "viral photos" circulating around the History community. All I can say is... don't make me pull out the suits for Sunday mornings. Because it can get real serious, real fast. =)

National New Churches Conference

We're leaving on Sunday afternoon for Orlando to attend the National New Churches Conference at Journey Church... really excited about it. Tally's family is staying at the same complex as we are, so we can attend together. We're racing to pack in time for Sunday's departure, immediately after church. We're not exactly a new church anymore, but I want to keep my passion hot for planting... It's in our DNA.

Not just "message series" but "music series"

Our worship pastor, Matt Morgan, stumbled onto something a few months ago that has been a huge win for our church. Not only do we run a message series each month, but we have a corresponding worship song that plays like a thematic "anthem" for the month. For example, by Easter, our congregation "owned" Crowder's "There is No One Like You" because we'd been singing it all month. Seriously, we could've given Brooklyn Tab a run for their money. =) Our guests were surrounded by energetic voices on Easter Sunday.

Bob Reccord's Resignation

Bob Reccord announced yesterday that he is resigning as president of the North American Mission Board effective immediately. According to a release on the NAMB site, he came to "philosophical and methodological" odds with the organization.

I grew to really appreciate Bob Reccord. I met him in Seattle four years ago, and then bumped into him in London last December... and he remembered me! He then followed up with me about his kids who live in our area. In addition to his strong leadership, his personal skills really impressed me...

But this isn't the only reason I hate to see him go... I'm a NAMB missionary. And if Bob doesn't think there's much hope for NAMB's philosophies and methodologies... what are the rest of us to do?

Tuesday morning

Wy got a little more info on the kind of big brother he would be this morning... but I can't announce it on this blog because I got in a LOT of trouble for announcing Ainsley's pregnancy on here about four months ago.

Mourning losses that come with growth

We do a lot of things at History to create a "welcoming environment" that will be difficult to sustain as we grow. For example, we have stick-on nametags at the welcome center for every person who attends... and one for each guest on the following week. Eventually as we grow... it will take too long for people to find their names. We also serve a smorgasboard of pastries at our hospitality table each week. Eventually as we grow... it will become cost-prohibitative to feed the multitudes.

These are both systems... and systems have to change as an organization grows. The big questions are left to be answered... What do we do to improve? And when do we start changing gears? To find solutions, it'll take the creative energy of everyone on our team.

Easter Sunday update

Easter was awesome at History yesterday. We may not be able to go back to just two video screens after this... the tech team did an incredible job pulling off a highly technical and creative service.

Our second highest attendance ever, only after Christmas Eve. Five people gave their lives to Christ... and I was floored by the number of unchurched guests for whom we've been praying over the past year. Almost everyone in my small group brought an unbelieving friend... and I immediately recognized each name as they introduced me because we've been praying for them for so long...

I don't get to shoot as many photos on Sundays as I would like anymore. And the ones below were shot waaaay after our service was over. Our resident photographer, Dave Kruse was in the hospital for pinched nerves in his arm. Feel better, Dave!

Easter preparations

Just finished a thoroughly exhausting Saturday night set-up and tech rehearsal for Easter. Everything went perfectly. What an incredible bunch of volunteers we have at History. I'm off to bed...

Where in the world is Leonard Sweet?

Planting History Church was inspired by reading Leonard Sweet's AquaChurch many moons ago. He changed how I thought about church in a postmodern age. We always say that History is just the play-on-words "His story" and that spares us from an extensive conversation.

But the truth is... History was named after the 'Grand Meta-Narrative' of life, that is absolute truth. Postmodern culture [call it what you like] has rejected God's master story from which everything else must derive... for the sake of personal stories, which conflict with each other and promote relativistic thinking.

This isn't a new idea... it started with Tolkien, Lewis, Francis Schaeffer and is now championed by John Eldredge, Chuck Colson, and Leonard Sweet.

Leonard's back with a new book: The Three Hardest Words in the World to Get Right. Haven't read it yet, but it apparently addresses the idea of the Grand Meta-Narrative in a pretty thorough way.

Series after Easter

Chris Anderson's handiwork.

Why women's blogs get more hits than men's

I'm overwhelmed by the number of blogs written by males... I typically think of journaling as a girly thing. =) But blogs for women and mothers are an untapped goldmine when it comes to ministry. They can unite entire neighborhoods, build strong relationships, and expose a mom's life of faith. Christian women who do blog regularly quickly go platinum, such as CJ Mahaney's wife who blogs with her daughters on girl talk. And there's a female duo in Oak Hill, Virginia [where our church meets on Sundays], whose Mommycast has been given a $100,000 sponsorship by Dixie paper products. Makes me want to blog under the pen name Benita.

Our Weekend Diagram pdf

I probably shouldn't be posting this, but here is our weekend diagram for coordinating three video screens this Sunday. The outside screens are stills, except for a video clip. And the center screen will act like a large, motion canvas featuring moving images behind the band [represented by stills].

We've been planning waaaay in advance for this service so that we could spend most of this week in spiritual preparation. I am praying that our obligatory attenders will come with softened hearts to finally trust Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior.

"I need more power!"

Matt blogs about our power solution... just in time for this week's service. We've been adding so much tech equipment on Sundays that we've risked blowing circuits.

We're planning a prayer walk through all of our various ministry areas this Sunday. Any History Churchers who come at 9:00 AM will get a "ministry area map" where they can walk throughout the school and pray for the volunteers, the guests, the kids, and the equipment. It'll be like a prayer labrynth... but without the confusing dead ends and dark chambers. =)

Some things about ministry I just realized

1. Learning how to share our faith doesn't start with our knowledge of a good Gospel presentation. It starts with clearing hurdles that keep us from desiring to share our faith, such as insecurity, a busy schedule, distractions, and selfishness. In other words, by building clarity, compassion and confidence.

2. There are no good tools to help church planters understand the culture around them. Even the most effective planters either stumbled into the right context for themselves... or they're indigenous to the area and have an instrinsic understanding of the community. Demographics don't translate into application very easily, and sociographics are meaningless if the planter looks nothing like the community.

I think I'm stewing on something though... hmmm.

Neighborhood picnic

Our Deepwood neighborhood held a cook-out tonight at a local park. Along with the Morgans, Aaron Van Roy [with Dutch but minus Mandy], we joined some other families for a great time together. We savor these opportunities to build friendships with people. Working on-staff at a church can have a polarizing effect... which eats at us from the inside out. Also, Ainsley's sister Tiffany and her cutie son Joey are joining us for a few days from New York.