...to everyday life

First Impressions Update

Here are the latest comments from the cards we send first-time guests:

Woodbury

• We both enjoyed the service and the message. However we would have liked the order of worship to have been printed somewhere so we could know what to expect next. Also, we would have liked to have known about the notes page for the message – maybe have it handed out to everyone when they walk in.
• We were greeted by a very nice woman named Carol who ended up leading us to the nursery and talking with us a bit. Refreshing, thank you!
• The worship team played good contemporary songs that made it conducive to worship God and focus on His attributes. The welcomes (and good-byes) appeared genuine. I’ll be back. The teaching (via video) took a bit of getting used to, but it was encouraging. [We played a video in Woodbury on one weekend in June.]

Hudson

• Very good sermon and great skit – liked it a lot.

It's official. I'm a genius.

I've spent way too much time on my day off and on spare moments and evenings trying to get all synced up with my calendar (iCal) on MobileMe and my iPod Touch. Went to the Genius Bar today at the MOA. He set it up and said should sync soon. Didn't. I took it back to him between other meetings he was having and he scratched his head and said should work. Anyway...I figured out tonight and now it syncs through any WiFi connection. I'm officially smarter than the Genius. ...Of course, he only had 10 minutes, couldn't have known I'd entered the wrong email address and I spent a few hours....

Listening to the Interview

As I said before, I was disappointed that I didn't talk about P.E.A.C.E. but I am happy with how it went. Kind of embarrassing that I said we were planted by a church in Wooddale (meant Oakdale). Said it twice! I was in a bit of a panic because I couldn't remember the name of our mother church, Hope, in the moment they asked. Oh well. It airs again on Friday between 4:00 and 5:00 p.m. Don't have any more details than that.

Making an Eternal "First Impression"

This is from a post by Tony Morgan about NewSpring Church. I love this:

Earlier this week, I mentioned we had a gentleman visit our services this past weekend who had not attended church in over 30 years. Turns out there’s more to the story.

One of our volunteers, let’s call him Dan, greeted him and welcomed him to NewSpring. When Dan learned it had been some time since the man had been in church, he offered to sit through the service with him/

The experience on Sunday turned out to be a great reminder for Dan that every interaction means something. He shared how you never know when a simple greeting may lead to “a life changing decision.”

That’s exactly what happened. As it turns out, the man who hadn’t visited a church in 30 years heard the Gospel on Sunday in the middle of a message about sex. He accepted Christ. He got a new start.

At NewSpring, we expect people like this man to show up every week. When you have that perspective, it changes how you greet visitors at the front door and a whole lot more.

Typical Morning at Discipleship Essentials

When I launched this a few months ago to go over the summer, I wondered if that was going to be a problem. It really hasn't been. One of the huge side benefits is that it's sunny early and that helps me a lot. I like sun in the morning. Another benefit was that not much else is happening. One of the leaders is in BSF and he said he was happy to have this all summer when BSF is off. It helps keep him on track in his spiritual formation. He's also got multiple pre-school kids and leads a small group (typical Five Oaks leader, as I mentioned this weekend in my message).

AM980 Interview Today at 3:15pm

The KKMS Church of the Week interview I did a couple of weeks ago is supposed to air at 3:15 today on AM980.

Signs of a Shrink-wrapped Life

Here's something I had to cut from my message for the same of time and focus. It's adapted from Paul David Tripp. Five signs of a shrink-wrapped life:

1 - Here and now. My life and eyes are focused solely on the hear and now. So it’s "an impatient kingdom that wants what it wants and wants it now." But you were designed to live with eternity in view. Yes, here and now is important, but this has to do with limiting our sight.

C.S. Lewis wrote that if you look back at history, the people that had the greatest impact on this age were people who thought most of the next age...people with eternity on their minds. The apostles, the reformers, those who abolished the slave trade, those who started hospitals of mercy all over the world left their mark in this life because their eyes were focused beyond this life. He then says this:

It is since Christians have largely ceased to think of the other world that they have become so ineffective in this one. Aim at heaven and you will get earth “thrown in”: aim at earth and you will get neither.

2 - Me and mine. Of course God’s vision for my life begins right here at home, with my friends and family. But it also calls me to care for things and people outside of the borders of my tiny life. It calls me to have a world vision. It calls my heart to break over the things that break the heart of God. It calls me to invest in taking the message of the gospel and the demonstration of the kingdom beyond my Jerusalem and to Samaria and then to Judea and to the world.

3 - Wants and needs. Life dominated by personal wants and needs. Nothing wrong with desiring joy and happiness or even some nice things, but the shrink-wrapped life is most committed to get as much of my desires satisfied as possible. And my desires and wants and needs trump all else.

4 - Physical and material. Limited to the physical and material. We are physical people created to enjoy a physical world. But this is about being dominated by “what the hands can touch [rather] than [by] what the heart can embrace.”

5 - Entitlements and rights. Fighting for what I’m entitled to and on my rights. This is what drives you. Wanting to be served rather than to serve.

AM 980 Interview Today

The "Church of the Week" interview I did will be aired today at 3:15 p.m. if you're interested. It will be aired again on Friday in the 4:00 or 5:00 p.m. hour.

