Second Annual Easter Egg Hunt

Year two of our Easter Egg hunt was colder, windier and wetter than year one.  I think the snow last year was better than high 30’s and wind and rain.  However, we showed up and the hunt was on! 

We made a few new friends and re-connected with some we made last year. 

I found lots of eggs!

One of 6 golden eggs!

A golden egg prize

2000 Eggs were scattered

eggs for the little ones!

Habits of Mind and new opportunities.

I just got back from a breakfast with our local school system.  The superintendents office sent an invitation and you should always accept an invitation from your local school superintendent! 

This breakfast’s subject was “Habits of Mind. “  Professor Arthur L. Costa’s definintion of Habits  of Mind :  “the characteristics of what intelligent people do when they are confronted with problems, the resolutions of which are not immediately apparent.”

He and his colleague Bena Kallick list 16 habits of mind which are all verbs.

As I sat with many of the members of the school board and we discussed at our table the importance of churches and schools working in the community to foster healthy habits of mind, I was excited to see new opportunities open to us as a congregation.   As I read through these,  (find them here http://www.habits-of-mind.net/whatare.htm ) I made the comment that we as a church could use the same terminology as the school to help reinforce their objective. 

The superintendent and I discussed how this is something we adults can learn to do also.  I especially liked the ”responding with wonderment and awe”  and “finding humor” components. 

What another great way to connect the church with the community. Go where the community is and work with them.  This helps us to excercise the final component of healthy habits of mind “remaining open to continuous learning.”

I look forward to future meetings with our local superintendent.

Developing our New Strategic Plan

We are in the midst of writing a new strategic plan for our church.  This is both exciting and painful at the same time. 

The exciting part is the A-team and the pastors are pretty much on the same page as far as our current strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and barriers.   Another thing that is exciting is that we all have the same vision and mission regarding what we believe God has called us to do. 

Our core values, otherwise known as our non-negotiables are also very similar.  This is a cause for real celebration for us as we look forward to the next 3-5 years to begin implementing our plan.

The painful part is addressing our weaknesses and our barriers.  As we all shared what we see as our weaknesses the amazing part was that no one got defensive!  We all recognize that to go to the next level we need to strengthen what is currently weak and overcome some of our barriers.  Some of this is going to be tough, but we are all willing to take the next step!

What an exciting time to be part of God’s church. What an amazing group of leaders I get to minister with.

Re-Defining Growing…..

I was called to help grow a church.  Piece of cake…. I thought….. originally.  A few things I didn’t expect:

1. How long it really takes.  I mean it’s not about the numbers as much as the quality to me anymore.  I used to stress about how many people were sitting in the building every Sunday.  Then I realized that most of the growth was happening during the week and a lot of the times outside of the building.  We are kingdom building, not just Crosspoint building.

2.  How quickly I would fall in love with my new community.  I mean it… it happened without me even realizing it.  But yesterday when I was in our diner having lunch with a couple from the church, I realized that I have made some really cool friendships over the past year and a half.  I paid the bill and spent 5 extra minutes listening to the hostess as she told me about some “stuff.”  I promised to pray about it this week.  Next Thursday when I go in for coffee, I will ask her about how her week went.  We do this a lot her and me…I have no idea yet if she has a church or not….I just know that she feels very comfortable confiding in me right now at the diner and that is ok! She knows that I am a pastor and we talk about life stuff.  She trusts that I will pray for her when I say I will….and I do!

3.  How much I carry the people of this church in my heart.  I thought I was a rancher…turns out I can be a shepherd.    I have to laugh at myself when I catch myself bragging on one of our parishioners to my parents or to my old friends (pre-pastor day friends).  

I realize that God did call me to grow a church, but it wasn’t the way I expected it to grow.   In the past year and a half I have been so priviledged to watch the Holy Spirit mold and shape some pretty  amazing people into pretty remarkable disciples of Christ. 

One has quit smoking and shared this publicly with the rest of the church.  She has inspired another to try.  He see’s God and her succeeding, so now he is going to try.

A 21 year old spends every Monday night leading a group of brand new and very mature Christians in the Truth Project.  All 11 of the participants are experiencing deep changes in their lives.

One gentlemen who has been ”churched” since 1958 is risking sharing his faith with his friends, neighbors and co-workers.  This is the first time he has ever done this. 

Yep…we’re definitely growing….and pretty soon, I think God will trust us with some more new disciples.   However,  it’s not just me who is going out there looking for them….I have 30 others going with me.

Slaying the Debt Dragon

We just completed doing a 4 week series for our church and our community on getting control of finances.  The outcome of this 4 week class for those people who committed to it was huge.  We are going to meet again in another 4 weeks to see how we’ve done with our new budgets.  Here are some top things that surprised some of the attendees.

1. Holes in our buckets…we spent 4 weeks identifying the holes that cause us to run out of money before we run out of month.  Here are some holes that others found:  going out to dinner.   Co-workers selling stuff and birthdays.  Buying lunch every day instead of packing one.  Coffee stops. 

2.  We learned what items in our budget that can go into an envelope (cash) system, and we are sticking to the plan of not spending if it’s not in the envelope. This was huge for some folks!

3. Tithing.  What it is and why we should do it.  This was a biggie for a couple of people who never understood the concept of tithing.

4.  Accountability.   We all chose a person and asked that person to keep us accountable to the new plan.  We will find out in a few weeks how we’ve done, but this was a huge step for some of us.

It is possible to slay that ol dragon….some of us got in a few good whacks in just a couple of weeks, for others it will take a couple of months….but it is our goal to get a plan and stick to it and eliminate an overload of debt. 

We are going to offer this again for those who couldn’t make our classes in February.   It was one of the best 4 weeks for a lot of us. 

