unlikelyclay.com

Last night Nathan, our Student Pastor, baptized 12 students, outdoors, in a wading pool.  That’s cool, anytime that happens.  I know lots of churches where this kind of thing occurs.  But there were two other things that touched my heart.

First, we announced in Trulife (mid-week worship) that we were doing this.  And 80% of the adults from Trulife came down to cheer on the students who were being baptized.  When you see a senior adult applauding a student being baptized in a wading pool outdoors - that is way cool.

But I teared up when I saw my daughters embracing and celebrating with their friends.  They were jazzed about their friends taking their next step.  And it made me give God thanks for letting me pastor ADBC.

Don’t miss PowerLunch tomorrow!  I’m talking about pulling heavy loads in life - and we all have them.  They can be relational, emotional, professional - but someone you know needs to hear about how to handle the heavy loads we have.  Join us at 11:50 for lunch.

PS:  Don’t be surprised to see my four wheeler on stage - Oops, said too much.

As I mentioned in the Sunday Download post, I am proud of what our students are doing.  I just walked over to the student building and saw 20 students and adults finishing the demolishing of the student building.  They’ve been ripping up carpet, taking down old “temporary” walls, and getting the builing ready for an upfit. 

This is a school holiday, and they could easily have been sleeping in, or playing videos, or goofing off.  So kids, here’s a salute to you!  Well done!

Starting tomorrow, Monday, at noon, we are going to spend some time in Kingdom focused prayer.  I hope you will join us.  If we have a few - great!  If we have many, even better!

We will meet in the prayer room, spend a few minutes sharing the needs, and then pray.  What will we pray for?  For the needs of our church, for the Kingdom work around the world, for lost people and much more.

Join us for PRAYER FORCE Monday!

Every church needs an overarching purpose.  Ours is to help as many people as possible take their next step toward Jesus Christ.  We do this by helping people Know Jesus, Know Community, Grow Character, and Go Share.
But churches also need to answer “What’s important now?”  This past Sunday, at Vision Night, I shared with our church what God has laid on the hearts of our leaders.
We need to some face some BIG things in 2008:
1.       Reaching the people in our circle of influence.  Over 72,000 lost and unchurched people live in our county.  Within a 30 mile radius of our church, there are 178,000 lost and unchurched people.  How do we reach these people?  We Invite, Invest, and Include them.  We also need to develop a television presence on our local cable network and on the internet so people have a safe way to preview who we are.
2.       We need to look over the horizon to Africa and continue with our goal of having hundred of volunteers transform their lives by sharing a faith journey with African believers.
3.       We need God’s big power to pour out on our church.  Beginning next Monday, at noon, we will have a one hour prayer time called Prayer Force to ask God to anoint and empower His church and expand His kingdom.
We need to also get small in 2008:
1.       We want everyone to get in a group in 2008.  We like to launch five new groups and recruit 15 new adult leaders.
2.       We want to ask people to find themselves on the Leadership Pipeline.  Is God asking you to lead yourself, lead by doing, lead others, or lead leaders in 2008?
3.       We want people to FISH – First improve spiritual health throughout this year.  Read the Bible.  Pray.  Give.  Serve.
God will give you this year for a reason.  What is God saying to you about what’s important now?         

Be sure and stop by PowerLunch today - we’re talking about Drive - finding a sustainable pace for success.

