New Life Assembly

Balance: Service

This week we looked at the way God has designed the church to be a place where everyone serves so that everyone can grow together: 

Download 44 Balance - Service

Monday Afternoon (almost evening)

Two partially sick children (defined as sick enough that they want to stay home from school but well enough that they keep telling me how bored they are and how they have nothing to do) conspired to keep me from blogging until now.  Well, that and the fact that we are taking off for a brief family getaway at the end of the week that is going to shorten my workday down to three days.

Great day at New Life yesterday!  I feel like I say that a lot, and maybe you get tired of reading it, but that's really how I feel.  I've enjoyed the transition in our service format that has us going right from the music into the message.  Rita has been pleased with the new Kid's Church curriculum, and I think overall there's a good feeling of energy and positivity at New Life. 

This week we kept on in our series on balance, looking for balance in the area of service in the life of the church.  If you want the short version, here it is:  the only way that we as a church will be able to serve everyone that God wants us to serve is if everyone in the church finds a place where they can serve.  I am convinced that God wants to do some extraordinary things at New Life, but the only way they will take place is if each of us finds the joy and pleasure of using our gifts and talents in service first to Jesus who gave them to us, and then in service to the church that Jesus has given to us.

I know we're all busy, many of us are busy in worthwhile endeavors outside of the church.  And while I've always encouraged you to serve in practical ways in the community, I think in the process I may have failed to talk about practical ways to serve in the church.  The truth is that there are some very valuable and significant ministries taking place at New Life on Sunday, and other days of the week as well.  If we didn't think they were meaningful opportunities to minister for the Kingdom, we probably wouldn't do them.  So without apology, I want to invite you to find a place where you can serve the church to advance the work God wants to do at New Life.

And if you really struggle with knowing what gifts and talents God has invested in you, I want you to come talk to me.  You can call the office (783-8378) and set up a time to talk.  Or you can email me and do the same (keith.mcnamar@gmail.com).  Either way, I encourage you to take responsibility for the gifts God has entrusted to you, and start using them in a way that would honor him and build his church - the church that he is using to expand his kingdom in the world.

Balance: Worship

This week we looked at how the discipline of worship as a means of keeping the church as a whole in balance as we come together to exalt Christ and seek for his word to dwell among us more richly: 

Download 43 Balance - Worship

Monday Afernoon

I'm writing this afternoon while watching more leaves fall from the trees in my neighbor's yard, and hoping to appreciate the last of the lingering colors over the next week or so before the branches go bare.  It really doesn't get much better than these two or three weeks in October in New England.  Except for the raking.  That part I could do without.

I'm not sure if the swine flu has made its way through the church, or if it was a post-halloween hangover (hopefully not a literal one), or the time change, or some other combination of events, but we had a low turnout yesterday morning at New Life.  Despite that (I've learned a while ago that you can't judge by appearances) we had a powerful time together in God's presence and in his word.

I taught on the topic of worship as a discipline in our lives for growth and balance as a follower of Jesus, and really encouraged us to invest our whole selves into the worship experience at the church.  Too often we look at worship as a spectator sport, an opportunity for us to observe what's happening, and maybe even critique what's happening, particularly with the music.  While we want to do everything that we do well, and with excellence, the substance of our worship is much more important than our style or our execution.

If when we worship the word of Christ - his gospel of redemption and reconciliation - dwells among us more richly, then we have found something that we cannot find at the greatest concert the world has to offer.  If we are simply emotionally stirred, but not provoked to think more deeply about the message of the cross and the kingdom of God, then we have not worshipped, we have merely attended a show.  My hope is that when we come together to worship the only show on stage is Jesus, crucified, buried, risen and exalted.  If we accomplish that in our time of worship, I will be more than happy.

As our band has progressed (and they are doing a tremendous job of leading us in worship) the tendency will be to exalt them, to praise them and honor them.  I think I can speak for everyone involved by saying - please don't do that!  Our highest goal has been, and will continue to be, that we would lift up Christ so that everyone at New Life on a given Sunday will have the opportunity to draw closer to him.

Next week we're going to look at the discipline of service.  I'm going to invite you to consider how your God-given gifts and talents could be used in service to the church and the community God has called us to serve. 

