Exponential 09 – Bob Roberts

Bob was interesting, although, to be honest, his important message for us to know more about other world religions is less important in a place like Du Bois, PA than perhaps a metro area like DC or NYC.

In any case, you can learn more about Bob here.

My important take-away is that the geographical boundaries that used to define religions’ spheres of influence no longer do. It is a little unsettling to think that certain non-Christian religions are growing in the West and Christianity, which has long been seen as a “western” religion (but it really isn’t… only our American-ized version of it currently is), is growing in places like Africa and Indonesia and all over the global South.

Share Jesus, not American Christianity! Jesus came to change the world through the church… and that’s us!

Exponential 09 – Craig Groeschel

Some GREAT stuff from this great guy today. I’ll just distill it way down for you here. There seems to be, according to my blog stats, a LOT of people reading this! Thanks! If you want to comment, say “hi” and introduce yourself, that’s cool!

1.   A movement will never be safe, predictable, and clean. It must become dangerous again (the church around the world). Church has become too safe in the past few decades. Promising just a better life for everybody is too safe, instead of the hardcore reckless, “follow Jesus” kind of faith from the NT. People are seeking something spiritual, not just practical. Tell a dangerous message. 

2.   A movement is never about my ministry, but it’s about His kingdom. If God does something great in our church, it’s about his kingdom, which goes beyond the walls of the church. Would I be happy if God blessed the other church more than mine. That answer must be yes! You can’t affect your city by yourself anyway. And be sure to work to build your church on what it’s about, not what it isn’t. (Like… we’re not stuffy, we’re not about this or that… No need to build it on negatives.)

3.   You will not lead a movement based on the old measurements of success. The scorecard has changed. New measurements are needed… Identity can not be in attendance numbers, must be on who we are in Christ. Don’t blame yourself for the declines, because then you might be tempted to take credit for the increases. You will be tempted to design services solely to bring people in. Then it’s “how can the people serve my vision” rather than “how can I set people free to serve God’s vision.” You start to lose focus and passion, and move too slowly… only to increase attendance. It’s far far better to influence the next generation of leaders.

 And if that’s not enough, there was a second session with Craig, about leading a movement… equally good.

1.   To lead a movement, you must see what others don’t see. See what’s coming, look at trends, the marketplace, culture, business, the movies, social networking… What’s coming? Don’t fish in a “blood red ocean” where there’s all that competition? Fish in the blue ocean where nobody else is fishing. The vision you see needs to be a big kingdom vision, a big cause… FIX something in your city. People don’t want to join a church, they want to be part of a movement.

2.   To lead a movement, you must do what others won’t do. Revolutionaries break the rules, not just to be edgy, but for a purpose. Think of those amazing friends who broke the roof to bring their friend to Jesus. Craig likes to say “We’ll do anything short of sin to reach people for Christ”. This means we fail some, too. Jesus broke rules, Martin Luther broke rules. Wesley broke rules. Ask new questions. Not “How can we get more in?” instead… “How can we influence more people?”

3.   To lead a movement, you must hurt like others don’t hurt. Lots of people won’t understand and will shoot at you. You’re not doing much at all if you don’t get called a cult every now and then. Not doing anything important if nobody calls you a heretic. Don’t respond to small numbers of critics, just do what God calls you do to.

   You will always be criticized, always misunderstood, always failing at something even, and always dissatisfied (When you lose this “holy misery”, you will lose your effectiveness.)

Exponential 09: VERY quick thoughts from Neil Cole’s talk.

Fascinating stuff! Sorry, this is only semi-edited, but I thought I’d get it out there for you to think about.

Don’t plant churches, plant the kingdom seeds. The church is the by-product. The idea starts with a seed, the word of God. Your sermon isn’t the word, the Word is… and you will never preach a sermon that will change the world. Don’t just “preach”, invest in the lives of others, and then you will finally realize multiplication.

Planting churches that reshuffle Christians is not kingdom growth. And your efforts should be concentrated to make disciples, don’t make new churches.

Interesting that the first words spoken to man “be fruitful…” are similar to the last words Jesus says to his disciples.

This one is huge for those of us who work in churches that focus on outreach to people who are far from God. Only one out of four soils in the parable of the seeds bear fruit. So if 10 people come to Christ and only 2 bear fruit, don’t babysit the 10 inordinately, work with the 2 and they will multiply. “Jesus didn’t give his heart to the multitude.” The few who do bear fuit will grow like crazy and that’s how the kingdom grows…

There’s way more, but that’s a good place to start.

Exponential – Erwin McManus

Erwin talks about the three “spaces” that Paul travels in Acts 17.

The 1st space… this is where we love people who are just like us, like the old synagogues, and our local churches

2nd space… this is where everyone lives and works… unfortunately, in the church we become irrelevant and anemic and incapable of effecting change in the world because we kind of “leave the marketplace”. We should go where people are in a sense, not pull people from there and “ruin them”. People are open to talking about spiritual matters in this place, and are looking for people who have the presence of Jesus in them… that it’s undeniable… If we can’t relate to the real world as pastors and church people, we can’t be the salt and light in the world. Christians often like a watered-down gospel, but the people who don’t believe yet who are out there in the marketplace wants a gospel that makes more sense… the story of heroism not just the “narcissistic” the story of our salvation.

There is a 3rd space where you have to be invited. When we’re invited into others’ space, they might embrace Christ! But those in the first space might reject us. That’s okay. This is the place where we can really make a huge difference and again, we’re only invited here because of our effectiveness in that second space.

More later…