What Is Church?

  I was having a conversation with my wife’s grandfather and uncle yesterday about the two extreme ends of the spectrum as to the definition of a church.  The far right consists of those who are ultra traditional, not necessarily in doctrine, but in methodology and practice.  These are the members and churches that have grown cold, irrelevant, and unfruitful.  Then the far left consists of certain branches of the emergent movement in which three guys meet at a bar to drink beer, smoke cigars, and “talk about God”.  Both sides would argue that they are a church. 

 

But if we are going to build, care for, and have church, shouldn’t we have a concrete definition of what a church is?  Once we understand what it is, then we can easily figure out what it is not.  I heard the best definition of a church that I have ever heard today.  I’ll share it with you on a later post, but first I’m curious….HOW WOULD YOU DEFINE CHURCH?  WHAT DOES IT LOOK LIKE?

Eight Laws of Spiritual Growth

  I wish I could take credit for this one, but the ultimate praise goes to God with a huge “thank you” to Rick Warren for discoverying these laws through prayer and study of the Scripture.  After a study of how Jesus made disciples, Rick came to the following 8 Laws of Spiritual Growth:

 

1.  Spiritual Growth is incarnational–The Christian life is not imitation, but inhabitation.  Galatians 2:20 tells us that “Christ lives in me”.  Spiritual Growth is both mystical and practical.  All of the best practices make no difference without the Holy Spirit, because He is the one who transforms.  I have a part and God has a part.

2.  Spiritual Growth is intentional–Maturity is not inevitable.  You can grow old without growing up.  Maturity is not automatic.  We grow by making commitments.  Maturity is a choice since you are only as close to God as you choose to be.

Jesus had a method that was systematic and graduated in nature.  1)  Come and See  2)Eat my flesh and drink my blood  3)  Take up your cross, deny yourself.  It’s a long process to move people from “come and see” to “come and die”.

3.  Spiritual Growth is incremental–We grow through a step-by-step process.  A baby must learn to breath before it learns to eat, etc.  KNOW, LOVE, GROW, SERVE, SHARE Christ…in sequence

4.  Spiritual Growth is personal–You can’t mass produce disciples.  There is no “one size fits all” approach to turn out strong disciples.

5.  Spiritual Growth is habitual–We grow by developing good habits (a.k.a. spiritual disciplines).  1)  Assign homework like “go and make disciples” 2)Journal and write down your prayers  3)Drive Time Devotions are used to download to your ipods  4) Daily email devotionals 5)Offer a guide to fasting

6.  Spiritual Growth is Communal/Relational–We only grow in community.  You cannot grow without love.  Tools to use here are 1)Small Groups  2)Spiritual Coaches  3)Retreats.

7.  Spiritual Growth is multi-dimensional–Real maturity is far more than knowing; it is about “being” and “doing”.  Maturity is behavior and belief.  You only believe the part of the Bible you do!

8.  Spiritual Growth is Seasonal–We grow in spurts

Evangelism Panel

Let’s be honest.  Effective evangelism is just one of those areas that most churches REALLY believe they are doing well.  But when you look at the numbers of first time visitors or take a good hard look at what they’ve done for the community in the past year, most churches just suck at it.  There is a lot to be learned from these guys who, through trial and error, are finding ways to reach out to those in their areas of influence.

   BOB ROBERTS

• “The responsibility for evangelism is given to everybody; I think some of the teaching on spiritual gifts has undermined our understanding of that.”

MARK BATTERSON

• “Church is a tag-team sport.  When you walk in you tage me, and you trust I’ve prayed and prepared and studied.  When you leave, I tag you and trust you’re committed to building into the relationship and encouraging the newcomer.”
• “If we could stop fighting with each other long enough, it’d be amazing how much we could get done.  this weekend I confessed the lack of urgency in my life.  IF we really believed what we say we believe we’d never lose our sense of urgency.  I’m the first person to say, ‘I need more of that in my own heart.’”
• “One of the mistakes we made was spending a lot of money on marketing.  We spent a lot of money to get people to come, to see how poorly we do church.”

  JAMES MEEKS

• “I say, ‘Go home and try something.  Start something.  Be found trying something for the Body of Christ!’”
• “I’m an Illinois State Senator so I have lots of relationships with unbelievers.”  (That’s funny right there!)