Paul David Tripp Quote

Here's the quote from my message with a little extra I didn't read in my message:

Sin is functionally atheistic and anti-social. Because it reduces my focus to me, it blinds me both to God and to others. And as a sinner, I may participate in formal religion and conduct relationships with others, but only to the degree that they fit with the purposes of my solitary kingdom. When I do this, there is no real room for worship of God and love for others in my functional life plan. Worship and love, wherever they exist in my life, get shrunk to the size of what I think I need and what I have determined I want. Whatever religion or community exists in my life, what I am really worshipping is me. So I will sing praise to God’s faithfulness on Sunday, yet question his goodness on Tuesday when he doesn’t deliver what I think I need. I will say I love you one day, yet lash out at you in anger on another because somehow you have gotten in the way of my plan. What looks like God-contoured living is often, upon closer inspection, a shrink-wrapped existence. (The Quest for More: Living for something bigger than you, p. 90)

The Who Question (Repeat Post from May)

Once I got to the who question, the process began to become clear. This is still in the early stages of development, but it's a proven process adapted to our context. As you read this ask: Am I the leader? Will I be a part of this in some other leadership capacity? Let me know if you see yourself in this. I'm also looking for ideas on improving the process.

Stage One: Leader
Through prayer, observation and lots of conversations, we call a leader out. This leader, once identified, will need to be assessed and there are some great tools out there for this. The Free Church has an excellent one. If this person is the kind of leader that is a spiritual entrepreneur, we will begin to explore with him what the target area will be (the "where" question). Once the target is chosen, the leader will begin to seek out and call out others to join him in the process by starting a turbo small group. A turbo group is a group filled with folks that understand that after a given time they will multiply out and start their own group.

Stage Two: Group
This stage starts when the first turbo small group is formed. The small group starts meeting and begins to investigate local P.E.A.C.E. Dana can help with this community assessment process.

Stage Three: Groups
In this stage the turbo group begins to multiply and the pre-launch team grows. P.E.A.C.E. intitiatives in the target community continue and pick up momentum.

Stage Four: Gathering
After three groups have been formed, the groups begin to meet together weekly in addition to their small group meetings. At this point the Gathering replaces worship at an existing campus for most folks in the groups. The group can watch a video of the message together and do some singing in worship, but most of the time is spent on teaching and planning and praying about the next stage. P.E.A.C.E. projects continue in the target community. At this stage the launch team is assembled and volunteer roles begin to be filled with folks that will join the launch team once it launches. Financial infusion of some kind from Five Oaks begins at this point as well, but the launch team's giving will likely carry the day-to-day and staffing needs while Five Oaks may supply the equipment and advertising for the launch. (This is still in the idea stage and would need Board approval.)

Stage Five: Campus
The new campus launches when the team is set (especially key leaders, staff, and volunteers), and it launches as large as possible.

In actuality, we can expect a lot of variation in actual practice. But having a clear process helps us see what needs shoring up when things move fast, possibly skipping stages or when things develop differently. Variation should be expected as God moves in different ways through different leaders.

So, what do you think?

First Impressions Update

Here's the latest response from the cards we send first-time guests:

Hudson

• Dawn was especially welcoming – she truly is using her ministry gift. Thank you.

The Wrong Question (Repeat Post from May)

I've been asking the wrong question. Where do we go next to start a new campus? How do we determine where to go? Do we develop a team to decide? How much study, prayer and fasting? How and where. Not the right questions.

The right question is a who question. Who will lead the charge for the next campus? That's the right question for Five Oaks as far as I can tell. I had no peace with the other questions, but with this question, everything falls into place. This question makes clear what we have to do next and what I need to do in particular.

The who question...

• Starts with prayer. Just like Jesus before choosing the disciples spent the night in prayer.
• Clarifies my role (and that of other Five Oaks leaders). I must be about equipping leaders. And equipping leaders is about evangelizing, discipling and mentoring. I can't just be on the lookout for leaders; I have to be equipping them.
• Clarifies the process. I'll write more on this later, but I see us using a more organic process in most of our future launches, although some will resemble our Hudson launch.

Who will lead the charge? Who will be the next campus pastor? I don't know who it is, but the next campus pastor is almost surely already in our congregation. In fact, I suspect the next five or six are. Some are not yet believers and are waiting for a Five Oaker to walk across the room to them, praying that God create the opening to bring Christ into the conversation. Some may be in college or seminary right now wondering what's next. Is it you?

Coming in the Door

I've mentioned this before, but people are often surprised how many outside groups use our building during the week. This summer, for example, an enrichment reading program run by St. Thomas is using our building on Mondays through Wednesdays with about a 150 kids participating. And we don't charge for this. We don't rent out our building ever. The only costs involved are for when the events coordinator has to be involved (primarily during off hour events). We believe we're serving the community this way and we're getting people in the front doors and knowledgeable about who we are and where we are.

What Kind of Boat is Five Oaks?

Rick Warren recently asked this question regarding Saddleback. Here's what he wrote in an email to his congregation (I'm not his mailing list). What do you think?

We're not a Sailboat that is blown every direction by the winds of culture. There's a lot in pop culture that we believe is wrong, even evil.  But we're not an angry Battleship either. We don't expect unbelievers to act like believers since they don't have the Holy Spirit inside yet.  Saddleback is a AIRCRAFT CARRIER.  We're a large platform for launching your mission in the world.  When you successfully return, you get refueled and head out again!

First Impressions Quarterly Report

In addition to the comments we receive on first impression cards we send to first-time guests, we also ask for a rating on three questions. Here's how we did in the second quarter of 2008 on all cards that were returned. The numbers in parenthesis are from the previous quarters.

