# 6 Lousy Devotional Life
I just hear it all the time from people who come to tell me they’re not growing spiritually (often they begin by saying it must be the services…they’re not "deep" enough.)  Then, after a few questions and some listening,  I usually ask how their personal walk with Christ is going.  Too often (and sadly) this is what I hear:  I pray when I’m in the car.  Six days go by and I realize I haven’t picked up my bible.  I pray in the shower.  I don’t pray much.  I’m just so busy. I heard part of James MacDonald this morning on the radio – that’s all I do.  I find the Bible difficult.  I get to it when I can.

So imagine if that dialogue was your approach to food.  If I eat at all, I eat in the car…grab it mostly through drive thrus.  Six days went by, and I realized I just hadn’t eaten.  I really only drink when I’m in the shower.  I just don’t each much…never got into a routine.  I get to food when I can, which is a couple times a month.

You get the point. 

The place in which you are going to grow the very most is in that quiet time when you take what we’ve shared in community on Sunday, what we’ve processed in a community group mid week, and then apply in your life deeply, personally, as you interact with a beautiful and Holy God.

This week, change your pattern.  I use a one year Bible.  It’s so easy.  I open the Bible and turn to January 13th…the readings are all there.  I reflect on those readings, pray over them, and pray over all kinds of issues.  Some days it’s dry.  But over time, regular devotion becomes a harvest that offers the finest food.

An amazing thing happens…when you go deep with God, He goes deep with you.   What’s your experience?

I’ve just started two books this week by two guys named Tom.  One is Tommy Newberry’s The 4:8 Principle. It’s all about joy found in Phillipians 4:8, but I feel like I’m reading an infomercial.  Hey — no punch intended.  Tommy’s a good guy, a Christian and all that, and it’s a New York Time’s Best seller.  I’ve benefited from some of Newberry’s time management strategy introduced to my by a pastor I know.  It’s just I feel like I’m reading something that’s so in the moment.

My other Tom book was written like, 600 years ago.  I’m really digging Thomas A Kempis‘  The Imitation of Christ.  This Tom has no blog, no personal web page. He’d never even seen a printing press.  But I love him.  Rich, deep, influential beyond millenia, its a book my world needs.  One of the most influential Christian devotional books ever published. Seriously.

Thomas is classic.  He’s written a spiritual rock.  That’s what I need, classic rock for my mind.

Okay, my insomnia is ending (the sleeping pill is kicking in), and I am going to bed so I can be fresh for H-Bomb.  Excited to pull that trigger tomorrow at Connexus.

I love ministry leaders.  This week in conversations with three of them from both sides of our North American border, I offer up their ministry to you for prayer and action.

• Casey Ross is a great lead pastor for Catalyst Church in Greenville South Carolina.  Catalyst is like all churches, supported by it’s members.  It’s in a cash crunch right now.  Pray big and help the great work of this team however you can.  We believe in them So do many, many others.

• Bryn MacPhail leads a Presbyterian Church in Toronto that’s about to do a full 180 in ministry.  They are going to narrow the focus, create relevant, Orange environments and killer adult services in a staid, traditional church.  I told Bryn this would either succeed wildly or he’d be unemployed in 12 months.  Man, I love his courage and boldness. Bryn asked me to ask you to fill out a short survey to help his team shape the ministry.  Do that please.  I totally groove on Bryn.

• Remember in prayer my friend Todd Dugard. Todd pastors Harvest Bible Chapel in Barrie and on Friday conducts a funeral for a ten year old girl, Jennie, who dropped dead suddenly at school Monday from a heart condition no one knew might be fatal.  Todd’s been with them all week, and as a preacher, i can promise you he’d appreciate your prayers on Friday for him, the family and everyone.

Leadership is never easy, but it’s so rewarding.  Let’s lift these guys up together this week.

Thanks for taking the time to respond to my question about what to blog about, both on the blog and in person.  People seemed inclined to go for my idea.  So here goes.

Remember this is not scientific, not really in order (#9 is not worse than #10 etc.).  It’s just my random but collected thoughts after being a follower of Jesus and pastor for a while.

