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In a meeting yesterday, Rex posed this question:
"How would you end the following statement: I dream of a church where …"
It was at the end of the meeting so i abstained from answering as i didn’t think i could do it justice in 5 minutes. It is a great question though, and one i ponder often.
I dream of a church … that is viral. Alive and thriving, staying young and healthy, curious about the world around it, joyful for the tremendous blessings we experience and hungry for the friendships we should have. I dream of a church with child like faith, love, joy and peace while being mature in patience, goodness, kindness, gentleness and self-control. I dream of a church that is a good neighbor to its community, a caring friend to the homeless, and a safe home for the orphaned. I dream of a church that others look at and say "there is still good in the world". I dream of a church, that as the body of Christ truly reflects the life He lived here on earth and as the bride of Christ has an insatiable need to honor her love.
But i don’t just dream. This is my church. She is imperfect and immature, made up of parts that have not yet learned to work in harmony for the good of all. But she is growing, learning and realizing life is more than living – it is hoping, caring and loving others more than yourself. She is an imperfect reflection of her lover yet it is unquestionable that she belongs to Him.
I haven’t been writing much lately. We are in budget season at Grace which is pretty time consuming. Besides that, it’s summer and i’ve been spending some needed quality time with the family. I will pick up the normal writing schedule again soon though! I am hoping to have many good things to tell you about what’s going on at Grace this fall!
Proverbs 17:17 Friends love through all kinds of weather,
and families stick together in all kinds of trouble.
 Dunbar’s number is a theoretical cognitive limit to the number of people with whom one can maintain stable social relationships. These are relationships in which an individual knows who each person is, and how each person relates to every other person. Proponents assert that numbers larger than this generally require more restrictive rules, laws, and enforced norms to maintain a stable, cohesive group. No precise value has been proposed for Dunbar’s number, but a commonly cited approximation is 150.
Granovetter’s research showed that weak ties are unbelievably valuable – in some cases, more so than strong ties – when it comes to disseminating (or gathering) information.
Using social media like Facebook and Twitter allows me to maintain weak ties well in excess of Dunbar’s number, with out having any adverse impact on my in-person social network (which is well under Dunbar’s number  ) In practice there are many friends that I have (or would have) lost touch with that I now stay in contact with due to Facebook.
There has been much recent debate about the value and inherent pitfalls of social media. Social media in itself is not problematic, it is our natural tendencies that are magnified by social media that cause the concern. In other words, if you are an introvert and already struggle with maintaining personal relationships, misusing social media as a means to retreat from uncomfortable personal interactions is unhealthy. Likewise, if you are an extravert and you devote excessive time in socializing on said media to the detriment of personal productivity, this is not healthy either. As with most things in life, its excess and our own lack of self control which pose a problem. Used in moderation, social media can greatly enhance the number of healthy relationships that would otherwise be impossible. This is why it’s worth my time.
 Being a recent recipient of the HTC Evo and working with several iPhone enthusiasts who are chomping at the bit for the new iPhone, I have been reading many comparative reviews of the two phones.
The iPhone has been the long time, uncontested heavy weight champion of the smart phone world. The Evo is a new contender, touted as the iPhone killer. The reviews go tit for tat, with some favoring the new iPhone and some favoring the Evo. In the end, the real winner is me, the consumer.
For the first time, the iPhone actually has competition. This is good because Apple has begun to fall into some old, bad habits recently. Apple spent a large part of its history as a proprietary, closed solution. Several years ago, Apple turned over a new leaf and ditched its proprietary operating system (OS) in favor of an open source OS based on free BSD. This propelled the Mac forward to begin actually competing with the Microsoft desktop (and actually improved their product). The Mac has done well ever since. Unfortunately, Apple didn’t seem to learn a lot from this experience. The iPhone OS (and the iPad OS) remain closed systems on a closed network. This has long frustrated many people, but until recently there was no other option for a really smart smart phone. When the Evo launched that all changed. The Evo launched as a product superior to the existing iPhone, on multiple cellular networks, with a better camera, a better screen, a faster CPU, native multitasking and best of all it launched on an open platform; Google’s Android (which actually has it roots in the same OS as the Mac OS). This is forcing Apple to play catch up and rethink its strategy and marketing. Don’t think so? Check out the keynotes from Apple’s last WWDC, among major advances to the Mac Mini, the Macbook air, HTML5, iAd, iTunes in the cloud, Safari 5, etc., Jobs talked mainly about the new iPhone. He is playing catch up with the competition.
