Opening Day

This past Saturday we had our opening day for T-Ball. We ended up in a tie after three innings of play- 33-33. Actually we do not keep score, the kids get to run the bases even if they are out, and the last player to hit in the inning gets to run around all the bases. This brings a different dynamic to coaching. Like, how does one teach an infielder to throw to second base to get the force out when there is a man on first if they are going the runner is going to stay there anyway because there are no outs! What I have found though is that if you can get your infielders to realize and throw it to first base or to run around the bases in the right direction that is a victory.

The kids did a really great job paying attention, hitting, running the bases and fielding. I also have some great people helping me out and we have our systems in place. I am looking forward to a great season!!

He Makes All Things New Podcast

Please find below the podcast for our Easter message at New Season called "He Makes All Things New."

To listen now, click on the podcast icon below.

He Makes All Things New

Message

Jesus Christ conquered death not only for the life to come but conquered those things that are like death to us in this world. Easter means more than just getting a ticket punched to go to heaven after we die. Easter has implications for this life. Easter means God is in control, there is more to life than living in quiet desperation and Easter serves as a call to serve others and share the joy of Easter.

Subscribe to this podcast via Apple iTunes by following this link.

Get Apple iTunes for PC or Mac here.

Confession

I guess the truth is out now and you know that I am not the father of Anna Nicole's baby. Though I heard this morning that Don Imus is now claiming paternity. Congratulations Larry Birkhead!

Discover Financial Peace

We are starting a brand new series this Sunday at New Season called Discovering Financial Peace. One of our beliefs at New Season is that the Bible and being a follower of Christ affects every aspect of our lives including how we handle his money. So we are not going to shy away from talking about it. For those who think it is worldly to talk about Biblical principles for handling God's blessings read your darn Bible man- it was talked about all the time. We are going to be leading off with with talking about credit card debt and debt in general and how our drive to consume is just an attempt to fill the God sized hole in our heart that can only be filled by Jesus Christ.

So invite someone to church this Sunday- their life might be changed!

Sickness

We have it going around in our family these last couple of weeks. Thankfully it seems to be a twenty four hour thing. Robert got it first and had to come home from school early after throwing up. Then Jack got it this Sunday and threw up at church. Last night Diana got it and was out from work today. I hope and pray I do not get it.

Nelson Searcy Resources

Nelson Searcy, founding pastor of the Journey Church in New York has produced some great resources as part of his Church Leaders Insight website. The resources are geared toward church planters but can be of use to a variety of ministry settings. On their podcast page you can download some free training resources. They also have a newsletter you can sign up for and are offering coaching networks in N.Y. and Florida. It is worth checking out.

Battery Give Away Servant Evanglelism Event

This March when the clocks were changed forward by an hour we did a "Battery Give Away" servant evangelism event. I originally intended to get a break on buying some batteries in bulk from Duracell or EverReady but to no avail. So, we ended up buying ours at the dollar store(s) for about 50 cents a piece.

We took the batteries put them in plastic bags with a short note saying "Just a friendly reminder to turn your clocks ahead and change the battery in your smoke alarm. From your friends at New Season Church. It is our practical way of saying God loves you no strings attached. Let us know if we can be of more assistance."

We then spent the Saturday before daylight savings time delivering them.

Servant evangelism is a good way to be incarnational in your community and spread the love of Christ. It is cheap, it is easy and people love doing it.

The God of Order and Counting

I decided at the beginning of the year to focus on reading through the Old Testament and have done so with the help of a reading plan. These people have really good Bible reading plans in different translations that will be delivered to your email inbox.

So I was doing pretty well trucking along through Genesis and Exodus but man Leviticus and Numbers has been a challenge. Yeah, I know all scripture is worthy for teaching and reproof but I sometimes have to dig for it in these books. I often tell people never to read the Bible cover to cover but to start with 1 John or the Gospels or read chronologically because of this very struggle. How many well meaning people have gotten stuck in Leviticus!

One thing that is for sure that Leviticus demonstrates is that God was a God of order. The laws God gives were for the people's well being not just for the sake of having laws. And, Numbers shows us that counting mattered to God.

Code Words

Have you noticed that some followers of Christ worship code words? Words like "personal relationship with Christ (I challenge anybody to find those exact words in the Bible- they aren't there- though you would have thought they were the 11th commandment)", "blood of Christ", "born again", "sold out", "spirit filled", etc. You can think of some too. When they do not hear these code words they immediately shut down and cast you as a heretic or guilty of not preaching the word as if not quoting the Bible three hundred times in a 40 minute sermon means you are not faithful to the scripture.

Then there are others whose code centers around "inclusive language", "the Hebrew scriptures" (last time I checked that was the Old Testament), "wholeness", "peace with justice" (I didn't know there was any kind of peace without justice).

Our use of code words runs the risk of turning into idolatry where we become overly concerned with language and hearing the right words we forget what all of this points us to: The God of all creation who took on flesh in Jesus Christ, died for us, was raised on the third day, ascended into heaven, sits at God's right hand, and is coming to make a new heaven and earth. Let's remember to see the forest amongst the trees shall we?

Glimpses of Heaven

Every now and then God gives me a glimpse of what heaven must be like. For me one of those times was the other night as I watched my children sleep when I went to check in on them. The feeling of love I had in my heart was great. You parents can identify I know! I think such a feeling begins to scratch the surface of the love God has for every one of us and the perfect unity we will share in Christ's presence one day. Like the kingdom, that unity refelcted in heaven is already, but not yet.

Coaching Tee Ball

I have signed up to coach Robert's Tee Ball Team. Players need to be five years old before April 30th. Robert will be five on April 25th. Tee Ball in our county is for five and six year olds so Robert might be the youngest player!

We had our first practice this past weekend. The kids listened pretty well. I am reminded to keep the audience in mind when I am coaching these five and six year olds. I started with going over the positions on the filed and which direction you are to run the bases versus what the infield fly rule means or practicing first and third situations!

While the persons who come to our worship celebration experience and have no "church" (read club) background are not to be treated like Tee Ballers, I am reminded that what we talk about in worship must make sense. That means I cannot do a message series on the difference between the Hittites, the Perizzites and the Termites or the nutritional value of 1st century food Jesus would have ate. Instead the aim is to be seeker comprehensible to steal a term from Ed Stetzer.

Please pray for me and more importantly for these kids!

Building Healthy Relationships Podcast

I have not posted the audio from a message for a long time. Here is one from our 40 Days of Community Message Series.


To listen now, click on the podcast icon below.


Building Healthy Relationships


Message
God has created us to be in relationship. There are many relationship killers out there: selfishness, pride, insecurity, and resentment. These things drain and destroy relationships. In Christ we have the antidote to those things and have the picture of selflessness, humility, love, and forgiveness needed to build healthy relationships. In following him and getting the vertical relationship right our horizontal relationships get better.


Series
This message is from the series "40 Days of Community". In this series we have seen how God has created each person with a purpose. The purposes for which God has created us are always lived out best together. By being in community we multiply the power of God working through us and we transform our community and are transformed ourselves.


Subscribe to this podcast via Apple iTunes by following this link.





Get Apple iTunes for PC or Mac here.

What/ How Do We Measure?

Go to any type of meeting with more than one pastor in the room there will always be talk about how things are going in one another's churches. This is really code for "how may people do you got at worship". Sometimes that question is even asked point blank. This is how we have come to measure "success" in reaching people for Christ. This is often reinforced in the reporting of statistics to judicatories.

