I love shirts that do not have to be ironed. I travel a lot and right now the nylon, breathable shirt appears popular, at least among my age, and so I can be “in style”, comfortable and basically wrinkle-free with little effort. I have to confess to something, however. My style is usually determined by what other people do not want. I choose to dress primarily in rejected clothing! You see I am hugely price conscious. I love new clothes, but the thoughts of spending more than $10 for a shirt bothers me, so if it’s on sale for $6, I tend to like it even more. I have often wished there were a store for folks like me that sold only the clothes others didn’t want…the rejects…at dirt cheap prices.

I realize this would not be the best marketing approach for the clothing industry. Imagine the ads going after customers no one else wants. What kind of commercial would you make from the clearance rack?

It may not be the best approach in retail marketing, but guess what? The system I use in clothing myself is a great marketing approach for churches. If you want your church to grow, go after people no one else wants. Go after the ones who feel unwanted. Attempt to reach the people the world has rejected.

It worked well for Jesus. It has worked well for Grace Community Church. Perhaps it will for your church as well.

One of the primary purposes for our recent visit to Lithuania was to work with business leaders and individuals on issues related to personal finance, leadership, and budgeting.  This was our initial trip, but we were able to open doors and build trust with key people in the church and community for future interaction.  Our end goal is Kingdom-building, but instead of a medical or construction project, which is typical for many mission trips, we went addressing the primary need of the Lithuanians at this time; the economy.  Naturally we received lots of questions about the economy in the United States.  There was keen awareness that our economy impacts their economy.

Lithuania was under the communist rule of the Soviet Union until the early 90’s, so capitalism is a fairly new concept for most of the people.  The fast introduction to a free market has led to tremendous problems in the country.  There were lots of “instant” millionaires and success stories and now they are experiencing a natural correction.  Unfortunately, because their economy grew so fast it will also decline fast and that has caused panic within the country.

In one of our meetings a leading businessman seemed to capture the essence of the problem in a couple of words.  He said, “It appears to me that the problems in our country started with greed and now they are being continued with fear.”

GREED and FEAR

My new friend may be onto something.  In fact, I think he is.  The problem in his country seems to mirror the problems in our country.  It may have taken us longer to get to our place of struggle than in his country, but we face the same struggles.  What got us into our economic condition was largely triggered by greed and what is keeping us from fully recovering is largely triggered out of fear.

I was also reminded that the church has answers to each of these struggles, greed and fear.  Perhaps it could be said that we should have been addressing the first problem better all along and we may not have to be addressing the second problem as much, but either way, we have a role to play in the current state of the economy.

What do you think?

For over a year Grace Community Church has partnered with City Church in Klaipeda, Lithuania.  This partnership has at this point consisted primarily of frequent Skype or Tokbox conversations between me and Pastor Saulius of City Church.  This trip was primarily a vision trip for our church, combined with a focus on building business relationships between our churches.  We learned a lot about the culture and how our churches can continue to learn from each other.

I love to invest in other pastors and churches and this provides a wonderful opportunity to learn from each other.  They currently are meeting in a T-shaped attic of an old hotel the church has purchased and is renovating, so the picture of me speaking here actually shows one smaller portion of the crowd.  They average about 150 people each week, which in relative terms makes the church a thriving Protestant church in a country fairly new to freedom of religion.

Last Sunday I was blessed to stand where Saulius stands each week before his people.  By the way, I love the cheer of applauds the speaker receives before he or she delivers the message in Lithuania.  (Their custom also has them applaud a safe landing of an airplane.  I thankfully got to experience that custom also.)

If you have never experienced a translated message before, here is an example of one.  Click HERE to hear last week’s message from City Church Lithuania.  This was a simple message of hope, something the Lithuanians (and all of us) need a lot more of, but God somehow used it last Sunday in some people’s lives, according to the feedback from Saulius.

I am praying for the years of partnership between our churches to strengthen each of us and help further the Kingdom of God.  This week I will continue to share highlights of our trip.

One thing that has kept us occupied the most in our culture training this week in Lithuania is the difference Soviet occupation has made on this country.  People talk constantly about “Soviet times” and “during occupation”.  We visited the KGB museum and saw the evidence of the stressed conditions of the people. Not one family here is unaffected by those days.

There are many visual evidences of those times, which ended about 20 years ago.  You can see it in the building disparity.  There will be a beautifully architecturally designed building Europe is famous for right next door to a very plain, no flash, almost ugly Soviet-built building.  It is obviously the major influencer of the economy here that has tried to learn to adjust to capitalism and the freedoms that come with it.  Sadly, you can see it in the fact that there are lots of older women walking the streets, but relatively few older men.

