You share Christ with someone (Congratulations you are in the 5% of the church that does!) and they come to know Christ and get baptized.  Then what do we do?  We plug them in of course like they are an appliance or something.  Sunday School Class, Youth Choir, Handbells, Churchwide visitation, Small Group, Lock-in, and service project.  We assume that they “get in” along the way yet we never give them a test after Sunday School and we don’t even really make them sing on key.

This was not the model found in scripture.  A new believer needs a life coach, someone that can walk with them over the next 6 months to a year of their life.  Someone that will touch base with them formally and informally weekly to teach them how to pray, how to study scripture, how to look for ways to serve others, and how to share their faith.  They do not get that on day one of Sunday School. 

The most natural person to be that life coach is the one that leads them to Christ.  But for those of you who are soul winners, you may need help.  Recruit individuals in your churches that will walk them through these critical months.  Focus on three things at first.

1.  How to pray. 

Jesus taught his disciples to pray.  You teach them.  I like that acronymn PRAY.  Praise, Repent of specific sin, Ask God to move in specific areas, and Yield to God in his directions.

2.  How to read scripture.

Start them in a book.  I like for new believers to start in John and James.  I get them to underline scripture that speaks to their heart and put a question mark next to scripture they do not understand.  When we get together we talk about it.

3.  How to look for ways to serve.

Pray one prayer all day long.  “God show me someone I can bless today.”  Then as God answers the prayer, they are to partner with him.  They may even have the opportunity to share their new faith in Christ with them.

They don’t need to be plugged in.  They are already plugged in to a power source that is much greater than our programs.  They need to learn how to turn on the switch and have a relationship with the Lord Jesus.  Then your church begins to move as Reggie McNeal says from being “program driven to people development.”

We have had a blast at Conclave in Chattanooga, TN.  It is one of the weekends I look forward to at the start of the new year.  This is the first year that my entire family has been able to come along.  It Snowed almost 6 inches!  This is the first time Connor actually remembered seeing snow and they had a blast making snowballs and playing.  The exhibit hall was a lot of fun for them as they have gotten a bunch of cool stuff.  Caden spun the wheel and it landed on an xbox 360!  Of course that only meant that we got put in the drawing to win, but we received a call from the exhibitors and they drew our name out!!  I don’t think I have ever won anything except the jelly of the month club.

The worship has been great with Steve Fee band.  Ergun Caner is a powerful speaker and the first night he really encouraged those who have felt beaten down in the ministry and made a comparison to Paul in Galations 6.  Ed Stetzer spoke today and focused on the ministry of reconciliation as opposed to the false gospel of moralism.

I sat in on Dr. Richard Ross’ breakout session which challenged us to gather prayer partners around teenagers and engage parents to equip them to disciple and pray for their teenagers.  He is such a humble and intelligent guy.  I am always challenged by him.  I got to hang out with Clayton King a bit who is one of those guys you just want to hang around.  He is a trip and is MCing the event.

I led a breakout session entitled Changing the Scorecard and had some sharp student ministers in attendance.  We looked at the current scorecards in the church that we measure to define success: budgets, baptisms, and butts in the seats.  We then worked on developing matrices to count results rather than assuming results were taking place because people were in attendance.  Had a great time with them.

The boys and I spent some much needed time together tonight at the swimming pool.  We had the pool to ourselves partly because everyone else was at the worship service.  I hate to miss anything at a conference like this, but it was important to my boys for me to swim with them and chunk them around the pool.  I missed a good message as Ergun Caner talked about discerning what God wants you to do in your current ministry and if he wants you to stay or go.  I guess I’ll get the CD and listen to it.

Tomorrow we wrap up the conference and hopefully we will be able to make it home.  The roads are pretty iced over.

Nations Rise and Fall.  No nation ever stands forever.  Think about it.  There has not been a nation in history to my knowledge that has stood the test of time.  Some author (let me know who it is if you know) said that every nation follows 5 cycles.

1. Birth
2. Rapid Construction and Development
3. Preservation
4. Moral Deterioriation
5. Collapse

So where is America in this stage?  Can a nation repent in stage 4 and move back to number 2?  Ninevah did.  Will America?  I believe it begins with leadership.  Who will rise up in the next generation and lead us? 

 ³⁰ “I looked for a man among them who would build up the wall and stand before me in the gap on behalf of the land so I would not have to destroy it, but I found none. ³¹ So I will pour out my wrath on them and consume them with my fiery anger, bringing down on their own heads all they have done, declares the Sovereign Lord.” Eze 22:30-31.

What if our schools assessed themselves like many of our churches? 

Imagine.  The superintendent calls a faculty meeting at the beginning of the year and says,

“Things are going to change around here.  We want to be successful so we are going to start measuring our progress a little differently.   We are going to teach, but we are not going to track whether or not they are learning.  We are going to assume if they are present, they are “getting it”.  Therefore, don’t waste time giving tests.  If we are going to move from good to great we are going to have to have more kids to educate and the ones we have are going to have to be present more often.  We need to track their attendance.  Are they showing up for our classes?  We are going to give incentives to students and prizes for those who show up everyday.  If you see them at Walmart, ask them if they are coming to school that next day.  If you see them at the ball park, encourage them to come to school.  

Here is something else innovative that not a lot of schools are doing.  We are going to set a goal to increase our attendance by 7%.  How are we going to do this you ask?  Well there are a lot of students in private schools and home schools around here that we can attract.  We are going to start having some very large events that those students will want to attend.  We are going to have games and give aways.  We’re going to hire some very famous people to come here and speak to them.  In fact, we might even get Miley Cyrus to come and do a concert. 

