GREAT MORNING

With Charlotte in the DR, as you can see there were only three of us for our pastoral team meeting today.

We had a great time - well I did anyway. I love the creativity that there is among our leaders and how ideas develop as we plan ahead. I love the fact that I never hear the words, We haven't done it that way before.

There's a ton of exciting stuff we have in the pipeline now for the fall and in some ways I can hardly wait for summer to be over. But though June, July and August are traditionally quiet with folks coming and going, we decided to be proactive about summer and incorporate three exciting series -

If I Die Before I Wake

Get Off The Bench

plus a worship series throughout the month of August that is yet to be named (hey we don't plan that far out!)

I don't know which of those I'm looking forward to most, but the sports theme to Get Off The Bench, culminating with a tailgate party in the parking lot, certainly has my attention.

I love doing what I do - it was a great morning and I'm still pumped!

I LOVE IT WHEN THIS THING WORKS!

When Basil D'Souza was with us recently, he asked us to pray that they have a good monsoon season in India this year as the nation is so dependant upon the annual rains, but a light monsoon had been predicted.

The monsoon generally starts around the middle of June.

Here's some news for those who have been praying - the monsoon has started early this year, with the rainfall beginning early this week. Before the end of May!

Here's the bad news. I'm going there next week with Chris Kelly and we stand to get soaked every single day!!!

It seems God answered prayer.

AMERICANA

I seldom eat McDonalds, but on several occasions in the 90's after spending some time in Moscows, it was good to leave the local fare and enjoy the familiar flavor of the fat from the Golden Arches.

There's nothing like a taste of home when you're a long way from its comforts. I guess it's the same for our missions team working hard in the heat of the DR right now. Content but tired, hopefully they were suitably refreshed by spending this evening at a Pizza Hut several miles from where they are based.

Rumor has it they put away more pizza than anyone could imagine. But the check was under $100 (just!), so I guess they showed some restraint.

WAITING AT THE WRONG DOOR

Just got back from the second part of the school trip - picking Jace up. Didn't do well. This morning they told me that you meet students at the back door, so I found a back door and waited there. When no kids whatever emerged and it was ten minutes after dismissal, I realized there was a problem.

Back in the school office where a relieved young man was waiting to see his grandfather, I then discovered that the back door is a couple of hundred feet along from the main entrance, facing south like the main door.

When I went to school, if the front door faced south, the back door would have faced north. But what do I know? In my day kids did what they were told, we wrote with pencils, took no snacks with us and had never seen a computer.

On the way home with my young charge I had a telephone conversation with a friend from another state who was telling me about another pastor trying desperately to bring his church into the 1990's.

My experience and that phone call remind me of two dangers for churches. They're looking for people in the wrong places and at best they're a decade behind.

Day late - dollar short.

ANOTHER REASON I LOVE THEATERS

We're babysitting this week, though our oldest grandson is far from a baby nowadays. He will in fact be six next week - on 6.6.6. no less!!! His dad leaves for work early in he morning, so with his mother in the DR with our missions team, he sleeps over here and therefore I got to take him to school this morning.

He's in Kindergarten, no big deal. But walking into that building this morning, I realized why I prefer doing church in a movie theater to using a school.

Schools freak me out. I'll be 56 years old in a couple of weeks, but when I went into the ofice this morning to let them know that I'd be picking Jace up and he wouldn't be on the bus this afternoon, I was intimidated.

It was like a flashback to half a century ago, though to be honest I was never sent to the office to see the principal until I was in Junior High.

Schools do not hold good memories for me. I wonder if I am in the right place. Am I following the correct protocol? Is the Principlan going to come looking for me?

Give me a popcorn scented movie theater any day. I'm not intimidated there!

INTO EVERY LIFE ...

... A LITTLE RAIN MUST FALL!
I know it's a holiday weekend and there's the unmistakable aroma of a million burgers being burned at family barbecues all around the neighborhood, but what gall to close my gym at 2.00pm so that the staff could go eat charred beef.

I arrived just in time to have them lock the doors in my face and was left with a tough choice. It was the Mets game or exercise - and my favorite baseball team lost. (Not the game of course, they crushed the Marlins). Walking on the road is a bit more punishing on the legs than using a treadmill with basic shock absorbers, but a man's gotta do what a man's gotta do.

It was a great day for it - sunshine, clear skies and 80.

So though I had to sacrifice watching the ball game, I managed a basic workout - and it's still a great day.

Priorities - that's the word!

I LOVE SUNDAYS

Okay, the header is not absolutely all-inclusive. There are those days when my preaching is average, the music is average and some small-minded child of God wants to be sure to unload their most recent pet peeve on me before they leave the premises.