In spite of the hardship of this country, however, it has been amazing to see the tenacity of these people.  They are survivors.  They find a way to make something work.  They find a way to be happy, to provide for their family, and even to give to others.  I will be telling more stories later when I have more Internet time, including one man’s story that literally blew me away, but for now let me just say that I hope when times are tough for me I will have the courage and resolve of these people.

Are you having a hard time these days?  Perhaps you need to hang around my Lithuanian friends for a while.

THREE MONTHS FROM TODAY!

Put September 26th on your calendar now.  You do not want to miss this year’s Operation Serve.  Operation Serve is Grace Community Church‘s annual one-day outreach to our community.  This is where we put feet to our love for the city and show Christ’s love in a tangible way. There is something for everyone to do and this year proves to be better than ever.  The team has been working since the close of last year’s event to plan this year.  We have gained momentum in the city for this day and expect well over 1,000 to 1,200 people to be involved.

If you know projects we need to consider, contact the church office.

Where is your church going in the next five years? What will it look like it ten years? If nothing changes, will it still be as equipped to reach the community around you?

If we aren’t careful, church becomes a Sunday-to-Sunday routine process and we look up someday from the weekly grind and realize we never reached our potential. For most churches, when one Sunday is over they are planning for the next Sunday. The church addresses the ministry needs of the week, but little time is spent planning for the months and years to come for the church. The monotony of a repeating schedule can often replace long-term planning.

(Because every time I do a post like this I hear this comment I know that at this point one of my readers (maybe two) is thinking, “God is in charge of us reaching our potential”, and it is at this point that I have to remind said reader that planning exists throughout the Bible and in fact, God seems critical of those who fail to plan.)

This post is just a simple reminder to steal some time from the weekly grind to plan a few steps ahead in the life of the church. Think through issues such as worship, discipleship, staffing, space needs, volunteer recruitment, and community and world involvement. In addition to weekly impromptu meetings and our bi-weekly all staff meetings, our staff gets together three times a year in an extended staff retreat. We have found this process to be where major initiatives and ideas originate and gain energy.

At our most recent staff retreat at Grace Community Church, after we went looked again at the Growth/Maintenance/Development issue again (Read a post about that process HERE), we considered these three questions to help us think through some critical planning issues for our church:

1. Missing Holes
   What needs developing?
2. Dying Momentum
   What needs tweaking or killing?
3. Gaining Momentum
   What needs energy/additional resources right now?

You may consider trying this with your staff. If you are the only staff member, recruit a few key people in your church to help you plan.

Tomorrow I will post some of the bullet point that came as a result of these three discussions. If you need more help with these issues, email me at ron.edmondson@gmail.com

Let us learn from you.  How does your church plan for the future?

One of my good friends is a man’s-man kind of guy. My friend’s name is Dirt and the name says a lot about this guy. He is a professional hunter and fisherman. He actually owns an International shooting supply company, has led professional hunting and fishing expeditions around the world and has a well known hunting show on several cable stations. (If he were a Bible character he would be a Jacob or a Peter.)

What impresses me with a guy like Dirt is that in addition to being a tough guy, he loves his wife, his two daughters and his grandchildren. Cheryl and I have traveled on the mission field with Dirt and Connie King, and underneath that rough exterior, that frankly would intimidate me if I didn’t know him, is the heart of a great guy who would do anything he could to help someone in need. Whenever he is not traveling with his television show he is sitting in church and is one of my biggest encouragers every week he is there.

I like that kind of guy. We see it in our brave soldiers who fearlessly defend our nation. We see it in the dozens of hunters and fishermen in our church. We see it in the football and baseball players and coaches. We see it in the guy who works an office job fighting his way through the corporate world or the factory worker who sweats 8 hours a day to feed his family. One thing I am so thankful for at Grace Community Church is that we have attracted a lot of men’s men who are tough outside, but inside they have tender hearts for God and their families. I love when a man leads his family to church. Of course, I am thankful for all our ladies who come even when their husbands don’t, but when  man leads the way his family will almost always follow.

I hope we are always that kind of church. Happy Father’s Day!

I danced at church yesterday.  I did not dance alone, Cheryl danced with me, but I did dance. Several people indicated they would never believe it until they saw it, so here is the proof.

We are in the middle of a family series and I was talking yesterday about marriage and specifically the need to commit ourselves to making marriage work.  My co-pastor Chad and his wife sang while Cheryl and I danced.  It was a visual picture of the leadership of the church admitting that marriage is tough, but our commitment to make it work is what can make a marriage strong.

