Chris, Inside Out

Refueling the Tanks

2010-06-28T11:50:00.002-04:00

Okay I'm re-learning. Or rather, re-initiating.

Sometimes I go to the gas station and pull up to the tank, and I notice that the person who fueled up before me has put $1 or $3 into the tank. For some reason, putting one gallon of fuel in the tank actually catches more of my attention than $75. It kinda makes me...sad. I know in these tough economic times that dollars are more difficult to come by maybe than anytime in recent memory. And so for the person who's just left this tank, perhaps they've indicated by their purchase that really life for them right now is an exercise in just getting by, an exercise of just making it one more step, one more day.

Don't get me wrong. We all have days like that. Days where if we can just make it back to our head on our pillow at the end of the day accomplishing emotional or relational or work survival, that will be a victory. But the truth is, we all probably have fewer of those days than we want to acknowledge. At some point, there's got to be more in the tank than what it takes for just one day. Sometimes we have to fill the car beyond the point where the low fuel indicator light actually goes off. We need more than a day's worth of fuel.

Here's the reason for my metaphor. I used to be a voracious reader (or at least in my own mind). I felt like I was filling the tanks all the time. And so the intellectual seeds God was sowing were bringing lots of cool harvest potential. But in the last few months, (probably about a year now) the discipline of sowing had basically dried up. Sure I'd do a little reading every once in a while (just enough to get my intellectual tank off the pegged "E") but not nearly enough to have time for what was sown to actually grow into something bigger. It's like eating the seeds instead of putting them into the ground. You get by for one more day but you really have nothing in the hopper for the days and months ahead.

And my schedule basically had no time for the discipline of refilling the tanks. So today, I've made the decision to rework my schedule and create planting space through reading. It may mean that a few things that ordinarily might get done Monday morning jump to the afternoon. But I am realizing that if I don't refill on Monday, the rest of the week is spent hopping from one splash and go to another, which kills my efficiency and probably short circuits God's preparing me for the rest of the week.

For me right now, empty tanks mean more reading. What about for you? What's on E in your life? Actually the bigger question might be, "what's on E that you need to take regular time to get closer to F?" We all have days when a little splash and go is all we can muster, but I can tell you from personal experience, you do that more than a week or two and that habit will lock itself in much quicker than you ever could imagine. And that will be to your detriment as well as to the people around you.

Map out time this week to take steps toward a fill up.

Catalyst rewind in your rss reader

2010-04-12T10:37:00.002-04:00

If you use an rss reader to follow the Catalyst church blog, and want to continue following the Sunday rewind, an easy way to follow is by going to this link. Anytime a new note is added, it'll automatically load to your reader.

feed://www.facebook.com/feeds/notes.php?id=109497719322&viewer=680611118&key=6a22a1f729&format=rss20

Thanks for continuing the journey with us.

Chris

Catalyst rewind posted at Facebook fan page

2010-04-05T14:58:00.002-04:00

Just a reminder that we've moved our rewind post to the Catalyst facebook page, which you can access by clicking on the link to the right. Thanks for checking in with us.

Is It Wrong to be Unsatisfied?

2010-03-30T14:51:00.002-04:00

Okay, so I'm going to be brutally honest. I'm dissatisfied. I don't know what I anticipated. I don't know if my perspective of timing is off. But I'm dissatisfied. Dissatisfied with myself. Not mad at anyone. Not blaming anyone, except maybe myself. And I'll work through it, I'll get over it. But I'm not satisfied.

Influence is something that you don't earn quickly. Lots of things can draw a crowd quickly. When people have asked what my goal is for Catalyst, one of my answers has always been, "Big influence, not necessarily big numbers." The numbers are often an outside force that are important but somewhat beyond our control. Influence is something all of us have the opportunity to produce. So when our numbers aren't huge compared to the week before, or (gulp) they go down, why am I so dissatisfied? If the God ordained goal is influence, and letting numbers be a byproduct of big influence in the community, then why can't I be patient. Influence doesn't come overnight. You earn influence. You build influence as you build trust. 8 week olds are cute, but they don't have influence. (If they do, you've got a monster on your hands before too long) God, help me to remember that if you answer my prayer, it's going to look like what it looks like. And I do want Catalyst to fulfill its full redemptive and influential potential in this community. So God remind me what that means, what that takes and that we function in your timeline not our own. Remind me that numbers are a means, not an end.

And remind me often the words that I heard Craig Groeschel say this week. "People often overvalue what happens in the short-term and undervalue what happens over the long-term." Help me to value what you value, Jesus, and to not get hung up on the short term. Marathon not sprint.

Catalyst Sunday Rewind, March 21st and final reminder

2010-03-21T23:11:00.001-04:00

Today we celebrated another first at Catalyst. Held our first child dedication, celebrating with the Justus family in blessing their daughter, Ella Grace. It's always cool to embrace families who are committed to raising their children to follow the way of Jesus. One of the components of Child Dedication that often gets forgotten centers around the Jewish tradition of the community welcoming the child into the community and committing to do their part in raising the child in relationship with God. We also continued our Church Different series. Week 3 focused on a visual picture of what a life transformed by relationship with God looks like. Podcast is up and running from today. Had a few last minute shifts in the load-out crew this morning. Thanks to everyone who makes Catalyst come alive each weekend. Also feel like we got some things finally working better in terms of worship sound and recording. I'm actually not pulling my hair out in frustration because of our mp3 situation! Hooray!!! I'm also thankful for people who pray for what we're doing here at Catalyst. I'm not going to lie, this past week was a bit of an emotional struggle for me. With the combination of a shuffled schedule, some lingering illness and basketball (if you want the whole truth) I came into this morning feeling a little bit "Not with it." But as God always does, as I stepped up to speak His word, He brought clarity to my mind and I believe spoke an important word to each of us today. Had our first C.A.T. team (Creative Arts Team) gathering tonight to begin brainstorming for the Free Journey which begins Sunday April 11th. Good stuff ahead. Excited about completing the Church Different series, about Easter and about the Free Journey ahead. More info will be on our website about the Free Journey in the next couple of weeks!

Just a final reminder that after this week's post we will be moving the rewind exclusively to the Catalyst Facebook fan page. You can look to the right for a link to the page. (I don't believe you have to be on Facebook to view this page, so click the link and take a look.) Thanks so much for your interest in the exciting stuff that's happening at Catalyst.

Catalyst Sunday Rewind, March 14th and reminder

2010-03-15T10:46:00.002-04:00

Any time you do firsts, there's always the potential for greatness and for some challenges. We had three firsts yesterday in the young life (we're still just six weeks old at this point!) of Catalyst Church. All three of them were overwhelmingly great. No challenges at all. Not bad for a six week old.

Just like everywhere else, yesterday was Time Change Sunday. Time Change Sunday takes on a whole new meaning when you setup and teardown every week, because even though the clock says the normal time, when you roll in to begin setup at 6:30, it still feels like 5:30am! Everyone was on time, in good spirits and...I wish i knew how to adequately express this...but every week the load in team sets the "temperature" of the day. If their attitude is good, and the conversations are flowing and the laughter is rising, you know it just sets a good vibe for the day. I know "vibe" isn't an inherently spiritual word, but attitude is a huge leadership character trait, and I can't tell you how great Load-in does on this every weekend! Ryan Webster and his team nail it every week.
We did miss a few people because of the time change I think but I think the people who were with us yesterday were definitely impacted by the experience.
Brad and Jared led worship yesterday with an acoustic, relaxed set. It gave us an opportunity to sing a few songs we haven't yet, and though the volume was significantly different, I think the worship experience was powerful. We're gonna take risks around here. We're gonna change things up. We're gonna do whatever it takes to help people draw closely to God. Good stuff yesterday.
Pastor Dan taught yesterday on what a spiritual journey is, and the rewards of each stage, beginning, middle and end. MP3 will be posted by noon Monday.
Great points...the reminder that Jesus chose the disciples, and He Chose You First! If you've ever been told you're not good enough, You're good enough to follow me!
Hebrews 12 Run the race with perseverence...1 Corinthians 9...run the race to win the prize. The prize is the point!
Celebrated our first practice of Communion, Lord's Supper, Mass, Eucharist, whatever you're used to calling it. To see people hop up out of their seats to receive the elements, was a powerful moment in our young life. Nothing unites people like our common faith in Christ as Savior and Lord of our life. Communion affirms that. It's me saying to the people in community with me, "I'm headed more towards Jesus." It's those participating around me saying the same thing.

And so we're on to next week...another one of those cool moments in the life of our church. We're celebrating child dedication with the Justus family. I'll be back to teaching the Word next week, focusing on what a transformed life looks like on the inside and on the outside. God is changing us and drawing us to Him. This would be a great week to join us at Catalyst, or to invite a friend to come along!

Just a reminder that we've shifted the main forum for our rewind to our Catalyst Facebook page. We'll continue to post here for a few more weeks, but primarily this blog is going to go back to Chris' postings about life, ministry and some of the stuff that's going on at Catalyst Church. Thanks for tracking with us, praying for us and helping us expand the Kingdom of God through God's calling on our lives to begin this new church.

The Cost

2010-03-08T12:24:00.002-05:00

As a pastor, one of your great hopes is that when you get any opportunity to teach God's word, that there's significant carryover effect and the words you teach continue to speak to people for an extended period of time. Often you think about that in the context of the lives of your hearers, but rarely do we consider (or maybe want to consider) the carryover effect in our own lives. When we don't, it may be an indicator of a couple of things. One, that we're not teaching out of our own struggles, out of our own journey, for whatever reason, or two, that our own pride will not allow us to be open to areas where we need to grow.

Well here's an acknowledgement. I'm still stuck on the verse from 2 weeks ago in Matthew 16 where Jesus says, if any one of you wants to be my disciple, you must deny yourself, take up your cross and follow me. When we were at the churchplanters.com conference, I heard Rick Warren remind us that the way of Jesus transitions from come and see to come and die. The way of Jesus goes from the way of salvation to the way of sacrifice and suffering.

I've come to realize that there are some barriers in my life. Some strongholds that if I want to see break through in them, it's going to cost me more than I've wanted to pay before. I feel like Jesus is asking me to take on some disciplines, both personal and spiritual, that if I don't, my life and ministry will stall out where they are. I'm satisfied with neither of those options. A stalled life or a stalled ministry. I know that some of these things are personality deficiencies that I need God to work out. I know that some of these things involve other people and other people's free will. And honestly, some are issues where I personally struggle with some recurring sinful attitudes/actions. I believe Jesus is saying, if you want more from me, want more for this church I've given you opportunity to lead, there's a way of sacrifice to be walked. This is not a salvation issue, it's a favor issue. I don't believe that we earn salvation, but I strongly believe that our obedience impacts the fullness of God demonstrating Himself in our lives.

There's gonna be cost. I can already feel it. It's gonna be some discipline I need but don't have. So let's see what the next days and weeks hold for me and for my family and for Catalyst. Who's to say what God may be up to?

We're Changing the Format...

2010-03-08T12:22:00.001-05:00

It's time for a little change up. So, going forward, I think my blog is going to be more of a personal posting place about life, ministry and some of what's going on at Catalyst. If you're interested in what's going on Sunday to Sunday through our rewind, I'm going to move that to the Catalyst Facebook Fan page. So if you're reading this, you must be on our fanpage list. If you're not, here's a link to get to that page. I'll be posting this note to my blog this week and doing the Sunday rewind in both places for a few weeks so that no one gets lost in the switch. And about yesterday, We began our new series, "Church Different." The weather is turning, we're seeing new faces each week, and all in all I feel like Catalyst is heading in a good direction. -Had new volunteers leading in the elementary and pre-school venues yesterday for the first time. Some of these folks had served in these areas before, but stepped into new roles of team leadership yesterday for the first time. -Band played my favorite cover so far. Life is a Highway. They nailed it. -Teaching time on church as community. Community is not a goal, it's not a value or a program or a ministry, it's a way of life in church or we're not doing it right. -Churches that do community right practice Matthew 16 and Matthew 18 well. -We also practice the one anothers well. It's how we live out Jn 13:35. -God is going to infuse Himself into this community through Catalyst. People will meet Jesus who might not have because of this church. In fact, I believe they already are. -Started men's basketball this week on Thursday night at 8pm. Had 19 guys show up and sweat, miss a lot of shots and sprinkle in a few all-star plays as well. Lots of good goings on at Catalyst. If you live in the area, or you know someone in the area, Catalyst could be a great place to connect with God for you both.

Catalyst Sunday Rewind, Feb. 28th

2010-02-28T22:10:00.002-05:00

It was another great day at Catalyst Church. You know that time when the sheer mental exhaustion of bringing home a new baby wears off, and the reality of "hey, we've got a baby to raise here" kicks in? We're there. We're having a great time watching this little baby church grow! It's hard to believe we're four weeks old!!! And It's hard to believe we're only four weeks old!

We finished our first series, "If You Really Knew Me," this weekend. Chris talked about the fact that we've all found ourselves wandering. It's our hardwiring. It's our nature. And God will work with us and through us even as we are prone to wander.
Brad and the band keep getting better and better. They take it up a notch every week, and that's with a lot of new and different people playing and leading each week.
I know we've only been at this a bit, but I'd put our load-in/setup team next to teams that have been setting up for 10x longer and they'd hold their own. Every week we walk away thinking, "okay, should we push back our setup arrival time" because they get finished so efficiently and quickly. What do you think guys, should we let them sleep in a little longer?
Heather and Lauren and their team, so proud of you all. You're helping kids love church. Awesome.
I think we've finally worked out our bugs with the podcast. This weekend's will be posted by tomorrow afternoon.

We've talked often about how our community doesn't need another church, but could definitely use a different kind of church. Next week, we begin our new series called "Church Different." We're gonna talk about thinks like what community, what journey, what transformation and what impacting our community looks like at Catalyst. If you're in the area, check us out. You'll love this church. We promise you'll leave feeling refreshed, encouraged and challenged to take the next step in your relationship with God. And if you're out of town, we're gonna blog more, keep checking out the facebook fan page and the catalyst website. it'll be somewhat like you're right here journeying with us.

Catalyst Sunday Rewind, Feb. 21st

2010-02-22T23:00:00.002-05:00

It was a quiet day this weekend at Catalyst. Seemed like though things went well we were just a half step off to begin the day. Maybe it was just the weather, but we were a little extra quiet this past Sunday. God still moved, still taught us and still drew us close to Him, and really that's all that matters.

It was week three of our "If You Really Knew Me" Series. We talked about feelings of emptiness and fulfillment. If you're not following on Twitter, you should. We post teaching notes in real time, during the message. Just one more way to track with what God is saying to our community.
We had some new people in different serving roles this week. Thanks team Catalyst for all you're doing each weekend. There is no Catalyst without each of you.
One week left in the series, and it's going to be the best of the bunch.
We're already gearing up for our next series, "Church Different," Easter, and the Free Journey coming up beginning April 11th. There is some great stuff coming in the weeks ahead.
One apology. We continue to have some problems with our podcast. We've made promises about making teachings available online, and to be honest, we haven't gotten it done these past two Sundays because of recording issues. Please accept our apology for this. We think we have a solution that we can implement next week, and so if you'll extend us some grace one more week, we will have our recording situation straightened out this weekend we hope.

Brad, Dan and I are spending some time at Mountain Lake Church north of Atlanta on Monday and Tuesday of this week. I can say without hesitation that Catalyst will be a more effective church at fulfilling our mission to help everyone in our community know how to continue our journey with God and live more like Jesus. Thanks for letting us continue to be learners.

The journey continues this weekend through life groups. Make it Personal guides are a great opportunity for further application from the weekend and are available online at catalystchurchweb.org. Looking forward to seeing you all again Sunday.

Catalyst Sunday Rewind, Feb. 14th

2010-02-14T21:43:00.003-05:00

So, everyone wonders...what do you do for week 2 after you have a great kickoff on week 1? We continued our series, "If You Really Knew Me." Today we discussed the statement, "I have doubts." Let me just say, we're a few months in, two weekends into our Grand Opening. And I love our church. Listen, it's winter in Indiana. Our team lost the SuperBowl last week. Snow is piling up, and we unload and load in in temperatures well below freezing. And yet, Catalyst is excited, committed and passionate about the eternal transformation we're working to cultivate in this community and beyond.

88 persons with us today. 64 adults, 24 infant-elementary.
Had several families return from Grand Opening last weekend, and we're having new families connect with Catalyst each week!
Today was that day we've anticipated was coming...we hit a few tech bugs. Nothing that's not immediately fixable, but you know when you're getting started it's bound to happen. So we improvised.
We ran out of bibles last week. (I may have mentioned that last Sunday, but it's worth repeating. It's always a good thing to get God's Word into people's hands.
It's always awkward to compliment your own teaching, but I felt as in the groove today as I have on any Sunday so far. Used a lot of scripture passages today. Probably the reason it felt so good. Hard to screw up God's words, much easier to screw up your own!
Key thoughts from the teaching...When we Have doubts/questions, it's critical that we keep with the journey, that we ask God for help with our unbelief, and that we build on the solid stuff that we do know.
Catalyst Kidz is hitting it out of the park every week. I know that there are families who keep coming back because their kids are having a great time. Heather and Lauren and your teams, if you're reading this, I hope you know the world of difference you're making every week!!!!
Had a little problem with the podcast this week, but we're going to work that out and get something posted.
The adventure continues next week. If You Really Knew Me You'd Know I Still Feel Empty. Love to have you join us if you're in the area. Come check it out!

Catalyst Rewind, Sunday February 7th

2010-02-08T09:13:00.003-05:00

Sometimes you have experiences in life which are hard to use words to describe. Yesterday at Catalyst was one of those days. It's like the birth of a child. When you hear that cry for the first time, how do you verbalize the euphoria that you're feeling? Week One of Catalyst's Grand Opening month took off with high energy, great excitement and a sense that this is just the beginning of something huge in Pendleton/Lapel/Fortville/Ingalls.

177 people were part of yesterday's grand opening. 50 of those were children!
7 new families indicated interest in being part of a life together group.
Several extra volunteers in all our hospitality and Catalyst Kidz areas did a great job of assisting and guiding our extra guests.
Setup team was awesome in basically reconfiguring our auditorium for additional seats.
Thanks to our friends at Church at the Crossing for loaning us the extra chairs, we needed them all!
It was a great time of celebration and worship. The band was on it's A-game yesterday.
We began a new series called "If You Really Knew Me." Chris taught from Mark 5. We're all bleeding. Maybe the biggest step we could take is to finally admit to ourselves and to others that we're in over our heads.
Brokenness+Openness+Jesus=Healing and Hope.

And now the countdown is on toward week 2. God set the bar pretty high for us this past weekend, and we believe that He's going to do even greater things in the weeks and months and years ahead.

We're already beginning to post some photos on our Catalyst Fan Page. Click here if you want to take a look or become a fan (or both). If you were praying for us, I believe God answered our prayers. If you were a guest with us, we hope that you connected with God and His Spirit moved you in our time together. And if you're considering giving Catalyst a shot, we'll be waiting to welcome you and refresh you and encourage you and challenge you to take the next step with God He desires for you!

Catalyst Rewind, Sunday January 31st

2010-01-31T21:23:00.002-05:00

It's hard to believe that just one week from today, we go fully live with our Grand Opening. And yet today wasn't too shabby either. We finished up our Integrate series, focusing on the mental aspect of our spiritual lives.

-We're still working a few bugs out in our facility. While we had no intention of reminding everyone in the auditorium how cold it was outside by making it freezing inside, we kinda did freeze everyone out this morning. We've got a solution to that, and promise that we'll try to keep you much more comfortable temperature-wise next week. We learned, if you change the thermostat at 10am, its WAY too late.

We continue to see new people connect with Catalyst every week.

-I never knew you could start a church service with a Beatles Song, but we did today. If you look at the words to the Beatles Classic, "Let it Be," the message is one of a man searching for answers, to make things make sense in the world. Great connect.

-Band continues to do a great job developing a playlist of regular songs for Catalyst. Debuted two of my favorites today, "Your Love Never Fails (Lake Hills Church)" and "Everything. (Tim Hughes)"

-When Adam and Eve ate the fruit in the garden, it wasn't just knowledge of evil that came their way. They got intimate with evil.

-Knowledge has a deeply intimate power in our lives.

-Knowledge is only as good as what we practice (thanks for the reminder Allen Iverson).

-We announced that we're forming two new life together groups (one in Anderson and one in Summerlake Subdivision) and we announced our total gift to Haiti missions through Samaritan's Purse. Catalyst is already setting the bar in terms of multiplication and world transformation.

-Thanks to all our volunteers, but especially to the load-in crew. It was 8 degrees when we rolled up this morning. And for the crew and band who put it on the line early in the morning to make Catalyst into a worship facility I just can't say thanks enough.

Later this week I'll post a special Grand Opening preview. But if you're reading this, then I want to ask you to join with us in prayer for the Launch. We sent out 10k mailers to our local community, and we're asking God to double the impact of our connections through this mailer. Usually a 1-2% response is pretty good. We're asking God for double that! That would be 300-400 households/families that God might grant us impact with! Huge stuff. So would you join us in that prayer. They don't all have to show up next weekend, but just that God would use us to help connect them to Him somehow over these next days and months.

Thanks for continuing to journey with us. The ride is going to get even more intense and exciting from here!

Sunday Rewind, January 24th

2010-01-24T22:46:00.002-05:00

What...a...great...day!

From beginning to end, from the first box off the trailer to the last note from the band, I'm telling you, Catalyst was the place to be today.

*The band nailed it on every song, but especially with two of my favorites, "Take my Life" and "We are Yours."

*Our Catalyst Kidz venues are clicking on all cylinders.

*Teaching focused on how our emotional lives work in connection with our spiritual lives. The key question? Which has authority over the other?

*I also admitted that my streak is over....I got my first ticket ever yesterday! And in typical fashion, rather than accepting my punishment, I looked for someone else to blame.

*The story of Cain and Abel (which was our text for today) is a story about fixing your own junk.

*We also talked about the answer to the question, "Who is the Holy Spirit?"

*I wanna give some major props to our rep from the school, Tina! Tina totally hooked us up today in three our four very significant ways, and we couldn't be more thankful!

*We got some additional new bugs worked out in our setup and use of the school facility. Awesome.

It's hard to believe that our excitement level continues to ratchet up over these next two weeks leading up to Grand Opening. This week we're sending out 10,000 mailers to our four local areas. Would you pray with us that these mailers would find their way into hands of people who need to connect with God for the first time, people who need to reconnect with God in a powerful, life-transforming ways? You cannot imagine the energy, excitement and passion in the expressions of every person in the place today. If you've got no plans, be at Catalyst two weeks from today on Grand Opening. If you've got plans, change'em! God is changing lives at Catalyst. Come be part of the adventure!

Catalyst Rewind, Sunday January 17th

2010-01-17T22:12:00.002-05:00

Hard to believe it's been four weeks since we met. But, we'll never have to utter those words again. Our new series, Integrate, is built around the theme that God does not compartmentalize areas of our lives, but wants to bring every facet our lives into wholeness with Him. This compartmentalizing idea isn't new. 2k years ago, a group called the Gnostics began teaching a heresy that basically our bodies were physical and our souls were spiritual, so as long as your soul was connected with God it didn't matter what you did with your body! This "dualist" theology forged one of the first schisms in the Christian church of the day. And even though this teaching was declared heresy, we're still battling the tendency to separate our lives these two millenia later.* So at Catalyst, we're tackling this idea head on, reminding each other that God wants every part of us, and wants every part of us to be One in Him.

**Continue to be amazed at the effectiveness of our teams even so early on. From the guys putting out the signs, to the setup team, to the Catalyst Kidz staff who create venues kids want to come back to, you're doing such a great job.

**Band was right on today. We're finally starting to get some volume issues balanced out with our own system and getting used to the gym as a worship auditorium.

**Associate Pastor Dan Towle brought some great teaching today. Talked about how the physical aspects of our lives contribute thoroughly in the spiritual. Wrapped up with parts of the Nooma Video Breathe.

**Our lives are begun and ended with us speaking the name of God, as we breathe.

**I got to say the words I've been waiting 15 months to say today..."JOIN US NEXT WEEK as we continue the Integrate Series."

