Here’s the message from Sunday at Word of Faith Church. I changed the title to worship. I thought it came off really good, but I would love to get your feedback… even if it’s not good. I promise I won’t cry.

Here are the NOTES.

Here is the AUDIO.

I’ve gotten an invite to speak this Sunday at my old church in Springfield. I’m putting a message together called “Nobody.”

I’m looking forward to seeing everybody again. So if you weren’t planning on being at church on Sunday or you were thinking about going to a different church… you should change your mind.

Or if you live in Columbus and want to take a short commute, I’d love to see ya there.

I’m up early today because I got a little speaking gig I’m excited about at my old church, Word of Faith Family Church in Springfield, Ohio.

Jo and I have been back a few times since we left almost five years ago, but mostly just to see friends or go to a few events. Never for a service.

So I’m looking forward to it. I’m pulling out a message that I started working on last year called simple. Should be good.

I had a great time at Q last week and got to hang out with a lot of cool people.

Here are a few pics from the venue. The Tabernacle was a great choice.

I’ll start to post some of my thoughts over the next few days and weeks. If you want a complete list of notes from the event you can check out:

Duncan McFadzean from Scotland - What’s Your Point Caller - Duncan and I had the chance to meet briefly. Cool guy. Works for the Bank of Scotland. There’s a good chance I’ll end up over there before the end of the year.

SBC Outpost - Don’t know him, but a great set of notes.

Scott Hodge also posted some of his thoughts. Scott is a great guy. We had a conversation while I was getting coffee on Thursday night. I’d make a trip to Chicago just to buy him lunch.

DJ Chuang of Leadership Network put up his thoughts at the L2 Foundation Blog. I met DJ the last morning. I happened to sit at his table. Which is the way it worked most of the event. You find a table to sit at and wait to see who sits there with you. Just like that… you have new friends.

The outside of the Tabernacle.

The Q stage.

The foyer. The place was covered with art from floor to ceiling.

Last week I decided to check out a Jewish Synagogue. Actually, this was a Messianic Jewish Congregation which means they’re down with Jesus and the whole New Testament. They keep all the tradition and ceremony of Judaism while professing faith in Jesus Christ as the Messiah.

It was a pretty typical service… you know… singing in Hebrew, ladies dancing in the front, the parade of the Torah while everyone kissed it… (yep, I kissed it too). That Saturday was Shabbot Hachodesch or the first Sabbath closest to the month of Nissan which is the month of Passover. So for some reason, we took communion twice that morning. The second time we did it at the end of service and they passed out little dixie cups full of wine.

It was interesting, but I forgot how uncomfortable it is to walk into a church for the first time where you don’t know anyone. I was literally sitting in the parking lot debating whether or not to turn around and go home.

It’s also easy to forgot how much of the “rules” or “language” we assume people know. Church has it’s own code. Most people don’t know it… and so anything spiritual becomes irrelevant. I’ve been in church for awhile, but the code here was extremely complex. Stand up, sit down, call and response, turn and pray, speak in Hebrew and then English. I know I messed some of it up.

I think the challenge here is to preserve the rich and complex tradition, but do it in a way that is applicable to modern life. Why do we have the tradition and what does it mean to me today?

Does the church have freedom to experiment?

I’ve been thinking about this lately when I ran across a quote from Nikola Tesla

“Today’s scientists have substituted mathematics for experiments, and they wander off through equation after equation, and eventually build a structure which has no relation to reality.”

I think that if we are not careful, the church can begin to create formulas and equations for what is currently working or what used to work. Eventually you build a structure which has no relation to reality.

Kind of scary actually.

I think we have a responsibility to experiment.

I’m catching up on the news of Ted Haggard before I go to sleep. I just read the letter he wrote to his congregation where he confessed to the allegations and revealed his years of struggling with sexual sin.

The whole thing is sad… tough… scary… embarrassing… examining… hurtful… a wake-up call… a moment to look at ourselves in the mirror… sobering… confusing…

I feel for his family. In one moment their dad was their greatest hero. In the next moment he hurt them the worst. I feel the weight of the responsibility that God has given me as a father and a husband.

And I had just bought one of his books last week to give to a friend.

Just read the quote out of the book “The Coffeehouse Gospel” by Matthew Turner.