Whether you are a fan of HTC or Apple, this competition is good for us. It will increase the speed of innovation and standardization, it will lower the price point on technology and it will make both companies listen closely to what we the consumer are asking for. So don’t be too quick to slam the competition. It is fine to prefer one product over another, but wanting to kill legitimate competition in favor of your choice is a game the producer use to pit us the consumer against their competition for their (the producer) benefit, not ours (the consumer).
 I’ve been chewing on this post forever, mostly because I don’t think it will be appreciated. It’s kind of a rant or pet peeve of mine, like the Sabbath day .
I pretty regularly hear stories or have conversations with other “Christians” about their happiness. Oddly enough, the story seldom goes “I am so happy with my life. God has been incredibly good to me. I am healthy and have plenty. My only desire is to see God’s face.”
It seems there is an erroneous idea that our happiness should be a top priority, to both us and God. Maybe this comes from generations of living in the spoils of the richest nation in history. After all it’s written right into our DNA; “Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness” is one of the most famous phrases in the United States Declaration of Independence.
I have heard numerous stories of men leaving their wives for another woman, because they couldn’t believe God wanted them to be unhappy. I frequently have people tell me they are pursuing a certain course because God wants them to be happy. I agree that for the most part God does want us to be happy, we can see this in the way He blessed so many people in the bible. BUT, we go astray when we believe our happiness is a top priority. If you need a good biblical example of this, read the story of the Jews coming out of Egypt. They were unhappy and complained constantly that they were unhappy and God dealt with them harshly. Or read Paul’s recollection of how life had treated him; Paul makes it clear that happiness is NOT the goal.
The point is we all want to be happy, but this should be subservient to wanting what God intended for us. We are like children who just want to play all day, missing the value of the trials in life we are meant to endure. The greatest blessing in life is not getting what we want, but getting what God wants. Sticking it out in that tough marriage will yield a happiness like no other, either later in years when you realize the fruit of your hard work or when you stand in front of your creator and hear “Well done good and faithful servant”. Doing what is right (what God wants) should be our top priority which will yield a delayed gratification far greater than the immediate gratification we seek in being happy.
 One of my favorite blogs to follow is Leading Smart by Tim Stevens, Executive Pastor at Granger Community Church. Tim is incredibly innovative in his approach to church and very insightful in his observation of the world around us. Earlier this week, Tim posted “The Shrinking 40%“. Like most of Tim’s post, it provoked thought. I’ve found myself in several discussions regarding this topic in the last year, but it finally hit me why this does not surprise me.
At Grace we have always known this. People who are unchurched are unlikely to come to church for no apparent reason other than curiosity. Yes it happens on occasion, but it’s not the norm. This is why we have decided on a believer oriented, seeker friendly model for weekend services. We don’t believe the weekend service’s primary purpose is to attract those exploring faith. We design the weekend service to primarily encourage those who have found faith and secondarily be inviting to those who are new to faith or exploring faith. Why? Because Tim is right and the discussion is valid, people are becoming less and less likely to venture into a church as they explore and seek faith.
People are more likely to develop relationships with people they trust and explore faith with those friends. It seems people will come to church if invited by a friend, statistics still point to a high percentage of positive response to personal invitations. Grace’s focus is in line with these facts.
Grace focuses on knowing Christ, living like Christ and making Christ known. I must know Christ in order to talk with others about my faith, I must live like Christ if my friends are going to believe the things I say about life and faith – my life speaks louder than my words and I must be the messenger of the good news – helping my friends take their next step towards faith. (Yes that is a lot of I’s, but assume “I” could be “you” or “we”). When we do this, faith is spread and grows organically, from friend to friend. This is done by us who call Grace our home. Relationships are the critical key to overcoming “the shrinking 40%”. Our friends must see something attractive in us, want to explore that and trust us enough to hear what we say.
All in all, i agree with Tim and with the statement that the 40% is shrinking. But we (Grace) are fairly insulated from the problem because our growth is not produced by a weekend service that caters to the seeker. Our growth has always been through relationships. Know who Christ is, live your life so others see Christ in you and tell your friends about the hope you have. If everyone at Grace helped one friend start their journey towards faith this year, we would need to double our campuses next year. That’s true impact for the kingdom and to the community around us.
What do you think?
 Over the last week I have been trying to sort out how the Connect team helps accomplish the overall mission at Grace: How does the Connect team fit in the big picture? We know why the connect team exists (our mission) and we know why Grace exists (to make more and better disciples by helping people take their next step towards Christ), so now it should be easy to line up the work load, right?