**People hung out longer today after service than before. Great stuff. Got to meet several new families today. Exciting stuff.

**We're ready to launch a new group in Anderson as soon as we take care of a few logistical details, which hopefully will be in place by Grand Opening.

It's a great time to be part of this Great New Church. Whether you worship with, you pray with us from a distance, you partner financially with us, or read this blog regularly, YOU ARE CATALYST! God is using you to fuel transformation in Lapel-Pendleton and wherever God uses us in His world.

Next week we announce how Catalyst is going to be part of ongoing love for Haiti. As I mentioned via twitter earlier, you don't have to be a big church or an established church to make a big impact and spread the love to those in need. Check back next week to find out how.

Grace and Peace.

Chris

Catalyst Rewind, Sunday December 20th

2009-12-21T14:16:00.002-05:00

Our first Christmas at Catalyst. Years from now we'll probably look back and think, "wow, things were so much simpler then." We also had our first battle with the weather, but to all the families who came out on a cold Christmas Sunday, I believe our time together helped us really understand the magnitude of the statement God made through Jesus' coming. Everyone connected with a church plant that I know has said, "look for the attack from Satan. He never wants these things to succeed." I guess I've just been so focused on the mission, and so recognizing that anything successful that happens would have to be from God because I know myself and my own inadequacies, that I haven't really given that thought much weight. But I'm beginning to wonder if that attack isn't in the form of sickness among our team and particularly our kids. So as you read this, would you continue to pray for Catalyst, for our team's health and more than anything, that God would use us in a powerful way to help people from all over our community connect with Christ in a new and dynamic way.

Some of the highlights from yesterday:

In Ryan's absence (who leads our facilities team) Mike Bluel stepped in and led the charge yesterday to get setup, torn down. I cannot possibly give a bigger "Way to go" to him!
Several of our band members' families who showed up at 6:30 am jumped in to help with load-in and setup.
We had three new band members yesterday due in part to AU's christmas vacation. The band sounded great.
They especially hit home runs with O Come Emmanuel and I Celebrate the Day.
Teaching theme was "Heaven Crashes to Earth." Do you know that everything heaven has to offer came with Jesus as he entered planet earth?" It was Genesis 3 all over again, (post-fall that is) where God chose to walk with man face to face.
The most important part...this time God wasn't taking it back. Because of the power of the Holy Spirit living in Christ's followers, the same power that fueled Jesus is alive and fuels our lives today.
When Jesus taught his disciples to pray "Your Kingdom come on earth as it is in heaven," that wasn't just for the first disciples. We become part of the "heaven crashing into earth" scenario today.
New people excited about serving and life groups, even on a crummy weather day when it would have been easier to stay home! Only God can do that!

The next few weeks mark a big moment in the Catalyst story. We're off for the next three weeks, then beginning Sunday, January 17th, Catalyst will begin holding weekend services EVERY WEEK! And we are on target for our grand opening during the month of February! If you know people in the area, why not encourage them to check us out. You/they will be encouraged, refreshed and challenged. Your/their kids will have a great time and look forward to coming back each week. In short, the time to be part of what God is doing through Catalyst is now!

Catalyst Rewind, Sunday December 6th

2009-12-06T22:58:00.003-05:00

Catalyst Preview 3 took place today. It was another banner day for Catalyst. Hard to believe we are only three weeks into weekend gatherings. And we're excited that our next weekend gathering is only 2 weeks way. But let's not get ahead of ourselves. What happened today?

20% of those who were at Catalyst today joined us for the first time. This is huge. We had about 10 team members who weren't able to be with us today because of sick kids or travel, but it's exciting to see so many new faces.
Many of those new faces indicated a willingness to serve on a serving team on connection cards today!
Our load-in team continues to amaze. They braved the first really cold temperatures we've faced and even started 1/2 hour early. And these guys turn it up a notch when it comes to tear down. They've had us packed, loaded and out in 1 hour after service each of our three weekends.
We ran our own sound with our new sound system today. May not seem like a big deal, but what you don't know is that Brad B. (Worship Arts Director) and Dan Towle (Associate Pastor) spent probably 40+ total hours getting things setup before we ever unloaded the trailer this morning. Band sounded pretty great.
Teaching theme this weekend, "Give v. Get." Takeaways: Do my actions demonstrate that I am a giver or a taker? Who gets the best of me and who gets the step over? And what in my life have I given myself fully to? Is Christ on that list?
mp3s available on iTunes or at http://www.iamcatalyst.org/mp3
It's been pretty cool to hear how the topics of our very first series have really impacted people's lives. Had several conversations with people about how God is speaking into our lives through these outside the Lines subjects.
The CatalystKidz team is just doing a great job. Lauren and Heather and their team continue to knock it out of the park every week.
It's been cool to feature a new team member in our weekly's every weekend. It's actually my favorite part of the information we put in people's hands each week.

I could go on, but you get my drift. The momentum is building. Catalyst is going to be used by God to help radically change our community. Two weeks from today is our next weekend gathering. It's Christmas Sunday, one of a few weekends each year when almost everyone plans on being in church. So it's a great weekend to extend an invitation to family and friends.

80% of people who don't attend church probably would go with a friend who asks them. So lets put our "asks" on the line and see what God might do!

Sunday Rewind, November 22nd

2009-11-22T16:51:00.002-05:00

Today Catalyst was hosted by our friends at Pendleton Community Church of God. It was a great day to celebrate our partnership with Trey and the church there.

*Band did a great job again today. They've been working a bit of overtime here recently with us playing 4 services at CATC last weekend and then leading the worship today.

*So thankful for Brad, Jared, Coral, Justin and Henry for their sacrifice of time and willingness to use our talents.

*Church planting is necessary in Pendleton because even though as churches we share the same mission, culturally we speak different languages.

*Acts 2 says reminds us that all kinds of people need to hear the gospel in a language we understand.

*Ended our time today with Trey and I each praying a prayer for God's blessing for each other's churches.

*Thanks to all our Catalyst team members who joined us at PCCoG today.

*We're 2 weeks away from preview 3. Building toward a great Christmas celebration weekend as well.

Looking forward to Tuesday night with our team. We're gathering all our small groups for Thanksgiving dinner. We have so much to be thankful for at Catalyst and it will be a great time for people to get some time together, share a meal together, laugh together and celebrate where God is taking us.

Catalyst Rewind, Sunday November 8th

2009-11-08T21:44:00.003-05:00

Catalyst celebrated our second weekend preview gathering this morning. (It seems like this morning was sooo long ago!) All in all, it was a great day of worship and every member of our team hit it out of the park.

*We wrestled with the question...what does Jesus mean when He says do not judge?

*What if the people we have the easiest time judging we began to view as "our brother?"

*What does it mean to "see clearly" before we speak judgment into the lives of others?

Questions framed from Matthew 7:1-6.

*Heather and Lauren and the Catalyst Kidz team are doing a great, great job. They continue to make tweaks to their meeting spaces and lead the elementary, pre-school and infant-toddler areas so well.

*Ryan and his setup team are unbelievable. We had to flip our worship space today (meeting in the cafeteria instead of the gym) Not only were there no complaints, they made the cafeteria work as well as possible.

*Joe and the hospitality crew are creating a fun welcoming environment for all our guests.

*Are you hearing how awesome our team is and how honored and humbled I am to serve with all of them?

*We introduced Dan and Kristin Towle as our new associate Pastor today. God is going to do some great stuff through this incredible young couple and we are so blessed to have them as part of the team.

*Announced our mission trip partnership with LaGrange Church of God on a week-long mission opportunity in home rebuilding in New Orleans, January 9th-16th. If you're interested in more information or in being part of this trip, please email me at Chris@iamcatalyst.org.

*Had a few lighting difficulties today without light control like before. Sorry to all those who we tried to encourage to read along with the scriptures. We will get this fixed. We want you to be able to read the bible while in worship. So we're going to remedy this. Thanks for your patience.

*We're also still tweaking a few things with projection. It got a little busy on the screen. (Background designs, not operation!) One of the blessings of "previews" is the opportunity to work out these kinks. We fixed some and are going to fix others going forward.

*Had several new guests today, and several new people serving in ministry areas this weekend. 94 people total, but many more folks who were local.

*Last but certainly not least, THANK YOU SO MUCH TO OUR CROSSPOINT PARTNERS who are helping us work through kids check-in procedures (Chris Sparrow) who served in the infant-toddler room (Dave and Juli Gayes), who sang with the band (Chris and Maggie Owens) and who just jumped in wherever needed (Jelaine Sparrow). We are so blessed to have you as partners and to have Crosspoint as a great partner church.

*We've got some amazing stuff coming up in the next couple of weeks. Our Catalyst band will be playing at Church at the Crossing, one of our partner churches, this weekend in all 4 services. Then, on November 22nd, Chris will be teaching and the Catalyst band leading worship at the Pendleton Church of God. This will include an interview/conversation with PCCOG pastor Trey Oldham.

*Also this week we hope to release some details about a Catalyst Christmas eve gathering, for those of you who have or want to begin a tradition which includes Christmas eve service. No midnight thing, just a brief gathering with carols and celebration of the hope that comes through Christ's coming to earth.

*Alright I'm getting chills about the weeks ahead. It's gonna continue to be great stuff. God is going to continue to do great things and get great glory as He continues to write the Catalyst story through us!

Sunday Rewind, October 25th

2009-10-26T14:43:00.002-04:00

*Carlotta, Camden and I (along with Brad and the Catalyst Band) led the worship at LaGrange Church of God this weekend.

*LaGrange is not only the church that launched Carlotta and I into church planting. They have become huge partners on many fronts in getting Catalyst off and running as well.

*Of the 6 active Catalyst participants in leading yesterday at LCOG, 5 actually would call LaGrange their "home church."

*Chris spoke about the topic, "How do I know I'm going to Heaven?"

*Jesus' disciples followed Him not just to secure an eternal destination, but because they made the conscious choice to BE WITH Him. They lived in close relationship with Jesus, and only later did they fully internalize that that relationship would carry on into eternity.

*The way we confirm heaven as our eternal destination is through experiencing relationship with Jesus in the here and now.

*Great response and a great opportunity to connect with lots of our great friends.

*Band did a great job and taught some cool new songs I think. I get the feeling yesterday won't be the last time many of those songs are played at 11am in LaGrange.

*Got a chance to enjoy lunch with some of the LCOG staff team.

*Everyone who was part of yesterday's services walked away with at least the knowledge of what God requires to assure home in heaven when this life is over!

Catalyst Rewind, Sunday October 4th

2009-10-04T22:26:00.003-04:00

One of the people whose blog I regularly follow pastors a church near Atlanta. Each week on Sunday or Monday he posts what's called a Sunday reflex. It hits the highlights of what happened that weekend and a tidbit or two going forward. I like it. I'm stealing the idea (though not claiming it as my own: Thank You Shawn Lovejoy.)

So, here's the first official Sunday rewind....

Our first preview service was above and beyond what we could have imagined. All that praying, "God, only you can do something amazing today, so we're asking you to please do!" was answered in an amazing kind of way.
We started week 1 of our series, "Outside the Lines," talking about forgiveness and revenge.
We had guest appearances today by Mel Gibson, Carrie Underwood, Jacob Marley and the late Heath Ledger!
So much to say about forgiveness. Wherever we are on the forgiveness spectrum with those who have wronged us, there's room with God's help to take the next step toward healing and peace.
The band was awesome. Every song was great. The OneRepublic cover of Apologize was amazing. Tech team was right on cue at every step. Thanks Paula, and Eli on video and lights and Kevin and Chris from Axibus for partnering with us again.
Every Kids ministry area (Elementary, Pre-school, Infant Toddler and Check-in) all hit a home run today. No glitches from check-in to science experiments to the Praise Baby in the nursery.
The building looked great. The children's ministry rooms were just unbelievable. Thx to Crosspoint for the wallboards and to Heather and Lauren for the hours you put into prepping them. Ryan and his team led well in the setup/teardown and in the greeting. The gym didn't look like a gym! It was a stylish little auditorium with just enough seats to feel full and the energy in the room was high.
There are Catalyst Connection cards on my desk with names of people wanting to know about small groups and volunteering for the next preview!
Okay, I hope I've built anticipation and that you know at Catalyst we are not all about numbers, but about transformation. Are you ready for the total? Again, no direct marketing, no major advertising, just word of mouth and some little reminder cards....84 adults and 28 children in Catalyst Kidz for a total of 112 on our first preview Sunday!!!!

So, that's a look at Catalyst's preview week 1. If you want to check out some photos, we'll post them to the Catalyst flickr page or you can checkout the Catalyst Facebook page for several great photos.

The message podcast will hopefully be up tomorrow and check back here for a link to maybe a few video clips of the weekend as well! Blessings, grace and peace and thanks for your prayers.

I haven't forgotten

2009-09-17T16:35:00.003-04:00

Okay just a note to say I haven't forgotten about the blog. I just absolutely haven't had the time to post recently. These past few weeks preparing for our preview have been insane. And the insanity is only going to build over these next few weeks. We're 16 days away from our first "go public" weekend.

Our worship set list is complete. If you'd like to check out the songs we're going to use, here's a list with some links to hear the songs.
1. Apologize (One Republic)
2. You Lifted Me Out (Chris Tomlin)
3. Cry Mercy (Crowder)
4. Rain Down (Crowder)
5. Grace Like Rain (Todd Agnew)
6. No One Like You (Crowder)

Our teaching series is called "Outside the Lines." Jesus came to earth intentionally focusing on speaking lovingly but clearly into the areas of peoples' lives they often considered off limits. These off the table discussions are almost always the barriers which are inhibiting God's dynamic healing work in our lives. These areas are almost always the places which will keep us from taking our next step in journey with God and in bringing more of the work of Christ to bear in our families, our work, and our friendships.

Week one (10/4) we're diving into deep waters, talking about forgiveness vs. revenge.
Week two (11/8) we're talking about us vs. them (judgmentalism)
Week three (12/6) we're tackling the paradox of serving vs. selfishness.
Week four (12/20) we are calling Crash. When Jesus came to earth, it was more than a baby in a manger. All that heaven had to offer crashed into earth, and the earth hasn't been the same since.

Our hospitality team is in place, our followup practices ready. Catalyst Kidz is going to be awesome for every kid infant-5th grade. We're setting up Saturday October 3rd and want to ask you now to block out some time Saturday, 10/3 at 7pm for some specific prayer time for Catalyst and the people who will gather with us the next morning, for God's power to be manifest and people's lives to be changed on week 1. Would you join us in this prayer!

We'll post a few more details about previews maybe next week, but if you don't hear anything before 10/5, don't be discouraged. Check back and we will have full details about the preview with pictures and video available here and at our website. I want to start a practice I saw another pastor do with a blog called Sunday Reflex, which gives highlights from that Sunday, every Monday morning. That' s my hope at least.

Thanks for following with us on this blog. Thanks for your prayers and support through this first year of the Catalyst journey. It was 1 year ago this week that we had our introduction at Church at the Crossing for the first time. I honestly could never have known the highs and lows and faith building we'd experience over the 12 months just in the rear view mirror. Thanks for walking with us.

Now the accelerator is really moving close to the floor. Hang on. I know I am.

A Good Day is a Thing to Celebrate

2009-08-31T17:31:00.003-04:00

When God brings good things your way, you should celebrate them. Let me give you five from these past few days.

1. We had a new family join the Catalyst team today.

2. We had a great intensive coaching session last Friday and Saturday with Jim Griffith, a highly regarded church planting coach and consultant. His suggestions will take Catalyst to the next level and work out some details which we've needed to clarify for some time.

3. Found out we're going to be able to work on our setup for October 4th on the evening before. This will actually be a huge help to get us prepped for our first weekend gathering.

4. We found out today also that the school is going to allow us to put our outdoor signs out at the school on Friday evenings. Maple Ridge hosts all the little league soccer or a basketball league at least 30 weekends a year? So every Saturday morning they drive into the school for little league, they will drive by our sign inviting them to Catalyst. THIS IS HUGE!

5. Working through some great material for life together groups over the next couple of months. Taking a look at walking with Jesus in a real-life, down to earth way!

Just a sampling of some great stuff going on with Catalyst.

My partner

2009-08-26T10:34:00.002-04:00

I'm going to say right now that there would be no Catalyst without the work of God in our lives. That goes without saying. In line after God's work in us is Carlotta.

When we were offered this opportunity to plant a church, I had no idea really how much it would cost Carlotta to be part of Catalyst. I guess I had no idea what it would cost all of us, but especially some of the tradeoffs she would have to make. She lives with me when the stress is exceptionally high. She rides the emotional roller coaster with me, often in the background, hearing my deepest frustrations and celebrating the moments of triumph. But while I get to be the point person who hears the way to go's from our peers, she just continues to quietly serve and share her life with people, often far from the spotlight.

There would be no Catalyst without Carlotta. It's not just the hosting in our home and fixing meals that we never did before. It's not just the late nights that I work or the late nights that we are spending with our team, or with friends inviting them to be part of Catalyst. It's not even just that she wants Catalyst to succeed and grow and be an important part of our community. It's that she wants desperately to see people's lives changed by connecting with Jesus. She loves Jesus and knows that people's lives will be radically changed by meeting and following and serving Him. I know this experience has stretched and grown her in her faith and practice more than anything we've ever done, and she's not complained. Not complained about no family vacation this summer. Not complained about hospital visits at 10pm downtown. Not complained about our garage being taken over by Catalyst stuff. Not complained about scrambling to find childcare at the last minute. Even though she doesn't get nearly the accolades she so richly deserves, and stands outside the spotlight a lot of the time, she is my partner in this in every conceivable way. And without her, there'd be no Catalyst. I'm so blessed to be married to her, and that we can partner on this endeavor of life change for people all over this community.

Let me say a little bit about Camden. You may ask, "okay how does an 18mth old have a role in this?" Camden has been a great kid in busy circumstances all through her life. She has missed a few naps this summer. She's been to lots of lunch meetings with me. She's been to a lot of different church nurseries. She's met hundreds of people this past 12 months. And she's been cool through it all. She hasn't ever gotten sick. She's friendly and pretty easy to take care of (although she's super busy right now as you might imagine) I guess what I'm saying is that I've been blessed that God has used her to help us start conversations with people, and she's had a part in the Catalyst story from the beginning too. I look forward to the days when I can tell her the stories of how God used us, used her, to start this little ministry called Catalyst that has had such an impact on our neighborhood and community and on places around the world. That she had a part of it even before she could talk or remember! That's good stuff.

Thanks for engaging my two part ramble today. I think when people are gifted by God and have made an impact on your life, you should tell them. I know people aren't angling for public acknowledgement, but I am glad to express that I see Jesus in these people I am blessed to get to work with, and I ask you to thank them and to pray for God's continued work in and blessing on their lives.

Grace and Peace.

The Catalyst Team

2009-08-26T10:05:00.003-04:00

Okay so we're less than 6 weeks away from our first preview. It's such a great feeling to have a great team in place, who are passionate about their areas of ministry, especially since for most of us, we've never done this before at this level of leadership. This might be a good time to introduce you to our team, as most of you read from places several miles away from Pendleton.

In no particular order...

Brad Brickley, our worship arts director. He's the best worship leader you've probably never heard of....yet. There will come a day when I will get to tell people (actually that day is right now) yeah, I get to work with that guy from the beginning of his worship leader career! Major vocal range, skilled musician at the guitar, bass, piano (and I'll bet he could play several other things if the need arose). Major servant's heart and deflective personality. When he leads, people focus on Jesus. That's the definition of a great worship leader!

Ryan Webster, our facilities/hospitality director. You can't meet Ryan and not want to be his friend. He's also a get the job done kinda guy as well, thinking of details (yeah, a guy who thinks of details) who's always willing to say what needs to be said in a loving/encouraging way to keep me thinking. Passionate about good facilities and making people feel welcome!

Heather Webster, CatalystKidz co-director. Heather has the heart of a servant like no other. She loves kids and loves Catalyst loves Jesus and has been one of our biggest champions from the very beginning. She has a creative mind and high expectations for our children's ministry to be the best it can be...no excuses that we're a 6 month old church. She believes every kid has the potential to grow in their connection with Christ no matter how old they are, from birth on up! That's what I love most about her!

Lauren Brickley, Catalyst Kidz co-director. Lauren is a fun and creative champion of Children's ministry. Her attention to detail and creative flair will add a dynamic to CatalystKidz that will be the envy of church's all around us. She really wants to see kids know more about Christ and to grow with Him and works hard to see that happen in exciting fun ways!

Brian Souders, Community Connections director. Brian is the best brainstormer I've met in a long time. Dude has an infinite supply of really good ideas and thoughts that engage people and will make Catalyst a better church. He also shares my heart for making a difference in the community. He's already partnered us with a local 5k run that promotes heart health, and is engaging a partnership with Outfitters, a local clothing and school supply "store" that provides new items to under-resourced families at little or no cost. In the spare time he has (somehow) he's also taking outreach to the streets by serving as an assistant high school football coach in Fortville. His wife Sarah serves so many imporant roles; a couple are as head over our women's ministry (they have a unique name. Talk to me or email me and I'll tell you the story, but probably can't post it here!) She also has become a great question asker for me. Some of her questions honestly have helped form directions for the teaching schedule and reminded me that being a place where people take their next step in journey with God means you better be a safe place to explore and ask questions! I'm so thankful for her hunger to learn!

Brad Justus, Operations director. Brad is the guy on our team that everyone needs. He knows how to gently ask the hard questions that move a church forward. He is laser focused on mission/vision, how that's communicated and the systems that will help our mission/vision be accomplished. He's also hungry to grow to be more like Jesus, both in his leadership style and in his family/church life.

Joe/Lisa Davis, administration. Joe and Lisa bring to the table more than a paragraph can possibly contain. It's more than just the administrative support (which is huge and will continue to grow). It's the brilliant "have you thought about...." questions they ask. It's the "hey we could do this" idea that take a very good plan to the best possible plan. And it's the "hey, we believe in you and what you're doing" at several of just the right times over the past few months that have put the wind back in my sails and prompted us in the next step forward.

In short, this team is not all Catalyst is. They are lending strong support to a growing group of team members. But this leadership team has laid the groundwork for a great, healthy growing church in our community. The teams that work with them are excellent in their support and passion for their ministry areas and for Catalyst.

Many of the things they've been praying for and working on, like seeds in the ground, are beginning to come to life on the surface these days. Do we have things to work through and improve on? Sure. But as we continue to gel as a leadership team, I believe the potential that God has wired into this team is virtually limitless. And there's one more person I want to add to this conversation, but she gets her own post. (One she'll never write for herself, so I'm going to)

Pray for our team. Pray for our preview. And pray that as we move forward, an increasing number of people in our community will experience life transformation through the work of Jesus in us.

Dog Days

2009-08-17T10:00:00.002-04:00

This time of year in the baseball season is often called the Dog Days of August. It's that time of the season when many teams are out of the race for the playoffs but the season still has quite a bit of time before reaching it's completion. It's like 2nd semester of sophomore year of college. The experience is not new anymore, but you're not exactly close to the finish line either. Another way I think about dog days is kinda like the emotional drain that comes after a huge experience of success/joy. You see the big win, you feel it, and then...it's like, "what's next?" Not what event, what responsibility is next. More like, "so how soon am I gonna get to feel the 'big win' feeling again?"

We're 7 weeks from our first preview service. There's a lot to do in terms of preparation in that next 7 weeks. And there's a few other big things going on during that 7 weeks, too. The big wins are great. But they can be dangerous when you only live for the highs. Ministry life I've realized over and again is in the journey. You celebrate the highs and you keep moving forward. I'm also feeling a bit of the drain of no break for a while. This is no one's fault, it's just a result of the pace of church planting. I've done this summer what I never recommend for people...no vacation! I do have a plan. Get through the preview, and get a little break after that before preview 2 rolls around November 8th.

So we'll push through the dog days and the excitement will build (along with the pure anxiety) because...7 weeks will go by extremely quick!

Concert in the Park update

2009-08-09T23:07:00.003-04:00

Didn't want to wait til Monday. Concert was a huge success. Band was awesome. Weather was hot. It's finally August in Indiana and couldn't come at a later date, but....lots of guests, lots of fun. We'll post more pictures and video in the days ahead, but here's a link to check out a few photos. If you're on facebook, check out the Catalyst fan page (link here) to see about 30 additional photos. Oh, and coming in a few days, we'll give you an audio sampling of the band, or at least as much as we can get away with without violating copyright law!

