Loud & Clear

ask anything

I’m super stoked about this.

The church at large has a bad reputation and history of being a place where you shouldn’t ask questions. Not Clovis Hills.

We’ve done services like this throughout our history, where people could ask questions during the message and we’d answer them live at the end. No prep time, just Pastor Steve on the spot.

Well, inspired by what some other churches have done, we’re taking that to the next level. We’re going to do an entire series entirely based on the questions people want to ask the church.

So here’s the deal. If you don’t go to church, have a bone to pick with the church or God, or feel the church has let you down, go to askanything.clovishills.com and ask your question.

It’s completely anonymous. We’re going to spend the month of October answering the questions you ask. THEN, we’re going to take more questions during the service and answer them live at the end.

So go ahead. What do you want to ask? askanything.clovishills.com

Amazing Grace

I just walked into the green room from the auditorium where I got the rare opportunity to just be a volunteer during the Lord’s Supper. We’ve done this many different ways. Today, we had people come in rows forward to receive the elements. As each person pick up the cup, a volunteer  spoke a blessing about Christ’s sacrifice for us and how he has forgiven our sins.

I watched row after row of our people come forward. And I was wrecked. God completely overwhelmed me with how much he loved each person individually. And each person, through this act, was signifying their surrender to God, recognizing and accepting his gift of forgiveness. I watched families come through, generations of a legacy of following Christ. Fathers leading sons, mother’s their daughters.

What an amazing God we have. What an amazing church who loves him. What an honor I get to be a part of a place where God changes lives.

Leadership Summit favorite quotes

The Leadership Summit was awesome.  Here’s some of my favorite quotes:

Gary Haugen, CEO & Founder of International Justice Mission
“Just because I am leading, and people are following doesn’t mean I am leading them in things that matter.”

“Are Jesus and I really interested in the same things?”

“What’s God’s plan for making it believable that he is good? We are the plan. There’s no other plan.”

“People will take care for themselves the work that is easy and fun. Leaders must lead in the areas that feel frightening and really difficult.”

“Jesus did not come to make us safe. He came to make us brave.”

Bill George, Harvard Business School professor & former CEO
“People who fail, don’t fail to lead others. They fail to lead themselves.”

Wendy Kopp, Founder of Teach for America
“It’s your personal conviction in this that enables you to ask people to sacrifice to achieve the vision.”

“We channel the greatest future leaders against our greatest social injustice.”

John Burke, Gateway Community Church lead pastor
“The religious leaders didn’t like Jesus’ messy ministry. They wanted it to look clean on the outside.”

“Are we leading others to look at people through the eyes of grace?”

“Spiritual growth is scandalously easy. A child can do it. Are you growing your relationship with God?”

“Seekers aren’t opposed to truth… But what they are opposed to is arrogance.”

Craig Groeschel, LifeChurch.tv lead pastor
“You have everything you need to accomplish what God wants you to. Not having what YOU think you need makes you look for the thing GOD thinks you need to accomplish his will.”

“People say failure is not an option. I agree. Failure is a necessity.”

“You are not what people say of you. You are a child of God, gifted by God and led by God to have everything you need to do what God put you here to do.”

Chuck Colson, Prison Fellowship Ministries Founder & prolific author
“Stop blaming the culture when everything goes wrong.”

“Culture is nothing more than religion incarnate.”

“We don’t impose, we propose.”

Catherine Rohr, Prison Entrepreneurship Program CEO & Founder
“I felt compelled to give them a solution where they had no option to fail when they got out.”

“My prayer was simple. ‘Bring it on, God. Bring it on.’”

“God doesn’t really need me. He just needs me to follow instructions.”

“I sacrifice a lot of privacy for accountability. And it’s worth it.”

“These guys understand what it is to be willing to die for something. And that does something special to our culture.”

“This isn’t about pity. We hope this is about compassion. Suffering with people and taking them to the next level.”