I am not one to say numbers do not matter. They do. More correctly it is the people behind the numbers that matter, or should matter to us, and definitely matter to God. These are people who had no hope before they met Christ, whose marriage was failing, or who were chained by addictions.

However, worship/ membership numbers do not tell the whole story and cannot. How then can we measure how faithful we are being to making disciples of Jesus Christ? That is a hard question.

One thing we surely need to do is move beyond the counting of "club" members and their financial contributions as the only reflection of faithfulness. In Reggie McNeal's words in The Present Future: Six Tough Questions for the Church "The church in North America is thoroughly modern. It has reduced its understanding of spirituality to numbers that can be reported (the triumph of materialism over spirit)."

How can we begin to measure how people are growing spiritually, how many people are "not yet" followers of Christ but attending worship in a church, how many conversations church members have had with pre-Christian people, how many people have been transformed by mission trips etc.?

What and how will we measure? Will we measure using the "modern" way of sola numero "numbers alone" or recognize that being faithful to the Great Commandment and the Great Comission is so much more?

Bowling

We had a good time bowling yesterday at Liberty Lanes in Massaponax. Thanks to all the New Seasonites who came out.

As for me, I bowled horribly. I was under 100 the first game and barely over a 100 the second game.

How about how they have these lanes now that keep score for you. When I was a kid you had a pencil and a sheet of paper. For the leagues they had this overhead projector like thing that you wrote on with this yellow wax like pencil. They also have it programed where bumpers come out up for the kids but go back down for the adults.

And, this bowling alley was smoke free. They have a special room for the smokers. Bowling, like church, is a different experience than it was twenty years ago.

Random Thoughts about Evangelism

Here's some random thoughts about evangelism:

• It is not optional.
• We don't win anybody to Christ- the Holy Spirit does the winning- we get to be used by the Holy Spirit.
• Evangelism doesn't stop when someone says the sinners prayer, agrees to the four spiritual laws, walks down the Roman Road or is baptized. Evangelism is about making disciples and discipleship doesn't stop with justification but is a lifelong process.
• We don't bring Jesus anywhere. He is already there. The ten-thousand dollar theological word for this is omnipresence. God is present everywhere. We just cooperate with him so that he can be revealed, people will see him and people will respond to his invitation for abundant life in this life and in the life to come.
• Much of evangelism in the past fifty years was about getting people to be part of the club and be good club members instead of helping people be sold out radical followers of Jesus.

Number 3

Diana and I will be welcoming child number three in October. Thanks be to God!! It is hard to see an ultrasound and not believe in God. There have been times when I thought this may not be as our soon to be middle man "Jack Jack Attack" almost did us in. BTW, Jack's preschool teachers at our parent teacher conference said he was "a little devil with angel eyes."

Robert, our oldest, five next month, is excited about a new brother or sister and seems to understand a lot more than when Jack was born.

Please pray for the baby, for Diana and the rest of the nut house.

The Full Story of Salvation

Sometimes we have gotten only the partial picture of what salvation is in the Christian life. For many salvation is only other-worldly. It is the sweet by and by, heaven, the pearly gates, the streets of gold, and angels strumming harps. And, this is true that salvation has to do with our eternal destines- with God or apart from God. But salvation is more.

Salvation is also in the here and now. It is not just something in the future. When one yields their life to Jesus Christ not only will they experience salvation in the life to come but in the life now. Salvation is like the kingdom of God- it is already, but not yet. When speaking about salvation Christ used the present tense not only the future tense. Hurting people today need salvation now, not only the promise of "no more crying'" there after they die. When we view salvation as a present reality- it becomes a way of life that totally transforms the way we look at the world, each other and Jesus Christ.

Also, salvation is not only about me. The Bible tells us that all of creation will be redeemed. The Bible tells us that in the end God wins and Christ will return not to beam us to some celestial place but to create a new heaven and new earth right here. Humanity and all of creation stands in need of salvation.

Velvet Elvis

Velvet Elvis- Repainting the Christian Faith

Rob Bell of Mars Hill and Nooma fame offers a great book to challenge followers of Christ and church leaders about issues of faith. Much of what Bell suggests and offers in terms of theological reflection is nothing new (as he admits), but is a recovery of what has come before. Yet, for many much of Bell’s reflections will seem new- especially those who see the church as club.

Through seven movements Bell takes us through a number of interesting themes. I don’t cover them all here but touch on a few.

Scripture- we bring our own cultural and personal baggage in interpreting scripture. This is true and makes a mockery out of the modern quest to dissect the text and peel away to get at its meaning as if we could ever be objective.

Questioning- we should not be afraid of questions. Uncritical appropriation of faith is shallow faith. Test it- probe it Bell says.

Christology- Following Jesus is not about “feeling better” about oneself. That makes Jesus no better than a self-help guru. Following Jesus is hard, does not solve all our problems and may even create more problems. Be upfront with people about that.

Evangelism- we don’t “take” Jesus to anybody- he is already there. We just get the privilege of working beside him and helping reveal him to people who do not see and know him yet.

Salvation- it is more than a ticket to heaven. It is both a present and an eternal reality. And, it is about more than just me- the blood of Christ was for the purpose of redeeming all of creation.

John Wilberforce and John Wesley

You may have heard about the new movie called Amazing Grace about the life and work of John Wilberforce of Great Britain who sought to abolish the slave trade. Below is an article written by Neil Caldwell, editor of the Virginia Advocate News magazine (the article actually appeared in a weekly companion to the Virginia Advocate called the Sunday Advocate).

Movie, campaign link past and present slavery

The last letter that John Wesley, the founder of Methodism, wrote before his death was to William Wilberforce, a member of Parliament fighting to end the British slave trade. Dated Feb. 24, 1791 — six days before Wesley died — the letter offered encouragement: “If God be fore you, who can be against you? Are all of them together stronger than God? Go on, in the name of God and in the power of his might, till even American slavery (the vilest that ever saw the sun) shall vanish away before it.”

Sixteen years later, in 1807, Wilberforce finally achieved his goal when Parliament voted to abolish the slave trade. The movie “Amazing Grace,” now playing in theaters, chronicles his efforts, and a related campaign focuses on ending modern-day slavery in the world. The film’s title refers to the famous hymn by John Newton, a former slave trader who converted to Christianity and became a priest in the Church of England. In the movie, Wilberforce visits Newton twice and, in one scene, climbs atop a table in a pub and sings the hymn’s first verse. Wilberforce converted to Christianity under the ministry of Wesley, a lifelong opponent of slavery.

The Church of England is marking the 200th anniversary of the end of the slave trade with a March 24 act of repentance. On Feb. 24 the Virginia General Assembly voted unanimously to express “profound regret” for the state’s role in slavery.

In conjunction with the movie is “The Amazing Change” campaign to continue Wilberforce’s work. The effort is designed to raise awareness of slavery and other forms of oppression in today’s world, and to encourage involvement in and funding for organizations working to abolish slavery. One of its funding partners is RugMark, a nonprofit organization working to end illegal child labor in the carpet industry in India, Nepal and Pakistan. RugMark is supported by the Women’s Division of the Board of Global Ministries and was endorsed by the Bishops’ Initiative on Children and Poverty.

Downloadable versions of an “Amazing Grace” faith guide for church leaders can be found at <www.amazinggracemovie.com> under the resources tab. Visit <www.theamazingchange.com> for information about the campaign.

