Some of my thinking is changing.  I guess, since none of us are perfect, we should all have a continual progression of thinking.

Maybe it’s a little thing, or a big thing.

We say this in church, but do we ever question it?  We address our time of worship and ascribe to it the purpose of ‘preparing our hearts to receive the Word’.  It struck me today.  "Wait a minute!  We worship God to worship God.  It is not a device of mental preparation." 

I’m not going to totally discount the value that worship might have for me personally.  The value is a reality, however, I’m not going to focus on it.  My motivation for worship should never be, in any way, personally beneficial.  Allow that to be a side issue.  Priority number one:  God is worshipped because God should be worshipped.

As  I continued to think about it, I found the opposite to bear more truth.  Learning the Word should prepare our hearts to worship.  That sounds way more appropriate to me.

This is what I’m thinking about right now.

Our fellowship has some good strengths. I took a survey. Most of the people say that we are strong in: Teaching, Worship and Fellowship. Those are really good things.

We are weak in Leadership, Discipleship and Serving/Evangelism. That’s bad.

My biggest lesson of 09 is: “Invest in your strengths”. We are going to invest in our strength of Teaching, to be more intentional about discipleship, in order to raise up more leaders, who will in turn enable us to be a serving church again. Why? I want to serve better. -I’m starting, by giving the Bible the boot. (well, in part) I’ve been teaching the Bible for 10 years 2-3 times a week. I’m beginning to challenge my ingrained notions of Calvary Chapel idealism. It’s been a hard conclusion to come to… but I’m there. Teaching the Bible isn’t Enough.

I want to serve better. To do that, I’m going to stop teaching the Bible… (gasp) – in part. This plan does include an opportunity for me to invest more richly in the verse by verse expositions that will continue on Sunday mornings. Any Souther California CC cop who stops in for a Sunday morning judgment visit will indeed, still find us teaching verse by verse.

Have I mentioned that I want to serve better? I’ve concluded, that teaching the Bible does not equal discipleship. I have learned in the Bible that I am called to make disciples. Teaching the Bible does produce a few self-made disciple types… but these are few and far between. I would wager that many of us who are in ministry right now are probably the ’self-made’ disciple types. I am. No one really discipled me (that is, with purpose and intent).

Our midweeks are going to change. Instead of telling folks: “This is the Bible. This is what it means. This is how you should apply it to your life. Ok Goodbye!”, we are going to be more intentional about leading folks through the maze of discovering how to receive, infuse and live the perpetual goodness of Biblical truth. We’re going to start out with two levels of discipleship. Everyone who goes through the first level, can then, move onto the next level. For those who complete the next level, I am goin to be developing more in-depth studies based on the 10 topics that we will be covering in 2nd level.

I’m going to be infusing a quarterly family night to emphasize the need for rich fellowship. I’m going to spring occassional ’service’ opportunities… where, instead of having a class, we are all goin to work together to fill food boxes for the poor, or write letters to prisoners, or fill out invitations to the Christmas Eve service.. or.. whatever-

We used to have a strong core of leaders. We also planted 6 churches. Now we’re not that impressive. We don’t get out in the community but once a month. We need to raise up leaders. We’re goin to do this by not teaching the Bible (as much). Please pray that we see fruit.

Most folks in the church don’t really understand what is meant by ‘vision’.  Very simply stated, vision is the act of seeing.  If you can open your eyes and see the; walls, windows and humans around you, you have vision.  If you open your eyes and see Bigfoot in a tu tu, then you don’t have vision.

The easy part of vision involves seeing what ‘is’.

The hard part of vision involves seeing what ‘is yet to be’.

The hard part of vision can be broken down into two segments.  1.-  Walt Disney Vision  2.- Nehemiah Vision

Walt Disney died nearly 5 years before the doors of Disney Land (Florida) opened up.  On that momentous day, one guy said to the other, “I wish Walt could have seen this.”, to which the other one replied, “He already did.”  Walt Disney Vision is developed through personal drive, imagination and great intellect.

Nehemiah Vision is quite different.  As a man living quite some distance away from Jerusalem, he had never seen the ruinous state that of its walls.  And yet, even still, God enabled Nehemiah to see the city in its restored state.  This wasn’t a matter of; personal drive, imagination or great intellect.  God intentionally and purposfully planted this vision in Nehemiah’s heart.