Today has not been one of those days. The sun is shining - it's around 80 - and let's face it, that makes a good backdrop to any day. Service went really well today. I'm loving this SHINE series with our focus on missions and the video of our work in South Africa was a great focus on a life-changing project we are privileged to be a part of.

Nancy excelled leading the worship. She called it right lingering with the last song - we could have stayed there all morning! And I'll say it myself for the sake of those who emailed me about being hard on myself last Sunday, the preacher even hit the mark. No, I didn't manage to speak shorter!

Using the idea of inhaling and exhaling to illustrate the fact that we all take in from different sources and give out to others, was not original. I inhaled it from Erwin McManus' great book Chasing Daylight.

After service I talked missions trips with a bunch of people and left happy that there is so much buzz around the place - even on a day when the crowd was painfully thin because of the holiday weekend.

From the theater to the diner - outstanding lunch. Three courses including drinks for $7.95. Portions were so big we shared one and took the other to go!

Now I'm sitting watching the start of the Mets game and will shortly leave for the gym to watch the rest of it while strolling on a treadmill. Is this a great country or what?

Did tell you, I love Sundays?

I'M HAPPY

There's a lot of truth to the statement made by the aging apostle John when he said, I have no greater joy than to know that my children walk in love. It's a good job it's true I guess, because after all it is a part of the Bible!

Motivational speaker, writer John Maxwell is someone I hear preachers quote almost as often as the Bible. He makes the point, There is no success without a successor.

John (the Biblical one that is, not Maxwell) was encouraged in his old age as he saw the generations coming after him embracing the same values that had turned his own life around. I guess it meant he had been succesful.

The same thing works for me too.

I believe that we are called to mission - saved to reach others with the good news. So it was good to see Jonathan join a team from our church in Scotland as a teenager and set off to evangelize remote communities in the highlands one summer. It was thrilling to see Charlotte leaving for her first missions trip to Spain at the age of 15.

And the pattern continues. Tomorrow Charlotte will lead our missions team to the DR, the first of two she will take this year. At the same time, I am preparing to leave for India on the evening of June 4th and Gill is getting her South Africa missions team organized for October. Jonathan plans to join me in India again as soon as his work schedule permits, probably next year.

There really is no greater joy - though it will be very cool to see the grandchildren starting to serve others through missions too.

WALKING THE WALK

It's totally appropriate that as we move towards the third weekend of our missions series, SHINE, we'll be missing a bunch of people this coming Sunday.

Early Saturday morning - and I do mean early - a group of twelve short-term missionaries from our church will head for the Dominican Republic to hook up with our Island Impact ministry down there. The guys (eight of them) will assist in a construction project, renovating an old clinic in a very poor neighborhood so that our missionaries can use it to treat patients.

The ladies will be working with Kelli Nelson actually conducting clinics in a number of different communities.

I'm so glad we're not just talking about missions, we're actually doing the job. Before the end of the year we also anticipate having teams in Banda Aceh (Indonesia), India, South Africa, Mississippi, DR (a further two teams) and Oklahoma (more of that on Sunday morning).

The book of Acts quotes a statement made by Jesus which is not actually recorded in the Gospels - It is more blessed to give than to receive. But it was certainly the way he lived and the way he encouraged us to live too.

Some talk the talk - others walk the walk. Those who walk the walk don't talk, they're far too busy walking!

AMAZING!

Okay, so now I have my webcam hooked up to Skype and can have video conversations for free with anyone anywhere in the world. So far I've only connected with someone as far away as Iowa, but let's face it, that's another country and culture altogether.

It's official - I have now entered The Twilight Zone!

SKYPE

For a while now some of my friends in other countries have been encouraging me to get skype so we can talk through the internet for free, but I've resisted as I reckon there's nothing wrong with the Mickey Mouse phone on my desk. Anyway, I already have a pretty competitive international calling plan from Verizon.

Today I got an email from Josh Warren (son of you-know-who) to say that since he was now their liaison person with the Moderators of their Pastors' Forum, he thought it would be good if we could do conference calls on skype, especially since they would be free.

So, a quick download, a $7 microphone and within minutes I'm having a conversation with a friend half way across the country.

For someone born at a time when few homes even had TV's, way before the VCR and an eternity before the laptop computer I am sitting here using, this is all very Twilight Zone-ish.

I'm better not thinking about it, but it is definitely weird to be sitting at your computer and talking to someone thousands of miles away. I do have a webcam and I could stretch things by using that too, but I fear that to be talking and seeing the other party at the same time might well cause me a fatal brain misfunction!

Mind you, I do like the price!

GRACE CHURCH RECOGNIZED

When the people at Pastors.Com (operated by Rick Warren's Purpose Driven network)wanted to give some ideas for welcoming guests to the thousands of pastors who visit their website, first on the list came a church we know well.

