CHURCH AT ANOTHER MOVIES

So, the secret is out - I am still in Texas. Sure, we decided to stay a few days after the conference to spend time with our son and daughter-in-law who, together with their children, are developing into Texans at a scary pace.

But I was in church this morning. At a movie theater of course. Is there any other place to do church in the 21st century? By the way, there is a conference in DC in May exclusively for pastors of what are known as theater churches. There are a lot of us about!

Preston Trail Community Church is three years old and they're certainly doing a lot of things right. The congregation seems to be mainly couples in their thirties with young children and that's not surprising because their children's activities are outrageous. In over 40 years of being a Christian and closely involved in local church life, I have never sen anything like the Kids Street program that I was in today with my four year old escort, Benjamin at my side.

This isn't Sunday School as most of us know it, it was a front-led, high energy, fun-filled 35 minutes which is advertised as the place where children and parents learn together.

If I was a parent living in this area, that's where I would be on Sundays, even if the main service stunk, because Kids Street is so amazing.

Let me hasten to add, the main service here certainly did not stink. The music was great and the message was good stuff too, though a one hour service is still a little brief for someone like me who has difficulty disciplining himself to a 90 minutes service normally.

I'm going to spend some time with the founding pastors tomorrow and hopefully a meeting of the minds will be of mutual benefit. I love church - which is good, because Jesus does too - and I'm always interested to see what is happening in other places. We can learn a lot from each other.

Or as Rick Warren puts it - God gave you eyes so plagerize!

Check out where I was today - www.prestontrail.org

TWO REMARKABLE MEN

Wow! So that was T.D. Jakes live! He has to be the best motivational speaker that I have heard in a long, long time, possibly ever. He covered so much ground this morning that it will take a while to unpack it all - that's why I ordered the CD!

You know what struck me most and sticks in my mind here in the coffee shop at Fellowship Church? - He talked about getting ready to break out, about busting out of the normal and launching into a whole new phase of church development and growth. I heard that kind of thing yesterday from Erwin McManus too. I want to think it all over, pray it through and see what that means for us at Grace. But I'm excited.

I was thinking of making T.D. Jakes our Supercool Person Of The Week, but I'm not sure he would show up to receive the award. So my mind went to someone else.

There are several thousand pastors on the internet forum I help moderate for the Purpose Driven Churches network and I have interacted a bit with a young pastor planting a church in rural Oklahoma. He never gets away, can't afford to go to a pastors' conference, but needs the input as much as I do. So I offered for him to come as our guest. He shared my hotel room and seems to have had a good couple of days.

His church is in a town of 15,000 people and it sounds like it's in the middle of nowhere, but after 18 months he gets between 50 and 60 people out every Sunday.

That might not sound like a mega-church, but consider this. In 78 weeks of his church's existence, Danny has seen 77 people come to Christ. Folks, that is a mega-church. Most established churches in this country have not been that succesful in pointing people to Jesus. Many churches seldom baptize anyone.

Danny's a giant, getting on with the job with no fanfare, struggling with limited resources, but accomplishing what he has set out to do - bringing people to Jesus.

So sitting in this mega-church after hearing mega-church pastors teaching, I want to nominate another mega-church pastor, Danny Carlisle as my Supercool Person Of The Week.

Check out his website www.churchatthemovies.org

BE AFRAID - BE VERY AFRAID

This was one very full day deep in the heart of Texas. Having discovered that I had booked a hotel wthout an exercise room (but the price was right), I hit the road and started walking the streets of Grapevine around 5.45 this morning. If you walk far enough, you discover that it has a real Main Street with porches and all those things that I saw in western towns, when I was a kid at the movies. Very quaint despite the fact that it was still dark.

Four conference sessions with three different speakers, plus a Q & A lunch for senior pastors with Ed Young and I think I am now officially brain dead or at best, on information overload.

Can't wait to hear T.D. Jakes tomorrow morning. He has to be one of the best preachers around at the present time.

The teaching that got to me most today was Erwin McManus from Los Angeles speaking about choices. Here are a few quotes -

You can't prove God by playing safe.

Risk is a necessary component of church life.

What are you doing this year that if God doesn't show up, your church is finished?

He really got my attention - or maybe God did. If you like church as usual and a high degree of comfort, you may have discovered a while ago that Grace is not the safest place to be.