Mother Teresa’s commitments she made to God and never compromised:

• Say yes to God in everything.
• Respond to God promptly.
• Refuse God nothing.
• Seek to love God as he has never been loved before.

Clovis Hills: a redeeming church

We say it alot around here. There’s a church for everyone. No matter your dress style, worship preference, beverage necessity or preferred baptism method, there’s a church somewhere that fits you.

But what about Clovis Hills? Who do we fit? What’s our uniqueness?

Pastor Steve and I had a telephone interview this week with the Willow Creek Association. As we talked about our history, defining moments, biggest failures and most important learnings, one thing kept coming around.  We are a redeeming church.

I can tell you story after story of people who’ve come to Clovis Hills wounded, a jerk, abandoned, burned out, a snob or disconnected. We’ve seen marriages fall apart and end in divorce, yet both continue to attend here. We seen folks with huge abuses in their past come to health and be restored to life and ministry. We’ve had guys who were the meanest, nastiest guys you’d ever run into transform into the nicest, loving-est guys you could imagine. Totally different people! I still can’t believe it sometimes the transformation that happens around here.

Pastor Steve even once started a special growth group he called the X-Min (similar to the comic name) that was made up of about a dozen ex-pastors attending Clovis Hills. Some had simply burned out. Others made personal mistakes that cost them their positions.

I’ve always wondered where these guys went after they stepped down from ministry, especially those in disgrace. Apparently, they come to Clovis Hills. Here they are anonymous, just themselves and rediscover God’s love, grace and purpose for their lives. They’re in growth groups, in ministry teams (some are greeters!), and other areas. It’s amazing to me.

On September 7, we’re starting a message series called Redeeming Grace. One of these pastors is going to co-teach with Steve for two of those weeks, sharing his own story about his fall and his restoration. It’s going to be an amazing series!

Pastor Steve has said from the beginning Clovis Hills is about Changed Lives. And while some staff including myself, and perhaps even you, have managed to create some image in our own minds of what we think Clovis Hills should look like and be, and have wondered sometimes at why we aren’t everything we wished, Clovis Hills is still a place where life change happens.

So who are we? What’s our identity, vision and uniqueness?  We’re the place the broken, the bruised and the battered find refuge, God’s grace and purpose for their lives. What an awesome place to be!

Now let me clarify. Some will think that this shouldn’t qualify as a uniqueness. After all, isn’t that every church’s mission? Well, yes and no. My parents church is a missional church. Seekers don’t go to their church really. But they are constantly doing community projects, sending missionaries, equipping leaders. That’s their uniqueness. Other churches are discipling churches. Or worshipping churches. God seems to gift churches as uniquely as he does people.

Every believer and church should follow the Great Commandment (love God & people) and the Great Commission (teach them to follow Jesus). HOW they accomplish that exactly is part of their uniqueness.

If Clovis Hills isn’t your church home, what is your church’s uniqueness?

creative element potential problems

When programing an element for your worship or youth service, there are a couple things you should think through first.  Potential technical problems should be near the top.

Check this out.

Thanks Dana for sending this my way.

By the way, if anyone knows a WordpressMU plugin that would make this thing show up on my page, let me know. I’ve tried a few, but no go so far.

designing the service

Paul Haugen and I were talking about producing weekend services today. Specifically, we were talking about doing the service “out of order” and why we never really do it. There’s several reasons I won’t go into at the moment (if you want to know them, leave a comment and the discussion will be on!), however the reality is people had a hard time when we’ve done this in the past.

This thought was echoed today when I read this blog post by Stephen Denny. He says in his post:

“We have a deep psychological need to be consistent with previously taken positions, even when those positions no longer hold any relevance.”

We all simply have a hard time with change, with going outside of our preconceptions and giving other’s perceptions a chance. Mostly, if worship isn’t up front, the people who know they can come late and still hear the message miss part of the message.

