Conferences

As Harrah Church has worked at continuing its mission of developing people in Christ we have focused time and resources on helping people to begin to embed themselves in service to our community and not in a weekly schedule inside the walls of the church. Embed is the word I like to use when talking about a missional lifestyle here in Harrah, America. Embedding ourselves into the lives and culture of our community has come to the forefront of ministry at Harrah Church.

We have watched the food pantries shut their doors around us. Churches in our area are struggling to keep staff pastors and leadership in various roles for long or at all.

I want to go to Verge Conference 2012 to discover how Harrah Church can begin embedding ourselves deeper into the fabric of our community. How can we weave our small group strategies around serving the neighborhoods where our groups meet? What kind of ministry can we do within the daycare centers in our community? What can we do to help the schools improve student achievement test scores and graduation rates? What established groups within our city can we pull up to and begin working beside? What kind of ministry is taking place in retirement and nursing home communities? How do you support foster families who are taking in the kids displaced by addiction? How do we increase awareness and bring solutions and education to our community about the social problems that are affecting families? How can we connect the faith communities in our town with the needs of our neighbors?

I want to go to VERGE to find answers, to meet practitioners, to discover solutions to our community’s issues, to discover answers to questions that I don’t even know to ask yet. Harrah Church has an incredible heart to help develop people in Christ and they are reaching out to the least of these. I want to support the work that God is doing here, learn to develop the ability to discern where God is leading the church, the issues within our community and how to realize a church that knows the heartbeat, hurts and hangups within our community and can help begin to recover and celebrate their community.

For me VERGE is an opportunity to connect with the thoughts, practices and leaders who will help change our community and connect people to Christ.

B is the Associate Pastor at Kingsland Baptist Church in Katy, Texas and the creator of the Legacy Milestones strategy designed to link church and home to equip the generations and the author of the book Shift: What it Takes to Finally Reach Families Today. Here are my notes from his talk.

What is Family Ministry?
Family ministry is discipleship and discipleship is family ministry.

We must help parents pour the Great Commandment and the Great Commission into their children so that they can build a legacy.

What does family ministry look like?
There are two components to this model – The home and the church
The danger of rolling out a model is that what works at one church may not work at another church. Learn to implement the principles, not just the methods.

• What is your church like?
• What are your families like?
• What are your leaders like?

Common Language is a core component of the development of family ministry. A common language helps you change your culture and will provide a metric as you measure how far the vision and strategy have reached.

At Kingsland they have 7 Legacy Milestones:

• Parent/Baby Dedication – This class is preceded by a class called First Steps where parents learn about and make commitments to the 7 Milestones.
• Faith Commitment – Salvation decision and baptism, somewhere between the age of 7-11.
• Preparing for Adolescence – All of the Tween years, getting ready for teenage life in American life and how to live it in a Biblical way. Teach parents how to lead “faith talks.” Create celebrations around this class at the church and in the home. The culmination of this is a Road Trip where parents take a weekend to make talking about sex a normal part of the home.
• Purity for Life Weekend
• Rite of Passage – Raising a Modern Day Night – Teach parents that rite of passage is not about car keys and freedom it is about become a Biblical man or women. The Baptist Catechism by John Piper is a short form system of doctrine. We tell parents to stay one question ahead of their kids. The whole thing culminates in a rite of passage ceremony that is designed by the parents.
• High School Graduation – The Truth Project is taught to juniors and seniors and the parents are taught the lessons one week ahead of their students. The Blessing and Our Church by John Trent. Moms and Dads write a letter of blessing for their son or daughter and share it with them at this time.
• Life in Christ – An adult ministry designed to teach 7 core competencies. Are you growing in your prayer life? Are you a disciple-maker? Are you serving? Milestone 7 is the most important step in the legacy path.

Encourage parents to have faith talks in their home? Parent Summit is a seminar designed to equip parents to have these talks. Help parents capture “God Moments.” Parents must be abiding in Christ and reading scripture in order to capture these God moments. Help parents learn to abide in Christ so that they can pass it on to their children.

Ministry Actions for building Family Ministry in the church:

• Align
• Equip
• Resource
• Build Wins

Questions for the Home:

• How’s Your Own Home?
• Are You There for the God Moments?
• Celebrating Spiritual Milestones?
• Are you Abiding in Christ?

Great stuff in this session. My takeaway from this session will be to sit down and organize our steps at Harrah Church according to these milestones so that parents and students can see the path that we want to lay out for them. We have begun to do this with our adults and membership classes, but have failed to provide the same path for our students and families. After a year of implementing and aligning the church to the Family Ministry model it is time for Harrah Church to begin putting more emphasis on the Equipping and Resourcing actions of building a stronger Family Ministry.