But if you still haven't learned that yet, I will be home - and you should be very afraid!

GREETINGS FROM GRAPEVINE

Here I am - tired in Texas!

It's not really a long trip, but I guess it all takes a toll despite American Airlines' wonderful hospitality. The cattle truck was pretty full but thankfully no one was assigned the seat alongside me, so the flight was tolerable.

So why Grapevine, Texas? I'm here for the Creative Churches Conference (C3) being hosted by one of the top ten churches in the country (size-wise that is), Fellowship Church which is pastored by Ed Young.

You're never too old to learn and that certainly includes me. Change is the only thing that is here to stay, so I'm open to learn all I can from whoever I can.

Those whoevers are pretty impressive between now and Friday afternoon - there's Ed himself, T.D. Jakes, Bill Hybels and Erwin McManus.

So I'd better get my beauty sleep so that I can be there first thing in the morning to get some fresh input on maintaining a creative approach to the greatest story ever told.

McDONALDS AGAIN

I like good food, which is why with no disrespect intended, I never really frequented McDonalds even in the days when I was far less careful about diet. There were really only two things that would get me to the #1 fastfood outlet in the world.

Sometimes being in a foreign country where the cuisine was not all that one might be looking for, it was a relief to find the familiar golden arches - yes, they really are worlwide. By the way about twelve years ago I ate in what was then their biggest store in the world - in Moscow. It was interesting to see Muscovites dressed to kill, enjoying their Saturday night out at McDonalds. It was costing them almost a week's wages for their dinner, so I guess it was worth putting on your best suit for a burger.

The second reason I would go to McDonalds was to take my grandchildren there. Most kids love it. Ours do too. Thankfully they were seldom interested in finishing their grease-laden happy meals as another attraction lured them - the playground. Kids prefer the slides at McDonalds to the Chicken McNuggets.

So there are dozens of adults sitting around in a place they don't want to be in, eating burgers they are not really enjoying, because the kids love it there.

We need to learn from that model on a church level. Kids whose parents worship with us regularly are part of our great children's program because that's what the family does on a Sunday morning. But how do we reach families who don't come to church yet and don't really have a relationship with God?

That's easy! Have such an outrageous program for kids that even though the adults don't want to be there, their offspring drag them along on a Sunday morning.

We're working on that for the fall. Watch this space.

WINNING CHOICES - HEALTH

Yesterday we started our new series Win4Life and I approached preaching with far more trepidation than my normal dose of it. We're covering four choices that make people winners and #1 was Health.

There were a couple of things I was nervous about. One was making it sound as if I think I know all there is to know about good eating habits and healthy lifestyle just because I have managed to stay disciplined for the past eleven months and have succeeded in achieving a substantial weight loss. I didn't want to be a pain in the neck.

The second thing on my mind was that, as someone who has been overweight from the moment he entered the world and throughout the majority of the following 55 years, I have a good idea how it feels to be a person with weight issues. I didn't want to add to anyone's pressures by having them misinterpret what I was saying and go away thinking slim is spiritual, so they're a loser.

Feedback was very positive. The tape table sold out of copies, which is usually a good gauge of having hit the mark. But I'm still worried in case there is just one person who is feeling dejected rather than motivated.

On the plus side, among those who expressed appreciation, several people also commented on how funny my message was - humor is a good thing. It's a great help in getting your point across if you can say it with a smile. One kind lady asked if I had ever considered becoming a comedian!!!

I guess we were living up to the wording on the front of our invitation cards - Isn't It Time You Laughed Again?

THE FINAL STRETCH

When we started our church in the fall of 1998, I got a call from a local pastor offering to help us in any way he could. Anthony Pelella had not been in Medford too long himself, but he was beginning to see the dying Medford Assembly of God turning around and showing signs of life. Instead of being threatened by another church coming to the town, he got behind us and has been true to his word.

We borrowed their little building on Rte 112 and Horseblock Road a number of times before it was demolished almost three years ago to make way for the new building that will house his growing congregation.

I took a look around the new church with him yesterday and it's going to be a great place to pursue their vision to impact others for Jesus. It has been a long haul for them to get the building up and operational, but they are only a matter of a few weeks or a couple of months from moving back into a place of their own and getting on with the job.

Anthony is a great pastor and he has resurrected that church. The last few years have been particularly demanding, but he has kept pressing on, so my friend Anthony Pelella is my nomination for our Supercool Person Of The Week for this week.

