Service: Why isn't the church going? Pt. 3

Here's the third part/thought in the series on the church going out and doing acts of community service... being missional.

Why isn't the church going?

Simply put we are scared of the "other". Jesus spoke about loving our neighbor as ourselves and this neighbor represents the "other" in our lives.

Our neighbors within the context of our broader communities are often unlike us. I know that in the Dalton area (Northwest GA), particularly in the community of Dalton itself, still more particularly in the neighborhood where I and Joylene live we are surrounded by "others". Just to the left of our house is a neighborhood that is 80% Hispanic and there is no doubt that we have experienced some level of cultural difference or dissonance in our interactions with our neighbors. Jesus says to love them like we love God.

Race and the cultural difference aside there are "others" in Dalton that are less educated, blue collar, could careless about a god, promiscuous, and simply put different than we are in our and their way of life. Jesus says to love them like we love God.

The above was meant to be quick sketches of the "other" and in turn get your mind moving toward the other in your own life. Have we missed it as a body of Christ? Does this grieve God? I think yes.

When we look at the passion and life of Jesus- seeking and saving the lost, making disciples of all people- we are shamed by our persistent stance of surrounding ourselves by those that are familiar. Why? Familiar is comfortable. Familiar is safe. Familiar requires less work. The list can go on and on, however Jesus says to love them like we love God.

The idea of loving the other as we love God can be taken a step further I believe. We must love the "other" as God loves us for when we are loving our neighbor we are Christ to them. This is important and confused. When we do go we confuse loving our neighbor with "saving" them and "making them like us" thus obliterating the dissonance between their way of life and ours. It is the work of God to transform not our work.

So who is willing to follow the heart of Christ and go to our neighbors despite the fact the many are so unlike us, so different, so "other"? Is this a choice we have been given? What are you thoughts?

Praying for Our Community

In about an hour I'll be getting together with some other leaders to pray for our community! We get together and share briefly from our own lives and then pray for those of all different flavors and walks of life on Tuesdays when we aren't doing One. I look forward to this time and I honestly believe that prayer is the stuff that moves strongholds. Prayer is also one of the most difficult things to persist in over the long haul. Many of us can pray for an item on occasion but prayer extended over weeks, months, and even years is where we find out where and what our passions are all about.

I can watch a TV show each week for 40 weeks a year.
I can go to class for 14 weeks straight.
I can make it to church approximately 48 weeks a year.
I can go out on a Friday night with friends 45 weeks a year.

So why is it hard to pray 24-30 nights a year for 1 hour? Simple. Priorities.

I'm to blame too. The routine becomes boring and monotonous to us... this must change we must realize the lofty call to pray and we must make it a priority if we want to see God move in fresh and powerful ways around us.

Join us on the 2nd and 4th (occasionally 5th) Tuesday of each month to pray for our community from 7pm-8pm in downtown Dalton at the Book Nook.

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Update

This isn't meant in a legalistic way. I'm not saying God loves you more because you are prioritizing prayer, however I am stating that how we use our time says something about our hearts.
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I'm a Book Snob?

What Kind of Reader Are You? Your Result: Book Snob You like to think you're one of the literati, but actually you're just a snob who can read. You read mostly for the social credit you can get out of it.
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What Kind of Reader Are You? Create Your Own Quiz

Top 10 Ways to Fail at Being Missional

Great post I ran across by Lainie Peterson at titled as above.

Here's a few of my favorites...

9. Don’t bother becoming a “regular” at local businesses. Just shop/dine/get- your-clothes-drycleaned at whatever place has the best sales that week. If, by some unfortunate coincidence, you do become a regular at a local business, don’t get to know the owner, employees, or other patrons.

4. Avoid being “unequally yoked” with unbelievers by not engaging them in conversation, learning about their families, having lunch with them, inviting them to your home (or accepting a similar invitation), or working together to address community issues of common interest.

1. Learn every evangelistic technique, theory, and strategy out there, and work hard to perfect your practice of them, even to the neglect of every other area of your spiritual life. What does the Holy Spirit have to do with drawing people to God, anyway?

