Conflicted

With the current events between Newspring’s press release and Dr. James Duncan’s rebuttal post on his blog, I am conflicted.

I have been a long-time follower of Perry Noble’s blog (he is the lead pastor of Newspring), and have regularly watched their church services of from their website. I appreciate being challenged by Perry to dig deeper, follow harder, and serve more passionately. From the outset, I didn’t agree with some of his methods of speaking, but the content was good even if it was replete with anecdotes and personal stories.

Now with this whole mess being made completely public, I feel like I’ve been punched in the gut, but at the same time had my eyes opened.

Leadership by Influence

Please don’t think I’m strange, but I woke up with these three words on my mind yesterday in relation to leadership methodology: influence, confluence, flatulence. I had to actually look up confluence to be sure it was a real word. [don't mock my lack of vocabulary] I figured I’d spend some time hammering out a thought or two I’m having on this topic.

I think we can all agree that without influence there is no leadership. I think it was John Maxwell that said something along the lines of if you are leading and nobody is following, you’re just out for a walk.

Flood Update

So this has been one of the most interesting weeks I’ve had since being at FGF. Wednesday I showed up in the morning to a flooded out church. Come to find out that a pipe had burst under our foundation slab. All in all, it was looking a little bleak, and we started the ball rolling on moving our church services to a different site until repairs could be made.

That was Wednesday.

Thursday the leak detection guys came out and pinpointed the ruptured pipe. It’s all of about 3″ below the slab just outside the bathroom. Yes the slab will have to be jackhammered to get at it, but just a very small portion. What was originally looking to be a very long repair job turned out to be one that could be done in a day. Also on Thursday, we got water flowing to the fellowship hall so we’ll be able to have church there this Sunday.

By the way, if you’re reading this, and you don’t have a church home and you live near Hercules, Ca…we’d love to have you worship with us!

That was Thursday.

Today I got the final estimate from the plumbers and the cost for the plumbing repair should be a LOT less that I had originally thought. So far it looks like what will cost the most and take the most time is getting the offices and the bathroom put back together. Amazing! This is one of those times where I just shake my head in wonder at how God works. Not so much the circumstance, but at how quickly we were put at ease about the severity of it. I know I immediately jumped to the worst possible scenario in my own mind. I’m pretty sure some other people did as well.

Speaking of that…

In the last 48 hours so many people have stepped up offering to help. I can’t tell you how humbled and honored I am to be your pastor, FGF. Seriously. Can’t wait for Sunday!!! See you there.

Flood at FGF

So I came in yesterday morning and was greeted with a flooded church foyer. This quick little video shows how far the water extended. The damage doesn’t seem too bad, but the cause of the leak is a pipe under the slab. We’ll find out today what, exactly, that means as far as repairs.

For Sunday, we will either have service in the Fellowship Hall (if we can get the water turned back on) or we will have other options. We’ll make that decision this afternoon.

This is a big opportunity, in my opinion. Something like this definitely changes the routine of “church” and can stir us up. I’m excited to see where God is going with all of this. Seriously.

The Parable of the Spa (part 4)

Our little saga is about to end. If you’ve been following along, you remember that our spa has gone through a few phases:

1) No power = dead spa
2) Right power + wrong wiring = blown fuse
3) Right wiring + wrong power = no heat

That brings us to where we are now:

4) Right power + right wiring = hot water therapy bliss

The Parable of the Spa (part 3)

Bet you didn’t know this would end up being a saga, did you? It wasn’t enough that we waited over a year to get our spa hooked up. It wasn’t enough that it drew more amps than the wires would allow which blew a fuse. No no…now our poor little brand new, ten year old spa would be hooked up to a different power supply. It was hooked up to 240v. Now, as a temporary fix since the electrician was going on vacation for a few days, it would be hooked up to 120v. [I think it's 120v. I'm not an electrician. -john] This would make it take longer to heat the water, but it would keep the amperage down when we fired up the jets. Brilliant!

The Parable of the Spa (part 2)

After a year of having our spa just sitting there taunting us, we decided that we would use our vacation money to hook it up. What an exciting day that was! I went out back to check on it every half hour to see how much the temperature of the water had risen. That night we jumped in and it was fantastic! Three nights later, as we were enjoying the jets and scalding hot water…it shut off. One moment we were in water therapeutic bliss, the next we were in mourning over what just happened.

The Parable of the Spa (part 1)

Last week Jen and I enjoyed our brand new, 10 year old, spa for the first time. It has been a pain in the neck to get installed, and we were both very frustrated through the process that took about two weeks. As I was wallowing in pity and wondering why nothing ever seems to go as planned for us, I was struck by the different phases our little spa had gone through to get where it is right now.

What is pentecostal preaching?

Every week we take time during our service to get out of our seats and meet & greet the people we’re worshiping with. It’s something we’ve been doing for years, and it is one of my favorite times on Sunday.  I make it a point to try to talk to every person in the church during that time.

Recently, as I was shaking hands with one of the long-time members of the church, he said, “I have one request.”  Curious, I asked what his request was.

“Preach like you’re pentecostal.”

What about the children?

OK, this is a serious question for all of you guys that don’t have a Sunday School.  I’m not bagging on it at all.  We are adding a second service in the next few months, and Sunday School may become a casualty.  I’m not elated over that possibility, but I also don’t mind it.  I’d like us to move more toward a small group mindset for a number of reasons, but I always come back to the kids.  Adults can always put together a mid-week Bible study small group, but if we get rid of Sunday School, we get rid of something we see as a benefit to children.

What are you doing for educating the kids?  I really do want to know.