One who will be missed

17 04 2008

Hey Element Church! I write this with heavy heart, yet SO HAPPY for what my grandpa is experiencing. About 4:45 PM today I received notification from my mom that my grandpa passed away. He’d been battling for a while now, things turned for the worse Sunday, and after a long week he went home to be with his Savior! My dad, his two sisters and my grandmother were all able to be in the room when he passed. His body didn’t struggle and he seemed to go in peace. We thank the Lord for that. My grandpa was ready to die. He wanted to go home. There are few men in my life that I looked up to more than him. I have INCREDIBLE God centered grandparents on both sides of my family. They don’t just say it, they ABSOLUTELY live it. Memories have flooded my mind this week. I have GREAT memories of him. Tears have come. But this evening, every so often, I just smile. Grandpa is experiencing his reward. He is with God. I can’t fathom that. WOW! Blows me away.

Our family will take off as soon as church is over on Sunday to drive to St. Louis. The funeral will be Monday. In the middle of this sermon series on eternity, my wonderful grandpa is experiencing it. I could fill this blog with things about him. When Sabrina and I got married we didn’t know when we’d have kids, but I began praying a prayer for my kids that I have tried to pray every day. I looked up to and valued my grandparents SO MUCH so I prayed that at least my first born would know their grandparents. God answered that prayer and more. I’m not sure how long my kids will remember my grandparents, but they all know today that Papa Great is with Jesus in Heaven. His legacy lives on in them.

I’ll miss you grandpa!

Jeff


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Categories : Family, Personal

The next One

16 04 2008

I am admittedly not a natural evangelist. And by evangelist I don’t mean a traveling preacher. I mean the guy who can and does naturally share their faith with anyone at anytime. A true evangelist, with the spiritual gift of evangelism, can share their faith and not be obnoxious about it but actually engage the other person in a real conversation about faith, Jesus and salvation. An evangelist isn’t the person who leaves a track on the toilet seat, or yells on the street corner. Anyway, that is for another post. It always gets me excited when I do get the opportunity to share my faith with someone who does not know Jesus and they are actually receptive or even initiate the conversation themselves. Just recently I met someone who openly does not know Jesus YET they are REALLY searching for the Truth. I was able to sit down with them for almost an hour and talk about my faith and theirs and try to answer some questions. In no way is this due to my amazing evangelist skills but to their pursuit of me to ask questions. This person had been turned off by other Christians, even pastors, because they weren’t willing to allow them to question or search. The reason is they wanted them to make the decision NOW. I mean “Why wouldn’t you do it now right?” Anyway, the reason I titled this “The next One” is because of what keeps me excited about my faith. What keeps me anticipating what will happen at Element Church. What keeps me pumped about what other churches experience. The thing that does this is the “next one” who will receive Jesus. We don’t know who it will be but God does. The “next one” could be at your work. The “next one” could be in your home. The “next one” could be the person you meet tomorrow. I’ve added this person I’ve met to my prayer list and will pray for them by name each morning. I want to do my best and BE my best to them and around them to try and show them Christ in me. I don’t know when or if they will receive Jesus but I know they could be the “next one”. Do you have a next one? Do you pray for the “next one”?

Waiting for the next one,

Jeff


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Categories : Discipleship, Element Church, Personal

Devotional Thoughts…

15 04 2008

Hey Element Church. I just finished John today in my devotional reading and thought I’d share some things I wrote down in my journal. I am and underliner and a writer. If I wrote down everything I underlined in Scripture I’d run out of paper quick, so I don’t always journal what I underline. Anyway, I try to journal verses and thoughts that jump out at me more than others as I read that day. Here are some of my thoughts.

Matthew 1:21 — Jesus came to save HIS people from their sins. No one else could do the job HE had to save HIS people. That is one of things that distinguishes Christianity from all other religions. (I was going to say “that is what distinguishes” but I know some goober would say “That is not the ONLY thing…”)

Matthew 7:2 — Jesus never said that we “can’t” judge. He said that the standard we use in judging is the standard that will be used against us. I don’t have the authority to condemn, but I can tell by someones actions whether they are a “good tree” or a “bad tree”.

