The Church, Starving Artists, Sellouts, & Tweeners

When our church was interviewing architects for our building design, in trying to understand who we are, one group posed a fascinating question: If your church's building were a car, what would it be? I LOVED that question because it allowed us to be so descriptive in a completely fresh way (our answer was a Suburban with leather seats, btw).

I thought about that question when I was looking at our church through a different lens this week: If we were a band, who would we be? Realizing that some bands and groups are starving artists who are hyper-talented but connect with very few people, some are complete sell-outs, and a precious few are great and connect with millions of people--it seems like a great question to ask of a church. For Lake Hills Church, the answers really don't have anything to do with a musical style that we would or would not use in a worship service per se, but they reveal volumes about who we are:

U2--phenomenal artists, groundbreaking sounds, lyrics, and subject matter for a rock band. AND they touch hearts and stimulate minds through a phenomenal sense of poetry and aesthetic better than anyone alive. They're not afraid to entertain and celebrate while also making you think. And they've almost singlehandedly made social activism that makes a difference cool.

Lyle Lovett--Texas to the bone because that's who he genuinely is, but his intelligent lyrics transcend the Lone Star State and his comfortable-in-his-own-skin persona works in Carnegie Hall as easily as it does in Gruene Hall. Precious few people can pull off (custom-made) pointy-toe cowboy boots and Armani.

Hillsong Worship--as well as anyone around, they know who they are and why they do what they do, and they never stand pat. They are always evolving, growing, and breaking new ground lyrically and musically.

The Rolling Stones--the power of energy. There's something undeniably powerful and compelling about Mick's stage presence, Keith's guitar and Charlie's backbeat.

Who (in addition to Jesus!) would your church's culture, personality and presence reflect and why?

I Have a Dream

It's not an original line, but here's MY dream:

The Church puts the government out of the compassion business

Crazy? Maybe just crazy enough to work. Here are the dollars allocated to social programs in the current federal budget(these numbers are from the Congressional Budget Office):

$78.7 billion - Dept. of Health & Human Services
$47.5 billion - Dept. of Housing and Urban Development
$9.7 billion - Social Security Administration
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$135.9 billion

Now, here's another number:

$168 billion - Amount available if U.S. churchgoers tithe (the minimum biblical amount, 10% of all God-given income).

Hmmmm...

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An Idea's Best Friend

Julie & I got home tonight from a brief visit to Bay Area Fellowship in Corpus Christi, TX. BAF is served and led by Bil Cornelius and his amazing wife Jessica. Bil is one of the people who refuels my passion for Christ and his Bride the church and makes me love all the more what we get to do every day.

He is also, as Ed Young says, "an idea's best friend." Bil is one of those people whose mind is scary quick and always moving, thinking of more, better, and bigger ways to introduce people to the extravagant love of God. It's no wonder that Bay Area Fellowship has turned not only Corpus on its ear, but all of South Texas through church planting and launching of satellite campuses at a frenetic and well managed rate.

Very few people would sit around and dream big dreams and pray monster prayers for places like Alice (the Spinach Capital of the World, BTW)...Five Points...(North) Padre Island...and Kingsville, TX. But that is exactly what Bil & Bay Area are doing. And they're doing it well.

Just getting to be around Bil & Jessica and get to know some of their amazing staff was a huge blessing and recharge for Julie & me. I always love coming home to Austin, but tonight it was doubly sweet because of the excitement and passion that we got to rub elbows with in Corpus.

It's a blessing and a kick in the pants to get to be on the same team.

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Sermon (Non-) Preparation, 1

Since I wasn't preparing to preach for the last couple of weeks, God opened up some things to me about preparing to preach. It's good for pastors and for church members alike to understand the dynamics involved in the mystery and miracle of God-ordained preaching.

