Sitcoms, Gay Marriage and the National Agenda

May 17th, 2012

This blog is not about politics. It never has been and it never will. But we do talk about what’s happening in the culture at large here because our center of influence is that cross section where the Bible intersects with the culture. The Issue of gay marriage has been getting a lot press recently as President Obama announced that his perspective has evolved to a point of support for it. I’m not surprised about that. The announcement came as opinion polls reveal an evening of public support for gay marriage. And the gay community has tremendous resources that will help the President in his campaign.

It appears that Vice President Biden got the ball rolling for the White House a few weeks earlier when he affirmed his own support for gay marriage. None of this is surprising to me, and I’m guessing its not to you either.
The disturbing thing to me is the way that television sitcoms and dramas have been used to support the endeavor. Vice President Biden, in a speech given to a fund raiser in California, shared that the show Will and Grace was instrumental in his coming to accept homosexual marriage. A recent blogger on CNN.com used a few episodes of Glee to make his argument that while the Bible does condemn homosexuality, it also condemns all kinds of other things that are a part of our daily life (which in one sense is true and will be discussed in my next blog).
My caution, especially to parents, is that we have lost the ability to differentiate between entertainment and reality.
In our wealth we have become a leisure and entertainment centered culture. We now live in a culture where one of our top leaders sites a television sitcom as part of his process in evaluating a pressing social issue. My point here is not to critique the Vice President (although I’m tempted), but to urge our parents to be very careful and intentional about what is consumed in your home as entertainment. The presence of “reality TV” (which is anything but real) blurs the line even further. Take the time to have conversations with your kids to teach them to think critically about what they see and hear through the media.
The modern proverb; “Garbage in Garbage out” is echoed in the inspired ancient one:  Walk with the wise and become wise; associate with fools and get in trouble (Proverbs 13:20).
It certainly seems like our culture is headed for trouble and a big part of the reason is because we have lost the ability to tell the difference between the foolish and the wise. Don’t let it happen to your legacy.

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National Day of Prayer… About Prayer

May 3rd, 2012

Today is the National Day of Prayer. I’m grateful to be a part of a nation that has, for most of its history, understood that success is always a gift of God’s grace. A nation that understood that God is the ultimate authority. In 1775 the Continental Congress called the Colonies to prayer for wisdom in forming a new nation.  In 1863 Abraham Lincoln called the nation to a day of “humiliation, fasting and prayer.” And then in 1952 a joint resolution of congress signed by President Truman declared an annual day of prayer. President Reagan, in 1988, amended the law to specify that the national day of prayer should be the first Thursday of May each year. Each year the president signs a proclamation urging Americans to pray. Normally each of the 50 governors sign similar proclamations for their states.

Early in my career as a pastor I found myself invited to speak at NDP gatherings. I found myself on courthouse steps, and town squares speaking to angry Christians while newspapers took pictures and reporters asked questions. I remember feeling good about the publicity and thinking that I was somehow helping the cause of Christ. Then my youngest son, Caleb, was dealing with an issue where he was asked to participate in public prayer that was set up mostly to be seen by others. He was seeking God for wisdom and God led him to this passage:

When you pray, don’t be like the hypocrites who love to pray publicly on the street corners and in the synagogues where everyone cans see them. I tell you the truth, that is all the reward they will ever get. But when you pray, go away by yourself, shut the door and pray to your Father in private. Then your Father, who sees everything, will reward you. Matthew 6:5-6

He was convinced, and I agreed, that the wise thing to do was to decline participation. He was criticized for that decision, but it was the right one. Since that conversation with Caleb I have changed my participation in NDP events.

Prayer is not something that God gave us to make political statements.

That’s why, at ebc, we open our church early in the morning and keep it open late each year on NDP. Prayer is about seeking God. It is the most underused resource we have as Christ followers.

I have no particular problem with the events happening around the country surrounding NDP. It is not my place to judge the hearts of others. I do know that for me, using prayer as a political statement cheapens prayer and soils my attitude.