Matthew 7:5 — Jesus never said we can’t point out the speck in someone else’s eye, he said that we must first make sure that our eye is clear. If Pastor Grant, who is of my closest friends, has a speck in his eye, not only do I have the right to point it out, I think I am obligated as his friend. As long as my eyes are free of the “plank”. When someone says “YOU CAN’T JUDGE ME!” They are in one sense correct that I don’t hold their final judgment, but I sure can judge whether their conduct is fruitful or unfruitful. I know some will disagree, but I think in some cases we are responsible to “judge” our brothers so as to help correct heir behavior.

Matthew 7:12 — If we do this we’ll obey all the law. So hard to do, yet so simple.

Matthew 15:8-9 — Where so many people are at in their life.

Matthew 18:3 — Faith like a child.

Matthew 20:1-16 — Good parable on people who decide to follow Christ later in life. Their reward is STILL the same.

Matthew 24:44 — When is Jesus coming back? Not sure, I know we just need to be ready.

Matthew 27:9 — This amazes me. The value of Jesus came to 30 pieces of silver. THAT’S IT!

I wrote this in my journal “The stone was rolled away for the men to see it empty, not for Jesus to walk out. He didn’t need help to walk out, HE JUST LEFT!”

I’ll catch up on Mark and John later.

Following Christ,

Jeff


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Categories : Discipleship, Element Church, Personal

Church Planting

13 04 2008

This post received some attention today at church. Several people asked about it. lol I figured it would. Just thought I’d add some thoughts about it. First off, I’m not mad at anyone and no one has tried to start a ministry at Element that I don’t agree with OR start a church in opposition to Element. For two years now, since February of 2006, I’ve been in the church planting world, seen many different types of plants, talked to many different planters and run the gamut of hearing all types of planting stories. I’ve also seen and/or heard of all types of churches struggling with the “we should start this ministry” syndrome. From these things I’ve seen/heard I came to the conclusion of those top five reasons. They serve as a warning sign to ME because we are all susceptible to doing things for OUR sake and not Christ’s. To me, the ONLY reason for doing anything in the church is the voice of God. ANYTHING! I’ve done things for MY sake in church. I’ve probably done some things at Element for MY sake. I don’t want to do that. I don’t want to see other guys do that. Anyway, it had been on my heart lately. I had started that blog on numerous occasions and erased it all. It all came out on Thursday. Church planting is near to my heart and I love seeing healthy church plants. I hurt to see it done unhealthy. Anyway, just from my heart. Thanks for listening.

Following Christ,

Jeff


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Categories : Church Planting, Element Church, Personal

Sunday Rumination (4-13-08)

13 04 2008

Hey Element Church! Did some fun stuff today at church. Another great day and here are my ruminations on it!

— 10 people acknowledged that they accepted Christ into their hearts today. YES! Again, that is what it is all about. Offering people Life in Christ fires me up. Pray for these new followers of Christ that the Holy Spirit will empower them to grow and strengthen in their faith.

— 455 in attendance today. I’d love to stay in the 450 – 500 range while we continue to seek and pray for a new location to open up. We’ve passed 500 twice but just not sure how long we can sustain those #’s in the situation we are in. We’ll continue to do church with all our might knowing that our God is not bound by walls, #’s of seats or movie times. God will continue to connect people with Life REGARDLESS. Amen? (Ha, now I’ve started preachin’)

— We tackled the subject of death and hell today. Wow, the gravity of death and the reality of hell still weighs on me. I’m sure I thought about it more this week than usual but it just blows my mind that people will die to today and experience hell. That weighed on my heart so heavy this week. I think it should every week. For more, read this.

— To illustrate death and the reality that we’ll all “go back in the box” I was carried into service in an enclosed coffin today. First of all, the next time I do that I HOPE I’M REALLY DEAD! That is not a “happy” feeling to lay in a casket and be carried to the platform. I don’t do well in enclosed spaces.

