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Question and Answer 4

Here's a great question from someone at our Cole Mill campus, answered by Pastor Rick:

I really like the multi-site concept. Are we going to launch any new locations in the next few years?

This is one of my favorite questions. YES! We have set a goal to start at least one new campus by the fall of 2009. We’ve also put together a team that will be studying, praying and planning to make that happen. I hope we can start even more than that by then. This could be a great way to expand the kingdom here in the Triangle in the coming years. Three things we need to start a new campus: a Place (facility to meet in); a People (who are coming to one of other campuses from a good distance and would make a good start-up core group); and a Pastor (someone who can lead the new congregation). Of course, a little start up funding, too. Where will our next one be? Mebane? Chapel Hill? Fuquay-Varina? North Raleigh?

We think that the best "Gospel strategy" for an area includes preaching the message of the Gospel to every person in that area, and demonstrating the Gospel (by acts of love and service) to that area. The best way to do both of those things, we believe, is to plant local churches and congregations. If you'd like to check out a little more about our "multi-site" philosophy, here are a couple of helpful articles. 1 2

Never Quit Dreaming

The other night I met together with a small group who comprise some of the core leadership at our Cole Mill campus. We were talking about some gigantic faith steps that need to be taken by the Summit Cole Mill community. I was moved by their willingness to again believe God for impossible things.

Many of those at Cole Mill were the original people I started this process with 6 years ago. They are the ones who did the unthinkable and hired a 28 year old pastor, changed the name of the church, sold their 40 year old property, and launched into a high school. Truth be told, the books that have cited us as an example of a "comeback church," etc are written about them, not me.

Many people would say that they have had their day of believing God and now they are ready to lounge around in their promised land. But not these guys. They are like Caleb, who at 80 years old was clamoring for a new mountain to go pick a fight on.

When you quit dreaming, you're dead. I hope that when I'm 80 I have bigger plans for the Kingdom of God than I do now. Even when I am gone, the power of God will be available to take the Kingdom of God farther forward than anything I can dream or imagine.

We Want Revolutionaries, Not Just Navel-Gazing Pansies

It seems like most churches believe their best selling point is that they can help those in search of comfort and inner peace... "Come to us and we'll help you find yourself."

Not us. We want revolutionaries. Or at least people willing to follow One.

While Jesus does give peace, comfort and fulfillment, He isn't into creating narcissists.

Of course, I'm not talking about political or violent revolutionaries, but revolutionaries like Jesus.  Jesus said that we must "violently" press into the kingdom of God, and then showed us what He meant by His substitutionary death for our sins. We are to be "violent" in our radical generosity and self-sacrifice for others. We go in not to conquer or kill, but to serve and die. 

Here's what I want people to understand about our church, in the words of Lesslie Newbigin:

"The church is an entity which has outlasted many states, nations and empires, and it will outlast those that exist today. The Church is nothing other than that movement launched into the public life of the world by its sovereign Lord to continue that which he came to do until it is finished in his return in glory. It has his promise that the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. In spite of the crimes, blunders, compromises, and errors by which its story has been stained and is stained to this day, the Church is the great reality in comparison with which nations and empires and civilizations are passing phenomena. The Church can never settle down to being a voluntary society concerned merely with private, domestic affairs. It is bound to challenge in the name of the one Lord all the powers, ideologies, myths, assumptions, and world views which do not acknowledge him as Lord. If that involves conflict, trouble, and rejection, then we have the example of Jesus before us and his reminder that a servant is not greater than his master."

A Goliath To Kill in Jesus' Name

Newsweek ran a pretty interesting article recently. It is here. It talked about how biologist Edward Jenner discovered in 1796, somewhat haphazardly, the way to immunize against the deadly disease of smallpox. The article goes on to say how scientists today have banged their head against the wall for over 20 years in trying to find an immunization for AIDS, which killed 50,000 people last week. Last month a huge project which offered a lot of promise, collapsed, and a number of scientists, the article said, are tempted to give up hope.

I couldn't help but think what might happen if someone conquered it in Jesus' name. What I mean is that they asked God to help them find the cure for the sake of Jesus' compassion and for the glory of His name. From the get-go they covenant with God that this is not about their fame or their winning of a Nobel prize, but that they will give God all the credit.

We know that God blesses mightily those who try audacious things in Jesus' name. Like David when he ran out to meet Israel's biggest threat, Goliath. Like Joshua when he asked the sun to stand still. Like Elijah when he doused his altar in water and asked God to show His power by torching it. Like Peter asking if he could get out of the boat to walk on water. Like Abraham when he put on some Marvin Gaye and started a family when he was 99 years old.

