So this is it.  The public launch of Connexus
Barrie, soon to be followed next weekend by the public launch of our
Orillia campus.  In so many ways, everything changes this weekend.  But
let me tell you how it’s changing most for me.

It’s changing most because people I know who have given up on church
or who have never been to church are coming. Like you, I invited
people.  For me, as a church leader, that changes everything.
Everything I process as we head into the weekend is not about my
experience or my engagement, but about the engagement of my friends and
how they will relate to God , and how we can create an irresistible,
relevant environments that lead people into a growing relationship with
Jesus.

I just know how important this Jesus thing really is — not just for
me, but for everybody. And as so many of us have invited friends to
join us over these next few weekends, think about what’s at stake.

I think first of all that most people really do want to know God.
They’re pretty sure He’s real — they just want to know Him. They’re
hoping we can help a post-modern, cynical culture engage in hope.
They’re also wondering what to do with all their "stuff".  Will they be
judged by how they look?  Judged for what’s going on in their lives and
thoughts?  Will they be respected?  Loved? Accepted?  Not just by God,
but by us?

Will they find a home for their doubts and fears?  A place where
they can be real?  Will their relationships that are dangling by a
thread be rekindled?  Will their hearts come alive again?  Will their
family find life? Will they begin to hope again?

Will we respect those who don’t want to be engaged because they are
amazed that the walls are still standing now that they’re in ‘church?"
Will we welcome those who want a real greeting with a smile and an open
heart?  Will we respect where people are at and let God make a deep
connection?

The church isn’t for us.  It’s for the world.  It’s for everybody.
And I’m glad that day is finally approaching. I’m glad that
everything’s changing.   I’ll be praying for my friends, and your
friends — for everybody.

There’s so much happening this week.  I hope you get a chance to get over to www.connexuscommunity.com today to check out the new web site for the church I pastor, Connexus Community Church.  It went live this morning.  It will tell you all about what our whole team (staff and volunteer) have been working on for the last few months…launching Connexus.

It’s been a huge amount of work, and it’s by no means over yet.  Even as we go into three days of lock-down to get all the final preparations done for Sunday morning, we still have weeks more stuff post launch that has to be attended to.

But I’ve been asking myself — are we ready?  In every sense?  Am I ready for the launch?

Sadly, I haven’t been able to shake this bug, and it’s been seven days, so I finally went to the hospital today to get my problem checked out. 

The nurse who was looking after me, a young woman in her 20s, said "have you missed work because of your illness?"

I said, "I kind of don’t have that luxury quite right now." 

She said "What do you do?"

I didn’t want to tell her what I did (I don’t like telling people I’m a pastor — it’s just too weird), but she asked me point blank and I know its a sin to lie.  So I said, "Well, I’m a pastor and we’re actually  launching a church this weekend."

"Oh", she replied, "Are you the guy from that church,  Conn…"

"Connexus?"

"Yeah!  Connexus.  That’s the one in the movie theater, right? That’s so cool. My friend’s been telling me about that.  Yeah…that sounds so great.  What a neat idea…."

She actually sounded like she might attend.

I thought it was amazing that even in an ER ward at 7 a.m., hoping to be anonymous (it’s not nice to have a persistent flu bug that makes mincemeat out of your stomach and digestive tract), God was already at work.

He’s got so many people ready for this…over the next few weeks, and I’m sure months and years.

I’m going to live, by the way (sorry to disappoint you).  They’ve got me on a pill that should make me well by Sunday.   And even so, I’m not that bad. 

So I’m getting my body strong, praying a lot, getting rest (yes, I am getting 8-9 hours of sleep a night!), and working my brains off.  But most of all, under it all, I want to remind myself daily, hourly, minute by minute, that without God, nothing happens.  We need Him.  We love Him.  He’s the whole deal.  Without Him, nobody’s life gets changed.  Doesn’t matter how perfectly everything runs.

