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It's Thursday morning at 7:45 AM and I still can't hold down any food. To make matters worse I have a stye beginning to grow under my left eye and I broke off one of my teeth in the front of my mouth last night...I look like some kind of cycloptic hillbilly now. All in all...I feel like crap. I guess it could be worse this guy could be in the bed next to me.
Tonight is the first time in a long time I won't be able to attend my Connexxion group. I was up all night blowing chunks...can't keep anything down. Denise and I thought it was just acid reflux problems at 10:00 PM last night...but now we're pretty sure I have some kind of virus. Luckily I was able to move around some things in my schedule and I worked out of the house today. I really hope it is only one of those 24-hour bugs because I've got some important meetings tomorrow. Anywway...if anyone wants to send up a few prayers for me...that would be great.
I have been on Facebook for over a year now...as it was the best way to communicate with the young 20-somethings at Compass Point. I was informed by one of our younger artistic types last night that, "Now that all of your old fart pastor friends are signing up for Facebook it's really becoming a bummer!" So here's the deal...I need you old fart (anyone over 25) pastor guys to delete your Facebook accounts so I can go back to looking cool with part of my congregation. Thanks! :-)
You gotta go check out Bob Franquiz's new iPhone. It is probably the most incredible and unique piece of technology ever!!! :-)
Before now I wouldn't exactly call Ed Stetzer a blogger...unless you consider a blogger someone that posts only when Haley's Comet comes back around. Today the cat is out of the bag...Stetzer is blogging on a regular basis here. What brought on this minor miracle? It's part of his freakin' job description (you gotta love Thom Rainer)!!!
If you've ever read Ed's occasional posts elsewhere online or one of his books then you know he's got serious game! If you've read my blog on a regular basis then you know Stetzer could write about "Japanese Gardening Techniques Using Yak Dung" and I'd be the first one in line to buy it. Go check out his blog now...no not later...now!!!
It's pretty sad when country artist Carrie Underwood rocks harder these days than Bon Jovi...but she does!!! Here she is rocking the house with some Skid Row and throwing down some serious Guns N' Roses (wade through the acoutstic solo opening...her band kicks in at about 1:06).
Hey Jon...either rock...or retire...you're screwing up the legacy!!!
Okay...so the title of this post may sound a little...well...gay...but I totally dig Shawn Lovejoy's blog. He doesn't blog everyday...but when he does write something it almost always challenges me. Today's post is no exception. To many times I have been guilty of looking down on another church because they are traditional. Shawn's post had me on my knees repenting for being a Pharisee.
Denise and I just got back from being on the road all weekend. I spoke at a singles' conference in Boca Raton Friday night and Saturday. The audience was great, the hotel was choice and my good friend, Mike Fanzone did an excellent job with sponsoring the entire event. After my last speaking session on Saturday, we headed down to Miami for the night (zig-zagging around bad weather and two tornadoes) where we finally saw "Wild Hogs" on Pay Per View in the hotel room...a little cheesy, but one funny movie.
Sunday we headeed down to LifePointe in Homestead to see my friend Travis Johnson...judge of all things manly (word has it that he just bought a very unmanly "purse" for his computer). Travis did a great job and the folks at LifePointe were incredibly friendly. I loved the hilarious way that they recovered from a video software glitch...it was better than if the video had actually been shown. All in all Denise and I were refreshed spiritually from our time at LifePointe.
From there we headed across Alligator Alley (I-75) where we didn't see ONE GATOR...that sucked!!! We also stopped in Naples for dinner with Denise's sister. After battling more severe weather we finally made it home about 11:00PM last night.
I did some iSight video recording along the way so I'll post a short video diary on YouTube later today.
Normally today is Chris Question Friday...where I answer a question that someone has emailed me. However, I have to leave in about an hour to speak at a conference in Boca Raton...so I'm slammed for time. I'll also be heading to the Miami area on Sunday to hang out with this guy. Hopefully I can lead him to accept Jesus Christ as his personal Savior...God knows he needs to get saved!!! :-)
Since I won't be answering a question today...early next week I will answer the Number One question I get emailed. It is...why I am a Southern Baptist?