At school, we may have the parents of these kids visiting to see our school so we need to be perceived as being as friendly as possible.  I’m going to need a few of you to serve as greeters at the front doors with a smile on your face.  I need a few of you to volunteer to be in the parking lot directing them to the front entrance.  I am also going to need some enthusiastic teachers in the hallways getting them fired up and cheering as they walk in.  Everyone in the state will be talking about us.”

At the end of the year, he calls his people together and says, “Congratulations!  We grew from 800 students to 1000 students in average attendance.  We had 50 new students come into our school, and we  created 5 new classes.  Our back to school concert with Miley Cyrus had over 2000 students and parents at it.  Job well done.”

Someone in the crowd asks, “How were our test scores?”

“Guys we had some of the lowest scores in the state.  But guess what, everyone in the state is talking about us.” 

I wonder why? 

If this is so absurd, then why does the church keep doing this?

We need a new scorecard. 

Go pick up a copy of Reggie McNeal’s new book.  Missional Renaissance

http://www.pursuantgroup.com:80/leadnet/advance/feb09s2.htm

Johnathan Elrod did a little voodoo magic and got us up and back running again on our podcast and blog site.  Thanks Johnathan!  We have a bit of a new look, but everything is pretty much the same.

Anyhoo, January was a wild month.  We first hit the slopes on our teen/parent ski weekend.  Over 15 families and 50 people converged on Winterplace, WV in subzero weather.  It was awesome.  Families had a great time reconnecting and the slopes were awesome.  We couldn’t have asked for better weather. 

The next weekend I had the priveledge of speaking at my good friend Charlie Swain’s church, North Augusta FBC.  Their DNOW was awesome and they have great teenagers.  Charlie Hall was our worship leader and did a great job.  My prayer is that the students are striving to be All Stars on a team that matters and that God is using them in a phenomenal way. 

The last weekend, it was off to Conclave in Atlanta.  This is a leadership conference that is sponsored by the SC, GA, TN, KY, and NC baptist Conventions.  It was well done.  I was a breakout session leader for two sessions:  Building a strong Leadership Team and Stop Going to Church - Be the church to the Community.  I was able to go to one breakout session led by a church in NorthStar in Kennesaw, GA.  They have got it rolling on being the church missionally to the community.  Their website is www.northstarchurch.org   The three speakers rolled out some strong points.  Francis Chan challenged us with how Jesus reacted to the crowds.  He was constantly throwing out parables and then retreating and those who followed were taught what they really meant.  Challenged us with how the church designs their ministries to cater to the crowds rather than the disciples.  Chap Clark talked about the great hurts that teenagers are facing today and their disconnect.  Emir Canner talked about the need to love on, and include those students who are disenfranchised who are a part of that crowd that Chan was talking about.  They were not neccessarily in contradiction to one another but it did bring balance to how we should minister and teach. 

Finally the last breakout session I went to gave me my biggest challenge.  It was with a youth leader named Steve Gervasi and an initiative called SHOUT.  http://www.shoutpmi.org/ It was a call to do a paradigm shift in our ration of adults to students.  We are currently content in ministry to have a 1:5 ratio of students to adult.  He suggested according to Richard Ross, to flip that ratio to 5 adults to 1 including 2 parents, prayer partner, youth minister, and small group leader.  The first thing he challenged us with is to have  a day when we rally prayer partners for our teenagers.  He said that in the 30 churches they had 100% of their students assigned a prayer partner in their congregation with over 70% of the adults agreeing to pray for the individual teens. 

We plan to begin this in April.

Conclave is a student minister’s conference to help serve as a catalyst to the student ministries of the churches who attend.  It was a well done event, and was very specific to the needs of student ministers.  Charlie Hall led us in worship each night and was very approachable and genuine.  A brief of fresh air compared to some worship leaders out to make a name for themselves.  The speakers were Erwin McManus, Mark Matlock, Richard Ross, and David Platt.  It was  a challenging time especially Richard Ross who urged student ministers to begin to teach the supremecy of Christ and the importance of adoring him.  It ended in a powerful time of prayer and reflection as well as the participation in communion. 

I had the pleasure of leading a breakout session entitled “Stop Going to Church” where I urged student ministers to begin to transform their student ministry from a “Serve Us” mentality to a “Service” mentality.  It was well attended with about 80 student ministers and everyone seemed to be in tune with the exception of one guy who slept through 30 minutes.  Quite comical being that we were in a very small room.

I got to spend some time with my buddies JB Usher, Justin McAlpin, Cory Singleton, John Swindler and Charlie Swain.  Steve Rohrlack and the crew fed us dinner on the house at Sticky Fingers and it was excellent.

As for my buddies JB and Justin, they blessed me with their presence in my room as their’s was canceled and then while I was at the worship service which they slipped out of to watch Lost (that I wanted to watch as well) they changed our room. 

So this is how it went it down.  I arrive at our room while talking to my wife and I then kick the door and say open up.  Some random dude opens the door.  I then look at him and say, “Uh, I think I have the wrong room”  He then shuts the door and I look at the room number and it is my room.  So I call my trusted friend JB and say “where are you?”.  And he says I am in room 332 which was my original room.  And then I said “No you are not.  Step into the hallway.”  He emerges four rooms down in our new room which I didn’t know we had. 

It was quite comical.  Good times were had by all.