But it’s nice to see at 7 a.m. in an emergency ward, God’s already working in hearts and lives of people you and I have never met.  Because He’s got way more invested in the mission of His church than we ever will.  And for that, as we head into launch, I’m so grateful.

Had a call from a friend and colleague last night at home…a church leader who mentored me in my early years as a pastor and who provided all kinds of good counsel. 

He’s probably 10-15 years my senior, and we were chatting about his church (a big building campaign in their future), and he had lots of questions about Connexus.  He happens to be Presbyterian — my former denomination — and we were talking about what the church would be like in the future.

I have a hard time answering that.  I know things are changing even as we speak.  In the comments on my last post, Allen talks about being just on the edge of the Gen X/Buster generation, like I am (I’m 42).  I sense the differences (and the similarities) between me and the next generation.  Hey, I’m old enough to be the father of the youngest staff member of the Connexus staff (yikes), and I don’t think of myself as that old.  But still, I see the generational differences coming.

What will the church of the future look like?  I told him I didn’t want to race into a big building campaign because I don’t want to build some huge cathedral for this generation that will be vacant when the next generation arrives.  I like portable church right now, because it is so flexible.  I imagine a network of many, smaller gathering spaces (maybe under 1000 seats each) closer to where people actually live, then some huge 5000 seat auditorium in some central place we ask everyone and their cousin to drive to on Sunday morning.

Qualitatively, I see the church as being far more

• Relational.  If it really is about loving God and loving others, let’s get on with it.  Community groups are the heart of congregational life.

• Authentic.  Dump the masks and the suits. All of us are screwed up.  Let’s just admit it and make room for lots more broken people.  There’s a word for people who think they have their morality sewn up: Pharisee.

• Missional.  Gone are the days when the church is about satisfying the needs of its members.  We just grow fat and inactive when that happens. Most Christians are 2000 bible verses overweight, and most of what those who are "learning" need to learn can be gleaned through beginning personal study, community groups and weekend services.  It’s not hard to find the basics of Christianity.  The challenge is to live them out.  The church, as an outward focused organization, finds its life when we focus not on ourselves, but on others.  And in that is the mystery of life — that when we lose our lives, we find them — when we give our lives away, we gain them.

Thanks to my friend and colleague Terry, for some great conversation. 

What do you think?

I’ve been in a conversation with a tv producer over the last few weeks (watch for an announcement on the Connexus blog tomorrow).  One of the questions that has come up is why some churches are growing when so many churches are not growing.

I’ve thought about this question a lot over the years.  I remember a long drive to Chicago two years ago with an emerging church leader.  During the trip, he asked me point blank why some churches grow and others don’t.  It really made me think.  Within two months, I’d boiled the answer down to three factors — three factors that still make sense to me over two years later.

You might be disappointed, because few of the factors are shrouded in the mystery of church "language" or hyper-spiritual talk.  It might be more tempting to say "because God blesses growing churches"…but doesn’t that imply that God curses dying churches?  Or we might say "because the Holy Spirit is with growing churches…".  But again, is He then not with stagnant or declining churches?  And isn’t it possible to grow a church (at least on the short term) through human effort?  Is God actually behind every growing church, or sometimes can talented people grow a church while God has nothing to do with it?  I doubt the growth would last for years or decades, but I bet you can get solar-flare growth for a little while on human effort alone.

So, here’s my short list of three factors that I think lead to long term, sustainable, God-honuring, authentic growth in a church.  In my opinion, all three are necessary.  You can’t have two out of three and grow long term.  You need all three:

i. Biblical Integrity.  If you base your ministry on anything other than the word of God, long term it will fizzle.  If people aren’t being led into a growing relationship with Jesus based on scripture, then they won’t stick around for long.  Scripture is the guide for life, for churches and for people.

ii.  Cultural Relevance.  You may believe the Bible, but if you speak Greek to a culture that speaks English…good luck.  Too many Christians love stuffy, antiquated church culture as much as they love Jesus.  That’s going to be an issue if you are trying to reach people who live firmly in 2007.  Musically, language wise and otherwise, churches need to move into a culturally relevant model of ministry that speaks to people where they are at.  Jesus did.

iii. Structural Agility.  This is the unlikely inclusion in the list.  I added it because I have met way too many church leaders who base their ministry on scripture, do culturally relevant ministry, and don’t grow.  By structural agility, what I mean is that church leadership has to be sensitive to the constantly changing dynamics of size and scope of ministry at every size of growth and be willing to change how they function structurally as a result.