So today I hope our ebc family passionately storms the gates of heaven in prayer. I hope we humble ourselves and worship and seek God in repentance and plead for his continued mercy and grace on us. Whether you participate in one of the public opportunities, come to a church, or seek God from your home or office, lets just be sure our prayer is focused on God and not making a political statement.

Can’t wait to see you Sunday. It’s going to be an awesome day.

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How Your Feedback is Renewing our Small Groups

April 26th, 2012

Last spring and summer our elders were intentional about listening to our ebc family as part of an effort to assess our effectiveness. The effectiveness of a church is a very difficult thing to measure and the obvious numbers (attendance and giving), while important, don’t always tell the whole story. We developed a partnership with the Willow Creek Association to utilize an in-depth survey to get a good picture of the health of our church. There was lots of good news in our results. Ebc is a dynamic, vibrant, growing tool for the glory of God in pursuing his mission and that is good news. However, there was also information that caused our leaders to pause and pray. Namely, while we have been effective at reaching people with the Gospel we have not been as effective at helping those individuals grow into maturity in their walk with God as we’d like. Actually, compared to other churches like us we’re average in that category, and average is not good enough. Biblical spiritual maturity is a tough thing to measure, and cultivating it in the lives of people is complex. There are a number of tensions to balance. Maturity includes learning new things, but simply learning things produces pride not Godliness. Maturity includes generosity and a heart for God’s mission in service, but those traits alone do not make a disciple.
We know that discipleship is incubated when it includes transformational learning in the context of grace saturated friendships that are laced with accountability and nurtured over time.
Our strategy for creating those kinds of relationships was and is small groups. However our small groups were generally not functioning effectively to grow disciples. Some were little more than social, and we had a allowed so much freedom that we weren’t even sure how many groups we had and we didn’t know what many of our groups were doing. Since the elders are accountable to God for those entrusted to our care, and for every ministry of the church we set out to learn from the most effective small groups ministries in the country.
Our Executive Pastor, Alex Poireir, and elder Bob Hess have spent hundreds of hours praying, searching the Scriptures and learning from others to come up with plan that would re-energize and re-launch our small groups. The plan was approved by the elders and was launched through our recent sermon series; Two-Gather.
There are a few key elements to our new small groups:
The site pastors are responsible for the small groups at each site. Each site pastor will work directly with a few flock leaders, who will each have a collection of small groups for which they are responsible. Each small group will then have a leader and an apprentice so we are constantly developing new group leaders to serve the family as we continue to grow.
Small groups will still have a lot of freedom to choose what they’ll study, but they’ll choose from a collection of elder approved materials that will be housed in a resource library that is being developed to serve our family. There will be times, perhaps once or twice each year, when all of our groups will work on the same study as a whole family emphasis. This has proven very effective in the past and we anticipate that will be the case moving forward as well.
At the core of the small group ministry is a simple covenant that each of us will sign indicating our intention to participate fully in the life of the group in a supportive, gracious, missional way.
Our new small group ministry is our current best effort at a biblical, effective, discipleship oriented community for the glory of God. We will keep a close eye on this renewed effort and do all we can to make it as effective as possible, refining it as we learn and continually evaluate. As with everything we do, it will be a work in progress. Please help us. We need your insight and helpful suggestions to do all we can as a family to help each other grow into Christ-likeness.
We’ve wanted to make our small groups more robust for years. Thanks to the work of Pastor Alex and Bob we have a great opportunity to move forward. I’m really grateful for their work and leadership. I’m praying that God will establish the work of their hands for his glory, and I’m asking you to jump in with both feet. Let’s do this, it matters.

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Authority in The Church

April 19th, 2012

As a church grows the question of appropriate authority grows with it. When a church is smaller it is easier to insure that everyone has a voice and leadership within that small organization can function more like a family. As the ministry grows authority necessarily becomes more centralized and processes and structures have to be put in place to insure consistency through the whole organization. The question is, from a biblical perspective, how does that authority work?