Fellowship Panel at Saddleback

There was an all-star lineup at the Fellowship Panel at this year’s Purpose Driven Summit ‘08.  Here are some of the things these guys had to say about fellowship:

 

  PERRY NOBLE

• “We started a church with eight people in our living room.”
• “My best definition of Small Groups is, ‘Connecting dysfunctional people with dysfunctional people.’”
• “I don’t think we can force Christian community.  I think the church that tries to force Christian community is going to face failure, after failure, after failure.”
• A text message conversation is just as real to teenagers as this conversation–sitting in this room–is to us.”
• “Teaching people to be honest, honest with God and honest with each other, is one of our greatest challenges.”
• “One lady in our church said, “I know you’ll probably never know me, but through your blog I feel like I know you.”

  RON SYLVIA

• “Most pastors have fewer friends now than when they first started in ministry.”

  RAY JOHNSTON

• “The average Christian attends church once every three weeks.”

  RICK WARREN

• “People don’t always know what they need.  People need community.  Small Groups will never take off in your chruch unless you become the Small Group pastor.”
• “People will be in a Small Group when you tell stories about how it has helped you.”
• “People join a small group for the wrong reason.  They need it for relationships but they join it for content.”
• “Give testimonies constantly of people in groups.”

In my opinion, small groups are a vital part of doing church God’s way.  Yet in America, it is one of the hardest things to implement.  We have such a “Lone Ranger” mentality here, where individualism is regarded and rewarded.  Many other countries around the world have such a communal culture that small groups comes about as a natural part of every day living.  I have a few ideas I would like to implement to help these solo-flying Americans merge into small group living.

Effective Preaching

Here are some of the comments made by the speakers at the PD Summit ‘08 on the topic of “Effective Preaching“.  You might recognize the names of some of the speakers!

 

  RICK WARREN:

• “Next Sunday about 120 million people will go to church in America.  More people go to church on one weekend in America than attend all sporting events in an entire year.”  
• “Preaching is good for edification (build up), exhortation (fire up), and comfort (hold up).  I find I need to make sure I cover each of those over the course of a year.  So, if you have a personal preference of one of those three, over the others, you’ll emphasize that one to the neglect of the others.  We must preach the whole counsel of God.  If all you do is fire-up messages, you’ll burn people out.” 
• “Don’t ask the question, “What will I preach on?”  Instead, ask the question, “Who am I going to preach to?”  God knows who will show up.  Ask God to help you know who you’re going to preach to so you can preach to their questions and confusion.” 
• “There will be crisis.  If you know that is going to happen, be ready for that.  It is the point when you speak with authority.” 
• “Humility is a declaration of dependence on God.” 

  JENTEZEN FRANKLIN

• “Praying is more important than preaching.  My family is more important than the church.”
• “I love to get feedback from previous messages.  I love to run my ideas through kids because they are so current.” 
• “Preaching is passion.  If you don’t feel what you’re saying, it won’t move anybody.  When you feel yourself getting cold, fast!  I’ve found if I’ll fast, it sharpens you.  You get broken.  You get tender before God.  It will ignite the fire in you, to say what you say with great anointing.”        
• “Refuse to become a professional.  I never want to become so comfortable with material that I don’t pray myself hot and study myself full and prepare the message through and then let lose and say, ‘Holy Spirit, I’m yours.’” 

  KERRY SHOOK

• “The church has to be relevant in a crises.  If we aren’t relevant in a crisis, we aren’t relevant.”   
• “God has been convicting me, ‘Live it out at home.  Live it out at home.  Live it out at home.’”     

  TIM KELLER

• “Three are three things to do:  lead, pastor, and administrate.” 
• “The difference between a bad sermon and a good sermon has a lot to do with you; it has to do with your intellectual preparation.  The difference between a good sermon and a great sermon is all God.  It has to do with prayer.  It has to do with your relationship with God.  Never confuse your gift from the Spirit with the fruit of the Spirit.” 

  ERWIN McMANUS

• “When I started going to church I was so appreciative of the humor.  I noticed.  He caught me disarmed.  HE disarmed me with his humor and then I paid more attention to the parts that really mattered.”

  JUDD WILHITE

• “Speak to the broken and you will always have an audience.”

Tomorrow’s topic is going to be about Fellowship.  There are some really awesome insights to dig into!

Purpose Driven Summit ‘08

 

I have really been soaking up what some of my favorite pastors and authors have been saying about the topics discussed at the Purpose Driven Summit ‘08 held at Saddleback Church in California.  I’ve been doing some HEAVY praying and scripture reading lately, trying to seek God about some things I see coming down the pike.  Even pastors need someone to speak into their life.  Over the next few days, I’m going to share with you the notes I have gathered from those that attended this conference.  I know they’ll encourage and help you just as much as they have me. 

 

If you want to check out the list of speakers, just CLICK HERE….Enjoy!