I recently read a blog posting where the writer said, "numbers are important to God". No they are not...people are important to God!!! That is why we see the 3,000 at Pentecost listed in Scripture...as well as the one Ethiopian on a desert road. That is why we read in God's Word about the one sick man being lowered through a hole in the roof...as well as the 5,000+ fed with fish and loaves. 1 is just as important as 100,000 to God and vice-versa!!! Numbers in the Bible are only recorded to remind us that God loves people...all people...whether it is 1 or 1,000 or 1,000,000. He has as much concern for the thousands that are hungry as He does for the one sparrow that falls. It is only the immaturity of man that has diminshed the reaching of 1 and elevated the reaching of 1,000. It is only the immaturity of man that dismisses the reaching of 20,000 and appaluds the reaching of 20. Whether it is a small group of people reached or a large group of people reached for cause of Christ....they are all God's people...and a reason to rejoice!!!
Back in the spring I was at a conference for church planters where I overheard a conversation which disturbed me greatly. A first-time church planter was talking to another guy about where he was going to launch his church. It seems that another church was also launching just a few miles away from their intended location. Then came the statement, "I don't care how well the other church does...I've just got to get my first 200 people before they do!" I sat there stunned at the complete lack of Kingdom thought behind such a immature statement!!!
Last month I was having lunch with a local church pastor and we were discussing the new types of churches being planted. He began talking about a recent blog post about a video venue church that saw several hundred come to Christ in a single day. The pastor snorted, "They only reached that many because they put on a laser light show on Sundays and water down the message...that's not true Biblical conversion...that's just selling spiritual goods to consumer Christians!" I had to step into the bathroom to regain my composure because of the anger I felt for such a utterly immature statement!
Last week I was on a conference call with some seasoned church leaders. We were discussing other church planters that inspire us. I mentioned a small church that had launched about two years ago and was reaching a pretty hardcore group of people that no one else wanted to reach. Then came the statement from another person on the line, "Forget about those guys...they're not sucessful...they don't know anything...they haven't even had 100 people in attendance yet!" My heart broke as I made an excuse to get off the line. The sheer immaturity of such a statement was just staggering.
I can't believe how we...in our lack of spiritual and Biblical maturity can slap God in the face like that. To say that one moving of God is more succesful...or less successful...than another because of the numbers involved just floors me. Does it not occur to us that our measurement of success is not God's measurement of success? God inspired the writers of the Bible to list numbers so He could get the glory...not to keep some kind of spiritual score card for Peter, Moses, Paul or David. He intended numbers to be used to communicate to the feeble and fallible mind of humans the sheer magnitude of His work...and moving.
A man by the name of Kimball was a Sunday School that led a young D.L Moody to the Lord in the stock room of a boot store. D.L. Moody's ministry went on to lead tens...if not hundreds...of thousands to Christ. Moody also founded schools of higher learning that still train men and women to reach people for Christ today. The millions reached for Christ by the ongoing Moody ministry would not have been possible without the one reached for Christ by the Kimball ministry. They were both equally important...and valid...in the overall big picture that is the Kingdom of Christ. The 1 and the 1 million are both successful in the mind of our heavenly Father!!! It is only the mind of man that establishes any difference.
I find it hard to imagine that God intended numbers to be used as some kind of weapon with which to beat each other over the head with or to provide a substandard human measurement for the validity of a ministry. I also can't imagine that God is too pleased when He looks down on the lobby of any pastor's conference in America and sees His "chosen" shepherds saying, "so how many do you have in attendance?" As pastors, we are only too blessed to be the ones that God has chosen to lead 1 or 1,000 into His Kingdom. Yet, we sit around in our immaturity and talk like some group of little boys in a elementary school bathroom. "My daddy is bigger than your daddy! Yeah, well my daddy may be smaller, but that's because your daddy takes steroids!"
I don't have a lot of answers when it comes to church leadership, but I can guarantee one thing. When...in our immaturity...we say that only having dozens in church attendance is unsuccessful...or that we have to reach a certain number of people to be sucessful...or that reaching hundreds of people for Christ through a video screen is "cheap grace"...then we've essentially told God His work doesn't matter. When we tell Him His work doesn't matter then we also tell Him that His people don't matter. When we do that ...He'll take us out of the quotient altogether...because our immature leadership will no longer matter!
