The Well Community Church

I visited my last church of my sabbatical on Sunday. I went to a church in Fresno called "The Well". It said to be one of the fasted growing churches in Fresno. They are also a multi-site church that uses video teaching. Brad, their pastor, was teaching live at the service I attended. He spoke on John 9:1-41 (the healing of the blind man). Although I loved the teaching and the music, I was extremely impressed with their commitment to connect people (with God, with each other, and with those in their community). I have also heard that one of the reason they are growing so fast has to do with their commitment to leadership development. They have an extensive and multi-leveled strategy for equipping leaders from within their church family.

The Leadership Summit

I had a friend from another church that had an extra ticket to "The Leadership Summit" that was being held in Fresno. The Summit is a live video leadership training event that reaches over 100,000 leaders world-wide. It's put on by Willow Creek Church with thousands of churches across the world hosting the satellite feed. One of the speakers I really enjoyed was a guy by the name of Craig Groeschel (He looks like Tom Cruise doesn't he?). Craig's the pastor of LifeChurch.tv, one of the countries first multi-site campus churches with over 50 weekend worship experiences currently at 13 campuses in six states ministering to over 23,000 people. He threw out five main points that connected with his new book, "It: How Churches and Leader Can Get It and Keep It". The one that really connected to me was his fourth point in which he asked us the question, "Are you willing to fail?" So many times we are afraid to try something new because we are afraid to fail. Yet, Craig says that failure is often the first step into seeing God. He pointed to the life of Peter and his many failures (boat, denial, etc.) that led to the ability to "get it" (3000 were saved, etc.). He said, "Most people don't know how often we failed.... Our first attempt at a video venue was a disaster. What we learned from the failure would have been hard to learn any other way. If you don't have "it" maybe you need to try something new- and fail at it. I tell our staff often, Fail! If you're not failing, you've stopped dreaming. You'll eventually stop learning. And you will stop growing." I pray that it can also be said of my life and the ministries at NC.

Vintage Faith Church

Karena and I were in the Santa Cruz area for a couple days so we stopped by Vintage Faith Church for a Sunday night service. The church is home base for pastor and author Dan Kimball who has written such books as "They Like Jesus But Not The Church" and "The Emerging Church". When we pulled up to the church, it reminded me a lot of First Pres Visalia (older traditional brick building). We had about 20 minutes to kill before the 7pm service so we walked into their new coffee, art and music lounge called "The Abbey". They had refurbished an old room in the church and made it into a pretty cool looking coffee house. There were church members and community neighbors hanging out, listening to music and talking with each other. After exploring the campus for a few minutes we made our way into the sanctuary. The inside was similar to the outside and looked like an old traditional church with stained glass windows. The only difference was the 2 video screens hung on both walls. As with some other churches I have visited on my sabbatical, it started out pretty empty but within 10 minutes it had filled up. There ended up being people sitting in the aisles. I recognized a few of the modernized hymns they started out with before Dan came up to speak. He didn't stand on stage but on the floor just a few feet back of the first couple of rows of pews. Dan was continuing on a series called, "Theology Gone Wild" based on the book of I Corinthians. The night we were there he spoke on I Corinthians 11:17-34- Loaded at the Lord's Supper. (There were also 2 ladies that were putting together a mosaic piece of art throughout the whole service that was made from broken pieces of different colored glass taken from beer bottles and forming them into the nail-pierced hand of Jesus- very cool and symbolic of the passage). He gave us a lot of historical context from the first century church on how communion went from a communal "love feast" to a little plastic cup and a piece of bread. I learned more about the history of communion (the last 1500 or so years) in his 30 minute message than I had in any of my reading or education. It was truly fascinating. After the message we took communion together (at different stations with each person turning and serving the elements to the one behind them and saying, "Remember the sacrifice of Jesus"). Even though there is an incredible openness to spirituality in our world, there are a lot of misconceptions about the institutional church and what Christianity is all about. Vintage Faith is rethinking church and ministry and trying to live out their faith and communicate Jesus' love in a language of the culture. I was excited to see how God was using them to impact their city.

Morph

One of the books I just finished reading is called, "Morph: The Texture of Leadership for Tomorrow's Church" by Ron Maroia. It has to be one of the best books on church leadership I have read. Realizing you have no interest in reading a 12 page blog that covers all material that impacted me, I decided to pick out one quote that might get a conversation going. Ron says, "Lifelong learning is much more than just reading a lot of books an staying current on the newest leadership releases. But all that reading and informational intake must incubate and then challenge our deeply held views of the world, humanity, God, and each other. I'm surprised how convinced I am that my view of God, doctrine, and the Bible is close to 100 percent accurate... I'm pretty certain that some of what I think is certain right now will probably prove incorrect." Are you views about God and how he works 100% accurate and set in concrete? Or could he possibly continue to reveal himself in new and creative ways that might be different than what we had originally thought? Are there dangers to this kind of thinking or is it more dangerous to not think this way? What do you think?

A Spiritual Retreat

Tuesday I drove up to the foothills by Squaw Valley for a two day spiritual retreat. I've tried to include a little bit of everything in my sabbatical (church visits, mission trips, educational reading, etc.). It was now time for the part I dreaded most- silence and solitude. Scary words for me. Now, for some of you, this kind of retreat might be heaven on earth. No kids, no phones, no computer, no TV, no human interaction. However, if you ask my wife, she will tell you that the lack of busyness and noise drives me crazy within a couple of hours. So why schedule such a retreat? The very reason that Jesus often went away by himself- to slow down, listen, and enjoy the presence of the Father. I knew it was necessary, but I just wasn't looking forward to it. I stayed at a cabin that a gracious family in our church let me use. I took off my watch, resisted the urge to turn on the TV and just sat there. Within a couple of minutes I thought, "Wow- 48 hours is going to feel like an eternity." I began reading the book of Acts and just chatting with God about what I noticed. After a while I picked up a church leadership book called, "Morph" and began to read. Surprisingly, time seemed to quickly pass by. Later that night, I propped up my lawn chair and just sat out under the stars. It was a wonderful moment with God in which he expressed his heart and love through the beauty and majesty of his creation. The second day included walks, more reading, and more sitting and listening. Many times I felt him telling me just to, "be still and know that I am God". I had some wonderful conversations with God and I wish I could tell you that I left I longed for more for silence, but when I got in my car to leave I immediately turned on the radio. Oh well, at least it was Christian music.