Harrah Church Vision Part 3

Every week as I begin calling the people listed in our Connection Report I remind myself that there is more happening at Harrah Church than what shows up on these cards. Every week I encounter stories that are “Off the Card.” Many times I encounter things that are “Beyond the Card.” This means that someone listed something on the Connection Card and a call that I go into thinking will be about a Membership Class ends up going in another direction altogether.

This week the conversation is about our core value of relationships. At Harrah Church we put relationships up front because God has placed them as the First and Second Commandment. We are helping people become great at loving God with all their heart, soul, mind and body and secondly we are helping people learn to love their neighbor as themselves. The icon we use in our logo consists of a tree with four leaves. Each leaf represents growth in one of these four areas. Helping people connect with God helps them connect with their neighbors. We have found that the salvation, freedom from addiction, peace, wisdom and friendship are things that heal relationships and give people something to share with their neighbors.

As I look down through our list of guests from the past weekend on the Connection Card I see this beside each name, “Came With (Insert Name Here).” One thing that Harrah Church is great about is building relationships with people. We don’t do it as a sleight-of-hand to get someone to come to church. Our people love people from all walks of life. We like to have fun, and we are “Doing Life” with co-workers, neighbors, friends, the lady from the local diner, the dentist, the teenage grocery checker, the guys working at the local Taco Mayo, etc. We are not just “Doing Life” with other people in the church. Our “community” is much bigger than that and God is leading us to have relationship with people who have needs in their life, questions about God, who need help with their marriage, their family, their habits, their finances and more.

This afternoon I spoke with a guest from this past weekend. She expressed to me that the biggest need that she had in her life and that she has perceived that same need in the life of her teenage son. She had been invited by a friend to come to Harrah Church and saw that Harrah Church is a place where they were going to be able to build the relationships that they were looking. She actually said, “Harrah Church has everything that we were looking for.”

Before coming to Harrah Church my title was “Marketing and Media Director” at a church in Tulsa. I had a huge budget to spend on invite cards, banners, mass mailers, videos, commercials, print pieces, advertising, etc. When I came to Harrah Church I encountered something that I have always known to be true but very hard to cultivate, “Word-of-mouth” is the strongest form of advertising available. People at Harrah Church have no problem building relationships because they have so much to talk about. I can not design a brochure or invite card to compete with the energy and momentum that happens when people whose lives have been transformed begin to tell others about the effects that their relationship with Jesus and the people of Harrah Church have made in their life. That is the power that comes from a relationship with Christ. Harrah Church is what happens when people who have been transformed begin to come together. Harrah Church is what happens when transformed people tell other people how they can be transformed. Harrah Church is what happens when relationships stop existing as a “core value” on paper and start existing as a core value in person.

• How did you find your way to Harrah Church?
• How has a relationship with God transformed your life?
• What do you tell people are your favorite things about Harrah Church?

Get Some Sleep

Are you getting enough sleep? I am asking myself this question more and more each morning. I have a tendency to pour myself into my work. I love the feeling of accomplishment and the rewards of a job done well, but sometimes the lifestyle required to do this can wear you out. I have been spending time over the last several years learning how to balance my life. Hold back work. Spend more time at home. Spend more quality time at home. Now that we have Margot in our world it is even more important. She is starting to wake us up in the morning and is disturbing my normal sleep cycle. I am adjusting, but today I am tired. So I have to ask myself, “Are you getting enough sleep?” I know that I need this sleep if I am going to perform well, stay healthy, and be present in conversations. I try and do well at going to bed early and not getting out of bed until I have too. For a person who really only wants to get about 4-6 hours of sleep every night this becomes a battle. But it is one that is very rewarding.

How about you? What rewards do you get from sleeping? Do you take the Sunday afternoons to nap? What is attacking your sleep cycle?

Harrah Church Vision Part 2

If someone asks me what we do at Harrah Church I tell them that we Develop People in Christ. We do this by helping them be great at the Great Commandment and showing them how to love God with all of their heart, soul, mind, and body. We want to help people develop a passion for Christ and a passion for the things that Christ is passionate about. We teach people how to care for their soul so that they can begin to give more of it to God and distance themselves from the things that rob their soul. We provide classes and experiences to expand people’s knowledge of God. We provide service opportunities so that people can be God’s hands and feet.

