spiritual formation
Category Archives: spiritual formation
spiritual formation theological ramblings
Graduation Sunday 2012
May 21, 2012 – 9:21 am
Sunday was our Graduation Sunday at Western Hills. We do it a bit different. Instead of listening to the graduates, they have to listen to us. We tell them how we have seen God use them and change them over their time at Western Hills.
It’s pretty humbling hearing these stories, seeing the impact of a teenage life invested in serving.
Then we talked about lollipops. You’ll have to head over to whillschurch.org to listen to that part.
Just Another Reason Why We Love Our Life Group
May 15, 2012 – 7:20 am
Sunday night, the guys in the group attempted to pull off dinner for the wives/moms in our life group. We had lasagna, garlic bread, salads, and all kinds of dessert – chocolate, strawberries, cheesecake. We did have to call in the ladies for help on a couple of things but all in all – very nice effort by the fellas.
We had two couples in our group do the baby dedication in the services that morning at church. It was nice – very cool slide show and I never want to underestimate the significance of those moments. But at life group, I wanted to do something a bit different.
We went around the room and each of us gave the parents a nugget that we thought would be helpful on their journey in raising their kids under the authority of Jesus. Here is what was said:
Enjoy the time with them. It will go by very fast.
Create an environment in your home where they love being home and what to bring their friends over. Be that house for your kids.
Say “no” to your kids. And mean it. And when they get in trouble, let them feel the consequences while they are still small. It just gets harder the older they get.
What your kids want most from you is you. Not your insight or knowledge or even stuff. Just you. So say yes to that as much as you can even when you are tired, cranky, and lazy.
Pray for your kids, pray over your kids, and pray WITH your kids.
Listen to your kids. You will learn great spiritual truths from them, more than any sermon from Grant.
Don’t ever be afraid to apologize to your kids when you’ve messed up. It won’t undermine your authority, they won’t take advantage of it. They forgive quickly, it shows them true humility, they’ll grow up respecting you more for it.
What would you add?
My Story – Jorree S
April 3, 2012 – 1:59 pm
Jorree is a dear friend who has been attending our church for just a little under a year. Here is her story.
On September 5, 2011, Jorree receives news that her son is dead. Here is part of her story.
The Beyond Pain Series
March 6, 2012 – 7:51 pm
We started a new series on Sunday called Beyond Pain. It was as intense and meaningful Sunday to open a series as I have ever experienced.
We completely darkened the room, had our entire stage draped in black cloth. We had the video playing below rolling. Basically a look at Psalm 6 in the Message with Rufus Cappadocia playing behind it. The screen stayed black as we had different people unveil the stage pictures that we had for the series. You could hear some of the gasps. Then the title screen was dropped.
Why did we go this length to intro the series this way? Because pain is both universal AND unique. We all experience it. We all experience it differently. Not all pain is equal. Not all pain is handled well. But all pain hurts and we spend crazy amounts of time, money, and energy either fixing our pain or avoiding it.
So ‘preparing the room’ gives people time to process and get ready to hear from the scriptures. Video below. You can catch the messages online here.
Multiplying Your Ministry
January 10, 2012 – 10:37 am
This is the first part of some training I’m taking my leaders through at Western Hills. Here are the notes to part 1.
Couple of thoughts as we begin on this topic of multiplication.
First, when we speak of multiplying our ministry, what we are really talking about is multiplying people. People advance the Kingdom of God, not programs. Programs will and should come and go. Programs are tools to be used and evaluated and changed. Their effectiveness will change from year to year.
People on the other hand are the constant. It is people that we are called to multiply and make disciples. The life change stories, the relationships – these are what we are talking about when we talk about multiplying ministry.
Second, this is essential if we really want to be an outward-focused church that functions as the hands and feet of Christ to our community. ESSENTIAL. Any church or follower of Jesus that takes seriously the words of Jesus MUST effectively and consistently multiply their ministry. It is what is at the core of the Great Commission (Matthew 28).
Quick Exercise #1
List all the stuff you are involved in. School stuff, family stuff, church stuff, work stuff. Just a quick list that demands time of you other than specifically your job.
Keep that list handy – we are going to come back to it.
