but you promised

I can remember saying that growing up to my parents.  During summers when I was a kid, I would often pester my parents to take us somewhere to swim.  I grew up in North Augusta and summers were the same as they are now in this area: brutally hot and humid.  For us it was either one of four places: Misty Waters, Anderson’s, Ascauga Lake or Hammond Hills Pool (the first three are either shut down or non-existent now).  I would remember my parents saying that they would take us “sometime” later on in the week or day, and I would just cling to that hope saying “but you promised” :)  Now I’m sometimes on the receiving end of that with my own kids.

I’ve been reading through Romans in my time with God and just came across a passage that just nailed me.  It is out of Romans 4 and is speaking about Abraham’s faith and it was his faith that made him right with God.  God made a promise to Abraham (an old childless man with a barren wife) that he would be the father of “many nations”.  This was a promise that he and Sara had to wait for years to come to pass…but it did.

Speaking of Abraham, in 4:20-21, the Bible says:

Yet he did not waver through unbelief regarding the promise of God, but was strengthened in his faith and gave glory to God, being fully persuaded that God had power to do what he had promised.

Here are some thoughts and questions that really stuck out to me:

• For all of us, there is a promise.  A promise of a plan, a will, a purpose for what we are to be about.  (Jeremiah 29:11)
• There are times when that purpose or plan is very clear.  There are times when it is just a dream, or we can only see “snapshots” of what it might be/could be.  There are times when we have NO clue.
• That doesn’t change the fact that the promise is still there.
• Question: Do I believe God will keep His promise? Abraham had to wait 25 years for the promise to be fulfilled (from the time when God first gave him that promise till Isaac’s birth)….now munch on that….25 years.  Yet he still believed.
• Question: Do i really believe God has the power to make that promise happen? My words say yes, but too often my actions say “I’ve got this God.  Let me help you out on that.”
• I’m just hoping and praying that the above verses will be true in me.  I’m asking God for that kind of faith that is unwavering to trust his promise and his power.

AJ Mind Dump

So it’s been a while since I posted as I’ve been out of town some.  Here is the latest from the world of Jones:

• Spent the past week and a half in Hilton Head, SC.  From Sunday to Friday, I was there with Walter and Danny doing some production for a camp called Breakaway.  The rest of the time was spent with my family on some vacation time.
• Breakaway - This was a our 4th year doing that camp.  Basically our day at breakaway consists of the following: 1. morning worship - where we run cameras, and propresenter for the meeting 2. film seminars - around 10:30 am 3. afternoon - Danny and Walter film recreation (both organized and non) and bring tapes to me where I edit for the the evening highlight reel 4. 6pm - tape student stories/testimonies to be used in the morning worship time 5. around 7:45 - evening worship where we run cameras, and propresenter for the meeting.  Also tape the messages/meeting for later use 6. late night - edit student stories and other pieces for morning/evening the next day.  Somewhere in between, we eat and sleep.  Not a whole lot of beach or pool time in there at all.  Seeing 300+ students encounter Jesus is a VERY cool thing.
• We usually hit Myrtle Beach with the family but things worked out great to spend our family vacation at HHI.  Was a great change of pace and some much needed R&R.
• Got to read a little bit and finished up Craig Groeschel’s book IT.  I’ve read a good number of books on leadership.  This one ranks at the top, imo.  His chapter on Vision and the last two chapters should be a must read for every pastor and staff.  Some insightful questions at the end of each chapter that would be great for a leadership team to walk through, too.
• Got the vacation hangover.  Calls for double doses of coffee.
• Still have a lot of exciting things heading this way this summer.  Looking forward to it.
• Biggest takeaway from the book IT was a prayer: God, stretch me, ruin me and heal me.  Amen…..seriously, you need to get that book.
• Reading through Andy Stanley’s “Making Vision Stick”.  gonna be good, I can already tell.
• I’m seriously thinking of going to no conferences over the next year.  I might make an exception, though, for Catalyst.  dunno
• Wrapping up several ecommerce sites over the next few weeks.  Looking forward to seeing them go live.
• Waiting on God’s timing is TOUGH!  Possibly the hardest thing I’ve had to process through in my life.  I’m not a very patient person, you can ask my wife.  Once I get an idea, a thought, a passion or new direction, usually my immediate next thought is “okay, let’s roll on that…” Can you relate to that?
• all for now.