  • Jesus is the Sr. Pastor and ultimate authority. Jesus died for and owns the church and he is the ultimate authority in it. He has spoken to his bride through the Bible where he gives both the structure and style of leadership within his family, the church. Jesus leads his church through people that he has called and equipped. The Bible uses several words to describe these leaders (overseer, elder and pastor) and in every case leadership within the church is through a plurality of individuals. Leadership in the church is never one person holding authority over all the others. Every church in the New Testament had elders.
  • It’s important to note that leaders in the New Testament are under authority before they’re in authority. Those who can’t follow, can’t lead. Everybody, especially the leadership, is a follower first. All leadership in the church is “under-leadership.”  The task of leadership in the church is to move people on to God’s agenda and to pursue his mission while working to introduce people to a saving relationship with God and to grow deeply in that relationship. Leaders in the church are to be gentle servant leaders. There is no place in the church for harsh leadership. It is important to understand that while leadership in the church must be gentle, it must still be leadership toward God’s mission. It’s not leadership to simply ask people what they want to do and then help them do that. The model in the New Testament is absolute leadership (as opposed to government where the will of the majority is sought), but it is gentle and patient in style.
  • Leaders in the New Testament are given authority appropriate to their responsibility. Paul instructs Timothy to make sure that those leaders that “rule well” are well compensated (1 Timothy 5:17). He instructs Timothy to “reprove, rebuke and exhort.” The authority to “rule, reprove, rebuke and exhort” are part of the office of elder.
  • Leaders will be judged more strictly (James 3:1). Leadership is a very sobering task. It comes with much responsibility and God will judge more strictly those who lead.
  • The church is called to submit to elders. The writer of Hebrews says it this way: Obey your leaders and submit to them, for they are keeping watch over your souls, as those who will have to give an account. Let them do this with joy and not with groaning, for that would be of no advantage to you. (Hebrews 13:17 ESV)
Careful, biblical, submissive (to Jesus) leadership is central to the fruit bearing church. If you can’t submit to the leadership of  your church you have a choice. If the leadership is biblically faithful you should repent of your sin of rebellion. If the leadership is not biblically faithful you should find a church with leadership to which you can submit.

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The Fallacy of the “Small but Committed” Church

April 4th, 2012

Most of us tend to assign a moral value to the size church that we prefer. Those that like smaller more intimate churches tend think that those churches are just better. Those that prefer the resources and reach of a larger church tend to assign a moral value to that preference. That’s unfortunate because God uses churches of all sizes to grow his Kingdom and glorify his name. There is no perfect size church.
I was recently in a conversation with someone who was trying to persuade me that ebc would be far better off if we were a small church of committed people rather than a larger church reaching all kinds of people.
On its face, a small church of committed people sounds nice. Everybody is going in the same direction, the sense of community would be palpable. It’d be neat.
Problem is, it’s impossible. There is no such thing as the small but committed church for a couple reasons.
First, how would we decide how committed is committed enough to be a part of the group? There has never been, except for Jesus, a totally committed person. Every believer’s commitment to Jesus is partial because every human has a desperately wicked heart. Because of that we all tend to be at different places in our growth. That’s the nature of the church. Those differences in commitment level and maturity make everything a bit messy for every church. However, unless we are all going to be the same (which some churches try to do, it’s called legalism) it’s impossible for us all to be “committed” all the time. I know I’m not committed all the time, you’re probably not either so odds are we’d both be unqualified to be a part of this great church.
Secondly, when someone is committed to following Jesus there are certain things that are going to flow out their life. They’re going to actually look and act like Jesus. That means that they’ll be involved in people’s lives in redemptive ways. The people we’re relating to will be at various stages of coming to Christ. Some of them will be openly rebellious, but nonetheless on the journey toward Jesus. Others will be skeptical and questioning while others still will be more outwardly compliant while faking the religious stuff to earn the approval of their new friends. Any church that has truly “committed” people in it is naturally going to have a whole slew of folks that are in various stages of coming to and growing in Jesus. Any church that thinks it’s small but committed may well be small, but if there are no people living out their messy journey toward Jesus in their midst they’re certainly not committed.
Third, there aren’t any small but committed churches in the New Testament. None. The Corinthian church was struggling with sexual immorality, division, snobbery and theological confusion. The Galatian church added rules to the Gospel. The church at Ephesus received a letter helping them understand how to achieve unity in the midst of diversity. Philippians deals with a conflict between two leading women. On and on it goes.
Fourth, the New Testament assumes the presence of unbelievers in the church (1 Cor. 14:16, among others).
The church is called to live in the tension of being the bridge between the world that is perishing and the one that will last forever. That’s a hard place to be. It’s messy, very messy. Embrace the mess and rejoice in our mission.

