Open Mike

Unity in Leadership

Lake Forest Ministry Partners will be asked soon to affirm or not the new elder candidates selected by our nominating committee and elders.  I wrote this about a crucial elder retreat we held back in 2010. Next Monday I will post how I came to see the Bible teaches that church leadership is open to both women and men:

Unity among leadership matters supremely.  We held our annual August elders and director staff retreat last friday and saturday.  The location was our best yet - the www.charlotte24-7.com/prayer-room.html in NoDa.

We read Scripture, prayed Scripture, prayed our lives, debated challenged and discussed the health of our staff and elder teams, examined the state of Lake Forest Church spiritually and missionally in detail and from 30,000 feet, contended strongly with one another, yielded to one another, and each owned our own 'Holy Spirit gut' about our beautiful-yet-in-process church.  The result was unity and clarity about two things - 1. the future God is calling us toward as an Acts 1:8 church ('more faithful witnesses to Jesus' love in our Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria and the ends of the earth'); 2. Lake Forest needs us to lead pastorally and graciously toward a. Unity, b. Overall Spiritual Growth, and c. Actions toward long term Vision, this fall.

In Psalm 133:1 King David, a fellow leader of God's people, wrote: "How good and pleasant it is when God's people live together in unity!"  To which I say 'Amen,' while adding that I feel so secure about our church and my own future when the leaders are in unity.  Our elders and I in particular have achieved this at our leadership level by the grace of God over our 11 years.  We have done so primarily by:

-carefully ensuring emotionally healthy people only are allowed into the circle (spiritual health is a given)

-a starting point of agreement on mission and vision (there is no wisdom in intentionally placing a 'loyal critic' in the top circle of leadership - don't do it - all the reasons for doing so are sick)

-an environment in which vigorous debate and challenge and contrarian points of view are not only tolerated but expected (our elders are great at this - better than I am personally - I learn from them constantly)

-insistence on unity (not unanimity) in the Spirit before proceeding (we have made some hard decisions that one or two have not agreed with, but we remained in process until that dissenter could conscientiously say 'I disagree with you all on this, but I am ready to submit to you in the Spirit on this matter')

-and something very practical is the fact that we have weekly elder meetings @ 6:30am Tuesdays, ensuring that we NEVER have to raise and decide upon an important or emotional issue all in the space of one meeting (when you do that is when people feel pressured or manipulated because of no time to really know their own heart on a matter)

May you make choices this week that build unity in the most important relational and leadership circles in which God has placed you.  I can't wait to see all God will do through our unified top leadership at Lake Forest this year!

Huntersville Pastors Go Beyond Racial Boundaries: My friend Byron

Today is a post from 2011 that introduces the preacher at LFC-Huntersville tommorrow - my friend Byron! Y'all are in for a treat!  This was written a year ago:

Huntersville Pastors Go Beyond Racial Boundaries (this article was published today - I wanted to share it with you, and can't wait to share my friendship with Byron with all my LFC friends this Sunday!)

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Posted: March 3rd, 2011 Ken Garfield

A shared passion to be of community good in Huntersville has led the Revs. Byron Davis and Mike Moses to forge a bond that has grown now to include their latest campaign.

Exchanging pulpits.

 “Community good” is the phrase Moses uses to explain what drives these two clergy friends to take the gospel of reconciliation where it is needed most: Out of the church and into a world too often divided by race, class and fear. Moses leads the predominantly white Lake Forest Church off Interstate 77 at exit 23. Davis pastors Mt. Olive Missionary Baptist, a largely African American church off Beatties Ford Road. Yet when the two pastors and congregations come together as they often do for worship, service and socializing, division gives way to a zeal to heal the world’s wounds. 

“Heaven,” Davis says, “will not have African Africans or whites. We are brothers in Christ.”

Davis will preach Sunday (March 6) at Lake Forest, planning to deliver a message about the need to put Christ and family first in life. He’s calling it “The Needful Thing.” The Xchange Sermons initiative will see Moses preach at Mt. Olive Missionary Baptist on March 20, echoing the message these two congregations have been putting into practice for several years.

The two churches couldn’t be more different: Founded in 1998, Lake Forest is a largely white church that draws up to 2,000 each Sunday to its new campus, having met previously in a skating rink and then the Lake Norman YMCA. Its contemporary worship and informal style strikes a chord with a suburban crowd. Founded in 1868, just after the Civil War freed the slaves, Mt. Olive Missionary Baptist draws 250 to its more traditional black Baptist style of Sunday worship. Davis has led the congregation for 20 years.

When a determination to do some community good sparked a friendship between the two pastors, ministry followed.

