Mark Waltz | ...Because People Matter

Suggestions and Feedback

Recently I received an email from a church who's considering placing a "Suggestion Box" in their lobby for their people to place ideas. They're hoping that while anyone could use the box, that they'll also hear from new people. Great question!

Here was my email response. Thought I'd share it here...

• You might consider not using the word “Suggestion” on the box.
  • The suggestion box says “we want your ideas.” People will likely infer that if you want ideas, you’ll act on them. Of course that won’t always be the case.
  • You’ll get suggestions about how the pastor ought to preach differently. About the choir. About the music in general. About the volume being too loud or too soft. About the temperature being too warm or too cool. About Sunday School classes and teachers. About children …and on and on and on.
  • Again – if you label the box “suggestions” but don’t act on them, people will cease to use the box and be miffed that their idea wasn’t used or even listened to.
  • If you call it a suggestion box, how do you intend to respond to the requests you’ll receive? You probably have a plan. I’d just make sure you’ve anticipated the kinds of suggestions above, so that your box doesn’t promise something you won’t or can’t deliver on.
    • For instance, will you put space on the card for name and contact info so you can follow-up? This would allow you to cast vision, responding with reasons why you’re not making changes on a particular suggestion or to share the kind of change you’re making because of their thoughtful idea.
    • If you intend to take action based on the number of people who suggest a certain change – like “The drums are too loud. Get rid of them” – then you’ll actually set up a new voting mechanism where votes are being cast every weekend. Then you’ll cease to operate out of clear mission and vision and determined values, and instead you’ll “do church” on the whim of people who may not understand your calling at all.
• What if you called it a “Feedback” box?
  • In my opinion “feedback” may be acted on – or it may not. It’s feedback. Feedback is always helpful, even when people don’t understand the values, vision or mission. Feedback allows you to…
    • Shape messages and vision-casting because you see over time that people are missing the core values and vision of your church.
    • Respond with gratitude for feedback because now you understand how people are feeling and perceiving what you’re doing.
    • Make changes to better practice your values and better live out your mission.
    • Empower people to be part of making who you are better – as one people with one mission.
• In terms of the card itself, I’d include:
  • Space for name, contact info and best way to contact. Some will opt to not complete this section, but for those who do you can do direct follow-up if that seems helpful.
  • Keep the questions open-ended without getting too detailed. This allows people to respond with what “struck them” or what’s important to them. Here are some ideas…
    • “Tell us about your experience”
    • “I would/will invite a friend to come with me.”
    • “Today I felt… “
    • “Please pray for…”
  • I’d keep it simple and short.
• I’m watching a number of churches get feedback in follow-up letters.
  • Include a postage-paid card with a welcome letter, asking new people to complete it and return it.
  • Use similar statements like those above.
• At Granger we place two questions on our bulletin/program and keep the invitation for feedback in front of every person every weekend.
  • On a tear-off stub people are given space to “tell us about your experience” and “please pray for me…”
  • Most people use this space to request prayer support, but every week we receive feedback about guest services, the weekend service, the preaching and more.
• Finally, as I mentioned when I started this list, determine a plan for how you’ll respond before you put your plan in place. Decide what weight you will give to what comments.
  • While every person matters, my experience is that churched people can have very specific and pointed opinions about subjective issues such as music, volume, styles of preaching, and convenience. These folks often haven’t figured out yet that church isn’t necessarily about them. It is – in that they matter, we want them to grow, we want them to serve and live with kingdom responsibility and joy.
  • You won’t please everyone. You can’t. Jesus didn’t. Stop trying.
  • Decide what environment, what experience you’re hoping to create and facilitate that will help people “get it”; that will help people see and experience Jesus. When you get ideas that help you accomplish that better, particularly with your hardest to reach audience of those who don’t know Jesus yet – take those ideas and run!
  • Let all the others help you recast vision and feel no requirement to do anything else with it.

What are you doing at your church to allow people to help you stay true to your mission, vision and values?

Toy Jesus Surfaces Again

A few weeks ago I posted about Rob Wegner's use of "Toy Jesus" in a weekend message. I thought it was brilliant and drove his point home sharply (you can see it here if you missed it).

