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My Church is Old, and I Love It.

December 8, 2011 in Ministry, Personal with 2 Comments

I love it that my church is old.  Trinity has weathered the storm of different generations and has survived!  Trinity has lasted.  As we approach the 50th year of ministry in Lubbock, I marvel at the impact we’ve had over all these years.  The attendance numbers have fluctuated from “bursting at the seams” to “will anyone show up?”, but over they years has continued to find health and participate as a functioning part of our community for 50 years.

There are unique challenges of an old church, there is no doubt.  But there are great advantages as well.  We have consistent people, both in attendance and in what they give to the vision of our church.  We have a diverse group of people that ranges from newborn children through WW2 veterans.  We have a story that spans 5 decades, and people love to tell it to us young folks!  We have the luxury of experience to draw from with each decision we make.

It’s comforting to me to attach myself and my family to a secure place like Trinity, that values loyalty and excellence all at the same time.  In my travels, I regularly run into people who know about my church.  They don’t know about us from some recent podcast, or popular book our pastor may have wrote (and there isn’t anything wrong with this.)  They know about us, because sometime in the past 50 years our church has impacted their life or someone they know.  That’s rich and I love it.

Christ our Hope

December 2, 2011 in Bible, Personal with 1 Comment

This year for the Christmas Advent Season my family is doing the normal Sunday Advent devotional, but adding to that by trying hard to continue the theme throughout the week with my kids.  On the first Sunday of Advent we talked about hope.  Two kinds of hope; the hope that those felt for a redeemer waiting for Christ to come, and the hope that we feel for everyday since he has come.

Isaiah 60:1  Arise, shine, for your light has come,
and the glory of the Lord has risen upon you.
2  For behold, darkness shall cover the earth,
and thick darkness the peoples;
but the Lord will arise upon you,
and his glory will be seen upon you.
3  And nations shall come to your light,
and kings to the brightness of your rising.

We talked with the kids about the differences between hoping and wishing, and kept it short enough that the kids paid attention for most of the 5 minutes. But this year I challenged them to think about HOPE all week long.  I’ve reminded them all week before school to be thinking and looking for examples of hope.  So this week we’ve talked Star Wars “A New Hope”, we’ve talked about hoping that mom will put cookies in our lunch boxes, we’ve talked about how we hope that it snows this week, and everynight before bed I’ve reminded the kids that we can have real hope in Christ.  We don’t have to wish for it, we are given real-life changing hope.

One of the things I found online this week was this great video, which helped illustrate further the idea that we have something inside of us that longs for Hope.  See if you can use it with your family this week to start some discussion as well.

Another Thanksgiving Thought

November 23, 2011 in Personal with 0 Comments

As we celebrate another Thanksgiving, it’s appropriate to remember those things we are thankful for.  We all do this to some degree, right?  If nothing else, we should be thankful for the opportunity to be thankful.  But this year, I’ve been challenging those I’m most thankful for to let our thankfulness be a wellspring of life that allows us to give others things to be thankful for.  That’s a mouthful, I know.  Basically I’ve wanted to let my thankfulness be the things that motivates me to bless others.

This year my family worked together to do something that gives someone else something to be thankful for.  We chose as a family this year to enter into the world of fostering care.  We’ve seen the worst, and we’ve seen the best of the system.  The really strange thing, is that at it’s best…it’s still really hard.

As we drove back from letting the young boy that we’ve had for 9 months reunite with his own family, I was struck with how very thankful I am for my own family.  I’m thankful that life hasn’t presented the kind of challenges that forces me to have to reunite with my own kids.  I’m thankful that my children were big brothers and a big sister to someone that needed them desperately.  I’m thankful that this pain my family feels will be made better by us all being together.  Finally, I’m thankful that we get to imagine big things for our family, and act on those things in big ways.

Psalm 105:1 ESV

Oh give thanks to the Lord; call upon his name; make known his deeds among the peoples!

How has your own thankfulness impacted those around you this year?  

Making Fridays Work

November 4, 2011 in Personal with 0 Comments

Fridays are my day off.  I get occasional Saturdays, but for the most part Fridays are my day away.  I’m not a workaholic guy, and find it pretty easy to delegate important things to other days of my week.  However, I do follow these simple keys to getting away from the normal:

  1. Sleep it off.  There are just times that we have to allow ourselves to sleep more.  For me, Fridays can be it.  If not in the morning, then an afternoon nap will have to suffice.
  2. Read.  And by read, I mean fiction.  I’m learning that I am more creatively inspired by fiction than most anything else I put my eyes to.  I’m often surprised by the amount of leaders that don’t make time to read fiction.  It’s full of story, conflict, emotion, and intrique.  Take the time to rest your brain, by enjoying all the great literary works out there.
  3. Be Married.  (This one is for those of you married, if not married then please don’t run out and buy a Craigslist wife.) My day of rest is not a day away from my wife.  I often find myself resting by knocking out those things my wife needs from me.  Everything from Oil Changes, to cleaning the garage, to vaccuuming the carpet can help me keep the health between my woman and I!  I’ll also add that Friday nights make a great time to get away to the Drive-In with the lady and watch a late night movie and share popcorn!
  4. Be a Father.  My day of rest is not a day away from my kids.  In fact, I try and spend time with my kids in new ways on my day off.  It could be getting a Redbox movie for the boys, taking a walk with my daughter, enjoying cheap Ice Cream with all three of them, or  just making it a day that I give myself to my family completely.
  5. Create.  On many of my days of rest, I like to write.  For instance, this post here was written on a Friday.  I find that when my emails, phone calls, and calendar duties are put off; I can finally find the place to express myself creatively.

Making Goals Stick

October 27, 2011 in Ministry, Personal with 0 Comments

So I’ve earlier talked about our goals process and how we organized all the goals we set; but now it comes to the hard part.  How do I move these goals from paper to reality?  I’m not certain there is a fool-proof way to do anything like this; but here is what I’m trying.

I included everyone in on the creation of the goal.  There is no need to get “buy-in” because through the process they helped me create the goals.  When we met to finalize our goals as a group, I reminded them of this repeatedly.  They are not “MY” goals, they are “OUR” goals.

I clearly stated the goals and laid them out in a way that visually allowed everyone to understand the entire scope of our work.  We enjoyed a breakfast together where I shared all of them, and answered questions about them as those questions came up.  Here’s what I did NOT do: I didn’t email them, I didn’t reference them in passing, I didn’t quickly scan over them.  I actually gave them all in detail.

I tied the goals into the overall Mission, Vision, and Values of our church.  I made sure everyone understood from my own lips that these goals we had worked on from a NextGen level actually supported and helped to fulfill the main goals of our entire church.  I explained that it’s not an us against them mentality when it comes to the other ministries at our church.

I told them to expect accountability. I reminded them that goals are not set to look pretty on a piece of paper, but instead they become path for us as we lead to transform the family ministries of our church.  I promised to hold myself accountable, but also promised that I would also hold their specific areas of responsibility accountable.

We left excited about the prospect of attained goals.  There is every reason to be excited about what the future holds for our team, if we can live up to the expectations we’ve set for ourselves.  That is something I’m dedicated to living out as I continue to work that we have an atmosphere of success!

So those are some of what I did, but I’d love to hear what you do to make sure goals set are kept.  Let’s have it! 

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