Hudson Averages:

• I felt welcome when I visited Five Oaks Church (on a 5-point scale, 5 = agree strongly): 4.75 (4.63; 4.77)
• I felt that my child(ren) was/were well taken care of during our visit: All marked N/A (5.0; 4.58)
• How likely is it that you would recommend Five Oaks to a friend or colleague? (On a scale of 0 = Not likely at all, 5 = Neutral, 10 = Extremely Likely): 8.0 (8.13; 8.51)

Woodbury Averages:

• I felt welcome when I visited Five Oaks Church  (on a 5-point scale, 5 = agree strongly): 4.47 (4.58; 4.27)
• I felt that my child(ren) was/were well taken care of during our visit: 4.86 (4.70; 4.57)
• How likely is it that you would recommend Five Oaks to a friend or colleague?  (On a scale of 0 = Not likely at all, 5 = Neutral, 10 = Extremely Likely): 8.29 (8.08; 8.18)

"Going Deeper"

I forgot to get the message outlines out on Saturday night. So, if you were there and want to do the "Going Deeper" question, here it is:

Analyze the genealogies of Genesis 5 and 11. What is the number of generations from Adam to Noah and from Shem to Abraham? What are the parallels between Noah and Abraham, given the condition of God’s promise in Gen. 3:15 (a redemptive offspring through Eve) before they come on the scene? Seth, Shem and Abraham have other siblings. Why does God choose them over the others?

Halftime

Here's the link I talked about in my message: Halftime.org.

Have you achieved success—only to find that something is missing? If so, you may be ready to begin the most exciting journey of your life—the journey from success to significance. It’s commonly called Halftime.

Halftime is a season of life that offers the opportunity to look back on what you’ve accomplished, understand who you are, and then redirect your time and talent for an even more purposeful second half.

You are not alone. More than 12,000 people turn 50 each day in America, and a Harvard-Met Life study shows that more than half of these individuals want more meaning and significance in the second half.

We can help. Over the past decade, the Halftime^® organization has become the leading authority in this space. We focus our efforts on individuals just like you—financially independent marketplace leaders with a deep desire for a second half rich in eternal significance.

 

First Impressions Update

Here are the comments from the cards we send first-time guests:

Woodbury

• I enjoyed the message “Personalities.” I felt God used you to open my eyes to immediate concerns in my life. I was definitely to visit your church and hear what God had layed on your heart.
• Greeters were very friendly. We felt very welcome and are looking forward to making this our church home.

Hudson

• We’re planning on visiting again.

• I felt welcomed by the greeters, but like all churches, people don’t necessarily greet new people, but stay/talk within their friends. The only person who spoke to me personally was 1st timer like myself and she sat next to me in the theatre. Music was wonderful, inspiring, talented, joyful. Service was creative and life-giving, but as it stands (right now) I can’t say it would meet the needs of everyone – (but) that’s why we have freedom of religion and can find a dusty old church if we want; yuk! I do drama and was a little disappointed at the taped drama; but I understand the limits. [FYI: We do live drama too at Hudson.] Communion should be Biblically explained every time and the elements taken together as a body; otherwise it’s another ritual without thought. A big thank you to all the people who put the time in every Sunday to bring church body to a theatre. God rocks!
  

KKMS (AM 980) Interview

Taped an interview today at KKMS for "church of the week" coming up soon. They bring in a pastor and do a short interview and then they record a prayer that will be used all week too. Met some great guys there and they made me feel so comfortable that the time flew by. Before I knew it, half of what I wanted to say wasn't said. I even had my "talking  points" in front of me, but I wasn't aware of the time factor well enough. Lesson learned. I wanted to talk about our local and global P.E.A.C.E. stuff and didn't get to. Anyway, I'll give a head's up when they're broadcasting the interview. I think it's in a couple of weeks or next week.

More on Chicago

Most definitely not a waste of a day out in Chicago. This tool Heartland Community Church is developing with the help of an investor group (to the tune of $5 million plus) promises to be a great tool for spiritual growth and it's going to be fun to get in on this at the ground level. It's basically a tool that helps you assess your spiritual growth and builds a custom spiritual growth plan that fits how God has wired you, your season in life, spiritual maturity, etc. And the plan is basically two months in length before it's revised and renewed. You can give others (like family or your mentor or your small group) access to your plan for mutual encouragement.

A for instance: You process things by talking them through and journaling does nothing for you. This tool picks that up and recommends classic spiritual practices that can be done in a way that fits you. It might recommend that you pray scripture out loud and avoid journaling.

There are so many dimensions to this that I can't do it justice here. But this fall we'll be looking for guinea pigs (and I'm first in line) to use this before it's launched nationally a year or more from now. They have a great video introduction, so I'll let you when and where we'll be showing it so you can opt in. I'm fairly confident that almost every spiritually maturing believer in Five Oaks that sees this thing in action want to opt in. So more is still to come.

Live from Chicago

We're in the Q&A time on the tool that we were introduced to today. I don't have time to describe it further now, but it may be the best thing since sliced bread regarding spiritual formation. Really, this is good stuff. Brilliant stuff. Unfortunately, it may be a while before we can use it. More later.

Off to Chicago

I'm off to Chicago tomorrow where I will be in a presentation from 10am until 4pm and then head back. Here's how one of the executive leaders of the EFCA describes the tool a church from Rockford, IL has developed.

ADW has developed a tool that I believe has the potential to help churches give every believer in their body a customized spiritual growth plan and help churches measure real spiritual health, rather than nickels and noses – without changing the culture, structure or ethos of your unique ministry.  This tool can be customized for each congregation and does not impact your current programming.

...In essence, the tool that ADW is going to show these churches (and hopefully you) is a system that takes a quick, fun, and extremely accurate assessment of an individual, filters that through a discipleship framework that assesses and measures spiritual transformation and then provides a customized spiritual growth plan - with resources provided at large (audio, video, books, downloads, etc.) and specific resources provided by each local church.  The great thing is that ADW doesn't want credit, they will help churches customize the tool so that their church provides something valuable to your own members--not some company your members have never heard of. 

I'll let you know more about it first chance I have get once I'm back. Sounds interesting, doesn't it? I'm looking forward to learning about it. And they're footing the bill, so all I have to lose is a day out of my life. Come to think of it, it better be good!

