BLeach

Fridays

This is how I spend my day off!

Spring and summer are great because my dad and brother in law share the same off-day.  We bond on the course.

Just trying to remember the Sabbath:)

This Is Why

Simple Pleasures

I'm sitting in my backyard on the deck I built with my bare hands (although I almost lost a finger in the process). 

Putting the finishing touches on my teaching for the morning...

Listening to this guy...

With Outlook shut down:)

Thinking about how insane it is that I get to spend my life on something so monumental.  Tomorrow I have four opportunities to teach from the only book that's alive.  I'll get to partner with the same person who hovered over nothingness at creation.  The Holy Spirit will breathe words into my spirit and then I'll speak them into an earpiece microphone and people will be built.  Are you kidding me...

Sipping some Starbucks...in my Detroit starbucks mug.  It's even got a picture of Comerica Park on it.  The Tigers have the best record in baseball.  Read that line again.  Are you kidding me...

I think we should just go ahead and transform this city:)

Do You Hear That?

I'm really enjoying my Wednesday night Life Group.  If you're a part of COTK and still looking for a Life Group, you should join us on site in the cafe next Wednesday night.  We're studying the Book of James.  Last night we came across a verse that took my breath away.

The Holy Spirit, whom God has placed within us, jealously longs for us to be faithful (James 4.5).

Jealousy is a pure emotion for God.  He is the only person in the universe with the moral right to be jealous.  Because He stands alone, He deserves our total allegiance.

Did you know the Holy Spirit feels jealousy for you?  When you woke up this morning the Holy Spirit's heart skipped a beat.  He desired your attention, longing for you to think of Him.  He desired your affection, longing for you to feel toward Him.  He desired your devotion, longing for you to listen to Him.

The Holy Spirit is thinking of you right now.  He wants you all to Himself.  He wants your whole heart.  He wants your whole mind.  He wants your whole day.  Like a husband values faithfulness in a wife, the Holy Spirit values faithfulness in you. 

Have you heard His voice yet today?  He is talking. 

Quiet down a minute.  Go ahead.  Try it right now.  I'm serious.  Listen close.  Can you hear Him?

Listening...

Who's Calling Now?

My schedule has changed dramatically over the past 5 years of church planting.  In the fall of 2001 there were some days I would literally wake up and go to my makeshift office and wonder what I should be doing.  I started working on Church of the King 2 days after graduating from Bible College.  It was not only my first time venturing into ministry, it was my first time venturing into the real world.  None of my ministry training classes taught me what I should be doing on Monday, or Tuesday, or Wednesday.

To top that off, my cell phone was the church phone.  When we launched that September we mailed out 20,000 invitations to our launch service...20,000 invitations all with my cell phone number printed on them.  If Mark Driscoll ever asks me to write Confessions of a Reformissional Rev Part 2 I will call chapter 1 "Jesus, I'm a poor church planter who can't afford one million minutes."

Rick Warren was not giving me any awards.  I did not have a purpose driven schedule.

Here's an equation I found to be true:

I don't know what I should be doing + 20,000 strangers have my cell phone number = I do whatever they want me to do.

It only took me a few months of living like this to realize I needed a scheduling strategy.  So I started asking alot of questions.  I put together a short survey and interviewed several pastors and church planters.  The five most common categories of time investment seemed to be:

• Preaching/Teaching (including study)
• Pastoral Care (counseling, hospital visitation, etc)
• Leadership Development
• Community Interaction
• Administration

I still remember my first official weekly schedule.  I just divided it into these five areas. 

I think it's changed at least annually since then.  It didn't take me long to realize that no two pastors are the same.  No two church planters are the same.  God has made me unique.  My mission is the same but my execution of it continues to take its own shape.

I honestly believe that if a leader's schedule looks the same year after year something is wrong.  You can't grow in your understanding of your mission without changing the way you spend your time.  I don't ever want to just develop one good thing and then settle in to maintain it.  I want to continue to create. 

This fall my schedule is changing again.  At the end of September I'll launch Movements, our new one-year church planting training school.  I'll put a chunk of my time into developing our young church planters.  Church planting is so intricately woven into my ministry identity that I know I'll continue to spend more and more time building church planters and launching church plants. 

I'm also looking seriously into a new cohort opportunity that's being offered by the Center of Leadership in order to go after my Master's Degree. 

I keep coming back to these basic questions.  Who has God called me to be?  Where is He directing my time for this next stretch of ministry?  What am I currently doing that I really don't need to be doing?  What leaders do I need to raise up to enable me to make the necessary scheduling adjustments? 

We've all got 24 hours in our day.  That never changes.  How we spend it should.

Five

I can't believe I'm actually typing this, but on September 17 our church turns five!  Someone asked me yesterday if it feels like we've been at this five years.  I tried to be honest.  Some days it feels like 10 years.  Other days it feels like 5 months.  Church planting is a roller-coaster ride!

Because of birthday number five, we're going to start the fall in celebration mode.  We've got to pause and give God credit for everything He's done. 

We spent about 2 hours yesterday brainstorming the celebration.  If you're a part of Church of the King then you don't want to miss either of these events:

Friday night, September 15

Sunday morning, September 17

They will rock! 

More info to come on this, but Friday night the 15th will be our first night hosting the STAR Awards.  We're going to honor a bunch of ministry leaders and volunteers that work so hard to make it all happen.  We'll laugh.  We'll cry.  We'll stoll down memory lane and peek into the future. 

And on Sunday we'll use our imaginations to envision our church in 2026...when we turn 25!