I realize that the majority of you are not in the medical field. But some of you are. And in whatever field you are, why not dedicate your life to attacking some world giant in Jesus' name? Something people would talk about and give Jesus glory for for CENTURIES to come (if Jesus' doesn't return first!)! Newsweek also put out a GREAT list of the globe's biggest 'crises' right now. It is here. Why not dedicate yourself to slaying one of these giants in Jesus' name? Why not dream a great dream for God?

I'm tired of the church sitting around "playing defense." Jesus told us that we could storm the gates of hell and they would not be able to keep us out. That is coaching for the offensive team, not for the defensive team. The church is supposed to be a battering ram, not a secluding castle. To borrow a phrase from Mark Batterson, Sometimes we're running the "prevent defense" when we should be running the "two-minute offense."

Why not, in the words of William Carey, "Attempt great things for God, and expect great things OF God?"

2 Sins of Vision

As is obvious to anyone who comes to our church or reads this blog (hi mom!), I've been thinking about vision a lot recently.

I want to post one final thing on it, before I leave it for a while... and that is to urge you to consider the two main sins of vision (as I see it). These are things that have afflicted me all my life, and I think might be common in a lot of church leaders:

1. Dreaming great things for yourself (Jer 45:5). Sometimes our great dreams are really about us, even when we cloak them in spiritual language. We want a big church or successful ministry because it will make us feel better about ourselves, earn us a better reputation, or even a better salary. God cannot truly bless those prayers we offer in pursuit of that type of vision, because we are praying like adulterers. We should be fully happy and secure in who we are in Christ and not need a big or successful ministry to feel validated. That should come from our Divine Husband Jesus Christ. Even in praying for great things to happen to our churches, the hidden motives of our heart are either crying out "Thy Kingdom come" or "My Kingdom come." Both prayers, on the surface, may sound the same, but one is the prayer of Jesus and the other the prayer of Satan.
2. Dreaming too small: Once we identify and confess the idol we've turned ministry success into, we can commit another sin by failing to see the world according to the love and power of God. I will never get tired of encouraging others to see themselves, their families, their cities, and their world through the LENS of the Gospel. Jesus' willingness to save our cities is measured by THE CROSS. The power Jesus' can and will use toward that end is measured by THE RESURRECTION. If we are praying according to our abilities or our willingness to reach our city, we are surely praying too small and insulting the passion and power of Jesus. Praying according to HIS power and passion is what it means to pray in JESUS' name. Isaiah 59:1,2: "The Lord's arm is NOT shortened that it cannot save, nor is His ear heavy that it CANNOT hear; rather, it is your sins that have separated you from God..." Namely, the sin of failing to believe in the availability of His love and power.

Go dare something great for God.

Vision, squirt guns and look out, hell

Last week our pastoral team went on an incredible retreat together at Fort Caswell, NC. I think we (at least I did) came back more energized than I've been in a long time, with a renewed sense of what God has called us to and the opportunities that lie ahead of us.

We didn't establish a lot of "goals." We set a handful of large, big-picture ones... but primarily we prayed about and embraced vision. Why? Let me borrow the words of somebody else to explain...

Goals can be energizing… when you win. But a vision is more powerful than a goal. A vision is enlivening, it’s spirit giving, it’s the guiding force behind all great human endeavors. Vision is about shared energy, a sense of awe, a sense of responsibility.

I'm not sure what exactly God is about to do with this church, but I think it might feel a little like a lost kite in Hurricane Dean.

We are committed to LOVING GOD, LOVING EACH OTHER, and LOVING OUR WORLD. We know that's what we're supposed to do because it is a summary of the Great Commandment (Matt 22:38) and Great Commission.

We are committed to LOVING GOD by focusing on ORGANIC change through GOSPEL-CENTERED preaching and living... not on mechanical, religious, numbers and activity inflated growth. Gospel-saturated people become Spirit-filled people... and we want to be so Spirit-filled that when mosquitoes bite us they fly off humming "there is power in the blood."

We are committed to LOVING EACH OTHER by growing SMALLER as a church at the same time we grow BIGGER. We calculate the size of our church NOT by how many people show up on Sundays, but by how many people we have in Summit Life Groups. That is where discipleship happens, because "Discipleship happens in Relationships."

We are committed to LOVING OUR WORLD by serving and loving our community. We do not want to be a church that preaches the love of Jesus without physically showing it as well. We are committed to planting churches in America and around the world. Church planting IS the most effective way to evangelize, period. I am asking God to let us be a part of planting 1000 in my lifetime. We are committed to doing WHATEVER IT TAKES, like going multi-site, to reach people. We are committed to ministering to all parts of RDU so that our church membership reflects the DIVERSITY that is our community.

We'd love for you to join us. Bring your faith, your zeal, and your heart and soul.

Oh yeah... the subject line is a spin off of the old "I feel like I could charge hell with a squirt gun" bit. I wasn't cussing, so you don't need to forward the link to my mom.

