History in the Making

Fellowship Church Christmas

Ed Young announced some of Fellowship's Christmas Eve service plans this year. He wrote, "I challenged our team to think beyond the ideas and experiences that have served Fellowship Church well in the past. The enemy of creativity is predictability and Christmas is not the time to be predictable."

• A mixed-media marketing campaign including promotional packs for local businesses, car antenna balls, a direct mail send out, and something we've never tried before.
• Vibrant t-shirts featuring our Christmas service information and giving them away to our entire church to wear throughout their Christmas shopping, with an emphasis on one specific shopping day.
• Giving out a CD with music and a short message to play in the car on the way to and from church.
• Engage multiple senses - starting in the parking lot. Groups of carolers will be circulating and we'll be handing out hot chocolate and apple cider. Looking into setting up fire pits for marshmallow roasting.
• Ramping up parking and greeting ministries, adding teams to give people a warm greeting as they get out of their cars.

Think about the mindset of Fellowship's thousands of volunteers who will give away part of their Christmas Eve to help people find faith in Jesus Christ. This is the undying passion of my pastor's heart ~ to see all of our believers living sacrificially and missionally for the cause of Christ. awesome.

Flying under the radar

I've been flying under the radar lately because of some exciting changes underway at History Church. We're having a special gathering on Friday night with the congregation to announce some new plans that will undeniably transform our church... I'll post the info after our Sunday service.

Public sighting

Working at Starbucks yesterday morning when my fam came waltzing through the door to play at the adjacent Barnes & Noble train track for kids. Nice moment. Camera phone pics...

Urban backpacking

Spent our Monday off this week in DC... Ran into CNN's Tucker Carlson who said "cute baby" as he walked by. Nice. Wonder why he's not wearing the bow tie anymore. hmmm.

Into the land of Macs and Honey

One of our wonderful tech team guys, Erik Gumbel, compelled his home church in Nevada to provide the funds necessary for us to [finally] switch over to Mac and Pro Presenter. When Matt returns from Thanksgiving vacation, it's iGo time...

Don'tcha remember me Burt?

Ainsley and I are totally in the Christmas spirit ~ we ordered three Christmas movies from a free trial of Netflix, which should hopefully arrive today, just in time for Thanksgiving. And oh yeah... a Blues Clues Christmas for Wyatt. By the way, I'm already warming up my Jimmy Stewart impersonation for the delight of all Christmas parties to which I'm invited. =)

Prayin in the boys' room

I mixed up our usual men's prayer time this morning at 6:30 am by inviting an amazing gal from History named Ally to join us. Ally is a small group leader, a ministry team leader, a passionate follower of Christ and a bleeding heart for people far from God. I make no exaggeration in saying that Ally's prayer spoke more to me today than a year's worth of sermons ever could... Ally's in green below.

Christmas Eve Service

Sadly, we don't have Jen on staff anymore, but she and her husband Chris still offer their remarkable talents to our church's visual communications. Here's the front of their amazing flyer for our Christmas Eve service, which we advertise as a 45-minute service.

Black and white is the new color

I saw the weirdest tv commercial the other day. USA Network is surveying viewers with this statement ~ watch both episodes of Monk and tell us which one you like better: the black & white version... or the color one![pause] Um... am I missing something here? ...I'll take the color one?

Preaching and mending nets

Pastors are meant to be equippers of the saints for the work of ministry. By equipping, we are supplying what is lacking in the congregation. As in... Jesus encountered James and John who were equipping their nets from the previous night's fishing expedition ~ tying up broken strands. The nets had torn from the weight of fish, the debris on the lake floor and maybe even the side of the boat.

Over the past year, I've found myself unable to get away from preaching about certain issues. They keep coming up over and over again in my study of the Scriptures. It's because vision leaks... we forget the reason for the church... spiritual disciplines have slipped.

Whenever we preach over and over again on the same issues, we are attempting to mend what is broken in the church. Remember Bill Hybels' famous declaration to Willow Creek that he was going to preach on serving every week until they got it?... Fish or cut bait.

Back to the real world

Our fam went away for the week to parts all over Virginia, starting with our denomination's annual meeting in Roanoake. We're back in town trying to regain routines and rest from the exhaustion of traveling with two tots...

