Jack’s Buzz

I’m trying to solve the main problems that turn church planters into church quitters, the ones that my partners in the field show me. Janet and I are offering to spend the first 60 days of summer 2009 working alongside a team to plant a church.  Read the complete idea at jacksbuzz.com. I copied the Executive Summary below.

Executive Summary
Objective
Using pressure and coaching, we intend to hot start a Southern Baptist church with a lead planter and an indigenous core group over a summer.

Rationale
DOMs and church planting missionaries beg me for church planters who will not quit after two or three years, be teachable, and work with them. You want guys who will make it, and so do I. The Nehemiah Project, while more successful than other programs, cannot assure that its planters will grow a church. Classroom knowledge is not enough. Janet and I spend inordinate time with students and their families–weekly one-on-one meetings, meals in our home, involvement in their internships–and so far, my guys stick. I know, however, that big problems loom.

A clear majority of state, Canadian, and association leaders agree that church planters do not solve four critical problems. Two involve strategy, two involve attitude, and all four can be assessed and taught. (1) Unrealistic expectations that the church will grow faster and larger than community receptivity warrants. Unrealism results from insufficient knowledge of people. (2) Using the wrong model stems from a planter, intoxicated with his ideas trying to make the locals drink from his cup. They gag, he fails. (3) The church planter’s wife never buys in to the church plant. God’s voice starts sounding a lot like her mother’s, and first thing you know they move a couple hours from “home.” (4) Planters do not habitually tell lost people about Jesus, ask them to repent, and ask them to join the church. Two years pass; the planter has three cool friends, know a ton about theology, but can’t pay the bills.

More than anything else–even more than funding–we seem to need to apply pressure and coaching to solve these four problems. If we cannot solve the big problems by the end of the summer, I will recommend that you stop supporting the plant. Hot Start intends to develop church planters who will quickly and competently introduce indigenous adults to Christ and makes core group level disciples of them.

Goals
The project carries four goals. (1) Use consistent coaching and pressure to develop character and increase the commitment level of a team (lead planter; when applicable, his wife and children; and other team members whether single or married). (2) Develop a strategy to penetrate a community with the Gospel. (3) Win adults to Christ, and engage them in discipleship. (4) Develop an indigenous core group to launch the church.

Submit a Proposal
The titles vary, but I have cooperation in mind. State or Canadian SBC Directors, Association DOMs, and local church Pastors may submit a proposal together. Please complete all sections of the proposal. Tell me your ideas. I’ll call your designated primary field contact September 2-5, 2008, and choose the target area on September 8.
Deadline: September 1, 2008.
Download a PDF copy of the Request for Proposal. Email us for a copy of the proposal in MS Word

I’ve been reading A. W. Tozer on worship this month. About fifty years ago he wrote a complaint against evangelicals of his day popularizing the idea of omitting the third stanza of a hymn to keep the worship service within a prescribed time frame. His point is not so much that worshipers miss the beauty and theology contained in that skipped stanza, but that we hurry through the time set aside to magnify and adore God in song. That’s sticking in my mind.

God is looking for people to worship him because he is worthy of praise, adoration, and awestruck love. He does not need our worship, but us worshiping God is right, so he wants it. God always wants what is right.

We usually do not. We usually want what is convenience or pleasurable. We want our way, and rarely trust his way. This is odd because when we trust his way, it’s always right and to our benefit. Once we’ve chosen his way, we can look back and see that it was the right thing to do. We feel better, behave more lovingly, think more clearly–we even look better!

I’m afraid that our preachers are not helping much. I have several friends in the Christian music business and they each have several stories of preachers asking them to cut a song or part of a song so the sermon can be longer. I guess preachers sometimes think the route to God is through their preaching. Of course, there are probably a few song leaders who think their singing is the key to discipleship.

Contemporary Christianity–myself included–did not learn much from Tozer. I wonder if fifty years from now a guy reading Tozer thinks, “Wow, I’m glad our church is not in a hurry to get through with worshiping God.”

As for me, I think I just need to slow down and think about who God is. I sure am glad he has more time for me than I have for him. You?

One of my young friends is trying to solve a moral dilemma. I won’t go into details, but I will say that it’s an easy decision for anyone who takes Scripture seriously. He seems to take Scripture seriously mostly, which is amazingly common today.

God makes morality easy for his children. Love others. Consider their needs. Treat them like you want to be treated. Do nothing that could be misconstrued as selfish, sinful, or evil. Watch your behavior if you claim to represent Jesus. Don’t let your freedom cause the other guy to sin. Always honor your parents, and your spouse/girlfriend/boyfriend. Show people God’s way to live and encourage them to do the right thing even when doing the right thing is harder, which it usually is. Simple.

What’s odd is that few Christians gave him the same examples I just gave you. They told him, “Don’t do it. You can’t afford it.” Their advice was true, but if he thinks that way, he will be left financially sound and in no need of God. Secular morality can make one wealthy but godless and empty. Based on the moral advice I hear from most Christians, the churches will soon depend more on a calculator than God.