You can read the entire post here.

Losing My Religion at ONE

Here's the logo for our next series that begins on November 6th! Pretty cool I think :)

Thanks to Zach Conway!

Discipleship and Leadership

I ran across a great post on The Blind Beggar's blog today. It was more of an image than a post and I include it here.

I love this. Why?

I've been thinking a lot about discipleship lately.

I've been thinking a lot about leadership lately.

I've been thinking a lot about leadership development lately.

Yeah... this hits the nail on the head I think.

Service: Why isn't the church going? Pt. 2

In this part of the series I'm going to look at a second reason why we don't get out and serve others in our community...culture of convenience and entertainment.

It's sad but true. We are consumed with being entertained. Likewise we are consumed with that which is easy and quick. Like fast food, overnight shipping, and our many other instant gratifications in life we prefer get ours right now regardless of any loss suffered in the process (quality etc).

Don't misunderstand me I'm not anti-entertainment and the easier the better in most cases, however when we allow this thinking to spill over, as we unmistakably have, into our churches and thought life what ensues is movement that only moves when it is ME or I centered. This shift from the other to ourselves is just plain wrong. When we become so consumed with what's in it for us and how convenient x or y will be we lose sight of the calling. Christ called us as his body, and is still calling us as a body, to go out and connect with the lost, the hurting, the downtrodden, the poor, the sick, the least of these.... the list goes on, however it's clear that we as a community of faith must put aside our culture of entertainment and turn our hearts... our hands... our ears... our resources... toward those that Christ so treasured.

We can't allow Christ to be mis-represented as some form of an entertainment based, culturally convenient slot machine for upper middle class Americans that have far more than they, we, I need. We need to get off our butts and act. It won't be convenient and it won't be entertaining, however it will be Christ centered.

Willow Creek and Programs

Something amazing has happened... if you read my post below about the fact that we attempt to replace going for drawing people with programs... found here... this will interest you. Willow Creek Community Church, yea the Willow Creek, the church that does programs like no other is wiping the slate clean and realizing that programs aren't working anymore.

All I can say is Wow!

In Christianity Today's Blog a post titled Willow Creek Repents? covers the story... here's a few highlights:

The church creates programs/activities. People participate in these activities. The outcome is spiritual maturity.

and what's more..

Speaking at the Leadership Summit, Hybels summarized the findings this way:

Some of the stuff that we have put millions of dollars into thinking it would really help our people grow and develop spiritually, when the data actually came back it wasn’t helping people that much. Other things that we didn’t put that much money into and didn’t put much staff against is stuff our people are crying out for.

and finally...

Hybels confesses:

We made a mistake. What we should have done when people crossed the line of faith and become Christians, we should have started telling people and teaching people that they have to take responsibility to become ‘self feeders.’

This is huge in my opinion. Props to Willow Creek for realizing they missed it! I'm excited about the direction the church seems to moving!

Any thoughts about this article?

Again here's the link to the article.

Prayer and Commitment

I thought I would take a moment to highlight the fact that we are still getting together on Tuesday Nights (the 2nd and 4th of the month) to pray for our community, for each other, and for Matthew's Table.

It's laid back and we simply chat a bit, support/encourage each other, and pray.

We often underestimate the power of prayer. God has called us to be people of prayer. Prayer doesn't provide a platform for our acceptance before God... that is coming on Tuesdays will NOT make you more spiritual or "right" in God's eyes. However, God has chosen prayer as a central vehicle to get things accomplished in our world. Prayer is not an additive it is the fuel.

Join us at the Book Nook in downtown Dalton at 7pm on the 2nd and 4th Tuesdays of the month.

Monday Night Guys Group

I had a great time last night at our Monday Night Guys Community Group! I love it when a group begins to gel and get to know one another as we can really begin to get real with each other. I felt that we have hit our stride in that way.

Last night the time of sharing was real and authentic... almost uncensored. Speaking for myself I can say that it's the first group since our move to Dalton that I've been totally open with about my own life and struggles.

There's a freedom that comes from leaning on others. It provides vision and strength to live and walk with God. It provides a context for growth.