Everything we do at Harrah Church is designed to help people grow in these four areas. The time and effort we put into our worship services is an expression of the passion that we have God and I love seeing people passionately worship God every week. Part of the drive for me to work at Harrah Church is to see other people develop the passion for worshipping God that I have. My last two sermons have been about caring for your soul and learning how the enemy divides and attacks your soul so that you lose your joy. When we take the steps necessary to develop our soul we are able to put greater focus on the work of God in our life and trade our perspective for God’s will in our life. I believe that by gaining a proper view of who God is we are able to trade our fears and misconceptions for faith and hope that God is working in, around, and through us. We provide service opportunities for people to show the love of God to others and so that they can show what the love of God means to them. Our monthly First Sunday Serve is one expression of that. I love watching people contribute to the work of God and the excitement and joy that He gives them through the process.

Take some time this weekend to think about your personal growth and development in Christ. What are your next couples of steps in each of the four areas (heart, soul, mind, body)?

Harrah Church Vision

I just finished reading a great blog post from Mac Lake which talked about the importance of combining vision and core values. Mac really drives home the point that people must live out the core values and not just know them. I have this image in my mind of seeing people at Harrah Church live out our core values and changing their lives, the church, and the community. This will be a first in a series of posts about the vision of Harrah Church and our core values.
One of the things that really drew me to Harrah Church were the stories of changed lives. God is doing some miraculous thing through Harrah Church. When we say that our vision is to “Develop People in Christ” we mean that we are seeing people who have never been to church or had very little interaction with the church begin following God and radically changing. We believe that this development is an ongoing process that you will be in for the rest of your life. We will always be a work in process. We want to help everyone take their next step in this development process.
In our “Know Greater Love” book series you can read story after story of people stepping out of a wrecked life and into the grace and love of Jesus. These people recognize that Jesus loves them and doesn’t want to leave them where He found them. We are a church that walks beside people as they develop in Christ. Is it messy? Sometimes it is. But it is so incredible to be able to witness God develop people.
What is your story? Where did you begin with God? Where are you now? What have been the hardest parts of development? What have been your greatest successes?

Elbows and Tummies

I am spending the bulk of this week in Orlando for the Exponential Church Planting conference with my pastor Jimmy Holbrook and our worship leader Justin Mann. We are having a lot of fun and I can say that we have broken many laws, but have not been arrested…YET.

I have learned many things on this trip

• We have too many chiefs in this car
• Jimmy eats 5-7 meals a day
• There is a reason that Jimmy has so many traffic tickets, really there are MANY reasons
• 5 Guys Burgers in incredible
• Orlando is an amazing place

I have learned a lesson about why you don’t eat with your elbows on the table. Jimmy eats so often that I have developed a blister on my right elbow from lifting my drink and food to my mouth. Ouch.

Date Night

I had great time hanging out with many friends last night. We went to downtown OKC to eat at Rooster’s Chicken, go o see Date Night at Harkins in Bricktown and then we ended the evening with a stop at Cuppies and Joe for cupcakes.

It was good to spend some time with our friends Justin and Amy Lester and their baby girl Cash. Rooster’s Chicken was really great. The friend pickles were on the hook. I will definitely be going back soon.

Date Night with Tina Fey and Steve Carrell was funny. It stumble a bit just after the half way point, but our group laughed hard. I really enjoy going to the movies with this group.

Next couple of movies on my schedule to see are The Losers and Iron Man 2.

Favorite New CDs

I really enjoy listening to music while I work. If I am traveling around the church I turn my iPhone on for a little traveling music. I wanted to listen a few of the CDs that I have really enjoyed over the past few months and ask you what you are listening to.

• Matt Maher, Alive Again, amazing worship album
• Visqueen, Message to Garcia, This one is infectious
• Bon Iver, For Emma, Forever Ago, sensitive-man-music to chill out to
• John Mayer, Battle Studies, Great album and the bossa nova track is a favorite
• Lady Antebellum, Need You Now – Single, I really look forward to the album

So what are you listening to? What do you recommend?