Altar calls aren’t something we’ve done very much in recent years here at NCC, but they’ve been happening a lot more recently.  We’re in a place where we’ve been challenging people to make a decision to put Jesus in charge of their lives.  Over the coming days I’ll be going through the Gospels looking for stories of those who decide to follow Jesus.  I’m excited to read the stories of those early believers.

As Mark, our senior pastor, put it, we want to help people to start a journey, not just raise a hand during a service and go on with business as usual.  We are commanded to make disciples, not “get converts.”  Disciple implies relationship and committment.  There is a conversion experience, but we are called to a journey of faith with Christ and fellow believers, not just a one time intellectual act.

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What are you grateful for? If you spend some time at National Community Church, you’re likely to hear Mark Batterson talk about a gratitude journal.  The idea is that each day you write down something that you are grateful for.  In Mark’s words:

Keep a gratitude journal this week. Find something everyday to be grateful for. It’s a spiritual discipline. Psalm 103:2 says, “Praise the Lord and forget not all his benefits.”

In the words of the hymn:
Count your blessings. Name them one by one. Count your many blessings. See what God has done.

Your focus will determine your reality!

I’ve decided to start keeping a gratitude journal on Twitter using the hashtag #gratitude.  After searching, it looks like some others have already put the hashtag it to good use, and you should join in too!

I’m aiming for three things a day.  I feel like that will force me to think about it more than just one thing would.  Today I’m grateful for free museums with places to sit and read, for the wonderful night I had last night, and for my day off.

What are you grateful for?

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This past weekend at NCC’s Leadership Retreat, Pastor Mark talked about the idea of input vs. output, that we need to concentrate on the input (i.e. doing the right things) and let God focus on the output (i.e. how everything turns out).

The theme for this year’s retreat was Greater Things.  In fact, this is the theme for NCC in the coming year, and so we’ve been thinking and talking about the greater things that we are believing God for.  To tell you the truth, I’ve been having a hard time putting my finger on what these are for me.

I realized that right now I’m much more concerned about the input than the output.  I’m more concerned about seeking God, investing in others,  and supporting the team and fixing the facilities at Union Station than I am about seeing a very particular thing happen.

It’s a strange tension, because I do think it’s a good idea to set goals (and have set them), and I do have a large scale vision for what I believe God is going to do.

I guess it comes down to something like this.  If I’m being the person that I’m supposed to be and doing the things that I’m supposed to do, then God will give the increase.  He will make the vision happen.  Otherwise, I’m probably doing it out of my own strength, likely trying to build some kind of personal kingdom for my own glory.

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What are my goals, plans, and resolutions for 2009?  Well, I’ll be posting those throughout the day but first, a bit of New Years resolution housekeeping.

NCC (especially Mark Batterson) is big on encouraging people to set goals.  So here are some tips that I’ve picked up about goal setting while being at NCC.

From Heather Zempel, goals should be SMART.

• Specific
• Measurable
• Achievable
• Require Faith
• Time-Related

I think the easiest way to explain is to give an example.  One of my goals for 2009 is to strengthen my relationship with God.  That’s pretty vague.  How to I determine if I’ve accomplished that goal?  So, I need to break it down.

For the month of January I plan to go through the Morning Prayer from the Book of Common Prayer every morning.  That is specific. I can measure my success or failure.  It is certainly something that is doable, but it will not be easy.  I’m not a morning person.  Waking up 45 minutes early every morning will take quite a bit of effort.  Finally, it has an end point.  This gives me something definitive to strive for, ensures that there is a time certain when I can evaluate the accomplishment, and frees me from the impossible task of committing to something for the rest of my life.

Heather also talks in that same blog post about breaking goals down into categories.  I’m planning to use the categories:

• Physical
• Intellectual
• Devotional
• Creative
• Ministerial
• Relational
• Personal

One more important point, in his sermon on Sunday, Mark encouraged us not to set too many goals.  If you plan to change everything in your life at one time, you’ll inevitably fail.  Ever tried to move from a fast-food diet and no exercise to something like Body-for-LIFE while committing to having dinner as a family 5 nights a week, spend less time at work, become a more avid reader, improve your golf game, and invest more time at your church? FAIL

Take steps.  Take steps that require faith.  Take steps that are big and meaningful, but don’t try to do everything at once.  For example, as I mentioned in a previous post, I’m putting my book on the back burner to focus on other things.  I’ve got too much going on right now to commit to that.  I’d rather do a few things well than do everything poorly.

