Innovative Church Network

PCC is a founding church in the Innovative Church Network. The coming event, next Thursday, is a very relevant topic for us - Breaking Growth Barriers. Check out the details below. I hope you can make it.

ICN's next conference will be held on the 2nd Thursday of October
(*note this is a change from our regular 3rd Thursday of the month*)

Mark your calendars now for:
October 8th, 2009
10:00am - 2:00pm

The conference will be located at:
Atlee Community Church
7171 Verdi Lane
Mechanicsville, VA 23116
Overcoming Growth Barriers

October's topic will be Overcoming Growth Barriers facilitated by Hank Brooks of Coastal Community Church. To help prepare, you could read this book: "How to Break Growth Barriers: Capturing Overlooked Opportunities for Church Growth" by Carl F. George.

As always, the point of our Innovative Church Network is peer-to-peer learning and support. Our gathering will provide you and your entire team an opportunity to talk about this topic in ministry specific ways. We are encouraging all of our pastors to bring their staff and key leaders. This will be a really great day for our network!
We look forward to seeing you there!

Registration

Please RSVP to icn@atleechurch.org by Wednesday, September 30, 2009. We will need the names of each participant, so if you are bringing a group please provide the names of each person attending. When responding please include your lunch order. The cost of lunch is $10 (sandwich, side item, beverage and cookie). Unfortunately there will be no extra lunches ordered.

Sandwich Choices:
• Tuna Salad: swiss on sourdough bread
• Club: turkey, ham, bacon, cheddar & provolone on honey wheat bread
• Vegetarian: mushrooms, tomatoes, cucumbers, avocado, green pepper, sprouts, provolone and cheddar on honey wheat bread

If you have additional questions or need assistance please contact:

Innovative Church Network
7171 Verdi Lane
Mechanicsville, VA 23116

(804) 730.3676
icn@atleechurch.org

Spence Network

I'm away for 3 days with some incredible, amazing leaders. It is a great honor to be invited to the Spence Network gatherings of innovative pastors who lead incredibly exciting churches. In the room are maybe 20 or so senior pastors. We stay at very nice places...places I could not afford to stay normally. We eat at very upscale restaurants, which are somewhat more gourmet than the fast food I usually have when we 'eat out'. And we interview and dialogue with some of the most exclusive and renowned leaders anywhere. I feel unworthy to be included in this gathering. But it is a rare treat for Susan and me, a genuine blessing to both of us to stay in such luxury, to eat so fine, and to be treated with such honor. All of this is paid for because of the work of the Spence Network leaders, who believe in the great Kingdom value of getting church staff and church leaders together on various levels, mixing them up, adding some outside voices, and turning them loose.

This is my 3rd invitation (once per year) to be a part of this gathering, and there are now some friendships that are forming. It takes a long time for Senior Pastors to make great friends because our schedules are so full all the time. But slowly, the networking is paying off. I had a conversation last night with a friend and we started talking about Zions Crossroads and batted around the idea of us partnering to either planting a church there, or launch a campus there. Another approached me about some work we might could do together at the state level that would make a real difference. One asked me to give him some counsel on how to help him lead his rapidly growing church through a period of very scarce resources. Another talked about their venture into a new building program.

On the flip side, I reached out to several guys who have successful multi-site strategies. I'll meet with them after this retreat is over, and they were gracious enough to give me a piece of their calendars. With some others, we decided to bring all of our campus pastors (we haven't selected ours yet) together for a 2-day intense training that we would jointly arrange. I was able to unload a little about my frustrations with our building...and some of the frustrations with myself.

John Chandler, who leads the Spence Network, probably doesn't really grasp the value of the work he does. But this gathering has become an oasis for me - a much anticipated time of growing, reflecting, and learning. There is nobody here that I have to lead, nobody here who requires anything of me. There is no stress on finances or guilt for spending, because it costs me nothing. And Susan and I get to enjoy some amenities we rarely (never) have.

And, best of all, the Kingdom wins. I'll return invigorated, ready, better equipped, charged, and with more support.

Thanks, John, for what you are doing for the Kingdom and for our church. We are very grateful!

Next Saturday

Next Saturday, I'll spend a good part of the day at the fall festival to support a ministry that is near and dear to my heart - Tanzania Health and Humanitarian Fund. This is a charity that was founded by Jeanette Brannan to make a real and tangible difference in the lives of people in one of the most impoverished countries in the world - Tanzania.

