Masters and Lectures

The last couple of months have felt like a blur. We have been busy working on many exciting things and have felt like God has been working in a powerful way to lay the foundation for our work here in Nashville. Over the next couple of blogs I will attempt to illuminate different areas of our life and how it is shaping our work in Nashville and our future in church planting.

A couple of weeks ago I finished the last final of my master's degree. This is a big deal, mainly because I am finally on equal footing with my wife. Well, ok...I am not quite at her level of academic excellence. But at least I finally have an M.A.  If you have been keeping up with Laura's blog then you know that back in January we took a trip to England so she could walk at her graduation ceremony. It was a great experience except that from that point on she consistently reminded me that she had an M.A. and I didn't. So, now, finally...I have my Master's of Arts in Christian Ministry. May 18 was the graduation ceremony in Memphis, TN. Unfortunately we were unable to attend because of prior engagements, but we heard it was a great ceremony. I am sure that it was not quite like Laura's graduation at Leicester, but hey, still feels good to be done!

I firmly believe that Laura and I will look back on our time working on our M.As as one of the most formative times of our lives. We learned a great deal beyond the degrees that we have received. Certainly we learned specifics in our areas of study. We learned a host of technicalities in our fields. But I think most of all we learned how to think. A lot of people miss the point of formal education. I don't believe education is meant to be a way for people to simply absorb information. It should be about giving people the tools and ability to think critically about life as they actively participate in it. This is what graduate school has done for Laura and me. We have grown our family, explored our personal and collective abilities to achieve great things, and have relentlessly pursued God's Kingdom in all that we do. 

Prayer

Last week Laura and I took the girls to beautiful Malibu, CA, for the Pepperdine Lectureships. We arrived a day early so we could take our girls to Disneyland. Disneyland was not the purpose of our trip, but it certainly was the icing on top of a wonderful week in sunny So Cal.

Laura and I were blessed to be on the program this year at Pepperdine. On Wednesday evening we, along with two other couples (Borchers and Thomases) were given the opportunity to share some of our journey into church planting. Each couple was given roughly ten minutes to present a vision of a new church that God has placed on our hearts. The Borchers painted a wonderful picture of Providence, RI, and the struggle to bridge a highly intellectual population into the story and experience of Jesus. Jonathan Thomas shared a vision of a church that is intentionally calling people off the mountain top experiences and into the valleys of life where God is reaching into people's hearts and transforming them with love and compassion. Laura and I shared our goals for our time here in Nashville:

1. Build 1-2 Missional Communities (30-70 people) that are going on a journey of faith together
2. Engage our community by using tools such as: Financial Peace University, Alpha, H2O, service projects and more.
3. Create and participate in regular preaching experiences
4. Develop a system of discipleship and leadership development using the Emerging Leadership Training (ELT) that Kairos Church Planting has developed.

While each of the presentations had elements of sharing goals and discussing strategy, the consistent theme running through each was about sharing the reality of the crazy journey of becoming a church planter. This is the most difficult part to present because it opens us up and allows people to see directly into who we are...and the struggles we have.

The Borchers shared a bit of the challenge of moving to Rhode Island and the journey God was taking them on to develop a deep love for God's lost people. Jonathan and Dawnette Thomas shared their fears about entering into this mission and how God used their children to both rebuke their feelings of inadequacy and to affirm their calling from God. Laura and I shared how God is using our time in Nashville to reevaluate our vision and draw us back to himself and his ultimate vision, which is to see lost people enter the Kingdom of God. We are refocusing our eyes on Jesus and weighing our future through the lens of Christ.

It is my prayer that people were able to see the journey...to see the struggle. Planting a church is not easy work. It takes us deep into the heart of God and forces us to bare our lives. But it is well worth the cost to see thousands of people come into the Kingdom of God.

I want to leave you with four challenging prayers from fellow Kairos church planter David Clayton's keynote on Wednesday night:
 
 Pray...

