Willow Creek Plans

Okay! I am officially a little nervous about speaking at Reveal. My section is a part of a 45 minute interview format that two other pastors (one from Pennsylvania and one from New Jersey) and I will speaking about how we grow Christ-centered disciples by going out and BEING the church instead of people coming to church. In other words, we give the church leadership away as every member becomes both a minister (a priest) and a missionary. I am the middle section of the interview and mine is the longest (these folks cannot believe how our cell families function as small churches). Mine being the longest is not necessarily good because we do not have any notes with us, and I am getting old and cannot remember long sequences of thought anymore. I am excited though because I get to mention the magnificent Gospel of Jesus Christ to thousands of people. Surely I won't mess that up! They get a kick out the fact that we have twice as many people come to church as live the little town that our church sits in. We are the only portable church that was selected also -- the only church dumping beer and cleaning just so we can have church.

It has been fabulous interacting with the tremendous staff at Willow Creek and these other 12 pastors are unbelievable. What creativity -- what passion for God and His Word. I have learned a lot from just all the preparations to go. All of the churches have had to work as a team -- what a novel idea -- the church functioning as a team. I do hope that I remember that one crucial thought that I have had is that I have noticed recently different cell families working well with each other to accomplish taking care of people in need. If you understand how our church functions, that is like different churches coming together to help someone. That is a model for what Christ wants to see in ALL churches. This territorial crap has to stop.

Our team that will be attending is up to 8 as Milford and Nancy Gibbs have decided to join us on the trip. They will join pastors Steve Tousseau of Community Covenant and Kendall Hughes of First Church of God in Leadwood (both of them serve on our oversight team), Kim Massey, teaching pastor Ben Durbin, and of course Kelley.
If you would like to pray for me, I will speaking at 11:00 on Wednesday in the Big Auditorium at WC. I sure would appreciate it because this is quite an honor, and I am not sure if this washed-up ball coach is up to the task. What is really exciting is that I get to talk about the fine folks of The Bridge and the great job they are doing at following King Jesus. That is what people want to hear about.

The picture above is at Catalyst today. It shows our fine young leadership on the couches of the front row getting ready to worship with Steve Fee and hear from Andy Stanley, Steven Furtick, and Craig Groecshel. Good stuff!