Jeremiah Richards
looking for broken moments
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Maybe you are like me in that you spend mush of your day doing routine tasks. These things are not bad they just occur over and over again, day after day, and week after week. These are things for me like doing the dishes every evening, taking out the trash, putting shoes on, and bathing the kids. They need to be done and I really am happy to do them most of the time, but these types of tasks consume a lot of time.
Maybe you should make your own list of routine tasks.
I was having lunch with a good friend on Friday and he shared how church and faith has a tenancy to turn into part of the routine. It seems that the things we do over and over again can easily turn into nothing more than a mindless routine. Things we started for good reasons loose there reasons along the journey.
For me one of those tasks that has become part of the daily routine is giving Cade and Benjamin a bath each evening. I was bathing them to the sounds of Steve Fee . His new album “We Shine” is being played a lot in my home these days. So the song “Lift High” came on and I was drying off Cade and during the line “Lift high you hands, ohhh lift high your hands” Cade, sitting in my lap starts singing the song and raises his hands into the air. It took 2 seconds to sink in. What I thought was background music was modeling worship to my 3 year old. I broke down crying.
It is powerful how attentive even young children are! In that moment I realized how packed with potential the routine really is. Even the moments we right off as just things we need or have to do can become moments of divine break through.
I now am in search of those moments. I have prayed that God break into my routine and use them to break me and align me with His desire and plan for my life.
Looking for broken moments,
J.D.
You Make The Difference
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What a great Sunday. Today we wanted to honor all the people who give their time and talents as volunteers here at Dutch Fork Christian Church
We wanted to be a little over the top in how we honored our volunteers. We wanted people to leave saying “wow that made me feel valued.”
I think it happened. I heard several people with very positive comments about the service and people responded to the invitation time, which is always a good indication. We opened the service is BTO’s Taking Care Of Business. This is really our bands and church’s first attempt at a cover song. It really made the point we wanted it to and people enjoyed it. It is ok to enjoy church right? It is not easy as the song mentions but taking care of business here at DFCC is really a team effort.
Dave had a great message really honoring those that serve behind the scenes and challenging everyone to not just be content with the staff doing ministry, but you be the one who makes the difference in the lives of the people around you.
Finally we had a cup cake reception on the patio for everyone.
Today was a lot of fun and I hope volunteers felt honored and had a good time.
On the same note of volunteering I read this great post by Michael from Oak Leaf Church. If you lead volunteers in any capacity you will want to read it.
Getting More Volunteers
October 19th, 2007
I imagine every church, young or old, has asked this question. We have more than 100 people serving on any given Sunday, and yet it seems like we always have new opportunities. How many times in a meeting have I said, “We need to get somebody to…” And occasionally, staff or key volunteers will come to me or Anthony looking for volunteers.
We don’t have a secret list in a drawer somewhere of people that want to serve but aren’t plugged in. I don’t have a pastoral stash of good people just waiting around to do something. Last week, I talked with our staff about these principles.
1. Volunteers will only work under leaders. People that are serving need clear direction and they want to work for someone that has it under control. Volunteers do not want to walk into a mess that needs fixing. It’s much harder, but we need to solve the leadership problem before attacking the volunteer problem.
2. Expand your circle. I don’t know people in our church that are not serving, so coming to me for help isn’t going to accomplish much. Each staff person has a circle, and over time, all those people start serving somewhere. I’ve read that it’s only possible to really only know about 150 people. In a church setting, you’ll get to a point where you are out of people to know. So the key is not making your circle bigger, it’s getting into other circles. You need to ask your key volunteers to intentionally develop their circle, not keep trying to get people out of yours.
3. People need to buy into the ministry, but they also need to buy into you. There’s probably not a lot of people in your church that don’t think kids ministry isn’t important. They don’t hate children and think kids ministry is a waste of money. They think someone should do it. But sometimes, the reason people don’t rush to serve isn’t because of the ministry, it’s because of the leader. There needs to be a personal buy in…a personal connection. They need to trust your leadership and want to follow YOU.
4. Go get ‘em. We have 600+ adults that are attending our church on a regular basis. The volunteers we need are already in our building. They are so close. We just need to go get them. We need to develop systems that help us train and empower people. This is hard, and it takes time. But most of the time, the people you need are sitting there doing nothing. They just need to be inspired by the vision, challenged by a leader, and given an opportunity to impact the Kingdom.