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Your Personal Mission

March 16th, 2012

I’m pretty sure about two things about you. First, you’re passionate about something that so captivates you it marks your every day. You think about it when you get up in the morning. You dream about it at night. In short, it marks your world. It’s your personal mission. It’s good to have a personal mission.
Here is the second thing I’m pretty sure about. You probably haven’t been intentional about choosing your mission, in fact you might not even have admitted your mission to yourself, and you’ve probably done nothing concrete to put it in play to make it happen.  There is one easy way to know if you’ve taken steps to implement your personal mission. You say no to things you enjoy doing so you can work on it and you do that with joy.

Given that little test, I bet I’m right about the above two things right? Common, admit it, I’m right.  Thanks. Now, given that we’ve established that I’m right, here are some suggestions.

Be honest about your mission. You have one. But, it may not be worthy of you. The first step is to be honest about it. Go ahead. If the thing that occupies your thoughts and passions more than anything else is shopping, then shopping is your mission. If your mission is primarily about you then you should get before God and ask him to help you find a mission that is bigger than you. Personal missions that are all about us keep us so much smaller than we really should be. Your personal mission should be bigger than you and primarily impact people beyond you.

Once you establish your mission, make a list of things that you’ll change so you can invest your life implementing that mission. In other words just do it; and don’t let other people dissuade you from it. It’s not their mission; its yours. Go get it.

My personal mission has just three components: 1. Loving Jesus in a way that rescues people from religion and introduces them to Jesus. 2. Launching my sons to manhood in a culture that is desperate for real men, and 3. Loving Bren in a way that she never doubts her value and worth to me. That’s it. Things that don’t fit in those three things, don’t fit in my life.

Living our a personal mission brings clarity and simplicity to life. The best part is that I know what I need to refuse to do because my personal mission comes first.How about you? What’s your personal mission? How’s progress?

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After 10 Years; A Few Things of Which I’m Sure

March 9th, 2012

This weekend marks the end of my 10th year as pastor at ebc. What a journey! God’s lavish grace in allowing Bren and I to be a part of his mission at ebc has been and is astounding. As I think about all that He’s done and all he’s going to do  there are a couple things about which I’m sure:

