Take Two

There is a fascinating story in Friday’s Wall Street Journal about the mystery worshipper.  For years, consumer businesses has employed mystery shoppers to get unbiased third party opinons about their stores.  Now there are consulting firms that will provide this same service for churches evaluating the building and grounds, friendliness to newcomers, and even the worship service and sermon.

Critics say this will lead the church to adapt a consumer driven model.  My thought is that isn’t necessarily a bad thing.  Don’t you want your first time visitor to have a positive experience at your church so that he becomes and second and third time visitor. I remember a couple of years ago when Anthony Mangun spoke to our ministers and described their process for Sunday service.  The preparation begins on Monday for the following Sunday because, as Associate Pastor Terry Shock noted, we want people to think that we planned to have service on Sunday.

I thought the story was very interesting.  Feel free to comment with your thoughts.

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I have blogged so much about work, the markets, travel, more work, and financial apocalypse that you make think I no long work at my other job.  You know, the once where I work for God.  Rest assured, I still do this.  Allow me to bring you up to speed.

I have been teaching a small group home Bible study for about two months. I will confess, I probably get more out of this than any of the folks who listen to me teach.  There is something wonderful about burying yourself in the scriptures and then sharing them with someone else.  I am baptizing one guy (who has become a friend) from my home study group tomorrow morning. He received the Holy Ghost last Sunday night.  I am energized.

Monday afternoon, I am flying to Greensboro, North Carolina for the 84th General Conference of the United Pentecostal Church.  I love going to General Conference. In many ways, it is like a big family reunion.  We see folks we haven’t seen in years. We discuss, with catch up, sometimes with fight a little but we do make up because we are family at the end of the day.  I am involved in board meetings on Tuesday and Wednesday with the General Sunday School Division.  While the meetings themselves don’t really excite me, it’s worth the trip just to see my good friends.

I’m a little bummed that I have to leave conference early to go to another conference for work in Tampa.  I’ll blog on that a little later.  Right now, I am just enjoying having a great day with my other job and looking forward to the next few days.  To my ministry friends, look me up in Greensboro.

Saturday, which is allegedly my day off, is not so much today.  Ready:

• I am taking a life care planning class this morning
• Gabrielle has a soccer game at noon
• Charity and I are doing outreach for our van route at 1
• I am teaching my Bible study tonight at 5 (Side note- baptizing a member of our Bible study group tomorrow morning)
• Have work projects that need finished up because on Monday I am flying to Greensboro
• Also need to start packing for week in Greensboro/Tampa

Good times!

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I am enjoying an evening at home tonight.  I watched videos with my kids which was great.  I was up at 5 AM to go to Toledo this morning which was not great.  It does however, pay the bills.  On my night home I also cleaned up my office.  I know that if my office is filthy I won’t be able to work tomorrow so by addressing it now hopefully (he said hedging his bet) I can be more productive tomorrow.  Tomorrow, I am home Bible studying it in Westerville. Wednesday is church night.  On Thursday I’m flying to New York and coming back on Friday.  I have dinner with a potential new nurse Friday night.  My week is officially shot.  It’s a busy week and there appear to be many more like it in store.  Happy day.

As for the picture of New York, Zemanta suggested it to me along with a whole host of articles based on the words of this blog post.  I previously wrote about the company here.  It’s a free download I highly recommend.

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Matthew 28:18-20
18 And Jesus came and spake unto them, saying, All power is given unto me in heaven and in earth.
19 Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost:
20 Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you: and, lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world. Amen.
KJV

I’ve been teaching a Bible study for a few weeks now.  Allow me to offer a few thoughts before getting to the meat of my post.  I am thoroughly enjoying teaching this.  Many moons ago, I noted that one of my colleagues on our pastoral staff would get so excited about teaching home Bible studies.  I, of course, thought he was a nut.  Everyone knows that the pulpit is where the action is right? Uh, not so much.  There is nothing wrong with preaching in the pulpit (clearly) but I have learned that the intimacy and give and take of a home setting is not only edifying to the students but to the teacher.  Again, I have much to learn.  Our Bible study has doubled in size since we started it and we’re moving from house to house (very Biblical) as the participants live in three different counties.  When a new member asks if you can come to his house to teach a Bible study the answer is always yes.  Walk through that door.

Now on to my somewhat provocative title.  Of course ideally, you are creating both.  But for me (and after talking to my pastor last night and feel very certain of this), I am trying to create followers of Christ who will become integrated into our church family.  Here’s a for instance.  For a new person who asks what is required of them I do not go to the manual of the United Pentecostal Church (although this is a wonderful document chocked full of good information).  I was posited this question this past week.  Here was my answer.  You need to pray 15 minutes per day (not necessarily in one shot).  You need to read your Bible 15 minutes per day (again, in bite size pieces will be fine).  You need to come to church when there is a service.  And that’s pretty much it.