We’ll start with the top ten traps that I’ve seen Christians fall into. One every day or two for the next while.  Remember, I myself have fallen into all of these at one point or another, so this is in no way an ‘I know better thing’.  We’re all in the same boat.  We just don’t want it to take on water…..

#10. Confusing How You Serve God with Your Identity as a Follower of Jesus
I’ve seen this way too many times.  Serving God is great, and biblical.  But too often we get so hooked on what we do for Him that it becomes our identity in Him.   

We are worshipers of Jesus first, and servants of Him second.  In the church, so many people fuse their identity with what they do (their role) that it becomes deeply unhealthy.

If you got cut from your worship team, stepped back from the usher team, told you weren’t need to do sound again, wouldn’t be leading a small group, or told you wouldn’t be preaching anymore, would your love for God be threatened?  Would you still worship?  Would you dig deep into the Word?  Would you pray with gratitude?  I’ve seen too many people only go to church when they serve or play or preach.  That’s not really worship.  That’s a gig.  Underneath it (often) is a very insecure person who feels they need something to make them "acceptable" or "meaningful".   Nothing could be further from the truth.  We have value — enough for Jesus to die for us.  That should be where we start.

If your service/job could be taken away from you and you could still have full participation in the life of Jesus, then you’ve probably got a healthy attitude toward how you serve God.  You serve Him because you love Him, and you serve Him out of gratitude for what He’s done for you.

How do you combat this trap?  I remind myself virtually every week that what I do is a privilege.  It’s not why God loves me and not why I love Him.  I also read daily bible passages that have nothing to do with what I preach and pray about lots of things that are about "life", not just church.  I remind myself I’m a worshiper first, a servant second, a preacher third.  It helps.  Ironically, when I get that order right, it actually frees me up to serve God far better than when I’ve got it wrong, because when it’s wrong my service is about me, not Him.

Anything in your heart need adjusting?

So, in the spirit of Web 2.0, I ask you a question.  I’ve been wondering what to blog about in January and I’m tempted to go in a particular direction…but it’s a big commitment on both of our parts.  I hate being mr. negative, but I feel like writing for most of the month on two subjects that in the end I hope will be redemptive, not negative (although it could sound that way). 

This morning I wrote list of the top ten traps church leaders/volunteers fall into, and then another list on the top ten traps Christians fall into.  I know, because I’ve been in almost every one of these traps at one point or another.  There’s no science to what makes the lists: just my observations after years of doing this.  But as we start a new year, I know I always like to think about learning how to live differently and more wisely, and the goal would be to catalyze that kind of change through these discussions.

About one trap a day (or five a week) for pretty much the rest of the month.

What do you think?  Boring?  Too negative?  Too whatever?  Could we phrase it differently?  What do you think? (Curious as to what they are?  I’m not telling you in advance. )   

The goal would would be at the end of the month to have had some great reflection, dialogue and hopefully healthier leadership and a healthier following of God among all of us, myself included. 

Fire away.  The floor is yours.   Tell me whether you’d like this or not.

Before I say anything, let me acknowledge that there’s a total irony in what I’m going to say in this post.

I woke up yesterday morning ticked, because I’ve heard a lot of Christians go on and on about how awful the movie The Golden Compass is.   I’m not a fan of the themes of the movie either, and I wouldn’t rush to see it, but I’m wondering why so many Christians feel a need to define themselves by what they are against. 

Some people are still convinced that the world ended when they took prayer out of the public schools.  I was a kid who remembers prayer in the public school system, and as far as I can tell, mumbling the Lord’s prayer on school day mornings never saved anybody.  Frankly, it used to embarrass me as a grade-school Christian because I felt like something we should offer to God voluntarily was being forced on everyone.  I felt like maybe because the church was doing such a poor job at being the church we expected the government to pick up the slack.

Sometimes I wonder if all our lobbying of governments and culture is really just a mask over how weak and anemic we might actually be as modern day Christians.  If the church loved…if the church was grace-filled….if the church was relevant…if the church was irresistible… would we need to slam governments, school boards and Hollywood nearly as much as we do?

