Uncle Who?

Apparently, the interns have too much time on their hands. Here's our new promo piece for our July 2nd, I Love America event!

I love it!

Be Yourself...Whoever that Is!

When our church first started, I was whatever preacher I had listened to the previous Sunday. I didn't know who I was. Being yourself is another of Mark Batterson's top ten list from below. I heard a great lesson on being yourself from Ed Young at the Buzz Conference.

He started out by imitating TD Jakes, which was hilarious. Then, he imitated Joel Osteen imitating TD Jakes. That was out of the park! I laughed and laughed. The idea is that we've got to be who God created us to be--remember, we're created on purpose and for a purpose!

Paint Your Church Purple

One of the ideas from Mark Batterson's top ten list for new pastors was to paint the church purple--make the ministry hard to ignore was the concept. I've been thinking about businesses and churches that are painted purple. Here are some examples:

• Kids at Granger Community Church enter their classrooms through a McDonald's Playland type slide. They check in upstairs and slide down to their class below. That's purple.
• Phoenix First Assembly and the LA Dream Center have such a passion to reach out to hurting people that it paints the church purple. That's purple.
• Everything at Walt Disney World is painted purple. Think about it--there was no such thing as a theme park before Disneyland. That's really purple.

What are some churches of businesses that you know of that are painted purple.

Top Ten List From Mark Batterson

Here's a great top ten list for pastors from Mark Batterson's blog--www.markbatterson.com.

I just got an email from a pastor asking my advice: what are the top 3 things every person should know before they senior pastor their first church?I haven't done a top ten list lately so here goes. Here are a few of my off the top of my head thoughts about pastoring:

#1 Be Yourself--even more important than being a pastor is being yourself. Be authentic. Be real. Share your weaknesses and struggles. Remind your congregation that you are a work in progress just like they are. Be true to the unique passions and giftings God has given you. Develop core values and core convictions.

#2 Put Your Family First--I limit my church-related meetings to one evening per week. Establish those boundaries early on. If there is ever a conflict between family and ministry it's a no-brainer. Family first.

#3 Have Fun--church ought to be the most enjoyable hour of the week. Don't take yourself too seriously. The healthiest and holiest people laugh at themselves the most. Let your congregation see you laugh at yourself. Alot.

#4 Keep Learning--readers are leaders and leaders are readers. Once you think you have it figured out it's the beginning of the end. There are ways of doing church that no one has discovered yet. Keep experimenting. Realize that if a 100 people give you 30 minutes of their time to listen to your sermon, your message better warrant 50 hours of listening time. Study to show yourself approved. And make sure you're doing both biblical exegesis and cultural exegesis.

#5--Hire people you like hanging out with--how much you enjoy ministry depends on who you're doing ministry with. Hire people you can laugh at. I mean with :) Hire people who love God and love life. Hire people who go the extra mile. Hire people who work hard and play hard. Hire the right people then let their portfolio conform to them like a new shoe conforms to your foot.

#6 Do Recon--You've got to do everything within your power to keep from going into maintenance mode. Stay in growth mode. Remain an open-source system. Go to conferences and visit other churches.

#7 Be a God-Pleaser--I remind myself of what Abraham Lincoln said all the time: you can please all the people some of the time, some of the people all of the time, but you can't please all the people all the time. Don't worry about offending people. Worry about offending God. Stay true to the vision God has given you. Don't waver when people want you to conform to their vision of what the church should be. You'll spend the rest of your life contorting yourself and your church into a thousand shapes. Make sure you're doing ministry out of the overflow of what God is doing in your life. Make sure you allow God to work in you before you ask Him to work through you. The church will never outgrow you! And if it does it's dangerous!

#8--Keep it Simple--less is more. We have two goals: plug into a small group and plug into a ministry. Don't try to do too much. Be really good at what you do. Know who you are. Know who you aren't. Develop a kingdom mindset. Learn to appreciate the unique role that others churches play in your community. Then play to your strengths.

#9 Paint Your Church Purple--either you are remarkable or invisible. Too many churches are ignorable. The good news ought to make the news. You've got to do things to get the attention of your community. Do what you do with an excellence that makes people do a double-take. Make sure you print materials are aesthetically pleasing. Do outreaches that bless the socks off your community. Find the needs in your community and fill them. Dare to be different. Add a touch of creativity to everything you do!

#10 Enjoy the Journey--if you're a visionary you'll tend to live for the future, but enjoy the moment. Be the best pastor you can be during every stage.