If you haven't experienced the power of groups I want to encourage you to get involved!

Service: Why isn't the church going? Pt. 1

Over the past few months I've been asking this question in conjunction with a series in my head and thinking aloud with others. Why has the American church, as a whole, become so lazy? Why do we not go? While I have no definitive response, tongue in cheek I'm sure that sup rises some, I feel my thinking has provided some ideas worthy of blogging. So here's the first in a series of posts:

No Vision- We lack a vision for service. Simple and to the point. Our churches have maintained a build it and they will come mentality. We believe that creating a great worship environment, putting on a great basketball league for our kids... we believe, wrongly, it's about programs and more professional leadership. These things aren't terrible in and of themselves, however over time we have lost the vision to "seek and save the lost" we have lost the concept of casting that vision to others. Perhaps more importantly our leaders have lost the capacity to lead out with that vision, simply put our leaders are not leading in this important area of service. The result is that our churches are bloated with content and weak from a lack of participation in that faith. FAITH IS NOT AN EXERCISE OF CONTENT. Our faith was always meant for to be lived out in the world and not within a bubble. We must begin to fan a vision for local community service, not because it will grow our churches (it may) but because it's the RIGHT THING TO DO.

How can you help cast a vision for community service? It may be as simple as smiling and going to do it.

Over the next few days I'm going to explore this topic by discussing: the concept of the other, our culture of convience and entertainment, the fact that reaching out can be hard work, we may see no immediate return, and finally the call of God.

Just for Laughs

I found this cartoon very funny on Movin' On (my father-in-laws blog). Obviously it's intended toward a pastor, however isn't this they most of us feel?


I struggled to find a link for the artist, however it looks like it's by a guy named Erik Johnson. Thanks for the laugh Erik.

Dave Anderson on Church Planting

Great post that has me pumped by Dave Anderson, aka the Movie Pastor (to your left), dubbed the 21 Irrefutable Laws of Church Planting. My disclaimer is this... I'm not planting a church... but the idea of starting a ministry from the ground up has a lot of overlap, in which I am neck deep! Here's a few of the points that Dave makes that really hit me and pumped me up!

• Planting a church from scratch is the hardest thing imaginable. Even "successful" planters will tell you if you can do anything else besides plant - do it.
• Most of what they teach you in seminars, books and bootcamps is crap and wont work in your context.
• It does not matter how good your service is if your systems suck - take that to the bank.
• Sunday happens every seven days once you launch. Do NOT get in a hurry to launch.
• At some point you will have to stop emulating your role models and be who God wired you up to be and do what God called you to do.

I felt understood and known in this post!

The Difference a Year Makes

I guess I could have said the difference a year or two makes! I was inspired to post by my friend Matt Evans over at Rock Bridge Community Church! He's doing, or alluding toward doing, a series of posts on remembering the last 5 years of growth in ministry.

In the last year we have accomplished some awesome things at Matthew's Table... here's a few:

• One, which wasn't in existence last year, has been going for over 9 months!
• We've tripled our Community Group ministry!
• Joylene Green is focused on groups as our Community Group Coordinator!
• We've incorporated Matthew's Table as a non-profit 501(c)3!
• We joined forces with Simple Fool!
• We weren't raising up nearly as many leaders! We have a training for 21 this weekend!
• Our contact email list only contained 60 names!

While those are some nifty facts and definitely worthy of celebrating what I'm really excited about is the fact that we are seeing people get it. I, along with other leaders, hear stories of you guys getting it! People are following God, sloppy and difficult as it is, and struggling for more than just mere dead religion! I'm excited that people are confronting sin, dealing with addictions, walking together in the life! God is working in our lives and I can honestly say I have personally grown a ton this year!

Wow! I wonder what the next 12 months will hold?!

Losing My Religon

I'm really excited to announce that we'll be doing a three part series in November and early December called Losing My Religion! God is going to do some amazing things in our lives during this important series of messages. We'll be talking about Religion and how Jesus hates it! We'll be talking about and defining what Religion looks like in the context of following and living out our faith! We'll be talking about petty traditions that prevent us from the purity of following Christ! We'll be talking about the true mission of God for our lives and how this is distinguished from Religion!