About Time

This past Friday I got to spend some time with some people from our denomination to help craft a vision and plan for planting 250 new faith communities in 30 years in the state of Virginia. The sheer enormity of such a thing is great because only if God is in it can it be done.

I rejoice that people in our denomination, both at the conference level and the general church level, are beginning to get it. Church planting is the most effective way under the sun to make disciples of Jesus Christ- period! As the church planting cliche goes, "It is easier for us humans to give birth than to raise the dead!"

There is a sizable number of the people called Methodists that get it. They get that planting is the most effective way to introduce people to a life changing encounter with Jesus Christ. They get that church planting is biblical (hello remember the Book of Acts!). They get that part of what it means to be Wesleyan is to be about the business of starting new faith communities. I thank God for these people.

The challenge will come in helping others to see the vision. This will take the work of a God who can do impossible things- far more than we can even ask or imagine.

Please pray for those who are seeking to embed a vision and culture of church planting in our denomination and for that matter in denominations across the world and for those who are part of networks or non-denominational groups.

40 Days of Community

During the 40 Days of Lent at New Season we will be involved in examining the meaning and purpose of community. Particularly we are going to see what this thing called a faith community (a church) is all about and why it is different than other communities. We are going to see why just about every thing we do under the sun is done better together as a community than alone. And, we will hopefully realize that in order to live out the purpose of our lives and love God with all our heart and our neighbor as ourselves we must do so in community.

While we are using the general themes of the 40 Days of Community campaign used by others we are not using all the bells and whistles of that campaign but will instead be creatively designing our own approach to answering the question "what does it mean to be community?"

What is Lent?

Here is a pretty good and to the point explanation of what the season of Lent is all about. It is from the Wilstar website.


Lent: What is it? Why is it?

The highlight of the year for Christians is Easter, the day when our Lord rose from the dead. Lent is a forty-day season of preparation for Easter. Lent always begins on a Wednesday, called Ash Wednesday.

Why 40 days? Because, Jesus fasted and was tempted in the wilderness for 40 days. Lent, then, is our time of fasting, prayer, temptation and repentance. Lent is not required anywhere in scriptures, but it has been a custom, which Christians have practiced for most of the last two thousand years.

In many languages, the word "Lent" actually means "fast." This is where the custom of giving up something for Lent originated.

However, just to confuse things, Lent is actually 46 days rather than 40 days. Why? Because the 40 days of Lent are supposed to be days of fasting, which means days of discipline and self-restraint. But Sunday, the Lord's Day, should never be a day of fasting, but a day of celebration! So each Sunday we suspend our Lenten disciplines and celebrate. Lent is 40 "fasting" days spread out over a total of 46 days beginning on Ash Wednesday.

The focus of Lent was always threefold:

• It was a time to prepare new converts for baptism through intensive classes and instruction.
  
• It was a time for long-standing Christians to review their lives and renew their commitment to Jesus Christ.
  
• It was a time for backsliders to be restored to the faith.

In every case, it is a time for serious, disciplined self-examination, a time spent in intensive prayer and repentance before the cross of Calvary.
To represent the dark and serious business of Lent, one custom has been to strip the sanctuary of all flowers, candles, and colors during Lent. This custom helps us to turn inward and examine ourselves, even as it reminds us of the dark and colorless Sabbath day when Jesus lay dead in the tomb.

Put simply, Lent is a time to examine ourselves carefully. Here are some questions upon which you might pray and meditate during Lent
Am I sharing gladly what I have with others, especially the stranger and the poor?
Do I have a gracious and patient attitude with others, especially those who irritate me?
Do I feel the power of connection to God and the church in corporate worship?
How is my devotional and prayer life progressing? Am I listening to God more and complaining less? Is it time for a change or a growth in my Bible study and prayer life?
What are the lurking sin problems, which still plague me?
Am I as thoughtful and forgiving of family as others, or do I take my frustrations out on them?
Do I speak up for the maligned and oppressed, or do I remain silent in order to remain popular?

More Signs

I should have bought stock in signs. I am a big believer in signs. Every Sunday we post about 20 directional signs in our mission field. The signs go up at about 6 a.m. and come down after our worship celebration experience.

These signs are a bit more expensive than the ones I talked about in a previous post because we do not have them made in bulk, they do not all say the same thing, and they have better stakes since we are planting and uprooting them every week.

These signs of course are meant to help people find their way to the church but like the signs in the previous post they also create awareness in the community about New Season Church. They, like the other signs have our website and meeting place and time.

Unlike a permanent sign that many churches have on the side of the road which stops being noticed after a while, I think the temporary signs end up being noticed more often since they are not there all the time and not a permanent part of the landscape. We have had people come as first time guests because of these signs (no doubt they also checked out our website too beforehand).

The thing about these signs and all the signs in our worship space and leading to our worship space is that they are all about hospitality (offering hospitality as Christ offered hospitality). If we want people who have never been or have not been in a long time to come to church we have to do our best to remove all obstacles save for the cross of Christ. That is the aim of all our signage. It is hard enough for someone to actually decide to come, helping them know where to go takes away some anxiety.

Sign, Sign Every Where There's Signs

One of the things we did for our move to Lee Hill Elementary was purchase 100 signs that we hung up in our mission field the first two weekends we moved.

The purpose of this sign drop was to create awareness of the move for people who already knew of New Season Church and knew we met at Massaponax High School. The second thing we were trying to accomplish was to raise awareness about our church amongst people who never knew we existed. I think we accomplished both!

The whole idea I stole from a church planter named Ben Arment whose blog I read. If you are not reading his blog and are a church planter you should.

Here is how the sign dropped worked:

1. I purchased 100 single sided, 1 color signs and stakes. The signs cost $3 a piece and the stakes $1 a piece plus shipping. It is key to get a sign that is cheap enough but not too cheap. You have to go into it recognizing you will lose some signs either because of the weather (the winds were terrible the last couple of weeks) and because of theft.


2. I made maps of well travelled intersections, subdivision exits and roads to mark where signs should go.


3. I recruited some people to help with hanging the signs asking them to take about ten each and to put them out on Friday afternoon and pick them up after our worship celebration experience on Sunday for two weeks. We did this so that the county/state would not take them down and because there is nothing worse than a sign that litters the road for three months and we wanted to be good stewards- plus we wanted to get the signs back to use them again.


4. I prayed over the signs before I gave them out and asked the persons hanging them to pray as they put them out that the right people who were far from God, turned out or off by church would see them and respond.


5. We have retrieved the signs and will use them again before Easter, Back to School and Christmas Eve.

All in all the signs were really great and people actually did come because they saw the signs. Here is a picture of our sign.

Another Good Sunday

Wow- God blessed us with yet another good Sunday at New Season this past week! (Actually every Sunday we gather we are blessed, but especially since we have moved to our new location at the Lee Hill Elementary School.)

This week we were missing a pile of people due to people being out of town and sick and God continues to bring people. I have always known Christ will build the church, now it is a privilege to see him doing it in such noticeable ways.

Next Sunday we finish up our mini-series on worship with the message "True Worshippers"! Be sure to be there and invite a friends, relative, co-worker or neighbor.

Chaos and Uncertainty

If there is one thing about planting a church it is that you must make friends real quick with chaos and uncertainty. Yes, there is certainly an element of chaos and uncertainty in any situation where one is ministering for God but it is especially pronounced in church planting.