Last week Tim Stevens introduced "Toy Jesus" to the INNOVATE '08 crowd. His point? The local church can and should leverage pop culture to help connect the longing and questions of people with the good news of the Kingdom of God. Here's his take in his own words (from his site at leadingsmart.com) with the video clip that had me doubled over in laughter.

Toy Jesus

Below is a video I used last week in my talk at Innovate. But trust me, before you view it, I must give some background first.

The background: This video came at a time in my talk when I was finishing up a fairly lengthy and serious portion. I felt that I needed something "light" to surprise people and get them relaxed before I changed directions and started showing some practical examples. So, Adam Tarwacki, Ben Sanders and I put our heads together, and this is what we came up with.

The set-up: "I get asked all the time, 'How do you find Jesus in the culture so easily?' It's a great question. It seems so easy for us to find movie or TV clips that show the truth of God working through our pop culture. Even people close to me ask this question. In fact, Adam is my assistant, and last week he was asking that exact question. So I had our conversation filmed, in hopes that today it might help you with the same thing Adam was struggling with. We start the filming during a typical daily meeting between Adam and I..."

Did I accomplish my goal?

Here's the link to Tim's original post. Brilliant.

Person Rob Wegner's

Right click for SmartMenu shortcuts

INNOVATE '08 | Session 8

Mark Beeson closed the conference by talking about some learnings we've experienced over the past year or so. Here are some highlights:

• Mark started with the challenge we face to try to be someone else, denying the reality that the truth about us will come out under pressure.
• We must be faithful to who he's called us to be (a recurring theme in this year's conference - from every speaker). We must do the self-leadership - that is practice spiritual disciplines - that fuel our calling in the kingdom.
• Navigating change in a growing church often looks like the turning of a large ocean vessel - slow, slow, slow. However, it can look like the sharp, unanimous turn of a school of thousands of bait fish, avoiding the threat of a sea lion swimming toward them.
• If we understand what's at stake, if we get the urgency at all, we'll go about change with more haste (still process, still planning, still praying); but with great immediacy!
• People will step up to change when the vision is clear and compelling.

• When deploying people must bring people on the team who...
• are going the same direction
• The more clear you become with "who" and "what", the more latitude you have in "how" you go about accomplishing the task.
• are committed to the same purpose and mission

The conference ended with a God-centering song that drew us back to center: living out who God made us to be is founded on who God is and his kingdom agenda to bring "up there", down here.

 

INNOVATE '08 | Session 7B

Steven Furtick, senior pastor and founder of Elevation Church in Charlotte, NC blew the roof off the place with his inspired, anointed message from the life of David in 1 Samuel 16...

• The prophet of God showed up, but no one thought to invite David into the house. He was out tending to the sheep. 
  • How often have you watched or listened to others whose lives were successful, who were experiencing the promise and reality of God's favor in their lives? Ever felt like you've been forgotten?
• His brothers were on the front lines of battle against the Philistines. Meanwhile, David, anointed to be king, ran cheese and bread to his brothers there.He wasn't invited to the front lines; he wasn't asked to fight; he was deemed to young, too small, too insignificant.
• David was in the process. Doing what he had to do in the "mean time." He was waiting. But active. He was in process. But waiting.
  
  • Too often we faint in the process. We grow weak and forget the promise, the calling, the purpose for which God called us.   
• Then he faced down the giant with trash talk, confident in his God and his promise. 
  • Sometimes we get so "smart" that we move past a simple, passionate trust in the God who still works the "impossible."

Steven's message was an impassioned call to stay faithful, to not allow the naysayers and the circumstances in the process to dissuade us from what God has promised.

Side note: A few weeks ago a gentleman approached one of our pastors following a weekend service, cautioning us to "stay away from Steven Furtick." We cocked our heads for only a second, then accepted that this man didn't identify himself nor substantiate his concerns. We kept a lock on our intention to have Steven address our INNOVATE crowd - and there are no regrets!

There will be naysayers. There will be distractions. They will be detractors. Some of them will come from nowhere. Some will come from people close. Some will come from our own junk. But stay faithful.