How well are you doing in bringing faith talks into the home?

If you are a church leader are you spending more time programming for the kids or trying to equip parents?

If you are a parent, what is one action step you can take in expanding the role of faith in your home?

You have to work really hard in America to starve to death.

We are far more concerned with our standard of living then we are about others living.

What constitutes any emergency? Is it only an emergency if it is affecting you?

(The Big Red Tractor and His Little Village Video)

The original church was An Unstoppable Force

Today’s church feels like if the pastor left or the music was crappy or the service times changed then the church would cease to exist.

Are you trying too hard “at church” to “be the church”?

How is your prayer life? Are you begging God for something supernatural to happen?

WE don’t create anything. The Holy Spirit does it all.

We don’t make waves to ride. God does.

Sometimes we just try to hard and get stressed out, then when it doesn’t happen for us we start trying harder, and harder, and harder instead of getting on our knees and praying for God to move.

God uses dependant people.

2 Peter 1

Do you feel honored to serve God?

Do you believe that your faith is of equal worth as Peter’s?

The righteousness of Christ puts us all on equal footing, because it is all about what Jesus did.

“May grace and peace be multiplied to you…”

God doesn’t want His kids to be stressed, He wants them to walk around in grace and peace.

People should be jealous of your relationship with God.

Grace and peace are multiplies to your through the knowledge of God.

What are you seeking when you go to church? Are you seeking God alone or are you chasing after large attendance, big budgets, rocking worship, etc.

We have a generous God. “No mind has conceived, no eye has seen, no ear has heard, …”

You can defeat any sin in your life through the knowledge of God.

This knowledge is about a DEEP relationship, not a system of beliefs.

When you know Him you will have everything that leads to life and godliness.

I’m afraid that the Good News will become Old News.

Are you making every effort towards a divine nature or are you just trying to fill a room?

Don’t try to fix the church if you aren’t trying to fix your character.

Worry about yourself before you worry about the church.

Stop trying to “make it happen” and simply teach the Word of God.

Obey God and pursue the character that He wants you to have.

What is it in your life that if everybody found out would embarrass you?

Are you lacking that peace in your life?

Growing the church is not about methods. It is about abiding in Him.

What is one of your fantasies?

What are you passions?

Why We Need Leaders to Step Up – Observations

1. The more selfish our society becomes, the more critical Godly leadership is.
   1. Leaders need to engage people with a compelling future
2. The more choices people have, without a biblical worldview as their foundation, the more confused our priorities become – and the more crucial godly vision and strategy are.
3. In times of rapid cultural change, the rules are different, the competition stiffer, the stakes higher, the opportunities greater – necessitating superior leadership to guide us forward.
4. Recent poor decisions and behavior by high-profile leaders have ushered in an era of criticism, skepticism, and mistrust, requiring a new generation of wise and godly leaders to restore public trust and confidence.
   1. Leadership has to be proven
5. In a culture that rejects absolute more and spiritual truth, and that esteems extreme choice, the results are confusion, stress, distraction, busyness, and chaos – the antidote to which is focused leaders who can make sense of reality, provide vision, and deliver direction to make the vision a reality.
6. Our culture has adopted a hyper-individualism that undermines community, nation and persona relationships, raising the need for an emphasis upon team-based leadership.
7. Churches have given lip service to leadership but suffer from a paucity of genuine leaders who are guiding people toward true Christ-like transformation.

What’s the difference between the ministry of teaching and the ministry of leadership?

Don’t confuse passion with vision.

Six Leadership Checkpoints:

1. Leaders can strategically change reality, but they cannot intentionally change people.
   
   1. Once a person reaches the age of 13 they change very little
   2. Children’s ministry is the most important
   3. Are you creating the leadership roles to meet your vision or God’s vision for your church?
   4. Are you molding leaders into what YOU need or who GOD has designed them to be?
   5. If you want to change lives then work with children
2. Nobody is the “complete leadership package” – so it’s important to work in a leadership team.
   