Once again, thanks for stopping by.  I hope you'll continue to sense God's presence with you throughout your week!

Yup, It's Monday

I usually write the Monday blog from my office at home, while drinking a fresh cup of coffee and enjoying a slow, relaxed day.  Instead, today, I'm sitting in my office at the church, which has been pulled apart so I can have the Verizon guy come and install my new FiOS service for phone and internet.  I'm happy about the new service, not so happy about the disruption to the day.  Not to mention the lack of coffee.  Not to mention that pulling things away from walls in my office has given me the urge to embark on a complete office transformation...

Yesterday was the fourth Sunday in October, and as I've been doing all year, we paused in our sermon series on balance and talked about the big picture topic of redemption - this time from Ephesians chapter 1.  I definitely didn't feel like I fully connected all the dots that I wanted to in the message, but hope that the main point came across.  God has sealed every believer with the Holy Spirit as a deposit that guarantees your future redemption.  Everything that God has done in your life is activated by the work of the Spirit in your life, and it's critical that we submit to his working in us so that we can continue to freely give ourselves to living lives to the praise of God's glory and grace.

Redemption is not just personal, it's global, and we are just a part of the plan.  Chosen and predestined (we didn't really even get into that word) to be included in Christ and to work for his kingdom in the world now, and towards his kingdom in the world to come.  It's my hope that we'll continue to reflect this week on the Spirit's work in us as he applies the work of the cross and resurrection to our daily experience following Jesus.

I've been really encouraged by the word I'm hearing about so many people linking up together in our re:develop partnerships for discipleship.  As we partner together to share life, prayer, and study with one another I believe God is going to continue to shape our lives and character in a way that more fully reflects his glory in the world.  As we grow in these relationships, I think we'll continue to find God's Spirit speaking to us through the friends he gives us, which ultimately leads us to greater maturity in Christ.  I'm excited to see what will come out of these partnerships as they continue to grow and include others.

I'm looking forward to getting back to the balance series next week.  While the first three messages focused on personal disciplines for spiritual growth and balance in our lives, the next three will be more focused on corporate disciplines - the things we do together as a church that help keep our lives in balance.  This Sunday we'll talk about worship, then service and end with a message about confession.

Grace and Peace.

Be Yourself

It's harder than it sounds.  Believe me, I know.

I spent a good part of my early years as a pastor trying to be someone else.  I had great mentors in ministry who invested so much into my life, and were such godly examples for me to follow, that there were times I felt like I had to be them in order to be a good pastor.  I thought that if I didn't preach like they did, or lead like they did, that I would somehow end up as a pastoral failure.  Little did I understand that the more I tried to imitate them, the more I failed.

Not only did I have good mentors whose example and influence I valued, but I also had well-meaning folks in our church who had ideas about what I could do to be a better pastor.  Desperately wanting to please anyone and everyone led me to confuse leadership with popularity.  There were times I bent to those wishes, and then found that when I had, I still wasn't fully pleasing them.  There would always be something else.  I could never be "good enough". 

There were days that I thought, in the depths of my heart, that I couldn't keep meeting these pastoral demands.  There were days that I believed I had made a mistake when I embraced the call to pastor, days when I felt like I had made a mistake coming to New Life.  I was trying to please everyone except the only one who mattered, the one who had called me, gifted me, and prepared me for the purpose that only he could accomplish in me and through me.

I'm not sure when I turned the corner and stopped trying to be someone else.  One significant step in that direction was being involved in a mentoring network in the spring of 2005.  As part of that experience I took an assessment called Strengths Finder, which measured 5 areas of talent in my life.  In reflecting on those I started to understand how God had designed me, maybe even perfectly fit me for the role he had called me to at New Life.  I started to trust that God actually knew what he was doing by bringing me here.  I began to truly believe that if I leaned into him, and allowed him to have full rein working through me, that I might be more fulfilled, and that my ministry might actually be more fulfilling to those I was trying to lead.

Some days, I admit, I'm tempted to turn around the corner in reverse.  And then I remember that God has called me to lead this church; he has prepared me for the task.  In fact, just the other day I had a long conversation with God in which I allowed him to remind me that my only desire as a pastor is to please him.  My sole passion is that when I stand before him to give account for how I have lived my life, that he will be pleased with my faithfulness to his call.  Everything else will be consumed, only his call will remain.

