First Baptist Church

I performed a wedding the other day. It was a nice ceremony for a neat young couple. But I didn't perform the wedding ceremony in our church building. It was held at the First Baptist Church in Johnston, IA.

The church is pastored by Tim Bonney, a very nice man who has served in ministry in Illinois, Indiana and Iowa. He has been at First Baptist in Johnston for approximately five years.

The reason I am blogging about First Baptist is because they are a very interesting church. They used to be located downtown in Des Moines, but they moved in 2002 to their current location. Their facility is breathtaking.

It has a strain-your-neck-high vaulted wood ceiling which is amazing. The stone walls are gorgeous. The open airy feel of the facility leaves you feeling like you are in a house of worship.

But here was the odd thing for me...they are overtly traditional. In every way they pride themselves in not being a contemporary congregation. There is a grand piano and a pipe organ on the stage and behind their baptistry there is a beautiful wooden cross and above that a fabulous round stained-glass window.

But there is no projection system. The audio set up is only average. There is nothing in the facility that says "2002!" Other than it looks new.

They do currently have a contemporary service that meets at the church. I was told by their sound man that it is a smaller gathering and they do not meet in their sanctuary, the contemporary service meets out off of the foyer area.

This church of approximately 200 people like the way they do church. They are proud of their style and that is who they are. And hear me clearly, there is nothing wrong with that.

In fact, too many churches spend their time with a psychological disorder always trying to be the mega-church that they aren't. So it is okay, in my book, to embrace who it is that you really are as a church.

But, having said all of that, I do know that I dream about who The Fort is all the time! I want us to be different than we are. I believe that we are capable of being so much more. I have begged God, I have shed tears before the Lord over showing me what it is to do so that we can grow as a church. I desire for us to reach as many people on the South Side of Des Moines as we can for Jesus Christ.

I do not desire to uphold traditions. I do not desire to build beautiful buildings. I do not desire to have any of that. What I desire is for one more opportunity to preach about Jesus Christ to another lost man or woman. That is my heart.

I know God's Word is true. I know it can change lives forever. I desire to see that life change happen at The Fort! One of the only ways it can happen is when our people begin to invite their family, friends, neighbors and co-workers with them to church.

A great opportunity to do that will be our upcoming Warrior series that starts on September 20th. This will be a sermon series directed at the men. Far too long men have settled for less than God's best in their life because they believe that deep spirituality is too feminine. It isn't. It is actually brutal and bloody. And we want to show the men in our church that being a man of God is a call to the heart of a Warrior!

So do your part, invite someone to join you. Beg someone to come. Barter with them. Bribe them. I don't care but do something. Because people's eternities are at stake!

Being a 1st Time Visitor Again

Today was a little outside the norm for me. I wasn't preaching, my youth pastor was, so I didn't even attend services at The Fort this morning. We don't let anyone know in advance anymore when I won't be preaching because people have a tendency to skip church when they know I am going to be gone.

It was kind of funny as well because we got a very concerned person call today worried that I was looking at another church this morning. Don't worry, I ain't going anywhere...you're stuck with me at The Fort!

We decided to see if we could glean any insights by going to a local megachurch this morning. We went to Lutheran Church of Hope. I have attended services at both Willow Creek in Chicago and Lifechurch in Oklahoma City. Let me say right up front that Hope is neither.

We had people pleasantly smile at us as we entered but no one spoke directly to us. I had to ask (TWICE) which way and what it was I should expect. That is nothing like what I experienced in Chicago or Oklahoma City where we started receiving our first welcomes in the parking lot.

After being seated in the massive auditorium (and after finding it), we looked through our bulletin. It was very busy with loads of information. I felt a sense of anticipation though as I sat there.

Musicians and singers began to line up on stage just a couple minutes prior to service. I noticed five screens that were used for projection up front plus two more in the back that were for the praise teams.

Worship began (and it was very good). Didn't know the first song, but that was okay. I enjoyed listening to it. After it was done, there were a few announcements given (the first of which was a video that advertised their upcoming Easter services...and it was done by a local news media personality Eric Hanson). Very nicely produced video. Then a couple more were given by a pastor on staff.

Then we were to greet others around us. There were a couple folks right next to us that shook hands with us. They seemed very friendly.

Music began again and we were off into two more worship songs. During this phase of worship, a 19 member choir joined the other 11 musicians and singers on stage. There was also an American Sign Language interpreter on stage the whole time as well (she was great!) And during the last song an interpretive dancer joined everyone on stage (I found her to be pretty distracting personally).

Then it was offering time (but it wasn't announced, it just kind of happened) while a special solo took place.

Then it was time for the sermon. The speaker was an associate pastor on staff Molly Junjunet. I wondered what I'd think because I really am not fond of women preachers to be blunt with you. But she did a good job.