Pray for him, for the completion of the building and the fulfilment of their dreams.

ANOTHER GOOD MOVIE?

I haven't seen End Of The Spear yet, for the simple reason that it isn't out on general release until tomorrow. Sure I was invited to a special premier showing in Manhattan for pastors, but I'm not so desperate to go to the movies that I need to trail all the way to the city. Add to that mix the fact that large gatherings of pastors can be the most boring and false environment you would ever wish not to be in and I think you get my drift.

So while I can't comment on the movie itself, I am very relieved to see that as a result of the success of Passion Of The Christ, Hollywood continues to see that there is a market for good, wholesome material.

As The Lion, The Witch & The Wardrobe continues to draw good crowds, the next made-for-a-Christian-audience adventure hits the big screen tomorrow. End Of The Spear centers around the martyrdom of five missionaries in Equador fifty years ago and focuses on the events that followed. It's a story of forgiveness, faith and of how the whole tribe that had killed the young missionaries was turned around and came to faith in Christ. I gather the movie says a bit more about social changes among them brought on by their new found faith than about their actual conversion, but it should be a great story.

It's certainly interesting that while one faction in Hollywood is celebrating a sick movie about gay cowboys that is struggling to draw audiences, another is far more in touch with what Americans really want and is doing its best to produce what the majority of us want to see.

WIN 4 LIFE

I forgot so many people missed last Sunday - here's some info on the series that begins at the weekend.

Millions of people waste millions of dollars on lotteries of one kind or another in this country every week, hoping to get rich quick. The key to success in all of them is making the winning selections.

At Grace Church we're going to help folks make the right choices that will set them up for life - and longer. We reckon the four top picks are Health, Healing, Happiness and Heaven.

Sunday's Health. I've never heard a sermon on that before, but there's loads about it in the Bible!

PLANNING AHEAD

Here we are just getting ready for our first major series of the new year, Win 4 Life and last night Ron Dylnicki sent me a draft of the main graphic for the next series - Caffeinated Christianity. Then today I have ordered some material that will link in with the following series that will take us up to Easter and a family oriented four weeks on raising children called You Must Be Kidding.

All this is relatively new to me - and I love it! In the good old days of same old same old, I often didn't know from one Sunday to the next what I would be preaching the following week. Nowadays there is so much that goes into preparation that we need to know where we are going months in advance.

Now I can hear a few purists asking, How does that give room to the Holy spirit to guide you? The answer is simple - the Holy Spirit can speak just as clearly three months before the event as he can three days before it!

I love planning ahead. I don't know which series I'm most pumped about. This will be a good winter/spring.

INTEGRITY

Had lunch with Tony Balsamo today. (Don't be put off by the scary photo, he's as normal as I am!!!)His new church is now four weeks old and they're averaging over 100 people on Sundays at Integrity Christian Fellowship's first home in Yaphank.

The official public launch of the church won't be till the spring, probably Easter Sunday. Here's their website. Take a look around there and pray for them.
www.integrityfellowship.com

DANGEROUS CHURCH

Sunday was the day to set the course for 2006, laying out what would be our emphasis for the the year. And it snowed, froze, was generally hazardous and most folks didn't make it to service.

So here's the abbreviated version. Our main goal for the year ahead is growth, which we want to see happening in two ways -

1. People being added to the family of God and to the church.

2. Those who are already part of Grace becoming stronger in their faith.

Since church growth comes from church health, here are four things that are necessary for us to function as a healthy church -

1. Grace needs to be a church where you either get well or get out
To be a Christian means to be becoming whole. There are two fundamental parts of a healthy church's strategy: grace and grit. Some people call them affirmation and expectation. The unchurched are welcome and accepted right where they are, as they are. The only requirement is a willingness to get well, to grow toward the image of Christ (affirmation).
But God has not called us to be healed and then to sit. He has called us to be healed healers. So the second part of the strategy is to grow people, to demand that they be a responsible part of the family. If people don't want to grow, we should not continue to bless their fixations. Jesus accepted everyone, but not everyone stayed. You started to get well or you got out. Expectation wasn't separated from affirmation.
Grace was not a license to loaf; it was a power to perform.