Apologies to the first service. I had intended to start my sermon from inside the enclosed coffin and then come out. I couldn’t hear anything in their so I started my sermon not knowing that on the outside my mic was cutting in and out and no one knew what I was saying. I got pretty flustered in the casket cause’I knew something wasn’t right. Felt it affected the entire sermon after that. The sound issue really messed up. For service 2 and 3 I just opened up the casket right away and started off. Seemed to work MUCH better. Props to the four guys who carried me in and down the stairs. Tough stuff!

— The band sounded GREAT again today. We opened the service with a cool instrumental. You’ll have to watch online to check it out. The theme of worship was “salvation” today. Adam did a great job with worship on a tough week with hell. Singing of Jesus’provision for us and rescue from sin, death and darkness to righteousness, life and light was very appropriate.

— Had two new theater workers letting us in today. They were not only on time, had doors open, lights on, BUT they helped with set up. They did a bunch of stuff for us. It was great!

— 1 PM movie today, but the theater manager told our lobby crew it started at noon so we tore everything down and had nothing for 3rd service guests on their way out. Mis-communication.

— Got news this morning that my Grandpa (dad’s side) is not doing well at all. He’s been in the hospital off and on for over a month now. A few months ago we thought he wasn’t going to make it, everyone had said their goodbyes and funeral plans were made. He miraculously pulled through. As of today, they’re not sure he’ll make it through tonight. We’re waiting to see what happens and if he does pass we’ll be driving out to St. Louis to be with family and attend the funeral. Your prayers would be appreciated. He is 89 years old, LOVES GOD WITH ALL HIS HEART, and is READY to face eternity. I thought about him a lot today as we talked about eternity. He is one of the men who has influenced my life the greatest. Such a great example of being a godly man. Passed on to his son, then me, now hopefully I can do just as good passing it on to mine.

— Speaking of MY son. Not good when the # for the pastor’s kid flashes up on the screen from e:kidz. Let’s just say this…I think Jonah thought he was gonna face eternity when I dealt with him once we got home! LOL He tried to pretend he was asleep when I came in his room. The anticipation of discipline is FAR worse than the actual sometimes.

— Two more weeks with Eternity. This weekend I’ll be trying to answer the question that everyone wants to know “What is the meaning of life?”. The final week of Eternity is going to be FUN. Can’t share everything for that week yet. ha ha ha

— Our next two series are going to be a BLAST. We’re tackling parenting in May, then in June we’re doing a series that will be perhaps the toughest I’ve EVER done! WOW, do I need to get prayed up for that one. It’s called “Untouchables” and we’ll be tackling four subjects that the church needs to address. It is going to be tough. Adam came up with an amazing graphic for it. I’ll unveil the graphics this week for those two series.

— That’s about it! Heading for my Sunday afternoon nap! Thanks Element Church for being a WONDERFUL group of people to serve. You guys are the best!

Following Christ,

Jeff


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Categories : Church Planting, Element Church, Sunday Rumination, Updates

5 reasons NOT to start a church…

10 04 2008

…or any other ministry. Just because you’ve been to (insert name of church) and REALLY LIKED it doesn’t mean you should start one yourself OR that your town needs one. I know, coming from someone who started a church that is ironic. Just because (insert name of church) started a ministry DOESN’T MEAN your church needs to start one. I’ve fallen for the trap in ministry before, maybe you have to, of seeing something work somewhere else and AUTOMATICALLY thinking “If we do that we’ll get the same results.” I’ve implemented programs, ministries, strategies and the like into youth ministries and churches I’ve led thinking they will give me the same results (insert church name) got. SO, that being said, here are my top 5 reasons NOT to start a church or any other ministry.

