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So much to Celebrate!

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This morning was Leadership Community at Crossbridge.  We invite people who are a part of our church to attend.  We get to know others who help make Crossbridge happen.  We share vision.  We talk about what the staff is working on.  We celebrate the work God is doing through our church.  We talk about what is coming up at Crossbridge.  We have a great time!

One of my favorite elements of Leadership Community is when we hear from each other about the ways we are expanding our capacity to do ministry—we call these “wins.”  Our mission is to help disconnected people connected God.  “Wins” are anything that moves us closer to accomplishing our mission.

This is some of what we celebrated this morning:

  • In less than two months, Crossbridge raised over $8,800 to expand our capacity to connect disconnected people to God in Haiti.  For the next year, we feed 88 students, sponsor 3 teachers, and build a water tower for a school in Haiti.
  • This semester, three new teams of group leaders launched new community groups.  Thank you Shawn and Erica Grant, Rob Orr, Michael and Laurie Lee, Sue Redd, and Elaine Wesley.
  • So many people connected to a community group for the first time at our Community group gathering in January.
  • Elizabeth Langgle is planning a trip for Crossbridge this year to Scotland.  Greg Buchanan is planning a trip this year to Haiti.
  • Leaders like Nathan and Maritza Nickerson and Nathan and Kelly Currier are creating opportunities for people to connect to community groups.
  • Leaders like Jason and Siri Fudge and Dan and Lindsey Cole are giving their community groups the opportunity to experience missional living.
  • Our preschool team (lead by Jenny Bates) is expanding our capacity to minister to preschoolers and parents of preschoolers at our 9:30 gathering.
  • Our nursery team (led by Kelly Currier) is going out of its way to make families feel comfortable leaving their babies with Crossbridge Kids.
  • Crossbridge Kids is exploding . . . and increasing our capacity to minister to families.
  • Our musical worship team is expanding.  Our preschool team is expanding.
  • Dan and Lindsey Cole are responding to God’s call to a church plant in Corvallis, Oregon.  We are so excited for Dan and Lindsey Cole!
  • Over the last year Dan has invested in Greg.  Dan is teaching Greg what it looks like to lead a musical worship team.  Dan “reproduced” himself.  Because of this relationship, Greg is ready to lead Crossbridge’s musical worship team!

There is so much to celebrate at Crossbridge!

Rachael is Missional

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Rachael is becoming missional.  She really is!  Rachael is joining God on his mission to reach and save the lost.  She’s doing it by living intentionally in those spaces that she lives and loves.

We’ve been talking a lot around our church over the last year about what it means to live missionally.  Our hope is that people will live out the GREAT COMMISSION throughout the week in their neighborhoods, work places, and recreational spaces.  We’ve devoted significant energy on Sunday mornings to teach what it means to live missionally.  Community groups are giving people an opportunity to experience missional living.

It is so cool to see someone putting words to actions.  Rachael is becoming missional.  Rachael has been a part of our church for almost six years.  She is also a part of the Railroad Avenue group.  This group has a heart for (and actually meets in) the Railroad Avenue neighborhood.  They pray for this community.  They listen to the needs of this community.  They reach out to this community.  They work together to live missionally in this community.

Rachael shared in an email what she is learning about living missionally.  Rachael’s email is pasted below:

“Growing up and even in college “evangelism” meant initiating conversations with strangers and asking questions like “If you were to die tonight would you go to heaven or hell?”  I don’t think anyone liked that approach but we still rehearsed it anyway.  The other alternative was to ask your non-christian friends to come to church or some church event.  The more subtle approach was to wear a t-shirt that looked like something cool or popular but cleverly reworded to say something about Jesus and people would think you were so cool they would ask about it or become a christian.  Ultimately it didn’t matter a whole lot because we just didn’t talk to non-christians much anyway and if we did the conversation wasn’t any more substantial then you might have with the cashier at Target.  Of course God wants us to love everyone but somehow it felt like donations to charity and cheesy t-shirts were good enough and I had little more interest in being real friends with a non-christian than a beauty queen would have in being best friends with the chess team. 

Once I came to grad school I went from being in an environment of mostly Christians to being a minority.  People with careers in science aren’t exactly the most religious bunch.  Still, I became friends with my coworkers and learned that while their morals were different than mine, they still liked Chick-fil-a, making fun of CSI labs (a real lab looks nothing like that, FYI) and laughing at nerdy jokes.  One of my co-workers was going through a tough time and I happened to be around one day when she really needed a hug and she shared her problems and we became closer friends.  Her life had lots of problems and uncertainty at the time and her brother in Missouri suggested she start going to church, and knowing that I went she asked if she could go with me.  I was thrilled and over the next year she came with me to Crossbridge and we had a lot of discussions about God and later she was baptized.  It was an awesome opportunity but I kind of moved on and thought of it as an isolated event.