Life Happens in Small Groups

Yesterday, we kicked off small groups for another semester. I think it's great that we have 75% of the Sunday morning worship attendance involved in some type of small group ministry. Here are the three pictures of a small group at its best:

• A party for you during the good times
• A shelter for you during the rough times
• A guardrail for your during the tempting times.

That's our vision for small groups at Christian Life Assembly. We may not always live up to the vision--but it's the target we're shooting for. Thank you to all of our great small group leaders and hosts.

Write it Down!

I have an on again/off again relationship with journaling. It's a habit I started in junior high and then really developed during my internship 15 years ago. I've picked it up again as a spiritual discipline this summer. I try to write every day. Here's what I write:

• Ideas from the biblical text that I read that day.
• Prayers for my own life and for others.
• Goals for each month and dreams for the future.
• Quotes and ideas from books I'm reading or podcasts I'm listening to.

One quote I wrote yesterday said this, "Our character is essentially total of our habits." What an amazing thought--my character is simply the result of the habits I fuel my life with every day. That fits great with our new message series "In the Zone" that says everyone winds up somewhere, few people wind up their on purpose. Habits are the winds that move our lives in one direction or another.

This summer, I'm trying to add habits that are helpful to my routine. I wonder what habits you might be trying to add to your life?

Communication Styles

I've been reading Refining Your Style: Learning from Respected Communicators. The book lists 13 styles of communication along with a featured communicator that uses that style. Here are the 13 styles, the purpose, and the featured communicator:

• Creative Storyteller (The Listener's Imagination) Max Lucado
• Direct Spokesperson (The Listener's Will) Franklin Graham
• Scholarly Analytic (The Listener's Logic) Tim Keller
• Revolutionary Leader (The Listener's Passion) Erwin McManus
• Engaging Humorist (The Listener's Funnybone) Ken Davis
• Convincing Apologist (The Listener's Worldview) Lee Strobel
• Inspiring Orator (The Listener's emotions) Kribyjon Caldwell
• Practical Applicator (The Listener's Habits) Bob Russell
• Persuasive Motivator (The Listener's Attitude) Zig Ziglar
• Passionate Teacher (The Listener's Mind) Liz Curtis Higgs
• Relevant Illustrator (The Listener's Common Sense) Gene Appel
• Cultural Prophet (The Listener's Conscience) Chuck Colson
• Unorthodox Artist (The Listener's Senses) Rob Bell

I'm not sure what category I fit into. If you've heard me speak, why not leave a post and pick a category that you think fits me. If you are a public speaker, leave a post describing which category fits you.

Get In the Zone This Sunday

It's time to get In the Zone this Sunday at Christian Life Assembly. Here's the idea: Everyone ends up somewhere, but few people end up there on purpose. We'll discover how to starting hitting the sweet spot of life with this new summer message series. The six messages will include:

The Only Way to Live
The Tale of Three Circles
In the Zone with God
In the Zone with Others
In the Zone with the Physical and Financial
In the Zone with Your Life

Let's start living In the Zone!

Stumbled on Some New Podcasts

Here are some new podcasts that you might interest you. You can subscribe to them through itunes:

• Focus on the Family podcasts versions of their radio program with Dr. James Dobson.
• Defining Moments from Willow Creek Community Church takes aim at developing spiritual leadership.
• Lead Like Jesus is a podcast from Ken Blanchard that equips you to do exactly what the title says--Lead like Jesus!

Each of these are a free subscription through itunes!

Take 5

We launched our Take 5 summer initiative this past week to help people have a truly great summer. Here are the five ways to Take 5 this summer:

• Invest and Invite--make a connection with people who have not crossed the line of faith and invite them to an exciting summer event at CLA.
• Have a Friend, Be a Friend--connect with others in life giving relationships through small groups, Leading Ladies, and Men of Steel.
• Make a Difference--use your unique gifts and talents to make a difference in someone else's life while bringing significance into your own.
• Shout to the Lord!--make worship a priority in your life this summer.
• Take the Next Step--If the Christian life is a walk, what's the next step for you? Baptism? Membership? Getting involved in a ministry? Small group? The Edge leadership training?

Let's Take 5 this summer!

What a Blast!

Our summer praise party was a blast. Pastor Jonathan and Pastor TJ did a great job organizing everything. Every part of the service--from the testimonies to the music--celebrated God's activity in our lives. I want to give a special shout out to Elizabeth Beckett for a great sermon. What a powerful presentation! I think she'll do great at the national Fine Arts Festival in Orlando later this summer.

What a Send Off

I am so thankful to the people of Christian Life Assembly. You guys really stepped up to the plate--giving over $11,000 in cash and gifts to the Barthalow family as we send them off as missionaries to India. All I can say is, "Wow!" What a great church family we have! I'm proud to be your pastor.

