ChurchPlanters.com "Giving You Permission"

Headed Home

It was 4:00 am and when  I was awaken to my cell phone.  It was my son!  He said something like, "I just wanted to give you heads up.  It looks like I will be in the air and on my way home on the 10th.   That's right the 10th.  My son who has been away for 15 months (minus his leave) will be redeployed to the Fort Brag, North Carolina from Afghanistan.  That's right he will begin his trip back MONDAY Week!!!!  We were expecting him to return at the very end or March at best and more then likely in  April...for us this was great news.  I can't believe it!!!! 

I wanted to share this with you because so many of you constantly remind me of how you are praying for him.  I am overwhelmed and amazed by your love and kindness toward my family.  Now my son is coming home.  In another week we will hop in the car and head up to Fort Bragg the home of the 82nd Airborne where we will be the moment his plane touches down.  I have dreamed of this moment for the past 15 months.  Now he is coming home!!!! 

Thank you to each one of you who have prayed for him and others who are serving all over the world.  Please continue to pray for them as they re-enter a more normal life.  Don't forget to continue to pray for the many troops that are still serving in Iraq and Afghanistan.  Let me know the names and locations of the troops you are praying for I want to join you in praying for them. 

Amazingly Faithful God!

                LAST NIGHT'S' LUNAR ECLIPSE

This weeks EVOLVE Conference was awesome!  One of the things that amazed me was how many people came up and told me that THEY were praying for my son.  I often say we are a tribe, but I'm wrong...we are family.  When people ask me about my son who is serving with the Army in Afghanistan you are speaking my love language.  Nothing let's me know you love me more than to care about my family.  Thanks to the dozens of people who asked that simply question, "How's your son?"  I love you, too! 

Last night I was in an amazing small group where we got NAKED.  If you track with MLC we are doing a series on the Naked Church so don't get to alarmed.  We went deeper into our lives then ever before.  Real pain was unearthed and tears were shared...healing began.  It was incredible.  We prayed boldly and asked God to show up big in our lives and we believed Him. 

One of the prayers I prayed was for my son.  It's been a few days since I've heard from him.  Yesterday I woke up with him very much on my mind.  I told my group last night I was praying that I would hear from him and usually when I asked God for that gift he responded very quickly.  This morning I woke up to a new message in my wives myspace account.  It was from my son.  I was reminded once again that God is in the details of our lives and even our hardships. 

His response was simply....he was working nonstop getting ready to come home.  Not sure exactly when, but he is due to return at the end of March or first of April.  He told me to get ready for a wild summer.  It was so good to hear from him.  He is getting ready to come home....look out US...Putman's gone wild!!!!

As I write this I am expecting God to respond in a big way to the other prayers we have been praying for our friends...relationships are going to be reconciled...business deals are going to come through...healing is going to take place. 

Once following a terrible accident my wife endure she asked me a question in a time I was struggling with the her circumstance, "Can't you see...Can't you see God is at work...Can't you see what he is doing all around me?" 

My heart is pregnant with hopes and possibilities.  I sense God is at work in so many areas so big.  I am overwhelmed by His goodness.  I believe God is renewing and reviving our souls.  I'm expecting incredible things in the lives of our team and our church.  We are being pressed down and poured out.  Our lives are being conformed to His image.  We are becoming more life Jesus.  I really believe this.

Not only are we, but God is doing something in our tribe...oops family.  He really is.  This week at EVOLVE I was reminded of that.  Sure we worked hard...got good speakers...the band was on...the Harley entrance was a holy moment.  More importantly God was there.  No fancy methods...just power...His power.  God is doing something in all of us.  Peace....His Peace!

Why We Do What We Do!

It's Wednesday morning after the conference.  I'm tired!  I don't want to do anything. I take that back all I want to do is go get on my motorcycle and ride.  Yet it's to cold. As soon as warms up to 45 I'm on it.  Its suppose to get up to 62.  Perfect!