Here's a bit of what they said about us in a recent article -



Creative welcomes for first-time guests keep visitors coming back
by Lauri Arnold

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
We want them to know they are welcome and wanted. We hope that if they feel at home, they will return and ultimately begin or continue their Christian walk with us.

Roger J. Blackmore, pastor of Grace Church in Long Island, N.Y.--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

LONG ISLAND, N.Y. (PD) — Before the Long Island, N.Y. theater turns into Grace Church each week, many things must be done--but high on the list of priorities is the welcome given to visitors of the church.

"Our parking lot is organized with a substantial amount of visitor parking spaces," said Grace Church pastor Roger J. Blackmore. "Our greeters at the main doors are encouraged to look for people who park in them and be sure to greet them especially warmly."

The non-denominational church is 7 years old, with an average Sunday attendance of 350 people, but Blackmore said discussions on a Pastors.com forum helped his church to think outside the box and welcome visitors in a new way – and a way that ties in with the environment of the church. Visitors are welcomed and guided to the church's guest services table where they are given a gift-wrapped popcorn bucket containing a bag of popcorn, a pen, cookies, church information, and a tape of a recent sermon message.

"The general consensus seems to be to give them something useful and don't weigh them down with church junk," Blackmore said.

Blackmore said the church formerly had guests complete a communication card, but as a church, they acknowledged that most visitors are apprehensive to varying degrees when they walk in the church.

"We want them to know they are welcome and wanted," he said. "We hope that if they feel at home, they will return and ultimately begin or continue their Christian walk with us."

SCHIZOPHRENIC QUESTION

Way back when, before we started Grace Church, we established a legal entity, Grace Ministries. So Grace Ministries is the parent corporation for Grace Church. Then in 2003 we moved services into a movie theater and started using the by-line - Church At The Movies.

So we're Grace Ministries, sponsors of Grace Church, The Church at The Movies.

As we look towards the fall and making some major changes, we want to appear less schizophrenic and the question is -

Which of those three titles are you most comfortable with when you talk to people about our church? -

Grace Ministries
Grace Church
Church At The Movies

Answers in an email please, to roger@churchatthemovies.com

I know a lot of internet wanderers who read these pages are not part of our congregation, but your input would be appreciated too. Thanks again!

BUILDINGS

Got an email this morning from a friend in Oklahoma who has been renting a movie theater for church (www.churchatthemovies.org) and he's telling me that the theater they use is up for sale so they are soon to be homeless.

Except ... they have found a church building, albeit with some fire damage, that they have been able to buy for $69,000. They have to put $5,000 down and pay it off at $500 a month. Is that God or what?

It's not a large congregation yet and there's a lot of work to do, so he's asking if we'd think about sending a missions work team down there. So I'm throwing it out here - email me if you're interested.

Meanwhile in darkest Iowa, where another friend closed on a building for his church a couple of weeks ago, the contractor is ready to start renovations. Apparently this contractor went into the planning department yesterday with the details of all that is proposed and emerged thirty minutes later with all his permits. I thought life was slower in the mid-west, but 30 minutes sure beats the 39 months we've been waiting.

I'm so happy for these guys. And I'm happy for us too. Happy that we're still in the theater, happy that we're still mobile, happy that we have to set up and break down every week.

Now in case you think I've definitely slipped into the outer reaches of sanity, the reasoning is real simple -

If we're sill in the theater it's because that's where God wants us. And the center of his will is the best place on earth.

By the way, we have some great plans taking shape for what we're going to do with the theater in the fall!

SWITCHING OFF YOUR BRAIN

Another of the interesting topics Rick Warren tackled last week was the importance of having a sabbath. I'd never heard it stated as strongly before, particularly when he pointed out that taking one day's rest in seven is right up there with not killing people and not committing adultery.

Sunday is many people's day off, but of course that doesn't happen for pastors. While most of the workforce look forward to the weekend as it means getting a break, we gear up for it as the busiest and best time of the week.

So when is my sabbath? It's Mondays - most of the time, anyway.

Today I resisted the tmeptation to answer the office phone or to even check the messages on it - I'm off. Irresponsible? No, biblical!

I went to the gym, then to Weightwatchers (don't even ask - just remember cheesecake is not your friend) and we decided to go to the movies this afternoon with our friends Basil and Cathy who are spending their last day with us before returning to India.

No I didn't see the DaVinci Code. I'm sick of hearing about it, both from the media and from other pastors, who seem to have got the notion that the whole nation is going to be asking about the movie and questioning the truth of the Bible. Strangely enough, none of that was mentioned either at the gym or Weightwatchers today. Maybe Christian marketing companies and writers have created this myth so they can sell their materials???