The structural changes are myriad.  A church of 300 must be organizationally different than a church of 100.  A church of 900 is going to be very different organizationally than a church of 400.  Many leaders get hung up because they try to pastor a church so that they "know everybody" when they can’t know everybody. Personal pastoral care by a pastor has to disappear in every church over 200 — it is organizationally impossible for one person to care for more than 200 people (see Exodus 18). Biblically,it should have been care by-the-people for-the-people-anyway, but that’s another discussion  (see Ephesians 4.11-16)

Decision making also needs to change in a growing organization. It needs to move from consensus based decision making to leader-led decision making, and from congregational decision making to leadership team-based decision making.  As a church approaches 500-1000, the staff must take over effective day to day decision making even from the elders, who will function more as the spiritual ‘guardrails’ of decision making. 

By the same token, the role of staff needs to become more and more equipping-based, where instead of doing the work we enable the work to be done by people.  Congregations become empowered when staff release them to do the work of ministry.

Many people chafe at these changes (in large measure because they’ve never been part of a large church or never seen another model), but that explains why 99% of churches in Canada are under 750 worshipers (that’s an actual statistic).  We condemn ourselves, and God, to limited influence because we won’t make the structural and leadership decisions we need to make to grow the Kingdom. To ignore structural agility is to condemn your church to always being smaller than your vision (or even God Himself) wants your to be.

Those are my three. I realize when I say these things that they are counter-intuitive and often make other church leaders or church people angry, but I think they are just true.

What would you add?  What resonates?  How would you think differently about those factors?

Being sick stinks.  There’s no other way to slice it.  Thank you for your prayers. We got through the morning and even an afternoon debrief lunch where we made a long list of stuff we’ll work on to prepare for next weekend.  I’ll sleep early tonight and hopefully all will be good tomorrow!

I managed to make it through the morning feeling great in the services (thanks my being so encouraged to see so many people excited, and our prayers, and thanks to my portable pharmacy.)  They were great services, and by 10:00 a.m. I felt like a real pastor of a real church on two campuses.  I felt like we were part of a move of God (I think you could sense the Spirit).  It was awesome. 

I loved being in Orillia briefly at 6 a.m. to thank the incredible crew that got up earlier than I did to transport all the gear.  By the time I rolled into Barrie at 6:30 all the trailers were unloaded.  It was so cool to see so many working so hard.   We realize we have a lot to do this week to get ready for a "real service", but we’re all committed to getting the job done.   Plus, God was there anyway!

I’ll blog about the specifics on the Connexus blog but as I sit here watching the Grey Cup with my family, I’m just very thankful for it all.  I hope to get a clear mind back at some point in the next day, along with my stomach.

It’s amazing what can happen when God gives you strength, even when you feel like dirt.  Being part of an awesome community is a huge part of the blessing!  It was just so great to be part of these two dynamic campuses this morning!

I rarely get sick, but yesterday I woke up feeling a bit queasy and it steadily grew worse over the day.  By supper I was ready to woof my waffles.  As best as I can figure, I either have the flu or food poisoning (had some red hot chicken wings for lunch on Wednesday….).  It was not pretty last night.  I had to miss my son’s hockey game.  I stayed home and lay on the couch, getting up only to stumble to the bathroom. 