Members of the two churches have worked together to do home repairs for the elderly. The two pastors started a local chapter of the community activist group H.E.L.P. (Helping Empower Local People) to address social justice concerns in the area. The congregations have partnered to welcome the homeless to Lake Forest through Room in the Inn. Mt. Olive folks gladly bring the meals. Davis has led a morning men’s Bible study at Lake Forest. He also took a mission trip to India to help plant a church through Lake Forest. Moses says the partnership has helped his congregation embrace what he calls a more holistic theology of the gospel – a broadening, community-minded experience for evangelical Presbyterians more accustomed to focusing on deepening their individual relationship with God.

During a 24-hour prayer vigil at Lake Forest, Davis opened with a prayer for repentance, Moses says, because the land on which Lake Forest is built was associated many years ago with slaveholders.

 “He prayed that this land would now be a place of perpetual blessing,” Moses says, “where before it had been a place of perpetual cursing.”

Given the partnership, and the warm exchange of pulpits, those days of perpetual cursing seem like a lifetime ago.

Ken Garfield, director of communications at Myers Park United Methodist Church in Charlotte, N.C., has written extensively on Xchange Sermons. He previously served as religion editor at The Observer. Reach him at ken@mpumc.org.

Sabbatical Plans Part 1: Rationale

I will be shooting photos of my sabbatical experience via twitter. I realized its a quick way to let my friends know where I am, while I'm taking the pictures I want to chronicle my summer anyway. An easy way to check these updates out is the twitter feed in the right column of my blog. Otherwise on twitter look me up, I'm @purplepastor.

Now, this week in three parts, I will post most of the proposal I submitted to the Lilly Foundation a year ago for my sabbatical activities.

Part A—Program Rationale and Design A-1. Summary Statement: Our sabbatical experience is designed to renew us from, and for, vigorous ministry as a church planting family. Thirteen years ago we moved to a growing part of Charlotte, NC with a zealous dream – to found a mission congregation that would serve newly-arriving, post-Christendom persons with the good news of Jesus Christ. Our calling was to plant a church that would contextualize the gospel to the increasing percentage of Americans who have little to no Christian memory or experience. Thus, our church motto is: ‘a church for people who’ve given up on church, but not on God.’ Their search for meaning is not much more likely to lead them to a church than to a mountaintop or a mosque, yet because these persons are created in the image of God they retain a hunger for God. This is the tribe that I love.

The ministry from which I need rest and recovery is that of sustaining this beautiful church for unchurched people. While our ‘mission outpost’ church has provided focused purpose, to clergy and congregational leaders alike, this approach to ministry has also proven to be emotionally and physically taxing in unique ways.

We have experienced so much fruitfulness, joy, friendship, and personal spiritual growth pursuing this
mission that it is sometimes difficult to also name how much energy and vitality it has taken from me and my family. I find it increasingly difficult for me as pastor to remain missionally focused in the face of the day-to-day operational and shepherding demands of a now-established and large church. Diminishment in my biblical, historical, and contemporary vision for the church as mission would lead Lake Forest Church down the tired trail of congregations who settle into mission recline and then decline. Instead, I
desire to live a pastoral leadership that is self-renewing regarding mission, inculcating the same self-renewing dynamic into the congregation, hopefully for generations.

Thus, my family (wife-Angie, sons Dylan and Austin) will all benefit from intentional rest and play time, relational time simply being together, and a shared adventure with a purpose. The sabbatical that I believe is right for my family and me combines these elements under the ongoing theme of mission
renewal. My sons are intellectually curious high schoolers who love history, thus our plan is designed to renew my passion and heart for the missio Dei (mission of God) in ways that will interest and include them. They are both excited about the content of this plan. Dylan and Austin will leave for college within two years of this sabbatical, and Angie will re-enter the workforce outside the home and self-employment. The timing of this sabbatical will allow us to celebrate what God has done in our family and church these years, while preparing to live on mission and in unity through this next exciting life stage
we are about to enter.

A-2. Rationale: I believe the time is right for a sabbatical at Lake Forest Church. During our thirteen year history we have been gifted with two unique moments of mission clarification, each followed by several years of unified fruitful action. The first such period describes our initial six years together. Forty two adults joined our launch team, and in those initial years we worshipped in a bowling alley, skating rink, and YMCA gymnasium. The Lord added to our number annually through conversion and reaffirmation of faith growth, until we were a church of 500 souls at the end of those launching years. At
that time our first building was under construction, and I was granted my first sabbatical. Because of the renewal it afforded, and because I completed the fun, more experiential part of my dissertation research on the missionary leadership of St. Patrick during that time, I returned to the church more informed and inspired for the next unique period of mission at Lake Forest Church.

In the six years since, we moved into our building, expanded our self-identity to include massive deployment into local mission in the surrounding community, and grew into a church averaging 1,400 per Sunday. And we still reach ‘people who’ve given up on church, but haven’t given up on God.'

