Thoughts on a Friday Morning

Sorry that I have not blogged in a few days, but I have been rewriting all of the church documents and getting them approved by the our Board of Elders, rewriting all of our membership classes, and writing our Board of Elder and Pastor Ordination interview questions. That may not sound like a lot of fun to you, but I have really enjoyed it as it has afforded a lot of time in the Bible (since we can do nothing that does not have Biblical warrant), and a lot of time thinking about the best ways to help our people to Believe IT, Grow IT, Send IT. I recommend to all of you church leaders out there to periodically look at your documents, your trainings, your vision statements and see if they are current with what God wants you focused on. We have changed our website, so you can easily see a lot of the updates at www.bridgelife360.com.

Ben and I have been wrestling with something for quite a while now. We know that to truly help change our community, to truly be salt and light, to truly wipe out some of the pressing issues, we need a strong working relationships with other churches. We have that with 3 or 4, but there are 118 in the county. We want to partner with them, but we don't think that they have a high view of us. We need for you to pray that the hearts of the pastors and leadership will have their heart softened toward working together to really impact St. Francois County for Christ.

We know that we are brash and bold with our vision, but that does not mean that we have not approached our assigned task without humility. The Apostle Paul was successful in spreading the Gospel because he was powerful in the Holy Spirit while he was personally humble. I am asking the Lord to make sure that we have that combination right because our church can only make a dent in the serious problems of our community, but many churches together can win the county for Christ. That is all we want to see happen.

We had a tremendous cell family meeting last night. There were lots of laughs and lots of Bible moments. There is nothing like authentic community. So authentic that I got flipped off by a church member last night. Wow!