Today, I'm leaning in again.

INNOVATE '08 | Session 7

(Session 6 was another breakout... )

Craig Groeoschel's Directional Leadership Team at LifeChurch.tv was featured in a conversation about leadership. Their conversation centered around these three things:

• an organization is the reflection of its leadership 
  • when something's out of whack within the church, the leaders must take a close look at their own life and leadership 
  • it flows from the top - whether health or dysfunction
• willingness to "get naked" 
  • an honest self-awareness is critical for leading well 
  • and self-awareness will happen only as the team is honest with each other 
  • the team must work together with masks off and an openness to be spoken into with clarity
• the difference between where you are and where God wants you to be is the pain you're unwilling to endure 
  • the team talked about very courageous and challenging decisions they've had to make over the years at LifeChurch.tv, including downsizing staff, saying "no" to good ministry ideas, and recalibrating years-long ministries in churches that have opted to join LifeChurch.tv

 

The group ended with this probing question: What decision do you need to make? Regardless how painful it seems...

This final statement sealed the conversation with clarity: Our capacity as leaders will be found at the level of our ability to endure pain.

INNOVATE '08 | Session 5

Rob Wegner opened day two of the INNOVATE conference asking, "What's the most difficult thing to hear if you're starving, you have no health care, you don't know how to make ends meet?" Simply: "God is good."

And God has one answer in the world to make that good news real to billions: us. The Church. The local church.

Rob then unpacked a seven-year journey that Granger Community has navigated (under his strategic and passionate leadership. He really is the best.

We've discovered 10 missional movements; Rob tackled just a handful.

• Move from saved souls to saved wholes.
• We approach the gospel like a get out of jail free coupon. Yippee!
• And it is a yippee eternal deal. But there's more...
• Jesus announced: "The kingdom of God is at hand" It was one message. And he preached it, taught it, and empowered his disciples to do the same. One message: the kingdom of God is near. Over 100 times the language shows up in the accounts of Matthew, Mark and Luke.
• What is the kingdom?
• Christians tend to think one of two things: it's heaven or internal heart stuff.
• These are not wrong - just terribly incomplete.
• Jesus says it is here on earth where we are to pray - "let your will, your kingdom agenda, be done here on the earth, in my world, through my life". It's "up there" down here.
• What would it look like in our time?
• There is verbal proclamation... that must carry our feet and hands outside the four walls of the church - demonstration proclamation. When these two combine, there is an undeniable impact - which is the kingdom!
• From flashlight to laser focus
• Side note: Rob had fun talking about what missions used to be in church growing up. Remember? The furloughed missionary with 200 slides, clicking through them with laborious detail? Rob's wife, Michelle leaned over to share a memory from her growing up years: a blind missionary sharing a slide show, asking with each slide, "is that a buffalo?", "is that a house?" Too funny. I think I laughed out loud. Okay back to it.
• This is about moving from supporting as many different causes, missionaries, organizations as possible vs. paying careful attention to who it is God has made and called your church to be.
• Jesus gave us one mission - not missions. So, at Granger we've strategized "Life Missions". It's just kingdom lifestyle.
• Rob then shared the inspiring story of what we believe God has birthed at Monroe Circle Community Center, MC3. You'll need to grab the audio CD or watch for potential streaming options at wiredchurches.com.
• People don't get confused about we're doing.
• From professionals to full participation
• It's biblically "normal" for any and every Christ-follower to personally engage in "life mission."
• People are reluctant because of fear and/or a legitimately busy schedule.
• So, these barriers must be addressed.
• Rob explored the strategy of easy access points that then allow opportunities for more involvement. I.E. - Second Saturday.

Rob's message, his voice is bearing great impact in our community, in our country and around the globe. His influence is reaching hundreds of local churches, mobilizing people to step into the kingdom - here and now.

I'm grateful to serve beside Rob. He really loves Jesus.

INNOVATE '08 | Session 4

Session 3 featured multiple breakouts. Since I was leading one and couldn't be in all places at one time, I'm jumping straight to Session 4. Tim Stevens, our Executive Pastor, wrote Pop Goes the Church on which he based this session's message.

