40 day and 40 nights

Not going to write in paragraph form… Lessons learned after 40 days and 40 nights. Some of these might seem small, simple, dumb or a bit off the wall, but lessons learned non the less
In no particular order.

*God was at work in this area long before I even thought about planting a church. My job is to try and figure out what God is up to here and how I can align with that vision.
*God has prepared certain people to completely “own” the cause of this church.
*If you ask God to bring people to you, you better be ready.
*It can be difficult to love people without an agenda.
*People can see right through a person who is not genuine.
*People are hurting and have been hurt by the church.
*I can’t imagine having any other office space than Starbucks.
*”Be all things to all people”, might be the best advice I’ve heard in a while.
*Planting a church, or evangelism, for that matter, can not and should not be reduced to an equation.
*There is a faith that I have been missing out on until doing this.
*The point of Christianity isn’t reading the Bible, praying, being held accountable, or witnessing. The point, according to Matthew 22:37 is to Love God and Love people. The trick is that if you are seeking to love God and love people
*Demons are hard at work on people, and I believe I’ve seen it first hand.
*Planting a church is not cool. It’s messy, confusing, stressful, depressing and intimidating, but there is nothing else I would rather do.
*Planting a church is also: encouraging, beautiful and fulfilling.
*It’s not up to me to change people, only to provide them with an opportunity to be introduced to a God who will convict us of change.
*Being comfortable can lead to apathy. Don’t be satisfied with the way things are just because that’s the way they have always been.

That’s probably not everything, but these are the ones that stand out to me tonight. God bless

Service, marketing and fruit

So here is the question I’m wrestling with this week. Do service and marketing go together? If they do, then how does that work. The bigger question is, When a church is involved in serving the community, should the church doing the service get anything out of the deal. Let me rephrase it again, since I’m even confusing myself. Is it really service, if you’re exchanging one “service” for another?

Now I’ll try to explain why this confusing question is consuming my thoughts this week. There are a few facts that need to be stated as it pertains to this new church:
1. We are interested in serving the community and genuinely being a part of making it a better place. We want to help out what missions organizations are already here.
2. We want this church to grow. Not just so that we can have a large church, but because we care about growing the kingdom and saving lost souls.
Now here is the tricky part, or the part that I’m becoming pretty convicted about.

If given the opportunity to serve the community (i.e. hand out water bottles on a hot day, hand out batteries for smoke alarms) the temptation is to paste a logo on the water bottle, or have a note with the battery that says something cheesy like “protect your home from fire with ______ Christian Church.” I know, sounds like a great idea right? Serve… and as an added “benefit” someone will come to your church because of clever “marketing.”

So again I ask the question, “Is it really serving, if you’re wanting to get something out of it.” Serving means you have the community’s best interest in mind, not you’re own.

After being here a month, I’ve fallen in love with this city, which means that I care about making it a better place. The funny part is that doing that doesn’t automatically equate to more people at the church. And that’s ok. It’s ok that some things we do as a church might go unnoticed on a large scale.

One last question, “Have we destroyed the concept of serving, by combining it with marketing?”

Ok. one more, “Are we kidding ourselves to think that people are blind to our intentions?”

Serve because you care, even if you never will see the fruit.