Not as easy as you might think. How do we insure that everything we are doing or want to do is the best thing to accomplish our mission? We have limited resources, limited capacity to do what God wants us to do and we don’t want to waste any of it. There are so many choices and all of them good, which are best?? We know that we can accomplish more together than we can alone (this is the great value of teams), but only if we are aligned. If we are not aligned, we will not function as a team, but as a group with separate goals going in seperate directions.
With that in mind, the Connect team mission should look something like:
Grace exists to help people take their next step towards Christ (knowing Christ, Living like Christ and Making Christ Known)
Connect – Help people connect with their next steps at Grace.
Core – Identify and make accessible all next steps with/at Grace
Facilities – Maintain a comfortable place for people to take their next steps
FIT – Help people take their first / next step towards making Grace their church family.
Serving (Volunteerism) – Help people take their next step in connecting with others at Grace (those serving and those being served)
Production – Produce rich media experiences that inspire people to take their next steps with Grace.
Tech – Find innovative solutions that help people take their next steps at Grace
Communication Arts – Creatively broadcast and promote next steps at Grace and make all next step information easy to find
Worship services – Create an opportunity/environment where people are encouraged to take their next step towards Christ
By breaking down the overall purpose into smaller parts that directly align with the larger purpose we will ensure that together we are moving towards accomplishing the mission of Grace Fellowship.
Alignment is key, it is what we are all struggling to find. We want to know that what we are doing is making a difference towards the bottom line. We inherently know the job is too big for anyone, so building teams is necessary. We want to be sure that all the effort we put forward isn’t wasted; doesn’t go towards things that don’t matter. Alignment is the best way to ensure we are on course.
Last Wednesday and Thursday we took a drive to the Cape. We spent two days planning; looking at the current body of work we are already doing, the projects we already have going on and the things we want to improve on. The body of work is huge. We identified more work than we can accomplish. Now to figure out which projects we will take on, and what work we will continue.
I am excited. Our team is thinking big and has great ideas for the future. I am blessed to be able to work with such a great team. Over the next two weeks we will finish planning and begin moving forward.
What we know today:
The Connect team exists to help people take their next steps at Grace. This is broken down as:
Core – Identify and prepare next steps at Grace
Facilities – Maintain a comfortable place to gather
FIT – Welcome and prepare all who attend for worship
Volunteerism – Make serving accesible and rewarding
Production – Help people experience the story
Tech – Find innovative solutions to help reach our goals
Communication Arts – Communicate what’s most important to Grace and make all other Grace information easy to find
Worship – Create an opportunity for people to connect with God
Next, we finalize where we want to go in the next year or so.
Do you keep the 10 commandments? Hopefully you can answer yes in good conscience.
This seems like a pretty obvious moral standard. I am impressed that when God freed his people form Egypt and they needed rules to live by, He picked these 10 things as the guideline for how to live. These 10 must be the most important behavior framework for us to follow. Lets review them again:
And God spoke all these words, saying: “I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage.
1. You shall have no other gods before me.
2. You shall not make for yourself any carved image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth; you shall not bow down to them nor serve them. For I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children to the third and fourth generations of those who hate me, but showing mercy to thousands, to those who love Me and keep My commandments.
3. You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain, for the Lord will not hold him guiltless who takes His name in vain.
4. Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord your God. In it you shall do no work: you, nor your son, nor your daughter, nor your manservant, nor your maidservant, nor your cattle, nor your stranger who is within your gates. For in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested the seventh day. Therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and hallowed it.
5. Honor your father and your mother, that your days may be long upon the land which the Lord your God is giving you.
6. You shall not murder.
7. You shall not commit adultery.
8. You shall not steal.
9. You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.
10. You shall not covet your neighbor’s house; you shall not covet your neighbor’s wife, nor his manservant, nor his maidservant, nor his ox, nor his donkey, nor anything that is your neighbor’s.”
These seem like no brainers, right? Of course we intend to keep them, right? Think back to your answer of the opening question: Do you keep the 10 commandments? Did you answer yes? If so, how was your sabbath last week? Or the week before? Oh, that one doesn’t count? The sabbath was made for man, not man for the sabbath you say? OK, how did you do honoring God on that special day he made for you?
I am always amazed at how many people, how many Christ followers completely ignore this commandment. You should no more consider skipping the sabbath than worshiping other gods. Why do we so readily dismiss this one commandment?
Exodus 35
1 Moses spoke to the entire congregation of Israel, saying, “These are the things that God has commanded you to do:2 “Work six days, but the seventh day will be a holy rest day, God’s holy rest day. Anyone who works on this day must be put to death.
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