New Life Assembly

Character-Shaping Monday

I had an incredibly busy, but productive weekend!  I spent Friday meeting with a few students from Zion who want to change the world...I took them out to lunch and it was well worth the investment of my time and a few dollars to hear their hearts and do my best to speak into their lives as well. 

Saturday was the immediate family day, and then Sunday my parents joined us for our service as well as for dinner afterwards. As is always the case any time my mom comes to visit, we HAD to go to the beach, and were rewarded with some spectacular views as the coast continued to be pounded with some intense surf from the weekend storm. 

This week was part two in the short series on becoming a revolutionary follower of Jesus.  I hope that I challenged you to make every effort to engage yourself in the process of shaping and developing your character.  I think far too often we're content to pray that we'll grow and hope that we'll grow but don't actually take the necessary steps in our lives to build our character into one that is pleasing to God. 

I suppose I may have come across a little strong yesterday, but I won't apologize for that because I firmly believe that CHARACTER MATTERS!!  If we want to do great things for the Kingdom of God, then we must be great characters in God's story, and that means we have to make choices that will move us closer to God's design for our lives.  I believe what we read in 2 Peter chapter 1 - we have been given everything we need to live a life that participates in the divine nature, we just have to do it!

The talk from yesterday reminded me of Andy Stanley's first session at Catalyst, when he talked about the alignment between our creed and our deed, between what we say we believe and what we do in response to those beliefs.  He said that alignment is what gives us moral authority to lead.  What I think we may miss is that all of us are leaders to someone.  Someone is looking to you to lead them - it may be your kids, your co-workers, your wife or the person sitting next to you in church yesterday.  I'm convinced that we should live out a character that is worth following and emulating.  I hope you'll take that challenge and work on it today to see what God will accomplish in you and through your efforts.

Revolutionary Discipleship: Character

In the second talk in this brief series, Pastor Keith challenges us to make every effort to engage in the process of shaping our character to be more like God's: 

Download revolutionary_discipleship_character.mp3

Quick Hits...

Ten minutes on Tuesday...

• Was really challenged last week at our minister's fellowship gathering to pray for you (my church) more.  We're small enough for me to pray for all of you by name, so I made a renewed commitment to doing that daily and you know what? I've been blessed as I've prayed for you.  I'm not a huge prayer list person, but I took all of your names and divided them up over 5 days.  I end each time I pray by praying the same blessing I do at the end of our services.  Just wanted you to know I'm praying for you.
• Since coming back from Catalyst I've had a whole lot of creative energy and lots of brainstorms...that will play out in some changes coming up in the near future, so just be ready for it.
• I'm steadily losing weight - down 13 pounds as of this morning and I feel much better.  I'd still like to lose another 20 or so, but it's been a good start.
• I love my family!  We had a great time at dinner with them last Saturday as we celebrated the October birthdays (mine, my sister and my grandmother) - I've been incredibly blessed to have great parents, great siblings, and to still have both of my grandparents alive long enough for me to appreciate what a treasure that is.
• I'm excited about the talk for this Sunday as we get into what it means to work with God in developing our character in his story.  I think you'll be inspired and challenged by it.
• Our puppy, Sam, got a hold of my cell phone this morning.  It now bears the marks of his teeth in several places.  I think God is telling me that I should get an iPhone...........either that or he's telling me that I need to NOT leave my phone on the coffee table!

Good Morning!  Well, "good" unless you're a Sox fan like me who stayed up believing to the bitter end.  It's amazing, isn't it, how just a few nights ago I went to bed thinking they were dead, and last night I couldn't convince myself it was over at any point? 

I thought we had a really good service yesterday.  I felt like the worship was smooth, and that the message went over pretty well.  One of my takeaways from the Catalyst Conference was that I should preach and teach my people, no matter how many are there, as if it was the last message I was ever going to preach.  I've been trying to put that into practice over the last couple of weeks.  I've always been passionate about teaching, but I think sometimes my delivery has said otherwise.