My only two serious critiques of her sermon were that she spoke entirely too fast (making her hard to follow at times) and her sermon was way too dang long! She spoke for close to 50 minutes! No joke!

Although her content was good...it was too much. She needs to learn to trim the fat!

And here is the other really funky weird thing for me. At the end of her sermon, she simply raised her hand and said, "Go in peace." And that concluded the whole service.

No closing song or prayer or anything. Just a hand gesture and a little saying. That felt really weird! There should have been something more there to close everything out.

Overall, I didn't come back with any great ideas (except maybe a sermon idea) and I was a little surprised at how Hope wasn't as friendly as I thought it would be. They need to work on their greeters helping people (from the parking lot) know exactly where to go.

Plus, at the end of the day, I still don't care for women preaching that much!

One Prayer 2009

Again this coming June The Fort will participate in One Prayer. Because of our participation in One Prayer in 2008 we helped to plant 74 churches and enroll 364 church planters! As a direct result of One Prayer 2008 598 individuals have been baptized and 3,328 people are currently in Bible study!

Just imagine what God is going to do this year! I am 100% jazzed about this. Be watching for more information coming soon!

My Favorite Scripture - March 2009

Beginning with next month's newsletter, we are adding a feature called, "My Favorite Scripture." We will be highlighting one person each month that attends The Fort and having them share what their favorite verse is and why. Here is the very first one:

Dan Morgan, member at The Fort for over 10 years shares his favorite verse from Numbers 23:19, saying, “This verse has been an encouragement to me in my walk, reminding me that God’s promises are sure.”

Selective Hearing

I preached a sermon from the book of Acts today on Courage. One of the things I shared was that we need to quit caring about what people think and start caring about what God thinks.

After I preached that at first service, I had one person (who seems to have a nack for delivering little barbs of discouragement) tell me that my usage of the pronouns "you and I" are in poor sorts.

How crazy is that? I preach on not caring about what people think and instead caring more about what God thinks and then this person THINKS that I would give a Crap what they think. Interesting.

You and I both know that I don't give a rat's rear end about how I use the words "you and I." BUT, I do care about what God thinks about what I say. And I am pretty sure He isn't grading my pronoun usage...but He is grading my handling of THE MESSAGE.

The Church in action...

It's been a crazy week. Thought a lot about life, death and choices lately. I can't escape a couple of realities currently. Last Sunday a 14 year old boy sat in Sunday School and participated in discussion about the Bible and three days later he's dead. But seeing our church respond in love and kindness to this family that is in the pit of a hellish darkness dealing with this death is really inspiring.

I am so happy to see the church BE the church. The church isn't a place. It isn't something we go to but it is something that we are.

Helping each other through difficulty is what we are to be about.

Viral Vision

Being a pastor in a smaller church is a real struggle sometimes. You want to do so much. You see the need for so many things to be fixed or made better, but the reality is you are always in a catch 22. If you focus on too many things as a pastor, you fail at everything. If you don't do enough, it usually doesn't get done.

The trick is being okay with that. One guy can't do it all. There has to be a vision that is cast (and re-cast and re-cast and re-cast) and there has to be a motivation for people to embrace that vision and then be willing to sacrifice personally to make sure it gets accomplished.

Seminars and conferences for a smaller church pastor can be intensely frustrating as well (even for the church he serves too). Because you see all these great things and get all these neat ideas, but you are still left with the fact that it will only happen if you end up doing it.

Over these past few years I have allowed myself the freedom of being okay with only doing a couple of things...and doing them to the very best of my ability. (I can't say that I don't fall back into old patterns from time to time.) Preaching my message on Sunday is my TOP PRIORITY. Nothing supercedes that.

My next focus is relationship building/leadership development. Part pastoring, part teaching. It is the slow prodding of people to the next level. And it is grueling work at times. But it is something that a smaller church pastor needs to pour his life into.

I think that the challenge is realizing when it is okay to change your focus (although I believe my first focus should never change). I think that I cannot continue being so entrenched in people's lives if the church is going to grow. If the church starts to grow and I continue the ministry the same way, the growth will only be sporatic at best and will only go to a certain level before it stops completely.

Because more people are doing more ministry, the church is being energized and growth is happening. I am just being honest with the fact that most of the time, I am flying by the seat of my pants with this whole thing. Being a leader is a drag at times because you want people to have confidence that you know what you are doing, but any leader would probably confess that (at least at times) we don't know what we are doing.

And I think that's okay, ultimately. Because that requires more dependence on God. I know momentum is increasing in the church right now and I want it to continue. But that doesn't happen with me. My preaching is NOT a sustaining element. It is definitely within the Body itself (as well as God's Spirit moving in our midst).

So I've been praying about my next step. My next focus. What it should be. Our growth at the church also cannot be "event" centered. (I'm convinced of this.) It has to be a cultural shift within our Body. People in general will desire to make invites happen. That is how serious growth is going to occur for us.