Tim's focus was to explore this question: Why should the church leverage the culture?

Here are some highlights from Tim's session:

• Most churches aren't impacting their communities, often keeping our communities from seeing Jesus.
• Spiritual interest is on the rise.
• How do we enter the spiritual conversations people really want to have? How do we practice the incarnational model of Jesus when he "became flesh and moved into the neighborhood?" (Jn 1.16)
• How do we celebrate the journey people are on to have their questions answered, to experience God, to be changed?
• Citing Acts 17 Tim discussed Paul's practice of leveraging the culture in order to connect with people and enter a meaningful conversation.
• Use pop culture to get people thinking or laughing. Especially to help disarm fears around challenging topics like money.
• Provide a new interpretation for a popular cultural element.
• Use pop culture elements to encourage the people who who making the ministry happen.
• Ultimately, the "so that" matters. People matter. Jesus came. The kingdom is here. There's an urgent message we must leverage stories, movies, songs... the culture. People matter. The kingdom of God has come.

Compelling and convincing.

INNOVATE '08 | Session 2

Shawn Wood, Experiences and Creative Communications Pastor and a Teaching Pastor for Seacoast Church. Seacoast has 25 weekend experiences/services at 11 campuses across SC, NC and Georgia.

Here's a fellow INNOVATE participant's take on Shawn's session:

Brand Schizophrenia — Shawn Wood

• We as churches let the stuff become the object of our affection, when the only reason the stuff is important is Jesus!!
• In our zest for innovation we become more about the stuff than we are about Jesus.
• Our brand should be Jesus, not stuff
• The only object of our affection should be knowing that Jesus can change peoples lives.
• We don’t know whose vision we are: small groups, arts, children or are we God’s vision
• Things become about excellence and not effectiveness
• We become about better videos, better technology and better stuff and not about effective videos, technology, and stuff
• If it is just about the stuff, then you can do that somewhere outside of the church
• We can only find our brand through Jesus…because then we have our mission and then we can do stuff
• We are trying to be things at a church that God never intended us to be so that we can do things he never intended us to do
• We are trying to convince people that what we are doing is what they need
• What after taste does your church leave with people?
• Fine tune who we are and figure out who God has made us and what he called us to do and then do those things
• If we walk away from those things that God has called us to do, to do “good” things then that is a sin
• We had to determine who we are – what is our DNA?
  This is not something you can copy from someone else

Shep is still blogging INNOVATE. You can catch more here.

INNOVATE '08 | Session 1

Mark Beeson kicked off the conference talking  about how prone we are to talk, talk, talk.

• enough planning
• enough committees
• enough talking

In classic Beeson style Mark communicated with hilarious stories and passionate teaching.

His point: the need around us is urgent. Too urgent to sit and talk. Too urgent to wait. Too urgent to move slowly.

On balance:  living perfectly balanced means there's no leaning. Living perfectly balanced means there's risk of falling. But leaning also means there's movement. Leaning is to stop talking.

There is no one else lined up to do what God has called us to do. We're it. Just us. We must stop talking.

Then he turned to the writings and the life of Mark.

• With excellent biblical background Mark Beeson highlighted the sense of urgency with which John Mark wrote his Gospel narrative of the Christ.
• Every 16-17 verses Mark uses the word "eutheos", meaning urgent, immediate, NOW.
• The Gospel according to Mark was an intentional, short, 17-chapter account that drove to the point with a Roman audience in mind.
• It was the Jews who wanted a thoughtful, genealogic history. Hence, John's account.

In our day, in our culture...

• People want something to happen. Now.
• And yet, it must be presented in context, in story, with thoughtfulness.
• We must be creative enough to address both cultural expectations: story, rich with history and kingdom purpose - but delivered succinctly, clearly - now.
• Jesus is on the scene. Though met with rebellion, resisting his call from selfishness and pride. People need to hear the good news of the kingdom... in a clear, concise fashion.

Mark Beeson was anointed, brilliant, and compelling. It was one of best ever messages. You'll want to watch wiredchurches.com and innovateconference.com for info on hearing each session.

We're off to a great start!

