Here is another set of links that has been accumulating on my browser.  Some interesting stuff.  Check it out.

Featured on an upcoming radio show.  David Koresh 18 years later.  http://www.cnn.com/2011/US/04/14/waco.koresh.believers/index.html?hpt=C1

Sad story of a man who didn't get out of his chair for 2 years.  Also subject of an upcoming radio show.  http://www.foxnews.com/health/2011/03/29/obese-ohio-man-fused-chair-sat-2-years/?intcmp=sem_outloud&intcmp=obnetwork

Story about Christian colleges and students who come out as gay.  A tough issue.  http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/42656837/ns/us_news-the_new_york_times/

David Brooks, a writer really enjoy, on why Donald Trump is popular right now.  Quite a commentary.  http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/19/opinion/19brooks.html?_r=2&ref=opinion

Great Easter Link, interesting study into what day Jesus ate the Last Supper.  http://cosmiclog.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2011/04/19/6497928-did-jesus-eat-an-early-last-supper

Another Donald Trump article.  This one about abortion and the right to privacy.  This one might make its own blog post.  http://firstread.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2011/04/19/6495853-the-donald-trumped-on-abortion-question

Great article of procrastination.  I enjoyed it.  Need to work more on it.  http://today.msnbc.msn.com/id/42578065/ns/today-today_health/#

I thought this article from back in March was funny.   The basic gist of it is that Obama was given an award for the openness and transparency that he supposedly has brought to the White House.  The presentation ceremony for the award was closed and secret.    Now if that isn't funny, I don't know what is!  :)    I am beggining to see a pattern.   He is given the Nobel peace prize so he increases troops in Afganistan, increases drone strikes in Pakistan, and intervenes militarily in Libya.   He gets an award for transparency and responds by keeping the award secret.  So next we need to give him an award for spending big bucks and for voting liberal.  How might he respond to those awards?  :)    Just funny!

"I believe deeply that the future of the church in America depends largely in all believers doing the work of discipleship and placing less of a burden on paid staff.  I believe our best days are ahead."       -Francis Chan

Continuing my theme from last week of partnership at church and the pastor's job, I want to talk a little more about discipleship.  I have asked all of our deacons and pastors in our church to read Leroy Eims book, The Lost Art of Disciplemaking.

In this book, Eims compares the church to a shoe factory had is busy everyday with lots of raw material, but never makes any shoes.  Many of our churches are bustling with programs and meetings and yet people are not being turned into disciples or disciplemakers.  That is the function of the church like shoes are the function of a shoe factory.  The pastors job is to make sure the factory is producing shoes.  Instead, too often, pastors are busy keeping the lights on and staffing meetings but aren't doing much for the actual production of shoes.

How do we make shoes disciples & disciplemakers?  Again, many churches' and pastors' first instinct is to buy a book or program and schedule a course, launch a "Discipleship Program!"   I cannot say that such approaches never work, but they are hardly the preferred way.  The best way to make disicples and disciplemakers is to follow the format that Jesus and Paul both show us in Scripture.  They spent time, lots of time, personal time, intentional time, with others.  Jesus invested His life in other men's lives.  He talked about what He was doing, why He was doing it, and how he felt about it.  He took men with Him when He did things and let them watch Him do the work and then He had them do the work too.  Paul did the same thing with Timothy.

As a pastor, I must spend time with other men and my wife must spend time with other women to share our lives, our ministry with them.  Sitting down over a meal, taking them with me when I do ministry work.  The single biggest tool is to share my personal and spiritual life with them, giving them a window into my own walk with God, my struggles and areas of growth.  Then, those who have grown in the Lord, who have developed a measure of maturity, these men and women need encouragement and help in developing the skills and making the time to do the same thing with others.  They turn into disciplemakers.  When this process gets going, takes root, and grows in a church, real growth will occur.  It may or may not impact the Sunday attendance (although long term it will tend to increase attendance), but real growth will occur as mena nd women deepen and mature in their walks with God.  More service will take place, more evangelism will take place, and the church will be healthy because the church (people) are healthy.

On a personal note, I was really excited Sunday when, in response to me asking what the fruit of the church is, how many people answered "disciples".