The Group Life Team

I've been meaning to get the word out on this for a while, but recently Karla Pedro took over the primary editing duties from Judy Visness. Karla is a professional writer and published author, and I'm very excited about someone with her talents and experience taking on this role. She has been serving as a Group Life writer already for some time.

Judy continues to administrate Group Life, which means, for one thing, poking me to get information about upcoming messages out on time. Sometimes she has to poke really hard.

Larry Graber, one of the best question-askers I know, also gives Group Life a final look over before publishing.

We're really fortunate to have such a great team of writers too: Karla Pedrow, Scott Teece, Dave Baar, Alexandra Stoehr, Bev Whitney, Juli Servatius, Lainie Amos, Dede Lawson and Christy McMillen.

How First-time Guests to Woodbury Campus Found Us

Since late February, our first-time guests (by household) to Woodbury have found us in the following ways (through June 8.

• Impact Card: 2
• Web site: 24
• Invitation: 98
• Drive-by: 12
• Other: 14

Since late February, our first-time guests (by household) to Woodbury have found us in the following ways (through June 8.

• Impact Card: 2
• Web site: 24
• Invitation: 98
• Drive-by: 12
• Other: 14

Weekend Reflections

Some reflections on this July 4 weekend:

• Great to be here when our students came back from Challenge. Their excitement was contagious. We're doing a couple of songs by Starfield in worship next week (the band that led worship at Challenge). We'll also have student faith stories.
• I forgot to mention July 4 in the first two services. ;_( Sorry about that. I love our country. When you grow up in a Cuban home and largely Cuban community in FL, you know what it's like to lose freedom and to appreciate the U.S.A. Although I didn't experience it personally, I heard about it almost every day (my grandmother listened to Cuban radio and they found one way or another to remember regularly what they had lost).
• Got over to the Hudson campus before services to see the set-up. Wow it looks great. The team there has done some amazing things and the theater is great.
• Went kayaking on the Kini with friends and Henry M on Saturday morning. Could not have been a more beautiful day!
• Attendance was surprisingly strong for a holiday weekend and met a few new folks. Gas prices keeping people home?
• Lois gets home tomorrow from driving her parents to Atlanta for a reunion of the mission her parents worked in in Liberia. She was born there and lived there the first eight years or so of her life. Can't wait for her to get home.
• I loved Hancock. Want to see it again.
• Can't wait for theseries starting next week.

Ministry Can Be Hard...How to Last

Rick Warren offers seven principles for lasting in ministry from the Apostle Paul in 2 Corinthians 4. Here are some highlights. These principles were forged in the difficulties of Paul's ministry.

1. Learn to enjoy the grace of God. “Therefore, since God in his mercy has given us this new way, we never give up” (2 Corinthians 4:1 NLT). Paul knew the only reason he had a ministry was because of God’s grace. So often we hear Satan whispering in our ears that we’re not good enough, not smart enough, and not "spiritual" enough to be a pastor. We need to remember that God does everything to us, through us, and for us by grace through faith...

2. Be authentic. “Instead, we have renounced shameful secret things, not walking in deceit or distorting God’s message, but in God’s sight we commend ourselves to every person’s conscience by an open display of the truth” (2 Corinthians 4:2 NLT). Paul tells his readers, “What you see is what you get.” He wasn’t hiding anything. If you’re going to last in ministry, you’ve got to be what God has called you to be. You’ve got to take off the mask...

3. Remember it’s not about you. ...Twice in this passage (in verses 5 and 11), Paul tells his readers why he does what he does – for Jesus' sake. Why does he deal with the whippings, imprisonments, and criticism (2 Corinthians 11)? For Jesus' sake. His motivation isn’t his own well-being, but the global glory of God. And he’d do whatever it takes to see that expand. You’ve got to live for an audience of one. If you don’t get over the fear of criticism, you’ll never last in ministry.

4. Accept your own limitations. “Now we have this treasure in clay jars, so that this extraordinary power may be from God and not from us” (2 Corinthians 4:7 NLT)....

5. Do everything out of love. “For all this is because of you, so that grace, extended through more and more people, may cause thanksgiving to overflow to God’s glory” (2 Corinthians 4:15 NLT). Paul says everything he does is for the benefit of others....Ministry has to be based on that kind of love. You’ve got to think of others before yourself. If you don’t love those you’re ministering to, ministry will be a long, almost unbearable road. You won’t make it. You must be motivated by love – love for God and love for others.

6. Make time for daily renewal. “Therefore we do not give up; even though our outer person is being destroyed, our inner person is being renewed day by day” (2 Corinthians 4:16 NLT). ...I once owned a car that lasted 20 years because it was serviced regularly. You’re not going to last 20 years in ministry if you aren’t serviced regularly. You’ve got to divert daily, withdraw weekly, and abandon annually. Do something fun every day. Take a Sabbath day of rest every week. Get away for a vacation every year. You need to rest and recharge. In fact taking a Sabbath is so important that God commands it right along with not lying and not killing people. You need rest if you’re going to last in ministry.

7. Live in light of eternity. “For our momentary light affliction is producing for us an absolutely incomparable eternal weight of glory. So we do not focus on what is seen, but on what is unseen; for what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal” (2 Corinthians 4:16-17 NLT). Remember Paul experienced all kinds of trials. He was beaten, shipwrecked, and criticized, but he called them just momentary afflictions. Why? He had an eternal perspective....

Essentials Multiplied

The reason I think Discipleship Essentials has such long-term potential goes beyond the material we're covering. I think the content is vitally important. Our chapter on Worship (and the holiness of God), for example, is one of the most critical lessons any follower of Christ can begin to learn.

Covering these topics, memorizing Scripture, the reading...all of these are catalysts for growth. Doing them in the context of small groups of three or four (no more, no less) is essential. But the greatest impact will come as everyone who is participating goes out and engages two or three more people and leads their own 25-week group. And then does it again. And again. And so on.