Sorry, I digress. You're on the edge of your seat right now wondering what a veteran pastor and a young, influential preacher from overseas would want to watch.

So here it is - MI:3

Sure Tom Cruise is messed up, but so is the rest of Hollywood. He's a Scientologist and the rest of them have their own gods. But crazy or not, the guy's a good actor and the film is a great one to see.

It's stupid, totally incredible, full of inconsistencies - but if you switch your brain off as I did, you can just enjoy the unlikely stunts and fun.

A great story for the day in the week I choose to get away from it all, unwind and recharge my batteries.

FAILED AT THE FIRST HURDLE

Sorry if you've heard this before, but I love New York. Sure California was sunny, warm, beautiful and slower paced, but there are a bunch of strange people ovver there and their drivers are something else. It's great to be home.

Sitting back in my own den and watching the Mets beat up the Yankees, I figure life is good!

Service was good this morning. Not the best I've ever preached by a long way, but I hope I got my main thoughts across. If not, here's a summary - Don't live life in neutral, wake up and be prepared to take risks.

Those of our folks who read my blog will have been aware that I spent two days last week listening to one of this country's greatest communicators teach about preaching. They might have been looking today to see if I had learned anything and I assure you I did.

One thing I decided that I need to do is preach shorter and make sure there is time to focus on the application and invitation at the end.

I planned to start that straight away with this morning's message.

FAILED!

I left out a chunk of stuff as I went through the sermon, but still found myself rushed at the end. Must work on that!

THE CHEESECAKE WON

It has been a good few days here in southern California, but I'm looking forward to heading back to New York later today. It's always good to get home and after hearing all this teaching about church and preaching, I'm ready to get back into the thick of things.

It has been several weeks since I preached and I'm gung-ho to pick up the rest of our Shine series, starting on Sunday.

Yesterday's seminar was full of outstanding stuff about making preaching relevant. I loved the point Rick Warren made when he said if you preach for life change, some will complain. They want more word studies, more Biblical background and history - they don't want to hear about integrity or managing their finances in a way that glorifies God. People love irrelevant preaching because it doesn't demand that they alter a single thing.

At Grace we don't teach Biblical theory - you can buy books on that and learn it for yourself - we teach truths that apply to daily life and will help us take steps to be the people God wants us to be and that we want to be too.

At the end of the afternoon session yesterday we hooked up with some other LI pastors and headed out to eat at a restaurant I have never visited before - The Cheesecake Factory. Among the several vices that took me to a mammoth 335lb early last year was the fact that I love cheesecake. So not wanting to transgress, I went online yesterday and checked out their menu in advance, deciding that one of their salads would be the best way to go.

I did eat the salad. But while we were waiting to be seated, I had checked out the showcase with a million varieties of cheesecake and all through dinner the lemon raspberry one kept whispering in my ear. Long story short - the cheesecake won!

It was outrageous. This morning I still feel uncomfortably full and I'm a little disappointed I ate it, but man it was good. I guess I'll be repenting all day today - pass me an apple please!

OUCH!

One of the things I like about the set-up here at Saddleback is that wherever you are around the campus you can hear what is going on in the Worship Center. So if you're out on one of the patios, walking to the parking lot, or sitting outside at a table writing notes in the sunshine, you don't miss a word.

You can even keep up with the preacher when you visit what the British refer to as "the loo" (if you're unfamiliar with that term, just use your imagination!), which was where I happened to be this morning when I heard Rick Warren make a very profound statement -

People only really believe the parts of the Bible they do.

I thought about that for a while as I was deciding not to drink so much coffee tomorrow morning, and listened to his further explanation. He suggested that people may know things, agree with them and acknowledge them, but they don't really believe them until they do them.

So what parts of the Bible do you really believe?

WARNING: This could be a painful exercise.

BRAIN DEAD IN CALIFORNIA

It's the end of Day Two and we've completed the Purpose Driven Church segment of this conference. Tonight the church is having their version of our worship and communion night that we call 4HIM - I guess the only difference is they'll do theirs with a minimum of 3,000 people there! But then they've been at this for 26 years now.

Meanwhile I'm sitting in my hotel room typing this instead. Definitely AWOL. I think I'm on information overload. There is so much good teaching in the PDC Conference that I think I've reached saturation point.

This year there was no real lunch break even, as most of us grabbed a lunch pack and ate while listening to one of a number of workshops on offer. Definitely too much information to take in over a period of less than 36 hours!

The second half of the conference starts tomorrow - a two day seminar on preaching called Preaching For Life Change. I have been preaching for 43 years now and have probably learned a thing or two during that time, but I'm still open to hear anything I can to improve my communication skills.