Through recent sermons and being a part of the Railroad Ave. group, I’ve been reexamining the way I approach relationships.   I’ve started to try and build relationships with people I know from work and the bar I frequent with the goal of just being a friend and, if needed, a close friend who can be there in tough times.  God has helped me to care about people in a new way.  I try to look at my time in that part of town as an opportunity to be a part of that community.  A common appreciation for good quality beer makes for a good conversation topic and gives us something in common.  A few weeks ago I had a conversation with a few guys who are atheists at Fermentation Lounge and although they weren’t trying to “find God” or whatever we discussed some of Christians shortcomings and some misconceptions they had about what the Bible says.  That particular conversation may or may not lead anywhere but for me to be in a position where that conversation would even happen and not be terribly awkward is a big change.  The verse comes to mind where Jesus was criticized for hanging out with sinners and he basically says “They’re the ones who need me.”  I’m not the type of person who’s comfortable striking up conversations with strangers but I feel like I can be a friend to the handful of people I interact with frequently and that maybe God can use that relationship to bring people closer to Him.”

This is such a cool story.  I love to see how much Rachael is learning.  I love to see her faithfulness and persistence.  She gets it and is living it!  I love to see how Rachael is engaging with the mission of God right where she is.  I love to see how Rachael is making a difference.  She will do great things!

Parenting with the End in Mind

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Parents, when you imagine the person your child will become, who do you see?

 Do you ever think about your end goal?

Do you think about what are you trying to accomplish through your parenting?

In the day to day of parenting, it can be hard to see the end goal as more than survival.   If thinking about this end goal is not something you’ve put much time into—try it today.  Who is your child is becoming:

  • 5 years from now
  • When your child goes to college
  • When you child is an adult
  • When your child has his/her own family

I believe it is important for us to have an end in mind.  We get so bogged down in the day to day, that it is easy for us to forget that there is an end goal here.  It is easy for us to forget that how we live in the day to day has a significant influence on who our children are becoming.

Parents, if you do not decide what you are trying to accomplish as a parent, someone else will.  If you don’t imagine who your child is becoming . . . someone else will.  We are immersed in a culture of societal norms, traditions, and expectations for who our children will become.  If we put no effort into determining the end, we get swept away by this system.

Parenting should be proactive!

In the Old Testament we see a whole host of commands and instructions.  There is this text in the Deuteronomy where we see many of these commands and instructions culminating.

4 Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one. 5 Love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength. 6 These commandments that I give you today are to be upon your hearts. 7 Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. 8 Tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads. 9 Write them on the doorframes of your houses and on your gates. (Deuteronomy 6)

Love the Lord your God with all of your heart, soul and strength.  It’s the most important thing.  Love the Lord wholeheartedly:

  • With all your capacity
  • With your whole self
  • With all your resources
  • This is the lens through which all decisions are made
  • This is the lens through which all of our resources are handled.

So according to this text–not only are we to Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, and strength–but according to verse 7m we are to “Impress them on your children.”  Whether you have kids are not, this text pushes you to impress this devotion to God on the next generation.

We see Jesus many years later bring us back to this text.  At one point, Jesus is asked what the greatest commandment is:

 “Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?”
37 Jesus replied: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ 38 This is the first and greatest commandment. 39 And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ 40 All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.”  (Matthew 22)

What if when you imagine who your child will become, you imagine someone who:

  • Loves the Lord their God will all of their heart and all of their soul and all of their strength. 

I believe having this end in mind helps us prioritize our time with our kids.  It informs how we make our decisions.  If our goal is to lead our kids toward a life that is honoring to God, then there are things we will do today with that end in mind.

I hope that my kids are brilliant.  I hope they do well in school.  I hope they are successful in their careers.  I hope they have families and hundreds of kids.  But if I had to pick one . . . if I had to pick just one thing . . . if I had to give one thing priority over the rest it would be that:

  • My kids learn to love the Lord their God with all of their heart and all of their soul and all of their strength.

Our time, our money, and our resources are limited.  In the course of our child’s life, we’ll have to make decisions on how to use our limited time, money, and resources.  Having an end in mind guides how we make those decisions.

Who is within your reach?