Leading others through the same material is where explosive growth begins for any disciple. And the more people go through this in our church and beyond, the greater depth and dedication to Christ we'll see in our small groups, evangelistic outreach and compassion work locally and around the world. I don't expect to start seeing momentum on this for two or three years, but when we do, I can't wait to see what will happen.

Pastor Bob Brueggen

Pastor Bob Brueggen has taken a new position as Executive Pastor for Harvest Bible Church in Bettendorf, Iowa.  He will be assuming this position August 1st. While we are happy for them in this new opportunity, we will miss their whole family. Pray for them as they prepare to sell their house, move their family, and begin this new adventure in ministry. Bob and Dottie and their boys, Jonathan and Matt are excited about what God has in store for them, but are also saddened to leave the Woodbury/Hudson area and Five Oaks.  We have planned a farewell open house for their family on July 20th, 3:00-5:00pm, at the Teens for Christ Center in Hudson.

First Time Guests to Hudson - How They Found Us

Since Easter, our first time guests (by household) to Hudson have found us in the following ways (through June 22):

• Impact Card: 11 (eight on June 22)
• Web site: 0
• Invitation: 10
• Billboard: 4
• Other: 6

First Impressions Update

One comment card returned from a first time guest to Woodbury:

• The musical worship was great and something I really needed at the time. Thanks for honoring God and His Word.

Home Sweet Home

So glad to be home. I missed MN. Two weeks gone just felt too long. Got up at 3:30 a.m. (CA time) to go to Discipleship Essentials this morning. Tired all morning but got my second wind by afternoon. Had coffee with John Westurn and it was like old times. I miss him a lot.

Lois is still at the Castaway, the Young Life camp in the Detroit Lakes area. It'll be sweeter when she gets home. She's loving it there and is very impressed by the spiritual and evangelistic passion of the staff there. Great speaker too.

I spent the day working on my message. Got it done around 8:00 p.m. I'm excited about it. We're on the P of S.H.A.P.E. Launch The Gap series on Abraham in two weeks.

Essentials

I can't think of anything I'm doing right now in ministry that has more potential for spiritual and missional long-term impact than what we're doing every Friday at 6:00 a.m. in the Commons. Twenty-six guys in seven small groups for twenty-five weeks. Lois is doing the same thing with two women from our small group.

We're all using Discipleship Essentials: A Guide to Building Your Life in Christ by Greg Ogden. Everyone completes the study before attending and then we spend time in small groups discussing what we've learned and talking about our lives in Christ. Every study has a Core Idea, Memory Verses, Bible Study, a Reading, Questions on the Reading.

A life on mission begins and is sustained by personal life transformation. This study digs deeply into the major topics every disciple needs for personal transformation and life mission. Here are the topics that are covered:

Part One: Growing Up in Christ
1 - Making Disciples
2 - Being a Disciple
3 - Quiet Time
4 - Bible Study
5 - Prayer
6 - Worship

Part Two: Understanding the Message of Christ
7 - The Three-Person God
8 - Made in God's Image
9 - Sin
10 - Grace
11 - Redemption
12 - Justification
13 - Adoption

Part Three: Becoming Like Christ
14 - Filled with the Holy Spirit
15 - Fruit of the Holy Spirit
16 - Trust
17 - Love
18 - Justice
19 - Witness

Part Four: Serving Christ
20 - The Church
21 - Ministry Gifts
22 - Spiritual Warfare
23 - Walking in Obedience
24 - Sharing the Wealth

Bonus Section
25 - Money

More Saddleback Worship Conference

Some more impressions from the conference:

• Great worship. The session picture below was at a worship session led by Paul Baloche. His guitarist is worship leader at Valley Creek Church that meets at the indoor central park in Woodbury. In the earlier session they had their youth worship team lead a few Hillsongs United songs and it was outstanding.
• Buddy Owens did a talk on worry that was built around a personal story that was powerful. I'll have to retell it some time.
• Went to two sessions today. One on multi-site where I learned that Saddleback started its first multi-site about two years ago with thirteen weeks notice!!!! They don't recommend it. Started with 1800 people and grew to about 400 in a few short weeks. No, not a typo. Their workshop shared more about what not to do than what to do. The other session was on how to use social media (e.g., blogs, Facebook, Twitter, etc.) in working with leaders. Extremely interesting and informative but made my head spin.
• I got to talk to Hector and Beth Dalton's pastor from Tokyo. Told him how my visit to his church was one of the highlights from our Japan trip.
• Worship pastors, on the whole, wear very interesting pants and hats and have some equally interesting haircuts. Fidel Castro hats are quite in vogue. I told one of our friends who is here and wearing one tonight that it's like me showing up dressed like Ben Laden. Just kidding, but could be true for some other Cubans.
• Ate my favorite seafood soup at one of my absolutely favorite Mexican restaurants that I always go to when I'm here. Last night we went there as well and I had a beef tongue taco and a goat meat taco. Delicious. Hadn't had goat meat since Haiti last year and miss it. Tongue was quite tender. Of course, most of know that from biting our own.

First Impressions Report

Here are the latest comments we received back from first-time guests:

Woodbury

• The service was fabulous!! My concern is that I don’t relate well to many of the statements on the “What We Believe” sheet. I’d like to learn more about these beliefs. The lesson during the service really spoke to me, so I plan to try Five Oaks again.
• Really like use of multi-media. Great music! Very hopeful we’ve found a church for forever.

So, what's a worship arts conference like?

For those of you who haven't been to one, here's what it's like.

