In the next 5 minutes and over the next year

HT whoami?

We've been trying. Trying to step out on faith into what God is doing around the world. Trying to make a difference as a small group of people wanting to see the world change, to "Do Something!" Trying to shine a light into dark places in our neighborhood and around the world. And last year we saw God bless our efforts.

But... after watching that video one thing is obvious.

We need to do more. To do that, we need more people. More people who love Jesus and love people and want to change the world. More partners here at New Hope and more sister churches involved in sharing the love of Jesus with the poor and those in need.

We're praying for God to send those partners our way, but we're not waiting for them to show up. We're going out after them. Our outreach plan for this year is the most aggressive ever, and the ministry we'll be able to look back on at year's end will literally save lives around the world. Conversations that we are going to have with people about what God is doing and how they can get involved are going to call them to come and follow Jesus too.

Can I ask a favor of all you who will read this?

Would you pray for us as we go and serve?

We can't let the world continue to be like it was the last five minutes.

From Outsiders To Insiders

“Don’t be afraid!” he said. “I bring you good news that will bring great joy to all people.11 The Savior—yes, the Messiah, the Lord—has been born today in Bethlehem, the city of David!12 And you will recognize him by this sign: You will find a baby wrapped snugly in strips of cloth, lying in a manger.”
13 Suddenly, the angel was joined by a vast host of others—the armies of heaven—praising God and saying,
14 “Glory to God in highest heaven,
and peace on earth to those with whom God is pleased.”
Luke 2:10-14 (NLT)

Christmas is coming again.

The Greatest Story ever told will go largely unheard or unremembered as Americans focus on buying things they don't need with money they don't have and giving gifts to people they don;t even like. How can we get our story noticed among the cacophony of sounds and competing stories? Is it enough just to retell of Messiah's coming, or do we need more?

How can we be most effective - like the angels that first Christmas - at bringing outsiders like the shepherds - inside?

We're going to try something very different.



Let It Be Christmas - A story told by Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, Paul, George and Ringo.

The idea is to take people from the secular - those experiences, feelings, and preferences we all have and share in common - to the Sacred - to the wonder, the mystery, and the grace-filled gift that is the Incarnation. To get them close enough to hear more this Christmas than Radio Shack jingles. To introduce them again to just what the Advent of Christ means.

Each week we would use a Beatles song prior to worship to set the tone and the message would follow a specific theme suggested by that song.

* Week one - Nothin's Gonna Change My World
* Week two - All The Lonely People
* Week three - I Believe In Yesterday
* Week four - You Say You Want A Revolution

Let me say upfront that there will be a clear explanation of the gospel every week and a call to come to Christ just as we always do. We won't water anything down. I think the effect of using the secular to highlight the sacred will do just the opposite.

And if we will invite our friends, if our youth will invite their friends, maybe people who have never really heard the true meaning of Christmas might draw near to Christ.

Outsiders to insiders. That's good news.

This Isn't Rocket Science

It's easy to dismiss the smaller church today. The rise of the mega church, not just the big church - these are small cities - grabs all the attention and makes most all of the noise. With their names and their pastor's names legends around the evangelical watercooler, those of us who work in smaller churches could suffer from inferiority complexes. Granted, I've written before about the "Walmart Effect" that the mega has on smaller churches around it - kind of like "that's no moon, it's the deathstar!" But today I'm here pounding away to say we've got much bigger fish to fry.

A recent book, The American Church in Crisis, by David T. Olson reports these

1) Less than 20% of Americans regularly attend church - half of what the pollsters report. There are approximately 330,000 churches in America; out of those churches approximately 17.7% (52 million) of Americans attend church on an average Sunday.
2) American church attendance is steadily declining.

* Evangelical 9.2%
* Catholic 5.5%
* Mainline 3.1%

3) Only one state is outpacing its population growth. Hawaii.
4) Mid-sized churches are shrinking; the smallest and largest churches are growing.