“The message of Jesus is freeing, unassuming, and provocative. It makes thinkers out of the most shallow of people. The good news needs room to move and an atmosphere that provokes thought, meditation, and open discussion. The message that often remains stifled up inside the haughty walls of church buildings finds new life when displayed in a non-formulaic manner within an open environment where the opinions of all are respected and honored.”

Good stuff. As a leader in the church, I see one of my key jobs as a Creator of The Atmosphere. An environment that gives the message of Jesus room to breathe. I agree with Turner in that a lot of these conversations need to take place outside of church. But I also believe that the church has to partner with its people to create these environments with its walls as well.

My friend Shane who works for the Church of Ireland Youth Department recently put together a devotional called FUEL that takes a different approach to reading the Bible.

Instead of reading a passage of Scripture and then someone’s commentary on that passage, Shane has developed a list of questions to help you walk through that passage and discover your own personal insight.

Questions like, “What word or phrase or sentence stood out to me as I read?” and “What might God be trying to say to me through it?”

Fuel is based on a time-tested, Christian practice known as Lectio Divina that leads you to READ, THINK, PRAY and LIVE.

I picked up a copy for the young adult leaders we took to see Rob Bell last week. A lot of the guys are really enjoying it and gaining new perspective from the Scriptures.

Shane has some instructions on his web-site if you would like to pick up a copy. Or just email him. He would love to chat with you.

A bunch of young adult guys and I are going to see Rob Bell’s “Everything Is Spiritual” Tour this Thursday night in Cleveland, OH at the Agora Theater & Ballroom. It should be a good time. I’ll take some pictures and notes and let you know. I heard he has a 20′ white board. How much fun is that?

PICTURE THIS: Hold up a glass of water to someone who is thirsty.

What’s most important here, the water or the glass?

——————–

The water. Next question:

——————–

What shape is the water?

——————–

The shape of the glass.

——————–

NOW PICTURE THIS: Someone comes to church for the first time because they are thirsty.

What’s most important here, the water or the church?

——————–

The water. Next question:

——————–

What shape is the water?

——————–

The shape of the church.

——————–

I recently saw some CNN video coverage of Mosaic church in Los Angeles. Always faithful to bring both sides of the story to its audience, they had a few people upset over the way Mosaic was handling the Word of God. In an effort to make the Bible culturally acceptable, Mosaic and Erwin McManus were stripping it of its reverence as God’s Holy Word.

Here’s what I think:

Some people discount the need to make the Word of God relevant for a specific audience… yet the gospel has no choice but to be relevant.

Catch this:

Because AUDIENCE PERCEPTION changes with time, interpreting the Word of God involves MAKING CHOICES about what it means today, in their world. The Gospel won’t remain a living form if it fails to acknowledge that audiences themselves are ENGAGED in the INTERPRETATION.

Much of the excitement in crafting a message lies in exploring how it lines up with the audience. After all, the Word of God is a living, breathing object in the world of the hearer in which it is created.

Denying the present culture actually DIMINISHES the Word’s RESONANCE, effectively making it a MUSEUM ARTIFACT.

“Talent is about…those who score high on the ‘distinct’ scale. And for those with true distinction… the world will wait in line to acquire their services.”

-Tom Peters

America’s 50 Most Influential Churches Report was published last week. The churches at the top are DISTINCT churches. They have their own style. They didn’t try to copy or franchise someone else. The result: they’re well attended. It doesn’t even matter if we like them or not.

That’s the thing about DISTINCTION. People value someone who is being DISTINCT. We value a company that is making their own way. People want to attend a church that cannot be reproduced anywhere in the world. We all want to be a part of something DISTINCT.

I knew that there had to be an explanation for this.  It all makes sense now.

MIAMI, Florida (Reuters) – The New Testament says that Jesus walked on water, but a Florida university professor believes there could be a less miraculous explanation — he walked on a floating piece of ice.

Professor Doron Nof a professor of oceanography at Florida State University, said on Tuesday that his study found an unusual combination of water and atmospheric conditions in what is now northern Israel could have led to ice formation on the Sea of Galilee.

A drop in temperature below freezing could have caused ice — thick enough to support a human — to form on the surface of the freshwater lake near the western shore, Nof said. It might have been nearly impossible for distant observers to see a piece of floating ice surrounded by water.