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A few weeks ago I came across a blog called Without Wax.  While Without Wax is written by a pastor, Pete Wilson of of Cross Point Church in Tennessee, I think that all Internet marketers, social media gurus, etc. could learn a lesson from Pete.

The thing that’s so amazing about Without Wax are its comments.  It’s updated an average of once per day and has 585 subscribers in Google Reader (GR).

By contrast FireDogLake, a liberal political blog with 1,449 GR subscribers (2.5x as many) and a significantly higher Alexa ranking, receives roughly the same number of comments as Without Wax.

Here’s another comparison point.  Matt Cutts’ personal blog has 14,887 GR subscribers and has an Alexa ranking between FireDogLake and Without Wax. He posts 2.8 times per week and actually gets fewer comments than Pete does.  While the following information isn’t super-helpful for comparison purposes because we don’t have it for any other blogs listed here, I can tell you that during 2007, Matt had 2.27 million visits and 31,373 RSS subscribers.

We can also look at another blog in the same genre as Pete’s.  Evotional is written by Mark Batterson, pastor of National Community Church (where I attend/work).  Mark has 1,114 GR subscribers, posts at a similar rate as Pete does (10x per week), and has a similar Alexa ranking.  He receives far fewer comments than Pete.

What’s my point?  Well, Pete Wilson, author of Without Wax, has the highest level of community engagement that I’ve ever seen on a blog.  Sure, some blogs get more comments, but they’re huge.  The mighty TechCrunch with its nearly 1 million RSS subscribers and 3 million daily visits doesn’t get that many more comments.  The number of comments on Pete’s blog simply blows me away.

While I’m not sure exactly why Pete gets so many comments, here’s my thought. He writes relatively short posts, not Mark Batterson short but still short, and at the end of many of them he asks readers a question that they can answer in the comments. This question is written in red to make it stand out.

Maybe we can get Pete to drop by and give us some more insight.  You can always ask him on Twitter. UPDATE: Pete said he’d drop by and comment later, so no need to bug him on Twitter, although feel free to follow him!

Do you have any insight into this?

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A few days ago I mentioned that NCC was doing a sermon on politics this past weekend.  I wanted to post the video for those of you who didn’t get a chance to see it.  Pastor Mark handled the topic very well, and while I may have different opinions on a few issues, it was an excellent message and one that is obviously timely.

The sermon is also available as streaming audio, downloadable video, and downloadable audio, and in case this sermon piqued your interest, you can check out some others at http://theaterchurch.com/media or subscribe to the podcast.

Since we’re on the subject, I should make the disclaimer that the political views I express here in my blog are not in any way the political views of National Community Church, which doesn’t have any political views. Also, I don’t believe that my political views are normative for followers of Jesus. As the Sojourners have said, “God is not a Republican. Or a Democrat.” In other words, my politics are my politics, not the Church’s politics, not NCC’s politics, not Christian politics, just mine. My faith may inform my politics (although it’s more complicated than that), but other followers of Jesus would say the same thing and come to radically different conclusions (more on that another day).

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Date: 11/03/2008 – Disclaimer

I figured it’s safer to share this via video because you can’t stone me.

I want to make highly charged statements that will cause divisions and ultimately split our church. Okay, that’s exactly what I don’t want to do.

One of the things that struck me early on is that a lot of the churches in DC want to tell their members how to vote and what to think on matters of domestic and foreign policy. I have opinions, but I don’t think that is our job as a church. All of this stuff is important, but I think that our job as a church is to make disciples. We certainly want to teach things that affect all aspects of our lives, including politics. We need to think critically, biblically and tactically about every issue. I think we need to have more Christians called to culture shaping positions like politics, but all to often our politics are obstacles that keep some people from getting to the cross. Jesus didn’t come to set up an earthly kingdom but a spiritual kingdom that would transcend every earthly kingdom. When people wanted to make Jesus an earthly king, he resisted them. Why? Because he was setting up a transcendent kingdom.