#5 I’m tired of being told what church should be like. HA. We start a church because we’re tired of being told how church should be like, so we’re going to do it how WE think it should be like. You know what happens as soon as, oh I don’t know, five people are coming to your church? SOMEONE IS GOING TO TELL YOU HOW CHURCH SHOULD BE LIKE. Even with the success of Element, we’ve got our fair share of people, FROM OUR CHURCH, telling us how they think church should be done. That will never go away. EVER! People have opinions, they have preferences, that doesn’t make them evil OR give you license to start a new church OR ministry.

#4 I was a good youth pastor (or staff pastor). LOL Funny thing is I WAS A YOUTH PASTOR before this. If you think you want to start a church because you were a good youth pastor and/or you could do church better, DON’T. A lot of guys start churches because they think they can do church better than the one they are already serving in. Did I always agree with my sr. pastor? No. Would I have done some things differently? Yes. Is that my reason for starting a new church. ABSOLUTELY, 100% NO!

#3 (insert name) thinks I could start a church. (insert name) likes my idea. Umm, unless GOD thinks you could start a church and GOD likes your idea you shouldn’t do it. And if you are serving in a church and your pastor/leadership team doesn’t feel “led” or “called” to do what your idea is, maybe they aren’t the ones with the wrong vision. Just saying. Too many churches start and fail, and too many ministries start and stale because someone supports “MY” idea. Note “MY” idea.

#2 It worked for… Willow Creek, Saddleback, Rob Bell, Mark Driscoll, Perry Noble. I don’t care if it worked for the Apostle Paul it doesn’t mean we’ll get the same results. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been asked “What model of church are you?” What they want to know is, are you doing church like Willow, Saddleback, NewSpring, Mars Hill (either one), or any other successful church. Why can’t we do church like Element? I’ve been influenced by MANY churches and pastors, and most of them you would never know their name. I know of people who attend a church like one listed above, come back to their town and because their town doesn’t have one of “those” churches they think one should be started. WHY? Maybe God doesn’t want one of those churches in town. He may want you to start one but ONE THAT IS YOU AND NOT RICK WARREN! Now I have used ideas, principles and approaches from guys and churches like I mentioned, but THEY ARE NOT A REASON TO START A CHURCH OR A MINISTRY! What’s funny is, typically when someone says we need a (insert name) type church or ministry, they start it and it’s NOTHING like (insert name) would have done it. In fact they probably would hate it.

#1 I don’t like…”…any churches in my town.” “the ministries in our church.” “my pastor.” “my job.” I’ll take the last one first. If you don’t like your job STARTING A CHURCH WON’T FIX THAT! Nuff‘ said. I’ve heard of and spoken to so many guys who use the “I don’t like…” method of church planting or ministry adding. You know what? When it comes to something as serious as planting a church or starting a ministry, GOD COULD CARE LESS ABOUT WHAT YOU LIKE? He cares about what YOUR CITY and what YOUR CHURCH umm… I don’t know NEEDS! And maybe, JUST MAYBE we don’t always know what our church or city needs. If you don’t like your pastor try PRAYING FOR HIM, or SUPPORTING HIM. If you don’t like the ministries in the church try SERVING IN THEM TO MAKE THEM BETTER. If you don’t like any churches in your town, well, tough cookies. It’s not a reason to start one. This is by far THE MOST ABUSED REASON for starting churches and ministries in America.

Why did I start a church? Why SHOULD I start a church (or ministry)? Only…ONLY because the voice of God stirs my heart. ONLY! It was scary enough for me to start this church KNOWING that the only reason was that God was asking me to. If I were doing it for any of these other reasons I would be DOOMED to fail and KNOW IT from day one. NONE of those reasons are reasons to start a church. Ok, I’m done. That’s been on my heart lately.

For more read this and this.

Listening for the call,

Jeff


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Categories : Church Planting, Element Church, Leadership, Personal

Hell week!

