I was browsing through the aisles of the local Christian bookstore the other day and I came upon the “church growth” section.  It was stocked with very eye catching books with the words “sticky”, “contagious”, “viral” and other fascinating words in their titles which kind of made church sound like something you should avoid or scrape off the bottom of your shoe.  But I came across one book which blew my mind!  It was a entire book that dealt solely with what kind of gifts you should give to a first time church attender to get them to keep coming.  In the past, I wouldn’t have batted an eye at this but for some reason, I became seriously nauseous!  As I flipped through it, it dealt with greeter teams, first impressions, power packed gifts to give the visitor and how to get them to come back a 2nd time.  All I could think was “SERIOUSLY?  This is what it’s come to?”  In my wildest interpretation of the book of Acts, I just could not see Peter and John huddling together on a Saturday night, going over the 1st impressions strategy for the next day and putting all kinds of goodies in the visitor bags.

Have we, in our effort to get people in the doors, seriously sunk to this level where we have to bribe them to come back?  Have we adopted the marketing drenched mindset of this culture so much that we have to cater to every materialistic desire in order to “win a few”?  I don’t know…somehow, I just think this is very, very wrong and it won’t accomplish what we want to accomplish.  People far from Christ don’t want a goodie bag or an amazing light show when they come through the doors of a church.  They want to find answers for the questions that have been nagging them for years…they want to meet people that say they love God and prove it by the way they live…they want to see if this Jesus is real and if He’s worth following.  And when we get them there and preach dying to the flesh and picking up your cross daily, doesn’t the fact that we cater to their every whim to keep them coming send the complete opposite message?

It’s against this backdrop that God woke me up 2  nights ago at 1am and spoke something to me as clear as I have ever remembered Him speaking.  I was fast asleep and  jolted awake with a thought booming through my brain that did not originate from myself.  I sat straight up in bed and all that I could hear was “Sanctuary Church will not be a convenient option for you!” And my soul was set on fire for the next few hours and is still that way…I can’t get that off my mind.  After much thought and prayer, I think that God was speaking prophetically to me and our church.  This church has and will be the path that leads to death for me…death to my flesh, death to my ambitions, death to how I thought church should be.  But, I think He was saying that Sanctuary Church will not be the “convenient option” for those who He brings along our path and it shouldn’t be.

That makes pastoring easier!  It’s nerve wracking to think about how I can make people happy and how I can get them to come back and how I can get butts in seats.  But, if God Himself is saying that this will require a commitment and it won’t be for everyone, then I need to take Him at His word and let Him draw who He may.  Whew!!

Wow, I haven’t posted here in a long time.  I used to get really annoyed with bloggers who don’t post for months at a time but I now realize why it happens…you are too insanely busy to do one more thing.  But, as my kids are playing with their train this morning, I have a few minutes to give an update on what’s happening in life.

First, Paige and I leave for a week long trip to St Thomas in about 17 days!!!  We haven’t really been alone without the kids for about 3 years now, so this is much needed in every area possible.  I can’t wait to just chill out on the beach, read a good book, eat awesome food and spend uninterrupted time again with the love of my life.  It should be great!

Second, things are really beginning to pick up at Sanctuary Church.  We have a spectacular core group of people that have committed themselves to the church and each other.  We have been meeting for the past few months and formed really good relationships with each other and have dreamed and cried and laughed and ate A LOT!  We’ve also been able to begin to serve our community starting with our 1st serving event this past Saturday as we volunteered at the local homeless shelter.  It was great to see our little group being able to make such a big impact in people’s lives.

We have some HUGE things coming up and could use lots and lots of prayer.  The plan is to move from bi-weekly gatherings to weekly gatherings beginning in August…we also want to begin to include some Sunday morning gatherings in the mix.  But the BIG news is that we are looking for locations to host our 1st actual worship gathering where we can open it up to the public and have a little bit more space than the living room.  These gatherings will be really laid back and will include good music, teaching, communion, prayer and a shared meal.  We’re really hoping to have our 1st gathering in either September or October and will hopefully be finding a good storefront/vacant building in the Havre De Grace area.  So, please help us pray for favor and direction as we move forward in the path that we think God has called us to.

Let me start off by saying that the word “outreach” really, really bothers me, especially when it is used in the church context. The reason it bothers me is because it implies that us Christians, who are “in” have the duty to reach “out” to all those dirty sinners and help them. It never really crossed my mind before but the word can really give off a posture of arrogance and elitism, especially if you’re the one being “reached out” to. If I heard that the local Muslim mosque was planning a community event to “reach out” to me because I was an infidel and I needed to convert, I would be like “ummm, no thanks!”

I am fully convinced that in order to truly “reach” those who don’t know Christ, we must do it from withIN. That’s how Jesus did it. He didn’t feed the 5,000 or heal the sick so that they would come to synagogue on Saturday. He did it because He walked, lived and breathed the Kingdom of God and the kingdom was smack dab in the middle of the filth and sin of the world. He was touched by their sickness because He was actually touching them on a daily basis and their sickness became His own. Compassion was not a buzz word to Jesus…He felt thier hopelesness and sin in His gut and it compelled Him to heal them, feed them and die for them!