The chaos comes when there are 3,417 things that need to get done and in place and it is left up to you and a few others. Apart from God's power in Jesus it will never get done. And there are times when it just has to go undone and you have to trust and put it in God's hands. I have found more often that not some things I think are critical other people do not care about and God laughs at!! Also, sometimes chaos is good. It teaches us and has certainly taught me that if it is up to me then we are in trouble.

Uncertainty is more of a faith issue. From small things to like who will show up to the first small group to how will this thing ever get off the ground, planting is laden with uncertainty. Again, this uncertainty pushes us to the one who has promised to build his church.

The key is to learn to live with and through the power of the Holy Spirit to overcome chaos and uncertainty always realizing that the one who spoke and created the world out of chaos can take the little piece of the globe he has given me as a mission field and bring about something more beautiful than I can fathom. That is the promise I am clinging to.

Church Planting Trusim

Proverbs 29:8 reminds us so well that it is necessary for a community of faith to have be discerning and living ut God's vision. It says "without vision, the people perish."

Jim Griffith, my chruch planting coach says, "Without PEOPLE, the vision perishes."

You can have the greatest vision in the world but it will always take people. Church planting is about putting people in seats. Or as church planter Devin Hudson from Grace Point Church in Las Vegas says "church planting is about BITS (Butts in the Searts)."

New Move Postcard

Here is the postcard the good folks at Church Marketing Solutions did for us. We will be sending out about 5,000 in our immediate neighborhoods.

New Space- First Sunday

We had our first worship celebration experience in our new space (Lee Hill Elementary School) this past Sunday. What a difference! We had a great day. There was a lot of energy. People were reinvigorated. Guests showed up!!

On Friday we hung 100 yard signs all around our community. I will post more about that in a later post. And then on Saturday in the chilliest of temperatures a group went out and hung 1,000 door hangers. Those guys and girls were troopers!! Way to go!

We still have some other things we are doing to raise awareness in our community and help people invite and we certainly have some tweaking to do when it comes to our worship space and making it into a place where we can invite God to move in powerful ways.

But all in all I couldn't be happier with the move. Thanks to everyone for their help, prayers, encouragement as we seek to make and empower radical followers of Jesus Christ. Most of all thank you Jesus Christ for your guidance and presence and victory throughout!!

Sometimes the NFL is a Joke

At New Season we are having a Super Bowl party as part of what we call our connection events. Connection events are low-threshold, low threat events we invite friends, relatives, neighbors and co-workers to so they can just hang out and realize that the church we go to is not a bunch of Kool-aid drinking snake handling people.

It seems the greed of the NFL has gotten to the point where they want to put the kabash on such activities. What a bunch of silly people. Read about it here at the Monday Morning Insight Blog.

We are still having ours- it begins Sunday at 5:30. If you want to come email me. We want to invite especially any NFL executives. And I want to invite you to sue me for it. In my earlier heathen days now would be the time when I would post a picture of a big middle finger or a bunch of guys mooning the NFL. But, alas, thank God for the blood of Jesus and regeneration.

Another Good Resource

Here is another good resource for those who do any kind of email to communicate with a group of people. It is called Constant Contact.

Constant Contact is a web based email system that allows you to construct emails in an html format that is so much more appealing than plain text email newsletters. The interface is fairly simple.

The cost is about $20 a month after like a three month trial. I think if you stay under 100 email addresses it is free.

I would highly recommend it.

To sign up for New Season's Weekly Seasoning email update go here.

Ancient Future

Steve Kropp has made a new album called Ancient Future with some of the old hymns done in a new way. He gave them out to folks at New Season for free to use as tools to witness and invite friends, relatives, co-workers and neighbors.



More info about the project here.


Check out the teases here.

New Neighbors

One of the best times to reach new families in your community is when they first move into your community. Most churches who have any type of desire to reach the people in their community have some form of new neighbor outreach.

We are currently using ReachingAmerica.com. Here is how it works:

• They identify the new neighbors in your community.
• They send three predesigned by you postcards to your new neighbors in the first 30 days.
• They can furnish you with the names and addresses of the people they sent the postcards to so you can do your own follow up.
• You can choose whom to send the postcards to by zip code or radius.

The benefit to this program is that it provides multiple contacts very early on in a timely manner. Also, it will pay for itself which is good since it is $2.88 per new neighbor (versus about .33 cents to just get the names and do your own mailing.

We are also recruiting neighborhood captains from our church who will deliver new neighbor bags to new neighbors using the names we furnish from this service.

Another time to reach people is right after they have had a baby. Unfortunately, while lists can be purchased of "new parents" the minimum quantity required- say 500- makes it cost prohibitive. I am still looking for such a list that does not require minimums.

We're Moving

Pending the approval of a county permit we will have our first Sunday at our new location- Lee Hill Elementary School. Here are some things we are doing to raise awareness about our move in the community.

· We will pray, and pray and pray for the God who can do more than we can even ask or imagine to great things in this move.

· We will encourage one another to blab to all who will listen in our circles of friends, and amongst our relatives, neighbors, and co-workers and invite, invite, invite.

· We will gather to put out 1,000 door hangers at various townhouse developments surrounding the school. As we do so we will be praying for the persons in those developments.
· During February, before Easter and before Mother’s Day we will be mailing out 5,000 invitational postcards to our neighbors in the areas surrounding Lee Hill.

· We will be sending letters to the 1,000 or so persons identified by the “Phones for You Campaign” to inform them of our move and invite them to join us.

· For the six weeks after our move we will place special ads in the Free Lance Star (1 every two weeks) to announce our move and invite persons to join us.

· We will begin running our weekly “New United Methodist Church forming in Massaponax” ad in the Saturday religious section of the Free Lance Star to reach the United Methodists that move to our area.

· We will launch our redesigned website recognizing that for most people seeking a church in our day the first step they will take is to find more information on the web. We want to make a good impression.

· We will begin running monthly ads in the Lee Hill Crier newsletter (the newsletter of the Lee Hill Subdivision).

· We will be obtaining the services of Reaching America. This service identifies new home owners in our mission field and send on our behalf three personalized postcards from New Season Church in the first three weeks to our newest neighbors. We will be asking regular attendees at New Season to volunteer as neighborhood captains and deliver new neighbor bags to these neighbors.

· We have obtained 100 yard signs that will be strategically placed at the entrances/exits of subdivision, at intersections and in retail areas that say New Season Church- Sundays- 10:00 a.m.- Lee Hill Elementary School-www.NewSeasonUMC.org.

New Website Design

Check out the new website for New Season Church. Many thanks to Matt Montoro of Third Stream Music/ Design for his creative ability in making this a reality.

There are many sites out there that will give you some good ideas about how to do church websites (which many churches need). But here are some things we used to help lead us in design.

• We wanted to keep it fairly simple. The tendency is to get too cluttered and try to convey too much information. A person looking at your site will only spend a few seconds to look at it before moving on.
• We wanted to serve two purposes. The prinmary purpose was to provide people who are thinking of attending New Season with a taste of who we are. An ancillary purpose was to provide a place for regular attendees to get info (previous messages, sign up info, etc).
• We recognized that our site had to be taken up a notch because this is the first place people who are searching are going to look before they decide to check out New Season. This is in many respects our first impression.

Like I said you can Google "church website design recommendations" and get all kinds of good advice, these are just some of the things we used to guide us.

