caffeine, please.

Shout outs to my peeps

Today's Ignite Conference at our Midway campus was a big win!  Lots of new faces, a full Spanish language tract, Pastor Wilfredo deJesus, matches, the Jesse White Tumblers, powerful music, great sessions and a big turnout!  This is our third year doing the event and each time its happened because of the teamwork and hours put in by a whole bunch of people from different New Life locations.

Two people at the center of it all bear huge responsibility for the event and always deliver:  EJ Lyon and Vilma Arguelles.  EJ handles all the conference and session related logistics--sign in, registration, books, day-of problems, resources, volunteer recruitment and placement, performers like the JWT's and a whole bunch more.  Vilma oversees all the tech, graphic and design people, videos, building needs and workers, set up, sound/tech/video, day-of program and a whole bunch more.

Frankly, without these ladies handling the operations, the event wouldn't happen.  Alongside them are a host of great volunteers who serve in too many ways to list (but I'll try anyway).  Altogether, hundreds of work-hours are invested to make an event like Ignite happen. 

There are a bunch of other people who do big things to make Ignite happen: 

• Bobby Moss and Paco Amador serve on the planning team with EJ, Vilma and I and contribute a lot of ideas, guidance, planning, and laughs.  I think we have the most fun (and most caffeinated) meetings of any New Life group.
• Joshua and Nancy Holec are big time servants in the final run up putting a ton of hours and care into final prep and day-of management.  Nancy runs a lot of the back of the house and Joshua the front.  They're a great team.
• Marco and Christina Terrell and their incredible team of talented and hard-working foodies.  They don't just throw some food out on a table--they create magic!  And no one who wasn't fasting could have gone home today hungry.  They serve a constantly replenishing snack-meal and drink service that is unbeatable.
• The building team, led by Phil Flores and the tech team of Steve, Tino and crew who work with Vilma providing recording of every session and sound/tech/video in each session.  These crews make sure the rooms are set up with chairs, sound, video, empty trash cans, clean bathrooms, clean floors--you name it. 
• All the session teachers and facilitators.  We try to mix it up with new presenters and new topics each year as well as tapping into the strength of our pastoral team.  Each year our teaching team does a great job.
• The registration, ushering and greeting team.  They arrive early and make sure that everyone is welcomed, given resources, and helped wherever needed.  And don't forget the parking lot guys overseen by Mike Berry who keep cramming in "one more car".  
• Mike Vasquez, Alicia Holec and Roger Masa who video and photograph just about anything that moves.

We start planning this conference about 5 months before it happens.  But each year the effort and work of many pays off with an experience that equips and ignites a big cross-section of New Lifers. 

Thank you Ignite Peeps!  You're the best!

Planning for a fast

I've talked about it before but its illustrated powerfully when you are preparing to fast--you are at your best when you function within a spiritual squad.  Our pastoral team (my key squad) has been in conversation over email sharing our various fasting plans for the 21 day fast we began yesterday.  This conversation has done several things for me:

1. Hearing about other pastors' specific fasting plans caused me to create my own plan.  I've learned that what is left unsaid prior to a fast becomes a point for easy compromise during a fast.  A fasting plan keeps me from wiggling out of my commitments, indulging or unnecessarily struggling.  Its particularly helpful after I've shared my plans with others.
2. Knowing that others are fasting in the same way right along with me gives me an invisible sense of camaraderie.  I'm not alone.  That renews my sense of purpose because I'm in it together with brothers.
3. Practical helps like Dwayne's phrase, "water is a faster's best friend", remind me how to stay on track in practical things during the fast.  And it reduces the number of headaches I experience.

Our conversation really began by me simply asking, "hey, is anyone fasting the entire 21 days?"  From there most of the team shared how they are participating in the fast.  Don't be afraid to ask people in your squad about their fast.  A corporate fast is done together (duh) so you're not being unspiritual by sharing how you're fasting.

Haven't started fasting yet?  Start by making a plan.  Answer these questions as specifically as possible:

• How long will you fast? 
  
  • Example:  "sundown, February 26 to sundown, February 29"
• What will you fast from? 
  