I think that culture is getting there, but we still have a way to go. And, to be honest, I will still be an event-promoter for a while. But hopefully soon, it isn't going to be about any event. It will about who we are as a church. That we will become something viral...like a crazy Youtube video that everybody just has to see. We will become a place where everybody is just wanting to see what we're all about.

Missions

One of the folks from our Missions Committee told me today something that was incredibly cool. In 1998, the year I started at The Fort, we gave a total of $8,100.00 to Missions work. Last year, in 2008, ten years later, we gave a total of $35,000.00 to Missions.

That is waaay cool! I believe as a point of conviction that God will not bless our church if we don't give beyond ourselves. If a church stays so selfish and only uses the resources it has for itself, then it is destined for failure.

A few years ago we went through a difficult financial period. I had one person tell me that he believed that we needed to think of ourself as a mission and we needed to cut back on what we were giving to global missions. I was defiant and told him over my dead body.

A church that doesn't give to missions won't grow. Period.

God's kingdom has been advanced, and we have been blessed by blessing other mission works around the world.

Deaf children in Council Bluffs, IA have been reached with the Gospel because our church was faithful in missions work. A five year old girl was saved from the sex slave trade in Cambodia because our church was faithful in giving to missions.

That is important work. Paying for our heating, or even my salary, pales in comparison to that. So good job! I know God is pleased with our giving. Now let's take it up a notch in 2009!

Amped Up

This weekend I am laying it out as I close out this series called Playlist. I can't do this thing alone. We have got to get people to quit playing church. It is time that we get more people involved. We are never going to "tear walls down" if we just have people sit on their butts on Sundays enjoying (or criticizing) worship services.

There is too much at stake! We have got to take it to the next level as a church. It is no longer acceptable that we remain a church of under 200 on Sunday morning. Those days are on their way out.

When I think about all the people on the South Side of Des Moines who are without Christ I can't sleep at night. People are dying every day and going to hell and we have the answer in our laps. We have got to get busy.

No more lazy leeches at church! It is time for those who take and take and take and never serve or give to find a new place to drain life out of. Because we need that seat!

I am totally pumped about our next series "Acts". We are going to spend 6 weeks studying how the early church did it. That is where we need to get out plays from.

Where I am at right now...

I have been struggling a bit lately. I have sincerely been dissatisfied with our attendance numbers at The Fort. I feel like we have got to make a change. It has to happen. We are too comfortable. And if it doesn't change, I don't know what will happen.

It is killing me inside. I remember back when I was in Bible College and the excitement I held. I was chomping at the bit to get out of the classroom and into ministry. I had so many dreams about what it would be like. (I understand I was naive...and I really was.) But it seems that what I have experienced so far isn't anywhere near the dream I held.

It isn't that I am not thankful for all that God has done in my life, because he has. It is just that I know we can do better than we are as a church. I wonder at times if it is me. Am I the reason we are at the number we are at? Can I only lead a church to a certain size? Do I have the leadership skills to take it to another level?

Maybe there's sin. Maybe there is hidden, secret sin that hasn't been dealt with and that is holding us back as a congregation. I don't know. Whatever it is...I can't stay at these numbers and be okay with it any longer. Something has got to change. We have got to start working at this with all of our heart.

What it means is that we have got to take our worship up to a whole new level. We have got to create the best worship experiences we know how to do. We have to make the climate and culture of our church a place where people WANT to invite their family, friends, coworkers and neighbors.

To be 100% honest, I feel alone in this struggle sometimes. I feel like people pay lip service to desiring the church to grow but aren't willing to commit to getting us there. And that falls back on me. Because maybe I am not casting a strong enough vision. Maybe I don't know how.

I want it. I literally ache for it. I lose sleep over it. I have cried about it. I have begged God about it.

It kills me to think that as a congregation we are okay with being where we are. That it doesn't really matter that there are more lost people right around us that are going to die and go to hell without Jesus every single week and we struggle with getting out of bed on Sundays! That kills me. Don't we care?! We are letting them down.

I so want that to change. How can we be so numb when we've been so well fed?

Annual Meetings

Tomorrow at The Fort we will hold our annual meeting during our Sunday School hour. In the ten years I have been here at The Fort I have only had one Annual Meeting that I sincerely regret. It was way back when we jumped to two services and were in the heat of the worship wars (contemporary vs. traditional music).

At that meeting one lady got up and read a letter which absolutely infuriated me. I stood up, told her exactly what I thought about her letter and walked out of the meeting. Although it was high drama, I really regret that moment.

I didn't treat her with respect, even though she definitely wasn't giving me any respect (it didn't mean I could give her the same treatment). Also a lot of folks thought after my actions that I was going to leave the church...I didn't and they know better now. But it still wasn't cool.