Then, as though God was punishing me for always being the guy who likes the house cool, I got the chills.  I couldn’t stop shaking for 30 minutes and I threw a sweatshirt on and put every blanket in the bed overtop of me.  I was still cold.  Even lying down didn’t make me feel better. 

This morning I feel marginally better, but it got me thinking.  I can’t remember the last time I had to go to bed because I was sick with something.  It must have been years. 

I am so used to independence…being able to do things for myself and for others.  Sam got me ginger ale last night.  Toni went out and got me meds. I could basically just lie there and hope I warmed up.  Eventually, Jordan Sam and Toni all came in and we had good, long conversations.  That was great.

Spiritually, we’re all supposed to be dependent on God. I catch myself often and wonder whether I am doing things for God or whether I am doing things in God, in His strength.  As a write that as an A type personality, I’m not even sure I know what that means.

I always thought Jesus’ last words to Peter were weird.  Look at this exchange.

“I tell you the truth, when you were young, you were able to do
as you liked; you dressed yourself and went wherever you wanted to go.
But when you are old, you will stretch out your hands, and others will
dress you and take you where you don’t want to go.”

Jesus said this to let him know by what kind of death he would glorify God. Then Jesus told him,

“Follow me.” [john 21.18-19]

I’m not sure I’d be happy if those were the words Jesus "blessed" me with.

Yet there is something to dependence that is amazing.  At new levels, you open yourself to others.  You open yourself to God. 

I expect to feel better later today (I still can’t stand being sick)…but somehow I hope I keep thinking about these things.

So as we get ready to become two campuses, the reality of "not seeing" the Orillia people is starting to hit me emotionally. While I’ve got piles of friends at the Barrie campus, I live much closer to Orillia than to Barrie, so that means many of my personal network of friends will be at the Orillia campus. Which means, I won’t see them much anymore on Sundays.

For years, I’ve struggled with knowing "everyone" at our former ministry.  Naturally, I didn’t know and couldn’t know well over a thousand people.  And that’s why we have community groups — so everyone at Connexus can be connected with a leader and others who love them and know them and care about them. And when we announced that Connexus would be at two locations, many of you came up and said "but we’ won’t see you anymore, and we’ll miss you".  And I explained why I’d be in Barrie and that it was no big deal that we wouldn’t see each other because the church does not depend on one pastor knowing everybody, because then all churches couldn’t grow to more than 200 people and that we would always know each other anyway and blah blah blah.

Anyway, here’s what I’ve been struggling with this week.  I miss the Orillia people already.  And I know I’ll miss the Muskoka people twelve months from now.  And then I’ll miss the Barrie people who will go to Barrie for a year or two until we can do something in the GTA and our southern ring from the Barrie campus will disappear.  I miss you guys already too. 

This is just turning into a sap-fest, isn’t it?

I’ve been praying about it though.  And here’s what I believe God is saying to me (please realize that the older I get, the less I like to say "this is what God said to me", because I want to speak for God less and less and let Him speak for Himself more and more…). Nevertheless, here’s what I believe God is saying to me as I pray about it:  "If you want to build a church on your relationships and your influence, go ahead.  But if you want to build a church on my strength, on my power, on my influence, then let go.  Let me care for the Orillia people and the Muskoka people and the Barrie people and eventually the GTA people  and you do your little thing in your little world and I’ll use it any way I want."

What do you say to that?  Basically, I clear my throat and change the subject.

I really kind of feel like I want to be in two places at once on Sunday.  I do.  But I can’t be.  (We have to set up one site with full equipment for filming and we picked Barrie…and no, I can’t float between sites, and yes I’d like to change that but we can’t and blah blah blah). 

So, I think as we practice being Connexus for one more weekend, God is about to do something bigger than any one of us and probably bigger than all of us.  He’s going to do something based on His influence.  Based on His dreams.  His scope.  His size.  His power.  Not mine, not yours, not ours.