I’ve had some great discussion with others on this topic before, but I wanted to distill what I want out of a church service; and what I love programing into them. Here it is:

A church service should draw seekers while exciting believers by delivering what people need and expect in completely unexpected ways.

The deal is if you’re going to do unexpected things, you have to do it consistently. People have to know we always are changing things up. Random change causes trauma. But if you expect change and experience it consistently, you know to expect something unexpected. That’s exciting!

AND if you are excited and moved in unexpected ways through those changes consistently, you’ve created a culture that is more flexible to fliers and risks and more forgiving of flops. The danger is that we all have an inner compulsion to settle in. When we give in to that pull, than we become a consumer instead of a participant. The focus shifts to having my expectations met instead of coming ready for a fresh experience. And, in my opinion, that’s when the church can begin to loose touch with the culture. You’re busy meeting expectations, not creating fresh experiences.

Let me clarify: I’m not saying Clovis Hills is not creating fresh experience simply because we don’t switch the service order. I think we do a lot of things right in that regard. I’m just using this one example to illustrate how I connected to Stephen Denny’s post and my discussion with Paul.

For me it’s all about reaching seekers, thrilling believers, getting what you expect in unexpected ways.  This is the core of my passion in designing a church service.

Where do you fall on the spectrum?  And how do you think Clovis Hills doing in creating fresh experiences?

life, uncensored

I had an interesting conversation with a friend of mine a couple weeks ago. He’s somewhere in the seeker/early believer stage. One of the things he’s struggling with is the lack of transparency in church people, staff folks in particular.

I understand where he’s coming from. A lot is riding on what we do - people’s eternity. The Bible gives us clear instruction (Paul in particular) to live spotless lives, to make sure that how we live causes no one to stumble in their faith journey. When you take that with how judgmental folks are of Christians, leadership, celebrity, etc., it’s easy to get drawn above the water line and live on the surface, hiding all the dark secrets of your sin and struggle. It’s not just the world either. Church people can be the worst offenders of the bunch.

Our culture demands us to be real, true authenticity and transparency. (Jesus too, by the way) On the other hand, it crucifies anyone who makes a mistake. An odd mix.

But I understand. Let me confess: I’m no different than our culture. I totally believe in transparency. Ask my friends, I’m always the guy that says “more than he should” when it comes to self disclosure. I just am who I am. I crave that in my relationships. But there’s always that line of how much can you share and still remain safe. I don’t always know. But I’d rather opt for transparency. My only other option is to begin to live only for other’s perceptions. And that’s a dark and lonely road.

So I’m here to confess: I feel tired, insecure, and stressed out. For reason of brevity, I won’t go into all why my week was junk. I tried and this post got way too long. Here’s the sum up. My son’s really sick, I’m suffering for lack of sleep, my wife’s out of town, work is crazy with innovation and obstacles and I feel like crap.

Not that I feel like you’re only being real when you share your junk. It just tends to be what we hide the most.

How’s it going in your world? Really?

What’s a church service for? Pt. 2

This post is much later than I anticipated. A huge project landed in my lap this week on the fast track and has derailed my regular schedule. That said, I’d like to thank D Rho, Eric Rata, and Joe for great and insightful comments. What you guys said really resonates with me.

I think this discussion often gets confused between two concepts: what is the church for and what’s a church service for? I find that many young and growing believers get caught up thinking they are one in the same thing. This is not a style discussion, but a purpose discussion. Style has mostly to do with preference.

It’s a circular system. The style of your church will define the style of your service which influence the style of people your church will attract. Service style may revolve around deep exegetical teaching. It could be around passionate worship. It may be relationship and interaction. Each of these is important to a growing believer. The problem falls when people expect a service to be all of those at the same time. When people think the purpose of a service is to accomplish the entire growth process at one time, in one place.

