True Biblical Community:

Is inspired by MERCY

Thrives on HUMILITY

Sober judgment – Interest in others

Gives others LIBERTY

Demands MATURITY

Is built INTENTIONALLY

November 8, 2008 my title and responsibility changed to “Lead Pastor”. 
That basically meant leadership for the entire church became my focus (with accountability to Pastor Steve and the Senior Leadership Team).  It wasn’t long before it hit me hard that financial health was a critical part of church health.    As I prayed about it, I knew pretty quickly that the Lord was challenging me to FIRST, get my own financial life healthy and only then begin to speak to the congregation about their financial health or the church’s as a whole.  Don’t misunderstand, our financial future is not in my hands (heaven forbid).  We have a fantastic group of Trustees,  a great Senior Leadership team , and a  competent staff,  all of whom bear responsibility and mutual accountability to make sure we stay God honoring in our finances.  But, whenever you are asked to lead anything – the first law of leadership is to accept responsibility for what you’re leading; to take its health and direction personally and do what you can to make sure it is everything it ought to be.  I believe that. . . deeply.   Church finances fell into that category.  My first obligation was to look at my personal situation.  Biblical leadership demands authenticity.  You cannot lead where you have not gone. Ugh.

All I can say is Praise God for Dave Ramsey! He took stuff that was, to me, a boring, irritating necessary evil and gave me new vision.  My wife and I were encouraged that things weren’t as bad as we thought in our home.  Truthfully, we had just gotten sloppy.  We’ve committed to changing that. Now we have a plan.   Ramsey challenged us to write down a financial mission statement and a primary financial goal.  This is ours:

Our family financial mission statement is now: 

To develop our family finances so we can be authentic, wise and godly examples for the church family to follow.

Our key financial goal:

To be able to save and invest enough money to freely travel, actively participate and learn in worldwide missions while helping others do the same

My passion in church finances is to make GET WISDOM our mantra,  passion and pursuit.  Then make God honoring personal financial health our church family goal. As we do that we will see people’s lives freed up, their relationships deepen and their decisions become more kingdom driven.

All of this I am excited about.  But – my prayer, in my weakness is, “Lord PLEASE give me the grace to not let this be a fad or flash in the pan idea.  Give me patience and discipline to do what’s right over the long haul.”

We might as well say it:  we’re in a weird spot with more questions than answers at this point.

Edge growth at 11 is stuck for the time being.  It’s prime time and we have filled it.  Edge 9 has enabled us to move more people in and we should continue to do what we can do to fill it too.  Then what?  Where do we go in the short term?  Do we invest in setting up another site even before the mall?  The mall is currently beyond our reach financially. We have to grow into it.

And, it’s no secret – the Summit is in decline.

It’s not radical but it has been steady over the last few years.  Rising on one side and falling on the other is a strange place to be.  As you can imagine – it makes for a lot of animated discussions and problem solving attempts with no easy answers.  I commented on my Facebook status a few days ago that I was working on leadership solutions and it felt like working a Rubik’s Cube.   I never could work one of those things.

The good side of it all is – feeling that sense of total dependence upon God.  I’m confident of the vision and I believe the greatest solution of all is to get radical with the vision and mission and create an environment where you have to do radical things to keep moving.  Life’s more fun that way.  The Kingdom is always about outward movement.  It is dynamic not static.  Praise God – sure beats being bored.

I think it’s important to keep the Mall in perspective especially since it’s been run on local news twice.

A couple of years ago an architect who does a lot of work with churches looked at the Mall  and made the case that seemed logical all along. . . nearly unlimited space AND parking.   Hard to beat.

Over ten years of prayer seemed confirmed. When my job shifted over to Lead Pastor I felt a new sense of responsibility for the future and growth of BT.  That, coupled with the fact the Edge really seemed to hit a new stride since the beginning of the year,   my greatest concern then became – how do we keep moving?  I then pitched a proposal to our Senior Leadership Team, Trustees, representatives of our GPS about moving the Edge to the Mall in an effort to let it stretch its wings to its full potential.  At the same time, we could give the Summit a prime time spot in the new building.  I have to repeat – it was a proposal.  I put it in formal form so the idea would be weighed deeply and seriously, not so it would become immediate policy.