Here’s what I want to do this weekend. I want to share some biblical principles that should shape our politics. I know some of you are disappointed.

Point 1 – Blood is thicker than water.

Family comes first. Your friends will come and go, but family is forever.

Here’s the bottom line. Were an incredibly diverse congregation. We have people who have been inspired to work on the McCain campaign and the Obama campaign. So essentially, we cancel each other out (j/k).

Galatians 3:26-29 – …you are all one in Christ Jesus.

If Paul had been writing in the 21st century, he probably would have included Republican and Democrat.

Those divisions disappear in Christ Jesus, we’re all one in Christ. What Paul is saying is that our allegiance to Christ comes first, the family of God second, and politics or whatever else third.

The blood that runs through God’s family is thicker than water.

I remember that one NCCer who was looking for a job on the Hill years ago was in a small group that fasted and prayed for him to find a job, but the thing that was most impressive was that there were people in his small group from both sides of the aisle.

We’re to take our obligation to love each other more seriously than our allegiance to either political party

Point 2

Philippians 3:20-21 – We are citizens of Heaven.

Yes, we’re citizens of the U.S. And I’m proud to be an American.

I don’t think you can look at the history of our nation and not see that we’ve done some things wrong as well as some things right, and I believe that we are a blessed nation.

I know some of you are looking for clues as to who I’m voting for, and this might seem like a clue, but it might just be a jedi mind trick. Caring for the poor, homeless, sick, etc. is not a political agenda, it is a Godly platform. The government has gotten involved because the Church has dropped the ball. The church in too many instances has abdicated its responsibility.

Donald Miller’s church started something called the Advent Conspiracy. It’s an organization that promotes less materialism at Christmas and instead to help others with the money you would have spent on yourself.

BTW, Donald has publically endorsed Obama, and I didn’t know that when we met. When I say that, some of you like him more, and some of you like him less. We didn’t even talk about politics, but I got e-mails from people who were angry. There’s an issue on which I disagree with Donald. Some people would even call it a litmus issue. I may disagree with him, but I can’t disagree with the fact that he biked across the U.S. to raise $250k for (kids with cancer?).

We need to be the blessing. We need to be going into our schools and ask how we can be a blessing. We need to be volunteering our time and serving our communities.

Let me put a dream on the radar. We held an event called the “Convoy of Hope” a few weeks ago. It was amazing, we distributed groceries, had a job fair, etc. But we realized it was just a means to an end. I believe that in the next year we will have a ministry center where we can care for the physical and spiritual needs of the community. Call it a Dream Center.

I believe politics is a noble calling. We need people in culture-shaping position. I believe God places people in strategic places. Joseph in Egypt.

John 6:14-15 – After people saw the miraculous sign Jesus had done, the people wanted to make him King by force, so Jesus withdrew.

People wanted to elect Jesus, Jesus for president, but political policies are not ultimate solutions. The Lord’s Prayer, the will of God being done

Point 3 – Don’t pass judgment on disputable matters.

This is incredibly important when it comes to politics. Therea re issues in the Bible that are Black and white, and when you turn something that is black and white into grey, that is called relativeism, and that is wrong. I believe we need to stand our ground on political issues that are black and white, but when we take issues that are grey and make them black and white, that is called legalism. Both are incredibly destructive.

Romans 14:1 – Don’t pass judgment on disputable matters.

There are some doctrines that are fundamental.

But there are other issues, the rapture, eternal security, whether or not to sing the 3rd verse of a hymn that we have always debated.

Rupertus Meldenius – “In essentials unity, in non-essentials liberty, in all things charity.”

I know there are one or two issues that some people are the only important issues, and there are one or two that I weigh more heavily than others.

Not everyone is going to be passionate about the same things that I am passionate about. Sometimes we think that if everyone doesn’t care about the things we care about then their lukewarm Christians. We need people who care deeply about health care, about life, about the environment.

We need our differences, and when it comes to disputable matters or matters of conscience, we need some latitude.

Point 4 – If you don’t vote, don’t complain.

The Israelites were always complaining and grumbling. I think we need to stop being part of the problem and start being part of the solution.

You know what, if you do vote and your person doesn’t get elected, then don’t spend the next four years complaining.

