The first sermon of the new year at Grace Community Church was a difficult one, because I encouraged our people to let go of some of the burdens they had been carrying in 2010. We wanted to start 2011 with a clean slate and make it a better year. I challenged people to write the one issue they wanted to leave behind on an index card. We captured those, and though they didn’t have names on them, we recorded the general issue to see what people in our church were dealing with this year. For me personally this is helping to shape the way I preach.

Here is a graph of the over 1,000 cards we collected:

You can view the sermon from that day here:

What would you have written on that card? Does this graph represent some of your struggles?

Let’s discuss church attendance today.

I specifically want to know why some people choose not to attend church.

I want to hear about your experiences, but I also want to hear your opinions.

One of my passions is the local church.  I grew up in church and there’s never been a time in my life when I didn’t want to go to church.  (The picture in this post is one of my favorite churches…the Lutheran church my mother attended as a child and I attended with my grandmother when I was a child.)

Recently I was interviewed for a local online newspaper about the launching of our second campus.  (You can read the article HERE.)  In the article I stated a statistic that 86% of people in our county do not go to church.  That’s what the latest numbers I’m hearing indicate.  I didn’t make the number up, but I didn’t do the research either.  Regardless of the accuracy of the number, no one who believes in church doubts that it is higher than we would like it to be.

So, today, I’m wonder why people don’t go to church. I’m not being naive.  I realize many simply don’t share my faith, but I don’t think that’s the only reason.  Somehow, I think if we understand why people don’t attend church, we can better address the issue.

Dialogue with me. You might consider some of these questions:

• Did you grow up in church?
• Do you go to church regularly now?  How often?
• Has there ever been a time you didn’t attend church?
• If so, what kept you from attending?
• Do you think church attendance is necessary for a believer?
• Do you have friends or family who do not attend church?
• What do you think is their reason for not attending?

In your opinion, why do people not attend church these days?

Also interesting to me, in many surveys a large majority of people indicated that if a friend invited them to church they would likely attend.  Sounds like we have some work to do.

Share your thoughts today...Perhaps we can learn from each other.

I recently discovered that a favorite blog of mine had some artificially inflated numbers…I don’t know the author personally…and the name doesn’t matter…it’s still just as awesome a blog as ever…so I’ll keep reading…but the numbers presented aren’t the real numbers…

I discovered it by accident…I wasn’t looking for it, but there it was…something I thought was true…Based on what I had been told, I thought the blog did better than it really does…wasn’t true…

I was disheartened…saddened…confused…

Then I remembered that it’s a common temptation…one I have faced many times…still do…

Let’s admit……the world is tough…it’s competitive…and it seems that only the strong survive…

Numbers matter…right or wrong we tend to believe they indicate success…prestige…they can even indicate financial rewards…

Whether it’s in the number of sales…blog hits…or total number of pancakes eaten…we tend to think the higher the number the better…

The fabrication of numbers also happens in the church world…there is a temptation to expand numbers to impress people…to feel better about one’s self as a pastor or ministry leader…

When it comes to numbers…you’ve most likely been tempted to:

Make up…add to…exaggerate…stretch the truth…

It’s natural to be tempted…

What you and I do with the temptation says a lot about our character….

Did you need to read this post? It was a good reminder for me…

What are some ways you’ve seen numbers exaggerated or inflated?

Looking for ways to make the spirit of Christmas come alive for your family? The staff at Grace Community Church recommends these resources and this reading plan. Enjoy a very Merry Christmas and allow some of these tools to help you keep the reason for the season fresh in your minds and homes. Thanks to Lifechurch.tv for help with the reading plan.

If you need a printable format, here is a Christmas at Grace Resources 2

We are recycling Bibles this Sunday at Grace Community Church. Recently during a staff retreat we were thinking of ways to encourage Bible reading. We realized as we were talking that many of us in the room have many Bibles that we never use. Not having one could never be a good excuse for the church staff not to read the Bible. The more we talked, the more we recognized that there were probably others in our church with multiple Bibles they no longer use. At the same time, we are always conscious of people in our church and community who have no Bibles.

What was the solution? Have a ReWord Bible Day! This Sunday we are encouraging everyone who has one to bring in an extra Bible…the one on the book shelf, in the night stand, or in the trunk of your car. (I have one there.) We will then get them to people who need a Bible. We love the thoughts of someone reading the Bible someone else has already read.

Do you have an extra Bible (or two) laying around your house? What are you going to do with it?

We recently ended a series looking at the Biblical character of Job. I preached three times in this series, at the beginning and the two messages at the end of the series. Job is a complex, hard to understand book, because it forces us to wrestle with the struggles of the world. The dilemma Job faced was one we all face. How could a good, loving, all powerful God allow suffering as He does? Why doesn’t He provide us with more answers? At times, and I mean this with all due respect, God seems distant, hard to understand.

If you missed the other two sermons I shared, you can hear them HERE and HERE or watch them HERE and HERE.

This is the conclusion to the Job series.

We try each week to choose which of the three services works best. Due to recording difficulties, we captured video in one service and audio in another. Personally preferred the audio message, so you can listen to that one HERE.

Is it okay to question God?  You have questions, but should you even present them to the Almighty?

In our series in the book of Job, I answered this question.  If you have time, this may be a message you need to hear.

Did you watch the message?  What questions do you have for God these days?

I was talking with a leader recently. She’s an incredibly kind and gentle person. She’s smart, hard-working, and loyal. She’s a relational leader and usually brings out the best in people, so she’s had success in leadership. She is currently experiencing problems in a new position and asked for my help. In talking through the specific situation, it quickly became obvious that she has one weakness and it is currently effecting her entire team. Her weakness? She is being too nice as a leader! It has made her well-liked in the organization, but it also has made her team less successful than it could be. A few team members are taking advantage of her niceness by underperforming in their role. She hasn’t challenged the problems, even though she knows she should.  She’s losing sleep over it, but doesn’t know what to do. The relational leadership she has used in the past is not working with these team members.