So I’m getting ready for that.  I need to you to know I miss you already…but I’m just not sure God cares about how I feel nearly as much as he cares about the people He wants to influence through all of us through all our communities.    And I think somehow that’s far more important than how I or any one of us feels.

More and more I’m seeing at the end of the day all we’ve got is our relationship with God and with people.  Not the idea of a relationship, but the reality of a relationship.  Ups and downs, pain and tears, weirdness and wonder, triumph and high fives.   The full package.  There’s no escaping it.

We’re launching a church and all that (if you haven’t heard), and the single best way to get people to come with you and eventually meet Jesus is to personally invite them.

But I know most of us are skittish on jeopardizing our relationships
over a church invitation.  Most of us are scared to open the
conversation.  I’ve been collecting random thoughts on how to overcome
these hurdles.  I hope they help:

• Pray for people. If you’re scared out of your pants to invite someone to church, tell God about it.  Then ask God to be with you when you chat with them.  Pray that God would move in their heart.  It’s amazing how God actually cares more about people than we do, but we forget that.  So pray for them (and yourself).

• Try talking about church, not God. We all feel awkward going up to someone and saying "so…what’s the state of your heart when it comes to Jesus?"  I do, and I’m a pastor. So unless you really feel you need to say that, don’t.  Instead, ask someone what they think about church.  Then tell them about your church and what it’s like, and you’ll have more than 3 minutes of stuff to talk about.  Last week, I had a 25 minute conversation with a 22 year old who hates church and whose body piercings had piercings.  Every third word was "dude"…but he and I engaged in a great conversation at length.  I was out of our community, but I believe if he would have lived in our neighbourhood, he would have come.  You just never know.  I’ve had a half dozen very surprising conversations with local people who either will be there or might be there December 2nd and 9th.  If you don’t ask, you’ll never know what might have happened…

• Admit you’re an idiot and don’t have all the answers.  First of all, they already know you’re an idiot and don’t have your life fully together.  Second, admitting you don’t have the answers takes pressure off both of you.  After all, very few people get ‘informationed’ into heaven.  Most of us get loved there.  A real dialogue with real people based on love goes a long way.  Be real.

• Talk to them about the kind of church Connexus will be.  We are really gearing Sundays to be (at the highest level we know how to) an environment you can bring your friends to.  A service where people can hear Green Day and Steve Fee music within minutes of each other and messages that engage real life can be a pretty powerful environment for God to meet people in.  Kids ministry kids actually like is another bonus.  And telling people they don’t need to have to carry a 32 pound bible or wear three piece suits or bad sun dresses is still a relief to many (remember, they haven’t been to church in 10 years…if at all…and they stay away due to stereotypes).  The fact that they might actually fit in will still surprise people.

• Pray some more.  Remember…God loves you more than you love yourself and He loves them more than anyone every will.  He’s just using you as a channel.

I hope you’re investing in people and inviting them now.

You yourself can get a sample of a Connexus service because this weekend we’re open at both campuses at Connexus.
You can go to Barrie or Orillia at 8:30 or 10:00.  It’s our soft launch in both cities — a real service done imperfectly (that’s
kind of what you get every week anyway, isn’t it?).  But we’re actually
open.  Which is amazing!

As we gear up for the December 2nd grand opening in Barrie and the
December 9th, it’s a chance to invite everyone.

Who are you praying for?  When are you going to chat with them?   What fears keep you up at night?  Anyone say yes already that shocked you?

I sit here Monday afternoon still kind of in awe of everything that’s happening.   We just came out of the first soft-launch weekend for Connexus Barrie, and it was so great. You kind of plan for months and dream for years and work hard at things…but to see it all transpire is a bit surreal. 

Some Monday morning quarterback reflections:

• I guess we really are trying launch relevant environments in two cities at the same time.  Every day, I hear from people who offer encouragement but then ask the question…so you guys are trying to do what in how much time?  I guess it is a little crazy to try to launch two campuses within a week of each other…but it actually appears to be working.