What we do on Sundays is so vitally important that it's essential for us to give it all we've got. Everyone else does such a great job of pulling a service together that I don't want any guest going out thinking the preaching stunk.

So I'm looking forward to hearing what RW has to say - if my brain can really take it in!!!

AN IMMEASURABLE INVESTMENT

It's not so late here in CA, but with our bodies still being on East Coast time, it's beginning to feel like it's about time to call it a day.

Basil and Cathy D'Souza just left our room. He has a church that's thriving in Mumbai, with three other congregations linked to his church too. Plus there are dozens of pastors all over the country who look to him for input. Sitting here this evening, he had a number of questions about material covered in the conference today.

It's tough to realize that he has access to nothing like this whatever back home. So he's soaking it up, writing notes upon notes and clarifying anything that may be a bit hazy.

We asked him to be with us this month for two reasons. The first was to be at Grace and start our missions focus series off. The second was so that he and Cathy could come over to the Purpose Driven Church Conference to be taught, encouraged and built up so that they could then go back to India and do the same for pastors there.

Investing in them and their work means that we are touching the lives of many more pastors and of thousands of Christians.

What a privilege - and what an investment!

NO!

This has been one full day at Saddleback, with about seven hours of teaching. We cut out a bit early this afternoon as Gill's leg was giving her some trouble - nothing serious, but letting her know that it could do with a change from being in a sitting position for most of the day.

The program included some great lunch-time workshops this year, so you grab a boxed lunch from a table on the sun-soaked patio and wander over to the location of your choice.

I wanted to hear Tim Stevens and Tony Morgan from Granger Community Church talking about Attracting A Crowd To Worship. Those who know me will already have gathered that this duo, who authored the book Simply Strategic Growth, are cutting edge to say the least.

They're wild. They've done stuff that really pushes the envelope and they most certainly have never even heard there is a box. I loved some of their outrageous ideas, but was a little disconcerted every time I heard the voice from the wheelchair beside me saying No!

I listen to these guys' podcast every week, so was fairly up-to-date with some adventures at Granger, including the series called Pure Sex that stirred up a lot of reaction in the community. Interestingly enough, the dozens of complaints they got came totally from churched people - who they were not trying to reach anyway. The unchurched seemed to take a different viewpoint as attendances during the series were up by around one third. Last Sunday 800 people made a first-time commitment to Christ there.

Love it or hate it, it's working.

And I do love radicals.

Good job I married Gill - she provides the balance. But she's not always right!!!!

STILL LEARNING

I frequently tell people that when I started pastoring at age 20 it was dead easy - because I knew it all! Almost 36 years later, I am drawing everything I can from all the good sources available because at age 55 I know nothing!

That may sound like an over-modest generalization, but the real point is this - church evolves, it is a living body. So it is always changing. In Bible College I learned how to do a ton of things, but that was then and this is now. The world has changed and church life has too. Our message never alters, but how we communicate it must always be getting finetuned or we will be relegated to irrelevance and obscurity.

So I'm sitting in a hotel here in sunny Southern California getting ready for the first day of Rick Warren's Purpose Driven Church Conference. God has a major plan for Grace Church and I am determined that we reach our full potential. We've come a long way, but there's so much further to go - and I'll take all the help I can get to guide us on the journey.

MOTHERS DAY

I guess I'll never forget the summer evening we stood around my mother's hospital bed, waiting for that next breath that never came. She had suffered a stroke five days earlier and without regaining consciousness, passed peacefully into eternity.

The words of Paul in 1 Corinthians immediately came to my mind - defiant words, encouraging words, words of hope and of faith - Where death is your sting, where grave is your victory? Thanks be to God who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.

But while it was tremendously comforting to know that she was at peace and enjoying all God had prepared for her, it was like something unravelled in our family that night. She was the stuff that held us together and had been all my life. We missed her as we left that hospital and I miss her as I sit here thinking about her this Mothers Day.

Dulcie Kate Blackmore was a mother from another generation.
Till the day I graduated high school, there was never one single day I arrived home and she was not there.
She felt playing with her children was important, so she did that all day and focused on housework once we were all in bed.
She knew what really mattered in life. We didn't have much, but we enjoyed a heck of a lot of love, affirmation and encouragement.

My mother did not know the Lord when I decided to go to Bible College and prepare for ministry. She could not understand how I could manage at a full-time school with no time for working my way through it and was even more confused when I told her God would provide. Unable to see how my "living by faith" would work, she took an early morning cleaning job so that she could support me as I prepared for ministry.

Every day she got up while it was still dark, walked a mile to work and cleaned a huge bank, walking home again as the sun was rising. She never saw a dime of it - she used it all to pay for my classes.

So if God has used me in any way to help any of you who read these pages on occasions, be assured I would never even have got a start in ministry if it were not for a remarkable mother.