This morning I got an e-mail for a former staff member and I was reminded of why we do what we do...

Hi friends!

I hope the CP hangover is not too bad this morning.  From what I hear the conference went GREAT!  Our TN pastor's wife called me Monday night to say that everything was great and everyone was so wonderful!

The real point of my e-mail though is to say thank you for all your hard work to put on the conference and to create a place where young churchplanters, like my TN pastor and small team, can come and hear from God and learn from the greatest church I've ever been a part of.  I have a whole new appreciation for the conference and your hard work to make it happen because I'm on the other side.  I know I will see growth in our young church and leadership as a result of the CP conference.

I continue to pray for MLC and for you guys as you lead and impact thousands of lives directly and indirectly by the works of your hands.  You do not labor in vain...press on!  I love you all and miss you tremendously!

Renee

Thanks Renee for reminding me...I'm going to press on...I can't wait until next year...I can't wait until our practicum...and I can't wait until our next coaching network...

ChurchPlanters.com Evolve Day 1

We had an amazing day at our Evolve Conference...Here are some of the highlights....

1) Shawn Lovejoy - poured out his heart as it relates to healthy leaders....bottom healthy leader, healthy church.

2) Steven Furtick- talked about courageous leaders.  My heart for a long time has been young leaders and I woke up this morning with a burden to pray for Steven.  Steven obviously has God's fingerprint on his life.  At 28 I can't imagine the blessing and burden that comes with God's favor in his life.

3) Wall to wall church planters - our space was maxed out.  I don't know the final counts, but I do know that our worship auditorium was slammed, our lobby was full, and there were people standing outside of the door of Steven's breakout. 

4) Incredible Partners - I can't say enough about our partners.  We had dinner together at Tam's Backstage and it is so apparent how much our partners love church planters.  Thanks to all our partners for investing in this guys.

5) The Mountain Lake volunteers - Simply put they are the best in the world. 

6) The Mountain Lake Ministry Team - Amazing!

7) God's amazing Spirit - I was talking with Casey Graham this morning on the way over and it was so apparent that God was here yesterday.  No amount of programming can do what God can do in a Moment.

Somebody Had to Do It

I ran across these two pictures last night from my recent trip to Hawaii where Shawn and I was leading a pastor's conference on Breaking the Missional Code.  What can I say....

This is from our room....the room was pretty dumpy....or at least old and out dated...it really was...but the view...well it was one that only God could create.

I told you I was leading a Pastor's Conference...I really was...I love teaching with flowers around my neck it really puts you in touch with your feminine side.

Before you say anything this sort of makes up for sleeping on the floor in Malawi for two weeks.  Next month I head off to the Middle East...we will see what that has in store. 

Giving Permission to Do What It Takes

CHURCH PLANTING
The past week or two has really been a neat time hanging out with church planters and ministry leaders.  Last week Shawn Lovejoy and I spent a week in Hawaii doing a number of teachings on Breaking the Missional Code and our Best Practices.  It was really cool there were pastors, church leaders, and missionaries from all over the Pacific Islands.  We happen to be stuck in Kona where each morning we would walk past the official starting point of the Ironman Triathlon.  Did I say we walked by it.  We also got head up to the Volcanoes National Park on our way out.  That was really weird cool. 

Today I got to hang out with our Best Practice Coaching Network where we spent 6 hours in a peer learning environment  talking about team.  God spoke really loud about preserving the team and the need to begin that process with preserving ourselves.  It really hit home for all of us.  Since I crashed and burned this past  December I have been working out regularly and riding my motorcycle every chance I get.  All of us leaders are a little or a lot high strung and need to learn how to unplug. 

In 11 day we will have over 600 people gather at Mountain Lake Church for our annual ChurchPlanters.com Conference where our theme will be EVOLVE and focus on our best practice of nurture vitality.  It is going to rock.  We have some amazing guys coming like, Bil Cornelius, Mark Batterson, Darin Patrick, Gabe Lyons, Devin Hudson, Gary Lamb, Eric Bramlett just to name a few. 

