A good friend of mine from South Florida forwarded me this article regarding WIllow Creek. I thought it was great food for thought.

I guess somewhere deep down I have always wondered are the mega churches effective? I guess the answer is yes and no. In many cases I think the shere number of conversions and the percentages weigh out in their favor in that how awesome it is to see 50 people per week give their lives to the Lord. The odds of many of those maturing far exceed the number of conversions at a small church that would say be blessed to have 1 conversion per week. But maybe that’s not the real test.

THe bible does call us to make disciples. THat has always been a big challenge in small and large church settings alike. A key is probably focusing all of our attention on making disciples and not just converts. To have a more holistic approach than just counting decisions for christ, but looking at our growth tracks, serving mechanisms, small groups and other structures and striving to take people through whatever discipleship process works best to bring them towards spiritual maturity because there is no one size fits all approach to spiritual growth.

At Journey we are in our infancy. Our leaders are believing God that we are going to continue to grow and maybe be blessed with reaching thousands upon thousands for Christ. AS we grow my hope is that we could implement a very proactive discipleship process that takes individuals into account. We should be able to measure some of the effectiveness using tools like fellowship one to see if a person is moving through some of the indicators like service, giving, attendance, small groups, etc towards being a fully devoted follower. But as the article indicates those might just be superficial indicators.

Where the rubber meets the road is in the one on one. In the being connected with other believers. It will be interesting to see how we grow as a body to address this key need in building disciples. I am already dreaming about it.

Article posted below.

Rethinking Church
Where Is Willow Creek, and Where Are We?

Willow Creek Community Church, one of America’s biggest and most prominent churches, recently released a short book called Reveal: Where Are You? The book contains the results of a comprehensive study that Willow Creek conducted among their own members and among members of other churches that use their model. Pastor Bill Hybels has said that the results of that study are "earth-shaking," "ground-breaking."

In a nutshell, the survey results showed that heavy involvement in the church programs and activities of Willow Creek did not necessarily translate to spiritual growth and maturity. Findings like these have caused the church leaders to stand up and admit, "We made a mistake."

I have to tell you, that is historic. Can you remember the last time a church leader said anything like that? I can’t, and I am very proud of Bill Hybels. He and his leaders deserve a Christian profile in courage award, and I will nominate him.

Bill Hybels understands the problem that the Church is in today. It is into therapy, but it needs to teach doctrine and grow people in the faith. That is why, by the way, I have written a new book to be released in February titled The Faith Given Once, for All, a book Hybels has enthusiastically endorsed.

We have discovered the same thing here at Prison Fellowship—that we cannot just lead inmates to Christ and then not see their lives transformed. So, we have looked hard at what we are doing and whether we are really making disciples—are we transforming people? We, too, have confessed that we could be doing a lot better. And so, we have revised our vision statement and made fundamental changes in the way we work.

I think the lesson that the Willow Creek leaders have learned, and the courage they are showing, constitute a challenge and a warning for all Christians. We cannot let ourselves get caught up in a "just-get-’em-in-the-doors" mentality, no matter how attractive and effective it looks. It can too easily lead to the watering-down of the Gospel, to a "feel-good" faith, and to believers having little impact in society. As the authors of the book, Willow Creek staffers Greg Hawkins and Cally Parkinson, put it in their introduction: "The health of your church is not just about the numbers. It’s about the movement of people toward Christ, toward deep love for God and genuine love for others." Amen.

Bill Hybels’s example should challenge us all, especially pastors and those in positions of leadership, to take a long, hard look at what we are doing and ask whether it is really changing lives. We all need to improve. Christians today are just like the culture. We need to be transformed and then turn around and transform the world around us.

During the Reformation, the reformers had a phrase for this spirit. It was called semper reformandi, or always reforming. The more we continue to understand that we have not arrived, and the more willing we are to adopt the humble approach that we and our churches are in need of continual reformation, the more our churches and lives will come to reflect the God we preach.

I am cheering Willow Creek on. Think what could happen if, instead of tickling ears, all the churches gave the people real meat. Then there might be hope for America after all, as serious disciples are equipped to defend their faith and take their places in our communities.

It has been said that it is good business practice and good church practice to have a mission statement. Additionally, it’s important that everything that a church or business does points back to that mission. Resource allocation, programs, etc. If it doesn’t line up with the mission it shouldn’t be done. Does that make sense?

Most church mission statements are a rendition of the great commandment and the great commission. One of the more common ones is as follows:

Our mission at "Our Church" is summarized in a single statement: “To lead people to become fully devoted followers of Christ.”

It’s simple, it’s great.. But as we  dream about this future church called Journey  I’d be very interested in having something unique and creative yet simple. It should still be one line and should be simple enough for everyone to be able to remember and repeat. Ideally it would have some journey like language while encompassing aspects of the great commission/commandment.

So – heres the deal – submit your "Mission Statement". We will pray over and end up picking one. The winner will get a copy of Charles Stanley’s book, "So you want to be like Christ" as well as a $25 gift card.

Here is some additional language we have been working on in draft form that might serve as inspiration for the mission:

This is accomplished in two primary ways:

1.    The worship experiences are designed specifically to reach the unchurched and minister to believers. The music is contemporary. The messages are relevant.  There is a ministry wide quest to be Biblically balanced yet radically innovative. Additionally, children are a top priority, so there are engaging programs just for them during the worship experiences.
o    Luke 19:10: "For the Son of Man came to seek out and to save the lost." NRSV
o    1 Corinthians 9:22b "I try to find common ground with everyone so that I might bring them to Christ. I do all this to spread the Good News, and in doing so, I enjoy its blessings." NLT

2.    Journey Groups are the heartbeat of Journey Church. They are where real relationships take place and people of all generations, cultures, and backgrounds gather together. These small groups and serve teams meet in homes or gather to serve during worship services or to impact their community.  Journey groups are a great way to get closer to God, care for one another, and meet new people.
o    Matthew 20:28 "For even I, the Son of Man, came here not to be served but to serve others, and to give my life as a ransom for many."

