I WILL MISS MY CHURCH SUNDAY (that is a good feeling)

We had to cancel services at Grace Community Church this Sunday because God decided to drop 7 glorious inches of snow on our city this weekend. My family has loved the snow and the time together but all of us agree...we will miss being with our spiritual family at GCC! I love that I feel like that! My family loves being a part of the church that I work at. As a pastor's kid who grew up hating going to church, and it is such a blessing to finally hurt a little inside when we have to miss. So what to do on Sunday since we can't gather...why not have a party of our own! Several of us in our neighborhood are going to gather together for breakfast before we head out to play in the snow with our families. Snow or no snow GCC folks will gather all over our city to do what is the heart of what church should be, to be in community. I love what we do on Sunday morning's but the heart of church happens each week through community groups. Every time we have had to adjust Sunday schedules at GCC it has been fun to watch people still gathering in community to be together. At the heart of "church" is the idea of living life with other people, following Christ with other people, being together. So sure we won't gather Sunday at Rossview High School, but as we gather in our small huddles, connect with our families, hang out with our neighbors, spend time alone in prayer and Bible Study, visit another congregation, or watch a service online God will be lifted high. Stoked about starting a new series at GCC next Sunday...DO NOT MISS IT!

our "outreach" STORY

A friend of mine here in our city messaged me on facebook last week and asked how Grace Community does outreach. In previous churches I would have a program answer for the guy like Evangelism Explosion, FAITH, Door to Door Visitation, but here at GCC we really do not have a program or a system for outreach. Outreach is just part of who we are. From day one of our existence we took what Jesus said in Matthew 28:18-20 literally and started a church that would be focused on those who needed Jesus in our city. When it comes to the rest of our outreach system God gets the rest of the credit. Here is our basic plan of outreach, also known as evangelism.

1. We are a part of the community of faith called Grace Community and God has made us new through salvation and He keeps working in our lives. As we live our lives we tell our story to the people we meet in our community. We love what God is doing at GCC so naturally we invite others to check it out.
2. People get invited to GCC and they come check it out. God works in their lives and they discover what it means to follow Christ. We give them freedom to belong, question, search, serve, doubt, laugh, love, heal, and discover. People are never asked to "have it all together" in order to be a part of this family. For many, God changes their life and they tell other people their story and invite them to come and check out GCC.
3. For many people...they become followers of Christ. God does that, not us. God gets the credit, not us. This is the story of God being carried out here in our city.
   

That is it. There you have it. I guess you can call it STORY outreach because people just keep telling their story of encountering God and discovering Jesus. Many people want to know if we reach people because of a style of service, kids ministry, music, student ministry, teaching, community group...they want us to pinpoint what is the reason people decide to come visit and then reach out to others. The answer can only be credited to God giving people a new story to talk about, a new story to embrace, and new story to begin through Christ. Our "method" of outreach will only work as God keeps giving people a new story and those same people keep talking about it. When that stops and if that stops we should close the doors of GCC, release the staff to find other jobs, and tell people to find where God is working and join that movement. For about 2,000 of us who call Grace Community our spiritual family here in Clarksville this is our story...

Amazing Grace, how sweet the sound,
That saved a wretch like me....
I once was lost but now am found,
Was blind, but now, I see.

We hope you experience that story for yourself. God's story can't be stopped.

CAN U HEAR ME? / series starts tonight @ REMIX

We start a new series this week at REMIX called Can You Hear Me focused on prayer. Talking with parents and teens of all ages, prayer is a huge struggle for us all. Maybe it is our constant connection with those around us through technology that keeps us from talking with God. Maybe it is the distraction of daily life. Maybe it is that we just have never made it a practice, routine, or habit. Prayer is hard. How do we move through the hard aspect of prayer? Better than that, how do we get to the heart of prayer? We hope to answer the WHY and HOW of prayer over the next three weeks of REMIX. To see the big picture of this series go check out relevantstudents.com. Some of you who follow the blog ask me where we get our series graphics and ideas. Here at Relevant we partner with a team called XP3 Students. Go check out XP3, we love the team there and love partnering with them for our weekly series.

how we partner with parents of teens

If you want to partner with families who have teens...get ready to make it a priority. Talking about the big idea and actually following through with a plan are two different things. Relevant started to work our plan in 2009 and half way through we are finding this to be a difficult process. They difficulty in making connections lead so many of us to remove partnering with the family from our top priorities. If you want to partner with parents you have to have a plan. We are working hard to inform, connect, and be available. Let me explain...

