Posts in Church

• She is speaking with such passion and excitement it is amazing!
• One act of obedience at a time. She had no idea what she was getting into
• We are a bunch of “Grace Junkies” but we don’t extend it to ex-cons
• David was a murderer – but we don’t call him a murderer
• Haven’t received one single return to prison stat
• 98% employment rate
• 5 guys making over $100,000 after prison
• 70% are donors back to P.E.P. they teach these people who have been takers their whole life and have turned them into donors
• Wow had to stop taking notes and just pay attention. I’ll post notes later from my friend Everett!

Favorite part – a guy who just got out of jail 4 hours ago quoted Jesus, “those who have been forgiven much will love much!” then he said, “I have a lot of love!”

• The Gospel is not about making converts, its about making disciples
• We have transformed our ministry from truth to therapy
• Wish we took our jobs as seriously as marines
• Survey the Field
• Serve the troops – train and equip them, because they are going into battle
• Then give them a bigger vision
• Follow me
  • Your job is not to pander your people, it’s to lead them
• %57 of evangelicals said Jesus is not the only way. I believe that’s the stat he said
• There is a misunderstanding of tolerance
• Law of non-contradiction (Aristotle)
• We are fighting for life on every front
• Culture is nothing but religion incarnate
• Are we currently in babylonian captivity?
• I’ve been to top and bottom – Office of the president and in a jail cell
• contend for the faith, and entrust it to the saints
• What is Christianity – 5 non-negotionables
  • God is
  • The Bible is authoritative, inerrant word of God
  • The Fall
  • The Incarnation
  • Didn’t hear it

 IT! 

• How many of you have been to a church and it was dead? They didn’t have… IT
• What about going to a place where you felt God and knew they had… IT?
• Started in a two car garage students met in closet… Every week students came out of the closet
• They didn’t have the stuff that most people think we need to have a church.
• Every week people came to know God and invited their friends because they didn’t have the stuff they thought they needed… they had what they needed… The Spir-IT!
• It’s something more than just the Spirit – to say the people who don’t have it don’t have the spirit would be insulting
• New York Campus has seen %145 increase in a year – the campus he attends is the only one that has decreased = %3
• What is it? The answer is = don’t know
• God makes IT happen. We can’t create it, we can’t reproduce it, we can’t manufacture it, it can’t be taught, but it can be caught, it’s not a model, it’s not emergent, purpose driven, seeker sensitive, it is usually brought by more than one person, but usually one person can kill it 
• You could say, “IT Happens!”  but often it doesn’t
• Good news = if you don’t have it, doesn’t mean you can’t find it
• Bad news = if you have it, you may not keep it
• Acts 2:42-47 – 
  • They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer. 43Everyone was filled with awe, and many wonders and miraculous signs were done by the apostles. 44All the believers were together and had everything in common. 45Selling their possessions and goods, they gave to anyone as he had need. 46Every day they continued to meet together in the temple courts. They broke bread in their homes and ate together with glad and sincere hearts, 47praising God and enjoying the favor of all the people. And the Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved.

Four qualities that are most often there when IT is present:

