Yeah, it would've been good for me to know these things, too

Here's a good post from Perry Noble, the founding pastor of the fastest growing church in the country. You can check out his blog here.

And here's the post in its entirety:

15 Things I Wished I Would Have Known
Someone recently asked me on Twitter about what I wish I would have known BEFORE starting NewSpring…so, here are a few things…
#1 - Don’t say “we will never do BLANK.” BECAUSE…you probably will!
#2 - The more your church grows the bigger the target gets on your back. People who don’t even know you will form opinions of you based on something that they heard you said…and bloggers and such will make it their daily habit to read what you say/listen to you preach just so they can tear you down.#3 - There is not a formula for growing a church.
#4 - God love HIS church WAY more than I do.
#5 - I should spend way less time focusing on being “right” and way more time on being faithful.
#6 - Comparing NewSpring to other churches will either lead to pride or feeling like a failure…I need to desperately seek Jesus consistently to see who HE has called us to be.
#7 - I should learn from everyone…despite theological differences.
#8 - Don’t yell at the entire church just because 10 or less people are mad at you.
#9 - Those who you think will always be with you won’t always be with you.
#10 - I don’t always have the best ideas.
#11 - Excellence can never be compromised just because you don’t want to hurt someone’s feelings.
#12 - Only a pastor can really understand a pastor. (I blogged about that in an article entitled, “The Pastor’s Pain!)
#13 - People will always misunderstand you…don’t waste a lot of time trying to explain yourself.
#14 - Leadership is as easy as listening to God.
#15 - One day the “traditional ideas” that I do not like will be the ones I actually developed…and that is when my motivations as a leader will be tested.
BONUS = The fights, the sleepless nights, the critics, the spiritual warfare, the long meetings, the frustration…IT’S ALL WORTH IT! When lives get changed…it’s worth it. When hell becomes less crowded…it’s worth it. When repentance takes place…it’s worth it! When marriages are restored…it’s worth it. IT IS SO WORTH everything we go through!!! SO…don’t EVER give up–EVER!!!
Those are some of the things I wished I would have known.

My Study Leave

My 3 week study leave has officially ended this morning. I can honestly say this has been one of the best periods of my pastoral life. I've grow in ways and learned things that will impact my ministry years from now.

I've typed out pages and pages of thoughts about what I've learned but I want to share just two main ideas I wrestled with during these 3 weeks.

1) Communication
I spent some time talking with Dr. Todd Frye about how to better communicate with people who both think and act differently than myself. Another pastor friend told me that we unintentionally hurt people when we assume they communicate in the same way we do. During one meeting, Todd drew this picture for me:


The emotions listed at the top, Joy, Sadness, hurt, fear and shame are what's known as "primary emotions." We act out of those few primary emotions. What often happens though, is we move so quickly through those emotions into a secondary emotion such as anger, that we fail to realize the primary emotion. For example, if someone says something to you that hurts, you may speed right through the hurt feeling and go right into anger, which then leads to dysfuntional communication and behaviors.
The key to effective communication is to slow way down and recognize the primary emotion. You then act out of that primary emotion. If you're being hurt, you need a person to comfort you (or you comfort the other person, if you're causing the hurt) and so on. You can see the arrow that goes from the top, through the point of primary emotion down to the healthy responses. Todd said that relationships grow through primary emotions and their appropriate responses.
If you trust the person you're communicating with, you can share your emotion. If you don't trust them (they could turn that honesty against you), you can still act out of the recognition of that primary emotion.
I've already reaped the benefits of this knowledge. Wish I'd known it earlier...

2) Assimilation
I've been talking with pastors who have effectively grown their churches and connected new people into the life of their church. All 3 pastors are talented, smart and leading growing churches. And all 3 have different approaches to how the connect people. I'm going to give a very brief summary of what I learned from all 3 pastors.

Dale Schaeffer: Intentionality, intentionality, intentionality. Nothing just happens at Bridgeway, everything is done for a purpose. Dale and his small groups pastor have set up a system that effectively brings people into the life of their church, develops new leaders and allows for systems feedback. My brain almost exploded during this conversation...
Dale's church is growing like weeds and he shared several stories of people that he personally brought into the life of his church. Of my close pastor-friends, I don't know anyone else who leads with the type of intentionality, discipline and constant evaluation as does Dale. They are literally taking over their county.