Here’s what’s going to happen this week. We’re going to go to the polls, and unless there are lots of hanging chads, we’ll know who wins. If your candidate wins do a little dance. If your candidate wins, maybe it’s time to enact Matthew 5:44 – But I tell you love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you. Maybe if we started praying, it would change the political tone in our country.

You know what, when I’m gossiping about someone, I can’t look them in the eye, but when I’m praying for someone, I can.

Point 5 – Respect those in authority

Romans 13:1, 7

I know what some of you are saying, “Paul didn’t live in 21st century America.” No, he lived in Rome, which was worse.

It’s fine to joke, and I know some of us have trouble showing respect to certain candidates/officeholders, but we need to show some level of respect for their office.

I know it’s not always easy, but if you have the courage to follow the example Jesus set, I think you can make the same difference Jesus did.

Jim Collins, who wrote Good to Great, talks about Level 5 Leaders. He said what makes someone a Level 5 Leader is humility, which may be surprising. When we lead in a humble spirit, when we engage in a humble spirit, ultimately, it’s change we can believe in.

Alleviating suffering and caring for the poor is not a political agenda; it’s a God agenda. God is bigger than a good president or a bad president. The church ought to be an example of unity for Capitol Hill. Proverbs (?): true wisdom has two sides.

Final thought:
When the election is over, it will be 4 years until the next one. How about the church helps solve problems in the interim.

Shane Claiborne: What’s more important than how we vote on Nov. 4 is how we live on Nov 3 & 5.

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Date: 10/19/2008 – Disclaimer

I’ve read lots of books by lots of different authors with lots of different worldviews, but this is not an easy topic. I want to approach it with humility. Besides, 30 minutes should be enough time to discuss a topic like this, right?

I know we have a lot of people at all of our locations that come from different perspectives, and I may open up a can of worms, but this is the stuff we need to be talking and thinking about.

Genesis 1:1

I’d like to share a bit of my spiritual and intellectual journey. I grew up in church, and my mom read me Bible stories, some about creation. I had Sunday school teachers who used flannel graphs to explain creation. A Creator has always seemed intuitive to me, but I also realize that I grew up in an environment that would cause that and others didn’t.

Oliver Wendell Holmes said that there is simplicity on the near side of complexity and simplicity on the far side of complexity. I think many Christians settle for simplicity on the near side of complexity, but I think God has called us to a far side faith, and we try to do that here at NCC. Our Alpha course is an example of that. We also try to create a culture where the most important decisions ought to be the most informed decisions.

I grew up going to church, but I had a near-side faith, if you will. When I went to college, I knew what I believed, but I didn’t know why I believed what I believed. The University of Chicago was a highly intellectual environment. One of my core science courses was taught by a professor who very clearly did not believe in God. I remember sitting in the class and experiencing cognitive dissonance between what I believed and what I was being taught as fact. My professor was basically teaching us about the Big Bang and evolution. I’m not sure how to reconcile my faith and science. By the way, I decided to do my term paper on intelligent design. I don’t think I’ve ever worked harder on a project. I got an A.

I look back on that. I’m a few years older and wiser, and if I knew then what I know now, I don’t think I would have been as frightened by what I was hearing. I’ve learned a few things about science and theology since then. This is a conversation about it, but we all need to discover why believe what we do.

I was made to feel somewhat foolish believing in a self-existent, infinite God. People would ask me where God came from. It’s the first cause question. It’s beyond the ability of the human mind to fathom that, but those who believe in creation by random chance have to answer that as well. My question is, “Where did the soup and single-cell amoeba come from?” It seems to me that on the causological issue, it’s a mystery no matter how you look at it. It seems that those who believe in God are put on the spot and those who do not don’t have to meet the same standard of proof.

You can’t prove or disprove the existence of God. It’s a tenet of faith, but it goes both ways. Michael Guillen says: there are two types of people in the world, those who believe in God and those who believe in something else (a god of randomness). It takes faith to believe the universe is the magnum opus of a creator, but I think it takes more faith to believe it all just came from randomness.

This weekend I was reading about the Jens-Olsen clock. It is the most complicated clock in the world. It is also the most accurate. It has parts that won’t move for 2500 years. It has 15,000 parts. Imagine if someone in Copenhagen (where the clock is located) told you that the clock wasn’t designed by anyone, that it just appeared after a large explosion.