9 04 2008

Hey Element Church! No, we’re not doing any horrible initiation rituals or anything. Isn’t hell week what they call Frat initiation time? Anyway. I was able to work on my message for Sunday most of the day today. I told Terri at the end of the day that I think it’s the first time I’ve dedicated an entire message to death and hell. I’ve definitely talked about hell and probably hung some people over it when I shouldn’t have, but never done a whole message on it. I am VERY excited about an illustration we’re doing this week. It’ll definitely be a first for me. You won’t want to miss it. One thing I’m saying in my message is that I DO NOT like talking about hell, but I AM NOT afraid to. Hell is REAL. It is HORRIBLE. And it is a place that people are dying and going to EVERY DAY! That scares me. Not for me, but for everyone who is headed for eternity without knowing Jesus. People must know the truth about Heaven and hell.

Now, I am convinced of this. About a year ago I felt a shift in my heart. I’ve always said the old cliche question “Where would you go if you died tonight?” Or “If you died today, do you know if you’d go to Heaven?” Now, those are ok questions I guess, but I began to wonder if we were asking the wrong question. I think we’re asking the wrong question. Instead of asking “Where would you go if you died?” What if we asked “Where COULD you go if you LIVED today?!” LIFE is what we long for. Life is what we need. And you know what? If I LIVE for Jesus today, guess where I go if I die? We’ve so focused on death so much that I think we forget to live. We’ve so taught about Heaven so much that I think we forget people are going to hell. I know for myself I need and want a higher awareness and sensitivity to the fact that people around me may be headed for eternity away from God, and are living their lives without the fullness of knowing Jesus. MAN that should rock our world. Does it yours?

Hell week. It’s going to be a heavy week at Element, but what an opportunity to offer life. Be praying for us this week as we tackle this subject.


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Categories : Church Planting, Discipleship, Element Church, Updates

And now…

7 04 2008

Final drum roll please…? /\/\/\/\/\ *those are drumsticks* Here are my top three memories of the past 10 months.

#3 Gas buy down. With 502 people in church this past Sunday, what we did last May seems even crazier to me. I think God sometimes clouds our “fear factor” in moments when we need to advance without fear. We had about 10 – 12 committed Elementers on Memorial Day weekend when we pulled this thing off. We recruited family and friends to come help from Greeley, Oklahoma and Gillette just to have enough help. We wanted our first event in the city to be a servant project, and we thought helping people fill their gas tanks would be a great service. We had no real consistent offering coming in, no volunteer base, no way to really promote the event. You can read all about this event and how it worked in the following blogs. Bunch of posts on this one here, here, here, here, here, here, and here. Little did I know where Element would go from here. I almost put this #1. It definitely gets the award for “Most Posts On The Blog For One Event”.

#2 Element Gives Back. HOLY COW was this fun! We developed a blog to log all the stories of ways people gave back. Go to www.elementgivesback.com to check it out. We planned in August to do a sermon series in January on finances/stewardship. As we were approaching the series we began talking about how we were going to illustrate the scriptural principle of tithing and portraying the idea that “this money is not our own”. The gives back idea is not original to us. We saw another church do this in a different way, so we prayed about it and felt like it would be an AMAZING way to model this and that God wanted us to do it. We felt like to do it correctly we wanted to give back one weeks entire offering to the congregation. So we made the decision that the offering from January 6th, we would give back in varying increments to the congregation, on January 13th. Little did we know the kind of impact it would have on our congregation. We spoke truthfully and openly about finances and God’s command for us to give 10% of our income back to Him. This is something we hope to do every year at surprise times. It not only teaches the congregation to give back, but it keeps Element Church in that mode as well. You can read all about it here, here and here.

#1b October 7th, 2007 is a day I will never…NEVER forget. I cannot tell you how it feels as someone whom God called to come plant this church, to stand at the door of a theater and watch over 200 people come to hear the Gospel message of Jesus Christ. When we decided to do this thing I didn’t have a clue if 2 people would come, let alone 200. I was amazed. ABSOLUTELY AMAZED! To literally begin to see the vision unfold before your eyes. To see the promises of God be fulfilled. Yet it was only the beginning. That day we worked SO HARD to get to, I stood there and said “This is only the beginning.”. God didn’t call us to launch Sunday. God didn’t call us to “start” a church. He called us to lead this church, and I’ll do it till I die or He calls me on. I think this would make any list I make from here on out. Not sure how launch Sunday doesn’t take the cake. You can read about it here, here, here, and here.