Shane Ash: Shane is the pastor of Lee's Summit New Beginnings. He kept pounding into my thick skull, that "new people must know the next step after showing up for worship." Shane is very big on conversation and wants to blow up the traditional model of church life (Sunday AM worship, small groups) for a structure that facilitates conversation. I'm sworn to secrecy however, so I can't share some of his way out-there ideas, but I track with his way of thinking.
Shane's an innovative thinker and is seeing some amazing Kingdom stuff happen in his church.

But I'm only impressed with good thinkers if they back it up with actions. Before dropping me back off at the church office, Shane stopped by the low-income apartment complex right next to their church building. He told me that when he first moved into New Beginnings, he knocked on every single door of that apartment complex, introducing himself as the new pastor and apologizing that he didn't know their names. He got some pretty interesting responses.
As we sat outside that complex in his van, we started getting swarmed by people, "Pastor Shane, Pastor Shane." And Shane preceded to tell me story after story of people in that complex that have given their lives to Christ over the past few months. I saw a few of them in worship that next Sunday morning. I saw some beautiful pictures of the Kingdom while hanging out with Shane.

Steve Southards: Adult Discipleship pastor at Indian Creek Community Church in Olathe. He shared with me his church's newly developed Community Groups plan. His main idea was that everything in the life of the church flows through groups. If people have a passion for starting and leading some new ministry, they start a new Community Group to make it happen. Their structure is pretty open, just asking a few simple things of their leaders.
Just like my meeting with Dale, the scope of their plan overwhelmed me. So, I asked Steve what two things he'd focus on if all the other levels and steps were eliminated. 1) Leadership development through their Leadership 101 class and 2) Continual leadership training and encouragment through Leadership Community (a small group for small group leaders).

This Sunday, our Point Team is having a work day to develop our own process for assimilation and discipleship. As I think through what I've learned, I'm pulling principles from each of those 3 churches and thinking through how we work those out in our unique context. As I met with each pastor, I realized just how unique TFC is and how grateful I am to be pastoring this church!

Love Still Wins!

I don't have much time to write because I'm about to walk out the door and head to Illinois to spend the next couple of days with a good friend, Dale Schaeffer who is the founding pastor of fast-growing church in central Illinois, Bridgeway.

But I had to get this post up so everyone could know a bit of what happened today and see the picture. For the second time since last spring, we had the privelege of again working alongside some employees from Bonita Flats at My Father's House in Paola. To be honest, I didn't lift a finger to work but I did a lot of talking! I had planned on leaving earlier but when Erin and Elizabeth were passing out the bags last night at Bonita's, a few people said they were looking forward to talking with me today, so I changed my plans so I could be there.

Just like last time, I had a good talk with Guido, the owner/ manager of Bonita's. Guido, again, affirmed me and TFC, saying I'm different than most pastors he knows and TFC is different than a lot of churches he knows. He thinks of us as so loving and trustworthy that when a co-worker kept asking him questions about God Guido told him, "I know just the person you need to talk to and just the church you should check out." Well, that guys' been to church a couple times and we're getting together soon for dinner.

Guido teaches me a lot about God's love and knowing that he trusts me and TFC to talk with a friend about God just might be the highest compliment I've ever received.

The simple truth is that Love Wins!

Let's hear a big "AMEN!"

One of the most amazing things I've ever heard. The Old Testament preachers, Isaiah, Jeremiah, and all the rest would've been proud. It made me cry; but don't worry, it was just one small tear.

Dr. Glenn Fell's trip to Africa

Glenn hasn't been around TFC for too long, so you might now know him yet, but I still wanted to share what he's going to be doing the next couple of months. I'm posting an email from Glenn detailing his upcoming trip to Africa

Hey all.... Did not want to say anything til I was sure but it is now set... I am adding a ten day trip to Kenya after my month long trip to Malawi.
A Kenyan friend, Sherry Otumwa, contacted me last week about making a side trip to her village in western Kenya. I met Sherry last year when working at the Heifer International farm in Mass. I was able to make the arrangements and I am going to make this visit. I will be teaching in two different ag schools while there and staying right in the village. I am excited about this side trip. It will set the stage for more work in Kenya next winter.
glenn

Here's a link to Glenn's organization he's starting, Jubilee Native.
Please pray for Glenn as he's on his trip. I'm excited to hear about his report when he comes back.