• Without trying to be insincere or sound like some marketing campaign that no one believes, I can honestly say I have never ever worked with a crew of people who have been so singularly encouraging and positive as this Connexus crew.  It’s like we all just moved to a new level. The faith and sacrifice of this group is unbelievable…I guess when we really did make the leap together last month we stepped into something that was much bigger than we are.  Your energy, prayer, devotion and encouragement and sheer enthusiasm humble and inspire me.

• The band was so great.  I so totally missed our Sunday gatherings, and can’t wait till they’re wide open on Sundays for everyone in December.

• I’ve never believed in the vision as much as I do now.  I care far less about size and growth and far more about seeing people changed.  And if we get to do that a thousand times over, that’s great.  What fuels me is that we get to do this.

• I’ve really got to get used to video preaching.  The cameras were not the issue…but the lights were literally blinding.  It was like staring into the high beams of a lexus.  What I missed eye contact with people (the lights literally blind you). For me, preaching really is a dialogue, and I am constantly watching and reading people while I preach to evaluate how the conversation is "going" and what needs to be said.  We’ll play with the lights again this weekend so I can see more people…or else I’ll have to learn how to imagine the weekly dialogue in my head.

• I miss my family.  This week is a week of catching up at home on evenings (no meetings in the evening for a couple weeks…). As much as the wider ministry is great, not being on the road again for two months is great right now.

• I’m so praying for who everyone is inviting, and can’t wait to have a wide open foyer December 2nd and 9th.  I can only imagine how God is going to move in the lives of your friends, family and in these communities.

Thanks for a great weekend everyone. 

What was memorable/significant for you?

It’s been a great week, and so much to look forward to this weekend.  Some quick reflections as we head into an exciting weekend and week:

• It was awesome to be at the North Point lead pastors retreat again this year. I felt guilty on the one hand because our team at home was working SO hard on the launch this weekend.  But had us totally unplug for the better part of two days…it was good for the soul.  No blogging, no email, just connecting.  Had some good down time and actually slept nine hours one night….yikes..that felt too good.  I feel like I’m heading into weekend one of Connexus completely refreshed and restored, physically and spiritually. Rich time with God this week. Thanks God.

• I am SO excited about the soft launch of the Connexus Barrie campus on Sunday.  This is week one of dress rehearsal (soft launch).  We’re running two services (8:30 and 10) and I’m excited and nervous and calm all at once.  Hard to explain.  Very excited about the message and the whole experience of making our environments more relevant than ever.

• I am SO proud of the staff and volunteer team.  Our team is simply tops.  I felt like I was on the French Rivera all week on retreat while they were in the trenches.  Between late Wednesday and late Thursday, it looked like our $600,000 equipment order wasn’t going to make it across the border in time for tomorrow morning, delaying the soft launch and the public launch by a week….but our team worked non-stop and made all the arrangements and the gear is set to roll in on Saturday morning at 6:00 a.m. as scheduled.  Special thanks to Rich, Nadine, Marja and Cindy who just didn’t stop till this got solved!!!!

• On the plane home yesterday I was writing small group questions for our six week series that kicks off the new year.  I have never ever had the privilege of putting together a series that comes close to the power of the stuff from God’s Word in that one.  Christmas is the perfect lead in to something incredible I think God wants to do in each of us….in all people.  These first two months promise something powerful, at least for me.

• The North Point community continues to amaze me with fresh insights and
  great encouragement, love and support.  North Point — you folks are one of a kind.  I’ll
  share some of those insights next week on the blog.  I think you will not want to go back to other ways of thinking and being…. I don’t.

• I just feel grateful to actually be able to be a part of all this.  God does more than we can ask or imagine.  And for a thoroughly depraved, forgiven guy to get a chance to be part of a work of God is amazing to me.  I’m so thankful for the whole emerging Connexus community.  We’re going to see so many lived transformed…including our own.  Can’t wait.

Talk to you on line over the weekend, but even better….see you in person Sunday.