Clif McKinley Dot Com

The Beatles sang “You say you want a revolution; Well, you know; We all want to change the world.”  But that just isn’t true.  Most people are not interested in a revolution, most people don’t want to change the world, most people are content with the Status Quo.  But the reality is that the world needs a revolution!  Not of a political nature, not of an economic nature, but a SPIRITUAL REVOLUTION!

Webster’s defines Revolution as ” a sudden, complete or marked change in something.”  The church needs a revolution.  Martin Luther saw the church in his day headed in the wrong direction and nailed the 95 Thesis to the door of the Wittenberg Church.  According to a recent study, 6 out of the top 10 least churched states are in New England, and NH is second only to VT.  The church in New England needs a REVOLUTION!  This is the birth place of the American Revolution.  It was here that ordinary people rose up and said “Things need to change!”  It is time for us to do the same.

Jesus “I will build my church and the gates of hell will not previel against it.”  The victory is promised we just need to get in the fight.  No more business as usual, no more whatever happens happens, if we REALLY believe in the life changing message of the Gospel of Jesus Christ we need to get to work.

The Revolution is Coming.  Are you ready?  Are you willing?  Are you able?

Let’s not wait for the world to change, let’s help Jesus bring the change to pass!

I have had some folks come and share with me what God did for them Sunday and I want share some of them:

“God used the message Sunday to change my heart and I have to fix some relationships in my life”

“”Everyone I invited came and they all loved it and want to start coming every week”

“I found a church home”

“I didn’t know church could be this much fun”

“There are so many normal people here, I didn’t expect that, I feel like I could fit in”

“This is great so great, I love it here”

“I feel like I can be myself here, this is so cool”

“I’ve only been coming a few weeks and it has been a hard year for me, but the last few weeks have made a real difference, thank you for welcoming me”

These are some of the comments and emails I have received, so what have you heard?

Continuing with yesterday’s theme, here are five more ways ways to reduce the possibility of a successful small group ministry:

6. Make sure the church doesn’t have a small group vision or philosophy. Let people do whatever they want without any direction or oversight.

7. Make sure your groups become inward-focused and never multiply. Don’t ever encourage your groups to give life to new groups. Allow them to grow inward-looking. Better yet, hope they become filled with negative and critical church members.

8. Make sure to require your church attenders to do so many other things they’ll never want to be in small groups. Ask people to go to Sunday night church, Wednesday night church, committee meetings, Sunday school, etc. If you keep them so busy, you can ensure they won’t participate in small groups.

9. Make sure not to require staff members to be involved. If your staff (or key leaders) isn’t in groups, that will help keep others from being in groups.

10. Make sure you never make small groups a membership or partnership requirement. Be a low-expectation church. While you’re at it, don’t ask people to serve, pray, witness, or give sacrificially either.

Based on your experience, what would you add to this list? Where do you agree? Disgaree?

…It is a necesity!

Sadly we think that failure is not an option, when it is really a necessity.  If we are afraid to fail we will be afraid to even try new things.  Life, ministry, almost everything involves a level of risk, taking a chance, getting out there in the scary places.  It has been said, “if we aren’t failing, we aren’t trying.”  That is all too true.  I think many times we fail our way to success.

I’ve made many blunder as a public speaker.  When I was first starting out I was scared of looking bad, until that fateful day that I got up to preach and said everything I had to in 2 minutes and then paced back and forth saying “praise God, Amen, Glory to God” for the next 20 minutes.  CRASH AND BURN BABY!!!!  I am at the point now that I have embarrassed myself enough times to try anything when I am speaking.  This has freed me to be more creative and more bold.  It took a lot of failures, really bad messages, and vocal gaffs to get to this point.  I’ve failed my way to a level of success as a communicator.

