More on small groups

So today I asked a friend of mine if he wanted to be a part of our small group accountability meetings.  He is interested in Jesus, but has not settled his mind about the church.  At any rate, when I described what we do in confessing sin and encouraging one another, he said, "so you are asking people to quit hiding behind habits and rituals?"

I have never heard it out quite so clearly, except for maybe Al Coppedge, one of my favorite seminary professors.

Are you ready to come out of hiding?  One of the things I am hopeful for is that when this is the way the church functions-- meeting together and growing in grace, and having THAT to invite people to-- our work of evangelism will be that much easier.

A Word on the Power of Small Group Accountability

Resentment is a spiritual killer.  The things we do when we are sullen because we did not get what we thought we deserved-- the praise, the money, the status; the things we do when we are angry and fearful because we feel that what we love and value is threatened; these things are truly frightening.  They are the root of so much spiritual downfall and outright sinning.

I caught a real good case of resentment a few weeks ago.  But I was able to confess it plainly to a group of men I meet with.  Not only was there square dealing with the issue at hand, but also encouragement to move past it with God's help. I can say confidently that I have never gotten over a resentment so quickly.  All the negative consequences of resentment-- self-righteousness, anger, fear, hatred, thanklessness, being quick-tempered, self-indulgence, gossip-- these all disappeared under the discipline of the Holy Spirit.

I hope you have a group like I have, a place like I have with these guys.  But I know that almost none of you do.  Would you like this kind of help?  Would you like the power of the Cross of Christ not just for forgiveness, but for power over sin's continuing influence in your life?  We are starting as many of these groups as we can.  Please talk to me and let's start one.

They are so simple.  But that simplicity demands a rigor.  It's not just any group of people getting together and hanging out and talking.  Small group ministries in churches fail because they won't stick to the plan.  And the plan is to ask 4 simple questions:

How are you doing spiritually?

Have you avoided evil?  (More pointedly, how have you sinned?)

Have you done all the good you can do?

Have you used the means of grace? (the usual ways God is present to us: prayer, worship, reading Scripture, etc)

If you go to Church Multiplication Associates at www.cmaresources.org you will see a link to their Life Transformation Groups.  They are the same questions, only more specific.

Every group like this I have ever been a part of has changed my life.  In fact, it's the place where the greatest life change has happened.  When they fail it is because they fail to ask the basic questions; they want to back off and assume we are all basically ok.  If you think you're basically ok, then good luck, you're gonna have a bad time.  But if you know you're a mess and need Jesus, let's talk.

I was visiting a guy in the hospital a few days ago.  I asked him how he was doing spiritually (a usual question I ask when I visit people in hospital or at home).  He confessed some things and in a Holy Spirit moment, I confessed to him, and we were both greatly blessed by the power of Christ.  I think this is how the normal Christian life is supposed to be.

I was walking down the street to visit one of our people.  A pastor I know and respect in this town was driving by.  He stopped and we talked about some stuff and then he said, "I think you and me and some other pastors need to get together and pray and study the Scriptures and break down the strongholds in our lives to break through in ministry."  Man, he has no idea what a divine appointment that was. If pastors can lead the way in confession and transparency and the power of victorious living...

What Discipleship Looks Like, And How It Leads to Evangelism

So today we got some hard news.  A dear long-time saint of the church has been in a rehabilitation facility for too long.  This morning, her daughter had a stroke.  We don't know much about prognosis, but we will pray nonetheless.
I went to visit the church member in the rehab facility.  I was told a fellow who is helping to lead a visitation ministry had been sitting with her.  When I arrived, I saw two other women there, comforting her.  They left, and after a little while a couple from the church came in, to be there and bring the comfort of Christian fellowship.
My eyes welled up with tears as I prayed.  I was telling someone recently that I have never been more humbled in my life than to be the pastor at Morehead United Methodist Church.  Humbled from the standpoint that it is so gloriously clear that none of what goes on here is due to me.  I just get to be the pastor of a group of people who love each other so much that they will go down the road, some to be with the mother, others in the hospital in Lexington with the daughter.
Johnny (our 14 year old son) went with me.  I told him, "You just saw the Church.  That's what we are inviting people to, a real life with real people who love each other, and organize going to the nursing home so the mother doesn't have to be alone."  They do it not because they have to, but because the Spirit of Jesus is alive in them, and they have great love for Him and His people.
Normally, it seems that evangelism is an invitation to discipleship.  But sometimes, seeing discipleship is an evangelical invitation to the Gospel life.
But please do not just depend on good works, or setting a good example.  Invite people to the saved life!  More important than not being alone in a time of difficulty in this life, more important than being rescued from trouble in this life, is to not be alone at the Judgment, and to know that God has your whole life in His hands.  He has secured your temporary life and your eternal life, if you have faith in Him!  (1 Tim 1:12)
May our church keep loving Jesus and each other!