Of course, no pastor would ever admit being un-prepared. But, we could all agree that there are weeks when we are more prepared than others (we'll talk about why later). Below are some critical misses that result from non-preparation:

1. Introduction-decarbonation. The introduction to a sermon is like shaking up a bottle of Coke. It’s where the pressure is built and sustained for a brief time before you take off the lid and release the energy contained in the sermon. If the introduction is weak or non-engaging, your sermon has no fizz. And fizz matters. Fizz is the equivalent of anointing and unction. It doesn't have to be funny to fizz, but funny sure helps engage your audience at the beginning of the message. Even better, funny AND personal creates engagement and empathy. But it's got to be real. Faux self-deprecation makes me throw up in my mouth.
2. Illustration-Apnea. Illustrations breathe life into a sermon that your audience inhales and exhales. It allows them to see inside your life and they reflexively draw parallels to their own lives.
3. Energy-overload. When a speaker’s not as prepared as he could be, he’ll tend to speak louder and/or faster in order to compensate for the lack of confidence in his material. Bombast is a good word and a horrible practice.
4. Transition-atrophy. Early in my ministry, Ed Young hammered into my psyche that transitions are the most important post-introduction element of a sermon (speech, address, etc.). He’s right. Transitions create flow and lead your audience from one point to the next almost without their noticing it. But, transitional statements/paragraphs/illustrations have to be prepared and refined and memorized in order to feel seamless to your audience.
5. Spirit-dehydration. Nothing can compensate for a lack of time spent in prayer and reflection for the message--and means of communicating that message--that God wants to deliver through the preacher. Without it, a sermon is dry, brittle, rough, and impotent. It loses its supernatural, mysterious, and genuine power to touch and change lives.

Nothing is more sacred or significant in the pastor's calling than the mission of preaching the Gospel. We have to guard our schedules and create blocks of time for prayer, study, writing, editing, and preparing to deliver sermons that God uses to change us and lead his church where he wants it to go. And, in larger congregations, we have to lead our congregations to accept their responsibility in honoring that commitment and accepting counsel/prayer/leadership/visitation/wedding- or funeral-officiating from other gifted and called pastors who do not preach on a weekly basis. What they need is the touch or counsel of God--who it comes through is much less important.

Holiday Homecoming

Holiday Homecoming from Lake Hills Church on Vimeo.

Bottom Line (1)

Every business has a bottom line. It's the amount of money that they earn after accounting for all the costs, investments, and depreciation of assets.

Church is no different. Well, we are and we aren't. We are NOT different in that we have a bottom line. We ARE different in that it is not money. Our bottom line is lifechange. This past Sunday night, we got a front row seat to see our bottom line impacted greatly through the celebration of baptism.

Baptism in and of itself isn't our bottom line, but it is an indicator of how we're doing in fulfilling the mission of Christ's Church and the particular vision He's called us to realize. Every person who was baptized into the life of LHC is a living testimony to and expression of the power of Christ to change a life in eternity-shaking ways. And, THAT is our bottom line.

In the next few posts, I'm going to explore some of the unique blessings and challenges of bottom-lining lifechange.

South Texas and the Call of God

A good friend recently invited me to hunt with him in south Texas. It's a part of the world that really recharges and refreshes me every time I'm there. It is rough country, but it has a beauty that is raw and rugged. They say that down there if it doesn't bite you or have thorns, it's a rock. And that's pretty accurate.

I've wondered a couple of times what it would be like to earn a living as a writer living on a ranch in south Texas. It wouldn't be any easier than what I get to do now, but it would certainly be less complicated. Get up early, write until mid-morning or noon, and then spend the rest of the day managing the ranch for maximum deer growth, quail habitat and whatever else came to mind.

Whenever I have those thoughts, God reminds me that I'm right in the middle of what I was created for. To be Julie's husband, Emily & Joseph's dad, and pastor of LHC is as full a life as I can even imagine. I would so miss the communities that our family gets to be a part of, that we're strengthened by. I'd miss the beauty of Christ's Bride as she lives out through the people of LHC. I would miss the leadership opportunities to see and sometimes facilitate an intersection between people's gifts and passions and the needs and opportunities of the church.

Author Seth Godin relates a telling story that I think captures this idea:

It's four a.m. and I can't sleep. So I'm sitting in the lobby of a hotel in Jamaica, checking my e-mail.

A couple walks by, obviously on their way to bed, having pushed the idea of vacation a little too hard. The woman looks over to me and, in a harsh whisper a little quieter than a yell, says to her friend, "Isn't that sad? That guy comes here on vacation and he's stuck checking his e-mail. He can't even enjoy his two weeks off."

I think the real question--the one they probably wouldn't want to answer--was, "Isn't it sad that we have a job where we spend two weeks avoiding the stuff we have to do fifty weeks a year?"

Hit the COMMENTS button below and let me know what you love about what you get to do every day.