  • God’s hand is on ebc. In the same way that an individual can’t really understand grace until they have a deep sense of their own depravity, a church can’t understand God’s mercy in mission apart from recognition of it’s own worts. We have a history at ebc, and it’s not all good! May we never forget how we’ve defamed God’s glory in the past. May we never cease to be amazed at God’s mercy and grace in granting another chapter of fruitful mission for his glory. We’ve grown to more than 800 people, we see folks coming to a saving relationship with Jesus and growing in their walk with him. None of that is because there is anything special about any of us. God’s hand in on ebc for his glory. What an incredible place to be!
  • Fruitful ministry in a small, rural, religious culture is complex and messy. We constantly battle the tension between the religious expectations of people and our mission to help folks ingest deeply the full uncompromised gospel of Jesus. We don’t always get it right, but God has been merciful in allowing fruit for his glory anyway.
  • We have an amazing family of people who have hung in there while we work together to pursue the mission God has given us. It’s not easy to be a part of ebc sometimes. I know that. We make our believers uncomfortable in the pursuit of our mission. I’ve heard that some folks feel like we’ve taken their church away, and they’re right about that. Our goal has never been to be a neat church. We’re on a mission. I’m so grateful for a growing group of Christ followers of all maturity levels that are in it for the mission and patient as we try things. I’m especially grateful for those long term ebc’ers who have hung in there in spite of all the changes that have taken place. Thank you and bless you.
  • Our best days are yet ahead! Of this I am absolutely sure. When I attend a meeting of our strategic planning team (a group of about 20 folks consisting of elders, staff, and folks from the congregation at large) and hear them dream about what they think God is saying for our next chapter, when I watch our growing group of twenty-somethings pursue this mission to win their friends to Jesus, when I see marriages healed and parents encouraged, and children stepping out of their comfort zone to go on mission with God I’m more energized than ever that our best days are yet ahead.
We haven’t arrived anywhere yet. God is just getting started with us. Our mission is going to get more complex, and more fruitful, and we’re going to produce more glory for God than ever. Yea God for his faithfulness to ebc. And, thank you for hanging in there. Now, let’s put the hammer down!

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Why is it so Hard to be Missional?

February 23rd, 2012

I grew up in the church. My parents were very involved, we were there all the time. After some misguided vocational turns out of high school I ended up getting a degree in Bible. I was an 19 year old Bible College student when I was hired for my first “church job.” I was the part-time youth pastor of a church in reading. From there I’ve been a Director of Christian Education, a solo pastor, a conference speaker, missions executive and now a Lead Pastor of a multi-staff church. That’s almost 30 years of experience and there is one thing that each experience in the church has had in common. That commonality is a fundamental perception that somehow my church should by my church. It should be something that takes care of me and feeds me good spiritual meals and encourages me when I need it. I want my church to be full of people that are largely like me so I feel comfortable there. I want to be able to leave my church being able to know that my needs were met and I’m ready to deal with my problems for another week.

The only problem is that is not the church of the New Testament. The church of the New Testament is a call to arms for the mission launched by Jesus on the cross. The life of the church in the New Testament is lived out in the context of mission. The church in the New Testament is a family of connected missionaries praying for, serving and sharing with the culture around them with the hope of introducing people to new life in Jesus. Then, they take radically good care of each other while in the battle.
It’s different for us. We tend to fill our lives with work and social obligations that consume us and stress us. Then, we want to come to church to be encouraged and filled up to go back into the world again, not to go on mission with Jesus, but to battle the forces that come from living in modern American with our credit card debt, big houses and relational tension. We’ve traded wars from Jesus’ war to win people from sin to our war to get ahead. So it’s natural, we’re tired, we’re stressed, we need a break. The thing that gets lost is the mission Jesus is on to save the world from sin.
Maybe all that’s really needed is one small change in perspective. Maybe that job that stresses you out so much is not so much just for a paycheck. Maybe it’s to help you connect with people who need what you have. Maybe those families you interact with through youth sports are really Holy Spirit arranged opportunities to share the only hope that goes beyond this world.
Its hard to be a missional church because we tend to think that we should be the mission, not others. It takes brutal, daily reminders to realize that Jesus call to us through Paul in Philppians to think of others before ourselves means he actually wants us to think of others ahead of ourselves.
It’s hard to be missional, but nothing is more important on this side of eternity. And, truthfully, nothing produces more joy either. Thanks so much for your patience as we work together as a family to pursue all the missional impact that Jesus will entrust to our care. I know it costs you a lot. I can’t wait to see your face when Jesus rewards you.