1. That God will help us become a movement that is desperate for Jesus again.
2. That God will help us trust His plans when they don't make sense.
3. That God will give us the courage to sacrifice our life for His mission.
4. That God will make us true worshippers of Jesus, in Spirit and Truth

This is my prayer as I work here in Nashville. Pray with us. Pray for us. Pray for the thousands upon thousands of people who will hear the gospel of Jesus because of the new churches that are being planted and the established churches that are experiencing revival.

Body Builders: Biblical Fund Raising

Growing up I never thought that I would someday go in to full-time ministry. And I definitely did not anticipate doing church planting or missionary work which would mean fundraising. So you can imagine my anxiety as we began to pursue God's calling in our lives to plant new churches. Let's be honest, fundraising is tough. Ok, maybe it isn't always, and it probably shouldn't be, but more often than not, it just sucks. Money matters are one of Satan's greatest tools, and fundraising too often leads to  questions of doubt and self-worth. But the truth is, fundraising doesn't suck. It is God's directive, it is a method of his powerful provision, it is significant to His work, it is an invitation to practice a spiritual discipline, it is an opportunity to be on mission for Him, minister or not. Last month I attended a weekend training on Biblical Fund Raising, and I am dying to share some of my takeaways from that time with you.

The Fund Raising conference was put on by the Center for Mission Mobilization, formerly known as Body Builders. The instructor, Steve Shadrach, teaches ministers how to raise funds using the biblical model of fund raising. It was an intense weekend requiring hard work and dedication. In fact, you can't even show up to a conference without having first completed the 40 hours of prep work, a large portion of which is digging into scripture. I won't share everything I learned that weekend, because I don't have the time and I'd rather not put any of you in a boredom induced coma. But in our fellowship we have done a poor job of talking about money and developing the spiritual discipline of giving, and it's time we work to correct that. So I won't be embarrassed, in fact, I'm honored to share a few takeaways with you.

Fund Raising is Biblical
Often we praise Paul for supporting himself as a tentmaker while he shared the gospel. But did you know that he also asked for support...often? (Romans 15:20-24, 2 Corinthians 1:16, 1 Corinthians 16:6) Paul was in good company, do you know who else was supported in his ministry by others? You guessed it, Jesus, the Son of God was supported financially by many people, including several women mentioned by name (Luke 8:1-3) Nehemiah made a request to King Artaxerxes for financial support to rebuild Jerusalem, while Elijah asked for provision from a poor widow who had little more than a single loaf of bread. In the Old Testament God commanded one twelfth of an entire nation not to earn their living so that they could, instead, provide spiritually for the nation of Israel. So how did these people, the Levites, live? The other tribes gave 10% of their income to the Levites as a joyful offering.

Fund Raising is about God
"So, I need some money because I really want to do this, and I need to cover my living expenses and be able to eat, and we just had another baby so we need more money, and..." Unfortunately, this is often our idea of fundraising, and it takes God  almost completely out of the picture. Biblical fund raising asks, "How do I view God, my ministry, myself and my financial partners?" Too often we doubt that God is willing and able. We are sometimes not fully convinced of our own ministry vision. We feel inadequate and we doubt that others would be willing to partner with us in our mission. However, when we change our perspective to be God focused then we can easily answer these questions. God is more than able and completely willing. My ministry is incredibly important and worthy because God is the one who called me into this ministry. I know that I am able to accomplish great things because God is with me and is in control. And many people are waiting eagerly for the chance to be a part of the ministry God has placed on my heart, I just have not asked them to join in.

