IT'S TIME

It's hard to believe that 12 years ago this past Saturday my wonderful, beautiful, youngest child, Caitlyn was born. She has brought joy, excitement and life to our house. I can't imagine doing life without her.

As I was thinking back, I remember the night she was born, Tammie rolled over, literally, and said it's time. I jumped out of bed and began the process of getting ready to go to the hospital.

One of the the things that had to be done was to let the set of parents that was with us know that we were leaving, they were set to watch the kids. I walked into their room and whispered, "mom, dad". I did this several times, each time I increased the volume of my voice. Finally, I reached out and touched them lightly to try and wake them up. At that moment, they bolted up and let out a scream, then the other one did the same. It was one of the times in my life where I was frightened. The response from a dead sleep startled them and then startled me. This was an exciting and frightening experience.

Twelve years later, we are embarking on another experience that is both frightening and exciting. We have spent the last 4 months preparing for this Sunday. The day that ExponentialChurch.tv will be launched. In the same way that we have watched are daughter grow, mature and become a young woman, we are excited to watch EC.tv mature, grow and multiply over the next years.

HOW ABOUT YOU? Are you excited about being a part of a faith based community that you believe over the next twelve years will mature, grow and multiply? I don't know what God's plans are for the future, want to make Him laugh, tell Him your plans. But I do know that he desires to transform the world through His people, the church. CHOOSE TO BE A PART OF A REVOLUTION today.

WHAT IF ???

"What If" is one of those questions that has always inspired and motivited me in my spiritual journey. I have found that for many this is a very disturbing question. "What if" questions almost always lead to rethinking things that are comfortable for us. For example..."what if" we changed our life to truly match what Christ desires for us...."What If" we truly believed the world could be changed through the church...."What If" we did everything within our power to introduce those who are far from God to a personal relationship with God..."What If" we viewed our possessions as tools to be used for the kingdom... I could go on an on but you get the point.

This morning at church I was once again challenged with "What If". This morning it was "What If" the church truly followed Christ missional teaching and "What If" i truly lived the pattern that Jesus lived...

I don't have all the answers but I do know that my life will be changed and my leadership will be transformed as I contemplate this question. I want you to ask yourself...WHAT IF....

Tech Support For Marriage

Thought I would just throw in a funny blog from a workshop I attended last night. Enjoy.


Dear Tech Support,

Last year I upgraded from Boyfriend 5.0 to Husband 1.0 and noticed a distinct slow down in overall system performance, particularly in the flower and jewelry applications, which operated flawlessly under Boyfriend 5.0.

In addition, Husband 1.0 uninstalled many other valuable programs, such as
* Romance 9.5 and
* Personal Attention 6.5, and then installed undesirable programs such as

* NBA 5.0,
* NFL 3.0 and
* Golf Clubs 4.1.

Conversation 8.0 no longer runs, and Housecleaning 2.6 simply crashes the system.

* Please note that I have tried running Nagging 5.3 to fix these problems, but to no avail.

What can I do?

Signed,

Desperate.



DEAR DESPERATE,

First, keep in mind,
* Boyfriend 5.0 is an Entertainment Package, while
* Husband 1.0 is an operating system.

Please enter command: ithoughtyoulovedme.html and try to download Tears 6.2 and do not forget to install the Guilt 3.0update.
* If that application works as designed, Husband1.0 should then automatically run the applications Jewelry 2.0 and Flowers 3.5.

However, remember, overuse of the above application can cause Husband 1.0 to default to Grumpy Silence 2.5, Happy Hour 7.0 or Beer 6.1.
* Please note that Beer 6. 1 is a very bad program that will download the Farting and Snoring Loudly Beta.

Whatever you do, DO NOT under any circumstances install Mother-In-Law 1.0 (it runs a virus in the background that will eventually seize control of all your system resources.)

In addition, please do not attempt to reinstall the Boyfriend 5.0-program .These are unsupported applications and will crashHusband 1.0.

In summary, Husband 1.0 is a great program, but it does have limited memory and cannot learn new applications quickly. You might consider buying additional software to improve me mory and performance. We recommend
* Cooking 3.0 and
* Hot Lingerie 7.7.

Good Luck Babe!

Tech Support

21st Century New Testament Church

This past week I had the privilege of attending a church multiplication workshop. The workshop was called 21st Century New Testament Churches. Terry Broadwater shared philosophical paradigms that must shift if the church is going to be truly missional in it's struggle to reach the far from God. I want to share some of these with you.

IS YOUR PHILOSOPHY MEMBER OR MINISTRY PARTNER

Membership brings about some concepts that are just not biblical. It denotes,ownership, rights, privileges and consumerism (coming to get). Christ made it clear that we have no rights (Romans 12) and the we have come to serve...do we view our churches as places where we are a minister to everyone.

IS YOUR PHILOSOPHY MISSION PROJECTS OR MISSIONAL PEOPLE

I am not saying that mission projects are not important, but our emphasis in missions must be to build up missional people. We can spend thousands of dollars on projects and not fulfill our responsibility of training people to take seriously their responsibility to bring redemption to the world.