If you happen to know Mel and Jeanette, you know that anything they do is outstanding. It has been a major privilege to count them a part of the PCC team of leaders for many years now. When they agree to take a project, they do it with excellence. It's also an honor to count them both good friends.

I hope you will come out next Saturday and enjoy the day and support a great cause...and try to take a swing at me in the Dunking Booth!

You can learn more at www.TanzaniaHHF.org. Hope to see you there!

Accepting Your Appointment

I am slowly studying 1 Chronicles and I am really enjoying it. I'm seeing things I never saw before and feel like God is revealing important truths to me for application in my life.

Recently, I passed through chapter 14 and saw something that made me stop in my tracks. David had already been anointed King by the prophet of God and he has already been appointed King by the people of God. He was the King. It was an indisputable and undeniable fact. And yet, David apparently didn't fully accept it. He had been King for a while, had led the Israelite people to victory, established the capital city, brought the ark of God home to Jerusalem. Yet, he was still tentative about his position. Until Chapter 14.

"Then King Hiram of Tyre sent messengers to David, along with cedar timber, and stonemasons and carpenters to build him a palace. And David realized that the Lord had confirmed him as king over Israel and had greatly blessed his kingdom for the sake of his people Israel." (1 Chronicles 14:1-2, NLT, emphasis mine)

Seems odd, doesn't it, that David required external affirmation in order to receive divine confirmation. David wouldn't fully accept or realize his status until some high figure from the outside - in this case the King of Tyre - recognized him as King.

It's a little sad, I think. And I can relate. God moves us at times to be bold and courageous. But instead of standing on Him, we wait until external circumstances confirm our calling. Or we wait for someone on the outside to affirm our characteristics in order to lead or move or act or change.

It is said that a leader without a follower is a lonely person taking a walk by themselves. David had a great following and a divine calling and an awesome vision, but he relied on an external authority before he would really take the reigns of leadership. Perhaps it was this morsel of insecurity or uncertainty that got him in trouble later.

Would that we would all accept God's stamp of approval or calling as enough for us. If God is for us, who can be against us?

Hope you make it a great week!

Another Small Group

Tonight was a difficult night for me. For the past four years, I've led the same small group. They have become some of my close friends and we've all walked together through some of life's most difficult, and most wonderful, moments. We've learned about God, grown spiritually, matured. We've been together long enough to have gotten mad and then we've made up. We've been on mini-vacations, spent lazy days on the water, and eaten scores of meals together. Our kids have played and fought and played some more.

One of the few things I do well is connect people to each other, while they are finding their connection with God. And it was time, as we move to a new and innovative and more effective small group model, for me to connect a new group of folks in community.

So, tonight I said goodbye and let my group go on its own. In a way, it was a little weird. I mean, many of these friends live in my neighborhood - literally down the street and around the corner. So, it's not like I'm really going anywhere.

And yet, in another way, it was surreal. It really felt like a chapter was ending...and it was really hard. You simply can't do life with someone every week for four years and not be affected when you stop getting together.

What's interesting is that, by the end of the night, it was clear that they were going to be just fine without me. And, strangely, that's both sad and very satisfying, at the same time. It tells me that I've done the job I was called to do, and that our church is getting stronger.

Bill Hybels says that there is nothing like the local church when the local church is working right. I agree. And the small group is where the church is at its best. Of all the things we need to do well, continuing to assimilate people into great small group communities is at the top of the list.

If you are not in a small group, you don't know what you are missing.

Go to lunch with your kids

Yesterday was a big day for my 8 year old Joshua. He had been asking me for the last 2 weeks to come and have lunch with him at school. I kept saying, "we'll see," which is the parent way of saying 'you're not important enough for me to log you into my calendar.' Finally, I realized that this was a big deal to him, so last week I said, "Joshua, I can't do it this week, but let's sit down and look at my calendar and figure out when I can do it next week. We looked, found an opening on Thursday and I wrote it in:

Lunch with Joshua at school.

He smiled and that was the end of it...until Wednesday evening when I reminded him that 'tomorrow is the big day'. He was so excited, gave me a hug, and told me to remind Mom not to pack his lunch, since I'd be bringing him MacDonald's.

When I got to school yesterday, it was obvious that the kids had been talking to each other that Joshua's dad was coming to lunch with him, because there were 3 other dads and one mom there - all having lunch with their kids.