People Don't Give to Needs, They Give to Dreams
In raising funds you should not present your needs and then ask for money. Rather, you need to share a vision given to you by God and then invite people to join that vision. Because that's exactly what they are doing if they support you financially. They are participating in the mission with you, what an honor and joy for you and your entire support team to be on mission together! We have three promises we make to our support team to let them know they are on mission with us. We promise to:

• Work diligently to touch the lives of people for Jesus Christ
• Regularly let you know how God is blessing our ministry
• Share prayer concerns with you and pray for your concerns monthly

Of course we learned many other things like specific tools, the twelve steps of successful fund raising, etc. If you want to know more then please contact me, I'm happy to share! But these that I mentioned are a couple basic ideas that have helped me be more confident in knowing how to get our family from where we are now to where we want to be in order to fully engage in this adventurous life to which God is calling us. In full disclosure, this journey is still hard at times. But the Body Builders training has helped us learn how to take pride in what we do, rest in God's provision, share our vision, bless our supporters, and above all to know that this is God's mighty work, we are just a small piece.

Please go to the "Support Our Mission" tab above to learn more about joining our support team. We can't wait to have you as a part of this mission!

Teaching Scripture

Do you own a Bible? Do you read it often? I'm blown away by the continued impact of this ancient text that is the best selling book in history. Below are two graphs from the Barna Group, a statistical research group. The first graph shows the percentage of people who own a Bible, those who say the Bible is sacred, and those who wish they read the Bible more. This graph may not surprise you, but it did me. I was blown away with the high percentage of people who own a Bible and wish they read it more often. Perhaps I was naive in believing that the numbers would have been much lower. But the truth remains...people desire to be more involved in the word of God but don't know how to engage it. This is where we as Christ followers step in. What an amazing opportunity to dive into the word of God with our neighbors, co-workers, friends and family.

At Ethos we believe that the word of God is powerful and will help people walk in a new, resurrected, relationship with Jesus. There are a number of avenues that we use to teach scripture, and both Laura and I are diving into these opportunities to teach God's word.

First, and probably the most prominent and powerful is through our Sunday preaching. This preaching is grounded in scripture and focused on helping people develop a love for the word of God. Dave Clayton, our preacher, has developed a way to train young preachers to proclaim the word of God in a powerful, relevant, transforming, and scripturally based way.

Starting tomorrow (Thursday, April 4), I will be joining this preaching group led by Dave. This group will help me hone the preaching skills that I desire to obtain in order plant a church. I have had some experience preaching and I believe that each time I improve in certain areas. However, this will help me grow my skills as an orator of God's word. Stay tuned for more on how this group is helping me grow as a preacher.

This next graph shows that the influence of the Bible is gradually losing ground in our country. While a lot of people have a Bible in their home, many do not believe that the Bible can speak directly into their lives. 61% of people wish they read the Bible more. These percentages have been declining over the last three years and will continue to decline if we as God's people do not step up and begin teaching the Bible.

I am excited to work with Ethos' many different avenues to teach scripture. While Sunday serves the purpose of teaching scripture to the whole church together, there is value in having smaller groups of people who are able to pour over scripture in community.

One of these smaller group settings we have used to teach scripture is House Churches. Every week groups meet around the city of Nashville in homes, coffee shops, and other locations to study the word of God. This format is designed to be more of a discussion than a formal time of teaching. We take the sermon from the Sunday before and we, together, dive into the content and pull out application for our lives. This is a powerful way for smaller groups of people to interact with God's word together. It also provides an avenue for leaders of House Churches to teach and develop spiritual leadership without theological training or being a "minister."

House Churches serve a great purpose in teaching scripture in a small group setting, and another avenue we use to teach at Ethos is called GROW Classes. These classes are meant to be more formal in style with a teacher bringing prepared lessons before a group. The things we teach are directly from scripture yet have a direct application into people's lives. This takes our people a level deeper in their study of scripture. These classes take place during the summer months (June-July) while our House Churches are on a break.

This summer both Laura and I will be teaching a GROW class. My class, entitled "Missional Evangelism and Discipleship" will focus on identifying the biblical model for evangeslism and discipleship. Laura will be taking a group of women through the Beth Moore study "Living Beyond Yourself: Exploring the Fruit of the Spirit." She is a gifted teacher and will bless the women at Ethos and in our community through this study.