The 3 Circles Of Multiplication
I think there are 3 concentric circles that we need to think about when it comes to multiplication. No particular order, all are needed and important. Ministry, People, and Process.
Circle 1- Ministry WORTH multiplying
This is the program side of the equation. Lot’s of questions and issues we can deal with in this circle. Is it relevant? Is it fun? Is the effort it takes to pull it off worth it? Is it making a difference? Is it producing what we want it to?
But the fundamental, core question that MUST be dealt with is this: Is the focus of the ministry the same as God’s focus?
God’s focus is clear. Great Commandment (Matthew 22:37-40) and Great Commission (Matthew 28:18-20). Love God, Love Others, Serve All, Make Disciples who do the same. At Western Hills we articulate these as – Love, live and serve.
Just pay careful attention to question. It’s not “are there elements that support or participate in love, live and serve?” Almost every program does that in a church but not every program has it as its focus. The question is what is the real focus of that ministry? Is it reaching the lost, making disciples, serving the community? Time to be brutally honest.
Hold on to this question — put it right over here. Let me quickly hit the other two circles.
Circle 2 – People READY to Multiply
Should you multiply yourself in every person inside your ministry?
Harsh reality is NO. Every person deserves to be ministered to. NOT every person is ready to be multiplied into leadership. 2 Timothy 2:2 – invest in able, qualified people.
Some are not ready because of character issues, giftedness, competency, season of life.
Different roles will have different expectations.
The core question in this circle is this:
Do you invest in potential OR do you look for provenness?
Circle 3 – Process WORTH Multiplying
Key Question: Is there a simple yet proven process that moves people from spectator to participant to multiplier?
Lots of other questions go into this circle. Do you have processes that protect the people AND the ministry in case things go upside down? Do you have clearly defined roles and leaders in that process? Do you have markers that let you know you are heading the right direction? What skills and competencies are you looking for?
To successfully and consistently multiply leaders, all three of these circles need to have these key questions answered with definite action points.
The point tonight is not to answer all these questions or even flesh out all of these circles but rather to give us a 35,000k foot viewpoint of this process. To begin to start thinking in these terms so that as we add these pieces to the puzzle, multiplication can start happening.
Quick Exercise #2: The Importance of Ministry Worth Multiplying Circle
Take that list of activities that you created at the start of the evening.
Ask for volunteer.
There is a great opportunity to tutor at risk kids after school, using any curriculum I want. I can even use the scriptures for character studies but I need someone to help me, are you in?
First – any opportunity that I’m offered I’m first going to my list of stuff that I’m already involved in and I’m asking myself – is this opportunity WORTH fitting into my life? Either cramming it into an already packed life OR by saying NO to something else. WORTH is relatively defined.
I’m also going to evaluate my list of activities with this question – is this WORTH doing?
Second – as a leader – I want to make sure I define WORTH like God has defined WORTH. This is a love, live and serve opportunity. This is a Great Commandment/Great Commission opportunity.
My job as a leader is NOT to guilt people into showing up or participating. That won’t last and it’s not of God. My job is to be a champion of what God is doing. To point out the already there eternal value and worth of the opportunity.
Quick Exercise #3 – Take a ministry you are in and walk thru 3 circles answering key questions.
Example: Men’s Fraternity
Circle 1 – focus is to disciple men into being spiritual leaders who love, live and serve. YES, worth it.
Circle 2 – Need a key PROVEN leader for director/champion position. Same vision, passion for discipleship. Deep Christ-follower, self-starter, available to do it, teachable, high character, honest, not perfect, vulnerable.
Found the guy – now ready to start.
Circle 3 — Process proven to work
Other churches have their trophies, we don’t…yet. We have process we want to try, run with it and evaluate as we go.
Nor do we have a process to replace Director…yet. We will need to address this if this is going to make it beyond just one season. Every ministry needs to wrestle with that question otherwise focus becomes the program and filling slots.
4 Foundational Multiplication Principles
1. Make micro decisions with macro viewpoint of does this advance God’s Kingdom?
2. Call people NORTH. Even yourself.
Ask more of people than where they are. Don’t ever demand more of those around you than yourself. Keep Love, Live, Serve in the forefront.
