Autumn - in search of a desktop

Ever wonder where your desktop picture came from? This is a great article on where the "Autumn" desk top came from. via

Ash Wednesday Labyrinth

Not sure who actually reads this thing but if you are out there and you actually live somewhere around DeKalb, we are doing an Ash Wednesday Labyrinth tomorrow at the church. It's going to be from about 5:00 till 9:00, or whenever the last person leaves. I think we are going to keep it open on Thursday as well. We've never done anything like this before (heck, I've never been to one before) but we thought we'd give it a go and see what happens. I just spent the past several hours laying this thing out with Steve K and it looks pretty cool (can you say that about prayer and worship?). Oh well, if you are around the church, stop by.

Last few days

It's been a busy last couple of days. I thought I had it all figured out when I woke up on Friday morning. I was going to spend the morning reading (preparing for this weekends VLI class) then work on my sermon in the afternoon then attended Classic Movie Night. Well, all that fell apart with a call from Oak Crest. My dad took a fall late Thursday night. He seems to forget that he can't walk. The nurse called and said that he was complaining of pain in his hip. So it was off to the hospital. After x-rays, CAT scans, and several hours it was determined that he had indeed broke his hip and that he needed surgery (nothing major, just a few screws). The surgery would be at 9:00am Saturday morning and that it wouldn't take much longer then an hour or two.

Well, I got most of my reading done in the ER, so I figured that I would listen to my VLI intensive during the surgery, then get to the church in the afternoon, watch the rest of the intensive with everyone else and then work on my sermon tonight. Well, 9:00 turned to 11:00, which then turned to noon. They finally came to take him around 1:00....off to the waiting room. They were supposed to call me once he went into surgery. Having issues with the epidural, he did not start surgery till close to 3:00, out at 4:00, in recovery, and finally to his room for 5:00.

I ended up listening to all of the intensive and starting some of my sermon in the waiting room. It's 9:15 at night and I have finally finished it (here in my office). I'm not sure how good it will be, I don't feel like I gave it the time I wanted to. It's nights like this when I know it is all about Jesus and not about me. My prayer tonight will be "Holy Spirit HELP!". The beautiful thing is that He always does.

I'm starting to learn about trusting God. Today's intensive really spoke to that, but I've been hearing it from God a lot. When I first started thinking about ministry so many years ago I was always worried that I wouldn't be a good enough speaker or charismatic enough (both spiritually and socially). When I was doing my internship I quickly learned that when ever I depended on me I tended to fail. I've discovered that in reality I am not a good enough speaker, I am not charismatic enough, I'm not a very good leader, and my gathering skills aren't all that great. I've learned that I can not trust in me. And amazingly once I stop depending on myself, God comes and consistently provides. For the past two months the sermons that I have spoken are completely different then the sermons that I wrote. God has been able to overcome my weakness, ignorance and poor oratory skills to say what he wants to say. I have learned that for me, it can't just be lip service....I have no other option then to trust God.

I say this simply because that is where I am with my parents. I am at a loss on why things have happened as they have. I sat with my dad today and he looked terrible. Arthritis has caused him to look deformed. His heart has issues. His mind is lost. He looked at me this morning and said (in a dementia induced babble) that he knows I am not his son. He said it repeatedly. He said that he wanted to call the FBI to have them take me away. I know it's babble, but still...

I looked at him and wondered why? Why is this happening to both of my parents. I feel so weak and unprepared. But yet I know that I am not in control. That God is. That there is a reason for this, even though I may never know it. I also know that because he is in control, and because he loves me, he will take care on me. I am his son. I am not a bastard. I am not an orphan. I am my Father's son. That is all I really need.

What's the mission?

I've been playing with the mission statement of the church.....

To be a Community of Hope that passionately pursues the Kingdom of God in our neighborhood, our cities, our country and the world.

Community of Hope:

We are a Missional Community. Not just a place where we “go to church”, but a community that acts as the Church to the society around us, acting as Christ’s ambassador to our neighbors. Not just doing evangelism, but acting as missionaries – living in the world but not being of the world, seeking to incarnate the values of Jesus in all we say and do so that we can demonstrate in love a counter-culture (life in the Kingdom of God) to the society we are apart of.

We are a Faith Community. Not just a place we go to for religious services or events, but a community - a family - with whom we share a journey, with all its struggles, joys, difficulties and encouragements. Our community is not based on social, economic, racial or political similarities, but instead on faith, faith in walking with Christ by walking with one another.

We are a Community of Hope. The foundation of our community is in the hope we have in the Reign and Rule of God, our hope in the Kingdom. As such, we are a community that is to be a witness to the gospel and the in-breaking reign of God, striving to be an instrument, agent and sign of that reign. We point to the Kingdom, knowing that it will bring shalom to the world – wholeness, peace, justice and joy – once it comes in its fullness.

We demonstrate this Hope through the principles that focus us as a community:

H.O.P.E.

H - Honoring God through Worship: Worship is our priority. We worship God out of our alliance to him. The Hebrew word for “worship” denotes the physical act of falling on one’s face on the ground in homage to one’s ruler. As members of the Kingdom of God, we worship God not because it is spiritual or because we are attempting to “bring in the kingdom” or because it is fun. We worship God because it is all that we can do to show our gratitude as citizens of the Kingdom.

