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.

Luckiest Man....

From Lou Gehrig's July 4th 1939 speech- less than two years before his death.

“Fans, for the past two weeks you have been reading about the bad break I got. Yet today I consider myself the luckiest man on the face of this earth. I have been in ballparks for 17 years and have never received anything but kindness and encouragement from you fans...When the New York Giants, a team you would give your right arm to beat, and vice versa, sends you a gift – that’s something. When everybody down to the groundskeepers and those boys in white coats remember you with trophies – that’s something. When you have a wonderful mother-in-law who takes sides with you in squabbles with her own daughter – that’s something. When you have a father and a mother who work all their lives so you can have an education and build your body – it’s a blessing. When you have a wife who has been a tower of strength and shown more courage than you dreamed existed – that’s the finest I know. So I close in saying that I may have had a tough break, but I have an awful lot to live for.”

imperfect information

Last Wednesday on my trip out to Midland to preach at GCR (one of Venture’s two main supporting churches) I read Andy Stanley’s Next Generation Leaders. The one thought that has stuck with me from the book is a quote from the WWII submarine movie U-571.

(on being a captain) “Now that’s the job. It’s not a science. You have to be able to make hard decisions based on imperfect information, asking men to carry out orders that may result in their deaths. And if you’re wrong, you suffer the consequences. If you are not prepared to make those decision, without pause, without reflection, then you got no business being a submarine captain.”

A leader makes hard decisions based off of imperfect information. Stanley says that a leader is never going to be more than 80% certain of his/her decision, and if you wait for more certainty you will most likely miss an opportunity. At Venture we have issues of which we are certain- we follow Jesus, God’s grace is enough, love, forgiveness…. But issues of style, preferences and forms aren’t always reaching 80%, In these times I am learning as a leader to trust in God and secondly to focus on clarity instead of certainty.

Venture Small Group

We started weekly small groups last week and had our second meeting last night. We had a great group thats starting to act like a church. It's truly exciting to be apart of this church plant.

On the second picture you can see at the table three of the Avery's, including my Avery in the yellow, who are apart of Venture. I guess great parents think alike when naming their kids.

Core Issues.

In high school, my sophomore track season got derailed because of a back injury that started months before during wrestling season. Despite consulting a couple doctors, I couldn’t figure out why my back was bothering me. Chiropracters tried adjusting my back. Another doctor had me wear a heal lift in my shoe to compensate for a difference in the length of my legs. A physical therapist thought with a combination of electrical stem, ice and massages it would get better. The latter was my favorite, but even that didn’t fix the real problem. The real problem that caused my mid-lumbar strain was my hamstrings’ flexibility, or should I say, lack of flexibility. As a 15 year old, I didn’t understand the importance of stretching. The tightness in my legs caused my back to become extremely tight and then it couldn’t handle the trama delivered to it from wrestling or pole vaulting. The solution was surprisingly a basic core issue, but we all erroneously thought complicated treatments would do the trick.
It seems to me that many of us have a deep wounding or brokenness at our core that we try to medicate with shallow home remedies- a few more compliments from your peers, new stuff, more success (however we define that- the size of your bank account or “your” church), or a plethora of other options. All to no avail. Instead of turning to the core issue of connection with one’s creator.

Tim Keller-“Sin is the despairing refusal to find your deepest identity in your relationship and service to God. Sin is seeking to become oneself, to an identity, apart from him.”
Barbara Brown Taylor- “Contrary to the legal model, the essence of sin is not the violation of laws but a wrecked relationship with God, one another, and the whole created order. “All sins are attempts to fill voids,” wrote Simone Weil. Because we cannot stand the God-shaped hole inside of us, we try stuffing it full of all sorts of things, but only God may fill.”

Sitting Alone- part 2

Here is a follow up to a previous post on the subject of churches that don't do a good job of being welcoming-

Many churches that do a good job of drawing large crowds to their services don't do a good job of creating community. One reason could be very pragmatic. Many people in many different services isn't conducive for building meaningful relationships. But it could be much more than just that, because what you win them with is what you win them to. If you get people in the door by just giving them a good worship product, then you could be establishing a consumer culture in which people expect to receive and not give. When you go to church to receive, then you aren’t in the mindset to give to anyone including the stranger sitting next to you.
So the million dollar question is how do we lead meaningful worship experiences while concurrently calling people to discipleship and community?

Avery's 1st MLB Game

We had a great time taking Avery to her first MLB game this week. She did well, but she got upset when the ballpark erupted in boo’s when A-Rod batted. She couldn’t understand why people would do that to him, but once I told her about the “Kissing the Mirror” pic in Detail magazine she understood. While I am not a huge baseball fan, I must confess that I am a Yankees fan. They do a good job of filling the sports void created by the Cowboys recent short seasons, and they always spend the money to try to be competitive.

