Category Archives: leadership

Focus

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LittleBigBook
One of the exciting things about being part of a growing church like actionchurch…a place with new faces, new talents, and new resources each week…is that many possibilities are open to us as a church.  Each week there are more GOOD things that we can do as we grow.   I’m as excited about those opportunities as anyone,  but here’s why our focus as a church is so important to our future.

If we focus on being noticed in the community, (build stuff, protest stuff, sponsor stuff) we could make a name for ourselves as a church.

If we focus solely on the sermon…on teaching the Bible, on making sure that actionchurch people are ready at any moment to win a Bible trivia contest, we can make students who will return to church each week to learn more.

If we focus on entertaining people and providing them with ministries that meet their personal needs we can make customers…maybe even repeat customers…that will come back whenever we have something new and exciting to offer.

If we turn our focus inward…put community with our friends at actionchurch above all else, we can form a really enjoyable social club. (And feel really “Holy” for spending so much time at “church”.)

If we make our primary focus on providing consumable goods…food, shelter, counseling, “help”…we can make dependents that need us each day to provide for and guide them.

BUT, if we focus EVERYTHING we do (Sunday Morning services, actiongroups, acts of Service and generosity in our community) on inspiring, supporting, and teaching individuals to obediently follow Jesus “BY FAITH”…we can make disciples.  THEY can then do things that we as a church could never accomplish corporately. Together, what we would then make is A REAL DIFFERENCE in our communities for Jesus.

Old School…but it just might work. :-)

18 Jesus came and told his disciples, “I have been given all authority in heaven and on earth. 19 Therefore, go and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit.20 Teach these new disciples to obey all the commands I have given you. And be sure of this: I am with you always, even to the end of the age.”  (Matthew 28:18-20)

The SECRET (to doing what you want to do)

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We just celebrated 5 years as a church last Sunday. I’m blessed to have a great team of men to help carry the load of teaching and leading actionchurch today, but for the first 4+ years of the church, I preached nearly every Sunday.  I’m nearing 250 sermons preached, and I feel grateful every week to be at a place like actionchurch where I can “do what I want” every week.

I’ve heard from guest speakers in the past that actionchurch is a “difficult” or “scary” place to preach.  You never know what the music will be like from week to week. You never know who will show up.  It’s dark and hard to see the crowd (and your notes if you are over 40). We used to meet in a bar…and preach next to a Coors Light sign with a Bikini Girl on it.   actionchurch people don’t exactly “amen” like a 1950’s tent meeting.   It can be a tough room.

Granted, I’m weird, but I feel the exact opposite.  I love the actionchurch crowd.  They don’t flinch.  They’re up for anything.  If I come out with a q-tip, a shovel, a pop tart or a “vomit-bowl”, they are up for the adventure.  If the sermon happens to start out with an as-seen-on-TV commercial about a vacuum for earwax, their not surprised…or offended…they just sort of roll their eyes and wait for what happens next.  (Sort of like the expression you get when your toddler or dog looks prepared to do something stupid and possibly amusing…but not dangerous)  I also love the fact that when I happen to bring said q-tip, shovel, pop tart, or vomit bowl into the sermon (or any of the too-numerous-to-mention other ridiculous illustrations I’ve used over the years) I don’t have to spend mondays in meetings about why that probably wasn’t the best Idea. :-)  I am BLESSED and EXTREMELY GRATEFUL to be able to have the freedom and the forum to “do what I want to do” every Sunday morning at actionchurch.

As we talk about empowering people this month at actionchurch during the “PowerDown Initiative”  I thought you might want to know how you too can get a job that allows you to “do what you want to do”…a position that you were clearly born to do…something that you will still be excited to do even after YEARS of experience.

Here it is.

I’ll give away my secret.

The secret to “doing what you want to do”.
Is to do LOTS of things that you DON’T want to do.

What do you really “want to do”?  What were you born to do?   Are you willing to do the things you don’t want to do, to experience it?

 

Sunday @ actionchurch

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For once I feel a bit lacking for words to describe what will be beginning Sunday at actionchurch. The “PowerDown Initiative” is something we’ve been working toward over the last six+ months…but in a larger sense…for the last five years. If you consider actionchurch to be your “home” church…I ask that you do not miss this series. “PowerDown” will lay out the direction and path that actionchurch will be heading for the next five years, and  beyond. If have been considering taking actionchurch for a “test drive” or you’ve only attended a few times and aren’t really sure what actionchurch is all about, February would also be a GREAT month to attend as we “tell all” during the PowerDown series.

We’ve got some great tunes planned for this month, starting with “Brethren” on Sunday.  actionkidz has a Super Bowl party planned, and we’ll all try to contain our excitement Sunday as the hours wind down to Puppy Bowl IX!  As always there will also be loads of yummy Maple Donuts, Muffins, Bagels, Hot Coffee, water, and great actionchurch people to hang with.   It all starts at 10:30 am at Frank Theaters Queensgate (Directions).