Happy RamaHanuKwanzMas Everyone!

In an effort to be politically correct here at ROBBBLOG we want to wish everyone a Happy RamaHanuKwanzMas. Please celebrate with the elves here by singing with us our holiday anthem. Click on the links below.

Traditional Version

Punk Version

What is RamaHanuKwanzMas? (Taken from Wikipedia). It is a portmanteau of the religious holidays Ramadan, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa and Christmas. It was coined by Glenn Beck on his radio program as the name of the ultimate politically-correct winter holiday.
RamaHanuKwanzMas has its own song set to the tune of Holly Jolly Christmas. The idea of combining winter holidays precedes Beck's show, but has gained momentum, as shown in a recent Virgin Mobile commercial (Chrismahanukwanzakah) and on The O.C. (Chrismukkah).

What Church Planters and Evangelicals Can Learn from the Lectionary

I will admit that I have been in lectionary recovery now for about five years. We have weekly meetings: "Hi, I'm Robb and I used to be bound by the lectionary" and all God's people said, "Hi Robb!" In a quest for relevance many have turned away from the lectionary mafia to topical teaching. While I believe one can use the lectionary and be relevant and even be topical, it is a lot more work to make the lectionary work.

In this season leading up to Christmas though the lectionary (more correctly the church calendar) can teach people who have moved away from these things from on high a thing or two.

• Christmas does not start the day after Thanksgiving (or worse after Halloween). Instead the weeks after Christmas are a time of preparation (called Advent) where we prepare our hearts to celebrate the great miracle of God "coming to dwell in the neighborhood" as Eugene Peterson puts it. So, when we rush to make sure we sing songs and celebrate Christmas so early what we are really doing is accommodating to culture. If I had it my way we would only sing Charles Wesley's "Come, Thou Long Expected Jesus" until Christmas Eve :)
  
• Likewise, we do well to do as the Lectionary and Church Calendar reminds us to do and that is recognize that there are twelve days of Christmas culminating in the arrival of thewisemen called "Epiphany". Instead of adding to the stress and culture of consumerism during the time preceding December 25th perhaps it can be a learning moment for churches to cancel all "Christmas" events until the season of Christmas. If you do that I promise you will send some blue hairs and narcissistic baby boomers over the edge.

Well, as we move from what used to work to what works today we do well not to throw the baby out with the bath water. Tradition, symbol, and liturgy still have power today if they are explained and serve to bring people closer to Jesus Christ. Picking up on what one Jewish Rabbi once said, "The lectionary and church calendar were made for man, not man for the church calendar and lectionary." Nonetheless, we can still learn something from them.

You're in My Seat

I cringe when I hear the words "You're in my seat" in the context of church. Most of the time it is said by someone who regularly attends church to someone who is a guest.

By human nature we all tend to sit in the same seat in places we go on a regular basis. This is true whether it be a church or a classroom or a bar. We kind of claim our space. The problem comes when someone sits in "our" seat.

The problem is especially acute in the church. When a regular attendee makes a comment that someone is sitting in "their" seat they show a genuine lack of hospitality. Do we think a guest will return if they are treated in this way? Is this how we would treat someone in our homes? We might stop to think that we might be cooperating with the enemy as we sin and miss an opportunity to practice hospitality like Christ. What if that person you told to get up and move is attending worship for the first time ever or for the first time in a long time. They are already nervous, apprehensive, on edge and scared and here you tell them "you're sitting in my seat." C'mon think McFly!!

In the church no seat is your seat even if your name is on the plaque at the end of a pew for donating it. Are you willing to give up your seat so someone can become connected with God?

Jesus was willing to give up his seat to do so. That's what we celebrate at Chrsitmas. Jesus gave up his seat and came and lived among us so that we could experiecne God's love both in this life and in the life to come.

Location, Location, Location

For a realtor the most important thing is location, location, location. Location is certainly important for a church plant too. New Season Church ended up at Massaponax High School, our local high school. This was the best space available when we were getting ready to launch.

There are some benefits to where we are: there is plenty of room for growth. Most people know where it is. We get access to lighting and a great platform area. We have the best janitor ever in Bill Spradlin. The cost is fairly reasonable.

There are plenty of drawbacks as well. We are at the very bottom of our mission field and out of the drive path direction that most people travel to shop, do business and get to other major roads. The space we have is HUGE. It is far more than we need and it is a detriment because we lose energy when people are so spread out- though we do rope off sections of the auditorium. We do have to load and unload every Sunday (which has plusses and minuses).

I think some things to consider when choosing locations are as follows:

1. Bathe the choice in much prayer.

2. Try to find the place people pass to go shopping, to the movies, and to do business.

3. Find a space that is not too big, but not too small- at least ensure you can expand if you need too.

4. Pick somewhere where the rent is fairly reasonable and where the landlord and the persons you will work with like the janitor are easy to work with.

5. For those who do preview services do them in different places not only to leave your scent but to see how each of the locations work- were the people easy to work with?, what was your attendance like compared to other venues? How did the set up go? And more.

Steve Kropp Concert

Steve Kropp, Celebration Team Leader at New Season Church will be having a CD Release Cocnert this coming Saturday at 7:00 p.m. The concert will be held at Widlerness Community Church. Steve has teamed up with our sound guy at New Season, Matt Monotoro of Third Stream Music for a great new album.

Peaks and Valleys represents songs to live by. Steve's offerings share messages that help people not only endure life by live life to its fullest as Christ atteneded.

Make plans to come out and support Steve.

Christian Business Directories

I like to visit other churches' websites from time to time to check out the latest stuff that other folks are doing in the kingdom. I noticed a lot of churches are now doing these Christian business directories. On their site they will list the businesses of church members or other Christian businesses in the area. The idea being that persons from the church would frequent those businesses. You see the same thing in the yellow pages or on people's business cards when they put the fish logo on it.

About a year ago we had a group come and what to sell us space in a regional directory of Christian businesses and organizations. It was kind of like a yellow pages of Christian businesses and organizations. They delivered these books to churches in the region and Christian bookstores etc.

I told them that we appreciated but were not interested because we at New Season Church were interested in reaching people that had never been to church or stopped going to church. Those kind of people would not be the kind of people getting these books. People in churches or who frequented Christian bookstores would be getting those books. Maybe a good deal for a painter, plumber, or dentist but not for a new church like us. It would be like advertising our church on the Christian radio station- why? Probably 99% of those people have churches and that is great. Why would we be trying to reach them?

Also, should we really be encouraging Christians to be shopping at the businesses of other Christians exclusively? Does that not indeed hamper our witness? Do we run the risk of constructing a Christian ghetto where we only buy Christian goods and services and send our kids to Christian schools? My opinion is that we ought to be engaging the world. We are to be IN the world but not OF the world.

5 Years Later

We remember now five years later.

George Barna takes a look at the impact 9.11 had on spirituality and worship attendance in this article.

I remember the great surge in worship attendance in the church I was serving. And, I remember all the talk about what an opportunity the church had to be the church and help people to cope with this tragedy.

What happened? Not much, according to Barna. The upsurge in attendance and religious interest has dwindled. Attendance is back to pre-9.11 numbers. Persons are reading their Bibles and praying the same they were before the attacks.

Maybe the answer is not God bless America but America bless God!

Diana is 30!