[Lots of facts about how complicated, intricate, and precisely balanced our world is.] It seems to me that our planet is perfectly synchronized to sustain human life. Is that the result of random chance or is that the result of intelligent design. All I’m saying is, let’s not make the mistake of thinking that religion takes faith and science doesn’t. I think there is tremendous evidence that points to intelligent design, but in the end it comes down to Hebrews 11:6. By faith we believe that what is made comes from not from what is seen but is unseen.

This is just scratching the surface of one small issue, but I would be remiss if I didn’t talk about some theological issues. The Bible does not explicitly put a timeline on human history or the age of the Earth, but I think the unspoken assumption by a lot of people is that the Earth is young. I think that causes some cognitive dissonance for Christians.

I think a lot of the dissonance comes from the translation of the word “day” in Genesis 1. What I think you have to remember is that this was written thousands of years ago by an author inspired by God by an author who I don’t think was trying to write a scientific treatise for your biology class. I’m not saying there are scientific mistakes. I’m just saying you have to appreciate the context in which it was written.

The Hebrew word for day in Genesis 1 can be translated in a variety of ways. It can me a 24 hour day, sun-up to sun-down, or an age, eon, etc. It was used in each of these ways in the Old Testament. I know that there are some literalists who would suggest that anything other than a 24 hour day is a slippery slope.

Let’s talk about hermeneutics for a minute. It’s a fancy word for interpreting the Bible. On a very simple level, it’s important to remember that there are different literary genres in the Bible. I think you have to interpret the Psalms artistically. I think you have to interpret the historical part literally. Some people want to explain that away. I believe that God created Adam and Eve from the dust of the earth. When you translate prophecy, you’d better not do that literally because it’s going to be weird. If you translate Revelation literally, you’re going to be wrong because it wasn’t written that way. Jesus was using hyperbole when he said “pluck out your eye if it causes you to sin.” I’m pretty sure at all of our locations we’re allowing women to come in without headcoverings even though Paul said that women needed to wear them. Why? Because in Paul’s culture that would have been weird. It would have drawn a ton of attention for a woman not to be wearing a headcovering. It would have been a distraction.

So, going back to the evolution/creation debate, back to the tension. I know this may not be what you want me to say in this message. Some of you want me to get into macro and micro evolution, punctuated equilibrium, but no. I think what happens for many of us is that we just take one side or the other and discard the other side. I want to propose a middle way. Let me say up front that all truth is God’s truth. I believe that the Bible is a special revelation from God, but also that creation reveals God. Paul said that God is seen in nature. If that’s true, then every “-ology” is branch of theology. I think we ought to send our kids into science with the same degree of encouragement that we send our kids to the mission field. We ought to be discovering the cure for cancer, discovering new species and new planets, unlocking the genetic code.

I think what I want to suggest is that science is not something we need to be afraid of; it is a spiritual endeavor. Solomon taught not only about spiritual matters but about science as well. I think the more discoveries we make, the more we learn about God.

Emerson: The religion that’s afraid of science dishonors God and commits suicide.

It’s not always easy to reconcile those two things. This is a bizarre place for us to end. I think we’re so afraid of the “E” word that we’ve made a mistake. When I say that I believe in evolution, not referring to macroevolution, not saying that we come from apes, but do I believe in microevolution? Of course, it’s something we ought to celebrate. God created us with an evolutionary capacity, the ability to adapt to environments. Here is the great irony. Evolution is a testament to God’s creativity. I think microevolution may be one of the greatest testaments to God’s creation. I think it’s kind of like sex. Let’s give credit where credit is due, sex was God’s idea. Sex is a gift from God. Are there parameters? Absolutely, it was a gift from God to be enjoyed by husband and wife in the context of marriage, but God never gets any credit for that because the enemy has co-opted that because the abuses in our culture are ruining people’s lives. I think the exact same thing has happened with the concept of evolution. What I’m trying to say is, let’s not be afraid of this. Let’s celebrate it.

Einstein: Science without religion is lame, and religion without science is blind.

What I want to do is talk about those four words, “Let there be light.” We use words to communicate, but God uses words to heal and create. Prior to the 20th century, some of the leading scientific minds didn’t believe in a beginning. It was called the steady state theory. Now we know that the universe is expanding.