Power Down Initiative

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lovegodlovepeople3

Five years can pass VERY quickly. (Especially if you are trying to Juggle Leading a start-up church, self-employment, and the most important job of all-being a husband and father). There hasn’t been a lot of time to pause and reflect on everything that has happened.   At times I can’t believe it’s been five years (February 10, 2008-February 10, 2013) since our first “official” church service at Fat Daddys nightclub. Other times, I feel like I may have aged 20 years in the last 5. (And I think there are pictures that would be would agree) :-)

To be honest, most of the last five years have been spent either “starting” actionchurch…or trying to keep it “started”. We are so blessed to have been able to Love God, Love People, and Take action during that time in some pretty dramatic ways. But still…much of our budget…our attention…our “power” had to be concentrated on simply keeping the fires lit in the actionchurch engine room during those years. Over the last six months, much of that has changed. As I announced in the “Inside the camp” series, we have officially moved past “starting” the church. We have a great leadership team in place. I’m confident that Bill and Denise, Steve and Tiffany, Rich and Jackie have the leadership skills, character, HEART, and teaching ability needed to lead actionchurch. Josiah has lead the artists of actionchurch into some of the best ORIGINAL design I believe you will find in church-anywhere.  We have a talented actionchurch/actionkidz crew that I believe has become simply the BEST in the “business” of making portable church happen each week.  They’re fast, hardworking, problem solvers who somehow manage to still have a lot of fun while doing the most difficult jobs. If actionchurch is the first “portable church” you’ve attended, you truly have no idea how blessed we are to have the great crew members we have in EVERY area of our Sunday morning service.  We are also blessed with a beautiful venue at Frank Theaters that works well,  and will allow us to grow to 400-500 attenders without needing to relocate.

The questions are many: What comes next? What should we attempt…what should we plan…what should we prepare for in the next five years of actionchurch?  Should actionchurch change?  Has actionchurch changed?  Has the world changed in the last five years?  What should we do next?  I’ve been thinking about all of those questions a LOT over the last six months.

The short answer is that as a church body we MUST continue Loving God, Loving People, and taking action.  Just how we DO that is something I look forward to sharing  with you all over the upcoming weeks in the month of February. There’s something I’d like you to do  in the meantime if you call actionchurch your home on Sunday mornings.  Please Pray for our leadership team.  I’d love your prayer for Michele, Reagan and Myself.  Pray for our crew…and most of all…pray that God will give you wisdom to see just where you fit into the future of actionchurch as we “Power Down”.

Perspective

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I recently encountered this amazing statement about the Nation of Israel’s epic 40 year journey from Egypt to the Land that God promised them, written YEARS later by the prophet Nehemiah:

19 “But in your great mercy you did not abandon them to die in the wilderness. The pillar of cloud still led them forward by day, and the pillar of fire showed them the way through the night. 20 You sent your good Spirit to instruct them, and you did not stop giving them manna from heaven or water for their thirst. 21 For forty years you sustained them in the wilderness, and they lacked nothing. Their clothes did not wear out, and their feet did not swell!  (Nehemiah 9:19-21)

I have a feeling that the people who were part of that meandering 40 year hike might not have felt the same way about their journey.  I’m pretty sure that the guy wearing the same sandals he bought at the Egyptian Walmart was probably more interested in getting a new pair than marveling that they hadn’t worn out in FORTY years.   I’m pretty sure that even though God LITERALLY lead them through the desert with a “pillar of cloud by day, and a pillar of smoke by night” there had to be times where they felt abandoned as the years passed between leaving Egypt and seeing the benefit of their journey. Scripture records the times that instead of feeling blessed to be able to eat the manna God provided them each day, they complained about never having anything new on the menu.

However, due to the perspective that time brings, the prophet Nehemiah was absolutely CORRECT to say that God cared for his ancestors…that God sustained them in an impossible situation…and that in fact they lacked NOTHING!  Just because the people did not feel “blessed” didn’t mean that they weren’t.   Just because they FELT LIKE God was absent or lacked control of their situation…didn’t mean that he was!

I have this to be true as I look back over the portion of my life that I have followed Jesus, particularly over the last 6 years I have been involved with actionchurch start-up.  When God seemed to be “absent”, looking back I can clearly see that he was right with us…every step of the way.  When it seemed like we didn’t have ANYTHING, we really lacked NOTHING that we needed to continue.  When I had NO IDEA what to do, it was God’s spirit that whispered little pieces of encouragement and guidance into my soul.  Looking back I realize I often had the greatest desire to quit, right before we experienced our greatest victories as a church.

If you are a follower of Jesus, I know the same will be true of your story.  I just thought you could use a little perspective this morning.