Later,
J.D.
Dirty Little Secret – Porn
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What a great day. We are in the middle of “Satan’s Sex Ed” a series on God’s plan for sexuality. It has been an awesome series for us as we have never tackled an issue as bold as this. We have had a great response and lives changed from this series.
Sunday was National Porn Sunday and we opened the service with All American Rejects – Dirty Little Secrets.I put togather a video that played with the song. You can watch the video here.
We had a campus minister from USC who has participated in XXX Church’s National Porn Sunday speak. He did a fantastic job presenting the topic. The stories we are hearing about how God is using this series is amazing.
Below is the list of recourses we distributed on Sunday. If you or someone you needs help this is certainly a great place to start. I personally installed the accountability software on my computer as I am not immune to temptation. My wife and a great friend in ministry here in town are my accountability partners they both receive a detailed list of every site my computer accesses every 2 weeks.
If you were not present I would encourage everyone to listen to the message. You can listen to it on our church site http://www.dutchfork.com/sermons.html
Catalyst in depth
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If you are more interested in the Catalyst 07 speakers and what happened to me and everyone else there check out the Catalyst blog.
Baptism Celebrartion Sept. 16, 2007
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This is the video interviews and video of the actual baptism’s. What an awesome day!
Catalyst Day 2 recap
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I really don’t know how you could squeeze any more information into 1 day. It has been said several times, but Catalyst is like drinking from a fire hydrant! It is not just great it is difficult, challenging and even painful.
Today certainly did not disappoint! Another huge lineup.
Session 8 – John Maxwell
www.injoy.com
This man is a legand in the corprate and church leadership worlds. He has been helping leaders for 30 years and this Catalyst conference actually was the start of his retirement from public ministry. John Maxwell is really the father of the Catalyst conference and has given his life to church leaders. The organizers of Catalyst all took an opportunity to give tributes to his life and ministry. It was very touching to hear men like Andy Stanley, Reggie Joiner, Tim Sanders, Erwin McManus, and Dave Ramsey with tears praise God for this mans life. Andy shared how when he was at the lowest point in his life John was the guy who helped pick him up and remind him that God has a plan and purpose for his life.
John spoke about the highest purpose every leader should live for. We must intentionally add value to every person we lead! As we look to add value to people we must understand that that will happen best when we serve out of our strengths! We must know and leverage our strengths to add value to people. Your strengths are you best asset. Don not live to be well rounded and fill in the gaps in your gift set. Focus on your strengths and manage around your weaknesses. You strengths are where God wants to use you.
4 things you must do to add value to the people you lead.
1. You must value people. You must love people and desire to value them.
2. You must make yourself more valuable. It almost seams counter the idea, but by adding value to yourself you make it possible to have something meaningful to say. You must as a leader ALWAYS keep learning, keep stretching yourself, keep growing. You can not lead people to a place you have never been. You as the leader must spend the time and the energy to read, learn, and never stop challenging yourself. If you are not a learner you are not a leader! If you have the position of leader and are not doing the hard work of learning and growing you are only fooling yourself. You can not lead without making yourself more valuable.
3. You must know and value what the people you lead know and value. You must be involved in the lives of the people you lead to the point that you know what makes them tick. You know there families, hobbies, likes and dislikes. You must show interest in their lives.
4. You must know and be apart of the things God values. You must be close to the heartbeat of God. You must know what breaks his heart and those things must break yours. You must be in tune to his desires and direction.
As a leader you are either adding or subtracting value from the people you lead. There is no in between. The greatest sin as a leader is to think of yourself first.
John closed his time with us and really his close of his time at Catalyst by praying for us. As I sat there I was moved to tears with the love and passion this man has for God and really for me and every other young leader their. John with all his accomplishments is extremly humbly.
Session 9 – Craig Groeschel
Craig is here to stay. I have been listening to Craig for almost 2 years, but this was in some ways his coming out party. He is here to sta. I heard several guys saying they didn’t know who he was, but that his talk was awesome and extremely challenging.
Craig opened with a prayer that God “disturb you”. He confessed that he is a practical atheist. He says with his mouth that Jesus is Lord, but his life and ministry do not reflect that truth. We often say Jesus is Lord, but than we work as if our effort is the determining factor in the success of the church. OUCH!
Craig pointed out that 3 things we are saying when we live as a practical atheist.