God has really been laying it on my heart to pray at certian key areas of the city. Tonight I was given a chance right after the PK Confrence. I went downtown to the river in front of the beautiful Main Street Bridge and spent some time praying and interceeding for the City. Some things came to mind personally and corporately.

When I came to the city I worked for Rogers Towers for the first 5 years as I arrived in Jax. I took these pictures tonight from where I was praying just next to the fountian. My office used to be in the Gate Riverplace Tower building pictured to the left on the 16th floor. My office overlooked the main street bridge and the fountian. I never really took the view for granted, but tonight it struck me what a strategic place in the city it really is. That area represents the city center, it’s natural, and spiritual core. I couldn’t help but be blessed praying and interceeding for our city. There are some grim stats that need to be reversed including one of the highest divorce rates and murder rates per capita in the state. May our God and King step in and revers that trend.

Additionally, I couldn’t help but wonder. St. Augustine and NE FL really represents the oldest area of the United States. America’s First City, The First Coast, and the gateway to Florida. Lord, if we could become a light, if the churches could unite, if something divine happened here. What ramifications might that have for the state and maybe even the country. I keep crying out, why not here, why now. Lord would you move in our city. Let us not forget to pray for those you have put in leadership in the natural, and for the church universal here that you have as spiritual gatekeepers to the city. May we set down what divides us and focus on our primary purpose of spreading the good news of Jesus.

Pastor Wayne and I are setting plans to pray at some other strategic areas around Clay County and Jax in the near future, if you are interested in joining us, let me know and I’ll let you know the when and where.

People have often asked what has helped grow the campus. There are obviously many factors that have worked together to bring about the growth we have seen, but for today I want to clue into one. SERVANT EVANGELISM. I believe the term was coined by Steve Sjogren and I have seen the concept really work in our area.

We try to do one about every 6-8 weeks as a way to presence Celebration in the community. We have done a variety of things from gift wrapping outreaches, to water bottle give-aways, etc. But July 4th we pulled off one of our boldest days of Simple Act of Christian Kindness Outreaches. We did 3 outreaches in one day. 2 parades and one Town Festival. At the parades we threw out candy and Celebration Water bottles. We gave out in excess of 1000 of each before 11am. The parades were awesome, about 20+ people helped out at each and we started around 8:30 and were done by 11am and had an opportunity to touch about 2000+ people with the love of Christ.

The town fair had about 15,000+ in attendance and we set up a Triple Booth this year. One area giving away washable tatoo’s, another area balloons and small token games for kids. The 3rd area was a small putting green where we gave away Pastor Stovall’s Message – The God of the Mulligan with a Celebration golf ball. We gave out 250 of those, some 800+ flyers, over 1000 baloons and kids toys.

The youth group even one upped it this year and worked the crowd reaching out to young people with a cool flyer.

I would highly recommend these types of events for any church seeking to grow their name and share the love of Christ in their community. People often seemed wowed by the love of Christ through something as simple as a free gift of water on a hot summer day.

A case in point 2 years ago we met a man named Scott on July 4th. At the time he was disconnected from church. This year he was the last one with us helping tear down the booth. He is on fire for God and reaching out to others around him. How awesome is that.

For full event pictures visit http://orangepark.celebration.org

This past week I had an amazing meeting with Pastor Wayne Lanier and Pastor Bob Thyer regarding the Pastoral Care ministries at the church. The potential for what we talked about is nothing short of revolutionary for the way we do church.

Celebration has always done an incredible job of drawing a crowd which in my opinion is essential to the missional focus of the church. Because we have been growing and are believing God to continue to grow the church we have most recently placed great significance on raising up leaders at every level of the church in order to continue to fuel the churches mission.

Here’s the lynch pin though.. That’s all well and good, but it’s only half the picture. Through the discussions with Bob and Wayne we came up with the revelation that it is just as important to raise the level of love and care at every level of the church too. Hmm.. How could I have been so blind for so long. Stovall has preached about love and care many times, and I’ve known for sometime that a weakness in our campus strategy has been, "How do we effectively help lost hurting people become whole in spirit, soul, and body." We’ve done many good things, especially in the area of raising the love level, but we have never had a solid strategy for proactive pastoral care network wide.

I really think it is a God moment for the church. Not long ago all staff network wide began going through Care Force Life Keys Facilitator training. It was meant to remind all staff members they they are ministers first because we all sometimes get bogged down in the tasks that are before us.

The meeting caused me to really think about how we can stop reacting to pastoral care situations and get proactive about continuing to instill that Care mindset in everyone – The congregation, the volunteers, the staff, so that we can better minister to the community and the congregation.

Pastor Stovall has spent a lot of time sharing his heart for the lost, the hurting, and the next generation.

I’ve also recently began reading Marc Driscoll’s book "Radical Reformission" which served to reinforce what we are doing. Focusing on the area around us as a mission field while balancing a heart for the church, the culture, and the gospel which are all essential ingredients to being a Life Giving God First Church.

All that being said, my heart is pumping that we might actually begin to have a plan to fill a void which has plagued me for all too long. I see incredible progress not only in our outreach, assimilation, and discipleship processes, but you can now add to that care..

May God give us the energy, leaders, and direction to pull this off. I really believe it beats in the heart of God.. May we truly be a hospital for the lost and hurting people of all backgrounds for our community here in the greater Jacksonville area!