Monday is for Missions: the Unreached & Unengaged

In our world today there are some 12,000 distinct people groups.  A people group is collection of people with similiarities such as language, culture, geography, etc through which the Gospel of Christ can spread easily.

6500 of these groups are "unreached" which means <2% of their members are evangelical believers in Jesus Christ. This effectively means that there is not an indigenous community of evangelical Christians with adequate numbers and resources to spread the Gospel within that particular people group.  The total population of these unreached people groups represent 1.6 billion people or 25% of the world!! Many of these groups are also "unengaged", meaning there is no church or organization actively working inside that people group to spread the Gospel!

To put it bluntly, almost every one of these people live and die without ever hearing the Gospel and there is currently no active work trying to change their situation!!

• Pray for these people groups.


• Pray for a new wave of missionary activity to come.


• Pray for an open and burdened heart as our church begins to wrestle with our responsibility regarding the unreached and unengaged.


• Visit www.peoplegroups.org  or www.joshuaproject.net for more information.

Weekly Rundown (6.27.2010)

• Love God & country type services but praying for the Gospel to transform our nation once again!


• Our students got back (which means so did my wife!!) from a great mission trip.  I remain convinced that the sooner we give young people an opportunity to "live their faith", the deeper their faith grows, making it ever so harder for Satan to deceive them as they enter young adulthood. More importantly, God is always glorified when His people "go"!!


• Really proud of our children's ministry staff and volunteers! We are one staff member short but their hearts and passion and work ethic is awesome!


• June surprise: attendance is down (no surprise ... it is summer), but giving is actually UP!  Only God!


• Our worship leaders have revamped their entire creative planning process.  I am pumped for what the Holy Spirit is going to produce through their efforts.  Start looking for the fruits of their labors in August when we start a series called, Lies of the Devil!!!


• I played Mr. Mom this week ... had to switch from man-to-man to zone defense with the boys.  Whew!! Thank God "mommy" is home :)


• Starting teaching Abreham how to fall asleep on his own ... which means we are putting him in his crib just before he falls asleep and letting him cry for a pre-determined period of time before we go check on him.  First few nights, he cried for 25+ minutes; last night, only 7 minutes! He is figuring it out and sleeping for 10+ hours straight!!


• Eyasu's English continues to improve.  He said "It's cool" (meaning its good and awesome) in context this week!!


• Have a great week!!

Weekly Rundown (6.20.2010)

• Wrapped up our Fanatic series today.  What a profound impact this series has had on my own life.  A few highlights for me personally:
  
  
  
  • We can enjoy God.  It's not a "duty" to be a Christ-follower, it is a delight.
  
  
  • God wants worshipers.  The goal of worship is to produce more worshipers of God.
  
  
  • Everything, I mean everything, in history is about the glory of God.  How can I/we/us be part of that?
  
  
  
  


• We finished up "One Great Nation" [part 2] next week ... can't wait!!


• My first Father's Day weekend!! What a blessing to be these two boys' father!!


• We have 2 staff members wearing casts and one who got bit by a copperhead ... should we be concerned?


• I just finished reading Dr. David Platt's book, Radical.  WOW!  This book along with The Hole in Our Gospel and our adoption journey has had a profound impact on my understanding of Christianity and forcing me to ask some tough questions for myself, my family, and our church.
  
  
  
  • What kind of service does the Gospel of Jesus Christ demand and deserve?
  
  
  • What kind of church does the Gospel produce?
  
  
  • What is my role as a  "global" Christian? What is our church's role in the call to "make disciples of all nations"?
  
  
  • What is our responsibility as Christians for addressing evils in the world such as poverty, hunger, disease, disaster response, etc. etc. ?
  
  
  
  


• Beth is away next week on a mission trip ... I'm flying solo at home ... thank God for family!!


• Have a great week!

Fanatic -- Series Sources

Resources and sources for the FANATIC series (3 parts during June 2010):

• Radically Unchurched by Alvin Reid


• Worship is What?! by Tom Kraeuter


• Fresh Encounter by Henry Blackaby and Claude King


• Worship: Believers Experiencing God by Henry Blackaby and Ron Owens


• Exegetical teaching of John Piper on worship (web site: www.desiringgod.com)

Weekly Rundown (6.5.2010)

• Take the Rock Bridge "Snapshot" Survey. It's only 10 questions and it will really help us better understand how we are doing as a church and what God is doing through our church.


• We announced that we are not having the 2010 Fall Festival this week. For a detailed explanation please see the related blog post.


• Great all-staff meeting this week. We gave out two recognitions that were pretty cool:
  
  
  
  • The WD-40/Duct Tape Award: for the staff member who held things together (duct tape) and kept things moving (WD-40).
  
  
  • The Giraffe Award: for the staff member who went above and beyond and really stuck their neck out.
  
  
  
  


• Our Chatsworth Campus will be moving to Bagley Middle School in a few weeks as the new North Murray High School is moving into their new facility over the summer; however since the theater is not yet completed we can't move with them.  However, we are VERY excited about being at Bagley ... great partnership emerging!


• School is out and summer is officially here.  When that happens two things tend to become inconsistent: church attendance and regular giving to God.  We've got two options to help with that!!
  
  
  
  • Rock Bridge PM: if you're gone a lot on the weekends, you do not have to miss church and what God might do or say!!  {Thursdays at 6:30 pm in the Wink Theatre on our Dalton Campus}
  
  
  • E-Give: a simple and easy way to give online.  This works like a bank draft.
  
  
  
  


• Our Children's Minister search will shift into first gear in the next week or so. Please be in pray for this process ... and this person.


• Hoping to get to the lake sometime soon with the boys!!