We have taken stabs at different events that didn’t work.  Classes that didn’t work.  Programs that didn’t work.  As a result we have a better handle on what does work in our local context.  I call that a win.  As John Maxwell says “we have been failing forward.”  In the last 6 year as the lead pastor @ Lighthouse I have had many miss steps but each one has become a stepping stone to greater growth ad success for the church.

How about you?  Have you been failing forward?  Or do you feel that failure is not an option and you won’t even try until your sure you will get it right?

Last week I posted some of Andy Stanley’s closing thought from Catalyst.  We discussed them for awhile at our Elders meeting Tuesday night.

“To reach people no one else is reaching, we have to do things no one else is doing.  We must become preoccupied with those you want to reach rather than those you are trying to keep.”

In Rochester there are about 35,000 people, and about 25 churches.  Bottom line, there are a lot of people who are not being reached.

What can we do that no one else is doing to reach them?

Are we committed to reaching the lost or satisfying the saints?

If we were to get into the head of those outside the church, what we would we want from the church?

So we are continuing the theme of the week, “What it means to be a member/partner” of Lighthouse Assembly.  Today we are onto the 3rd commitment of the membership agreement:

3.  I will share the MINSTRY of my Church

• By discovering my gifts and talents
• By being equipped to serve
• By developing a servant’s heart

I love the use of the word “SHARE” here.  I will share the ministry of my church.  In some churches there is the expectation that the ministry is to be done by the hired “Holy Men” and in other is dictated from an all powerful board, in others insecure pastors feel the need to do everything.  At Lighthouse we believe that EVERY MEMBER is a MINISTER.  We share the ministry responsibliities.   We are big proponents of gift based ministry, let those who are gifted to serve in an area, SERVE IN THAT AREA!

AS members/partners it is our RESPONSIBLITITY to:

-Discover our gifts and talents.  “Discover” that implies a search, an intentional quest to uncover them.  We need to invest time and effort into discovering our “gifts” (God given special abilities) and “Talents” (Natural ablilties).  CLASS 301 is all about this process.

-Being equipped to serve.  This again where the responsibility falls on each member/partner.  You have to let us know how & where you want to serve so we can train you to do!  We can only equip/train you if we know that you want to serve.  If you don’t know where you want to serve or aren’t sure how you gifts & talents fit, TAKE CLASS 301!!!

-Develop a Servant’s Heart.  What this means is having they attitude of Jesus.  Jesus is the ultimate example, He was willing to wash His disciples feet, Jesus, God in the flesh, was willing to do the task of the lowest servant.  Jesus was basically saying “If I am willing to serve you in this way you need to have the same attitude and be willing to do whatever task no matter how lowely it may seem.”  We all need to have the attitude that no task is beneath us.  We may be gifted to do different things but we must be WILLING to do anything.

Are you sharing in the ministry of our church?

Yesterday we talked about the first part of what it means to be a member/partner of Lighthouse Assembly and today we are looking at part 2:

2.  I will share the RESPONSIBILITYof my church

• By praying for its growth
• By inviting the unchurched to attend
• By warmly welcoming those who visit

In every healthy family each member has a role and responsibility, the church is no different.  As members of this family we all share in the responisiblity of church.

So what are we as members responsible to do?

-Each member should pray daily for the church that it will be “healthy and growing and full of love” (Ephesians 4:16)

-Each member should be investing their lives in  their friends, neighbors, coworkers, etc and when the Lord open the door INVITE them to attend Lighthouse.

***Side note:  IF you are a member/partner of Lighthouse that means the church has made a difference in your life and you agree with what we are trying to accomplish for the glory of God.  If that is the case you should want others to experience the life change that you have expereinced in Jesus Christ.  So if Lighthouse is where you are growing and being feed you should want others to expereince it as well.  IF not why are you a member of Lighthouse?  Fare question!

-Each member should warm and welcoming to ALL who visit!!!  You never know will walk through the door on any given Sunday, this may be their first time in church EVER or it may be the LAST TIME they will ever come back to any church.  How we treat people really matters!  We need to be warm and welcoming of everyone who walks through our doors.  See them as Jesus sees them.