So yesterday we talked about immersing ourselves into the back story of the Scriptures, and about coming to them to feel their weight and power crashing around us.  I guess it was probably clear if you were there, but I LOVE the Scriptures!  I'm convinced that if we learn to read them as a story, our story, rather than as a lifeless textbook, it would absolutely revolutionize our lives.  I believe that revolutionary followers of Jesus are excited about the Scriptures because they see in its pages the story of a God who relentlessly pursues his people with great love, mercy and compassion and when they see God that way, they are compelled to live out a dynamic relationship with him.

I hope that this week you'll take some time to go to the Scriptures with a renewed sense of allowing God to re-create you through them.  He uses his word to speak deeply into our lives, and it would be a shame for you to miss out on the tremendous power of the Scriptures to change us, to turn us upside down. 

Go ahead, I dare you to read them that way, and see what changes God speaks into your life!

Catalyst Part 4

Good Afternoon!

I still haven' gotten over the Red Sox win from last night.  I actually went to bed when it was 5-0, so the fact that they came back in such historic fashion still hasn't sunk in!

But, enough Red Sox talk...on to the last 6 takeaways from the Catalyst Conference (hard for me to believe it's already been almost a week since it finished...)

16.  Andy Crouch, in his talk on culture making, also touched on a principle that cultivating and creating culture often seems to begin with a creative circle of 2 or 3 people who are willing to suspend impossibility and stretch the boundaries of what seems possible.  What could happen in our church if a few of us suspended impossibility and stretched the limits of what we always thought we could do?

17.  Last one for Andy Crouch:  I should go home and ask the people in my church (or tribe to use Seth Godin's term) what they are cultivating?  What they are creating?  And who is in their creative circle of 3?  This was another reminder that the people I lead have more potential in them, and part of my job is to serve them in seeing that potential be realized.

18.  Matt Chandler pastors a church in Texas, and he was another guy who just let loose and preached to us.  He was given a short time, but he made the best of it.  He challenged us that we have the chance every week to talk about deep, meaningful, and beautiful things, or we can reject that and instead talk about silly things and give the impression that Jesus is somehow the means to an end.  He said we could actually *gasp* preach doctrine and have it be meaningful.  He also said that if we see Jesus as the means to an end of a bigger church then we are idolaters!  Pretty strong words.  He's right.

19.  Andy Stanley's last session was 5 recent thoughts on leadership, the last three takeaways are three of them.  "To reach people no one else is reaching, we must be willing to do what no one else is doing."  Nothing I've never heard before, but it's a good word.  Who are we (the church in general and ours in particular) not reaching, and what do we have to do to reach them?  He challenged us to be obsessed with who we're reaching rather than who we're keeping - that's gold.  You should write it down somewhere.

20.  "What seems impossible in the world of the church, but if we could find an answer it would fundamentally change the way we do church?"  Great question.  Lots to think about wrapped up in it.

21.  "What has to change in our church now, and why won't I change it?"  Hmmm, if you're part of our community, this one should make you nervous....

So, that's the end of the reflection part of Catalyst - now all I have to do is figure out how to take all this stuff and put it into practice.  I think it may keep me busy for a year or five.

Revolution: Acceptance

Following Jesus allows us to find our acceptance, approval and value in his tremendous love for us, rather than in the praise of other people: 

Download 20_revolution_acceptance.mp3

Catalyst Part 3

Good Morning!  I've been blogging my 20 takeaways from the Catalyst Conference that I came back from on Saturday.  We're in the third part of four, so let's get to it...

11.  Craig Groeschel spoke to us about finding "it" when you've lost "it"..."it" being defined as that uniquely God-thing that happens when we're connected to our Creator.  In his session, he encouraged us to pray three prayers, "God stretch me...", "God heal me...", and "God ruin me...".  I want to be broken for the things that break God's heart.  I want to be healed from my addiction to the approval of others, and I want to be stretched beyond my capacity so that God's power can flow through me again.

12.  Tim Sanders, CEO of Yahoo, spoke on Friday morning about saving the world at work.  He reminded us that our people who go to work outside the church world every day have a harder job than we do.  It reminded me to encourage them and prepare them to live out their Sunday values on Monday, and that we should celebrate those who do!

13.  Dave Ramsey, a noted Christian financial advisor, spoke about the five enemies of unity in a team environment.  One of the enemies he identified was unresolved disagreements.  Since I seem to naturally avoid conflict, this is one I've often struggled with.  But in order to lead, I've got to be willing to run to conflict as soon as it begins to manifest itself, rather than wait and allow it to fester and cause larger problems later.

