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Things I learned growing up in the middle of an orange grove:

1. You need a good stiff wind ever so often to blow out the dead leaves and the dead branches.  That dead stuff attracts bugs and disease.
2. An orange tree has a deep tap root and lots of shallow roots.  If the tree is shaken, it disturbs the soil and allows the roots to go deeper.
3. Every two years, you need to cut the branches back.  This is called hedging and topping.  It causes the tree to flush with new growth and bear more fruit.

What does our church need:

1. We need a fresh wind from God.  We need the Holy Spirit to blow through us and remove the deadness in our lives and in our church.
2. Our roots need to go deeper.  God has called this church to be big and strong so we can provide shade and shelter for hurting people who need God’s grace to change.
3. We need to be pruned spiritually.  We need flush with new growth spiritually.  We need to bear more fruit for our God.

Our One Day Revival is this Sunday.  James Walker and Roosevelt Morris will be speaking to us.  Ask God to speak powerfully to our hearts and to our church.  Be here!  Your presence will make a difference for yourself and for someone else.

I know that its Tuesday and I am a little late with my Sunday reflections, but there are some things I want to share;

1. The whole series “Time for Life” took on an unexpected power for me.  I found a new passion for letting people know that they need to be in a circle of friends to help them grow in Christ.  Our responsibility at ADBC is to provide those opportunities.  Your responsibility is to get in a group!
2. I have to repent for the years I did not emphasize group life.  To be honest, it was easier to preach well and impact church life myself than recruit, train, and motivate others.  Short term thinking - and I think it did damage to our health as a church.
3. Worship was fantastic - Jock and his team did a great job - and it was amazing in all three services to hear people singing “Yes Jesus loves me, the Bible tells me so.”
4. Nathan Waganer did a great job editing testimony footage - and Don and Gloria Tesenair and Jim and Ashley Sease did great jobs sharing what their groups meant to them.
5. Best of all, a young lady came forward to ask “What else do I need to do to be a Christian”  Answer - Have you asked Jesus in your heart?  Yes!  Then profess and be baptized!  Great celebration!!!!!!!

I was reading in my quiet time the story of Naaman the leper in 2 Kings 5.  What really struck me was this: the issue for Naaman was submission.  Was he going to be in control of his healing or would he submit to God’s way.

Now this is not the first time I’ve read the story - but for some reason, it truly struck my heart.  I thought about several issues in my life I’ve tried to be in control of.  The truth is, if I try to be in control of my life, I am doomed to frustration, because I can’t be in control of my world - only God can.

So I stopped - bowed - confessed - and told God fresh and new, I submitted to Him.  I need to do it every day.

Who’s in control of your life?  If the answer is you - better check again - you have less control than you think.

When is killing justified?  If a robber enters your home, would you kill them to protect your family?  What if the robber was breaking and entering to provide food for his own family?  Would his actions be justified?

Should you ever lie?  Suppose your boss told you to lie to a client about the performance of a product.  If you tell the truth, you lose your job.  Does that justify a falshood?

Is it ever okay to break your marriage vow?  What about the couple that has grown apart?  They have no intimacy, no emotional connection.  A friendship develops for one of them.  Is permissible to satisfy an emotional longing outside the marriage?

The answers to these questions come down to authority.  Which authority has more power in your life?  Does the authority of love for your family override your respect for human life?  Does the authority of your own integrity override the authority of your boss?  Does the authority of your vows override the authority of your emotional needs?

Authority is more than a boss or a moral guideline - it is the voice you listen to.  There are many voices clamoring for your attention, wanting you to listen to them as the authority. What’s the listening pattern in your life?

People debate if there are moral absolutes, clear standards of right and wrong.  Many believe that truth is relative - what is true for one era or one culture, is not true for another.  Isn’t this the cause of such strife in Iran?

Sunday, I’m going to talking on “Time for Truth.”  The reality everyone has a truth compass that guides them - but are you following the right one?  If you don’t make time for truth, don’t be surprised if life goes in the wrong direction.

I just finished the first draft of this Sunday’s message.  It’s about making connections in life.  I feel so much passion for this - I hope you will be here. 

Here’s a tip - this message helps us think about our purpose.  If you know someone who needs to know God loves them, this is a great message for them.  AND be thinking about someone you know who needs to connect to God - Sunday, I’m going to ask you to pray for them.  It might be the most important thing you do this week.

Is church for consumers of connectors?

Before you rush in with a thought, let’s clarify terms.  Consumers see church as a place to provide service:  we want to keep our kids off drugs, so we want church to provide student ministry.  We want to teach our children values, so we want church to provide age appropriate learning experiences.  We want new and different experiences, so we want church to provide trips, activities, and opportunities.  We want something to help us figure out life, so we want church to provide classes, messages, and a sense of God.

Connectors, on the other hand, see church differently.  They want to connect to God, so they see church as an environment that helps them with that goal.  They want to build meaningful relationships, so church becomes a community  for them.  They want to help others connect to the God they know, so church is a tool they use to help others take their next step.

Remember this:  All connectors start as consumers.  Therefore, for a church to be healthy, it needs a significant number of consumers who are at church with the initial human question:  “What’s in it for me?” 

There is a tipping point, however.  If a church does not have people taking next steps to transform them from consumers into connectors, the church becomes unbalanced.  The connectors in the church over-function to meet the needs of the consumers until they burn out.  When this happens, the connectors drop out (this happens way more than you think); they move to another church where they can be consumers; or they continue to serve, but their anger and bitterness drives people away.

This leads me toward three conclusions:  First, there is a good, right time to be a consumer.  If you are checking out Christian faith, if you are wounded, if you are in crisis - these are times to come to church and say, “I need to the church to care for me.”  

