More from Exponential '08

Wow! The last day of Exponential was incredible. I got to listen to Tim Keller twice. He has some incredible insight into the need for the gospel in multiplying churches. Maybe I'll have time next week to give you the summary.

Rick Warren closed out the whole conference. The guy just has such incredible humility and a burning heart for church planters. In the end, he called all the church planters to the front and prayed with us and over us. We then sang "God of the City." It was an incredibly powerful moment.

Momma, I'm Coming Home!

Yaaay! Exponential has been great, but I am so excited to be headed home to LaRissa and the kids. Daddy's coming home.

More from Exponential '08

Wow! Another really full day.

Started out the morning with Alan Hirsch. Alan is the author of The Forgotten Ways. I picked up the book after I heard him speak. He was really good and thought provoking. He talked about four things we have to recover to if the church in the West is to survive:

1. the absolute centrality of Jesus for the life of the church - Christology lies at the heart of the renewal of the church. We have to go back to Jesus. Too often, we've taken Jesus out of Christianity. Why? Because Jesus is hard to live with. He disturbs us. It is at times hard to live with Jesus as Lord. How sad is it that we have to state that Jesus has to be at the center of Christianity!
2. the recovery of discipleship as our core task - Movements can grow only in proportion to their capacity to make disciples. If you don't grow disciples, you don't get any movement.
3. the recovery of the ethos/structure of Apostolic Movements - "What we need are missionally responsive, culturally adaptive, organizationally agile, multiplication movements." We must mobilize the whole people of God. Every church member is a church planter and every church is a church-planting church. We must be reproducing and reproducible.
4. the recovery of an Incarnational Mission Impulse - God is a missional and incarnational God and we must be a missional and incarnational people.

I then had a breakout session with Ed Stetzer. He is an interesting and great guy to listen to, but this morning he was talking about putting together a prospectus, something I have already done. Any new info he gave may have been too little, too late. Just kidding!

The disturbing and enlightening information he gave was that the Southern Baptist Convention announced to day that we are officially a denomination in decline. I urge you to check out the whole story, Breaking News, on Ed's blog. For now, check this out:

Baptisms are at their lowest levels since 1970 with seven of the last eight years showing annual declines. Even though some might hope the decline in membership numbers is due to lack of reporting, the inescapable conclusion is that baptisms by individual churches is falling off.
For now, Southern Baptists are a denomination in decline. Some of you were born into an SBC church; others of us chose it of our own accord. Either way, it is dear to us all. Our responsibility before God is, then, to urgently consider how we should respond.

A denominational employee told me today that if you take out our ethnic and African-American churches, the convention has actually been in decline for the last 20 to 30 years. A sobering thought and a reminder of how desperately we need church plants. Without a strong planting
movement, the convention will slowly die away.

I then heard Darren Patrick talk about the church planting team. Really good stuff, but this blog is already getting long.

Lots more stuff this afternoon. I even got a shout-out from the stage from one of the speakers about The Crossroads Community Church.

Then, I got to have supper at Outback with some other church planters. I just love spending time with these guys. They have such a burning passion for the renewal of the church and doing whatever it takes to reach the people God has called them to. Oh, that God would continue to raise up church planters!

Since Everyone Is Asking ...

Yes, Mark Batterson is really tall. I am six feet tall, and he is a good three to four inches taller than me. He was a basketball player in college. BTW, he is also really built. I don't ordinarily notice that kind of stuff, but the dude has got some guns. He must be a workout fiend. I guess it's in case he ever encounters a lion in a pit on a snowy day.

Exponential '08

Another amazing day here in Orlando. I got to spend the morning with Mark Batterson as he talked about creative communication.

I also got this autographed copy of In a Pit with a Lion on a Snowy Day for The Crossroads. Totally awesome.

In the afternoon session, Ed Stetzer started off the main session talking about essentials of reproducing churches. He had a forum discussion with, get this, Bob Roberts, Neil Cole, and Ron Sylvia. If you don't know who those guys are, they have got some pretty good cred when it comes to planting churches.

Some of you know Lance Witt. I saw him sitting a couple of rows in front of me and got to talk to him for a few minutes. I hope to be able to hook up with him tomorrow and get to visit some more.

Then, in the next session, Andy Stanley talked to us about vision. He was super cool, really open and honest, and pretty funny.

Then in the final session, one of the guys from Willow Creek talked about their Reveal project. It was pretty enlightening in that it showed that many of the things we typically try to get people involved in for spiritual growth actually do not produce spiritual growth. The more important factors are personal spiritual exercises like reading the Bible, praying, serving others, and going through painful times in life. Good stuff.