My beautiful wife is now the big 30! Most people would say she still looks like she is 23. People say I look like I am forty three and want to know why Diana is holding hands with her dad! Just kidding. The 30 milestone was a milestone I hit about a year and a half ago. We celebrated Diana's turning 30 at the Old Town Steak and Seafood last night. It was great!!

Diana and I first met at Randolph-Macon College when she was just 18 and we were engaged in three months and married about five years later (though initially she relentlessly pursued me after a while she kept kicking me to the curb and I kept showing up so she finally decided she just had to marry me). Back when we first met we knew everything and now age and wisdom has taught us we know little.

Happy birthday Diana it has been a good twelve years and a blessing to be part of your life.

Church Marketing 101

I just finished Richard Reising's Church Marketing 101 and wanted to share some highlight followed by comments. Quotes are in italics, my comments in regular type.

p. 13 You cannot find the answer to growth for your church in mimicking what growing churches do- you are more likely to find it in what they are.
This has been said time and time again by different people and is of course true. But I like how he puts it. It is not by copying methods but by mimicking values, vision, and spiritual DNA that growing churches should be emulated.

p. 23 Marketing is the management of perception.
This is a simple definition of what marketing is. If we are going to introduce people to Jesus Christ then we need to change the perception many have of the church (boring, after your money, irrelevant etc) so that the church is not a stumbling block only the gospel.

p. 36 What is it about you that would make them think that you have the answer and would welcome them in? What sets your church apart?
This fits in to one of the questions Adam Hamilton says to ask yourself and answer. Why do people need this church? The other two- why do people need Jesus and why do people need the church?

p. 100 Chances are, every church in your community could double in size and you would still find less than 20% population in church on Sunday. Avoid the temptation of being stingy with souls. They don't belong to your church, they are God's.
Amen! We need to be building the kingdom and not fiefdoms! Instead of worrying about the church down the road reaching all the people you can't or won't reach and stealing your people know that the harvest is plentiful.

p. 143 Know the difference between true needs and felt needs. The real bottom line need is belonging to Christ, but people's perceived need is always something less spiritual.
Sometimes we have to gain an entrance and an audience by addressing felt needs first. Even then the Gospel has something to say to felt needs- handling money, a better marriage, more fruitful relationships. In the end though we keep our eye on helping persons address their greatest need- Jesus Christ.

A Classic Duel Between Good and Evil

It is not Armageddon and it is not the allies versus the axis- it is the good guy Boston Red Sox versus those other guys from New York.

Those over priced underachievers from New York will make their way to Fenway Park for three games including a double header on Friday. Come Tuesday the Red Sox will hopefully be back in first place as they erase New York's two game lead in the AL East. The Sox remain two back in the wildcard race too.

Will New York be able to buy themselves another World Series this year? Or, will they continue to underachieve like in recent years? I will root for the good guy underdogs. If the Sox don't make it this year I will root for ABNY (Anybody But New York).

Now, don't get me wrong Jesus even loves the Yankees and their fans.

Here is a shout for the good guys!! Go Sox!!!

Learning to Ride a Bike and Following God

A little less than a week ago Robert our 4 year old said he wanted the training wheels off his bike. So, I have been trying to teach him how to ride without training wheels. He is not there yet but soon will be.

I was reminded in one of our practice sessions how much learning to ride a bike is like following Jesus.

1. There comes a time when we have to take the training wheels off and begin to practice big boy/ girl faith and move beyond "I follow Jesus because it makes my life better" to "I follow Jesus because he is the way that makes the most sense out of this world and because of the challenge he lays on my life."
2. It is not enough to just take the training wheels off. You have to try to ride. I am continuing to unfold just how utterly ridiculous we Christians have been in thinking if someone just prays the magic formula (sinners prayer/ Romans Road, 4 Spiritual Laws) that this is the end of it. While all those things are O.K. at the proper time and are necessary they are not the end but the beginning.
3. Sometimes we will fall off. We will have times when we follow Jesus and we fall flat on our faces. But just as we learn not to turn the handlebars too fast one way and to watch where we are going when riding a bike so we learn in these times of our faith to trust God and keep our eye on him.
4. There will be times in our faith when we feel like we can ride for miles and miles with no hands. These are the seasons of fruit. Still, we have to watch for the pothole in the road of life or the bus running the stop sign or we might become the roadkill of a peace and prosperity Gospel. Even in the good times we have to trust, stay focused, and know who holds our future.
5. We need mentors to teach us how to ride a bike and what it means to follow Jesus. Yes, some to keep us from falling, to keep us steady, to give us a push when we need it and someone to dust off our blessed assurances when we fall and encourage us to get back on.

Are you ready for the Tour de Faith?

Milk Shake Update

Since I am becoming the milk shake aficionado of Fredericksburg I found another good shake! Try Arby's new creamsicle shake. If you like creamsicles then you will love this shake. When I let Robert have a try he did not want to give it back!!

God's Will

Having been trained at a Presbyterian Seminary there was much talk about God's will. Or, as they called it God's providence. It seems to me that one of our struggles is to operate within God's will. But how?

An easy answer to how to be in God's will is to say live by the Bible. But the Bible is not an owners manual but rather a book open to interpretations. For sure we can all agree that there are black and white things in the Bible that are clearly within or outside of God's will. For example, it is God's will that persons would love God and their neighbor. That is a pretty safe statement. Or, it is God's will that we would not murder. For then we would be outside of God's will. I think we can agree on that.

What about when it comes those issues of everyday life though and determining God's direction (will) for one's life? Questions like should I take the new job? Should I move my family? Do I get the new car or the new used car? Do I take my boyfriend back again after he has cheated on me? Do I tell someone the truth though it will hurt them?

We can bring scripture to bear on some of these questions. Of course, we would have to know what the scripture says about some of these issues or at least where to look. We might pray and ask for God's direction (doors to open or close, the whisper of the Holy Spirit in our hearts, what others are saying ((community)), whether it will bring honor to God?).

In the end, trying to figure out God's will is like most of this journey that we are on with Jesus- it is a challenge. We will know whether we have gone the right way by the fruit produced. Or, maybe there are different paths to be taken that all could be part of God's will. But, that is for another post.

So, go make sense out of and follow God's will for your life.

The Oprah"ization" of Church

Have we turned church into a glorified Oprah Winfrey show only leaving out the special gift under the seat or the new car giveaways?

If you look out Oprah's audience you mostly see women. I guess this is expected since women are Oprah's bread and butter- her demographic. Because women are who Oprah is trying to reach the show is feminized. Oprah used to have the innocuous "Get in Touch with Your Spirit" segment and she loves to feature touchy feely novels for her book club like "The Notebook" and other such books that make us men just cringe. And this is all good for Oprah. She ain't no dummy!

But have we Oprah"ized" church? Have we made it uncomfortable for men. In all three churches where I have served I have watched as women sat in the worship space while their husbands stayed home. Why?

I don't pretend to have all the answers but maybe it is because we have feminized church to the point that we have made it uncomfortable for men and it is now man law that men will not come to a sissy church.

Here are a few examples:

• We love to talk about having a relationship with Jesus. I know very few men who are digging the hard work and baggage of another relationship- much less with another dude. But men love the challenge of a journey.
• We decorate our churches with pink and lavender curtains and plush and frilly furniture with mauve carpet. Yeah, that is real inviting for a man.
• Then we gather around the fellowship hall or the morning circle and we say "o.k. we are going to pray now. Hold the hand of the person next to you." Yuck! Who wants to hold the hand the big hairy hand of the old guy next to you or the little hand of the piano player. This is sometimes hard for a man who has trouble holding his wife's hand on a regular basis.