This year, we will resolve to:
·         Lose weight without dieting or exercising.
·         Manage our money without budgeting or reducing our spending.
·         Be better parents without changing our routines, our language, or our approach (“If something works for a two year old, it’s good enough for a fifteen year old”).
·         Be a better husband without getting out of my chair or turning off the game; OR be a better spouse by turning up the complaining (“If I nag him, he will change!”).
·         Go to church more often, if we wake up on time (“No need to set an alarm clock, honey.  If God wants us to go to church, He’ll wake us up.”).
·         Call home more often, if I can remember.
·         Find Mr or Ms. Right, who can love me and accept me for who I am (“I don’t think I should have to change for someone, should I?”).
·         Stop giving in to my addictions without any help or accountability (“Just because I bought the beer, doesn’t mean I’m going to drink it.”).
·         Tithe, if we have any money left over after Christmas.
·         Change jobs – to a place where they value my talent, my skills, double my salary, let me set my own hours, and give me unlimited paid vacation.
·         Be a better person (“Really, all I have to do is make up my mind.”).
Do you think these resolutions will be kept? Resolutions fail because you start in the wrong place.  It’s the error of Jesus’ opponents, the Pharisees.  They thought if you could behave the right way, you would change.  That does work sometimes, but not consistently.
Jesus told the Pharisees and us, “…First clean the inside of the cup and dish, and then the outside also will be clean (Matthew 23:26).”  Start on building strength inside and watch it transform the outside.
That’s what FISH is all about – First Improve Spiritual Health.  I want to challenge you and your family to be here when we launch FISH this Sunday, January 6.  We will be talking very practically about how to improve your spiritual health and how it will benefit you.

If you read the newpapers, everyone is doing their year end retro-spectives. Who am I to buck the trend?  Here are some things, both personal and church, that stood out for me in 2007:

• ADBC calls Nathan Waganer as Student Pastor.  Great move, great guy, great things happening.
• Build on the Rock campaign shows us we’re not quite ready for the next chapter.  Still, ADBCers are faithful in giving and we are moving forward with some bite sized chunks of the building project.
• God really ignites our church and my heart to make a difference in Africa.
• The search for a Education Pastor goes on and on and on and on and on ….
• I have the gift of prophecy:  Florida quarterbacks who had fathers in ministry:  Steve Spurrier, Danny Wuerffel, Tim Tebow. Florida quarterbacks who have won the Heisman:  Steve Spurrier, Danny Wuerffel, and - yes I saw it coming - Tim Tebow!
• Since launching Unlikelyclay.com in August, I’ve had 5,607 page hits from over 701 unique sources.  Talk about unlikley!
• Some great worship moments:  A whole tree brought into the worship center; Family Imperfect - all copies of the book gone; preaching a series through Leviticus this summer - and people stayed awake!; Why I give - definitely the most personal stewardship sermon I’ve ever preached; Build on the Rock - this church is built on nothing less that Jesus’ blood and righteousness.
• Fantastic VBS - record setting - so many kids accepting Christ.
• Saying good bye to Mike and Emily Smith was tough, but God has opened new doors for them.
• Great crowd on Easter - second largest ever!
• Doing the college search with my son - special trips, special times.
• Last child leaves elementary school - and I cried.

All of this and more has been marked by God’s good hand working among us.  He has guided us through the good and bad times.  Thanks be to God for His faithfulness!

I do love this church.  Here are at least two reasons why:

We asked you to make candy and cookies and holiday treats for our students to give out.  You did.  Wednesday night, 45 students and 8 adults went to some parts of Sumter they hadn’t seen before, went out in groups with adults, knocked on doors and gave people a Christmas surprise.  Random kindness in the name of Jesus - neat!

Second reason - the special needs banquet.  Dozens of volunteers come together to feed, entertain, and give holiday cheer to the “least of these.”  Big crowd.  Way to go.  Jesus said, “When you do it unto the least of these, you have done it unto me.”

I’m in the Worship center, watching Passion Play rehearsal - it will be great! I’m working on PowerLunch for tomorrow.  The theme for Powerlunch this year is Shift into Gear - it’s all about finding the right gear for the right time of life.  My observation is that most people don’t know what to do with the gears of life.

My original topic this month was N- Neutral is for stopping bad behavior.  But after thinking about this, I’ve decided that N-Neutral is more about being in a decision making place.  Before we know which direction to go, we have to be in a place of tension - neutral.

I hope you’ll bring a friend to Powerlunch and join us as we learn the life principles of success.