The Bible is very clear. Read James 1:19. We have no excuse for spouting off at the mouth. The Bible never affords us that kind of lack of self control.


But I will say one thing though, it seems like people get really shocked when a pastor does something like this. Most people like it when a pastor will keep his mouth shut and just take whatever foul treatment is dished out at him. All I can say is...not this one. I wouldn't encourage it. I have definitely matured since that regrettable moment at that annual meeting so many years ago, but I still lose my temper and go goofy on people when they are just being a jerk.

I had one woman get all over my case a couple of years ago because she didn't think I had come to visit her enough (even though every time they were in the hospital I was there...every surgery, every crisis, every family member's funeral)...that still wasn't good enough. In the midst of her getting on my case I asked her when the last time it was IN THE PAST EIGHT YEARS that she had come by my home to see how I was doing? When was the last time she had picked up the phone to see how my family was doing? The answer was NEVER.

But she expected me to continue to do that for her. I may have signed up for being a pastor...I am still a person. And people in the church better not hold their pastor to a standard they are unwilling to live by themselves! But I digress.

Tomorrow's annual meeting should go well. They always seem to. We haven't had any real conflict for a number of years. We aren't perfect, mind you. But the days of the crazy soap-opera stomp out of the room annual meetings are over. But hey, you never know? We just might have a good one like that for old times sake!

Playlist

This Sunday we begin a four-part series called Playlist. In this series we are going to explore some steps we can take to make this the best beginning to a new year that we could ever take. I am very pumped about preaching through this series! Make sure you join us.

10 Years Ago Today...

We loaded up a U-Haul Truck and packed up our little Escort Station Wagon as well and headed out of Putnam, IL for the last time into an unknown future with a new church on the South Side of Des Moines called Fort Des Moines Church of Christ.

We arrived at the church building to a waiting crowd that helped us unload our stuff at the duplex we moved into. That first Sunday was a snowy Sunday, only 49 people in church. I was rather embarrassed because I used to wear a suit and tie every Sunday and that Sunday because I hadn't fully unpacked, I didn't wear a tie because I couldn't find my ties.

I got over it. Now I never wear a tie unless someone's dead or wants to get married. Ten years! It's been a pretty amazing ride! Who knows what God has in store for the next decade of my life but this last decade has been very good. God has been outrageously good to me.

I thank God for His call on my life and the opportunity I have had to serve at The Fort these past ten years.

Meet Sam

Sam Breno found The Fort because of our food pantry. He began receiving help from the food pantry because he had fallen on some rough times. While he got help from our pantry a few times, he would have conversations with Roxie or me from time to time.

Well, Sam went through a crisis in his family. He decided that the same church that offered him help when he needed it most just might be able to help with another kind of help through this crisis he was now experiencing.

The first service he attended was the 30 Days To Live final service (you can watch the video of that service HERE). He has come each week since then. He came in for a personal visit (not for help from the pantry) to speak with me about his family crisis and for prayer also. We prayed together.

I genuinely was happy that for one of the first times in Sam's life he was turning to the church (and God) for help. And God answered his prayers. He worked out the issues within his family. Sam came bouncing into church last week so happy.

He wasn't there to get anything, he was there to worship and celebrate because this God whom he had turned to had heard his prayers. And so he worshiped.

The Fort helps people like Sam all the time. Not everyone who receives help from our food pantry starts attending services but that isn't why we do what we do. We're not trying to boost our attendance. We're simply trying to help people with a real need in their lives.

That's what true ministry is all about. Meet people where they are, help them with the real needs they are facing. Then you have built credibility in their eyes. It really is true that people don't care how much you know until they know how much you care.

You can help us meet real needs in the lives of people just like Sam by giving to our food pantry. It is a very important ministry of The Fort. It is hard to believe that by simply giving a can of vegetables to our pantry can open a door in someone's heart to help them be able to hear the gospel, but that is exactly what can happen. So help us help people like Sam by giving to our food pantry.

30 Days is over...

Well...we ended our 30 Days To Live Series with a bang! It was without a doubt the BEST worship service we have ever had at The Fort! For me, I usually have a manuscript, but I will practice my sermon enough that I have my manuscript as more of a pacifier than anything else. But for this service I was naked (well, kind of)...I was noteless. It was a lot of extra work and stretched me a little bit but that's a good thing.

I think the 30 Days series really struck a nerve in a lot of folks. We all tend to not think about our own mortality very often but the Bible is very clear that we should make a habit out of it. I think it's a very healthy exercise to live like today may be my last. If it was...I'd want to forgive and be forgiven, for sure!

I'm really satisfied with the 30 Days series. I think it was one of The Fort's finest moments!

Pray

Pray for the leadership of The Fort today. We are praying for you. Pray for the One Prayer sermon series to speak to our church and for God to move in our midst like He never has before. Just pray.