   1. A team always out performs the individual
   2. “None of us is as smart as all of us” –Ken Blanchard
   3. Great Teams
      1. Has to be small in number 4-6 leaders
      2. They have to spend lots of time together
      3. There is a captain of the team
      4. Built around shared vision, values, and passion
      5. Vulnerability and communication
      6. Strive to empower people to achieve the vision
3. One of the most under-value and least common skills among leaders is listening
   
   1. “I think God wants us to listen more than speak, otherwise he would have given us two mouths.” – KB
   2. “We should lead with our ears.” -KB
   3. You cannot listen effectively unless you are willing to have your mind changed.” –KB
   4. If we are going to change reality then we must listen to find out what the current reality is.
   5. “I never learned anything by talking” –Lou Holtz
   6. Bad listening leads to bad leadership.
4. Leaders must master conflict and confrontation
   
   1. Expect it, address it
   2. Seize the initiative
   3. Do your homework, know the facts, think very circumspectly about it
   4. Position yourself as a friend
   5. Ask clarifying questions and listen to what is said
   6. Seek a win-win outcome
   7. You may have to be the one to create conflict in order to change things
   8. Do people appreciate your leadership because it is safe or because you represent truth and justice and they will not tolerate anything less
5. Success is helping people achieve their potential
   
   1. What are you measuring?
   2. Make people the very best that they can be by getting them out of their comfort zone.
   3. People are going to have to change to reach their potential
      1. What got you here won’t get you there
   4. Do people understand what success in your organization is?
      1. Do they know how they are going to benefit when the organization reaches their goal?
6. Do not accept a leadership position unless you’re ready to pay a stiff price. The more significant the outcome you seek to achieve, the more substantial the price you can expect to pay.
   
   1. Pressure is having to make a decision that matters when you are not prepared to do so
   2. Pressure is valuable for a leader because it purifies you and prepares for a higher level of leadership
   3. Leadership is a full-contact sport
   4. Address internal pressure because it is probably based upon real concerns
   5. Foundations for Decision Making Under Pressure
      1. God
         1. Make sure God called you to this
         2. Is this your vision or God’s vision
      2. Convictions
         1. Know what you stand for
         2. Refuse to fold
      3. Family and close friends
         1. People you trust
         2. People who will give you the feedback you need because they love you

Mac Lake – Seacoast Church – http://maclakeonline.com – @maclake

7 ingredients to a healthy leadership development strategy:

1. Confidence in people
2. Connection with people
3. Content
4. Coaching
   1. You of little faith, why did you doubt
   2. Teach them to endure the entire experience
5. Challenge
   1. Principles + experience = transformation
6. Cluster Learning – 4 times a year
7. Conferences – twice a year

Questions for meeting with your small group leaders:

1. How are you doing personally?
2. What are your priorities?
3. What problems are you encountering?
4. What’s the plan?
5. How can I pray for you?

There has been a twisting of Scripture to create what we want.

Are we using the Bible to create the life that we want?

Are you starting with a desire for your life or are you starting with Scripture?

There is no middle road.

Follow the Leader

Follow Jesus – You don’t really have to, you really just do that in your heart (sarcasm)

Simon Says

If Jesus Says you just have to memorize it, quote it, say it in Greek, or just study what Jesus Says (sarcasm)

In California people tell you what they think, in Texas people say they believe, but live in another way.

It is not that the Word of God isn’t working it is that we aren’t really doing it.

Everyone is used to commenting and throwing in their two cents and wanting to be heard, but who is living out the Word of God in their lives and doing the will of God in their lives.

This is not supposed to be easy.

1 Peter 4:12 – “Beloved do not be surprised at the fiery trial…”

This is what makes UNITY and COMMUNITY so surprising.

Satan wants you to stop loving the church. “Resist him”

“And when you have suffered for a little while, the God of all GRACE”

Suck it up!

Expect the suffering, enjoy the suffering. Paul did.

We serve a God of Restoration. What do you need to be restored from?

Is there any part of you that longs for the sufferings the way that Paul did?

When you suffer with Christ you have fellowship with Christ.

Can you imagine being crucified alongside the Son of God? Can you imagine the bond that would be made? Are you suffering for Jesus’ sake?

The Koreans who got abducted in Afghanistan – Great story about the 23-24 person group that was abducted and held in A. They were brought together and before they would be separated the pastor spoke to them about what was ahead. He told them that as their pastor if anyone was going to be executed first it was to be him. Then another man in the group spoke up and said that he too was a pastor and older and therefore should be the first to. Then the first guy spoke up and said that he was ordained so he should go first. Check out more at http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2007/julyweb-only/130-41.0.html

“Don’t you wish we were still there? In those cells. I was so close to Jesus.”

Sometimes the problem with your vision is that you are looking too far into the future. Your people need a vision for today as much as they need a vision for tomorrow.

It is in the midst of uncomfortable and uncontrolled circumstance that you give the Holy Spirit a place to work. Have the courage to step out in faith to do something you can’t.

If you really want to experience Jesus and the Supernatural then you are going to have to do something “dangerous”.

We have set up a system that allows people to be comfortable.

Get back to Jesus, to wanting Him, and seeking Him, following Him, doing what He says.