BLeach

Nursery Prayer

On Monday afternoons we start our staff meetings with some team prayer.  This week Tal's youngest daughter Allison was hanging in the building.  She followed me into the sanctuary so I invited her to pray with us.  Since I tend to walk and pray Allison decided to do the same.  She was about 5 steps behind me:)  I finally switched it up so I could take this picture.

The experience prompted some childhood flashbacks.  My dad had a study in our basement that he used for his personal prayer time.  I remember cracking the door at the top of the stairs and just sitting there listening to him pray.  He'd pray for pastors.  He'd pray for his unchurched friends.  He'd pray for my mom and my sister.  And he'd always pray for me.  I don't think he knew I was there, but I learned alot about prayer just by listening to him. 

A few weeks ago Dan Webb asked me to help him with the craft in our nursery.  Actually, I was the craft.  Dan was teaching our kids how to pray for their pastor and thought it would be good for them to practice on me.  So I slipped away from the adults for a few minutes.  Unfortunately, my entrance into the nursery didn't call the kids to prayer.  For some reason the energy level of the kids in our church immediately increases when they see me; maybe because I'm usually chasing them, swinging them or flipping them.

After five minutes of helping Dan to try to convince the kids to pray for me I felt fresh appreciation for the job our nursery workers do every month!  Finally Khalil stepped up and volunteered to pray as long as I would lead.  It was my first experience leading someone in prayer for myself:)

Today my heroes are all of our kamikaze nursery volunteers!  Our kids are being shaped and you make a lasting impact every time you give them a little glimpse of Jesus.

Namalu

In April I'll be taking our Movements team to Uganda to partner with Mission SOS in their evangelism crusade.  My heart started beating faster when I saw this promo video.  I've already been praying for the people in Namalu so it's pretty special to see their faces. 

Mission SOS is a church planting and missions ministry that was started by Johannes Amritzer.  Johannes is a new friend who has come to mean alot to me in the past eighteen months.  Can't wait to step into the Book of Acts with him in a few months!

Meeting Day

Monday is meeting day.  I just wrapped up number six.  I really enjoy spending time with all the various leaders in our church to plan, pray and dream.

I also spent time with our two church planters and realized that time really does fly.  Chris and The Oaks have less than three months to go before their first anniversary.  And David and I realized while we were talking that this week is the one year anniversary of the day we first met.  In January 2006 he had just landed in the US from Ghana with two-hundred dollars in his pocket.  On February 25 his new church will celebrate their one year anniversary.

It's hard to communicate how rewarding it is to watch these two churches grow.  Now if we can just get them to give us some grandkids:)

Week of War

As a church we've set aside the last full week of every month in 2007 to anticipate WOW moments from Jesus through prayer and fasting.  This is our first Week of War.  Yesterday we had a great time of prayer together as a staff.  And this morning I gathered with some fired-up men.  Just for the record, 6:00 am prayer meetings are stretching for me.  When my alarm goes off my thoughts go something like this:

Jesus has called me into full time ministry and needs me to get my rest:)

It's really cold outside:)

Maybe it would be better for the men if their pastor didn't come.  I wouldn't want to intimidate them:)

But by 7:15 this morning I had no regrets.  We pressed in.  Jesus heard.  Answers are in the works. 

One of the books that shaped my thinking the most when we started our church was Fresh Wind, Fresh Fire by Pastor Jim Cymbala.  The story of Brooklyn Tabernacle is one of the most inspiring church growth stories I've come across.  Jim Cymbala was a young pastor with a failing inner city church.  That's when he got desperate and made a simple commitment to call his small church to prayer.  Today their Tuesday night prayer meetings are visited by people from all over the world.

Ready to fight this week!

Community Exegesis

Today I met the mayor of Berkley for lunch.  Marilyn Stephan spent over 20 years teaching in various public schools in the city.  She decided to run for mayor so she could continue to make a difference during retirement.  Gotta love that attitude:)  She spoke with passion about issues from education to caring for the homeless.

My main goal in meeting with her was to hear her story.  She's lived in Berkley since 1957.  When I asked her if she's seen some changes she laughed.  Then she started teaching me.  She didn't teach me theology.  She didn't talk ministry strategy.  I've spent alot of classes and alot of lunches talking about both of those subjects. 

I've studied my text.

Mayor Stephan taught me about my context.

One of my goals this year is to meet continually with community leaders and business owners.  Next week I'll have lunch with our comissioner for Oakland County.  Can't wait to pick his brain about the changing face of Southfield.

