The Absolute Best Place and Time to Connect with Un-Churched Kids

Posted on September 25, 2014 by Pastor Jesse

“As the Father is sending me, so I am sending you…”  – Jesus (John 20:21)

This is not going to be a subtle, clever, insightful post.  Really, I’m just going to state the obvious.  The best place to connect with kids who don’t go to church is pretty much anywhere away from the church.  And a really great time to do that is Sunday morning.   Because on Sunday morning, unchurched kids are not at church.  For that matter, unchurched people are usually not at church on Sunday morning.

Maybe I’m stating the obvious because I am slow.  And I also know that many “churched” people are out on Sunday mornings, too because of work, family, play, exhaustion, burn-out, etc.  And I also know that many unchurched people are already following Jesus but can’t/haven’t/don’t want to join a local congregation.  And I know many churches meet at times other that Sundays.   But I think my point still stands.  If you want to connect with people who have no church, go away from your church during the times your church usually gathers.  You’ll probably find some.

For thirty years now, I’ve been leading in churches.  A lot of that was in youth ministry or in support of youth ministry.  The churches I was a part of were pretty evangelistic when it came to youth.  We wanted to have good ministry for our own kids and we wanted kids who didn’t have a church to come into our church’s youth ministry.   We did that because we loved Jesus, loved kids, and wanted kids to love Jesus.   But when the task of gathering kids was hard – and it was usually hard – I was pretty good at looking at the cultural competition of sleeping in, out door activities, sports leagues, clubs, etc. that seemed to encroach on church times.  I was not alone.  Our culture doesn’t particularly favor church activity anymore.  Still, I don’t know why it never occurred to me that I was missing the obvious.  If we really wanted to connect with unchurched kids, a great way to do it would be to go out and away from the church building at our usual church gathering times.

Objections?  Of course.  Gathering together as a church is important and we need to keep that habit, promote that habit, and pass it on.  We need to gather regularly for practical reasons.  If we don’t schedule gatherings, people won’t gather.  But when we only gather to worship, to learn, to read scripture, to pray, and to be with one another, we’ve missed out on something powerful: gathering to go out, gathering for mission.  It is very easy for people outside our churches to watch what we do and get the impression that being a Christian is about going to meetings to do boring stuff.  (Are they right?)  Well, we were made and are being re-made for more that that.

In Luke 6:12-19, Jesus is up on mountain praying.  And then, still on the mountain, he names the twelve disciples so that he can be with them.   Prayer, worship, Bible Study, time with other disciples, hmm, that sort of describes Sunday morning church gathering stuff.  That is mountain top stuff.   But the first thing Jesus does after naming the disciples, the first thing he does to train them in discipleship is bring them with him down the mountain into the level places to proclaim the kingdom, heal, cast out demons, and meet needs.

Here’s an idea for a church leader or youth leader.  Make arrangements to take a few Sundays off.  Go out.  Look around.  See what God may be calling you into.   What you see , hear, and experience may surprise you.

Posted in Contact Work, Discipleship, evangelism, mission | Tagged , , , , , | Leave a comment

Reflecting on the Summer: News from FCMC

Posted on September 17, 2014 by Pastor Jesse

Our summer was full of mission and discipleship.

The 210 MC sent Heather Alexander and Alesandra Wehmeier to serve on mission at Rock Bridge Young Lives camp.  Both MCs turned out to load busses and strap in child-safety seats for the Jacksonville Young Lives.  The Fellowship of Believers conducted a prayer walk in South Ridge and enjoyed an evening with Maria Kuchta from Open Doors and is making plans for going out to Timberwood Trace apartments.  Please pray that God would prosper our mission partners and our partnerships

And our discipleship ministry continues to be very exciting  We added our third huddle, but more importantly, members of our huddles are beginning to put their skills with the discipling tools to work – touching lives beyond FCMC.  There continues to be a growing interest in this part of our ministry outside our church.