Yesterday I posted about the great teamwork that has developed at Bean's Corner.  There has always been some good teamwork happening at BCBC as long as I have been here, but in the last few years it has really increased as we have sought to broaden people's responsibility and let people use their gifts and make decisions.  This causes me to think about my "job" at church.

There are a lot of different perspectives on the job of a pastor.  The traditional view seems to make the pastor the CEO of the church, overseeing all the programs of the church as well as the schedule, the calendar, the day to day work.  Some of this picture arose from the idea that the pastor is often times (although not in our case) the only paid employee of the church.  I don't think this means he should do all that work, but I understand why that model develops.  There is another reason why the CEO model is so common though.  Pastor's think it is their job to make the church work.   I guess I can agree with that statement, but only by redefining what is meant by "church."

The Church is not the incorporated organization that exists in any geographical location.  The Church is the believers that assemble and make up the organization.  My job as pastor is to make the church, the individuals, work.  This is straight from Ephesians where it says, "And He gave some as apostles, and some as prophets, and some as evangelists, and some as pastors and teachers, for the equipping of the saints for the work of service, to the building up of the body of Christ;"  (Ephesians 4:11-12 NAS)   This is just a fancy way of talking about making disciples and training disciplemakers.  The pastor's job is to help the saints to the work not do the work for the saints.

This is why we have structured things the way we have at BCBC and why I do not attend most of the board and committee meetings.  Our Missions Board is filled with spiritually qualified people who have a heart for missions.  They are doing a great job increasing missions awareness at our church and connecting to missionaries.  All without me there.  The Christian Education Board has overseen the growth in Sunday School attendance, the building of a very strong children's ministry and cared for the teachers.  All without me there.  The Board of Trustees are doing excellent work in maintaining and improving the physical property as well as overseeing the budget.  The Deaconess Board has built a great prayer chain, is caring for the woman and families of the church and helping maintain a vigorous care ministry.  All this without me lifting a finger.  Each week the church is cleaned, the phone answered, the mail collected, the bulletin run off by those who serve the church and partner to see the ministry take place.    This is how it should be.

So what is my job then, if I have avoided so much of what a pastor traditionally does?  Referring back to Ephesians, it is to equip.  There are more in the church that need spiritual encouragement to grow into the servants they can be.  They need Biblical teaching, personal encouragement, spiritual nudging and guidance.  In other words, spend intentional time with people in personal and spiritual discussion.  Again, this is just fancy talk for "Making Disciples."   I work with Mac & Nate discipling them while also working with them.  We work on setting forth the all important spiritual goals for our fellowship to help us become more effective in our #1 mission; making disciples.

This week the two biggest jobs I will do in terms of time and effort are: 1) spending time in indepth study of the Word of God preparing rich teaching to feed the flock and help them learn to feed themselves.  2) spending time with individuals in the flock for the purpose of encouragement and spiritual growth, or in other words, making disciples and disciplemakers.  As for what that work entails, well, that will be another blog post.  :)

Well, it has been another week and a half without a blog entry.  I usually don't struggle like this on the blog until summer camp rolls around.  Of course, this year, summer camp is off to a very slow start because I am so far behind.

It is exciting how much God is doing at church and at the same time, it has really transformed my schedule.  It has gotten harder for me to get the office time I need as there are so many people to spend time with and my preference is to spend time with people.  For every day that I don't do a blog entry, I have usually had some great people connections.   Not that I'm using that as an excuse!  (ok, maybe a little bit of an excuse :)  ).

The point that I wanted to make today, however, has to do with my partners in ministry.  I am so thankful for Nate and Mac as well as all the other men and women in the leadership of Bean's Corner that are doing God's work in our church.  Without all the efforts to visit, call, bring meals, send cards, etc. there are so many people who would not receive expressions of love and care from our fellowship.  We are moving away from a program centered approach to ministry and into a greater people centered approach as we realize that the real "work" of the ministry is not is fulfilling objectives or administrating programs, it is in loving people.  Sure, there is a place for proper administration of effort, but too often the church in America has been better at administering and ordering the work than in simply doing it.

I praise God for all the care that Nate, Mac, the deacons, the deaconesses and others are doing.  There is no way possible for one man, especially one as flawed as I am, to care for a congregation the size of Bean's Corner's.  God has raised up many workers for the bountiful harvest and for that I am very thankful!   Now I just need to get back to writing some more blog posts!