INFORM>> We want to keep let the parents know where we are leading their teens. We keep an update on our website from every Remix and we podcast every service. Why??? So they know where we are headed. Information is a powerful tool for a parent. Info enables the parent to have a framework to engage their son or daughter. Information also builds trust with the Relevant team and keeping that info online allows parents to get to the information when they need it.

CONNECT>> We want parents to know who is investing in their son or daughter. That connection can be me as the student pastor but really it needs to be the small group leader. The small group leader at REMIX is a youth pastor on our team and cares for the teens they lead. Each week our small group leaders email their parents an update email just to build a bridge. Many of our small group leaders are having chances to encourage and connect with parents. Parents want to know there are other caring adults investing in their teen.

BE AVAILABLE>> When a teen or parent needs us to answer a question, give advice, or serve in a time of crisis we just want to be available. We hope parents know we want to be on this journey for the good and bad times of their teen's life. When parents need help we want to be ready.

What is your plan to engage and partner with parents? Take some time this week to think about what your ministry can do for the family. Keep it simple and make sure you don't give up on the parents you serve.

Don't stop TRYING to connect with parents!

Chelsea (my wife and an amazing leader) and I have been evaluating our effort to connect with, empower, inform, and partner with parents at Relevant Student Ministry. What have we concluded? IT IS HARD! I think this is why student pastors stop striving to partner with parents. We are not evaluated on life change happening in the family we are measured by numbers of teens attending our programs. Looking for life change within the family is difficult to measure because guess what, it is rooted in the family. Sometimes we get to see it but most of the time we don't. When we can't see it we tend to give up. We tend tend to move toward where we get immediate feedback. We tend to focus all our effort on just connecting with teens because well that is our what many of us have been conditioned to do and just to be honest what we are good at. IT MAY BE HARD TO PARTNER WITH PARENTS BUT...IT'S WORTH IT! There are some things we have to focus on no matter what percentage of our parents choose to embrace the idea. The power of a parents actively investing in their teenage son or daughter is beyond measure. If just 50% of families in our student ministry choose to take ONE step toward partnering with the church, that 50% is going to make a huge impact in the lives of those teenagers. We have to remember that we can't demand an all or nothing approach to partnering with parents. We have to enable several levels of partnership and encourage parents to take the next step. This is about empowering the family and the family matters to God, He made it. We have decided that we are not going to quit when it get's hard. Partnering with parents is more than a strategy it's a way to care about what God cares about.

maintenance

This week our dryer stopped drying our clothes and that is a problem in our house! Thursday morning I got up and starting trying to figure out what was going on. Like any man not gifted in anything mechanical I started searching on Google. Anything you need to know, just start at Google. After working through a ton of little issues I finally got to looking inside the machine and had the chance to see what the inside of a dryer looks like after 8 years of no maintenance. It was not a pretty picture and I was shocked the entire thing never caught on fire. I think our life and ministry looks very similar when we avoid maintenance. Some of you enjoy maintenance mode too much. You love order and structure so much you never seek growth and expansion. I on the other hand love forward motion so much I neglect maintenance very often for the rush of what is coming next. What area's of our ministry / life need the attention of careful maintenance?

Personal Devotion // We need to keep an eye on how we are pursuing intimacy with God. This never happens for me without attention, a plan, and dedicated time blocked off to simply seek God outside this job I have of leading inside God's church. The ministry I lead is not mine, it is God's. I better spend time alone with God when I am alone so that my public life and private life have consistency.