Perhaps you’ve seen this before in an organization. Maybe you’ve been on either side of this issue. If this is your situation, you have probably even thought or said things such as, “I gave them an inch and they took a mile.”  I am not suggesting one become a mean leader.  I am suggesting one become a wise leader.  Wisdom learns to guide people in the direction that’s best for them, the leader, and the entire team or organization. In the situation above, I advised my friend to take off her “nice hat”, at least temporarily, to address the few people causing the majority of the problems that are impacting the entire team. As hard as it will seem at first, in the end it will be a blessing for the entire team.

Here are three problems with being too nice as a leader:

It’s bad for the leader – The leader ends up stressing over the wrong things. Instead of worrying about the big picture, the leader is focussed on a few problems with usually only a few people. The leader feels unsuccessful, even like a failure at times as the team achieves less than desired results.

It’s bad for the organization – The team suffers because a few people mess up the system and progress for everyone else. Those on the team who wish to do the right thing lose respect for the leader. Others will follow the example of those taking advantage of the leader and lower their performance standards.

It’s bad for the person – Enabling bad behavior is never good for the underperforming team member. It keeps him or her from identifying their full potential and from realizing personal success. They may be a superstar if they are given structure and held accountable to complete their work.

Leader, have you become too nice as a leader? Are you allowing problems to continue out of a fear of not being liked? If you are not careful you can become everyone’s friend, but nobody’s leader.  The sooner you handle the problem (and the problem people), the sooner things will begin to improve on your team for everyone….and the sooner you can get a good night’s rest.

Recently I had the opportunity to meet with a group of my Sigma Chi fraternity brothers from college.  Some of them I have seen, but not really connected with in twenty years.  It was fun, good to remember old times, and reminded me that they had made positive impacts on my life.  I was a crazy college student sometimes, but the experience has since been used for good many times.

Right after that hang out time, I Tweeted that I should write a post about what I learned in my fraternity days that helped prepare me for ministry. I got lots of reaction, but one in particular appeared to be it’s own post. I decided to make it a guest post by the author.

Ky Bishop is currently Pastor Of Ministries at Woodlands Church in Houston Texas where Kerry Shook is Senior Pastor. He’s been married 25 years to Terri and they have 3 sons ranging from 16 to 20 years of age. Ky lists his fraternity experience as Delta Tau Delta – UTA – 81

Here are 7 ways Ky’s fraternity experience prepared him for ministry:

Don’t make a god out of the organization – It was easy to get caught up in the politics of Fraternity life; organizationally, administratively, etc., and forget that the most significant contribution to your experience were the people you met and built relationships with. The same can happen in church life.

Trust your first impressions and intuition – Listen to that “Still Small Voice” inside when it comes to making friendships and inviting them into your journey. There are a lot of  “Well Intentioned Dragons” out there.

Relational intimacy percolates slowly – Just like good coffee, the best relationships are brewed properly. Instant coffee and instant relationships might be satisfying for a moment, but the heart burn is sure to come.

Don’t be afraid to be vulnerable – The high level of testosterone in any Frat gathering can lead to disingenuous activity. However, Jesus’ greatest work was done when he humbled himself.

Engage your brain before you engage your tongue – It is easy to get in a spit fight over non-essential matters, however, the one who keeps his cool is the one who wins.

Maintain accountability – Many a lone wolf has gone out on his own only to find himself caught in the trap. The wise Pastor will always share his inner darkness with a trusted confidant.

Intoxication, immaturity and ignorance need to “be controlled” not “in control” – Those three speak for themselves in relationship to Fraternity ways. In relation to the ministry it is easy to become intoxicated with the latest fad, fancy or fetish and allow our immaturity and ignorance to rule. However, when we keep in mind that it is His Kingdom, not ours, that is being built, we will “wait upon Him”.

Thanks Ky.  I couldn’t have said it any better.

What about you?  What would you add to Ky’s list?  Were you in a fraternity or sorority in college? Give your fraternal organization a shout out and share one way it prepared (or didn’t prepare) you for life.

Part of being a good leader is not taking opportunities even though you can. Sometimes letting your staff do something you could do, maybe even would like to do, is a better for the entire team.

When we launched our church eleven couples took a risk on a dream we felt God was leading us to pursue.  We empowered this core team to do things the way they felt best doing them, as long as they were achieving the vision we knew God was calling us to achieve.  We encouraged them to explore new ideas, become experts in their field of interest, and then released them to dream and build.  It became part of our DNA and we are still allowing people to explore new opportunities.

For example, we had ideas of what we wanted our children’s ministry to look like.  We could have even scripted it for them, but we knew that the best energies would be invested when those doing the ministry actually created the ministry. Almost five years later, there are parts of our children’s ministry I am clueless to how they are done.  Today there are new creative leaders in children’s ministry and they have implemented even more changes, but God has blessed their efforts dramatically, far beyond what we could have commanded them to do.

One of the greatest things a leader can do sometimes is to let go of the right to control.  Good leaders are willing to take a risk on other peoples ideas, knowing that in doing so, others will be more likely to take a risk on their ideas and organizational strength will be enhanced.  If you want to encourage risk-taking, dreaming, creativity and innovation, then you must be willing to empower others with opportunities you can control.

Leader, what opportunity are you currently taking that you need to release the control of to others on your team?

Have you served under a leader who was always taking the best opportunities?