I feel an increased urgency to lead our church as a missionary-pastor in 2007.  Metro Detroit doesn't need any more churches that are out of context.

JPM

Last night I met one of my young heroes at Buffalo Wild Wings.  Jerome is the real deal.  I met him last June at a church planting school in Florida.  The passion I caught from him in three days remained with me for six months. 

Jerome's got a great hip-hop ministry called soundsgood entertainment.  Highly recommend them for ministry.  They saw about one thousand students surrender to Jesus in 2006.

I had to laugh out loud when Jerome explained JPM's to me.  JPM is a phrase that record labels use to evaluate signing potential artists.  It stands for Jesus Per Minute.  Apparently record labels, including several "Christian" ones, have a quota on how many times an artist can use the name Jesus in one song. 

I've got a new term.  JPS.  Jesus per sermon.  Or how about JPBE.  Jesus per blog entry.  Go ahead.  Start counting.  Hopefully I'm off the charts:)

Jesus is my King.

Jesus is my Hero.

Jesus is my Motivation.

Jesus is the object of my devotion.

Jesus is calling Jerome to move to Detroit.

Okay, so that last one might have been wishful thinking:) 

Might have been...

The Freedom Center

Over the past few months I've trimmed down the list of ministry assignments I'm accepting outside of our church.  I've always believed the gifts in my life as well as the experiences I've accumulated in ministry can be traced back to grace.  So I want to be open to both of them benefiting the bigger picture.  At the same time, I've only got 24 hours in a day and a little less energy than Jack Bauer.

So in the spirit of still breathing when I turn thirty I'm cutting back.  I feel an increasing sense of responsibility for the mission field Jesus has sent me to.  Our church is thirty minutes from four million people.  Transforming a metro area like Detroit takes some concentration:)

I continue to travel some to speak.  In addition, I prioritized some of my extra-curricular church planting efforts.  Church planting is my sweet spot and where I feel like Jesus has given me the most to contribute.  One of the boards I continue to serve is responsible for giving leadership to Assembly of God church planting efforts in Michigan.  My good friend Steve Bradshaw leads that charge so I enjoy serving him.  I've also valued some new friendships formed on that team.

One of those guys is Jim Wiegand, pastor of The Freedom Center in Fenton.  Today he invited me to spend some time teaching his leadership team.  I really enjoyed sharing a little of my journey with them.  They asked some great questions.  Then I got to spend a few hours with Jim.  He's a guy I wouldn't mind being like when I hit forty-one.  So I got to ask him some of my burning questions:)

It's interesting that even though our churches are different sizes and our communities have different flavors, Jesus is teaching us some of the same heart lessons. 

The Other Drinking Fountain

It turned out to be a nice coincidence that my Bible reading plan brought me to John 4 on MLK day.  It seems to me that Jesus made it a point to drink from the wrong well:)

The gospel has always had a context.  Jesus had a unique message for Samaritan villages.  My context happens to be one of the most segregated cities in America.  So I'm convinced that a genuine expression of Jesus in Metro Detroit has to build bridges across racial and social divides.

I'm struck by the assumption the Samaritan woman made about the nature of worship.  In her mind worship was something that divides people.  Samaritans have one mountain and the Jews have another.  But Jesus had a different perspecitve on worship.  Worship doesn't highlight our differences.  It emphasizes our common love for Him.

Seems to me that Jesus would smile if our weekend worship services were less segregated and more like this!

Be blended:)

Remembering Revival

This month marks the ten year anniversary of a special move of God that my friend Jeff Leake experienced at the church he leads.  To celebrate and remember what God did, he just finished a series of posts sharing some of his memories from the experience. 

Warning: Do not read what Jeff writes unless you want to be stretched by Jesus:)

City of God

Today I got some concentrated time to pray for Metro Detroit, my three-county mission field of four million people. 

Detroit is known for alot of things.  My dream is that it will be known for spiritual transformation. 

I used to ask Jesus to give me the city.  Then a few years ago John Gunn reminded me that the city doesn't belong to me.  It belongs to God.  And for that matter, I belong to God.  So I changed my prayer. 

Now I pray for Jesus to give me to His city.

I repented for my lack of concern over people in the city who are away from Jesus.  I renewed my devotion to working for their freedom.  I rejected the temptation toward apathy and fear.  And I rejoiced over the future fame Jesus will receive when awakening takes place.