Like and Love

I have been working on this thought for a while and I will continue working on it until I use it next month in a series at Venture on the Lord's Prayer.

The difference between like and love-
You like someone because there are things about them that you enjoy being around (such as a sense of humor, or being a good listener) but when you love someone you want to be around them despite the things about them that you don’t enjoy (ie- stubbornness, inability to replace the toilet paper roll).

What do you think?

Ochocinco and Avery

"Hey Chad, my daughter's a big fan of yours. Can she get a picture with you?"
"She's too young to like football."
"No, she likes football."
"Ok"
Picture taken.
"Thanks Chad."
"Ok, you guys enjoy."

The dialogue was breif, but tacitly Chad Ochocinco (All-Pro WR for the Cincinnati Bengals) expressed to me how happy he was to see me at the Grapevine Mills Mall in DFW today. I feel bad that I walked off too fast, because I think Chad wanted to give me his email so I could send him a copy of the pic.

UFC 103 and JC

Last Saturday night, a good friend from Venture and I attended UFC 103 in Dallas. Like most sporting events, watching on TV can in no one replicate the experience of being there to hear, see and feel the event. One aspect of the experience I didn’t expect was the crowd, surprising the cage-fighting crowd isn’t the most sophisticated audience. Who would have thought? I feel safe to say that of the almost 20K there, I might have been the only clergy there. The large gentleman from Chicago next to me seemed to have been very dehydrated and tried to placate his thirst through copious amounts of Jack Daniels- a seemingly popular technique for many that evening. Fortunately for me, he was a happy drunk. He proudly pulled out his camera to show me a picture of two people that he partied with the night before, a former UFC Champion and the fighter’s adult film star girlfriend. I made conversation about the athlete, but ignored the girl, much to this guy’s dismay. So he turned to the stranger on the other side and finally got the reaction he wanted from the picture.

If I were a betting man, this guy would probably not feel too comfortable in a typical church service. He would probably prefer to get punched in the face by his new UFC friend than participate in a typical small group because the world that most church people live in and his world are so different. Many church people are so insulated from this lifestyle that we don’t have the ability to even speak the same language. Regardless of how right we are, if we cannot connect with him we have failed because if we are to be letters of recommendation and we don’t get our message to its intended destination then we are the lost ones not him.
If we are truly going to be missionally minded communities as God intends for us we have to find a way to make it easy for people like my new friend to connect with God through our Christian communities. So here’s the million-dollar question, how do we embody church in such a way that he can participate and wants to participate?

1st service video

Untitled from venturecommunity on Vimeo.

Venture's 1st preview service

The Venture Community gathered on Sunday for her first worship experience. We had spent a good chunk of Saturday transforming our middle school into a place of worship for the first time, but we had a strong team that worked hard to get it done. Sunday morning seemed to be the culmination of a lot of work, because most of the work that I’ve (and others) put in to this church plant over the last year sixteen months hasn’t produced a great deal of tangible or visible results. All of these preparations started to pay off when new people not just showed up but wanted to get involved. We didn’t do any advertising or marketing other than word of mouth, so we were exciting to see a solid turnout. While this might have seemed like the culmination in some ways, we know this is really just the beginning. Our goal has never been just to get people to show up for a gathering. Our goal is to help people be formed into the image of Jesus. Just showing up on a Sunday morning doesn’t do this, but it can be a good place to start. I am pleased with our auspicious start, and anxiously await to see what’s next.

God is...

Here's the sermon series for our preview service.

God is... from venturecommunity on Vimeo.

Venture's Story

Venture's Story from venturecommunity on Vimeo.

Our first service is coming up this Sunday. Please keep us in your prayers.