We enjoyed our three Second Sunday Celebration worship services over the summer, two at the Wehmeier’s home and one at the Alexanders.   We gathered to celebrate what God is doing in us, through us, and around us on the First Coast.  We are trying to nail down a place to hold our services on a regular basis.

In July, Nicholl Bernath and Kent Wehmeier joined Jim Bay on our Board of Stewards as elders.  We installed them at our August worship service.

Finally, in mid September, the IRS approved our Form 1023 application to be recognized by the government as a 501(c)(3) corporation organized for religious purposes: church.  As a church, we’ve always been legally tax exempt – but a number of procedures and policies need to be in place before the IRS gives recognition.  Having the 501(c)(3) recognition offers our supporters confidence about who we are and how we operate.  We have and will continue to strive to be “above reproach” in all matters related to administration and finances.

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , | Leave a comment

Making Earth More Like Heaven

Posted on September 15, 2014 by Pastor Jesse

I am so grateful when people share their stories.  We all learn: story teller and listener alike.  Last month, I heard a missional microchurch planter tell his story.  I’m sorry I don’t remember his name – Daniel, I think. Anyway, he shared his struggles with leaving a traditional church and starting a missional community in his home.   After some painful trial and error, he started telling his unchurched neighbors what he and his little group were doing: they were trying to make the neighborhood more like heaven than earth.  His neighbors got it and appreciated it.  Who can’t get behind that sort of conviction.

It’s a simple idea, but far reaching.   And many of us have been praying for that for years in the Lord’s prayer: “Your kingdom come and your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.”   I gave that some thought before preaching this past week.  I had a little help from something I heard John Ortberg preach.  If it sounds eloquent, it’s probably his.  But here is what I said.

###

Heaven is invading earth and we’re a part of that.  In Matthew 16, Jesus made this clear when he told his disciples that he was building his church, and the gates of hell will not prevail against it.  Hell had prevailed on earth in many places and Jesus was doing something about it.

Now when I say hell, I want you to know that I’m not talking about some kind of cartoonish figure in a red suit, forked tail, horns, and pitchfork.   I’m talking about the biggest problem the world has ever faced.  That problem is hell, and hell is at work wherever the will of God is defiled – whether that’s out there or in here.  Every time an old person dies in isolation, unknown and forgotten; every time a little child is left unloved, unwanted, uneducated, unnoticed; every time racial or ethnic differences divide a street or a city or a church; every time money gets worshiped or hoarded; every time a lie gets told; every time generations get separated, get divided, get suspicious, get standoffish; every time a workplace becomes dehumanizing or fear-based; when families get broken down; when virtue gets torn down; when sinful habits create a life of shame or a culture of shamelessness; when faith gets undermined, hope gets lost, and people get trashed, that’s our problem because that is where hell is prevailing.  It is not acceptable to Jesus that hell prevails. It is not okay.

So Jesus invites us to pray, to ask for God’s help and intervention to make earth more like heaven.  In doing so, he also invites us into the struggle.  He invites us to pray so God can do what he needs to do in each of us so that the world becomes a different place.  You see – God wants heaven to come into our hearts so that  God can work through us to make earth more like heaven.  When heaven comes to earth, you see, no one drinks themselves to death, no one takes their own life, no one beats up helpless people and posts it on YouTube – because when God’s will is done on earth as it is in heaven there is no despair, no cruelty, and no abuse of power.  When heaven comes to earth, people are valued because God values them.  When heaven comes to earth children are cared for and protected; they receive lavish love because Jesus said, “Let the children come to me.”  When heaven comes to earth, needs are met, forgiveness reigns, people love across differences, grace overcomes every divide, and money and power are used in ways that bring joy, meeting needs and always, always honoring God.  When heaven comes to earth families are sustained and supported.  Families become places of refuge and kindness, where the generations meet at a common table, where virtue is understood, appreciated, and celebrated, and where people get built up.  When heaven comes to earth courage, hope, faith, love, and joy characterize each day, and no one suffers alone, no one cries alone, no one dies alone, and no one ever, ever loses hope.