Why should we expect people who are not Christians to be Christians?  Why should we expect an atheist to be "Christian" when he writes a screen play, or a school board made up of mostly non-believers to do the work of a the church?  Jesus spent zero percent of his time lobbying the government to change laws, and 100% of his time changing people’s lives personally.  Shouldn’t we be the same? 

I would so much rather that Christians were known for what we are for than what we are against. Instead of hating the world, why don’t we lay down our lives for the world in love? Do we honestly think Hollywood is a step closer to mass-conversion to Christianity because Christians told them they were wrong — again?

So there’s my irony…I guess I’m against Christians being against things.  Okay.  But I’d rather make my life about what I’m for.  I’m for love.  I’m for Jesus.  I’m for hope.  I’m for grace.  I’m for truth.  I’m for life.  I want Connexus to be about what we are for.

What do you think?

It’s so easy in a culture that is always on to the next and greatest to wonder what happens next.  I know I have that default to my personality.  While that kind of characteristic can produce great things, it can also be a bit unhelpful. 

I ask the question in light of the fact that by the grace of God, we’ve launched two campuses for Connexus in the last two weeks.  It’s been an amazing journey — one we’ve seen the hand of God in over and over again.  We’re so grateful.  But even as we celebrate these launches, people are saying "where’s your next campus?"  Naturally I answer
that we have plans for Muskoka and even Toronto, but right now I feel
like there is so much still do to here.

I think what’s next for us is taking something that is really quite good (our two campuses as they open), and that we’re thrilled with to start, and making them better and better week by week.  Not only do we need to get a few bugs out of the system (people have been so gracious), but even after we reach a level at which we feel "satisfied", there is so much more to do.

Ultimately, we want to make every environment we run all it can be.  Community groups change lives as people intersect with God and each other.  So does Waumba Land, our infant environment.  We want those environments — and all the ones we run — to be leveraged in the best way possible to help people grow in their relationship with God.  Rather than being generalists — trying to do a whole lot — we want to be specialists, choosing a few things and doing them optimally.

As we tweak each environment, make what we do better and more conducive to God’s work and to life-change, we’ll see more and more people realize how simple it is to have a real relationship with God. 

What things are you already doing this week in your life that with a little prayer and attention, can go from simply being good, to being great?   And how would your life be used by God if things truly went from being very good, to realizing their full potential?

I’ve been thinking/talking a lot with leaders lately about the power of a unified vision and mission.  At the lead pastor’s retreat for the North Point lead pastors a few weeks ago, Andy Stanley talked to us about how hard it can be to lead a team when competing agendas are at work.

It’s not just a church principle…it’s a life principle. Try being married when spouses are working at crossed purposes, or running a company when two partners want to go one way and two want to go another.  Try a going on a family vacation when half the family wanted to go skiing at Whistler and the other half is bound and determined to go to Disney World.   You just set yourself up for failure.

I love what I see at Connexus as a team of leaders, elders, staff and volunteers are gathering together around a common mission to lead people into a growing relationship through Jesus Christ by creating relevant environments.  What’s even more powerful is that this team is committed to a common strategy.  We are actually going to do very few things as a church.  No pot lucks, no socials, no infinite stream of ministries running off in 80 directions, no fundraising bake sales, nothing to distract us from our core mission.  We all only have so much energy, time and resources to give, so why not align them — streamline them — around a core mission and strategy that seeks to create a few relevant environments in which life change can happen best?

The impact of a streamlined strategy designed at leading people into a growing relationship with Jesus is that somehow all of our efforts get maximized.  Rather than spending sixteen hours arguing about whether to go to Whistler or Disney, you can actually use that time and energy in a positive direction by choosing a location and working together to make the experience as engaging and rewarding as possible.  That’s what I see every Sunday as e-team members arrive before 6 a.m. to pour their hearts into what we’re going to do.  That’s what I know we’ll see next month as dozens of volunteers and hopefully many of you gather together at Group Link to pursue life in community groups together.  That’s what we see when people pour their hearts into family ministry that we pray, over time,  will become second to none in this country, with relevant environments for students, children and infants and a strategy to equip their parents for the task of spiritually and morally forming their kids.

You can do a lot when you are on a mission, together. 

What excites you most about having a definite strategy and then going for broke trying to implement it with excellence?

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.

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?