Oh well you get the picture. I have been guilty of making men do some of these things. I repent today men. In our effort to reach the lost let us remember the men.

Hand Spun Milk Shakes

Has anyone tried the new hand spun milk shakes at Chick-Fil-A? Diana got the cookies and cream one a week ago or so and it was really, really good. They even have whip cream and a cherry on top. Last night we ate at Chick-Fil-A and we got a cookies and cream milk shake and a chocolate one. While the chocoloate was very good the cookies and cream was still the best.

And about Chick-Fil-A. Ain't that a good business model. It is clean. It is fast. The people that help you are courteous. The food is good and is different (not a nasty old burger from under the heat lamp). I think Chick-Fil-A also creates an environment that is family friendly and while it could make a gajillion if it stayed open on Sundays it doesn't.

It seems to me the church can learn something from Chick-Fil-A. We can take away some principles (cleanliness, hospitality, offering good soul food, being different ((an alternative to the thinking of the world)), and an environement for people to be fed by God's Spirit so that people want to come back and kids throw temper tantrums when they can't go to church!)

I,We and Me

I have this tension inside me when it comes to Christian contemporary music. This tension has to do with the rampant individualism lifted up in the music.

How many of the songs we sing in worship are about "me, myself, and I"? Have you ever stopped to think. Going back to the the Maranatha days there was "Lord I Lift Your Name on High". Then there was "Here I am to Worship" and "I Can Only Imagine" and even favorites today like "Lifesong" (Let your lifesong sing for me). Oh, sure there are a couple of good songs that sing about God and don't constantly use the first person but they seem to be getting fewer and fewer between.

I think we need to be cognizant of this and aware of the cult of individualism that is being reinforced albeit unknowingly I am sure. The community of faith I find described in scripture and throughout most of history is anything but individualistic. The Bible says we need each other. The Bible says to meet together. The Bible says we worship together. In our closed lives of individualism where the world tells us to look out for number one and to buy the package designed especially for you the church and its teaching need to be counter-cultural and thus temper this cult of individualism.

On the other hand, when it comes to music, we want a certain portion of the music to be personal. We want people to be able to appropriate the words into the core of their being and be able to demonstrate and live out those words in their life. We want people to know what it is like to praise God out of their whole being. So there is the tension.

Maybe the answer is to find a balance. One where the music balances the communal and individual aspects of this journey we are on.

Omnipresence

There are three "omni" words traditionally used to define God: omnipotent (all powerful), omniscient (all knowing) and omnipresent (all present).

For most people who subscribe to a belief in the God of Christianity the first two are not that hard. It is pretty easy to believe that God is all powerful after taking in a waterfall or seeing a violent storm. And it is pretty easy to subscribe to the notion that God is all knowing when we see how things turn out in our life and in the lives of others mostly for good.

We tend to have more of a problem with this God being present everywhere thing. I mean it is easy to affirm and say that God is everywhere but we often forget this truth. Or, we simply do not believe it. Or, we believe that God is only present in the four walls of the church. But God is everywhere and that is what omnipresence is all about.

For most of us though we do not stop long enough to see God's presence among us. We don't see God as we rush from appointment to appointment, errand to errand, soccer practice to ballet, email to cell phone and more. How many times do we walk by, drive by, and pass by the presence of God because we are elsewhere?

God is present and working in all the places we find ourselves in. True enough, God is most powerfully experienced through Christ and by the power of the Holy Spirit when the community of faith gathers and breaks bread together, but he is also present in all other places.

How Big is Your Jesus?

Where are you on your Jesus journey?

When you are up on the ropes, when your faith is tested, when it seems like there is no way out (or in) how big is your Jesus?

As you grow in your faith and discover more and more about what it means to follow this Jesus do you move beyond "Jesus said it, I believe it, and it's so" to knowing the truth of Christ in your heart?

When the proverbial box of your faith is shattered, is your faith big enough that it can handle what your are experiencing or learning that calls into question all you have been taught?

There is no doubt that the Jesus we find in the Bible and who we experience is big enough. The questions is whether we believe the Jesus we follow is big enough. How big is your Jesus?

Next week- Deep Thoughts by Jack Handy!

Recon

Yesterday was one of those rare Sundays when I was not teaching and I did not have other worship celebration experience responsibilities. I wondered earlier in the week what I would do. I thought real hard about attending one of the more innovative churches in the Fredericksburg area to get ideas and see how other people were connecting others to Christ.

However I settled on doing a little recon instead. I wanted to see what people were doing who were not in church on Sunday. After all, if these are the people we are trying to reach why shouldn't we learn as much as we can about their Sunday morning habits. While it was strange to be driving around on Sunday morning the learning was invaluable. Here is what I observed from about 10:30 a.m. to noon.

• In the neighborhood I drove through there were many garage doors open with people getting ready to mow grass or in the process of washing cars. There was not a tremendous amount of activity but more than I though there would be.
• There were a significant amount of people at WaWa, Food Lion, Wal-Mart, Lowes, Toys R Us, and especially the brand spanking new Target.
• One lady I was next to at a stop light was playing contemporary Christian music while smoking a cigarette. She would fit in well at New Season! Like Jesus, we love smokers though not their habit!
• When I passed the big soccer complex at Loriella Park there were no soccer or baseball games going. Good for you Spotsylvania Parks and Rec.

Here are some take aways from what I saw.

• While all these people were different and no doubt some were regularly connected to a faith community there are still vast amounts of people not connected to a faith community and no doubt vast amounts living without Christ.
• All of the churches in are area could double and there would still be unchurched people in our area.
• Future servant evangelism efforts (passing out free water/ drinks, free newspapers and coffee, free car washes) should take place on Sunday mornings if that is who we are trying to demonstrate the love of Christ to.
• I dream of a day when we will cancel Sunday worship (maybe move it to Saturday) and be out serving in the community on a Sunday morning.

See you in church next week!

Relevance

What does it mean to be relevant when it comes to doing church? Whether that means being relevant in preaching, programming, nurturing, evangelism or anything else the church does? We hear a lot of churches say come and hear relevant messages. Or, we are a contemporary, causal and relevant church. What does this overused word mean?

Relevant is...

• Meeting people's felt needs and helping them to discover and fill their ultimate need- a life changing walk with Jesus Christ.
• Using methods to present the Gospel that are indigenous to your mission field specially in the area of worship.
• Watching your language and not using Christianese so that persons not "in" have a hard time understanding what in the world you are saying. People have not been to church have nop idea what a narthex, nave, doxology, atonement, or lectionary is.
• Preaching and teaching about relationships, marriage, raising kids, dealing with stress, finding purpose and meaning etc.- all in the context of the Biblical witness and always exalting Christ.

Relevant is not...

• Telling people what you think they need to hear.
• Expecting persons who have grown up with television, computers at age 5, MTV images every three seconds, and surround sound to sit through an hour to an hour and a half of linear worship with one or two talking heads.
• Simply putting up a screen, using movie clips, or playing contemporary Christian music.
• Arguing about the amount of water used in baptism, the color of the new carpet, whether to spend money on a newspaper ad or whether gay people should be allowed to become members of the church. We do this while people in our mission field are dying and going to hell, going hungry and have no place to lay their heads and suffer from physical, spiritual and emotional illnesses.