Preview 1 is 8 weeks away. We're asking you to start praying now for this event. I'll post more details about the plans for this ground breaking event, including series information and how you can be part of October 4th.

Thanks to everyone for your prayers for today. We had no major glitches, found a good preview partner for our a/v needs (thanks to the guys at axibus.) And now it's time to go to bed, because Camden doesn't know how hard daddy worked today and will probably not sleep in the morning.

Remember, you can always catch the most up to date information about Catalyst by checking iamcatalyst.org or on Twitter when you follow CatalystPndltn.

Grace and Peace

In the Middle of the 440

2009-08-06T11:15:00.003-04:00

Ever feel like life has thrust you into an Olympic hurdle race? You're up against the most challenging competitors in the world, and as if running fast is not enough, there's these tall barriers that keep coming up at regular intervals. Such is the Catalyst life right now.

In the 400 meter hurdles, it's a full lap around the track. For most of the race, you can't see the finish line, but you have to be focused both on it and the hurdles in between. You make the last turn however, and you can see the tape in the distance. While we are not yet at the finish line, and behind pace a bit, we're still in the race...and we're closing!

This weekend is an exciting next step in the young life of Catalyst Church. Our band is debuting at a concert at Falls Park in Pendleton Sunday at 4:30pm. If you're in the area, it's going to be a great time. If you're not in the area, please pray for this event. This will be the first that many many people in our community will hear of Catalyst (and they'll probably hear it pretty loudly) This first impression will really give a lot of people who we are and how we're different from traditional church. We want to honor God and use this gathering to draw people to Him, not just to us.

We're 8 weeks from our first preview service. There's a ton of stuff that needs to be prepped by October 4th. I know that for most of you the impression was that our launch weekend was to be October 4th, but we're not ready yet for full fledged, every weekend, worship. We just don't have the team in place yet. But we are going to be doing some 1x per months in Oct-Dec. Sooo, if you'd planned on coming down for launch weekend, and it's still on your calendar, why not plan on joining us? Same location, and I believe God will use this first gathering to be the next kickstart to the Catalyst story.

One final note. Some of you know how serious things have been with the Catalyst launch, and there's been some question as to whether we were going to be able to get off the ground. I recall several things. First, the scriptures remind us that our struggle is not against flesh and blood. The enemy fights any territory reclaimed for the Kingdom of God. We have felt your prayers on our behalf these past days. Honestly, we are here because of God's divine work on our behalf. And I know that there will be a day when we get to tell the whole story of Catalyst, of the times we thought we might be dead on the table, and then we look around at the hundreds of people whose lives have been changed by God's work through this new church, and we will celebrate with all of Heaven because we see with our own eyes the truths of the verse that says, "For we will reap a harvest if we don't give up!"

More hurdles ahead. More track to put behind us. More challenges to overcome. God is faithful. We'll get to the finish line and on to the marathon ahead!

New Blog Posting next week

2009-07-28T23:13:00.007-04:00

Don't worry, Catalyst will be back with a new blog next week. But here's a few things to feast on in the interim.

If you're on Facebook, check out the new Catalyst fan page.

If you haven't recently, take a stroll around the Catalyst website and send me your thoughts. You can comment below, or click the email box on the website and let me know what you think.

If you're wondering what we're playing at the Catalyst Rocks the Park Concert August 9th, here's a look at the setlist. We're not playing all these songs, but probably half.

Streetcorner Symphony
First Time
Second Chance
Stay With You
Whatever it Takes
Breathe In Breathe Out
Show Me What I'm Looking For
I'm Not Alright
Dig In
Waiting on the World to Change
Say
Never Say Never
Let Love In
Closer to Love
Broken
Ocean Wide
Everything
Stop and Stare
You Found Me
Always on the Run
Otherside
The Motions

Want a sneak peak? Can't resist not listening? Okay, check out the Catalyst music page here, But no (I REPEAT) NO FREE DOWNLOADING. If you want to keep the songs, Go to Itunes. Pay for them. You'll sleep better tonight. If you twitter, follow us . Maybe we'll follow you, too. If you don't know what twitter is, then disregard. (If you want to see a funny spoof about twitter, click here)

If you want to see some of the video stuff we've been using for life together groups, click here or here. These are two very cool stories that are helping form our conversations about life, church, and living out the way of Jesus more clearly.

And next week, you're going to want to check in on Wednesday. So...check in on Wednesday. And entertain yourself on our behalf with our Catalyst web resources.

The Difference a Week Makes

2009-07-19T21:58:00.002-04:00

There's a huge difference often times the way we perceive ourselves and the way others perceive us. Many times that's a good thing. We are often our own worst critic. On the other hand, sometimes we refuse to be honest with ourselves in areas where, if we just took a more objective look, it could really help us in the long run.

I say this as a preface to a short statement about the way people perceive church, not before they arrive, (or sometimes even after they go home) but when they're right in the middle of it. I read this week a book called Jim and Casper Go to Church. It's the story of a former pastor and an atheist who check out 12 of the most recognizable churches in the country. If you've been around church culture long, you've heard of most of them, not all. The stories were interesting, the perceptions very insightful. One of the most valuable was just the thought that every church should have a few purely objective (they recommend atheists, but...) people visit and evaluate your church every single year. Just like most of us hate to hear the sound of our own voice on recording, partially because of the voice but partly because at some point we hear something and think, "I actually said that?" It's the best way to get a true read of the perspective your church creates for visitors every time people walk through the doors, especially for the first time.

We were the first time visitors at a local church last Sunday. I'm not going to announce the name, but I will mention a few perspectives we walked away with, in chronological order (not necessarily in order of importance)

1. Make sure your nursery workers greet every parent and every child. The church did this well. Camden went to a new place with strangers because they made us and her feel comfortable.

2. Make sure the people who start your service look like they know what they're doing. They can't just meander up out of the crowd.

3. I know about 4-5 people who honestly I can listen to for 50 minutes. 4-5 people, out of a population of 6.3 billion. Guess what, none of them live 10 miles or less from my house! DON'T PREACH 50 minutes. You're not that good.

4. For the love of Pete, announcements cannot take 20 minutes. And second, announcements should NEVER EVER be the church's version of the Price is Right, where you call people out of the audience (unprepared mind you) to give some information.

This morning we went back to Crosspoint, one of our regular weekend gathering places. Every moment of a weekend service there is thought out, planned out. We use specific language in the welcome and in the closing, every week, and thought is given to those times just like we'd give to the music or teaching. Every week. This doesn't eliminate the work of the Holy Spirit, it cultivates a scenario of preparation in cooperation and in tangent with the Holy Spirit. While our Catalyst culture will invariably be different from Crosspoint, as each church has to create it's own feel and communication style, I'm thankful to be part of churches (I'd include Church at the Crossing in this as well) that understand that preparation partners with Spirit to experience transformation. I think we did this well in LaGrange. I think I've learned several things that I should have done better there. Me. And I'm learning that it's appropriate to ask the question, is church for believers, non-believers, or both? There are brilliant, God-loving, Jesus-following people who'd answer that question in all kinds of ways. That's a good thing.

Details matter. Language matters. Faith and the Holy Spirit matter. I don't think any of these have to be eliminated in order to appropriately value another. Maybe this is a soapbox more than a blog. So I'll end with a question. Tell me your experiences (good and bad) as you've visited churches for the first time. What are the things you remember? The things you notice? The things you'd rather forget? Leave the church name out of the conversation if you would, but as we are beginning to process what weekends will look like for Catalyst, this information will be extremely invaluable. You can post these thoughts as a comment to the blog, or send them to me at chris@iamcatalyst.org. Thanks. This is me stepping off the soapbox for the evening.

Grace and peace.

Sometimes I forget...this is missionary work

2009-07-08T10:20:00.002-04:00

Sometimes in the midst of the hard work, the frustrations and the joys of church planting, it can be easy to forget that there's an element of this calling that is purely about being a missionary. If you're doing it well and right, the majority of your work is engaging with people who are far from God. And people far from God usually are far from God for a reason, or a series of reasons. It's easy to forget that most people, if they really are only one step from the Kingdom, they've gotten that way because they've been journeying with someone who's encouraged them to that point.

That's a rambling statement. She won't tell you it, but I'm telling you that often Carlotta has brilliant thoughts. She said to me the other day, "you know if we were in another country, serving as missionaries, how would this whole scenario be different?" It caused me to ponder, if we're really starting a church to reach people who God loves but who are far from Him and totally uninterested in His church, how is that different from spreading the gospel in a more hostile, non-US environment? I know it's not altogether the same. But it caused me to think about some of the similarities, some of the expectations, stuff like that.

I woke up this morning thinking back to my theme from my last teaching at LaGrange. All in. I thought I knew what "all" was when we left. I'm getting the feeling that there was more to "all" that I couldn't even fathom at the time, but I'm seeing now. There may be more chips on the table in these next few days, chips at the time I didn't know I had.

We will leave no stone unturned, no efforts unmade in planting Catalyst in our area. The mission is too important. The cost will never be as high as the mission. And I firmly believe, the personal cost is going to go up significantly in the next couple months for Catalyst to become reality. Not my family. Not my health. Not my faith. Everything else, it's on the table.

We're about to see what all in really costs. Prayers for the next few days please.

Journey

2009-06-29T15:33:00.002-04:00

I read the story of Abraham again from the Old Testament the other day. There's one word in that Gen. 12 passage I keep thinking over. It's the word "show." God says to Abraham, go where I show you! Show indicates several things. First, it says that God knows where you're going. It says that God's somehow waiting there for you and simultaneously with you as you head there. Show=with. God walked beside Abraham along the journey. Now if you look at the path Abraham journeyed, it wasn't exactly the shortest distance between the two points. He's at least 600 miles seemingly off track. He backtracks some. He's headed to the promised land, but interestingly, has to go through Egypt to get there (an interesting little pattern in the OT, that Egypt is a constant diversion to the promised land.)

How well did Abraham "know" the voice of God before he set out on the journey? Who knows. How well did Abraham know the voice of God during his journey and after he arrived at the appointed destination? Probably a lot better than before. Maybe that's the important part.

Do you think Abraham knew he was backtracking, that he wasn't following the straightest course? He didn't know where he was going, what direction to take, or where the destination was until God said, "Okay you're here? Or did it really matter, because the journey was the purpose? Did the conversation with God remain so sweet that he never noticed the travel being such a long way?

This Catalyst journey feels sometimes like Abraham's journey. I have some small picture of the destination. Dangerously, I may have had some sense of the path of the journey. Often, I'm reminded that I don't know the pat at all. God reveals as God sees fit. I said several times after last summer that I felt as if I'd spent time in the wilderness, trying to figure out which direction the promised land was. I thought making the decision to move to Pendleton meant we'd found the Jordan and were ready to cross into this great new place. I think I now realize that last summer is a lot like this summer, that we're on the Abraham journey, and God has yet to reveal the stopping point. So we keep walking, keep listening to Him, and...I'm not sure what besides that. I guess that's enough. To keep walking, keep listening, not always understanding, but keep walking because we've not yet been told to stop.

I'm not going to lie. There are days when I think Abraham had to think, you know Ur wasn't so bad. Somedays I'd love to have the tent in the place I knew so well for so long. I've thought recently a couple of times, "were we crazy to leave LaGrange?" We felt sure that the voice of God prompted us to move. And I'm still sure. Somedays though, I have to ask God, "are you sure I heard you correctly?" Today is one of those days. Still walking, just asking while we keep journeying forward to....wherever God has in mind.

Peas

2009-06-25T13:57:00.002-04:00

Okay here's the life lesson I learned the other day about church planting...from a vegetable.

We're in this farm coop thing. And they give us different kinds of natural/organic vegetables each week as part of our "share." Last Thursday we got peas. I am not super familiar with gardening but I'm amazed at the amount of work peas are. We got this decent size bag of peas, still in the pod. Now I'm aware that pod size and bag size doesn't always equal significant quantity. Actually, i had little to no idea what quantity would be produced. So I shell the peas, begin working to fill a bowl of the finished product. Twenty minutes later, there's a huge pile of empty pods (which by the way we could find nothing constructive to do with on the internet) and the equivalent of maybe 2/3 of a store bought can of peas.

Here's what I learned about church planting from peas. I feel like the last 8.5 months have been a lot of working, connecting, praying, thinking, networking. If you look at the pile of work that's been done, it's probably been as much as I've done in my whole life. When you look at the results simply in terms of quantity, you think, has this produced enough? Why not "grow" something that has more immediate impact, more tangible results? But then you get a taste of what you've invested in, and every time you taste it, the experience is ever sweeter. And as you begin to enjoy the fruit of your labor, you recognize, "hey, there's a bit more here than I thought." Not like the pan is running over or anything, but it certainly makes you want more. (I just heard we're getting more peas today, hooray!)

I don't know what the next couple of months holds. I don't know who God has in store for us to connect with, grow with, love and serve with. I don't know how many results will flow from all the conversational work we're doing. Catalyst has not been all fun and games. But the taste of this calling has never been sweeter in my soul. So I'll press on for more. Press on to complete the calling which we've been given. That's it. Prayers.

So ashamed...

2009-06-17T16:43:00.003-04:00

It's so embarrassing when you put yourself out there and say things like, "No, I really am going to post more often," and then you look at the date of your last post and it was 2 weeks ago!

Okay, guilt acknowledged, guilt absolved, because tomorrow I can look at the blog and see, "Last post...yesterday."

Catalyst had a great week at June Jamboree. See picture posted above. Talked with lots of people, gave away lots of tattoos (the temporary kind) to kids and adults. (Even though our sign said, "Free kids' temporary tattoos!") Lot's of guitar Hero players. (IF I never have to hear Bon Jovi's 'Livin on a Prayer one more time, I think I'll be okay) and some good connects for Catalyst. It's always fun to hear what people's guesses are about What is Catalyst?. People often think we're a computer company, an electronics store, I even got a sporting goods company from one guy, even though our booth had no sporting equipment or even sports references. We we were the only booth with a 37" flat screen however!

As I've posted on our twitter feed (which is a great place to get more frequent, shorter updates) we're praying and inviting people to be part of the team like crazy and seeing where and how God leads. We may have to realign our timeline a bit, but our calling has never changed. We are here to plant a healthy, growing new faith community in the Lapel-Fortville-Pendleton area. Whenever, however that happens is up to God and we'll follow His timing, but our goal remains the same, to help disconnected people connect with God and that all people involved in our ministry can clearly understand and take the next step in our journeys with God together.

We ask that you keep praying with us. We know God has called us to plant here. And we know He has people in mind to join us in this birthing process. Keep praying with us that our paths will continually and clearly cross with those who God is aligning to join the Catalyst mission.

It was good to connect with our friends and partners at the LaGrange church this past weekend. Just being there this past weekend reminded me of two very important things. First, we have incredible friends there. And they remain so. Second, to leave friends like those, it had to have been God's calling for us to transition from there, because all other things being equal, we'd probably have stayed til they threw us out! So thank you to our friends from LaGrange for loving us so much and for affirming God's call on our lives. If I think about it too long, this is where the keyboard gets a few teardrops. So, I'll bring our post to a close here by asking you to pray and check in with us as you'd like, via email, twitter, phone call (the number I had in LaGrange is still connected to one of the two phones in my pocket every day) or by mail. And I'll do my best to respond promptly...at least much more promptly than I often do in this blog!

Launch team gathering III

2009-06-01T22:38:00.003-04:00

We gathered at the Webster's tonight for our third launch team gathering. Catalyst will rise or fall in part because of the experience of these gatherings. Tonight my friend Jay Harvey came and shared with our team about his passion for and insights about reaching our community of Pendleton. Jay is one of the funniest guys I know, but he is completely serious about reaching people with the hope of Christ. I saw our team really begin to come together tonight, especially around the topics of shared mission and the role gathering will take in these next few weeks. Our ministry teams are beginning to pick up steam and momentum, and even though the clock is ticking towards August and especially October, I just feel an even greater sense of excitement about Catalyst and the God who never fails but leads and guides for His purposes and will fulfill His desires in us to reach this community.

I was reminded of the words of Galatians 6:9 today, words I cling to as we journey forward. It says,

"Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up. Therefore, as we have opportunity, let us do good to all people..."

We will reap a harvest...if we don't give up. God will determine the proper time, and I believe that we're beginning to see that time is now. So we're asking the Lord of the Harvest to help us reach deeper and further into those places where people need to connect with Him and to be his witnesses wherever we go.

The First of Many Catalyst Baptisms

2009-06-01T22:28:00.002-04:00

Okay, so it happened at Crosspoint. And we technically don't have meeting times yet. But we're claiming it anyway. Yesterday, we had our first baptism as part of the ministry of Catalyst. My friend and partner Brad Justus took the step of baptism as a high water mark (no pun intended) on his faith journey yesterday. After the service, PJ asked, "so did you shudder when you got into the water?" (which was heated when it went in in the morning but not so much by 11:15am) My response was no, it wasn't about shuddering, but in typical Chris fashion, the moment I hit that water, this emotion just welled up inside me once again. It always does. When people express publicly what God is doing transformationally in their life, how can you not get a little emotional and completely excited? So we heard Brad's story via video, and then it gave me a chance again to express to the crowd at Crosspoint, that this kind of experience is why we're starting Catalyst. It's not about the banners and the loud music and all the etherial stuff. Those are just means. This is the end we live for and want to celebrate again and again. Life transformation. So as Brad and I walked to the locker room, fresh off the eruption of applause as he came up out of the water, I told him, "so, this is what I want to do hundreds of times in the next several years of the life of Catalyst. Matter of fact, I'll do the hard work (and it is harder work when you rent space and have to use temporary baptistries) as often as people want to demonstrate the transforming work God is doing in our lives. It's always worth it.

Moving the Barriers, Digging In

2009-05-26T11:11:00.005-04:00

The Catalyst moment of truth has arrived.

Here's where we are so far. We believe the mission of Catalyst is clear. We're a faith community that's committed to helping people connect the dots about God clearly so we can connect with God deeply. We're all about connecting those who've felt disconnected from God, qualifying those who may feel that life or their past has disqualified them from God, engaging those who may have felt disenfranchised in traditional church, journeying with and sharing life with those who've felt disillusioned by religion in general. We're about new starts...do overs...exploring and living out the way of Jesus together.

We've established values and guiding philosophies.

We've connected 6 great ministry area leaders and formed 12 ministry teams to begin preparation for all areas of our previews and grand opening. (which is 130 days away) These teams are hungry and excited to begin preparing for great weekend experiences for all of our guests across the age spectrum. We're working to make good connects with like-minded ministry partners in our community. We're taking a close up look at the way some of our partner churches do particular areas of ministry, from music selection to tracking with newcomers to setup and teardown philosophies and life together gatherings, seeing what we duplicate, what we reshape and use, and what doesn't fit for Catalyst.

We're getting ever closer to meeting our fund-raising goal in pledges and gifts, so if you're a financial partner with Catalyst now, or are still considering joining us in this way, we thank you so much and your gifts will push us over the top to our $30,000 fundraising goal for this pre-launch year.

We're locked in with our meeting location and we've begun making what I believe is a good introduction of Catalyst to the community, engaging lots of people who are asking, "So, what is Catalyst?"

And now we are focusing on generating an additional 25-40 partners to help us with the launch process. While some of these partners may be persons who come to assist part-time in the launch experience, we are specifically looking to recruit persons who are stirred by the mission of Catalyst and are relationally connected with present team members. This is the important next step in the life of Catalyst. Without success in this engagement endeavor, Catalyst cannot launch. We have to expand the team! We have to jump the fence and connect with new persons and invite them to allow God to use them to help birth this new faith community. It starts with me and the 13 people I have on a list in front of me. So we're going to eat lots of meals with friends, share what we're doing and why it really matters, and invite them to consider how they might be part of what really is an unbelievably exciting group of people.

I'm asking you to pray for us specifically that we'll meet our goal of 25-40 new team members over the next couple of months. Ask God to bring us into the paths of people for whom being part of Catalyst is the next step for their lives in terms of their journey. Ask God to help us listen well, and to raise up the exact people we need to launch Catalyst with the laser-focused mission that He has given us. We're digging in for lots of hard work and lots of connections this summer. We're asking God to move the barriers before us, and that we will be his hands and feet in pushing those barriers to the expanse He gives us.

Gathering isn't easy, but necessary

2009-05-18T09:00:00.004-04:00

The Catalyst train keeps rolling on. I do honestly believe that starting a church is like driving a train. First, you have to get direction on which track your going to be heading on and where your direction is. Then you fire up the engines, and some passengers get on at your point of embarkation. But you know that you're going to have to pick up more passengers along the way in order for the trip to be its most effective. So you're advertising like crazy that the train will be passing through so people can plan to jump on board when it passes by where they are. And as engineer you're telling your friends, "hey if you want to come along on this journey, it's going to be an experience like you've never had before." And you're telling your current ticketed passengers that if they know anyone down the line who'd like to experience journey to invite them. And a few people here and there start to join. As the engineer, you know you're more than willing to stop the train for even one new passenger. Sometimes you think though, what do your current passengers think when you stop the train at a station down the line and no one gets on? Do they begin to question their own choice to make the journey? And you know as the engineer, you know that the Company is looking to see if this "itinerary" is actually going to "take," that this is going to be a regular ongoing journey. So if they see that people aren't lined up to buy tickets for the inaugural journey, they may begin to wonder if this itinerary needs to even be continued. But as engineer, you know with all your heart it is. You know you were born to drive this train to this place. And you know that as people see the train go by a time or two, their interest is going to be piqued, and maybe some will check out the journey for themselves, especially when they see their friends through the windows or get a call from them as the train goes through their part of the world.

This little metaphor describes pretty accurately where we are right now. The train is starting up, but its starting slowly and we're working hard and re-strategizing how to invite more people to the inaugural journey and thinking creatively how to make the journey fun, life-giving and connective with God and with other "passengers." We want to be God honoring and passenger friendly. Last night we had an explore gathering in the community. We saw a lot of people in the park, and we had probably 20 people be part of our gathering. Unfortunately, we had lots of people we invited who didn't make it and nearly all of those 20 people were people we've made connections with before. So we're back to the drawing board and the conversation of how can we focus our energies on the two tasks of gathering and preparing more effectively over the next few weeks? So please pray for us today that we would hear from God clearly about this request. We want to be focused on gathering and preparing effectively. Please pray with us that God will continue to draw new team members to the dynamic team we already have in place. We're heading somewhere. Somewhere that God has revealed to us. It's just the train is moving slowly right now and we need to get up to speed a bit more quickly to keep our journey on schedule.

Launch team gathering last night

2009-05-05T15:11:00.003-04:00

I'll post some pics of this event at some point. Even the undynamic has the potential to be sensationally important in the life of a new church. I am so excited at the big steps which were taken last night. It may not seem like much, but forming ministry teams who are taking personally their leadership roles in Catalyst is the next huge step for us. Teams are brainstorming and beginning to embrace the Catalyst philosophy, forming that into preparation for previews and Launch. Don't worry, our teams aren't full, so if you're reading this and want to be part of any of our six ministry areas, there's a place of engagement for you at Catalyst.

I also got to spend what was supposed to be 30 minutes (but turned into 55 minutes) presenting answers to some important Catalyst F.A.Q.s last night. (Frequently asked questions). My 11+ pages of notes did not get completely discussed, and there was lots of discussion and clarification I hope along the way last night. I jokingly referred to this document as the Catalyst Manifesto, and if you'd like to take a look at it, I'll post a link to the document here. Click on the Catalyst Plan.pdf. (Requires adobe acrobat to read) Much of the questions center around our philosophy of ministry, our mission and values. If you feel so inclined to take a look and have thoughts you'd like to respond to, email them to me at chris@iamcatalyst.org.

We're getting it!

2009-04-27T13:17:00.002-04:00

You know it's such a joy when you see people beginning to take hold of something that you know they can, but don't know if they will.