Organization // This week our children's pastor and some key leaders spent time organizing supplies for their Sunday environment. It took several hours but it paid off big as they streamlined what they are using. Taking some time to slow down and organize can free us to move quickly to serve others when the opportunity arrives. This area of maintenance is so difficult for me. I feel like I am wasting time but I have to remind myself that the time set aside will free me up in the future.

Planning, Dream Time // Yes, planning and dreaming about what is next are so important but the tyranny of the now can crowd out time to make this happen. Taking time to plan and be strategic is a maintenance issue that can set to up to be prepared to lead your team, adapt when changes come, and better know how to pray.

Relationships // Yep...guess what...want significant relationships in your life you better get ready to dedicate time to that pursuit. The most important people in our life need significant time, not leftovers. Time with your family is DEMANDED. Time for your friends is a must. Time for the people you serve with has to be given. MAINTAIN those relationships with care.

MERGE 2010 joining with our community

MERGE is our winter retreat that happens right here in our own city. Yea, we retreat but we retreat to huddle with our small groups in homes for the weekend and pray our plans for life and God's plans come together. We pray our lives MERGE with what God is already doing and wants to do. During the weekend we gather for some incredible teaching and worship session but the heart of MERGE is in the small group. The dates this year are February 19-21; the plans are being made, and the relevant student ministry team is praying God will do incredible things. This year we are joining churches all across our city that are holding their own version of MERGE (retreat, dnow, whatever they want to call it) on the same weekend. We are even uniting for an opening worship service the Wednesday before MERGE and the ending Saturday night of the weekend. Why work together? Because we know God is not contained in any one of our churches or youth ministries. Because we know God calls for unity. Because we desperately want teens to know God is at work in our city. Because each of our ministries desire to see our city reached for Christ. Info about MERGE weekend is up for Relevant students at www.relevantstudents.com.

PURSUE online integrity

Two of my favorite pieces of technology in my life are my Ipod touch and Iphone. Honestly I love them both...I am sold, completely over on the Apple train. One of the issues that has been out there was a lack of accountability software for both the Itouch and Iphone when online. Big news is that now it is here. Why bother with this? I think it is so important to close gaps where integrity issues can come up. One of those gaps is online integrity. Now you can have accountability on your Mac or PC and your Iphone/Itouch for free. There are some bookmark and link issues they are figuring out but this is an accountability issue that is worth thinking about. The XXXchurch browser becomes your web browser on your Iphone. None of your other Facebook, Youtube, or Twitter apps are effected but it does provide a way to be accountable on your online device. Check out XXX Church online or search for xxxchurch in the app store to get the ball rolling. Love the support this ministry is providing for free to men and women all across the world.

you just never know!

When you get kids up on stage you never know what might go down. Even with teens crazy stuff can happen. Check out what went down with Clayton King when he brought his boy on stage...

Environment matters...

I have discovered and embraced a new idea...the visual worship leader. Spent a day this past week with a group of church leaders, at Visual Worship 2010, who create environments for people to gather for worship and a round table discussion in St. Louis. You may call these people tech leaders, creative directors, creative pastor's whatever but what they do each week is help lead worship. Our environments help people engage God or distract them from the God who made their soul. The visual worship leader uses staging, lights, projection, pictures, art, and architecture help share the message being communicated. every week our hope is communicate a message to the people who gather in our churches. The visual worship leader helps that message be intentional. I am passionate about environment. I have always felt as I produced (planned, ran lights, projection, or directed) a service I was helping to lead worship. Seriously I love seeing the environment assist the worship lead and speaker as we communicate the message. This week I met other people with that same passion. Go check out the discussion going on at http://worshipvj.com/ and http://www.visualworshiper.com/

Also know that your environment matters. When a person walks into your worship / small group / Sunday School / fellowship SPACE your environment is communicating something. Make sure you are intentional about that message. Leverage lighting, projection, music, art, stage arrangement, and room setup to communicate a message YOU WANT through your entire service or event.