After that we will head off to Exponential on April 21-24, 2008 where we will be hosting the post launch track.  Once again we will have a over the top line up of guys. 

WELCOME HOME KIDS
On the home front some time around the end of March I will be heading to Fort Bragg, North Carolina to welcome my son and my hero back home from Fort Bragg.  It is going to be amazing.  In June he will be on leave and we are going to spend a week at a friend beach front home in Destin and take a number of rides on our motorcycles.  It is going to be awesome.  I'm not sure what he will do after that, but right now he is looking at heading off to Ranger School.  I spoke with him yesterday from Afghanistan and he said didn't want to sit around and do nothing over the next year or so.  He is schedule to go back to Afghanistan in September 09. 

Also my daughter will be returning home from attending school out of state.  She is going to finish up in GA.  She is planning on switch her major to nursing and get a RN and work with children who have cancer.  It will be great to have her home.  I can't wait to hang out with all my family.  It will have been 15 months since we have been together with the exception of 18 days when Dave was on leave. 

More later

Transitional to Missional Ministry

Shawn Lovejoy and I just got back from Hawaii where we led a Pastor's Conference.  On Thursday morning I did a talk on Transitioning Your Church to Missional Ministries.  It seemed appropriate since most of these leaders were Pastor's of existing churches and not church planters.  In reality church planting and transitioning churches share a lot in common.  The key difference is crowd control.  In church planting you don't have people so you are really starting with a blank slate, which happens to be my preference.  In transitioning a church you begin with a group of people so you have to work through crowd control issues.  If you are not up to the leadership challenge then you will find the crowd controlling you right out the door on your head. 

At the same time let's face it many of our churches need transitioning.  Matter of fact all of our churches need to stay in a state of transitioning.  Our world is changing and we must constantly adapt in order to impact the world.  In Breaking the Missional Code Ed Stetzer and I talk about the importance of being Biblically faithful, but at the same time culturally relevant.  We live in that tension.  Change is tough. 

The $64,000 question is how do you transition existing churches to missional ministries?  Let me say first of all it is harder then you think.  As I told the guys in Hawaii, I have transition one and half churches.  Half transitions are messy.  If you start you want you want to make sure you can get the job done.  While I don't have time or space in this blog to cover it all let me start the conversation by posting my main communication points of my Hawaii talk and a slide of the model I've began developing .

When transitioning churches to missional ministry there are four key components: 

1. Missional Leader - I believe this is where it begins. You have got to be a missional leader if you are going to lead a missional church.  Here are some of the best practices of of missional leaders...they are healthy leaders, they operate out of a clear calling that comes from God's vision for missional impact, they are committed to resources the mission, they think team, and they rethink discipleship. 

2) Missional Church - While the objective is to transition the church to missional ministry the church body has to be up to the task.  They have to be committed to the Great Commandment and the Great Commission, Biblically faithful and culturally relevant, understanding of their context in terms of mission field, and committed to bring down all barriers between lost people and Jesus.  At the end of the day they have to be willing to collectively become the missionary in their community and around the world.

3) Mission Field - All of our churches are sitting right in the middle of a mission field.  Understanding our mission field is a key component in becoming a missional church.  We need to understand that they are spiritual; they like Jesus, but not the church; they have no Christian friends, and they are searching for meaning, purpose, and acceptance.  However it is not enough just to know these things about our community, but more specifically what does this look like for my community. 

4) Missional Disciple - Missional Churches exist in a specific mission field, they are lead by missional leaders, they are made up of a missional body, but they make missional disciples.  That our goal, that's our assignment.  We call it the Great Commission.  We are to "Go make disciples".  Missional Disciples are those who live like Jesus, love like Jesus, and leave what Jesus left behind which is people who live like him and love like him.

Over the next few days and maybe weeks I'm going to post on this subject.  Any thoughts? Aloha!