Of course, this isn’t the picture of the life of a growing Christ follower. It’s something that permeates your entire life, schedule, relationships and habits. Our biggest problem is that we really just don’t want to work that hard at following Jesus. Especially now that culture confirms what human nature desires (immediate gratification marketing combined a disposable commodity society) it’s a tough job to lead people to engage at that level. But no one said this would be easy. Especially Jesus.

So, then if the church service can’t and shouldn’t provide a one stop shop for growing believers, what’s it for?

I think it is a big part is a) to get seekers and young believers moving in the right direction and b) be a gathering place for believers (of every stage of their faith journey) to worship, be challenged and experience God together.

More on a) since we can mostly all agree on b). (if you don’t, leave a comment and let’s continue the discussion!) For seekers and young believers, a church service creates God experiences they have a hard time finding elsewhere. It gives them tools they can use. It introduces them and moves them to understand worship. It gives people something to invite their friends to. And according to the Reveal Study, the largest comprehensive spiritual growth and the church study which we recently got to be a part of, confirms this is true. Worship services are only a significant part of spiritual growth to seekers and young believers. After that, it has to happen outside the service.

Because growth, real spiritual growth, has to take place outside of a service. It’s going to happen in a growth group, serving in ministry, reaching out to the poor and desolate through missions. It comes from reading your Bible on your own, through prayer, solitude and tithing. It comes through seeking out spiritual mentors and sharing your faith. It happens as you shape your life to look like Christ.

And equipping people for those things is the job of the Church. The discipleship process is there to provide people tools to grow in those areas. Still, it’s vital people realize the Church can’t grow you spiritually. That’s something that happens when you submit to Christ through disciplining yourself to become like him.

The Church provides the resources. You provide the commitment. God provides the transformation as you begin to look like him.

A final thought. Church services are for everyone: seeker, young, growing and mature believers. I absolutely love working in an area that engages and challenges every believer no matter where they are in their faith. Truth is truth no matter where you are on the journey. 65 minutes can change your life. But it’s the rest of the minutes that take that change and make it a permanent part of your life.

What’s a church service for?

So I’ve had this discussion a couple times in the last couple weeks. What’s a church service for? Your answer will likely vary by the preference of who you’re talking to.

• Those who connect with God most through music will say the service is for worship, hence it being called a “Worship Service.”
• Those who like to discover new things about God will say they come to service to “be fed” and prefer exegetical style teaching with lots of exposition on the original Greek.
• There are some who are wired and/or simply get the idea that we were created for relationships and would say fellowship is of primary importance. The Bible does tell us to make sure we don’t stop meeting together.
• Others are looking for a powerful God experience, stripped down of all the “entertainment” that is common in church with especially larger churches.

So what’s the right answer? Or is there one? It’s hard to tell since Jesus didn’t exactly give church services when he walking around. But he left some clues I think to help us out.

How did Jesus worship God? As a boy he went to the synagogue and was found outside talking and listening to scholars. As an adult, he no longer sat and listened to them, but challenged them and their way of thinking. He lead a growth group with his disciples, but it was more for them than for himself. He preached to big crowds (perhaps we could say Jesus was the first megachurch). He did miracles. He counseled the hurting and lost. It would seem at this point we think the answer was how we went off alone to be with God. And many make the argument they don’t need church and worship by themselves as Jesus did.

Hmm, no easy answer yet. Let’s look at what Jesus expected of his disciples, maybe that will give us a clue.

The first thing Jesus said to these guys was, “Come and follow me.” He gave them an invitation. He walked with them, shared good times and bad with them. He prayed with them, taught them. He sent them on a mission trip. He empowered them to do great things for the Kingdom of God. He was quick to get on them when the did or said something dumb. He was quick to forgive them and restore the relationship. He challenged them beyond what they could have ever imagined. And he loved them completely.

Two different perspectives: Jesus and his disciples. I think there are some big ideas in here that extend even beyond a church service, but that’s a different topic. So for now, what do you think? What is a church service for?