Don't miss this series... mark your calendars... better yet BRING and INVITE like crazy! This series has the potential to create major waves in our community so let's get a great turn out on the following dates!

November 6th
November 20th
December 4th

The logo will be up in a few days and we'll have Invites for you next week!

Community Group Training

Joylene has been working very hard on our Community Group leadership training that's happening this weekend. We will be training the next wave of Community Group lead teams! I'm looking forward to the day as I've had the chance to work beside Joylene, our Community Group Coordinator, over the last few weeks. I believe we are putting a solid training together using a variety of resources.

We'll be dealing with the following:

• Vision and Place of Community Groups in Matthew's Table
• A Process for Starting Community Groups
• Skills Needed for Community Group Leadership

After the training Joylene and I will be providing on going training/coaching for the co-leaders of each group via one on one and triads.

Good stuff going on for MT's Community Groups!

25% of Young Adults Love It!

Ever since this study came out, which states that some 70-80% of 18-22 year olds drop out of church, I've been doing some thinking. Well that's part of the truth. When the study came out I thought of course--these results are obvious, clear, given if you work with young adults; however as the time passed a connection has been stirring or forming.

Some background. One, our connection point service, began on fire last February with around 150 or so attending... great start with so little marketing... right? Yeah. Follow me. The numbers began declining in May but no biggie we were still hitting around 100 or so, however as the summer dragged on our decline has continued. Enter the study stage right. I recognized it but made little connection. The most pertinent recognition(s) was/were as follows:

• 70 percent of young adults ages 23-30 stopped attending church regularly for at least a year between ages 18-22
• Six of the top 10 reasons church dropouts leave relate to life changes. The most frequent reason for leaving church is, in fact, a self-imposed change, "I simply wanted a break from church" (27 percent).

Ok. We geared up for the Fall! Switching our once a month One, connection point, to twice a month hoping to create continuity and the ability to launch series of messages. In addition we spent some change doing some formal marketing of this first Fall kickoff. We pulled it off pretty well and things went without a hitch for the most part.

Hang in there with me we are moving somewhere... now it's mid-October and our numbers have turned south in the range of 60-70 each service (120-140/month). Naturally myself and some of our leaders began to feel discouraged and think what are we doing wrong? We are putting on a pretty good service, however we just aren't getting a turn out.

We didn't freak out rather we encouraged one another and began to brainstorm. Here's the most probable course:

1. Market More
2. Focus on the College More
3. Emergent Style Interactive Service (wholesale change)
4. Experiential Worship
5. Don't ask them to come go to them
6. No we need to do what we are doing better
7. etc

That's just an example of course... then my being slow got it.

We're creating a worship environment that, although lacking in some respects, is pretty darn good considering where we are in the process. I believe my teaching is relevant, interesting, and dang funny at times. Simple Fool plays a style of worship music that's "relevant" and not your parents music. However, it looks, smells, tastes... it experiences like a church. We aren't a church but it's a service like a church service. So 70-80% of young adults are leaving the church and we seeking to connect them to community (our primary goal) create a non-church version that is church look alike. No wonder we are drawing the 20-30% we were initially seeing.

I'm not ready to "jump ship" obviously as our Community Groups are growing and what we are doing we are doing well. So how do we "do" church in a running from church context?

Well that served primarily one purpose... getting those thoughts off my chest.

Comments? Suggestions? Input?

One... 10/16/07

Tomorrow we will be rolling out another One with Bobby McGraw... Simple Fool... Starbucks Coffee... and some lovin'

Be there at 7:30pm in downtown Dalton (across from the big Wachovia) corner of Gordon and Hamilton Streets.

Travis Johnson on Church Staffing

Great post by Travis Johnson today about the dynamics associated with Staffing a team. I've just picked up his blog lately and have liked what I'm reading.

Travis points out 8 guiding principles he has learned over the years in professional and ministry contexts... here's a taste.