Second, if you stay a consumer too long, you become unhealthy as a person.  To receive without giving is the definition of greed.  Greed - whether for care, service, or material goods - will destroy you.  Relationships will erode and you will be the center of your own contracting universe.  This shrinking universe will constrict you, separating you from all that is good and valuable in your life.  I don’t mean to sound ominous, but self-centeredness kills.

Finally, every connector needs some place where they can be refreshed, restored, and renewed.  It is right for connectors to be consumers to replenish their souls.

Is church for consumers or connectors?  It is for both.

A couple of wild guesses on my part:  Heatlhy churches probably need  60% of their adults to be connectors and 40% to be consumers.   Healthy churches need to have a clearly defined process for moving consumers to be connectors.

How is ADBC doing?  We need more people to take a step toward Jesus and spiritual health and become connectors.  The first step in that process is to get in a group.  Try one. 

We also need to work on clarifying our spiritual growth process.  An Education Pastor will help us tremendously - so keep that in your prayers.

Do some work in your heart with God - where are you in the consumer connectors continum?

These thoughts before Sunday disappears:

1. Jock did a a great job leading worship despite being sick!
2. Thank you thank you thank you for your minister appreciation gifts.  You are a great church to serve!
3. Lots of positive feedback on the “Time for Friends” message.  One sentence summation:  You cannot be spiritually healthy unless you have a chair in a circle of friends - to share the Christian adventure with.
4. If you missed the opening of the service, you missed the cool countdown and the interactive questions.  Neat stuff - yeah to Richard Lee for a great job.  (Did anybody catch the one misspelled word?  Send a comment if you did!)
5. The video featuring Brenda Holt was great - thanks to Jock and Nathan for pulling that together.
6. I asked seven couples to step and focus prayer on the One Day Revival coming November 4.  All said yes.  I love it when people step forward!!!!!
7. Next Sunday - Time for Connections -

We’ve just returned from another of the great college tours.  It’s my son’s senior year and so far we’ve visited five campuses.

We wanted to tour the University of Florida campus - and not just because it’s the home of my favorite team.  UF is big - 50,000 students.  That’s a big concern when you are thinking about your child being one in a huge crowd.  But UF addressed that issue head on - and I think churches that are the largest in their town can learn something:

1. Don’t try to pretend to be something you’re not.  Over and over the tour guides and ambassadors talked about the size.
2. Define what size means.  The guides and ambassadors kept telling us about all the school offered. Their theme - there is someone here like you and something here you will like.
3. Put the cheerleaders out front.  Our guides and ambassadors were high energy, positive, informed, and contagious.  After their presentations, I wanted to go to UF!
4. Anticipate the most common questions.  Every question that was raised, they knew the answers.
5. Talk about what you’ve done to deal with fears.  Before we could ask about safety, getting lost in the crowd, getting around the big campus, those concerns were acknowledged and addressed.

I wonder if the church could learn anything from the Gators?

After our team returned from Africa, they all reiterated how impressed they were with the prayers of the Faith and Charity Church.  When they had a need, they prayed for God to meet it.  According to the people from ADBC, it was amazing how often God would meet the need.

I believe God is putting our church in just such a place.  We have some needs that only God can meet:

1. We need the right education pastor.  We have looked and looked, but we refuse to settle for a warm body (though it is tempting).  Pray that God will send us the right person.
2. We see some possibilities that we could take hold of, if God would provide:  getting on local cable, if we could buy some extra technical equipment; building a church building in Botswana, if we can raise the money through the Open Door offerring; launching an intern program, if we can supply a stipend and lodging.
3. We need God to truly transform some lives - I see people about to wreck and I’m hollering, but only God can make them swerve from their decisions.

So this afternoon, I’m praying that God will provide.  It’s up to Him.

Savor the irony.  I’m on a deadline, late for publishing this post (which becomes a column in the printed newsletter).  The topic is about the new message series, “Time for Life.”  The core truth in the messages is God wants us to make time for what really matters.

Why am I late?  My workday was sliced on Monday by printers at home that wouldn’t work and children who had to get homework printed out for school (No longer can we say “The dog ate my homework” - Now we say “my inept father couldn’t get the printer to work”).  My son had to get his senior picture re-taken.  Daughters had to be taken to dance.  Tuesday was working on schedule until I found out about an unexpected surgery I needed to go to.  I went and decided to go ahead with my hospital visits.  My ever efficient assistant called me and asked if I was on my way to my 2:00 pm appointment - AUGGHHHHHHH!  I had forgotten - so I dashed out of the hospital, drove frantically back to church, apologized profusely, went home, took my daughter back to school for a cross country meet, went back to the hospital for the visits I didn’t get to make, went back to the high school for the meet itself, made 10 phone calls during the trips, got supper ready, went to Walmart (because a day without Walmart is like a day without punishment for sin), picked up a daughter from dance, ate supper and tried to write a column while everyone else in the family was focused relaxing - so no, I didn’t get my column done the first two days of the week!

Confession time - I need this series as much as anyone!  The truth is, unless we make time time for life, life will take over our schedules, our energy, and our priorities.  I don’t think this is how God wants us to live.

Can you imagine a person with more demands than Jesus?  He always had people who needed him - they needed healing, feeding, teaching, and saving.  Yet you will notice Jesus never - never! - hurries in the gospels.  Do you think this is one more reason we need to be like Jesus?

So make time for Time for Life.  And let me encourage you to be a little early for each service - we’re trying something new - some interactive questions to get the service started.

Time for life - It’s time to make time for it!