what do you do when they won’t come to you?

one of the things the Family Life team has been wrestling with over the last year is - how do we expose our ministries to more kids/students who don’t currently attend our weekly ministry events?  we’ve decided that no matter how great of an event we provide on a weekly basis (and we do provide great events), that not every child between the ages of 0-18 will participate in our ministries. we can have the hippest speakers, rockinest band, best facility, biggest budget, etc.. and the truth is not every kid/student will come to us.

we’re not satisfied with that. with a goal of reaching as many as possible for the Kingdom, we are beginning to focus on getting outside the walls of the church and into the community.

here’s just a few things we’ve been up to:

• this afternoon our team will be kicking off red ribbon week at Lake Travis Middle School with a drug awareness presentation to over 800 middle school students. we have to walk the line between church/state, but the opportunity was too great to pass up.  Matt Williams our middle school director will be speaking and our LHC band will be playing.
• our high school ministry, under the direction of Kirk Gentzel, felt the need to start an additional weekly Bible study/discussion. the decision was to have it outside the walls of the church and meet in a public place. you can catch them at Paciugo’s on Monday nights for some Jesus and java (or gellato if that’s’ your thing).
• yours truly was selected to participate in Leadership Lake Travis. this is a regular monthly gathering of a select group of parents/leaders in the community who meet with the district superintendent and the elected school board to gain a better understanding of key issues facing the district and to offer support.

here’s the bottom line – it can’t be about getting as many people to come see you and your event. that’s only half the strategy. we have to go and meet people on their turf.

how about your team? what are you doing to get outside the church and into the community? seriously, we want to know so we can get better at this.

the other day i was reading the paper and there was an article about a recent mishap regarding Billy Graham. as i recall, i think he had taken a spill at home. anyway, my 12 year old son was sitting next to me and it dawned on me that he might not know anything about Billy Graham, crusades, or revivals.

this conversation reminded me of my Southern Baptist childhood and the church’s annual revival.  in the church world, a revival is a 3-4 day series of worship services designed to inspire active members and to gain new converts typically using a well-known speaker (and worship leader) to make the event “special”.  

i think what i enjoyed most as a teenager was the adventure that came with the thrill of the unknown that revivals brought with them. what was the speaker going to be like?  would he inspire me?  would i like the worship leader?  would my life change in some way?  would i learn something new about my faith?  would a friend i had invited come to know the Lord as his Savior?

call me corny, but i love revivals. 

i wonder why we don’t do them anymore?

i need a revival. who’s with me?

here’s the best of the unusual search terms used to find this blog in the month of september:

• what is the size of appendics when surge
• elder picture eating lunch
• facebook alexander sept 2008 grand canyo
• what have you done today chorch hill jun
• doing church alexander venter
• golf moron

i know, i know. a few weeks ago i agreed to bow out of discussing politics on this blog, but i am thinking i might just ”write in” mark cuban (yes, that mark cuban. owner of the dallas mavericks) for president. mark has been writing shrewdly in regards to the pending bailout package.

i have followed his blog for over a year now and my assessment is that he is a very smart individual. not lucky or fortunate as some have suggested.

check out some of these posts for some great info on the government’s proposed bailout plan:

• 700 Billion bailout? Ebay it!
• After the bailout – Can the bankers who caused the mess fix it?
• The Botox Bailout Q & A
• The Bailout question that must be asked before passage

For that matter, do yourself a favor and just subscribe to the RSS feed of his blog – here. You won’t regret it.

great blog post on the seven ways inspiring leaders communicate from “The Practice of Leadership” blog.

http://www.thepracticeofleadership.net/2008/09/28/seven-ways-inspiring-leaders-communicate/

this post really resonates with me. i want to be an inspiring leader.

how about you?

is your glass half empty or half full?