We are looking for those who are part of Grace to commit to growth:
a. Through leading or becoming part of our small groups
b. By participating in the classes that make up The Journey @ Grace Church

2. Grace needs to be a church that isn't afraid to challenge its own members
Every church with a vision will attract five kinds of people:

• VRPs: Very resourceful people who inspire the dream.
• VIPs: Very involved people who share the dream.
• VTPs: Very teachable people who catch the dream.
• VDPs: Very draining people who sap the dream.
• VNPs: Very nice people who enjoy the dream.

VNPs are the largest group. They will take all we can give them. They fill the theater, but not the empty ministry slots.
The 20-80 rule is not a reality with us: 20 percent of the congregation gives 80 percent of the money and does 80 percent of the work. But we’re nowhere near where we could be.
The trick with the VNPs, is to nudge them constantly, realizing that part of our mission as a church is to challenge our own congregation.

This year we are looking for an increase in -
a. Involvement - We have hundreds of volunteer slots filled, but want to see everyone using their God-given gifts to help us succeed in our mission.
b. Tithing - We need to really embrace a Biblical basis for giving, which will free up resources to help us move forward.

Here's a quote that was on my blog last week -
We tell people that once they join the church, they are no longer in the target group. They are expected to pick up an oar and help row the boat because we're on a rescue mission, and we're after people who aren't in church.

3. Grace needs to be a church where the preachers have chutzpah
Leo Rosten in The Joys of Yiddish defines chutzpah as "gall, brazen nerve, effrontery, incredible 'guts,' presumption plus arrogance such as no other word and no other language can do justice to."
Preachers with chutzpah don't preach to the choir.
They tackle the tough topics that need preaching. They tell it like it is.

4. Grace needs to be a church that judges itself by the difference we make in our world
Instead of pointing to buildings, budgets, and baptisms to measure effectiveness, the test should be the spiritual and moral difference we makes in our corner of the world. Instead of simply coexisting with government, the schools, and the business establishment, our members need to be the instruments to make God's Kingdom come and His will be done on earth.
Our goal is to have 20% of our adults go on short-term missions trips this year.
Teams going to DR, South Africa, Indonesia, Scotland and Mississippi.
We will also be continuing our local programs to reach out to others.

That's the abbreviated version - you can get the tape if you want to hear the whole thing.

THE COLTS GO DOWN

With the west coast football team I have followed for the past 20 years narrowly missing the playoffs again - try 4-12 on the season! - I transferred my allegiances to the Indianapolis Colts a few weeks ago.

Sadly, the highly acclaimed Colts ended their Superbowl dreams yesterday with a disappointing show against the Steeelers.

They're still a great team with an outstanding head coach in Tony Dungy. A few days ago we got copies of the booklet he was getting distributed at the January 1st game I was at. It contains some of his testimony and contributions from six other Christians on the team. You can pick some up on Sunday and pass them out - they're an outstanding tool for sharing your faith.

Snow Day!

Yesterday's weather was brutal. I was surprised at how bad it was when I went out the door at 6.30 to make my way to Patchogue UA for our morning service. Saturday evening's heavy rain had frozen and then it had snowed on top of that and the pretty white stuff was still falling, combined with 50mph winds.

Not expecting too many folks to turn up at all, we opted to have a special snow day service in our Grace Cafe area of he theater complex instead of us all feeling a bit lost in the usual 565 seater Theater 13.

What a shock to have 145 people come for worship on a morning like that. I think some liked the idea of sipping coffee and chewing bagels all morning and while it was a substantially smaller crowd than on a regular Sunday, it made me think that maybe we really are a dangerous church!

For those who missed my final Sunday speaking on Dangerous Church, I'll post some if it here over the next couple of days. But not today - it's my day off!

Dangerous Church

Tomorrow morning I want to outline some of our plans for 2006 in the second part of our series Dangerous Church.
With a covering of snow threatened, we'll get a good chance to see how dangerous we really are!

MAKING MUSIC

It's fascinating sometimes, listening to IPOD owners trying to outdo one another. Conversations go much like this -

How many songs have you got on yours?
Around 700, but there's room for 15,000. What about you?
I can only get 5,000 on mine, but I have over half of it full.

Imagine the sheer joy of having 15,000 songs instantly accessible! If you ever needed a break, you could actually check out from the real world for around three months, sit back and listen to them all!