  • Example:  "only 3 glasses/bottles of juice per day, no coffee, as much tea as desired, one cup of clear broth per day, no web-surfing, no television."
• What will you add to your spiritual practices during the fast?  
  • As my daughter Lena said yesterday, " a fast is not just stopping eating--it means praying when you would be eating."
  • Example:  30 minutes of worship and prayer for breakfast lunch and dinner, meditate on the book of Ephesians for the duration of the fast.
• Why are you fasting?
  • Now its not enough to answer this with, "because my church said to do it."  That's a good start but having personal spiritual goals during your fast will give your fast prayer purposes that bind it together and that allow you to praise God for what He does after your fast is complete.
  • Example:  "hear God more clearly, break out of spiritual dryness, receive direction on an important decision."

I'll give one more piece of advice--read a good fasting book before and during your fast.  It will motivate and inspire you.  I recommend Jentezen Franklin's book Fasting.  May your fast be fruitful.

Simple, visual, and "sticky"

Thanks to Georgina P., we bring you this simple visual presentation on the credit crisis.  I think more about the credit crisis "stuck" with me and made sense than from any other source I've seen.

The Crisis of Credit Visualized from Jonathan Jarvis on Vimeo.

What are the implications/uses of this for preaching and communicating the Faith?  I'm intrigued.  I think Chip and Dan Heath would like this guy Jonathan Jarvis.

Jesus is my rap star

Take a look...

"God, I hate my job!"

[Also posted on the Examiner.com]
Who hasn't prayed this prayer before?  "God, I hate my job--get me out of this %^&#$@ place and away from these people!"  (One of the more honest prayers, frankly.)  And of course the alternative to the swearing prayer of deliverance (Martin Luther, the patron saint?) is to just go to sleep on the job, right?

Work can be great.  But I've also heard that it can be a drudgery, a source of stress, a place of ugly relationships and a place to be endured. 

People often take an attitude that views work as a trial to be endured and as something separate from their "spiritual life".  Some even view work as an impediment to spiritual life (especially the more your job makes you use your bowling words, right?)

Colossians 3:22-24 has something important to say about how God views your work.  This passage helps a Jesus follower shape a theology of work.  A theology of work says that God has a big worship purpose in the everyday working life of everyday people.  Your work is not separate from your spiritual life; your work is a big expression your spiritual life. 

There are two ways a follower of Jesus can approach their work:

1. Work as "Eye-service":  you offer your work to your boss to convince him of your worth.  Result:  better paycheck.
2. Work as "God-service":  you offer your work to God to convince God of His worth to you.  Result:  better, fuller, deeper worship of Jesus.

Work as "God-service" is a powerful expression of worship.  And the powerful point of it is, if you offer your work to God, you send it ahead into kingdom as worship.  "...Work heartily, as for the Lord and not for men knowing that from the Lord you will receive the inheritance as your reward." 

That's kingdom speak.  It means your everyday work has lasting, eternal value.  Think about it--your approach to data entry, teaching, hammering nails, filing, consulting, programming, litigating...  all of it has the potential to be a chorus of worship that reverberates eternally.

So if you are hating your job today, feeling stuck (and in this job market who isn't) and wanting your life to be a reflection of the influence of Jesus, let me give you a few books and resources to help you rethink your situation:

No More Mondays blog with Dan Miller

The Other Six Days

Doing God's Business

Joy at Work

Laughing our eyeballs out

On alternating days I take Tyce and Jaley to school an hour early for band practice.  This morning was Tyce's day.  Most days the ride is just good quiet time together.  Conversation, singing, a little dialog on the Scripture. 

This morning for whatever reason, I was in a pretty silly mood.  I started making up a dance/rap/house music song about a car that was taking too long and keeping me from pulling out.  Then I pulled out and saw the side of the car and there was a cord and plug sticking out and tied to the door--what was that?  Fodder for another good verse about cords and toasters and peanut butter n jelly, that's what that was. 

I gotta admit--I was on a roll.  You could almost dance to the lines I was droppin, right on time.   I even had a few train whistle "oooh, oooh"'s (I should not be admitting this--let's just keep this between us, k?) 

But the best part was my audience.  Tyce was falling out of the car laughing.  Seriously--I had to lock the doors.  He was laughing his eyeballs out.  He had me on a roll so then I sang another song about his incessant snuffing to the tune of Puff the Magic Dragon.  Oh the humanity!  Once again his infectious giggling laughter was my fuel. 