At the Saddleback Worship Arts Conference & Festival

Vacation ended yesterday afternoon and I'm back in work mode (i.e., I'm allowed to think about church leadership again...as if I stopped). Anyway, I'm at the Saddleback worship arts conference for the next few day with David and Melissa Gafford, Dave Belford (Programming Director) and Jonathan Haage (Associate Worship Arts Director...or is that associate to the director...just kidding for The Office fans). Lois headed out back to MN and she's at a Young Life summer camp at Castaway observing and helping out (Henry M. is counseling there with the high school group he works with in Eau Claire).

Getting away with a ministry team has incredible value. We're looking forward to connecting with other teams that are here from churches we know as well. I'll send updates about what we're learning and discussing as we go along.

The Power of Getting Away

Most of my best ideas and thinking come when I've gotten away. I'm not talking about vacation time. I try hard not to think about leading a church when I'm on vacation (Lois, don't laugh, you know I try). But when I go to a conference or to a retreat center or on a recon mission to another church, the ideas start flowing for our small groups, for improving my preaching, for ministry strategy, for leadership development.... Too many to do and not all good, but they flow.That's why I make it a point to get away in a learning environment.

I found this to be true for my personal life as well. There is power for marriage in getting away for a marriage conference, for parenting in getting away for a family camp or father/child retreat, for walking with God in getting away for a quiet retreat, for serving God in getting away on a missions trip. It's refreshing, but it's also creatively invigorating.

A few years into our marriage, Lois and I borrowed a friend's family cabin in Vermont (we lived in MA) and read a marriage book that guided us to develop a five year plan for our marriage. It was a great experience that got us talking about everything while being one of the most beautiful settings I've ever been in (isolated, snow encased, in the mountains). Now that I think about it, we started our family shortly after that. Was that part of the plan?

Fine China for Starving Children

"How can we multiply what we're doing if we haven't figured out yet how to get it right." Those are the words of one of my favorite pastors from one of the largest churches in America when he and his team sat around a table with the team from Community Christian Church to learn how to do multi-site. This is the church that put excellence on the radar screen for churches. The excellence of their services is so high, you can't help but marvel. Yet the senior pastor felt they hadn't yet grown up.

It reminds me of the realization I came to a couple of years ago. I would often talk about multiplying our church somewhere out there in the future. This is a high biblical value. What were we waiting for? Well, we needed to be fully staffed. We had a lot to learn. We hadn't figured it out yet. Sure, we would multiply...when we grew up.

Excellence is important. But sometimes it gets in the way of ministry. Yes, it's not excellence per se; it's perfectionism that gets in the way. But most of us can't really tell the difference. I know I had a blind spot on this and I saw it in one of the churches that came to the Hitchhiker's weekend. Several of them were struggling with how they could keep their value of excellence and multiply at the same time. That's not a bad desire or question, but as they talked I suspected something more than excellence driving their questions.

Reality is that if you multiply you have to give up your dreams of rock stardom in the kingdom. You have to hold things more lightly. You can't have a superstar band at every location or church plant. You have to believe that God can work through less than professional musicians and vocalists and teachers.

You can wait until you've got it together. You can wait for that day your services run like clockwork and you have a multi-million dollar monthly budget so that you can launch a new site with a paid band and full staff of pastors. But how many churches ever reach that level of "stardom?" There are a handful in the Twin Cities. If you wait for that day, 99 times out of a 100, it won't come!

That pastor (one of my heroes) got over his perspective, and their church multiplied several times and their sites are achieving excellence (in the good way we all should). But as long as we persist on perfectionism (on "getting it right"), it's like having a boatload of food and refusing to feed starving children because you can't find enough fine china to serve it on.

Our world needs more healthy churches everywhere doing the work of the kingdom--demonstrating the kingdom through acts of compassion and proclaiming the message of God's grace. Something is deeply wrong when we fail to do so because we can't afford to offer it unless we serve it on fine china or with the perfect ambiance.

Jury's in...

Our first Sunday at Hudson 12 Theatre for our Hudson campus was a great success! I'm getting reports and have made a few calls from CAm and there's a lot of excitement. Great words too about Steve Haines, our interim worship leader, and Brian Burquest's debut as interim campus pastor. Here's a excerpt from one email:

...Today was an absolute home run in my opinion. The venue is a huge upgrade for worship - great acousitcs, effective lighting, and super overall feel. Very energizing. Could also really hear people sing around me which wasn't the case in the school. Loved the music being played behind the announcements at the end - provided energy... A couple of weeks ago I would've never dreamed we'd actually build momentum over the summer... Feel completely different after today....

Here's another one:

...By the way, the first Sunday at the theatre was great!  It will certainly be a draw in Hudson for the majority of people – it’s different.

In Case You Missed It

Here's the letter we sent out last week about changes at the Hudson campus:

June 10, 2008

Dear Five Oaks Family (at our Hudson Campus):

I hope you are as excited as I am about the move to the Hudson 12 Theatre this weekend. This move reminds me of when I came to Five Oaks in 1997 and within seven months we changed our location and our name. I believe it’s going to be a catalyst to reach new people in the area, and it’s going to be a very effective location for holding services.

As I explained at our lunch meeting a few weeks ago at Faith Community, the move to the theater is a unique opportunity. As we enter this new season of ministry in a new location, we’re blanketing Hudson and every surrounding town with 27,000 impact cards announcing our move, promoting June 22 (giving us a week to work out some inevitable kinks). An exciting development is that all those homes will have already received a flyer from the theater itself. It’s a great one-two punch.

Because of this new opportunity, we need a leadership team in place for the summer, and Brian Burquest has agreed to serve as the interim Campus Pastor for Hudson. Brian and his family have been campus participants and leaders from day one, they are West Lakeland residents and Brian is on staff as Business Administrator. This will take effect June 15.