Catching Up On My Blog Reading

To everyone who has been reading my blog, I’m sorry for a few down days.  I took a day off just to spend with my family yesterday.  The R&R were much needed.  There are a few blogs I follow on a daily basis.  I found some pretty awesome articles today that I thought I’d share with you. 

•   While Church should never be reduced to simple marketing, there are several things we can learn from top secular companies.  They are in touch with the latest ways to reach people and have a great understanding of how to get their attention…something churches could do much better at.  TONY MORGAN posted a list of these top companies.  He also has a cool quote from Nintendo’s VP HERE.

 

 

• Gary Lamb posted his PREACHING CALENDAR for the next six months.  He pastors a church with an edge, Revolution in Georgia.

 

•   Steven Furtick allowed his Assimilation Pastor, Larry Brey, to write up a great article about the relationship between Senior Pastor and church volunteers/staff on his blog.  Elevation Church is WELL KNOWN for greeting people like they have never been greeted before.

 

•   Craig Groeschel wrote up a great blog entry about strategic disruption.  If any part of your life has gotten into a rut, especially your spiritual life, then you need to take five minutes to read this.  It is such a great insight…and it will help shake things up a bit in a good way!

There have been a lot of others, but this should give you a good start and introduce you to some men that are doing some awesome things for the Kingdom.  I hope your week is going well.  It won’t be long before the kids will be running through their parents’ house all day…HAVE FUN PARENTS!

7 Days and Counting…

  School only has 7 more days to go.  The kids are feeling it, thus I AM FEELING IT.  Pray for me.

Spiritual Glasses

Vision is so important, even for those who are not involved in leadership.  Whether or not you know it, you have dreamt of the vision of your life before.  Without a vision, the Bible says you will perish.  God has been speaking to me about vision in a particular area of my life.  It gets me so pumped up when I begin  to hear what plans God has for me.  His plans are ALWAYS much greater than anything I can plan for myself.  The same is true for you too!

 

Now, I understand that life and other people who don’t believe in your vision have a way of kicking the vision right out of you.  Maybe, because of your circumstances, some of your dreams may be out of reach.  But here’s the thing you need to remember.  GOD HAS PLANS FOR YOU!  Plans to prosper you, to give you a hope, AND A FUTURE!  The best really is right ahead. 

 

The enemy would LOVE for you to give up, quit fighting, accept the status quo.  But God has made to for the battle.  He’s got your head covered with the helmet of salvation.  He’s given you the breastplate fo righteousness…you didn’t earn it, it was a gift!  He’s equipped you with the belt of truth.  He’s got your feet shod with the preparation of the gospel of peace.  He’s given you the sword of the spirit and the shield of faith (WHEREWITH YOU SHALL QUINCH ALL THE FIERY DARTS OF THE WICKED ONE!).  YOU WERE MADE FOR THE BATTLE!!!!

 

Every man or woman needs to know what they’re fighting for.  If you don’t have a vision today, begin to ask the Holy Spirit to reveal it to you.  Your life is STILL worth something…and the value of it is more than you have ever dreamed.

Learning To Shift Gears

 

I remember when I was a young boy on a farm learning how to drive a stick shift Chevy pickup.  Learning to corrdinate the clutch, brake, and gas proved to be pretty difficult at first.  I remember really reving up the engine to an outrageously loud roar before I would pop my foot off of the clutch only to kill the engine.

 

When it comes to shifting moments in life, it’s hard to be able to discern how hard to press ahead and  when to make the change.  The problem is, if I don’t press ahead hard enough, I may not gain the momentum necessary to take me to the next level.  If I press too hard, but put off making the actual change that is needed, frustration and stress could build to the point that my engine (my mind and body) give out.

 

Some people like to live life in 1st gear.  It’s slow.  It doesn’t require you to make any changes along the way.  But the problem with living life in granny-low is that it drastically slows you down and can keep you from getting to your life’s destination and purpose. 

 

If we’re going to be the people God created us to be, we need to realize that change is inevitable when new levels are desired to be reached.  Structures have to change.  Methods have to change.  Intellegence and work have to change.  Sometimes the very thing that took you into 2nd gear can be the very thing that hinders you from getting to 3rd gear.  How long has it been since you’ve had to implement change in your life just to shift into the next level?

 

Some hate to shift gears because of fear of the unknown.  Will I lose control?  Will I lose all of the momentum I had before if I can’t handle the next gear?  But God hasn’t given you the spirit of fear!  His Spirit can teach you how hard to press forward in life and when the appropriate time has come to initiate the shift needed.  Don’t be scared of change in your life.  It’s not intended to be a setback, but it is to help propel you into your next level!