3. Something is better than nothing.
It’s easier to steer than start. GO! Starting somewhere and changing it later is better than doing nothing until you have the perfect plan. We know what doing nothing produces – nothing.
4. Invest in PEOPLE, not the program.
Programs have shelf life. Our job isn’t to keep the program running. Our calling is to make disciples who love, live, and serve.
Open Questions, Comments, and Thoughts
Which circle should we start with? Depends. All three need to be developed and dealt with but program and condition of culture will have a HUGE role in determining which circle to tackle first.
Key entry points into ministries is PEOPLE (relationship) and MINISTRY (program) but long term investment will only happen if all three are developed.
PROCESS is the most neglected circle in most churches. They spend time and energy running around to fill slots instead of developing people. Must change in order to be a multiplying church.
Live Connected
May 18, 2011 – 11:40 am
This originally appeared on whillschurch.org as a weekly devo.
Part 4 of Vision Devo series.
Part 1, Part 2, Part 3
Live Connected is perhaps the most difficult of the three (love, live, and serve). It’s the easiest to misunderstand and hardest to actually do.
There are two common misunderstandings of what “live connected” means. The first is a small group dedicated to the gaining of knowledge. Bible study, Sunday school, and most small groups are of this variety. We study the scriptures, we look and listen for insights and we will talk about how it COULD apply in real life. The other misunderstanding is a group dedicated to accomplishing a task. Ministry teams – youth, children, worship, tech team – any group that has an event or specific task to accomplish.
It’s possible to live connected with each of these two groups but most of the time it doesn’t happen. Why? Because to live connected is messy. It’s allowing other people access to our lives in a way that gives them the right and responsibility to speak truth to us and to love on us for the purpose of life change, to look more like Jesus. That’s the key difference between live connected and just a bible study or serving together. Life change, vulnerability, authenticity – these are necessary for live connected.
Take a look at your current small group experience. Is the purpose of that group life change? To challenge and love each other towards Christ-likeness? Or is it just the pursuit of more Bible knowledge? Or the accomplishment of a task? There’s nothing WRONG with those two other options. It’s just that those alone will not result in life change.
Why is live connected even necessary? Because we won’t naturally strive for life change on our own…at least long term. We need encouragement, a model, and even accountability for this to happen. We can’t “love our neighbor as ourselves” without others. Jesus modeled this for us.
It’s part of our mantra because we know that it will be impossible for us to be who God wants us to be without the ministry of others in our life. Impossible.
I Pray by Granger Community Church
March 7, 2011 – 4:59 pm
Prayer from Granger Community Church on Vimeo.
You can bet we’ll be using this soon at Western Hills….what a message.
Be incredibly uncomfortable while teaching the scriptures
February 1, 2011 – 1:30 pm
We are finishing up our series on money – How To Be Rich – which we completely stole the idea from Life Church in Tulsa. But going through the series has reinforced just how uncomfortable I am teaching on money. I mean…really uncomfortable. I don’t think this is a good thing seeing how Jesus said an awful lot about money. A quick look into my sermon history shows that you can count the sermons I have on money on one hand.
Part of this is because there are pastors and ministries that this subject is ALL they talk about. Every sermon or bible study points to us giving money to the church – namely their ministry. Gold plated altars, slick back hair, $1000 suits all reinforce the thought that religious leaders just want your money — they are no different than the used car salesman. Work their angle to get your dough. One uses cars, the other uses spirituality.
But part of it is because I often find myself trying to do exactly what scriptures says that is impossible to do – worshiping both God and money. WHAT??? “Grant worships MONEY!!” No, I’d never admit that BUT…let me give an example of how subtle and sneaky the worship of money is.
Answer this question – are you successful?
What was your first answer? Why did you give that answer? Was one of your first thoughts of how much money you make or don’t make? What you do and do NOT have? At times – that is how I answer the question. Not out loud, of course. I mean, I can’t be having people really know how stupid and shallow I am at times. But to myself — sometimes…yeah, that’s exactly how I answer it — by my income and stuff.
We define “success” by what we think is most important in our life — our “god”, if you will. And when I’m not careful or thoughtful, my default position easily becomes how much money I don’t have.