The idea has many merits and I am personally convinced Washington Square would make a great place for a growing church.  However, we all need to keep in mind that wisdom and due diligence must rule the day.   We are in the middle of asking a lot of questions.  Can we,  should we try to keep Lincoln and the Mall? Should we stay where we are?  Should the whole operation move to the Mall?  Should we secure the Mall or is it too premature to make that kind of commitment?  At what point have we truly pushed the current property to its limits?  The list goes on and on.

We will keep moving forward, praying like crazy to hear what God may be saying, act with all the wisdom years of experience have taught all of our leaders and see what happens.    In the meantime, regardless of what building we’re in, we need to transplant ourselves in the community by going through the process church plants go through.  REMEMBER THE SURVEYS GANG!

Thanks to everyone who made the effort to make space this past Sunday.

Some things to think about when deciding which service to go to this Easter Sunday.

Maybe a few BTer’s saw it. . .

You never can tell if being on the news is a blessing or a curse. I hate talking on camera. There’s a near paralyzing fear you’re going to say something that comes off wrong. Then, there’s the old effect that hearing your own voice recorded always has: “do I really sound like that?”. In this case – “do I really look AND sound like that?” To me I looked grim and overweight. Not sure if the grim thing was seen by all – but one friend confirmed the overweight part! So, a fat, basically unhappy Pastor. Glad I could represent us all well! Now I see why national level people have “handlers”.

On the other hand, I love the free publicity for the church. For the handful that may have seen it, it’s getting pretty wild that our vision and hopes for the mall are making local news. The reporter told me the station had been getting many calls. Maybe I’m naïve, but it’s hard to imagine why anyone would call a TV station to report what we’re doing. On the other hand; just before Easter, it’s nice to put ourselves in front of eyes that don’t normally see us. Maybe someone will choose to come this Sunday after seeing the piece.

I told a team of Edgers at the beginning of the year, I believe the Lord is calling us to a new day of being placed “on a stand” as in when Jesus said, “no one lights a lamp and puts it under a bowl or hides it under a bed. He puts it on a stand. . .” We are still kind of “hidden”. No one looking at our building or hearing our name would assume that we do the things we do. It seems we’re suited to a mall rather than a building that looks like a normal church. And, there is no doubt, if we WERE to move into the mall we can know that we will be up on a stand.

The wildest thing of all is; all of this was nothing but unseen prayer over the last decade. Now it is creeping into “seen” reality. Fun stuff.

See the full article here.

I’m still on the after-burn of Vision Day. It is always SO life and faith affirming when God does that special “thing’ He does.

It’s made me wonder about a lot of things: one is – why did we have about 200 – 300 more people than average that day? Was it because of Palm Sunday? Was it the meal at the mall? Was it the idea of a “vision day”? It also has me wondering what God is up to.

On one hand, I often have a confidence that he has shown me next steps and even the really BIG picture, but there is always this middle part that is clouded in an intriguing kind of fog: How will all of this play out? What does He want us to do? What can only He do? How do you process the difference between bold faith and stupid ideas? How do we maintain the balance between practical wisdom and trusting God?

While Washington Square Mall is not the vision, it has always been a part of it, going back over 10 years in my own life. It’s just been a regular prayer. Sometimes it would fade off, sometimes it would ramp up, but it would never go away. In the beginning, church in Washington Square Mall felt like a really crazy thing, but inspiring enough to dare to pray about. Now it feels like a real possibility I’m in danger of getting too impatient with. Now, the weird feeling is – it feels inches away but miles and miles at the same time. While the fog sometimes drives me up a wall – I wouldn’t trade this “life to the full” thing Jesus does for anything.

Some thoughts on our vision for Washington Square Mall and some explanation on the Community Surveys.