For I would say almost everyone on our team, this is the deepest level of church leadership they've ever been part of. I don't say that as a criticism. It's actually rather refreshing. Even as I'm sitting here I'm just overwhelmed by the thought that we get to model from the very beginning of Catalyst the kind of healthy, honest, open leadership that I think people want to see. In a world of shady back dealings and covering up of wrongs, both in the corporate and unfortunately sometimes even in the church world, we're saying from the beginning, we're not going down that road. There is another way and we'll do whatever we can to live out another way, a way that honors Jesus by guiding his church, his bride, toward health and wholeness and toward deep intimacy with Him.

Now it doesn't mean we won't make mistakes, have slipups, miss the mark sometimes. We're learning to lead on the fly. Last year at our Church Planter's Bootcamp, Phil Claycomb talked about this. He talked about the church he planted with basically no believers (in the beginning). He talked about helping others lead even as their own faith was rapidly expanding. I feel what He is saying. This is my first time being in the Lead Chair. This is the first time I've had to cast vision for every area of ministry life. This is the first time I've had to guide the team from what God is doing in me. Am I out of my comfort zone? A little bit. I think that's why up until the last little bit it's been difficult for me to quantify in simple statements what we're about, choosing instead for some over-arching themes that only time and the Spirit could clarify. I think these clarities are coming to easier voice from me, now they have to make it to language transferrable to our team and then from them into the lives of their friends. The question has become, we want to invite. What are we inviting people to? We want to serve, tell us what you need us to do. You be increasingly clear on where we're going, we'll do whatever we can to get us there. Seems simple enough. So, that's the call right now. Clarify the mission. And then let's set about making it happen and inviting others to join the journey.

I wish I had time to write more, but clarity doesn't happen talking about it, but by doing it. So I need to spend the afternoon putting clarity into text.

Friends

2009-04-24T15:01:00.002-04:00

Even when it's cliche often times it's still true. When it comes to church (or relationships in general), people are not looking for friendliness. They are looking for friends (or at least people with whom there's the prospect of friendship). The appeal of involvement in a new church really comes in one-two areas. Either you join the movement because you're passionately excited about the mission, or because you were invited by someone who's already your friend. Or both. Sometimes people are interested because they're disillusioned with church or traditional religious expression. I'm not sure that people line up to be part of a church plant because they're incredibly evangelistic and sense that's the movement of this new faith community. But when it all boils down to it, whatever draws people in, it's relationships that keep them engaged.

How do you make sure you're always opening yourself (beginning with me as leader) to new relationships, so that you demonstrate to your team that they should also always be open to new relationships? I guess it's a conversation you have over and over. You talk about the new relationships you're developing. The new people you're meeting. You remind your team that without the next 20 people who join, there is no movement, there is no Catalyst. And those 2o, then 40, then 80, will come, but they won't just appear out of nowhere. And even if they did, they won't stay if it seems that no one really cares that they've entered the picture.

You know friends seems so easy. It's not. Friendliness, that's easy. We have control over that. But friends? There's an element of this friends thing that's purely beyond our control. Sometimes chemistry is not there. Sometimes worldview is different. But it doesn't mean there's no room for connection there. Actually, it's the opposite. Friendship works when we put ourselves out there just enough to want to know someone and want to be known by them. It doesn't mean we become best friends with everyone. But it also doesn't mean we pre-emptively short-circuit what has the potential to be a much deeper relationship down the road.

So what is the key word to friendship. I think it's openness. It's a willingness to share one step further in your life than you're completely comfortable. And what's amazing is how that discomfort dissolves once you've taken a step for the first or second time. Openness to push yourself toward a conversation with someone rather than avoiding a conversation. Openness to extend the relationship beyond just a large group gathering into something smaller. Openness to take steps toward encouraging someone (appropriately) by listening a little closer and sharing your own experience.

Now Catalyst is not going to be a place where everyone is best friends with everyone else. I would say unabashedly that we want to grow much, much larger than a scenario where that would even be possible. But, by the same token, if we want to live by the value that everyone on a spiritual journey toward God can learn from others on that same journey, we will only learn from people we trust. And we will only trust people that we know. Knowing has all kinds of meanings and levels, but the bottom line is, I want to lead a church that is open. Open to knowing one another so we can learn and grow closer to Christ as a result.

Go Local, Part 2

2009-04-20T22:44:00.002-04:00

Welcome to part 2 of our "Go local" Sunday. I won't leave you waiting, but would encourage you that if you haven't read part one of this story, check that out first.

Three of our team members went to two large churches (one of them a mega-mega church in Northeast Indy) in the area. Both were rather interesting experiences. Both were very much a hands off experiences. At both places neither of our friends were actually engaged much by people who attend there regularly. It was very much a self-service kind of scenario; if you want information, if you want to take the next step toward engagement with the church, you have to make the first move. It's a no pressure, hands off philosophy that many people are looking for, but the complete lack of content left both of our partners kinda wanting more. In one, the worship gathering displayed talent but little passion. In the other, the word that best describes the experience was not worship gathering, but rock concert. Entertaining, but not interactive.

One of our partners checked out a "contemporary" church in the town of Pendleton. The unique nature of this church was the desire, or maybe expectation that the church should have a contemporary service based on its size. I think this church does traditional quite well, but there's a sense that this is what we should be doing, but it almost appears like a token gesture in order to engage younger couples, but not to the extent that the traditional worshipers want to flex their own desires for the desires of those outside the walls. The description that came forward from this experience could be captured in one word...safe! Now safe is not a bad word, and there are a lot of things in life that I want to be safe. But I must be honest, safe is not the word that I want to be attached to Catalyst.

One of the reminders we quickly gained from a couple of local churches is the assumption that things we know well, newcomers must also know well. These realizations, ironically, came during the celebration of Communion at two different places. Remember rule number 2 from yesterday's post? Never assume anything! Especially when it comes to things so sacred and reverent as the Lord's Supper. We were reminded of the simple need to just explain things in order to help others feel comfortable. Leaving things unexplained left a little awkward taste in the mouths of our friends who checked out two of our local churches.

In closing, however, I need to share a more somber tone, because the truth is, the experience we gained in the church that we attended personally could best be described as what happens when an 80 year old (or maybe Joan Rivers) gets plastic surgery. The outside may be fixed up beautifully and attempt to mask what's going on beneath, but the reality is, the inside is still old and dying a slow, painful death. And no amount of fix-up can really mask that over completely. We walked away feeling not angry, not disappointed, but just sad. Sad that the church that Jesus loves so much just has lost its function, lost its way. It will hang on. And this church certainly is no microcosm of the Church at large. But there are so many churches who are hurting, suffering, wondering how to hang on. I hope some of them are wondering, "Is there a fountain of youth" where we might revive the hope and passion and evangelistic dna we once had.? But it seems that, not unlike the verse in the scripture where Jesus says "Suppose a man wants to build a tower, should he not count the cost first..." many of these churches have counted the cost and determined it simply too high.

So here's the inspiring ending. We've counted the cost, too. And we've determined that as best we can practice it, the cost of following Christ and providing a different kind of church to reach unreached people in unique and practical ways will never be too high. We want to pay the price it takes to help people feel safe to explore who God is, free from judgmentalism and criticism, available to experience clarity and transformation through the power of Christ. And so, we walk away from this experience encouraged, that a new wind of opportunity is blowing through our area. It seems like we may be putting up the sails just in time!

A few insights from today's "Go Local"

2009-04-19T22:43:00.003-04:00

Preface

One of the things that my good friend Nate has been helping me understand is that for the rest of my ministry, assume nothing. Assume no previous knowledge or experience people might have had, no matter their background, upbringing, education, whatever. He didn't go exactly that far in his statement, but I'm realizing that it really is that important to just be certain you're communicating (speaking and hearing) clearly.

Point two. Be much clearer than you think you need to be. See point one. I've worked hard this past year to be more clear/less ambiguous in my communication. Lesson learned? I've got to work harder this year to keep that clarity even more in focus for me. Both of these little preface lessons came forward today as our team experienced Go Local Sunday.

Okay. So today's assignment for Team Catalyst was to check out as many local churches as possible from a predetermined list I'd written a few weeks ago based on hearing stories about them in the community, seeing their websites, or just my own unquenched curiosity.

So in addition to some of our team at Crosspoint today, others were at 6 other local/area churches. All but one were in the Pendleton area, and we didn't get to every church I wanted to (we'll catch a few more in a few weeks). We called it Go Local Sunday. And after we finished at the services, we got together for lunch and to debrief. This was great for a couple of reasons. One, I don't have to take 10 Sunday's to get everywhere. Two, I get to see with different eyes and hear with different ears the experiences our team shared. Three, it's a teachable moment because when you go someplace new, you get to see if what people say about themselves actually matches the experience you have with them. And what we learned is that sometimes those self-descriptions match reality, and other times...not so much.

So, I sent each of our mystery worshippers with a little card that had some questions I wanted them to answer/look for about their experience. If you're interested, I've posted that card on the downloads page of our website. Click here to check it out. To give you an in depth report of everything that was shared would be much longer than you want to read. I think I'll try to break it into two posts, one tonight and maybe a second tomorrow.

Now, I want to preface this by saying, we did not go into these churches to

a)judge or critique what other churches were doing, merely to observe and allow our observations to help in the formation of our own weekend experience.

b)recruit people from other churches. While we know we need team members with some spiritual maturity, we're not there to divide established churches or to headhunt (take the best of someone else's flock, if you will)

c)name any of these churches publicly. Our experience was to go and learn from others, not to publicly embarrass/ridicule anyone's style, staff or philosophy.

What lessons/thoughts we'd already had were totally affirmed?

1. People's definition of the word contemporary range across a pretty narrow perspective. People use the word because they think it's what unchurched people really want in order to make the decision to attend church. What we're learning? Unchurched people don't care and most of what is being done is not contemporary, it's just late model traditional. It's not 1950's traditional. It's 1980's traditional. That's not a slam on anyone, and honestly, those experiences may in fact be ultra contemporary for our communities.

2. Unless we find something radical in our future go Local experience, we will be the most contemporary church in the area right out of the box. In fact, in my conversation with Brad, our worship leader, I actually said to him, "I want us to be the most _____________ (insert your word meaning modern/postmodern that doesn't have theological undertones but just...well...new, innovative) church in the area, but we're going to have to be careful not to go too far to the other end of the spectrum, because we may lose people just out of fear. There are some things we can get away with in Fishers without batting an eye that may be a half step further than people are willing to go here." That will be an ongoing conversation I think, but one that's a good conversation to have.

I'll finish up this post tomorrow in part 2, talking about an indifferent mega-church, a megachurch worship concert, intinction assumption, safety and plastic surgery on an octogenarian. How's that for a teaser to check out part 2?

Forest for the trees

2009-04-17T11:49:00.004-04:00

I never understood what that statement meant for the longest time. We can't see the forest for the trees. And especially when you're a big picture person and not a detail person like me, you never think that this mental picture describes you. But right now I'm in the middle of the forest. And I'm having a hard time remembering what the aerial view looks like. Sometimes the trees are just important projects. Sometimes the issue is I'm comparing myself to others, trying to meet others expectations of what they think the forest should look like instead of staying true to the mission God is calling me to.

Either way, it's wise for me to hear from the people closest to me (friends and family) to keep perspective, be who I am all the while accepting the challenging from those who lead me, and remember this is a journey. People are not numbers, they are people. Goals are meant with the intent that we're engaging people, not just building a list. And I'm praying today that God will help me see clearly both the forest and the trees, both the big picture and the details. That will definitely be a God thing, because right now I'm definitely one or the other, but rarely both simultaneously, which is a pretty helpful skill if you're going to plant a healthy new church.

Quick Update

2009-04-14T22:11:00.002-04:00

It's been a busy and important week at Catalyst already. Had our first Monday night life together group. 23 people (15 adults, 8 children) were here. Great food, good conversation. Looking forward to week 2 already. Our goal is to meet together for one more week then to divide into two groups beginning April 27th. It's very possible we could need a third group by mid-May.

Today we had our Catalyst advisory board meeting. We discussed the big push that's ahead in attempting to basically double our launch team and connect with a lot of new disconnected friends over the next six weeks. Of everything that's happened to this point, the funds raised, the relationships built, we need God to work among us and to open people to conversations about joining us in this next 6 weeks. Our team members need to be looking around our circles of friends and be open and excited about inviting them to be part of this life-changing experience called Catalyst. We need your prayers more now than ever.

Later this week I have meetings with our sound provider and the school custodian, one of our staff team members, and our family health mentors and friends, Jared and Deann. We're checking out local churches, getting giveaways for our community connection event May 1-3. And we've got a significant community contact we're trying to get printed to make contact with all the new move-ins in our area.

Pray for us, pray for us, pray for us. Everytime you think of us. You can't imagine what it will do to lift our spirits and launch us toward the future God intends for us.

Chris

Blog talk back and life together groups

2009-04-10T17:07:00.003-04:00

Let me begin with a little discussion about our life together groups. What do they look like? How long do they last? Is there food involved? And other questions you may have.

We began our life together groups on Thursday, March 5th. Life together groups are our term for small groups. I read in nearly every publication about church planting that you never start small groups before you launch public worship services. The reason? Too involvement intensive when you're trying to build a crowd who you are trying to get fully engaged in your worship gatherings. Why did we throw off conventional wisdom? Two reasons. First, we recognized that most people that we're trying to connect with couldn't necessarily give a rip about the weekend gatherings. If they did, they'd probably already be involved in a church. But nearly all of these unconnected folks do have a longing for growing friendships. That's pretty much the focus of these life together groups, a place to cultivate deep, growing friendships, and at the same time, a place to explore spiritual questions all of us have and may not have the answers to. Already, since we've moved here, I can say without reservation that my very best friends here are the ones that I share my life with. This began with our being part of our life together group, but those relationships have expanded beyond our gathering to us taking care of each other's kids, eating meals together and looking for each other every weekend. (when someone from our group is not at weekend gatherings, we notice, and we really miss seeing them) We know there are other people we've met who could gain from the experience of life together. We also know that life together groups can be an entry point to church for some people. That's why we started with groups first. Oh, and because we watched it be very successful for Crosspoint, too! So we know it can be done and done well, so we're starting with life together groups.

So here's how it works. In our group, group begins by eating dinner together. We potluck it, everyone pitches in and we enjoy time around the table together...every week.

Then, we spend time in some discussion (usually not so brief but enjoyable none the less), right now about the vision/values of Catalyst Church. We feel like people need to know about the CHurch, but honestly these are values that we would hold whether or not we were beginning a new church. I think they are questions people are asking. And we are open to any question that comes about during the context of our discussion.

Group usually lasts about 2.5 hours including meal time, and often the only thing that pushes us out the door are tired children, because our lives have become so deeply connected, we love those relationships too much to pack it in early unless someone is sick, has an early morning the following day, or a child that has said "Enough."

Actually, it's not group night, but we're going to be with some of our Crosspoint group friends tonight...just because! We'll eat, play cards, laugh, watch the Masters (the guys at least, vicariously wishing we were there in person but knowing that between the 4-5 of us we couldn't pool the cash for 1 ebay purchased ticket) and just have a great time...together. Isn't that what it's about?

Now in about two weeks we're anticipating that our life together group will have to split. We know that as much as we love being together, there's not enough room in one house to make room for more people. But in two houses, we have open spaces. And that's also what it's about. Throwing open ourselves relationally to inviting other people to join this little movement we're beginning. So before long, there'll be three groups, then four, and a year from now? Well, God only knows what life groups will look like. And I'm sure I'll be blown away because it'll be far beyond what I could have anticipated.

Okay, now for the blog talk back. I pretty much write about whatever I want to talk about on these posts. But I'd be more than willing to write about what you want to hear about. So to all our faithful readers, if you have questions about the church plant trail, what's going on, how many gray hairs I've gained since October unrelated to Camden, how many Mt. Dews a day it takes to plant a church (more than 6....just kidding!) or anything else you'd like to know about, let me know and we'll try to address it. You can send your questions to chris@iamcatalyst.org by clicking here and click the mail link in the bottom left corner. (Hint: this is also the Catalyst website.)

I've also posted the Catalyst vision message I taught at Crosspoint on Sunday, March 22nd and you can access that by clicking here.

Grace and peace and may your experience of the resurrection of Christ be real, be very present, very here and now. Because the resurrection still changes things. Always. Every day.

Chris

Other resources are available, too. If you'd like to get our eburst, our weekly email newsletter, send me your email address and I'll put you on that list. It usually will come late Thursday night.

If you're a twitter...er, you can follow us at CatalystPndltn. This is the place where I post random Catalyst stuff, and give real-time updates on anything exciting that happens in the life of Catalyst Church.

Lessons from the First Catalyst Backyard BBQ

2009-04-06T10:46:00.004-04:00

We had our first Catalyst team get together last night. Our BBQ had to be moved inside thanks to a driving rainstorm the entire time. Thankfully we missed out on the snow which is coming today. We had a great time and everyone got lots of food and fun out of the deal I think. And we're off to another good start with Catalyst launch team. 25 people at our house last nigh (16 adults and 9 kids). Missed the friends who couldn't be with us, and hope that this is the first and last time our house is large enough to actually host the group (because we will continue to grow exponentially from here).

Here's some great lessons I learned yesterday, in no particular order. Hopefully these will be helpful for your life someday.

1. Mercury Cougars are not a truck model. As such, you can only fit one 6 foot table and 4 folding chairs in them.

2. Always buy more folding chairs and tables than you think you need, unless you have situation 1 above. In that case, simply scramble for a place for everyone to sit.

3. Match light charcoal....LIES. THERE IS NO SUCH THING.

4. It's very difficult to light a charcoal grill in a driving rainstorm, however...

5. Charcoal grills are also not meant to be operated in a garage, even with the door up.

6. Charcoal ready in 10 minutes....LIES. Tell me that when we put the food on the grill 30 minutes later.

7. Rainy days are great for long driveways, so people can park in your driveway, instead of 1/4 mile up the street!

8. Supersweet brownies make children do funny things.

9. I love our friends. Last night was one of the coolest nights in our time here, as we got to engage with so many of our new friends.

10. You know who your true friends are when they will stand with you in a garage full of smoke and endure your grilling when they could be inside breathing clean air and eyes not burning. Thanks guys...you're the best!

11. I refuse to run around like crazy at other events like last night became a little bit, but I think everyone had a great time getting to know one another, which was the primary purpose of the evening.

12. Carlotta is a much better host than I believe she thinks she is. And honestly, between life together groups and last night, she has held us together and pulled off great food everytime. Thanks babe! Glad we're doing this together.

13. I still slip back into talking too fast sometimes.

14. If it doesn't make it in picture or video form to the internet, it didn't happen. I forgot to take any photos last night! But I promise, this isn't all made up. It really did happen.

15. I'm already looking forward to what we can do for May for our team gathering.

All in all, when I look around that room last night, and thought also about our friends who are on board but were unable to be with us last night, I know that Catalyst is going to be a great place to be part of just because of them. I also told them, although I'm so thankful for everyone of the people who joined us, we can't launch Catalyst by ourselves, and to be on the lookout for those who might join us on this journey! We're taking this week off for life groups and then moving to Monday beginning April 13th. Our journey really begins in earnest now! So keep on praying for us, and if you're in the area, we'd love to have you join us.

Launch team

2009-03-31T16:50:00.003-04:00

Okay, so there's a million things to do in beginning a new church. Obviously one person cannot do these million things alone. So how does a new church go from the God's heart to the mind of a few people to a gathering of hundreds in the span of 12 months? With a team of people united with the same purpose/vision for connecting themselves and their community with God in a deep way.

So, how many people does it take to launch a church? How many does it take to launch Catalyst Church? Well, you can launch with all size launch teams and honestly get churches started of varying sizes. Our plan for Catalyst is as follows:

75 adults on our launch team. These 75 are part of the "all hands on deck" crew, getting all kinds of tasks accomplished from serving in community connect events over the next months, running our preview services, inviting people to join us on a journey with Jesus from wherever they are in terms of faith, and inviting people like crazy to join the team or to join us during our previews and launch month. These people will be pouring lots of sweat and passion into helping birth Catalyst Church into the world.

50-75 "Go for" team members. These partners are persons who may currently be part of other local churches, but have offered to lend themselves to the cause by serving in particular areas of ministry for a period of time to help us get going. These are kinda the "midwives" of this delivery process. Though they may not be with us to see this baby through to childhood and adolescence, they are certainly critical to getting the baby "born." Some of these helpers will be asked to simply help provide that critical mass feeling during our launch. We want a packed house because a packed house just creates an energy and momentum moving forward.

I know that some of you are reading this from a good distance away. I'm asking you to mark your calendars now for the four Sunday's in October. Maybe for one or two or all of those Sundays you'd be willing to come help us "deliver." If so, I can't tell you how huge that would be. There'll be all kinds of areas to serve, from Tech and Hospitality to children's ministry and even setup/tear down. We'd love to have you join the go for team.

So, that's the launch break down.

75+75=150 people before we ever send out the first postcard inviting our friends and neighbors to this new thing called Catalyst.

So where do we stand right now...?

Glad you asked.

Right now we're at 20 launch team and 11 go for team members.

In other words, we're at 20%, with 6 months to go til opening weekend. So in other words, we're on our way, and we're asking for your serious prayers that God will lead other people to join us on this journey as we invited disconnected people to connect with God in deep and significant ways through interpersonal connection. And if you'd be willing to add your name to that Launch team or Go for team, please always feel free to email me at chris@iamcatalyst.org. I'd also encourage you to take a look at our website, http://www.iamcatalyst.org, for some up to date information about what Catalyst is beginning to look like. If you're a Twitter person, you can follow us at CatalystPndltn for real-time updates as well.

Grace and peace to each of you who journey with us via blog.

Turn it off...

2009-03-27T11:01:00.002-04:00

You remember the part in the Forrest Gump movie, when he decides to go for a jog, and then runs for like 3 years, 4 months, 19 days...whatever! Even though he said, "when I was tired, I slept, when I was hungry, I ate; when I was...you know, I went!" the truth is, everyday he got up thinking first and foremost about running. Well I have a question. I know of course that it was a movie...but, how did the guy just turn it off?

Right now, my running is launching Catalyst Church. When I'm hungry, I eat, and when I'm tired I sleep (although not all that well some nights). I'll keep the other stuff to myself, but right now I'm struggling to know how to turn it off. The thoughts of planting, of things to do, or people to meet with, pretty much never leave my mind. This is good most of the time, because the eating and sleeping and spending some time with my family are good diversions, but I'm beginning to find that even those times are being spent thinking about Catalyst.

Case in point. My birthday was this past Wednesday. We got 2nd row tickets to the UK-ND basketball game in South Bend. A great opportunity to shut it down mentally and just enjoy the game. But the entire time up the road I couldn't stop thinking about all the things I needed to be doing instead of driving to the game. I think about the time we got inside the arena (following three phone calls I needed to make) I got zoned in on the game. My thoughts though kept me awake for the very late night drive home (arrived at 1am).

My point and my prayer request...I know Sabbath is important, but for me I'm discovering it's a mental thing as well as a physical thing. I don't feel physically drained, but mentally, I'm kinda feeling a little toasted right now. My mental batteries are like a bad laptop battery. I'm not holding my charge as well as I used to, and I know there's no potential for replacement for my brain. So pray with me that there will be some moments (maybe like Sunday afternoon this week) where I can just unplug and get a good slow mental recharge from God.

Thanks for following this journey with me and for your prayers for my family and Catalyst Church.

Sorry I'm a bit behind...missed a few posts

2009-03-23T09:16:00.002-04:00

Life has been so busy doing a lot of the church planting prep that I haven't taken the time to write about the church planting. Apologies.

So let's roll the update machine here.....

Since our last post, I've gotten a second walk through at the school where we're going to meet. We have a contract in place at a very reasonable (almost unbelievable if this weren't a divine thing!) price. Our goal from the very beginning of our church was that we'd live by a 50-25-25 scenario where 25% of our resources are always going away in some missional direction. (Outreach, community/world needs, etc). While this was our goal, I thought we might not be able to get there in the beginning because of startup costs. This cost for our school rental is going to make that goal possible from the very beginning, I believe.