• Never discuss internal team challenges outside the circle of the team. It breaks down team and undermines trust. If you break this rule, you create defensiveness and undermine transparency on the team.
• Be direct. Churches are famous for beating around the bush. Get to the point and leave no room for guess work. Honest assessments are necessary, even when it reflects negatively on the team, an individual, or on yourself.
• Have fun. Work like crazy and every now and then, take breaks together.

Follow this link and get the full story. Thanks Travis.

Out of Town for a Few Days

Joylene and I will be hitting the road on Friday and heading down to the Atlanta area for a friends wedding and some needed rest and relaxing time in the city. I'll be out of commission until Monday Night at our guys community group, which I love and wouldn't miss for anything.

While in Atlanta we'll be visiting a few churches and doing some "how others do church looking". I was a little bummed that few to none of the more progressive Emergent churches aren't "doing church" on Saturday or Sunday. I guess we will need to settle for the "church growth" style of doing church and check out Mountain Lake in Cummings and North Point in Alpharetta. Both of these are great churches and I've not seen either in action on a Weekend, however we were hoping for a mind expanding experience... I jest.

take care

Paul Joseph and Theology Thursday

Paul Joseph, Cries of the Heart, has written a short insightful post about the problem of money (greed) and the church.

You can read his meanderings here.


My question is this... at what point do pastors, evangelists, etc believe the are entitled to a 200,000 dollar anything. In the case posted above that 200,000 dollars is going toward a "threshing floor" for prayer. This really bothers me to say the least... actually it pisses me off. The Kingdom of God could use that 200,000 dollars in a much more useful way.... here's just a few: poverty within our communities, counseling for those that need it, shelters for the homeless, or better yet why not some educational programs for those listed above?

Does this burn you as much as it does me?

Thanks for the post Paul!

Innovate Videos are Online Now

There's a great resource that I was made aware of via Scott Hodge... Innovate 2007 Videos are up online here.

There's lots up on the link but here's the main sessions:

Watch Innovate Sessions:
Session I | Guy Kawasaki Session II | Mark Beeson Session IV | Tim Stevens Session V | Rob Wegner	Session VIIa | Troy Gramling Session VIIb | Scott Hodge Session VIII | Mark Beeson

One with Bobby McGraw

Next Tuesday Oct. 16th at 7:30pm

Bobby McGraw will be speaking at One with a solo message and you can't miss it!


Check him out for those that don't know him at www.bobbymcgraw.com!

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Mastering the Magic of Love

Yea so Joylene and I had the opportunity to participate in a marriage enrichment training (it can also be used with singles and such) put on by the Northwest GA Marriage Initiative. They have as a purpose to raise the awareness of the importance of marriage. This takes the form of providing resources and educational tools to the area and thereby strengthen marriages and lower the divorce rate.

It was exciting to rub shoulders with others in attendance: Scott Rhoden of Compassion House, Ann Kuzniak of the Whitfield County Family Connections, a group of various pastors, Kathy Schleier, and Sherry Dixon a LPC in Dalton. I was encouraged that God is doing a lot in our area and the Initiative put a great group together to go out as trainers over the next year.

Did I mention the training was free? I love free. I love learning. Thanks Kathy. Sort of free anyway... as alluded to above we got to participate for free IF we give the 8 hour training twice in the next calendar year. Joylene and I will plan to do so in the next few months.

The curriculum is based on RE (relationship enhancement theory see Ideals of Kentucky for more info) and was called Mastering the Magic of Love (that wasn't my cheesy titled). It was more of a skills learning curriculum than a here are your answers training. We dealt with empathizing with others, expressing ourselves, handling conflict/problems, and how to create new habits... etc etc. Our trainer was awesome... thanks Mary Ortwein.

It's great stuff.

A Tribute to Porn Sunday

It's not the most subtle approach but it has it's merit...

Walk a Mile in Their Shoes?

Yea you really should head over to Church Marketing Sucks and check out one of their current series dealing with a Visitors Perspective of the Church.

Here's what they are doing...