The cynical edge on my comments should be taken with a pinch of salt and seen as coming from someone who has a 6-disc CD changer in his car and hasn't changed a single one of the CDs there in living memory.

Music isn't a big part of my life. But worship is. I love to worship God and I particularly enjoy being able to do that with a crowd in a Sunday service. There's a special dynamic to corporate worship that makes it totally different from sitting in my recliner and singing Kum Baya.

So this Friday as we come to our coveted Supercool Persons Of The Week Award, I want to honor a great group of people who put heart, soul and a lot of hard work into helping me and so many others to worship on Sundays - our worship team, led by Nancy Saponieri.

These are not only talented musicians and singers, but they are people with a heart to bless God - they are worshippers themselves and not performers. Functioning in a tenant church, they don't have the luxury of simply arriving and plugging in on Sundays, they're among the first to arrive and the last to leave. Equipment has to be set in place, wires run, soundchecks done and all this reversed a couple of hours later. Long before that, there is all the preparation and practice that is somehow added into already busy schedules.

They did an excellent job at our 4Him worship evening last night and I see this developing quickly into one of the most popular things we do outside of our Sunday services. It gives us the opportunity to spend a lot longer worshiping than we do on weekends.

I'm not a music buff, but I am grateful that God has blessed us with such an outstanding worship team - our Supercool Persons Of The Week.

THIS IS A GOOD DAY

It's weird, but this morning for some unknown reason I left the gym feeling I could have done more. I had upped my exercise today and went at it for longer than I normally do and yet I felt far less exhausted than I was yesterday when I only did about 3/4 of what I did today.

I know that there's something that's meant to kick in somewhere in the brain when you work out that makes it pleasant and almost addictive, but trust me after more than ten months of rolling out of bed when it's still dark and spending the first couple of hours of the day sweating like a pig, my endorphins simply haven't shown up yet. So it's still hard work every time.

Some days are easier than others, but with the positive end in view, I just keep doing what I'm doing regardless.

That kind of reminds me of something Paul wrote to the Galatians. Here's the MMV rendering of it (My Memory Version) - Let's not get tired of doing good because in due time we will reap the benfits if we don't give up.

That's a good point for every area of our lives - let's just keep on doing what we should be doing!

The Cuckoo Church

Thinking about being on the road again this week - to our friends at Christian Asembly in East Patchogue, who are letting us borrow their building again! - I was realizing that we're kind of a cuckoo church. Now, I don't mean cuckoo in the sense of crazy, more in the ornithological, feathered bird sense.

Cuckoos lay their eggs in other birds' nests if I remember rightly from Elementary School. Looking back it seems that there are quite a number of other churches' nests we have used when we need to do anything that falls outside of our Sunday morning movie theater slot.

A few months ago we were loaned First Baptist Church for our Pinewood Derby, Thursday we'll be in Christian Assembly for 4Him and in a couple of weeks we have two Tuesday nights planned at World Outreach Church of God for The Journey @ Grace Church. We've had the use of a bunch of other places too and have offers that I still have on hold and will shamelessly call in as needed.

It's great to have such a good relationship with local pastors. It's also good to have a bunch of leaders who realize we're all on the same side and who want to do all they can to see the kingdom of God advance.

Other churches are not the competition. Godless influences are the enemy and we fight them best by being the answer to Jesus' prayer for his followers that they may be one.

God never intended us to be the same, to worship the same or even for us all to belong to one church. Variety is part of the genius of the creator. Unity in diversity is of our making and I appreciate the fact that so many pastors in our area see that as a priority.

The New Addition

I missed our first 4Him evening of worship and communion a couple of months ago as I ended up making a last minute 48 hour trip to Scotland for a funeral. So I'm really looking forward to Thursday for my first opportunity to participate in this new addition to our schedule.

We have a great team of musicians and singers, who are committed to their ministry, so it's great to have a night every second month when they can do what they do best - help us to worship God.

Years ago we used to be of the opinion that the longer the worship time, the better the service and that was often totally true - for those of us who were already Christians and who were able to participate, that is. But nowadays we have regained our focus and have come to appreciate that our major gatherings are not just for us, they are the main portal for people to come into our church and to know Christ.

So on Sundays we are sensitive towards our unchurched guests and try to organize things so they hear about Gods love in an environment where they feel at ease. It's all about them.