While we haven't gotten everyone together in the same room yet, we're right around 14-15 adults on our launch team. Our goal is to get to 75 by launch date. So we're praying, asking God to lead us to people who may join with us on this journey. Yesterday, 7 people (6 from Crosspoint and 1 other) committed to "Go For" Catalyst. This means that they will be volunteering short term with our launch team in certain ministry areas to get us going. For instance, some may be willing to work in our children's ministry one Sunday per month, or come every Sunday for the first 2 months, something like that. Maybe you're a person reading this and you'd say, "I live a good distance away, but I'd be willing during one or two of the four weekends of launch to come down (or up, or east, or whichever direction you'd come) and give you guys a hand getting going." If that's something you'd like to think about, ask about, or say, "yeah, count me in!" please contact me. There's all kinds of ways to help Catalyst launch!!!

Yesterday I got to teach at Crosspoint and share the vision of Catalyst Church. If you'd like to check it out, here's a link to get to their itunes page, or, you can download the mp3 here. It will hopefully give you a feel for where we're headed, what God is doing to form us and lead us. Also yesterday at Crosspoint, I got to work with Brad Brickley, who's going to be leading our worship. You know it's a good sign when (unprompted) people begin asking, "who is that guy leading this morning?" and making statements like, "He's awesome, what a great leader!" And he led TWO Songs! I can't wait to be around to get to hear more and more! And I think this is just going to take his life and his faith to the next level, too!

We've also held weeks 2 and 3 of our life group. Little smaller than in previous weeks, but I believe this week we're going to be back on track. We're going to be moving our life group to Monday's in about 3 weeks, which will give us another bounce I believe.

And we're pushing toward our goal financially as well. Not there yet, so if you're still interested in partnering with us in this way, but haven't made a contribution yet, your support will continue to push us forward and will help people who need to connect the dots about God so they can connect with Him do exactly that through Catalyst.

Because you see that's what we're about. We're about helping people connect with Jesus, together. We're about deep relationships...and we believe that through those connections, we can be part of God's restoring work in the world. That's what we're giving our lives to. That's what people are joining us to be part of. We'd love for you to join with us in this endeavor as well.

Now I'm Understanding

2009-03-11T12:00:00.003-04:00

I never knew church planting was such a journey toward self-understanding as well as others understanding as well as understanding Jesus. For me it's a journey in discipleship (which I guess I should have known but now I am more fully beginning to understand this). I'm learning how many spiritual things I need to practice, not because they make Jesus love me more, (which is impossible according to the bible), but because they just make life better, sanity more realized, and help me want to treat others the way they deserve to be treated (the way Jesus treats them).

I'm learning lots of logistical things. Things I thought I knew how to do. I'm learning how much faster the clock seems to run and how efficiency really is not a constant but runs in spurts.

I'm learning that there are certain things that are much harder for me than I ever anticipated.

I'm learning that relationship building is the world's slowest, and yet most necessary process. Forget for a moment about starting a church. It just takes time to get to know people. This isn't simcity (a computer game simulation where you control a world by constructing people and their lives, or a city for them to live) where you can speed up the clock to make things work faster or more effectively.

And especially for today. Even though I'm committed to the model we've chosen of life groups before public launch, I am understanding why nearly every church planting resource I know of says, "don't start small groups until after you've launched weekends." My good friend Joe and I were discussing this this morning. It's just so hard to differentiate the purposes for which people connect with you in group life. Some are there just to get to know other people. Some are there to hear about what you're doing. Some are there because they've committed to what you're doing together. Some are wondering, "well this is all well and good but don't we have plans to put together to get this baby into the world?" And it's really tough to navigate all those waters when people come together, and we're only in week one! Now our intent is to keep the "planning" separate from the life group. And in practice that can be done. But when people are coming to your entry point from different places, that differentiation is harder than I thought. And this is going to be one of those entries that doesn't tidy up at the end. I don't have an answer/solution for this paradox right now. That's probably a part of the little knot in my stomach I'm feeling. That and week 2 of life group is coming...and it's kinda like launch Sunday...you know where you really are beginning when week 2 rolls around. Week 1=Curiosity, week 2=reality!

This obviously is not an all-encompassing list of everything I'm learning. I'm also learning that while I'm forever a Mac guy, they do have a couple of faults. I haven't resolved at least one of those either. So, we journey forward into the darkness in several ways, hoping and believe that the Lord will illuminate the path at least a little bit ahead. He has several times before, so I'm trusting we're not wandering blindly this time either.

We have liftoff!

2009-03-06T09:32:00.002-05:00

Our first Catalyst life group launched last night. There were seven of us who gathered in my living room to begin to envision with us what Catalyst will be, off the paper and out of my soul and into the real world. Where do we go from this seven? Only God knows that.

We talked a little bit last night about mapping out a picture of our preferred future (vision) versus the importance of living in the moment, not trapped by the regrets of the past or the uncertainty of the future. Somewhere as a church, people need to know where you're going, but I'm not certain that the way vision has been expressed has always been about following the way of Jesus, and instead has been about duplicating what we've determined "successful" churches are somehow doing. So is vision that catches empirical or more abstract? Or both?

Recently, I sat down and wrote down a list of the characteristics of what I'd classify as a "mature follower of Jesus." This is in fact what the scriptures compel us toward, spiritual maturity. I hadn't really considered that this was an exercise in mapping out a preferred future for our church, really more for myself. The conclusion I came to though is that if there were hundreds of people (adults and children) in our area in the next years who really began to, by the Spirit's discernment, evaluate where they are in terms of following Jesus and began committing their lives toward the goal of spiritual maturity, of growing to be more like Jesus in all areas of their lives, and our church could help encourage them and resource them and live life together with them on this journey, that that's a preferred future that I know the Lord would be pleased with. I'd love your thoughts, additions, questions, maybe even subtractions to my list. So I'm going to link it here, and I'd love your comments/thoughts. Now again, these are my thoughts, but I'm not saying that this is the Gospel. The Word of God is the Gospel, and I'm just trying to get my mind and arms around more and more of it as I grow forward. You can leave comments on the blog comments section below this post, or you can email me your thoughts to chris@exit14church.org.

Location, Location, Location!

2009-03-02T22:28:00.003-05:00

Okay, quite recently I've found myself driving past this school that I've just felt is supposed to be our meeting place. I'd finally gotten the paperwork started, and kept waiting and waiting to hear something, anything from the principal. A little background.

When we first moved here, one of the first things I did was to contact the principal of the nearby Elementary School and the town manager of the City of Pendleton, just to introduce myself and actually to ask if there was anything we could do to serve them. Neither ever got back with me. We live in an area where there simply are not a huge number of potential places to meet. As I heard more about the school I just felt more and more that this was the meeting location we should pursue, at least for the time being. So I made a second contact to the principal, with no response.

Finally, a friend of ours began student teaching at this school. He told me that this principal was a great guy, I needed to meet him and that he thought it would be a great possibility for us to meet there. So I went through the procedure of attempting to rent the facility. I filled out the paperwork and turned it back in to the school, hoping that day to get to meet the principal. No dice. I did get told that the school doesn't rent on Sunday mornings. Had to go through the corporation office to confirm that was an old policy. So I call on Friday of last week to see what the progress of my application was. The school once again refers me to the corp office, who hasn't seen my paperwork. Ugh!

Today I'm driving by the school. And in my heart I am saying two things. Lord, if you don't want us to meet here, please don't let me go home today without seeing some other secondary potential site. But I just keep feeling drawn to this place. I remembered the day in December when my friends from Church at the Crossing stood in the parking lot freezing our tails off praying about Catalyst (we didn't even have a name yet) and this facility.

So I drive around town, and I find another rental location. It's an empty retail site that could easily be built to some of our specifications. It has ample parking and is in a great location. So I get on the phone with the leasing company. And it would be a great location....for $4,875 per month. I posted earlier my status on Facebook, apparently the developers and leasing companies around here haven't got the memo that the economy is in the toilet, and that you really can't logically think that someone's going to cough up $20 per square foot for new retail space in these days. Maybe 5 years from now, but that remains to be seen.

And so I drove down to another place I'd looked at before. This time I got to go inside. And from the moment I walked in I just didn't feel like this place was right. I spent the next few hours working on some other work assignments and overhearing a woman's spiritual conversation at the coffee shop in Pendleton. It just reminded me one more time how this community needs what we're doing so much, not because it's about us, but because there are lots of people here who need Jesus, just Jesus. And we're going to be a church that helps people meet and fall in love with and learn to follow Jesus.

So I'm driving home, and I'm tempted not to drive by the school again, because I don't feel like I've gotten my answer about a secondary location, but....Now this school is a pretty good sized building, and the last time I came to the school office, I asked for a building map because I've never even been anywhere in the building past the office. Now at this point I don't know if what I'm doing is prophetic, or subconsciously prophetic, or whatever. But somehow I'm prompted that I should drive around to the back of the building just to see the area where we might use as a parking area/entrance. And then I drive on around the building. But something prompts me to drive on around the building again. And as I drive around the second time, my phone rings. I don't recognize the number, but when I answer it, it's the PRINCIPAL. HE'S CALLING ME TO TELL ME THAT HE JUST GOT OFF THE PHONE WITH THE SUPERINTENDENT, (which is the next step in the process, a step he took before signing off on the contract himself,) and they've decided that they're more than happy to let us rent from them!!!

Okay at this point I probably creeped him out a bit, because I said to him, (my actual words), "Are you still in the building?" (Yes) "because I'm calling from the parking lot, I was just driving around the building and I've never been inside, so if you've got a couple of minutes, could you show me around?" (Sure, come on in) After I pull on around the building and compose myself (laughter this time, not the usual tears) I run in like some giddy school girl, where the principal proceeds to show me around the building and basically imply we can use pretty much whatever we want! He gave us permission to use the gym, the cafeteria, the light system, their sound system if we want. I asked him for permission to come back with a digital camera and take some photos and he obliged me anytime after school is out for the day. He was totally cool to meet and work with, and is going to introduce us to the head custodian, who is going to become our best friend and we are going to be his biggest fan. Heck, we want to treat the custodial staff so well that other schools are envious of them just because they get to work with us.

Now I could go all spiritual here and say that I don't believe the principal would have called if I hadn't listened to God's prompting to drive around the building. I know he didn't recognize my car because we'd never met, and i wasn't even in my car that has the Denney license plate on the front. You could get creeped out that I was stalking the parking lot. (I decided not to bring it up when I got inside) I just choose to believe that God heard my heart's cry this morning and chose to make something happen for our new little fledgling faith community that proves again He is bigger than our barriers and that hundreds of people's lives are going to be changed by this Catalyst that He is forming in Pendleton.

Does this solve all of our launch problems? No, no it doesn't. Does it mean the next few months are going to be easy? No, no it doesn't. Is it one more step on the journey for us, a step where God affirms He's God and we're on the right path? Yes, yes it does.

Now....we wait to find out what "anything we need" is going to cost! But you know what, I get the feeling that He who offers us resources will resource us with the funds we need to cover it.

Oh, and there's room in the potential worship area for I don't know, 450? 200 chairs on the floor and then we can use the bleachers if we needed to.

There are details to nail down, some understandings to be reached about logistics, and so we're asking that you pray with us that all those things can be ironed out. But today is a huge day for Catalyst Church. And we thank you for praying and journeying with us thus far.

And thank you God, You just remind us that when the enemy wants to discourage us, to tell us things are not going to work out, wants to convince us to quit, that You have lead us this far and You will take us to places which are unimaginable if we just keep walking in step with You. Will You help us fill that place with people hungry to connect with You, to know You and to follow Your Son Jesus Christ.

Slow down

2009-03-02T15:32:00.003-05:00

I should have written last night. I was in a better frame of mind last night.

I'm having one of those days where I'm asking myself "do I have the personal discipline to plant a church?" I never realized how much I have begun to default to this "it'll get done somehow" philosophy, without disciplining myself to put dates and times and deadlines to tasks. Today has been a reminder of a few things. First, I'm going to have to get up earlier in the morning. Seems simple enough, except I really like sleep and Camden is starting to sleep longer. If I want to accomplish all the tasks that need to be done as well as meet all the people I need to meet, it's going to take more hours than I have right now. So, the best way to create more hours is to get up earlier.

Two, I need more time for some contemplation. I read in Luke 1 this morning the story that Zechariah had 9 months of silence while waiting for John to be born. I gotta believe he did a lot of thinking in that time as well as a lot of listening. And after John was born it said that he moved to the wilderness until his public ministry began. Dude spent years in the wilderness, and a lot of that time he had to have been alone with God. No wonder His ministry was infused with such power.

Third, nothing "Just happens." Things happen because we plan for them to happen, we discipline ourselves into pro-activity so that they happen. For me this means I'm going to have to sit down with my calendar, put blocks of time every day of every week to make certain tasks take place. And I'm going to have to stick to those blocks of time, or I'm hosed.

Fourth. I've got a huge amount of learning to do as a leader. I'm just not that good right now. I know my leadership potential won't thwart the sovereignty of God, I just don't want to get in His way.

Five, deadlines are a good thing. They keep me accountable, especially to the things I don't want to do or feel uncomfortable doing.

Let me give you an update on Carlotta and Camden. They are doing well. Camden is just so busy right now, it's impossible to do any work and watch her at the same time. Watching her is a full-time task. Carlotta is going to begin posting on our blog site periodically. She probably would have done it last night, but I wouldn't give her the know how on how to do it, because she had other things she needed to work on and I didn't want to get in the way of that. So watch for that, and if anything I've posted today is where you are in life (and I was in several different places myself) then blessings to you in that.

One last thing. We start our small groups on Thursday. I kinda feel like Thursday is that day when you go to the doctor to do your first ultrasound. You know there's lots of growing still to do, but you want to see what's developing so far. As such, you can imagine I'm internalizing a bit of pressure, and I haven't got the discussion guide done for any of the next six weeks just yet. So, any prayers you'd lift up for us are greatly appreciated. Pray that what God is birthing in us begins to really take shape and resonate in an ever-growing group of people who will begin to journey with us.

Chris

New format

2009-02-25T22:55:00.003-05:00

To any and all regular readers. (yeah, both of you, haha)

I'm hoping to change up the format of this blog just a little bit. Whereas in the past I tried to write once per week, my hope is to begin writing 3-4 times per week, perhaps a little bit shorter, and detailing more about what's happening with Catalyst Church, and even a little more about our family life as well, and less general rambling about what may be good stuff, but too sermonesque. So, my encouragement is to check back regularly and the knowledge that you're doing so will force me to keep at giving you regular things to check back for.

Grace and peace.

Mountain Lake Conference Wrap-up

2009-02-25T22:29:00.003-05:00

My friend Curt told me that the churchplanters.com conference was well worth stopping what I need to be doing to be part of. He was exactly right.

Last night we sat at the Atlanta Airport (where I learned that if its within the realm of possibility, I will never fly with that money grubbing delta airlines again) and debriefed the personal and professional gains from our 36 hours in town. It's hard to encapsulate a conference into a blog, but I would just say that the greatest blessing was the affirmation that some of the values God has been impressing within me over these last 6 months were the exact same values that these cutting edge leaders spoke about. These included things like the importance of discipleship not as a value, but as the overall purpose for church planting in general, and that there needs to be systematic planning in place for spiritual formation in church plants, an area which has been sorely lacking in many large newer ministries. Shawn Lovejoy spoke to the question, "how much money does it take to plant a church?" His response..."whatever you have!" He talked about while "faith is often sexier than wisdom/prudence," it's prudence and wisdom that are championed in the scriptures as the means necessary for long term life success. As you might imagine, fundraising in the current economy has been a little slower than I'd hoped. The feeling might be that if you don't reach a certain point financially, there's no way your new church will be a success. Nothing could be further from the truth. Interestingly, lots of very large churches have launched with half or less of what we are working with now. Now this doesn't mean I'm not still going to be asking people to partner with us. It's just a reminder that God will provide all we need to start this church when we need it, where and how we need it, and I can guarantee you, He'll get the credit for it, because I have no great plans in place to somehow get people to give money in my own strength.

One other little lesson I learned from this conference? Never go to a conference alone. Always, always take at least one team member with you. Even if it costs more than you expect or maybe can afford in the short term, get some of your people in the seats beside you. I brought along Brad (hopefully our future worship/arts director) and Nate (a partner student from the Anderson University School of Theology and who knows, maybe a long term team member going forward for Catalyst). Just having the opportunity to hear what they will take away from this experience, relationally, personally and professionally was worth every dime we invested to bring them along. I know Catalyst Church will benefit from their being in ATL with me this week, and even further, I think that their lives in general were stretched and blessed and encouraged as they move forward in whatever ministry God has for them.

At some point I want to look back through my notes and review some of what we took in from this week. As I do, I'm sure this blog is going to see a smattering of thoughts and ideas from these great teachers. Because I believe the prophetic words they shared will actually be used by God to redirect some of the course of our life and ministry. And because this blog is the window into our ministry world right now, I hope you can see and hear what's shaking inside of us, and if there's something there that impacts you as well, all the better.

Affirmation

2009-02-23T21:38:00.002-05:00

Today I got a very early start flying out to Atlanta for a Church Planting Conference at Mountain Lake Church. My friend Curt had really recommended this gathering as a place we needed to see/hear/experience. He was right.

The biggest affirmation today was just that we are on the right track as it relates to the conversation of Catalyst Church's need to engage people in systematic, measurable spiritual formation. This goes back to my hearing the Dallas Willard podcast on the Australia trip, and connects it even further. Ed Stetzer was sharing today and among the many things he said that were worthwhile, perhaps the most significant was, "we need to make sure we are committed to making disciples, not simply creating momentum. The goal is disciple-making, not church planting. Church planting is the means, but disciple-making is the goal."

After reviewing my notes and kinda getting my thoughts together, I'll post a little more information about the event and the travel and how I see this gathering helping us as we go forward from here.

The longest day ever

2009-02-19T15:41:00.002-05:00

Okay, time changes dictated that Feb. 18th would be a 39 hour day! It started at 6 am Brisbane time (3pm Tuesday eastern time) and after 33 hours of flying, laying over, going through customs, flying some more, getting caught in delay in Chicago, finally leaving Chicago after midnight, landing at 1am, seeing Drew Brees (QB from New Orleans Saints) in the baggage claim area and realizing he was on our flight from Chicago, finding out my bag was lost, finally leaving the airport at 2am, driving back to pick up my car at Church at the Crossing, and making my way through blowing snow to Pendleton, I finally arrived home at 3am. It took about 1/2 hour to wind down a bit and get to sleep. And then...it was time to get back to work again this morning at 9:30am.

I'm sure it will take a few days to get fully recovered. And if you don't like flying, a trip like this is probably not all that exciting to think about. But even though it was only a week, and even though the travel was extremely long, this was still the trip of a lifetime, and I will look forward to the next opportunity to be with my new friends in Australia and to take Carlotta and Camden along.

This weekend is Camden's birthday party in Elizabethtown, and then on Monday I'm flying to Atlanta with the Crosspoint team and a couple of guys on our launch team for a church planting conference. I'll post a blog from there on Monday about highlights and where Catalyst is headed.

Feb. 17th

2009-02-17T20:12:00.001-05:00

Got up and enjoyed seeing the girls off to school. Went for another swim/surf at Burleigh beach, just down the coast from Surfers. The waves were huge but not so choppy. I really enjoyed it, but the salt was killing my eyes, so I didn’t spend as much time in the surf today. We had our second go around of fish and chips (it’s the UK/Aussie standard like our hamburgers) and then after getting about 30 minutes of Skype time with Carlotta, we worked on filling a pool for the Ravells, changed the tire on the rental car, and then made our way back to Surfer’s for some souvenir shopping.

After our shopping, which was pretty unsuccessful except for a few items, we had dinner with the Blacks and Ravells at the Phil and Marleta’s house. We had a great visit, caught up on the story of the Church of God in Australia, and it was great that Phil and Marleta and Jeanine just poured into me some great insight and things to keep in mind from their experiences. One thing I know for sure…Catalyst needs a Phil and Marleta! Got in and packed up a bit, didn’t sleep hardly at all and then it was time to get on the way toward home.

Feb. 16th

2009-02-17T20:07:00.001-05:00

Tried to stay out of the way while the family got ready for the day. Today Tim, Andrew and I made the 1.5 hour journey up to the mountains, a place called the Hinterlands. The day started with me driving. I should talk for a minute about this. I’ve driven here several times, including today up in the mountains. I thought driving on the left hand side of the road and the right hand side of the car would be totally difficult. It’s actually been rather fun. Three or four things you have to know. 1. The turn signal and windshield wipers are switched, so you have to get used to that and you turn your wipers on a lot. 2. Pay attention to who has the right of way in the roundabouts. Answer, probably not you! Remember, everything goes to the left, so the slow lane on the motorway is on the left, the exit ramps are on the left, just everything is backwards you know. 3. Using the rearview mirror is so hard because it too is facing the other direction. And 4. Backing up is also complex, again thinking backwards. But yesterday I pulled off the unthinkable, a perfect parallel park (left side of the road)! I am officially ready for Australian driving, although I still am a little confused sometimes with driving around town in Pacific Pines.

Okay so we drive up these mountains. And it was a very nerve-racking experience, because there are one lane sections, hairpin curves, and oh by the way, your looking down a 500 ft cliff! So you take it slowly, give way to the buses and after driving for 40 minutes, you make it back into town. But O’Reilly’s, where we went yesterday, is on top of this mountain. And so we took about a 3 hour hike around the mountain to a nice waterfall. At the waterfall I almost died. I slipped and began falling, but caught myself on a ledge about 2 ft down. Andrew however, did not see said ledge, and thought my head was going to be dashed on the rocks below. I think he was much more scared even than I was.

There were incredible views and just it was an incredible place all around. We made our way home and got pizza for the family meal, which we enjoyed. Got my first smell of vegemite (which was completely disgusting) as well as some Australian snacks. Also we went up to the water tower for a view of the stars and the Surfer’s Paradise skyline. It was awesome. If I lived here I know I’d be up there 2-3 times per week. Just about the time we got back from the skyline view, I hit the wall and basically fell asleep immediately.

Feb. 15th

2009-02-17T20:06:00.000-05:00

The day started with a painful reminder of how out of shape I’ve quickly become. I woke up about 5:45 am and attempted to go back to sleep for about 1hr. 15. Tim had asked me a couple of days ago if I’d be interested in walking/running with him. I said yes, not because I really wanted to, but because a) no one likes to walk/run alone and b) I felt I should exercise, even though I don’t want to exercise. So at 7am we went for a jog/walk. It was the first day the sun was actually out, and even though it wasn’t hot yet, it was plenty warm. Now David lives in a neighborhood built into the hills. As a matter of fact, just up from his home is a severely steep incline. It was this incline that we attempted to ascend while jogging. I made it to the top, and jogged most of the way. Never has my heart pounded that far out of my chest or my breath so escaped me! We walked/jogged for about 35 minutes, and then after a few minutes rest, took a little hop on the trampoline.

Got a chance to talk with Carlotta via videoSkype and saw she and Camden. That makes it an especially great day, especially since we got to use the thing I bought for her before leaving and the technology worked well.

We went to the beach at Surfer’s Paradise. Spectacular. Paradise is not a word which should be thrown around willy-nilly. Whoever named this place got it right! The beaches are spectacular, the surf is intense, and the people are very friendly and laid back. Phil went with us to the beach. You know you’re in a great place when you can go to the beach in the morning and be part of church at 4pm. If only this were available in Pendleton!

We returned home for lunch and a quick shower then it was off to setup for the worship service. Journey’s first baptism was held today, so we had to setup and fill a small family-size swimming pool. We started the load-in at about 2:15p and the service began about 4pm. It was very relaxed, very enjoyable. You can see the passion in David even as he prepares for the weekend experiences. He told Tim as he carried boxes from his garage (because the trailer has not arrived yet) “this is what I live for.”

After the service and the load-out we all returned to David and Jeanine’s for fish and chips and just a time to visit. I really think that living in closer proximity to our new friends here would be great. Maybe David will need a Yank for a church planter at one of the next sites here in Australia! Still tired early in the evenings, so went to bed around 10.