Stop….Hammer Time

Thanks Ken for passing this along.  In revolt against every girl-jean-wearing guy out there (you know who you are), I submit this:

Sunday Mind Dump

Here’s the latest from the world of Jones:

• Good day today at Cedar Creek.  Kim and I went with Hannah to a meeting for parents of rising 6th graders.  That’s just blows my mind…I’m about to have a middle schooler.
• Having worked with middle and high school students for close to 12 years in student ministry, I’ve had the opportunity to be on the giving end of that talk…not the receiving end.  Kind of surreal.  Now I’m waiting for the day she loses her mind for the next 6 or so years.  Hopefully she won’t
• Thought Phillip’s illustration of how we rely on one “charge” to last us the whole week or month was spot on.  Set the tone perfectly for the message.
• Well, here it is 6 months out from the launch of our first multi-site campus and we had our first major media glitch this morning.  Unknown to our banks mill media team, neither our primary recording of the 9:30 service (p2 cards) nor our primary backup (dvd) had audio going to them.  Freak thing.  Found the culprit.  It was a small button that never (and I mean never) gets pushed that caused the problem.  Add that to the list of things to check during warmup.
• With plan a and b not working, we went with plan c: Wes, our campus pastor at the West Campus, preached.  Phillip always gives Wes a copy of his message.  Cool thing is that Wes said he had a feeling that today was “the day” when he would preach.  Also, as he was looking over the outline this weekend, he saw some natural personal illustrations he could use.  He did an outstanding job from what everyone said.  Sounds like a setup to me :)  God’s good at that.
• Kim and I went out on a much needed date Friday night.  Was good to hang out together.  Went to see Night at the Museum 2…bad call.  Should have gone to Borders and gotten some coffee instead.  Wait for the DVD on that one.  We were going to see Terminator 2 but missed the showtime.
• Was saddened to hear the news about Revolution Church today.  I’ve worked with Gary and RC on several projects for their message series and really have a lot of love and respect for all of them.  Praying for them that God would bring healing to the Lamb family, the other family involved and Revolution Church.  Would you pray for them right now, too?  Bottom line on all of that is an old school quote: “There but for the Grace of God go I”  Pray for them as you think of them.
• Next couple of months should be pretty fun and exciting.  Vacation with the family somewhere in there, doing production and video for two student ministry camps at the beach and get to preach the last Sunday in July.
• I’m out..peace.

multi-site church or a church with multi-sites

When it comes to doing small groups in churches, there are two paradigms that exist: Churches OF Small Groups and Churches WITH Small Groups.  Churches WITH small groups see small groups as another ministry that their church does.  Churches OF small groups view them as core essential of who they are. It plays out in all phases of that church (everything from children, student ministry and beyond).  Cedar Creek is a church OF  small groups.  That’s been a reality that was in our DNA from day one.  In fact, it would be easier to count the messages that don’t have any mention of being plugged into a small group vs the ones that do.  The pastor of a church of small groups doesn’t see it as a burden or non essential but rather champions the importance of getting plugged into one.

Now, take that same idea of “With” vs “Of” and apply that to multi sites.  Whether a video venue, web campus or a campus that has in-person teaching, it seems that churches are falling into one of those two camps:  Churches WITH multi-sites and Churches OF multi-sites.  We are now about 6 months into our first multi-site campus with our second multi site campus about to launch sometime this summer.  The staff here at CCC have been living it for over a year as it took much time and effort to prepare.  It is the newest phase (some say “fad” but I don’t think that is accurate…to most anyway) in church growth.  It allows churches really of any size to consider expansion and growth without having to necessarily depend on a new building.

I would say that Cedar Creek right now is somewhere in between a church WITH and a church OF multi-sites.  I think we’re probably leaning more toward the OF side.  I don’t think we’re fully there yet, however.  Consistent vision, communication and leadership is critical to change any culture within a church.  I think while most of our staff are getting there to where we are thinking “multi-site”, I would say that it takes a little bit longer for the church as a whole to think in that mindset.  I think that is the natural progression where you have to constantly and consistently communicate vision over and over again.  Here are some of my observations of the multi-site movement, both here at CCC and abroad.

• Multi-Site is leadership critical.  If you don’t have the right leader in place as a campus pastor and in key leadership areas, I believe you have already begun at a HUGE disadvantage.
• Multi-site does change everything.  You no longer just create a video piece for example.  You first have to filter a lot of elements through “Will this work on every campus?”
• I think a church must wrestle with the question of why would they do multi-site?  Is it because it sounds like a really good idea or is it because we believe that is where God is leading us?  Have we exhausted all of the worship possibilities on this campus yet?
• I don’t know if “freeing up seats” should be the main reason for doing multi-site.  From what I’ve observed, I’m not sure how many seats you will really free up.
• Multi-site is A LOT of work.  Let me say that again. Multi-site is A LOT of work.  It will stretch your staff and your volunteers.
• Constantly communicating vision is critical….over and over.  Just when you think people are getting tired of hearing about it, that’ probably the point where it is just starting to connect with them.  From the sermon series, to web and printed pieces, “one church in multiple locations” has to become a part of the everyday lingo of the staff and the church alike.