Nomadic Churches

Nomadic Chruches are churches that for any number of reasons do not have a permanent home. They may meet in schools, community cetners, warehouses, movie theaters or any place where worship can happen "in spirit and truth." Bill Easum and Pete Theodore provide an excellent survey of the special challenges faced by nomadic churches as well as the many benefits the nomadic church has over the established church. As more and more churches are started in areas where land is way too expensive to purchase and build upon and where mission trumps structures we will see more nomadic churches. These churches will be nomadic not for a time, but for their life. Here are some highlights from Easum and Theodore's work some with my comments.

p. 3 Possible things don’t need God.

A mantra here at New Season these days. If it can be done without God it is not worth doing. That's been said numerous times by many but still worth repeating.

p. 16 To fulfill the Great Commission, the number of new churches that must be planted requires a method that demands less capital than in the past.
We’ve learned that it costs between 500,000 and 1 million to plant a church the traditional way.

We can't keep doing parachute drops if we want to plant 250 new churches in the next 30 years in Virginia.

p. 17 ...having their own buildings may encourage churches to operate with a centripial (come) rather than a centrifugal (go) mentality in mission, inviting non-members to church rather than going into society to meet people on neutral territory, reversing the apparent thrust of mission in the New Testament.

Gone are the days when you could say "hey, here we are y'all come now" and expect people to show up. We need to get the hell out of the church both literally and figuratively.

p. 21 An advantage to the nomadic church is it keeps away some Christians who only want a comfortable church experience.

What a great benefit this is.

p. 123 “My goal was for it to be impossible for anyone in our city to be unaware of our church.”

This is the worthy goal of one leader of a nomadic church and one that is a worthy goal for every church.

p. 139 Simple core value- Christ first, people second, buildings last.

For those who have already built I would add, "Never put up a building until everyone understands we will tear it down in a New York minute if it means reaching more people for Christ."

p. 156 There is much we can do after we pray; but there is nothing worth doing until we pray.

p. 162 Luther- Pray as if everything depends on God. Then work as if everything depends on you.

Mary, Mary, Why You Buggin'?- Da Vinci Code Discourse

Here is the podcast for the final message in the "Da Vinci Code Discourse" series.

To listen now, click on the podcast icon below.

Mary, Mary, Why You Buggin'?



Message
Mary Magdalene is one of the main players in the Da Vinci Code though she never makes an appearence. The claims associated with Mary Magdalene: that she was married to Jesus and had his child, that her bloodline continues, that she is the true holy grail are so absurd that this message focuses on a more important topic. Namely, what we can learn from the fully devoted follower Mary Magdalene that can help us grow and be more commited followers of Jesus.

Series
This message is from the series "The Da Vinci Code Discourse". While the Da Vinci Code is a work of fiction, author Dan Brown blurs lines between fiction and truth and makes broad claims that strike at the heart of Christianity. We will look at some of the issues the book raises in an effort to discover what people who follow Christ beleive and why we believe it. We hold that Christianity is not a call to bury our heads in the sand or check our brains in at the door but to engage and redeem such cultural phenomenas as the Da Vinci Code.

Subscribe to this podcast via Apple iTunes by following this link.

Get Apple iTunes for PC or Mac here.

The Truth about the Bible Part 2

Here is the podcast for the fourth message in the "Da Vinci Code Discourse" series.

To listen now, click on the podcast icon below.
The Truth about the Bible Part 2

Message
This message continues to explore the trustowrthiness of the Bible. We can trust the Bible because of its claims to have been written by either eyewitnesses or near eyewitnesses, because the sheer number of ancient manuscripts out there and the small amount of time lapse between when the Bible was written and when we have the first ancient manuscipt. Add to this the sheer number of prophecies that are fulfilled in the Bible and it becomes clear that the Bible is trustworthy.

Series
This message is from the series "The Da Vinci Code Discourse". While the Da Vinci Code is a work of fiction, author Dan Brown blurs lines between fiction and truth and makes broad claims that strike at the heart of Christianity. We will look at some of the issues the book raises in an effort to discover what people who follow Christ beleive and why we believe it. We hold that Christianity is not a call to bury our heads in the sand or check our brains in at the door but to engage and redeem such cultural phenomenas as the Da Vinci Code.

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KJV Crater Found According to News Reports

A satire from Christianlogic.com. Long live the true and only word of God!

SALISBURY, UK--British police announced yesterday the location of the KJV crater. The location, explained police captain William Lindt, is where the King James translation of the Bible fell from heaven. "There's this forest, see? Then there's this clearing, and then this bloody hole in the ground," said Lindt. "I saw it and said to myself that it looks like the spot the Authorized Version hit, if it looks like anything at all."

The crater was discovered by a Scottish couple on holiday to England, police said. Lyle and Katie McCrone were strolling through the woods when they noticed a depression in the ground. Upon closer examination, the couple discovered that the depression was actually a hole shaped exactly like the King James Bible. "It was perfectly rectangular," said Lyle McCrone. "And the date 1611 was stamped at the bottom."

KJV-only scholars have been thrilled by the discovery. "We've known for some time that the King James translation is the only legitimate English Bible version. This only confirms it," said Dr. Hank Conrad of the Center for Authorized Version Research. "It's very encouraging," agreed Rev. Jason Delancy. "No modern translation can boast this kind of origin."

Annual Conference Day 1

Professions of Faith

Much happened yesterday at the Conference in the way of worship, celebration of different ministries around Virginia and more. But I wanted to highlight a couple of things.

There were two major issues. One had to do with churches who received no professions of faith this past year. The Conference statistician reported that there were more than 500, yes more than 500 churches, that had not received a member by profession of faith. A motion was made for a program to be put in place where help would be given to these churches and also provide accoutnability as to why these churches had not recevied one person by profession of faith last year (profession of faith means that they were not a believer before they came to the church/ had never beloned to another church- not a transfer).

While it seems many of the people at the Conference agree with the intent of the resolution there seems to be legitimate questions around how it will be carried out. Currently the motion calls for the a District Superintnendent from another District and two people from what is called the Common Table (a governing body on the Conference level) to provide consultation and accountability to such churches.

I agree there may be some problems with that set up but I believe we need to do something now and can tweak later. Ths situation is just not acceptable and shame on all of us. The District Superintendents have rightly claimed that they already have too much on their plate. If this is the case, which it appears to be, then they need to clear their plate and get rid of some of the stuff they are doing because this is far more important.

In a related motion, the conference agreed to a goal of planting 250 new churches in the next 20 years. It is about time. While the whole start new churches revitalize existing churches debate is not an either/ or debate (we can do both) I still firmly believe that the most effective way to make disciples of Jesus Christ is to start new faith communities.

Both of these motions were made by Keith Boyette from Wilderness Chruch. Wayto go Keith.

We also received a report from Task Force looking into a new assembly center who suggested another task force look into coming up with a plan for a new assembly center as Blackstone will just not suffice any longer. You would of thought we were attacking the divinity of Christ!! It made me reminiscent of being in a church meeting filled with building worshippers. Many of those who wanted to protect the hallowed grounds of Blackstone spoke of what a spiritual place it was. Jesus had something to say about places like that to the Samaritan woman- "There will come a time when you will not worship on this mountain or in Jerusalem." Buildings are not spiritual!!! I should tell them that New Season Church might be worshipping in the warehouse of an old Southern States store!! More later I hope.