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Who is within your reach?  We have people we encounter throughout the week.  There are lives that we have the ability to touch.  Crossbridge is a reaching church.  We are intentional with the relationships within our reach.

At Crossbridge, we use the word missional.  We want to be a church full of missional people—people joining God on his mission to seek and save the lost in their daily lives.  To reach is to live missionally.  We believe that Jesus has called all of his followers to live out the words of his great commission:

Then Jesus came to them and said, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.”  Matthew 28:18-20

We believe these words are intended for all followers of Christ.  We view those people within our reach—people in our neighborhoods, work places, and those places we most frequently visit as our mission field.  We believe these are the places where we live out the GREAT COMMISSION.  When we reach, we get to know the people around us, and we view all our relationships with a purpose.  We imagine how Jesus would respond and act accordingly.

A church that reaches is a church that believes that its gatherings and programs are not primarily where disconnected people make connections with our church.  There is something we like to say around Crossbridge, “The front door to our church is the front door of your home.”  No matter what the front door of your home may look like, the idea is this—we believe that the most effective way to connect people with our church AND with the love of Jesus, is by first connecting them in relationships with the people that make up our church.

As a reaching church, we don’t fill our calendars with programs.  We make time to live missionally.  We live intentionally within our normal activities throughout the week.  Crossbridge strives to be a church full of people living intentionally within their reach.

Crossbridge is Missional

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Crossbridge is a church full of missional people–people who are living out the words of Jesus throughout the week.  At Crossbridge we will relentlessly pursue our mission of helping connect disconnected people to God.  Missional people join God on his mission to seek and save the lost.

We believe that following Jesus is as much about what we do and how we act as it is about what we read and what we believe.  We know that following Jesus is about so much more than attending a worship gathering on the weekend.  When we leave our worship gatherings and our small groups, we are more equipped to be intentional with our relationships during the rest of the week.  We see our neighborhoods, our work places, and recreational zones as our mission field.  We are intentional in our relationships with the people in these environments.

There is something we like to say around Crossbridge, “The front door to our church, is the front door of your home.”  No matter what the front door of your home may look like, the idea is this—we believe that the most effective way to connect people with our church AND with the love of Jesus, is by first connecting them in relationships with the people that make up our church.

We take seriously the words of Jesus:

  • Then Jesus came to them and said, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.”  Matthew 28:18-20
  • “You are the salt of the earth. But if the salt loses its saltiness, how can it be made salty again? It is no longer good for anything, except to be thrown out and trampled by men.Matthew 5:13
  • “You are the light of the world. A city on a hill cannot be hidden. Neither do people light a lamp and put it under a bowl. Instead they put it on its stand, and it gives light to everyone in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before men, that they may see your good deeds and praise your Father in heaven.  Matthew 5:14-16

This is what we want to happen at Crossbridge:

  • We want to be people like Jesus
  • We want to be a church full of people living out the GREAT COMMISSION
  • As a church, we want to have a greater IMPACT on our COMMUNITY
  • We want to take the CHURCH to our CITY
  • We want to demonstrate God’s love to a broken world

AND we want to challenge and encourage each other along the way.

Crossbridge is MISSIONAL

Reproduce Yourself!

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Crossbridge desires to be a reproducing Church.  Let’s reproduce together . . . and when I say reproducing, I don’t mean having more kids.  We want to be a church that is reproducing at every level . . . we want to reproduce campuses and churches . . . and we want to reproduce groups and leaders.  Being a reproducing church starts with leaders at every level (kids teachers, sound techs, group leaders, greeters, worship leaders, etc) reproducing him/herself.

Reproducing is easier than it sounds.  Reproducing is teaching someone to do what you do.  Jesus did it.  While Jesus’ life was brief, his ministry continues today because Jesus taught people to do what he did.  Throughout his life, Jesus invested in people who would carry out his ministry.

If we-individually and as a church–want to make a lasting impact, we have to teach people to do what we do.  We have to reproduce ourselves.  The easiest way to reproduce at every level is to have an apprentice.

This is why I believe reproducing through apprenticeship is important:

  • Reproducing allows our impact to continue without us
  • Reproducing expands our capacity to do ministry
  • Ministry is more fun when we do it together
  • We are called to make disciples.  Reproducing yourself, reproduces disciples
  • When we reproduce, our church is able to help MORE disconnected people connect to God
  • Investing in people matters

Reproducing yourself is easier than it sounds.