Sand Castles And Hiatus

It's time to re-engage with the blogosphere.  I guess I'm a streaky blogger (which has to be better than being a streaky dresser.)  Or I could blame my little hiatus on August being vacation month.  In any case, it was nice to take a little break.

Meanwhile...

Had a great time at our team's annual play and pray retreat (props to Mark for the name).  We use these 2 days to bid farewell to our summer interns.  We don't do any business.  We just play hard and pray hard.

On Monday we played really hard.  For starters, Phil and Don joined me in a grand vision of building the largest sand castle in the history of Lost Lake.  This is the curse of being a dreamer.  I have a hard time doing things like this average.

The first hour was just spent digging and piling sand.  It was the dirty, pre-launch work.  We almost lost Don.  I had to passionately explain to him twice that piling the sand was like gathering a core group:)  Only a few people can see the finished product.  Everyone else just gives you wierd looks, wondering why your working so hard on something that looks so rough.  But when that church sand castle starts to take shape, weird looks change to inspired looks and the help increases.  Sure enough, Emily and Eddie jumped into help.  And then the people started coming by with their questions. 

How long did it take you to build it?

How did you start?

Can we get our picture with it?

One piece of advice.  If you decide to build the largest sand castle in the history of your particular lake, don't also try to simultaneously build the largest mote in history.  It will destroy your sand castle:) 

Here's the church plant sand castle (after some reconstructive surgery from the mote incident).

After building the sand castle I continued with getting carried away.  I challenged myself to swim across the lake and back (1/2 mile).  Tal kept me company.  Then we played frisbee and volleyball until the sunset.  I can tell I'm almost 28.  This stuff causes more pain than it used to:)

The highlight for me was our prayer times.  We prayed for each other and we prayed over our dream.  I could feel movement in heaven.

Movements

When we started Church of the King in September 2001, planting one church was just the start of our dream.  Our vision from the beginning has been to launch a movement of church plants in Metro Detroit.  This past Easter we took an oversized step of faith and launched our first daughter church in downtown Royal Oak.  This fall we'll move again in the direction of our dream.  Plans are coming together to launch a one year, on-site church planting training school.  The school is called Movements. 

I'll write more in the next few weeks about how the dream for the school has come together.  In the meantime, if you have a leaning toward church planting and you're wondering what your next step should be, I'd love to hear from you.  Movements may be a unique approach for you to take in pursuing God's dream for your life. 

Here's the vision statement:

We are a visionary, risk-taking band of pioneers.  We don't mind starting empty-handed.  We're willing to invade hard territory with unlikely people.  We're convinced God can do anything He wants with anyone He chooses.  We depend on each other, love each other, and go to war for each other.  We don't subscribe to any one method, but we do have a few unique convictions.

The Acts of the Apostles is our textbook.  We believe that First Century church planting principles still work.  Culture changes but the principles of Jesus retain relevancy.  We trace our roots back to a core group of 120 in a Jerusalem attic who launched a movement of church plants that extended to the ends of the earth.

Strategic cities are our context.  We believe God's creation story starts in a garden and ends in a city.  God is behind world population explosion.  He is scooping up masses of people and placing them in cities around the world.  Meanwhile, He is positioning postmodern pioneers to rename those cities.  We belong to God's city-changing tribe.

Jesus is our message.  We talk about Him everyday.  We fill our prayers with His name.  We use His life and ministry as our model.  If Jesus was willing to take His Father at His word, so are we.  If Jesus was willing to send, so are we.  If Jesus was willing to die, so are we.  We identify with fishermen who quit their jobs to follow the Rabbi.  Hopefully this sounds real simple.  We just want to please Jesus.

The Holy Spirit is our means.  The Holy Spirit's job is to put Jesus in the spotlight.  Since we share that goal we covet His help.  He has determined to empower the available (1 Corinthians 12.11).  We've made His determination our desire (1 Corinthians 14.1).  We believe Jesus had postmoderns in mind when He first poured out His Spirit in Jerusalem.  None of the gifts have ceased.  We need the Holy Spirit today more than ever.

Sending is our strategy.  We're uncomfortable with stationary church ministry.  We're committed to multiplication.  We hold resources loosely because we believe they all belong to God.  He can reallocate people, money, equipment and materials as often as He chooses.  We believe scattering seed does more than storing it.  We value generosity.  We are motivated by the advancement of the Kingdom.  So we open our hands to release, bless, and send.

Do these words make your heart beat fast?  Do thoughts of creating and changing stir you?  Are you ready to add a decision to your dream?  Could you devote one year of your life to launching a movement?

Pit Stop

I've been checked out this week on my biannual prayer and vision retreat.  Twice a year (January and August) I get alone for 3 - 4 days to decompress and recreate.  These are not the easiest weeks for me.  I find it stretching to take 4 days to focus more on meditation than production.  Not to mention I get pretty lonely by the end of it:)  But I always feel thankful for what Jesus does in my spirit.

Incidentally, Jesus doesn't promise us that we won't feel pressure.  What He does promise is to renew us on the inside so that we can stand with grace and courage under any assignment that He gives us (2 Corinthians 4.16).

This week most of my time ended up being spent in four categories:

Praying

Meditating

Writing

Dreaming

It looks like my schedule is going to pick up some intensity in the fall.  Before I left the office on Monday I felt pretty intimidated about some of the things God is calling me to do.  I still have unanswered questions, but my faith is larger.  I can see so much that God wants to do.  For me, envisioning it is half the battle.

Thanks to many of you who mentioned you were praying for me.  I felt it!