I just finished a 5-star, 400-page book on brain science. I will sum it up for you in one paragraph. (You pay me for this stuff.)

A person’s thoughts make tracks in his or her mind like a sledder makes tracks down a hill. Tracks tend to deepen, becoming confining ruts. Negative tracks lead to negative ruts like a track into a tree; a cycle of despair. Positive tracks lead to positive ruts like to the hot chocolate vendor. It is to your advantage to get your mindsled out of negative ruts, and, yes, you can do it!

If you want the longer version, read “The Brain that Changes Itself,” by Norman Doidge. I’d give you a link, but I’m doing this on my phone because I’m in the mountains developing more positive ruts.

Hollywood thinks it has the market on stars. It lies (surprise!). The Rocky Mountains have the real stars. Go see them. Colorado, New Mexico, Utah–get up high and see what David saw.

Click on your calendar and find a few days to go to the Rocky Mountains to look at stars. No time? Make time. Going to Disney? Skip it; Mickey’s got his head up his ears. Visiting grandma? Take her with you. Gas too high? Please. Cut out those carmel macchiato latte gay frappacinos for a year. The stars are worth it.

I do this twice a year, and have not been disappointed ever. All you need is to get 15 miles from a town, a mile elevation, and Psalm 8 “Oh Lord, our Lord, how majestic is Your name in all the earth…You set the stars in place.

Last night, I watched until my neck hurt. Then I lay down on the deck, 9,412-ish above sea level. The stars never moved. Meteors did, and fast! Jets did a slow crawl west to east. I moved too. Inside that is; I moved from concern for the world and my place in it, and my agenda, and worries, and blah, blah, blah to a deep sense of wonder, awe, and worship of the God I serve. Very cool. No, seriously, it was 40 degrees, and I had to come inside.

The more I try to manage my time, the less I think that time can be managed. It seems more correct to admit that my time can merely be filled, and the filling is what I manage. I am an earth-bound donut maker, filling my life either with sugary junk or meaty protein. Sugar tastes good but it makes me fat, slow, weak, and poor. Protein also tastes good, though not as good, but it makes me strong. One produces results that I hate; the other produces results that I like. I make the choice.

Nearly a century ago, Napoleon Hill concluded that, “Time is the only priceless treasure in the universe!” He was a bit dramatic (how could a guy named Napoleon not be a bit dramatic?), but he made a good point. Time is something that is forever gone once spent, so spend it well.

While God offers each of us a different number of days, every man and woman lives only a day at a time. Everyone is treated equally regarding the amount of time God hands him or her within that day-tight compartment. God is beyond time, but time certainly limits his creation. Time is a gift that God gives in exact and equal proportion. We all get exactly 60 minutes in every hour and 168 hours in every week.

I have exactly the same amount of time as you, and you have exactly the same amount as Tim Keller, Donald Trump, Rick Warren, and Eli Manning. To say that I do not have enough time is nonsense. I have exactly enough time, and so do you. The problem is that many of us spend time like we spend calories–on the things that do not produce what we want.

The Bible calls a man or woman who wastes time a slacker. To be slack is to partake in a particular type of foolishness. Slacker is the label for the one who holds his responsibilities with a loose grip. It is the the man who holds his hammer too lightly, has no power in his execution, and as a result bends rather than drives nails.

On the other side of the time problem is the woman who drives her family crazy by trying to cram too many activities into her day. She holds her hammer too tightly. She drives a few nails, but tires quickly and finds her hand wearing out. She tries too hard and does little well and much poorly.

Let the hammer do the work! Manage well that with which you fill your time. Keep neither too slack a grip, nor too tight, but grip your responsibilities securely and responsibly.

How do you know how to grip and what to grip? Ask the wise men and women who have accomplished great things before you. Ask their books. Ask their magazine articles. Ask them personally. Just ask.

If you ask Mr. Hill, though he is dead, he will speak wise words like these:

Time is the friend of all who are true unto themselves and who play the game of life squarely with their fellowmen, but it is the mortal enemy of all who cheat and all who try to GET without GIVING a fair equivalent. . . . Without the aid of Time the Law of Compensation falls flat and becomes practically inoperative. Time is forever changing, tearing down and re-building mankind, therefore no man can be properly judged except he be weighed over a considerable period of time.

Character, good or bad, is the sum total of the handiwork of Time, through the aid of which one’s thoughts and acts have been slowly woven into character. Time builds character out of whatever it finds to work with, but never goes outside of one’s own thoughts and acts for material. (Napoleon Hill’s Magazine, Sept, 1921, 29).

God gives every one of us wise instructors. We can listen and do as they say. We can fill our time with the things that produce the results we want to the glory of God.

Today is Sunday. Sunday is a fine day to talk to God about your responsibilities. Sunday is the perfect day to receive God-inspired instruction (read the Bible, listen to a good sermon). Sunday is the best of all days to plan your week. Get to it!