The reason for this is I want folks to know Christ before jumping in head first.  You don’t (or shouldn’t) get married right after you meet someone.  Additionally, walking with Jesus is a life long relationship.  While a two-footed jump is great, it is important to get to know Jesus.  After all, He did say take my yoke upon you and learn of me (Matthew 11:29).  We can be light on the learning and heavy on the yoke.  It is imperative that our new folks have a foundation established that will keep them for the long haul- not just a religion built on rules and/emotion.  Doctrine is teaching and is so very important to the new person.  Why we do what we do.  And most of all, Jesus love you.

Just some random thoughts for Monday.  Go forth and have a great week.

1 Samuel 22:1-2
22:1 David therefore departed thence, and escaped to the cave Adullam: and when his brethren and all his father’s house heard it, they went down thither to him.
2 And every one that was in distress, and every one that was in debt, and every one that was discontented, gathered themselves unto him; and he became a captain over them: and there were with him about four hundred men.
KJV

I was reading this tonight and it struck me as funny.  David picked up a group of distressed, indebted, and discontented folks and became their leader.  Have you ever felt that way?  Has your pastor ever felt that way?  Yes to both from me.  Amazingly, David does great works with this rag-tag band.

Kind of reminds me of the whole book/cover thing.

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Isaiah 53:5
5 But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed.
KJV

I was blogging quite late last night and didn’t get a chance to really expound on our Bible Study yesterday.  We were covering the very basics of the books of the Old Testatment and division of the books.  I also pointed out where I few of the verses you may have heard of were found (like the above one) or ones found on a Christmas card (like Isaiah 9:6) or that Jonah is in fact a minor prophet that covers the story of (drum roll), Jonah.  It is very exciting to watch the scriptures open up to a new mind and see them drink in the Word of God.

Without a doubt, this was the high point of my week.  Can’t wait for next week’s study.

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Tonight I got to drive a church van and pick up kids for Junior Youth.  It was one of the coolest things I have ever gotten to do.  It is easy to forget about the “end user” when you are spending your time on the platform or staying busy with grown up things.  I am thankful for the opportunity to impact the lives of these kids (and occasionally their parents).  Lord, help me to keep my priorities straight.

Happy Wednesday all.

This has a lot to do with preachers but also has to do with speaking in general so feel free to indulge.  I am speaking church Bible study tonight so that’s probably the Genesis of this post but I also speak for conferences for work and church and this method works for me probably 80% of the time.  My study for tonight started this morning at about 4:00 AM.  I had a thought in my brain that would not let me go back to sleep and so I went down to my office (the joys of working at home) and looked up the verses that were the crux of my thought.  After that, I went back to bed.  I got up this morning (having left open my Word document and PC Study Bible) and did a little more adding to the message.  Since I have work things to do today, I have taken time to address those things all the while adding thoughts as they come to my mind.  In total, it will probably take about 13 hours to finish this particular lesson.  Like a stew, because it has been allowed to simmer and formulate over the course of the day, it will (hopefully) go over better than if I had forced it out this morning.

This is not to dismiss the times when you have inspiration and churn out a message or thought as fast as it enters your brain.  I have those as well but my experience has been that those are the exception and not the rule.  For most of what I write to speak (either church or work), it is a process of several (disconnected) hours.  I have also found that I have much better clarity when I take the day to meditate on what I’m going to say.

Okay, back to the stove.

A brief side note before the post.  As you may have noticed, I haven’t done much church/ministry blogging in a while.  This is not because these are not important.  It’s because I don’t multi-task well.  My time (and travel) have been so consumed with work I really haven’t had time to be involved in things at church.  Fortunately, we were able to rectify this today.

This morning Michael and I spent a couple of hours with LJ doing reconnect for our church.  For the uninitiated, reconnect is a follow-up program which we use to follow-up on all of the kids who have visited either Sunday School, Wednesday Junior Youth, Open Gym, or one of our other outreach programs.  If you remember the days of knocking doors in a suit (go on, you know you do), this is nothing like it.  Basically, we went with a stack of church business cards, flyers for tomorrow’s dinner and ice cream social, and a cooler full of flavor ice.  We go to the kids’ houses, give them a flavor ice, and see if they (and by extension their parents) are coming to church and if they need a ride. No fuss, no muss, no pressure.  It took about two hours and, because of the number of people committed to do it, it only requires one Saturday morning every 4-6 weeks.

One very cool (and humbling) aspect of the program is that you get to see the home life of the kids you are working with.  Most have very little in material goods but their faces light up when they see LJ and the church van because the church has changed their life for the better.  Not only do they receive biblical instruction, but food, clothing, school supplies, and any number of other needs they might have.  It has been transformational.

Allow me to inject just a little editorial comment here.  I am more and more of the opinion that the church must become an agent of social change.  And apparently, I’m not alone.  My friend Reg has blogged about this extensively.  If the church is to be effective, it must show the community that it cares about them and is prepared to serve them.  Only then, will it be interested in our theological message.  In John 6, Jesus fed the crowd before he preached.  I think the modern church should do so as well.

Enough of the editorial.  Had a great time at reconnect today.  I think a nap may be in order and then Bible study with our friends tonight.  Awesome.