Notes from the Trail

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If you’re from LA (Lower Arkansas) and haven’t yet discovered the brown goodness brewing at the Coffee Bean, I want to urge you to make it a regular visit. Although a cup of the good stuff (like a flavored frappucino) will set back almost the same as a gallon of gas, you will enjoy spending your dollar the Coffee Bean far more than you will at the gas station.

The CB serves up a variety of gastro goodies, ranging from incredibly thick, delicious and uncommonly-flavored shakes to bagels, frozen hot chocolate, and lattes. It’s not just for cold-weather warm-ups. The CB offers just what you need to enjoy a freezing jolt for our intense summers.

Then there’s the owners. Richard and Vonda Russell are amazing people. Truly. Richard recently shared his testimony of God’s healing grace in his life at our church, and the atmosphere they’ve sought to carefully create at the CB is both faith and family-friendly. 

Throw in FREE WIFI, and you’ve got a coffee-lover’s and blogging junkie’s haven. I find myself “officing” at the CB 2-3 times a week and have met some wonderful friends through the CB that I would not have met if I hadn’t been “out and about.”

So, if you’re looking for the perfect cup of joe or a great cold treat, I recommend you put the Coffee Bean on your radar and make it a regular stop-off. 

I’ve been using this book for a while now in my personal devotional time, and I have to recommend it to anyone who is looking to “jump start” their Bible study. If you don’t have a plan or are in-between studies, this Following God Character Series is very good. I’ve done 2-3 in the series.

Life Principles for Following Christ is a 12-week interactive Bible study. There is material to read and respond to for five days in each of the chapters. The 12 chapters each take a deeper look at Christ’s roles in the following ways:

• The Last Adam
• The Seed
• The Angel of the Lord
•  Lawgiver and Judge
• The King
• The Prophet
• The High Priest
• The Son of Man
• Christ in Prayer
• The I AM
• Rabbi and Teacher
• Lamb of God

The one on the kings of the Old Testament was not only informative and helpful, but it also helped place into perspective a timeline of God’s dealings with the nation of Israel. Knowing the events of the Old Testament enables one to relish with gratitude God’s intervention through Christ in the New.

What Bible reading plan or study are you currently involved in?

One blogs. And sighs. And takes pictures with his MacBook.

Thank goodness for Ben at the ABSC who is coming to pick me up, eat lunch and drive me to Pine Bluff where wifey (in early stages of mental confusion) will meet me. She didn’t think I was arriving until 5:30. 

I went to Darrin Patrick’s seminar on leadership this morning, and I enjoyed how he related all his points back to scripture in 1-2 Timothy. Coincidentally, Darrin is pastor of “The Journey” in St. Louis.

He spoke about three areas of leadership:

1. Self-leadership
2. Leadership pitfalls
3. Leadership tensions

As far as self-leadership, he urged the room chock-full of church planters first of all to develop a Gospel identity. We must evaluate our motivations and ensure that they are directed and inspired by the Lord and not by selfish ideas of glory, notoriety, or simply to be “cool.” One sure way of doing this is to live a life of “gospel astonishment.” As long as we continue to submit ourselves to scripture and be astonished by the story of the Gospel, we will develop a Gospel identity. 

He also spoke strongly about laziness in the lives of church planters. He commented that the church is unfortunately a safe place for lazy, rebellious people to assume positions of leadership. 

In speaking of leadership pitfalls, he began by speaking about the important of developing new leaders. However, he said, “The problem with equipping new leaders is that you may be equipping your own assassin.” He spent several minutes urging us to develop eyes of discernment about potential “wolves” in our churches. He said Satan loves nothing more than to try to place problem people in leadership.

1. Don’t be “wow-ed” by a person’s gifting. Make sure there is testing and time to allow you to see if the person has the character required for leadership and the commitment to the vision of the existing leaders. “Do not be hasty in the laying on of hands…” (1 Timothy 5.22) 
2. Don’t give in to “age insecurity.” He used the passage in 1 Timothy 4.12, “Let no one despise you for your youth, but set the believers an example in speech, conduct, love, faith, and purity.” 
3. Don’t react because of pressure. Patrick said that under pressure, you rarely make good decisions. Stay true to your vision; be patient; pray and then respond.
4. Don’t mistake scaffolding for structure. Basically, he said that it’s tempting to try to build your church or ministry around some key people that come on board, but that we need to remember that some of these folks are short-timers, sent to the church for only a season before moving on. They are more like “scaffolding” - equipment used to help renovate, and not part of the actual long-term structure.