* Churches under 50 and over 2,000 are growing
* Average attendance of Protestant church: 124
* 1,250 mega-churches in America/one emerges every three days

5) Established churches, 40-190 years old - are, on average, declining. New church starts reach more people better, faster, cheaper than existing churches.
6) The increase in churches is only ¼ of what's needed to keep up with population growth.

* 3,000 churches close every year
* 3,800 new church starts survived
* Net annual gain: 800 new churches
* Net annual gain needed to keep up with population growth:10,000 new churches

7) In 2050, the percentage of the U.S. population attending church will be almost half of what it was in 1990.

* US Population in 1990: 248 million/20.4% church attendance
* US Population in 2050: 520 million/11.7% church attendance

Chew on that for a while. Then come back and tell me why your church doesn't need to change.

I read this obituary yesterday, written by a pastor. Only he doesn't know it is one.

My church is a small congregation with the average age probably in the mid to latter-fifties. They enjoy singing hymns and when I have provided an alternative it has not been well received. They have indicated that they would like to attract younger couples with children to the church but are not totally open to doing a few things different to attract this age group.

Here's what happens.

I was in a church like yours about 25 years ago. My husband and I were the young folks they wanted to keep but we left. They said that they welcomed young couples but treated us like young children. They never considered any of our suggestions because they didn't want to change. Out of the couple hundred hymns in the Hymnal, they sang the same few of them, week after week. No one would sing if it was a new song. They are very nice folks. They are kind and faithful. But we wanted to improve and grow.

In this case, the couple left and found a church that welcomed people of all ages, that listened to them, and that ministered to all ages and intentionally changed to reach people that weren't just like them.

But not all of those who leave try again. Then there are the countless others who never even think of entering a church. Lost? They don't even know what it is they are missing. What they need are friends who will take the time to invest their time into the relationship. To listen far more than talk. To be there to live out the Way. To be ready to give an answer with gentleness and respect.

We need followers of Jesus who gather for worship and help understanding what Jesus wants them to do who then scatter and live those instructions out in their everyday lives. Who do more together than they could ever do separately and who look for ways to partner with other Christians to do even more. Who will be salt to flavor the communities and workplaces in which they live, and light for others to see the way home by.

This is not rocket science. But it is mission critical.

Are you in?

Dinner and a Movie - Which Movies?

I am so tempted. :)

So we're walking up to the idea I had of doing a neighborhood movie night. It's still evolving thanks to the ideas you guys have given and some we've received from the folks at New Hope. Mark Edwards (G'Day mate) suggested we do it outside to cut the church "cheese" factor out for the unchurched. Working on that possibility from a logistical POV.

But more to the point, what movies?

I've been looking at some websites for ideas.

Christianity Today has lists for different groups of people.

For Families
For Adults
For Teens
The Ten Most Redeeming Films According To CT

Again, keeping with the "Clarity" principle of "Simple Church", we here need to decide how far on the scale are we going to place this effort. If it's early on the Outreach scale, then we are building relationships and sowing spiritual thoughts. If later, we are adding discussion over dessert about those spiritual thoughts, and probably using more "edgy" movies.

Mark's point about moving it outside of church would move it farther along even if nothing else changed I would think.

Suggestions? Ideas?

Crazy Idea #3287

We have "game night" once a month here, where the kids and some adults get together and play board games against one another. It's not fun having a 7 year old whip you at Yahtzee. Don't ask me how I know.

What if we got several copies of a PC based game like Cesear 2, or Rise of Nations and had a lan party as well? Might bring in some others in this technologically savvy part of the world. We got engineers on top of engineers here.

Ooooh - we could buy 10 copies of F-15 Strike Eagle or F-16 Falcon and get one of the pilots from the base over here and teach them some humility. :)

Or get some Ranger Camp instructors over to play us in America's Army.

If we did the latter, we could publicize it and maybe get a bunch of folks and build some goodwill with military units here. Awesome people, doing a great job who don't get told "thank you" near enough.

Of course with my game prowess, I'll be over with the elementary school kids playing Trouble, or maybe "Operation".

Whatcha' think?

