04.15.09
multi-site both/and multiplying disciplers
Today’s pastoral staff meeting balanced “both/and” . . . .
Celebrating Good Friday + Easter “yay God!” stories AND acknowledging ways that our staff didn’t go the extra mile to make all 8 services “as Mountain as they could be.”
The Spirit is opening some exciting doors for possible campuses elsewhere in Harford County “both/and” the perfect fit of what our hard-working search team has sought all along AND the perfect stretch of an opportunity beyond our racial zone.
At the same meeting we explored the short-term programming challenges to multi-site (need more volunteers, more equipment even on tight budget), we “both/and” talked about the challenge of remembering our call to go beyond merely programming. Making better disciples through meaningful, intentional, spiritually-insightful-question-asking relationships is why MCC has groups. Mac Lake, of multi-site Seacoast Church, writes about orienting towards discipling (rather than programming) in these blog posts.
03.28.09
MCC Message Boards go Beyond the Walls
MCC is introducing a new tool in our mission to be like the church of Acts 4:34-37 and Acts 6:1-7, experimenting with ways “beyond the norm” to care and reach. As congregations like McLean Bible Church have blazed the trail, MCC is starting online message boards to provide space things like: networking for job applicants & openings, business listings, housing, etc. It’s an online site to post, “I need this, can anyone help me out?” AND “Here’s something I can give” – whether it’s free, for sale, or a way you can serve someone else.
This is NOT meant to compete w/ Craigslist, freecycle, local newspaper classifieds, Facebook, etc. but MCC does want to connect BEYOND what we’re able to do in our small groups and, ultimately, reaching BEYOND the walls of our church building.
ANYONE w/ internet access can browse the message boards, but you must register to be able to post messages. Both Mountain members and non-Mountain attenders will be able to register on the site. (This is a DIFFERENT registration than signing up for events elsewhere on the MCC website, but you can choose to register w/ the same username and password if that’s easier to remember). Use the care and wisdom you would use with any site on the internet.
This could also become a way for small groups & ministry teams at MCC to connect w/ others about events, needs, opportunities – especially as MCC continues to grow numerically & geographically. This is a tool we can use to care for own and also a resource to “walk across the room” and take Jesus’ mission “beyond the walls.”
03.26.09
Walk Across the Room goes Beyond the Walls
MCC’s two most recent message series overlap in the results of this post from Ed Stetzer of LifeWay Research team. He writes about a recent 15k person survey whose key findings included:
- “ways most willing to receive information about a local congregation”
- 63% personal conversation w/ a family member
- 56% personal conversation w/ a friend or neighbor from the church
- “times you have been more open to consider matters of faith
- 47% Christmas holiday season
- 38% Easter holiday season
- 38% after major national crisis such as 9/11
If people-Jesus-misses are most open to a Christian family/friend/neighbor during holiday season or national crisis, I better “walk across the room” before Apr 12.
03.06.09
Beyond the Great Omission Mar 8 – study guide UPDATED
so it’s already on the MCC website or you can 02.21.09
Walk Across the Room – Feb 22 study guide
MCC’s February message series wraps up w/ “Grander Vision Living.” The study guide uses two stories from Luke 5, along with other Bible verse, to show us God’s grand vision for reaching those who are far away from Him.
02.20.09
Matthew parties
As a resource for this Sunday’s message “Grander Vision Living” that concludes our “Walk Across the Room” series, my teammate Kristal Dove wrote these suggestions for hosting a Matthew party. I also found posts from Wade Rogers and a Campus Crusade blog on the same topic.
Matthew parties are a good way to combine connecting with your fellow group members, and reaching the people-Jesus-misses-the-most. If your MCC small group is planning a Matthew party, I’d enjoy reading about it.
09.30.08
Now is the time
Ethan M is blogging his thoughts on each of the daily readings for MCC’s One Month to Live Challenge. Today’s Bible reading ends “now is the time of God’s favor, now is the day of salvation.” I sometimes connect Bible verses with songs, in this case Brian Doerksen’s “Come, Now is the Time to Worship” In Ethan’s post, he correctly connects the “now is the time” urgency with God’s call to be ambassadors-communicators of the Good News. Whole life worship is not just singing to God, but also sharing God with “the people Jesus missed the most.”
08.04.08
reflecting on Love NYC Day
TylerM Tom M Sally C Darlene Taylor Alex L in front of Blender Theatre
Five of us from MCC participated in Love NYC Day. My strongest memory from the day is the feeling of powerlessness-frustration I felt when we ran out of free granola bars and water bottles to give away. I had gotten such a “rush” from the puzzled smiles passers-by had given me, and I wanted to keep that “high” of making a (tiny) difference in brightening a rainy, humid, hectic NYC Saturday.
I rarely feel that eager and excited to share the love of God with passers-by or the people I see more often. I need to feel more urgent and desperate about finding opportunities to share the life saving water and spiritual food of Jesus.
07.20.08
Valley of the Shadow of Death
“For to me, to live is Christ and to die is gain.” Philippians 1:21
Though they were prominent journalists from contrasting political backgrounds, Tony Snow and Tim Russert were both men who strove to be better disciples in the glaring spotlight of the public square.
Tony Snow’s Christianity Today article on “Cancer’s Unexpected Blessings” is especially meaningful as MCC folks hear daily of new prayer requests for those fighting cancer, and our church prepares for a fall alignment entitled “One Month to Live.”
Howard Finemans’s reflection on colleague Tim Russert’s faith captures how being a better disciple can lead to making more disciples (long transcript, search for word “Jewish”)
I’m not Catholic, I’m Jewish, but I’ll tell you, if I ever thought about being Catholic, Tim would be the best advertisement for that faith that there is…. He would have been a great fisherman for his faith. He used the analogy on purpose. Obviously, his faith animated him in a way that people outside the city didn’t necessarily understand. We talked about Buffalo. We talked about his family. We talked about his love of journalism. But in whatever way he expressed it, he was a very deeply devout Catholic…. But I think the faith that he must have learned up in Buffalo from his parents that he grew up in, in that Catholic community in Buffalo, meant everything to him and helped guide and focus him and keep him grounded in this city, where way too many people pursue false gods. And Tim was the kind of guy who never pursued false gods. He pursued the real one.
07.16.08
All one in Christ Jesus
“for all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. 28There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.” Galatians 3:27-28
Some Mountain Christian Church folks attended Dudley Rutherford’s NACC presentation on diversity in the congregation he serves, Shepherd of the Hills Church. This energized the already-present desire among MCC’s leadership to reach more disciples by becoming better disciples by genuinely welcoming those from different cultural, racial, socio-economic backgrounds.
In the Spirit’s providence, the very next week, MCC’s Student Ministry, led by Matt Silver and Jenna Howell and some great volunteers (including my wife Heather), guided our 8th & 9th graders through a Short Term Mission trip. In partnership w/ Youthworks, many of the students (including my daughter Olivia), came to a deeper understanding of the race-based sins of the past, and the need to become better disciples in reaching & connecting w/ others across all barriers, the way Jesus did. Heather & Olivia told me about learning the story of civil rights leader Fred Shuttlesworth, seeing the tragically historic Sixteenth Street Baptist Church, and meeting and hearing the “Yay God” life testimony of Stephen Manyama and Family
Life Center.
As Olivia & I talked about the trip, I asked, “now that all this happened, what would you like to do?” – a tough question to turn around on myself…