And there’s good reason for hope, because, you know, there once was a movement that changed hearts in the right direction – that changed the world. The movement transformed societies, nations, and even empires from cruelty toward kindness, from despair toward hope, from emptiness toward purpose. It was started by an extraordinary guy who found some ordinary people and said, “follow me.” And they began to do the same extraordinary things he was doing.  Later he told them “teach others to do the same” and the movement spread. Now those in power worked to shut it down.  They eventually killed the leader – but he wouldn’t stay down and it didn’t stop the movement. They persecuted the next group of leaders and eventually made the whole thing illegal, but God had to have been in it, because it just kept spreading. Wherever the movement showed up, everything was turned upside down. And it still happens. The movement is still going on.  It’s going on right here in this neighborhood, in this house.  It is a movement of mission and discipleship called “the church”.  Our church is part of this movement.  It has lasted 2000 years. It will go on to eternity.  The Church was established to address a great problem and our church, and each of us, by extension, are called to address the same problem.  Yep – Jesus wants to the kingdom of heaven to prevail in our neighborhood.

###

So, wherever you are – now is your chance.  What is God calling you to do to make this world a little more like heaven?   If you aren’t sure or are just looking for some ideas, let me make a suggestion:  try Michael Frost’s BELLS strategy.  (Bless 3.  Eat with 3.  Listen for the Spirit.  Learn Christ.  See yourself as sent.)  You can read a little summary I’ve written about it here – and I tell a story about one of my experiences with BELLS here – or do a search for Michael Frost’s excellent (and usually free) ebook entitled “The Five Habits of Highly Missional People.”

Blessings on the journey.  And may God work through you to make the earth around you more like heaven.

Posted in Discipleship, mission, Missional Community Experience | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

Mission Minded

Posted on September 11, 2014 by Pastor Jesse

“Peace be with you.  As the Father has sent me, so I am sending you.”  John 20:21

In the church of my childhood, we had an annual missions conference.  It was one of the cool things we did in the church. It was usually in February and for me, it was seriously like the return of the holidays.  There were cool people who showed up who spoke foreign languages and told adventurous tales.  The whole church was “on”.  People met during the week.  The preaching and teaching were (sometimes) really good.  There was always good food, an air of celebration, and a sense that God was on the move.  Oh, and did I mention that the food was great!

My church, First Presbyterian Church, Leesburg, Florida.  My dad was the pastor, and he believed in missions.  I don’t know if it was due to his influence or if it was in the water before he got there, but in the 1970s and 80s, the church was an over-the-top mission minded church.  And it was balanced.  We supported at one point about a dozen overseas missionaries.  But regionally, we supported Campus Crusade staffers.  Locally, we hired Ed and Becky Bonner and Dave and Sherry Groves who brought Young Life to Leesburg.  And we helped start new churches by giving money and sending people.  We helped start three in Leesburg and one in Orlando.  The annual  missions conference raised lots of money for mission AND it breathed new life into the church.  My dad believed there was a tight connection between having a mindset for missions and the health of the church.  And he was right.

And I don’t want to take away anything from those annual missions conferences.  Not long ago, they honored my dad there by renaming the annual conference for him.  I am so appreciative.  But there was a problem with that approach to missions.  We saw other people as the ones who were sent – not ourselves.  We were doing missions in abstentia.  Missions happened “out there.”  Personal involvement in mission was limited to financial support, education, and prayers.  I don’t want to take away from that at all.  But there was no hands-on-face-to-face mission engagement.  And Jesus’ engagement was very much physical and present.  He was with us.  He came to know us and he let some of us get to know him.  The word for what Jesus did is “incarnational.”  God put on flesh and lived, worked, and moved among us.  And if we are his disciples, he is sending us the same way.  As he was sent, he sends us.