Stephen Hawking: Most people do not like the idea of a beginning, probably because it smacks of divine intervention.

I think that most people oppose the idea of God not because of scientific reasons but because if He exists, you’re accountable to Him.

The Doppler Effect: Galaxies are still being created at the edge of the universe.

Thus, “Let there be light.” Is still creating. Everything you look at is an echo of a creator that said “Let there be.”

Forget the science, science is gone now. We teach in our classrooms the assumption that everything is random chance. We think that the idea that we are a cosmic accident has no implication. You think that the depression rampant in our culture isn’t an effect of that. You take out God, you suck the meaning out of our lives.

You are not an accident. Someone needs to hear that this weekend. You were created by an omnipotent God big enough to know the hairs on your head, and he has a plan and a purpose for your life. You were created by and for God, and some day you will stand before God.

Here’s some good news, an amazing thought. Let’s not get embroiled in all of the debate and controversy, let’s study it and wrestle with it, but let’s zoom way back out. Isn’t the universe that we live in an amazing place. I was on a flight this week, and it was the first time in a long time I’ve been in a window seat, and for almost the entire time I stared at the moon. It was brilliant as it glared off the cloud cover beneath the plane. It was amazing. You think about everything God has created. 1 Cor 2:9 – No one can conceive what God has prepared for those who love him. Creation is a glimpse of eternity, a glimpse of heaven. We will experience things that in our current condition we cannot process.

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Main Session 2

Description: The high-achieving, highly mobile, de-churched neighborhoods of Washington, DC, aren’t ideal environments for small group ministry. Yet, National Community Church is making it work. Learn about their “organic approach” to community and how you can see group life flourish despite harsh surroundings.

Speakers’ Bios:

Mark Batterson serves as lead pastor of National Community Church in Washington, DC. In 2007 Outreach Magazine recognized NCC as one of the 25 Most Innovative Churches in America. One church with eight services in four locations, NCC is focused on reaching emerging generations. 73% of NCCers are single twenty-somethings and 70% come from an unchurched or dechurched background. The vision of NCC is to meet in movie theaters at metro stops throughout the metro DC area. NCC also owns and operates the largest coffeehouse on Capitol Hill. In 2007, Ebenezers was recognized as the #2 coffeehouse in the metro DC area by AOL CityGuide.

Mark is the author of In a Pit with a Lion on a Snowy Day and Wild Goose Chase: Reclaiming the Adventure of Pursuing God.

A native Alabamian, Heather Zempel invested her parent’s money and six years of her life at Louisiana State University earning bachelors and masters degrees in biological engineering. She finally left Cajun country to apply her newly acquired skills as a consultant at an environmental engineering firm and later as a policy advisor in the United States Senate. She now engineers environments that foster community and spiritual growth as the discipleship pastor at National Community Church in Washington, DC. Heather and her amazing husband Ryan can be found on Capitol Hill enjoying theater (from the audience or the stage) and settling arguments with Webster’s Dictionary. Check out her daily ramblings at www.discipleshipgroups.blogspot.com.

Notes:

Okay, starting off, I’m excited for this session. Mark and Heather are my bosses at NCC.

MB: We needs lots of different kinds of churches because there are lots of different kinds of people.

It was the first weekend of January 1996.  It was our first Sunday as pastors of National Community Church.  It was also the weekend of the blizzard of ‘96: two feet of snow.  We had three people, my wife, myself, and our baby Parker.  The good news is that with 19 people the next Sunday, we had 633% growth in the first week.

I had never pastored a church, and it was baptism by immersion.  It was tough.  I used to lead worship and would close my eyes because it was too depressing.  We’d start with 6-8 people.

The school we were meeting in got closed down for fire code violations, and if the church had died, only two dozen people would have known or cared.  But sometimes the most spiritual thing you can do is hang in there.

But somewhere in the back of my head I remembered that Willow Creek had started in a movie theater, so I went in to meet the manager at the Union Station theaters.  They had just started a campaign to rent out their facilities during off hours.  It was like God was in the middle of this thing!

I started with the traditional idea of renting a building until you can buy one, but in our neck of the woods, Capitol Hill, land goes for about $10 million an acre.  I began to realize that our location was perfect.  We were in the most visited destination in Washington DC with our own subway system, food court, etc.