Sometimes we have combined vision.  If you’ve ever read my vision for Overflow, you have read a Nehemiah Disney Vision.  I’m certain that God was in the formation of that idea.  I’m also certain that I was in it.  Someday, God might let this ministry happen.  Right now, the light is undoubtedly red.

I regularly read books that are focused on leadership and ministry.  I’ve processed several John Maxwell books.  He wrote some of them.  Others were written by well intentioned pastors who reprocessed John Maxwell’s material and re-released it.  I’ve also read several books on how to organize the direction of the church.  I’ve read: The Purpose Driven Church, Simple Church, and The Spirit Driven Church (plus others that didn’t end with the word ‘church’ which would have messed up the flow of my list),- and found a common message.

Keep The Vision Simple

Continually Re-Communicate the Vision

Start, Endorse and Support Those Ministries which Obviously Fulfill The Vision

Shut Down the Ministries that Don’t Support the Vision

In the book, The Spirit Driven Church, the author was so bold as to call these unsupporting ministries, IDOLS.  Yikes!  That’s a harsh accusation, and yet I see the truth in it.  How many times do we start up and/or perpetuate a ministry simply because it has become someone’s personal pet project?  Are there things we do every year simply because it’s something that we’ve always done every year?  Are there ministries that we attempt to perpetuate for the simple sake of ‘not offending’ or ’saving face’?   I would bet that most of us would look at our churches and say, “Yes”.

I get frustrated with lots of doing.  Experience has shown me that ‘more ministry’ doesn’t work.  When these books tell me to keep the focus and the vision simple, and shut down everything that doesn’t line up with that focus and vision, I relate.  We have been the church that does everything.  Often times these ministries start out with with an excited group of people and dwindle down to either an insufficient number of worn out devotees or ‘1 man shows’.   We maintain them in guilt, perpetuate them in weariness and feel bad because we’re not excited anymore.  Do good things happen in these ministries?  Absolutely.  Does need and the potential for good fruit constitute our call to take on or continue a ministry?  Nope.

Currently, we have a pretty simple vision statement.  “To become a people: abandoned in worship, common in faith and useful for the Kingdom of God” Or, more simply stated: “Worship, Grow, Serve!”  This really sounds good.  This does not really sound specific.  We could have: a dog washing ministry, a Hebrew poetry class and interpretive yoga worship and still fit them easily within our vision statement.

I always want us to be a fellowship that; worships, grows and serves.  These are things that Christians do.  If we don’t do them, I would question our Christianity.  But, these things are too nonspecific to claim as our personal and unique vision and direction.  There needs to be something else.

Yes, I’m going to leave you hanging.  I’m still on the … voyage.  (I would have said ‘journey’ but it’s overused and abused and much too trendy of a word for me.)  I have a pretty good idea where I’m going on this … voyage.  I’ve been doing research, thinking, praying, reading and collecting input.  Without actually defining it (that’s the part I’m still working on), I can sum up the vision and direction of CCCville by getting a clear picture of who CCCville is.

What are we doing?  What are we doing that works?  Where do we excel?  Where are we productive?  -Things like: teaching, equipping, educating, preparing and training come to mind.

Doing ‘less things’ comes to mind.

Doing ‘more things’ produces extra stomach acid.

We’ve often put a lot of focus on the ‘doing’ in our fellowship.  I strongly believe the we need to put more focus on the ‘training’.  Just as trained warriors fight better, so also, do trained Christians serve better.

If you attend CCCville and haven’t given your input:  click here

]]> http://chadmyhre.wordpress.com/2009/09/21/summing-up-vision/feed/ 2 chadmyhre http://chadmyhre.wordpress.com/2008/11/03/who-is-god-voting-for/ http://chadmyhre.wordpress.com/2008/11/03/who-is-god-voting-for/#comments Mon, 03 Nov 2008 20:09:25 +0000 chadmyhre http://chadmyhre.wordpress.com/?p=153 ]]>

I am completely confident that God gives us the leaders we need/deserve to fulfill His ultimate plan in our midst. I’m pretty sure that He’s going to allow things to happen, that I’m not particularly comfortable with.