Here’s a book I would recommend as a primer for multi-site strategy: The Multi-Site Church Revolution

a web project: YPA

I’ve had the opportunity to work with Wierhouse over in Augusta and one of their clients on a web project that went live last month.  My end was taking the design and coding out the css, html, database and such.  The site needed to be setup as a content management system so that the client would be able to update it on their own.

http://www.ypaugusta.com

the cussing pastor

confession: I have a draft in my draft folder of my blog called “The Cussing Pastor”….it’s been there for around 8 months.

It’s not about anyone in particular at all, but just a growing trend that has emerged among pastors, leaders and communicators.  I didn’t finish the draft and probably won’t.  I think Ed Young nails what I was thinking.

Quotable: Perry Noble

Saw this quote in a post from Perry Noble today and I’m still chewing on it.

“God is ALWAYS setting His church up for a WIN…we’ve just got to be willing to listen to His voice and do what He says.”

get wisdom

Today I was reading through Proverbs 4, and there was a series of verses that just grabbed me….I mean as soon as I read them it was like a tractor beam.  These are verses that I had read and even underlined.  I knew them well.  Before I tell you what they were, I need to confess something: I lack wisdom..or at least I feel like I do a lot of the time.  I’m not sure if you can relate, but sometimes my prayers are, “God, I’m an idiot. Show me what you want me to do.”  I’ve been claiming and praying James 1:5 a lot lately it seems.  You know, the verse that says if you lack wisdom, ask God for it and He’ll give it (my paraphrase).  I’ve been asking, “God, give me wisdom.  I need your wisdom.  Wisdom to be a good dad, husband, minister.  Wisdom to follow Jesus’ lead.  God, help me to not screw this thing up.  Give me wisdom to make the right decisions.”

Then, this morning I read these verses out of Proverbs 4:5-7:

⁵ Get wisdom, get understanding;
do not forget my words or swerve from them.

⁶ Do not forsake wisdom, and she will protect you;
love her, and she will watch over you.

⁷ Wisdom is supreme; therefore get wisdom.
Though it cost all you have, get understanding.

I’ve been asking God to give me wisdom He promises to give. The flip side of that is that he tell us to go after wisdom…that’s something that He won’t do for me. He won’t make me pursue wisdom.  I have to pursue it. He’ll give it, but I’ve got to also value and pursue it (to the point that it hurts - “Though it cost all you have….”)to be the leader in my life that I need to be.  What does a pursuit of wisdom look like?  I don’t know exactly for sure, but here are some thoughts and ideas that I’ve been processing through:

1. constant attitude of learning - I think it was Rick Warren that said, “Leaders are learners.  If you stop learning, you stop leading.”  It just seems that the leaders that I know that seem wise just have this attitude of wanting to gain understanding and never resting on “What Was” or even “What Is”  They understand that current success is no guarantee for future success.

2. humility - kind of hand in hand with number 1, wise leaders ooze humility.

3. internalizing the Bible - if we believe that the Bible is God-breathed, then it stands to reason that wisdom is going to come from getting THAT on the inside.  Okay, that’s the small-group-no-brainer answer.  What has me thinking much more is what that process looks like.  I’m coming to conclusion more and more that THAT process looks different for everyone.  I haven’t landed on what that looks like exactly for me.  Just know I’ve got to get the Word and get some more.

4. different - I need people in my life who are different from me.  That may sound elementary, but the tendency, I think in most of us, is to gravitate toward the familiar.  We quote that “iron sharpens iron” scripture a lot, but I think that sharpening process is more than just going through a serendipity bible study with people very much like me.  That roughing up process is what sharpens…  I think it sometimes in the clash of ideas where wisdom can also be gained.

my clifton strengths finder results

I’ve heard a lot of good things about the Clifton Strengths Finder test and wanted to take it to see what it said about my strengths.  I was a little nervous in taking the test..you know, the whole pointing the mirror at yourself introspection.  As I was taking it, I was waiting at any moment for this pop up window (you take it online) to say “Dude, what are you smokin?”  Anyway, here are the results, the good and the bad.  These are what it said my strengths are.  So, is it me?  I think it is pretty close….scary close in some ways.  Don’t be hatin!