O – Opening the Gates and Setting the Captives Free: As a witness to the Kingdom, we are called to be an instrument of the in-breaking reign of the Kingdom of God. So it is our call to release those that are being held captive throughout all of God’s creation. Because of this, we pray for wholeness and healing of those physically, emotionally and spiritually sick. We bring the Gospel to disenfranchised and the forgotten in both words and deeds. But our responsibility not only lies in ushering in the Kingdom to our fellow man, but also in being stewards to all of creation around us and allowing God to use us to bring redemption and wholeness to all of creation.

P – Being a People of Prayer: Being a community that walks with Christ implies that of a community hungry for intimacy with Christ. Our sole existence is dependent upon Christ. Because of that, the rhythms and lifestyle of the community, both corporately and individually, are intricately dependent on prayer. We pray by ourselves. We pray as a community. We pray together even when we are apart. We pray using modern techniques. We pray following ancient traditions. We are a community that prays.

E – Equipping and Empowering the Saints: We reject the concept of separation of clergy and laity and instead embrace the concept of the “priesthood of all believers”. We are a community of ministers. All believers are called to be ministers to the world around them. Because of this we believe that the church is a place not to receive ministry, but instead a place to be equipped to do ministry. Pastoral staff is there not to minister to the members, but instead to equip them so that all can minister. So when we gather corporately, we do not ask “Who will minister to my needs?” Instead we ask “Whose needs can I minister to?”

Cindy wanted to know how many books, blogs, and other place I got some of this from (yes, I know what the word "incarnate" means!) Needless to say, my answer was a lot! Any thoughts???

The Missional Journey

Last Monday after class, Cindy, Jeff, Pete, Theresa and myself went out for coffee and to talk. I have been thinking a lot lately about what we are about to do here at the church. Back in December I felt that we were supposed to get back to what the original vision of this place was. We were going to plant a missional church. We were going to have an emergent flair to what we looked like. I even took some heat from some of the local leaders here about doing it (comments about how a friend of a friend of a friend knew someone who once met a person who went to Todd Hunter's church and how we REALLY didn't want to do that now, do we?) Well, we did want to do that, and we were going to do that, but we ended up taking over a church instead. One thing led to another and we didn't do it. Well, now is the time to do it.

It always seems like when this group gets together, I get in trouble. Not from them and not because they cause trouble (it has been a long time since we got kicked out of Bakers Square for throwing pie, but I digress). No, I take heat from other people within the church because I talk to them more then I talk to the people who are complaining (hmmmm, I wonder if there is something to that, but once again, I digress) So, back to my story....

We got together and I told a story. I started to think about the times in my life when I felt like I walking totally in the will of God. Then it hit me. I was in collage. I was working with the TEC retreat program within the Catholic Youth Office in Chicago. Now it had nothing to do with TEC, it had nothing to do with the CYO, what it had to do was with the people I was working with. For about a seven year period a group of us did ministry with a passion. We were working with the kids through TEC, but it went beyond that. We were working together, whatever one of us needed, we all did. We played music at each others churches, we prayed together, we ate together, some of us even married each other. Amazingly, very few of us lived near each other. We were scattered all over Chicagoland. We all had different jobs or went to different Universities. But somehow, our lives were always intertwined. And it was more then a friendship. It was all about God. Our lives were intertwined around each other and around Christ. When we got together we joked and laughed, but we always were ready for whatever God was wanting to do. And we usually did it. It was a powerful time of my life. We preached the gospel (even in a Catholic setting) and we saw lives changed.

That memory affected me this week. Cindy and I received a prophetic word from John Paul Jackson back in 2001. It went something like this: "Leadership, leadership, leadership, stop being reluctant and follow me. Leadership, leadership, leadership. The giftings and callings of the Lord are irrevocable. I will restore the ministry of your youth so that the mockers and the scoffers will be quieted. I will give you gifts so that you will know and that they will know that I am God. Leadership, leadership, leadership." (Or something like that.) We always looked at that word as a "go" word, that we were being restored and we were about to get sent. Looking back, both were the case. The one part of the word that has always confused Cindy and I was the part about the ministry of our youth. I was not saved in my youth....she was a punk rocker in her youth. And then on Monday afternoon it hit me. TEC. Not that we would be doing the retreat again, but that we would be active in a community again like that one. It caused me to shutter and almost cry. It has been a long time since we did that. I did not realize how much I missed that community.

So I pulled together the people that I am closest with here. Jeff, Theresa, Pete and of course my wife. I would have loved Alice to be there, but it was late, and Josiah needed to be in bed. I told them a very brief version of the above story and then asked them what kind of church did they want to be a part of. We went on for about two hours. I really don't know what this will look like when we get there, but for the first time since we moved back to Illinois, I know we are on the road. I am really excited.

I have been blogging for four years now. I'm hoping to document the journey right here. It is my prayer that there are more then five of us on this journey. It is my prayer that most of the church joins us, leaving the idea of belonging to a church and instead becoming the church. It is time to become missional.