Some thoughts on giving and reaching the world

I just finished "Don't Waste Your Life" by John Piper (see sidebar for link). He shared some interesting thoughts related to giving and reaching the world with the message of Jesus.

Piper talked a lot about giving, which is of course something I'm passionate about. Here's a good quote from a Scottish Pastor, from 1843.
"I am concerned for the poor but more for you. I know not what Christ will say to you in the great day... I fear there are many hearing me who may know well that they are not Christians, because they do not love to give. To give largely and liberally, not grudging at all, requires a new heart; an old heart would rather part with its life-blood than its money. Oh my friends! Enjoy your money; make the most of it; give none away; enjoy it quickly for I can tell you, you will be beggars throughout eternity."

Ouch

And here's another qoute from the book:

"In 1916, Protestants were giving 2.9% of their incomes to their churches. In 1933, the depth of the Great Depression, it was 3.2%. In 1955, just after affluence began spreading through our culture, it was still 3.2%. By 2000, when Americans were over 450% richer, after taxes and inflation, than in the Great Depression, Protestants were giving 2.6% of their incomes to their churches. If members of historically Christian churches in the US were giving an average of 10% in 2000, there would have been an additional $139 billion a year going through church channels."

It's not about the percentage but the sacrifice. The percentage however, does give an accurate picture of the sacrifice. It's as clear as anything in scripture - followers of Jesus give; they give a LOT, they give until it HURTS. It's true that someone can be a generous giver while not necessarily being a Christ-follower. Jesus is very clear however, if a person isn't a giver, they aren't citizens of his Kingdom. If we're following Jesus, we'll allow him to rearragne our priorities so we become givers.

The need to support overseas work is part of what I love about being in the Church of the Nazarene. Our collection of churches, called a denomination is very effective in our overseas mission work. We're among, if not the best of all Protestant denominations.

If you support the financial element of our Growing Up Campaign, you'll be supporting the mission work of some good friends of mine, Scott and Emily Armstrong.

Come and go with me...

More info - link

My Father's House - link

The Gift of Adoption

I just finished the book, Open Adoption: My story of love and laughter. Interesting and inspiring read (see sidebar for link). There are a couple of paragraphs I wanted to get out there for everyone to read.

Often I am surprised when I hear people say, about an adopted child, "that poor girl, no wonder she had such a hard time, her mother rejected her." Or hear an adopted child say, "I will always wonder why my mother rejected me. It's ruined my whole life." People need to know, adopted children need to be taught, that for most birth mothers, giving up a baby is not an act of rejection, it is the most selfless, courageous, brave deed they can do. It is laying aside their own desires and longings, to bestow on that baby something greater and better than they can provide. For almost all birth mothers, a piece of themselves dies in that surrender, they understand that life is hard to deal with. That without both a father and a mother, financial security, a stable loving relationship, opportunities for education and culture, things that might otherwise never be within the child's reach, the child might not be able to become all God intended him to be. Never yet have I met a birth mother who thoughtlessly gave her baby away.

I am convinced that most birth mothers never "reject" their children. The birth mother does something more noble than many of us would be capable of - she sacrifices her own natural affection for her child, her own ambitions and love for her baby, hoping to give the child much more than she could give it, especially the gift of a complete family.

Will and I stood there, Taylor in my arms. We looked at Liz. How does one say "thank you"? How does one possibly grasp the magnitude of such a gift? With a mist in his eyes and passion in his voice, Will said, "Liz, we can never, ever thank you enough. We love you."
I was a mother, receiving a gift. She was a mother, bestowing it. The power of that moment and the love it held for us all will live forever, to be recalled almost daily. Never to be forgotten.
We went out into the bright, crisp spring day. Cloudless sky. Radiant sun. Flags on poles. Balloons flying through the air.
The little nursery had been waiting a long time for this one, chosen, beautiful, sacred gift.