14.  Dave Ramsey also spoke about sanctioning incompetence on the team.  What we do is too important, the task too critical to allow myself or others to fail to do what we should do.  It's okay for me to be particular about the things that matter to the success of the kingdom of God advancing through the church. 

15.  Andy Crouch spoke in the afternoon about Culture making.  He said that we've often taken four positions towards the culture (1) Condemn (2) Critique (3) Copy (4) Consume.  Instead he offered the suggestion that we might actually become cultivators and creators of culture.  We can cultivate the things in the culture that are already good and keep them good, and we can also participate in creating good culture.  I want to lead a church that cultivates and creates culture, I think that's the way for the church to move forward. 

On a side note, Andy Crouch's talk was the only one of the sessions that made me think "I've got to buy his book", so I did.  It's called "Culture Making", and maybe I'll write a review of it when I finish it.

Well, one more day left and we'll be done with the Catalyst reflections.  I'm working on actually using all these reflections to create a "to do" list and a "stop doing" list.  I may actually post that when I finish it up.

Thanks for sticking with me on the journey these past couple days - I hope you'll come back for one last dive into my thoughts.

Catalyst Reflections - Part 2

Good Morning!  I'm just going to dive into takeaways 6-10 from the Catalyst Conference last week.  Again, these are not fully fleshed out, just things that I wrote in my journal that I wanted to be sure to capture from the sessions.
6.  Jim Collins, in his talk on Good to Great, talked about having "white space days" - days on which      he would turn off all of his electronic devices, cell phone, laptop, etc. and give himself time to think. 
For me I think that the white space days would be times to fast, pray and think about what's next in my life and leadership.

7.  Last Jim Collins thought...he talked about creating a culture of discipline within an organization.  One suggestion he made was to eliminate titles, and replace titles with an understanding of ultimate responsibilities, an awareness of what exactly each person in the organization has final responsibility for.

8.  The next thought comes from Steven Furtick's session from the Promise to the Payoff.  This was hands down my favorite session.  Steven flat out preached to us, and it was inspiring, challenging and exceptionally motivating all at once.  He spoke about how when God gives a promise it may begin small, but that if we are patient with the process, we'll come to the fulfillment of that process.  At one point he stood in front of our section and said "Pastor, you're going to go back to your church, you're going to press your best shirt, tuck it into your pants and you're going to preach to those 50 people like there's a thousand people there."  It resonated with me, because at times I've found myself giving less than my best effort, and I resolved right there that I'd never do that again.  For those of you who may have had to endure one of those less-than-full-effort talks, I apologize, and pray you'll never have to endure it again.  I may not always hit a homerun, but I'm always going to swing for the fence.

9.  Seth Godin gave a talk on "Tribes" (also the title of his new book).  He said that we should start with 10 people who are persuaded and inspired and will follow where I lead.  From that place, I should be willing to do something that others can criticize, because no one is looking for a safe leader for their tribe.  He also encouraged us, in a good way, to be a heretic, to pursue what we know is right in spite of opposition.  My thought was that the church's heretics may be the kingdom's heroes, because sometimes the church is the enemy of the kingdom.

10.  In the talk about "Tribes", Seth encouraged us to connect the members of the tribe to each other.  Not everything has to flow through the leader (me), so I must be willing to trust the tribe to engage each other to move the tribe forward.  My personal application for this was in my thinking about discipleship in the way of Jesus, and so that's going to have some bearing on my teaching for the next few weeks on discipleship.

Takeaways 11-15 are coming out tomorrow, so I hope you'll come back around for those.

Catalyst Reflections

Good Afternoon!  It's yet another day off school for my kids.  I think it's been a month (literally) since they had a full week of school.  So I'm home with them and getting to the blogging a little later than normal.

Last week I went with a group of about 40 other pastors and church leaders from Southern New England to the Catalyst Conference in Atlanta.  It was really a phenomenal experience.  The conference itself is amazing - I'd been twice before, but they seem to always out-do themselves.  Even better was the chance to interact with some great guys from New England, realizing that the place we do ministry is different than other parts of the country.  We had most of our meals together, shared the same hotel, drove in cars together, and in all of those places I had some great conversations with guys I would not otherwise have met.