The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full.  John 10:10

a glass half empty or half full is still half a glass.

along with other big changes at LHC in recent weeks, our middle school ministry has recently made some major changes as well.

the smallest change was the name. from Quake, to Aftershock. we felt a name change was needed since the changes were so drastic. we wanted the new event to have a new name so it would not be associated with the old one. maybe not necessary, but you have to admit, Aftershock is a cool name.

the biggest change was moving from sunday mornings to wednesday evenings. under the leadership of Matt Williams, we outgrew the meeting space at The Warehouse. we noticed a disturbing trend that whenever we experienced a sunday at max capacity, attendance would drop in the weeks following. with a goal of reaching as many students as possible, this just didn’t sit well with our team. our only option was to move the ministry to a time and place we could use the worship center. wednesday’s just seemed to make sense.

the move off of sunday to wednesday has also allowed for more time with students. on sunday’s were limited to one hour. we have expanded our time on wednesday evening to two and half hours. the doors open at 6:00 for an hour of hang time, pizza, tutoring, basketball, skateboarding, crab soccer, foursquare, etc… the kids are eating it up (pun intended). at 7:00 we start our worship/teaching time. then at 8:00 we wrap it up with small group time before dismissing at 8:30.

you want to know the greatest part? there have been 48 brand new students come through our doors that have never attended before. i would venture to say that most (if not all) of them would never have attended on a sunday morning.

i’m just so thankful to be a part of a church community that allows us to take chances on changes.

if you know a middle schooler in the austin area that needs a place to belong, you will find us every wednesday night at 6:00 in the worship center doing our best to reach students in the city of Austin and beyond.

Matt has his own thoughts on the changes HERE.

in our first leadership lyceum the other day, the topic of “becoming vs. doing” briefly entered the discussion.  even though this is a leadership subset of the family life team whose responsibilities include an excellent execution of ministry, the purpose of our weekly gathering is to focus on character issues and who we are becoming in Christ, as opposed to what we are accomplishing in our respective ministry areas.  we don’t talk about ministry attendance, volunteer recruitment or retention, etc…  we talk about character integrity and who we are at the core.

i have a belief that just as form should follow function from a design perspective, that doing should follow becoming.

see, the world defines us by what we do, but God’s Word centers on who we are in Christ (a new identity) and tells us to express this new identity in what we do.  make no mistake that becoming and doing are clearly interrelated, but the Biblical order is critical.  what we do should flow out of who we are.  otherwise, our worth and identity are determined by our accomplishments. the trouble with that is that once we stop performing, we cease to be valuable to ourselves or the organization. if you answer the question, “Who are you?” by what you do, the world has a sobering way of responding with “What have you done for me lately?”

the parable of the vine and branches (John 15:1-10) is a great reminder that to accomplish things for the kingdom we must be consistently in relationship with, and abiding in Christ. as a matter of fact, these verses seem to imply that if focus on becoming (abiding), that there is no limit to our doing.

i believe with all my heart this team is on the verge of something spectacular. not because of what we will do (or God through us), but because He will honor who we are becoming.

stay tuned.

for more on leadership development, you should attend this conference:

a little shout out. the family life team that God allows me to be a part of may be the most selfless team on the planet. 

• as i type this, our early childhood director Laurie Byington, is standing outside in the heat serving up pizza to our middle school students as a volunteer. 
• in addition, our middle school director Matt Williams volunteers faithfully every Sunday night at our weekly high school event.
• our assistant early childhood director, Denise Grosch, is a volunteer leader in our DivorcecCare ministry.  
• Kirk Gentzel (high school director) and his wife Kerra volunteer every week with our middle school ministry. 
• my favorite example is Doug Connolly, our assistant elementary school director, staying every Sunday night and volunteering to help with our elementary school kids during our adult Core Classes.

each of them have responsibilities in their specific areas of ministry that they must tend to everyday and for which they collect a paycheck. and yet, they volunteer additional hours to other areas of ministry.

they understand, practice, and appreciate that there is no “i” in team.

go team.

so, my blog post on politics the other day (here) ignited more of a firestorm than i anticipated. seems that some (most) of you interpreted my comments as an endorsement for a candidate that you did not want me to vote for and felt the need to “correct” my line of thinking. 

a brave few of you dared to leave me public comments. others of you sent me email “behind the scenes” or talked to me in private. 

i appreciate the love. i really do. i am glad to know that I have friends that care enough to speak up.

however i also learned a lesson: never discuss politics at the dinner table (or on your blog).

i realize that as a pastor who is part of a local community of believers, that comments and discussions on this blog might be scene as speaking on behalf of the entire community. while it’s true that these are my personal thoughts and feelings, it’s too difficult to separate them from others that i represent.

so, in the spirit of not causing any dissension, i’ll leave the politics to others.

shalom.