Psyched about WiredChurches and INNOVATE '08

It starts tomorrow morning. Shelley Arredondo and I get to spend the day with a room full of people who drove, flew, and got up early to explore the whys and hows of making their churches more welcoming to guests who are seeking Jesus. This workshop invigorates me: I always meet people who inspire me with better ideas than I've had. I'm always encouraged by the bold steps leaders and pastors are willing to take for the sake of people who matter and for the honor of the God who created them.

Then, Thursday and Friday mark red-letter days on my calendar. The INNOVATE conference will bring 800 plus pastors and church leaders - paid and unpaid - from across the continent to our campus in little Michiana. The purpose is not to create a bunch of GCCites. It's not to re-make churches into who and what we are. We are who and what we are because of a unique call on our church, a unique leader and his team, a unique collection of God-SHAPEd people, and a unique demographic surrounding our church region. Another church cannot possilby be GCC.

Innovation is about tapping the original and reinventing the familiar. Innovation is about creating, but it's more than being creative. Innovation is about bringing 100% of who we are to the Kingdom table and expecting God to do something crazy explosive with it, well beyond our meager 100%. Innovation is about team, risk, thinking, rethinking, getting practical and moving. Innovation is about connecting real life with a real God in real time.

It's going to be a radical few days of inspiration, connections, and kingdom-building.

See you there.

Jim Tomberlin Responds to Granger's Multi-site Strategy

If "time will tell", then the verdict is still out on Granger's strategy to launch multi-site ministry using complete video of the service. However, here is an early statement from a premiere voice on multi-site ministry:

Mark,
    Great to be with the Granger Gang on this historic day as you launched your first multi-site campus with a full video service in Elkhart.
    It not only works, it rocks! 
    Granger has just initiated another innovation that is going to well-serve the Body of Christ across the nation.
    Way to go!

Keep blazing the trail,
Jim Tomberlin

Trial service 2 is this weekend, with the official grand launch on Sunday, October 5. We're praying for an incredible day with hundreds of new people experiencing the living God - with live people and on-screen service.

GCC Multi-site Preps for Strong Launch

My wife, Laura, and I arrived in time to listen from the back of the room as Jeff Bell, campus pastor of Granger Community Church: Elkhart, coached and celebrated with the Elkhart campus volunteers. It was a moment. Prayer, cheerleading... and cheers! This team was ready.

Today was the first of two "soft opens" at Elkhart. The core group, numbering just under 200 today, set up the Encore Theater like they will every Sunday beginning October 5 - just 3 weeks away. Today was all about running a typical Sunday morning, from set-up to tear-down with a complete service for adults and children's ministry in full gear.

Most of us forgot it was a "test" run.

This worked.

People were engaged. Laughter filled the room during the Culps song medley and the Mr Economy interview. During the  worship/singing experience, people worshipped. They clapped, applauded, and sang. With energy!

Jim Tomberlin, founder, president, and senior strategist of Third Quarter Consulting was with us for our initial launch. He has listened, learned our culture, advised us well within our own community context, and joined us to celebrate this new venture of 100% on-screen service experience. His comment: "Looks like this works!"

All of it worked. This is GCC where people matter to God, excellence honors God and inspires people, the ministries of the church are led and practiced by people gifted to do so, ministry is happening in teams, and people are intentionally taking next steps to follow Christ... together.

Next week: "soft open" number two at the Elkhart site

September 27/28: Commissioning service for the entire Elkhart campus group at the Granger campus

October 5: Grand Opening at the Elkhart campus. We're expecting a crowd!

Did I hear Jeff Bell say, "800?"

Praying for Friends in South Texas

I just connected briefly with Dave Davis from River Pointe Community Church in Richmond, TX. His brief reply was simply, "Things are starting to get crazy. Keep praying."

I am. Join me.

mark waltz (via my motorola "Q" phone)

Remembering 9.11

I still remember where I was. I remember who I was with. I remember everything we were doing coming to a halt.

Today with the rest of America I remember. I'm wondering, what does this memory do for any of us?

• Does it merely serve to name evil as one middle Eastern man?
• Does it only keep a vengeful resolve before us?
• Does it purely reinforce religious differences that foster paranoia and mistrust within our own neighborhoods?
• Does it simply influence our vote in the coming election?