Crazy Idea #... the next one

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As you can see, Valparaiso sits alongside the Bayous off of Choctawhatchee Bay, which is itself behind the barrier islands that Destin etc sit on. On Boggy and again on Tom's Bayou, the city has established parks (Lincoln and Florida). These have beaches and are very popular public areas all year round. They have cookout facilities, rest rooms, and pavilions for use by groups.

Once spring begins, we have teams that go down on Saturday and give away snocones. We get to bless the community and meet people we otherwise wouldn't. Not very effective in terms of drawing people here. What we'd like to do is have worship down there once a month during the summer. And to do that in conjunction with a free BBQ cookout party. We'd bring in a musical group, have them do their thing, I could do a brief devotional talk at some point. Idea again is to establish a presence away from the doors, and meet people who aren't already here.

We are looking at buying a "kitchen trailer" to aid in this. It has a stove, two sinks, a refrigerator, and a canopy to serve under. We'd pull it up down there and roll out a generator and cook with propane. Probably give away hotdogs and hamburgers as well as our usual snocones.

We would also use the "kitchen trailer" to aid groups in raising funds, as well as in disaster relief work should that prove necessary again.

So the idea is: worship and cookout in the park once a month on Sunday afternoon/evening - free to the public. Purchase a trailer to aid in that and in other outreaches and ministry.

Sound crazy? Help me think through it.

Crazy Idea #3285

We have people who love to cook, and people who love to eat, and people who like to watch movies.

There are people who share all those traits who are not part of the New Hope family of Christ followers.

What if we offered "Dinner & a Movie" once a month and had our cooks prepare a meal, our nursery and children's folks do their stuff, and show a movie with dessert after so people could mingle and we could make some friends?

Crazy?

A Dangerous Time - This Easter

Bob Hyatt issues a timely reminder today.

Look, I'm not saying we shouldn't take advantage of increased visitor attendance and preach the Gospel and hope that God does something amazing in people's lives...

I'm just saying that if that's your strategy- wait for someone to wander within range of your Gospel cannons and then fire on them in hopes of scoring a hit, or worse yet, doing some cool things in the hopes that they might be lured within range, then I think there a better way. Less defined, less able to be controlled by the pastors, less able to brag about at pastor's conferences or have a book written about it... but better. People loving people into your community and into relationship with Jesus.

It doesn't take mailers, banners, and Cirque Du Soleil every week. Just a bunch of loving, welcoming Christ followers. People who genuinely care. People who are seeking relationships with other people, and sharing life with them. A competent all-community gathering where things work well so as not to be a distraction from what God wants to do that morning, sure... but less of a focus on Sunday mornings as the center of community and more of a focus on the community and its revolving around Jesus Himself.

I remain convinced that what we win people with, we win them to.

Go read the whole thing. That guy makes a lot of sense. Not like that's unusual. :)

"He drew a circle..."

"He drew a circle..."

He drew a circle that shut me out--
Heretic, rebel, a thing to flout.
But Love and I had the wit to win:
We drew a circle that took him in!

"Outwitted" by Edwin Markham (complete poem)

The Super Bowl, World Series, World Cup and the Masters

Well, it seems like that way.

It's Holy week.

Even people who don't think about church the rest of the year think of it during Holy week. Maybe it's the blizzard of invite cards from churches. Maybe going to CVS for Easter candy stirs their memory. But it is one of those times of opportunity.

At New Hope we're working through our people, equipping them with invitations for their friends, coworkers, neighbors and loved ones, and asking them to personally invite them. We prepared two types, one for adults, and another for youth and older children. Personally, I like "Come Hang Out With Your Peeps", but that's just me.

Later this week we'll have a family time of communion on Thursday and then our Service of Shadows on Good Friday. That is a time of darkness and reflection on the cost paid for our sins. It is my favorite service all year. I need to remember.

And then Easter - CELEBRATION!!!

But after the crowds, then what? I was grateful for Gary Rohrmayer's blog post on how to follow up on Easter. "The "Next Steps" Principle" is an excellent primer on just how to make Easter the jumpstart you want your church to experience.

What "Next Steps" are you going to offer this year?