Everyone will admit that they want to just "be themselves", but few seem willing to put in the effort required to take that path.  More of us seem willing to settle for people-pleasing and pacifying others we think are smarter or more powerful than we are.  Too many of us are willing to take the road of no resistance, no standing out, no risk, no pain.  But I've found that being yourself, in the truest sense, requires us to find all of our sufficiency, all of our value and all of our approval in God and him alone.  You could say that if you really want to find yourself, you must first lose yourself in the cross, and allow him to resurrect you for his purpose and glory in your life.  I learned to be myself when I learned to fully embrace who God created me to be, and to lead from that place.

When we next meet (I won't promise tomorrow, though I intend it...) I want to write about what drives me as a pastor:  people matter.

Ten Years Later

On Sunday our church took some time to honor Rita and me (and our kids) for Pastor's appreciation month.  I've always been humbled by the ways that the church has chosen to share their love and appreciation with us through the years.  In my heart, this one was particularly significant, because in a few days I will be marking my tenth year of ministry here at New Life.  I like symbolic milestones and always have, and there's something about 10 years that makes me pause, reflect, give thanks, and then turn towards the future for my life and ministry.  So over the next couple days I'm going to share some of what's changed in me and our church, and some lessons I've learned in 10 years as pastor of New Life.

In 1999 I was 24 years old, married for just over two years, and had been serving on staff at a church for just over a year.  We came to New Life at a time in her history when she was battered and bruised from several years of internal church conflict.  During that time many people had left, and the ones who stayed were weary and worn down from what was an emotional and spiritual battle.  It was not what anyone would describe as a dream job, and yet Rita and I both felt undeniably called to accept the responsibility of pastoring this church.

I had no real idea of what it would take to right the ship.  I don't think I knew it even 5 or 6 years into the process.  I was still trying to figure out who I was as a pastor and leader in the church.  I'm sure that in the process of my own growth and development I frustrated some who were trying to work with me.  I made my share of mistakes along the way.  I avoided conflict when I should have accepted it, and probably initiated some conflict when I should have avoided it.  I was overly timid at times, and sensitive to criticism at others.  I tried to please some, and (truth be told) actively tried not to please others. 

Through it all I kept holding on to the one clear word I believed God had dropped into my heart when I accepted that he was calling me to New Life:  that he wanted me to come and be a servant leader.  I learned that in order to gain the trust of those God had called me to lead, it was essential that I prove myself trustworthy, and prove myself to be the kind of person who would give himself away on behalf of others.  So I worked hard at that from the beginning.  I actively sought to lay down my rights and refrain from asserting my privileges as a leader so that everyone would know my first priority was to serve the church and do what was best for all of us.

Not everyone saw it that way, I'm sure.  There were lots of ups and downs, and many moments when I questioned the wisdom of God's plan to bring me here.  There were days I was hurt beyond what I could possibly express, and days when I felt I was being taken advantage of.  And I still came back to this overarching mandate to lead by serving.  I did not do it perfectly, but I think I did it faithfully, which is ultimately what God requires of those he has given the responsibility to lead in his church. 

I'm particularly grateful to God for those of you who have stuck it out through ten years of my ministry, through my mistakes and failures and have been gracious to me while I, for much of it, learned on the job.  God has used you to make me a better pastor, a better husband, better father, and a better man.  It truly has been a privilege to serve you at every turn, and you have been more than gracious to serve with me in so many different ways. 

So, first lesson in ten years of leadership:  be willing to serve.  Those you lead will be thankful for your heart and your commitment to honor them above yourself.  If God gives me another ten years, I pray that I will not lose the heart of a servant.

(Way too) Early Monday Morning

For the second time in less than a week, I woke up before 4 AM, tried unsuccessfully to fall back to sleep, then finally gave up and headed downstairs to accomplish some kind of work.  Last week it was my sermon; this week it was emails and a Monday morning blog post.

