how to read the Bible #3

Part 3 in a bible reading series

why we read the Bible

How to read the Bible

We’re experimenting with some teaching stuff  online.  Let  me know what you think about both format and content

Thanks and enjoy

if I say it out loud it will be real, right?

So I’m working on a book. It sounds silly even as I say it but I am and I want to finish it so I’m going to pressure myself by announcing it publicly. Feel free to ask me how it’s coming so I will feel stupid if my answer is that I haven’t touched in six months.

Please bear in mind I said that I’m writing a book, not publishing a book or selling a book. These are very different things. Of course it would be nice to publish and I may do it myself, but the main goal hear is to actually write the thing. We worry about other stuff later.

The book is going to be about the church, because thats where my head is at these days. I want to people to fall in love with the Church again, with all her flaws and stupidities and meanness, I want to help people see her as the Bride. I want to see her as the Bride.

We’ll see what we can do.

The best laid plans… #1

So we’re in a re planning thing for Bridgepointe. There are some church planters or aspiring or recovering church planters who end up here, so I’ll put the plan up in small parts for your perusal and ridicule. Enjoy.

What

What is a church?
We believe that the local church is a group of people called by and committed to Jesus and his work who preach and teach God’s word, who participate in the sacraments (or ordinances) of baptism and the Lord’s Supper, who hold each other accountable to live lives consistent with the good news, and who share resources to accomplish God’s purposes. The local church is tied to the global and timeless Church that is Christ’s body here on earth.2. Jesus called and empowered the Church to be his witnesses here, taking his message to all the world and teaching people to follow him Bridgepointe Church is a group of people who passionately believe that we have good news to share with Edmonton and the world. This good news is that Jesus and his Kingdom reign is here, and he loves us, and that we can be saved in every way we need to be saved.
What kind of church?
We often hear the question “Does Edmonton need another church? Does North Central need another church?” and the answer depends on what you mean by church. If you mean a nice, polite gathering of people who say pretty Jesus words and are unable to risk and dream because they are stuck in survival mode, the answer is no. If you mean a small group of Christians who are angry with the church as they have experienced it and define themselves by everything they’re not the answer is no. If you mean a group of people, gathered into community by God and a common vision of what he’s doing in this city, a group of people that is large enough to make a difference and small enough that their main task isn’t managing their size, then the answer is yes, we need more of those. We need many, many more of those.
In response to this need and what we believe is God’s call, our goal is to have 200 people regularly committed to Bridgepointe by fall 2011. This goal isn’t made for the sake of numbers alone, but at this size we can concern ourselves with something other than our own survival, and can commission people to plant more churches. Our goal is to be a church of missionaries, training and inspiring missionaries to change Edmonton and the world.

As of the last time I checked, I’m still alive

I’ve been on a blogging hiatus, or at least that’s what I’ll call it in retrospect. Mostly I’ve been tired and my brain hasn’t been functioning on a high enough level to share my thoughts with the world.

What has been encouraging is that there are still people who come to read stuff here. Not a tonne of people, but people nonetheless. That’s cool, thanks.

It seems that most of you are here for church planting stuff, more specifically Church Planting Sucks. While this thing is still more for my benefit than yours, I’ll try to write a little bit more about that.  If I can throw a little bit of hope out I’ll be more than happy to.

So, soon, something silly to get my feet back under me and back to the grind

The employer that shall remain nameless

So as I’ve mentioned before, I work for a large, multi-national coffee company that shall remain nameless. I know that they are a huge and potentially evil monolith, coating the world with sub-standard coffee products. I get it. I also get that I’ve got kids to feed. If you want to talk about how much better that little shop on the corner is and how awful its been since my employer came to town, go ahead, I’m not going to argue. But they don’t pay my mortgage.

I knew when it came time to plant our church that I would have to find another job. Altogether, I’ve spent almost ten years in the restaurant business, so I was able to put together a decent resume. I knew I wanted to be in management, because table or bar service by itself bores me now, and I knew I didn’t want to be working until 3am. That left my current employer or someplace where all the menu items start with Mc and a guys got to have some standards, right?

I’ve experienced few conversations more awkward than this one with an overdressed person judging my resume:

“So your last title was minister of urban outreach. What exactly does a minister of urban outreach do?”

“ummm… I ministered … to urban …. people… and did … out, er, reached out”

I realized then that I never wanted to have another job that I can’t explain to a two year old. I do two things. I make coffee and I talk about Jesus. I could make my job description more complicated than that if I wanted to feel important, but really, those are the two things I need to get right.

Really, any job is as simple as you want to make it. Even when you work for the company that shall remain nameless.

Listening to: My wife playing scramble on facebook

how you know you’ve spent to much time in revelation

So we’ve been looking at revelation since September.

At work a common combination of items with taxes adds up to 6.67

One day this number came up on the till, and I announced to the customer and my co-workers “all together… 6.67. Ah, six six seven, the neighbour of the beast”

no one laughed

Preach it, brother

I preach. I like it.

There’s a certain peace and freedom that comes when you’re doing the thing that you were made to do. I don’t know if I’m any good at preaching. I know I’ve got a lot to learn, but I think I was made to do it.

Now, before I get letters, I don’t think that preaching is the most important thing or that preaching itself will change lives or that preaching has to be done wearing a tie or behind a pulpit or anything else. I just like it.

You can listen here or you can find it on itunes.