There is another way to answer the question but it requires a bit of discipline and thought – two things I’m not always good at. Am I successful? I’ve got incredible kids who at this moment seem very much tender and open to the things of God. I’ve got the best (in quality) extended family in the world. There is close to 20 years of life change stories because of our work with dear people who have become family. There are countless lives who will now spend eternity with Jesus because of our investment in Kingdom things. Right now, I’m watching two men of God grow into DEEP men of God and they are RADICALLY allowing the Spirit change them.
It doesn’t make me any less uncomfortable…as was pretty apparent this past Sunday. But — hopefully what will come through is this: I’m a fellow learner on this journey on becoming rich the way God wants us to be rich – generous, living below our means, having margin so that we are able to be generous.
Does this job ever get easier? (Please don’t answer that question, I already know the answer…)
Rowland Smith…is he back?
January 24, 2011 – 11:32 am
There is no hiding my man-crush (bromance) with Rowland Smith. Never mind the fact that I am the only person on the planet that calls him “Row” or that he will allow to call him “Row.” Never mind the fact that he completely rocks the metro-sexual worship pastor quiz. He is writing again and that is always a good thing. It’s better than a good thing, it’s a great thing.
Here is his blog and this is his latest post. Just go read it and start following his blog. I promise you will be challenged both personally AND in your understanding of worship.
If you don’t know Rowland, let me give you a short introduction. He’s the most talented worship leader I’ve ever worked with. This talent causes both elation and frustration for those who work with him. There is no way around this and I wouldn’t want it any other way. It’s what drives us deeper in our understanding of God, deeper in our worship of Him. It’s what helps create memorable worship experiences that become spiritual markers for people.
I promise you this – if you start reading Rowland (and let’s pray he continues to write for a while…), you will be challenged. And let’s be honest, we need this.
His post today is outstanding. Check him out.
Serving is BOTH
January 19, 2011 – 2:55 pm
This originally was posted on our church website as the devo of the week…by a couple of hours.
Oswald Chambers is my Yoda and Obi Wan combined in terms of spiritual mentors. So why is there a picture of Iron Man? I’ll get to that in a minute…but I read My Utmost For His Highest every year. Every year I find something new and challenging. It’s been the single most life changing book I’ve read other than Scripture itself. There are lots of times I find stuff I don’t like. But that is altogether different. Jesus says a lot of things I don’t like…doesn’t make them untrue.
I read this on Monday and it’s challenging me… Here’s what Oz said…
Service is the overflow which pours from a life filled with love and devotion. But strictly speaking, there is no call to that. Service is what I bring to the relationship and is the reflection of my identification with the nature of God. Emphasis mine.
Here they are – the two opposing thoughts of how and why we should serve standing in tension with each other. The first thought is that we need to be changed first, have “it” together before we serve so that we aren’t hypocrites. The other thought is we serve because it’s only through serving that we are changed and eventually we will have “it” together.
Oz is saying — and I agree with him — BOTH are true. Our service is what we bring to God – mess and all – AND it’s the result of WHAT He is doing inside of us. And God uses it all to make us more like Jesus.
Hence, Ironman. Tony Starks is a mess but he serves anyway. And through his serving, he becomes a hero – both as Ironman and eventually as a man. He serves because he knows he OUGHT to and he sees something that needs to change. Both in the world and in himself. He knows he’s a mess but he serves anyway and it’s through serving that the change starts to happen. Not all at once. It’s in stages. It’s a process. But his setbacks aren’t excuses to stop serving.
It’s easy to see the parallels, right? The call to SERVE ALL is both an opportunity to change the world, worship, make a difference AND be changed, transformed, and challenged. And you don’t have to have “it” all together. That’s the beauty of Jesus. He’ll take our pieces, our mess and use it. For the good of others as well as ourselves.
It will be impossible for us to become who God wants us to be without serving. IMPOSSIBLE. So any thought of getting good BEFORE we serve, it’s not just a pipe dream. It’s a lie from the enemy to keep us from serving, to keep us from experiencing the life change God has for us and it keeps so many potentially awesome servants of God on the sideline.
To steal another quote from Oswald – Never let the sense of past failure defeat your next step.
Time to fire up the suit and start serving…
Home