Then, I got to go out to eat some really good Italian food at Carrabas with a bunch of other church planters. It was some great networking.

Really Cool

Check out this amazing video showing God's grace in an incredible way through a church plant in North Carolina.

In a Conference with Mark Batterson on a Sunny Day

I am in Orlando this week for the Exponential Conference, the premier church planting conference in the nation. One of the highlights of the week is I get to sit in on a session with Mark Batterson, author of In a Pit with a Lion on a Snowy Day. My launch team has already instructed me to get him to autograph a copy of his book.

He was really awesome in the session today. Just a humble, genuine, down-to-earth guy with some really cool ideas.

Beyond that, it is just really great to get to hang out with other church planters. I love my tribe. These guys love the Lord, have a heart for the church, and are on the frontlines of ministry.

Thank You, God, and Thank You, Hagerman

Sunday night, Hagerman threw a launching party for my family and the families who are going with us to plant The Crossroads. We were truly blessed by them. I am so thankful for what God has done and is continuing to do at Hagerman. They are praying for us and want to be closely connected and involved with us in planting in Anna. Praise God!

Acts 1:8 Conference

I went to the Acts 1:8 Sent Conference in Austin this weekend with some other people who really have a heart for global missions. Reggie McNeal was the keynote speaker, and his message was wonderful. The basic content of what he had to say was that it is time for the church to "be the church" and stop "doing church."

Lots of good breakout sessions and the possibility of connecting with a group that does mission trips into the interior of Mexico doing saturation evangelism and planting churches. LaRissa made contact with a missionary in upstate New York, and there is the possibility of being able to partner with some new church plants in his area.

Update

Lots of stuff going on right now with The Crossroads. Last week we secured a meeting place! Hurray and thank you, God! We will be meeting at the Tiger Cat Tumble and Cheer Gymnasium. It is located just west of US-75 and just south of FM 455. It is a really great location, and it comes at an awesome price. In addition, the owner has some build-out she wants to do and would be willing to allow us to help her with that and apply that toward the cost of the lease. Awesome!!

LaRissa has created a baby registry at Target for the nursery. If you are interested or you know of someone who is interested, this is a very real and practical way to help support The Crossroads.

I have been having several conversations with pastors trying to secure support for The Crossroads. So far, most of those conversations have been very positive and productive, although there have been no definite commitments yet. So please be very much in prayer for funding. If you know of anyone I need to talk to (churches, individuals, corporations) who might be interested in supporting The Crossroads, please let me know. I will be happy to talk to them and share the vision God has given us.

We are scheduling dates for pre-launch events right now. I will post those as soon as we have them in stone. If you would be interested in helping out with door-to-door surveys, service projects, block parties, or coming to a preview service, please let me know.

I have a friend who is working on a logo design for us, and I am working on getting our website up and running.

Please, please, be in prayer for our family. I will be without my current job at the end of this month. I'm kind of feeling like I can't breathe right now when I consider that. I'm serious. Pray for us. Stop what you are doing right now and pray for us.

Think Outside the Bubble

More stuff from They Like Jesus but Not the Church:

One of the challenges of being missional and reaching people who aren't yet followers of Christ is actually having relationships with those people. The problem is that the longer you are a Christ-follower, the greater the likelihood that you don't know anyone who isn't a Christ-follower. You become trapped inside the Christian bubble.

Dan Kimball traces the steps by which this happens in the Christian's life:

Phase 1: We become Christians

"I recall reading that within the first year of someone's becoming a Christian, they tell approximately twenty people, from among their family and friends, about their faith and even invite them to church. This is only natural because generally everyone in a new Christian's circle of friends is outside of the church." p. 42

Phase 2: We become part of church life

"The longer we are Christians, the fewer number of friends we have who are not Christians. Even though Christians often work alongside non-Christians or have non-Christian neighbors or sit next to unbelieving students in class, we generally tend not to actually befriend them, or pray regularly for them, or get involved in their lives so they trust us and we can be the salt and light of Jesus to them. When I ask Christians who they went ot the movies with Friday night or who they went to the beach with last weekend, it usually turns out they went with Christians from the same church. ... Shouldn't it be that the longer we are Christians and the longer we walk with Jesus and understand the grace of God, the more we desire to see others experience God's grace as well? It seems incredibly ironic that as we mature and get to know Scripture better and get to know Jesus better and are transformed all the more by the Spirit, fewer non-Christians get to experience those things through relationships with us." pp. 42-43.

