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.

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.

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?

On September 5, 2011, Jorree receives news that her son is dead. Here is part of her story.

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.

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.