9 part series (they've done 7 so far)
The essential idea is that "many churches have forgotten what it's like to go to a church for the first time."
They contend, and I agree, that this causes some basic mishaps/mistakes in most churches.
Thus by exposing some of our mistakes and mishaps we can learn.

Church From a Visitor's Perspective: A 9-Part Series

• A Visitor's Perspective: An Embarrassing Problem
• A Visitor's Perspective: The Welcoming Paradox
• A Visitor’s Perspective: Watch your Language!
• A Visitor's Perspective: Verbose Nomenclature
• A Visitor's Perspective: I Must Be in the Front Row!
• A Visitor’s Perspective: One is the Loneliest Number

I know ... I know... we all know this stuff is important and we nod our heads, but really it's important and the church, ummm that's you, we are missing the boat on this and you really must go read this series and then give it some actual thought.

I would love to hear about some of your experiences with churches? or thoughts on this series?

Flower Dust and Anne Jackson

If you guys haven't been turned on to Anne Jackson you need to make way over to her blog, add it to your bookmarks (or join the 21st century and add it to bloglines) and begin keeping up with her.

Anne has a powerful story... not because its so new... but because she is telling it! The ladies/gals don't like to talk about porn, but Anne is doing just that on her blog and through relevant magazine.

Here are some links for you:

Mad Church Disease
Flower Dust (the blog)
Article 1: Dirty Girls the New Porn Addicts
Article 2: Emotional Affair

By the way Anne will be speaking in Decatur, Alabama on October 7th at Crosspoint Community Church led by Dave Anderson (get well Dave). It would be well worth your drive to go check them out on Porn Sunday.

Need Community?

This will definitely be used in the near future :)

And yes... Community Groups are sweet!



UPDATE TO POST 10/7/07

It appears that God Tube has removed this clip and it's not on You Tube yet... bummer.

Intimacy Part 4 Wrap Up

We had a good crowd on Tuesday Night and there seemed to be energy in the air. Simple Fool did a great job of leading us into worship with a powerful worship set! Great job guys!

Part 4 deal with Intimacy with Others or Intimacy: You, Me, and Them. In part 3 we dealt with Real Intimacy or Intimacy with God (loving God)... Tuesday was all about loving others.

I began the message with a recap of the series and a simple welcome.

• Intimacy Issues-- we all have them!
• The components of Intimacy

Relationship/Connectedness
Authenticity/Openness
Trust/Safety
Being fully known/Accepted

• The main point for the night: God's has provided Relationship with Others as the way for you to get your legitimate needs met!

I spoke about the fact that God is passionate about our being in relationship with others in two rivers of thought: 1) Seeking and Fostering these Relationships and 2) Maintaining these Relationships.

Seeking and Fostering Relationship with Others

• We must be intentional
• We must be willing to take the first step or respond to a first step.
• I told the story of a "sitter and complainer" ... woe is me nothing to do in Dalton, Dalton Sucks, etc etc.
• We discussed the fact that many of us have been hurt by others in relationship and what to do with that hurt. How to deal with it.
• I talked about the practical side of things and spoke toward having Islands of interest where we can connect with Others (Community Groups through Matthew's Table are a great place).
  
• I provided a illustrative view of a healthy relationships progression (I'll stick it up in a few days).

Maintaining Relationships with Others

• I compared the importance of maintaining our relationship with god from Part 3 to the importance of doing so with Others.
• We thought about forgiveness and the reciprocal nature of giving ourselves to others in this way... it's powerful!
• I told some stories of unmaintained relationships in my own life from middles school to the present.
• We talked about the practicality of maintaining relationships of this sort and what that looks like. It's work that requires boundaries and regularity in contact between people.

Recap/Conclustion

I closed the topic with a few comments on the main idea for the night, namely that God has provided Relationship with Others as a way for us to get our legitimate needs met (being appreciated, being heard, being loved, being touched etc etc).

We showed the Lifehouse Everything Skit here to tie the entire series together and encouraged everyone to find themselves in the skit.

Intimacy: You, Me, and Them

We will be finishing up our series on Intimacy tonight... don't miss it.

Join us in Downtown Dalton at 7:30pm!