These are just a few of the main avenues we use to teach scripture at Ethos. We see statistics, like those above, concerning the Bible and our hearts break. The Bible offers a wellspring of life and guidance that we cannot do without. Recently Dave Clayton posted on his Twitter account, "God's Word is like the ocean--deep, mysterious, overwhelming, full of beauty & adventure. I pray I never tire of playing in these waters." This is our hope for all people. That as we begin to help people see Jesus we point them to God's word which will help them see the very heart of God. We want people to experience the great adventure that is the Word of God.

Guest Blog: Josh Granberg's Take on the Morality of Europe

Josh Granberg is my brother-in-law and one of my best friends. His ability to see the undercurrents of cultural thought and experiences is amazing. He has a gift for understanding the world around him as it relates to the gospel of Christ. He is attending the Florence Academy of Art, one of the top art schools in the world, and has worked tirelessly to understand the world of art as it relates to culture at large. Art has the incredible ability to influence every aspect of thought and culture and God has intentionally placed Josh in the middle of it all in order to create lasting change for the Kingdom of God. In his blog below he is discussing one of the reasons we as the church should focus our time and energy on reaching into the hearts of the European people. I hope that you are blessed by what he has to say. 

Throughout college I understood that America was Philosophically about 30 years behind Europe.  Most philosophers identify the 1890's as the birth of the post-modern mind in Europe and the 1920's in the USA.  I understood that to mean that we could view Europe as a foreshadow of what would eventually come in America.  I don't believe that any more.

Much of our worldview is established through the questions we ask.  The questions that led to the shift from a Modern worldview to the Post-modern one were different in Europe than the ones being asked in America.  In Europe there were two areas that were the platforms for questions; the identity of authority and the problem of pain, more specifically the pain brought about by the world wars.  Philosophers such as Nietzsche and Sartre had philosophically undone the absoluteness of truth.  The result was the death of God and the loss of the church as the ultimate authority.  Governmental revolutions shook the trust the people had in their governments and the World Wars destroyed the confidence and purity of man.

With the loss of both absolutes and authority we are now facing the instability of a crumbling foundation on the grounds of morality.  There is no longer anyone or anything to tell us or help us identify our moral code; and yet I believe we, as humans, require a moral code.  So were do we find it?

While studying at the Florence Academy of Art in Europe I have found it fascinating how highly the students I am studying with value morals.  I can't count how many times I have heard someone say how much they admire another student after that person has declined a cigaret or stated that they no longer drink based on moral grounds.  The other two common areas of moral conversation have to do with life partners and, surprisingly, food and diet.  Everyone has a moral code that they live by, but it is their moral code.  So, again, where does it come from?

It seems to me that the moral code comes from that ever persistent topic of pain.  The European moral code seems to be established on pain.  If I do something or experience something and it causes pain then that action is labeled morally bad.  The opposite is also true.  If you take enough time to talk to one of these students that stopped drinking you will find that they have experienced an incredible amount of pain because of alcohol.  Most of the students I study with come from broken homes.  They know the pain that divorce causes, and therefore label divorce as wrong.  They solve the issues that ensue from this line of thinking by simply not getting married to begin with.

Because the authority has been removed from God, church, government, society, and even man, what does that leave?  Nature.  The result is that your diet is no longer a personal choice but a moral issue.  We see our natural world being paved over by humanity.  We see the pain Mother Earth is enduring and wish to do our part, and we do it by controlling what we eat.

What should the Christian response to this be?  It seems to me that the answer is fairly simple; the Christian life is a good life.  Being a Christian will make life more enjoyable, more fulfilling; you will have more peace, assurance, and confidence.  Naturally being a Christian does not mean that you will never experience pain again.  But it does mean that when those times come there is someone deeper than yourself to rely on.  It is no longer the fallible you that needs to have the answers or the strength but the infallible one.