“If you ask me if I believe someone walked on water, no, I don’t,” Nof said. “Maybe somebody walked on the ice, I don’t know. I believe that something natural was there that explains it.”

And I thought I had heard it all….

Check out the full CNN.com article here.

I just read a ChristianityToday.com article titled: “Leader’s Insight: Is Ministry Leadership Different?”

Eric Reed spent some time interviewing Andy Stanley for an upcoming April edition article and decided to let some of his content out early.

Andy says:

“One of the criticisms I get is ‘Your church is so corporate…’ And I say, ‘OK, you’re right. Now why is that a bad model?”

What’s humorous is that we get the same comments… and I know were not even close to being as “corporate” as Northpoint. We recently had a lady tell us that we were, “headed to Babylon.” Upon further questioning as to how she had drawn that conclusion (beside the crack pipe she had been smoking) she told us because we were running the church as a business and becoming corporate and we were not free to follow the heart of God.

Andy said, “I grew up in a culture where everything was overly spiritualized. I don’t want to be a cynic, but raking out all the spiritual versus non-spiritual, I think, is healthy.”

I think I would argue that you cannot separate life into “spiritual” and “non-spiritual.” Really everything is “spiritual.” In the entire Old Testament, the word “spiritual” does not even exist in the Hebrew. Why?

Because you can’t segment life that way.

Leadership is spiritual. How you run a church is spiritual. And I would argue, just as spiritual as spending time alone for devotions or singing worship songs on Sunday morning.

We are called to do everything to the glory of God and live our lives in a way that is sacrificial to Him (Ro 12.1). This includes everything we do; whether we go to work at UPS sorting boxes or whether we are the CEO of a 20,000 member church. Everything we do is spiritual.

I don’t know….. but, I love the way Andy makes me think.

Suppose you attended the College Football National Championship Game in 2002 in Tempe, Arizonia. You watched the Ohio State Buckeyes war with the Miami Hurricanes. Let’s say you went with a good friend, Bob. During the first and second overtime, you’re literally shaking with the emotional intensity of the contest. Do you turn to your pal, and say, “My, my, Bob, this oblong-ball contest certainly ‘exceeded expectations.’

OF COURSE YOU DON’T UTTER ANY KIND OF SILLINESS LIKE THAT.

You scream!

Adjectives and adverbs of the most extreme nature rip the sky assunder!

(To have been present to see it was a…. Dream Come True!)

This was an… Extraordinary Moment.
This was an… Extraordinary Event.

I am an unabashed… Church Lover. I believe that church… can be…. no… should be… Wildly Creative. It can provide… Extraordianary Experiences… for our Staff… for our Guests… for our Members.

The church should exceed expectations… should be an extraordinary moment… should be an extraordinary experience.

After Rex left his comments, I emailed back to him some of my thoughts about his last point on friendships:

Rex,

Josh

I was so freakin’ happy when I did an iTunes search for Erwin McManus and it turned up Mosaic’s weekly podcast. This is really good stuff and Erwin is one of my top 5 communicators.

This is a definite subscribe.

The Center For Church Communication just published a report on church marketing.  You can download the 8 page document here.

I found the report very surprising.  Yet  it challenged me in our efforts to get our arms around a real marketing plan for The Church At Polaris.

Here are some of their findings:

76% of churches are not documenting or tracking the results of their marketing.

88% of churches rely on staff or volunteers to handle their marketing.

80% of churches spend less than $10,000 a year on marketing and promotion. ( Sidebar - a healthy marketing budget is 3 to 5% of the annual income.  That means a church with an annual budget of $300,000 should be spending about $10,000 a year on marketing.  A church with an annual budget of $300,000 typically has 250 - 400 people in it.)

83% of churches said their website was probably the most important piece of marketing that they do.  Yet 44% of church websites are handled by volunteers.  Another 46% by staff.  Only 5% of churches hire an outside company to handle their site.

The final results:  Churches are actually doing more marketing than expected, though they don’t seem to be follow a plan.

“Churches have the greatest story ever told, but no one’s listening.  We think there’s a communication problem.  That remarkable story is lost thanks in part to poor research, little or no planning, bad clip art, cheesy photos and ignorable ads.

We believe there is a better way.  It’s not simply flashy designs or catchy slogans, but effective and authentic communication.  If we can’t communicate, how can we fulfill the great commission?”