In speaking about leadership tensions, he listed three:

1. Change vs. stability. So much change happens in a church plant situation that you need to determine when you might even yourself, as the church planter, be resisting change just because you crave stability. He said it’s never easy to continue to plow ahead toward fulfilling the mission of why God called your church into being. However, he also urged us to always consider our church a “plant.” Stay a missionary force, he said. “You don’t want to become a ‘church’ but a movement.”
2. Solitude vs. people. He urged us to prioritize time away from people. If your life is filled with relationships all the time, you will be unable to continue to perceive the overall vision God has given you. Balance the two tensions well, and people will be blessed as the vision is followed. In this, he also urged us to diligently “protect your family from the church.” You don’t want your spouse or kids becoming jaded because of the unkindness and unthoughtfulness of those in a young church plant. Many times, they never know or understand or stop to consider the level of sacrifice that a church planter must make on a daily basis.
3. Shepherding vs. leadership. I think he was splitting hairs here, but he described “shepherding” as using ministry to get people “done” (or mature in Christ) and “leadership” as using people to get ministry done. I understood what he was saying but thought it was an unnecessary and unfair way to depict leadership. After all, leadership is described as a spiritual gift in Romans 12.8.

Overall, I found Patrick’s presentation to be imminently encouraging and rooted in the grind of daily church life as well in the soil of scripture.

Wednesday at Exponential was both affirming and exhausting. I ended up leaving the conference before the final speaker simply because I was on head and heart overload.

The day for me began in the main session with Alan Hirsch. Alan is an author and from Australia. I had the privilege of designing his website, and in many of our emails back and forth, he called me “mate.” I love that. I felt like the Skipper from Gilligan’s Island.

Alan is a profound observer of Christendom and an incredible kingdom contributor. I highly recommend both of his books to you which I’ve reference in another entry.

Alan urged us today to do the following things as we sought to recreate a movement of reproducing churches:

• Recover the centrality of Jesus in the life of the people of God.

It sounds almost like a no brainer, but he explained how easy it is for churches today to replace the simplicity of devotion to Jesus Christ with religion. He said the church is in danger of losing its identity, and its identity can only be found in Jesus. Our Christology should determine our Missiology which will determine our Ecclesiology. (Justin had a good entry on this a while back.)

In other words, our view of Jesus will define our mission as being His mission. Only when we properly understand and submit to Jesus’ mission will we be ready to create structures and churches (ecclesiology) that will be able to minister to our world and bring Christ glory.

Obviously, there are many who cling to their ecclesiology (how church is done) and have not considered for many moons how their Christology should redefine the way they “do church.”

He had an incredibly convicting series of points related to how we have domesticated Jesus, and he showed numerous images - all of them disconcertingly funny - of popular pictures of Jesus with captions that described what he was talking about. These included Buddy Jesus, Spooky Jesus, Bearded Lady Jesus, and others.

He quoted Voltaire, “God made us in His image and we returned the favor.”

Jesus is not up for our recreation! He is LORD. Creator. Sovereign. Head of the Church.

• Recover discipleship as the task of the church.

He said that we have flirted with consumerism for so long in the western church that it is killing us from within. Too many people look at the church and refuse to participate in it unless it “meets their needs” - or those of their children. It’s no longer about the mission of Jesus. It’s about joining a religious club for selfish benefits. Ouch.

Alan followed up on many of these thoughts in his seminar this morning as well. One wonderful concept that he shared was the importance of the Gospel of Jesus as being a “sneezable message.” It should be contagious! If a person has to study for seven years to lead another person to faith in Christ, then we’ve lost the simplicity of the Gospel as communicated by Jesus.

Every believer should be a church planter, Hirsch said. Our love for Christ as our Lord should continually compel every believer to bear fruit and become personally involved in the movement of God in their communities and our world.