Feb. 14th

2009-02-17T20:05:00.000-05:00

Slept 10 hours. It was good rest. Still a little tired when I got up this morning. We went into Surfer’s Paradise and got a chance to see what are regarded as the best beaches in the world. Even in the rain we saw these incredible para-surfers, riding boards, flipping and flying through the air while managing to hang on to a giant parachute. It was truly amazing. We also saw where the Indy Car race took place annually on the streets of Surfer’s for several years. Its just an awesome city. I can’t wait for a time to bring Carlotta and Camden back here.

One of the great things about spending time with Australians is the incredible euphemisms you learn as part of the conversation. They just have a way of saying certain things, making references to certain things, with terms that are so unique, so funny, yet so normal here. Of course we heard references to blokes, the standard Australian term for a man. We also heard about “chunder” (vomiting) and about people who “crack a nana” or “spit the dummy.” Both mean a person who is kinda throwing a tantrum. You also quickly begin to recognize that some words that are natural parts of American English reference not so honorable things in Australian English. Case in point, the use of fanny vs. bum.

I also got to go with David to see the meeting location where Journey gathers. It’s a great location, prepared for expansion and right in the center of town. Everyone who lives here knows where the community center is, and that’s where they meet.

Had a great dinner with Phil and Marleta, Josh and Laura and the Ravell Family. (Add more tomorrow) It was a joy to share great Indian food and laugh around the table. Over the course of the day we talked about a variety of different subjects, including Australian/American politics. It’s quite interesting to hear what the perceptions of
non-Americans are about American life. It’s also interesting how centrally focused we are as compared to the broad perspective of other nations non-Americans have. These trips are also just a great reminder that distance and different languages, cultures and ethnicities do not change the fact that we are all the same. It makes me wonder so often why we as humans long to fight with one another so much. It’s probably because we neglect to realize that we are all the same with the same needs, desires, hopes and longings and it truly is God through Christ that somehow unites us all together.

Feb. 13th

2009-02-13T22:40:00.001-05:00

I’ve never been this tired, this sleep deprived, in my life. We arrived at David and Jeanine’s home at around 2:30 pm and it took everything I could do to keep myself awake until 8pm, simply attempting to align myself sleep-wise with Australia time.

Brisbane is a cool city. We drove into downtown to walk around a bit, and find some lunch, and we also were looking for some free wireless internet access (which apparently doesn’t happen here). We also got the experience of the whole opposite side of the road/opposite side of the car driving. And let me say, I was glad Tim drove first, in part because I was so tired, I’m not sure my brain could even process the differences. Not good when all the exit lanes are on the left, and your turn signal and windshield wiper controls are all reversed. Thankfully, your accelerator and gas pedal are the same as in the U.S.

David and Jeanine are just the friendly and welcoming people I expected they’d be. They have three lovely young daughters, Bethany (14), Hanna (12?) and Sarah (9). It’s going to be a joy getting to know them all and quite fun getting to hang out and be part of their lives on their home turf these next few days.

David talked a bit about the culture of Australia and the nature of church planting here. He said that for many, church has been out of their life equations for maybe three generations, since the 1950s. This has led to lots of questions about God, but fewer venues to explore the answers to those questions. This in connection with a significant suburban development boom has afforded Journey a great opportunity not only to launch a new church, but even further, to consider a multi-site model which could really be significant down the road.

I’m sure I’ll know more about this in the days ahead, but right now I think my brain has processed all it can. I laid down for two minutes and could barely stay awake.

Feb. 12th

2009-02-13T22:39:00.000-05:00

This will literally be the shortest day of my life. I think we got like 7 hours from when we took off in California to when we crossed the date line. Now granted we make up for it on the way back, with like a 41 hour day on Feb. 18^th! On the flight I listened to some discussion between Bill Hybels and Dallas Willard. Unknowingly, this was a podcast about discipleship/spiritual formation. And as I was playing a game when it came on I almost forwarded past it. But I stuck with it, and for Catalyst it may be one of the most valuable teachings I’ve heard ever. Strategically it very much will help with our movement mission, as he talked a lot about just several things that I must keep in mind as we move forward as a church in terms of our strategy, our teaching and the expectations we have of people as we move forward. We also met a great young man named Matt, a Mormon from San Francisco who sat between Tim and me on the flight to Sydney. We didn’t delve deeply into the differences in our faith expressions/understandings. But we did talk about several serious life things, like his real estate job change and family life. His parents are serving a mission in Brisbane during their retirement years. Maybe being a disciple is as much about the conversations we don’t have now as it is the ones we do. Maybe we should have been more forward, more divisive, about the disconnections between our beliefs. I felt like however that maybe we made a friend, and that maybe that’s how you have opportunities to show that we followers of Jesus are not all judgmental and visceral and coarse in our correction. Maybe I’m still over-thinking some of this.

Feb. 11th

2009-02-13T22:38:00.000-05:00

Here we go with another long trip leaving Carlotta. These trips are always a mixed blessing because even though I can’t believe the opportunities I’ve had to go exotic places all over the world, I always feel bad that she cannot come along. I wish financially that we were in a position to bring her with me to these places. Unfortunately, life circumstances at least in the context of the last two trips weren’t going to make it possible anyway, with her being pregnant while I was in Africa and now with Camden at home during this trip to Australia.

I’m really not sure what to expect from this trip, partially because the leadup has been so busy and intense, and partly because I’ve never taken a trip with fewer “spiritual” responsibilities. It’s really just a fun experience to interact with David, see a new perspective, meet some new people and see the other side of the world. I’m certain that God will have other things in mind for this experience, so we will just have to wait and see what those are.

I'm Tired

2009-02-08T21:16:00.002-05:00

I came home from New Orleans 15 days ago. It was a great trip. Taught 4x this weekend at CATC. (Here's a link to the message if you're interested http://www.churchatthecrossing.org/Portals/0/sermons/02_08_09.mp3) Wednesday I leave for a week for Brisbane, Australia. I can honestly say that there won't have been a day off, completely work free, since about January 14th. I'll get back from Australia early Thursday am on 2/19, take a trip to Kentucky on Friday morning, get home late Saturday, have an important meeting on Sunday at Church at the Crossing, and then come home and maybe get a little rest before a 7am flight to Atlanta the next morning. I think we've hit the busy season of Church planting, and by busy season I mean...the next twelve months! No complaints, just a reality that that list of a million things I've jokingly referenced a few times still has a handful of items to complete.

My hope is that Sabbath counts on planes, too. That though the temptation to plug in headphones and just work til I drop or the planes wheels touch down on the other side of the world is a real possibility, that these few days away really need to be a few days away from "the list."

On another note, we have a new ministry partner here at Catalyst Church. His name is Nate Wiebe, he's a student at Anderson University's School of Theology. He spent the past 5 years in Guam, and he's going to be working with me in learning the church planting ropes this semester (and hopefully beyond).

We're also gearing up to start our small group ministry, Thursday March 5th at our house. If you're in the area any Thursday evening, you're always welcome to stop in. Actually, that goes for pretty much anytime, but some days, Thursday's the only day I can guarantee I'll be here.

One last note, I am going to be setting up an additional office at Indiana Ministries. They've got an open office space and are allowing me to use that. My cellphone is my primary contact, but if you can't find me anywhere else, leave me a message there!

That's about all the cognitive function I have left for this past two weeks...tomorrow we reload and start up again.

I said I was done but I will give you an update about meeting location. I have got the process started with the school, and now am looking forward to getting this rolling with even more momentum in the next ...well tomorrow! And, we overhauled the website a little bit. Take a look and let me know what you think. http://www.exit14church.org

Chris

The Next Two Weeks

2009-01-26T08:48:00.002-05:00

In the context of Catalyst Church's young life, I have often felt the pressure of busyness, pace and prioritization. Those pressures are going to be multiplied over the next 17 days. On Feb. 11th, I have an international trip to Australia for a week. In the interim, there are huge preparation pieces that need to take place (my first teaching weekend at CATC is Feb. 7/8, we have life-group timelines to line out, we're trying to put together a SuperBowl get-together, I have a potential intern to meet, as well as trying to pull together my potential staff team) and also I'm still having difficulty even getting a first contact returned from the principal of the school we may use as a meeting site.

This past week I spent in New Orleans with my friends from LaGrange. It was a great reminder of the power of team, even when some of the tasks we were asked to perform were tasks I had no experience in prior to the trip. It was a great reminder that while Catalyst is going to be a tireless promoter of missional living, we are also going to be utilizing missions experiences early on, because they build community, they build team, and they often make a very tangible difference in the world for a family or a community. It was one of the great weeks of my life to spend working with my friends from LaGrange once again. It was almost like for that week we'd never left. (A few tears here) But it was also a reminder that I know God called us to start Catalyst at Exit 14, and has much good ahead for us, and that it wasn't just our decision. Our decision would probably have been to remain with those we love, you know. But just as Jesus was unable to stay with his friends outside of town, he was compelled toward Jerusalem (and even his own death) because that was the location where he would fulfill his calling.

Please, please pray for Catalyst this week and next regarding our meeting location. I don't want to get hung up on a spot that the Lord may be closing the door on. Let me give you a couple of pluses and minuses on the location, just to help you pray more informatively.

The great plus is location. Maple Ridge School sits two miles from our neighborhood. Every elementary school student in our neighborhood who attends public school goes there. The same is true for another 300+ home neighborhood in Ingalls (a neighboring community). Parents know where it is. It used to be the local voting precinct. It is the home for all Pendleton Youth Soccer, which means every Saturday and Sunday in the fall and spring, a huge number of people in our target audience are at the site where we'd be meeting. It has the same cafetorium layout as the school where Crosspoint meets. It's a beautiful relatively new building. And its not in the "town of Pendleton," which is a whole sociological and locational discussion for another time.

The great minus is...location. While lots of people know where it is, it's not on a main road. It sits at the corner of two county roads, neither of which seem to get much attention/plowing during the winter. Unfortunately, it's the only decent meeting location i've seen that's outside the town of Pendleton that we can afford. (If anyone has $45000 we could have, there is a great location available in an office park at exit 19.)

While I know we're a little more than 8 months away from public meetings, as we begin sharing our vision, people do want to begin considering where you're going to meet as they think about being part of your mission. I'm not saying we have to know where our location is going to be. I guess I'm praying that if God is directing us away from Maple Ridge, that He'll make that closed door clear to us and then begin to open doors toward other venues. Would you join me in this prayer?

Thanks for your interest in Catalyst Church and in us. Thanks for your prayers. Thanks for being part of this incredible mission God's calling us to through your concern and thoughts and encouragement as we travel forward.

Grace and peace,

Chris

Catalyst Church

2009-01-16T13:41:00.002-05:00

Okay, so much for the teaser...I left you out in the cold (literally, it's really cold out there) since Monday with the thought that we'd post a for sure name on Tuesday. So it's just like God to reveal the best possible name...on Tuesday morning on the way to my weekly staff meeting. This meant that although we had THE best potential name choice to date, actually, it meant that at the time only I had it, and wanted to talk the name over with my team.

Here's what we want to be about. Connection. Movement. Transformation. Mobilization. We want as a church, to be the catalyst for these things in the lives of hundreds, maybe thousands of people in this community/region. God will do the work; we will be His fuel. This naming process has been one of the most interesting experiences of our journey so far. It's truly like the story of Jacob wrestling the angel in the OT. Except I feel like I need to and want to keep going round after round, saying to God, I need you to bless me with..._________. And whether it's a launch team, or a sense of clear mission/vision, or a name, or strategies to fulfill this great mission with which we've been engaged by the Holy Spirit (this strategy part is the current wrestling match) God always is coming through, giving us passion and clarity and exactly what we need when we need it.

One last thing on this short post (along with a reminder that I'll be in New Orleans next week and may not make my regular Monday post until later in the week). Please pray that God will facilitate the process of finding our meeting location. And pray that we will continually come into contact with people who need to be part and to help us facilitate this kind of dynamic Catalytic ministry in our community. I know there was one more thing I wanted to post, but I cannot for the life of me recall what it was. Sooooo......I'll let it go til next time.

Chris

Clarity

2009-01-12T09:53:00.004-05:00

I had someone talk with me the other day as we're slogging through the final steps of naming this church. I heard myself say something that I've always known about myself but it was helpful to hear it aloud. It's becoming more and more important in my life. My statement was, "words and language are very important/significant to me." It's true. I'm a person who is learning to weigh my words carefully, who tries to understand exactly what you're really saying when you speak to me (without over-reading your intended expressions). I'm also learning a significant paradox in life. I'm a verbal processor, but many times, most people check out from conversation with you when you talk too long.

What does all of this mean? A few things. First, clarity with your spouse is probably one of the best things you can do in your relationship. Here's why. If I live my life by the premise, "the clearer you can be in the least amount of words possible," it will force me to stop and think before I respond in potentially tense situations. If I don't shoot from the hip or respond off the cuff without thinking first, I'm less likely to say something stupid, partially inaccurate, or completely inflammatory. One of Carlotta's completely accurate critiques of me is that for much of my life, I've been somewhat ambiguous at times in my conversation. Theoretically, I thought this was no big deal. What I've since learned is that clarity brings more conversational health and remedies disagreements faster than ambiguity. (Now that doesn't mean I use my words as a more effective weapon. That's not justified either)

Beyond clarity more positively impacting my life with my spouse, it's a good pattern I'm getting into with Camden. Even though she doesn't even know what "No!" means, it does me little good to even go beyond no right now because...as a 10 month old...rational conversation means nothing to her! Sometimes I need to remind myself of that as I try to explain to her for the 100th time why she should stay out of the entertainment center cabinet.

I'm fascinated too as I study the bible what certain words actually mean in their literal translation. This is why for all the people who think studying Greek or Hebrew is meaningless, I remind us that there are some words in their original language that translation to English doesn't do them justice. In other cases, translation misses the fuller dynamic of the power of the Scripture. Take for example, 1 Corinthians 6:19 (Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you?) I've been taught all my life that this verse refers to certain behaviors that we should not engage in because the Holy Spirit lives in my body and so I would never want to taint that temple with things like smoking or drinking or sexual immorality, etc. Now while all those things are totally TRUE, in reality, the word you/your in that scripture is not singular, it's plural. In other words, while the Holy Spirit does dwell inside of me, Paul literally is saying the Holy Spirit dwells among the believers in Corinth, and so choices made by the individual affect the Holy Spirit's work among the many. As author Wil Mancini notes, we modern Christians are so hardwired into the idea of "personal relationship with Jesus" that we fail to even see how corporate and interconnected our journey with Christ really is. We read with our language slants firmly in place rather than ingesting the scriptures for what they really say.

Now, how does this impact exit 14 church? That is why you're reading I assume and I hope you're still with me. (**I haven't completely learned to live out this "be clear in the least number of words possible" philosophy just yet I see) Our name must be clear in our intentions. We are about movement, forward movement. We are about connecting in ever deepening ways with God and our neighbor. We are about living out the way of Jesus in ever clearer ways. So our name and our philosophy of ministry and our processes/strategies must always reflect that movement. Every name we filter through has to pass this effective language test. It must express unity, passion, formation, anticipation and also speak that we are in search mode for the next step in our faith life, the next place God wants to take us, and the next people God wants to join us on the journey. Our language will be a significant constant in helping us stay on mission. And out of that forming language, these forming conversations, and lots of prayer and seeking direction from God, our new church name has emerged. Want to know what it is?

What a Way to Start a New Year

2009-01-05T09:54:00.002-05:00

My friend Josh Hossler, who is someone some of you may know, as he was formerly the pastor at the LaGrange Missionary Church, is the lead pastor of a new church in the suburbs of Detroit. About 6 months ago, they put up a huge billboard on a busy thoroughfare near their future meeting location with a website...namethatchurch.com. It was a unique way to get a pulse of the community on what their thoughts were about church, about the values that would shape this new faith community, and, truly, it was just downright unique and pretty cool, I think.

Well this week, we are...not putting up a billboard. But in the young history of our band of Christ-following world changers, this is a significant one. One for which I am asking your fervent prayers. We are seeking this week some solid clarification on a church name, I am having a conversation with a leader whom I hope will be one of our original staff-level team members, I have my every other week coaching session with my church planting coach, I find out if I may be taking a trip to Australia in February, and I make a speaking trip to a church about Church Planting Indiana. Also, I'm meeting today with one of the most well revered leaders in the Church of God to simply seek his wisdom on some recent demographic study he has been part of for our area, and hear some overall church planting thoughts and wisdom that I know he'll have to share.

Next week I meet with a student I've been mentoring for about three months, meet with one of the most effective church planters in this area (his 5 year old church now has about 1000+ members and weekly attendance of about 700+) and get myself ready for a trip to New Orleans for a week of missional participation. Plus, the time has come to begin really working out the details of finding a meeting location, which needs to begin next week as well.

It's a good thing that Christmas break actually felt somewhat like a break.

I was reminded again this morning why we're doing what we're doing here. More than just us planting a church in Pendleton, we are part of Jesus' work of raising the dead. Sometimes we wonder, maybe we even voice aloud, why doesn't God do the kind of tangible miracles like we read about Jesus performing in the NT. John 5 reminds us that everyday, Jesus is still raising the dead. John 5:24 reminds us that when people receive the message of Jesus and believe in the God who sent Him, they experience eternal life. People in those moments, as they receive from Jesus all He came to bring into their lives, literally pass from death into life. Condemnation is revoked. Complete life ensues from that moment forward.

For we who are in Christ, we are already experiencing eternal life. It's not something that arrives only when we "pass" from this world into the next. Eternal life has already begun. And we become instruments of eternal life transmission. When I think of the hope that life will carry on in ever fuller engagement with Christ, culminating in the fullness of his presence someday, but moving toward that even now, it makes me more willing than ever to keep transmitting the message of Jesus through my life and my words. And I want to be with people who are living that experience as well.

Please pray for us this week as we seek God's specific and dynamic guidance in all things we have going on. Oh and also, I still have a wife and child, too. So pray for me that my role as husband and father still are the primary drive of my life, and that as I love and lead my family, God will build His church through us, the church He desires to use to help restore this community and the world!

Change we can still believe in

2009-01-01T09:51:00.003-05:00

It's New Years Day. Psychologically, it's like we all get a do over, a new start, a chance to map out a different path from the one walked in the previous year. Except...we still have to bring with us the "stuff" last year dealt us, or we dealt ourselves. One way or another, every 365 days we get to experience a part of Isaiah 43:19, where the bible says, "See I am doing a new thing."

The catch word of this past year, whatever your political bent, has been change. President-elect Obama attached to this word change a phrase which resonated deeply in many people, a phrase which remains to be seen whether it can transition from stump speech to reality. Here's one person hoping that can be so.

Interestingly, for the follower of Christ, this idea of change we can believe in is something we should not only have hope for perhaps politically, but it is the hope by which we live our lives, make our decisions, and demonstrate our discipleship spiritually. For those who are in Christ, 2 Corinthians 5:17 says we have been changed. We are being changed into something altogether new. This change has the power to effect every part of our lives and should really be holistically redirecting our world, both individually and collectively. Forget for a moment about political change, because let's be honest. Man-made management models and governing structures really have less power to change the world than we want to believe. But what about what God is doing in your life as you begin 2009? Is the change He's working out in you something that you are not only believing in, but living out? Perhaps Obama might have improved even on his campaign theme by pushing for change we can live out. That's what Jesus, my leader and commander in chief in the Kingdom I swear highest allegience to, expects of me...change I can live out.

As we begin this new year, I am looking inward. What change is God working out in me to help others see more of Jesus in my life? What is God doing in my home and in my family that will be a demonstration of His grace and peace to the people we come in contact with?

And then I am looking outward. This new church must be filled with people who are experiencing God's restorative work in their lives, change they can believe in (as it grows their faith in Him) and live out. This is so much more than an intellectual ascent. As you pray for us, as partners come on board to financially join with us, would you ask God to make us a group of people that helps cultivate life change we can believe in and live out? 2009 will only be truly and fully worthwhile if the end result is that my life resembles the way of Jesus more at the end than at the beginning, and if others who journey with me can say the same.

This is actually going to happen...

2008-12-15T09:33:00.005-05:00

There's nothing like the Christmas story to remind you of the excitement of church planting. Actually everytime I look at Camden and realize how much she is growing, and everytime I notice another lady who is awaiting a date in the not too distant future for her own child to arrive, it reminds me of the intricacies and complexities of starting a new church. We're now in month number three of this 12 month gestation period. We've moved past the conception stage (God putting this unlikely dream into our hearts and challenging us to go for it.) I think now we're actually beginning to move past that first two months of panic as well. (What in the world have we gotten ourselves into? Who thought this was a good idea? Wouldn't it have been less painful to "adopt?" [Lead a pre-existing church])

But now we're at month three. And though this "baby" isn't actually kicking just yet, we know there's a lot of incredible stuff beginning to form inside of us, and others are starting to get excited, too. We recognize that our new church may not engage everyone within a five mile radius of us. (Actually, we're pretty sure that some people are put off by us forming another faith community) But for some people, this church is going to fuel the hope in their life and the connection with God and with others they've been longing for for a long time. It's amazing how in one week you begin to realize that this is really going to happen. God is really going to bring this delivery about. And even though you think often about how many other things have to get formed in the next nine months (pretty much all of the external stuff, the launch team, picking out a name, finding a place to meet, letting everyone know what you're doing and where to find you, figuring out who's the team who'll be pouring themselves out with you, etc.) you know that it's going to be okay. Has God gotten you through the tough part? I think through is stretching it maybe, but you realize He's in the tough part with you right now, giving you just what you need at just the right time. (Like people who are willing to say "we're with you," like the best church name that really encapsulates what you're trying to accomplish, or even like just an extra boost of energy to get some of the extras accomplished while staying focused on the main thing, this church plant.)

We're working through an important decision and I really need your help on this one. It's actually about church names. It's funny, picking out a church name is a lot like picking out a child's name. There are lots of choices, most of them don't sound like "your" kid at all, and you have to think that whatever you choose your "kid" is going to have to deal with for the rest of its life. No pressure there, right. (At least you hope your church name won't be made fun of by immature 3rd grade boys, but that remains to be seen I guess)

So I want to roll out three names for you. As a faithful reader, I value your input, and this is a decision that in all seriousness we need to get made pretty soon. A note first about exit14. Some people have been a bit disappointed when they heard we might not stick with that name. It's fresh and unique I think, but it's also not completely inclusive. For instance, our hope is to reach people who live in all directions from where we end up meeting. While we want them to connect with us, they may not live near exit14. Also, and if you've been to or by our house you already know this. There's pretty much no place to meet exactly at Exit 14. There will be in five years. But because we really can't wait that long...we probably need a different name now!

Okay, so here's the deal. I want to give you three potential church names. I am not saying that our final choice WILL be one of these three, but this is where we're leaning right now. I'm not going to tell you why I chose these, what they're supposed to mean, or my own personal ranking of the names. So I want your thoughts, what is your initial response to each (positive, negative) what thoughts our emotions or pictures in your mind do the names evoke. Does it sound like a church name? Be as open and honest as you can. You absolutely will not hurt my feelings because I'm not committed to one more than the others.

Centerpoint Church.

Evident Church.

New Heights Church.

You can post your thoughts by hitting the comment link at the end of this blog post. In this format, others can read your thoughts although they may not recognize your signin name. Or, if you want something more private, you can email your thoughts directly to me at chris@exit14church.org . THis will be a HUGE help for us, so if you can think about these names, give me your initial thoughts, and then maybe in a couple days, after they've lingered with you a bit, give me your updated thoughts.

Thanks everyone, for your prayers, your support, your encouragement as you read this blog. Hey thanks for reading this blog. One more post before Christmas. In it, I hope to share some of the name conversation (no names or direct quotes, so never fear) and let you know where we may be headed with this important decision.

One last thing. Camden is really growing and she is excited about Christmas. She's met Santa twice and gotten her nine month pictures taken. Here's a link to some pictures of her if you are interested.

Partners

2008-12-08T09:33:00.003-05:00

Last Thursday I met with Dr. Guy Brewer, the director of Theological Field Education for the Anderson University School of Theology. I anticipated getting to meet a nice guy who might help me partner with some SOT students interested in church planting. As usual, God had plans bigger than my anticipation. Not only did we talk about potential partnership, but I also found out that Dr. Brewer is himself a former church planter. As we talked, he helped me to flesh out my passions and vision in a way much more succinct than I'd been able to before. He talked about making sure our partnership was to be mutually beneficial to the students and to Exit14church. He prayed over me and for my family and our new work. It was one of the great hours of blessing in my life. And so, in late January we will be sitting down with some students who have shown interest in our plant and in planting themselves, and will see how we can gear up together for the work of God in our area. Exciting.