There were about 8 main sessions in the two days.  Some were better than others, so over the next couple days I'm going to share the 20 takeaways I wrote down in my journal on the plane ride home.

1. Andy Stanley talked about moral authority (when your creed lines up with your deeds) in the areas of forgiveness, family and finances.  I feel like I've been on target in the forgiveness and family areas, so the one that I need to shore up here was the finances.  I want to lead my family (and our church) towards freedom and generosity.  Rita and I are going to map out a solid plan for paying off our debts and living more generously.
2. Jim Collins spoke about taking an organization from good to great - he literally wrote the book on the topic.  He said humility is the mark of a great leader, what distinguishes them from the good leaders.  If it is about me and my kingdom and building my church, then I've lost sight of the goal, I've lost the moral authority to lead for the Kingdom's sake rather than for my own good.
3. Jim Collins also advocated for having both a "to do" list and a "stop doing" list.  What are my priorities as a leader and how can I best put myself in a position to accomplish them using the gifts and talents God has given me?  Even further, how can I create that kind of a culture in the church I lead?
4. Jim Collins talked about the reality that in great organizations there is always a healthy tension between eternal realities (your values) and innovation (your practices).  I want to be sure that I lead in such a way that we hold tightly to our eternal realities, but are always willing to innovate new practices to maintain our effectiveness.
5. Again from Jim Collins (I was surprised that his talk generated the most takeaways...).  He advocated for creating a personal board of directors.  My thought was to find 3 or 4 men who are farther along in both faith and leadership than I and actively seek them out to allow them to speak into my life and ask me the difficult questions that will allow me to keep growing.

I'll give you 6-10 tomorrow, which will include my favorite session of all.  I got one takeaway from it, but it was the big one I needed to hear.  You'll have to come back tomorrow to get it though!

Monday already?

Good Morning! 

I've now made the same mistake three times....I've stayed up watching each of the Red Sox playoff games, none of which have ended before midnight.  Each morning after I've awoken slightly more tired than the last time.  Today on my way to the office after dropping off the kids I was extra sleepy, and actually went to Starbucks to pick up a second morning coffee.  Maybe it was made worse because the Sox lost last night, who knows, but either way, I'm really feeling it today.  And no, as Rita tells me each time, you don't have to feel sorry for me.  So pour yourself another coffee (I wish I had another one right here....) and settle in for a couple minutes to recap the weekend that was and look ahead to a couple of things on the horizon.

Yesterday was a tough day for me personally.  I never felt like I got on track with the message, and I seemed to struggle my way through it.  I hate having days like that, but it's always a reminder to me that while I'm responsible to do my piece in preparing myself to teach, it's always up to God to deal with the results in people's lives.

I hope that if nothing else I managed to communicate that God desires to reveal his tremendous love to us, and in revealing his love to us, inviting us to love him in return - to love him with everything that we have.  If from our heart, soul, mind and strength we can engage in learning to love him and reflect that love to our neighbors, then I think we will have fulfilled the fundamental desire of God's heartbeat for us.  It's easier said than done, but it's still the most important command, the one that gives shape to the entire story of the Scriptures.

This Wednesday I take off for a few days with a pretty big group of pastors from throughout Southern New England to go to the Catalyst Conference in Atlanta.  I've been twice before and both times had my world rocked by God speaking to me through the speakers they line up to pour into our lives.  I'm probably just as excited to spend some time unpacking the conference with the group of pastors that I've been connecting with throughout the last 9 months or so.  I've always found a huge part of taking in a conference is having others to share the experience with.  So, if you think about it, pray for me that God will speak fresh vision and passion into my life, and recharge me for the work ahead.

Starting in two weeks we're going to take a three-week break from Mark to go through some of my thoughts regarding discipleship in the way of Jesus.  I've been realizing lately that sometimes I ask us to step up in following Jesus, but I'm not doing a good job of pointing out some practical ways to do that.  I also realize that as a church we've been a little lax communicating a clear process for helping each of us grow as a disciple of Jesus.  That's changing.  As part of the three week series, I'm going to lay out a clear vision for helping you grow as a follower of Jesus.  I'm excited about it, and hope you will be as well!