BE GOOD TO YOUR MOTHER

It's still kind of weird to me to have Mothers' Day in May - it's March in the UK. It's weird not having a mother on Mothers' Day too - even after almost twenty years.

So since the day is special, tomorrow we're going to make it easy for you to start it well. Take your mother, mother-in-law, wife, or whoever out for breakfast - on us.

We'll be serving a full breakfast - and I do mean full - in the foyer of the theater from 8.30 onwards. We guarantee it will get you in her good books from early in the day.

PRESSURE BLOGGING

Okay, I'm writing a few lines here now because I know the space has been empty for longer than it should have been. Crazy couple of days here. The house is full, with our friends Lynn Swart, Basil and Cathy D'Souza here - plus our grandson Jace has been with us yesterday and today as his mom is in Georgia.

Charlotte is checking up on how a church down there does the same children's program that we're starting in the fall. They do it in a movie theater too.

It has been kind of non-stop here, but it's great to have these folks with us and tomorrow will be an outstanding morning. How better could we start our missions series than with Lynn leading worship and Basil speaking?

I'm looking forward to it! Be there or be square!

NEWARK AND BACK

A number of years ago, when several segments of our family were flying in from the UK for our daughter's wedding, I discovered that most of them had been sold the same lie by their travel agents.

Apparently the average person booking you seats to the USA tells you there are three major airports in New York - JFK, LGA and NEWARK! The real specialists in misinformation then enlighten the ignorant that the most convenient of those for Long Island is Newark!

I spent too many days traveling across Staten Island and into Jersey back then. And I did it again today as our friends Basil and Cathy D'Souza from India were booked on a flight that arrived on the wrong side of the Hudson.

I hope one day overseas travel agents will learn that Newark is not in New York, it's a New Jeresy entity, just like the Giants and Jets!

CHURCH 101

I know I haven't been here for a couple of days - and there are a few things I could be writing about. I could bewail my IPOD woes - tell you how it froze, I messed up the re-programming and then lost all my music, but that would expose the fact that I'm technologically challenged.

I'd love to dwell on last night's meeting with our attorneys and the miracle of how our case has gone to a level Brookhaven won't be able to counter, but I don't care to elaborate here as this is too public a place.

Or of course, I could pass on some details from a great day we have just had as a pastoral team - some good things coming down the Pike there.

But the first thing that's on my mind right now is wondering how so many good pastors can have church dead wrong. I'm not talking about geriatric leaders of congregations that died half a century ago but won't lie down, I'm thinking cutting edge, radical, doing the business guys.

I just read two blogs that advocate missions is serving the area you're in and that's about it. They even try to quote the Bible to justify their approach - misinterpreting Acts 1:8 and suggesting Jesus said we should be his witnesses in our Jerusalem, then Judaea, then Samaria and then the uttermost parts of the earth.

Pity they missed the bit that the better translations render that - both in Jerusalem and in Judaea and in Samaria and to the uttermost parts of the earth.

People grow as they catch a vision outside of themselves and outside of the local church. We all need to sow into the lives of those who have nothing to give back and whose salvation will not immediately benefit what we are part of. The sending church grows too as a result of missions involvement.

Pity they've missed that!

Can you tell I'm pumped for our missions series - SHINE?

THEY'RE JUST KIDS

I've been reflecting a little more on the two days I spent in DC last week at that conference that was more than a little disappointing. So forgetting that part of it, I've been thinking about the guys I was hanging our with while I was there ... and they are some quality guys.

Greg Rohlinger's church in Arizona is barely five years old and they have around two thousand people. He had a bunch of his leaders in DC with him and it was great to see how they interact as a team.

Then there was the Georgia crowd - Tadd Grandstaff who is getting ready to plant a church down there; Ross Wiseman who started a couple of months ago and already has around 100 people (meeting in a movie theater of course); add to the mix my old buddies Tony McCollum and Gary Lamb and you have a passionate but insane group of church planters.

These guys are sold out to winning people for Jesus. They left both security and the status quo way behind and jumped into starting churches that would both be different and make a difference.

I love spending time with them - they question everything, they push the limits, they're out there, but they're getting the job done big time.

And they're all so young I could be their father!

They're inspiring, but I do wish they'd stop refering to me as "Old Man"!

NEW FRIENDS

We just finished one of my favorite events - the bi-monthly get-together at our house for coffee and dessert with people who are new to the church.

What a great group of people we had over tonight, from various backgrounds and with such different stories. I loved the way one of these new friends summarized his experience over these past couple of months - I guess God just wanted us at Grace.