In their book Exponential, Dave Ferguson and Jon Ferguson outline a simple method for developing an apprentice—for reproducing yourself.  It goes something like this:

 I do, you watch, we talk
I do, you help, we talk
You do, I help, we talk
You do, I watch, we talk
You do, someone else watches

This is how that might look:

If you are a leader (let’s use a group leader as an example), invite someone to be your apprentice.  Let your apprentice watch you lead a group.  Talk about what happens.  Learn from each other.  Let your apprentice help you lead a group . . . perhaps this means leading a portion of your group (maybe the discussion . . . maybe the prayer time . . . maybe something else).  Talk about what happens.  Learn from each other.  Your apprentice takes ownership of making the group happen.  You help your apprentice.  You talk about what happens.  Learn from each other.  Your apprentice leads the group without your help.  You watch.  You talk about what happens.  Learn from each other.  Your apprentice leads a group and invites someone else to be his/her apprentice.

Maybe you are not a group leader.  Maybe you are a kid’s teacher, sound tech, greeter, or ministry team leader.  The same pattern works for all of us.  Becoming a reproducing church starts with leaders at every level teaching someone else to do what you do.

REPRODUCE YOURSELF!

Getting your Community Group off on a Great Start!

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It’s that time of the year again—Community Groups are starting/re-starting for the Fall.  Yi and I are leading a group that begins next week and we are getting excited.

In light of this season, I thought I’d share 15 ideas to get your group off to a great start:

  • Begin praying for your group and group members now.  The amount of time you spend praying for your group will have a greater impact on your group than anything else you will do.
  • Take some time to think about people you know that are not connected to a group.  Pray for them.  Invite them to your group.  Be proactive about getting people into your group.
  • As your group begins, remember group leaders are environmentalists.  Create an environment that fosters community with each other and communion with God.  If you don’t have it week one, try something different week two.
  • Make EACH individual member feel comfortable and welcome.  Follow up if regular (especially first few weeks).  View each person as an individual (with unique characteristics and needs) rather than a piece of a group.
  • Give all the group members an opportunity to fully introduce themselves.
  • Give significant time in the early weeks getting to know each other.  Mix up the environment, have some fun, bring the group together.  Find “community” early.  This will help other group components fall into place.
  • Explain the group’s goals and purpose.  Define mutually accepted group norms.  Share expectations early.  Work with the group to clarify expectations for your time together.
  • Set the tone for a reproducing culture.
  • Set the tone for a missional culture.
  • Clarify group organization and administrative details (how does food, childcare, etc. work)
  • Work on the team.  The group leaders’ role is not to do all the work, but to set the environment.  Enlist support—hosts, discussion leaders, apprentices.
  • Assign certain tasks that can be shared (organizing food, email updates, event organizers, etc.)
  • Set an example for the group.  Behave as you would expect group members to behave.  Follow the rules the group establishes.  Be honest and open with the group.
  • Go first with being real with your group.  You set the example for how the group will be.  If you want your group to be real and open—YOU have to be real and open first and often.
  • Evaluate (weekly at first, then periodically) and adjust.  Evaluate and adjust.

Successful Small Group Leadership

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Have you ever wondered what it takes to lead a successful reproducing small group?  Joel Comiskey did a study to find the answer to that question.  In his book Home Cell Group Explosion, he studied over 700 small group leaders in eight of the fastest growing small group based churches.  He explored what leads some reproducing small groups to succeed and others not to succeed.  I found this study both encouraging and convicting.  Below are some of his findings.

He found that the following factors had little to do with successful reproducing small group leadership:

  • The leader’s gender, social class, age, marital status, or education
  • The leader’s personality type: Both introverted and extroverted leaders multiply groups.
  • The leader’s spiritual gifting: Those with the gift of teaching, pastoring, mercy, leadership, evangelism equally multiply their group.

Comiskey found that the following factors were found in leaders of successful reproducing small groups:

  • The leader’s personal devotional time:  Leaders who spend more time daily in personal devotion time seemed to be more successful leading groups.
  • The leader’s time spent praying for their group:  Those who pray daily for group members are most likely to reproduce groups.
  • The leader spending time with God to prepare for a group meeting:  Spending time with God preparing the heart for a group meeting is more important than preparing the lesson.
  • Setting goals for reproducing: The leader who set goals that the members of the group remember has a significantly greater chance of multiplying his or her group.
  • Knowing your group multiplication date: Group leaders who set specific goals for reproducing, multiply their group more often that goal-less leaders.
  • Training: Leaders who feel better equipped multiply their group more rapidly.  However, training was shown to be less important as the leader’s prayer life and goal orientation.
  • How often the group leader contacts new people: Group leaders who contact more new people per month have a greater chance of multiplying the group.
  • Exhortation in groups to invite friends: Leaders who weekly encourage members to invite guests doubles their capacity to multiply their groups.
  • Number of visitors to group: There is a direct relationship between the number of visitors in the group and the number of times a leader multiplies the group.
  • Outside meetings: Groups that meet more frequently outside of the regular small group gathering—just for fun—were more likely to reproduce than those that didn’t.
  • Building a team: Those leaders who build a leadership team double their capacity to multiply a group.