•  Laser Focus – most people today said more ministries/events is better. I believe better ministries is better.  Jim Collins asked, “what can you be the very best at?”  In order to reach people that no one is reaching, you’ll have to do things that no one else is doing.  But to do things that no one else is doing, you can’t do what everyone else is doing!  Planned abandonment!  
  • Started examining ministries. Concert ministries was just entertaining other churches people.  Don’t do 
  • Cut all but 5 things.  Worship, Small groups, kids ministry, student ministry, missions.
  • What are you doing that you need to STOP doing.
• They see opportunities where others see obstacles
  • You have everything that you need to do all that God wants you to do.
  • You don’t have what you want or what they think they need, you have what you and they need
  • What if I said you need to raise 100,000 dollars by Friday? Couldn’t do it.  What if I said you have to raise 100,000 for a shot for child otherwise they will die? YEP!  Overcome the obstacle!
  • He often provides where God doesn’t provide.  They had to see something they couldn’t see.
  • What is God trying to show you through your greatest limitation?
• They are willing to fail
  • Failure is not an option… I agree, “It’s a necessity!”
  • Peter couldn’t have done what he did if he hadn’t failed!  He failed walking on water, he failed by denying Him, but he succeeded feeding his sheep! 3,000 were saved!
  • They failed starting two campuses in Phoenix and ended up having to merge them
  • There are two steps to failure.
  • The Mule – shook of the dirt, the dirt started piling up at his feet and he started stepping up.  SHAKE IT OFF! STEP IT UP!
  • What has God called you to do that you are afraid to attempt? When are you going to do it?
• They are led by people who have IT!
  • You need to have IT for your ministry to have IT!
  • Before long ministry started to kill IT!  It became less about building his kingdom and more about building my church.  I started preaching messages that would bring people in instead of pleasing to God
  • I tried to be Rick Warren – but I’m accidental.  I tried to be Joel Osteen – but I’m not that happy!
  • When you have IT in you, it starts coming out, and other people with IT will come to you
  • We start to try to acquire the things we don’t need to have IT
  • God showed me I had became a full time pastor and a part time follower of Christ! DANG!
    • I stopped reading other books, and started just reading the Bible. I went to another country and held a baby that would probably die after I left.  I started fasting again!
    • Let God break your heart again!
    • If you read this say a prayer for Mike. A guy Craig has been ministering to for 4 years and still hasn’t accepted Christ!
  • If you don’t have it what are you going to do to get it?

WOW! Go here and buy his message if you are a church leader. It should be up here later. 

 Efrem Smith

•  1 John 4:7 – Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God.
• We have to abide in something besides us
• What’s love got to do with it – Tina Turner was a prophet
• I’m black in case you can’t tell – some of you may be watching this in black n white. I’m the black side
• I’m not gonna say God told me cause you think they’re crazy so I’m gonna say, “I think I heard”
• 1 john 4:15 – If anyone acknowledges that Jesus is the Son of God, God lives in him and he in God.
  • sometimes the best thing we can do as leaders is say my bad like Jonah did
  • I’m not a meteorologist but they say a storm happens when high pressure hits low pressure
    • When God’s high pressure hits our low pressure – storms happen
• The church is the only institution that can say we only cater to those who look like us – that’s our low pressure
• 1 John 4:17 – In this way, love is made complete among us so that we will have confidence on the day of judgment, because in this world we are like him.
• I’m tired of grown men having lil before their name. Lil wayne, etc.
• How do we – something?
  • create areas where different backgrounds can come together
• WOW – I missed a lot on notes but he was awesome

• Making and maintaining good soil is necessary to grow flowers
• What kind of soil do people need to grow
• 1 cor 3:6-9 – 6I planted the seed, Apollos watered it, but God made it grow. 7So neither he who plants nor he who waters is anything, but only God, who makes things grow. 8The man who plants and the man who waters have one purpose, and each will be rewarded according to his own labor. 9For we are God’s fellow workers; you are God’s field, God’s building.
• We have a job – to create the right soil that encourages growth
• Are you willing to get your hands dirty?
• How many sexually active drunk atheist do you have in your church? 🙂
• Does the soil your creating allow for questions and struggles?
• 1 cor 12:27 – Now you are the body of Christ, and each one of you is a part of it. 
• Matthew 9:11-13 – When the Pharisees saw this, they asked his disciples, “Why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and ‘sinners’?”12On hearing this, Jesus said, “It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. 13But go and learn what this means: ‘I desire mercy, not sacrifice.’^[a] For I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners.”
• Who did Jesus come for? Messy, dirty people. Who should we be for? Messy, dirty people.
• Am I leading more like Jesus or the pharisees
• How do we lead with a soil that creates growth?
  • Acceptance – come like you are.  
    • create an environment that sees people for who they could be, not who they are
    • Jesus sees dirty people as who they could be, Pharisees see them as dirty
    • Acts 15:10-11, 19
    • What barriers are there to grace – acts 17 – Paul turned their idol worship to God worship
      • two questions i get asked the most: How do you feel about gays? How do you feel about other religions
    • In every culture there are barriers to grace
  • Authentic confessing community
    • James 5:16 – Therefore confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous man is powerful and effective.
    • We can live for real not pretending to be better than we are. 
    • If we live this way, others will begin to live this way and we will become healing agents for each other
    • What if we invite people and they never change? Then you’ll be like Jesus – he invited Judas and he never changed
  • Constant Connection to God’s Spirit
    • John 15:5 – I am the vine; you are the branches. If a man remains in me and I in him, he will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing.
    • Romans 8:4-5 – n order that the righteous requirements of the law might be fully met in us, who do not live according to the sinful nature but according to the Spirit. 5Those who live according to the sinful nature have their minds set on what that nature desires; but those who live in accordance with the Spirit have their minds set on what the Spirit desires.
    • It’s simple – Stay connected = spiritual growth
    • Set your watch to have an alarm go off every 60 minutes to remind you to connect with God through out the day