1. Our effort is better than Gods power
2. Our private life doesn’t effect our public ministry.
3. We must please people instead of pleasing God.
Lord disturb me!
Session 10 – Dave Ramsey
Dave as many may know is a nationally syndicated radio talk show host. He is passionate about helping people understand how money works. For me this was the first time I realized and was very convicted that the way I spend and use my money is a spiritual issue not just a financial one. We own nothing! We are stewards who manage God’s resources. My wife and I do not have thousands in debt, do not misuse money, but we are not wise stewards. We do not worship God in the use of His money. That will change!
Dave this definition of prosperity – having the money to do God’s will in your life. People want to give. They want to be generous. They are oppressed by debt and can not do God’s will in their life because of that debt.
You become a giver when you have a plan.
Session 11 – Erwin McManus
Erwin is always amazing. He is always looking at things from a different angle. He focused on the Christians responsibility to reclaim beauty where ever you see it. By this point in the day I was so drunk on the fire hydrant that I didn’t take notes and committed to listening to the message again as I purchased the complete Catalyst pack.
Session 12 – Andy Stanley
I have just taken in more practical leadership information than ever before. The challenge is now to take that home and turn it into change in my ministry and church, but how? Andy related to the feeling of having the passion, desire, and ideas, but having all those die as soon as you get home. Why does this happen? Andy share that the problem comes when we try and make change happen with new ideas, passion, and renewed desire in the same old system.
Andy shared that sermons don’t change behavior, bummer for all the professional pastors out there. Systems change behavior. The problem with most churches including mine is not that we don’t have talented staff and volunteers. The problem is not that we don’t have the recourses. The problem is not that we don’t have the desire. The problem is the systems.
See the Bible says nothing about the systems. The Bible does not give us a blueprint on the systems that should run a church. The Bible is the truth we hope to effectively communicate to see lives changed. The problem is that most people get more upset about changing systems than they do about not fulfilling the great commission. There is a problem with that!
We must first start with the systems that are in place. If they are broken they will be discarded and replaced with new ones. If there was no intentional system we will create one to get the desired behavior. Because systems dictate behavior.
As I reflect back on the last few days I am scarred. I have had so much reveled to me that there is a huge responsibility to turn God’s revelation in to action. I must not allow these truths to die in my notebooks and head. God has entrusted me with a skill to lead people and given me a great opportunity to be trained by some of the worlds best leaders. I must do something. My life, ministry, and church will be forever changed by these last few days at Catalyst.
Get ready here I come!
Catalyst Day 1 recap
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Session 1 – Andy Stanley
www.northpoint.org
Wow!
“What do you do when you realize you the most powerful person in the room?”
“You leverage your leadership for the benefit of those in the room and not yourself.”
Andy used the story of Jesus washing the disciples feet to show how there are times when we as leaders are powerful people. If you lead people you are powerful, but as soon as you realize this you have a responsibility to leverage that power for the benefit of the others in the room.
Jesus in that moment when he acknowledges that he is all powerful, uses that moment to wash the disciples feet. In that act he showed how leaders should respond to power. Serve others. He used an awesome quote from King George after Britain was defeated by George Washington in the War of independence how Washington was asked and even being pushed to be the president again and again, 3 terms, people even wanted to call him king or emperor, and in that moment he walked away!
He had every opportunity to make his name great, to live the rest of his live with ultimate power, and he choose to step aside. Wow that is humility. When people sing our praise are we willing to leverage our power for others or for ourselves?
Session 2 – Pat Lencioni
www.tablegroup.com
Author of several awesome books I need to read including 5 dysfunctions of a team. He talked about every persons need to find value in their work. He broke it down to 3 issues that cause misery in a job. 1. Anonymity, people need to know that they are know and cared about. 2. Irrelevance, people need to hear from their leaders that what they do makes a difference. The role they play is needed and valuable 3. Lack of measurement, we don’t give people tools to measure their own effectiveness.
Session 3 – Gabe Lyons and the UnChristian guys.
www.fermiproject.com
These guys were presenting a new book that is describing the public conception of Christians, which is not good, and what we as the leaders of the church can do about it.
Session 4 – Shane Claborn
www.simpleway.org
A different kind of church.
The community of Jesus must be different and ridiculously creative in how we approach the problems of this world. We must act creatively to change this world. He is very passionate about social issues and presents a Jesus that cares about social issues and came up with creative solutions to the social problems he encountered.