I hope remembering means more than that.

I want to remember that...

• we live in a broken world filled with hurt and the consequences of sin and evil.
• too many of our fellow humans undergo untold attacks and brutality across the globe every day - including today.
• there is one true God who is about the redemption and re-creation of our entire world, every nation, every world system, every human.
• God still calls me today to bear the burden of others - near me, in my home, in our community, in our country, and across the ocean.
• our national leaders and future leaders need the wisdom of God, the grace of Jesus, and the power of the Holy Spirit to lead in a world where terror is not forgotten and the risk of attack is still as real today as it was 7 years ago.

Today, join me in remembering... and praying for "up there", down here.

Change I Can Believe In

Tonight 1,560 adults poured onto the Granger campus for the first night of Journey Bible Classes! That's nearly double our former New Community crowd! Here are some interesting BUZZ observations:

• Including children and students in their own Bible learning environments - over 2,000 people were in the building tonight!
• People who'd only driven past the northeast parking lot, hoofed it to the building from waaaaayyyy out there. There were reportedly as few as only a dozen parking spaces unused.
• People waited in traffic for more than 15 minutes, trying to get into the parking lot. And several smiled as they talked about it!
• Volunteers stepped up to greet, disseminate materials, sell resources and drive shuttles.
• People left classes making comments like:
  • "I felt stuck. I needed this class to get my Bible study back on course."
  • "I thought I wanted another class, but this will be so foundational to the rest of my journey."
  • "Really practical."
  • "Great content. Look forward to next week!"

Our staff was "all hands on deck!" They...

• parked in the "gotta hoof it" parking lot.
• modeled well by being on time and prepared.
• came willing to give up their seats and stand if necessary.
• generated joy, encouragement and celebration among our people.

Every team - facilities, tech arts, IT, communications, children, students, connections - gave above and beyond, responding to whatever needed done with out-of-the-box problem-solving and invested ownership in the vision and implementation of these new initiatives. Unbelievable teams of ministry partners!

Our volunteers stepped with "can do" attitudes, portraying again their sense of humility and joy to be included in what God is up to at Granger. They rock! Special thanks to Tanya, Dennis and Joyce! You nailed it!

My assistant, Julie Smies, has exemplified servant leadership these past few weeks as the burden of administrative details has grown to match the mach pace at which she's been required to run. Long days, short nights, too many Starbucks coffees, and too few breaks have characterized her recent weeks. She gets IT, has IT, and is driven by IT. Jesus shines in her life. We simply wouldn't have experienced this God-sighting of a launch without her!

Somethin's up at Granger Community. I believe Someone is up at Granger. Jesus is leading the way!

Person Julie Smies

Right click for SmartMenu shortcuts

Message in a Picture

Here are some amazing photos (a few among hundreds that were taken) from my friend, Jeff Petersen. Jeff is an extraordinary photographer and video producer as you can see below. The emotion is captured. The moment is frozen. The commitment to Jesus is resolved. These people were among hundreds baptized this past weekend.

Numbers Matter

Because numbers = people, these numbers from our weekend services are God-honoring and worth celebrating:

• 700+ = people who went forward in the weekend services to acknowledge that were not merely asking Jesus into their life, but were surrendering their life to follow Jesus, taking up their cross - their burden - to bring healing, restoration, salvation to others in the world.
• 370+ = people who were baptized into Christ after weekend services on Saturday evening and Sunday morning.

You can watch the service here.

Oh, and by the way, update on our Journey Bible Classes this Wednesday:

• 1424 and counting!

God's at work in the lives of our people.

• What will the impact of this ministry be as thousands continue to take their next step toward Christ -
  
  • immersed in scripture
  • investing and inviting
  • belonging to each other
  • serving others
  • doing the next right thing?
• What will happen as people obey what Jesus commanded: love God and love others? What will happen as the church is the Church?

We've prayed, hoped, wrestled for over a year with the promise: I have provision you know not of (Ephesians 3.20).

Get ready, church!