Missional Community Groups

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We’ve been using a term around Crossbridge this summer–missional community groups.  Our hope this year for groups at Crossbridge is that they be missional community groups.

Missional community groups (at Crossbridge) function in one of two ways:

1)      Groups with a mission:  These groups have a common cause as their affinity and they work TOGETHER to accomplish that mission.

2)      Groups with missionaries:  These groups have a relational affinity and they hold each other accountable for the individual mission that God has called them to.

This is the way I like to think about.  If we want to be more like Jesus, we have to act like Jesus.  At our Sunday gatherings, we hear the words of Scripture.  The Bible is taught and if we engage in this Sunday morning experience, we leave knowing more about what the Bible says and we know more about how we are supposed to live.

The challenge is that there is often a disconnect in what we know and how we act.  This is where our groups come in.  If Sunday mornings are the place that we learn, missional community groups are the place where we act.  Missional community groups are the place that we talk about what we learn on Sunday morning.  They are the place we learn from each other.  We “practice” living out the words of Jesus and find support from our group.

Missional Community Groups are a place we experience the words of Scripture.

Missional Community Groups are a place we act more like Jesus.

Missional Community Groups a place we can live out the Great Commission.

 It might look something like this:  together your group determines a mission . . . each week you pray for that mission . . . as a group, you plan for your mission . . .each month you take time away from weekly activities to make that mission happen . . . together you accomplish this mission . . . you share your experiences . . . you learn from each other.

It might look something like this:  gather together weekly with your community groups . . . hear stories about how others are living out the great commission . . . ask questions and get ideas . . . ask your group to hold you accountable for “doing” something every week . . . do something each week . . . come back and share what you’ve done with your group . . . learn from each other . . . encourage each other . . . pray for each other . . . hold each other accountable.

 This is what we want to happen at Crossbridge:

  • We want to be like Jesus
  • We want to be a church full of people living out the GREAT COMMISSION
  • As a church, we want to have a greater IMPACT on our COMMUNITY
  • We want to take the CHURCH to our CITY
  • We want to make living out the WORDS of Jesus more FUN

I am so excited to hear the stories that come out of our community groups this year.  I can’t wait to hear stories of transformed lives . . . of transformed neighborhoods . . . of transformed work places . . . and transformed families.  I look forward to hearing how God has worked through our missional community groups over the next year.  I look forward to seeing the ways God is impacting our city through this church.  I look forward to celebrating together!

Message Matters

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Our Family Ministry is starting to have an orange glow.  Last week I wrote about Thinking with the end in mind, and outlined some end goals for Crossbridge’s Family Ministry.  As we look toward where we would like to see our kids when they graduate high school, we outlined what we saw as both the role of the parents and the role of the church in moving our kids to that end goal.

A significant part of this plan is the message we are communicating.  As a church, we have a limited chunk of time with our kids.  The message we communicate and how well we communicate that message is important in this limited chunk of time is important.  We believe our message matters.

With this in mind, we’ve narrowed our focus.  We’ve developed a list of principles that we teach kids at different age levels.  Our hope is that by narrowing the focus

  • Kids at every age level will hear the message
  • The message will be presented clearly.
  • Our kids will remember the message
  • Parents will know the message
  • Our kids will live the message

Check them out—our teaching principles:

Preschool (Birth — Kindergarten)

  • God made me
  • God loves me
  • Jesus wants to be my friend forever

Children (Kindergarten — 5th grade)

  • I need to make wise choices
  • I was made by God and for God
  • I can trust God no matter what
  • I am learning to love others the way Jesus loves me

Students (6th grade — 12th grade)

  • I am created to pursue an authentic relationship with my creator
  • I belong to Jesus Christ and define who I am by what he says
  • I exist every day to demonstrate God’s love to a broken world

As a parent I am excited to have some focus and be on the same page as my church.  I look forward to reinforcing these messages that we are hearing on the weekend to Zimri, Cason, and Fuller.