Session 5 – Francis Chan
www.cornerstoneimsimi.com
That actually hurt. I sat there and felt God cutting away the lies that I have believed. Do I follow God call exactly as it is given to me or do I out of fear shrink from the battles God calls me to.
Understanding your calling, as a pastor is about loving, really loving the people you lead. It’s about unapologetically saying and doing exactly what Jesus calls you to say and do. He spoke from Jeremiah he and pointed out that from the beginning of time I have been chosen by God to do this. I am set apart to preach the good news. The spirit of God actually inhabits me. People will oppose you, for 30 years people opposed Jeremiah, but I am with you.
He challenged us to remember this is a war! There is no time for excuses and encouraging hugs. Get in there and do something. You will never hear a solder run to the general crying because people are shooting at him. We need to understand that there is an enemy and he will stop at nothing to stop you. Suck it up and fight till your death.
This is not about playing games.
Session 6 – Sunday Adelaja
www.godembassy.com
Sunday is the pastor at the largest church in Europe. He has a very interesting story of God calling him from Nigeria to the Ukraine. He started with no one and God has now blessed him with a church who’s average 1 week attendance is 200,000 people, yeah that is right count the zeros again, I said 200 thousand! Totally insane! 2,000,000, yep 2 million people have accepted Jesus in the last 10 years under his ministry. This guy is brilliant and God is using him in crazy ways. He is actually starting a campaign on the U.S.A that starts Feb. 8, 2008. He believes that the U.S.A. has been such a help and opportunity to so many that he must do something to help as we struggle to redeem our culture from evil.
Session 7 – Rick Warren
www.saddleback.com
What can you say about Rick? He is so powerful and so humble. He shared a lot about his journey and how God is using him to take on the 5 global giants. 1. Spiritual emptiness 2. Pandemic disease 3. Corrupt leadership 4. Clean water 5. Illiteracy. The church can make a difference on these issues.
He called for a new reformation. He said the first was about creeds and right doctrine and this one will be about deeds and doing what we say we believe. Wow!
We must get involved. He told us not to call ourselves Christians unless we were willing to be involved in doing something for the “least of these”.
What a fantastic day. I have learned more about leadership today than any other single day of my life. Thank you God for this opportunity, may I be a good steward of the tools you have put in my hands and may I continually give it all back to you.
Tomorrow is packed as we still have John Maxwell, Craig Groeshel, Tim Sanders, Dave Ramsey, Erwin McManus, and Andy Stanley again! I can not wait.
Live from Catalyst1
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Dave Bryan, my dad, and I are in Atlanta for the Catalyst conference.
So this is one crazy experience. Walking a red carpet, free pancakes and sausage, great free coffee, and what looks like the opening of a Hollywood movie is the only way to explain the entrance to this event. They certainly do a great job of building the excitement.
In the auditorium that seats like 12,000 people there are more screens than I have ever seen in one room. 12 jumbo screens!
We set the world record for most bubbles blown at one time, the most Frisbees thrown at one time, and the most bubbles hit by flying Frisbees at one time. It will be in Genius Book of World Records.
I will post a blip about each of the speakers as we go through the day.
Going All The Way
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Hey I just heard about a great new book I can not wait to get my hands on. Going All The Way, is Craig Groeschel’s new book. Craig is the Sr. Pastor at Life Church.tv. God has certainly used his his teaching in my life and I would highly recommend you check him out.
You can check it out on Amazon here.
I will certainly post more after I have read it.
Catalyst Virgin
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So I am packing right now, well not right now as I am typing, but I just put some clothes in the washing machine and have the rest of my stuff laid out on the bed ready to go into the bag. I am stoked!
My Sr. Pastor, dad, and I are heading to Atlanta, GA tomorrow for our first ever Catalyst Conference. I have listened to the CD’s of the last 2 Catalyst Conferences, but I have never been. Catalyst is a conference designed for people who desire to sharpen their leadership skills. It is put on by John Maxwell and Andy Stanley, like they know anything about leadership! 
. I am looking forward to learning from some of the greatest leaders in the church and business worlds this week. Check out the list of speakers and leaders on the catalyst web site. There are several names you will recognize.
I pray God shapes me into a better steward of the people He has blessed me to lead through this week at Catalyst.
I will post a few times while I am gone so check back for updates.