So 4Him is a believers' gathering and there is the opportunity for extended praise and worship, prayer and for communion. So like I said, I'm looking forward to Thursday - be sure to join us!

How About This?

I just read this - written by a friend of mine who pastors a church in Iowa that started one month before ours. It's as clear a way of explaining what we're about as I have seen in a long time -

We tell people that once they join the church, they are no longer in the target group. They are expected to pick up an oar and help row the boat because we're on a rescue mission, and we're after people who aren't in church.

The Idiot Switch

I have been having a bit of trouble with my laptop lately and finally got to taking it over to BestBuy yesterday for their Geek Squad to take a look at it.

I know there are some people who think they are in heaven when they walk through the store's doors and see the incredible array of 21st century technology, but for someone who was born before computers existed and lived the first six years of his life without even a television, BestBuy can be intimidating.

So here I was standing on line with my laptop while some spotty kid hardly out of diapers took his time to solve everyone's computer problems. I was there for some time waiting for my turn to share my woes and noticed that some maladies were so grave that the sick machines were taken into care for periods of at least seven days.

Thankfully, my problem was much easier to solve - there was a miracle cure. As I finally stepped up to the counter and announced that my mousepad had suddenly died, the kid showed me a little button above the pad. "Do you know what this is?" he asked. Confessing my ignorance, I was further humiliated as he explained, "It's the on/of switch for your mousepad!"

What can I say? I'm a pastor - each to his own!

Church Buildings

A friend of mine, who is leading a very succesful church plant in Georgia, went to the opening of their mother-church's building yesterday and came away with some mixed feelings.

Eighteen months ago, in my constant quest to learn more, I took a weekend to visit several churches around the Atlanta area and see what they were doing and how. The mother-church was one of them - seven years old and with over 2,500 people worshiping in a school gymnasium. They did all the things we have been doing for years, arriving early, running cables, setting up lights, preparing children's areas, etc., etc. But this weekend this all came to an end as they opened their new 100,000 square feet facility.

My friend comments that while it was a great celebration, it felt quite different from the gymnasium, maybe a little more formal and "churchy".

That's one reason why I love our movie theater, where my shoes almost got permanently stuck to the floor yesterday because of the thickness of the spilled soda from the night before. It's informal, it's us and it's not about a building.

Now, we'll be continuing our gymnastics with the Town of Brookhaven this year and may well end up suing them for their discrimination against us. I expect to be somewhat further forward by the end of this twelve months and I do look forward to us having a place of our own.

Yet however it can be accomplished, we have to maintain our radical identity once we're in a fixed space. We must never settle back to church as usual.

IRRITATING CHRISTIANS

I read yesterday about a pastor who preached on the Five Most Irritating Things About Christians - here's his list ...

1. Christians who think everyone else should be just like them.
2. Christians who are lousy tippers.
3. Christians who don't move their faith one measly foot.
4. Christians who major on the minors.
5. Christians who think everything can be explained with a trite phrase or a simple slogan.
6. Christians who use "God told me" as a silver bullet.
7. Christians who explain God by saying of God what God never said of Himself.

I'd go along with those, though if you're like me, you might well wonder why there are seven items on this list of Five Most Irritating Things!

I did some checking and think that this is probably an indication that he suffers from PPS - Preachers' Prolonging Syndrome. It can be clearly identified from one of several symptoms -

+ The preacher says "finally" and continues to speak for another 20 minutes.
+ The preacher says, "Stick with me for another two minutes", but those two turn into ten.
+ The preacher closes his Bible, puts away his notes and still burbles on for an eternity.
+ The preacher begins his sermon by saying - "I'm going to be brief today" - (you might as well just laugh outright at that one!)
+ The preacher announces five points and ends up with seven!!!

Tomorrow I'm starting a two week series on Dangerous Church, setting the course for Grace Church in 2006 and it looks like I'd better be careful what I say, because a lot of people may be looking for symptoms of PPS!

Supercool Frank Summers

There's no secret about the indentity of our Supercool Person Of The Week this morning, it's Frank Summers who also celebrates his 50th birthday today.

Frank passes a milestone or landmark or something like that and I just hope he blows out the candles quickly before they all melt the icing on his cake!

I have known him for almost 20 years now and there is no one I would rather have alongside me in life or ministry. He is caring, reliable, gifted, tireless and of course has a wicked sense of humor - you need that to survive in Grace!