Blue Oceans

Recently a friend recommended to me the book Blue Oceans. It is a "secular" leadership book... but a very, very good one. The basic idea is that most business operate in "red oceans"--oceans filled with bloody competition over a limited amount of customers. Businesses who succeed in red oceans do so by getting "better" than the competition... for, after all, there are only so many fish in these oceans, and you have to be the faster shark if you want to catch them.

In blue oceans, by contrast, competition is irrelevant because you are the only ones fishing in them. You've discovered a new product, or a new way to deliver a product, or a new felt need to address, and you're the only one fishing in that ocean. An example might be Starbucks... who, rather than simply trying to produce better coffee for less money, created a new coffee experience. This blue ocean caused them to soar above other coffee producers.

As a church, we are looking for blue oceans in which we can minister. Let me give you an example of one. Up until last year, we put on a "fall festival" which featured free games and rides for community kids as a way of attracting people to our church. It was successful... but we noticed that soon enough every church in the community was doing the same thing. So ours had to be better and bigger than theirs...  But as churches we were competing for the same people with the same event. This year we decided to do our carnival-type event for a local elementary school in a less privileged part of town--on their property, and with no strings attached. The effect was unreal... the gratitude of the school officials and the continuing relationship it has given us with them, and the newspaper articles about what we did gave us more publicity than our fall festival ever did. It gave us an audience with a group of people that no one else was working with. A small, but still Blue, Ocean.

I think the early church's "baby runs" (whereby they picked up discarded, unwanted babies in the Roman world) were a Blue Ocean. MIssionaries teaching tribal peoples to read was a Blue Ocean. Providing Divorce Care was a Blue Ocean. I think Rick Warren's "PEACE" projects are a Blue Ocean. The idea of helping people learn to be ministers in their workplace is a Blue Ocean.

How can the church get out of offering "competing" products to our culture, and minister to people in hitherto unheard of ways? If the "spiritual blue oceans" are the myriad ways that people outside of God are "missing something" from their lives, how can the church get into those places and do something no one else is doing?

Or am I pushing this concept way too far? :)

Also... shout out to my friend Bruce Ashford who is finally getting married... it's a sad day for a lot of middle school girls out there...

They are Coming -- Are We Ready?

One of our worship leaders sent me an article from Fast Company Magazine the other day... it has named Raleigh–Durham as one of its top 3 “R & D clusters” (R&D = Research and Development) in its annual “fast cities” list. It cited the fact that RDU has the highest percentage of college graduates ages 25–34 in the country! (Also making the new, R & D fast-cities list were Fort Collins, CO and Seoul, Korea.) This goes along with the fact that Forbes ranked us (RDU) the #4 place in the country for young adults and singles to live as well as the #1 place to find new tech-jobs... as well as the #3 place in the country for young families to live. (more info here).

Three quick things to note:

1. This is an incredible time for our city, and God has given us an opportunity to be right in the middle of it. That's why we are going multi-site and why we do what we do. It means we are going to have to continue to change and adapt. Whatever it takes.
2. The 25-34 age range is one that God is bringing to us, and they are one of the least evangelized demographics in the country. We really need to pray that God would allow us to develop a rich and effective ministry in this area.
3. Did you notice that Fast Company magazine made the age bracket "25 to 34"? That means that I am still in that age bracket, while David Thompson and Angie Field are thoroughly out of it. And Chris Gaynor didn't even get an honorable mention.

1.1 Billion of You Can Read This

That's the number of people that the Guardian says are now "online." And I read in Newsweek this week that by 2010 over 100 million people will be bloggers. (And, to note, the USA is #15 in the world in terms of percentage of people with internet access. That means that we are pretty far behind [even though our own Al Gore invented it] and will only be catching up in the years to come...)

Think about it... with 1.1 billion people online, that's the largest 'commonality' group in the world. What opportunities does it create for evangelism? And are we going to be ready? How can we, as a local church, be ready for it? Does it affect how we stylize some of our ministries?

For example, last week we got a great story from a guy in California who is an Army Ranger and saw the testimony video of our own HALO Ranger, Marc Douglass, that we posted online. Things online develop a "life" of their own, and Marc's video was being passed around out there (click here for that video, as well as some others we've posted). He said he felt like Marc was telling his own story, and this video brought him to Christ.

The Guardian article mentions that a number of "developing countries" realize they are lagging behind, and want to change that. The article mentions by name the country in Southeast Asia that we, the Summit, have adopted. What kind of platforms will that give us for missions? With RDU being a techno-hot spot, imagine how many of our people we could send over to places like that to help develop internet access and simultaneously connect them to Gospel?

This could allow us to circle the globe with the Gospel in unprecedented ways. The world really is flattening.

Pray with me that we, as well as churches worldwide, might seize this technological opportunity for the Gospel! (Here's a great set of books I recommend to developing an understanding of the world as it is. Add to that list Wikinomics, which I simply haven't had time yet to add a hot link to.)