Willow Creek has been a leading influence on church culture. 30 years of ministry summed up by an admission of failure in creating mature Christian believers. I think Willow Creek taught us a lot about presentation, programming and professionalism in church. To strive for excellence is still a key component of ministry. What I think Hybels is saying is summed up in this statement.

Some of the stuff that we have put millions of dollars into thinking it would really help our people grow and develop spiritually, when the data actually came back, it wasn’t helping people that much. Other things that we didn’t put that much money into and didn’t put much staff against is stuff our people are crying out for.

Excellent programming came at the expense of discipleship. What we need to get away from teaching conversion and move towards embracing transformation. In the April 2009 issue of Enrich Magazine, David Moran writes an excellent article on discipleship titled, Make the More Like Jesus. He begins his article with the statement. “Our Pentecostal churches are filled with a crowd, not disciples”. He goes on to ask, “Who is the most successful pastor in the PAOC? Is it the one with the largest crowd? No, it is the one who is making the most disciples”

This is a PSA for all you men out there buying Christmas presents.

http://bewareofthedoghouse.com/VideoPage.aspx

Please watch this before it is too late.

20/20 Hindsight: What I Hope We Learned From the Lakeland Revival

Below are the opening lines from an article written by J. Lee Grady who is editor of Charisma. To read the full version of the article click on the link below.


Looking back at what happened in Lakeland, I wonder if we can agree on what went wrong.

It has been four months since Canadian evangelist Todd Bentley fled the scene of Florida’s Lakeland Revival amid rumors of a moral failure. When Bentley vanished in August, the crowds thinned, God TV stopped broadcasting services, the meetings eventually shut down and Bentley’s worship leader took the popular music of the revival on the road.

"Ministers of the gospel need both godly character and powerful anointing. Why did we ever settle for the idea that we should have one without the other." Ouch!


http://fireinmybones.com/index.php?col=120208

The National Institute on Media and the Family released it’s 13th annual mediawise Video Game Report Card. If you have kids and are buying video games for Christmas this is a great resource. They say that up to 97% of kids in North America play video games. Warning this is a large document but it is worth looking through. There is a section that talks about recommend games to buy for kids and more importantly the ones to avoid. Here is the link to the report. http//www.mediafamily.org/research/2008_video_game_report_card.pdf

This is from Leadership Challenge
"Leaders must challenge the process precisely because any system will unconsciously conspire to maintain status quo and prevent change. It is the nature of things organizationally not to change in a healthy direction. It is the nature of things organizationally to find a happy place and stay there forever and ever and ever and ever."

"We need to steer clear of this poverty of ambition, where people want to drive fancy cars and wear nice clothes and live in nice apartments but don't want to work hard to accomplish these things. Everyone should try to realize their full potential." Barak Obama

I don't want to rip this quote apart or make a message out of it. The phrase "poverty of ambition" struck me. We want the good life without the work. In church circles we need to steer clear of a poverty of faith, where we want God's blessings to flow without following what he instructs in scripture to do. We need to steer clear from claiming the rewards without accepting the responsibilities. Our faith needs to be big enough to embrace God's blessing and to live sacrificially.

YOUR PERSONAL DAY OF DEATH

Well I guess I haven't lived up to bargain of blogging every week. But this is twice this month which is progress. In a conversation today a pastor told me about a sermon that he preached. The topic was making the most of your life and seizing the opportunity now. One of the illustrations he used was from a website http://www.deathclock.com/ You enter personal info like age, weight, mood etc... and if gives you your "personal day of death", and then has a countdown of how many seconds you have left to live. I have 1.16 Billion seconds left according to this survey. Now I know that none of us has any guarantee of how many seconds we get. That is something that only God knows. But it sure gets me thinking how I am going to spend the next billion seconds. Am I going to worry about the little things or am I going to spend them making a difference in this world and pointing people to Jesus Christ? Tick Tick Tick.

Time until Saturday, April 15, 2045 (Winnipeg time)
13440 days
322568 hours
19354130 minutes
1161247804 seconds

In a busy season it seems like posting is the last thing on my list. But it is also a time of growth, and I am frustrated that my posts have been non-existent for 2 months. Life has been exciting moving into a new house, and taking up new opportunities at work. YC has come and passed, General Conference happened, my daughter had her tonsils, my parents made the trek from BC, I have lost 16 lbs of potato chips, nachos and chicken wings and I started coaching baseball again. This time my son is playing, it is so much fun. In the hustle of trying to keep up with my life I need the outlet of writing. A chance to reflect and slow down. I am going to make a commitment to relax by writing and to be more consistent. Every week for sure. If anyone is still reading this blog you can hold me accountable.

I will leave this with you - Prayer of Sir Francis Drake

Disturb us, Lord, when we are too
well pleased with ourselves,
When our dreams have come true
Because we have dreamed too little,
When we arrived safely
Because we sailed too close to the shore.
Disturb us, Lord, when with the abundance
of things we possess,
We have lost our thirst for the waters of life;
Having fallen in love with life,
We have ceased to dream of eternity
And in our efforts to build a new earth,
WE have allowed our vision of the new Heaven to dim.
Disturb us, Lord, to dare more boldly,
To venture on wider seas
Where storms will show Your mastery;
Where losing sight of land,
We shall find the stars.
We ask You to push back the horizons of our hopes;
And to push into the future in strength, courage, hope and love.