Warning! These are hazards to your sign’s health!

  Sigh……….poor signs. 

Ok we discovered a few hazards to our church signs health. 

I thought I would share them with you.

 

Hazard # 1  Wind…strong winds and plastic signs are not a good combination!

Hazard # 2 Snowmobiles….now you think they would drive around them….well one would think….but ….taint always so!

Hazard # 3  Snowblowers….yep one of our signs was knocked down and out by the snowblower.  A little hint to you snowblowers who have signs in your front lawns….the little pebbles that get picked up and thrown towards signs…well they put holes in them! BIG ONES!!

Hazard # 4 Well there is either a sign thief out there who must really like the signs so much that they sneak up in the middle of the night to add to a collection, or… they go the way of some political signs and who knows where they end up. 

Hazard # 5  The vehicle…yep someone actually drove over their sign.  Don’t ask me how seeing as it was in the front lawn….but down it went!

So a little warning to those of you who want to use signs in their front yards. There are hazards out there!

Rethinking Community

I’ve been really rethinking the whole “who is my neighbor” thing.  A lot of this is due to some very good stuff I’ve been reading in NT Wright’s book, “Jesus and the Victory of God“.  Not an easy read at all!  But great stuff.

Anyway,  As I have been trying to figure out how to make as many touches on people around me as I can,  one just dropped into my lap in the most unlikely of places. 

I got a phone call from a man who asked if I would be willing to perform his wedding.  What is very unusual is this person does not live in my community, work in my community or recreate in my community.  He lives over 50 miles from our church and works over 30 miles away. 

We decide to meet at Applebees in Brighton, an almost halfway point for each of us.  As I’m sitting with this couple I realize how far God will go for one of his children.  We sat for 2 hours and in that time I listened as this man poured out his story.  Bottom line, he turned his back on his church roots, his walk with the Lord, his family, I think even his true self. 

He meets a woman who has been in a church twice in her life, a wedding and a funeral.  They fall in love and want to get married.  For him…marriage needs a pastor.  I guess this is where I step in.   He gets my name from the pastor who married his buddy, who has a conflict on the same day as their desired wedding day.

Anyway, in the middle of Applebees we are talking about God, Jesus, guilt, repentance, relationship, religion, forgiveness, and finally marriage.  After an intense one hour of conversation, I look around and realize none of us cared where we were, what the waiter heard or the table next to us…it was if we were the only ones in the place.  I want to do this all the time!!!

This woman who has been in church twice in her life looks at me and says, “I want to come and visit your church.”  “I want to come and see what church looks like. ”  “If I am going to have a pastor marry us, I would like to see what a pastor does.”   I especially liked that one! 

I tell them that our church is an hour away from where they live.  This wasn’t even an issue for them at all.  They had checked out our website before calling me and she said, “If  I go to a church this is a church I want to go to.”

So….how big is the community that God wants us to reach out to?  Well mine just expanded by 35 miles.

I want a church full of these kinds of people.  How far will God go?  As far as we are willing to take him.

Chilly Church

We sure could have used some chili yesterday!!  I’m just happy the outside temperature was almost 40 degrees.  There are some things that Seminary just can’t teach you about!!

We walked in yesterday to a 48 degree sanctuary and a very cold boiler.  Again!!!  We’re beginning to wonder if we have a gremlin.  The church was very warm on Friday after a stuck valve was replaced on Thursday, but by Sunday at 8:30 am it was 48 upstairs and 57 downstairs. 

Well 10 degrees is alot when you are thinking about an hour sitting in a service.  At 9:15 we are setting up our fellowship hall as a quick make shift sanctuary, with afghans and my little heater to keep people warm.  Kay just happened to have some afghans in her car.

10:00 am the fellowship hall has warmed to 61 degrees  and we begin our now acoustical service.  It is really an “unplugged” service as there are no mic’s and no power point slides. 

However, what started out as a major stressor…which ironically enough tied in with our new sermon series “Dealing with Personality Dragons”  and I was preaching on all things the “Drama Queen”  …turned out to be a very great service. 

We had some old friends stop by and they just rolled with us as we gathered together  with our elderly under afghans, and our hearts filled with praise for the great God we serve. 

We might have had a very chilly church building….but we had a wonderfully warm presence as we gathered to worship the LORD together. 

I do hope we get this boiler thing figured out by next Sunday…it might be tough to take communion with mittens on. 

Where was Satan when God created?

Isn’t that a great question?  One of our members asked me this question last night at our fireside chat.

We had a great discussion regarding Satan and what exactly caused his rebellion against God. 

A few things are very clear:

1. Satan was cast to the earth.

2. Satan has been sinning and lying since the beginning.

3. Satan seeks to destroy human relationships with God.

Perhaps Satan became jealous of humans when we were created.  Perhaps he was jealous of people being made in the image and likeness of God. Perhaps he was jealous of humans relationship with God…a very special relationship.

We know that he attacked the first humans with temptation and has been doing so ever since.  He is always accusing God’s people of wrong…attacking God’s servants…preventing the Gospel from being preached…and is angry and looking for more people to devour. 

There has to be a reason why he goes after us and not any other part of God’s creation. 

I love the discussions we have as we search Scriptures together.

Come as you are….

Our signs have arrived! 

We have been given a gift from a good friend and this is the first installment of this  gift. 

We gave these out to our current attenders to put in their front lawns to let  neighbors know about our church.  It is the beginning of a six month advertising campaign for the church. 

 

We spent some time trying to figure out who we are as a core group of believers in Christ.   We are definitely a church that cares.  But we want people to know that they can come to Crosspoint just as they are so they don’t have to stay where they are!   

This is an exciting time for us as we begin phase II of our re-launch.