And Another Thing

A few months ago, maybe it was as far back as Spring, Asbury Seminary and our New Church Development Team hosted a Church Planters Roundtable.  There was a guy there, Chris Backert, who gave a great presentation on the recent history of church planting, current trends, and likely future developments.  Our core team snagged some time with him, picking his brain.  His basic advice to us was first, make Kentucky the most attractive place to plant a church; let planters know that we are invested in them and their success.  Second, become the best you can be in rural church planting.  He said that not only because Kentucky is a rural state, but also because it is a new frontier.  He pointed out that everyone tries to plant in cities and large towns.  But no one is planting in the countryside.  As far as an emerging trend, it is a clear one.

Ha ha!  Here we are planting a church in Menifee County, and feeling called and being blessed with people to do more and go farther south and east.  But it is really hard to find any advice or resources... it's so new, planting in a rural context, that we are writing the book as we go.

But then... at dinner in a Mexican Restaurant in Coeur d'Alene, Idaho... I sit next to Phil Claycomb, a pastor from Texas who is in the learning group I am a part of this year.  What does he do?  He runs a church planting network that recruits, trains, and equips church planters for towns under 3,000 in population.  I asked him, "So how did you get into that?"

Because he plants churches in Texas and Oklahoma, where there are lots of small towns.  And over dinner, he was gracious enough to share what they do.

So like I said, 350,000 churches in America.  Who knows how many pastors.  12 of us in a learning group.  And two of them intersect directly with what Mike and I are up to.

The Lord couldn't speak much more clearly.

Small World

I was in Post Falls, Idaho last week at a cool church, Real Life Ministries.  They are a large church, 6,000 + on Sundays, built on discipleship groups.  I am in my second go-round of an Exponential Learning Community-- small groups who get together at high-functioning, discipleship-oriented churches to learn.  I am pretty pumped to be able to take Mike Adams with me.  We will go to two more churches over the next 6 months, in Kansas City and Tacoma.

Anyway, what was really cool: when I introduced myself to some other pastors who just arrived, one guys asks me if I know where Frenchburg, KY is.  His church has been sending mission teams there but has had a hard time getting churches in the area to partner with. Ha ha.  I said, let me introduce you to Mike Adams, the pastor of our church plant in Frenchburg!

Seriously... how do you leave Morehead for Idaho and have a guy ask about Frenchburg?

Maybe the Holy Spirit!  What a divine appointment!

Evangelism in the closing days of life

We had the funeral for Don Cherry yesterday. He was 76, led a full life, and died after a long illness. The funeral was more of a memorial service, where we were intentional about NOT ending the service with the benediction, but continuing in a time of fellowship after. That was really neat-- to see so many people come from all over, long distances, to pay respects and love on the grieving family.

During the homily, I mentioned how in the last few times I visited him, talk turned to eternal matters, and I was able to share with him that we can indeed have assurance of salvation, knowing that God saves us by grace, through faith in Jesus Christ.

His daughter-in-law came up to me afterwards and said how thankful they were to hear that,and to thank me for sharing the Gospel with him.

What else is there to do? What else can we say? It was so simple. It often is. When a person is dying, their thoughts are on the heavy things in life. If they do not say it, you can ask about it. Trust me, it's there, just below the surface.

And then you share simply our simple faith:

Saved by grace. It is a gift. Not earned. Not a reward for good deeds or hard work, even if done in the name of the Lord! We turn to faith in Jesus, that when He died on the Cross, He died in our place, for our sins. If we believe this, we have forgiveness of sins. And He was resurrected that we, too, might have with Him a new and eternal life. If we believe that, we will be in Heaven with Him.

Don't complicate it.

National Discipleship Forum

I am back in Morehead. When we left Orange County, it was sunny and 82. We got into Cincinnati at 10 p.m. and it was cold and raining! Jacob Wilson and I were mock-crying, “Why did we leave? Why did we have to come back? It's so warm out there! And there's In-N-Out. And Laguna Beach.”