Lake Forest Church has glimpsed a third point of mission clarity as we have reached capacity in our building –clarity around the multiplication of new mission-focused congregations regionally, clarity around making room to include more people right where we are, and relational mission to the needy in a neighborhood close to us. Funds have been raised, plans have been made. I am weary from the vision
and capital campaign it took for all to unify around clarified mission. The congregation is hopeful yet nervous. Will we have the fresh energy, focused purpose, and renewed pioneering spirit to re-launch ourselves as multiple mission outposts? This is the question we are all asking of our God and ourselves.
A sabbatical at this moment is right for me and my family, one that is focused on rest, as well as experiences that will give me fresh missional imagination. The time is right for Lake Forest Church also. Focusing on the missionary journeys of Paul will prepare them to think more biblically about gospel mission. (Wednesday: Program Details, Friday: Congregational Plans)

Mike's Charge to the Tribe

This past Sunday, I left those in attendance at the Huntersville campus with some hopes and goals I have for our two-campus tribe during my time away: to always be after "the one," to be encouraging to one another and to follow Jesus. Below is my charge and more details about my leave:

 

Working "On" in addition to "In": Our Staff Retreat Agenda

A helpful way to reconceptualize planning for me is "to spend time working ON your life instead of just IN your life."  That way I don't think of it as work, or business, or something only geeky or smart people do.

I first ran across the concept in a book on church planting - the fact that yes a pastor needs to do stuff pastors do by loving people, preaching the Word, etc.  But a pastor also needs to spend time working ON the church - where are we going, what's working well/not well, etc.  That's true for every worker, every owner, every person. 

"Those who plan what is good find love and faithfulness."  Proverbs 14:22

Sunday's message applied these and similar Proverbs to our personal lives.  This week, I took some of our church staff away to a mountain house to do the same for our church.  We set aside two days of time to work on the church, not in it.  Planning is hard work - everyone came home tired.  Even though we essentially sat in a circle in a big room with a beautiful view and talked/discussed/argued/prayed/laughed while eating snacks for 24 hours.  This staff team has reached a refreshingly unified and productive stage of working and being together, and it showed this week.

(here's a picture of some staff women 'hashtagging' - the lasting goofy memory of this planning retreat - naming the twitter hashtag that would be most appropriate to each funny/ridiculous/inappropriate comment made during our meetings)

We followed up the plan for 2012 ministry that we set last August by adding detail to the rest of this year, and addressed a few specific decisions to be made (most of our time was around September-December sermon series and related ministry, so that we are leading the church with the Word in the worship of the people of God). We already have the dates set for two days in August when we will seek the Spirit of God, in leadership community, for our 2013 plans.

Have you set aside a bit of time in your week, or month, or year to work ON your life? ON your business or ministry?  Here is a copy of our retreat agenda, i thought you might like to see it:

LFC Strategy and Planning Retreat  March 19-20, 2012   The Snider Shack, Boone NC

Agenda:

1. Before we shape the church, reflect on how God is shaping you:     Isaiah 49:2    How is the LORD using events of the past 12 months to sharpen you for ministry?What target has God sharpened you to most uniquely hit in ministry?

2.  Future thoughts – a look at our 3-5 year goals, where we’ve come from and where we’re going - to inform current year ministry

3. Evaluate first quarter of our 2012 Strategic Ministry Plan (sermon series, leadership weekend, building-opening Farris concert, House of Blues kickoff attached to building opening, practical life series to connect new spiritual seekers)

4. “ Teach Team”  Sermon series plan rest of 2012.  Bare bones plans were made last August; relook at current plan that’s been filled out by the pastors:

    a. where do we want to synchronize all lfc content (like HOB)?    Where can we take a creative zig or zag with this plan?

    b. FOCUSED planning/brainstorming on fall missio dei series:  goal is an Attractional (high attendance) series that is around ‘Loving the Poor Missio Dei’ – Gospel impact through extension of Missio Dei publicly in LKN, further discipleship of LFC Ministry Partners in missio dei biblical themes

5. Inform/Discuss/Calendar ministry plans rest of year.               

  i. September and January Lake Forest leadership weekend date and content    ii.  Each ministry

5. Transition to Jesse as Executive Director on staff, a case study:  Mike’s sabbatical.

  a..Here’s what I see, my expectations for summer sabbatical (“When I return August 1, if X has happened, it would mean success for…ministry…XD transition”)

  b.. Working sabbatical plan for LFC – review.  What do you see – concerns, rough spots, ideas etc to be planned for?

 6. Decision to be made: 

1. All LFC celebration outdoor Sunday worship at end of Celebrate series?  or mid-summer for momentum factor?  Where/how?
2. Other