#1a Another #1 is yet to come. Element Church, God is not done with you yet. What amazes me is the new stories that come, will blow these out of the water. God is in the business of doing AMAZING things through His people. It was fun for me to recount these stories, so if no one else enjoyed it I did. And to think, my wife had to talk me into start blogging. I’m so glad I did so we have record of all the things God has done. I’ll leave you with this from Isaiah 55

“And these events will be great honor to the Lord’s name; they will be an everlasting sign of his power and love.”

Greater things are yet to come,

Jeff


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Categories : Church Planting, Element Church, Memories

Blog Link

6 04 2008

Hey guys! Just wanted to link you to Adams blog. I had almost blogged about how Adam was feeling today but thought I’d leave that up to him, lol, and he did. It was one of those Sundays for him where I think spiritually he was just really feeling attacked. We prayed about it before first service and I really felt like God used him and the band today. Anyway, thought I’d link you to that.

Following Christ,

Jeff


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Categories : Blog Link, Element Church

Sunday Rumination (4-6-08)

6 04 2008

Hey Element Church! Three services took it’s toll on my today more than any. I am worn out today. Not sure what the difference is. We had GREAT services today. Here is my rumination on the day.

— We had no worship guides or connection cards today. Poor Curtis took them home on Friday night so he and his wife could stuff the guides with the connection cards. Somewhere between then and this morning, he put them on top of his wife’s car, who then drove off with them on the car. Somewhere in Cheyenne someone knows A LOT about Element Church. Heather was rummaging through dumpsters in the area this morning looking for them. Needless to say it was quite the morning for them two. I gave Curtis a hard time about it from the platform. He took it like a champ.

— Speaking of Curtis. He is leading Varsity Fusion tonight in a Random Act of Kindness that my wife and I are DEFINITELY taking advantage of. For 2 hours they are watching Element Kids so their parents can go on a date. HOOK ME UP! That link I posted goes to Curtis’blog. They are doing a fantastic job leading Fusion.

— 502 in worship today. WOW! Folks, that blows my mind.

— Had a noon movie again today. With our growth and the movie times something is gonna have to change. Announcement coming? We’ll see!

— Road Crew tear down was AMAZING today. The noon movie was not in our theater but a 12:30 one was. We were out the door by 12:10. People were walking in with their popcorn and sodas as we were closing the door.

— I thought the worship set Adam put together was GREAT! I felt the “theme” of the set was Adams best as far as themeing everything together. We sang I Can Only Imagine and people seemed to really engage in that one.

— It sure seems people are beginning to experience freedom in worship. Just seeing more and more people engage physically and emotionally to the worship.

— Started our Eternity series today. Talked about Heaven. I felt it went really well. I was struggling earlier this week putting something together since it is such a HUGE topic. I ended up feeling great about it leading into today and after today.

— Next week will be tough. Tackling the subject of hell. The reality of it according to Scripture.

— We had a better turnout in e:coustic today. That service hasn’t grown like I’d like thus far but we saw some good growth from last week. I think we had around 50 in there today. Only 33 last week. It’s helped alleviate a little pressure in the other services. We could use some more road crew help in there to set up. If you’re interested you can email me.

— Sundays fly by for me with the craziness of the three service transitions. I start out in our main worship center then head over to e:coustic at 7:30 to help the road crew there. By the way, to the guys who are helping in e:coustic, YOU ARE DOING AWESOME! Keep it up. Then we tear down and we’re out. Amazing how quickly it goes by. Hard to imagine we are at the theater for 6 hours on a given Sunday.

— I can’t say this enough…All the Element volunteers are incredible! You guys make Sunday morning what it is.

— Love serving and leading you guys. Thanks for allowing me the pleasure of doing it.

Following Christ,

Jeff


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Categories : Church Planting, Element Church, Updates

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