• He is going to determine which party has the greatest influence and which individuals in that party will have a play in it all.
• He is going to allow corrupt things to happen under the government He establishes.  (Mankind will still have his free-will and mankind will still be subject to their fallen natures.)
• He is going to allow our system of government to either; strengthen in Capitalism, or continue to creep towards Socialism. 
• He is going to let people that we might consider “evil”, to go and cast their vote.  He will allow their vote to count.
• He is going to allow the government to propose laws that that are morally offensive to us.
• He is going to allow the government to propose laws and policies that might even limit our religious freedom, or possibly even promote some form of persecution.
• He has already shown us, that He is willing to allow Roe vs. Wade to stand, even though it permits one murder every 20 seconds here in the USA.
• He might even allow our government to change the constitution, and take our guns away.  He allowed it in Britain and in Australia.

What does the Bible have to say?

“Let every soul be subject to the governing authorities.  For there is no authority except from God, and the authorities that exist are appointed by God.”  (Romans 13:1)”

“..submit yourselves to every ordinance of man for the Lord’s sake, whether to the king as supreme, or to governors…  I Peter 2:13, 14″

“…be subject to rulers and authorities… Titus 3:1″

“… these dreamers defile the flesh, reject authority and speak evil of dignitaries…. Jude 5:8″

“the king’s heart is in the hand of the Lord, like the rivers of water; He turns it wherever He wishes.”

Who establishes our government?  Who calls us to be in submission to it?  Who tells us to not speak negatively of it?   – You got it!   God.

Right now, the day before the election, there are a bunch of Christians (people are told to “not fear” 366 times in the Bible), who are shaking in their boots over the result of tomorrow’s vote.  They act as if one candidate is God’s and the other candidate belongs to Satan.  They base this mostly on their positions concerning the abortion issue.  Personally, I stand with my fellows in the faith on this issue, for I feel that a person’s view on life reveals a lot about their principles and their character.  Personally, I want a leader with principles and character.

Unfortunately, principles and character don’t always give us what we want.  I think George Bush is a man of strong principles and character.  I think that he’s even a guy that I would like, sincerely as a person.  And yet, even with that, the government has grown larger under his term than under any other president’s.  I don’t want big government.  The party that is supposed to be about smaller government gave me exactly what I expected out of the Democrats.

I personally think that one candidate expresses more character than the other.  I’ll vote for that one.  I’ll go tomorrow and vote, because this is a practice and an expression of freedom.  At the same time, I can honestly say, that I don’t think my vote will mean anything on the other side of the lever.  It’s in God’s hands…  not ours.  I wish I could vote for someone that would be easier to support as my president.  Either way, I’m going to have a hard time feeling supportive of the guy who takes the office.  But I will be.

For the past 8 years, people have had anti-George Bush stickers on their cars.  If Obama gets the vote, we’ll see 4-8 years of anti-Obama stickers.  I’ll never have one.  If you’re a Christian, you’d better not have one either. We can speak our minds about the policies of our presidentt, but we cannot obediently speak evil of our dignitaries.  We cannot disrespect an authority that is placed there by God.

God called Nebuchadnezzar, “My servant” several times.  He was the guy who wanted people to worship his image or die.  He was the guy who threw the faithful into the fiery furnace.  He took God’s chosen people into captivity and destroyed Jerusalem.

That was God’s servant.

Very soon, we’ll know, who God’s servant will be here in the U.S.A.

It all starts, the moment you turn 38.  This is when we are first affronted with the reality of our age.  This is when we are forced to give up the youthful daydreams that have always floated around in our minds and accept the fact that “being a rock star” just isn’t going to happen.  This is when we get the notice that our graduating class will be holding it’s 20 year reunion.  This is when the gray hair transitions from being a novelty, to a reality.  This is when the babies that those classmates in High School had are in college.  This is the year we become those people that we always looked at before as being kind of old.  This is when our metabolism gives up and goes into retirement.  This is when things like creamed spinach, pickled beets and liver start sounding good.  This is when we stop wanting to go to rock n roll concerts. This is the year we reach the half-way point to 76, which, by the way, is when the odds for death are extremely high.

This is where old begins, and quite honestly, I’m relieved to accept it and dismiss the burden of becoming a rock n roll star.