• Have a great week :)

Why We Cancelled Fall Festival 2010

Recently our leadership made a very tough decision to cancel our Fall Festival for 2010.  This has been a very popular event both within our church and in our communities and has blessed many people so this decision was not an easy one.  However, I am convinced that for this particular year it is the right decision (we may decide to do it again in 2011).

2010 is an unprecedented year for our church.  We have opened a third campus and started a Thursday night service at our Dalton campus.  We have added hundreds and hundreds of new people into our church.  We have increased our missions giving (locally & globally) by a substantial amount.  However, our resources are limited.  Our budget income has not increased from 2009 levels, our Next Step Campaign is 30% behind projections, and our local economy is still struggling.  Additionally, our staff is working harder than ever to lead, shepherd, and connect people to Christ at a time when we numerically need to add new staff.  Several key ministries are in need of more volunteers.

Given those realities the wise thing for us to do is to focus our limited resources (staff & money) for the greatest impact. We have always tried to be a simple and intentional church.  This means we deliberately choose to do only a few things and those few things must have an intentional or clearly defined purpose that aligns with our mission. The areas of greatest impact in this church are undoubtedly our regular large group and small group gatherings of adults, children, and teenagers.  Our call during this season is to focus relentlessly and almost exclusively on these environments and the people they are impacting for the glory of God.

A common question is doesn't Fall Festival impact thousands of lives and bring new people into the church? The answer is yes and no.  Yes, on that one night thousands of people come out to the festival but we have never seen new growth in our church from Fall Festival.

Another question is what if someone donated the money for Fall Festival, could we have it then? If someone wanted to give the church money I would encourage them to give it where the church most needs it.  Our staff and elders believe that the best place for God's money to be leveraged right now is funding our core ministries (worship, small groups, children, students, and missions), adding new staff in response to our rapid growth, and continuing to pay off the Next Step construction loan to reduce future debt load on the church.  We see this practice in the New Testament where people would give money to the church, and the church would distribute it where it was most needed (see Acts 4:34-35).

A similar question is since we have lots of people willing to volunteer at Fall Festival, can't they carry the load? Fall Festival has typically had great volunteer support.  But again the question is one of priority.  Right now we need more volunteers in almost every area of our church, most especially small group facilitators/hosts and children's ministry servants. Acts 6:1-7 shows an example of people being asked to serve where the church most needed it.  Fall Festival is simply not the area of greatest need right now in our church.

I continue to ask for your prayers because we need God's wisdom to navigate these waters of uncertainty.  While we can never be 100% certain, we can be 100% clear.  Our clarity comes from our mission of connecting people to Christ, our values that include being intentional, and our strategy of large groups and small groups.

Prescription for Relationships & One Great Nation-1: Series Sources

Sources and resources used during the series, Prescription for Relationships:

• Chip Ingram and "Life on the Edge"
  
  
  
  • 5 Lies that Ruin Relationships
  
  
  • Hypocrisy
  
  
  
  


• Sticky Teams and The Unity Factor -- books by Dr. Larry Osborne


• Andy Stanley's series: "Staying in Love"


• Song of Solomon teachings and workbook by Tommy Nelson


• John Piper's exegetical teaching of the Golden Rule (web site: www.desiringgod.com)


• ESV Study Bible


• Winning with People by John Maxwell

Resources and sources for Part 1 of One Great Nation:

• Ronald Reagan Presidential Library clip of June 6, 1984 D-Day Speech.


• Bob Russell's sermon "Examining Our Heritage"


• The Next Generation Leader by Andy Stanley

FAQ: Sermon Sources

QUESTION:  "Where do you get message ideas and content? How do you prepare a message?

ANSWER:  Creative material, ideas, concepts, and content for my messages and our services come from a variety of different sources.  Some of it is "home grown" so to speak, and is an insight, idea, or concept that either myself or our creative team has developed.  Some of what we use and what I preach comes from outside sources, including books, conferences, podcasts, commentaries, blogs, and messages from other pastor-teachers.

For example, during our JONAH series we used a graphic from LifeChurch.tv.  This church makes all of their resources available for free and asks for no credit, only that it be used for building God's kingdom.

For FOOLPROOF-Part 3 I included several concepts in the explanation of I Samuel 24 that I derived from Andy Stanley's teaching on that same passage.  Another similar example was during Part 5 of FOOLPROOF on responsibility, when I used an adapted version of an explanation I heard Andy Stanley give on that subject.  His church has an entire resource ministry called North Point Resources that makes many of their messages and songs available for purchase and use by other churches. They require permission only if more than 100 contiguous words are used. We at Rock Bridge are very grateful for churches like North Point and LifeChurch.tv.

When I begin to prepare a sermon, I am on a "truth quest" that ultimately starts with and comes from God's Word.  After immersing myself in God's Word, I frequently will read material and listen to other messages that pertain to the subject or the passage of Scripture I am using.  If I find something taught, explained, or worded in a way that I think would be helpful, I will adapt it into a message or series.  Many times what I read or hear helps me gain clarity about a subject so I can teach on it with greater understanding.  For any given message, I probably use between 4-8 different sources, plus what God reveals directly to me through prayer and my own study of the Scripture.  Our creative team goes through a similar process when preparing songs, videos, dramas, and graphics so that God's truth is enhanced, amplified, and clarified.

I am going to begin including on my blog, listings of all the sources used in message preparation and in our different series, under the category, "Series Sources & Resources".  Our worship staff already does this for the song sets on the Rock Bridge Worship Blog.  I am doing this for several reasons:

1. Some of you are curious.


2. Some of you would like to study more on your own.


3. I do not want to give the impression that everything I say or teach is "my" idea or take credit that is not mine to take.  My goal is to share God's truth in a relevant, understandable, and clear way so God's Spirit can work and God's truth can set people free; my goal is not to be 100% original, but 100% clear with biblical truth.