We also own and operate the largest coffeehouse on Capitol Hill.  Coffeehouses aren’t just a place to get coffee, they are postmodern wells.  They’re the places that people just hang out.

Every day we have hundreds of people come through our coffeehouse.  On Saturdays we have two services there.  On Monday we have Alpha groups that meet there.

We are in a unique place.  We are 73% single twentysomethings.  We have 40-50% turnover every year(?).

Without the favor of God I don’t want to be in ministry, do you?

As our staff has grown through the years, I realized how much you enjoy doing ministry has a lot to do with who you are doing ministry with.  The quality of your ministry will also begin to depend less on your competence and more on that of the people you work with.

God will not grow our churches beyond our capacity to disciple people.  In other words, all of the pressure is on Heather.

HZ: Before coming on staff I was a biological engineer, so that happens to be the lens through which I view ministry.

I know some of you are groaning because you were the kids who hated science in school.

One of the most profound stories I heard in the science world is from a cereal company that wanted to replace it’s old equipment because it took equipment from a 5 story building to produce irregularly shaped cereal.  The engineers figured out how to reduce the process to a machine that produced perfect cereal and was the size of a tabletop.  However, no one wanted to buy the cereal.

I have a bad habit of going to conferences like this, finding the perfect model or system, and trying to implement it without regard to the specific culture where I am.  You can have a perfect small group model that will produce perfect disciples, but if the people in your congregation won’t get involved with it, then it ceases to be the perfect system.

We’re going to talk about some of the catalysts that push forward the growth of community in the context in which we do ministry.

Don’t confuse the outcome with the methods.  The outcome for us is people who are living and growing in community.  There might be a number of processes that will get you to the outcome.

MB: 1. Everything is an experiment

Neurologists sub-divide the brain into regions responsible for a variety of functions.

THe visual cortex responsible for the optical nerve

The pre-frontal lobe (?) is responsible for spacial operations.

The medial ventral pre-frontal cortex is the east of humor.

Your left brain is the locus of logic, and your right brain is the locus of creativity or imagination.

Those hemispheres are connected for about 300 million nerve fibers called the corpus collosum.  Female brains have about 40% more connections between the hemispheres.  Men have 20% more bone density.

Over the course of time there is a cognitive shift from right brain to left brain.  At some point we stop doing ministry out of right brain imagination and start doing it out of left brain memory.  We stop dreaming and start remembering.  I think God has called us to creativity.  It’s not optional.  “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, and mind.”

We believe that there are ways of doing church that no one has thought of yet.

What we try to do at National Community Church is approach everything we do in an experimental fashion.

Here’s what’s beautiful about this.  How many of you as leaders have found that no matter how God-ordained your vision is, there are some people who will oppose it.  So, if someone says, “I don’t think we should be doing that.”  You know what our comeback is?  “It’s just an experiment.”  If it doesn’t work we’ll stop doing it.  If it does, we’ll try to do it better.

This gives you the freedom to fail, the freedom to try new things, and to create what you want the future to look like.

HZ: One of the experiments we started about 4 years ago was running our small groups on the semester system.  And this is one of those times when your context is important.  We have a ton of college students and Hill staffers.

We’ve found that people are a lot more willing to try out a group if they’re only going to make an 8 to 12 week committment.  How many of you really want to sign up for a 5 AM prayer group that meets in perpetuity?  The fear is that people won’t stick with it, but we’re finding that isn’t true.  People will join as long as they can see the exit sign.

We’ve had situations where people have been in the middle of year-long inductive Bible studies of Romans.  That’s great, except that in the middle of it people may realize they’re struggling with relational and sexual purity and need out to address the issues they’re dealing with.

MB: We had quite a bit of resistance when we started.

So first, we said, let’s just try this.  It’s an experiment.

Second, we allowed long-standing groups to keep meeting.

We take a break in August.  And there was some concern that we’re taking a break from God, but we are supposed to be teaching people to feed themselves.  Also, it allows our leaders, who invest so much time and energy in their groups.

HZ: We’ve tried some digital discipling as well.  We’ve started zonegathering.com, a blog for our leaders, and a lot of our groups have started their own blogs, places where they can have discussion throughout the week.

