May God bless you and your family this year as you honor Him in all you do. May your families be filled with peace and God provide your every need.
Jesus thank you for coming to us to bring us salvation and hope. Let your glory be evident in me and my family.
Our leadership team has been having a lot of discussions on our main service on Saturday nights (I love meeting on Saturday nights by the way). We all came to a rather shocking conclusion…non of us like attending church, for the most part any church. Wow. We have been trying to figure out what we want to be and what we want our main service to look like. This brought up the discussion of likes and dislikes. Funny part about this is we all agreed that we have been highly involved in the church services of our past, because we have been avoiding being an attendee. I had to laugh at this. This led to some really incredible discussions.
It’s not that we don’t like the idea of church and real faith, it’s just that church seems to be too event focused and we want something more. We are all tired of the monologue style of service. We agreed that we all loved music and worship, we liked the community of friendship and the hanging out but the presentation part of church needs to change. It needs to be more interactive, more relational and allow real experience with one another. What this is all going to look like in the end, I don’t know. That’s the fun part, let’s keep working at this experiment until we get where we need to be. Let it evolve into something that we can all really be proud to be a part of. Yes, I used the word evolve, the word itself isn’t evil, it’s a very definitive word.
The whole experience needs to be re-thought. We have some ideas but I am not going to share all of those yet. Maybe later. 
We want people to have a quality experience from the time they walk in, not just a polished event experience but the whole package. We have a ways to go, but we are excitied about the journey to get there.
What is it that you want out of life? What are your dreams and ambitions? Most people know what they want but never take the step to go get it. Sometimes it’s as easy as asking, other times you need to create a complex strategy that takes time, determination and thought. Get after it then! You know you want a better life, marriage, job, deeper spirituality or whatever it may be, we also know its not going to just fall into your lap.
Find out the tools you needs, get a team to help you and then accomplish your dream. If you don’t know, then ask someone to help you. This is no time to be timid or bashful…use what you know, use what others know then guess on what you don’t know. Either way, take the first step.
For those of you that know, I am really enjoying my new Blackberry (they call it a Crackberry for good reason, it is addictive). It is amazing what this thing can do. It really helps with staying connected on the go and with productivity. In the world of electronic communication that speeds up our communication we also get slammed with too much information. It can turn it into a nightmare. By utilizing the new technology right, you can save lots of time in getting back to people and quickly sifting through the junk. No more full inbox when I come into work and all “important” communication has already happened.
I understand this may not work well for everyone. Some of you want to check out from work when you leave. As a Pastor though this is not a 9-5 job and you are somewhat always “on duty” and when working with those under 30 or in college their lives certainly don’t happen on a 9-5 schedule. Since you can waste a lot of time on technology I am really trying to focus on improving productivity and everyday things not just playing games or looking are the latest and greatest of whatever.
Anyway…what does this have to do with my title? Over at Swerve a leadership, technology, and innovation blog for pastors and church leaders operated by the guys at Lifechurch.tv have just released a free version of the Bible for Blackberry. They previously released one for the iPhone in April. It is really exciting to see the church get into this kind of developement and releasing it for FREE! All the good versions too. Anyway check it out. You can download it from www.youversion.com/bb/ A very useful item in a world full of time wasting technology.
Today as I was getting ready and just spending some time in prayer and contemplation I was thinking about some of the things I really need in my spiritual journey. What are the necessities? I know the regular things like reading the Word, meditation and prayer as I thought about my relationship with God but another thought came up that took me by surprise a bit. I had to think about it for a while.
As I think about God as Father, it helps understand some of my feelings toward God. One of the things I really want to know from God is that He approves of me. Here I am, a leader in a church, grown up Father of 3 and yet I still need/want the basic things like approval and acceptance. This seems kid of sissy, but it’s true. As a man you want to be independent and tough, able to stand firm, to be the rock for your family. But on the inside I really need God’s approval and acceptance. I want to know that what I am doing in life and ministry God looks at it and agrees. In the past, the way I have dealt with this feeling is to compartmentalize it as seeking God’s will, but really this isn’t it. What I really want to know is does God approve.