Last week was very forming for me in terms of vision. We had dinner with some new friends from our neighborhood, the Davis family. They've lived here for almost 6 years I think. One of the resonating needs in my mind has been contributing toward individual and family health. They helped me to look a step deeper.

When we lived in LaGrange, I would anticipate that there were maybe 3k-4k people who actually lived within the town limits. I had no delusions of grandeur that we would know everyone who lived in town, but I truly hoped that the number of people we would have some connection with would continue to grow, and that the church there could be a healing place and a home to as many of those people as possible. When we moved here, I knew that this was a large neighborhood. 843 homes approximately. Here's the connect I never made. This place probably houses close to the same number of people who live in the TOWN OF LAGRANGE. Now I know it's not exactly the same number, but here's the point. In a small town, lots of people know each other because they grew up together or their parents knew each other or worked together or something. They have a history together that kinda unites them. It's why lots of people stay generation after generation in the same area, and that's a great thing. What if you lived in a town where no one had a history together? Even the people who've lived here the longest have only been around 6 years maybe. Many of them have small children, so their kids haven't gone to school together, at least not for long. We don't have a grocery store or a Walmart or even lots of restaurants in our immediate vicinity (less than 2-3 miles) yet! So some people shop in Fishers, and some in Noblesville and some in Pendleton (town) and some...wherever. But we don't have those places where people get together regularly just yet. Even our homeowners quarterly meetings draw 25-40 people, in a neighborhood of 800+ homes. So before we can really help each other grow in health, we've got to actually get to know each other. And so one of the hallmarks of Exit14church I hope will be a place where you can get to know the cool people who live across the street from you. If we can be a catalyst for relationships within our town (I mean neighborhood) we will have made a huge mark for good on the community. And if we don't...then who or what will? I don't want to live in a neighborhood of 843 castles where the families inside don't know the owners of the neighboring "kingdom." And I have to believe these are normal people, our neighbors, with family issues and life circumstances similar to my own. If we open ourselves to knowing our neighbors, maybe the results will be a renaissance...or a revival.

2008-12-04T12:15:00.002-05:00

In my next post, look for an update about some potential ministry partners we are meeting and a potential partnership with the AUSOT. We're also processing church names, waiting to hear about financial partners, and processing about 20 other things right now. And I don't know if everyone knows this yet, but it also seems that there's this holiday coming up in a few weeks, kind of a big deal. So we'll post more about that stuff in the days ahead.

Subtle heroes

2008-12-03T18:21:00.002-05:00

Last Friday I got to spend time with my grandfather. Some of you have met him, perhaps many have not. You may not know about my grandfather that he was also a church planter. In fact, when I think about church planting in his day in comparison to in our day, it always makes me shudder at the differences in our circumstances, and yet there are some incredible similarities in our journey as well.

My grandfather left a stable, decent paying job at an atomic plant in Hamilton, Ohio in the early 1960's I think, to return to his hometown of Monticello, Kentucky. He also left a stable, healthy church where he held a leadership position and was being mentored as a young pastor. He packed up his wife, four kids and not much else and went to a place where most people were leaving to find jobs elsewhere. Oh, and by the way, he had NO financial support from the state of Kentucky, or anyone else for that matter. Here's what he had; a call from God, a supporting spouse, and a few connections in the area.

He would go on to pastor a church, which didn't exist before his arrival, for over 25 years, through a building project, ran a daycare ministry, and for most of that time also had a side/part time job that helped take care of the family's financial needs.

He always tells me how much he believes in me. He always tells me things like "well I didn't have the education or skills that you have now." When we talked about this the other day, I could still see in his eyes the "we were going to plant this church or die trying" passion it takes to launch a new church start. He now attends that church as a church member (wishing the pastor would use him more to help their ministry grow, but kinda being rebuffed on a regular basis) and he is still as passionate about reaching people with the love and grace of Jesus as he's ever been. While physically he's slowing down, the fight for the redemption of people's souls is still as serious and evident in him as its ever been. And while he told me a few things he wishes he'd done differently down through the years, I just wonder how many people will be in heaven someday (and whose lives have been radically changed by Christ through him in the hear and now) because of his all or nothing spirit. And he's still all in!

If the Holy Spirit will give me only a double blessing of the planting spirit of my grandfather, exit14church will be okay. I asked him if he ever had days when he wanted to quit, days where he was seriously discouraged. He basically said he knew that this calling was so written on his soul that he couldn't have quit if he'd wanted to. Now my grandfather's story will most likely never be on bookshelves at Barne's and Noble's. And his church is not some megachurch that has grown into the thousands. But there are always the innovators in this world who actually do things without systems in place and succeed, and then the systems are put in place to boost what they did purely on faith and ingenuity. I know we wouldn't be doing what we're doing now if it weren't for people like him who blazed the trail years ago. I also know that I'm glad he and my grandma are praying for us right now, because when you've been in the same trench, you know the bullets that fly at those who will follow you. I've felt a few of those bullets in the last few days. And Kermit Wilson, who is my coach; and my grandfather both affirmed me with the thought that Satan doesn't want this church planted. He doesn't want the Kingdom of God to grow and advance. And he will do whatever it takes to discourage, defeat and destroy us and the ministry God is working out in us. My papaw said, "Greater is He that is in you than he that is in the world." And it's His church. So we journey on, full of more new ideas, more new friends and potential partners, and more hope that there will be many people in heaven and whose lives are changed even now because of this ministry God is leading us to begin. In other words, we're just continuing down the trail that was blazed before us.

Generational blessings

2008-11-24T11:29:00.002-05:00

One of the most interesting verses in the bible I think is in Exodus 20. Part of the 1o commandments, it says, ""You shall not make for yourself an idol in the form of anything in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the waters below. 5 You shall not bow down to them or worship them; for I, the LORD your God, am a jealous God, punishing the children for the sin of the fathers to the third and fourth generation of those who hate me, 6 but showing love to a thousand {generations} of those who love me and keep my commandments.

One of the core goals of my life right now is to continue to grow in being a better husband and better parent. I know the greatest calling of my life will be in how I loved my wife and how I raise Camden. Part of the core vision of Exit14church is the calling to raise up healthy individuals and healthy families. We can change the world as God restores and brings out in us the desires He has for us as individuals, as friends, as husbands/wives, and as parents.

I was reading the story of Samson this morning. I think that story is a cool and exciting and bizarre one, but like most stories, it's one that I've missed important details about everytime I've read it. Perhaps you have as well. Let me share a couple.

One. The initial part of the story of Samson is a conversation God has through an angel with Samson's mother. She was the one who was given instructions about Samson's hair. She had to accept responsibility for his future obedience to God. I always thought that Samson was the one who was to avoid strong drink and eat only the proper foods. But in the story, it's actually his MOTHER who is told to avoid strong drink and eat the proper foods during her pregnancy (interestingly, she'd been unable to get pregnant before. Maybe this was a hint that mom's, even before their kids are born, are to take responsibility for their health? As if this is some idea that just came about in the last 20 years.) Now, I don't think this is a statement about whether spiritual people should or shouldn't drink. It's a statement that often the blessing of the children is directly attached to the obedience of the parents. In other words, if I want Camden to experience all of the blessing God has in mind for her, I better not short-circuit that by my own disobedience to God. I need to pray for her, for her future, for God's blessing and calling on her life. But I also need to be obedient and connected and faithful to God not just for my own sake, but for the sake of the generations that follow.

Two--I always thought that Samson kinda had this physical power on demand because of his hair. But what I noticed is that Samson only had incredible power in the moments when "the Spirit of the Lord moved powerfully upon Him." Samson was a normal guy with a calling on his life and a physical mark demonstrating that call. But the power with which he fought the Philistines and and the Lion and tore down Dagon's temple wasn't just his to whip up when he chose. Samson was a normal guy who became supernatural as a channel of God's power.

That's a good word for me as we begin this new church. I'm a normal guy who looking back can openly acknowledge that anything of significance in my life has happened as a result of God's supernatural power in me. And as you can imagine, we're in need of a whole heap of God's supernatural work in us in order to see this vision come to fruition. So will you pray for us that the same supernatural power of the Holy Spirit that invaded a normal guy named Samson on a periodic basis will invade our lives as well, just a couple of called, normal people who accepted the call and now are waiting for the Spirit of the Lord to move in power in us whenever and wherever and with whomever He sees fit?

Minimalist

2008-11-19T08:08:00.003-05:00

I've decided. If I can be anything better than I am right now, it will be as a minimalist. I've begun listening to how long it takes me to tell a story (and to all of you who have had to listen to my stories, I apologize, haha). I've looked around my life to see the necessities and to determine the extras. (And boy are there lots of extras)

I've also come to realize that when we communicate, we should say as little as possible while still communicating clearly and effectively. My friends at Crosspoint do this well. All their series basically are built around one word.

I've been wrestling a lot with who exit14church will be. (And where we'll be, if that will be the name, just lots of wrestling pretty much all the time.) Last night I was reading in the book, Church Unique. In the context of talking about your church's mission, he likened mission to really be better explained by the term Mandate. This is the "must do" of your church. It's not the hows, it's not the whys, or the whens or the wheres. That comes later.

I've thought about our working vision statement. It basically is that we want to become a community of healthy individuals and families who live out the way of Jesus and are a force for good in the community and the world. If that's what we want to become, how will we do that? As I was laying in bed about to fall asleep, three words came to my mind. I don't know all of what they mean just yet, but I had to get up and write them down because, as I posted before, I don't remember as clearly as I used to like since Feb. 22nd, 2008, Camden's birthday. (that's what sleep deprivation will do to you) Here are the words:

Demonstrate Jesus everyday.

As a church, if we demonstrate Jesus, it will make us healthy. As individuals, if we demonstrate Jesus everyday, it will make us better people, wiser people, healthier family members. If we demonstrate Jesus everyday, by default we will begin to live the kind of life he lived. If we demonstrate Jesus daily, we will be a force for good in the community and the world.

I know this point may be debatable, but go with me here. I think even people who don't believe Jesus is the messiah could benefit from doing in their lives what He did. So if a group of people held themselves to living out the example of the One God sent as His Savior for the world but also His example of how to live while IN the world...and we actually began to do that, could that change the face of a neighborhood? A community? Is it easily evaluatory? (Can I ask myself at the end of the day how I did in the demonstrating that day? Can I ask my church to ponder how we did in the demonstrating on a regular basis? Could they give an objective response? Could I?)

And most importantly, isn't that a big part of what we were put on this planet for? I'd love to hear your thoughts, agreements, disagreements, about this concise little mission statement. You can post comments here on the blog page, or if you'd like to send those directly to me (so that the rest of the world can't read your thoughts, which is totally okay, too) you can email me at chris@exit14church.org

Consistency

2008-11-19T07:49:00.002-05:00

My friend Steve is a great mentor to me, because he often reminds me of great and important things without even saying them to me directly. Some are more general issues, others more specific. He reminded me a few days ago about the old story of if you want to get the most rocks in the jar, you have to start with the big rocks first. The point is that the little projects for which we have responsibility are often easier, we think take less time, and so we put them into our world first. When we do that, we prevent some of the most important things from ever fitting into a packed schedule.

He also reminded me yesterday that if you don't blog regularly, your regulars will quit reading your posts because they don't see something new consistently. So....my goal is to ratchet back up the consistency on posting.

I'll also attempt to keep this rather short. In the last two weeks, we've lost a family member (Carlotta's grandfather, Don) and a close family friend (Juli Heller, from LaGrange FCOG) to death. We've also heard about friends near to our hearts (our friends the Steffens, also through the LaGrange church) who are grieving a tremendous loss now. In some ways, some of our church plant stuff has been put on hold as we've travelled for these last couple of weeks. Ironically, it's also been during these last two weeks when some of the best strategic words from the Lord have come our way. We've also begun conversations with some strategic people who really resonate with what we're doing (some of them have even done the same thing in the area in the somewhat recent past) who are just pouring encouragement and mentoring into me faster than I can take it in sometimes. I probably need to start carrying a recorder or something, because I know God is speaking prophetically through these people. We're learning. We're finding a groove. Our house is inching (there's still a lot of paint to be put on a lot of walls, but we're moving forward) toward a level of completion we can accept.

Camden is growing. I'm working toward improving some disciplines as it relates to time and basic spiritual practices like study and journaling. So, while I would not say we are finding a normal just yet (that day is a long way down the road), we're getting there.

I want to say two thank you's really quick. One, thank you to our life group. None of you may ever read this, but it seems like in some unique way each week, you "save" us. You pour the little encouragement, or laughter or hunger into our lives that just give us the strength to get to Tuesday. I can't tell you how you have made our lives better just by being with you.

Second, thanks to the LaGrange church. We were there this past Sunday/Monday for Juli's funeral. You let me come in and just kinda act like I still worked there. We laughed and talked and for a moment, all the natural feeling of our time together (almost 10 years) came rushing back. And when we left there wasn't this sadness that we were driving away again. Instead, there really was joy because we know that our relationship is not based on proximity. There's a deep love and affection we have for one another that no distance could ever diminish. Someday, there will be a church in this area that we lead. My hope is that that kind of love and fondness would permeate our new place here in a measure similar to that of our friends at LaGrange.

Will we pray as much???

2008-11-04T21:34:00.004-05:00

Just a short thought tonight as we watch the election results come in. As I've played my presidential thoughts a little more close to the vest lately, because I have friends who are almost visceral in their passions on both sides of the ticket, one question has come to the forefront in my mind. I have read many derogatory emails disparaging both sides that are shrouded under the pretext of devout spirituality (and I am not questioning the spirituality of my friends who forwarded/sent those) And so to my question...will the people who prayed so fervently for their candidate to win tonight still be praying for the opponent tomorrow if their candidate doesn't tonight? You know maybe, just maybe, God would be deeply pleased if we would pray for Kings, leaders and those in authority like He commands in Romans 13 (authority which He granted in the first place) as fervently after the election as before. If anger wins the day tomorrow rather than prayer and trusting God even over and above our political leaders, then the enemy wins (and the enemy is neither red nor blue.) And so today we vote our conscience, and then tomorrow, whether our vote was one that led someone to victory or simply was one for a leader who still will have opportunity to contribute to our country's leadership (remember, both of these presidential and vice presidential candidates still have day jobs in the US Senate or the Governors office), keep in mind that God is still in His heaven, and no amount of electoral votes can change that. And who knows, maybe we'll all be reminded that even more than casting a vote, we should spend more time in the next four years casting our cares on the One who can really do something about our cares, One who always keeps His promises, One who knows what we need before we even ask.

October is gone, November is here

2008-11-03T11:32:00.002-05:00

There's this subtle ticking in my head. Somedays it's very loud. Somedays you barely hear it. But it never completely goes away. My guess is most of you reading this can't hear it at all. It's the sound of October 4th, 2009, ticking slowly away. Now for you, that date may not mean a whole lot. But for me, it means two things. One, it's my sisters birthday. But two, it's our targeted official launch weekend. And so with every Sunday that passes, that clock starts ticking a little louder. Who will show up that Sunday? Where will they show up at? Who will be on stage with me and who will be welcoming the hundreds of people who will show up and who will take care of their kids and will they come back for week two and will there be any money to buy all the equipment needed to take care of them and the worship and the children's ministry? I haven't even mentioned that...at some point we'll need to figure out what we're going to teach and sing and how we're going to get them involved in a church that doesn't exist! Now...it's a good thing that I don't hear that ticking so loudly all the time, otherwise this might be the first church ever planted in an mental institution. (I wonder what kind of projector you use for a rubber room?)

All in all, things are going well for us. We are getting established in the community here, and we've already met some really great friends from Crosspoint and CATC. We miss our LaGrange friends a lot, but that clock in my head keeps me from having time to get down about not seeing the people we care about so much.

I still get a lot of people who ask me, "so how's this going to work?" Do you have a church building to meet in?" The answer of course is, "No." But we don't have a group of people to need to have a place to meet in anyway, so for right now, no space is the best thing in the world.

Well the clock is ticking loudly now, so I better hit the ground running on a few tasks for the day. Only 335 days til launch, and that's if you don't count the preview weekends!!!!! Now I'm really freaking out!

A new focus

2008-10-31T15:11:00.003-04:00

One of the things we thought would be immediately different in our new venture from our experience in LaGrange was a decreased number of friends in our home. I mean that was our life, especially on Sundays for the last 4 years in LaGrange. What we've since learned is that hospitality is going to be the cornerstones of our life here, too. We've had more family/friend visitors than I'd expected in the first month of living here. This is a good thing. We love it. I guess I thought we'd have more of our house completely in place before many of our guests arrived. I thought wrong! And we are always open to visitors from points north or south (just if you want to stay the night you may want to call about vacancy first)

The past few weeks have given me more opportunity to think about what this new church will look like, what its passions and dreams and foundations will be. It's looking more like we won't be named Restoration Church, but that's okay (and btw it's still our business name, so if you're sending donations, please put that on the donation because otherwise the bank will not take it, haha) I think restoration will always be our purpose, our desired end. Right now we're going a little more bland. We are Exit14church. I love it. When you see that exit sign on the interstate, you may know a few options that are on that new stretch of road, but there's pretty much limitless possibilities on that exit. Anything could be out there as you drive towards the horizon. I feel that way about our church plant right now.

For now, here's what I know. Here's who God is revealing us to be, and as God forms us into something else, something more, that horizon will be reached down the road.

God is calling us to be a Community of healthy individuals and families (spiritually, physically, emotionally, financially, relationally)
Who live out the way of Jesus (as His disciples, committed to His saving grace as well as his living/dying example)
As a movement for good in the world. (We are an active part as followers of Jesus in restoring the world to the way God intended it from the beginning. We aren't perfect, but we are being perfected and should extend that work into the world)

Please note we are not watering down the gospel, forsaking evangelism or mainlining toward some liberal theology. Rather, the essence of the scriptures I think boil down to these ideologies. Interrelationships. Holistic health. Practiced discipleship. Serving and giving of ourselves. So these are the "who"s, who we are being called to be. Some of the "why"s are self-evident, they just need to be put into clear language that is easily readable/speakable. It's the "how"s that we aim to ingest and experience and then disseminate into the community that will gather with us. I hope that you are praying even now for the men, women and children this will include. I hope that in some ways, our church will be the simplest in the community, that we will strip away and resist everything that doesn't contribute to this mission of living out the example of Jesus in our lives and in our church. I sense that God is beginning to laser in our focus and our purpose, and we are pleading with Him to make His desires a reality in and through us.

Another reminder...another task

2008-10-20T09:14:00.004-04:00

Yesterday it was as if the Lord blessed us with yet another reminder of the excitement, the necessity and the reward that comes in interrupting your life when you sense He's redirecting Your path. At Crosspoint it was Baptism Sunday yesterday. And just like usual, in the midst of a group of mostly strangers where I didn't know anyone who was getting baptized, there I was in tears. Some people cry at weddings (okay I sometimes do this, too); I cry at baptisms. How can your soul not be stirred when someone stands before their family and friends and says, "Jesus has saved me and changed my life. So I'm gonna follow Him and live out His ways for the rest of my journey on this earth, and I'm gonna invite people who don't know Jesus to join me on this journey!" I guess the expression of that (applause, tears, hugs for the person being baptized) may be expressed differently by different people. But it will never, ever get old, seeing that public demonstration of what Christ is doing in a person's life. And honestly, if we could baptize 1 or 10 or 100 people in that first year, that first 3 years of ministry, it will be one of the high points of my life.

Now that we are kinda getting settled in in Pendleton (I know "settled" is so relative) it's really time for me to start doing a lot of the logistical tasks related to a church plant. So this week the task of putting fund raising requests in the mail needs to be completed. I think the blessing of being in these two churches for the last few weeks, (as well as being in LaGrange for almost 10 years) is that I am now less hesitant than ever asking people to partner with us in this endeavor. When I remember, many if not all of those people yesterday wouldn't have been making that public statement of faith if other people hadn't given faithfully and sacrificially, I ask myself, "what's more worth giving to?" As I write my own personal giving check to this new church, I do it with joy, because I know that God is going to multiply that money and use us to change the world through this new church. And that is what this is all about isn't it? God changing all of our worlds and redeeming His world through followers of His Son Jesus.

So...even if you don't get a letter asking you personally to be part of what we're doing here, if you'd like to give a gift that will truly change a life, please feel free to do so. You will bless us but even more than that, I know there will be people who come to live in God's Kingdom both here and now and when this life is over because you sacrificed for His purposes.

A few things to keep in mind.

1. Please note that any gift you give should not be deducted from what you are giving to your own local church (if you are doing so). This is an above and beyond kinda thing.

2. Please note that all gifts are tax deductible. You will receive a statement of giving for tax purposes.

3. Please note that the money you give to this ministry doesn't go toward paying our salaries. Those funds have already been provided through our partner churches and Indiana Ministries. The dollars you give will go directly toward all the other costs associated with starting a new ministry from scratch. (Approximately $30k per year for the first three years)

4. Any gifts can be sent to:

Restoration Church (that's our name for now)

c/o Indiana Ministries of the Church of God

13300 Olio Rd. Suite 303

Fishers, IN 46037

At some point, these postings will get shorter, but if you know me, I've been known to talk a little bit and so I guess writing a little bit extra is par for the course.

We ask for your prayers as we step out to contact potential financial partners. It shouldn't, but talking about money often complicates relationships. Sometimes that's a good thing. I'm praying that this is one of those sometimes.

Grace and Peace

Greater Things...

2008-10-14T21:49:00.003-04:00

It's amazing how music written by someone you've never met can stir your soul in a way that says, "Yeah, that's what I feel, that's what I believe, that's what we want to be and do." "That's why God put us on this earth."

I want to post a bit about two songs that have been stirring in my soul for the last days. Actually, when I feel a little down, a little discouraged, a little uncertain if this jump we've made is really what God has called us to, I think about these two songs, and they just align my mind with razor focus about what our lives are really about right now.

This past Sunday, I heard a song called "Why not trust God?" (I think this was the title at least, sorry David from CATC if I got it a little off) It was just a reminder that God is still in control of His universe, and when my life feels a little topsy-turvy, a little out of control, it's never out of His control.

And the previous Sunday, we sang a song at Crosspoint that, and I must be honest here, is one of those songs for me right now that I can just listen to over and over and over and it never gets old. It's called "God of this City" by Chris Tomlin. Here's a link if you want to take a listen...http://www.christomlin.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=7&Itemid=46

Here are the lyrics:

You're the god of this city, You're the king of these people
You're the lord of this nation,You are

You're the light in the darkness,

You're the hope to the hopeless

You're the peace to the restless, You are
There is no one like our God
There is no one like our God

Chorus:

For greater things have yet to come
greater things are still to be done in this city
Greater things have yet to come
greater things are still to be done in this city

For greater things have yet to come
greater things are still to be done in this city
Greater things have yet to come
greater things are still to be done here

And so because these words are so true, "not because of any acts of righteousness that we have done, but because of his great mercy, by which He has saved and redeemed us (Titus 3:5)" I'll get up early in the morning, work late into the night, listen intently for His voice, and do whatever, whenever, and wherever He prompts in order to see His Kingdom advanced. I'll meet strangers, ask people I love for money, ponder a million names for this church, and everyone of the million things on the list of how to start a church, because He has greater things, things I can't ponder or imagine, in mind for this city and these people He loves. Every great movie, tv show, even sports teams, have a theme song that resonates with its fans. And I think now we have ours. And interestingly, so do you. Because you see God has greater things to be done in your city, and among the people He loves who live in your own house, and in your neighbor's house, and in every house in whatever place you call home.

There is no one like our God...and I can't wait to be part of the greater things He has for tomorrow. Right now, I think I'll listen to that song one more time tonight. Maybe you should, too.