The responsibility of every member is to pray for health and growth, invite people, and be warm & welcoming to all who attend.

Are you doing your part?

One of my favorite blogs (Church Relevance) posted these Interesting Stats:

Thom S. Ranier’s book Surprising Insights from the Unchurched. It discusses the following three surveys.

Top 13 Reasons that Unchurched People Choose a Church
(research conducted by Ranier)

1. 90% – Pastor/Preaching
2. 88% – Doctrines
3. 49% – Friendliness of Members
4. 42% – Other Issues
5. 41% – Someone Church Witnessed to Me
6. 38% – Family Member
7. 37% – Sensed God’s Presence/Atmosphere of Church
8. 25% – Relationship Other than Family Member
9. 25% – Sunday School Class
10. 25% – Children’s/Youth Ministry
11. 12% – Other Groups/Ministries
12. 11% – Worship Style/Music
13. 7% – Location

Top 9 Reasons that Church-Attenders Choose a Church
(research conducted by the Barna Group in 1999)

1. 58% – Doctrine/Theology
2. 53% – People Caring for Each Other
3. 52% – Preaching
4. 45% – Friendliness
5. 45% – Children’s Programs
6. 43% – Helping the Poor
7. 36% – Denomination
8. 35% – Like the Pastor
9. 26% – Sunday School

Top 6 Things that Keep the Formerly Unchurched Active in the Church
(research conducted by Ranier)

1. 62% – Ministry Involvement
2. 55% – Sunday School
3. 54% – Obedience to God
4. 49% – Fellowship of Members
5. 38% – Pastor/Preaching
6. 14% – Worship Services

What was most intersting about these numbers in your opinion?  What is most surprising?

Ok yesterday I post the first few traits of the kind of leader that God uses taken from Glenn Wagner and Dan Southerland’s series on ReThinking Leadership, today we will list another batch:

5.  The leader God uses develops Their Skills

6.  The leader God uses Loves Others

7.  The leader God uses recognizes the Needs Of Others (Outside the church/community where they minister)

8.  The leader God uses Delegates Respsonsiblity

Reasons leaders don’t delegate:

• They have a perfered method of operating
• They need to know all the details
• “I can do it better” mentality
• They have a lack of experience in the job or in delegating
• Insecurity

Thoughts?

When I was in Bible School I was told that as a minister/pastor you have to do it all.  Preaching, teaching, counseling, visiting, marrying, burying, praying, baptizing, leading, correcting, coaching, rebuking, and any other “ing” you can think of.  It was all done in service to the Lord and you as the Pastor were on call 24/7 you were at the mercy of the needs of your congregation.  They would parade pastor before us who would tell us tales of all the things that they did and how they were always there for there people.

If I am being completely honest, it was at moments like these that I wanted to run screaming from the room because I knew I was not wired that way!  I guess I am just different from a lot of my peers in “professional” I am not that good at all that stuff and I really don’t want to be.  I mean I used to try and be good at it, but I ended up wasting my time.  There are just some things that I will never be good at and I have come to understand there are some things that GOD doesn’t want me to be good at.

“Under His (Jesus’) direction, the whole body (church) is fitted together perfectly (just as He intended, every part where He put it for its own unique purpose).  As each part (member of the body of Christ) does its own special work (again its unique, God ordained,  God chosen role), it helps the other parts grow (mature,  stretch, become what God intended for them), so the WHOLE BODY is healthy (in a state of balance, functioning well, working as God intended) and growing (increasing in size and strength) and full of love (the thing that tells the world that we really are His disciples).” Ephesians 4:16 NLT w/Clif amplifications

Does the title “Pastor” define what I should be doing or does the way God wired me define what I should be doing as a “Pastor?”

I want to know what you think, I know I have some very opinionated readers, so let me have it.