We always keep the evening light, starting with great desserts made by our own Jayne Palladino AKA Sarah Jayne Speciality Catering and then I chat about the start of our church and our purposes. Gill told me I talked too much tonight, but what's new?

There are two questions I throw out that bring a lot of interesting feedback -

1. How did you come to hear about Grace Church?
The internet scored high there this evening - good job we're looking into upgrading our website!

2. What made you come back a second time
At last, tonight someone actually mentioned the preaching, but the fiendly, happy atmosphere and the worship team still rated better than me!

So it has been a good day. Great service his morning. Lunch with the worship team. Workout at the gym and then a couple of hours with some new folks. Now I'm officially tired!

FOOD

Sitting here watching the Mets trying to put away the Braves and I've been thinking how much food is a part of church life.

In my last post I talked about a breakfast and a pizza party and then I've been remembering that Sunday night we have our bi-monthly coffee and dessert evening for folks who are new to our church.

Man, this is a tough life - but someone has to do it!

It's interesting that all the main religious ceremonies in the Old Testament were Feasts and also that one of the ways the early church functioned was by eating together in one another's homes. I think we're on the right track - relationships are strengthened as we break bread.

But waistlines can be ruined!

BREAKFAST

I'm pumped about breakfast tomorrow and that's not just because I eat so much less nowadays that I'm always planning for the next meal!

It's much more special than that. Tomorrow we get the chance to minister to around 20 worship team members from churches in our area as we share some good food and the encouraging teaching of worship leader par excellence Lynn Swart who is here with us for ten days or so.

Next Friday night we're having a Praise Night & Pizza Party with Lynn, but before then we get the chance to bless some of the other congregations around us by building up their worship leaders.

I love it!

ON ANOTHER SUBJECT

Can't say too much about this yet, but I got word on Wednesday that without us doing anything to enlist their involvement, a government department in DC is looking into how the Town of Brookhaven has restricted Christian worship and the development of churches in our area.

Looks like it isn't just the auditors who will be visiting Town Hall!

TIME TO BUZZ OFF

Day One of the Buzz Conference here in DC was a huge disappointment. Don't get me wrong, I didn't say the trip was a waste of time, but as I have found at some conferences in the past, the time spent with other church planters has been far more beneficial than the scheduled program.

It was particularly disappointing that what had been advertised as a round table discussion, a forum for theater church senior pastors, actually turned out to be little more than a a talk from conference host and local pastor Mark Batterson on why it's good to do church in a theater and how to do it.

No disrespect to Mark, but I reckon most of us there already worked out that a theater makes a great venue for a church and we really didn't need the nuts and bolts advice like "make everything as mobile as possible for set-up" and "the great thing about movie theaters is you already have a big screen you can use."

I had hoped to be able to have a true forum where ideas could be exchanged among pastors in like situations and where I might have learned a few ways to fine tune what we do. I didn't come here to hear almost exclusively what National Community Church is doing, especially as their set-up is no better than any other theater church I have seen, ours included.

I booked an earlier flight home tomorrow and will cut out of the conference early, but will return encouraged that we seem to be doing things as well as anyone else I know and better than many.

That's not to say there isn't plenty of room for improvement - there certainly is. And we'll be working at that over the next couple of months as we stop looking at our theater as a temporary place while we wait for a building and instead make the very best use we can of it right now.

IMPRESSIVE

So last night after dinner, one of the guys says he knows a place to get coffee and dessert and we set off following him (there were eleven of us!). Three hours plus later, that place - if it ever existed - and most others were closed, but we had done a walking tour of DC and my feet still know it. I wish I'd gone to dinner in my sneakers!

This really is quite some city. I haven't been here for years and while the White House was interesting, there was nothing like the sense of history there that we felt at the Lincoln Memorial or walking around the World War Two Memorial. There's some impressive stuff here.

Being with the guys was good too. If, like my mother used to, you want to know what reprobates I'm hanging with, check them out. Here they are, in no particular order!

Gary Lamb - www.ridgestonechurch.com
Tony Mcollum - www.millcreekcc.com
Greg Rohlinger - www.palmvalley.org
Ross Wiseman - www.embassymetro.org

Greg brought a bunch of his staff with him too from sunny Arizona - these are a great group of guys.

By the way, I did list them in alphabetical order in the end - some of them have issues!

TAKING TIME

It only took four hours door to door to get from home to my hotel in DC, courtesy of the Delta Shuttle and a cab driver from Afghanistan who strangely did not shoot through the streets like a drag racer on drugs.

Getting off the plane in Ronald Reagan National Airport, I was hurredly following the signs for ground transportation when an interesting question came to my mind. Why am I rushing?

Given the choice of several flights to get down here, I had purposely planned this trip so I had a couple of hours in the city before my friends arrived. There was no reason to be racing around like a lunatic - so I slowed down and took my time.