Pastor Bob will continue participating with the Hudson campus and he will be part of the transition team. The reason we are making this campus pastor change right now is because Bob needs his weekends free in his search for a full-time pastoral position, and we need a regular leadership presence on the weekends as new folks begin arriving over the summer. We’re planning a celebration of Bob’s leadership as Campus Pastor. Please be sure to personally thank Bob, Dottie and their family for all they’ve done to launch the campus and lead it. We really can’t say or do enough to thank them for their loving and caring leadership.

I also want to tell you about our interim Worship Leader for the campus. Steve Haines has been serving as the interim Worship Pastor at Church of the Open Door during the last year and a half. This church of more than 3000 people in average attendance has been one of the leading and most influential churches in the Twin Cities for years. We feel very fortunate to have him serve in this capacity for the summer months. We look forward to introducing him to you as he begins leading our Hudson services June 15.

I know these changes can cause some anxiety as we enter new territory. They are also tough because they include some good-byes. Please pray for our Hudson congregation, for Pastor Bob and his family and for the transition to the theater. I am praying for you and appreciate all you do to bring lives to Christ and Christ to everyday life in the Hudson area.

In Christ,

Pastor Henry Williams
Senior Pastor

Top 10 Observations from Hitchhiking

David Gafford and I spent a couple of days getting a behind the scenes look at Community Christian Church, a multi-site and church planting church with nine campuses and several affiliated plants. Their Hitchhiker's Guide to Multi-site event started with Leadership Community (this is one of the main reasons we went) and then we saw about five campuses between the two of us. We were there with about a dozen other churches (about 50 folks). CCC puts one of these on about four times per year.

Here are my top 10 observations:

1. Leadership is hard, but you can make it fun. CCC knows how to have fun and modeled it well for us.
2. No better way to train leaders than through apprenticeship. CCC drives home having apprentices at every level. CCC has leadership residencies where folks come to apprentice with a pastor for a year. The only cost to the church is the time of the leader. Some of thesse residents become campus pastors or church planters. If CCC had to pay for this, their reproduction would slow down to a crawl.
3. If you don't write things down and develop policies, it will come back to bite you. CCC is notorious for not having policies and procedures, and I think it's catching up to them. On the other hand, their apprenticeship model is second to none.
4. Policies can get in the way of kingdom work and a movement of God. That's the flip side of the last point. Part of the genius of CCC is that they don't have a bunch of policies and procedures. I believe policies are essential, but don't let them determine ministry. Flexible, adaptable, nimble, simple are all key words I will be using. 
5. Constantly innovate. Example: With their ninth campus they've found a way to save money on rental and provide a great environment by setting up those tents/fenses n the gym in the picture above. 
6. Every church that is on the go runs into some financial problems that result in a test and an opportunity. CCC had to do some layoffs this year for the first time ever. It tortured their senior pastor and embarrassed him (as he shared at Leadership Community). Yet it has provided an opportunity to analyze and improve. Over time the tendency is to get "fat." I'm absolutely convinced that "lean" is good for the kingdom. 
7. Some people's definition of excellence get in the way of kingdom work. CCC doesn't let that happen. I'll do a whole post on this one.
8. It's not about multi-site; it's about multiplication.
9. Big asks get big results. When CCC plants a church in another city, it's typical for several families in the church to pull up stakes, find new jobs and homes and move with church planter! This is typical. 
10. You can sometimes learn as much from people's mistakes as from their successes. The cool thing about this hitchhiking experience is that CCC isn't waiting until they get it all right to do it (they never will) and they're very open about what's going well and what's not. No pretension.
11. [Bonus Obersvation] Great leaders don't hold on to things too tightly. I see this in Dave Ferguson. I need to learn this big time. That's the theme that keeps running through my head on this vacation.

Big Day Tomorrow and Some Other Stuff

Our first day at the Hudson 12 Theatre is on my mind a lot while I'm on vacation. I hate being away, but even if I was there, I'd be "away" in Woodbury, most likely. In any case, I'm praying and I'll be calling tomorrow to hear how it all went.

Just finished Season of a Life: A Football Star, A Boy, A Journey to Manhood. Great book on fatherhood, true masculinity, coaching sports, leading youth and high school football all rolled into one. Recommended to Lois and me by the Porters. Short read but filled with good stuff.

Not sure where we're going to church tomorrow, but likely will be North Coast, one of the leading multi-site churches in the country and a place I've been to a lot over the years. Always like to see what they're up to now.

Grandpa's 80th

Eighty years old is still young when you're talking to a 96-year-old. That's how old one of Grandpa's cousins is who came to his 80th birthday celebration. Yet 80 is huge, so the boys, Lois, uncle Larry and Aunt Pam, piled into our Honda Pilot and headed out to Bridgewater, SD for the celebration. Lois spent her first eight years in Liberia, Africa, where her parents were missionaries until they returned to the U.S. and settled in Grandpa's home town of Bridgewater. About seventy-five friends and family joined us at Trinity Orthodox Presbyterian Church to celebrate the day.

I had a senior moment in the program portion of the celebration. Calvin, Grandpa Dale's best friend from childhood, was up speaking. I turned to my son Aaron and said, "It's hard to imagine those guys running around when they were our age, isn't it?" Aaron looked at me with that "You're kidding, right?" look and said, "Our age?" I could have laughed and pretended like I was joking, but it shocked me too much because I realized I was indeed thinking of myself as Aaron's age (20). I guess I'm just young at heart. Yeah, that's it.

Very Simple, No Agenda, Cheap

Great feeling to wake up and not have anything you have to do. We're on day three of our very simple, no agenda vacation in CA. We're sitting in coffee shop in Del Mar, our favorite beach town in the San Diego area. Lois is doing some writing, so I'm doing some blogging. When we woke up on Wednesday and realized we had nothing we had to do, absolutely nothing, we were a little giddy after weeks of going pretty strong.

