Embrace the Supernatural - Just Walk North

One day, God said to Phillip, "Start walking south."  That's it.  Just walk.  And Phillip did it.  He had no idea what the plan was.  He had no concept of what God had in mind other than to walk.  So he walked. 

Phillip was completely unaware that a super important dude from Africa would be on that same road at that same time.  He had no idea that very dude would be reading from the Hebrew scriptures at that very moment.  He had no clue that the chess pieces were being put into place for the message of the Gospel to be spread to Ethiopia.  Here's what he knew: Walk south.

Sometimes I picture God like he's playing a board game... Just the right people at just the right places at just the right time, creating wonderfully crazy experiences.  I start thinking about everything that had to go just right for Phillip to walk up alongside that specific chariot at that perfect place in time, and I remember that God sees it all.  He doesn't just see all that's happening.  He sees how it's all connected and how one happening changes another and how all of it moves us along towards some greater end.  And here's the best part: He can be trusted with it all.

When Mandy and I said that we would take this step of faith into Janesville, I kind of felt like Phillip.  Start walking south. (except that Janesville is north, but you get the point)  Just walk...north.  You don't need to see all of the pieces I'm putting into place.  You don't need to know that I've been working on hearts of people in Janesville for exactly this purpose.  You don't need to understand every part of my plan.  Just walk.  So we walked.

Slowly but surely, God keeps moving more and more pieces into place.  My friend, Shawn, is principal at Lincoln Elementary in Janesville, and he and his wife are just as sold out to redefining the relationship between a church and a school as Mandy and I are.  The school district tells us that we can have our pick of school facilities for a fraction of what we would spend on anything else.  Over 100 people show up at our first meeting in the midst of a snowstorm, ready and willing to do whatever it takes to bring their friends and family to Jesus. 

Every time another piece falls into place, I start to think, "There it is.  That's why God told us to walk north."  But then another piece falls into place.  And another.  And I'm learning that no matter how much I want to understand the entirety of the plan, if we just keep walking and trusting, it will unfold in ways that we never could have imagined.

Sunday night at Parker High School, we had our second meeting, and we talked about how important it is to remember that we aren't creating an institution.  We're not starting something with our best efforts and smartest plans.  We're hoping to be a part of a supernatural move of God, and while we have got to be willing to put plans and systems and organization in place, we should only do it in response to the supernatural movement and leading of the Holy Spirit.  So we prayed.  We sang.  We shared our stories.  We prayed some more.  Because the most important thing that might happen in the lead-up to launch isn't our planning or our marketing.  It's our complete and utter dependence on a supernatural move of God. 

I'd always rather we wait on the Lord and then play catch-up than make our own plans and ask him to bless them.  Look at what he's already doing.  We have over 70 people who've committed to being on the Launch Team, and we don't even know where we're going yet.  Double that are already interested in being a part of the ministry in some other way.  We've got people interested in running Kidzworks, Guest Services, Prayer, Administration, and Community Service Teams.

None of this has been in the plan so soon, but God has been moving the pieces into place in his timing, and we're just going to do our best to keep up.  So keep praying.  It's the only real part we play in calling down his supernatural power to be at work in our church and in all of Janesville.  We pray and we walk.  North.

Kidzworks, King Nebuchadnezzar, and a Duckbilled Platypus

I grew up the son of a missionary in the Philippines.  My dad trained pastors, and was great at it, but we didn't really have a church that we went to as a family.  Instead, my parents put on a church service every week in our living room.  Dad would play his guitar (rather poorly as I recall) and we'd sing and pray together.  Sometimes other people would be there with us, but I don't really remember much of that.  Here's what I do remember:

Shadrach, Meesach, and To-Bed-We-Go...  (Daniel 1-3)

...and God said... "duckbilled platypus," and BOOM!! there was a platypus... (Genesis 1)

One time, Dad played King Nebuchadnezzar and made us kids bow down before him in fear.  I'll never read the story of Daniel without picturing my dad screaming at us to touch our faces to the floor. It was fantastic.  There were no props or flannel-graphs (remember those?) or Veggie Tales or super whiz-bang videos.  It was a mom and a dad who loved their kids enough to introduce them to Jesus and the stories of the Bible.

Then we moved back to the U.S. and into a duplex on the east side of Janesville, WI. We started going to church in Milton, and a couple of women named Barb Green and Cheri Appel started investing in my friends and me.  They told us more stories.  They loved us.  They yelled at us (trust me, we deserved it.)  In 6th grade, Cheri told us that if we memorized this whole list of scriptures, she would take us to Noah's Ark that summer.  To tell you the truth, I couldn't have cared less about "hiding God's Word in my heart," but water slides sounded pretty cool, and I still remember some of the verses I memorized that spring.