This morning I woke up and looked out at the mountains surrounding Morehead, and in 5 days the leaves have changed. What a beautiful thing to come home to.

Mike Adams, Jacob Wilson, and I were at the 2014 Exponential West Coast Conference. But we added to that a pre-conference, the National Discipleship Forum. It was too much. Seriously. I am not sure I can unpack what happened. It will take a while to figure out what happens from here, but it was life-changing.

The National Discipleship Forum was a kind of living room conversation between some of the top “disciplers” if we can say that: Bill Hull, Jim Putman, Jeff Vanderstelt, Francis Chan, K.P. Yohannan and Robert Coleman.

It was amazing to hear these men talking about their passion for making disciples, to hear that there are people who are pressing hard after the same stuff that obsesses my ministry. It was good to hear that I have intuited a lot of it and been doing a lot of it (because it just flows naturally when you decide to follow Jesus) and also to see that there is so much to learn, so much of an adventure yet to go on. I don't have words to explain the Holy Spirit presence. We were all just stunned. Like we were sponges that had been plunged into water and then wrung out.

Maybe one day I can express what happened. For now... I talked to a few of the directors and they were blown away, too, didn't see it coming, the intense presence of the Lord, the real tension on the stage between hard-nosed disciplers resolved by a love for Jesus and His Mission. But they also say they are planning to do this in some other places across the country, maybe Louisville. Get ready. Clear your calendars so we can go together.

Maybe all I can say for now is that this thing that has been building inside me-- that if it is not evangelism leading to discipleship, I don't want to do it-- has finally come out. Now I just want to talk to people about Jesus more than I ever did. I want to submit every aspect of my life to the Lordship of Jesus Christ, and invite others along, more than ever.

What a disappointing post! I wish I was able to say all that is churning around in my spirit. But maybe that's what Sunday sermons are for...

It was great to be there with Mike and Jacob, wish I could have had more there. I see a network of evangelists and disciplemakers flowing out into the highways and byways of Eastern KY, one of the least-churched places in America. I think that if we had 20 people sold out, fearing nothing but sin and Hell and loving no one but God, Satan's kingdom would come down.

There's this guy I met at the church in Lexington, Jake Bell. He is a phenomenal drummer. He left for LA in 2010. He is paying the rent with his rock, playing with a band that has gigs at Toby Keith's in Las Vegas. He is an in-demand studio musician. We have kept in touch and I knew I had to get out there to see him. So we met up and it was so good to see him happy and doing well. He told me one of the teachers from the boys' school in Lexington is out there, and she remembers the little dudes!

Jake is working with Tim Hutton, a producer in LA, works with well-known bands. Jake is the drummer at his recording studio. So Jake says, let's go up to see Tim at his dad's house. His dad is Danny Hutton, from Three Dog Night. My dad had to remind me of how often I used to sing “Shambala” as a kid! No way! I thought I told Mike and Jacob but they weren't ready to see gold records on the wall. Danny Hutton wasn't there... but next time, because we were invited back.

Can you imagine driving out of North Hollywood up Laurel Canyon Drive? It's like heading straight into the country from the city. So beautiful. Reminded me of my aunt and uncle's house in Topanga Canyon. Steep hill, steep driveway. Incredible hillside homes and views. All the way there, I was praying, “Please Lord, give me a chance to share the Gospel with whoever we meet tonight.”

Well, there was an R&B singer there who was coming to the studio to do some recording. While we were standing around, after getting over the initial wet-blanket of having three pastors in the house, the singer said, “I am just going to put myself out there. I don't know anyone here, first meeting. But I am having a problem with forgiveness. There's a past relationship that I just can't get any forgiveness on.”

I gulped, thanked Jesus and gave my 2 minute presentation on forgiveness. I even got to finish by telling them that the most important thing is that we get forgiveness from Jesus, and that I would pray and they should pray for Jesus to reveal Himself to them, and that they would be His followers. Awkward silence. Did I say too much too soon too uninvited? He looked at me, squinted a moment and said, “I know that. I know that. I just needed to hear it again.”

I am going back next year. Maybe sooner if we get the chance. We were invited back to the house. In fact, after eating burgers in the Roosevelt Hotel (because that's just how we roll) Jake got a text saying if we were still around, they'd be down in 30 minutes to hang with us... but it was late and we had an hour drive and early sessions...

Always ask God to open the door to share what Jesus has done.