There were many others, but these two resonated with me. Think through other shifts that we must make in order to be a 21st Century New Testament Church.

One other challenge I received that day...

WE MUST RAISE KINGS RATHER THAN SHEPHERDS

Our ideas of Shepherds is that of someone who only cares for the sheep. Those that already have a relationship with Christ. Christ has not called us to do that, he has gifted us to that, but that alone is not our mission. Rather let us look at raisins kings. Kings know how to take cities for their master. They have a confidence, not arrogance, that allows them to attempt and accomplish great things for God. Kings view their responsibilities in light of expanding the kingdom. How are we going to train the next generation leaders.

I hope this has sparked some thinking in your mind regarding Missional Churches. Continue to think, plan and dream to make God's church the most effective possible.

Excersize by Osmosis

This morning I got up and went downstairs, my wife was hard at work exercising so I sat down and began working on my computer. She got to a new part of the video and sat down to figure out how to accomplish the kickboxing move. I looked up from my computed and laughed. Tammie asked, "can you gain muscle by watching". We got a good laugh.

I began to think about how our Christian life often resembles the question she asked. Can we become mature by just watching. We watch as someone teaches us on Sunday, we watch as others teach us at small groups, we watch as others come and tell us about there spiritual adventures, we watch as we read about others living the Christian life, we watch...

As we look at Christ example of maturity, we must do. Too often we watch and learn but never begin exercising for maturity. How much more fit will we be if we actually do what God expects. What does he expect. He expects us to begin sharing the redemptive story by our actions. These actions are intentional loving acts that will show the love of Christ as we try to tell them of the ultimate love of Christ.

Look at your life, when was the last time you actually "exercised", I am not talking about reading your Bible (although I do recommend you do that), I mean actually living out what it says, feeding the poor, caring for the widow, playing with a fatherless or motherless child, listening to the life story of the oppressed.

Begin today, find someone you can share redemptive love with and do it. You can't gain muscle by watching.

IS YOUR GOAL THE DESTINATION

The other morning my family and I took a half day hike on the Appalachian trail. The hike took us to a beautiful overlook of the valley. The hike there wasn't that hard...we were looking at the new sites, exploring, taking in the scenery and enjoying the company. We passed another hiker and had a great talk about values and what things we meditate on. We had some food we had carried in, had a great lunch enjoying the view. We loved it.

Then came the hike back...some were starting to get tired, grumpy ready to be done. We had arrived at our destination, it was more than we expected and then the journey continued. All we could think about was tired legs, rocky terrain and things in the way of getting back. For Tammie,it was fear of snakes...we saw a four to five foot snake...the boys loved it, the girls not so much. Finally after the hike back we arrived at the care ready to be done. On the journey there excitement and anticipation, the continued journey back, let down and disappointment, a hard road and a different outlook.

As contemplated on our attitudes, I realized the journey to the outlook and the journey back were the exact same trail. In fact we saw some better things on the way back...the snake, a squirrel trying to bury food and some cool insects, but the joy wasn't the same. Why? THE DESTINATION WAS OUR GOAL. I wonder how often we go through life and we get our eyes focused on the destination, getting kids through school, finishing college, promotion at work, paying the bills. We are excited when the journey takes us somewhere exciting but when the summit is met we become discontent.

What do we need to do...change our goal. Instead of the goal being the destination, what if the goal became the journey. The destinations are blessings along the way, but those are not what we strive for. What if the journey was our destination. I think we may take more joy in the little things everyday, we probably would look at each day as an opportunity to make a difference.

The Bible puts it this way..."Choose you today who you will serve..." our destination is daily choosing to follow Christ. The mountain tops are great, we love to remember them, but we must remember that we are not meant to live there and we must stop trying. Remember life is a journey...ENJOY THE JOURNEY AS MUCH AS THE DESTINATION.

What is expected of us?

I was reading this morning and the book started by asking a question similar to the one above, "What is expected of us".

Several years ago my answer would have been to "please God in everything that we do". While this is a biblically correct answer, in my mind this was easy. It only dealt with me. In my life I could please God and ignore things around me. I could do my devotions, prepare a lesson, take care of my family, be kind to those I meet and in all this I could please God.

The picture taken above was on my first trip to Hati. It was this day that changed my view of "what is expected". I stood there and watched as hundreds of kids poured into a tiny kitchen. As I was talking with them, they told me that this place was the only place that they received a quality meal. As I watched, I realized that these children would only have 5 quality meals a week.

As I begin to think about this as well as the plight of sickness, shelter, HIV, and other epidemics facing them, I could no longer just sit and think about how "I" can please God. What I must do to please God, took on a whole new meaning. God desires to use me to change poverty, malnutrishion, lonliness and the list could go on and on. Christ was the one who told us to care for for the widows, fatherless and poor. As you look at the picture, ask yourself "what are you doing to make a difference in the world". Start with you city and together we can make a differnce.