Jonathan and Erica leave tomorrow for Memphis then head to Springfield for School of Missions. They will be gone approximately nine weeks before they return to Des Moines. After that, they will live in Norwalk and travel the state raising the remainder of their cash and monthly support budget. The best estimate is that this will take about one year. Then we'll have one last service with them to send them on their way to India.

Gas Saving Tips

Here's a great website that tested all the recommended ways to save money at the pump. If you follow their instructions, they assert that you can save up to 37% on you gas. That's a big difference. Here's the website:

http://www.edmunds.com/ownership/driving/articles/106842/article.html

A Timeline for Leading Dramatic Change

Here's an interesting timeline for creating dramatic change in an organization:

Stage 1 Creating Awareness (4-6 months) Through intensive communication events, leaders take people through dialogue and discussion about the need for transformation.

Stage 2 Creating Understanding (3-5 months) The dialogue and discussion serve to bring thinking and feeling modes of understanding together into a pattern of understanding.

Stage 3 Evaluation (3-5 months) What is currently happening in the organization is evaluated in light of awareness and understanding.

Stage 4 Creating experiments (3-8 months) People begin to identify actions that they believe will transform the organization into a missional organization. People will experiment through action.

Stage 5 Commit (Ongoing) People commit to getting others involved in the process of moving through awareness to understanding, to evaluation, to experimentation, and finally to commitment.

It's an interesting change model from the book The Missional Church.

Here's a basic question for all of us, why don't we like change? I'd be interested to see what you post.

Welcome Home, Joel

It was a great honor to welcome wounded Marine L. Cpl. Joel Klobnak home to Iowa last night at CLA. All three local network news teams were there to cover the story, along with a couple hundred of Joel's friends and family. Joel is home through Memorial Day then will return to Washington, DC to recuperate from the injury that took part of his left leg.

Thank you to everyone who made the event possible.

Church in a Box

I got a great idea while I was in Memphis. It's called Church in a Box. It's not something you order from The Acme Company, either. Here's the idea. I am believing God for a church of 1,000 people in the next five years. We are on the way. Our current average for the last 52 weeks is 431. So, we are almost halfway there.

So, what's the church in a box?

I want to get a box and put the names of 1,000 of your friends, family, neighbors, and coworkers who have not yet crossed the line of faith in Jesus. Then, we're going to pray over that box every day. And, out of that box will come the church we're believing for as people receive hope and life through Christian Life Assembly.

Who can build me a box like that?

Walking in Memphis

I'm in Memphis this morning. I spoke yesterday at Raleigh Assembly of God. What a great service. I heard Pastor Jonathan did a great job back home at Christian Life.

Today, we do a leadership seminar for the Assemblies of God pastors of the Memphis section. I'm going to do the talk about questions leaders ask. Here they are:

1. Where are we? (Location)
2. Where are we going? (Destination)
3. How do we get there? (Navigation)
4. What's new? (Innovation)
5. Who's next? (Identification)
6. What's the atmosphere? (Culture)
7. How's our alignment? (Integration)
8. How am I doing? (Self-Leadership)

These are the eight questions leaders should constantly ask about their organization.

Great Resources for Church...for FREE

LifeChurch.tv of Edmond, Oklahoma, one of the fastest-growing and most technologically innovative churches in America, is making its media-intensive approach available to pastors and churches worldwide at no cost. The church is offering an extensive online library of materials that includes outlines from a wide variety of message series, corresponding promotional design graphics and videos, broadcast-quality opening videos and more. You can get a look at the various resources at: http://www.lifechurch.tv/open.

www.ihatemymarriage.com

New Spring Church in Anderson, South Carolina, took some criticism on the chin when it launched a series titled "ihatemymarriage.com." But while they were being criticized, marriages were being healed and people were coming to Christ.

Granger Community Church, located near South Bend, Indiana, used billboards promoting the website www.mylamesexlife.com to publicize a series called "Pure Sex." They were criticized by the religious community, but the series attedance almost doubled their average attendance for a series that promoted healthy sexuality, including how to break free from internet porn addiction.

A couple of morals:
1. Creativity stirs criticism.
2. Know who you are trying to reach and go for it.

On the Map!

Growing up in the South, I rarely met a catholic or a Lutheran. I guess this map of religious adherance in America explains why. It's interesting that growing, I assumed that the rest of the nation mirrored the worldview of my section of the country. Iowa looks a lot different than Kentucky when it comes to religious affiliation, doesn't it?