"That's Brittany, that's Cynthia, that one over there is Brandon and that guy is Michael..." One by one, Joshua pointed out his friends by name. "She's new and I was in his class last year. See that teacher over there? She acts mean, but she's really nice." On and on he went, talking excitedly about his world for over half an hour.

Somewhere in there, I realized that this was a really big deal to him. So I said, "Joshua, how'd you like to do this every month?" He was excited. So, I pulled out my blackberry and we picked a date in October, November and December - each time I wrote, "Lunch with Joshua" while he watched. He had made Dad's schedule - which apparently is significant.

Last night, we all met up at home and, out of the blue he asked, "Dad, you think we could do that twice a month?"

You bet, Joshua. You bet.

Westchester Site Meeting

Tuesday evening's meeting was quite an impressive crowd. We were to eat at 6, for those who could come, and the meeting was to start at 6:30. By ten after 6, it was obvious that the back room where the meeting was to take place wasn't going to do it. There were people just steadily coming in the door to hear about our first satellite campus. So, plan B = we ate in the back room AND in the restaurant - basically wherever we could sit - and then at about 6:45 we migrated to a nice little spot outdoors. Thankfully, the weather was reasonable. There were over 50 folks there, in several 'categories'.

1. Some were there because they care deeply about PCC and our mission and wanted to know more about what we were doing. They realize that the Westchester launch will have implications on the broader church and it's mission and want to be on the solution side of those challenges by helping us to think thoroughly through the questions. We desperately need folks like this for a project of this magnitude to be successful. They help us see some things that we don't see, but should.
2. Others were there from PCC who live to the east - either in eastern Powhatan or in Chesterfield or the West End. I actually got a call today from a good friend of mine who lives almost in Chester. He was telling me how much he wanted to be at the meeting last night (he was hung up and couldn't get there) because the new location would be so much more convenient. He specifically said that he wants to have a PCC experience when he comes to church, but the building is so far away. Westchester is the answer for him. 10% of PCC attenders come from the east, northeast and southeast. We will automatically lose a portion of those people by virtue of our move. They have told us this and we know it is so. By simply retaining these people as part of the PCC family, Westchester begins strong and distinctly PCC.
3. Some were there from other churches. I met 2 families from Huguenot Road, friends of the Heberle's, and a man from Tomahawk Baptist who heard about the meeting through middle district. They were all interested in this new concept. And make no mistake about it - we might know that's multi-site has been going on for a while, but it's still new here. And we're going to do it in a way that NOBODY else is, making it a whole new brand of unique. Even today, we found a way to be like no other innovative, seeker driven church around. This is exciting to folks who want to be a part of something that is making a difference.
4. There were some 'PCC Fans' there. Glenn Akins from the Virginia Baptist Mission Board and Nita May - a long time friend and mentor to me - from Middle District Baptist Association were both there to cheer us on and be a support. These groups have given PCC well over $100,000 in our early days to help ensure our success. We are grateful that they have stood beside us so faithfully. We wouldn't be where we are without them.

Great questions were answered and I learned a lot about the couple of areas in which we aren't quite as prepared as we should be and I also had a couple of questions stump me a little. That's highly beneficial, because I always leave meetings and go find answers and learn how to better respond the next time the question is asked.

I hope the meeting was a benefit to those who were there, too. There is serious momentum growing for this project. It is fresh for the community, it's innovative, it's risky, and it's clearly from God. Our staff is excited about it, too.

Now the Core Launch Team will begin to form and the site will begin to take shape. I will have more to say about this and I'll post some slides on this blog about the meeting itself and I'll keep you posted here, too.

In the end, there is no doubt that God is up to something. Don't give into fear. I know it's scary. But I promise you this: God is still in the same multiplication business He was in Matthew 14. Where we see gaps and wholes and deficiencies, God sees opportunities for people who now only watch to step up and participate; who now drop $10 a week in the basket to step up in faith and begin to tithe; who now only come to church on Sundays to be the church 6 other days a week. God's in the Divine Multiplication business, and if we'll be faithful to feed hungry people with whatever is in our hands, we're going to get to watch an abundant -style miracle happen. Because when God goes to work, 5+2 doesn't feed 7. It doesn't even feed 12. It feeds 5000 men, plus all the women and children, and makes a week's leftovers for all the disciples.

That's the God we still serve. He's been producing that kind of abundance at PCC from day 1. And He'll do it again through our bold move at Westchester.

Glad to be with you on the journey!