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This is a Dangerous Time. Maybe You Should Stand Up

February 16th, 2012

I stay far away from public politics. There was a time in my life that I thought politics would be my life. However, that is not what God asked me to do. I’m a Jesus guy and I want to help people meet Jesus regardless of their politics so, publicly at least, I avoid it. You are probably aware that President Obama is now requiring religious organizations to provide health insurance that covers abortion inducing drugs, contraception and sterilization. You’ve probably seen the news about this issue. Because of the outcry generated by this requirement the administration has tried to accommodate religious organizations by changing the directive to state that the coverage must be made available by the insurance company, not the employing organization. That’s just silly so I won’t comment on it here.

I have no problem with contraception or sterilization. I do believe abortion is gravely serious sin. But, be careful to not fall for the trap that this is about contraception. Not even close.
This is about whether or not the government can tell me that I have to violate my religious liberty.
Once any administration tramples one religion, the rest of us are not far behind.  Once again the Catholic church is on the front lines standing for what is right, and I, for one will be standing with them.
I’m doing two things right now. First, I joined more than 500,000 other Christians and signed the Manhattan Declaration. The Manhattan Declaration is a document authored by Catholics and protestants and other Evangelical Christians that takes a stand against the erosion of our religious liberty. I’d encourage you to consider signing it too. You can get more information and read the declaration here.
Secondly, the Manhattan Declaration and the Becket Fund are compiling a petition to present to President Obama on March 2nd. The petition request President Obama to allow a religious exemption from the requirement in question. I’m one of more than 67,000 signers. If you want, you can sign the petition here.
This is dangerous territory for our country.
You might also want to let your congressman and senator know your perspective. Most importantly pray with me that God would soften President Obama’s heart so he will relent from stepping off this slippery slope.
I can’t help but think of a poem by a German pastor named Martin Niemoeller reflecting on the Nazi terror.

First they came for the Socialists, and I
did not speak out —
Because I was not a Socialist.

Then they came for the Trade Unionists,
and I did not speak out —
Because I was not a Trade Unionist.

Then they came for the Jews, and I did
not speak out — Because I was not a Jew.

Then they came for me — and there was
no one left to speak for me.

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Ask Any Question: Why no Spanish Ministry?

February 13th, 2012

This is a great question! It makes perfect sense to wonder why we don’t have a ministry reaching out to our Spanish neighbors in a community with so many Spanish speakers. So why don’t we?

The short answer is this, and this is going to sound weird at first, but I’ll explain. The reason we don’t have a Spanish ministry in Hazleton is because need can’t be the only determining factor in what we do. Let me try and say it another way. The presence of need is not the only thing that is necessary to begin a sustainable ministry. One of the hardest jobs of those carrying the burden and blessing of leadership is to provide focus for the organization. Focus is essential. Everybody agrees that we can’t do everything. But the flip side of not doing everything is saying no some good things. That’s where it gets messy. There are always people passionate about the things that are not a part of the focus. So here is how we think about it at ebc. We don’t do surveys to determine the need and then develop programs to meet the need.
We work to steward our calling and our capacity to produce the greatest fruit for God’s glory.
We believe that we’ve been called us to help people meet God, for life. We pursue that calling with everything we have. We work hard to find ways to meet people where they are and invite them to take steps toward Jesus.We have a limited capacity (resources) to pursue that mission.
There is no question that reaching out to Spanish speakers fits within that calling. The next stage is to ask how our capacity could potentially meet the need in the Spanish sub-culture. It doesn’t take long to see that our capacity is not well suited to reach Spanish speakers. For example, we have very few people who speak Spanish well. We have even fewer people that understand the Latin American culture. Speaking the language and understanding the culture are bottom line essentials to reach people. Add to that the fact that there are evangelical ministries reaching out to Spanish speakers and it becomes clear that Kingdom resources are best utilized by working in partnership with those are so much better equipped to meet he need.
When churches plan their ministry on the basis of need alone they burn out quickly as they try to meet the inexhaustible need. God has lots of people working on his mission and he has entrusted a particular calling and a particular capacity to each of us. It’s essential that we support one another as we pursue greater glory for the King. It takes all of us!!

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