Oh yeah, it has been a long time since I was in contact with any of those people from my youth. Dave, Gabe, Keith, Dan, Sue, Anita, Cathlene and Andrea. If any of you are out there and happen to come across this, shoot me an e-mail. We should get together sometime over at "Jim and Pete's" for pizza and some good memories! :)

Small Groups Revisited

I was sitting in a restaurant here in DeKalb a week or so ago talking with Pete about our small groups. One thing led to another and we came up with this interesting concept. Traditionally, the way that you start new small groups is that you find a "small group leader" and have them begin to recruit members for their small group. This leader can (in a perfect world) come from a successful small group and take a few of the members of the old small group with them to jump start the new group. If your lucky, the pastor will say something on Sunday morning to "plug" the new group and hopefully stir some interest.

In this model small groups have a tremendous importance within the church. It is the place where you take the people who are coming on Sunday morning and plug them in. Getting them in the small group is fruitful in two ways. First, they get discipled better in a small group environment, and second, you see a greater buy in to the church. You move people from just casual attenders to tithe giving, children church volunteering members. That's the theory, and that is just what every pastor in the world wants. People who in love with and are plugged into their church. Most of us have been told over and over again about how important this model is and how we NEED it in our church. All successful churches have strong small group ministries. We must also have a strong small group ministry to be a successful church.

Needless to say, if I judge our church by that model we would be considered a failure. Now it's not that I don't want small groups. It's not that I have not encouraged the church to join them. It's not that I'm not willing to invest in them. It just seems that most of the people that we have are not interested in them. They come to church, they do their thing and an additional night is a hassle. What's a pastor to do. I've read the books, I've taken the classes, I've listened to the tapes and yet we only have three small groups. It can get really depressing. That is until I came to this conclusion: this is a great model, assuming that you have people who want to be plugged in and that you have a Sunday service that regularly generates new people who are hungry for relationships and discipleship. Unfortunately, that is not us.


So Pete and I started talking about the small groups and about how we should take the three that we have now and make them more missional. Remember, missional community...that was the thing that I wanted to be a part of when I came here four years ago...that is the thing that we have not done. So if we could only get our small groups to think missionally, all of our problems would be solved, right?

Well, not really. The model that we are so used to doing is not a missional model. It is a Sunday School model. It's just an over glorified bible study. No, what we need to do is not just get our small group leaders to think misionally, we need to make our small groups missional. So, here's the thought...

What if we planted small groups the way we planted churches. So we look at our community - Northern DeKalb County - and we mapped it out. We asked the question, where would a good place to have a small group. Let's say for example, we focus on Genoa. So, we find someone who is willing to lead that group. They do not have to live in the area (although it would help), they would just have to commit to lead the group. The leader could start praying about the area, perhaps going up there and connecting with some people there (you know, got to some restaurants, stores, whatever....talk to people). Then we go up there as a church. Perhaps we do some servant evangelism up there, try to stir something up. Tell the people we are planing on starting a group up there and see what happens. We only need three or four people to be interested to start a group (and if one of them would be willing to host, all the better.) So the group starts first, and then the people start coming to Sunday morning. The group becomes the focus (since that is where they were introduced to the church.) And since a small group can be less intimidating, they invite their friends to the group....and so on , and so on. Kinda far fetched? How do you think we are going to plant the new church in San Juan?

I'm not sure if this will work or not, but I'm going to give it a shot. What's the worse that can happen? No one responds? Oh well, at least we tried to stir something up. Who knows, maybe the small group becomes a church one day. Or is the small group supposed to be the church today?

That's a thought for another day...

Da Bears

Ok, I'm a big Bears fan, and yes, I'm rooting for them this weekend, and yes, I think that they can win. But it seems like the only people who are picking the Bears are those of us who live around here. I really thought that way until I read this:

It's not just the city of Chicago that loves the Bears.The Super Bowl Formula wholeheartedly embraces them, too.The formula I unveiled in January 1990 uses a variety of regular-season statistics to predict Super Bowl winners. At the time it was created, those numbers would produce the right answer for 20 of the 23 Super Bowls that had been played.

Thank you Tim Cowlishaw of the Dallas Morning News. Some one outside of Chicago believes in these guys. I finally feel vindicated!

100th Post

Hey - this is my 100th post! It is had to believe that I have been doing this since 2003 (See first post here.) There have been HUGE gaps in posts, and I should have gotten to 100 a little faster then 3 1/2 years, but wow...100 posts. I've never kept a paper journal this long! While I'm posting this, I've got some Worship Circle running in the background. Kinda gets me sentimental....remembering why I'm doing all this. Here are the lyrics of my favorite song from them.....kinda says it all:

If I lift your name up high
Will you draw me to your side
I just can't make it one more night
Without your kiss

I wait still, Lord come and fill
This emptiness is more then I can stand
I lift my eyes, my voice to the skies
Return me to my first love once again

Lord, I fall down on my knees
Only you can rescue me
I find that I am so in need
Wrap me in your Presence

I wait still, Lord come and fill
This emptiness is more then I can stand
I lift my eyes, my voice to the skies
Return me to my first love once again

mp3 link