So, why this trip down memory lane?  Because these experiences were formative in my life, and I want every kid who comes to our church to have those kinds of life-giving interactions.  There's a temptation to think of Kidzworks as just something that the kids do while the parents are at church... that somehow it's less important.  But I believe that what happens between Kidzworkers and their kids might just be the most important thing that goes on during the weekend. It might have more kingdom impact than any song that's sung or any word that's said from a stage.

At Central, one of our core values is that "babies, children, and students are worth our best effort," and we'll live that out in Janesville with every bit as much passion as we do in Beloit.  Kids aren't the church of tomorrow.  They're right here today, and they can make just as profound an impact on their friends and their schools as we adults can. 

Someday soon, we'll start putting together a plan for how we'll create an environment where we don't just "take care of the kids," but where we invest our time and our energies and our resources to give our kids a great foundation... not just so that they don't fall away later in life, but so that they are so overwhelmed by the love of God and the grace of Jesus that they make a profound difference in the world around them right now. 

We're praying that God is shaping some of us into the kinds of people who are passionate about doing this.  Listen to his voice, because he might just be getting you ready to make a lasting impact in the lives of kids you don't even know yet.

Transplanting DNA - What the heck does THAT mean?

My grandpa was a twin.  Identical.  When he and his brother were kids, they used to go to the all-you-can-drink lemonade stand in Port Arthur, Texas and take turns guzzling lemonade... one hiding around the corner and then making the switch.  Nobody could tell them apart.

But by the time I knew them, they were such different people, it was hard to imagine a time that they ever looked that much alike.  They shared the same DNA, and you could see the obvious similarities, but there were just as many distinctives.  They started with the same roadmap, but eventually took different routes along the way... married different kinds of women... took different kinds of jobs... and it made them the wonderful men they turned out to be.

So, we're going to plant a "satellite church," and everybody wants to know exactly what that means.  Do we clone the church we've got and put it up in a building in Janesville?  Or, do we just send the leaders out and tell them "good luck...?"  How much of who we are at Central in Beloit will be a part of this new work?  It's a good question.

David has been speaking to this in our services when he says that Janesville will have its own personality, but will hold on to the DNA that we have as a church.  I'm in complete agreement, but I also know that some of you have told me that you have no idea what that really means.  What is the DNA that we'll be taking along with us to Janesville?  What's the roadmap that we'll start with in common with Central in Beloit?

Many of you know that we've actually defined our DNA and written it down.  A lot of churches write mission statements that don't really connect with who they are, but I really believe that our DNA truly describes what makes us distinct.  When you get down past programs and buildings, our DNA describes what's most important to us as a church, and I'm just as sold out to it now as I've ever been.  Here it goes:  our DNA.

"D" stands for the Dream of God to reconcile people who are far from him back into relationship with him.  The local church is the hope of the world (thanks, Bill Hybels), not so that we can have nice places to worship God together, but so that people who are far from him are drawn back to him.  We wouldn't spend the time and energy and money planting a satellite church in Janesville so that Central people who live there will have a nice club to go to on Sunday mornings.  We do it because we know that God has called us to bring light to the darkness and hope to a dying world, and the church exists first to reach people who are far from God.

"N" is for the Needs before us.  There are people in every community, and increasingly so in Janesville, who need help.  There are single moms who are desperate to support their kids and are doing their best, but their best doesn't seem to be good enough.  There are homeless people, many of whom have a ton of other issues, who have no one looking out for them.  There are people lost in addiction or abused at home or dying of cancer, and while we can't do something about everything, we will do something about what God puts before us.  We don't serve people with some ulterior motive in mind.  We don't serve contingent on their conversion.  We serve because that was what Jesus did.  He saw a need.  He met the need.  Period.

"A" is about All People.  Central Christian Church is for all people all the time.  I think by now it should be obvious that this includes all races and backgrounds, but it's more than that.  What this means is that we will always be a church that's dominated by grace.  We are all woefully aware of our own sinfulness, and are grateful for the grace "in which we now stand." (Romans 5:2)  And we believe that we should be a church that shows that same kind of grace to people who grew up differently than we did, to people who have made different mistakes than we have, and even to people who believe different things than we do.  Democrat, Republican, gay, straight, Baptist, Catholic, Muslim, Pentecostal... none of the past matters.  Wherever you came from, what matters most is that we go looking for Jesus together and see where he takes us.

The Dream of God, the Needs Before Us, and All People... that's our DNA.  That's what we'll be taking to Janesville.  We won't be building a club for ourselves.  All our decisions will point to people outside the walls of our church, meeting their needs, and accepting them into genuine, Jesus-centered community.   It's not all we'll be, but it's the beginning.  It's the foundation.  God will take us where he wants from there.  Who knows?  Maybe we'll end up looking very different from Beloit in the end, but we'll always share the same DNA.

I wouldn't have it any other way.

What about you?  What parts of our DNA resonate with you?  What parts do you struggle with?