But there was a corrective.  There were a few opportunities for face-to-face hands-on mission.  For example, we had a clothes closet – at first it was about gathering clothes for missionary families.  Later, the clothes mission was more broadly understood.  And we offered sewing lessons.  The church turned a room into a sewing classroom.  They had ten sewing machines in there.  And my mom and one or two other ladies from the church taught some women from the poorer part of town how to make clothes for their families. And we developed a partnership with Medical Benevolence Foundation.  Eventually, a medical family from the church, Pene and Jim Hardy began traveling and working with MBF, returning to stir up hearts with stories of what God was doing in Africa and with ideas of how others could join in what God was doing.  I may be mistaken.  This is remembering what happened decades ago.  But I believe they brought others into that mission and took them with them for some hands-on, face-to-face, with-you, mission.  That is incarnational mission.

At FCMC, we believe that mission should be incarnational.  (By the way, it’s the “out” of the up-in-out triangle.)  So last week, a group of us from the 210 MC began engaging with Young Lives (Young Life’s ministry with teen moms and their kids).  Heather, Kent, Kris, and I (Jesse) will be serving in anyway we can to support Jordan Simpson, who is clearly gifted and called for working with Young Lives.  Heather is going to lead a Young Lives Campaigners group (a Bible study).   Kent, Kris, and I will be helping with child-care, and building relationships.  It is cool to be engaged in something that changes futures.  God is at work there.  How fortunate and blessed we are to be able to join Him there!   And we are hoping some others can join in, too.

Here are three questions for reflection as you mind the mission into which God has called you:  1) Do you see yourself as “sent” for hands-on-face-to-face-incarnational mission?   2) How’s the mission going?  3) Is there anything you need to adjust?

Young Lives

Beaches Young Lives

Posted in Discipleship, mission | Tagged , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Change a life. Change your world.

Posted on September 5, 2014 by Pastor Jesse

Jesus changes the world.  And Jesus invites us to join him in his work as he changes the world.  His world changing plan is called discipleship.

Clint Regen and I went through seminary together and have stayed in touch over the years.  I was grateful to be able to worship with Clint and hear him preach in his small church in Wimberley, Texas.  As we visited before lunch he said, “So tell me about this thing your doing in Jacksonville.” I looked him straight in the eye and responded, “Clint, I don’t mean to sound grandiose, but I think this ministry that God’s led me into has the potential to change the world.”  What I was referring to is the power of the gospel working through discipleship.  The gospel changes a life.  Discipleship allows the gospel to grow through multiplication.   In other words, when someone learns to be the sort of disciple who is equipped and motivated to make other disciples, over time the entire world can be transformed.

Over the last four months, I’ve seen that begin to happen.  It’s been a process of learning.  I would learn to use a tool for discipleship.  In turn, I would pass what I learned on to the people in our huddles.  They, in turn would learn to use the tool.  I’ve been impressed that the discipling tools we’ve used are straightforward enough for kids and sophisticated enough for well educated adults.  On several occasions now, people in our huddles have taken the tool and passed it on to another.  Missional Communities are great vehicles for mission, study, and fellowship.  But discipleship is clearly the driving force.

That’s how it should be.  That’s how Jesus set things up.  In Matthew 28:16-20, you will find the command to make disciples.  Disciples would be recognized by baptism, taught the way of Jesus through everything he commanded.  That was Plan A for Jesus – and there was no Plan B.   But frankly, much of my ministry in the past has been putting Jesus’ Plan A behind other things.  I often figured that once everything was set up and running smoothly in my church, I’d be able to focus on making disciples.  How silly of me.  My churches never got smooth enough.  There were always fires to be put out, deadlines to meet, and programs to run.  I did manage to make some disciples – but frankly, it was by accident.

I am deeply grateful for this season of church planting.  I’m grateful for what God has taught me – especially how central discipleship is.  We are centered on Jesus.  And that’s what we pass on.  Mission and worship flow from discipleship.

It’s cool.

 

 

Posted in Discipleship, evangelism, mission | Leave a comment