You would have to listen to the whole message for it to make complete sense. You can do that HERE.  I also share a few tips to protect your marriage in this message.  For other thoughts on marriage, check out that category of this blog HERE.

I am thankful for a church that allows us freedom to express Biblical truth in creative ways.  What a joy to pastor at Grace Community Church.

What plan do you have to protect your marriage?

How do you know when God is closing one door in ministry and opening another?  I get this question a lot working with pastors as often as I do.

Several times in my ministry, first as a layperson and since then in vocational ministry, God has called me to leave one ministry and begin another.  It can be a scary place to face the unknown, yet know that God is up to something new in your life.  In sharing my experience I am hoping it can help others process through what God may be doing in their life.  Please realize that God uses unequaled experiences in each of our lives, but at the same time there are some common patterns I think each of us may experience, while the details remain unique.

This has been the process that I have experienced as God has led me to something new:

• Wonderful sweet success – Each time the door of a new opportunity opened it began opening (looking back) when things were going well in my current ministry.
• Inner struggle – I usually have not been able to understand what God is up to, but there is something in me (and usually in my wife at the same time) where I know God is doing something new.  While I do not know what it is, and not even if it involves a change in my place of ministry, I know God is doing a new work in my heart about something.
• Closeness to Christ – Brennan Manning calls it a Dangerous love of Christ.  During the times leading up to a change of ministry assignment I will be growing in my relationship with Christ, usually in new depths of trust and abandonment.  Again, looking back and I can see this clearly, but at the time I usually am just enjoying the ride and the closeness to Christ.
• Opportunity presents itself – The opportunity often seems to come from nowhere, but with multiple experiences now I can see the pattern that has occurred each time.  It is only after these first three experiences that God brings a new opportunity my way.  That is probably because my spirit must be totally aligned with His Spirit in order for me to trust the new work He calls me to.  I have yet to be completely “ready” for the next step in my journey with Christ, because it always involves a leap of faith on my part, but this process prepares me to be ready to say “Yes Lord…Here am I…send me.”
• I surrendered to God’s call – After I receive confirmation in my spirit, review the journey God has had us on, and Cheryl and I agree on where God is leading, I have yet to refuse the next assignment.  That does not mean it is easy to leave my current ministry, but it has always been most rewarding to know we are in the center of God’s will for our life.

A special word to the spouse: Cheryl has never been “ready” to leave friends in our current ministry, but she has always lined with me in knowing God was calling us to a new work in our life.

Have you shared these experiences?  What other experiences have you had that have led you to step out by faith into a new adventure with Christ?

SPECIAL NOTE to the people of Grace Community Church:  This post is not about me, at least for now.  I use this blog to minister to other pastors and ministers. As of now I am where I am supposed to be at Grace.  It is important to always remember, however, that I do not work for Grace Community Church.  I work for a person and His name is Jesus Christ.  I keep thanking Him daily for allowing me to be a part of the work He is doing at Grace.

We are launching a new ministry this Fall at Grace Community Church. I am as excited about its potential as I am anything we have done in our church’s short history. Recently I was asked about the “budget” for this new ministry. I chuckled when I was forced to answer, “What budget? “ The truth is there is no money for this ministry. It is a total relationship-building ministry. Money may eventually be available as the ministry grows, but the goal of this ministry, as with all others, is to meet and change lives. The initial start of this will have to come with no financial investment.

When we started our church, a paradigm shift that I had to make, as did most on our staff, and the one that new people coming to our church must make, is the shift from being a program-based ministry to one of being a relationship-based ministry. There is a difference.

I grew up with a program-based mindset. Program-based ministries need to be managed. Most programs require staff oversight, financial resources to fund them, and require on-going support and maintenance from the church. When problems occur within the ministry rules are created to keep them from happening again. Once a program begins it rarely is dropped from the church’s ministry offerings.

In a relationship-based mindset, while the goal is the same, to grow people into the image of Christ, the approach is completely different. The focus shifts from a developing and managing a program to fostering relationships between people. I agree it is a subtle shift, but instead of looking for new programs to develop, the intent is to look for relationships to begin and grow. Relationships-based ministry can often be done with no money. Instead of adding rules, more grace must be applied. Because relationships involve people more than structure, relationship-based ministries can be messier at times and harder to manage.

If done well, I believe relationship-based ministry has a better potential to enhance real life change. I realize my program-based ministry friends would say that their programs have the same intent as our relationship-based ministry and I agree. I also realize our relationship-based ministry relies on a certain amount of programs to administer relationship development, but the major difference is the shift in primary focus from developing and managing programs to developing and encouraging relationships.

Imagine when a ministry opportunity arises in the church if the number one goal was not to create a new program but instead to explore ways of creating new relationships.