We're at a stage in the life of our church where it feels like each Sunday is better than the one before.  Every week we're seeing new faces as you keep inviting your friends, and every week we are having new opportunities to share our lives with other men and women looking for a message of life and hope.  I'm really excited about the ways that we are growing not just in numbers, but in depth and commitment in our relationship to God.

This week we continued in our series on balance, with an emphasis on fasting as a discipline for spiritual growth.  Of course, no one really likes to talk about fasting because it's a discipline that causes us to deny ourselves and our own desires, hopefully in an effort to understand better what God desires for us.  While I could never hope to give a full scale teaching on fasting in one sermon, I hope I did an adequate job of giving a big picture overview of fasting that would lead us deeper into our relationship with God.

We all have the tendency to elevate our own desires above God's desires; to relegate his concerns and plans for our lives to second (or fifth) place as what we want increasingly dominates our priorities.  Fasting is powerful medicine to that self-centered kind of thinking that can provide correction to our drifting, and can reconnect us to God's priorities for our lives.

So this week I encouraged each of us to spend some time in prayerful reflection about where our priorities have gotten off balance - where God and his Kingdom have fallen out of first place in our lives.  I thought that a good place to start would be by fasting a meal, and spending that time in the scriptures and in prayer as a way to prepare our hearts to hear what God might want to say to us about imbalance in our lives.  And then when God reveals those priorities of ours that are competing with his, we may want to intentionally say "no" to those (fast from them) so that we can increasingly say "yes" to God and his desires for our lives.

I hope you'll find the time to follow through with that commitment this week, and find your heart and mind being refreshed in God's presence and find your life being re-balanced around God's kingdom and will being done in your life.

As we go through the week, and you engage your heart this way, feel free to come back and leave a comment as to how God is reordering your priorities as a way of encouraging others, and challenging yourself to keep them in balance. 

Balance: Prayer

This week we looked at Jesus' prayer in Matthew 6 as a pattern for prayer that would lead to our lives being balanced around God's kingdom and his concerns: 

Download 41 Balance - Prayer

Monday Reflections

I'm late to the blog because of my eye appointment this morning in which they dilated my pupils and left me unable to do much reading/computer work for a few hours after that.  So, I'll quickly blog my reflections from yesterday at New Life:

• It was great to have our full band together after a few weeks where we had missing pieces.  I love the way we continue to grow together and excel not only as musicians but in leading the church into worship.  I've said it so many times, but it really is a privilege to play with every one of them, and they are doing a great service for our church as they use their talents that way.
• We had 17 kids in our Kid's Church yesterday.  17!!  That's a whole lotta kids.  Our volunteers serving in Kid's Church and nursery are doing a fantastic job.  Their investment in the lives of the kids at New Life is very important, and they deserve a huge "thanks" for all they give each week.  We are really positioned as a church to have a great impact on families, which means that we have open doors to reach out to so many in our community who are looking for ways to lead their families in a way that is meaningful and eternally valuable. 
• Our attendance for the whole service yesterday was 107.  Now, believe me, I don't think you can measure everything by numbers, but numbers to me are not really numbers, but a representation of people that we are being able to impact.  That 107 is the highest attendance we've had in the nearly 10 years I've been pastor of New Life, so I was really encouraged to see that.  I believe God is doing something very significant at New Life, and I feel tremendously blessed to be a part of it.
• That said, as we grow, we're presented with a few challenges, not the least of which is where we put people.  One thing I can say is that if you show up earlier, you'll have a better chance of finding a seat!
• One of the biggest challenges we're wrestling with right now is that we need to do some work on our system for discipleship.  That's in the works right now, and we're putting a lot of effort into the Fall Focus night on October 18th for everybody to have an opportunity to see what we do for making disciples at New Life.  That's going to be at 6:00 PM and while we adults are talking discipleship on our level, the kids will be introduced to their new curriculum which begins November 1st.  You should definitely plan to be there for the 18th!
• I was off yesterday.  Chalk it up to a bad Sunday or whatever, but I never felt like I got into any kind of rhythm in my preaching.  And, as always, God works in spite of me just to remind me that it is not, and never will be, about me or my ability to preach and teach, but about God getting glory for himself.
• I cannot WAIT to see what happens next week!  I hope you're there to find out...