• So much of leadership is making decisions, decisions that have very high stakes
• Do you have a system/framework that helps you arrive at a decision?
  • 1st question usually asked – does the Bible say anything about this?
  • 2nd question – are there any advisors – prov 11:14
  • 3rd – PG&E question
    • what have you learned from the Pain of past decisions
    • what have you learned from the Gain of past decisions
    • what have you learned from the Experience of past decisions
      • We must journal so we can add to our vault of wisdom along our life
  •  4th – Prompting of the Holy Spirit? – Rom 8:6 – The mind of sinful man^[a] is death, but the mind controlled by the Spirit is life and peace
• Results of Decision
  • If decision comes out poorly who do you blame? nobody. you take responsibility. you don’t point fingers, play the victim
    • Staying clear about the poor decisions is what makes the lessons clear for the future, if you stay fuzzy in poor decisions, the lesson will be fuzzy.
  • If decision comes out well who do you thank? God, Experience, Holy Spirit!

That was an intro. Now here we go

•  Lincoln said “the best way to (deal with someone who has wronged me)destroy my enemy is to turn him into my friend”
  • Anytime someone wrongs you and you feel like you want to get revenge on them – think about that quote and turn them into your friend
• Bob someone from Motorola, “Create motion for motions sake” Action is better than in action. – hmm… not sure I agree with that will have to work through that
• Collin Powell – Powell principles:
  • Promote a clash of ideas
  • Check your egos at the door
  • Reward your best performers, get rid of your non-performers
• Bill Hybel’s Axioms – he realized he had 76 axioms
  • Vision Leaks – I used to be in internal anguish for months because people would forget the vision they all stood and cheered for 3 months earlier. Because of life – their vision leaks!
  • Get the right people around the table – I believe God wants every church on planet earth to succeed.  I believe God will pour out his wisdom on those who lead. My job as senior leader to invite the right people and bolt the door and work out the plan. DO YOU BELIEVE HE STILL LOVES YOU AND WILL HELP YOU?  The people on that table are going to feed off you and your convictions
  • Facts are your friends – Made a big investment in a tool called Reveal.  As brutal as church facts can be, they are still your friends.  
    • 1st circle – Explorers
    • Cross
    • 2nd circle – res
    • 3rd circle – growing – growing people ask God to bless their program
    • 4th circle – Christ Centered – my life is in your hands and I will do what you want
  • When something feels funky… Engage – don’t believe the lie that problems go away if unattended. In church work – unattended problems grow fangs and prowl around.
    • Knew there was a problem in group life – hosted a chat (expected a friendly, sit by the fire talk. Instead the people were ticked off and wanted answers.
    • Sometimes we need to ask for a mulligan – we need to call a foul – the benefit of a deep christian community – hopefully grace would be extended
  • Take a flier – take a calculated risk once in a while
    • staff came to me and said we want to take a flier with a global hunger campaign – result would be feeding 10,000 kids
    • The people of the church ate beans and rice for 5 days so they could understand what it’s like to live like the poor
    • Every church needs a flier every now and then – something that takes their breath away
    • God rock our world – they will never experience that if you don’t take some fliers
  • This is Church – Had a busy day one day where the whole day was planned in 15 minutes. Got a call from a guy whose son just went to jail and needed to talk. While talking to him and ministering to this person through love I said, “This is Church” Not all the infrastructure and meetings I had planned at church office.  Acts 2:46 – 46Every day they continued to meet together in the temple courts. They broke bread in their homes and ate together with glad and sincere hearts,
• Are you acting out of your axioms?