To warn you, some of them are terrible, listen at your own risk

Poverty is an Issue

So the writ dropped today, and in Alberta we head to the polls March 3. Unfortunately, elections are treated like a bit of a formality here. The Progressive Conservatives have held power here for the last 37 years on the provincial level, and the Conservative Party holds sway at the federal level as well. Voter turnout is low here, as it is across the country, and most people figure that even though they might be weaker than ever, Ed Stelmach’s are still probably going to win.

I don’t really care about that. I have a pretty low opinion of the political process in general and I have trouble trusting that one party is going to be drastically different than the others.

I’ll tell you what I do care about. This past summer, about six blocks from my house in Edmonton, between one and two hundred people lived in tents. There were more people living in the river valley, elsewhere in the city. I work with people who work at the lower end of the economic spectrum and have trouble finding available and affordable housing. In the midst of the economic boom we’ve experienced, the gap between rich and poor has become broader.

I don’t care who you vote for, but I want Ed Stelmach, Brian Mason, and Kevin Taft to have to answer questions about poverty, minimum wage, and rental and housing prices; I want them to have to talk about tent cities in downtown Edmonton. I want them to talk about the influence that our boom is having on a global scale, and if we’re going to be bringing in tens of thousands of workers from abroad into this province, what impact are we having on the places they leave? Poverty is an issue. Poverty is an issue now, poverty is an issue for the future.

I will fully admit that I don’t know all of the ins and out of this issue. I will fully accept it if anyone wants to label me ignorant, silly, misinformed, idealist, or whatever else you want to throw at me. But in my small way, with what voice I have, I want people to talk about poverty in Alberta, because it matters.

I want to test to see if the blogs can actually influence the debate. I want to challenge other bloggers in Alberta to write a post entitled “poverty is a ______ issue” in the run up to the March 3 election. Poverty is a health issue, poverty is an education issue, poverty is a security issue, etc. Let’s try and keep it non-partisan, the partisan folks will be loud enough without us to help them along. I’m a pastor and what I know is the Bible so I’ve got first dibs on “poverty is a spiritual issue,” although I’m not going to stop anyone from doubling up (as if I could). If you’re going to leave a comment so we can link to each other at the time.

Poverty is an issue. Let’s make sure everyone knows it.

church planting sucks

Well, it doesn’t really suck. I actually love it, but there are definitely times when I wish I wish it was easier, or that the church that we’re dreaming of would magically appear next Sunday. But what kind of story would that be?

Here’s a top ten list of things I have learned so far about church planting.

1. It’s harder than you think – but not in that ways you expect. I expected it to be a lot of work and I expected there to be discouraging times and I expected there would be times I would want to quit, but I didn’t expect that I would spend most of my time doing stuff that I don’t love and doesn’t excite me. I didn’t expect that I would be tempted to get lazy. I didn’t realize how tough it was to balance the tension between pastoring the people you’ve got and trying to grow the church we feel called to be. Be prepared for this.
2. It’s more fun than you think it’s going to be. Strap on your helmet, but it is fun. You’re building something from scratch and fighting and winning and failing. It tough, but it’s not boring. Look forward to this and remember it when being beaten down by number one.
3. There are people who don’t want you to succeed. There are those who are more comfortable believing that the world is against them and that nothing can be done and that nothing can change and to see a new church come to be and survive calls into question their status quo. Identify these people and ignore them.
4. There are people who desperately want to you to succeed. They want nothing more than to see the Kingdom come and for healthy churches to be acting out what God intended for us to be. Identify these people and seek them out.
5. It is not easy to figure out who are #3 people and who are #4 people.
6. Weather will kick your ass. Maybe this is more of a thing in Canada, but you could have both Saints Paul and Peter scheduled to appear at your church where they will reveal the date of the second coming and the cure for baldness and a snowstorm will leave you sitting with your wife and kids and the angry guy you’re not surprised has never found a church home. There’s not much you can do but be ready for it.
7. You will also schedule something no one will show up for. This will be something that you’ve poured heart and soul and sweat and blood into. There will be no real reason for people not to show up. They just won’t. This will crush you. Get up, dust yourself off, and never speak of it again except to laugh when you’re not angry anymore.
8. This is not the church you built in your head. This is a real group of people called by God who are going to be something you never dreamed of. Trying to be the church in your head will kill your joy for the church you have, so kill the church in your head.
9. Don’t take anything personally. People will come to your church and go, and friends will choose to be a part or not, and people will arrive and begin to pour themselves into what God is doing and this, for the most part, has nothing to do with you. If your confidence and self image depend on the “success” of your church, you are screwed as a pastor and will be a terrible person to live with.
10. Settle the failure question before you start. The reality is most church plants don’t make it. If your church plant becomes part of those statistics, are you done either as a pastor or a follower of Jesus? If you think the answer might be yes, get the hell out. Your desire should be to see God’s will accomplished and if his will is that your church is planted and dies, if that is what is glorifying to him, then name of the Lord is still to be praised. There is no shame in being a failed church planter.

and as a free bonus

The most important thing you will do is to decide what success looks like. Remember that this is your choice. Choose to define success by obedience. Ask God where he wants you to go, and fight with everything you have to get there. Back to #1 and #2, it will not be easy, and it will be fun.

Now if I read this every day for the next ten years and pray that God would make me believe it, I should be alright.