A short update

2008-10-07T20:17:00.002-04:00

Sorry we haven't posted in a while. The hard work and the pace of trying to setup our house and do what we've come here to do has made me already understand why God gave Sabbath to people. And someday soon, we're going to try our best to exercise that. All kidding aside, last night and tonight seem like the first nights that we've taken the foot off the accelerator. We've kinda felt like an out of control roller coaster with no breaks. You pay an absorbitant price for what you think is the thrill of your life, and it is, it's just you also feel like throwing up in your mouth a little bit sometimes.

I left LaGrange with the first load of our stuff last Tuesday at 5:30 am to be at the Church at the Crossing (CATC from here on) at 9 am. It took about one day to realize that no one gets anywhere quickly in the city. And you better know what lane to be in very early.

The CATC staff made me feel right at home from the first moments. We celebrated with Luci her change in Visa status (from student to a workers visa). Our house closing went well. We left straight from the closing and dove into the cleanup of our house. Lowes smiles everytime we go there, because they know we're going to a) buy obscure paint colors they don't get to mix often, and b) we're hitting triple digits on the old cash register.

And so we painted...and we want to publicly thank Carlotta's sisters Jennifer and Caroline (who painted til there arms almost fell off) as well as Fred Goode, Daron Cupp and Coral and Amber Snyder (as well as Madonna for riding down with them).

This week we were back at Crosspoint Church with Curt and the great people there. It's great to know that we have three great home churches (because part of us will always be at LaGrange) who lovingly support us even when we're not even with them each week.

We both kinda started our jobs this week, Carlotta at Pleasant View Elementary School and me...well, pretty much wherever we go. I've already learned that the best way to do what we need to do is just to keep my eyes and ears open. I'm working hard to put names with faces of strangers in the community, not with an agenda of even inviting them to church, but just to hopefully help them feel the blessing of the Spirit in our interaction. We met two nice servers at the Waffle House down the road, Coral and Victoria. Kris took care of me at the gas station yesterday morning. And I bought gas today for $3.25 a gallon in Fishers. I wasn't sure I'd ever live to see this day.

So the fun begins tomorrow as we have to come back to LaGrange to pick up our furniture and have our hearts break a little bit once again. I'm not sure, but somehow I get the feeling this weekend may be the most emotional one we've had yet. So pray for us if you think about it...and if you're not busy and don't have back problems and want to stop by Thursday or Friday, that'd be great, too.

A Great but tiring weekend...

2008-09-28T21:27:00.003-04:00

We spent our first official weekend with the folks at Indianapolis Church at the Crossing. I got to hang out with 130 or so great guys at their men's retreat, and then we were part of all 4 of their weekend services. I had said before that this would be the most difficult weekend of my life in a long time. It's now been three Sundays since we've been at the LaGrange Church. I'm so thankful for all the great people at CATC. They made a difficult weekend into a blessing. It was great to spend time with a group of guys who made me feel at home even though I'd never met 99% of them before this weekend. I know that my time with them will be enriched by God and that I will be a better follower of Christ and leader of this new church because of the time we'll get to spend with them. We were guests of the Broyles family (Tim is the Pastor of Outreach and Missions at CATC) last evening, which was a cool blessing as well.

If you haven't heard, we do finally get to close on our house on Tuesday. And so begins what will be a week of renovation, cleaning, painting, appliance delivery, family wedding, another weekend at Crosspoint, and then next weekend (10th-11th) the final big move. I have felt a little more distant from LaGrange lately, but today perhaps more than any other, I miss my friends. Maybe it's the sad music that's playing as Carlotta watches what is probably the saddest ER Episode of all time (Last Thursday's), but I'm really fighting it tonight. It's not so much regret about our decision to follow God in this endeavor, just the heartbreak of not being with the people I love so much. My friends Hector and Justin stopped by to pick up some furniture we were giving Hector and his wife Kellie. For a few moments, it was just like old times. When they drove away, I walked up the steps and just said to Carlotta, "I miss those guys." It was a microcosm of just how I'm feeling right now. I knew the HS Guys were upstairs at the church. It took every ounce of self-discipline I had to keep from going up to join them, even though I know that would have done more harm than good.

This is the night I have to remind myself, we're not dead, we're just moving. It's only 2.5 hours away. And some of the extra emotion is coming from fatigue. I also have to keep in mind why we're doing this. We're doing this for Joe. Joe is my new next door neighbor. We met for the first time today as he got out of his monster truck with the American flag waving from a pole on the tailgate. I don't know his story, his life, or anything more at this moment than he has two big dogs, is taking his daughter to Colorado this week, and Bud Light is his beer of choice. There is one thing I know though. No matter where he is on his journey of faith, I know God has more to redeem in both his and my life than is currently done. And so, my hope is that Joe and I can figure out life together a little bit on his front porch and kinda experience more of God's redemption because of one another.

That's all for tonight. I think that's about all I have left to post in this writing.

Blessings

The update is...there's no update

2008-09-19T21:32:00.003-04:00

Which I find rather frustrating. I'm not mad at anyone, (except the person who for some reason refuses to do a property tax assessment on my new home because then I could actually move into it) it's just a matter of being patient. I never realized how draining trying to move can be. And I kinda haven't felt well the last few days either, so...

It's starting to sink in...slowly...I don't work here anymore! It's odd because I still live here (in LaGrange I mean) but today I emptied my office. I had a few tech questions to answer, and had one kinda unexpected situation last night, but all in all our lives seem to slowly be detaching from the place we've called home. You know that "man without a country" feeling? That's kinda where I am right now. It's like we don't fit here anymore, but yet we can't move to our new place, and (although closing will probably happen sometime next week) because of the indefinite nature of our life right now, it's even hard to get super motivated to pack, knowing that it may be 2-3 weeks before most of our furniture makes the jump to our new house.

I hope no one takes this post as a rant, a depressive statement, a cry for help, or anything more than just the passing on of some information. We're okay (a little frustrated but not even close to discouraged) and we're waiting patiently for the next steps of our lives to take shape.

Shouldn't it at least feel like church...

2008-09-15T15:28:00.002-04:00

I know that when you say the word church, the definition of what that means is different for different people. Quite honestly, even as a minister, some of the things that get lumped together under the heading of church I have to believe make Jesus cringe. (Cue the zealots of Westboro Baptist Church here) But I also believe that for all her imperfections, the Church is Jesus' chosen manner of revealing Himself and His redemption to the world. Shouldn't that experience and be at least a little different than say...I don't know...a typical prime time TV Show.

As this was our first weekend away from LaGrange FCOG, Carlotta and I attended another pretty well known church in the area. I've been to a lot of large churches, churches with professional level music staff, tech staff, etc. I've never been to a church where I walked out feeling like I hadn't been in a worship experience, or at least that was the church's intent. This weekend however made me feel more like that I had stopped by at a friends house to watch Saturday Night Live, with a little Christian music playing in the background. So here's my question, and I'm certainly open for comments here. You will not find anyone more interested in engaging the culture with the gospel than me. But shouldn't our worship experience with Jesus feel at least a little different than sitting down in front of the television for some overproduced entertainment? Where is that line? The scriptures were taught clearly and from an orthodox viewpoint, but somehow I just felt like what happened could just as easily have taken place at Jefferson Pointe Mall or rather at NBC studios at Rockafeller Center. What do you think???

The "Wish it'd been that ways"

2008-09-12T10:02:00.003-04:00

Stepping away from the "responsibilities" of my role here in LaGrange has afforded me the opportunity to do some of those "I wish I'd made it be that way before now" experiences. Dinners with friends that I haven't shared a meal with in quite some time. The opportunity to thank the people I've worked with out loud and in their presence instead of just kinda in smaller, out of the way manners. The value that these last few Sunday nights have had with our high school students.

This morning I read the passage from Luke 14 where Jesus told the story of the Great Banquet. Here was an opportunity for honored guests to be in the presence of the King as well as to experience the blessing of friends gathered together in celebration. And yet many of the invited guests passed on the King's invitation because they were too busy. Busy with things that, although they had some value, in the scheme of a lifetime, could have been put off, or in one case, could have been an opportunity to bring someone along to experience the pageantry of the King's banquet.

I wonder how many times I have missed out on being in the presence of Jesus just because I didn't take the time to accept a friends offer of sharing a dinner table. I wonder how many Sunday nights that I missed the blessing of the Lord's presence because, even though the students were at our house, I didn't see what Jesus was doing for me and in me because they were there. I wonder how many times the Lord would have been honored if I'd taken the time to just say to the people around me what Jesus has done in me because of our shared time at work, at practice, at conferences together, or whatever.

See, Jesus blesses us when we are in His presence. There can be the direct blessing of just being with Him. But there is also the indirect blessing that comes from Him through others. And I just think that now more than ever I want to be that conduit of His blessing to others as we meet new people in our neighborhood and community. I want to make sure that the busyness of life doesn't sabotage the meetings with the King that Jesus wants me to have with others.

And for those who we've missed those gatherings with over the years, I'm doubly sorry. I'm sorry for the time we didn't get to spend together. And I'm even more sorry because I know you would have been the conduit of the presence of Jesus into my life, and I didn't give you that opportunity.

New Church name...

2008-09-06T11:36:00.001-04:00

One last thing, and I'd love your thoughts on this. (For anyone who reads this I guess) We're already needing to begin thoughts about a church name. I've been thinking about what this church should be, what it's overriding mission in the community and the world will be. Here is the thought that keeps spinning over and over in my mind. We want to be a movement of people experiencing and extending God's redemption in all its facets to our community and our world. We want to see God restore everything that is broken and disconnected from Him in people's lives. We want them to be saved, and that their souls would be restored. But we also want families to be restored, and finances to be restored and spiritual maturity to be cultivated and that their lives will be part of God's restoration in their friends and families and also that they'll be part of the restoration process for people all over the world.

So, (and I want your most honest thoughts on this), what about Restoration Church? (I've already checked and there's no one in our new area with this name.) Post your comments and critiques and I'll review and consider every one of them. Thanks! You know my heart, you know now a part of what God is working in us to be and do in this community. Our church name is such a huge part of that first impression people have. So let me know your first impressions. Is Restoration Church (by its name and its general description above) a place where you could see yourself at least excited by its mission?

All In, Part 2

2008-09-06T11:11:00.004-04:00

One of the things that I was reminded again this week about the all in life is that "All in" is not a one time decision. In hold'em, the all in goes round by round. If you make it through that hand, that doesn't mean game over. It means you live to play on for another hand. This week had three distinct all ins for us. The first was our house situation. Now we understand that there are lots of houses available in the neighborhood we are moving to. And we understand that if God's desire was for us to live somewhere else, then He'd make that known and we'd abide by that. But we felt like the house that we had made the offer on was one that was going to give us the best potential investment, the best use of space, and the best possible timeframe (i.e. occupancy at Closing) We also knew that it was very likely that if we didn't get this house, we might be moving...somewhere, but most of our furniture wasn't going anywhere at least til mid-November. So when we made our final offer on Friday of last week, and then had to wait through the holiday weekend, and then had to wait half of Tuesday morning, that built a lot of patience and trust into us. When our realtor called and said, they rejected....my heart sunk. But it's always important to let people finish before we freak out, because he said, they rejected the other competing offer, and the house is yours for ____ if you want it. Needless to say, our all in faith that God would provide if it was right was affirmed once again.

It was in those moments that I was talking with God about life and all its complexities, including what was going to happen if we didn't get the house, that God impressed a second all in on my soul. There was a person I was supposed to call and ask about being baptized this Sunday. Now while I have often felt compelled by the Holy Spirit to be part of the dialogue with people that leads them to take their next step in their journey of faith, I have never felt compelled to specifically call one person and specifically ask them to take this step this Sunday. I know it was important for that person, and I sensed that God must be working in them this week as well. But more than that, for me, this was a challenge from the Lord. It was as if He was saying, "Look, if you can't make the ask of something this important to a close friend, how are you going to ask total strangers to join you on this new church endeavor?!" How are you going to invite people you barely know into relationship with me if you won't do so with your closest friends? And so....I did. I felt so incredibly honored that God would direct me in such a way, and whatever the outcome of this encounter is, I feel like I went all in again and the cards have already come up a winner.

I am learning to trust the Lord and be challenged by Him in these past few weeks more than I have in a long time. And I think the encouraging words I'm hearing from people as I shared last weekend are proof that God is really working and prompting and challenging lots of other people through our experience.

God has also provided Carlotta with a job. She interviewed Tuesday, and wowed them so much that they called to offer her the position we'd been praying and searching for on Thursday. She will be working part-time in a school about 25 miles from home, but will only make the trip a couple days a week. They will still pay into her teacher retirement and I think it's going to be a great ministry opportunity for her. It always is it seems when you are seeking to live your life in all ways in the grace of God and want to extend that.

All in!

2008-08-31T22:25:00.000-04:00

Today I taught my last message (at least for a while) at LaGrange FCOG. I taught a message called All In! It's funny, I shared three personal stories that have taken place as part of our transition to Pendleton. One of the stories, I told three times, and I was overcome with emotion each time. It's the story of the day we finally made the decision that we couldn't "not" begin this new church in the Pendleton area. I was prompted that day by the story in Mark 10:28 when Peter says to Jesus, "Lord, we've left everything to follow you." Jesus replied, "I tell you the truth, whatever you have left behind will be given back to you in greater measure, and eternal life in the age to come. IN that moment, that day we made this decision, I knew exactly what Peter felt when he made this statement to Jesus.

Long story short, it was an incredible experience for me, this opportunity to share with our church the why's of what we're embarking on. And I also think we were able to ask other people to inquire of God what His "all in" for them is. I gave everyone who came this morning a poker chip, probably a first for our church. But my hope is that everytime they see World Series of Poker on ESPN as they flip through the channels, or everytime they hear about someone playing cards, or every day they carry that chip in their pocket, it will be an ongoing reminder that God is always asking to know and follow through on whatever our all in is right now!

We also had our second to last youth night tonight. I don't know if this makes sense or not, but I truly am beginning to hate Sunday nights, because I love them so much. Sunday nights have been a joy for me for the past few years, one of the best experiences of my life. There have been weeks when the students were not here, but usually those have only been a weekend at a time. So I'm sure the first weekend we don't have high school students at our house will be a little odd, but not that bad. The 2nd weekend I will be a train wreck. I just love being with these guys and ladies so much, and the thought of not being a regular part of their lives is something I just can't think about tonight without really losing it. I can't express how blessed these guys have made me feel over these last months and years. I guess I won't fully understand it until it's gone!

Waiting

2008-08-25T09:56:00.000-04:00

The scriptures tell us that those who wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength. They shall mount up on wings like eagles. They shall run and not grow weary; they shall walk and not grow faint.

These last few days and these weeks to come really ought to be strength renewers. We wait to hear about our house offer we made on Friday. We wait to see if Carlotta will find a job, and if she should find a job even for a while. We wait to see when we're going to move. We wait to see who's the next family member to call worried that we're going to be homeless or destitute. (Thanks for your concern though)

When you're a doer, waiting is some of the hardest stuff of your life. But... they that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength. So as we wait, we ask for God's patience. This all is a part of just building our trust in Him and suprisingly, I'm not feeling stressed about it. I've rather decided to just try and enjoy it. Enjoy the shaping, and the molding and the waiting.

When was the last time you enjoyed the waiting?

Decisions, Decisions

2008-08-19T09:18:00.000-04:00

I think sometimes we all think that even though certain things happen in certain patterns for I don't know... centuries, that somehow we'll be the ones who beat the system. Now back in reality world, we recognize the same things that happen to everyone else will probably inevitably happen to us. As it relates to moving... somehow I guess we thought it would be easier because we're so excited about where God is guiding our journey. I forgot how nuts things get when people move. It was that way 9+ years ago when we moved to LaGrange. It was that way 7+ years ago when we moved across town. Now, we're buying a house in a market that is very difficult for most, but a complete blessing for us. We don't have a house to sell, and it's a complete buyers market right now. So we have lots of options. I think just like our relationship with God, sometimes we want to feel like there is only one right path in the whole universe and so we just have to figure out that one and things are okay. But in reality, I think God is big enough and complex enough and broad enough that He can lead us to great good down multiple roads, just so long as we know those roads don't lead toward sin. I have a feeling that's how this house thing is going to shake out. None of these houses is sinful. They're just different. And they cost different amounts. So, while we're seeking God's ultimate best decision in this matter, I have to hope and believe that the Kingdom of God doesn't rest completely at a tipping point based solely on this decision.

In other "they said it would be this way news" I have yet to step one foot into our new location as a "local." (It's all been drive in experiences at this point.) And yet I find myself being so busy just thinking about everything that needs to be done. I've heard people say you'll never be busier in life than starting a church. And I think you're never more busy in life than when you leave a church you've been at for a long time. So... 1+1 equals a little mental chaos right now. Which is why (just like my predecessors have coached us) that prayer team is the first team you begin to recruit.

I'm sure I'll post more later (and part of this exercise is to get me more into the journaling habit) but for right now somehow, even in the midst of the nuttiness that's swirling around us, I still feel pretty peaceful in my soul that God is still in heaven and the world is not coming apart this afternoon. Tomorrow.... well we'll just have to let that take care of itself. These moments however continue to affirm that Jesus speaks the words of truth that carry us in a way no other possibly could.

The Promise of Isaiah 60

2008-08-08T08:23:00.001-04:00

Anytime you feel the Holy Spirit directing you to obscure passages, take special note. When we ask God to calm our souls, to take control of situations that in our own strength will crush us under their weight, I know He takes those prayers seriously. And so as I ponder everything about a new church start that wakes me up early (okay early is relative but earlier than usual for me) I read the words this morning of Isaiah 60. I know this is a passage where God promises to restore Jerusalem, not literally just the city, but restoring the place where His presence will be felt among His people. In essence, the place where His presence was not, now was becoming again a place where God was going to take up residence among the people. This taking up residence was more than just Him hanging out with them. The blessings of God's presence among these people was going to initiate the outpouring of other tangible blessings such as they had not seen since they were exiled.

Here is what God is going to bring to them. (I believe God is saying this for us as we start a new faith community in Pendleton)

1. I will bring you people. (verse 4) God is prompting people to gather together in the place where He will dwell among them.

2. I will bring you resources (verse 5) God will give us what we need to accomplish the building of a community where His presence will be made real.

3. I will adorn my glorious temple (verse 7) This isn't just a gathering of people; when we gather in His name for His purposes, He will be there among us.

4. In favor He will show compassion (verse 10) This one we claim most, for it's God's mercy and His compassion that we want to extend, but it's also His mercy and His compassion on us that even allows us to consider, much less be successful, in an endeavor this huge.

5. Your gates will always stand open (verse 11) The opportunities for ministry will be continual, and so we should be prepared as a community to always be prepared to live out the way of Jesus for those who need all that He has to offer.

6. We will radiate the light of Christ that is within us. (verse 19)

7. All your people will be righteous (verse 21) We are made righteous as Christ who holds Lordship over our hearts is given ever increasing Lordship over every area of our lives. We become more and more like Him in our actions, not just in our desires.

8. They are the shoot I have planted; the work of my hands, for the display of my splendor (verse 21) This is God's thing. Everything we do is to display His glory and His work in our lives.

9. The least of you will become a thousand...I am the Lord: in it's time I will do this swiftly. (verse 22) I'm not sure how to take this verse, so I'm going to let this one linger with me for a while.

I know these are just some connections I made with this passage as it relates to what's going on in my own life. But I also believe that God hears our prayers, and He knows what's been stirring in my soul this morning. One of the things this verse has reminded me is that this is God's thing, and we're His partners. I have to keep reminding myself of this everyday. This is NOT MY THING! God says all through the Scriptures that He will build His church. My role is to be God's steward and to partner with Him, to be His hands and feet and mouth in the world where He prompts me. You see all along I think I thought this was just going to be about starting a new church. When in reality, God's working out a lot of stuff in me, and I think He's just asking us to invite a new community on the journey with us.

Slowly it's all starting to set in...

2008-08-07T18:03:00.000-04:00

With every conversation about the new direction our lives are taking, the reality of the hugeness of this thing sinks in a little more. Never has a blank canvas seemed so exciting, and so intimidating. It's getting easier to tell the people that we love about the dramatic shift in our lives, but the hardest conversations are still to come. I told someone today that these next few days and weeks will indicate just how much people have gotten what we've been trying to say with our words and our lives for these past nine years. The Kingdom of God is bigger than just you, and it's bigger than just LaGrange. We hear that and we all nod in agreement, but do we really believe this? Well, when you tell people that have been part of your everyday lives for so long that you're no longer going to be part of each other's every day lives, because you're moving, and that you still will love them the same and want to still be friends, you just believe God is directing you into something new and faith-stretching and unbelievably exciting, their response tells you (not immediate response but over the next few weeks) whether they really believe that the Kingdom of God is bigger than them and bigger than LaGrange, Indiana.

I often wonder if the great master artists of history were ever intimidated by a blank canvas. When you look at a blank canvas, it's potential is limitless. Somehow you have to get started. How did Rembrandt create his masterpieces? I guess they started with the first stroke obviously. Sometimes, infinite potential makes me very excited. Sometimes it makes me very nervous. Right now I'm still a lot of both. We have to find a place to live. I've never bought a house before! We have to setup a budget (30% of the funds for which we don't have yet) for a brand new church. I don't know how much it costs to start a church. I mean all the big things and little things. I guess the next year is going to be filled with a lot of prayers, some educated (by the Holy Spirit) guesses, and right now...I'm not sure what all else. It'll also be interesting to experience the process of making a whole additional set of friends with people that...at this moment, we've never even met before.

I think this first post would not be complete without telling whoever reads these words that my wife Carlotta is unbelievable. It's bad enough that I'm crazy enough to follow this calling, but I've always been the crazy one of the two of us. (She tells our little Camden this all the time, about how crazy her daddy is) But of all the leadings God has ever given us, she's more excited and crazy about this idea even than I am. I would never feel God is leading us into something that she didn't confirm, because in most cases, I think that's how God works. He calls both people in a marriage partnership. And so even though we go into this with some fear...actually, we're also in this completely together. And so no matter what happens from this moment forward, that's the greatest blessing God could give me.

Now, back to some of those hard "we're moving" conversations. Two down, 300 more to go!

Chris, Inside Out

Refueling the Tanks

Catalyst rewind in your rss reader

Catalyst rewind posted at Facebook fan page

Is It Wrong to be Unsatisfied?

Catalyst Sunday Rewind, March 21st and final reminder

Catalyst Sunday Rewind, March 14th and reminder

The Cost

We're Changing the Format...

Catalyst Sunday Rewind, Feb. 28th

Catalyst Sunday Rewind, Feb. 21st

Catalyst Sunday Rewind, Feb. 14th

Catalyst Rewind, Sunday February 7th

Catalyst Rewind, Sunday January 31st

Sunday Rewind, January 24th

Catalyst Rewind, Sunday January 17th

Catalyst Rewind, Sunday December 20th

Catalyst Rewind, Sunday December 6th

Sunday Rewind, November 22nd

Catalyst Rewind, Sunday November 8th

Sunday Rewind, October 25th

Catalyst Rewind, Sunday October 4th

I haven't forgotten

A Good Day is a Thing to Celebrate

My partner

The Catalyst Team

Dog Days

Concert in the Park update

In the Middle of the 440

New Blog Posting next week

The Difference a Week Makes

Sometimes I forget...this is missionary work

Journey

Peas

So ashamed...

Launch team gathering III

The First of Many Catalyst Baptisms

Moving the Barriers, Digging In

Gathering isn't easy, but necessary

Launch team gathering last night

We're getting it!

Friends

Go Local, Part 2

A few insights from today's "Go Local"

Forest for the trees

Quick Update

Blog talk back and life together groups

Lessons from the First Catalyst Backyard BBQ

Launch team

Turn it off...

Sorry I'm a bit behind...missed a few posts

Now I'm Understanding

We have liftoff!

Location, Location, Location!

Slow down

New format

Mountain Lake Conference Wrap-up

Affirmation

The longest day ever

Feb. 17th

Feb. 16th

Feb. 15th

Feb. 14th

Feb. 13th

Feb. 12th

Feb. 11th

I'm Tired

The Next Two Weeks

Catalyst Church

Clarity

What a Way to Start a New Year

Change we can still believe in

This is actually going to happen...

Partners

Next post

Subtle heroes

Generational blessings

Minimalist

Consistency

Will we pray as much???