Seriously--this day cannot get better.  Having a moment like that with my son is better than just about anything in the world.  It was a holy, hilarious moment. 

Jump start

I've been kind of lagging lately in my reading.  Books that I've been reading are long and challenging (a good thing) and I've gotten a bit bogged down.  But yesterday while I had my kids reorganizing my commentaries (bet you wish you were a pastor's kid) I came across a great little book on the Lord's Prayer by N.T. Wright.  It was just the right size (89 pages) to jump start my reading engine.

Here's a great quote on Deeper from N.T. Wright:

Jesus' own life and work and teaching, then was not simply about a timeless new vision of God.  Jesus didn't come simply to offer a new pattern, or even a new depth, of spirituality.  Spiritual depth and renewal come, as and when they come, as part of the larger package.  But the package itself is about being delivered from evil; about return from exile; about having enough bread; about God's kingdom coming on earth as it is in heaven.  It's the Advent-package.  Jesus was taking the enormous risk of saying that this package was about to come through his own work.

This is an important check to our Deeper series.  Depth is never an end in itself.  That kind of Deeper usually just means weirder.  True depth is reflected in fuller, more true humanity.  The kind of humanity that reflects the kingdom of God on this earth. 

American Idol thoughts

Are posted here...

Maybe my car's not a chick car after all?

So a big thank you to Rog and Jeanne for their "research" into this issue.  It is a well-publicized (by me) fact that I drive an aging chick mobile--a 1996 red VW Golf... or is it?  Turns out I don't drive a chick-mobile--I drive a you've-got-no-life-mobile.  Way different.  And way better.  Take a look for yourself:

The Veggie Tale Mommies

So this is for all the "moms who don't do anything" out there.  Give it a read.  I wholeheartedly agree with this assessment of stay-at-home-motherhood duties by Carolyn Hax. (Thanks to Jenn W. for alerting me to this.)
 

Pinch me (not literally, though, please.)

Yesterday Pastor Mark and I had the chance to meet for a few hours with a church leadership team from Madison Square Church in Grand Rapids, MI.  Whoot, whoot for GR!  This church has over 1100 people on a weekend and is currently meeting in two locations with 4 worship gatherings each Sunday morning.  Their leadership team is quite diverse and they are interested in long term multi-site ministry as a way to missionally reach their city. 

As a leadership team at New Life, we've been working for about 6 months with a businessman friend of the church to form a network that would resource and coach churches just like this one--churches that are urban, that are growing and reaching people and that want to save themselves all the mistakes we've made along the way. 

I really felt like we connected on a heart and mission level and with this team and I'm looking forward to relating with them more in the future.

Last Saturday Bobby and I had a chance to spend some time with the leadership team for Second Story from Peoria, IL and formed a similar bond.  (I also got to see my good friend Steve Snyder who serves on the leadership team at Second Story--bonus!)

I enjoy these kind of opportunities--they top my list of ways I like to spend my time.  I feel refreshed when I'm able to hear where someone's at, give feedback and encouragement and point toward potential next steps for breakthrough.  I'm really grateful to serve at a church where I have those opportunities, regularly.  Its one of the "pinch me" realities of my role at New Life.

Examiner, first post

Some of you will recognize my first post to the Examiner.com.  Its an edit of a post that appeared here first.  Get used to it.  My blog will continue to be my mental and spiritual playground.  From there I'll choose content for the Examiner page, most of the time.  Check it out...
http://www.examiner.com/x-3044-Chicago-Evangelical-Examiner

Examiner

In December I applied to be an Examiner with Examiner.com.  What's an Examiner?  A local person who shares their view of their city from a particular vantage point.  I applied to be the Evangelical Examiner for Chicago. 

Yesterday I heard back from the Examiner--they'd like me to take the gig.  I looked over the terms and its pretty much no strings so I'm going to give it a shot.  I have a couple ideas for some story streams...

• "These are the churches in your neighborhood"--a recurring feature highlighting different Evangelical churches in Chicago.
• "Dude, who stole my church?"--a recurring feature on churches that are no longer.  I already have a dozen so that gets me 12 weeks down the road.

Hoping to have fun with this and bang the drum for the church that is alive, loving Jesus and serving people here in Chicago.  I'll give you more details as I get them.