GCCers Embrace the Journey

Over the past three years our midweek New Community service averaged just under 1,000 people. A month ago we held our final New Community service to transition to Journey Bible Classes. The classes shift our midweek teaching focus from a single Bible teaching from a single teacher/pastor for 40 minutes to a 75-minute teaching time and 3 teachers with 3 respective Bible focuses. People have options for studies that they own; they have new handles in charting their journey with Christ.

And they have responded enthusiastically.

In contrast to our former New Community average attendance, over 1,400 people have preregistered for classes that begin this next Wednesday! I'm expecting over 1,600 people to arrive for 3 classes that barely seat 1,500.

Our teams are challenged with the likelihood that we'll not have enough seats. And our teams are crazy excited about the challenge.

GCCers are embracing more than change. They're embracing the journey; they're embracing Jesus.

Baptism, Significance & Salvation

Photo by Gene Kaiser, South Bend Tribune

It's an annual event at Granger Community Church. And every year hundreds enter the water to be baptized, declaring their commitment to follow Jesus as his disciple. For years we traveled to a nearby lake; last year we met at Coveleski Stadium, using portable pools.

This year we brought the celebration to our campus. After every service people were given the opportunity to exchange their burden of sin, guilt and shame for a different burden. The biblical call to salvation. A call to pick up the burden of every Christ-follower: own his agenda, his kingdom work to redeem, to restore, to recreate the world. To bring justice, love and mercy to every inch of the globe. Salvation. Not fire insurance. Not a transaction, but a lifestyle.

Hundreds have responded all weekend. I'm on my way back out to baptize some more people who are going public to follow Jesus!

Joel Hunter Responds to Reactions to His Prayer

Yesterday in a list of random stuff I included my admiration for the way Joel Hunter, senior pastor of Northland, a Church Distributed treated his closing prayer at the Democratic National Convention last week.

A couple days ago Joel posted the following on his blog:

There are several things to remember when praying in a public setting:

1. Prayer is not a speech with a hidden agenda; it is a direct request to God for help.  Therefore, it demeans prayer to use it to get points across to an audience other than God.  My prayer was my request to God and an invitation for the people of all faith traditions that our country welcomes to join me in it.

2. Prayer in public is not a tool of evangelism, but it has a tone that will set the stage for evangelism by taking people from where they are in their faith (Acts 17:22) and making possible follow up conversations.  I am hearing accounts from many Christians who were in the stadium (including my wife) who had conversations with non-Christians that resulted in Kingdom progress. I have many responses from non-Christians saying, in essence, “Thank you for including us in the prayer, I thought evangelicals only cared about scoring points for their faith. You made me think you cared enough about me that we could have a conversation.”  And I have also received responses from non-Christians who thought it was wrong for me to say “In Jesus’ name” because I had the microphone and those are the words that rang out through the stadium and resounded throughout the convention as many Christians scattered throughout the crowd voiced “In Jesus’ name” as well.

3. Christians must not be afraid to be the Truth in the midst of other religions.  Truth will always win, but it will be constrained if we “insist on our own way” of approaching the universality of Christ.  John 14:6 is true; how some can realize that Truth must come from a broader conversation than “my God is true; your god is false”.

4. I did not ask people to pray to another god; I asked them to finish a prayer according to their faith tradition. This may be a small point linguistically, but it is a huge point theologically.

5. Creating an environment where people can cooperate without having to compromise their core beliefs will eventually win more people to Christ than pronouncing Christ over them at the end of a prayer.

6. As I said in worship, to protect the integrity of “in Jesus’ name”, the person praying must make sure that either a) He or she is only emphasizing their own ending to the prayer, as Donald Miller did when he ended “I pray this in Jesus name” or b) He or she does not misrepresent people that they have asked to join them in prayer.  That would be taking the Lord’s name in vain.

I could go on from here, but you get the idea.  As you may imagine, I prayed long and hard before feeling like God had given me the precise words for this prayer.  I believe that He in His sovereign way will use it to bring people to Himself.

I also hope that you will see the mention of other religions as an opportunity to lift up the one true God, not as a threat to His universality.

With appreciation and blessings,

Joel

Read more from Joel here.