We're staying at Pine Valley Bible Conference Center, about 45 miles due east of San Diego on Hwy 8, a straight shot into the mountains. They have a special deal for pastors. Very simple, nothing fancy room. The last two days we've walked to breakfast on main street in Pine Valley, four miles round trip, in the dry, hot sunshine, marveling at the beauty of the desert mountains, huge pine trees and serene quiet and getting all caught up on stuff.

We did this last year, too. No plans for the week except to read, hike and soak in some sun on the beach (if June Gloom doesn't set in...yes, San Diego in June isn't always sunny). The U.S. Open is in a few short miles south of where we are right now, but we managed to avoid traffic. The cool, sunny day couldn't be nicer. Very refreshing.

What's missing in the spiritual gifts inventory?

We completed a spiritual gifts inventory this weekend in our services. Some may have noticed that a couple of spiritual gifts were missing, namely tongues and interpretation of tongues. We don't include those in our inventories because we don't need that information when it comes to helping people find a ministry role that fits their S.H.A.P.E.

Here's how we explain it in our Next Step seminar which helps get people on our ministry team:

The primary purpose of this inventory in Next Step is to help us place you in a ministry that fits your Servant Profile [that's another way of referring to S.H.A.P.E.] The gifts of tongues and interpretation of tongues are not essential to this purpose, so they are omitted from the inventory.

Many people want to know what our position is on tongues and interpretation of tongues. The use of tongues is discouraged in our worship services because of the size and nature of our services and because of the variety of evangelical traditions represented in our services. While we have much in common with "charismatic, evangelical" churches, Five Oaks members come predominantly from "non-charismatic, evangelical" churches. At Five Oaks we believe that tongues and interpretation of tongues are gifts operable today, but we ask that these gifts be used in personal worship times (1 Corinthians 14:4). In some circumstances, they be appropriate in a small group--if it is not divisive, if interpretation follows and if the group is in agreement on its practice.

I thank God that I speak in tongues more than all of you. But in a church meeting I would much rather speak five understandable words that will help others than ten thousand words in an unknown language. (1 Corinthians 14:18-19)

The Last Sunday

The Hudson campus meets for it's last weekend at Hudson Middle School this Sunday. It's been a good home in many ways. It started with a bit of a hiccup when, after the first week, we were told we would not be given access to rooms any more. It all turned out well because of the way the school is laid out with a commons area for each group of classrooms. Other than that setback, we've had a very good relationship with the school and no problems.

On June 15 we move to the new Hudson 12 Theatre (yes, they use the European spelling) and our service time changes to 9:30 a.m. to accommodate getting out on time for movies to show. June 15 is our "soft opening." We've got impact cards going out to Hudson and surrounding communities promoting June 22. We want to get a week under our belts and past the inevitable glitches before we have a lot of people show up.

This Saturday is a "dress rehearsal." The logistics team and others will set up in the morning and make sure we know where the lights go, where we plug in, how sound and video will work, and a ton of other details. Thanks to all the volunteers that will be giving up their Saturday morning and then set up all over again on Sunday at the school.

Mark your calendars for June 15 or 22. We'd love to have a bunch of you come over and check it out.

First Impressions Weekly Update

Here are the latest comments from the cards we send first-time guests:

Woodbury

• My husband and I really enjoyed our first visit--everyone was willing to answer our questions and the worship atmosphere was great!

Hudson

• I would recommend the church to friends and colleagues who live in Hudson. It was fun to see the enthusiams of a new group.

Leadership Community

David Gafford and I are headed out to Community Christian Church in Naperville this week to participate in their "Hitchhikers Guide to Multi-site." I have a million questions I want to ask and lots I want to see. But the main purpose for going to is watch and learn how they do their "Leadership Community." They're one of the best practices churches I know of on this and I expect to learn a lot as we launch our Leadership Community in September.

So what is Leadership Community, you ask? It's a regular gathering (for us, every other month this next ministry year) of leaders where we can do vision casting, huddling and ongoing training. This is for small group leaders and coaches, children's  and youth leaders, First Impressions leaders...all church leaders. Imagine all of us reminded regularly why we do what we do, hearing stories of how God is working, making sure we're all on the same page and inspired together, huddling with coaches and coordinators to improve our skills and do problem solving, laughing and celebrating together....and so much more. That's Leadership Community.

But we still have a lot to learn about how to make that time productive, inspiring and worth the time for busy leaders. That's one of the goals of this trip, in addition to learning more about multi-site.

The Who Question

Once I got to the who question, the process began to become clear. This is still in the early stages of development, but it's a proven process adapted to our context. As you read this ask: Am I the leader? Will I be a part of this in some other leadership capacity? Let me know if you see yourself in this. I'm also looking for ideas on improving the process.

Stage One: Leader
Through prayer, observation and lots of conversations, we call a leader out. This leader, once identified, will need to be assessed and there are some great tools out there for this. The Free Church has an excellent one. If this person is the kind of leader that is a spiritual entrepreneur, we will begin to explore with him what the target area will be (the "where" question). Once the target is chosen, the leader will begin to seek out and call out others to join him in the process by starting a turbo small group. A turbo group is a group filled with folks that understand that after a given time they will multiply out and start their own group.

Stage Two: Group
This stage starts when the first turbo small group is formed. The small group starts meeting and begins to investigate local P.E.A.C.E. Dana can help with this community assessment process.

Stage Three: Groups
In this stage the turbo group begins to multiply and the pre-launch team grows. P.E.A.C.E. intitiatives in the target community continue and pick up momentum.

Stage Four: Gathering
After three groups have been formed, the groups begin to meet together weekly in addition to their small group meetings. At this point the Gathering replaces worship at an existing campus for most folks in the groups. The group can watch a video of the message together and d