Sitting alone in church

We had visited this good church before, but this time when no one talked with us after church it bothered me because my pregnant wife was feeling ill. Church should be a safe place to feel ill considering all the “love people” stuff churches typically talks about.

Lindsay sat down hoping to get over her temporary illness during the last few minutes of the service. But it didn’t go away. The service ends, and everyone rapidly leaves. And we awkwardly sit. She needed water, but she also needed her husband to stay next to her. So we sat, alone. Not one person came over to talk with us during this long five minutes, and while it never bothered us before that no one talked with us, it bothered me that time.

I am not trying to bash this church, I am just trying to figure out how not to repeat this mistake. What do we do to establish a church that makes everyone feel welcomed?

Venture stuff

Here is some info about Venture that I have been working on for our website-

JESUS. Venture exists to help people become more like Jesus, who is the light in a dark world and the truest expression of what people are intended to be. We believe in the forgiveness found in Jesus, the power found in his cross and the strength found in Christ centered community. At Venture we follow the way of Jesus through living in Christian community, worshipping, and serving.
BROKENNESS. Throughout the world brokenness exists, and brokenness isn’t just out there but brokenness is in each of us. We believe that God brings wholeness to our broken world through Jesus. Venture exists to help people experience the wholeness that comes from God.
GOD. As Christ followers we have joined something larger than ourselves- God’s redemption of his creation. God has entered into his creation’s existence through Jesus to reconcile the world back to himself. Venture seeks to be a signpost that points people to this reconciling God.
SAFE. Venture is a safe place to wrestle with your struggles and the sometimes over-whelming task of trying to engage with God.

Friendship

An acquaintance is someone who likes you for your strengths.
A friend is someone who likes you in spite of your weaknesses.

Justification

Here is a quote from an NT Wright interview based on his new book on Justification that I am really excited to read:
"because the question Paul is asking is not, 'How can you get enough righteousness so that when God looks at you he’ll be happy with you?” but, “How can you be sure that you are a member of God’s people, that your sins are forgiven, and that therefore you are part of the covenant purposes of God which, ever since Abraham, have been the way in which God was addressing and rescuing the world?' "

Marley, Chief and Me.

Lindsay finally got me to watch Marley and Me last Saturday night. I still hadn’t recovered from watching 8 Below three years ago, and didn’t know if I was ready to watch another dog movie because without fail the dog dies at the end. I reluctantly watched the young couple get their dog at the beginning of their marriage just like us. Lindsay and I got Chief right around the time we got married and Chloe soon after on our first married Valentine’s Day. As a grad student I was perplexed how another grad school couple with a similar income could afford to go on vacations and afford a new car when we couldn’t, until I realized that the only other expense we had that they didn’t was our two dogs. These dogs have cost us a great deal, but there is a reason they are called man’s best friend. Dogs truly do love you for who you are and just want to be around you.

UPDATE-This blog turned out to be ominous foreshadowing. I wrote this blog earlier last week and didn't post it when we found out that Chief had cancer. After removing two cancerous tumors from his hip, the vet said that he had a fifty percent chance that the cancer wasn’t in his blood stream. We spent last week dreading the results of Chief's blood work. Today we heard the good news that the cancer wasn’t in his blood stream. After finding out that most likely Chief will not have anymore cancer, he is going to be extremely disappointed that the preferential treatment he experienced last week will not last. Lindsay and I sure are glad that Chief is back to sleeping in the living room and eating his regular diet.

Memoirs of a church planter- Vol 1

Planting a church has been quite an adventure so far, and it’s only going to get more overwhelming, exciting and stressful as we get closer to our weekly launch in October.
Here are three of the lessons I am learning:
1. Measure twice, cut once. We only get one chance to establish our initial DNA and we will be affected by this DNA for years. If (and that’s a big “If”) we can thoroughly measure out who God is leading us to become, then we will save ourselves a lot of cutting down the road.
2. Make the ask. The leaders in my life that have blessed me the most have been the ones who have painted a picture of who I could become and invited me to become that person. Many of us are waiting for someone to give us the opportunity to grow, and those of us who God has entrusted with leadership roles owe it to them to give them those chances.
3. Don’t fear the “no.” When I was in college, I would invite people each week to make the forty-five minute drive with me out to the country church where I preached. Fifty percent of the people who said they would go with me would never show up at my house on Sunday morning. This lesson has helped me more than most lessons I learned in grad school. People will dissappoint you, but that doesn’t give you an excuse to be a disappointing person.

Venture's Location

We finalized our Sunday meeting place for our first year at Venture- Crownover Middle School. It's a great location and has great space for children's ministry. We are pretty excited about it.