After checking into the hotel I got changed, put on my sneakers and went for a leisurely walk in the sunshine, enjoying the temperature of near 80, which was a welcome change from the rain on Long Island. Spotting a familiar sight on a street corner among the other stores, I grabbed a cup of coffee courtesy of a certain company originating in Seattle.

I sat at a table on the sidewalk, watched the world go by and enjoyed the overpriced beverage. When it was done, I prepared to move on, but thought better of it and went back inside for a 55c refill.

Okay, I did make a few calls while I sat there, but apart from that, doing nothing was absolutely amazing. I must do it more often. Eventually I did get up and walk another couple of miles, but taking time to smell the coffee was even better than I expected.

THE RIGHT CROWD

When I was a kid my mother was always concerned about who I spent my time with. I guess she was afraid I'd be hanging out with the wrong crowd and getting into all kinds of trouble - she had good cause to be worried!

I have discovered that in ministry it's important to spend as much time as you can with people who are positive, who are going somewhere and who can encourage you forward. That's why I'm looking forward to getting on the plane to DC later this morning.

I get to hear some outstanding speakers at the Buzz Conference, to sit down with a load of other theater church pastors, but best of all I will hook up with some of the most exciting guys you could ever want to spend a couple of days with.

As I have said before, church planters are their own brand of crazy and it's always good to have company when you live with a certain amount of insanity.

I am so grateful to God that I have a network of friends who love God, are passionate about building church, long to reach those who do not know Jesus yet and are fun to be around too.

More news later from the nation's capital ...

GETTING THE BUZZ

Today is a day to try to tie up a bunch of loose ends as I'm leaving in the morning for the nation's capital. I'm not going to be lobbying our senators, though there are a few things I'd love to talk to them about, nor will I be walking in the Rose Garden with the President this time around.

No disrespect to our politicians, but I'm going to meet a group of people who are influencial in a far different way and who I'd much rather spend time with. The National Community Church in D.C. is hosting what we believe to be the first ever conference for theater church senior pastors.

We're hooking up first thing Thursday morning for a round-table discussion, which I gather will involve 65 of us at the last count. It will be fascinating to hear what is and what is not being done in movie theaters. I'll be happy to throw in my two cents and to learn all I can from the assembled wisdom of leaders of sticky-carpeted churches.

Thursday afternoon the whole things moves into a more inclusive conference for a day and a half with leaders from all over the country and while I'm looking forward to that, it's the theater thing that has tweaked my interest.

A number of guys I know from around the country will be there too, which is why I'm arriving the afternoon before the conference starts. That gives us an evening to have dinner, hang out, catch up with one another and generally having fun in the heart of DC.

Should be a profitable time with a very full program. My apologies to George - maybe next time!

ARE YOU SERIOUS?

I don't usually get into political/social stuff here, but something is gnawing at me today because a bunch of dissidents hit me where it hurts.

When I went into the 7-11 this morning for my 24oz start-the-day-right cup of java, the two hispanic ladies who are normally looking after things on Mondays were nowhere to be seen. I guess they joined the immigrant boycott of American businesses today. They did not want to look after me or anyone else for that matter. Looks like they lost a day's wages for nothing since someone else was there to take my money, I still got my coffee and the place was buzzing as usual.

Fifteen years ago this month, my family and I took a trip from the north of Scotland to the U.S. Consulate in London. We had applied for green cards several months earlier, but had been told that interviews only happened within the last four weeks before the planned emmigration.

So off we went to the big city, with copious forms, birth certificates, marriage license, ordination papers, letter of invitation to the U.S., etc., etc. It was all a bit nerve-wracking as we were told if anything was missing, the application would be void, so I checked and re-checked our paperwork over and over again.

At 8.00am on the appointed day we showed up at the office of a doctor designated by the INS where we had chest x-rays, blood tests and a physical. Then we went off to the Consulate for the interview and were told to return at 2.00pm that same day. It was tough to focus on lunch as greater priorities were on our minds. Would they grant the green cards? Would we be allowed to enter the USA? What would happen if they said no?

Finally we heard our names called, picked up the necessary documents and flew into New York a few weeks later as legal immigrants - first generation Americans.

A few years later we went through another ton of red tape - and parted with a considerable amount of cash - in order to have the privilege of standing in the court house in Brooklyn and taking the oath of allegiance to become American citizens.

It was quite a lot of effort - but worth every bit of it.

Today I'm proud to be an American and of course I don't have to live looking over my shoulder for the INS. Having come in through the front door, I just can't figure out why millions of illegals don't simply keep their heads down and get on with the illegal lives they have.

But walking our streets, shouting for rights and threatening our economy? You must be kidding. That's nuts in any language.