Pastorpreneur

Check out my new blog at Thriving Churches

As most of you know, I have started blogging at another site.  But in case you did not know...check it out here:  http://thrivingchurches.wordpress.com/

Switching Platforms; Social Media

Hey everyone...not sure if there are 50 or 500 of you lurking out there...but I've made a decision about blogging/social media.

First of all, I'm not going to be blogging any more on this site  (my "Pastorpreneur blog") and will "pull the plug" here by the end of October.  Here is the 411 on that decision...

1) I am going to be blogging and posting regularly on:  the Thriving Churches Blog

2) I already post a lot of personal updates and information on my  Twitter page which is linked to my Facebook Page 

So...let me know with any questions or thoughts...looking forward to staying in touch!

It's been a while...and a lot is happening!

So sorry for the silence here...I know, it's deafening and you've been holding your breath til I got back to blog writing.

Well, some big news has been brewing and now it is public knowledge.  Three things!:

1) Just as God often gave people new names to declare a new identify and a new direction in their lives.  We are now entering a new season, and we believe that God is calling us to change our name to reflect that change of identity.  So…..effective immediately the church formerly known as CVC is changing our name and declaring our new identity:  LIFE POINT.  Most likely, we will be referred to as LifePoint…a Bayside Church (see #2 below).  The name comes from Colossians 2:6-7, “So then, just as you received Christ Jesus as Lord, continue to live in him, rooted and built up in him, strengthened in the faith as you were taught, and overflowing with thankfulness. ( Colossians 2:6-7).  The point of life is for us to know Christ, live in Him, and have His life flowing through us to bring others to Him.   LifePoint is ready for the hand of God to move!

2) LifePoint is making formal our affiliaton with Bayside Church (www.baysideonline.com).  We have long appreciate our friends at Bayside and believe that their vision for outreach, spiritual growth, and developing leaders meshes with our DNA exactly.  We are pleased to be part of Bayside and Thriving Churches International (www.thrivingchurches.com)

3) On a more personal nature, I have recently shared with our church family that we feel like we are being called to take another step in ministry.  Here is a portion of  a letter that was shared with our church family after a meeting with our leadership core.  God has been amazingly faithful as the LifePoint team has rallied around and we are seizing God's future for us!

Over the last year, God has been speaking to both Pam and me about a new season of ministry.  To be quite honest, we didn’t even want to have the conversation!  But, it has become very clear that in order to embrace where God is taking us,  we have to be released from the pastoral ministry here at CVC.  This decision has been very painful and our hearts are deeply saddened at the thought of leaving you, our church family.  We have been spending time reading Acts 20 where Paul left his dear friends in Ephesus.  We have wept many tears in a similar way.

For the past year, I have been helping to launch Thriving Churches International (TCI).  LifePoint (formerly CVC!) and Bayside Church have partnered together to launch this ministry to help churches thrive.  Because LifePoint is part of Bayside and TCI, we will NOT be severing our relationship with LifePoint at all…in fact, our hope is to remain in relationship with LifePoint as the founding pastor.  The mission and vision of our church is not changing at all; in fact we believe the next season of ministry will bring more fruit than ever before.

 I will continue to serve as the Senior Pastor until we have established the right leadership successor.  We will be having a Town Hall meeting on September 13^th at 4 p.m. in the auditorium for anyone who would like to come and ask questions or talk with us.  We are very confident in God’s vision for our ministry.  Our Leadership Teams  are strong and united.  We are healthier as a church than we have ever been.  The time is now for us to move forward with boldness and not with fear.  So, we are going to seize the future and move forward with strength.  You will not experience any lack of vision or forward leaning here.  We are leaning into God’s future for us!

Back to Basics--with Excellence!

I think we are in a "back to basics" season of life in our national economy, in families, and in church ministry.  BUT, to mistake a "back to basics" season with a diminishing of the expectation of excellence would be a mistake.

For instance, families want to cut out some of the luxury and superficial stuff we've all gotten trapped into these past several years...but we're still committed to the power of family and realtionship health. Cutting out what seems as "fluff" from previous years does NOT mean cutting out the heart of our passion.

Churches are recognizing, through the movement of God's Spirit speaking to leaders and to initiatives like the Reveal Study from Willow Creek, that it is imperative that our people be grounded in His Word, hearing from Him in prayer, connected to others in relationships, and vitally engaged in serving Christ in the church, the community, and the world.  This is all back to basics.  BUT, to believe that back to basics means sacrificing excellent worship, excellent teaching,and excellent leadership would be a serious mistake.

I'm excited at what I see in the Body of Christ across America today. I think lots of movements are getting it more right today than yesterday/yesteryear.  I'm a fan of the church (it is the bride of Christ!).  Two places where I'm involved are www.cvcwired.com and www.thrivingchurches.com  In both places we are seeing God move His people towards a glorious future!

Are you moving back to basics with excellence?

Thriving Churches Blog

Hey y'all (Pam's southern roots coming out...)...I wanted you to know that I'm starting to post and write additional articles over at the Thriving Churches Blog.  You can visit the Thriving Churches Blog at any time.

I'll still be posting here...the difference being that I sometimes put personal updates and other stuff here...but most of my ministry articles I'm going to start posting at the Thriving Churches Blog here. 

Pre-Birthday INVENTORY BLOW-OUT SALE!