Phase 3: We become part of the Christian bubble

"Slowly we begin to see evangelism as something the church does, primarily through events. We get more excited about going overseas to the mission field on summer trips than about the mission field we live in every day. We start to see evangelism as inviting people to go to a church, where the pastor will do the evangelizing and explain Christianity, instead of spending time with people and talking with them and being the church to them. ... For the most part, only Christians are in our circle of peers. We begin buying little Christian stickers or put metal fish symbols on our cars, and we even have a few Christian T-shirts. We set our radios only to our favorite Christian radio shows, and most of the music we listen to is Christian. We make a trip to the amusement park that has the special Christian day each year featuring Christian bands. We find ourselves regularly using Christian words and phrases and cliches, such as backsliding, prayer warrior, fellowship, quiet time, traveling mercies ... The transformation is complete. We have become citizens of the Christian bubble." p. 44.

Phase 4: We become like Jonah

"After several years as citizens of the bubble, we begin to complain and point out the terrible things happening in the culture. Like Jonah ... who ran away when God told him to go to the wicked city of Ninevah, we don't want anything to do with those who aren't following God as we are. ... Like Jonah, who, even after God gave him a second chance and he saw the people of Ninevah repent and cry out to God, complained about not hving shade over his head and being uncomfortable, we complain about how well the church is providing what we want and grow numb to the fact that people all around us need the love and grace of Jesus." p. 45.

Evaluate yourself. Where are you in terms of the bubble? The challenge for being missional Christ-followers, for planting a missional church, is getting out of the bubble, thinking outside the bubble, building relationships outside the bubble. What do you need to do to get out of the bubble? How can you build friendships with people who aren't Christ-followers? What are the areas of your life where you have insulated yourself from non-Christ-followers?

The Road Not Taken

April is national poetry month. In honor of it, here is one of my favorite all-time poems. It also is a great poem to meditate on for The Crossroads and if you want to be a "lion-chaser" in life.

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth; 5

Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same, 10

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back. 15

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference. 20

They Don't Like Christians

As Christ-followers and churches, we are facing a serious public relations crisis. Check out some thoughts from They Like Jesus But Not the Church:

In our increasingly post-Christian culture, the influences and values shaping emerging generations are no longer aligned with Christianity. p. 15

Translation: We are no longer living in a Christian world. We can no longer assume that people know the basics of the Christian faith.

To them, Christianity isn't normal ... We've got to realize that in our emerging culture, we are now in a different culture and we need to view it and the people in it as a missionary would. Christians are now the foreigners in a post-Christian culture, and we have got to wake up to this reality if we haven't. ... Among those who are under thirty-five years old, and especially younger people in their teens and twenties, there is a quickly growing misperception of what Christianity is, what church is, and who Christians are. pp. 29-31

This may sound odd, but quite honestly, I don't blame people in our emerging culture for what they think about us. If I weren't a church leader or if I weren't friends with Christians who really are following Jesus in a loving and balanced way, I would probably judge Christians and Christianity based on what I could see from the outside. And it isn't a pretty picture. Based on outside observations of Christians, there's no way I would want to become one of them. I wouldn't want to become an angry, judgmental, right-wing, finger-pointing person. I wouldn't be saying that out of rebellion against God or the church; I would simply conclude that from observations of Christians and from not wanting to change into something I wouldn't want to be like. pp. 32-33

People generally have a negative view of Christians and the church. The good news is that those same people have a very favorable view of Jesus. More to come.

Pray for the Peace of the City

Each year for the last four years, twice a year, mission teams from our church have traveled to Juarez, Mexico, to help with Vacation Bible Schools, to assist new church plants, to help with evangelistic worship services and to deliver blankets and toys to offer relief to impoverished families at Christmas time.

An advance team from our church was preparing to travel to Juarez this weekend to make preparations for our annual summer trip, but they received word yesterday that they should not come. Our summer trip has been cancelled due to violence that has broken out in Juarez.

Rival drug lords are engaged in warfare to gain control of the city's drug trafficking network. One hundred people were killed in the month of March alone. Police who have tried to gain control of the situation have been killed. Two thousand Mexican troops are currently on their way to Juarez to try to regain order in the city. More information is available here.

Please be in prayer for the peace of Juarez. Pray for the police and militia trying to regain order. Pray that the responsible parties would be brought to justice. Pray for the citizens of Juarez. And please, please, be in prayer for the churches and for our friends who are in Juarez.