LESSON #10: SPIRITUAL WARFARE IS REAL.I grew up in a smorgasborg of church flavors.  I was baptized as an infant in a covenant church, attended baptist and community churches, then went to college at a Pentecostal school. All of these groups approach the spiritual realities of our lives differently, some don't mention spirits or demons at all, while others find one under every rock and sniffle.  When we first planted the church, we read all kinds of accounts about "weirdos" that come walk into new church plants.  Quite honestly, I never took these stories too seriously, until one walked into ours.  Briefly, within the first six months of launching our church, a woman walked in. She was 40 but looked as if she was 65. After a Sunday or two she shared openly with the pastors about her "struggles".  She claimed to be a believer who had struggled with suicidal [...]

LESSON #9: IT IS HARD TO TO WALK THE LINEI wrote this article some time ago. It is, I think, about what it means to live out our faith in the tension. Typically, we're more apt to live out our faith with ease resulting in either in liberal indulgence or legalism. We are supposed to walk the line between self-indulgence and self-righteousness...it's called self-denial...a life like Jesus. But self-denial is much more than just depriving yourself of pleasure or some comfort in the name of "sacrifice". Jesus said we must deny ourselves AND take up the cross. Self-denial is a life in pursuit of the glory of God in all things as opposed to my own glory (which is my default mode). If everything is about God's glory, we will end up doing things are are difficult, intellectually offensive, emotionally uncomfortable, but ultimately satisfying.Helen Keller once said the ‘the highest [...]

LESSON #8:  NOT EVEN JESUS HELPED EVERYONE.There is a tendency for pastors to pretend they are superman.  I used to wonder what pastors did with all of their time.  I imagined them sitting like some old-school Rabbi spending every waking hour studying scrolls.  Getting paid to read the Bible didn't seem like that hard of a job.  Then I became a pastor.  I realized very quickly that a pastor is synonomous with "brokeness magnet".  It's like there is an invisible tractor beam hidden somewhere in my body that pulls everyone who is sick and sore right to you.  A simple coffee quickly turns into an open confessional where the person suddenly feels comfortable sharing every dark secret that has plagued them for the last 20 years.  As a young pastor, I too believed I could help everyone and tried my hand at wearing the savior cape (and still do sometimes) to no [...]

My family and I just returned from a trip to Disneyland.  We probably walked a marathon as we traversed the "magic kingdom".  Not too much has changed since I first went there nearly 30 years ago. For some things this is good for others it is bad.  The old Swiss Family Robinson House is now the "Tarzan" house because no one has ever heard of that famous family.  The 20,000 Leagues under the Sea sub is now the Nemo sub...and still just as lame.  Space Mountain is still fun and feels ahead of its time, Star Tours still makes me want to puke, and Pirate's of the Caribbean is still the best ride at the park period!.  A Small World is probably the same for the most part, just a bit bigger.  I wouldn't know because I didn't dare subject my kids to that kind of pain--my guess is they've [...]

LESSON #7:  YOU'LL NEVER FEEL LIKE YOU KNOW WHAT YOU'RE DOING.After people ask my why I wanted to plant a church (read lesson #1), quite often the next question is, "how are you qualified?" This isn't asked directly like this mind you, it is more cryptic like, "where did you go to seminary?" or "where were you a pastor before?".  Early on I was very intimidated by this question because I didn't really know what I was doing.  I became well practiced at answers to match the nature of the question, talking about my double major in biblical studies (which I have but is useless), or the fact that I was an "elder" at a previous church (though I didn't pastor a lick).  The truth is, I tried to convince the pastors who approved me in Acts 29 why I wasn't qualified to lead a church---I thought it was obvious.The [...]

LESSON #6:  THOSE EXCITED MOST QUICKLY EXIST JUST AS FASTWhen your first starting church and you want to determine "how big" you are, you count every adult, child, and dog that is nearby.  No matter what a pastor tells you, numbers do matter in their mind.  They say they don't think about them, but it is incredibly hard not to.  I am not suggesting that numbers mean everything only that they meaning something--not all good somethings either.  With few exceptions, the church grows and the church shrinks.  I never get used to it. I see new faces every week then never see them again.  I want to ask why?  What did I say to tick them off?  Did they not like our building?  Was my sermon too long?  Was our music cheesy, too loud, or just all around lame?  Then there are those few people who, after you scream at them [...]

A lot of young church plants, in an effort to declare their freedom in Jesus, have missed the point entirely.  Mounting their attack against the legalists of the world, they fail to heed to Apostle Peter's warning to, "Live as people who are free, not using your freedom as a cover-up for evil, but living as servants of God." (1Peter 2.16). Within the first 6 months of our church plant, we appeared in an article written by the Southern Baptists about our "Bible and Brew" Bible studies and "Poker Nights".  Needless to say, it wasn't a flattering article.  We were simply part of the collateral damage from a larger attack on Acts 29 as a network of beer-lovers.  It didn't stop us from men bringing beer to our Bible studies or from an occassional men's event where we'd gather make our own brew (Rootbeer too!). It did, however, result in [...]

LESSON #4 - HUMOR & MARKETINGWhen we first planted the church we produced some humorous ads to shake things up a bit.  The ads ran the gambit of appropriateness--all of them made me laugh.  We found that they were well received by the non-Christian culture and that Christians completely hated them.  We only mailed out a few one time, but most of the time we left them in the hands of our people to distribute to neighbors, co-workers, and friends as they saw fit.  There were ones that said, "A Church for people who pee" or "Catch up on your sleep, come to church."  All of them were an attempt to break through the walls of misperception about church and church people.  We ran one or two in the paper and posted one on a bus.  The bus company was so impressed they actually made us a free sign to [...]

LESSON #3 - THE SIN OF AUTONOMY..guiltyI probably would have been too prideful to admit this the first year we planted.  The truth is, we live in largely a reactionary culture, or at least we live like we do.  We make many of our decision not because we have determined them as right, biblical, or wise, rather, because they fit what we have already determined is right.  We make decision to avoid bad experiences, little agreements to avoid having a bad relationship again, or any number of other choices to avoid feelings or failures.  All the while, our decision to avoid pain and pursue pleasure, may in fact lead us away from the truth.When we first planted the church, we were certain what we didn't want to be, even if we said different.  Though we had our core values, mission statements, and all that, they were all reactionary in nature.  [...]