This all points to one word that I want Sanctuary Church to have in it’s DNA from day one: INCARNATION. We are not called to “reach out” to the homeless, hungry and lost…we are called to be WITH them and Be Jesus to them. This will take more than a church program with a cool campaign and a catchy slogan. It will take changing our priorities as to how we spend our money, where we live, what we consider “church” and who we decide to give our lives to. Now, I’m not so naive to believe that this will happen overnight or will even be a result of human will. This is an act of the Spirit and will be accomplished through thousands of daily decisions to be Jesus withIN the world that we already live. It will be hard but I know that it will be worth it!

So, that’s where we are right now.  A great group of people that are praying to be more in love with Christ every day and seeking to be a solution to the hurt and pain that we see all around us.  It is going to be an awesome journey!!

If you ever want to experience the greatest stress imaginable, plant a church! We are only in the very beginning phases of our 1st meetings, planning, etc but it is literally the ONLY thing that I can think about. The mental and spiritual stress that we have experienced has put a strain on my marriage, my family, my spiritual life and my sanity. The other day I was thinking about this and giving myself the “pep talk” in my head that I have fine tuned (Troy, you’re called, God will provide, people will come, it’s in God’s hands) and I stopped in mid thought and asked myself “WHY?” Why am I doing this to myself? Why do I feel so much pressure? If I truly believed that this is in God’s hands, then why am I so worried all the time? And after a few minutes, it finally dawned on me: I’m trying to plant someone elses church!

I have made the mistake of reading tons of blogs of these dudes that started last year with 6 people in thier living rooms and now they have 2,000 people in a state of the art building with the coolest lights, rocking worhsip team and fog machines that envelop it all! They preach relevant messages and hundreds of people are “coming to Jesus” each week. Their small groups are multiplying and some of them are even having to go multi site already!

Now, all of this is fine and dandy…if people are “coming to Jesus”, then I celebrate with them. What stressed me out the most was what it took to get these church plants up and running. From the many different sources I’ve read/talked to/been coached by, to plant a church that “launches large” and has a good crowd the 1st Sunday, you need to raise at least $75,000 -$100,000 before you even start! That pays for the sounds equipment, the video projectors, lighting, chairs, childrens ministry material, insurance, salaries and a big freaking trailer to haul it all around in.

So, after 2 years of reading this and hearing this and believing that this was the only way to do it, I finally woke up one day and asked REALLY? SERIOUSLY? You need $100,000 to plant a church? And what does that $100,000 get you? At best, it will get you a high impact Sunday morning service where people can bring their friends and experience moving worship music, quality childrens ministry and relevant preaching. At worst, it will buy you a cooler version of the already existing church down the street…a place where people come to hear the good music, have their kids taught and get their ‘word’ for the week. In other words, you (as a church planter) kill yourself to gather a group of people, inspire them, pour thousands of hours into advertising, rehearsing and planning and spend $100,000 so you can get people to come to a building on a Sunday morning in the hopes that some of them may possibly find community and a relationship with Christ. WHEW!

After reading all that, the only thing I can think is that THERE MUST BE AN EASIER AND MORE EFFECTIVE WAY THAN THIS! Especially when you consider the fact that 8 out of 10 church plant fail within the first year, this all just seems unnecessary and almost irresponsible. The more that I think about, the more I am realizing that $100,000 gets you a good Sunday morning show and I am sick and tired of the show…and I know that I’m not the only one. Over the past 2 years, we have visited many, many churches in hopes of connecting and finding true Biblical community but in most cases, all we experienced was the show. These well meaning Pastors did enough to get you in, make you feel some goose bumps and keep you coming back. And as we drove home, the same sad scene repeated itself over and over and over again. We would look at each other and say “so, what did you think?” We would try to put a good spin on what we just experienced but eventually, the truth would come out and we end up with the same conclusion: WHAT’S THE POINT? Is this seriously what church is all about? Did we push this same poop on people all those years and called it “community” and “church”. We did! In hindsight, our motives sucked! We would never admit it but we were obsessed not with people but with the ABC’s. Attendance, Buildings, Cash. In our eyes, if you came to church consistently, gave in tithes and attended a small group, then you were cool in our book and hopefully in God’s also. What a crock! I see it now and I have repented of my crappy motives every day since then.

I don’t want the show any longer! I will finally admit that you can have the most mind blowing Sunday morning service and 1 million people can come and jump up and down and fall down in the aisles and speak in tonuges but 999,998 of those same people will leave unchanged and model an uncaring, unloving and irelevant Jesus to everyone around them. I refuse to perpetuate that garbage any longer…I refuse to allow my family to suffer so I can get that…I refuse to subject 1 person to the false idea that coming to a building and singing a song and hearing a sermon makes you a follower of Christ. I SO long for something simpler, more pure, more Biblical. I crave community…not small groups or cell groups or community groups. Just to grow with a group of people that I would give my life for and vice versa…to embody the love of Christ to everyone we come into contact with…to laugh together, cry together, eat together, pray together and follow Jesus together. Simple! It doesn’t take $100,000 to do that…

I have been re-reading “The Tangible Kingdom” over the last few days and it has really been messing me up big time. I read it about 2 years ago and really liked it but now that we’ve actually moved ahead with this church plant and are “doing it”, I’m really beginning to evaluate what “church” is and is not in a whole new light. I don’t want to perpetuate modes and ideas that aren’t working in our postmodern culture but I also don’t want to discard current methods just becasue they’re part of the attractional church. Anyway, I just read this quote and I have to share it.

“Church must not be the goal of the gospel anymore. Church should not be the focus of our efforts or the banner we hold up to explain what we’re about. Church should be what ends up happening as a natural response to people wanting to follow us, be with us and be like us as we are following Christ.”