I was thrilled back in the summer of 2003 when Frank agreed to join our pastoral team and he brings a lot to the table, especially with his experience and passion for young people and family life.

I cringe when I hear people occasionally refer to him as our youth pastor. He's not. We don't use designations for any of our pastors to start with, but my problem is the term normally describes someone who is in a lower level of leadership than other pastors. Frank is an equal part of the team here and what he focuses on happens to be youth ministry and counselling.

Thankfully he's continuing to improve after his heart attack a couple of months ago, but it's difficult for him to take things easy. He probably won't be doing that today, but let's hope he has a great day as he joins the rest of us who qualify for membership of the AARP!

Christmas In The Sun

We got some pictures in this week from our missionaries in the Dominican Republic, Rob and Kelli Nelson, showing the family unwrapping Christmas gifts.

There isn't a great deal of selection in the Sosua area when it comes to finding gifts for Holly, Ryan and Eric so for the second year in a row Grace Church has been able to act as Santa Claus. Each of the children makes a Christmas list and then sends it to Charlotte in our church office. We get what they want here and then our fall missions team takes the goodies down with them.

Looks like it worked well by the happy faces on Christmas morning!

What a blessing to help this great family who are sharing their faith in so many different ways through Island Impact Ministries.

To Infinity ... And Beyond!

If you're not raising children yourself or at least spending time with grandchildren, nephews, nieces or someone else's offspring, you may not recognize the rallying call of Buzz Lightyear in the title to these meandering thoughts.

Having three grandchildren, two of whom are the male of the species and very vulnerable to the questionable skills of the marketers of superhero paraphernalia, I know Buzz well. We're actually on first-name terms.

I like this cartoon character's approach to his mission. It reminds me of the statements the Bible makes over and over again when it says things like With God nothing will be impossible and God is able to do more than we could ever ask or think.

Our potential is far greater than we realize - while we are on God's side and remain committed to his plans.

All this to say I'm pumped about 2006 and more so since we just finished a whole day pastoral team planning meeting.

We're looking for numerical and spiritual increase this year - growth and maturity, which is totally in line with our mission statement that we exist To seek and save the lost, inspiring them to become fully functioning folowers of Jesus.

How will all that happen? - sorry folks, you have to be there for the Dangerous Church series on Sundays January 8th and 15th. If you really want to get on board for this new year, you definitely dohaveto be there!

Can You Support Two Teams?

We're spending our last few hours in Indianapolis before returning to New York tomorrow - it has been a restful time, even though the New Year's Eve party at the McIntyre residence went on till around 3.00am. Trust me, Gill and I had made our apologies and bailed out long before then!

Our trip to the Colts game yesterday was pretty amazing - seeing a game from a suite is quite an experience. The food was outstanding too!!

I started taking an interest in American Football back in the mid-80's when I was fascinated at a sport called football in which you were not acutally permitted to kick the pigskin except for at designated times and by designated persons.

Over in Scotland at that time they showed the highlights of one NFL game from the previous week on an obscure channel at around 11.00pm on a Sunday night. For reasons some may recall, the San Francisco Forty-Niners appeared on our screens regularly - for the uninitiated, the reason is simple, they were good in those Joe Montana years.

They were also good in the Steve Young era, but the past several seasons have been such an embarassment that while I still occasionally wear my aging 49ers jacket, I seldom even bother watching them play.

The Colts on the other hand are a great team. Their head coach is an outstanding guy, known throughout the game for his leadership skills and his Christian faith. They're exciting and they're winners. I hope they win the Superbowl this season.

Which leads me to this soul-searching question - can I support two teams? It's okay, I know the answer - Jesus said something about divided loyalties not working. So how long do I stick with the losing team from the west coast? That's tough.

I often talk to people who are wondering about leaving a church. I also speak to pastors who are wondering how long they will stay in a church. In both cases I advise that you stick with something for as long as you can believe to see it change.

So here is a major announcement to start the New Year. My 49ers era has ended and I am now transfering my allegiances to the Indianapolis Colts. I know the're not the Giants or the Jets, but at least that's supporting a team based a little nearer home!

The main reason is I see so much Christian influence in the structure of the team - more on that on Sunday!!

Back in the real world that is not football, life's too short to continue with things that are not working. We need to see where God is blessing and throw ourselves wholeheartedly into what he is doing.