MB: I love technology, but I am inept.  I have our kids help me through the DVD.  I walk through our media department and ask them if they need any non-tech support.

I started blogging because I felt like I lost connection with people as our church got larger, and it allowed me a way to connect with them.

There was some thing where people felt like technology would stifle community, but exactly the opposite has happened.

I follow our church staff on Twitter.  It allows me to know when someone had a rough night because their kid was sick.

We need to redeem technology for Christ.

HZ: You promised a bad experience, and I don’t have any, so you want to share one?

MB: We decided to do a Rock Band tournament as a fundraiser for a missions trip.  It worked well.  We raised about $1000.  Note to self: you might want to check the lyrics before you do that.  But here’s the thing.  It’s that dimension of leadership where you take God very seriously, but you don’t take yourself very seriously.  You know how you laugh at yourself.  You try stuff, you experiment with stuff.

HZ: 2. Maturity does not equal conformity

Modulus of Elasticity: How much force can you apply to an object to deform it without which it will not be changed.

Each object has a yield point at which it can no longer go back to its original self.

The modulus of elasticity is important when thinking about spiritual growth.  We’ll take people to a retreat or get them in a small group but not push them beyond their yield point, so they come back and return to their old self.  We need to push them beyond their yield point.

We decided to allow small groups to emerge from the creativity of our leaders.  We told people that we want to build community and make disciples; how you do that is up to you.  We’ve got groups doing inductive Bible studies, reading books, serving the homeless.  A few years ago one of my leaders wanted to start a group around fantasy baseball.  I trust Nathan.  I told him we wanted to make disciples of Christ, not disciples of the Phillies.  The guys got together to pick their teams.  Then they adopted a little league field.  Every so often they go out and take care of the field.  People began to ask questions.  There’s now an NCC banner hanging in the outfield.  Our staff had nothing to do that.

MB: We call this our free-market system of small groups.  We’re speaking descriptively, not prescriptively, but this has worked well for us.

We take our leaders though a 3 hour leadership course and have them sign a leadership covenant.  We want people to be part of a small group before they lead a small group.  We expect our leaders to get a vision from God and go with it.  Are there groups we’ve said no to?  Yes.  Are there groups that ended up being very marginal?  Yes.  How many of you have a committee in your church that should have died 20 years ago?  That’s the great thing about the free-market system.  If no one shows up to your group, you don’t have a group.

Oswald Chambers: Let God be as original with others as he was with you.

HZ: 3. Expect the Unexpected

MB: Spiritual growth is a conundrum.  The key to spiritual growth is establishing routines.  We call them spiritual disciplines, but when a routine becomes a routine, we have to change our routine.  When I’m in a spiritual slump, it’s because I need to get out of our routine.  Change of pace plus change of place equals change of perspective.

In physical exercises routine eventually becomes counterproductive.  Your muscles adapt and stop growing.

The disciples didn’t know what Jesus would do next.  He overthrew money-changers in the temple, walked on water, and then healed someone on the Sabbath.  Jesus could have healed someone on any other day, but it wouldn’t have been as much fun with the Pharisees.  A good leader’s got to have a good curveball.

You cannot overappreciate your small group leaders.

HZ: We wanted to bless our leaders beyond anything they could imagine, so we went to Five Guys burgers and went into the Senate and House office buildings and took burgers not only to our leaders but also to their offices.

MB: 4. Love People When They Least Expect it and Least Deserve It

We want a culture of experimenting, originality, etc., but when you get right down to it, where does community grow best?  In an environment that is graceful and respectful.  John 1:14 – Jesus was full of grace and truth.

We need both of those things.  Let me speak bluntly.  We live in a culture where it’s wrong to say that something is wrong, and that’s wrong.  I live in a city where it’s all about being politically correct.  I’m going to be biblically correct.  This generation wants the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, the hard truth.  Let’s stop answering questions that no one is asking.

If you want to impact someone’s life, love them when they least expect it and least deserve it.  When a woman is caught in adultery and brought to Jesus, she expects to be stoned.  Jesus stepped in and loved her when she least expected it and least deserved it.

If you can try to love people when they least expect it and least deserve it, you can create a culture where amazing things happen.

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