Blog hiatus until November 21

I'll be back to blogging on Tuesday, November 21... Comments are off until then. Have a great week!

Speaking Piper-eese

I have learned to sound much more intellectual as a pastor by changing all of my sentence structures from the active mode to the passive mode... and by using the word ~ "much." It helps me sound like John Piper. Here are a few examples...

Old: "We can learn a lot from this."
New: "There is much to be learned in all of this."

You can even speak Piper-eese at restaurants and perphaps impress your reformed waitresses...

Old: "Can I have some ketchup?"
New: "There is much ketchup to be desired on this plate."

Filed under: attempted humor =)

Running a rebellion from past hurts

I think one of the greatests threats to the local church's spiritual vitality is the personal grievances we silently hold against each other without saying a word. Many of us walk around secretly boycotting close relationships, stronger commitments, and needed support because of past hurts that made us angry.

I once couldn't figure out a guy in our church who hated me so much... until he disclosed that he'd been abused by a minister when he was young. He had projected his animosity onto me because of my pastoral role. And it goes both ways. I've had to be careful not to let my past hurts destroy my trust in people today.

I think guys are more likely to run secret rebellions years after the fact... against father-figures, against ministry leaders, against the church in general. One dude in History actually told me 4 years ago, "I guess I don't like you because you remind me of someone I hate."

Thank God he gives us the power to forgive, heal and trust again.

If I were Bill Hybels I'd buy a boat too

You're not supposed to tell people your fasts, I guess, but this one is big for me. I'm fasting from church growth books. This has been my hobby for the past 5 years, but I've decided it's a little too close to my occupation to be recreational. Plus, they're all contradictory and full of [insert favorite gross thing] =). So I invested $100 into my new hobby last night, which I shall describe later if it turns out to be enjoyable... =)

I can't believe they wrapped Jesus in an American flag

I can't tell you how many e-mails I got before Tuesday about the Christian values at stake in this election. The calls to prayer... the passionate pleas to mobilize our congregation...  I haven't heard from those people since.

This is a dangerous post for me to write, but I think it might be good for us to be 'losers' in the political arena for a while...

...Just in case we got the idea we could legislate our way to a transformed culture. ~ Just in case we aligned the church with a particular political party. ~ Just in case we mistook the USA for that city shining on a hill... rather than the Church of Jesus Christ.

I'm afraid people have associated the movement of Christ a little too closely with a political agenda. And it's killing the church. It would be highly beneficial in our 'Daily-Show-culture' for us to be stripped of any political influence until we can learn to rely on Christ for cultural transformation. We cannot legislate our way to a revival.

(Insert tim the toolman taylor grunt)

The guys on our church leadership team are business professionals, but also happen to be exceptional craftsmen in their spare time. Scott and Dave just happened to have off work today, so Matt and I spontaneously joined them in a construction party this morning to build a portable rolling cart for our church's 50" plasma tv.

The rich history of spanking new

I grew-up thinking there was only Christian radio on the airwaves because that's all my mom played in the house. And it wasn't even good Christian radio to a 5-year old's ears =) ... it was 24/7 preaching with a little bit of monastic monk music. [at least, that's what it sounded like]. =)

Except at the dinner hour and on Saturday mornings. That's when we listened to Uncle Charlie, Ranger Bill, the Sugar Creek Gang and Unshackled from the Pacific Garden Mission in Chicago.

What's interesting is... some of the preachers I used to listen to now have sons pastoring the most creative megachurches in the country. For special prizes, I wrote to Uncle Charlie in Grand Rapids, Michigan, where Rob Bell is now revolutionizing ministry.

All that to say... places that seem so revolutionary and successful in ministry today did not experience a sudden emergence of the Holy Spirit. Rather, they had rich histories of spiritual planting and watering that went on decades before they sprouted. They were homes to great evangelists, revivals, churches and Christian colleges.

In the words of Forest Gump, 'That's all I got to say bout that.'

Invest and Invite

North Point's new product catalog essentially says that a church really shouldn't have to advertise if the environment is truly valued by those of us who attend it. People don't have to be asked to spread-the-word if we believe the word is worth spreading. We'll do it naturally.

Family Photos