Yes, it is true!  I'm almost ready for another birthday...but NOT even pushing 50...well...I can see it from here :-)

So...in honor of that, I wanted to give you a chance to have some ministry resources that we have in our local inventory.

If you want a single copy of any of my books, you can go to my Amazon store here or to the Thriving Churches store here .

HOWEVER...(insert drumroll here)...I've decided that in honor of my upcoming birthday, I'll give you a shot at a ministry discount on 4 of my ministry resources we have in stock...these special prices are usually only for orders of 10 or more.  But...in honor of my impending birthday..I'll give you the ministry diccount if you want 5 or more copies of:

Leveraging Your Communication Style for $8 each (retail is $14)

Leveraging Your Leadership Style Workbooks for $5 each (retail is $9)

God-Size Your Church for $10 each (retail is $19)

Pastorpreneur for $9 each (retail is $16)

AND shipping for only $5 no matter how many you order...then send me an e-mail to john@cvcwired.com with your name and shipping information and I'll hook you up!  I can accept PayPal payments and checks from ministry organizations.

My Dad's Passions...

So, like a lot of people, I've been thinking about my dad. My father in law and father both are with the Lord now.  My step-father-in-law (we just call him dad!) is still living.  But today, on Father's Day, I've been thinking about my dad.

My dad had LOTS of flaws.  Big ones.  Many of those flaws I grapple with today.  But today I have not been thinking about his flaws.  I have been thinking about his passions.  In the end...8 years after his death...it is his passions that have shaped me.  Here are a few of them...

1)  Dad was passionate about Jesus.  Jesus was not a word in a song, an image on a screen, or a dusty memory.  Jesus was who my dad loved.  I think all of his life my dad knew that Jesus had forgiven him greatly.

2)  Dad was passionate about his family.  My dad and mom never had a "ken and barbie" marriage (whatever that is!), but they loved each other and they sure loved us kids.  4 kids and dad & mom...we were a very tight family.  We've been through lots of storms...but we're still tight.  Dad was often the glue (or the sledgehammer!) of the family...and we are just now figuring out how to do it without him.

3)  Dad was passionate about reaching lost people.  I've seen my dad lead people to Christ in restaurants, airplanes, car dealerships, homes, ballfields, etc.  My dad was passionate about leading people to Jesus.  I never thought I was an evangelist like dad...and I'm not in the technical term...but his passion for lost people flows through my veins to this day

4) Dad loved life.  He loved to travel. He loved his Boston Celtics (which was rough for me as a Laker fan in the 1970's).  He loved to eat.  My dad loved life.  When he died, my oldest daughter said, "Grampie lived until the day he died".  Dad's passion for life is something I've come to later in life...and praying that I make up for lost time.

Well...that's just a snapshot.  My dad had flaws--BIG ONES (just like I do).  But his passions are what stayed with me and shaped me.

Teams: The God Factor

I was recently sharing with the team that is putting together Thriving Churches International about the importance of teams.  While I was sharing, I used an illustration that seemed to impact several team members, so I'm going to share it here as well.

The basic point of my illustration was that teams need to have a common goal, unity of spirit, and healthy relationships.  But even if all that works, there is still (especially in ministry) a HUGE God-factor that is responsible for any measure of success we ever experience.  So when you get to be part of a team that experiences the movement of God in powerful ways...don't ever take that for granted; celebrate His goodness and the amazing privilege it is to serve Him.

My prime example?  The Apollo space teams which got to participate in a moon landing as the ultimate fulfillment that came from the promise of a President several years earlier.  Think about the joy of the Apollo team.  Now think about the Challenger space team.  Imagine the years of hard work, the effective team principles they lived with.  Now think about their pain and loss as they, and the nation, experienced tragedy together.  Was the Challenger team less committed?  NO WAY!  I'm betting the Challenger team was made up of hundreds (thousands?) of dedicated people all pulling for a glorious launch.  And yet that team had to confront pain, loss, difficulty, defeat, and probably despair.

The lesson for all of us?  There is an amazing God factor whenever we do work (alone or in teams) in His kingdom.  We pray for Him to use us and our teams.  But whenever we do get to experience the joys of ministry that works and seems miraculous...let's not forget that HE is the source of any success and impact we have...and let's remember to celebrate the miracle that He inhabits.

Reproducing Who You Are...

So I'm talking with a friend and leader in our church .  In that conversation, he talks about how people in a meeting went from being very excited about something to developing an action plan--with what seemed to him to be very little prayer.

I felt like he was describing a real problem that sometimes happens with...ME!  People around me (like me!) tend to move from passion to action.   Here is what I think should happen:

Prayer---Passion---Prayer---Action

The truth is that you can have the right passion and take the wrong action unless prayer is part of the entire process.  Truthfully, I believe that...

In fact, I think that Prayer+Passion+Prayer+Action=Kingdom Impact

what do you think?

Pastorpreneur book reviewed again!

It's exciting to me that Pastorpreneur continues to be impacting the lives of men and women.  Originally issued in 2003 as a paperback, Abingdon Press released it here in 2009.  I'm excited about how men and women in the marketplace can release their entrepreneurial gifts for ministry and how pastors and church leaders can get entrpreneurial to reach their communities for Christ.

So, I always like it when the book is reviewed.  Here is the link to the latest review:  Pastorpreneur review here 

I'd love to receive your feedback on Pastorpreneur as well.  And, as always, if you are in a ministry or marketplace role and want me to hook you up with 10 copies or more...e-mail me at john@cvcwired.com

Thanks!